Lynchburg Virginian

POLITICAL.

Mr. WEBSTER'S SPEECH, in Reply to Mr. CALHOUN, ON THE REVENUE COLLECTION BILL.

[CONCLUDED.]

Gentlemen appear to me, sir, to look at but one side of the question. They regard only the supposed danger of trusting the Government with the interpretation of its own powers. But will they view the question in its other aspect; will they show us how it is possible for a Government to get along with four and twenty interpreters of its laws and powers? Gentlemen argue, too, as if in these cases, the State would be always right and the General Government always wrong. But suppose the reverse; suppose the State wrong; and, since they differ, some of them must be wrong; are the most important and essential operations of the Government to be embarrassed and arrested because one State holds a contrary opinion? Mr. President, every argument which refers the constitutionality of acts of Congress to State decision, appeals from the majority to the minority; it appeals from the common interest to a particular interest; from the councils of all to the councils of one; and endeavors to supersede the judgment of the whole by the judgment of a part.

I think it is clear, sir, that the constitution, by express provision, by definite and unequivocal words, as well as by necessary implication, has constituted the Supreme Court of the United States the appellate tribunal in all cases of a constitutional nature which assume the shape of a suit, in law or equity. And I cannot do better than to leave this part of the subject by reading the remarks made upon it by Mr. Ellsworth, in the Convention of Connecticut; a gentleman, sir, who has left behind him, on the records of the Government of his country, a character as free from reproach, as it is bright and conspicuous.

"This constitution, says he, in the extent of the power of the General Government. If the General Legislature should, at a time, overlap their limits, the judicial department is a constitutional check. If the United States go beyond their powers, if they make a law which the constitution does not authorize, it is void; and the judiciary power, the national judges, who, to secure their impartiality are to be made independent, will declare it to be void. On the other hand, if the States go beyond their limits; if they make a law which is a usurpation upon the General Government, the law is void, and upright, independent judges will declare it to be so."

And let me now only add, sir, that, in the first session of the first Congress, with all these well known objects, both of the Convention and the people, full and fresh in his mind, Mr. Ellsworth reported the bill, as is generally understood, for the organization of the judicial department, and, in that bill, made provision for the exercise of this appellate power of the Supreme Court, in all proper cases, in whatsoever court arising; and that this appellate power has now been exercised for more than forty years, without interruption, and without doubt.

As to the cases, sir, which do not come before the courts, those political questions which terminate with the enactments of Congress, it is of necessity that these should be ultimately decided by Congress itself. Like other Legislatures, it must be trusted with this power. The members of Congress are chosen by the people, and they are answerable to the people; like other public agents, they are bound by oath to support the constitution. These are the securities that they will not violate their duty nor transcend their powers. They are the same securities as prevail in other popular Governments; nor is it easy to see how grants of power can be more safely guarded without rendering them nugatory. If the case cannot come before the courts, and if Congress be not trusted with its decision, who shall decide it? The gentleman says each State is to decide it for itself. If so, then, as I have already urged, what is law in one State is not law in another. Or, if the resistance of one State compels an entire repeal of the law, then a minority, and that a small one, governs the whole country.

Sir, those who espouse the doctrines of nullification, reject, as it seems to me, the first great principle of all republican liberty, that is, that the majority must govern. In matters of common concern, the judgment of a majority must stand as the judgment of the whole. This is a law imposed on us by the absolute necessity of the case: and if we do not act upon it, there is no possibility of maintaining any Government but despotism. We hear loud and repeated denunciations against what is called majority government. It is declared, with much warmth, that a majority government cannot be maintained in the United States. What, then, do gentlemen wish? Do they wish to establish a minority government? Do they wish to subject the will of the many to the will of the few? The honorable gentleman from South Carolina has spoken of absolute majorities, and majorities concurrent; language wholly unknown to our constitution and to which it is not easy to affix definite ideas. As far as I understand it, it would teach us that the absolute majority may be found in Congress, but the majority concurrent must be looked for in the States. That is to say, sir, stripping the matter of this novelty of phrase, that the dissent of one or more States as States, renders void the decision of a majority of Congress, so far as that State is concerned. And so this doctrine, running but a short career, like other dogmas of the day, terminates in nullification.

