The greatest of all rights that an independent state can or may have, is the right to adopt its own form of government; but this clause completely destroys such right on the part of any State of this Union to frame its own form of government. No State, for example, can have a monarchical government; since the United States are to guarantee a republican form: and no State can adopt an hereditary or theocratic government, because the UNITED STATES are bound to give each State a republican government. In like manner we might run through all the forms of government that have ever blessed or cursed our race, without finding one which can he adopted by any State of this Union, except the single form of 'republican,' named in the Constitution. But can a State bereft of the right to frame its own mode of government be said to be possessed of 'sovereign' 'State rights,' or could a more effectual provision against their development have been formed than this?
'This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby; any thing in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
'The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several STATE LEGISLATURES, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the SEVERAL STATES, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution.'
This Constitution, these laws, these treaties, shall be the supreme law, no matter what 'State' constitutions and 'State' laws may declare. 'Shall!' is the word, and there can be no doubt as to its meaning. Again, members of the State Legislatures, and all officers of the several States 'shall' be bound to support the 'Constitution.' Where are the 'State rights' in these clauses? Every State and every State official is made subordinate to and an executive of the acts of the 'United States,' and the United States constitutes a 'nation'. That is the only word which meets our case. WE ARE A NATION, not 'a tenant-at-will sort of confederacy.'
The waters of the Bay of New-York and of the Hudson river flow entirely within the States of New-York and New-Jersey. One of the vested rights of an independent state, is that known as 'eminent domain,' or supreme ownership, implying control. Apply this doctrine of State rights in this case, or rather, allow it to be applied by the States named above, and they could prevent the navigation of these waters by any but their own citizens or those to whom they might grant that privilege. If this doctrine of State rights is sound, these two States would have the right to levy tolls or duties on every vessel that sails those waters, as the State of New-York exacts tolls on her canals. Such power thus exercised, would cripple commerce, inconvenience the public, and utterly destroy all comity between the States. This exacting tolls for navigation of waters is one of the most offensive systems left us by past generations. It is so odious that modern governments decline to submit to it in cases where there is no doubt as to 'State rights,' as in that of the 'Sound Dues' exacted by Denmark. If, however, the State is supreme within its limits, it has a perfect right to exact such tolls. But no State in this nation has any such right under the Constitution. Its existence would destroy the Union by placing each State under the laws and exactions of either one of the others. The troubles growing out of such exactions would beget dispute; these disputes would beget open strife, which would end in open rupture and the downfall of the NATIONAL UNION.
The 'UNITED STATES,' 'the Union,' 'the Nation,' are supreme. The States, as States, are subordinate; as 'parts,' they are inferior to the 'whole.' The 'State rights' doctrine is wrong, disorganizing, destructive of national life, and must be destroyed.
Again, one grand evidence of a nation's or a people's civilization, is found in the correspondence, written and printed, conducted by the citizens. Barbarians have and need no correspondence. Civilization needs it, and can not exist without it. A migratory people like ours have more correspondence than older and less migratory nations. A citizen emigrating from Vermont to Illinois must correspond with the friends of his old home. The old friend in Vermont must know how the absent one 'gets along in the world.' To conduct this correspondence, the postal or mail service was devised. Before its existence the communication between separated friends and business people was uncertain, irregular, and mere matter of chance, to be conveyed by stray travelers, or not interchanged at all. The necessities of civilization brought the postal or mail service into action. To conduct this service over a nation, requires the right of passage through the entire limits of the nation. This right, to be available, must have power to enforce its own requirements. It must be central, CONTROLLING, SUPREME. Without these, there would be no safety, no system, no uniformity, no regularity. To insure these to all the people of the States, the Constitution has wisely placed these powers in 'THE CONGRESS' of the Union, of the 'NATION.' In accordance with the powers thus vested in Congress, our present postal or mail service has been created. No State has a right to set up its own mail or postal system. No State has a right to interfere with the transportation of the national mails. 'The UNITED STATES MAIL,' is the term used. If any State had a right to establish a mail within its own limits, it would also have the right to prohibit or curtail the transportation of other States' mails through its limits. This right would destroy the entire system, and break up the interchange of correspondence so essential to our civilization. If the States had any such right, they could affix discriminating tariffs on the correspondence of other States passing through them. The State of New-York could, if this right existed, make the letters sent over its roads by the people of Massachusetts to the people of Ohio, pay just such tariffs for the 'right of passage' as it might choose. The absurdity and utter unreasonableness of this claimed right is so apparent as to need no argument against it.
The exercise of this pretended right by the Southern States has caused the present rebellion. But for this doctrine we should not be expending a million a day in supporting six hundred thousand men in camp, who ought to be producers for the support of life instead of missionaries of death. This war is the legitimate result of this heresy of 'State rights.' If this doctrine had never been put in practice, we should not now have slavery to curse us with its degrading, inhumanizing influences. Slavery exists in violation of the Constitution. Slavery was never established by that document. The States violated it in their attempts at legalizing it. All their laws declaring that the status of the child must be that of the mother, are but so many 'BILLS OF ATTAINDER,' working 'CORRUPTION OF BLOOD;' and every State, as well as Congress itself, was and is positively prohibited by the Constitution from passing any such bill or law; and should we ever succeed in having any but a pro-slavery, slave-catching Supreme Court, all these laws will be annulled by their own most positive unconstitutionally. True, there were slaves at the time the Constitution was adopted, but all then living are now dead; and but for this doctrine of 'State rights,' there never would have been any State law making the child of a slave mother also a slave; but for this doctrine no such bill of attainder would have been passed, or if passed, it never could have been enforced; and we should not to-day be listening to the cries of four millions of slaves, nor have the homes of thousands of honest citizens made desolate by the absence of loved ones. But for this terrible doctrine, 'the click of hammers closing rivets up,' would not now be giving 'dreadful note of preparation.' But for this heresy, subversive of all law, of all order, of all nationality, we should not to-day be at war for our existence. But for this doctrine, and the right claimed by some of the States to extend their 'bills of attainder,' working corruption of blood over the entire Union, we should not have our homes filled with grief and our streets covered with the funeral pageants of brave men killed in defense of the Union. We want no more evidence of the accursed nature of the doctrine of 'State rights.' We are a UNION—a NATION. We must have NATIONAL LAWS, NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, NATIONAL FREEDOM. We have had too much of State law, too much of State rights, too much of State slavery. The NATION MUST BE SUPREME. The States must be subordinate. As we uphold and perpetuate the National authority, so will be our existence as a people. As we detract from this, so will be our weakness and downfall.
GOD PRESERVE THE NATION!