Whereas a convention assembled in the State of South Carolina have
passed an ordinance by which they declare "that the several acts and
parts of acts of the Congress of the United States purporting to be laws
for the imposing of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign
commodities, and now having actual operation and effect within the
United States, and more especially" two acts for the same purposes
passed on the 29th of May, 1828, and on the 14th of July, 1832, "are
unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States, and violate the
true meaning and intent thereof, and are null and void and no law," nor
binding on the citizens of that State or its officers; and by the said
ordinance it is further declared to be unlawful for any of the
constituted authorities of the State or of the United States to enforce
the payment of the duties imposed by the said acts within the same
State, and that it is the duty of the legislature to pass such laws as
may be necessary to give full effect to the said ordinance; and
Whereas by the said ordinance it is further ordained that in no case of
law or equity decided in the courts of said State wherein shall be drawn
in question the validity of the said ordinance, or of the acts of the
legislature that may be passed to give it effect, or of the said laws of
the United States, no appeal shall be allowed to the Supreme Court of
the United States, nor shall any copy of the record be permitted or
allowed for that purpose, and that any person attempting to take such
appeal shall be punished as for contempt of court; and, finally, the
said ordinance declares that the people of South Carolina will maintain
the said ordinance at every hazard, and that they will consider the
passage of any act by Congress abolishing or closing the ports of the
said State or otherwise obstructing the free ingress or egress of
vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act of the Federal
Government to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her
commerce, or to enforce the said acts otherwise than through the civil
tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of
South Carolina in the Union, and that the people of the said State will
thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to
maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the
other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate
government and do all other acts and things which sovereign and
independent states may of right do; and
Whereas the said ordinance prescribes to the people of South Carolina a
course of conduct in direct violation of their duty as citizens of the
United States, contrary to the laws of their country, subversive of its
Constitution, and having for its object the destruction of the
Union--that Union which, coeval with our political existence, led our
fathers, without any other ties to unite them than those of patriotism
and a common cause, through a sanguinary struggle to a glorious
independence; that sacred Union, hitherto inviolate, which, perfected by
our happy Constitution, has brought us, by the favor of Heaven, to a
state of prosperity at home and high consideration abroad rarely, if
ever, equaled in the history of nations:
To preserve this bond of our political existence from destruction, to
maintain inviolate this state of national honor and prosperity, and to
justify the confidence my fellow-citizens have reposed in me, I, Andrew
Jackson, President of the United States, have thought proper to issue
this my proclamation, stating my views of the Constitution and laws
applicable to the measures adopted by the convention of South Carolina
and to the reasons they have put forth to sustain them, declaring the
course which duty will require me to pursue, and, appealing to the
understanding and patriotism of the people, warn them of the
consequences that must inevitably result from an observance of the
dictates of the convention.
Strict duty would require of me nothing more than the exercise of those
powers with which I am now or may hereafter be invested for preserving
the peace of the Union and for the execution of the laws; but the
imposing aspect which opposition has assumed in this case, by clothing
itself with State authority, and the deep interest which the people of
the United States must all feel in preventing a resort to stronger
measures while there is a hope that anything will be yielded to
reasoning and remonstrance, perhaps demand, and will certainly justify,
a full exposition to South Carolina and the nation of the views I
entertain of this important question, as well as a distinct enunciation
of the course which my sense of duty will require me to pursue.
The ordinance is founded, not on the indefeasible right of resisting
acts which are plainly unconstitutional and too oppressive to be
endured, but on the strange position that any one State may not only
declare an act of Congress void, but prohibit its execution; that they
may do this consistently with the Constitution; that the true
construction of that instrument permits a State to retain its place in
the Union and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may
choose to consider as constitutional. It is true, they add, that to
justify this abrogation of a law it must be palpably contrary to the
Constitution; but it is evident that to give the right of resisting laws
of that description, coupled with the uncontrolled right to decide what
laws deserve that character, is to give the power of resisting all laws;
for as by the theory there is no appeal, the reasons alleged by the
State, good or bad, must prevail. If it should be said that public
opinion is a sufficient check against the abuse of this power, it may be
asked why it is not deemed a sufficient guard 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 no appeal from the State decision
in theory, and the practical illustration shows that the courts are
closed against an application to review it, both judges and jurors being
sworn to decide in its favor. But reasoning on this subject is
superfluous when our social compact, in express terms, declares that the
laws of the United States, its Constitution, and treaties made under it
are the supreme law of the land, and, for greater caution, adds "that
the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the
constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." And
it may be asserted without fear of refutation that no federative
government could exist without a similar provision. 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 earlier day, the Union would
have been dissolved in its infancy. The excise law in Pennsylvania, the
embargo and nonintercourse 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 honor, 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 supplies for its prosecution. Hardly and unequally
as those measures bore upon several members of the Union, to the
legislatures of none did this efficient and peaceable remedy, as it is
called, suggest itself. The discovery of this important feature in our
Constitution was reserved to the present day. To the statesmen of South
Carolina belongs the invention, and upon the citizens of that State will
unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it to practice.
