CHAPTER LXXVIII.

NULLIFICATION ORDINANCE IN SOUTH CAKO-
LINA.

It has been seen that the whole question of the
American system, and especially its prominent
feature of a high protective tariff, was put in
issue in the presidential canvass of 1832; and
that the long session of Congress of that year
was occupied by the friends of this system in
bringing forward to the best advantage all its
points, and staking its fate upon the issue of the
election. That issue was against the system;
and the Congress elections taking place contem-
poraneously with the presidential were of the
same character. The fate of the American sys-
tem was sealed. Its domination in federal
legislation was to cease. This was acknowledged
on all hands; and it was naturally expected
that all the States, dissatisfied with that system,
would be satisfied with the view of its speedy
and regular extinction, under the legislation of
the approaching session of Congress; and that
expectation was only disappointed in a single
State-that of South Carolina. She had held
aloof from the presidential election-throwing
away her vote upon citizens who were not can-
didates and doing nothing to aid the election
of General Jackson, with whose success her
interests and wishes were apparently identified.
Instead of quieting her apprehensions, and mode-
rating her passion for violent remedies, the
success of the election seemed to inflame them;
and the 24th of November, just a fortnight after
the election which decided the fate of the tariff,
she issued her ordinance of nullification against
it, taking into her own hands the sudden and
violent redress which she prescribed for herself.
That ordinance makes an era in the history of
our Union, which requires to be studied in order
to understand the events of the times, and the
history of subsequent events. It was in these

words:

ORDINANCE.

duties and imposts on foreign imports, but in reality intended for the protection of domestic manufactures, and the giving of bounties to classes and individuals engaged in particular employments, at the expense and to the injury and oppression of other classes and individuals, and by wholly exempting from taxation certain foreign commodities, such as are not produced or manufactured in the United States, to afford a pretext for imposing higher and excessive duties on articles similar to those intended to be protected, hath exceeded its just powers under the constitution, which confers on it no authority true meaning and intent of the constitution, to afford such protection, and hath violated the which provides for equality in imposing the burdens of taxation upon the several States and portions of the confederacy: And whereas the taxes and collect revenue for the purpose of said Congress, exceeding its just power to impose effecting and accomplishing the specific objects and purposes which the constitution of the United States authorizes it to effect and accomplish, hath raised and collected unnecessary revenue for objects unauthorized by the constitution.

"We, therefore, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and of the Congress of the United States, purporting ordained, that the several acts and parts of acts to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities, and now having actual operation and effect within entitled 'An act in alteration of the several acts the United States, and, more especially, an act imposing duties on imports,' approved on the nineteenth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, and also an act entitled 'An act to alter and amend the several acts imposing duties on imports,' approved on the fourteenth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, are unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof, and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State, its officers or citizens; and all promises, contracts, and obligations, made or entered into, or to be made or entered into, with purpose to secure the duties imposed by the said acts, and had in affirmance thereof, are and shall be held all judicial proceedings which shall be hereafter utterly null and void.

"And it is further ordained, that it shall not be lawful for any of the constituted authorities, whether of this State or of the United States, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the said acts within the limits of this State; but it shall be the duty of the legislature to adopt such measures and pass such acts as may be necessaim-y to give full effect to this ordinance, and to prevent the enforcement and arrest the operation of the said acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States within the limits of this State, from and after the 1st day of Feb

"An ordinance to nullify certain acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws laying duties and imposts on the portation of foreign commodities.

"Whereas the Congress of the United States, by various acts, purporting to be acts laying

ruary next, and the duty of all other constituted authorities, and of all persons residing or being within the limits of this State, and they are hereby required and enjoined to obey and give effect to this ordinance, and such acts and measures of the legislature as may be passed or adopted in obedience thereto.

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And it is further ordained, that in no case of law or equity, decided in the courts of this State, wherein shall be drawn in question the authority of this ordinance, or the validity of such act or acts of the legislature as may be passed for the purpose of giving effect thereto, or the validity of the aforesaid acts of Congress, imposing duties, shall any appeal be taken or allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, nor shall any copy of the record be permitted or allowed for that purpose; and if any such appeal shall be attempted to be taken, the courts of this State shall proceed to execute and enforce their judgments, according to the laws and usages of the State, without reference to such attempted appeal, and the person or persons attempting to take such appeal may be dealt with as for a contempt of the court.

obedience; but that we will consider the passage, by Congress, of any act authorizing the employment of a military or naval force against the State of South Carolina, her constitutional authorities or citizens; or any act abolishing or closing the ports of this State, or any of them, or otherwise obstructing the free ingress and egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act on the part of the federal government, to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her commerce, or to enforce the acts hereby declared to be null and void, otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union; and that the people of this State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do.

