Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1880-07-17


time, he has long been keenly aliv,
to the disgraces flung on his party
by the frauds and corruption of thu
recent administrations His pres
ent position is that the republican
party has done its work and is now
incapable OF any influence for good
and only powerful for evil.
The speech we here give was de
livered by him at a joint meeting O
the Tammany and Irving Hal
clubs, for the purpose of initiating q
Hancock campaign:
The anniversary of American in
dependence is an appropriate Ocea-
sion for considering the nature oil
our political institutions, the course
of their history, and the dangers tO
which they are exposed. Our polit-
ical history is divisible into epochs
of a distinct character, which it is
always useful to trace in their con-
nectiOn with each other. The first
of them is the period when we made
ourselves Independent and estab-
lished the system embraced in the
constitution. It is most remark
able fact that not more than twelve
years elapsed from the declaration
of independence to the formation
and establishment of that admirable
system of government under which
we have grown from group of
lS fnnIN1n Il l. -.
to q powerful republic of thirty
eight states and eight territories !;
from three millions to forty-eight
millions of people; from a sparse
population, dwelling between the
Atlantic seaboard and the Missis-
sippi river, to a great nation occu-
pying the whole breadth of this
continent between the twenty-fifth
and forty-eighth parallels of lati-
tude. The secret of this remarkable
growth in a period of about ninety
years, so far as it has depended upon
political institutions, is to be found
in the discovery of a mode in which
a national government could be in
stituted for certain limited and de-
fined purposes necessary for the
common welfare of independent
states, and at the same time leaving
all other powers of government to
reside in the states composing a
federal Union. This characteristic
of the American Union
was evolved cut of the condition of
things which followed the establish
ment of the separate and independ-
ent sovereignty of the thirteen orig
inal states. 1t grew out of the
necessities Of union on the one hand
and out of the necessity on the other
hand of preserving the political SOW
and identity of each of the
states. 1t has both the merit of
theory and the merit of practical
to any inevitable condi-
ton. The period which immedi-
ately followed the establishment of
the constitution is one that witnessed
the enactment of the great organic
laws that were necessary to put the
of the United States in
operation. 1t is also the period
when the same generation of men
who ratified the constitution which
their delegates had framed saw fit
to add to it certain
expressly for the pro-
lection of the rights of persons and
the rights of states. This is the pc
riod of the administration of Wash
ington, during which these very
important things occurred--namely,
that the legislative and executive
of the government eX-
plOred and analyzed the powers of
the constitution in order to establish
the necessary machinery to put it
into operation, while epeople laid
certain restrictions upon those pow
ers, in order to make it forever GER
tain that they should not be so exer-
ciSed as to encroach on the reserved
rights of individuals and of states.
Next we come to the period follow
ing the administration of Washing
ton, when parties began to be
formed. If we extend this period
from the beginning of John Adams
down to that OF Gen.
jackson, we find that it embraces
the time when the great canOns of
of the powers OF the
were settled by the Su-
preme court, over which chief Just
ice Marshall presided. No one can
point out in his decisions any strain
ing after an Interpretation that
would make the supremacy Of the
federal constitution a means of en-
on the independent au-
thOrity of the states. This same
period, as it draws towards the time
of the notification troubles in South
when Gen. Jackson was
president, is also the time when
there sprang up controversy about
the nature of the Union AMI the
of the authority of the
1t is extremely inn
pOrtant to observe that the doctrine
which regarded the constitution as
a mere compact between sovereign
states, from which there resulted to
every state right to arrest the Ope-
ration of any law of congress which
in the judgment of that state had
violated the compact, never was the
of any political party In
this country, excepting the local
party of the South Carolina nullifi-
ers. 1t never was the doctrine of
the democratic party any more than
1t was the doctrine Of the federalists
or the wings. 1t never was the
doctrine of Jefferson, or Madison, or
Jackson, any more than 1t Was of
Marshall, or Clay, or Webster. 1t
was the doctrine of Mr.. Calhoun
and his personal followers.
Passing from the period of nulllti-
cation down to the election of Mr..
Lincoln I'm 1860, we have another
period of about thirty years which
il marked by the growth of a new
and peculiar doctrine respecting the
nature of the constitution and by
sectional issue i'm regard to the local
institution of slavery. 1t Is histOr-
ically just and right to say that the
doctrine of state secession from the
Union never had q majority of be-
levers among the people of the
south until circumstances led them
to speculate upon and finally to en-
brace it. A few public men of the
generation following that of Mr..
Calhoun, and influenced mainly by
his teachings, had grown up with
the general idea that there is enough,
after all, in the history of the form
alton and adoption Of the constitq-
ti0n to warrant the thfoFy that the
Union is more of q compact between
sovereign states than 1t is of any
thing else. But the great body OF
the southern people, accustomed to
the exercise among them of the
powers of the federal government,
and always, until the formation and
triumph Of a sectional party in the
north, able to participate with one