imposts, are acts, not for revenue, as intended by the Constitutions, but for protection, and therefore null and void. The ordinance thus enacted by the people of the State themselves, acting as a sovereign community, is as obligatory on the citizens of the State as any portion of the Constitution. In prescribing, then, the oath to obey the ordinance, no more was done than to prescribe an oath to obey the Constitution. It is, in fact, but a particular oath of allegiance, and in every respect similar to that which is prescribed under the Constitution of the United States, to be administered to all the officers of the State and Federal Governments; and is no more deserving the harsh and bitter epithets which have been heaped upon it than that or any similar oath. It ought to be borne in mind, that, according to the opinion which prevails in Carolina, the right of resistance to the unconstitutional laws of Congress belongs to the State, and not to her individual citizens; and that, though the latter may, in a mere question of meum and tuum, resist, through the courts, an unconstitutional encroachment upon their rights, yet the final stand against usurpation rests not

with them, but with the State of which they are members; and such act of resistance by a State binds the conscience and allegiance of the citizen. But there appears to be a general misapprehension as to the extent to which the State has acted under this part of the ordinance. Instead of sweeping every officer by a general proscription of the minority, as has been represented in debate, as far as my knowledge extends, not a single individual has been removed. The State has, in fact, acted with the greatest tenderness, all circumstances considered, towards citizens who differed from the majority; and, in that spirit, has directed the oath to be administered only in cases of some official act directed to be performed, in which obedience to the ordinance is involved.

It has been farther objected that the State has acted precipitately. What! precipitately! after making a strenuous resistance for twelve years; by discussion here and in the other house of Congress; by essays in all forms; by resolutions, remonstrances, and protests on the part of her Legislature; and, finally, by attempting an appeal to the judicial power of the United States? I say

attempting, for they have been prevented from bringing the question fairly before the court, and that by an act of that very majority in Congress who now upbraid them for not making that appeal; of that majority who, on a motion of one of the members in the other House, from South Carolina, refused to give to the act of 1828 its true title, that it was a protective, and not a revenue act. The State has never, it is true, relied upon that tribunal, the Supreme Court, to vindicate its reserved rights; yet they have always considered it as an auxiliary means of defence, of which they would gladly have availed themselves to test the constitutionality of protection, had they not been deprived of the means of doing so by the act of the majority.

Notwithstanding this long delay of more than ten years, under this continued encroachment of the Government, we now hear it on all sides, by friends and foes, gravely pronounced that the State has acted precipitately-that her conduct has been rash! That such should be the language of an interested majority, who, by means of this unconstitutional and oppressive system, are annu

ally extorting millions from the South to be bestowed upon other sections, is not at all surprising. Whatever impedes the course of avarice and ambition will ever be denounced as rash and precipitate; and had South Carolina delayed her resistance fifty instead of twelve years, she would have heard from the same quarter the same language; but it is really surprising that those who are suffering in common with herself, and who have complained equally loud of their grievances, who have pronounced the very acts which she has asserted within her limits to be oppressive, unconstitutional, and ruinous, after so long a struggle-a struggle longer than that which preceded the separation of these States from the mother country-longer than the period of the Trojan war-should now complain of precipitancy! No, it is not Carolina, which has acted precipitately; but her sister States, who have suffered in common with her, have acted tardily. Had they acted as she has done, had they performed their duty with equal energy and promptness, our situation this day would be very different from what we now find it. Delays are said to be dan

gerous; and never was the maxim more true than in the present case, a case of monopoly. It is the very nature of monopolies to grow. If we take from one side a large portion of the proceeds of its labour and give it to the other, the side from which we take must constantly decay, and that to which we give must prosper and increase. Such is the action of the protective system. It exacts from the South a large portion of the proceeds of its industry, which it bestows upon the other sections, in the shape of bounties to manufactures, and appropriations in a thousand forms; pensions, improvement of rivers and harbours, roads and canals, and in every shape that wit or ingenuity can devise. Can we, then, be surprised that the principle of monopoly grows, when it is so amply remunerated at the expense of those who support it? And this is the real reason of the fact which we witness, that all acts for protection pass with small minorities, but soon come to be sustained by great and overwhelming majorities. Those who seek the monopoly endeavour to obtain it in the most exclusive shape; and they take care, accordingly, to associate only a sufficient number