Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/254

 these preliminary remarks, I shall next proceed to consider the question — whether the reserved powers, if fully developed and brought into action, are sufficient to resist this powerful and dangerous tendency of the delegated, to encroach on them? or, to express the same thing in a different form — whether the separate government of a State, and its people in their sovereign character, to whom all powers, not delegated to the United States, appertain, can — one or both — rightfully oppose sufficient resistance to the strong tendency on the part of the government of the latter, to prevent its encroachment. I use the expression — "a State and its people" — because the powers not delegated to the United States, are reserved to each State respectively, or to its people; and, of course, it results that, whatever resistance the reserved powers can oppose to the delegated, must, to be within constitutional limits, proceed from the government and the people of the several States, in their separate and individual character.

The question is one of the first magnitude — and deserves the most serious and deliberate consideration. I shall begin with considering — what means the government of a State possesses, to prevent the government of the United States from encroaching on its reserved powers? I shall, however, pass over the right of remonstrating against its encroachments; of adopting resolutions against them, as unconstitutional; of addressing the governments of its co-States, and calling on them to unite and co-operate in opposition to them; and of