Such was the proud spirit of
independence manifested even in your colonial history. Such is the great
foundation-stone on which may be erected an eternal monument of State
rights. And so, in an early period of our country, you find
Massachusetts leading the movements, prominent of all the States, in the
assertion of that doctrine which has been recently so much belied.
Having achieved your independence, having passed through the
Confederation, you assented to the formation of our present
constitutional Union. You did not surrender your sovereignty. Your
fathers had sacrificed too much to claim, as a reward of their toil,
merely that they should have a change of masters; and a change of
masters it would have been had Massachusetts surrendered her State
sovereignty to the central Government, and consented that that central
Government should have the power to coerce a State. But, if this power
does not exist, if this sovereignty has not been surrendered, then, who
can deny the words of soberness and truth spoken by your candidate this
evening, when he has pleaded to you the cause of State independence, and
the right of every community to be judge of its own domestic affairs?
This is all we have ever asked--we of the South, I mean--for I stand
before you as one of those who have always been called the ultra men of
the South, and I speak, therefore, for that class; and I tell you that
your candidate for Governor has uttered to-night everything which we
have claimed as a principle for our protection.
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