ment, accepted, ratified, and confirmed, by the very act which required the assent of a convention, which was competent to call one, and settle the time and place of its assembling, and the details of its election. But it is said that the Legislature had, by the constitution of the State, no power to call such a convention, because the purpose of such convention was to alter the boundaries of the State as established by the constitution, and that instrument had provided a different mode of proceeding in cases of amendment or alteration. This objection assumes it to be true that the boundaries of the State were settled by the constitution, which, in point of fact, is not so. There is no reference, either express or implied, to the boundaries of the State, in any part of the instrument, except the preamble, which is in these words: "We, the people of the Territory of Michigan, as established by the act of Congress of the 11th of January, 1805, &c., do, by our delegates in convention assembled, mutually agree to form ourselves into a free and independent State, by the style and title of the State of Michigan, and do ordain and establish the following constitution for the government of the same. It must be recollected that, at the time of forming this constitution, the Territory of Michigan was composed, as I have stated, of the whole of the remaining portion of the Northwestern Territory, embracing the present State of Michigan and the Wisconsin Territory, and covering an area of 177,000 square miles; that the peninsula of Michigan had been subjected to a separate Terri. torial Government by the act of the 11th January, 1805, and had so continued up to the year 1818, when, on the creation of the State of Illinois, the balance of the Northwestern Territory had been incorporated with it. The people of the peninsula of Michigan wishing to form themselves into a State, instead of describing themselves as inhabitants of the peninsula, in terms adopted an equivalent form of expression, namely: "We, the people of the Territory of Michigan, as established by the act of the 11th January, 1805," which was precisely the peninsula of Michigan. This is nothing more than a description of the people who proposed to form themselves into a free and independent State, as contradistinguished from the other inhabitants of the then existing Territory of Michigan. It is the natural and proper mode of describing a people or nation, namely, by the place or country of their resi-, dence; but it does not import any limitation of bounda. ries, any more than the phrase "We, the people of the United States," in the preamble to the constitution of the United States, limits the boundaries of the United States to those which existed at the time of its adoption. If it were otherwise, how came we at this moment to possess the immense region on the western side of the Mississippi, or how came we to possess Florida? It is very unusual and unnecessary to settle boundaries in the constitution, and I question whether there are more than half a dozen cases to be found among the different States of this Union. In the cases of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, it became necessary to do so, because the act of Congress which authorized the formation of their respective constitutions required that it should be done. [SENATE. order to avail himself of its provisions. But, sir, there is another and a conclusive answer to this objection; which is, that the inhabitants not having possessed the right at all, in the first instance, to form a constitution and State Government, the same is binding and valid only so far as it was ratified by the act of Congress of June 15, 1836; and that act having refused to confine the new State to the peninsula of Michigan, but having required that it should embrace a region of country on the northwestern side of the lake, it follows that if it were true that the preamble established the boundaries of the State, it was in that particular vacated by the act of Congress. For it must be recollected that the ordinance of 1787 gave to Congress the right to erect one or two States in the then existing Territory of Michigan, which was the remaining portion of the old Northwestern Territory. The result, sir, then, is this: that to call a convention to express its assent to the boundaries established by Congress, is not to call a convention to amend or alter the constitution, since the constitution, neither in point of fact nor in point of law, established any boundaries; and, consequently, that the enlargement or diminution of its territory became a matter of ordinary legislation, a power which is exercised every day by the Legislatures of the respective States, in cessions made by them to the United States. It But if it be true that the enlargement or diminution of the territory is a matter of ordinary legislation where the boundaries are not fixed by the constitution, a fortiori, it is a matter of ordinary legislation to call a convention to enlarge or diminish the territory, where the duty to do so is imposed by competent authority. The right of a Legislature to call a convention at any time must depend on the constitution of the State; and the powers of the convention, when called, will depend on the provisions of the law under which it is assembled; because the people, in voting for such a convention, cannot