If this vehement invective against majorities meant no more than that, in the construction of Governments, it is wise to provide checks and balances, so that there should be various limitations on the power of the mere majority, it would only mean what the constitution of the United States has already abundantly provided. It is full of such checks and balances. In its very organization, it adopts a broad and most effectual principle in restraint of the power of mere majorities. A majority of the people elects the House of Representatives, but it does not elect the Senate. The Senate is elected by the States, each State having, in this respect an equal power. No law, therefore, can pass, without the assent of a majority of the Representatives of the people, and a majority of the Representatives of the States also. A majority of the Representatives of the people must concur, and a majority of the States must concur, in every act of Congress, and the President is elected on a plan compounded of both these principles. But, having composed one House of Representatives chosen by the people in each State, according to its numbers, and the other, of an equal number of members from every State, whether larger or smaller the constitution gives to majorities in these Houses, thus constituted, the full and entire power of passing laws, subject always to the constitutional restrictions, and to the approval of the President. To subject them to any other power, is clearly usurpation. The majority of one House may be controlled by the majority of the other; and both may be restrained by the President's negative. These are checks and balances provided by the constitution, existing in the Government itself, and wisely intended to secure deliberation and caution in legislative proceedings. But to resist the will of the majority in both Houses, thus constitutionally exercised; to insist on the lawfulness of interposition by an extraneous power; to claim the right of defeating the will of Congress, by setting up against it the will of a single State, is neither more nor less, as it strikes me, than a plain attempt to overthrow the Government. The constituted authorities of the United States are no longer a Government, if they be not masters of their own will; they are no longer a Government, if an external power may arrest their proceedings, they are no longer a Government, if acts passed by both Houses, and approved by the President, may be nullified by State vetoes or State ordinances. Does any one suppose it could make any difference, as to the binding authority of an act of Congress, and of the duty of a State to respect it, whether it passed by a mere majority of both Houses, or by three-fourths of each, or the unanimous vote of each? Within the limits and restrictions of the constitution, the Government of the United States, like all other popular Governments, acts by majorities. It can act no otherwise. Whoever, therefore, denounces the Government of majorities, denounces the Government of his own country, and denounces all free Governments. And whoever would restrain these majorities, while acting within their constitutional limits, by an external power, whatever he may intend, asserts principles which, if adopted, can lead to nothing else than the destruction of the Government itself.

Does not the gentleman perceive, sir, by his argument against majorities, might here be retorted upon him? Does he not see how cogently he might be asked, whether it be the character of nullification to practise what it preaches? Look to South Carolina, at the present moment. How far are the rights of minorities there respected? I confess, sir, I have not known, in peaceable times, the power of the majority carried with a higher hand, or upheld with more relentless disregard of the rights, feelings, and principles of the minority; a minority, embracing, as the gentleman himself will admit, a large portion of the worth and respectability of the State; a minority, comprehending, in its numbers, men who have been associated with him and with us, in these halls of legislation; men who have served their country at home, and honored it abroad; men who would cheerfully lay down their lives for their native State, in any cause which they could regard as the cause of honor and duty; men above fear, and above reproach; whose deepest grief and distress spring from the conviction, that the present proceedings of the State must ultimately reflect discredit upon her: how is this minority, how are these men regarded? They are enthralled and disfranchised by ordinances and acts of legislation; subjected to tests and oaths, incompatible, as they conscientiously think, with oaths already taken, and obligations already assumed; they are proscribed and denounced, as recreants to duty and patriotism, and slaves to a foreign Power: both the spirit which pursues them, and the positive measures which emanate from that spirit, are harsh and proscriptive, beyond all precedent within my knowledge, except in periods of professed revolution.

It is not, sir, one would think, for those who approve these proceedings, to complain of the power of majorities.

Mr. President, all popular Governments rest on two principles, or two assumptions:

First, That there is so far a common interest among those over whom the Government extends, as that it may provide for the defence, protection and good government of the whole, without injustice or oppression to parts.

Second, That the representatives of the people, and especially the people themselves, are secure against general corruption, and may be trusted therefore, with the exercise of power.

Whoever argues against these principles, argues against the practicability of all free Governments. And whoever admits these, must admit, or cannot deny, that power is as safe in the hands of Congress as in those of other representative bodies. Congress is not irresponsible. Its members are agents of the people, elected by them, answerable to them, and liable to be displaced or superseded at their pleasure, and they possess as fair a claim to the confidence of the people, while they continue to deserve it as any other public political agents.

If then, sir, the manifest intention of the convention, and the cotemporary admission of both friends and foes, prove anything, if the plain text of the instrument itself, as well as the necessary implication from other provisions, prove anything -if the early legislation of Congress, the course of judicial decisions, acquiesced in by all the States for forty years, prove anything, then it is proved that there is a supreme law, and a final interpreter.

My fourth, and last proposition, Mr. President, was, that any attempt by a State to abrogate or nullify acts of Congress, is a usurpation on the powers of the General Government, and on the equal rights of other States, a violation of the constitution, and a proceeding essentially revolutionary.