"Done in convention at Columbia, the twenty-fourth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirtytwo, and in the fifty-seventh year of the declaration of the independence of the United States of America."

This ordinance placed the State in the attitude of open, forcible resistance to the laws of the United States, to take effect on the first day of February next ensuing a period within

"And it is further ordained, that all persons now holding any office of honor, profit, or trust, civil or military, under this State (members of the legislature excepted), shall, within such time, and in such manner as the legislature shall prescribe, take an oath well and truly to obey, execute, and enforce this ordinance, and such act or acts of the legislature as may be passed in pursuance thereof, according to the true intent and meaning of the same; and on the neglect or omission of any such person or persons so to do, his or their office or offices shall be forth-which it was hardly possible for the existing with vacated, and shall be filled up as if such person or persons were dead or had resigned; and no person hereafter elected to any office of honor, profit, or trust, civil or military (members of the legislature excepted), shall, until the legislature shall otherwise provide and direct, enter on the execution of his office, or be in any respect competent to discharge the duties thereof, until he shall, in like manner, have taken a similar oath; and no juror shall be empannelled in any of the courts of this State, in any cause in which shall be in question this ordinance, or any act of the legislature passed in pursuance thereof, unless he shall first, in addition to the usual oath, have taken an oath that he will well and truly obey, execute, and enforce this ordinance, and such act or acts of the legislature as may be passed to carry the same into operation and effect, according to the true intent and meaning thereof.

"And we, the people of South Carolina, to the end that it may be fully understood by the government of the United States, and the people of the co-States, that we are determined to maintain this our ordinance and declaration, at every hazard, do further declare that we will not submit to the application of force, on the part of the federal government, to reduce this State to

Congress, even if so disposed, to ameliorate obnoxious laws; and a period a month earlier than the commencement of the legal existence of the new Congress, on which all reliance was placed. And, in the mean time, if any attempt should be made in any way to enforce the obnoxious laws except through her own tribunals sworn against them, the fact of such attempt was to terminate the continuance of South Carolina in the Union-to absolve her from all connection with the federal government—and to establish her as a separate government, not only unconnected with the United States, but uncon nected with any one State. This ordinance, signed by more than a hundred citizens of the greatest respectability, was officially communicated to the President of the United States; and a case presented to him to test his patriotism, his courage, and his fidelity to his inaugu ration oath-an oath taken in the presence of God and man, of Heaven and earth, "to take care that the laws of the Union were faithfully executed." That President was Jackson; and

the event soon proved, what in fact no one doubted, that he was not false to his duty, his country, and his oath. Without calling on Congress for extraordinary powers, he merely adverted in his annual message to the attitude of the State, and proceeded to meet the exigency by the exercise of the powers he already possessed.

CHAPTER LXXIX.

PROCLAMATION AGAINST NULLIFICATION.

egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act of the federal government to coerce her commerce, or to enforce the said acts otherthe State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass wise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union; and that the people of the said State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do:

"And whereas the said ordinance prescribes to the people of South Carolina a course of conduct in direct violation of their duty as citizens of the United States, contrary to the laws of and having for its object the destruction of the their country, subversive of its constitution,

THE ordinance of nullification reached President Jackson in the first days of December, and on the tenth of that month the proclama-Union-that Union which, coeval with our potion was issued, of which the following are the essential and leading parts:

litical existence, led our fathers, without any other ties to unite them than those of patriotism and a common cause, through a sanguinary struggle to a glorious independence-that sacred Union, hitherto inviolate, which, perfected by our happy_constitution, has brought us, by the favor of Heaven, to a state of prosperity at home, and high consideration abroad, rarely, if ever, equalled in the history of nations: To preserve this bond of our political existence from destruction, to maintain inviolate this state of national honor and prosperity, and to justify the confidence my fellow-citizens have reposed in me, I,

"Whereas a convention assembled in the State of South Carolina have passed an ordinance, by which they declare that the several acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities, and now having actual operation and effect within the United States, and more especially two acts for the same purposes, passed on the 29th of May, 1828, and on the 14th of July, 1832, are unauthorized by the constitu- Andrew Jackson, President of the United tion of the United States, and violate the true States, have thought proper to issue this my meaning and intent thereof, and are null and proclamation, stating my views of the constituvoid, and no law,' nor binding on the citizens of tion and laws applicable to the measures adoptthat State, or its officers: and by the said ordi-ed by the convention of South Carolina, and to nance, it is further declared to be unlawful for any of the constituted authorities of the State or of the United States to enforce the payment of the duties imposed by the said acts within the same State, and that it is the duty of the legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary to give full effect to the said ordinance:

"And whereas, by the said ordinance, it is further ordained, that in no case of law or equity decided in the courts of said State, wherein shall be drawn in question the validity of the said ordinance, or of the acts of the legislature that may be passed to give it effect, or of the said laws of the United States, no appeal shall be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, nor shall any copy of the record be permitted or allowed for that purpose, and that any person attempting to take such appeal shall be punished as for a contempt of court:

"And, finally, the said ordinance declares that the people of South Carolina will maintain the said ordinance at every hazard; and that they will consider the passage of any act, by Congress, abolishing or closing the ports of the said State, or otherwise obstructing the free ingress or

the reasons they have put forth to sustain them, declaring the course which duty will require me to pursue, and, appealing to the understanding and patriotism of the people, warn them of the consequences that must inevitably result from an observance of the dictates of the convention.

