collector that he must collect no more duties under any of the tariff laws. This, he will be somewhat puzzled to say, by the way, with a grave countenance, considering what hand South Carolina, herself, had in that of 1816. But, sir, the collector would, probably, not desist at his bidding. He would show him the law of Congress, the treasury instruction, and his own oath of office. He would say, he should perform his duty, come what might. Here would ensue a pause: for they say that a certain stillness precedes the tempest. The trumpeter would hold his breath awhile, and before all this military array should fall on the custom-house, collector, clerks, and all, it is very probable some of those composing it, would request of their gallant commander-in-chief, to be informed a little upon the point of law; for they have, doubtless, a just respect for his opinions as a lawyer, as well as for his bravery as a soldier. They know he has read Blackstone and the constitution, as well as Turrene and Vauban. They would ask him, therefore, something con cerning their rights in this matter. They would inquire, whether it was not somewhat danger members? Would any thing, with such a principle in it, or rather with such a destitution of all principle, be fit to be called a government? No, sir. It should not be denominated a constitution. It should be called, rather, a collection of topics, for everlasting controversy; heads of debate for a disputatious people. It would not be a government. It would not be adequate to any practical good, nor fit for any country to live under. To avoid all possibility of being misunderstood, allow me to repeat again, in the fullest manner, that I claim no powers for the government by forced or unfair construction. I admit that it is a government of strictly limited powers; of enumerated, specified, and particularized powers; and that whatsoever is not granted, is withheld. But notwithstanding all this, and however the grant of powers may be expressed, its limit and extent may yet, in some cases, admit of doubt; and the general government would be good for nothing, it would be incapable of long existing, if some mode had not been provided, in which those doubts, as they should arise, might be peaceably, but authoritatively, solved. And now, Mr. President, let me run the hon-ous to resist a law of the United States. What orable gentleman's doctrine a little into its practical application. Let us look at his probable" modus operandi." If a thing can be done, an ingenious man can tell how it is to be done. Now, I wish to be informed, how this State interference is to be put in practice without violence, bloodshed, and rebellion. We will take the existing case of the tariff law. South Carolina is said to have made up her opinion upon it. If we do not repeal it, (as we probably shall not,) she will then apply to the case the remedy of her doctrine. She will, we must suppose, pass a law of her legislature, declaring the several acts of Congress, usually called the tariff laws, null and void, so far as they respect South Carolina, or the citizens thereof. So far, all is a paper transaction, and easy enough. But the collector at Charleston is collecting the duties imposed by these tariff laws -he therefore must be stopped. The collector will seize the goods if the tariff duties are not paid. The State authorities will undertake their rescue; the marshal, with his posse, will come to the collector's aid, and here the contest begins. The militia of the State will be called out to sustain the nullifying act. They will march, sir, under a very gallant leader: for I believe the honorable member himself commands the militia of that part of the State. He will raise the nullifying act on his standard, and spread it out as his banner! It will have a preamble, bearing, That the tariff laws are palpaple, deliberate, and dangerous violations of the constitution! He will proceed, with this banner flying, to the custom-house in Charleston: "All the while, Sonorous metal, blowing martial sounds." would be the nature of their offence, they would "South are unconstitutional, palpably, deliberately, dangerously." That all may be so; but if the tribunal should not happen to be of that opinion, shall we swing for it? We are ready to die for our country, but it is rather an awkward business, this dying without touching the ground! After all, that is a sort of hemp tax, worse than any part of the tariff. Mr. President, the honorable gentleman would be in a dilemma, like that of another great general. He would have a knot before him which he could not untie. He must cut it with his sword. He must say to his followers, defend yourselves with your bayonets; and this is war-civil war. Direct collision, therefore, between force and force, is the unavoidable result of that remedy for the revision of unconstitutional laws which the Arrived at the custom-house, he will tell the gentleman contends for. It must happen in the very first case to which it is applied. Is not this the plain result? To resist, by force, the execution of a law, generally, is treason. Can the courts of the United States take notice of the indulgence of a State to commit treason? The common saying, that a State cannot commit treason herself, is nothing to the purpose. Can she authorize others to do it? If John Fries had produced an act of Pennsylvania, annulling the law of Congress, would