Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/67

 WEBSTER struck, sir, with one reflection, as the gentleman went on in his speech. He quoted Mr. Madison's resolutions, to prove that a State may interfere, in a case of deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a power not granted. The honor- able member supposes the tariff law to be such an exercise of power; and that consequently a case has arisen in which the State may, if it see fit, interfere by its own law. Now it so happens, nevertheless, that Mr. Madison deems this same tariff law quite constitutional. Instead of a clear and palpable violation, it is, in his judg- ment, no violation at all. So that, while they use his authority for a hypothetical case, they reject it in the very case before them. (All this, sir, shows the inherent futility — I had almost used a stronger word — of conceding this power of interference to the State, and then attempting to secure it from abuse by imposing qualifica- tions of which the States themselves are to judge. One of two things is true : either the laws of the Union are beyond the discretion and beyond the control of the States; or else we have no constitution of general government, and are thrust back again to the days of the Confedera- tion.^ Let me here say, sir, that if the gentleman's doctrine had been received and acted upon in New England, in the times of the embargo and nonintercourse, we should probably not now have been here. The government would very likely have gone to pieces and crumbled into dust. 57