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 south, before the senate of the United States, in the year 1833: “The constitution is a compact to which the states were parties in their sovereign capacity; now, whenever a contract is entered into by parties which acknowledge no tribunal above their authority to decide in the last resort, each of them has a right to judge for itself in relation to the nature, extent, and obligations of the instrument.” It is evident that a similar doctrine destroys the very basis of the federal constitution, and brings back all the evils of the old confederation, from which the Americans were supposed to have had a safe deliverance.

When South Carolina perceived that Congress turned a deaf ear to its remonstrances, it threatened to apply the doctrine of nullification to the federal tariff bill. Congress persisted in its former system; and at length the storm broke out. In the course of 1832 the citizens of South Carolina named a national convention, to consult upon the extraordinary measures which they were called upon to take; and on the 24th November of the same year, this convention promulgated a law, under the form of a decree, which annulled the federal law of the tariff, forbade the levy of the imposts which that law commands, and refused to recognise the appeal which might be made to the federal courts of law. This decree was only to be put into execution in the ensuing month of February, and it was intimated, that if Congress modified the tariff before that period. South Carolina might be induced to proceed no farther with her menaces; and a vague desire was afterward