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Updated: June 8, 2025
From the first, he was an ardent advocate of the state-rights theory of government, and the right of secession, and for thirteen years he defended these theories in the Senate, gradually emerging as the most capable advocate the South possessed. That fiery and impulsive people, looking always for a hero to worship, found one in Jefferson Davis, and he soon gained an immense prestige among them.
My principal purpose in what I have said has been to defend myself; that was my first object; and next, as the honorable member has attempted to take to himself the character of a strict constructionist, and a State-rights man, and on that basis to show a difference, not favorable to me, between his constitutional opinions and my own, heretofore, it has been my intention to show that the power to create a bank, the power to regulate the currency by other and direct means, the power to enact a protective tariff, and the power of internal improvement, in its broadest sense, are all powers which the honorable gentleman himself has supported, has acted on, and in the exercise of which, indeed, he has taken a distinguished lead in the counsels of Congress.
It is among the singular revolutions of political opinion and political power in this country, that the State and the very city made memorable by Mr. Clay's impassioned devotion to the National Union and his prolonged advocacy of protection, should be represented in Congress by a disciple of the extreme State-rights school and by a radical defender of free trade.
It reveals his character, explains the leading influences to which he was subjected, and it sheds light upon the state of public opinion in the South at the end of the contest in arms. General Scott and General George H. Thomas were Virginians, but they acted in defiance of the State-Rights doctrines of the South.
It was enough to astound even the veriest tyro in the law. The Constitution and especially by all the premises of the State-Rights school is a mere compact between the States; it confers no powers but delegated and enumerated powers, and such as are indispensable to the execution of these; and nowhere is there a clause or letter in it extending its operation beyond the States.
Sir, is there a man in my hearing, among all the gentlemen now surrounding us, many of whom, of both houses, have been here many years, and know the gentleman and myself perfectly, is there one who ever heard, supposed, or dreamed that the honorable member belonged to the State-rights party before the year 1825?
He then departed for New York, leaving his two colleagues, who took the state-rights view of the matter, to represent his state in the convention. They too soon left, and never returned.
He was nominated by the State-rights Whigs for Vice-President in 1835, and at the election on November 8, 1836, received 47 electoral votes; but no candidate having a majority of electoral votes, the Senate elected Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky. The legislature of Virginia having instructed the Senators from that State to vote for expunging the resolutions of censure upon President Jackson, Mr.
Among the Democrats, now the dominant party, the most prominent of the new members from the South was John Randolph Tucker of Virginia, a distinguished lawyer who had been the Attorney-General of his State and always a zealous adherent of the State-rights' school; Alfred M. Scales of North Carolina, a member of the House in 1857-59 and afterwards Governor of his State; Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia, who had become distinguished as a member of the Confederate Senate, and who as a popular orator and ready debater had attained high rank in the South; Joseph C. S. Blackburn and Milton J. Durham of Kentucky, the former a fluent speaker, the latter an indefatigable worker; Washington C. Whittihorne and John D. C. Atkins of Tennessee, the latter a member of the House in the Thirty-fifth Congress; John H. Reagan of Texas, Confederate Postmaster-General; Otho R. Singleton and Charles E. Hooker of Mississippi, the former a member of the House as early as 1853; Charles J. Faulkner of West Virginia, a prominent Democrat before the war, and conspicuously identified with the rebellion; Thomas L. Jones of Kentucky, who had already served in the House; Randall L. Gibson and E. John Ellis, young and ambitious men from Louisiana; and John Goode, jun., of Virginia, who had been a member of the Confederate Congress.
I objected to it because I think it misses entirely the temper of the Southern people and attacks the true State-Rights doctrine on the subject of secession. I do not see what good can come of the paper, as prepared, and I do see how much mischief may flow from it. It is an open question whether we may accept these extracts at their full literal import.
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