SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 195 



appeal an aggregate of more than twenty-two hundred thousand 

 men came forth, representing the incarnated spirit of the nation's 

 purpose to preserve and transmit unimpaired that which the 

 fathers had bequeathed. 



Important questions, some of which had been in dispute 

 since the founding of the government and which neither minis- 

 ters, nor publicists, nor statesmen, nor jurists, nor cabinets, nor 

 presidents could peacefully and permanently settle, were now 

 submitted to the arbitrament of arms. It is not necessary at 

 this time and in this place to detail the story of the mighty con- 

 flict, nor to institute a comparison between the sections. It is 

 enough for both the North and the South to know that the issues 

 that so long disturbed the tranquillity and menaced the peace 

 and permanency of the republic were unalterably settled by the 

 war of 1861-65. By that war once and for all time it was deter- 

 mined that the federal Constitution is the supreme law of the 

 land; that the first allegiance of every citizen of the republic is 

 to the national rather than to a state government ; that nullifica- 

 tion as an assumed reserved right of the states is eliminated as 

 a factor from the problem of American politics; that within the 

 limits of the Constitution the federal Supreme Court shall be 

 everywhere recognized as the ultimate authority in the con- 

 struction of law, and that the law as so construed must be obeyed 

 by all alike until changed by constitutional and not revolutionary 

 methods; that in the relations existing between the national and 

 the several state governments, the latter are integral but sub- 

 ordinate parts of which the former is the one supreme and in- 

 dissoluble whole ; that if any state attempts to, or actually does, 

 withdraw from the Union, the constitutional authority not only 

 inheres in but the duty is enjoined upon the general government 

 to compel such state, by force if necessary, to remain in and to 

 resume its rightful and normal relations. That war determined 

 that, wherever the flag of our country floats in undisputed author- 

 ity, there slavery or involuntary servitude except for the punish- 