be understood to invest it with any other power than that which they have previously agreed it should have in the passage of the law to which they have, through their Legislature, given either their express or implied consent. The people are the source of all power. When assembled in a state of nature, lege solutus, in their sovereign capacity, their power is without any practical limitation. is the whole will of the community, sustained by its whole force. But, as they cannot meet en masse when spreid over a large country, recourse is had to the principle of representation; and, when the sovereign power is delegated, a constitution becomes necessary in order to limit the powers granted. If the whole legislative power were delegated, without restriction, then the Legislature, who are the depositaries of that power, would possess it in as absolute a degree as that in which it belonged to the whole community, assembled in its sovereign capacity; that is, without any practical limitation. The constitution of a State is not, therefore, gen. erally a mere grant of power to a particular body; it does not consist in an enumeration of certain powers which are granted, but, vesting at once the whole legis. lative power in a particular body, it provides for limitations on its exercise. Hence the necessity for bills of rights and reservations in favor of individual liberty and security; hence the provisions in relation to trial by jury, to the power of arres', to the habeas corpus, to freedom of conscience in religious matters, and freedom from unreasonable seizures and searches; hence the necessity of guarding the existence of the executive and otherwise be absorbed by the legislative power. All this results from the very nature of legislative power, which, whether it resides in the whole community or is delegated by that community to a particular body, is without practical limitation other than that provided for The word State has a double meaning: in the one it indicates the people who compose the community, in the other the territory inhabited by them. In forming a constitution it is the people who form themselves into a Sovereign State, and their identity would be the same, whether they continued to occupy the same territory or not. The reference, by way of description, to the re-judicial powers by constitutional provision, which might gion of country they inhabit, is no more of the essence of the compact than a description of an individual in a deed, as A B, of the District of Columbia, would be of the essence of his contract, requiring that he should, in all time to come, reside in the District of Columbia, in VOL. XIII.-18 SENATE.] Admission of Michigan. [JAN. 4, 1837. doubts that where, in the language of the declaration of independence, "any form of government becomes destructive of the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the people have a right to alter or abolish it." But is it not an insult to the understanding of any man to cite such an authority as a warrant for the proceed. ings in Michigan? Is it not the very point of the objection which is made to the present bill, that the principle involved in it is revolutionary, while it professes to be an act of regular government? Does the case of Michigan present one in which the people, laboring under grievous oppression upon the part of their Government, which, in its form and practice, is destructive of the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are seeking to alter or abolish that form of government? No, sir. The question simply is, whether portions of the people of that State, having a regular Government, in which is vested the legislative power, have the right, by assembling in voluntary meetings, to call a conven tion empowered to bind the State in a time of profound peace, and as a measure of regular government. To state the question correctly is to refute it. And yet, sir, we have had an appeal made to the sacred right of revolution; and we who oppose the measure have been taunted as being opposed to the fundamental rights of the people, and to the principles of our great Revolution. We have had an effusion of the wildest and most inco in the constitution of the society. And herein, sir, consists the great and essential difference between the constitution of a State and the constitution of the Federal Government. The first has all the powers that are not prohibited, the latter has no powers but those which are granted. The principle is all-important in the construction of the two instruments. The Federal Government is one of enumerated powers. There is no general delegation of the whole legislative power of the community, restrained merely by exceptions and limitations; but the delegation is of "all legislative powers therein granted." It is true that the same language might be used in a State constitution, and, in such case, would require the same construction. But when, as in the case of the constitution of Michigan, it is declared that "the legislative power shall be vested in a Senate and House of Representatives," it is the legislative power of the whole community, and has no practical limitation but what is to be found in other parts of the constitution. I mean, of course, as a rule of construction growing out of its own provisions. There is, also, as respects the States of this Union, another limitation, namely, the