This is undoubtedly true, if the preceding propositions be regarded as proved. If the Government of the United States be trusted with the duty, in any department, of declaring the extent of its own powers, then a State ordinance, or act of legislation, authorizing resistance to an act of Congress, on the alleged ground of its unconstitutionality, is manifestly a usurpation upon its powers.

If the States have equal rights, in matters concerning the whole, than for one State to set up her judgment against the judgment of the rest and to insist on executing that judgment by force, is also a manifest usurpation on the rights of other States.

If the constitution of the United States be a Government proper, with authority to pass laws, and to give them a uniform interpretation & execution, then the interposition of a State, to enforce her own construction, and to resist, as to herself, that law which binds the other States, is a violation of the constitution.

And if that be revolutionary which arrests the legislative, executive, and judicial power of government, dispenses with existing oaths and obligations of obedience, and elevates another power to supreme dominion, then nullification is revolutionary. Or if that be revolutionary, the natural tendency and practical effect of which is to break the Union into fragments, to sever all connection among the people of the respective States and to prostrate this General Government in the dust, then nullification is revolutionary.

Nullification, sir, is as distinctly revolutionary as secession; but I cannot say that the revolution which it seeks is one of so respectable a character. Secession would, it is true, abandon the constitution altogether; but then, it would profess to abandon it. Whatever other inconsistencies it might run into, one, at least, it would avoid. It would not belong to a Government, while it rejected its authority. It would not rely on the burden, and continue to enjoy the benefits. It would not aid in passing laws which others are to obey, and yet reject their authority, as to itself. It would not undertake to reconcile obedience to public authority, with a asserted right of command over that same authority. It would not be in the Government, and above the Government, at the same time. But, however more respectable a mode secession may be, it is not more truly revolutionary than the actual execution of the dogma of nullification. Both, and each, resist the constitutional authorities, both, and each, would sever the Union, and subvert the Government.

Mr. President, having detained the Senate so long already, I will not now examine, at length, the nature and law of secession. The papers were well drawn for their purpose. Their authors understood their own objects. They are called a peaceable remedy, and we have been told that South Carolina, after all, intends nothing but law suit. A very few words, sir, will show the nature of this peaceable remedy, and of the law-suit which South Carolina contemplates.

In the first place, the ordinance declares the law of last July, and all other laws of the United States laying duties, to be absolutely null and void; and makes it unlawful for the constituted authorities of the United States to enforce the payment of such duties. It is, therefore, sir, an indictable offence, at this moment, in South Carolina, for any person to be concerned in collecting revenue, under the laws of the United States. It being declared unlawful to collect these duties by what is considered a fundamental law of the State, an indictment lies, of course, against any one concerned in such collection, and he is, on general principles, liable to be punished by fine and imprisonment. The terms, it is true, are, that it is unlawful "to enforce the payment of duties;" but every custom-house officer enforces payment while he detains the goods, in order to obtain such payment. The ordinance, therefore, reaches every body concerned in the collection of the duties.

This is the first step in the prosecution of the peaceable remedy. The second is more decisive. By the act, commonly called the replevin law, any person whose goods are seized or detained by the collector for the payment of duties, may sue out a writ of replevin, and, by virtue of that writ, the goods are to be restored to him. A writ of replevin, is a writ which the sheriff is bound to execute, and for the execution of which, he is bound to employ force, if necessary. He may call out the posse, and must do so, if resistance be made. This posse may be armed or unarmed. It may come forth with military array, and under the lead of military men. Whatever number of troops may be assembled in Charleston, they may be summoned, with the Governor, or commander-in-chief, at their head, to come in aid of the sheriff. It is evident, then, sir, that the whole military power of the State is to be employed, whenever necessary, in dispersing the custom-house officers, and in seizing and holding the goods, without paying the duties.

This is the second step in the peaceable remedy.

Sir, whatever pretences may be set up to the contrary, this is the direct application of force, and of military force. It is unlawful, in itself, to replevy goods in the custody of the collectors. But this unlawful act is to be done, and it is to be done by power. Here is a plain interposition, by physical force, to resist the laws of the Union. The legal mode of collecting duties is to detain the goods till such duties are paid or secured. But force comes, and overpowers the collector and his assistants, and takes away the goods, leaving the duties unpaid. There cannot be a clearer case of forcible resistance to law. And it is provided that the goods thus seized shall be held against any attempt to retake them, by the same force which seized them.

