power does not exist, if this sovereignty has not been surrendered, then, I say, who can deny the words of soberness and truth spoken by your candidate this evening, when he has plead to you the cause of State independence, and the right of every community to he the judge of its own domestic affairs? [Applause.] This is all we have ever asked—­we of the South, I mean,—­for I stand before you one of those who have been called the ultra men of the South, and I speak, therefore, for that class; and tell you that your candidate for Governor has asserted to-night everything which we have claimed as a right, and demanded as a duty resulting from the guarantees of the Constitution, made for our mutual protection. [Applause.] Nor is here alone in that such doctrine is asserted, the like it has been my happiness to hear in your daughter, the neighboring State of Maine.  I have found that the democrats there asserted the same broad, constitutional principle for which we have been contending, by which we are willing to live, for which we are willing to die! [Loud cheers and cries of “good!”]

In this state of the case, my friends, why is the country agitated?  What is there practical or rational in the present excitement?  Why, since the old controversies, with all their lights and shadows, have passed away, is the political firmament covered by one dark pall, the funeral shade of which increases with every passing year?

Why is it, I say, that you are thus agitated in relation to the domestic affairs of other communities?  Why is it that the peace of the country is disturbed in order that one people may assume to judge of what another people should do?  Is there any political power to authorize such interference?  If so, where is it?  You did not surrender your sovereignty.  You gave to the federal government certain functions.  It was your agent, created for specified purposes.  It can do nothing save that which you have given it power to perform.  Where is the grant of the Constitution which confers on the federal government a right to determine what shall be property?  Surely none such exists; that question it belongs to every community to settle for itself:  you judge in your case; every other State must judge in its case.  The federal government has no power to create or establish; more palpably still, it has no power to destroy property.  Do you pay taxes to an agent that he may destroy your property?  Do you support him for that purpose?  It is an absurdity on the face of it.  To ask the question is to answer it.  The government is instituted to protect, not to destroy property.  In abundance of caution, your fathers provided that the federal government should not take private property, even for its own use, unless by making due compensation therefore.  One of its great purposes was to increase the security of property, and by a more perfect union of forces, to render more effective protection to the States.  When that power for protection becomes a source of danger, the purpose for which the government was formed will have been defeated, and the government can no longer answer the ends for which it was established.