It cost very
little time, very little money, and no blood. It was one of the
most peaceful transactions that mark the pages of human history.
Our fathers fought the war of the Revolution to maintain the
rights asserted in their Declaration of Independence."
Mr. Powell: "The Senator from Mississippi will allow me to say
that I spoke of the Government, not of the Union. I said time
and money and blood had been required to form the Government."
Mr. Davis: "The Government is the machinery established by the
Constitution; it is the agency created by the States when they
formed the Union. Our fathers, I was proceeding to say, having
fought the war of the Revolution, and achieved their
independence--each State for itself, each State standing out an
integral part, each State separately recognized by the parent
Government of Great Britain--these States as independent
sovereignties entered into confederate alliance. After having
tried the Confederation and found it to be a failure, they, of
their own accord, came peacefully together, and in a brief
period made a Constitution, which was referred to each State and
voluntarily ratified by each State that entered the Union;
little time, little money, and no blood being expended to form
this Government, the machine for making the Union useful and
beneficial.
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