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tuted in this way. Hence, were it even admitted, that the States were distinct and independent communities at the time when they framed the Constitution, the fact would no more prove, that they are distinct and independent communities now, than the fact that the two parties to a contract of marriage were single before its conclusion, goes to prove that they are single afterwards. If the States were, at the time when they framed the Constitution, as there cannot be a doubt, morally capable of forming a contract, involving the entire surrender of their political independence, it is quite apparent that, in order to ascertain their rights and obligations under the Constitution, we have to look exclusively to the nature and terms of that instrument, without regard to the mutual relations of the parties before they made it.

Reposing mainly, as has been said, for the justification of their proceedings, upon the argument that the States were independent at the time when the Constitution was adopted, and must therefore of course be independent now, the Convention has in a great measure lost sight of the course of reasoning which is proper to the subject, and have made but little effort to establish their doc trines, by reference either to the general nature of the Constitution, or to its specific provisions. Some considerations appertain ing to this branch of the inquiry are, however, to be found in their publications, and to them the committee will now very briefly direct their attention.

Of these considerations the most important is, that the General Government, created by the Constitution of the United States, is a government invested with specific and limited powers, having no general and indefinite powers, excepting such as are necessary to carry the specified ones into effect, and that the powers not conferred upon the General Government are reserved to the States. This is, no doubt, true in fact: but that it was not intended in making this arrangement, to maintain the States in possession of an absolute political independence, with a right of judging for themselves when the General Government exceeds its powers, and annulling any acts involving such excess, is apparent, as well from other particular provisions of the Constitution, as from the general scope and purpose of that instrument.

1. In all cases the general purpose of a contract is one of the most important elements to be taken into view in ascertaining the rights and obligations resulting from it, because the general purpose controls, to a certain extent, the construction of all the particular provisions. It would be absurd to interpret any particular part of an instrument in such a way as would suppose in the parties an intention manifestly contrary to the general object of the whole; as for example, to interpret one of the clauses in a contract of marriage in such a way as would suppose that it was the intention of the parties to remain single. Now it is quite apparent from the general scope and purpose of the Constitution of the United States, that it was not the intention of the parties who framed it, whether considered in their joint or individual capacity, to retain the character of absolute political independence. It is [Assem. No. 259.]

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one of that class of agreements commonly denominated social compacts, the principal object of which is to combine the parties forming them into one body politic, or political society, under a common government. This is apparent on the face of the instrument. We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. That such is the general scope of the instrument is not contested by the warmest advocates of the doctrines maintained by the Convention of South Carolina. But the precise object which the parties to a social compact have in view in forming themselves into one political society, is to terminate the relation of mutual independence which previously existed between them. If the contract contained a clause providing that the parties should retain their political independence, it would be self-contradictory; and to interpret a doubtful passage or particular provision in such a way as to attribute to the parties such an intention, would as the committee have remarked, involve the same absurdity as to interpret a clause in a marriage contract on the supposition that the parties intended to remain single. It is the essence of a social compact or Constitution of Government, that the partics to it surrender their absolute political independence, and become members of a society whose will is admitted to be the common law. To declare this will, agreeably to the forms prescribed in the Constitution,-in other words, to make and alter the laws as occasion may require, is the office of the Government. No individual or other member of the body politic can possibly as such, exercise the power of making or annulling the laws, for the obvious reason that laws derive their character as such, from being the acts of the Government, and that if an individual, or other member of the body politic, should succeed in giving to his own will the force of law, that is, in compelling the society to obey it, he would at the same time cease to be a citizen, and would concentrate in his own hands the Government of the country. In some extreme cases of intolerable oppression, the individual and other members of the body politic are justifiable in forcibly opposing the execution of the law; but even in these cases there is no claim of any constitutional or legal right to repeal or annul it. The claim is to resist, in the exercise of the natural and inalienable right of self-defence, the execution of what is admitted at the time to be, in form at least, a law.

2. The general scope and objects of the Constitution preclude therefore the idea that it was the intention of the parties to it to retain their absolute political independence, or that they possess any right under it to annul the acts of the General Government. The same conclusions result with equal certainty from a view of its particular provisions. Had it been intended that the States should possess the important power of annulling or repealing at discretion the acts of the General Government, this power would undoubtedly have been given to them in express terms. It is not

even pretended that the Constitution contains any such express concession. Not only is there no express concession to this effect, but the idea that any thing of the kind was intended, is precluded by several provisions of an opposite character. The Constitution gives to the supreme court cognizance of all cases arising under the Constitution, and the laws and treaties made under the authority of the United States. This involves the right of deciding, in the last resort, whether a law is constitutional, which the Carolina doctrine claims for the States. The Convention have accordingly found themselves under the necessity of annulling the section of the judiciary act by which provision was made for carrying this clause of the Constitution into effect without even pretending that it was unconstitutional. Again: This Constitution, and the laws and treaties made in pursuance of it, are the supreme law of the land, any thing in the Constitution and laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. By this provision, any act of a State, whether performed in its sovereign or legislative capacity, pretending to annul an act of the General Government, is declared in advance to be null and void. As respects the pretension that the States retain under the Constitution their absolute political independence, it may be remarked that, were there no other objection to the doctrine, it would be satisfactorily refuted by the clause which regulates the form of making amendments. It is there provided that any amendment of the Constitution which may be proposed by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and ratified by three-fourths of the States, shall be binding on the rest. It is hardly necessary to add, that a community which is not only bound to obey laws which twenty-three other communities have a common agency in making, but which is bound to acquiesce in any changes in the form of the common Government that may be proposed by a certain number of these other communities, can have no claim to the character of absolute independence.

