"
And in keeping with this North Carolina withheld her ratification; she
allowed the Government to be formed with the number of States which was
required to put it in operation, and still she remained out of the
Union, asserting and recognized in the independence which she had
maintained against Great Britain, and which she had no idea of
surrendering to any other power; and the last State which ratified the
Constitution long after it had in fact gone into effect, Rhode Island,
in the third of her resolutions, says:
"III. That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people
whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness. That the rights
of the States respectively to nominate and appoint all State officers,
and every other power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the said
Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or
the departments of Government thereof, remain to the people of the
several States, or their respective State governments to whom they may
have granted the same."
Here the use of the phrase "State governments" shows how utterly
unwarrantable the construction has been, to say that the reference here
was to the whole people of the States--to the people of all the
States--and not to the people of each of the States severally.
I spoke, however, Mr. President, but a moment ago, of the difference of
politics, products, population, constituting the great motive for the
Union.
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