But let us dissect another limb of the resolution.  What is to be understood by “that good faith which was IMPLIED?” It is of course an admission that such a condition was not expressed in the acts of cession—­that in their terms there is nothing restricting the power of Congress on the subject of slavery in the District.  This “implied faith,” then, rests on no clause or word in the United States’ Constitution, or in the acts of cession, or in the acts of Congress accepting the cession, nor on any declarations of the legislatures of Maryland and Virginia, nor on any act of theirs, nor on any declaration of the people of those states, nor on the testimony of the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Madisons, Chases, Martins, and Jennifers, of those states and times.  The assertion rests on itself alone! Mr. Clay guesses that Maryland and Virginia supposed that Congress would by no means use the power given them by the Constitution, except in such ways as would be well pleasing in the eyes of those states; especially as one of them was the “Ancient Dominion!” And now after half a century, this assumed expectation of Maryland and Virginia, the existence of which is mere matter of conjecture with the 36 senators, is conjured up and duly installed upon the judgment-seat of final appeal, before whose nod constitutions are to flee away, and with whom, solemn grants of power and explicit guaranties are, when weighed in the balance, altogether lighter than vanity!

But survey it in another light.  Why did Maryland and Virginia leave so much to be “implied??” Why did they not in some way express what lay so near their hearts?  Had their vocabulary run so low that a single word could not be eked out for the occasion?  Or were those states so bashful of a sudden that they dare not speak out and tell what they wanted?  Or did they take it for granted that Congress would always know their wishes by intuition, and always take them for law?  If, as honorable senators tell us, Maryland and Virginia did verily travail with such abounding faith, why brought they forth no works?

It is as true in legislation as in religion, that the only evidence of “faith” is works, and that “faith” without works is dead, i.e. has no power.  But here, forsooth, a blind implication with nothing expressed, an “implied” faith without works, is omnipotent!  Mr. Clay is lawyer enough to know that Maryland and Virginia notions of constitutional power, abrogate no grant, and that to plead them in a court of law, would be of small service, except to jostle “their Honors’” gravity!  He need not be told that the Constitution gives Congress “power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District;” nor that Maryland and Virginia constructed their acts of cession with this clause before their eyes, and declared those acts