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.
In our colonial state, although dependent on another power, we very
early considered ourselves as connected by common interest with each
other. Leagues were formed for common defense, and before the
declaration of independence we were known in our aggregate character as
_the United Colonies of America_. That decisive and important step was
taken jointly. We declared ourselves a nation by a joint, not by several
acts, and when the terms of our Confederation were reduced to form it
was in that of a solemn league of several States, by which they agreed
that they would collectively form one nation for the purpose of
conducting some certain domestic concerns and all foreign relations. In
the instrument forming that Union is found an article which declares
that "every State shall abide by the determinations of 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 endured, 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, can it be
conceived that an instrument made for the purpose of "_forming a more
perfect union_" than that of the Confederation could be so constructed
by the assembled wisdom of our country as to substitute for that
Confederation a form of government dependent for its existence on the
local interest, the party spirit, of a State, or of a prevailing faction
in a State? Every man of plain, unsophisticated understanding who hears
the question will give such an answer as will preserve the Union.
Metaphysical subtlety, in pursuit of an impracticable 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 must examine the
particular application of it which is made in the ordinance.
The preamble rests its justification on these grounds: It assumes as a
fact that the obnoxious laws, although they purport to be laws for
raising revenue, were in reality intended for the protection of
manufactures, which purpose it asserts to be unconstitutional; that the
operation of these laws is unequal; that the amount raised by them is
greater than is required by the wants of the Government; and, finally,
that the proceeds are to be applied to objects unauthorized by the
Constitution. These are the only causes alleged to justify an open
opposition 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 power expressly
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 than 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 States an uncontrolled
right to decide, 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
would operate with perfect equality. If the unequal operation of a law
makes it unconstitutional, and if all laws of that description may be
abrogated by any State for that cause, then, indeed, is the Federal
Constitution unworthy of the slightest effort for its preservation. We
have hitherto relied on it as the perpetual bond of our Union; we have
received it as the work of the assembled wisdom of the nation; we have
trusted to it as to the sheet anchor of our safety in the stormy times
of conflict with a foreign or domestic foe; we have looked to it with
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 defense 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 must be blown away by the first breath of disaffection? Was
this self-destroying, visionary theory the work of the profound
statesmen, the exalted patriots, to whom the task of constitutional
reform was intrusted? Did the name of Washington sanction, did the
States deliberately ratify, such an anomaly in the history of
fundamental legislation? No; we were not mistaken. The letter of this
great instrument is free from this radical fault. Its language directly
contradicts the imputation; its spirit, its evident intent, contradicts
it. No; we did not err. Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity
of giving power to make laws and another to resist them. The sages whose
memory will always be reverenced have given us a practical and, as they
hoped, a permanent constitutional compact. The Father of his Country did
not affix his revered name to so palpable an absurdity. Nor did the
States, when they severally ratified it, do so under the impression that
a veto on the laws of the United States was reserved to them or that
they could exercise it by implication. Search the debates in all their
conventions, examine the speeches of the most zealous opposers of
Federal authority, look at the amendments that were proposed; they are
all silent--not a syllable uttered, not a vote given, not a motion made
to correct the explicit supremacy given to the laws of the Union over
those of the States, or to show that implication, as is now contended,
could defeat it. No; we have not erred. The Constitution is still the
object of our reverence, the bond of our Union, our defense in danger,
the source of our prosperity in peace. It shall descend, as we have
received it, uncorrupted by sophistical construction, to our posterity;
and the sacrifices of local interest, of State prejudices, of personal
animosities, that were made to bring it into existence, will again be
patriotically offered for its support.
The two remaining objections made by the ordinance to these laws are
that the sums 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 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 all 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 a 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 whenever 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 can not 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 conclusions drawn
from them once more. What are they? Every law, then, for raising
revenue, according to the South Carolina ordinance, may be rightfully
annulled, unless it be so framed as no law ever will or can be framed.
Congress have a right to pass laws for raising revenue and each State
have 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.
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, anything 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 obeyed; and we do
this not because Congress have 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 constitutions 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 any 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
it rests.