it have helped his case? Talk about it as we will, these doctrines go the length of revolution. They are incompatible with any peaceable administration of the government. They lead directly to disunion and civil commotion; and, therefore, it is, that at their commencement, when they are first found to be maintained by respectable men, and in a tangible form, I enter my public protest against them all. The honorable gentleman argues, that if this government be the sole judge of the extent of its own powers, whether that right of judging be in Congress, or the Supreme Court, it equally subverts State sovereignty. This the gentleman sees, or thinks he sees, although he cannot perceive how the right of judging, in this matter, if left to the exercise of State legislatures, has any tendency to subvert the government of the Union. The gentleman's opinion may be, that the right ought not to have been lodged with the general government; he may like better such a constitution, as we should have under the right of State interference; but I ask him to meet me on the plain matter of fact; I ask him to meet me on the constitution itself; I ask him if the power is not found there clearly and visibly found there? But, sir, what is this danger, and what the grounds of it? Let it be remembered, that the Constitution of the United States is not unalterable. It is to continue in its present form no longer than the people who established it shall choose to continue it. If they shall become convinced that they have made an injudicious or inexpedient partition and distribution of power, between the State governments and the general government, they can alter that dis tribution at will. If any thing be found in the national constitution, either by original provision, or subsequent interpretation, which ought not to be in it, the people know how to get rid of it. If any construction be established, unacceptable to them, so as to become, practically, a part of the constitution, they will amend it, at their own sovereign pleasure: but while the people choose to maintain it, as it is; while they are satisfied with it, and refuse to change it, who has given, or who can give, to the State legislatures a right to alter it, either by interference, construction, or otherwise? Gentlemen do not seem to recollect that the people have any power to do any thing for themselves; they imagine there is no safety for them, any longer than they are under the close guardianship of the State legislatures. Sir, the people have not trusted their safety, in regard to the general constitution, to these hands. They have required other security, and taken other bonds, They have chosen to trust themselves, first, to the plain words of the instrument, and to such construction as the government itself, in doubtful cases, should put on its own powers, under their oaths of office, and subject to their responsibility to them: just as the people of a State trust their own State governments with a similar power. Secondly, they have reposed their trust in the efficacy of frequent elections, and in their own power to remove their own servants and agents, whenever they see cause. Thirdly, they have reposed trust in the judicial power, which, in order that it might be trustworthy, they have made as respectable, as disinterested, and as independent as was practicable. Fourthly, they have seen fit to rely, in case of necessity, or high expediency, on their known and admitted power, to alter or amend the constitution, peaceably and quietly, whenever experience shall point out defects or imperfections. And, finally, the people of the United States have, at no time, in no way, directly or indirectly, authorized any State legislature to construe or interpret their high instrument of government; much less to interfere, by their own power, to arrest its course and operation. If, sir, the people, in these respects, had done otherwise than they have done, their constitution could neither have been preserved, nor would it have been worth preserving. And, if its plain provisions shall now be disregarded, and these new doctrines interpolated in it, it will become as feeble and helpless a being, as its enemies, whether early or more recent, could possibly desire. It will exist in every State, but as a poor dependent on State permission. It must borrow leave to be; and will be, no longer than State pleasure, or State discretion, sees fit to grant the indulgence, and to prolong its poor existence. But, sir, although there are fears, there are hopes also. The people have preserved this, their own chosen constitution, for forty years, and have seen their happiness, prosperity, and renown, grow with its growth, and strengthen with its strength. They are now, generally, strongly attached to it. Overthrown by direct assault, it cannot be; evaded, undermined, nullified, it will not be, if we, and those who shall succeed us here, as agents and representatives of the people, shall conscientiously and vigilantly discharge the two great branches of our public trust-faithfully to preserve, and wisely to administer it. Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my dissent to the doctrines which have been advanced and maintained. I am conscious of having detained you and the Senate much too long. I was drawn into the debate, with no previous deliberation such as is suited to the discussion of so grave and important a subject. But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and I have not been willing to suppress the utter-sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss beance of its spontaneous sentiments. I cannot, low; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor even now, persuade myself to relinquish it, in the affairs of this government, whose thoughts without expressing, once more, my deep con- should be mainly bent on considering, not how viction, that, since it respects nothing less than the Union should be best preserved, but how the union of the States, it is of most vital and tolerable might be the condition of the people essential importance to the public happiness. when it shall be broken up and destroyed. I profess, sir, in my career, hitherto, to have While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us of the whole country, and the preservation of and our children. Beyond that I seek not to our federal Union. It is to that Union we owe penetrate the veil. God grant that, in my day, our safety at home, and our consideration and at least, that curtain may not rise. God grant, dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are that on my vision never may be opened what chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most lies behind. When my eyes shall be turned to proud of our country. That Union we reached behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe may I not see him shining on the broken and school of adversity. It had its origin in the dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; necessities of disordered finance, prostrate com- on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; merce, and ruined credit. Under its benign in- on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it fluences, these great interests immediately may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last awoke, as from the dead, and sprang forth with feeble and lingering glance, rather behold the newness of life. Every year of its duration has gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its and honored throughout the earth, still full blessings; and, although our territory has high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming stretched out wider and wider, and our popula- in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or tion spread farther and farther, they have not polluted, nor a single star obscured-bearing outrun its protection or its benefits. It has for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory, been to us all a copious fountain of national, as What is all this worth? Nor those other social, and personal happiness. I have not words of delusion and folly, Liberty first, and allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, Union afterwards-but every where, spread all to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess over in characters of living light, blazing on all behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances its ample folds, as they float over the sea and of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite over the land, and in every wind under the us together shall be broken asunder. I have whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to not accustomed myself to hang over the preci- | every true American heart—Liberty and Union, pice of disunion, to see whether, with my short | now and for ever, one and inseparable! ARGUMENT IN KNAPP'S TRIAL. The following argument was delivered by Mr. Webster, on the trial of John F. Knapp, for the murder of Joseph White, of Salem, in the county of Essex, Massachusetts; on the night of the sixth of April, 1830. * which I am now attempting to perform. government, But I very much regret it should have been I AM little accustomed, gentlemen, to the part thought necessary to suggest to you, that I am * Mr. White, a highly respectable and wealthy citizen of Salem, about eighty years of age, was found on the morning of the 7th of April, 1830, in his bed murdered, under such circumstances as to create a strong sensation in that town, and throughout the community. Richard Crowninshield, George Crowninshield, Joseph J. Knapp, and John F. Knapp, were a few weeks after arrested on a charge of having perpetrated the murder, and committed for trial. Joseph J. Knapp, soon after, under the promise of favor from government, made a full confession of the crime, and the circumstances attending it. In a few days after this disclosure was made, Richard Crowninshield, who was supposed to have been the principal assassin, committed suicide. the Legislature, for the trial of the prisoners at Salem, in July. At that time, John F. Knapp was indicted as principal in the murder, and George Crowninshield, and Joseph J. Knapp as accessories. On account of the death of Chief Justice Parker, which occurred on the 26th of July, the Court adjourned to Tuesday, the 3d day of August, when it proceeded in the trial of John F. Knapp. Joseph J. Knapp, being called upon, refused to testify, and the pledge of the government was withdrawn. At the request of the prosecuting officers of the government, Mr. Webster appeared as counsel and assisted in the trial. Mr. Dexter addressed the jury on behalf of the prisoner, A special session of the Supreme Court was ordered by and was succeeded by Mr. Webster. brought here to "hurry you against the law, and beyond the evidence." I