Having thus dispossessed the officers of the Government of the goods, without payment of duties, and seized and secured them by the strong arm of the State, only one thing more remained to be done, and that, too, is accomplished, or thought to be accomplished. The ordinance declares, that all judicial proceedings, founded on the revenue laws, (including, of course, proceedings in the courts of the United States,) shall be null and void. Thus nullifies the judicial power of the United States. Then comes the test oath act. This requires all State judges and jurors in the State courts to swear that they will execute the ordinance, and all acts of the Legislature passed in pursuance thereof. The ordinance declares, that no appeal shall be allowed from the decision of the State courts to the Supreme court of the United States, and the replevin act makes it an indictable offence for any clerk to furnish a copy of the record, for the purpose of such appeal.

The two principal provisions on which South Carolina relies, to resist the laws of the United States, and nullify the authority of this Government, are, therefore, these:

1. A forcible seizure of goods, before duties are paid or secured, by the power of the State, civil and military.

2. The taking away, by the most effectual means in her power, of all legal redress in the courts of the United States: the confining all judicial proceedings to her own State tribunals, and the compelling of the judges and jurors of these, her own courts, to take an oath, beforehand, that they will decide all cases according to the ordinance, and the acts passed under it; that is, that they will decide the cause one way. They do not swear to try it on its own merits; they only swear to decide it, as nullification requires.

The character, sir, of these provisions, defies comment. Their object is as plain as their means are extraordinary. They propose direct resistance, by the whole power of the State, to laws of Congress, and cut off, by the methods deemed adequate, any redress by legal and judicial authority. They arrest legislation, defy the Executive, and banish the judicial power of this Government. They authorize and command acts to be done, and done by force, both of numbers and of arms, which, if done, and done by force, are clearly acts of rebellion and treason.

Such, sir, are the laws of South Carolina; such sir, is the peaceable remedy of nullification. Has not nullification reached, sir, even thus early, that point of direct and forcible resistance to law, to which I intimated, three years ago, it finally tended?

And now, Mr. President, what is the reason for passing laws like these? What are the oppressions experienced, under the Union, calling for measures which thus threaten to sever and destroy it? What invasion of public liberty, what ramp to private happiness, what long list of rights violated, or wrongs unredressed, is to justify to the country, to posterity, and to the world, thus assault upon the free constitution of the United States, this great and glorious work of our fathers? At the very moment, sir, the whole land smiles in peace and rejoices in plenty. A general and a high prosperity pervades the country, and, judging by the common standard, by increase of population and wealth, or, judging by the opinions of that portion of her people not embarked in these dangerous and desperate measures, this prosperity overspreads South Carolina herself.

Thus, happy at home, our country, at the same time, holds high the character of her institutions, her power, her rapid growth, and her future destiny, in the eyes of all foreign States. One danger, only, creates hesitation, one doubt only exists, to darken the otherwise and clouded brightness of that aspect, which she exhibits to the view, and to the admiration, of the world. Need I say, that that doubt respects the permanency of our Union, and need I say, that that doubt is caused, more than by any thing else, by these very proceedings of South Carolina? Sir, all Europe is, at this moment, beholding us, and looking for the issue of this controversy; those who hate free institutions, with malignant hope, those who love them, with deep anxiety and shivering fear.

The cause, then, sir, the cause! Let the world know the cause, which has thus induced one State of the Union to bid defiance to the power of the whole, and openly to talk of secession.

Sir, the world will scarcely believe that this whole controversy, and all the desperate measures which its support requires, have no other foundation than a difference of opinion, upon a provision of the constitution, between a majority of the people of South Carolina, on one side, and a vast majority of the whole people of the United States, on the other. It will not credit the fact, it will not admit the possibility, that, in an enlightened age in a free popular republic, under a Government where the people govern, as they must always govern, under such systems, by majorities, at a time of unprecedented happiness, without practical oppression, without evils, such as may not only be pretended, but felt and experienced, evils, not slight or temporary, but deep, permanent, and intolerable; a single State should rush into conflict with all the rest, attempt to put down the power of the Union by her own laws, and to support those laws by her military power, and thus break up and destroy the world's last hope. And well the world may be incredulous. We who see and hear it, can ourselves hardly yet believe it. Even after all that had preceded it, this ordinance struck the country with amazement. It was incredible and inconceivable, that South Carolina should thus plunge headlong into resistance to the laws, on a matter of opinion, and on a question in which the preponderance of opinion, both of the present day and of past time, was so overwhelmingly against her. The ordinance declares that Congress has exceeded its just power, by laying duties on imports intended for the protection of manufactures. This is the opinion of South Carolina; and on the strength of that opinion she nullifies the laws. Yet has the rest of the country no right to its opinion also? Is one State to sit sole arbitress? She maintains that those laws are plain, deliberate, and palpable violations of the constitution; that she has a sovereign right to decide this matter; and that, having so decided, she is authorized to resist their execution, by her own sovereign power; and she declares that she will resist it, though such resistance should shatter the Union into atoms.

