A SPEECH DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, ON THE 16TH OF
FEBRUARY, 1833, IN REPLY TO MR. CALHOUN'S SPEECH ON THE BILL "FURTHER TO
PROVIDE FOR THE COLLECTION OF DUTIES ON IMPORTS."
[On the 21st of January, 1833, Mr. Wilkins, chairman of the Judiciary
Committee of the Senate, introduced the bill further to provide for the
collection of duties. On the 22d day of the same month, Mr. Calhoun
submitted the following resolutions:--
"_Resolved_, That the people of the several States composing these
United States are united as parties to a constitutional compact, to
which the people of each State acceded as a separate govereign
community, each binding itself by its own particular ratification;
and that the union, of which the said compact is the bond, is a
union _between the States_ ratifying the same.
"_Resolved_, That the people of the several States thus united by
the constitutional compact, in forming that instrument, and in
creating a general government to carry into effect the objects for
which they were formed, delegated to that government, for that
purpose, certain definite powers, to be exercised jointly,
reserving, at the same time, each State to itself, the residuary
mass of powers, to be exercised by its own separate government; and
that whenever the general government assumes the exercise of powers
not delegated by the compact, its acts are unauthorized, and are of
no effect; and that the same government is not made the final judge
of the powers delegated to it, since that would make its
discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers;
but that, as in all other cases of compact among sovereign parties,
without any common judge, each has an equal right to judge for
itself, as well of the infraction as of the mode and measure of
redress.
"_Resolved_, That the assertions, that the people of these United
States, taken collectively as individuals, are now, or ever have
been, united on the principle of the social compact, and, as such,
are now formed into one nation or people, or that they have ever
been so united in any one stage of their political existence; that
the people of the several States composing the Union have not, as
members thereof, retained their sovereignty; that the allegiance of
their citizens has been transferred to the general government; that
they have parted with the right of punishing treason through their
respective State governments; and that they have not the right of
judging in the last resort as to the extent of the powers reserved,
and of consequence of those delegated,--are not only without
foundation in truth, but are contrary to the most certain and plain
historical facts, and the clearest deductions of reason; and that
all exercise of power on the part of the general government, or any
of its departments, claiming authority from such erroneous
assumptions, must of necessity be unconstitutional,--must tend,
directly and inevitably, to subvert the sovereignty of the States,
to destroy the federal character of the Union, and to rear on its
ruins a consolidated government, without constitutional check or
limitation, and which must necessarily terminate in the loss of
liberty itself."
On Saturday, the 16th of February, Mr. Calhoun spoke in opposition to
the bill, and in support of these resolutions. He was followed by Mr.
Webster in this speech.]
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 _break up_ what they 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
had 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
now 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 gentleman 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 condition of the
times and the absolute necessity of the law, was to give to Congress
power to lay and collect imposts _without the consent of particular
States_. The Revolutionary debt remained unpaid; the national treasury
was bankrupt; the country was destitute of credit; Congress issued its
requisitions on the States, and the States neglected them; there was no
power of coercion but war, Congress could not lay imposts, or other
taxes, by its own authority; the whole general 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 main-spring of the whole system; and if she
succeed, every movement of that system must inevitably cease. It is of
no avail that she declares that she does not resist the law as a revenue
law, but as a law for protecting manufactures. It is a revenue law; it
is the very law by force of which the revenue is collected; if it be
arrested in any State, the revenue ceases in that State; it is, in a
word, the sole reliance of the government for the means of maintaining
itself and performing its duties.
Mr. President, the alleged right of a State to decide constitutional
questions for herself necessarily leads to force, because other States
must have the same right, and because different States will decide
differently; and when these questions arise between States, if there be
no superior power, they can be decided only by the law of force. On
entering into the Union, the people of each State gave up a part of
their own power to make laws for themselves, in consideration, that, as
to common objects, they should have a part in making laws for other
States. In other words, the people of all the States agreed to create a
common government, to be 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 maybe, made by different States, the whole page would be
a polyglot indeed. It would speak with as many tongues as the builders
of Babel, and in dialects as much confused, and mutually as
unintelligible. The very instance now before us presents a practical
illustration. The law of the last session is declared unconstitutional
in South Carolina, and obedience to it is refused. In other States, it
is admitted to be strictly constitutional. You walk over the 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 underfoot."
This, Sir, is practical nullification.