And if he, and if I, are not to know what the Constitution means, and what it is, till those two state legislatures, and the twenty-two others, shall agree in its construction, what have we sworn to, when we have sworn to maintain it? I was forcibly struck with one reflection, as the gentleman (Mr. Hayne) went on in his speech. He quoted Mr. Madison's resolutions to prove that a state may interfere, in a case of deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a power not granted. The honorable gentleman supposes the tariff law to be such an exercise of power; and that, consequently, a case has arisen in which the state may, if they see fit, interfere by its own law. Now, it so happens, nevertheless, that Mr. Madison himself deems this same tariff law quite constitutional. Instead of a clear and palpable violation, it is, in his judgment, no violation at all. So that, while they use his authority for a hypothetical case, they reject it in the very case before them. All this, sir, shows the inherent—futility—I had almost used a stronger word—of conceding this power of interference to the states, and then attempting to secure it from abuse by imposing qualifications, of which the states themselves are to judge. One of two things is true—either the laws or the Union are beyond the discretion, and beyond the control, of the states ; or else we have no constitution of general government, and are thrust back again to the days of the confederacy.
Let me here say, sir, that if the gentleman's doctrine had been received and acted upon in New England, in the times of the embargo and non-intercourse, we should probably now not have been here. The government would, very likely, have gone to pieces, and crumbled into dust. No stronger case can ever arise than existed under those laws; no states can ever entertain a clearer conviction than the New England States then entertained; and if they had been under the influence of that heresy of opinion, as I must call it, which the honorable member espouses, this Union would, in all probability, have been scattered to the four winds. I ask the gentleman, therefore, to apply his principles to that case. I ask him to come forth and declare, whether, in his opinion, the New England States would have been justified in interfering to break up the embargo system, under the conscientious opinions which they held upon it. Had they a right to annul that law? Does he admit, or deny? If that which is thought palpably unconstitutional in South Carolina justifies that state in arresting the progress of the law, tell me, whether that which was thought palpably unconstitutional, also, in Massachusetts, would have justified her in doing the same thing? Sir, I deny the whole doctrine. It has not a foot of ground in the Constitution to stand on. No public man of reputation ever advanced it in Massachusetts, in the warmest times, or could maintain himself upon it there at any time.
I wish now, sir, to make a remark upon the Virginia resolutions of 1798. I cannot undertake to say how these resolutions were understood by those who passed them. Their language is not a little indefinite. In the case of the exercise, by Congress, of a dangerous power, not granted to them, the resolutions assert the right, on the part of the state, to interfere and arrest the progress of the evil. This is susceptible of more than one interpretation. It may mean no more than that the states may interfere by complaint and remonstrance; or by proposing to the people an alteration of the Federal Constitution. This would be all quite unobjectionable; or it may be, that no more is meant than to assert the general right of revolution, as against all governments, in cases of intolerable oppression.
vol. iv.6443
