Senators, the Constitution is a compact.  It contains all our obligations and the duties of the Federal Government.  I am content and have ever been content to sustain it.  While I doubt its perfection, while I do not believe it was a good compact, and while I never saw the day that I would have voted for it as a proposition de novo, yet I am bound to it by oath and by that common prudence which would induce men to abide by established forms rather than to rush into unknown dangers.  I have given to it, and intend to give to it, unfaltering support and allegiance, but I choose to put that allegiance on the true ground, not on the false idea that anybody’s blood was shed for it.  I say that the Constitution is the whole compact.  All the obligations, all the chains that fetter the limbs of my people, are nominated in the bond, and they wisely excluded any conclusion against them, by declaring that “the powers not granted by the Constitution to the United States, or forbidden by it to the States, belonged to the States respectively or the people.”  Now I will try it by that standard; I will subject it to that test.  The law of nature, the law of justice, would say—­and it is so expounded by the publicists—­that equal rights in the common property shall be enjoyed.  Even in a monarchy the king cannot prevent the subjects from enjoying equality in the disposition of the public property.  Even in a despotic government this principle is recognized.  It was the blood and the money of the whole people (says the learned Grotius, and say all the publicists) which acquired the public property, and therefore it is not the property of the sovereign.  This right of equality being, then, according to justice and natural equity, a right belonging to all States, when did we give it up?  You say Congress has a right to pass rules and regulations concerning the Territory and other property of the United States.  Very well.  Does that exclude those whose blood and money paid for it?  Does “dispose of” mean to rob the rightful owners?  You must show a better title than that, or a better sword than we have.

But, you say, try the right.  I agree to it.  But how?  By our judgment?  No, not until the last resort.  What then; by yours?  No, not until the same time.  How then try it?  The South has always said, by the Supreme Court.  But that is in our favor, and Lincoln says he “will not stand that judgment.”  Then each must judge for himself of the mode and manner of redress.  But you deny us that privilege, and finally reduce us to accepting your judgment.  The Senator from Kentucky comes to your aid, and says he can find no constitutional right of secession.  Perhaps not; but the Constitution is not the place to look for State rights.  If that right belongs to independent States, and they did not cede it to the Federal Government, it is reserved to the States, or to the people.  Ask your new commentator where he gets the right to judge for us.  Is it in the bond?