hope I have too much regard for justice, and too much respect for my own character, to attempt either; and were I to make such attempt, I am sure, that in this court, nothing can be carried against the law, and that gentlemen, intelligent and just as you are, are not, by any power, to be hurried beyond the evidence. Though I could well have wished to shun this occasion, I have not felt at liberty to withhold my professional assistance, when it is supposed that I might be in some degree useful, in investigating and discovering the truth, respecting this most extraordinary murder. It has seemed to be a duty, incumbent on me, as on every other citizen, to do my best, and my utmost, to bring to light the perpetrators of this crime. Against the prisoner at the bar, as an individual, I cannot have the slightest prejudice. I would not do him the smallest injury or injustice. But I do not affect to be indifferent to the discovery, and the punishment of this deep guilt. I cheerfully share in the opprobrium, how much soever it may be, which is cast on those who feel and manifest an anxious concern that all who had a part in planning, or a hand in executing this deed of midnight assassination, may be brought to answer for their enormous crime, at the bar of public justice. Gentlemen, it is a most extraordinary case. In some respects, it has hardly a precedent any where; certainly none in our New England history. This bloody drama exhibited no suddenly excited ungovernable rage. The actors in it were not surprised by any lionlike temptation springing upon their virtue, and overcoming it, before resistance could begin. Nor did they do the deed to glut savage vengeance, or satiate long settled and deadly hate. It was a cool, calculating, money-making murder. It was all "hire and salary, not revenge." It was the weighing of money against life; the counting out of so many pieces of silver, against so many ounces of blood. stances, now clearly in evidence, spread out the whole scene before us. Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim, and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters, through the window already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches the door of the chamber. Of this, he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room was uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper was turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, showed him where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death! It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he yet plies the dagger, though it was obvious that life had been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder-no eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe! Ah! gentlemen, that was a dreadful mistake. Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner, where the guilty can bestow it, and say it "safe. Not to speak of that eye which glances through all disguises, and beholds every thing as in the splendor of noon,-such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection, even by men. True it is, generally speaking, that "murder will out." True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of heaven, by shedding man's blood, seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Especially, in a case exciting so much attention as this, discovery must come, and will come, sooner or later. A thousand eyes turn at once to explore every man, every thing, every circumstance, connected with the time and place; a thousand ears catch every whis per; a thousand excited minds intensely dwell on the scene, shedding all their light, and ready to kindle the slightest circumstance into a blaze of discovery. Meantime, the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself; or rather it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant. It finds itself preyed on by a torment, which it dares An aged man, without an enemy in the world, in his own house, and in his own bed, is made the victim of a butcherly murder, for mere pay. Truly, here is a new lesson for painters and poets. Whoever shall hereafter draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited in an example, where such example was last to have been looked for, in the very bosom of our New England society, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate, and the blood-shot eye emitting livid fires of malice. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smoothfaced, bloodless demon; a picture in repose, rather than in action; not so much an example of human nature, in its depravity, and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal nature, a fiend, in the ordinary display and develop ment of his character. The deed was executed with a degree of selfpossession and steadiness, equal to the wickedness with which it was planned. The circum not acknowledge to God nor man. A vulture | lose ourselves in wonder at its origin, or in gazis devouring it, and it can ask no sympathy or ing on its cool and skilful execution. We are assistance, either from heaven or earth. The to detect and to punish it; and, while we prosecret which the murderer possesses soon comes ceed with caution against the prisoner, and are to possess him; and, like the evil spirits of to be sure that we do not visit on his head the which we read, it overcomes him, and leads him offences of others, we are yet to consider that whithersoever