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126 understood to impeach the motives by which the State has been governed, or to intimate that it has been actuated by any other purpose, than that of procuring relief from a supposed grievance. The Committee are well aware, that the purest patriots and wisest statesmen may be led, under the influence of mistaken views and excited feelings, into very dangerous measures. The present proceedings in South Carolina are, in their opinion, of that description. But the Committee indulge a confident hope, that by the exercise of the necessary firmness and discretion, on the part of the General Government, the danger may be averted, and that South Carolina herself, recovering from the delusion under which, for some time past she has appeared to labor, may continue to maintain her accustomed place among the most enlightened and patriotic States in the Union.

Before concluding their Report, the Committee deem it a duty to themselves and to the Legislature, to advert very briefly to some remarks which have been made upon the tendency of the Resolves accompanying their former Report, and adopted by the almost unanimous vote of both branches of the General Court. In certain quarters of high respectability, where the Resolves have been brought under discussion, it has been intimated that they favor the doctrine of Nullification, because they express the sentiment that the Legislature is not bound, silently, to acquiesce in measures considered by them as subversive of the spirit of the Constitution; and this in the way of instruction to the delegation of the Commonwealth in Congress, for the purpose of preventing the adoption of these measures. The difference between a proceeding of this kind, and an attempt to annul and prevent the execution of existing laws, is too obvious to be overlooked. That the General Government may adopt an unconstitutional measure, is of course possible; and no one can doubt that any portion of the people have a right, in an orderly and peaceable manner, to express their opinion upon the character of any of the measures of the General Government. But when this is done in advance, for the purpose not of denouncing an existing law, but of preventing a threatened mischief, it is not easy to see how the most fastidious judge can find any thing at which to take offence.

But were it even true, that the Legislature of this Common-