constitution of the United States. But the principle is the same, for the constitution the United States, having received the assent of the same people, may be considered as incorporated with, and forming, for the purpose of construction, a part of the State constitution, in the limitations it imposes on the exercise of State sovereignty. As it ap-herent notions of popular liberty, and our principles depears, then, that the object of calling a convention in Michigan was not to amend or alter the constitution, but to give its assent to what the legislative power might itself have assented to, namely, the enlargement of its territory, it follows that the power to call such a convention is a mere act of ordinary legislation, and the duty having been imposed by Congress to do so, it was the business and right of the Legislature of that State to perform that duty. It was the duty and right of the Legislature of Michigan to call the convention, because the people of Michigan, when they formed their constitution, declared that the Legislature alone should possess the right of expressing and binding the public will in matters of ordinary legislation. Upon the question whether a convention should be called, the time and place of its assembling, the mode of its election, the qualification of its electors, no portion of the community had the right to dictate to any other portion; nor could the will of the community be ascertained on those points in any other mode than that agreed upon in the constitution. And why, sir? Because the people of Michigan had previously agreed, each man with each and every other, when they adopted their constitution, that the Legislature should be the exponents of the public will in such a case. That any portion of the community, be it great or small, should call itself the people, and affect to express and bind the public will, under such circumstances, is a fraud upon the rights of every man in it, and a gross and manifest infraction of the social compact into which he entered when he agreed, with others, to form a sovereign State, and delegate the legislative power to a particular body. I say, then, sir, without the fear of contradiction, that when the people themselves, who cannot act in mass, delegate to their representatives, by their constitution, the legislative power of the community, each and every man of them parts with the right to express and bind the public will in any other mode than through their Legislature, in relation to matters falling within the scope of that power. Such is the compact, and it is they themselves who establish it. The case of revolution has been appealed to as establishing and illustrating the right of the people to alter or modify their Government, and control, by voluntary meetings, the will of the community. Nobody, sir, nounced as those of the Stuarts and of the Bourbons. assent has been given which is required by the act. The resolution of the 26th January, 1836, referred to by the Senator from Pennsylvania, [Mr. BUCHANAN,] can have no bearing whatever on the present question, as indicative of the opinion of the Senate in relation to the power of the Legislature, since, at that time, there was clearly no legal authority on the part of Michigan to establish a State Government; but the act of the 15th of June, 1836, altered the case, by accepting, ratifying, and confirming, the constitution and State Government, and thus giving to both a legal existence. In the view which I have taken of this matter, numbers are nothing. But it is contended that there were more votes given in favor of a convention at the elections held under the authority of the voluntary meetings than were given both for and against the former convention. And what does this prove? Might there not have been a great number of illegal votes given at the second election, when there was no authority of law for the government of those who undertook to conduct it? But as to the fact, which is paraded as a matter of moment, that there were at least eight thousand votes given for the second convention, does that prove, with reference to the mere weight of numbers, supposing that none voted but those who had a right to do so, that the people of the State, or a majority of the people, desired that a convention should be called, and were in favor of giving the assent required by the act of Congress? Far from it, sir. Upon turning to the census which was taken in the year 1834, it will be found that there was, in that year, in the peninsula of Michigan, a population of 87,273 souls, of whom there were upwards of 22,000 free white males above the age of twenty years, so that there must have been, at that time, at least twenty thousand voters. At the present time it is probable that there are at least thirty thousand voters; and yet eight thousand votes given without authority of law, and without the certainty that they were those of persons who had a right to vote at all, are here represented to be the voice of the people; and it is seriously contended that they had a right to elect a convention representing the sovereignty of the State, and capable of binding the whole community. This very case is itself the strongest proof of the danger and folly of departing from the true principles of the social system, and attempting to introduce and establish any other standard of the public will than that