It is apparent therefore, as well from the general objects of the Constitution as from the tenor of its particular provisions, that it was not the intention of the parties who formed it to retain their entire independence, or to exercise the power of annulling the acts of the General Government created by it. The fact that the Government is invested with specific and not indefinite powers, has no tendency to prove the existence of such an intention, and has in fact no bearing at all upon the subject. The question at issue is, how much power the body politic of the United States of America possesses over the individual States of which it is composed. To the decision of this question, it is obviously quite immaterial whether the powers attributed by the Constitution to the General Government, are definite or indefinite. These are exercised upon the individual citizen, and not upon the States, and neither their extent, nor the mode in which they are determined, can have any effect in settling the mutual relations between the States and the United States of America. The powers of all Governments are prescribed and limited, if not by written instruments, at least by usage and by the moral law. When they transgress the limits

prescribed for them, the people cure the evil either by a change in the administration effected in consistency with the forms of the Constitution, or if the case be extreme, by recurring to the natural right of violent resistance to the law. When the powers of the Government are defined by a written instrument, an attempt at usurpation is more likely to be distinctly seen and promptly attended to, But no new remedy is created, and in this, as in all other cases, the people must tolerate the existence of the evil until it can be removed by the silent efficacy of the ballot-box, or must recur at once to forcible resistance. There is, and can be in the nature of things, no middle path between these two courses. Every attempt to prevent by force, the execution of the laws,— by whatever name it may be called,-is, in its nature, revolutionary, and can only be defended by such considerations as would justify an act of rebellion,

On the whole, the committee have been led to conclude from the best consideration which they have been able to give to the subject, that the right claimed by South Carolina for the several States, of annulling at discretion any act of the general government which they may deem unconstitutional, has no foundation in the letter or spirit of the Constitution. Nor is it countenanced in any degree by the practice under that instrument, For nearly half a century, during which the government has been in operation, no case has occurred of an attempt by a State to annul one of its acts, although serious discontents have from time to time existed in different quarters, which would probably have led to the adoption of such a course had it been recognized by public opinion as constitutional. The only authority of a practical kind which has ever been adduced in support of it, is that of certain resolutions adopted by the State Legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky, in the years 1798-9. Were it admitted that these resolutions go the full length of the Carolina doctrine, they would still afford no actual precedent, and could only be regarded as an expression of the opinion temporarily prevailing in the Legislatures of these two States, but never even by them reduced to practice. These celebrated resolutions have, however, been recently explained in reference to this very question, by the distinguished statesman who drafted one-set of them, and was at the time the confidential friend and political associate of the author of the other, to intend nothing more than an assertion, in strong terms, of the universally acknowledged right of constitutional opposition to measures regarded as oppressive, and in extreme cases, of forcible resistance, This explanation of his own intentions, and those of his immediate political friends, of course settles the construction to be put upon these resolutions, and removes the only shadow of practical authority and precedent, that has ever been claimed by the advocates of the doctrine of nullification.

As this doctrine receives no countenance from the theory of the Constitution, or the practice under it, it is the less necessary to dwell upon its practical tendency, a topic which would afford very strong corroborating arguments against it, if, as a strict question of

right, it could be considered as doubful. It hardly requires any argument to shew that the exercise, by each of the twenty-four States, of a right to annul, at discretion, any act of the General Government which they might deem unconstitutional, is wholly incompatible with a consistent and settled administration of the public affairs. Any law which might be supposed, correctly or not, to operate with peculiar hardship upon a particular State, would naturally appear, under the excitement of the moment, to be unconstitutional; and as, in a community so vast as ours, there can hardly ever be a time when there is not some law, which, for some reason, is particularly offensive to some one State, the process of nullification, if once recognized, would be constantly going on in one quarter or another. Every new attempt of the kind would shake the government to its foundations, and it would not probably require the occurrence of many to reduce our happy Union to a state of dissolution, more complete and hopeless than even that of the Old Confederacy.

The committee refrain from enlarging upon these results, the necessity of which is, however, apparent to the most superficial observation. The question is argued by Carolina, chiefly, as one of mere right; and the answer on that ground only, is, in the opinion of the committee, so clearly against her, that it would be needless to attempt to sustain it by any considerations of mere expediency.

With this view of the subject referred to them, and under a conviction that it is proper and expedient that the opinion of the General Court of Commonwealth should be distinctly expressed upon it, the committee respectfully submit the accompanying resolves, which embody the most important principles that have now been suggested.

The committee have felt a very deep regret at finding themselves called upon to express opinions unfavorable to the proceedings of a State so distinguished in the annals of the country, and so remarkable for the lofty and generous character of its sons, as that of South Carolina. In so doing, they would not be understood to impeach the motives by which the State has been governed, or to intimate that it has been actuated by any other purpose, than that of procuring relief from a supposed grievance. The committee are well aware, that the purest patriots and wisest statesmen may be led, under the influence of mistaken views and excited feelings, into very dangerous measures. The present proceedings in South Carolina are, in their opinion, of that description. But the committee indulge a confident hope, that by the exercise of the necessary firmness and discretion, on the part of the General Government, the danger may be averted, and that South Carolina herself, recovering from the delusion under which, for some time past she has appeared to labor, may continue to maintain her accustomed place among the most enlightened and patriotic States in the Union. Before concluding their report, the committee deem it a duty to themselves and to the Legislature, to advert very briefly to some remarks which have been made upon the tendency of the resolves accompanying their former report, and adopted by the almost unani

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