Mr. President,-The gentleman from South Carolina 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 my
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 the 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
succor from public sympathy, no cheering from a patriotic community. He
has no foothold on which to stand while 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 farther; I fear that no
friend can safely come to his relief, that no one can approach near
enough to hold out a helping hand, without danger of going down
himself, also, into the bottomless depths of this Serbonian bog.
The honorable 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 himself, 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
everywhere, 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 its 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 of what he has said he has deemed
necessary to the just explanation and defence of his own political
character and conduct. On this I shall offer no comment. Much, too, has
consisted of philosophical remark upon the general nature of political
liberty, and the history of free institutions; and upon 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, I presume, be justly regarded as containing the
whole South Carolina doctrine. That doctrine it is my purpose now to
examine, and to compare it with the Constitution of the United States.
I shall not consent, 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 endeavor 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
purpose, at present, to take no particular notice.
The first two resolutions of the honorable 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 violation, to choose, each for itself, its own mode and measure
of redress.
It is true, Sir, that the honorable member calls this a
"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 the word _compact_ no
definite idea. Were we 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
connections, the word is void of all meaning; and yet, Sir, it is easy,
quite easy, to see why the honorable 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 honorable 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 language 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 copartnership, 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.
Was it Mirabeau, Mr. President, or some other master of the human
passions, who has told us that words are things? They are indeed
things, and things of mighty influence, not only in addresses to the
passions and high-wrought feelings of mankind, but in the discussion of
legal and political questions also; because a just conclusion is often
avoided, or a false one reached, by the adroit substitution of one
phrase, or one word, for another. Of this we have, I think, another
example in the resolutions before us.
The first resolution declares that the people of the several States
_"acceded"_ to the Constitution, or to the constitutional compact, as
it is called. This word "accede," not found either in the Constitution
itself, or in the ratification of it by any one of the States, has been
chosen for use here, doubtless, not without a well-considered purpose.
The natural converse of _accession_ is _secession_; and, therefore,
when it is stated that the people of the States acceded to the Union,
it may be more plausibly argued that they may secede from it. If, in
adopting the Constitution, nothing was done but acceding to a compact,
nothing 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 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 honorable 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 a 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 in a
union, more or less close, for fifteen years. At least as far back as
the meeting of the first Congress, in 1774, they had been in some
measure, and for some national purposes, united together. Before the
Confederation of 1781, they had declared independence jointly, and had
carried on the war jointly, both by sea and land; and this not as
separate States, but as one people. When, therefore, they formed that
Confederation, and adopted its articles as articles of perpetual union,
they did not come together for the first time; and therefore they did
not speak of the States as _acceding_ to the Confederation, although it
was a league, and nothing but a league, and rested on nothing but
plighted faith for its performance. Yet, even then, the States were not
strangers to each other; there was a bond of union already subsisting
between them; they were associated, united States; and the object of
the Confederation was to make a stronger and better bond of union.
Their representatives deliberated together on these proposed Articles
of Confederation, and being authorized by their respective States,
finally "_ratified and confirmed_" them. Inasmuch as they were already
in union, they did not speak of _acceding_ to the new Articles of
Confederation, but of _ratifying_ and _confirming_ them; and this
language was not used inadvertently, because, in the same instrument,
_accession_ is used in its proper sense, when applied to Canada, which
was altogether a stranger to the existing union. "Canada," says the
eleventh article, "_acceding_ to this Confederation, and joining in the
measures of the United States, shall be admitted into the Union."
Having thus used the terms _ratify_ and _confirm_, even in regard to
the old Confederation, it would have been strange indeed, if the people
of the United States, after its formation, and when they came to
establish the present Constitution, had spoken of the States, or the
people of the States, as _acceding_ to this constitution. Such language
would have been ill-suited to the occasion. It would have implied an
existing separation or disunion among the States, such as never has
existed since 1774. No such language, therefore, was used. The language
actually employed is, _adopt, ratify, ordain, establish_.
Therefore, Sir, since any State, before she can prove her right to
dissolve the Union, must show her authority to undo what has been done,
no State is at liberty to _secede_, on the ground that she and other
States have done nothing but _accede_. She must show that she has a
right to _reverse_ what has been _ordained_, to _unsettle_ and
_overthrow_ what has been _established_, to _reject_ what the people
have _adopted_, and to breakup what have _ratified_; because these are
the terms which express the transactions which have actually taken
place. In other words, she must show her right to make a revolution.