which the people themselves, in the formation of their constitution, have declared shall be the exponent of that will, namely, the legislative power. In the one case, which is that of the regular action of Government, there can be no danger; and the people, having it always in their power to change their representatives, may secure a faithful assertion of their will; but in the other, which concedes to a portion of the people the right, by voluntary assem. blies, to call and elect a convention capable of controlling the whole community, the very end of all government is defeated, by giving to the strong and the crafty the means of controlling the weak and the timid without their consent; and while their proceedings boldly and insolently assume the form and the tone of public sentiment, they may in truth be nothing more than the machinations of designing demagogues, and prove in the end the worst species of tyranny. What, then, it may be asked, is to be done? There are two courses, either of which may be taken, and with either of which I shall be content. The one is to leave the matter to the further action of the State of Michigan. Let the Legislature of that State call another convention, and then, if it be true that the majority of the people are now in favor of coming into the Union upon the proposed terms, there cannot be a doubt but the required assent will be given. This course will require a little delay, but that will be attended with no material inconvenience. The other is [SENATE. to repeal the third section of the act of June 15, 1836, which imposes the condition, and admit her at once. I have no apprehension of difficulty on the score of boundaries, having the most perfect conviction of the power of Congress to settle them, and that has been done by the express provisions of the act. But, sir, it will not do to pass this act, either with or without the preamble, unless in the latter case the third section of the act of June be repealed, because that provision still subsisting, to admit under the present circumstances would imply that Congress was satisfied that the condition had been fulfilled. This, sir, would be virtually to recognise and sanction the doctrine against which we contend, and which, if established, would in the end subvert all regular government; and which, while it preserved the form of republican institutions, and affected to be based on the principle of popular rights and popular liberty, would involve in its practice the most odious tyranny. Mr. BROWN said it had not been his intention to participate in the debate which had arisen on the question then under consideration; but some doctrines had been advanced in its progress which challenged their most serious consideration, and which he, as a member of that body, would not permit to pass without giving utterance to the sentiments of strong disapprobation with which they had been heard by him. He almost despaired, after the eloquent display of the gentleman from Delaware, [Mr. BAYARD,] who had just taken his seat, of saying any thing that would interest them, or of being able, in the course of his remarks, to gain that attention which that gentleman had so justly merited, as well from the matter as the manner of his address. The admission of Michigan as a member of the Union had (said Mr. B.) been resisted mainly by those who oppose it on the ground that she is, at this time, a sovereign State, and that the convention which assembled in December last, and gave its assent to the terms proposed by the act of the last session of Congress, was not called into being by a law of the Legislature of Michigan, and is therefore to be considered as irregular and revolutionary in its nature, by assuming to act without such authority. He thought it required but a very slight examination of the subject for them to arrive at the conclusion that, on all questions of legislation by Congress touching her condition, she is to be contemplated and regarded as a Territory, and not as a State. Not having complied with the terms of the act of Congress pas ed at the last session for her admission into the Union, she is not a confederate State. If she exists, then, as a State at all, it must be in the character of a foreign and independent sovereignty. To maintain a doctrine so absurd as this was, and so utterly subversive of the authority of the General Government over its territory, its advocates must, of necessity, be driven to admit the right of the people of a Territory to throw off the power of the General Government without its consent, and to establish an independent Government at their own will and pleasure. Whether a State may rightfully secede from the Union or not, is a question about which the ablest statesmen have differed; but that a Territory, having in itself no sovereignty, may rightfully withdraw from the authority of the Federal Government, (unless by that right acquired by successful revolution,) is a proposition so disorganizing in its tendency as to find scarcely a single ad. vocate. It is true that Michigan has, for some time past, exercised the powers of a State, preparatory to her admission into the Union, which were simply permissive, and not by virtue of any rights she had as a State, independent of the authority of the General Gov ernment. She is, then, for all practical purposes, to be regarded in our legislation as still