Well, can the
Supreme Court decide it for us? Mr. Lincoln says he does not care what
the Supreme Court decides, he will turn us out anyhow. He says this in
his debate with the honorable member from Illinois [Mr. Douglas]. I have
it before me. He said he would vote against the decision of the Supreme
Court. Then you did not accept that arbiter. You will not take my
construction; you will not take the Supreme Court as an arbiter; you
will not take the practice of the government; you will not take the
treaties under Jefferson and Madison; you will not take the opinion of
Madison upon the very question of prohibition in 1820. What, then, will
you take? You will take nothing but your own judgment; that is, you will
not only judge for yourselves, not only discard the court, discard our
construction, discard the practice of the government, but you will drive
us out, simply because you will it. Come and do it! You have sapped the
foundations of society; you have destroyed almost all hope of peace. In
a compact where there is no common arbiter, where the parties finally
decide for themselves, the sword alone at last becomes the real, if not
the constitutional, arbiter. Your party says that you will not take the
decision of the Supreme Court. You said so at Chicago; you said so in
committee; every man of you in both Houses says so.
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