Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/202

Rh to the general government without limitation; that the state could not say that it would be "in" the Union so long as the power was exercised to a certain extent, and then say that it would be "out" if the power were exercised beyond that limit.

The Courier ran a series of speculations on treason which caused no little excitement among Nullifiers. The editor asserted that citizens as individuals, not as a state, owed a double allegiance, to the state and to the United States, and that the question so frequently put by the Nullifiers with an air of triumph, "Can a sovereign state commit treason?" was an idle one; for treason was an offense which could be predicated of individuals only and had no application whatever to communities. He said further that a state could not, unless it left the Union, authorize its citizens to make war against the United States, without subjecting them to the pains and penalties of treason; that is, that state interposition could not render lawful that which would be treason in individuals; that the citizens of every state in the Union were also citizens of the United States, and that, until they were absolved from