We are indebted, under
Providence, to the operation and influence of the powers of that
Constitution for our national honor abroad and for unexampled
prosperity at home. Its future stability depends upon the firm
support and due exercise of its legitimate powers in all their
branches. A tendency to disunion, to anarchy among the members
rather than to tyranny in the head, has been heretofore the
melancholy fate of all the federal governments of ancient and
modern Europe. Our Union and national Constitution were formed, as
we have hitherto been led to believe, under better auspices and
with improved wisdom. But there was a deadly principle of disease
inherent in the system. The assumption by any member of the Union
of the right to question and resist, or annul, as its own judgment
should dictate, either the laws of Congress, or the treaties, or
the decisions of the federal courts, or the mandates of the
executive power, duly made and promulgated as the Constitution
prescribes, was a most dangerous assumption of power, leading to
collision and the destruction of the system. And if, contrary to
all our expectations, we should hereafter fail in the grand
experiment of a confederate government extending over some of the
fairest portions of this continent, and destined to act, at the
same time, with efficiency and harmony, we should most grievously
disappoint the hopes of mankind, and blast for ever the fruits of
the Revolution.
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