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I shall not, I am sure, be told that I exaggerate this power. It has
been admitted here and elsewhere that I do not. But I want no such
concession. It is manifest that as a discretionary power it is
everything or nothing--that its head is in the clouds, or that it is a
mere figment of enthusiastic speculation--that it has no existence, or
that it is an alarming vortex ready to swallow up all such portions of
the sovereignty of an infant State as you may think fit to cast into
it as preparatory to the introduction into the union of the miserable
residue. No man can contradict me when I say, that if you have this
power, you may squeeze down a new-born sovereign State to the size of a
pigmy, and then taking it between finger and thumb, stick it into some
niche of the Union, and still continue by way of mockery to call it a
State in the sense of the Constitution. You may waste it to a shadow,
and then introduce it into the society of flesh and blood an object of
scorn and derision.


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