This number the Constitution permits us to multiply at pleasure within the limits of the original United States, observing only the expressed limitations in the Constitution.  But when, in order to increase your power of augmenting this number, you pass the old limits, you are guilty of a violation of the Constitution in a fundamental point; and in one, also, which is totally inconsistent with the intent of the contract and the safety of the States which established the association.  What is the practical difference to the old partners whether they hold their liberties at the will of a master, or whether by admitting exterior States on an equal footing with the original States, arbiters are constituted, who, by availing themselves of the contrariety of interests and views, which in such a confederacy necessarily will arise, hold the balance among the parties which exist and govern us by throwing themselves into the scale most comformable to their purpose?  In both cases there is an effective despotism.  But the last is the more galling, as we carry the chain in the name and gait of freemen.

I have thus shown, and whether fairly, I am willing to be judged by the sound discretion of the American people, that the power proposed to be usurped in this bill, results neither from the general nature nor the particular provisions of the Federal Constitution; and that it is a palpable violation of it in a fundamental point; whence flow all the consequences I have indicated.

“But,” says the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Rhea), “these people have been seven years citizens of the United States.”  I deny it, sir.  As citizens of New Orleans, or of Louisiana, they never have been, and by the mode proposed they never will be, citizens of the United States.  They may girt upon us for a moment, but no real cement can grow from such an association.  What the real situation of the inhabitants of those foreign countries is, I shall have occasion to show presently.  “But,” says the same gentleman:  “if I have a farm, have not I a right to purchase another farm, in my neighborhood, and settle my sons upon it, and in time admit them to a share in the management of my household?” Doubtless, sir.  But are these cases parallel?  Are the three branches of this government owners of this farm, called the United States?  I desire to thank heaven they are not.  I hold my life, liberty, and property, and the people of the State from which I have the honor to be a representative hold theirs, by a better tenure than any this National Government can give.  Sir, I know your virtue.  And I thank the Great Giver of every good gift, that neither the gentleman from Tennessee, nor his comrades, nor any, nor all the members of this House, nor of the other branch of the Legislature, nor the good gentleman who lives in the palace yonder, nor all combined, can touch these my essential rights, and those of my friends and constituents, except in a limited and prescribed form.  No, sir.  We hold these by the laws, customs, and principles of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.  Behind her ample shield, we find refuge, and feel safety.  I beg gentlemen not to act upon the principle, that the commonwealth of Massachusetts is their farm.