prehended almost the sum of our political dangers, and against it we ought to be perpetually guarded.

The very last speech that he delivered in the House of Representatives was like that which, at the end of his life, he delivered in the United States Senate. It was a plea for the Union.

"Sixteen years elapsed between the delivery of this speech and his reappearance in the national councils as a Senator of the United States. Those years were crowded with important events and changes. At the expiration of them the United States had grown to be a great and powerful republic, whose people laughed to scorn the thought of danger from any power on earth. The moderate protective tariff, and other measures which he had advocated as a means of defence against foreign aggressions, had grown to colossal systems, drawing wealth and power from federal taxation, dominating and destroying the agricultural interests of the country. It was during this period that Mr. John Quincy Adams was elected President of the United States. The manner of his election by the House of Representatives over General Jackson, who had received the largest number of electoral votes, the bold centralizing doctrines enunciated in his inaugural, and the measures which he urged excited opposition among Republicans throughout the country, in which Mr. Calhoun united. The venerable Thomas Jefferson, then eighty-three years of age, and living in strict retirement, whose mind, however, looked from the brink of the grave keenly into the future, gave forth the following prophetic warnings :

"I see as you do, and with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the states, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that, too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power. Take together the decisions of the federal court, the doctrines of the president, and the misconstructions of the constitutional compact acted on by the legislature of the federal branch, and it is but too evident that the three ruling branches of that department are in combination to strip their colleagues, the state authorities, of the powers reserved by them, and to exercise themselves all functions, foreign and domestic. Under the power to regulate commerce, they assume indefinitely that over agriculture and manufactures, and call it regulation to take the earnings of one of these branches of industry, and that, too, the most depressed, and put them into the pockets of the other, the most flourishing of all. . . . And what is our resource for the preservation of the Constitution? Reason and argument? You might as well reason with the marble columns encircling us.'

"It is not my purpose to discuss here the question of a protective tariff. I desire to efface myself on this occasion. My only aspiration is to present to you the moral and intellectual image of him whose outer form and lineaments are presented in the admirable statue we this day unveil.

"In one of his speeches he stated that the station of vice-president, from its leisure, had given him the opportunity to study the genius of the protective sys tem as a measure of permanent domestic policy; that he saw its blasting effects on one section, its corrupting effects on another, and these effects increasing until the burden became intolerable under the tariff of 1828, which was the crowning act of the administration of Mr. Adams. He saw that under its operation

'desolation was spreading over the entire staple region; its commercial cities were deserted; Charleston parted with her last ship, and grass grew in her once busy streets.'

"He believed that the Constitution was violated in using a power granted to raise revenue as the instrument of rearing up the industry of one section of the country on the ruins of another; that it was, in a word, ‘a revolution of the Constitution by perversion, the most dangerous of all, because the most insidious and difficult to counteract."

"When convinced that there was no hope for relief from Congress through the administration of General Jackson, he advised a remedy which he believed to be within the limits of the Constitution, conducive to the preservation of the Union, and yet fully adequate to protect the states and the people from the abuse and encroachment of federal power. That remedy was state intervention or nullification. The state of South Carolina, in a convention duly and legally convoked in November, 1832, passed an ordinance declaring the tariff of 1832 and 1828 to be unconstitutional, null, and void within her limits, and of no binding effect upon her officers and citizens. This was followed by a proclamation from President Jackson declaring the ordinance unconstitutional, intended to dissolve the Union, and forbidding any obedience to it upon the pains and penalties of treason. In defence of this action of his state, and in opposition to the doctrines of the proclamation and the legislation in support of it, Mr. Calhoun put forth those profound expositions of political principles which, as Mr. Webster afterwards said, will descend to posterity under the sanction of a great name.'

