Our Confederacy, fellow-citizens, can only be preserved by the
same forbearance. Our citizens must be content with the exercise
of the powers with which the Constitution clothes them. The
attempt of those of one State to control the domestic institutions
of another can only result in feelings of distrust and jealousy,
the certain harbingers of disunion, violence, and civil war, and
the ultimate destruction of our free institutions. Our Confederacy
is perfectly illustrated by the terms and principles governing a
common copartnership There is a fund of power to be exercised
under the direction of the joint councils of the allied members,
but that which has been reserved by the individual members is
intangible by the common Government or the individual members
composing it. To attempt it finds no support in the principles of
our Constitution.
It should be our constant and earnest endeavor mutually to
cultivate a spirit of concord and harmony among the various parts
of our Confederacy. Experience has abundantly taught us that the
agitation by citizens of one part of the Union of a subject not
confided to the General Government, but exclusively under the
guardianship of the local authorities, is productive of no other
consequences than bitterness, alienation, discord, and injury to
the very cause which is intended to be advanced.
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