FEBRUARY, 1833.] Revenue Collection Bill-Nullification. perfection on one side, and despotism on the other, none other can be devised but that which considers society, in reference to its parts, as differently affected by the action of the Government, and which takes the sense of each part separately, and thereby the sense of the whole in the manner already illustrated. [SENATE. ought to have been allotted to them, and by converting to their own use that which ought to have gone to the treasury. In a word, they took to themselves the entire spoils of victory, and they had thus the most powerful motive to keep the State perpetually involved in war, to the utter impoverishn.ent and oppression of the people. After resisting the abuse of power by all peaceable means, and the oppression becoming intolerable, the people at last withdrew from the city; they, in a word, seceded; and, to induce them to reunite, the patricians conceded to the plebeians, as the means of protecting their separate interests, the very power which he contended is necessary to protect the rights of the States, but which is now Against the view of our system which he had presented, and the right of the State to interpose, it was objected that it would lead to anarchy and dissolution. He considered the objection as without the slightest foundation; and that, so far from tending to weakness or disunion, it was the source of the highest power and of the strongest cement. Nor was its tendency in this respect difficult of explanation. The Government of an absolute majority, un-represented as necessarily leading to disunion. checked by efficient constitutional restraint, though apparently strong, was in reality an exceedingly feeble Government. That tendency to conflict between the parts, which he had shown to be inevitable in such Governments, wasted the powers of the State in the hostile action of contending factions, which left very little more power than the excess of the strength of the majority over the minority. But a Government based upon the principle of the concurring majority, where each great interest possessed within itself the means of self-protection, which ultimately requires the mutual consent of all the parts, necessarily causes that unanimity in counsel, and ardent attachment of all the parts to the whole, which gives an irresistible energy to a Government so constituted. He might appeal to history for the truth of these remarks, of which the Roman furnished the most familiar and striking. It was a well known fact, that, from the expulsion of the Tarquins to the time of the establishment of the tribunarian power, the Government fell into a state of the greatest disorder and distraction, and, he might add, corruption. How did this happen? The explanation will throw important light on the subject under consideration. The community was divided into two parts, the patricians and the plebeians, with the powers of the State principally in the hands of the former, without adequate check to protect the rights of the latter. The result was as might be expected. The patricians converted the powers of the Government into the means of making money, to enrich themselves and their dependants. They, in a word, had their American system, growing out of the peculiar character of the Government and condition of the country. This requires explanation. At that period, according to the laws of nations, when one nation conquered another, the lands of the vanquished belonged to the victors; and, according to the Roman law, the lands thus acquired were divided into parts, one allotted to the poorer class of the people, and the other assigned to the use of the treasury, of which the patricians had the distribution and administration. The patricians abused their power, by withholding from the people that which They granted to the people the right of choosing three tribunes from among themselves, whose persons should be sacred, and who should have the right of interposing their veto, not only against the passage of laws, but even against their execution; a power which those who take a shallow insight into human nature would pronounce inconsistent with the strength and unity of the State, if not utterly impracticable. Yet, so far from that being the effect, from that day the Genius of Rome became ascendant, and victory followed her steps till she had established an almost universal dominion. But to return to the General Government. We have now sufficient experience to ascertain that the tendency to conflict in its action is between southern and other sections. The latter, having a decided majority, must habitually be possessed of the powers of the Government, both in this and in the other House; and, being governed by that instinctive love of power so natural to the human breast, they must become the advocates of the power of Government, and in the same degree opposed to the limitations; while the other and weaker section is as necessarily thrown on the side of the limitations. In one word, the one section is the natural guardian of the delegated powers, and the other of the reserved; and the struggle on the side of the former will be to enlarge the powers, while that on the opposite side will be to restrain them within their constitutional limits. The contest will, in fact, be a contest between power and liberty, and such he considered the present; a contest in which the weaker section, with its peculiar labor, productions, and situation, has at stake all that can be dear to freemen. Should they be able to maintain in their full vigor their reserved rights, liberty and prosperity will be their portion; but if they yield, and permit the stronger interest to consolidate within itself all the powers of the Government, then will its fate be more wretched than that of the aborigines whom they have expelledor of their slaves. In this great struggle between the delegated and reserved powers, so far from repining that his lot and that of those whom he represented is cast on the side of the latter, he rejoiced that such is the fact; SENATE.] Revenue Collection Bill-Nullification. [FEBRUARY, 1833. 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. for though we participate in but few of the ad- | that no friend can safely come to his relief, that vantages of the Government, we are compen- no one can approach near enough to hold out sated, and more than compensated, in not being a helping hand, without danger of going down so much exposed to its corruption. Nor did himself, also, into the bottomless depths of this he repine that the duty, so difficult to be dis- Serbonian bog. charged, as the defence of the reserved powers against, apparently, such fearful odds, had been assigned to them. To discharge successfully this high duty requires the highest qualities, moral and intellectual; and, should we perform it with a zeal and ability in proportion to its magnitude, instead of being mere planters, our section will become distinguished for its patriots and statesmen. But, on the other hand, Sir, I love liberty no less ardently than the if we prove unworthy of this high destiny, if gentleman, in whatever form she may have we yield to the steady encroachment of power, appeared in the progress of human history. As the severest and most debasing calamity and exhibited in the master states of antiquity, as corruption will overspread the land. Every breaking out again from amidst the darkness Southern