Mr. President, I do not intend to discuss the propriety of these laws, at large; but I will ask, how are they shown to be thus plainly and palpably unconstitutional? Have they no countenance, at all, in the constitution itself? Are they quite new in the history of the Government? Are they a sudden and violent usurpation on the rights of the States? Sir, what will the civilized world say, what will posterity say, when they learn that similar laws have existed from the very foundation of the Government; that for thirty years the power was never questioned; and that no State in the Union has more freely and unequivocally admitted it than South Carolina herself?

To lay and collect duties and imposts, is an express power, granted by the constitution to Congress; It is, also, an exclusive power; for the constitution as expressly prohibits all the States from exercising it themselves. This express and exclusive power is unlimited in the terms of the grant, but is attended with two specific restrictions: first, that all duties and imposts shall be equal in all the States; second, that no duties shall be laid on exports. The power, then, being granted, and being attended with these two restrictions, and no more, who is to impose a third restriction on the general words of the grant? If the power to lay duties, as known among all other nations, and as known in all our history, and as it was perfectly understood when the constitution was adopted includes a right of discriminating, while exercising the power and of laying some duties heavier, and some lighter, for the sake of encouraging our own domestic products, what authority is there for giving to the words used in the constitution a new, narrow, and unusual meaning? All the limitations which the constitution intended, it has expressed; and what it has left unrestricted, is as much a part of its will, as the restraints which it has imposed.

But these laws, it is said, are unconstitutional on account of the motive. How, sir, can a law be examined on any such ground? How is the motive to be ascertained? One House, or one member, may have one motive, the other House, or another member, another. One motive may operate to-day, and another to-morrow. Upon any such mode of reasoning as this, one law might be unconstitutional now, and another law, in exactly the same words, perfectly constitutional next year. Besides, articles may not only be taxed, for the purpose of protecting home products, but other articles may be left free, for the same purpose, and with the same motive. A law, therefore, would become unconstitutional from what is omitted, as well as from what is contained. Mr. President, it is a settled principle, acknowledged in all legislative halls, recognized before all tribunals, sanctioned by the general sense and understanding of mankind, that there can be no inquiry into the motives of those who pass laws for the purpose of determining on their validity. If the law be within the fair meaning of the words in the grant of the power, its authority must be admitted until it is repealed. This rule, everywhere acknowledged, everywhere admitted, is so universal, and so completely without exception, that even an allegation of fraud, in the majority of a Legislature, is not allowed as a ground to set aside a law.

But, sir, is it true that the motive for these laws is such as is stated? I think not. The great object of all these laws is, unquestionably, revenue. If there were no occasion for revenue, the laws would not have been passed, and it is notorious almost the entire revenue of the country is derived from them. And, as yet, we have collected none too much revenue. The treasury has not been more exhausted for many years than at the present moment. All that South Carolina can say is, that, in passing the laws which she now undertakes to nullify, particular articles were taxed somewhat as regards the protection of domestics, higher than they would have been had no such regard been had. And she insists that according to the constitution, no such discrimination shall be allowed, that duties should be laid for revenue, and revenue only, and that it is unlawful to have reference, in any case, to protection. In other words, she denies the power of discrimination. She does not and cannot, complain of excessive taxation, on the contrary, she professes to be willing to lay any amount for revenue, merely as revenue, and up to the present moment there is no surplus of revenue.

Her grievance, then, that the plain and palpable violation of the constitution which she insists has taken place, is simply the exercise of the power of discrimination. Now, sir, is the exercise of this power of discrimination plainly and palpably unconstitutional?

I have already said, the power to lay duties is given by the constitution in broad and general terms. There is also conferred on Congress the whole power of regulating commerce, in another distinct provision. Is it clear and palpable, sir, can any man say it beyond doubt that, under these two powers, Congress may not justly discriminate, in laying duties for the purpose of countervailing the policy of foreign nations, or of favoring our own home products? Sir, what ought to conclude this question forever, as it would seem to me, is that the regulation of commerce, and the imposition of duties, are, in all commercial nations, powers avowedly and constantly exercised for this very end. This undoubted truth ought to settle the question because the constitution ought to be considered, when it uses well known language, as using it in its well known sense. But it is equally undeniable, that it has been, from the very first, fully believed that this power of discrimination was conferred on Congress, and the constitution was itself recommended, urged upon the people, and enthusiastically insisted on, in some of the States, for that very reason. Not that, at that time, the country was extensively engaged in manufactures, especially of those kinds now existing. But the trades and crafts of the seaport towns, the business of the artizans, and manual laborers, those employments, the work in which supplies so great a portion of the daily wants of all classes, all these looked to the new constitution as a source of relief from the severe distress which followed the war. It would, sir, be unpardonable, at so late an hour, to go into details on this point, but the truth is as I have stated. The papers of the day, the resolutions of public meetings, the debates in the conventions, all that we open our eyes upon, in the history of the time, prove it.

