"When Massachusetts was arraigned before the bar of the Senate for her
refusal to permit the execution of the laws of the United States within
her borders, my opinion was the same then as now. Her State is
sovereign. She never delegated to the Federal Government the power to
drive her by force. And when she chooses to take the last step which
separates her from the Union, it is her right to go!--"
Another electric wave swept the crowd that burst into applause. The
speaker lifted his long arm with an impatient gesture.
"And I would not vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back into
unwilling submission. I would say to her--'God speed in the memory of
the kind associations which once existed between her and her sister
States.'
"It has been a conviction of pressing necessity--a belief that we are to
be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed
us--which has brought Mississippi to her present decision.
"You have invoked the sacred Declaration of Independence as the basis of
an attack upon her social order. The Declaration of Independence is to
be construed by the circumstances and purposes for which it was made. It
was written by a Southern planter and slave owner. The Colonies were
declaring their independence from foreign tyranny--were asserting in the
language of Jefferson, 'that no man was born booted and spurred to ride
over the rest of mankind; that men were created equal'--meaning the men
of their American political community; that there was no divine right to
rule; that no man could inherit the right to govern; that there were no
classes by which power and place descended from father to son; but that
all stations were equally within the grasp of each member of the body
politic.
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