If the doctrine of a state veto upon the laws of the Union carries with it internal evidence of its impracticable absurdity, our constitutional history will also afford abundant proof that it would have been repudiated with indignation, had it been proposed to form a feature in our Government. must be palpably contrary to the constitution; plies for its prosecution. Hardly and unbut it is evident, that to give the right of re-equally as those measures bore upon several sisting laws of that description, coupled with members of the Union, to the legislatures of the uncontrolled right to decide what laws none did this efficient and peaceable remedy, deserve that character, is to give the power of as it is called, suggest itself. The discovery resisting all laws; for as by the theory there of this important feature in our constitution is no appeal, the reason alleged by the state, was reserved to the present day. To the good or bad, must prevail. If it should be statesmen of South Carolina belongs the insaid that public opinion is a sufficient check vention, and upon the citizens of that state against the abuse of this power, it may be will unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it asked why it is not deemed a sufficient guard to practice. against the passage of an unconstitutional act by Congress? There is, however, a restraint in this last case, which makes the assumed power of a state more indefensible, and which does not exist in the other. There are two appeals from an unconstitutional act passed by Congress-one to the judiciary, the other to the people and the states. There is In our colonial state, although dependent no appeal from the state decision in theory; on another power, we very early considered and the practical illustration shows that the ourselves as connected by common interest courts are closed against an application to with each other. Leagues were formed for review it, both judges and jurors being sworn common defence, and before the declaration to decide in its favour. But reasoning on this of independence, we were known in our agsubject is superfluons, when our social com- gregate character as the United Colonies of pact in express terms declares that the laws America. That decisive and important step of the United States, its constitution, and was taken jointly. We declared ourselves a treaties made under it, are the supreme law nation by a joint, not by several acts; and of the land; and, for greater caution, adds, when the terms of our confederation were rethat the judges in every state shall be duced to form, it was in that of a solemn bound thereby, anything in the constitution league of several states, by which they agreed or laws of any state to the contrary notwith-that they would, collectively, form one nation, standing." And it may be asserted, without for the purpose of conducting some certain fear of refutation, that no Federative Govern-domestic concerns, and all foreign relations. ment could exist without a similar provision. In the instrument forming that Union, is Look for a moment to the consequence. If South Carolina considers the Revenue Laws unconstitutional, and has a right to prevent their execution in the port of Charleston, there would be a clear constitutional objection to their collection in every other port, and no revenue could be collected anywhere, for all imposts must be equal. It is no answer to repeat that an unconstitutional law is no law, so long as the question of its legality is to be decided by the state itself; for every law operating injuriously upon any local interest will be perhaps thought, and certainly represented, as unconstitutional, and, as has been shown, there is no appeal. If this doctrine had been established at an early day, the Union would have been dissolved in its infancy. The excise law in Pennsylvania, the embargo and non-intercourse law in the Eastern States, the carriage tax in Virginia—were all deemed unconstitutional, and were more unequal in their operation than any of the laws now complained of; but, fortunately, none of those states discovered that they had the right now claimed by South Carolina. The war into which we were forced, to support the dignity of the nation and the rights of our citizens, might have ended in defeat and disgrace, instead of victory and honour, if the states, who supposed it a ruinous and unconstitutional measure, had thought they possessed the right of nullifying the act by which it was declared, and denying sup found an article, which declares that " every state shall abide by the determination of the Congress on all questions which, by that confederation, should be submitted to them." Under the confederation, then, no state could legally annul a decision of the Congress, or refuse to submit to its execution; but no provision was made to enforce these decisions. Congress made requisitions, but they were not complied with. The Government could not operate on individuals. They had no judiciary-no means of collecting revenue. But the defects of the confederation need: not be detailed. Under its operation, we could scarcely be called a nation. We had neither prosperity at home nor consideration abroad. This state of things could not be encured, and our present happy constitution was formed; but formed in vain, if this fatal doctrine prevails. It was formed for important objects that are announced in the preamble made in the name and by the authority of the people of the United States, whose delegates framed, and whose conventions