But, sir, while practical nullification in South Carolina would be, as to herself, actual and distinct revolution, its necessary tendency must also be to spread revolution, and break up the constitution, as to all the other states. It strikes a deadly blow at the vital principle of the whole Union. To allow state resistance to the laws of congress to be rightful and proper, to admit nullification in some states, and yet not expect to see a dismemberment of the entire government, appears to me the wildest illusion, and the most extravagant folly. The gentle• man seems not conscious of the direction or the rapidity of his own course. The current of his opinions sweeps him along, he knows not whither. To begin with nullification, with the avowed intent, nevertheless, not to proceed to secession, dismemberment, and general revolution, is as if one were to take the plunge of Niagara, and cry out that he would stop half way down. In the one case, as in the other, the rash adventurer must go to the bottom of the

Nullification, if successful, arrests the power of the law, absolves citizens from their duty, subverts the foundation both of protection and obedience, dispenses with oaths and obligations of allegiance, and elevates another authority to supreme command. Is not this revolution? And it raises to supreme command four and twenty distinct powers, each professing to be under a general government, and yet each setting its laws at defiance at pleasure. Is not this anarchy, as well as revolution? Sir, the constitution of the United States was received as a whole, and for the whole country. If it cannot stand altogether, it cannot stand in parts; and if the laws cannot be executed every where, they cannot long be executed any where. The gentleman very well knows that all duties and imposts must be uniform throughout the country. He knows that we cannot have one rule or one law for South Carolina, and another for other states. He must see, therefore, and does see, every man sees, that the only alternative is a repeal of the laws, throughout the whole Union, or their execution in South Carolina as well as elsewhere. And this repeal is demanded because a single state interposes her veto, and threatens resistance! The result of the gentleman's opinions, or rather the very text of his doctrine is, that no act of

congress can bind all the states, the constitutionality of which is not admitted by all; or, in other words, that no single state is bound, against its own dissent, by a law of imposts. This is precisely the evil experienced under the old confederation, and for remedy of which this constitution was adopted. The leading object in establishing this government, an object forced on the country by the condition of the times, and the absolute necessity of the law, was to give to congress power to lay and collect imposts, without the consent of particular states. The revolutionary debt remained unpaid; the national treasury was bankrupt; the country was destitute of credit; congress issued its requisitions on the states, and the states neglected them; there was no power of coercion but war; congress could not lay imposts, or other taxes, by its own authority; the whole general goverment, therefore, was little more than a name. The articles of confederation, as to purposes of revenue and finance, were nearly a dead letter. The country sought to escape from this condition, at once feeble and disgraceful, by constituting a government which should have power of itself to lay duties and taxes, and to pay the public debt, and provide for the general welfare; and to lay these duties and taxes in all the states, without asking the consent of the state governments. This was the very power on which the new constitution was to depend for all its ability to do

good; and, without it, it can be no government, now or at any time. Yet, sir, it is precisely against this power, so absolutely indispensable to the very being of the government, that South Carolina directs her ordinance. She attacks the government in its authority to raise revenue, the very mainspring of the whole system; and, if she succeed, every movement of that system must inevitably cease. It is of no avail that she declares that she does not resist the law as a revenue law, but as a law for protecting manufactures. It is a revenue law; it is the very law by force of which the revenue is collected; if it be arrested in any state, the revenue ceases in that state; it is, in a word, the sole reliance of the government for the means of maintaining itself, and performing its duties.

Mr. president, the alleged right of a state to decide constitutional questions for herself, necessarily leads to force, because other states must have the same right, and because different states will decide differently; and, when these questions arise between states, if there be no superior power, they can be decided only by the law of force. On entering into the Union, the people of each state gave up a part of their own power to make laws for themselves, in consideration that, as to common objects, they should have a part in making laws for other states. In other words, the people of all the states agreed to create a common government, to be con

ducted by common councils. Pennsylvania, for example, yielded the right of laying imposts in her own ports, in consideration that the new government, in which she was to have a share, should possess the power of laying imposts in all the states. If South Carolina now refuses to submit to this power, she breaks the condition on which other states entered into the Union. She partakes of the common councils, and therein assists to bind others, while she refuses to be bound herself. It makes no difference in the case whether she does all this without reason or pretext, or whether she sets up as a reason that, in her judgment, the acts complained of are unconstitutional. In the judgment of other states, they are not so. It is nothing to them that she offers some reason or some apology for her conduct, if it be one which they do not admit. It is not to be expected that any state will violate her duty without some plausible pretext. That would be too rash a defiance of the opinion of mankind. But, if it be a pretext which lies in her own breast-if it be no more than an opinion which she says she has formed, how can other states be satisfied with this? How can they allow her to be judge of her own obligations? Or, if she may judge of her obligations, may they not judge of their rights also? May not the twenty-three entertain an opinion as well as the twenty-fourth? And, if it be their right, in their own opinion, as expressed in the common

council, to enforce the law against her, how is she to say that her right and her opinion are to be every thing, and their right and their opinion nothing?