The honorable gentleman, sir, from South Carolina, has referred to two incidents connected with the proceedings of the Convention at Philadelphia, which he thinks are evidence to show that the power of protecting manufactures, by laying duties, and by commercial regulations, was not intended to be given to Congress. The first is, as he says, that a power to protect manufactures was expressly proposed, but not granted. I think, sir, the gentleman is quite mistaken in relation to this part of the proceedings of the Convention. The whole history of the occurrence to which he alludes is simply this: Towards the conclusion of the Convention, after the provisions of the constitution had been mainly agreed upon, after the power to lay duties and the power to regulate commerce had both been granted, a long list of propositions was made, and referred to the committee, containing various miscellaneous powers, some or all of which it was thought might be properly vested in Congress. Among these, was a power to establish a university; to grant charters of incorporation; to regulate stage coaches on the post roads; and also the power to which the gentleman refers, and which is expressed in these words: "To establish public institutions, rewards, and immunities, for the promotion of agriculture, commerce, trades, and manufactures." The committee made no report on this or various other propositions in the same list. But the only inference from this omission is that neither the committee nor the Convention thought it proper to authorize Congress "to establish public institutions, rewards, and immunities" for the promotion of manufactures, and other interests. The Convention supposed it had done enough, at any rate it had done all it intended, when it had given to Congress, in general terms, the power to lay imposts and the power to regulate trade.

It is not to be argued, from its omission to give more, that it meant to take back what it had already given. It had given the impost power; it had given the regulation of trade; and it did not deem it necessary to give the further and distinct power of establishing public institutions.

The other fact, sir, on which the gentleman relies, is the declaration of Mr. Martin to the Legislature of Maryland. The gentleman supposes Mr. Martin to have urged, against the constitution, that it did not contain the power of protection. But, if the gentleman will look again at what Mr. Martin said, he will find, I think, that what Mr. Martin complained of was, that the constitution, by its prohibitions on the States, had taken away from the States their power of protecting their own manufactures by duties on imports. This is undoubtedly true, but I find no expression of Mr. Martin intimating that the constitution had not conferred on Congress the same power which it had thus taken from the States.

But, sir, let us go to the first Congress; let us look in upon this and the other House, at the first session of their organization. We see in both Houses, men, distinguished among the framers, friends, and advocates of the constitution. We see in both those who had drawn, discussed, and matured the instrument in the Convention, explained and defended it before the people, and were now elected members of Congress to put the new Government into motion, and to carry the powers of the constitution into beneficial execution.

At the head of the Government was Washington himself, who had been President of the Convention, and in his cabinet were others most thoroughly acquainted with the history of the constitution, and distinguished for the part taken in its discussion.

If these persons were not acquainted with the meaning of the constitution, if they did not understand the work of their own hands, who can understand it, or who shall now interpret it to us?

Sir, the volume which records the proceedings and debates of the first session of the House of Representatives, lies before me. I open it, and I find that, having provided for the administration of the necessary oaths, the very first measure proposed for consideration is, the laying imposts; and in the very first Committee of the Whole into which the House of Representatives ever resolved itself on this its earliest subject, and in this its very first debate, the duty of so laying the imposts, as to encourage manufactures, was advanced, and enlarged upon, by almost every speaker, and doubted or denied by none. The first gentleman who suggests this as the clear duty of Congress, and as an object necessary to be attended to, is Mr. Fitzsimons of Pennsylvania, the second, Mr. White of Virginia, the third, Mr. Tucker, of South Carolina.

But the great leader, sir, on this occasion, was Mr. Madison. Was he likely to know the intentions of the Convention and the people? Was he likely to understand the constitution?

At the second sitting of the committee, Mr. Madison explained his own opinions of the duty of Congress, fully and explicitly. I must not detain you, sir, with more than a few short extracts from these opinions, but they are such as are clear, intelligible and decisive.