approved it. The most important among these objects→ that which is placed first in rank, on which all the others rest, is " to form a more perfect Union." Now, is it possible that, even if there were no express provision giving supremacy to the constitution and laws of the United States over those of the states, it can be conceived that an instrument made for the purpose of " forming a more perfect Union" than that of would operate with perfect equality. If the the confederation, could be so constructed by unequal operation of a law makes it unconstithe assembled wisdom of our country as to tutional, and if all laws of that description substitute for that confederation a form of may be abrogated by any state for that cause, Government, dependent for its existence on then, indeed, is the federal constitution unthe local interest, the party spirit of a state, worthy of the slightest effort for its preservaor of the prevailing faction in a state? Every tion. We have hitherto relied on it as the man of plain unsophisticated understanding, perpetual bond of our Union. We have rewho hears the question, will give such an an-ceived it as the work of the assembled wisdom swer as will preserve the Union. Metaphy- of the nation. We have trusted to it as the sical subtlety, in pursuit of an impracticable sheet-anchor of our safety in the stormy times theory, could alone have devised one that is calculated to destroy it. I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one state, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the constitution, unauthorised by its spirit-inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed. After this general view of the leading principle, we inust examine the particular application of it which is made in the ordinance. of conflict with a foreign or domestic foe. We have looked to it with a sacred awe as the palladium of our liberties, and, with all the solemnities of religion have pledged to each other our lives and fortunes here, and our hopes of happiness hereafter, in its defence and support. Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attaching this importance to the constitution of our country? Was our devotion paid to the wretched, inefficient, clumsy contrivance which this new doctrine would make it?-Did we pledge ourselves to the support of an airy nothing-a bubble that The preamble rests its justification on these must be blown away by the first breath of disgrounds-It assumes as a fact, that the ob- affection? Was this self-destroying, visionary noxious laws, although they purport to be laws theory, the work of the profound statesmen, for raising revenue, were in reality intended the exalted patriots, to whom the task of confor the protection of manufactures, which stitutional reform was intrusted? Did the purpose it asserts to be unconstitutional; that name of Washington sanction, did the states the operation of these laws is unequal; that deliberately ratify, such an anomaly in the the amount raised by them is greater than is history of fundamental legislation? No. We required by the wants of the Government; were not mistaken! The letter of this great and, finally, that the proceeds are to be ap-instrument is free from this radical fault; its plied to objects unauthorised by the coustitution. These are the only causes alleged to justify an open oppositiou to the laws of the country, and a threat of seceding from the Union, if any attempt should be made to enforce them. The first virtually acknowledges that the law in question was passed under a powerexpressly given by the constitution to lay and collect imposts; but its constitutionality is drawn in question from the motives of those who passed it. However apparent this purpose may be in the present case, nothing can be more dangerous thau to admit the position that an unconstitutional purpose, entertained by the members who assent to a law enacted under a constitutional power, shall make that law void; for how is that purpose to be ascertained? Who is to make the scrutiny? How often may bad purposes be falsely imputed In how many cases are they concealed by false professions! In how many is no declaration of motive made! Admit this doctrine, and you give to the statesman uncontrolled right todecide, and every law may be annulled under this pretext. If, therefore, the absurd and dangerous doctrine should be admitted, that a state may annul an unconstitutional law, or one that it deems such, it will not apply to the present case. The next objection is, that the laws in question operate unequally. This objection may be made with truth to every law that has been or can be passed. The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that language directly contradicts the imputation; The two remaining objections made by the unless it be so framed as no law ever will or can be framed. Congress has a right to pass laws for raising revenue, and each state has a right to oppose their execution-two rights directly opposed to each other; and yet is this absurdity supposed to be contained in an instrument drawn for the express purpose of avoiding collisions between the States and the General Government, by an assembly of the most enlightened statesmen and purest patriots ever embodied for a similar purpose. ordinance to these laws are, that the sums | lina ordinance, may be rightfully annulled, intended to be raised by them are greater than are required, and that the proceeds will be unconstitutionally employed. The constitution has given expressly to Congress