APPENDIX F.
Speech of Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, in the Senate of the United States,
on the resolutions offered by him relative to the relations of the
States, the Federal Government, and the Territories, May 7, 1860.
Mr. President: Among the many blessings for which we are indebted to our
ancestry is that of transmitting to us a written Constitution; a fixed
standard to which, in the progress of events, every case may be
referred, and by which it may be measured. But for this, the wise men
who formed our Government dared not have hoped for its perpetuity; for
they saw, floating down the tide of time, wreck after wreck, marking the
short life of every republic which had preceded them. With this,
however, to check, to restrain, and to direct their posterity, they
might reasonably hope the Government they founded should last for ever;
that it should secure the great purposes for which it was ordained and
established; that it would be the shield of their posterity equally in
every part of the country, and equally in all time to come. It was this
which mainly distinguished the formation of our Government from those
confederacies or republics which had preceded it; and this is the best
foundation for our hope to-day. The resolutions which have been read,
and which I had the honor to present to the Senate, are little more than
the announcement of what I hold to be the clearly-expressed declarations
of the Constitution itself.
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