our country and sustain it, upon the ocean, on the land, in war and in peace, against foreign or domestic enemies; or, if it must fall, it will be upon the graves of Americans preferring death in its defence to life without it, when the iron chains of despotism would bind them as slaves to that soil which they would tread only as freemen. It is said that the Government of the Union is but a league formed by sovereign States. Did the States form it as governments? if so, which or all of the departments of any State subscribed or ratified the compact? or could the government of any State change the organic law, unless by a power given them by the Constitution, or surrender the sovereign attributes of power, and unite the people in a new government with other confederates? No; the government cannot abolish or change its form or transfer its powers to another government: this highest act of sovereignty can only be performed by the people of a State; and it was by the people of every State, acting in convention as separate and distinct communities, that the Constitution was ratified and rendered binding upon the people of all the States; and, in the language of Mr. Jefferson, the Government thus formed was 'authorized to act immediately on the people and by its own officers.' Was it then a league only? No, it was what its framers, the people, as we have seen, and not the governments of all the States, called it, a 'Constitution'--a 'Government;' and it is an overthrow of fundamental principles to say that a 'constitution,' a 'government,' which is made 'the supreme law' in all the States, could be created by any power less than the people of the several States, but as the people of the States, and not in their aggregate capacity. Whatever may be the theories of the advocates of consolidation on the one hand, or nullification on the other, this is certainly a true history of the manner in which the Government of the Union was formed. The Constitution itself expressly declares that it could be created only by 'the ratifications of the conventions of the States;' and this Constitution was expressly rendered 'the supreme law of the land,' 'anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding,'--as if the government of a State could render their own constitution subordinate to another constitution. A return then having taken place, in forming the Constitution, to the people of all the States, as the primary fountain of power, they might have vested all their sovereignty, or but a part of it, in one government; and they might have given, in either event, the same power which exists in ordinary governments of enforcing its laws when sustained as constitutional by all its departments, subject only to the natural rights of the people to revolutionize the government in case of intolerable oppression. Certain important powers and attributes of sovereignty the people of the States gave to this new government. They