the right of raising revenue, and of determining the sum the public exigencies will require. The states will have no control over the exercise of this right, other than that which results from the power of changing the representatives who abuse it, and thus procure redress. Congress may, undoubtedly, abuse this discretionary power; but the same may be said of others with which they are vested. Yet the discretion must exist somewhere. The constitution has given it to the representatives of the people, checked by the representatives of the states, and by the executive power. The South Carolina construction gives it to the legislature or the convention of a single state, where neither the people of the different states, nor the states in their separate capacity, nor the chief magistrate elected by the people, have any representation. Which is the most discreet disposition of the power? I do not ask you, fellow-citizens, which is the constitutional disposition-that instrument speaks a language not to be misunderstood. But if you were assembled in general convention, which would you think the safest depository of this discretionary power in the last resort? Would you add a clause, giving it to each of the states, or would you sanction the wise provisions already made by your constitution? If this should be the result of your deliberations when providing for the future, are you-can you-be ready to risk all that we hold dear, to establish, for a temporary and local purpose, that which you must acknowledge to be destructive and even absurd, as a general provision? Carry out the consequences of this right vested in the different states, and you must perceive that the crisis your conduct presents at this day would recur when any law of the United States displeased any of the states, and that we should soon cease to be a nation. The ordinance, with the same knowledge of the future that characterizes a former objection, tells you that the proceeds of the tax will be unconstitutionally applied. If this could be ascertained with certainty, the objection would, with more propriety, be reserved for the law so applying the proceeds, but surely cannot be urged against the laws levying the duty. These are the allegations contained in the ordinance. Examine them seriously, my fellow-citizens-judge for yourselves. I appeal to you to determine whether they are so clear, so convincing, as to leave no doubt of their correctness; and even if you should come to this conclusion, how far they justify the reckless, destructive course which you are directed to pursue. Review these objections, and the conclusious drawn from them, once more. What are they? Every law, then, for raising revenue, according to the South Caro In vain have these sages declared that Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises-in vain have they provided that they shall have power to pass laws which shall be necessary and proper to carry those powers into execution; that those laws and that constitution shall be the "supreme law of the land; and that the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding." In vain have the people of the several states solemnly sanctioned these provisions, made them their paramount law, and individually sworn to support them whenever they were called on to execute any office. Vain provisions! ineffectual restrictions! vile profanation of oaths! miserable mockery of legislation! If a bare majority of the voters in any one state may, on a real or supposed knowledge of the intent with which a law has been passed, declare themselves free from its operation-say here it gives too little, there too much, and operates unequally-here it suffers articles to be free that ought to be taxed, there it taxes those that ought to be free-in this case the proceeds are intended to be applied to purposes which we do not approve, in that the amount raised is more than is wanted. Congress, it is true, are invested by the constitution with the right of deciding these questions according to their sound discretion. Congress is composed of the representatives of all the states and of all the people of all the states; but we, part of the people of one state, to whom the constitution has given no power on the subject, from whom it has expressly taken it away-we, who have solemnly agreed that this constitution shall be our law,-we, most of whom have sworn to support it-we now abrogate this law, and swear, and force others to swear, that it shall not be obeyedand we do this, not because Congress has no right to pass such laws; this we do not allege; but because they have passed them with improper views. They are unconstitutional from the motives of those who passed them, which we can never with certainty know, from their unequal operation; although it is impossible from the nature of things that they should be equal-and from the disposition which we presume may be made of their proceeds, although that disposition has not been declared. This is the plain meaning of the ordinance in relation to laws which it abrogates for alleged unconstitutionality. But it does not stop there. It repeals, in express terms, an important part of the constitution itself, and of laws passed to give it effect, which have never been alleged to be unconstitutional. The constitution declares that the judicial powers of the United States extend to cases arising under the laws of the United States, and that such laws, the constitution, and treaties, shall be paramount to the state constitution and laws. The Judiciary