Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/160

 he did not agree that previous to these acts there was no case in point of similar unconstitutional legislation.

As to the enumeration of the evils resulting from the tariff, he felt that the Exposition was greatly in error. He attacked the position that the southern people as producers of the great export staples bore the bulk of the burden of the tariff. Only in so far as they were consumers of articles upon which there were import duties were they bearers of the tariff burden. Therefore, since the computation of the share of the contributions of the two sections to the general treasury was based upon the assumption that protective duties fell upon exports, the calculation was wrong.

As for the remedy recommended to prevent the operation of the tariff acts upon the state of South Carolina — nullification — he had no sympathy with it, because if such a doctrine were reduced to practice the Union could not subsist. He agreed that the states were sovereign in many respects, but emphatically denied that these included, by "clear implication," a veto on the action of the general government on contested points of authority. That the Constitution sanctioned such a remedy to prevent the encroachment