'Strict duty would require of me nothing more than the exercise of those powers with which I am now, or may hereafter be, invested, for preserving the peace of the Union, and for the execution of the laws. But the imposing aspect which opposition has assumed in this case, by clothing itself with State authority, and the deep interest which the people of the United States must all feel in preventing a resort to stronger measures, while there is a hope that any thing will be yielded to reasoning and remonstrance, perhaps demanded, and will certainly justify, a full exposition to South Carolina and the nation of the views I entertain of this important question, as well as a distinct enunciation of the course which my sense of duty will require me to pursue.

"The ordinance is founded, not on the indefeasible right of resisting acts which are plainly

those States discovered that they had the right now claimed by South Carolina. The war, into which we were forced to support the dignity of the nation and the rights of our citizens, might have ended in defeat and disgrace, instead of victory and honor, if the States who supposed it a /runious and unconstitutional measure, had in thought they possessed the right of nullifying the act by which it was declared, and denying supplies for its prosecution. Hardly and unequally as those measures bore upon several members of the Union, to the legislatures of none did this efficient and peaceable remedy, as it is called, suggest itself. The discovery of this important feature in our constitution was reserved to the present day. To the statesmen of South Carolina belongs the invention, and upon the citizens of that State will unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it to practice.

"If the doctrine of a State veto upon the laws of the Union carries with it internal evidence of its impracticable absurdity, our constitutional history will also afford abundant proof that it would have been repudiated with indignation had it been proposed to form a feature in our government.

unconstitutional and too oppressive to be endured, but on the strange position that any one State may not only declare an act of Congress void, but prohibit its execution; that they may do this consistently with the constitution; that the true construction of that instrument permits a State to retain its place in the Union, and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may choose to consider as constitutional. It is true, they add, that to justify this abrogation of a law, it must be palpably contrary to the constitution; but it is evident, that to give the right of resisting laws of that description, coupled with the uncontrolled right to decide what laws deserve that character, is to give the power of resisting all laws. For as, by the theory, there is no appeal, the reasons alleged by the State, good or bad, must prevail. If it should be said that public opinion is a sufficient check against the abuse of this power, it may be asked why it is not deemed a sufficient guard against the passage of an unconstitutional act by Congress. There is, however, a restraint in this last case, which makes the assumed power of a State more indefensible, and which does not exist in the other. There are two appeals from an unconstitutional act passed by Congress-one to the judiciary, "In our colonial state, although dependent on the other to the people and the States. There another power, we very early considered ouris no appeal from the State decision in theory, selves as connected by common interest with each and the practical illustration shows that the other. Leagues were formed for common decourts are closed against an application to review fence, and, before the declaration of indepenit, both judges and jurors being sworn to decide dence, we were known in our aggregate character in its favor. But reasoning on this subject is as the United Colonies of America. That desuperfluous, when our social compact, in express cisive and important step was taken jointly terms, declares that the laws of the United States, We declared ourselves a nation by a joint, not its constitution, and treaties made under it, are by several acts, and when the terms of our conthe supreme law of the land; and, for greater federation were reduced to form, it was in that caution, adds that the judges in every State of a solemn league of several States, by which shall be bound thereby, any thing in the consti- they agreed that they would collectively form tution or laws of any State to the contrary not- one nation for the purpose of conducting some withstanding.' And it may be asserted with- certain domestic concerns and all foreign relaout fear of refutation, that no federative govern- tions. In the instrument forming that Union ment could exist without a similar provision. is found an article which declares that 'every Look for a moment to the consequence. If South State shall abide by the determinations of ConCarolina considers the revenue laws unconstitu-gress on all questions which, by that confederational, and has a right to prevent their execution tion, should be submitted to them.' in the port of Charleston, there would be a clear constitutional objection to their collection in every other port, and no revenue could be collected any where; for all imposts must be equal. It is no answer to repeat, that an unconstitutional law is no law, so long as the question of its legality is to be decided by the State itself; for every law operating injuriously upon any local interest will be perhaps thought, and certainly represented, as unconstitutional, and, as has been shown, there is no appeal.