it will. He feels it beating at his we are dealing with a case of most atrocious heart, rising to his throat, and demanding dis- crime, which has not the slightest circumstance closure. He thinks the whole world sees it in about it to soften its enormity. It is murder, his face, reads it in his eyes, and almost hears deliberate, concerted, malicious murder. its workings in the very silence of his thoughts. It has become his master. It betrays his discretion, it breaks down his courage, it conquers his prudence. When suspicions, from without, begin to embarrass him, and the net of circuinstance to entangle him, the fatal secret struggles with still greater violence to burst forth. It must be confessed, it will be confessed, there is no refuge from confession but suicide, and suicide is confession. Much has been said, on this occasion, of the excitement which has existed, and still exists, and of the extraordinary measures taken to discover and punish the guilty. No doubt there has been, and is, much excitement, and strange indeed were it, had it been otherwise. Should not all the peaceable and well disposed naturally feel concerned, and naturally exert themselves to bring to punishment the authors of this secret assassination? Was it a thing to be slept upon or forgotten? Did you, gentlemen, sleep quite as quietly in your beds after this murder as before? Was it not a case for rewards, for meetings, for committees, for the united efforts of all the good, to find out a band of murderous conspirators, of midnight ruffians, and to bring them to the bar of justice and law? If this be excitement, is it an unnatural, or an improper excitement? Although the interest in this case may have diminished by the repeated investigation of the facts, still, the additional labor which it imposes upon all concerned is not to be regretted, if it | should result in removing all doubts of the guilt of the prisoner. The learned counsel for the prisoner has said truly that it is your individual duty to judge the prisoner,-that it is your individual duty to determine his guilt or innocence-and that you are to weigh the testimony with candor and fairness. But much at the same time has been said, which, although it would seem to have no distinct bearing on the trial, cannot be passed over without some notice. A tone of complaint so peculiar has been indulged, as would almost lead us to doubt whether the prisoner at the bar or the managers of this prosecution are now on trial. Great pains have been taken to complain of the manner of the prosecution. We hear of getting up a case;of setting in motion trains of machinery ;-of foul testimony;—of combinations to overwhelm the prisoner;-of private prosecutors ;-that the prisoner is hunted, persecuted, driven to his trial;-that every body is against him;-and various other complaints, as if those who would bring to punishment the authors of this murder were almost as bad as they who committed it. In the course of my whole life, I have never heard before so much said about the particular counsel who happen to be employed; as if it were extraordinary that other counsel than the usual officers of the government should be assisting in the conducting of a case on the part of the government. In one of the last capital trials in this county, that of Jackman for "the Goodridge robbery" (so called), I remember that the learned head of the Suffolk bar, Mr. Prescott, came down in aid of the officers of the This was regarded as neither strange nor improper. The counsel for the prisoner in that case contented themselves with answering his arguments, as far as they were able, instead of carping at his presence. It seems to me, gentlemen, that there are appearances of another feeling, of a very different nature and character, not very extensive I would hope, but still there is too much evidence of its existence. Such is human nature, that some persons lose their abhorrence of crime, in their admiration of its magnificent exhibitions. Ordinary vice is reprobated by them, but extraordinary guilt, exquisite wickedness, the high flights and poetry of crime, seize on the imagination, and lead them to forget the depths of the guilt, in admiration of the excel-government. lence of the performance, or the unequalled atrocity of the purpose. There are those in our day, who have made great use of this infirmity of our nature; and by means of it done infinite injury to the cause of good morals. They have affected not only the taste, but I fear also the principles, of the young, the heedless, and the imaginative, by the exhibition of interesting and beautiful monsters. They render depravity attractive, sometimes by the polish of its manners, and sometimes by its very extravagance; and study to show off crime under all the advantages of cleverness and dexterity. Gentlemen, this is an extraordinary murder-but it is still a murder. We are not to VOL. II.-26 Complaint is made that rewards were offered in this case, and temptations held out to obtain testimony. Are not rewards always offered when great and secret offences are committed? Rewards were offered in the case to which I have alluded, and every other means taken to discover the offenders, that ingenuity or the most persevering vigilance could suggest. The learned counsel have suffered their zeal to lead them into a strain of complaint at the manner in which the perpetrators of this crime were |