Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 11.djvu/819

 APPENDIX. PROCLAMATION. N0. 26. 775 convention of a single Statef where neither the people of the different States, nor the States in their separate capacity, nor the chief magistrate elected by the people, have any representation. Which is the most discreet disposition of the power? I do not ask you, fellow-citizens, which is the constitutional disposition; that instrument speaks a language not tobe misunderstood. But if you were assembled in general convention, which would you think the safest depository of this discretionary power in the last resort; Would you add a clause giving it to each of the States, or would you sanction the wise provisions already made by your Constitution ? If this should be the result of your deliberations when providing for the future, are you, can you, be ready, to risk all that we hold dear, to establish, for a temporary and a local purpose, that which you must acknowledge to be destructive, and even absurd, as a general provision ? Carry out the consequences of this right vested in the different States, and you must perceive that the crisis your conduct presents at this day, would recur whenever any law of the United States displeased any of the States, and that we should soon cease to be a nation. The ordinance, with the same knowledge of the future that characterizes a former objection, tells you that the proceeds of the tax will be unconstitutionally applied. It this could be ascertained with certainty, the objection would, with more propriety, be reserved for the law so applying the proceeds, but surely cannot be urged against the laws levying the duty. These are the allegations contained in the ordinance. Examine them seriously, my fellow-citizens,—_judge for yourselvs. I appeal to you to determine whether they are so clear, so convincing, as to leave no doubt of their correctness; and even if you should come to this conclusion, how far they justify the reckless, destructive course which you are directed to pursue. Review these objections, and the conclusions drawn from them, once more. What are they ? Every law, then, for raising revenue, according to the South Carolina ordinance, may be rightfully annulled, unless it be so framed as no law ever will or can be framed. Congress have e right to pass laws tbr raising revenue, and each State have a ’¤ht to oppose their execution-two rights directly opposed to each other; aiild yet is this absurdity supposed to be contained in an instrument drawn for the express purpose of avoiding collisions between the States and the general government, by an assembly of the most enlightened statesmen and purest patriots ever embodied for a similar purpose. In vain have these sages declared that Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises-—in vain have they provided that they shall have power to pass laws which shall be necessary and proper to carry those powers into execution, that those laws and that Constitution shall be the " supreme law of the land, and that the judves in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or laws oi any State to the contrary notwithstanding." In vain have the people of the several States solemnly sanctioned these provisions, made them their aramount law, and individually sworn to support them whenever they were called on to execute any office. Vain provisions! ineffectual restrictions} vile profanation of oathsl miserable mockery of legislation !—if a bare majority of the voters in any one State may, on a real or supposed knowledge of the intent with which a law has been passed, declare themselves free from its operation,——say here it gives too little, there too much, and operates unequally ;——here it suffers articles to be free that ought to be taxed ;—· there it taxes those that ought to be free ;—in this case the proceeds are intended to be applied to purposes which we do not approve ;-—in that the amount raised is more than is wanted. Congress, it is true, are invested by the Constitution with the right of deciding these questions according to their sound discretion; Congress is composed of the representatives of all the States, and of all the people of all the States; but we, part of the people of one State, to whom the Constitution has given no power on the subject, from whom it has expressly taken it away--we, who have solemnly agreed that this Constitution shall be our law——wc, most of whom have sworn to support it-we now abrogate this law, and swear, and force others to swear, that it shall not be obeyed-and we do this not because Congress have no right to pass such laws; this we do not allege, but because they have passed them with improper views. They are unconstitutional from the motives of those who passed them, which we can never with certainty know——from their unequal operation, although it is impossible, from the nature of things, that they should be equa.l———aud from the disposition which we presume may be made of their proceeds, although that disposition has not been declared. This is the plain meaning of the ordinance in relation to laws which it abrogates for alleged unconstitutionality. But it does not stop there. It repeals, in ex-