Page:Life of Henry Clay (Schurz; v. 2).djvu/17

Rh ernment, not a league; and whether it be formed by compact between the states, or in any other manner, its character is the same. . . . I consider the power to annul a law of the United States incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed. . . . Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them. To say that any state may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States are not a nation.”

He appealed to the people of South Carolina, in the tone of a father, to desist from their ruinous enterprise; but he gave them also clearly to understand that, if they resisted by force, the whole power of the Union would be exerted to maintain its authority.

All over the North, even where Jackson had been least popular, the proclamation was hailed with unbounded enthusiasm. Meetings were held to give voice to the universal feeling. In many Southern States, such as Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Maryland, Delaware, and even Virginia, it was widely approved as to its object, although much exception was taken to the “Federalist” character of its doctrines. Clay was not among those opponents of Jackson who hailed this manifesto with unqualified satisfaction. “One short week,” he wrote to Brooke, “produced the message and the proclamation, — the former ultra on the side of state-rights,