awe as the palladium of our liberties, and with all the solemnities of religion have pledged to each other our lives and fortunes here and our hopes of happiness hereafter in its defense and support.  Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attaching this importance to the Constitution of our country?  Was our devotion paid to the wretched, inefficient, clumsy contrivance which this new doctrine would make it?  Did we pledge ourselves to the support of an airy nothing—­a bubble that must be blown away by the first breath of disaffection?  Was this self-destroying, visionary theory the work of the profound statesmen, the exalted patriots, to whom the task of constitutional reform was intrusted?  Did the name of Washington sanction, did the States deliberately ratify, such an anomaly in the history of fundamental legislation?  No; we were not mistaken.  The letter of this great instrument is free from this radical fault.  Its language directly contradicts the imputation; its spirit, its evident intent, contradicts it.  No; we did not err.  Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws and another to resist them.  The sages whose memory will always be reverenced have given us a practical and, as they hoped, a permanent constitutional compact.  The Father of his Country did not affix his revered name to so palpable an absurdity.  Nor did the States, when they severally ratified it, do so under the impression that a veto on the laws of the United States was reserved to them or that they could exercise it by implication.  Search the debates in all their conventions, examine the speeches of the most zealous opposers of Federal authority, look at the amendments that were proposed; they are all silent—­not a syllable uttered, not a vote given, not a motion made to correct the explicit supremacy given to the laws of the Union over those of the States, or to show that implication, as is now contended, could defeat it.  No; we have not erred.  The Constitution is still the object of our reverence, the bond of our Union, our defense in danger, the source of our prosperity in peace.  It shall descend, as we have received it, uncorrupted by sophistical construction, to our posterity; and the sacrifices of local interest, of State prejudices, of personal animosities, that were made to bring it into existence, will again be patriotically offered for its support.

The two remaining objections made by the ordinance to these laws are that the sums intended to be raised by them are greater than are required and that the proceeds will be unconstitutionally employed.

The Constitution has given, expressly, to Congress the right of raising revenue and of determining the sum the public exigencies will require.  The States have no control over the exercise of this right other than that which results from the power of changing the representatives who abuse it, and thus procure redress.  Congress may undoubtedly abuse this discretionary power; but the same may be said of others