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CHAPTER IX.

GENERAL JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION,

MARCH 4, 1829-MARCH 4, 1837.

GENERAL JACKSON was elected President by 178 electoral votes against 83 votes which were cast for Mr. ADAMS. Every State south of the Potomac cast its electoral vote for General JACKSON. Every electoral vote of the New England States, except one from Maine, was cast for Mr. ADAMS. At his second election he received 219 votes; Mr. CLAY received 49 votes.

He was in favor of a strict construction of the Constitution, by which the States would practically retain their reserved rights. He was opposed to that broad or large construction of the Constitution, by which a United States Bank had been chartered, and by which a system of internal improvements had been adopted or projected, and by which high protective tariffs had been established.

In his inaugural address, he has the following paragraph in reference to the position of South Carolina and Georgia and other States in respect to the tariff of 1828. "In such measures as I may be called on to pursue, in regard to the rights of the separate States, I hope to be animated by a proper respect for those sovereign members of our Union; taking care not to confound the powers they have reserved to themselves, with those they have granted to the Confederacy." In his first annual message, after speaking of the tariff and any attempts that may be made to connect it with the party politics of the day, he adds: “Legislation, subjected to such influences, can never be

just, and cannot long retain the sanction of a people whose active patriotism is not bounded by sectional limits, nor insensible to that spirit of concession and forbearance which gives life to our political compact, and still sustains it. Discarding all calculations of political ascendency, the North, the South, the East, the West, should unite in diminishing any burthen of which either may justly complain." "I cannot, therefore, too strongly warn you against all encroachments upon the legitimate sphere of State Sovereignty."

SPEECHES ON NULLIFICATION.

In January, 1830, during the first session of Congress in General JACKSON's Administration, the celebrated dispute upon Mr. Foor's Resolution concerning the public lands took place in the Senate. In this debate, Mr. HAYNE and Mr. WEESTER made their sectional speeches, into which the subject of Nullification largely entered. Mr. HAYNE opened the debate on the subject of the public lands, and was followed by Mr. WEBSTER, in a speech in which he combated opinions on the subject of the Union, held by some of Mr. HAYNE's friends, among whom was the Vice-President, (Mr. CALHOUN,) then in the chair. This unexpectedly called out Mr. HAYNE to defend these opinions, from which Mr. WEBSTER had exonerated him, which he generously did, in a speech of great ability and eloquence. To this Mr. WEBSTER replied, in a speech of equal or greater ability and eloquence. This produced a rejoinder by Mr. HAYNE, which produced a surrejoinder by Mr. WEBSTER.

These speeches were eminently sectional, and have had an influence to increase the strength of sectional feeling in the North and in the South. Mr. WEBSTER's eulogy upon Massachusetts and upon the Union, in his most elaborate speech on the occasion, are familiar as declamations to the colleges and schools of the North. In the speeches, both of Mr. HAYNE and Mr. WEBSTER, there were fallacies which were shown up by other speakers who addressed the Senate on the subject of Nullification, among whom were Mr. RowAN, Mr. GRUNDY, Mr. CLAYTON, Mr. WOODBURY, and Mr. EDWARD LIVINGSTON. In the course of his speech, Mr. LIVINGSTON spoke as follows:

"My learned and honorable friend, the Senator near me, from South Carolina, (Mr. HAYNE,) comes, in the eloquent arguments he has made, to the conclusion, that whenever, in the language of the Virginia resolutions, (which he adopts,) there is, in the opinion of any one State, "a palpable, deliberate, and dangerous violation of the Constitution by a law of Congress," such State may, without ceasing to be a member of the Union, declare the law to be unconstitutional, and prevent its execution within the State; that this is a constitutional right, and that its exercise will produce a constitutional remedy, by obliging Congress either to repeal the law, or to obtain an explicit grant of the power which is denied by the State, by submitting an amendment to the several States, and that, by the decision of the requisite number, the State, as well as the Union, would be bound. It would be doing injustice, both to my friend and to his argument, if I did not add, that this resort to the nullifying power, as it has been termed, ought to be had only in the last resort, when the grievance was intolerable, and all other means of remonstrance and appeal to the other States had failed.

