Circumstances alter cases. Do not
gentlemen here remember the case of that same Supreme Court some
twenty-five or thirty years ago, deciding that a national bank was
constitutional? I ask if somebody does not remember that a national bank
was declared to be constitutional? Such is the truth, whether it be
remembered or not. The bank charter ran out, and a re-charter was
granted by Congress. That re-charter was laid before General Jackson. It
was urged upon him, when he denied the constitutionality of the bank,
that the Supreme Court had decided that it was constitutional; and
General Jackson then said that the Supreme Court had no right to lay
down a rule to govern a coordinate branch of the government, the members
of which had sworn to support the Constitution,--that each member had
sworn to support the Constitution as he understood it. I will venture
here to say that I have heard Judge Douglas say that he approved of
General Jackson for that act. What has now become of all his tirade
against "resistance to the Supreme Court"?
My fellow-citizens, getting back a little,--for I pass from these
points,--when Judge Douglas makes his threat of annihilation upon the
"alliance," he is cautious to say that that warfare of his is to fall
upon the leaders of the Republican party.
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