constitutional end, and there is therefore no constitutional warrant for acquiring and holding territory for that purpose." [Sidenote: An Alleged Constitutional Inability.] We have now, as is believed, presented with entire fairness a summary of the more important aspects in which the constitutional objections mentioned have been urged. I would not underrate by a hair's breadth the authority of these great names, the weight of these continuous reassertions of principle, the sanction even of the precedent and general practice through a century. And yet I venture to think that no candid and competent man can thoroughly investigate the subject, in the light of the actual provisions of the Constitution, the avowed purpose of its framers, their own practice and the practice of their successors, without being absolutely convinced that this whole fabric of opposition on constitutional grounds is as flimsy as a cobweb. This country of our love and pride is no malformed, congenital cripple of a nation, incapable of undertaking duties that have been found within the powers of every other nation that ever existed since governments among civilized men began. Neither by chains forged in the Constitution nor by chains of precedent, neither by the dead hand we all revere, that of the Father of his Country, nor under the most authoritative exponents of our organic act and of our history, are we so bound that we cannot undertake any duty that devolves or exercise any power which the emergency demands. Our Constitution has entrapped us in no impasse, where retreat is disgrace and advance is impossible. The duty which the hand of Providence, rather than any purpose of man, has laid upon us, is within our constitutional powers. Let me invoke your patience for a rather minute and perhaps wearisome detail of the proof. The notion that the United States is an inferior sort of nation, constitutionally without power for such public duties as other nations habitually assume, may perhaps be dismissed with a single citation from the Supreme Court. Said Mr. Justice Bradley, in the Legal Tender Cases: "As a government it [the United States] was invested with all the attributes of sovereignty.... It seems to be a self-evident proposition that it is invested with all those inherent and implied powers which, at the time of adopting the Constitution, were generally considered to belong to every government as such, and as being essential to the exercise of its functions" (12 Wall. 554).