"Under the confederation, then, no State could legally annul a decision of the Congress, or refuse to submit to its execution; but no provision was made to enforce these decisions. Congress made requisitions, but they were not complied with. The government could not operate on individuals. They had no judiciary, no means of collecting revenue.

"But the defects of the confederation need not be detailed. Under its operation we could scarcely be called a nation. We had neither "If this doctrine had been established at an prosperity at home, nor consideration abroad. earlier day, the Union would have been dissolved This state of things could not be endured, and in its infancy. The excise law in Pennsylvania, our present happy constitution was formed, but the embargo and non-intercourse law in the formed in vain, if this fatal doctrine prevail. It Eastern States, the carriage tax in Virginia, were was formed for important objects that are anall deemed unconstitutional, and were more un-nounced in the preamble made in the name and equal in their operation than any of the laws by the authority of the people of the United now complained of; but fortunately none of States, whose delegates framed, and whose con

ventions approved it. The most important among these objects, that which is placed first in rank, on which all the others rest, is to form a more perfect Union.' Now, is it possible that even if there were no express provision giving supremacy to the constitution and laws of the United States over those of the States-can it be conceived that an instrument made for the purpose of forming a more perfect Union' than that of the confederation, could be so constructed by the assembled wisdom of our country, as to substitute for that confederation a form of government dependent for its existence on the local interest, the party spirit of a State, or of a prevailing faction in a State? Every man of plain, unsophisticated understanding, who hears the question, will give such an answer as will preserve the Union. Metaphysical subtlety, in pursuit of an impracticable theory, could alone have devised one that is calculated to destroy it. "The constitution declares that the judicial powers of the United States extend to cases arising under the laws of the United States, and that such laws, the constitution and treaties shall be paramount to the State constitutions and laws. The judiciary act prescribes the mode by which the case may be brought before a court of the United States: by appeal, when a State tribunal shall decide against this provision of the constitution. The ordinance declares there shall be no appeal; makes the State law paramount to the constitution and laws of the United States; forces judges and jurors to swear that they will disregard their provisions; and even makes it penal in a suitor to attempt relief by appeal. It further declares that it shall not be lawful for the authorities of the United States, or of that State, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the revenue laws within its limits.

"Here is a law of the United States, not even pretended to be unconstitutional, repealed by the authority of a small majority of the voters of a single State. Here is a provision of the constitution which is solemnly abrogated by the same authority.

its provisions, and acting in separate conventions when they ratified those provisions; but, the terms used in its construction show it to be a government in which the people of all the States collectively are represented. We are one people in the choice of the President and Vice-President. Here the States have no other agency than to direct the mode in which the votes shall be given. Candidates having the majority of all the votes are chosen. The electors of a majority of States may have given their votes for one candidate, and yet another may be chosen. The people, then, and not the States, are represented in the executive branch.

"In the House of Representatives, there is this difference: that the people of one State do not, as in the case of President and Vice-President, all vote for the same officers. The people of all the States do not vote for all the members, each State electing only its own representatives. But this creates no material distinction. When chosen, they are all representatives of the United States, not representatives of the particular State from which they come. They are paid by the United States, not by the State, nor are they accountable to it for any act done in the performance of their legislative functions; and however they may in practice, as it is their duty to do, consult and prefer the interests of their particular constituents, when they come in conflict with any other partial or local interest, yet it is their first and highest duty, as representatives of the United States, to promote the general good.

"The constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league; and whether it be formed by compact between the States, or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government in which all the people are represented, which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the States-they retained all the power they did not grant. But each State, having expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute, jointly with the other States, a single nation, cannot, from that "On such expositions and reasonings, the or- period, possess any right to secede, because dinance grounds not only an assertion of the such secession does not break a league, but deright to annul the laws of which it complains, stroys the unity of a nation; and any injury to but to enforce it by a threat of seceding from the that unity is not only a breach which would reUnion, if any attempt is made to execute them. sult from the contravention of a compact, but it "This right to secede is deduced from the na- is an offence against the whole Union. To say ture of the constitution, which, they say, is a that any State may at pleasure secede from the compact between sovereign States, who have pre- Union, is to say that the United States are not served their whole sovereignty, and, therefore, a nation; because it would be a solecism to conare subject to no superior; that, because they tend that any part of a nation might dissolve its made the compact, they can break it when, in connection with the other parts, to their injury their opinion, it has been departed from, by the or ruin, without committing any offence. Secesother States. Fallacious as this course of rea- sion, like any other revolutionary act, may be soning is, it enlists State pride, and finds advo-morally justified by the extremity of oppression; cates in the honest prejudices of those who have not studied the nature of our government sufficiently to see the radical error on which it rests. "The people of the United States formed the constitution, acting through the State legislatures in making the compact, to meet and discuss

but, to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms; and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent on a failure.