remaining in her territorial condition. If this opinion be correct, then the sanctuary of State rights, for which so many apprehen. sions have been expressed, will not be invaded by our recognising the acts of the late convention, giving the assent of the people of Michigan to the terms proposed by the act of Congress. The honorable Senator from Delaware had argued to show that the legislative branch of a Government was to be regarded as the depository of the public will, and that in the States all power not prohibited by their constitutions might be exercised by their Legislatures; and deduces, as a consequence from the principles which he contended for, that the assembling of a convention in Michigan, without authority from her Legislature, was irregular and of revolutionary tendency. This doctrine (said Mr. B.) was, in his opinion, radically wrong, and had led to many of the erroneous conclusions which had characterized the present discussion. The legislative branch of a State Government was to be considered the depository of the public will of the people, represented by it only for cer tain purposes, and to the extent of the powers conferred on it by the constitution under which it acted. All other powers resided in the great body of the people, in which exists the ultimate authority and sovereignty of a State. The constituted authorities of a State, no, not even a convention itself, possess no inherent power of sovereignty, and each are but the mere agents of the people, who constitute the sovereignty. It is therefore derogating rather too much from this power of the people of a State to claim for their Legislature the right to direct them when and how they shall proceed to assemble in convention. It strips the sovereign power of one of its highest and most powerful attributes, and leaves it at the will of the agent created by it to decide when it may rightfully exercise that power. In some of the States the power is expressly given to their Legislatures to decide when a convention shall be called, and to provide for the manner of calling the same. This, of course, is a restriction by the people of those States, imposed by themselves, on their original right to assemble in convention through the instrumentality of primary assemblies, and which they are constitutionally bound to observe. But no such restriction can be alleged as existing in the constitution of Michigan, to prevent her people from assembling in convention spontaneously, for the purpose of expressing her willingness to come into the Union on the terms proposed by Congress. Her constitution points out the manner in which future amendments to that instrument are to be made; but no mode is prescribed by it as to the manner in which her people are to assemble in convention for the purpose of being admitted into the Union as a State. As her people never have conferred on any of her public functionaries this power, it, of course, remains among them, as belonging to that class of residuary powers with which she has never parted. If, sir, (said Mr. B.,) this reasoning be correct, the people of Michigan have rightfully exercised the power of calling a convention through their primary assemblies-a right consecrated by the principles of the Revolution, and from the exercise of which some of the oldest, if not the wisest, State constitutions had sprung into existence. In determining this question, he thought it their duty, as statesmen, to disencumber it of mere questions of form, and to ascertain substantially what was the will of the people of Michigan in reference to their admission into the Union. All the facts before them went to prove, most conclusively, that it was not only the will of a majority of them to obtain admission into the Union, but that there was almost entire unanimity of sentiment among her citizens in favor of it. Had a single remonstrance been presented from any part of that Territory against the proceedings of her convention? No, not a single voice had been heard from that quarter opposed to it. Her cit z ns, therefore, could not feel otherwise than greatly indebted to those who had come forward as her [JAN. 4, 1837. guardians here to protect her from the dire calamities of being admitted to a participation of the benefits of our happy Union! For himself, he had always been taught to consider it as a measure of no ordinary advantage to the people of a Territory to be raised from a state of territorial dependence to the elevated condition of a sovereign State of our confederacy. If we were about to do an act which might operate to restrain the privileges of her people, then it would behoove us to construe strictly the powers under which we act. While the rule of construction which he had just laid down was applicable to such a case as the one adverted to, the opposite rule of giving a liberal interpretation to our powers was equally obligatory where the object was to enlarge the privileges of the citizen. In other words, he considered it to be not only a safe rule in practice, but one demanded by our free institutions, in deciding on questions in which the rights of the citizen are involved, whether in courts of justice or legislative bodies, to give a construction to the power under which they act that will rather favor than abridge the rights. Mr. B. said that the Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. PRESTON,] and