Our increased strength and enhanced prosperity would irrefragably demonstrate the fallacy of the arguments against free institutions drawn from our recent national disorders by the enemies of republican government.  The admission of loyal members from the States now excluded from Congress, by allaying doubt and apprehension, would turn capital now awaiting an opportunity for investment into the channels of trade and industry.  It would alleviate the present troubled condition of those States, and by inducing emigration aid in the settlement of fertile regions now uncultivated and lead to an increased production of those staples which have added so greatly to the wealth of the nation and commerce of the world.  New fields of enterprise would be opened to our progressive people, and soon the devastations of war would be repaired and all traces of our domestic differences effaced from the minds of our countrymen.

In our efforts to preserve “the unity of government which constitutes us one people” by restoring the States to the condition which they held prior to the rebellion, we should be cautious, lest, having rescued our nation from perils of threatened disintegration, we resort to consolidation, and in the end absolute despotism, as a remedy for the recurrence of similar troubles.  The war having terminated, and with it all occasion for the exercise of powers of doubtful constitutionality, we should hasten to bring legislation within the boundaries prescribed by the Constitution and to return to the ancient landmarks established by our fathers for the guidance of succeeding generations.

The constitution which at any time exists till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people is sacredly obligatory upon all. * * * If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates; but let there be no change by usurpation, for * * * it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.

Washington spoke these words to his countrymen when, followed by their love and gratitude, he voluntarily retired from the cares of public life.  “To keep in all things within the pale of our constitutional powers and cherish the Federal Union as the only rock of safety” were prescribed by Jefferson as rules of action to endear to his “countrymen the true principles of their Constitution and promote a union of sentiment and action, equally auspicious to their happiness and safety.”  Jackson held that the action of the General Government should always be strictly confined to the sphere of its appropriate duties, and justly and forcibly urged that our Government is not to be maintained nor our Union preserved “by invasions of the rights and powers of the several States.  In thus attempting to make our General Government strong we make it weak.  Its true strength