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 pass 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 here. 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 term 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 the 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 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 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 is 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 upon a failure.
Because the Union was formed by compact, it is said the parties to that
compact may, when they feel aggrieved, depart from it; but it is
precisely because it is a compact that they cannot. A contract 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 cannot 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 and
undivided sovereignty of the States, and of 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 judicial and
legislative powers, were all 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 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 a 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
oppression 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
these 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 the obligation.
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 sacrifice of interest 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 enormous 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. Every one 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 acquiesce 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 a 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 in 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 has 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 effect 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 a 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 our
staple commodity, lowered by over-production 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 burdens were in proportion to your exports,
not to your consumption of imported articles. Your pride was roused by
the assertions that a submission to these 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 burdens. 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 unconstitutionality 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
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 every one, 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 principles 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 our 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 has commenced. The nearly approaching payment of the
public debt, and the consequent necessity of a diminution of duties, had
already caused 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 burdens 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
apprehensive of the effect of this change in allaying your discontents,
you were precipitated into a fearful state in which you now find
yourselves.