his honorable coadjutor from Ohio, [Mr. MORRIS,] had expressed great horror at the proceedings of the convention in Michigan, and, coupling them with some other proceedings which have lately occurred in several of the States, have denounced each in no very measured terms. They think they see, in what they have chosen to characterize as tumultuary assemblages of the people, the overthrow of law and order, and the prostration of all regular government. The Senator from Ohio told us that he bad heard here many very extraordinary things in the course of this debate; and he (Mr. B.) would take leave to add that the Senator had also said some very extraordinary things in the course of the observations which he had made. He did not himself entertain the same fears of the great body of the people which seemed so much to excite the alarms of some honorable gentlemen. On the contrary, it had been proven, not only by experience in this country, but in almost every other civilized nation, that the great body of the people are, in most instances, more inclined to acquiesce in wrongs than to resist them; and that, in nine times out of ten, when driven to physical resistance, it is because every other means of redress have failed. The doctrines which had been advanced were identical with those in which had originated the alien and sedition laws. The federal party of that day, as now, (though under a different name at the present day,) believed, or affect. ed to believe, that popular liberty would degenerate into licentiousness, and prove incompatible with the exist ence of regular government. In this distrust and jealousy of the great body of the people, by the federal party, originated that celebrated law. Although its authors had long since been expelled from power, and their doctrines stamped with public reprobation, the same spirit yet existed, and he regretted that it had made its appearance again in this debate. It was but the revival of the exploded heresies of that day, brought forward under new auspices, and under new party names. The party of that day, as their disciples now do, arrogated to themselves all the intelligence and wisdom of the country, and expressed all the apprehen. sions from popular violence to our institutions that we now hear. When the famous judiciary law, passed by the federal party in the last moments of their expiring authority, was about to be repealed under the adminis tration of Mr. Jefferson, the same fears were expressed which we now hear, that constitutional liberty would fall a victim to popular violence. The people did repeal the law, through their representatives, and yet the country had continued to enjoy all the rights secured to JAN. 4, 1837.] Admission of Michigan. [SENATE. a convention, in their sovereign capacity, without subjecting himself to the charge of aiding to produce a revolution? Were bank corporations to be considered as imbodying in themselves the sovereign authority of the State, that it was thus dangerous to call in question their rights to existence, independent of the will of the people, whose legislative agents had created them? Gentlemen who entertain such exalted opinions of their attributes, he would say, carried their reverence much further than he could agree to do. They were opinions better suited, he would say, to the subjects of arbitrary Governments than to the citizens of a free republic. it by the constitution, and none of the evils predicted had been realized. Sir, (said Mr. B.,) to those who are in the habit of speaking disparagingly of the intelligence of the great body of the people, it is sufficient to point them to the condition of the country to disprove the charge. It is to that public intelligence that we are indebted for what it is. It is under the guidance of that public will that it has attained its present unexampled prosperity. In instituting a comparison between that public intelligence which is so often derided and the political wisdom of that party who underrates it, a marked superiority must be acknowleged as due to the former. On the one hand, the party claiming a monopoly of all Mr. B., without undertaking to defend all the arguthe wisdom of the country, as numerous instances attest ments contained in this much-denounced letter, some of in our history as a nation, have often attempted to in- which he did not then recollect, not having the letter graft on our institutions principles hostile to our form of before him, would take occasion very explicitly to degovernment; while, on the other, the patriotism and in- clare his hearty and entire concurrence in the main contelligence of the American people have constantly inter-clusion drawn from them. That conclusion asserted the posed to preserve them in every great emergency. right of the people of Pennsylvania, acting through a What, he would ask, would have been the condition of convention, in their sovereign capacity, to annul and abour country, in all probability, at this day, if its political rogate the charter lately granted by the Legislature of destinies had been continued in the keeping of that parthat State to the Bank of the United States, for the term ty who, in their own imagination, have all the sagacious of thirty years. He well knew the ingenious subterfuge statesmen, and are almost exclusively endowed by Prov- by which professional astutenes had sought to escape idence with the gifts of intellectual greatness? Let the from the force of this, to his mind, plainly-established systematic efforts made by their leading statesmen, conclusion, by endeavoring to take shelter under that when in power, to introduce a system of administration part of the constitution of the United States which deinto our Government, modelled on the plan of the Eng-clares that "no State shall pass any law impairing the lish monarchy, answer. Let the fate of those countries obligation of contracts." To maintain that bank charin which the energy of the popular will had been broken ters are "contracts," and thus to draw them within the down by the ascendency of titled orders answer. From meaning of that term, as employed in the constitution of the picture of what it most probably would have been the United States, the advocates of the doctrine that under such auspices, the friends of republican govern they are irrevocable by any authority have been driven ment were cheered and animated in contemplating what to advance subtleties and refinemests better suited to it is under the safer and wiser auspices of that general that age of ecclesiastical ingenuity in which the statutes intelligence which, united, forms the public will." of mortmain were sought to be evaded by that order of The honorable gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. men, to perpetuate their ascendency, than to the presPRESTON] has expressed, in strong terms, his abhorrence ent day of enlightened constitutional freedom. He did of the doctrine contained in a letter lately published in not believe that any of the eminent writers on law in the newspapers of the United States, and written by a England, in defining the nature and powers of corporadistinguished gentleman, recently a member of this body. tions, had ever considered their charters in the nature He had characterized them as disorganizing and of revoof contracts between the sovereign authority granting lutionary tendency. In this he has been followed, much them and the individuals of which they were composed. in the same strain, by the gentleman from Delaware, On the contrary, they had been uniformly treated by [Mr. BAYARD.] Mr. B, could not but feel some surprise them as artificial bodies, to whom certain privileges and at their course in bringing into discussion questions hav. franchises are granted, for the purpose of doing that ing no bearing on proceedings here, and such as were which they could not do in their individual capacities. connected alone with the domestic strifes of the States Nor did he believe that any authority could be found in which they had originated. He felt more especially among the American law writers, previous to the adop surprised that gentlemen professing such a sacred regard tion of the present federal constitution, which maintained for, and claiming, as some of them seemed to do, almost the doctrine that bank charters granted by the States the exclusive guardianship of State rights, should be were in the nature of contracts between the States and found invading the limits of Pennsylvania and Maryland, the individuals to whom they were granted. The unifor the purpose of mingling in controversies which they versally received opinion before, that they were mere were in no way called on to decide. He must be per-privileges or franchises, granted by the State or sovermitted to say that their course on this occasion was but a poor practical commentary on their doctrines. In the remarks which he should make on this subject, he but followed the example which had been set him. The gauntlet had been brown down, and he, for one, was ready to join issue with gentlemen on the important question raised in the letter which had been so strongly denounced. He had the pleasure not only of a personal acquaintance with Mr. Dallas, the writer of the letter, but he flattered himself that he also enjoyed a portion of his personal friendship. Little could he have supposed that a gentleman universally respected for his mild and urbane manners in private life, and distinguished for wise and prudent deliberation as a statesman, would have been held up, here or elsewhere, as a revolutionist. Had it come to this: that a citizen of this republic could not express an opinion in favor of the right of the pecple of a State to abolish a bank charter, acting through eign, is a most conclusive proof to show that the modern invention of the doctrine that they are contracts is an afterthought, a mere device, intended, by a change of phrases, to suit the case to the terms of the constitution, and to bring it to bear against State authority, in favor of the perpetuity of corporations. Mr. B. said, to his mind, the doctrine that a State, in its high and sovereign capacity, was absolutely impotent to rid itself of a great moneyed corporation, chartered for a term of thirty years, was a monstrous heresy, and, in his judgment, better suited to the notions of popular rights which prevailed in the arbitrary reign of the Stuarts, or to those of the Polignacs of France, than to an American statesNo matter how absolutely certain they may be that such an institution may insinuate its power into every part of their State, and, when firmly fixed, prove utterly destructive to their liberties, yet, according to this doctrine, they have no power to relieve themselves, man. |