"He said: 'I am not ignorant that those opposed to the doctrine [nullification] have always, now and formerly, regarded it as anarchical and revolutionary. Could I believe such, in fact, to be its tendency, to me it would be no recommendation. I yield to none, I trust, in a deep and sincere attachment to our political institutions and the union of the states. I never expressed an opposite sentiment, but, on the contrary, I have ever considered them the great instruments of preserving our liberty and promoting the happiness of ourselves and our posterity. And, next to this, I have ever held them most dear. Nearly half of my life has been passed in the service of the Union, and whatever public reputation I have acquired is indissolubly identified with it. To be too national has, indeed, been considered by many, even of my friends, my greatest political fault. With these strong feelings of attachment I have examined with the utmost care the bearing of the doctrine in question; and so far from being anarchical or revolutionary, I solemnly believe it to be the only solid foundation of our system and of the Union itself; and that the opposite doctrine, which denies to the states the right of protecting their reserved powers, and which would vest in the government (it matters not through what department) the right of determining exclusively and finally the powers delegated to it, incompatible with the sovereignty of the states, if the Constitution itself be considered as the basis of the Federal Union.'

"To the objection that the right of a state to interpose and arrest an Act of Congress because of its alleged unconstitutionality is inconsistent with the necessary authority of the government, and must lead to feebleness, anarchy, and final disunion, he says that this power of nullification would, if unchecked, like all unchecked power, tend to abuse and disaster. 'But it is not unchecked,' said he. 'As high as this right of interposition on the part of a state may be regarded in

relation to the general government, the constitutional compact provides a remedy against this abuse. There is a higher power placed above all-by the consent of all the creating and preserving power of the system, to be enacted by three fourths of the states, and which, under the character of the amending power, can modify our whole system at pleasure, and to the acts of which none can object. Admit, then, the power in question to belong to the states-and admit its liability to abuse-and what are the utmost consequences but to create a presumption against the constitutionality of the power exercised by the general government, which, if it be well-founded, must compel them to abandon it? . . . If, on an appeal for this purpose, the decision be favorable to the general government, a disputed power will be converted into an expressly granted power; but, on the other hand, if it be adverse, the refusal to grant will be tantamount to an inhibition of its exercise; and thus, in either case, the controversy will be determined. The utmost extent, then, of the power is that a state, acting in its sovereign capacity as one of the parties to the constitutional compact, may compel the government, created by that compact, to submit a question touching its infraction to the parties who created it. This amending power by a convention of the states is, when properly understood, the vis medicatrix of the system-its great repairing, healing, and conservative power-intended to remedy its disorders, in whatever cause or causes originating; whether in the original defects or errors of the Constitution itself, or the operation and change of circumstances. . . . Or, in case of a disputed power, whether it be between the Federal Government and one of its co-ordinates, or between the former and an interposing state, by declaring, authoritatively, what is the Constitution. . . . It is thus that our Constitution, by authorizing amendments, and by prescribing the authority and mode of making them, has, by a simple contrivance, with its characteristic wisdom, provided a power which, in the last resort, supersedes effectually the necessity, and even the pretext, for force.'

"That such a remedy is provided is proof of the profound wisdom of the great men who formed our Constitution, and entitles them to the lasting gratitude of the country, but it will be in vain that their wisdom devised a remedy so admirable, a substitute so infinitely superior to the old and irrational mode of terminating such controversies as are of too high a nature to be adjusted by the force of reason, or through the ordinary tribunals, if their descendants be so blind as not to perceive its efficacy, or so intently bent upon schemes of ambition and avarice as to prefer to this constitutional, peaceful, and safe remedy the wanton, hazardous, and immoral arbitrament of force.

"There is, indeed, one view, and one only, of the contest in which force could be employed; but that view, as between the parties, would supersede the Constitution itself-that nullification is secession - and would, consequently, place the state, as to the others, in the relation of a foreign state. . . . Standing thus towards one another, force might, indeed, be employed against a state, but it must be a belligerent force, preceded by a declaration of war and carried on with all its formalties. Such would be the certain effect of secession; and if nullification be secession, such, too, must be its effect, which presents the highly important question, Are they, in fact, the same? on the decision of which depends the question whether nullification be a peaceable and Constitutional remedy that may be exercised without terminating the federal relations of the state or not.