The people of the United States formed the Constitution, acting through
the State legislatures in making the compact, to meet and discuss its
provisions, and acting in separate conventions when they ratified those
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 President and
Vice-President. Here the States have no other agency than to direct the
mode in which the votes shall be given. The candidates having the
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, that 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
highest 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 directly on the people
individually, not upon 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, can
not, 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 offense 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
connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without
committing any offense. 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 a 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 can not. 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 common superior it can not be enforced. A government, on the
contrary, always has a sanction, express or implied; and in our case it
is both necessarily implied and expressly given. An attempt, by force of
arms, to destroy a government is an offense, by whatever means the
constitutional compact may have been formed; and such government has the
right by the law of self-defense to pass acts for punishing the
offender, unless that right is modified, restrained, or resumed by the
constitutional act. In our system, although it is modified in the case
of treason, yet authority is expressly given to pass all laws necessary
to carry its powers into effect, and under this 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 essential 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 can not 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 whose magistrates are
sworn to disregard those laws when they come in conflict with those
passed by another? What shows conclusively that the States can not be
said to have reserved an undivided sovereignty is that they expressly
ceded the right to punish treason--not treason against their separate
power, but treason against the United States. Treason is an offense
against _sovereignty_, and sovereignty must reside with the power to
punish it. But the reserved rights of the States are not less sacred
because they have, for their common interest, made the General
Government the depository of these powers. 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 character;
our 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 defense. How, then,
with all these proofs that under all changes of our position we had, for
designated purposes and with defined powers, created national
governments, how is it that the most perfect of those 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 labored to prove it 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 sovereign power has a right to
recede. 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 reasons 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 engagements solemnly made. Everyone must see that the
other States, in self-defense, must oppose it at all hazards.
These are the alternatives that are presented by the convention--a
repeal of all the acts for raising revenue, leaving the Government
without the means of support, or an acquiescence in the dissolution of
our Union by the secession of one of its members. When the first was
proposed, it was known that it could not be listened to for a moment. It
was known, if force was applied to oppose the execution of the laws,
that it must be repelled by force; that Congress could not, without
involving itself in disgrace and the country in ruin, accede to the
proposition; and yet if this is not done in a given day, or if any
attempt is made to execute the laws, the State is by the ordinance
declared to be out of the Union. The majority of a convention assembled
for the purpose have dictated these terms, or rather this rejection of
all terms, in the name of the people of South Carolina. It is true that
the governor of the State speaks of the submission of their grievances
to a convention of all the States, which, he says, they "sincerely and
anxiously seek and desire." Yet this obvious and constitutional mode of
obtaining the sense of the other States on the construction of the
federal compact, and amending it if necessary, has never been attempted
by those who have urged the State on to this destructive measure. The
State might have proposed the call for a general convention to the other
States, and Congress, if a sufficient number of them concurred, must
have called it. But the first magistrate of South Carolina, when he
expressed a hope that "on a review by Congress and the functionaries of
the General Government of the merits of the controversy" such a
convention will be accorded to them, must have known that neither
Congress nor any functionary of the General Government has authority to
call such a convention unless it be demanded by two-thirds of the
States. This suggestion, then, is another instance of the reckless
inattention to the provisions of the Constitution with which this crisis
has been madly hurried on, or of the attempt to persuade the people that
a constitutional remedy had been sought and refused. If the legislature
of South Carolina "anxiously desire" a general convention to consider
their complaints, why have they not made application for it in the way
the Constitution points out? The assertion that they "earnestly seek" it
is completely negatived by the omission.
This, then, is the position in which we stand: A small majority of the
citizens of one State in the Union have elected delegates to a State
convention; that convention has ordained that all the revenue laws of
the United States must be repealed, or that they are no longer a member
of the Union. The governor of that State has recommended to the
legislature the raising of an army to carry the secession into effect,
and that he may be empowered to give clearances to vessels in the name
of the State. No act of violent opposition to the laws has yet been
committed, but such a state of things is hourly apprehended. And it is
the intent of this instrument to _proclaim_, not only that the duty
imposed on me by the Constitution "to take care that the laws be
faithfully executed" shall be performed to the extent of the powers
already vested in me by law, or of such others as the wisdom of Congress
shall devise and intrust to me for that purpose, but to warn the
citizens of South Carolina who have been deluded into an opposition to
the laws of the danger they will incur by obedience to the illegal and
disorganizing ordinance of the convention; to exhort those who have
refused to support it to persevere in their determination to uphold the
Constitution and laws of their country; and to point out to all the
perilous situation into which the good people of that State have been
led, and that the course they are urged to pursue is one of ruin and
disgrace to the very State whose rights they affect to support.