Act prescribes the mode by which the case may be brought before a court of the United States by appeal, when a state tribunal shall decide against this provision of the constitution. The ordinance declares there shall be no appeal, makes the state law paramount to the constitution and laws of the United States; forces judges and jurors to swear that they will disregard their provisions; and even makes it penal in a suitor to attempt relief by appeal. It further declares, that it shall not be lawful for the authorities of the United States or of that state, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the revenue laws within its limits. Here is a law of the United States, not even pretended to be unconstitutional, repealed by the authority of a small majority of the voters of a single state. Here is a provision of the constitution which is solemnly abrogated by the same authority. On such expositions and reasonings the ordinance grounds not only an assertion of the right to annul the laws of which it complains, but to enforce it by a threat of seceding from the Union, if an attempt is made to execute them. This right to secede is deduced from the nature of the constitution, which, they say, is a compact between sovereign states, who have preserved their whole sovereignty, and, therefore, are subject to no superior; that, because they made the compact, they can break it when, in their opinion, it has been departed from by the other states. Fallacious as this course of reasoning is, it enlists state pride, and finds advocates in the honest prejudices of those who have not studied the nature of our government sufficiently to see the radical error on which its rests. The people of the United States formed the constitution, acting througn the state legislature in making the compact, to meet and discuss its provisions, and acting in separate convention when they satisfy these provisions; but the terms used in its construction show it to be a Government in which the people of all the states collectively are represented. We are one people in the choice of the president and vice president. Here the states have no other agency than to direct the mode to which the votes shall be given. The candidates having a majority of all the votes are chosen. The electors of a majority of states may have given their votes for one candidate, and yet another may be chosen. The people, then, and not the states, are represented in the executive branch. In the house of representatives there is this difference; the people of one state do not, as in the case of president and vice-president, all vote for the same officers. The people of all the states do not vote for all the members, each state electing only its own representatives. But this creates no material distinction. When chosen, they are all representatives of the United States, not representatives of the particular state from which they come. They are paid by the United States, not by the state; nor are they accountable to it for any act done in the performance of their legislative functions; and, however they may in practice, as it is their duty to do, consult and prefer the interests of their particular constituents when they come in conflict with any other partial or local interest, yet it is their first and hightest duty, as representatives of the United States, to promote the general good. The constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league; and whether it be formed by compact between the states, or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government in which all the people are represented, which operates on the people individually, not upou the states; they retained all the power they did not grant But each state having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute jointly with the other states a single nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league. but destroys the unity of a nation; and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the contravention of a compact, but it is an offence against the whole Union. To say that any state may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation; because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connexion with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offence. Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression, but to call it a constitutional right is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent on a failure. Because the Union was formed by compact, it is said the parties to that compact may, when they feel themselves aggrieved, depart from it; but it is precisely because it is a compact that they cannot. A compact is an agreement or binding obligation. It may, by its terms have a sanction or penalty for its breach, or it may not. If it contains no sanction, it may be broken with no other consequence than moral guilt: if it have a sanction, then the breach incurs the designated or implied penalty. A league between independent nations, generally, has no sanction other than a moral one; or, if it should contain a penalty, as there is no commcu superior, it cannot be enforced. A government, on the contrary, always has a sanction, express | whose magistrates are sworu to disregard or implied; and in our case it is both neces- those laws, when they come in conflict with sarily implied and expressly given. An at- those passed by another? What shows contempt by force of arms to destroy a govern-clusively that the states cannot be said to ment, is an offence, by whatever