that monied action which is the invariable forerunner of corruption and convulsions.

But to return to the general government; we have now sufficient experience to ascertain that the tendency to conflict in its action, is between southern and other sections. The latter having a decided majority, must habitually be possessed of the powers of the government, both in this and in the other house; and being governed by that instinctive love of power so natural to the human breast, they must become the advocates of the power of goverment, and in the same degree opposed to the limitations; while the other and weaker section is as necessarily thrown on the side of the limitations. In one word; the one section is the natural guardian of the delegated powers, and the other of the reserved; and the struggle on the side of the former will be to enlarge the powers, while that on the opposite side will be to restrain them within their constitutional limits. The contest will, in fact, be a contest between power and liberty, and such he considered the present a contest in which the weaker section, with its peculiar labour, productions, and situation, has at stake all that can be dear to freemen. Should they be able to maintain in their full vigour their reserved rights, liberty and prosperity will be their portion; but if they yield and permit the stronger interest to consolidate within itself all the powers of the government, then will its fate be more wretched than that of the aborigines which

they have expelled, or of their slaves. In this great struggle between the delegated and reserved powers, so far from repining that his lot, and that of those whom he represented, is cast on the side of the latter, he rejoiced that such is the fact; for though we participate in but few of the advantages of the government, we are compensated, and more than compensated, in not being so much exposed to its corruption. Nor did he repine that the duty, so difficult to be discharged as the defence of the reserved powers, against apparently such fearful odds, had been assigned to them. To discharge successfully this high duty, requires the highest qualities, moral and intellectual; and should we perform it with a zeal and ability in proportion to its magnitude, instead of being mere planters, our section will become distinguished for its patriots and statesmen. But on the other hand, if we prove unworthy of this high destiny-if we yield to the steady encroachment of power, the severest and most debasing calamity and corruption will overspread the land. Every southern man, true to the interests of his section, and faithful to the duties which Providence has allotted to him, will be for ever excluded from the honours and emoluments of this government, which will be reserved for those only, who have qualified themselves by political prostitution, for admission into the Magdalen asylum.

Mr. Webster replied to Mr. Calhoun's speech, with his usual force and success.

The gentleman from South Carolina, said Mr. Webster, has admonished us to be mindful of the opinions of those who shall come after us. We must take our chance, sir, as to the light in which posterity will regard us. I do not decline its judgment, nor withhold myself from its scrutiny. Feeling that I am performing my public duty with singleness of heart, and to the best of my ability, I fearlessly trust myself to the country, now and hereafter, and leave both my motives and character to its decision.

The gentleman has terminated his speech in a tone of threat and defiance towards this bill, even should it become a law of the land, altogether unusual in halls of congress. But I shall not suffer myself to be excited into warmth, by his denunciation of the measure which I support. Among the feelings which at this moment fill my breast, not the least is that of regret at the position in which the gentleman has placed himself. Sir, he does himself no justice. The cause which he has espoused finds no basis in the constitution-no succour from public sympathy-no cheering from a patriotic community. He has no foothold on which to stand, where he might display the powers of his acknowledged talents. Every thing beneath his feet is hollow and treacherous. He is like a strong man struggling in a morass; every effort to extricate himself, only sinks him deeper and deeper. And I fear the resemblance may be carried still further. I

fear that no friend can safely come to his relief; that no one can aproach near enough to hold out a helping hand, without danger of going down himself also, into the bottomless depths of this Serbonian bog.

The honourable gentleman has declared that on the decision of the question now in debate, may depend the cause of liberty itself. I am of the same opinion; but, then, sir, the liberty which I think is staked on the contest, is not political liberty in any general and undefined character, but our own, well understood, and long enjoyed American liberty.

Sir, I love liberty no less ardently than the gentleman, in whatever form she may have appeared in the progress of human history. As exhibited in the master states of antiquity-as breaking out again from amidst the darkness of the middle ages, and beaming on the formation of new communities, in modern Europe, she has always and every where charms for me. Yet, sir, it is our own liberty, guarded by constitutions and secured by union; it is that liberty which is our paternal inheritance, it is our established, dear-bought, peculiar American liberty to which I am chiefly devoted, and the cause of which I now mean, to the utmost of my power, to maintain and defend.

Mr. President, if I considered the constitutional question now before us as doubtful as it is important, and if I supposed that this decision, either in the senate or by the country, was likely to

be, in any degree, influenced by the manner in which I might now discuss it, this would be to me a moment of deep solicitude. Such a moment has once existed. There has been a time, when, rising in this place, on the same question, I felt, I must confess, that something for good or evil to the constitution of the country might depend on an effort of mine. But circumstances are changed. Since that day, sir, the public opinion has become awakened to this great question; it has grasped it, it has reasoned upon it, as becomes an intelligent and patriotic community, and has settled it, or now seems in the progress of settling it, by an authority which none can disobey the authority of the people themselves.

I shall not, Mr. President, follow the gentleman, step by step, through the course of his speech. Much has consisted of philosophical remark upon the general nature of political liberty, and the history of free institutions; and of other topics, so general in their nature, as to possess, in my opinion, only a remote bearing on the immediate subject of this debate.

