Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/349



It may be objected that the supposition, in both cases, is imaginary and never can occur — that it is not even to be supposed that Congress ever will so far forget its duty, as to pervert guaranties, solemnly entered into by the States, in forming a federal Union to protect each other in their republican forms of government — and the separate government of each against domestic violence — into means of effecting ends the very opposite of those intended. The objection, if it should ever be made, would indicate very little knowledge of the barriers which constitutions and plighted faith oppose to governments, when they can be transcended with impunity. They may not be openly assailed at first. They are usually sapped and undermined by construction, preparatory to their entire demolition. But what construction may fail to accomplish, the open assaults of fanaticism, or the lust of power, or the violence of party, will, in the end, prostrate. Of the truth of this, history, both political and religious, affords abundant proofs. Already our own furnishes many examples, of which, not a few, much to the point, might be cited. The very act, which the statute of the 3d March, 1833, was intended to enforce, was a gross and palpable perversion of the taxing power; and the movement to subvert the government of Rhode Island, a few years since, threatened, at one time, to furnish, by a like perversion of the guarantee to protect its government against domestic violence, the means of subverting it.

But it may be alleged that, if Congress should so