means the have reserved an undivided sovereignty, is, constitutional compact may have been form- that they expressly ceded the right to punish ed; and such government has the right, by treason-not treason against their separate the law of self-defence, to pass acts for pu- power, but treason against the United States. nishing the offender, unless that right is Treason is an offence against sovereignty, and modified, restrained, or resumed, by the con- sovereignty must reside with the power to stitutional act In our system, although it is punish it. But the reserved rights of the modified in the case of treason, yet authority states are not less sacred, because they have is expressly given to pass all laws necessary for their common interest made the general to carry its powers into effect, and under this government the depository of these powers. grant provision has been made for punishing acts which obstruct the due administration of the laws. It would seem superfluous to add anything to show the nature of that Union which connects us; but as erroneous opinions on this subject are the foundation of doctrines the most destructive to our peace, I must give some further development to my views on this subject. No one, fellow-citizens, has a higher reverence for the reserved rights of the states than the magistrate who now addresses you. No one would make greater personal sacrifices, or official exertions, to defend them from violation; but equal care must be taken to prevent on their part an improper interference with, or resumption of, the rights they have vested in the nation. The line has not been so distinctly drawn as to avoid doubts in some cases of the exercise of power. Men of the best intentions and soundest views may differ in their construction of some parts of the constitution; but there are others on which dispassionate reflection can leave no doubt. Of this nature appears to be the assumed right of secession. It rests, as we have seen, on the alleged undivided sovereignty of the states, and on their having formed in this Sovereign capacity a compact which is called the constitution, from which, because they made it, they have the right to secede. Both of these positions are erroneous, and some of the arguments to prove them so have been anticipated. The states severally have not retained their entire sovereignty. It has been shown that in becoming parts of a nation, not members of a league, they surrendered many of their e-sential parts of sovereignty. The right to make treaties-declare war-levy taxes-exercise exclusive judicial and legislative powers, were all of them functions of sovereign power. The states, then, for all these important purposes, were no longer sovereign. The allegiance of their citizens was transferred, in the first instance, to the government of the United States-they became American citizens, and owed obedience to the constitution of the United States, and to laws made in conformity with the powers it vested in Congress. This last position has not been, and cannot be, denied. How then can that state be said to be sovereign and independent, whose citizens owe obedience to laws not made by it, and The unity of our political character (as has been shown for another purpose) commenced with its very existence. Under the Royal Government we had no separate characterour opposition to its oppressions began as united colonies. We were the United States under the Confederation, and the name was perpetuated, and the Union rendered more perfect, by the Federal Constitution. In none of these stages did we consider ourselves in any other light than as forming one nation. Treaties and alliances were made in the name of all. Troops were raised for the joint defence. How, then, with all these proofs, that under all changes of our position we bad, for designated purposes and with defined powers, created national governments? How is it, that the most perfect of these several modes of union should now be considered as a mere league, that may be dissolved at pleasure? It is from an abuse of terms. Compact is used as synonymous with league, although the true term is not employed, because it would at once show the fallacy of the reasoning. It would not do to say that our constitution was only a league; but, it is laboured to prove that it is a compact (which in one sense it is), and then to argue, that as a league is a compact, every compact between nations must of course be a league, and that from such an engagement every sovereigu power has a right to secede. But it has been shown that in this sense the states are not sovereign, and that even if they were, and the national constitution had been formed by compact, there would be no right in any one state to exonerate itself from its obligations. So obvious are the reasobs which forbid this secession, that it is necessary only to allude to them. The Union was formed for the benefit of all. It was produced by mutual sacrifices of interests and opinions. Can those sacrifices be recalled? Can the states who magnanimously surrendered their title to the territories of the west recall the grant? Will the inhabitants of the inland states agree to pay the duties that may be imposed without their assent by those on the Atlantic or the Gulf, for their own benefit? Shall there be a free port in one state, and onerous duties in another? No one believes that any right exists in a single state to involve all the others in these and countless other evils, contrary to the engagements solemnly made. Every one |