If, Mr. President, in drawing these resolutions, the honorable member
and confined himself to the use of constitutional language, there would
have been a wide and awful _hiatus_ between his premises and his
conclusion. Leaving out the two words _compact_ and _accession_, which
are not constitutional modes of expression, and stating the matter
precisely as the truth is, his first resolution would have affirmed
that _the people of the several States ratified this Constitution, or
form of government_. These are the very words of South Carolina
herself, in her act of ratification. Let, then, his first resolution
tell the exact truth; let it state the fact precisely as it exists; let
it say that the people of the several States ratified a constitution,
or form of government, and then, Sir, what will become of his inference
in his second resolution, which is in these words, viz. "that, as in
all other cases of compact among sovereign parties, each has an equal
right to judge for itself, as well of the infraction as of the mode and
measure of redress"? It is obvious, is it not, Sir? that this
conclusion requires for its support quite other premises; it requires
premises which speak of _accession_ and of _compact_ between sovereign
powers; and, without such premises, it is altogether unmeaning.
Mr. President, if the honorable member will truly state what the people
did in forming this Constitution, and then state what they must do if
they would now undo what they then did, he will unavoidably state a
case of revolution.
Let us see if it be not so. He must state, in the first place, that the
people of the several States adopted and ratified this Constitution, or
form of government; and, in the next place, he must state that they
have a right to undo this; that is to say, that they have a right to
discard the form of government which they have adopted, and to break up
the Constitution which they have ratified. Now, Sir, this is neither
more nor less than saying that they have a right to make a revolution.
To reject an established government, to break up a political
constitution, is revolution.
I deny that any man can state accurately what was done by the people,
in establishing the present Constitution, and then state accurately
what the people, or any part of them, must now do to get rid of its
obligations, without stating an undeniable case of the overthrow of
government. I admit, of course, that the people may, if they choose,
overthrow the government. But, then, that is revolution. The doctrine
how contended for is, that, by _nullification_, or _secession_, the
obligations and authority of the government may be set aside or
rejected, without revolution. But that is what I deny; and what I say
is, that no man can state the case with historical accuracy, and in
constitutional language, without showing that the honorable gentleman's
right, as asserted in his conclusion, is a revolutionary right merely;
that it does not and cannot exist under the Constitution, or agreeably
to the Constitution, but can come into existence only when the
Constitution is overthrown. This is the reason, Sir, which makes it
necessary to abandon the use of constitutional language for a new
vocabulary, and to substitute, in the place of plain historical facts,
a series of assumptions. This is the reason why it is necessary to give
new names to things, to speak of the Constitution, not as a
constitution, but as a compact, and of the ratifications by the people,
not as ratifications, but as acts of accession.
Sir, I intend to hold the gentlemen to the written record. In the
discussion of a constitutional question, I intend to impose upon him
the restraints of constitutional language. The people have ordained a
Constitution; can they reject it without revolution? They have
established a form of government; can they overthrow it without
revolution? These are the true questions.
Allow me now, Mr. President, to inquire further into the extent of the
propositions contained in the resolutions, and their necessary
consequences.
Where sovereign communities are parties, there is no essential
difference between a compact, a confederation, and a league. They all
equally rest on the plighted faith of the sovereign party. A league, or
confederacy, is but a subsisting or continuing treaty.
The gentleman's resolutions, then, affirm, in effect, that these
twenty-four United States are held together only by a subsisting
treaty, resting for its fulfilment and continuance on no inherent power
of its own, but on the plighted faith of each State; or, in other
words, that our Union is but a league; and, as a consequence from this
proposition, they further affirm that, as sovereigns are subject to no
superior power, the States must judge, each for itself, of any alleged
violation of the league; and if such violation be supposed to have
occurred, each may adopt any mode or measure of redress which it shall
think proper.
Other consequences naturally follow, too, from the main proposition. If
a league between sovereign powers have no limitation as to the time of
its duration, and contain nothing making it perpetual, it subsists only
during the good pleasure of the parties, although no violation be
complained of. If, in the opinion of either party, it be violated, such
party may say that he will no longer fulfil its obligations on his
part, but will consider the whole league or compact at an end, although
it might be one of its stipulations that it should be perpetual. Upon
this principle, the Congress of the United States, in 1798, declared
null and void the treaty of alliance between the United States and
France, though it professed to be a perpetual alliance.
If the violation of the league be accompanied with serious injuries,
the suffering party, being sole judge of his own mode and measure of
redress, has a right to indemnify himself by reprisals on the offending
members of the league; and reprisals, if the circumstances of the case
require it, may be followed by direct, avowed, and public war.
The necessary import of the resolution, therefore, is that the United
States are connected only by a league; that it is in the good pleasure
of every State to decide how long she will choose to remain a member of
this league; that any State may determine the extent of her own
obligations under it, and accept or reject what shall be decided by the
whole; that she may also determine whether her rights have been
violated, what is the extent of the injury done her, and what mode and
measure of redress her wrongs may make it fit and expedient for her to
adopt. The result of the whole is, that any State may secede at
pleasure; that any State may resist a law which she herself may choose
to say exceeds the power of Congress; and that, as a sovereign power,
she may redress her own grievances, by her own arm, at her own
discretion. She may make reprisals; she may cruise against the property
of other members of the league; she may authorize captures, and make
open war.