Fellow-citizens of _my_ native State, let me not only admonish you, as
the First Magistrate of our common country, not to incur the penalty of
its laws, but use the influence that a father would over his children
whom he saw rushing to certain ruin. In that paternal language, with
that paternal feeling, let me tell you, my countrymen, that you are
deluded by men who are either deceived themselves or wish to deceive
you. Mark under what pretenses you have been led on to the brink of
insurrection and treason on which you stand. First, a diminution of the
value of your staple commodity, lowered by overproduction in other
quarters, and the consequent diminution in the value of your lands were
the sole effect of the tariff laws. The effect of those laws was
confessedly injurious, but the evil was greatly exaggerated by the
unfounded theory you were taught to believe--that its burthens were in
proportion to your exports, not to your consumption of imported
articles. Your pride was roused by the assertion that a submission to
those laws was a state of vassalage and that resistance to them was
equal in patriotic merit to the opposition our fathers offered to the
oppressive laws of Great Britain. You were told that this opposition
might be peaceably, might be constitutionally, made; that you might
enjoy all the advantages of the Union and bear none of its burthens.
Eloquent appeals to your passions, to your State pride, to your native
courage, to your sense of real injury, were used to prepare you for the
period when the mask which concealed the hideous features of _disunion_
should be taken off. It fell, and you were made to look with complacency
on objects which not long since you would have regarded with horror.
Look back to the arts which have brought you to this state; look forward
to the consequences to which it must inevitably lead! Look back to what
was first told you as an inducement to enter into this dangerous course.
The great political truth was repeated to you that you had the
revolutionary right of resisting all laws that were palpably
unconstitutional and intolerably oppressive. It was added that the right
to nullify a law rested on the same principle, but that it was a
peaceable remedy. This character which was given to it made you receive
with too much confidence the assertions that were made of the
unconstitutionally of the law and its oppressive effects. Mark, my
fellow-citizens, that by the admission of your leaders the
unconstitutionality must be _palpable_, or it will not justify either
resistance or nullification. What is the meaning of the word _palpable_
in the sense in which it is here used? That which is apparent to
everyone; that which no man of ordinary intellect will fail to perceive.
Is the unconstitutionality of these laws of that description? Let those
among your leaders who once approved and advocated the principle of
protective duties answer the question; and let them choose whether they
will be considered as incapable then of perceiving that which must have
been apparent to every man of common understanding, or as imposing upon
your confidence and endeavoring to mislead you now. In either case they
are unsafe guides in the perilous path they urge you to tread. Ponder
well on this circumstance, and you will know how to appreciate the
exaggerated language they address to you. They are not champions of
liberty, emulating the fame of our Revolutionary fathers, nor are you an
oppressed people, contending, as they repeat to you, against worse than
colonial vassalage. You are free members of a flourishing and happy
Union. There is no settled design to oppress you. You have indeed felt
the unequal operation of laws which may have been unwisely, not
unconstitutionally, passed; but that inequality must necessarily be
removed. At the very moment when you were madly urged on to the
unfortunate course you have begun a change in public opinion had
commenced. The nearly approaching payment of the public debt and the
consequent necessity of a diminution of duties had already produced a
considerable reduction, and that, too, on some articles of general
consumption in your State. The importance of this change was underrated,
and you were authoritatively told that no further alleviation of your
burthens was to be expected at the very time when the condition of the
country imperiously demanded such a modification of the duties as should
reduce them to a just and equitable scale. But, as if apprehensive of
the effect of this change in allaying your discontents, you were
precipitated into the fearful state in which you now find yourselves.
I have urged you to look back to the means that were used to hurry you
on to the position you have now assumed and forward to the consequences
it will produce. Something more is necessary. Contemplate the condition
of that country of which you still form an important part. Consider its
Government, uniting in one bond of common interest and general
protection so many different States, giving to all their inhabitants the
proud title of _American citizen_, protecting their commerce, securing
their literature and their arts, facilitating their intercommunication,
defending their frontiers, and making their name respected in the
remotest parts of the earth. Consider the extent of its territory, its
increasing and happy population, its advance in arts which render life
agreeable, and the sciences which elevate the mind. See education
spreading the lights of religion, morality, and general information into
every cottage in this wide extent of our Territories and States. Behold
it as the asylum where the wretched and the oppressed find a refuge and
support. Look on this picture of happiness and honor and say, _We too
are citizens of America_. Carolina is one of these proud States; her
arms have defended, her best blood has cemented, this happy Union. And
then add, if you can, without horror and remorse, This happy Union we
will dissolve; this picture of peace and prosperity we will deface; this
free intercourse we will interrupt; these fertile fields we will deluge
with blood; the protection of that glorious flag we renounce; the very
name of Americans we discard. And for what, mistaken men? For what do
you throw away these inestimable blessings? For what would you exchange
your share in the advantages and honor of the Union? For the dream of a
separate independence--a dream interrupted by bloody conflicts with your
neighbors and a vile dependence on a foreign power. If your leaders
could succeed in establishing a separation, what would be your
situation? Are you united at home? Are you free from the apprehension of
civil discord, with all its fearful consequences? Do our neighboring
republics, every day suffering some new revolution or contending with
some new insurrection, do they excite your envy? But the dictates of a
high duty oblige me solemnly to announce that you can not succeed. The
laws of the United States must be executed. I have no discretionary
power on the subject; my duty is emphatically pronounced in the
Constitution. Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their
execution deceived you; they could not have been deceived themselves.
They know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the execution
of the laws, and they know that such opposition must be repelled. Their
object is disunion. But be not deceived by names. Disunion by armed
force is _treason_. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are,
on the heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences;
on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours may fall the punishment. On
your unhappy State will inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict
you force upon the Government of your country. It can not accede to the
mad project of disunion, of which you would be the first victims. Its
First Magistrate can not, if he would, avoid the performance of his
duty. The consequence must be fearful for you, distressing to your
fellow-citizens here and to the friends of good government throughout
the world. Its enemies have beheld our prosperity with a vexation they
could not conceal; it was a standing refutation of their slavish
doctrines, and they will point to our discord with the triumph of
malignant joy. It is yet in your power to disappoint them. There is yet
time to show that the descendants of the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the
Rutledges, and of the thousand other names which adorn the pages of your
Revolutionary history will not abandon that Union to support which so
many of them fought and bled and died. I adjure you, as you honor their
memory, as you love the cause of freedom, to which they dedicated their
lives, as you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its best
citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the
archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its convention; bid
its members to reassemble and promulgate the decided expressions of your
will to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety,
prosperity, and honor. Tell them that compared to disunion all other
evils are light, because that brings with it an accumulation of all.
Declare that you will never take the field unless the star-spangled
banner of your country shall float over you; that you will not be
stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and scorned while you live, as the
authors of the first attack on the Constitution of your country. Its
destroyers you can not be. You may disturb its peace, you may interrupt
the course of its prosperity, you may cloud its reputation for
stability; but its tranquillity will be restored, its prosperity will
return, and the stain upon its national character will be transferred
and remain an eternal blot on the memory of those who caused the
disorder.
Fellow-citizens of the United States, the threat of unhallowed disunion,
the names of those once respected by whom it is uttered, the array of
military force to support it, denote the approach of a crisis in our
affairs on which the continuance of our unexampled prosperity, our
political existence, and perhaps that of all free governments may
depend. The conjuncture demanded a free, a full, and explicit
enunciation, not only of my intentions, but of my principles of action;
and as the claim was asserted of a right by a State to annul the laws of
the Union, and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank exposition of
my opinions in relation to the origin and form of our Government and the
construction I give to the instrument by which it was created seemed to
be proper. Having the fullest confidence in the justness of the legal
and constitutional opinion of my duties which has been expressed, I rely
with equal confidence on your undivided support in my determination to
execute the laws, to preserve the Union by all constitutional means, to
arrest, if possible, by moderate and firm measures the necessity of a
recourse to force; and if it be the will of Heaven that the recurrence
of its primeval curse on man for the shedding of a brother's blood
should fall upon our land, that it be not called down by any offensive
act on the part of the United States.
Fellow-citizens, the momentous case is before you. On your undivided
support of your Government depends the decision of the great question it
involves--whether your sacred Union will be preserved and the blessing
it secures to us as one people shall be perpetuated. No one can doubt
that the unanimity with which that decision will be expressed will be
such as to inspire new confidence in republican institutions, and that
the prudence, the wisdom, and the courage which it will bring to their
defense will transmit them unimpaired and invigorated to our children.
May the Great Ruler of Nations grant that the signal blessings with
which He has favored ours may not, by the madness of party or personal
ambition, be disregarded and lost; and may His wise providence bring
those who have produced this crisis to see the folly before they feel
the misery of civil strife, and inspire a returning veneration for that
Union which, if we may dare to penetrate His designs, He has chosen as
the only means of attaining the high destinies to which we may
reasonably aspire.
(SEAL.)
In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be
hereunto affixed, having signed the same with my hand. Done at the city
of Washington, this 10th day of December, A.D. 1832, and of the
Independence of the United States the fifty-seventh.