Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/243

 Calhoun — Nullification Explained. 237

Calhoun could not hope to control it, except upon the middle ground of nullification — the ground of the Virginia and Kentucky resolu- tions-^of Jefferson and Madison.

Urging the people of South Carolina to stand on this middle ground, rather than rush upon the extreme of secession, he said : " I see in the Union, as ordained by the Constitution, the means, if wisely used, not only of reconciling all diversities, but also the means, and the only effectual one, of securing to us justice, peace, and security, at home and abroad, and with them that national power and renown, the love of which Providence has implanted, for wise purposes, so deeply in the human heart, in all of which great objects every part of our country, widely extended and ' diversified as it is, has a common and identical interest.'

Is not this single sentence, taken from Calhoun's address to the people of South Carolina, July 26th, 1831, a complete refutation of all that Dr. von Hoist has scattered through his book about Calhoun's sectionalism.

Of the fifty millions now living in the United States few know what was meant by nullification, or have any idea of it, except as derived from the misrepresentations of such writers as von Hoist. Calhoun, though not its originator, was its ablest exponent. Explaining it, he said :

"So far from extreme danger, I hold that there never was a free State in which this great conservative principle, indispensable to all, was ever so safely lodged. In others, when the co- estates, repre- senting the dissimilar and conflicting interests of the community, came into contact, the only alternative was compromise, submission, or force. Not so in ours. Should the general Government and a State come into conflict, we have a higher remedy. The power which called the general Government into existence, which gave it all its authority, and can enlarge, contract, or abolish its powers at its pleasure, can be invoked. The States themselves can be appealed to, three-fourths of which, in fact, form a power, whose decrees are the Constitution itself, and whose voice can silence all discontent. The titmost extent, then, of the power is that a State, acting in its sovereign capacity, as one of the parties to the constitutional com- pact, may compel the government created by that compact, to sub- mit a question touching its infraction to the parties who created it."

Speaking of how and when a State should exercise this high power, he said :

" But the spirit of forbearance, as well as the nature of the right