“Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”
A profitable Usurpation, like that of New Jersey, would be a tempting example to other States. “It is only the first step that costs.” Let this Usurpation be sanctioned by Congress, and you hand over the domestic commerce of the Union to a succession of local imposts. Each State will be a tax-gatherer at the expense of the Union. Each State will play the part of Don Quixote, and the Union will be Sancho Panza, not only bound to contributions, but driven to receive on bare back the lashes which were the penance of the knightly adventurer. If there be any single fruit of our national unity, if there be any single element of the Union, if there be any single triumph of the Constitution to be placed above all others, it is the freedom of commerce between the States, under which free trade, the aspiration of philosophy, is assured to all citizens of the Union, as they circulate through our whole broad country, without hindrance from any State. But this vital principle is now in jeopardy.
Keep in mind that it is the tax imposed on commerce between New York and Philadelphia, two cities outside the State of New Jersey, which I denounce. I have denounced it as hostile to the Union. I also denounce it as hostile to the spirit of the age, which is everywhere overturning the barriers of commerce. The robber castles, once compelling payment of toll on the Rhine, were long ago dismantled, and exist now only as monuments of picturesque beauty. Kindred pretensions in other places have been overthrown or trampled out. Duties levied by Denmark on all vessels passing through the Sound and the Belts, duties levied by Hanover on the goods of all nations at Stade on the Elbe, tolls exacted on the Danube in its protracted course, tolls exacted by Holland on the busy waters of the Scheldt, and transit imposts within the great Zollverein of Germany, have all been abolished; and in this work of enfranchisement the Government of the United States led the way, insisting, in the words of President Pierce, in his Annual Message, “on the right of free transit into and from the Baltic.”[91] But the right of free transit across the States of the Union is now assailed. Can you who reached so far to secure free transit in the Baltic now hesitate in its defence here at home?
Thank God, within the bounds of the Union, under the National Constitution, commerce is made free. As the open sea is the highway of nations, so is this Union made the highway of the States, with all their commerce, and no State can claim any exclusive property therein. The Union is a mare liberum, beyond the power of any State, and not a mare clausum, subject to as many tyrannies as there are States. And yet the State of New Jersey asserts the power of closing a highway of the Union.
Such a pretension, so irrational and destructive, cannot be dealt with tenderly. Like the serpent, it must be bruised on the head. Nor can there be wise delay. Every moment of life yielded to such a Usurpation is like the concession once in an evil hour yielded to Nullification, kindred in origin and character. The present pretension of New Jersey belongs to the same school with that abhorred and blood-bespattered pretension of South Carolina.
Perhaps, Sir, it is not unnatural that the doctrines of South Carolina on State Rights should obtain shelter in New Jersey. Like sees like. There is a common bond among the sciences, among the virtues, among the vices,—and so, also, among the monopolies. The monopoly founded on the hideous pretension of property in man obtained responsive sympathy in that other monopoly founded on the greed of unjust taxation, and both were naturally upheld in the name of State Rights. Both must be overthrown in the name of the Union. South Carolina must cease to be a Slave State, and New Jersey must also cease her disturbing pretension. All hail to the genius of Universal Emancipation! All hail to the Union, victorious over the Rebellion,—victorious, also, over a Usurpation which menaces the unity of the Republic!