“Mr. Chairman: ‘To this favor’ it has come at last. The great fleet that set out on the 18th of March, with all its freightage and armament, is so shattered that now all the valuables it carried are embarked in this little craft, to meet whatever fate the sea and the storm may offer. This little bill contains the residuum of almost every thing that has been the subject of controversy at the present session. I will not discuss it in detail, but will speak only of its central feature, and especially of the opinions which the discussion of that feature has brought to the surface during the present session. The majority in this Congress have adopted what I consider very extreme and dangerous opinions on certain important constitutional questions. They have not only drifted back to their old attitude on the subject of State Sovereignty, but they have pushed that doctrine much further than most of their predecessors ever went before, except during the period immediately preceding the late war. “Let me summarize them: First, there are no national elections; second, the United States has no voters; third, the States have the exclusive right to control all elections of members of Congress; fourth, the senators and representatives in Congress are State officers, or, as they have been called during the present session, ‘embassadors’ or ‘agents’ of the State; fifth, the United States has no authority to keep the peace anywhere within a State, and, in fact, has no peace to keep; sixth, the United States is not a Nation endowed with sovereign power, but is a confederacy of States; seventh, the States are sovereignties possessing inherent supreme powers; they are older than the Union, and as independent sovereignties the state governments created the Union and determined and limited the powers of the General Government. “These declarations embody the sum total of the constitutional doctrines which the Democracy has avowed during this extra session of Congress. They form a body of doctrines which I do not hesitate to say are more extreme than was ever before held on this subject, except, perhaps, at the very crisis of secession and rebellion. “Firmly believing that these doctrines and attempted practice of the present Congress are erroneous and pernicious, I will state briefly the counter-propositions: