doctrines which have been advanced and maintained. I am conscious of
having detained you and the Senate much too long. I was drawn into the
debate with no previous deliberation, such as is suited to the
discussion of so grave and important a subject. But it is a subject of
which my heart is full, and I have not been willing to suppress the
utterance of its spontaneous sentiments. I cannot, even now, persuade
myself to relinquish it, without expressing, once more my deep
conviction, that, since it respects nothing less than the union of the
States, it is of most vital and essential importance to the public
happiness. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily
in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the
preservation of our Federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety
at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union
that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our
country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in
the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of
disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its
benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke, as from the
dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration
has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and
although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our
population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its
protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of
national, social, and personal happiness.
I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what
might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed
the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together
shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the
precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom
the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe
counsellor in the affairs of this Government, whose thoughts should be
mainly bent on considering, not how the Union may be best preserved, but
how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it should be
broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts we have high, exciting,
gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children.
Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day
at least that curtain may not rise! God grant that on my vision never
may be opened what lies behind! When my eyes shall be turned to behold
for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the
broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union, on States
dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or
drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and
lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now
known and honored through-out the earth, still full high advanced, its
arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe
erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto,
no such miserable interrogotary as "What is all this worth?" nor those
other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterward";
but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing
on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land,
and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to
every true American heart,--Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and
inseparable!
JOHN C. CALHOUN
--OF SOUTH CAROLINA. (BORN 1782, DIED 1850.)
ON NULLIFICATION AND THE FORCE BILL,
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, FEB. 15, 1833.
MR. PRESIDENT:
At the last session of Congress, it was avowed on all sides that the
public debt, as to all practical purposes, was in fact paid, the small
surplus remaining being nearly covered by the money in the Treasury and
the bonds for duties which had already accrued; but with the arrival of
this event our last hope was doomed to be disappointed. After a long
session of many months, and the most earnest effort on the part of South
Carolina and the other Southern States to obtain relief, all that could
be effected was a small reduction in the amount of the duties, but a
reduction of such a character that, while it diminished the amount of
burden, it distributed that burden more unequally than even the
obnoxious act of 1828; reversing the principle adopted by the bill of
1816, of laying higher duties on the unprotected than the protected
articles, by repealing almost entirely the duties laid upon the former,
and imposing the burden almost entirely on the latter. It was thus that,
instead of relief--instead of an equal distribution of burdens and
benefits of the government, on the payment of the debt, as had been
fondly anticipated,--the duties were so arranged as to be, in fact,
bounties on one side and taxation on the other; thus placing the two
great sections of the country in direct conflict in reference to its
fiscal action, and thereby letting in that flood of political corruption
which threatens to sweep away our Constitution and our liberty.
This unequal and unjust arrangement was pronounced, both by the
administration, through its proper organ, the Secretary of the Treasury,
and by the opposition, to be a permanent adjustment; and it was thus
that all hope of relief through the action of the General Government
terminated; and the crisis so long apprehended at length arrived, at
which the State was compelled to choose between absolute acquiescence in
a ruinous system of oppression, or a resort to her reserved
powers--powers of which she alone was the rightful judge, and which
only, in this momentous juncture, could save her. She determined on the
latter.
The consent of two thirds of her Legislature was necessary for the call
of a convention, which was considered the only legitimate organ through
which the people, in their sovereignty, could speak. After an arduous
struggle the States-right party succeeded; more than two thirds of both
branches of the Legislature favorable to a convention were elected; a
convention was called--the ordinance adopted. The convention was
succeeded by a meeting of the Legislature, when the laws to carry the
ordinance into execution were enacted--all of which have been
communicated by the President, have been referred to the Committee on
the Judiciary, and this bill is the result of their labor.
Having now corrected some of the prominent misrepresentations as to the
nature of this controversy, and given a rapid sketch of the movement of
the State in reference to it, I will next proceed to notice some
objections connected with the ordinance and the proceedings under it.
The first and most prominent of these is directed against what is called
the test oath, which an effort has been made to render odious. So far
from deserving the denunciation that has been levelled against it, I
view this provision of the ordinance as but the natural result of the
doctrines entertained by the State, and the position which she occupies.
The people of Carolina believe that the Union is a union of States, and
not of individuals; that it was formed by the States, and that the
citizens of the several States were bound to it through the acts of
their several States; that each State ratified the Constitution for
itself, and that it was only by such ratification of a State that any
obligation was imposed upon its citizens. Thus believing, it is the
opinion of the people of Carolina that it belongs to the State which has
imposed the obligation to declare, in the last resort, the extent of
this obligation, as far as her citizens are concerned; and this upon the
plain principles which exist in all analogous cases of compact between
sovereign bodies. On this principle the people of the State, acting in
their sovereign capacity in convention, precisely as they did in the
adoption of their own and the Federal Constitution, have declared, by
the ordinance, that the acts of Congress which imposed duties under the
authority to lay imposts, were acts not for revenue, as intended by the
Constitution, but for protection, and therefore null and void. The
ordinance thus enacted by the people of the State themselves, acting as
a sovereign community, is as obligatory on the citizens of the State as
any portion of the Constitution. In prescribing, then, the oath to obey
the ordinance, no more was done than to prescribe an oath to obey the
Constitution. It is, in fact, but a particular oath of allegiance, and
in every respect similar to that which is prescribed, under the
Constitution of the United States, to be administered to all the
officers of the State and Federal Governments; and is no more deserving
the harsh and bitter epithets which have been heaped upon it than that
or any similar oath. It ought to be borne in mind that, according to the
opinion which prevails in Carolina, the right of resistance to the
unconstitutional acts of Congress belongs to the State, and not to her
individual citizens; and that, though the latter may, in a mere question
of _meum_ and _tuum_, resist through the courts an unconstitutional
encroachment upon their rights, yet the final stand against usurpation
rests not with them, but with the State of which they are members; and
such act of resistance by a State binds the conscience and allegiance of
the citizen. But there appears to be a general misapprehension as to the
extent to which the State has acted under this part of the ordinance.
Instead of sweeping every officer by a general proscription of the
minority, as has been represented in debate, as far as my knowledge
extends, not a single individual has been removed. The State has, in
fact, acted with the greatest tenderness, all circumstances considered,
toward citizens who differed from the majority; and, in that spirit, has
directed the oath to be administered only in the case of some official
act directed to be performed in which obedience to the ordinance is
involved. * * *'
It is next objected that the enforcing acts, have legislated the United
States out of South Carolina. I have already replied to this objection
on another occasion, and will now but repeat what I then said: that they
have been legislated out only to the extent that they had no right to
enter. The Constitution has admitted the jurisdiction of the United
States within the limits of the several States only so far as the
delegated powers authorize; beyond that they are intruders, and may
rightfully be expelled; and that they have been efficiently expelled by
the legislation of the State through her civil process, as has been
acknowledged on all sides in the debate, is only a confirmation of the
truth of the doctrine for which the majority in Carolina have contended.
The very point at issue between the two parties there is, whether
nullification is a peaceful and an efficient remedy against an
unconstitutional act of the General Government, and may be asserted, as
such, through the State tribunals. Both parties agree that the acts
against which it is directed are unconstitutional and oppressive. The
controversy is only as to the means by which our citizens may be
protected against the acknowledged encroachments on their rights. This
being the point at issue between the parties, and the very object of the
majority being an efficient protection of the citizens through the State
tribunals, the measures adopted to enforce the ordinance, of course
received the most decisive character. We were not children, to act by
halves. Yet for acting thus efficiently the State is denounced, and this
bill reported, to overrule, by military force, the civil tribunal and
civil process of the State! Sir, I consider this bill, and the arguments
which have been urged on this floor in its support, as the most
triumphant acknowledgment that nullification is peaceful and efficient,
and so deeply intrenched in the principles of our system, that it cannot
be assailed but by prostrating the Constitution, and substituting the
supremacy of military force in lieu of the supremacy of the laws. In
fact, the advocates of this bill refute their own argument. They tell us
that the ordinance is unconstitutional; that it infracts the
constitution of South Carolina, although, to me, the objection appears
absurd, as it was adopted by the very authority which adopted the
constitution itself. They also tell us that the Supreme Court is the
appointed arbiter of all controversies between a State and the General
Government. Why, then, do they not leave this controversy to that
tribunal? Why do they not confide to them the abrogation of the
ordinance, and the laws made in pursuance of it, and the assertion of
that supremacy which they claim for the laws of Congress? The State
stands pledged to resist no process of the court. Why, then, confer on
the President the extensive and unlimited powers provided in this bill?
Why authorize him to use military force to arrest the civil process of
the State? But one answer can be given: That, in a contest between the
State and the General Government, if the resistance be limited on both
sides to the civil process, the State, by its inherent sovereignty,
standing upon its reserved powers, will prove too powerful in such a
controversy, and must triumph over the Federal Government, sustained by
its delegated and limited authority; and in this answer we have an
acknowledgment of the truth of those great principles for which the
State has so firmly and nobly contended. * * *
Notwithstanding all that has been said, I may say that neither the
Senator from Delaware (Mr. Clayton), nor any other who has spoken on the
same side, has directly and fairly met the great question at issue: Is
this a Federal Union? a union of States, as distinct from that of
individuals? Is the sovereignty in the several States, or in the
American people in the aggregate? The very language which we are
compelled to use when speaking of our political institutions, affords
proof conclusive as to its real character. The terms union, federal,
united, all imply a combination of sovereignties, a confederation of
States. They never apply to an association of individuals. Who ever
heard of the United State of New York, of Massachusetts, or of Virginia?
Who ever heard the term federal or union applied to the aggregation of
individuals into one community? Nor is the other point less clear--that
the sovereignty is in the several States, and that our system is a union
of twenty-four sovereign powers, under a constitutional compact, and not
of a divided sovereignty between the States severally and the United
States? In spite of all that has been said, I maintain that sovereignty
is in its nature indivisible. It is the supreme power in a State, and we
might just as well speak of half a square, or half of a triangle, as of
half a sovereignty. It is a gross error to confound the exercise of
sovereign powers with sovereignty itself, or the delegation of such
powers with the surrender of them. A sovereign may delegate his powers
to be exercised by as many agents as he may think proper, under such
conditions and with such limitations as he may impose; but to surrender
any portion of his sovereignty to another is to annihilate the whole.
The Senator from Delaware (Mr. Clayton) calls this metaphysical
reasoning, which he says he cannot comprehend. If by metaphysics he
means that scholastic refinement which makes distinctions without
difference, no one can hold it in more utter contempt than I do; but if,
on the contrary, he means the power of analysis and combination--that
power which reduces the most complex idea into its elements, which
traces causes to their first principle, and, by the power of
generalization and combination, unites the whole in one harmonious
system--then, so far from deserving contempt, it is the highest
attribute of the human mind. It is the power which raises man above the
brute--which distinguishes his faculties from mere sagacity, which he
holds in common with inferior animals. It is this power which has raised
the astronomer from being a mere gazer at the stars to the high
intellectual eminence of a Newton or a Laplace, and astronomy itself
from a mere observation of insulated facts into that noble science which
displays to our admiration the system of the universe. And shall this
high power of the mind, which has effected such wonders when directed to
the laws which control the material world, be forever prohibited, under
a senseless cry of metaphysics, from being applied to the high purposes
of political science and legislation? I hold them to be subject to laws
as fixed as matter itself, and to be as fit a subject for the
application of the highest intellectual power. Denunciation may, indeed
fall upon the philosophical inquirer into these first principles, as it
did upon Galileo and Bacon, when they first unfolded the great
discoveries which have immortalized their names; but the time will come
when truth will prevail in spite of prejudice and denunciation, and when
politics and legislation will be considered as much a science as
astronomy and chemistry.
In connection with this part of the subject, I understood the Senator
from Virginia (Mr. Rives) to say that sovereignty was divided, and that
a portion remained with the States severally, and that the residue was
vested in the Union. By Union, I suppose the Senator meant the United
States. If such be his meaning--if he intended to affirm that the
sovereignty was in the twenty-four States, in whatever light he may view
them, our opinions will not disagree; but according to my conception,
the whole sovereignty is in the several States, while the exercise of
sovereign power is divided--a part being exercised under compact,
through this General Government, and the residue through the separate
State Governments. But if the Senator from Virginia (Mr. Rives) means to
assert that the twenty-four States form but one community, with a single
sovereign power as to the objects of the Union, it will be but the
revival of the old question, of whether the Union is a union between
States, as distinct communities, or a mere aggregate of the American
people, as a mass of individuals; and in this light his opinions would
lead directly to consolidation. * * *
Disguise it as you may, the controversy is one between power and
liberty; and I tell the gentlemen who are opposed to me, that, as strong
as may be the love of power on their side, the love of liberty is still
stronger on ours. History furnishes many instances of similar struggles,
where the love of liberty has prevailed against power under every
disadvantage, and among them few more striking than that of our own
Revolution; where, as strong as was the parent country, and feeble as
were the colonies, yet, under the impulse of liberty, and the blessing
of God, they gloriously triumphed in the contest. There are, indeed,
many striking analogies between that and the present controversy. They
both originated substantially in the same cause--with this
difference--in the present case, the power of taxation is converted into
that of regulating industry; in the other, the power of regulating
industry, by the regulation of commerce, was attempted to be converted
into the power of taxation. Were I to trace the analogy further, we
should find that the perversion of the taxing power, in the one case,
has given precisely the same control to the Northern section over the
industry of the Southern section of the Union, which the power to
regulate commerce gave to Great Britain over the industry of the
colonies in the other; and that the very articles in which the colonies
were permitted to have a free trade, and those in which the
mother-country had a monopoly, are almost identically the same as those
in which the Southern States are permitted to have a free trade by the
act of 1832, and in which the Northern States have, by the same act,
secured a monopoly. The only difference is in the means. In the former,
the colonies were permitted to have a free trade with all countries
south of Cape Finisterre, a cape in the northern part of Spain; while
north of that, the trade of the colonies was prohibited, except through
the mother-country, by means of her commercial regulations. If we
compare the products of the country north and south of Cape Finisterre,
we shall find them almost identical with the list of the protected and
unprotected articles contained in the list of last year. Nor does the
analogy terminate here. The very arguments resorted to at the
commencement of the American Revolution, and the measures adopted, and
the motives assigned to bring on that contest (to enforce the law), are
almost identically the same.
But to return from this digression to the consideration of the bill.
Whatever difference of opinion may exist upon other points, there is one
on which I should suppose there can be none; that this bill rests upon
principles which, if carried out, will ride over State sovereignties,
and that it will be idle for any advocates hereafter to talk of State
rights. The Senator from Virginia (Mr. Rives) says that he is the
advocate of State rights; but he must permit me to tell him that,
although he may differ in premises from the other gentlemen with whom he
acts on this occasion, yet, in supporting this bill, he obliterates
every vestige of distinction between him and them, saving only that,
professing the principles of '98, his example will be more pernicious
than that of the most open and bitter opponent of the rights of the
States. I will also add, what I am compelled to say, that I must
consider him (Mr. Rives) as less consistent than our old opponents,
whose conclusions were fairly drawn from their premises, while his
premises ought to have led him to opposite conclusions. The gentleman
has told us that the new-fangled doctrines, as he chooses to call them,
have brought State rights into disrepute. I must tell him, in reply,
that what he calls new-fangled are but the doctrines of '98; and that it
is he (Mr. Rives), and others with him, who, professing these doctrines,
have degraded them by explaining away their meaning and efficacy. He
(Mr. R.) has disclaimed, in behalf of Virginia, the authorship of
nullification. I will not dispute that point. If Virginia chooses to
throw away one of her brightest ornaments, she must not hereafter
complain that it has become the property of another. But while I have,
as a representative of Carolina, no right to complain of the disavowal
of the Senator from Virginia, I must believe that he (Mr. R.) has done
his native State great injustice by declaring on this floor, that when
she gravely resolved, in '98, that "in cases of deliberate and dangerous
infractions of the Constitution, the States, as parties to the compact,
have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose to arrest the
progress of the evil, and to maintain within their respective limits the
authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them," she meant no
more than to proclaim the right to protest and to remonstrate. To
suppose that, in putting forth so solemn a declaration, which she
afterward sustained by so able and elaborate an argument, she meant no
more than to assert what no one had ever denied, would be to suppose
that the State had been guilty of the most egregious trifling that ever
was exhibited on so solemn an occasion.
THOMAS H. BENTON, OF MISSOURI. (BORN 1782, DIED 1858.)
ON THE EXPUNGING RESOLUTION
--UNITED STATES SENATE, JANUARY 12, 1837
MR. PRESIDENT: