"But, be this as it may, the possibility that the right may be abused, does not prove that no such right subsists.
"If we would conclude, on the one hand, that the people have no right of resistance, because this right is capable of being abused, we might, for the same reason, conclude, on the other hand, that supreme governors have no authority.
"Whatever authority these governors have in any civil society, it was given them for the common benefit of the society; and it is possible that, under the color of this authority, they may oppress the people in order to promote their own separate benefit.
"Sec. XVI. It is a groundless suggestion, that a right of resistance in the people will occasion treason and rebellion, and that it will weaken the authority of civil government, and will render the office of those who are invested with it precarious and unsafe, even though they administer it with the utmost prudence and with all due regard to the common benefit.
"The right of resistance will indeed render the general notion of rebellion less extensive in its application to particular facts.
"All use of force against such persons as are invested with supreme power, would come under the notion of rebellion, if the people have no right of this sort; whereas, if they have such a right, the use of force to repel tyranical and unsocial oppression, when it cannot be removed by any other means, must have some other name given to it. So that, however true it may be that, in consequence of this right of resistance, supreme government will be liable, of right, to some external checks, arising out of the law of nature, to which they would otherwise not be liable, yet it cannot properly be said to expose them to rebellion."
I beg, in the next place, to read to your honors, from the opinion of Mr. Justice Johnson, a short paragraph. It is to be found in 1st Wheaton, 363, in the case of Martin vs. Hunter's Lessee. I believe a paragraph from that has been already read, on the other side, and I wish to give you, in connection with it, what he says, speaking of the power of the judiciary, and the consequences that would result in any case to which that power did not reach. He says:
"On the other hand, so firmly am I persuaded that the American people no longer can enjoy the blessings of a free Government, whenever the State sovereignties shall be prostrated at the feet of the General Government, nor the proud consciousness of equality and security, any longer than the independence of judicial power shall be maintained consecrated and intangible, that I could borrow the language of a celebrated orator, and exclaim, 'I rejoice that Virginia has resisted.'"
I also wish to read a sentence from the case of Moore vs. The State of Illinois, in 14 Howard, p. 20—the opinion by Mr. Justice Grier. He says:
"Every citizen of the United States is also a citizen of a State or Territory. He may be said to owe allegiance to two sovereigns, and may be liable to punishment for an infraction of the laws of either."