"MR. DAVIS.--In the absence of my friend from Virginia, I would say that his theory, I believe, agrees with mine; and certainly does not go to that extent. It is that the Constitution makes it property throughout the United States. It can, therefore, be taken and held wherever the sovereign power of a State has not prohibited it. When it reaches the territory of a sovereign State where its introduction is inhibited, it there stops; except for the reserved right to recover a fugitive, and for the right of transit, which belongs to every citizen of the United States. That is the decision of the Supreme Court. "MR. PUGH.--I repeat my assertion: if the Constitution of the United States gives this form of property its peculiar protection, as gentlemen assert, and the right to carry it, it is carried into every State over the constitution and laws of the State; for the Constitution of the United States is supreme above the constitutions and laws of the States; and it means that, or it means nothing. There is no distinction; there can be none made; and my colleague put the very question which proved the fallacy of the whole proposition. But senators say there is no sovereignty in the territories. I agree to that; but why do we deceive ourselves about words? There is no such language as sovereignty in the Constitution of the United States. Senators say it requires a power of sovereignty to exclude slavery, and the senator from Mississippi has just now spoken of the sovereignty of the State which excludes slavery. He says it requires sovereign power to exclude slavery. Well, how is that sovereignty to be expressed? "MR. DAVIS.--When a State, being a sovereign, by its organic law excludes that species of property, the act is final. There is no sovereignty in the Constitution, as the senator states, and why? Because the Constitution is a compact between sovereigns creating an agent with delegated powers; and sovereignty is an indivisible thing. They gave functions of sovereignty from their plenary power. Sovereignty remained with the people of the States.