It is strange that at this moment, when other nations renounce privateering, we should rush forward and ostentatiously declare it part of our political system,--I might almost say, an element of our political life.

Pray, if this declaration were of such importance, why has it been so long postponed?

Generations, jealous guardians of all our national rights, have passed away, leaving the statute-book without any such voice.

A menace is as ill-timed between nations as between individuals.

I do not dwell now on the irrational character of privateering, but I seize the occasion to declare my deliberate judgment that our country may yet find, to its cost, that this cherished weapon is a two-edged sword.

A nation with an extensive commerce cannot afford to invite the hazard of its employment.

Thus, in the event of war with a power inferior to ourselves in commerce, as Portugal, or Spain, or France, the increased rates of insurance would make it impossible for us to keep our ships afloat, while all our profits on the ocean would…

The very superiority of our commerce would be a disadvantage, inasmuch as we should be more exposed.

Nor do I discuss the immorality and brutality too naturally engendered by a system whose inspiration is booty.

But, even with these precautions, privateering is usually accompanied by abuses and enormous excesses.

It leads to the worst excesses and crimes, and has a most corrupting influence upon all who engage in it, but cannot be punished as a breach of the Law of Nations.

The object is not fame or chivalric warfare, but plunder and profit.

In all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily in our view that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, THE CONSOLIDATION OF OUR UNION, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps…

We have probably had too good an opinion of human nature, in forming our Confederation.

Experience has taught us that men will not adopt and carry into execution measures the best calculated for their own good, without the intervention of a coercive power.

I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner as the authority of the State governments extends over the several States.

The Constitution, it will be seen, was framed to remove difficulties arising from State Rights.

So paramount was this purpose, that, according to the letter of Washington, it was kept steadily in view in all the deliberations of the Convention, which did not hesitate to declare the consolidation of our Union essential to prosperity…

Not “we, the States,” but “we, the people of the United States.” Such is the beginning and origin of our Constitution.

Here is no compact or league between States, involving the recognition of State Rights, but a government ordained and established by the people of the United States for themselves and their posterity.

This government is not established by the States, nor is it established for the States; but it is established by the people, for themselves and their posterity.

It is true, that, in the organization of the government, the existence of the States is recognized, and the original name of “United States” is preserved; but the sovereignty of the States is absorbed in that more perfect union which was…

There is but one sovereignty recognized, and this is the sovereignty of the United States.

But against all this opposition, and in face of this exposure, the Constitution was adopted, in the name of the people of the United States.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.