If, Sir, this be our political condition, it is time the people of the
United States understood it. Let us look for a moment to the practical
consequences of these opinions. One State, holding an embargo law
unconstitutional, may declare her opinion, and withdraw from the Union.
_She_ secedes. Another, forming and expressing the same judgment on a
law laying duties on imports, may withdraw also. _She_ secedes. And as,
in her opinion, money has been taken out of the pockets of her citizens
illegally, under pretence of this law, and as she has power to redress
their wrongs, she may demand satisfaction; and, if refused, she may
take it with a strong hand. The gentleman has himself pronounced the
collection of duties, under existing laws, to be nothing but robbery.
Robbers, of course, may be rightfully dispossessed of the fruits of
their flagitious crimes; and therefore, reprisals, impositions on the
commerce of other States, foreign alliances against them, or open war,
are all modes of redress justly open to the discretion and choice of
South Carolina; for she is to judge of her own rights, and to seek
satisfaction for her own wrongs, in her own way.
But, Sir, a _third_ State is of opinion, not only that these laws of
imposts are constitutional, but that it is the absolute duty of
Congress to pass and to maintain such laws; and that, by omitting to
pass and maintain them, its constitutional obligations would be grossly
disregarded. She herself relinquished the power of protection, she
might allege, and allege truly, and gave it up to Congress, on the
faith that Congress would exercise it. If Congress now refuse to
exercise it, Congress does, as she may insist, break the condition of
the grant, and thus manifestly violate the Constitution; and for this
violation of the Constitution, _she_ may threaten to secede also.
Virginia may secede, and hold the fortresses in the Chesapeake. The
Western States may secede, and take to their own use the public lands.
Louisiana may secede, if she choose, form a foreign alliance, and hold
the mouth of the Mississippi. If one State may secede, ten may do so,
twenty may do so, twenty-three may do so. Sir, as these secessions go
on, one after another, what is to constitute the United States? Whose
will be the army? Whose the navy? Who will pay the debts? Who fulfil
the public treaties? Who perform the constitutional guaranties? Who
govern this District and the Territories? Who retain the public
property?
Mr. President, every man must see that these are all questions which
can arise only _after a revolution_. They presuppose the breaking up of
the government. While the Constitution lasts, they are repressed; they
spring up to annoy and startle us only from its grave.
The Constitution does not provide for events which must be preceded by
its own destruction. SECESSION, therefore, since it must bring these
consequences with it, is REVOLUTIONARY, and NULLIFICATION is equally
REVOLUTIONARY. What is revolution? Why, Sir, that is revolution which
overturns, or controls, or successfully resists, the existing public
authority; that which arrests the exercise of the supreme power; that
which introduces a new paramount authority into the rule of the State.
Now, Sir, this is the precise object of nullification. It attempts to
supersede the supreme legislative authority. It arrests the arm of the
executive magistrate. It interrupts the exercise of the accustomed
judicial power. Under the name of an ordinance, it declares null and
void, within the State, all the revenue laws of the United States. Is
not this revolutionary? Sir, so soon as this ordinance shall be carried
into effect, a _revolution_ will have commenced in South Carolina. She
will have thrown off the authority to which her citizens have
heretofore been subject. She will have declared her own opinions and
her own will to be above the laws and above the power of those who are
intrusted with their administration. If she makes good these
declarations, she is revolutionized. As to her, it is as distinctly a
change of the supreme power as the American Revolution of 1776. That
revolution did not subvert government in all its forms. It did not
subvert local laws and municipal administrations. It only threw off the
dominion of a power claiming to be superior, and to have a right, in
many important respects, to exercise legislative authority. Thinking
this authority to have been usurped or abused, the American Colonies,
now the United States, bade it defiance, and freed themselves from it
by means of a revolution. But that revolution left them with their own
municipal laws still, and the forms of local government. If Carolina
now shall effectually resist the laws of Congress; if she shall be her
own judge, take her remedy into her own hands, obey the laws of the
Union when she pleases and disobey them when she pleases, she will
relieve herself from a paramount power as distinctly as the American
Colonies did the same thing in 1776. In other words, she will achieve,
as to herself, a revolution.
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 to 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
gentleman 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 dark abyss below, were
it not that that abyss has no discovered bottom.
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 everywhere,
they cannot long be executed anywhere. 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, and
every man sees, that the only alternative is a repeal of the laws
throughout the whole Union, or their execution in 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 opinion, 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
conditions 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 government, 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 manufacturers. 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 conducted by common counsels. 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 on 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 counsels, 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 the 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 in obedience to it is refused. In other States,
it is admitted to be strictly constitutional. You walk over the limit
of its authority, therefore, when you pass a 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, Sir, 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 nullification.