Content with
the positive benefits which their union produced, with the independence
and safety from foreign aggression which it secured, these sagacious
people respected the institutions of each other, however repugnant to
their own principles and prejudices.
Our Confederacy, fellow-citizens, can only be preserved by the same
forbearance. Our citizens must be content with the exercise of the
powers with which the Constitution clothes them. The attempt of those of
one State to control the domestic institutions of another can only
result in feelings of distrust and jealousy, the certain harbingers of
disunion, violence, and civil war, and the ultimate destruction of our
free institutions. Our Confederacy is perfectly illustrated by the terms
and principles governing a common copartnership. There is a fund of
power to be exercised under the direction of the joint councils of the
allied members, but that which has been reserved by the individual
members is intangible by the common Government or the individual members
composing it. To attempt it finds no support in the principles of our
Constitution.
It should be our constant and earnest endeavor mutually to cultivate a
spirit of concord and harmony among the various parts of our
Confederacy.
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