ed) such laws would be null and void, and all persons who acted under them, would be subject to actions in the State Courts. If a court of the United States should enter a judgment against a State which refused to appear in an action brought against it by a citizen of another State, or by a foreign State, such judgment would be void and all persons who act under it would be trespassers. These cases appear so plain that they will hardly be disputed. It is only in considering doubtful cases that our minds feel a difficulty in deciding. But, if in the plainest case which can be considered, the State Courts may declare a judgment [of the U. S. Courts] to be void, the principle is established."
Thus we see that this able and impartial Judge, although deciding the case before him against his own State, yet clearly and unequivocally asserts, that even the tribunals of a State have a right to annul the federal usurpations that may be brought before them. In how much higher degree, then, must this right exist in the sovereign power of the States which created not only these tribunals, but the Federal Government itself. [See Appendix. Note B.]
CHAPTER IV.
MASSACHUSETTS NULLIFICATION.
1st. Judge Parsons.—Having shown from the reports in the law books, the complete exemplification of this sovereign and rightful remedy of the States, on the part of Pennsylvania, citing in support of the principle the able opinion of Chief Justice Tilghman, I now proceed to exhibit sundry assertions of this doctrine in the State of Massachusetts, and first by Chief Justice Parsons whose words upon this subject, in his speech in the Massachusetts Conventions, (Jany. 1788) are as follows:—
"There is another check, founded on the nature of the Union, superior to all the parchment checks that can be invented. If there should be an usurpation, it will not be upon the farmer and merchant occupied solely with their several pursuits—It will be upon thirteen Legislatures completely organized, possessed of the confidence of the people, and having the means, as well as the inclination to oppose it successfully. Under these circumstances none but madmen would attempt an usurpation.—But Sir, the People themselves, have it in their power effectually to resist usurpation, without being driven to an appeal to arms. An act of usurpation is not obligatory—it is not law!! Any man may be justified in his resistance to it. Let him be considered as a criminal by the General Government—yet his own fellow citizens alone can convict him.—They are his Jury; and if they pronounce him innocent not all the powers of Congress can hurt him—and innocent they certainly will pronounce him, if the supposed law which he resisted, was an act of usurpations."
2d. Gov. Hancock.—This stern Republican Patriarch has given one of the first instances of practical nullification on record, in his resistance to Federal usurpation, as early as 1793, by refusing to obey a summons of the U. S. Courts for the appearance of Massachusetts to a suit then commenced against her.
3d. The Embargo.—The Senate of Massachusetts in one of their official documents, dated February 3d, 1808, used the following language—"We beg leave to observe that those rights which the people have not chosen to part with, should be exercised with much delicacy, and only at times of great danger, not with distraction or confusion, not to oppose the Laws—but to prevent Acts being respected as Laws which are unwarranted by the commission given to their Rulers. On such occasions passive submission would, on the part of the people, be a breach of their allegiance, and, on our part, treachery and perjury—For the people are bound, by their allegiance, and we are additionally bound by our oaths, to support the Constitution and the State—and we are responsible to the people and to our God for the faithful execution of the trust."
Again, the Legislature of Massachusetts, in 1809, passed the following resolution:
"Resolved, That the said Act of Congress passed on the 9th of January, in the present year, for enforcing the Act laying an embargo, and the several Acts supplementary thereto, are in the opinion of this Legislature, in many respects unjust, oppressive and unconstitutional, and not legally binding on the citizens of this State."
Thus we find the Legislature of a State, whose citizens are now abusing us as traitors, absolutely and entirely absolving her citizens from obedience to this regular war measure of Congress, passed in perfect conformity with their powers under the Constitution—and thus practising most unrighteously the very doctrine, at the bare mention of which, in our case, [so fully warranting its adoption,] these worthy people pretend to be so greatly horrified. See Appendix. Note C.
CHAPTER V.
CONNECTICUT NULLIFICATION.
Having in my last Chapters given some very perfect specimens of this remedy in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, we come now to the land, most emphatically of steady habits. Here, again, we find this doctrine practised in perfection, both by the Legislature, and by convention.
We must premise, however, that in giving these instances of Nullification, which occurred at the time of the embargo; we do not present them at all in the light of a justification to ourselves for adopting these doctrines—for indeed, we require no justification in a case so palpably warrantable and correct as our own—whilst the Nullifiers of the embargo now find none so bold as to vindicate or uphold them in their unhallowed and unauthorized attempt to paralize and destroy their country in the progress of a fearful contest with a gigantic adversary—but we produce them merely to refute the unfounded and absurd declarations of our opponents, that Nullification has never been practised in our country—and to show that the very vilest species of resistance to the Federal Government, has proceeded from that quarter, which is now most abusive of the South.
1st. Nullification by the Legislature.
In the year 1809, a very useful, judicious and truly impartial war measure of the United States, passed into a law by Congress, was thus repealed and nullified by the Legislature of Connecticut.
"Resolved, That to preserve the Union, and support the Constitution of the United States, it becomes the duty of the Legislature of the States, in such a crisis of affairs, vigilantly to watch and vigilantly to maintain the powers not delegated to the United States, but reserved to the States respectively, or to the people—and that a due regard to this duty will not permit the assembly to assist or concur in giving effect to the aforesaid unconstitutional Acts.
Resolved, That this assembly highly approve the conduct of his Excellency the Governor in declining to designate persons to carry into effect, by aid of military powers, the Acts of the United States, enforcing the embargo—and that his letter, address-