"The States," says he, "that are most advanced in population, and ripe for manufactures, ought to have their particular interest attended to, in some degree. While these States retained the power of making regulations of trade, they had the power to cherish such institutions. By adopting the present constitution, they have thrown the exercise of this power into other hands, they must have done this with an expectation that those interests would not be neglected here."

In another report of the same speech, Mr. Madison is represented as using still stronger language; as saying, that the constitution, having taken this power away from the States, and conferred it on Congress, it would be a fraud on the States and on the people were Congress to refuse to exercise it.

Mr. Madison argues, sir, on this early and interesting occasion, very justly and liberally in favor of the general principles of unrestricted commerce. But he argues also, with equal force and clearness, for certain important exceptions to these general principles.

The first, sir, respects those manufactures which had been brought forward under encouragement by the State Governments. "It would be cruel," says Mr. Madison, "to neglect them, and to divert their industry into other channels, for it is not possible for the hand of man to shift from one employment to another without being injured by the change."

Again: "There may be some manufactures which, being once formed, can advance towards perfection without any adventitious aid, while others, for want of the fostering hand of Government, will be unable to go on at all. Legislative provision therefore, will be necessary to collect the proper objects for this purpose; and this will form another exception to my general principle." And again:

"The next exception that occurs is one on which great stress is laid by some well-informed men, and this with great plausibility: that each nation should have, within itself, the means of defence; independent of foreign supplies; that, in whatever relates to the operations of war, no State ought to depend upon a precarious supply from any part of the world. There may be some truth in this remark, and therefore it is proper for legislative attention."

In the same debate, sir, Mr. Burke, from South Carolina, supported a duty on hemp, for the express purpose of encouraging its growth on the strong lands of South Carolina. "Cotton," he said, "was also in contemplation among them, and, if good seed could be procured, he hoped might succeed." Afterwards, sir, the cotton seed was obtained, its culture was protected, and it did succeed. Mr. Smith, a very distinguished member from the same State, observed: "It has been said, and justly, that the States which adopted this constitution expected its administrators would be conducted with a favorable hand. The manufacturing States wished the encouragement of manufactures; the maritime States the encouragement of ship-building; and the agricultural States the encouragement of agriculture."

Sir, I will detain the Senate by reading no more extracts from these debates. I have already shown a majority of the members of South Carolina in this very first session, acknowledging this power of protection, voting for its exercise, and proposing its extension to their own products. Similar propositions came from Virginia; and, indeed, sir, in the whole debate, at whatever page you open the volume, you find the power admitted, and you find it applied to the protection of particular articles, or not applied, according to the discretion of Congress. No man denied the power-no man doubted it; the only questions were in regard to the several articles proposed to be taxed, whether they were fit subjects for protection, and what the amount of that protection ought to be. Will gentlemen, sir, now answer the argument drawn from the early and consistent practice of the Government?
proceedings of the first Congress? Will they undertake to deny that that Congress did act on the avowed principle of protection? Or, if they admit it, will they tell us how those who framed the constitution fell thus early into this great mistake about its meaning? Will they tell us how it should happen that they had so soon forgotten their own sentiments & their own purposes? I confess I have seen no answer to this argument, nor any respectable attempt to answer it. And, sir, how did this debate terminate? What law was passed? There it stands, sir, among the statutes, the second law in the book! It has a preamble, and that preamble expressly recites, that the duties which it imposes are laid 'for the support of Government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of manufactures.' Until, sir, this early legislation, thus coeval with the constitution itself, thus full and explicit, can be explained away, no man can doubt of the meaning of that instrument.