"In this opinion, I understand the honorable and learned Chairman of the Judiciary Committee (Mr. RowAN) substantially to agree, particularly in the constitutional right of preventing the execution of the obnoxious law.

"The Senator from Tennessee, (Mr. GRUNDY,) in his speech, which was listened to with so much attention and pleasure, very justly denies the right of declaring the nullity of a law, and preventing its execution, to the ordinary Legislature, but erroneously, in my opinion, gives it to a convention.

"My friend from New Hampshire, (Mr. WOODBURY,) of whose luminous argument I cannot speak too highly, and to the greatest part of which I agree, does not coincide in the assertion of a constitutional right of preventing the execution of a law believed to be unconstitutional, but refers opposition to the unalienable right of resistance to oppression.

"All these Senators consider the Constitution as a compact petween the States in their sovereign capacity; and one of them (Mr. RowAN) has contended that sovereignty cannot be divided; from which it may be inferred that no part of the sovereign power has been transferred to the General Government.

"The Senator from Massachusetts, (Mr. WEBSTER,) in his very eloquent and justly admired address on this subject, considers the Federal Constitution as entirely popular, and not created by compact, and from this position, very naturally shows that there can be no constitutional right of actual resistance to a law of that Government, but that intolerable and illegal acts may justify it on first principles.

"However these opinions may differ, there is one consolatory reflection, that none of them justify a violent opposition given to an unconstitutional law, until an extreme case of suffering has occurred. Still less do any of them suppose the actual existence of such a case.

"But the danger of establishing, on the one hand, a constitutional veto in each of the States, upon any act of the whole, to be exercised whenever; in the opinion of the Legislature of such State, the act they complain of is contrary to the Constitution; and on the other, the dangers which result to the State Governments by considering that of the Union as entirely popular, and denying the existence of any compact; seem, both of them, to be so great, as to justify, and indeed demand, an expression of my dissent from both.

"The arguments on the one side, to show that the Constitution is the result of a compact between the States, cannot, I think, be controverted; and those which go to show that it is founded on the consent of the people, and, in one sense, a popular government, are equally incontrovertible. Both of these propositions, seemingly so contradictory, are true, and both of them are false-true, as it respects one feature in the Constitution; erroneous, if applied to the whole.

"By a popular consolidated Government, I understand one that is founded on the consent, express or implied, of the people of the whole nation; and which operates directly upon the people.

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'By a Federative Government, as contradistinguished from the former, I mean one composed of several independent States, bound together for specific purposes, and relying for the efficacy of its operations on its action upon the different States in their political capacity, not individually upon their citizens.

"The old Confederation was a compact between the States;

but among a number of stipulations strictly federative, it contained others which gave to the Congress powers which trenched upon the State sovereignties; to declare war and to make peace; to enter into treaties binding on the whole; to establish Courts of Admiralty, with power to bind the citizens of the States individually in cases coming under that jurisdiction; to raise armies, equip fleets, coin money, emit bills of credit, and other similar powers.

"In the Federal Constitution, this combination of the two characteristics of Government is more apparent. It was framed by delegates appointed by the States; it was ratified by conventions of the people of each State, convened according to the laws of the respective States. It guarantees the existence of the States, which are necessary to its own; the States are represented in one branch by Senators, chosen by the Legislatures; and in the other, by Representatives taken from the people, but chosen by a rule which may be made and varied by the States, not by Congress-the qualifications of electors being different in different States. They may make amendments to the Constitution. In short, the Government had its inception with them; it depends on their political existence for its operation; and its duration cannot go beyond theirs. The States existed before the Constitution; they parted only with such powers as are specified in that instrument; they continue still to exist, with all the powers they have not ceded; and the present Government would never, itself, have gone into operation, had not the States, in their political capacity, consented. That consent is a compact of each one with the whole; not, as has been argued, (by Mr. WEBSTER, in order to throw a kind of ridicule on this convincing part of the argument of my friend from South Carolina,) with the Government which was made by such compact. It is difficult, therefore, it would appear, with all these characters of a federative nature, to deny to the present Government the description of one founded on compact, to which each State was a party; and a conclusive proof, if any more were wanted, would be in the fact, that the States adopted the Constitution at different times, and many of them on conditions which were afterwards complied with by amendments. If it were strictly a popular Government, in the sense that is con

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