recommendation or advice—or a forcible expression of a wish, and not an absolute right to command. If, however, we turn to the dictionary, Johnson tells us that to enjoin is “to direct—to order—to prescribe; it is more authoritative than direct, and _less imperious than command_.” Not one of his illustrations or examples employ it in the strong sense of power now contended for. “To satisfy the good old man, I would bend under any heavy weight That he'll _enjoin_ me to.” Here the submission or obedience is altogether voluntary; with no right or power in the “good old man” to require or compel it. Again, “Monks and philosophers, and such as do continually _enjoin_ themselves.” The extracts from the speeches in the New York Convention, even if accurately reported, and strictly construed, do not seem to me to maintain the present Virginia doctrine of instructions. Allow me to repeat it, for it is _that_, and not something which may approach it, which is our subject of difference and argument. It is—whether a Senator of the United States is under any moral or constitutional obligation—whether he is bound as a faithful and true officer, or as a good citizen of the _Republic of the United States_, to obey the instructions of the Legislature of _his State_, when they require him to do an act which in his deliberate judgment and conscientious conviction, is contrary to his duty to his country, to all the States, and to _his own State_; to the Constitution, under and by which he holds his office and his power, and to the oath he has taken to support that Constitution? This is the question truly stated—can the power or authority of a changing, irresponsible body, which directs one thing this year (as we have repeatedly seen) and another the next, or, if it were not this changeling—force him to violate his oath, or absolve him from the responsibility, if he do so? If a Senator of Virginia or Delaware were to receive instructions to give a vote which he truly believed would be a violation of the rights, and injurious to the interests, of every other state of the confederacy, as secured to them by the Constitution, although it might be of some local advantage to Virginia or Delaware, should that Senator, acting as he does as a Senator, not for his particular State only, but for the States also whose rights he violates, obey such instructions? Can there be a doubt of the reply to this question? Will you say he should obey or resign—that another may come who will obey? I deny that his duty imposes any such alternative upon him. On the contrary, it is particularly his duty _not to resign_ for such a reason or such an object. It would be to abandon the duty he owes to the Constitution and the other States, at the very moment when they need his services in their defence; and not only to abandon them, but to surrender his post and his power to one who, in his estimation, is so far their