Government has transcended its legitimate powers, while in others it has suffered, because fearing to use those which it really possesses.  It is dependent in many things upon the States; and yet it is supreme over them all.  There can be no Senate, as a branch either of the executive or of the legislative department, without the action of the States; and yet the Government emanates directly from the people.  In defending itself against an armed rebellion of nearly half the States themselves, struggling for self-preservation, it may rightfully, as in other wars, grasp all the means within its reach.  War makes its own methods, for all of which necessity is a sufficient plea.  But when the defence shall have been made, when the attack is repelled, and the Rebellion shall have been fully suppressed, then will come the questions, What are the best means of restoration? and, How shall a recurrence of the evil be prevented?

Though the Federal Government is one of limited powers, the people possess all governmental powers; and these are spoken of as powers delegated and powers reserved.  So far as these are reserved to the people, they may be exercised either through the Federal Government or the State.  And the Federal Government, though limited in its powers, is restricted in the subjects upon which it can act, rather than in the quantum of power it can exercise over those matters within its jurisdiction.  Over those interests which are committed to its care it has all the powers incident to any other government in the world,—­powers necessary by implication to accomplish the purpose intended.  The construction of the grant in the Constitution is not to be critical and stringent, as if the people, by its adoption, were selling power to a stranger,—­but liberal, considering that they were enabling their own agents to achieve a noble work for them.

We have been accustomed to extol the wisdom of our fathers, in framing and establishing such a form of government; but our highest praises have been too small.  We have hitherto had but a partial conception of their wisdom.  We knew not the terrible test to which their work was to be exposed.  After the long discipline of the Revolutionary War, and the experience of the weakness and impending anarchy of the Confederation, they understood, far better than we, the dangers to which every government is liable, from within and from without.  And we are just now beginning to see, that, in the Constitution they adopted, they not only provided for the interests of peace, but for the dangers and emergencies of war.  Brief sentences, hardly noticed before, now throw open their doors like a magazine of arms, ready for use in the hour of peril.  And while we shall come out of this struggle, and the political contest that will follow it, without impairing any of the rights of the States, the Federal Government restored will stand before the world in a majesty of strength of which we have before had no conception.