Mr. president, if we are to receive the constitution as a text, and then to lay down in its margin the contradictory commentaries which have been, and which may be made by different states, the whole page would be a polyglot indeed. It would speak with as many tongues as the builders of Babel, and in dialects as much confused, and mutually as unintelligible. The very instance now before us presents a practical illustration. The law of the last session is declared unconstitutional in South Carolina, and obedience to it is refused. In other states it is admitted to be strictly constitutional. You walk over the limits of its authority, therefore, when you pass the state line. On one side it is law-on the other side a nullity; and yet it is passed by a common government, having the same authority in all the states.

Such are the inevitable results of this doctrine. Beginning with the original error, that the constitution of the United States is nothing but a compact between sovereign states; asserting, in the next step, that each state has a right to be its own sole judge of the extent of its own obligations, and consequently, of the constitutionality of laws of congress; and, in the next, that it may oppose whatever it sees fit to declare unconstitutional, and that it decides for itself on the mode and measure of redress,

the argument arrives at once at the conclusion that what a state dissents from, it may nullify; what it opposes, it may oppose by force; what it decides for itself, it may execute by its own power; and that, in short, it is itself, supreme over the legislation of congress, and supreme over the decisions of the national judicature; supreme over the constitution of the country; supreme over the supreme law of the land. However it seeks to protect itself against these plain inferences, by saying that an unconstitutional law is no law, and that it only opposes such laws as are unconstitutional, yet this does not, in the slightest degree, vary the result; since it insists on deciding this question for itself; and in opposition to reason and argument, in opposition to practice and experience, in opposition to the judgment of others, having an equal right to judge, it says, only, "such is my opinion, and my opinion shall be my law, and I will support it by my own strong hand. I denounce the law: I declare it unconstitutional; that is enough; it shall not be executed. Men in arms are ready to resist its execution. An attempt to enforce it shall cover the land with blood. Elsewhere it may be binding, but here it is trampled under foot." This, sir, is practical nullifica

tion.

And now, sir, against all these theories and opinions, I maintain :

1. That the constitution of the United States is not a league, confederacy, or compact, be

tween the people of the several states in their sovereign capacities; but a government proper, founded on the adoption of the people, and creating direct relations between itself and individuals.

2. That no state authority has power to dissolve these relations; that nothing can dissolve them but revolution; and that, consequently, there can be no such thing as secession without revolution.

3. That there is a supreme law, consisting of the constitution of the United States, acts of congress passed in pursuance of it, and treaties; and that, in cases not capable of assuming the character of a suit in law or equity, congress must judge of, and finally interpret this supreme law, so often as it has occasion to pass acts of legislation; and, in cases capable of assuming, and actually assuming the character of a suit, the supreme court of the United States is the final interpreter.

4. That an attempt by a state to abrogate, annul, or nullify an act of congress, or to arrest its operation within her limits, on the ground that, in her opinion, such law is unconstitutional, is a direct usurpation on the just powers of the general government, and on the equal rights of other states, a plain violation of the constitution, and a proceeding essentially revolutionary in its character and tendency.

Whether the constitution be a compact between states in their sovereign capacities, is a question which must be mainly

argued from what is contained in the instrument itself. We all agree that it is an instrument which has been, in some way, clothed with power. We all admit that it speaks with authority. The first question then is, what does it say of itself? What does it purport to be? Does it Does it style itself a league, confederacy, or compact between sovereign states? It is to be remembered, sir, that the constitution began to speak only after its adoption. until it was ratified by nine states, it was but a proposal, the mere draught of an instrument. It was like a deed, drawn but not executed. The convention had framed it, sent it to congress then sitting under the confederation; congress had transmitted it to the state legislatures, and by these last it was laid before conventions of the people in the several states; all this while it was inoperative paper. It had received no stamp of authority, no sanction; it spoke no language. But when ratified by the people in their respective conventions, then it had a voice, and spoke authentically. Every word in it had then received the sanction of the popular will, and was to be received as the expression of that will. What the constitution says of itself, therefore, is as conclusive as what it says on any other point. Does it call itself a compact? Certainly not. It uses the word compact but once, and that is when it declares that the states shall enter into no compact. Does it call itself a league, a confederacy, a subsisting treaty

between the states? Certainly not. There is not a particle of such language in all its pages. But it declares itself a constitution. What is a constitution? Certainly not a league, compact, or confederacy, but a fundamental law. That fundamental regulation which lation which determines the manner in which the public authority is to be executed, is what forms the constitution of a stale. Those primary rules which concern the body itself, and the very being of the political society, the form of government, and the manner in which power is to be exercised-all, in a word, which form together the constitution of a state, these are the fundamental laws. This, sir, is the language of the public writers. But do we need to be informed, in this country, what a constitution is? Is it not an idea perfectly familiar, definite, and well settled? We are at no loss to understand what is meant by the constitution of one of the states; and the constitution of the United States speaks of itself as being an instrument of the same nature. It says, this constitution shall be the law of the land, any thing in any state constitution to the contrary notwithstanding. And it speaks of itself, too, in plain contradistinction from a confederation; for it says that all debts contracted, and all engagements entered into by the United States, shall be as valid under this constitution, as under the confederation. It does not say as valid under this compact, or this league, or this confederation, as under the former