"I am aware that there is a considerable and respectable portion of our state, with a very large portion of the Union, constituting, in fact, a great majority, who are of the opinion that they are the same thing, differing only in name, and who, under that impression, denounce it as the most dangerous of all doctrines; and yet, so far from being the same, they are, unless, indeed, I am greatly deceived, not only perfectly distinguishable, but totally dissimilar in their nature, their object, and effect; and that, so far from deserving the denunciation, so properly belong. ing to the act with which it is confounded, it is, in truth, the highest and most precious of all rights of the states, and essential to preserve that very Union for the supposed effect of destroying which it is so bitterly anathematized. They are wholly dissimilar in their nature. Secession is the withdrawal from the Union, . . a throwing off of the authority of the Union itself, a separation from partners, and, as far as it depends on the member withdrawing, a dissolution of the partnership. It presupposes an association or union of several states or individuals for a common object. . . . Nullification, on the contrary, presupposes the relation of principal and agent; the one granting a power to be executed, the other appointed by him with authority to execute it, and is simply a declaration on the part of the principal, made in due form, that an act of the agent transcending his power is null and void. The difference in their object is no less striking than in their nature. The object of secession is to free the withdrawing member from the obligation of the association or union, etc. Its direct and immediate object, as it concerns the withdrawing member, is the dissolution of the association or union, as far as it is concerned. On the contrary, the object of nullification is to confine the agent within the limits of his powers, by arresting his acts transcending them, not with a view of destroying the delegated or trust power, but to preserve it by compelling the agent to fulfil the object for which agency or trust was created, and is applicable only to cases where the trust or delegated powers are transcended on the part of the agent.'

"It remains now to show that their effect is as dissimilar as their nature or object.'

"Nullification leaves the members of the association or union in the condition to find them-subject to all its burdens, and entitled to all its advantages, comprehending the member nullifying as well as the others-its object being not to destroy, but to preserve, as has been stated. . . . Secession, on the contrary, destroys, as far as the withdrawing member is concerned, the association or union. . . . Such are clearly the differences between them; differences so marked that, instead of being identical, as supposed, they form a contrast to all the aspects in which they can be regarded.’”

CHAPTER II.

NATURE OF THE CONSTITUTION FURTHER CONSIDERED.-JUDICIAL VIEWS OF IT FROM THE ORIGIN OF THE GOVERNMENT TO THE PRESENT TIME.-PRESIDENT JACKSON'S CLAIM TO INTERPRET THE CONSTITUTION AS HE UNDERSTOOD IT.-FUNCTION OF THE SUPREME COURT.

I SHALL now advert to a striking contrast that marks the whole period of our constitutional history from the year 1789 down to the civil war. While the diversities of opinion respecting the nature of the Constitution, described in the foregoing pages, were prevailing in the minds of men in different parts of the country, the legislative, executive, and judicial interpretation of its powers proceeded upon a theory that is the direct opposite of both the nullification and the secession doctrine. The government established by the Constitution has always been administered as one of sovereign powers, granted to it by cessions irrevocable in their nature and supreme in their appropriate sphere. Whatever may have been the views held by individuals who have been prominent in public life and have filled federal offices, there has been no instance in which the legislative or the executive departments have been so administered as to give countenance to the idea that the Constitution is a league between sovereign states, or that its powers are subject to control by the resistance of one or more of the states interposed to absolve individuals from submission to its authority. The whole tenor of the legislation adopted to carry into effect the powers of the Constitution from time to time shows that these powers have been brought to bear upon individuals as subjects of a government that can rightfully control them in certain relations, and that this mode of administration has been based upon the fundamental postulate that within its own sphere the Federal Government is supreme. The means resorted to, in the first legislation, for making the supremacy of the constitution