man, true to the interests of his sec- of the middle ages, and beaming on the formation, and faithful to the duties which Provi- tion of new communities in modern Europe, dence has allotted him, will be forever excluded she has always and every where charms for me. from the honors and emoluments of this Govern-Yet, sir, it is our own liberty, guarded by conment, which will be reserved for those only stitutions and secured by union; it is that liberty who have qualified themselves, by political pros- which is our paternal inheritance, it is our estabtitution, for admission into the Magdalen Asy-lished, dear-bought, peculiar American liberty, lum. to which I am chiefly devoted, and the cause of which I now mean, to the utmost of my power, to maintain and defend. SATURDAY, February 16. Revenue Collection Bill-Nullification. The Senate having resumed the consideration of this bill, Mr. WEBSTER said: 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 treacher ous. Mr. President, if I considered the constitutional question now before us as doubtful as it is important, and if I supposed that this 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 of 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 He is like a strong man struggling in a resolutions themselves, and parts of the speech morass; every effort to extricate himself only now just concluded, may probably be justly sinks him deeper and deeper. And I fear the regarded as comprising the whole South Carresemblance may be carried still further; I fearolina doctrine. That doctrine it is my purpose FEBRUARY, 1833.] Revenue Collection Bill-Nullification. [SENATE. now to examine, and to compare it with the | but they declare that they ordain and establish Constitution of the United States. I shall not a constitution. Such are the very words of the 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, threat-resolutions. en its subversion. 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 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 misunderstand-self to the use of constitutional language, there ing 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 propose at present to take no particular notice. The first two resolutions of the honorable member affirm these propositions, viz.: Its adoption and use are indispensable to maintain those premises from which his main conclusion is to be afterwards drawn. If, Mr. President, in drawing these resolutions, the honorable member had confined himwould have been a wide and awful hiatus between his premises and his conclusions. Leaving out the 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 own 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 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 com-judge for itself, as well of the infraction as of munities, 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. 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, 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. The necessary import of the resolutions, 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 SENATE.] Revenue Collection Bill-Nullification. [FEBRUARY, 1833. consequences of these opinions. One State, Į the exercise of the supreme power; that which 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 impost 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 relinquished the power of protection, she might allege, and allege truly, herself, 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 sotwenty-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 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 did the American colonies in 1776. In other words, she will achieve, as to herself, a revolution. Such are the inevitable results of this doctrine. Beginning with the orginal 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 FEBRUARY, 1833.] Revenue Collection Bill-Nullification. [SENATE. the State Legislatures; and by these last it was not, in the slightest degree, vary the result; confederation; Congress had transmitted it to This, sir, is practical nullification. And now, sir, against all these theories and opinions, I maintain the constitution says of itself, therefore, is as conclusive as what it says on any other point. Does it call itself a compact? Certainly not. It uses the word "compact" but once, and that is when it declares that the States shall enter into no compact. Does it call itself a league, 1. That the constitution of the United States a confederacy, a subsisting treaty between the is not a league, confederacy, or compact, be- States? Certainly not. There is not a particle tween the people of the several States in their of such language in all its pages. But it deSovereign capacities; but a Government proper, clares itself a constitution. What is a constifounded on the adoption of the people, and tution? Certainly not a league, compact, or creating direct relations between itself and in-confederacy, but a fundamental law. The fundividuals. damental regulation which determines the man2. That no State authority has power to dis-ner in which the public authority is to be exesolve these relations; that nothing can dissolve them but revolution; and that, consequently, there can be no such thing as secession without revolution. 3. That there is a supreme law, consisting of the Constitution of the United States, acts of Congress passed in pursuance of it, and treaties; and that, in cases not capable of assuming the character of a suit in law or equity, Congress must judge of, and finally interpret, this su preme law, so often as it has occasion to pass acts of legislation; and, in cases capable of assuming, and actually assuming, the character of a suit, the Supreme Court of the United States is the final interpreter. 4. That an attempt by a State to abrogate, annul, or nullify an act of Congress, or to arrest its operation within her limits, on the ground that, in her opinion, such law is unconstitutional, is a direct usurpation on the just powers of the General Government, and on the equal rights of other States; a plain violation of the constitution, and a proceeding essentially revolutionary in its character and tendency. cuted, is what forms the constitution of a State. these are the fundamental laws. This, sir, is Whether the constitution be a compact between States in their sovereign capacities, is a question which must be mainly argued from There is no language in the whole constituwhat is contained in the instrument itself. tion applicable to a confederation of States. If We all agree that it is an instrument which has the States be parties, as States, what are their been, in some way, clothed with power. We rights, and what their respective covenants and all admit that it speaks with authority. The stipulations? And where are their rights, first question then is, what does it say of itself? covenants, and stipulations expressed? The What does it purport to be? Does it style it-States engage for nothing, they promise nothself a league, confederacy, or compact between ing. In the articles of confederation they did sovereign States? It is to be remembered, sir, that the constitution began to speak only after its adoption. Until it was ratified by nine States, it was but a proposal, the mere draught of an instrument. It was like a deed, drawn, but not executed. The convention had framed it; sent it to Congress, then sitting under the make promises, and did enter into engagements, вый |