Mr. President, this power of discrimination thus admitted, avowed, and practised upon in the first revenue act, has never been denied or doubted until within a few years past. It was not at all doubted, in 1816, when it became necessary to adjust the revenue to a state of peace. On the contrary, the power was then exercised, not without opposition as to its expediency, but, as far as I remember, or have understood, without the slightest opposition founded on any supposed want of constitutional authority. Certainly, South Carolina did not doubt it. The tariff of 1816 was introduced, carried through, and established under the lead of South Carolina. Even the minimum policy is of South Carolina origin. The honorable gentleman himself supported, and ably supported, the tariff of 1816. He has informed us, sir, that his speech on that occasion was sudden and off-handed, he being called up at the request of a friend. I am sure the gentleman so remembers it, and that it was so, but there is, nevertheless, much method, arrangement, clear exposition, in that extempore speech. It is very able, very, very much to the point, and very decisive. And in another speech, delivered two months earlier, on the proposition to repeal the internal taxes, the honorable gentleman had touched the same subject, and had declared, 'that a certain encouragement ought to be extended, at least to woollen and cotton manufactures.' I do not quote these speeches, sir, for the purpose of showing that the honorable gentleman has changed his opinion: my object is other, and higher. I do it for the sake of saying, that that cannot be so plainly and palpably unconstitutional, as to warrant resistance to law, nullification, and revolution, which the honorable gentleman and his friends have heretofore agreed to, and acted upon, without doubt, and without hesitation. Sir, it is no answer to say that the tariff of 1816 was a revenue bill. So are they all revenue bills. The point is, and the truth is, that the tariff of 1816, like the rest, did discriminate; it did distinguish one article from another; it did lay duties for protection. Look to the case of coarse cottons, under the minimum calculation; the duty on these was sixty to eighty per cent. Something besides revenue, certainly, was intended in this; and, in fact, the law cut up our whole commerce with India in that article. It is, sir, only within a few years that Carolina has denied the constitutionality of these protective laws. The gentleman himself has hesitated to state the true history of her proceedings on this point. He says that, after the passing of the law of 1828, despairing then of being able to abolish the system of protection, political men went forth among the people, and set up the doctrine that the system was unconstitutional. 'And the people,' says the honorable gentleman, 'received the doctrine.' This, I believe, is true, sir. The people did then receive the doctrine: they had never entertained it before. Down to that period, the constitutionality of the laws had been no more doubted in South Carolina than elsewhere. And I suspect it is true, sir, and I deem it a great misfortune, that, at the present moment, a great portion of the people of the State have never yet seen more than one side of the argument. I believe that thousands of honest men are involved in scenes now passing, led away by one-sided views of the question, and following their leaders by the impulses of an unlimited confidence. Depend upon it, sir, if we can avoid the shock of arms, a day for reconsideration and reflection will come; truth and reason will act with their accustomed force, and the public opinion of South Carolina will be restored to its usual constitutional and patriotic tone.

But, sir, I hold South Carolina to her ancient, her cool, her uninfluenced, her deliberate opinions. I hold her to her own admissions, nay, to her own claims and pretensions, in 1789, in the first Congress, and to her acknowledgments and avowed sentiments through a long series of succeeding years. I hold her to the principles on which she led Congress to act in 1816; or, if she have changed her own opinions, I claim some respect for those who still retain the same opinions. I say she is precluded from asserting, that doctrines which she has herself so long aid so ably sustained are plain, palpable, and dangerous violations of the constitution.

Mr. President, if the friends of nullification should be able to propagate their opinions, and give them practical effect, they would, in my judgment, prove themselves the most skilful 'architects of ruin,' the most effectual extinguishers of high raised expectation, the greatest blasters of human hope, which any age has produced. They would stand up to proclaim, in tones which would pierce the ears of half the human race, that the last great experiment of representative government had failed. They would send forth sounds, at the hearing of which the doctrine of the divine right of Kings would feel, even in its grave, a returning sensation of vitality and resuscitation. Millions of eyes, of those who now feed their inherent love of liberty on the success of the American example, would turn away from beholding our dismemberment, and find no place on earth whereon to rest their gratified sight. Amidst the incantations and orgies of nullification, secession, disunion, and revolution, would be celebrated the funeral rites of constitutional and republican liberty.

But, sir, if the Government do its duty, if it act with firmness and with moderation, these opinions cannot prevail. Be assured, sir, be assured that, among the political sentiments of this people, the love of union is still uppermost. They will stand fast by the constitution, and by those who defend it. I rely on no temporary expedients, on no political combinations; but I rely on the true American feeling, the genuine patriotism of the people, and the imperative decision of the public voice. Disorder and confusion, indeed, may arise; scenes of commotion and contest are threatened, and perhaps may come. With my whole heart, I pray for the continuance of the domestic peace and quiet of the country. I desire, most ardently, the restoration of affection and harmony to all its parts. I desire that every citizen of the whole country may look to this Government, with no other sentiments but those of grateful respect and attachment. But I cannot yield, even to kind feelings, the cause of the constitution, the true glory of the country, and the great trust which we hold in our hands for succeeding ages. If the constitution cannot be maintained without meeting these scenes of commotion and contest, however unwelcome, they must come. We cannot, we must not, we dare not, omit to do that which, in our judgment, the safety of the Union requires. Not regardless of consequences, we must yet meet consequences; seeing the hazards which surround the discharge of public duty, it must yet be discharged. For myself, sir, I shun no responsibility justly devolving on me, here or elsewhere, in attempting to maintain the cause. I am tied to it by indissoluble bands of love to my country, and duty, and I shall cheerfully partake in whatever fortune may befall it.