If anything but a phrase, it must be condemned, not only as without foundation, but as hostile to the best interests of the country.

It is simply because the Constitution, and the laws made in pursuance thereof, are the supreme law of the land.

It is, in short, that identical question which has so often entered this Chamber, and is now convulsing the land with bloody war.

In his ardor for that vampire monopoly, which, brooding over New Jersey, sucks the life-blood of the whole country, the Senator from Maryland sets up most dangerous pretensions in the name of State Rights.

By the adoption of the Constitution the people of the United States constituted themselves a Nation, one and indivisible, with all the unity and power of a nation.

They were no longer a confederation, subject to the disturbing pretensions, prejudices, and whims of component parts; but they became a body politic, where every part was subordinate to the Constitution, as every part of the natural body…

The sovereignty of the United States, where all are but parts of one vivifying whole, was the controlling unit.

The powers then and there conferred upon the nation were supreme.

And those very powers I now invoke, in the name of the Union, and to the end that pretensions in the name of State Rights may be overthrown.

They may be seen, first, in their character as a monopoly, and, secondly, in their character as a Usurpation under the Constitution of the United States.

If you go back to the earliest days of English history, you find that monopolies have from the beginning been odious, as contrary to the ancient and fundamental laws of the realm.

And this transcendent monopoly, thus vast in resources, undertakes to levy a toll on the commerce, the passengers, the mails, and the troops of the Union in transit between two great cities, both outside New Jersey.

New Jersey claims the right to levy a tax for State revenue on passengers and freight in transit across her territory from State to State,--in other words, to levy a tax on “commerce among the several States.” Of course the right to tax is…

Again, if New Jersey can successfully play this game of taxation, and compel tribute from the domestic commerce of the Union traversing her territory on the way from State to State, then may every other State do likewise.

If the Union should continue to exist, it would be only as a name.

The taste of revenue is to a government like the taste of blood to a wild beast, exciting and maddening the energies, so that it becomes deaf to suggestions of justice; and the difficulties must increase, where this taxation is enforced by…

The State, once tasting this blood, sees only an easy way of obtaining the means it desires; and other States will yield to the same temptation.

A profitable Usurpation, like that of New Jersey, would be a tempting example to other States.

It is only the first step that costs.” Let this Usurpation be sanctioned by Congress, and you hand over the domestic commerce of the Union to a succession of local imposts.

Each State will play the part of Don Quixote, and the Union will be Sancho Panza, not only bound to contributions, but driven to receive on bare back the lashes which were the penance of the knightly adventurer.

Keep in mind that it is the tax imposed on commerce between New York and Philadelphia, two cities outside the State of New Jersey, which I denounce.

I also denounce it as hostile to the spirit of the age, which is everywhere overturning the barriers of commerce.

The robber castles, once compelling payment of toll on the Rhine, were long ago dismantled, and exist now only as monuments of picturesque beauty.

Can you who reached so far to secure free transit in the Baltic now hesitate in its defence here at home?

Thank God, within the bounds of the Union, under the National Constitution, commerce is made free.