But the gentleman's speech, made some days ago, upon introducing his resolutions; those resolutions themselves, and parts of the speech now just concluded, may probably be justly regarded as containing the whole South Carolina doctrine. That doctrine it is my purpose to examine, and to compare it with the constitution of the United States. I shall not con

sent, sir, to make any new constitution, or to establish another form of government. I will not undertake to say what a constitution for these United States ought to be. That question the people have decided for themselves, and I shall take the instrument as they have established it, and shall endeavour to maintain it, in its plain sense and meaning, against opinions and notions which, in my judgment, threaten its subversion.

The resolutions introduced by the gentleman were apparently drawn up with care, and brought forward upon deliberation. I shall not be in danger, therefore, of misunderstanding him, or those who agree with him, if I proceed at once to these resolutions, and consider them as an authentic statement of those opinions, upon the great constitutional question, by which the recent proceedings in South Carolina are attempted to be justified.

These resolutions are three in number.

The third seems intended to enumerate and to deny the several opinions expressed in the president's proclamation, respecting the nature and powers of this government. Of this third resolution, I propose, at present, to take no particular notice.

The two first resolutions of the honourable member affirm these propositions, viz:

1. That the political system under which we live, and under which congress is now assembled, is a compact, to which the people of the several states, as

separate and sovereign communities are the parties.

2. That these sovereign parties have a right to judge, each for itself, of any alleged violation of the constitution by congress; and, in case of such vinlation, to choose, each for itself, its own mode and measure of redress.

It is true, sir, that the honourable member calls this a 66 constitutional" compact; but still he affirms it to be a compact between sovereign states. What precise meaning, then, does he attach to the term constitutional? When applied to compacts between sovereign states, the term constitutional affixes to that word compact no definite idea. Were

to hear of a constitutional league or treaty between England and France, or a constitutional convention between Austria and Russia, we should not understand what could be intended by such a league, such a treaty, or such a convention. In these connexions, the word is void of all meaning; and yet, sir, it is easy, quite easy, to see why the honourable gentleman has used it in these resolutions. He cannot open the book, and look upon our written frame of government, without seeing that it is called a constitution. This may well be appalling to him. It threatens his whole doctrine of compact, and its darling derivatives, nullification and secession, with instant confutation. Because, if he admits our instrument of government to be a constitution, then, for that very reason, it is not a compact between

sovereigns; a constitution of government, and a compact between sovereign powers, being things essentially unlike in their very natures, and incapable of ever being the same. Yet the word constitution is on the very front of the instrument. He cannot overlook it. He seeks, therefore, to compromise the matter, and to sink all the substantial sense of the word, while he retains a resemblance of its sound. He introduces a new word of his own, viz: compact, as importing the principal idea, and designed to play the principal part, and degrades constitution into an insignificant, idle epithet, attached to compact. The whole then stands as a “ constitutional compact!" And, in this way he hopes to pass off a plausible gloss, as satisfying the words of the instrument; but he will find himself disappointed. Sir, I must say to the honourable gentleman, that, in our American political grammar, constitution is a noun substantive; it imports a distinct and clear idea of itself; and it is not to lose its importance and dignity-it is not to be turned into a poor, ambiguous, senseless, unmeaning adjective, for the purpose of accommodating any new set of political notions. Sir, we reject his new rules of syntax altogether. We will not give up our forms of political speech to the grammarians of the school of nullification. By the constitution, we mean not a "constitutional compact," but, simply and directly, the constitution, the fundamental law; and if there be one word in the lan

guage, which the people of the United States understand, this is that word. We know no more of a constitutional compact between sovereign powers, than we know of a constitutional indenture of co-partnership, a constitutional deed of conveyance, or a constitutional bill of exchange. But we know what the constitution is; we know what the plainly written fundamental law is; we know what the bond of our Union and the security of our liberties is; and we mean to maintain and to defend it, in its plain sense and unsophisticated meaning.

The sense of the gentleman's proposition, therefore, is not at all affected, one way or the other, by the use of this word. That proposition still is, that our system of government is but a compact between the people of separate and sovereign

states.

would seem necessary, in order to break it up, but to secede from the same compact. But the term is wholly out of place. Accession, as a word applied to political associations, implies coming into a league, treaty, or confederacy, by one hitherto a stranger to it: and secession implies departing from such league or confederacy. The people of the United States have used no such form of expression, in establishing the present government. They do not say that they accede to a league; but that they declare that they ordain and establish a constitution. Such are the very words of the instrument itself; and in all the states, without an exception, the language used by their conventions was, that they "ratified the constitution" some of them employing the additional words " assented to" and "adopted," but all of them "ratifying." There is more importance than may, at first sight, appear, in the introduction of this new word by the honourable mover of these resolutions. Its adoption and use are indispensable to maintain those premises, from which his main conclusion is to be afterwards drawn. But, before showing that, allow me to remark, that this phraseology tends to keep out of sight the just view of our previous political history, as well as to suggest wrong ideas as to what was actually done when the present constitution was agreed to. In 1789, and before this constitution was adopted, the United States had already been a Union,