Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/554

 546 more unequal in their operation, than any of the laws now complained of; but fortunately none of those states discovered, that they had the right now claimed by South-Carolina. The war, into which we were forced, to support the dignity of the nation and the rights of our citizens, might have ended in defeat and disgrace, instead of victory and honour, if the states, who supposed it a ruinous and unconstitutional measure, had thought they possessed the right of nullifying the act, by which it was declared, and denying supplies for its prosecution. Hardly and unequally, as those measures bore upon several members of the Union, to the legislatures of none did this efficient and peaceable remedy, as it is called, suggest itself. The discovery of this important feature in our constitution" was reserved to the present day. To the statesmen of South-Carolina belongs the invention; and upon the citizens of that state will unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it to practice.

"If the doctrine of a state veto upon the laws of the Union carries with it internal evidence of its impracticable absurdity, our constitutional history will also afford abundant proof, that it would have been repudiated with indignation, had it been proposed to form a feature in our government.

"In our colonial state, although dependent on another power, we very early considered ourselves, as connected by common interest with each other. Leagues were formed for common defence, and before the Declaration of Independence we were known in our aggregate character, as . That decisive and important step was taken jointly. We declared ourselves a nation by a joint, not by several acts; and when the terms of our confederation were reduced to form, it was in that of a solemn league of several states, by which they agreed, that they would collectively form one nation, for the purpose of conducting some certain domestic concerns, and all foreign relations. In the instrument forming that union is found an article, which declares, that 'every state shall abide by the determinations of congress on all questions, which by that confederation should be submitted to them.'

"Under the confederation, then, no state could legally annul a decision of the congress, or refuse to submit to its execution; but no provision was made to enforce these decisions. Congress made requisitions, but they were not complied with. The government could not operate on individuals. They had no judiciary; no means of collecting revenue.

"But the defects of the confederation need not be detailed. Under its operation we could scarcely be called a nation. We had neither prosperity at home, nor consideration abroad. This state of things could not be endured; and our present happy constitution was formed, but formed in vain, if this fatal doctrine prevails. It was formed for important objects, that are announced in the preamble, made in the name and by the authority of the people of the United States, whose delegates framed, and whose conventions approved it. The most important among these objects, that, which is placed first in rank, on which all the others rest,