"If the several States [adds the Committee], whether from
motives of policy or a desire to preserve the peace of the
Union, if not from fraternal feeling, do not hold it incumbent
on them, after the experience of the country, to guard in future
by appropriate legislation against occurrences similar to the
one here inquired into, the Committee can find no guarantee
elsewhere for the security of peace between the States of the
Union."
On February 2, 1860, the author submitted, in the Senate of the United
States, a series of resolutions, afterward slightly modified to read as
follows
"1. _Resolved_, That, in the adoption of the Federal
Constitution, the States, adopting the same, acted severally as
free and independent sovereignties, delegating a portion of
their powers to be exercised by the Federal Government for the
increased security of each against dangers, _domestic_ as well
as foreign; and that any intermeddling by any one or more
States, or by a combination of their citizens, with the domestic
institutions of the others, on any pretext whatever, political,
moral, or religious, with the view to their disturbance or
subversion, is in violation of the Constitution, insulting to
the States so interfered with, endangers their domestic peace
and tranquillity--objects for which the Constitution was
formed--and, by necessary consequence, tends to weaken and
destroy the Union itself.
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