power to annul the acts of the states which they might deem inconsistent with the Constitution; to give to the President the power of appointing the governors of the states, with a view of vetoing state laws through his authority; and, finally, to give to the judiciary the power to decide controversies between the states and the General Government: all of which failed-fortunately for the liberty of the country-utterly and entirely failed; and in their failure we have the strongest evidence that it was not the intention of the Convention to deprive the states of the veto power. Had the attempt to deprive them of this power been directly made, and failed, every one would have seen and felt that it would furnish conclusive evidence in favour of its existence. Now, I would ask, What possible difference can it make in what form this attempt was made? whether by attempting to confer on the General Government a power incompatible with the exercise of the veto on the part of the states, or by attempting directly to deprive them of the right of exercising it. We have thus direct and strong proof that, in the opinion of the Convention, the states, unless deprived of it, possess the veto power, or, what is another name for the same thing, the right of nullification. I know that there is a diversity of opinion among the friends of state rights in regard to this power, which I regret, as I cannot but consider it as a power essential to the protection of the minor and local interests of the community, and the liberty and the union of the country. It is the very shield of state rights, and the only power by which that system of injustice against which we have contended for more than thirteen years can be arrested: a system of hostile legislation, of plundering by law, which must necessarily lead to a conflict of arms if not prevented.

But I rest the right of a state to judge of the extent of its reserved powers, in the last resort, on higher grounds-that the Constitution is a compact, to which the states are parties in their sovereign capacity; and that, as in all other cases of compact between parties having no common umpire, each has a right to judge for itself. To the truth.of this proposition the senator from Massachusetts has himself assented, if the Constitution itself be a compact-and that it is, I have shown, I trust, beyond the possibility of a doubt. Having established that point, I now claim, as I stated I would do in the course of the discussion, the admissions of the senator, and, among them, the right of secession and nullification, which he conceded would necessarily follow if the Constitution be indeed a compact.

I have now replied to the arguments of the senator from Massachusetts so far as they directly apply to the resolutions, and will, in conclusion, notice some of his general and detached remarks. To prove that ours is a consolidated government, and that there is an immediate connexion between the government and the citizen, he relies on the fact that the laws act directly on individuals. That such is the case I will not deny; but I am very far from conceding the point that it affords the decisive proof, or even any proof at all, of the position which the senator wishes to maintain. I hold it to be perfectly within the competency of two or more states to subject their citizens, in certain cases, to the direct action of each other, without surrendering or impairing their sovereignty. I recollect, while I was a member of Mr. Monroe's cabinet, a proposition was submitted by the British Government to permit a mutual right of search and seizure on the part of each government of the citizens of the other, on board of vessels engaged in the slave-trade, and to establish a joint tribunal for their trial and punishment. The proposition was declined, not because it would impair the sovereignty of either, but on the ground of general expediency, and because it would be incompatible with the provisions of the Constitution which establish the ju dicial power, and which provisions require the judges to be appointed by the President and Senate. If I am not mistaken, propositions of the same kind were made and acceded to by some of the Continental powers.

With the same view, the senator cited the suability of the states as evidence

of their want of sovereignty; at which I must express my surprise, coming from the quarter it does. No one knows better than the senator that it is perfectly within the competency of a sovereign state to permit itself to be sued. We have on the statute-book a standing law, under which the United States may be sued in certain land cases. If the provision in the Constitution on this point proves anything, it proves, by the extreme jealousy with which the right of suing a state is permitted, the very reverse of that for which the senator contends.

Among other objections to the views of the Constitution for which I contend, it is said that they are novel. I hold this to be a great mistake. The novelty is not on my side, but on that of the senator from Massachusetts. The doctrine of consolidation which he maintains is of recent growth. It is not the doctrine of Hamilton, Ames, or any of the distinguished federalists of that period, all of whom strenuously maintained the federative character of the Constitution, though they were accused of supporting a system of policy which would necessarily lead to consolidation. The first disclosure of that doctrine was in the case of M'Culloch, in which the Supreme Court held the doctrine, though wrapped up in language somewhat indistinct and ambiguous. The next, and more open avowal, was by the senator of Massachusetts himself, about three years ago, in the debate on Foot's resolution. The first official annunciation of the doctrine was in the recent proclamation of the President, of which the bill that has recently passed this body is the bitter fruit.

It is farther objected by the senator from Massachusetts, and others, against this doctrine of state rights, as maintained in this debate, that, if they should prevail, the peace of the country would be destroyed. But what if they should not prevail? Would there be peace? Yes, the peace of despotism: that peace which is enforced by the bayonet and the sword; the peace of death, where all the vital functions of liberty have ceased. It is this peace which the doctrine of state sovereignty may disturb by that conflict, which in every free state, if properly organized, necessarily exists between liberty and power; but which, if restrained within proper limits, is a salutary exercise to our moral and intellectual faculties. In the case of Carolina, which has caused all this discussion, who does not see, if the effusion of blood be prevented, that the excitement, the agitation, and the inquiry which it has caused, will be followed by the most beneficial consequences? The country had sunk into avarice, intrigue, and electioneering, from which nothing but some such event could rouse it, or restore those honest and patriotic feelings which had almost disappeared under their baneful influence. What government has ever attained power and distinction without such conflicts? Look at the degraded state of all those nations where they have been put down by the iron arm of the government.

I, for my part, have no fear of any dangerous conflict, under the fullest acknowledgment of state sovereignty: the very fact that the states may interpose will produce moderation and justice. The General Government will abstain from the exercise of any power in which they may suppose three fourths of the states will not sustain them; while, on the other hand, the states will not interpose but on the conviction that they will be supported by one fourth of their co-states. Moderation and justice will produce confidence, attachment, and patriotism; and these, in turn, will offer most powerful barriers against the excess of conflicts between the states and the General Government.

But we are told that, should the doctrine prevail, the present system would be as bad, if not worse, than the old confederation. I regard the assertion only as evidence of that extravagance of declaration in which, from excitement of feeling, we so often indulge. Admit the power, and still the present system would be as far removed from the weakness of the old confederation as it would be from the lawless and despotic violence of consolidation. So far from being the same, the difference between the confederation and the present Constitution would still be most strongly marked. If there were no other distinction, the

fact that the former required the concurrence of the states to execute its acts, and the latter, the act of a state to arrest its acts, would make a distinction as broad as the ocean: in the former, the vis inertia of our nature is in opposition to the action of the system. Not to act was to defeat. In the latter, the same principle is on the opposite side-action is required to defeat. He who understands human nature will see in this difference the difference between a feeble and illy-contrived confederation, and the restrained energy of a federal system. Of the same character is the objection that the doctrine will be the source of weakness. If we look to mere organization and physical power as the only source of strength, without taking into the estimate the operation of moral causes, such would appear to be the fact; but if we take into the estimate the latter, we shall find that those governments have the greatest strength in which power has been most efficiently checked. The government of Rome furnishes a memorable example. There, two independent and distinct powers existedthe people acting by tribes, in which the plebeians prevailed, and by centuries, in which the patricians ruled. The tribunes were the appointed representatives of the one power, and the Senate of the other: each possessed of the authority of checking and overruling one another, not as departments of the government, as supposed by the senator from Massachusetts, but as independent powers as much so as the State and General Governments. A shallow observer would perceive, in such an organization, nothing but the perpetual source of anarchy, discord, and weakness; and yet, experience has proved that it was the most powerful government that ever existed; and reason teaches that this power was derived from the very circumstance which hasty reflection would consider the cause of weakness. I will venture an assertion, which may be considered extravagant, but in which history will fully bear me out, that we have no knowledge of any people in which a power of arresting the improper acts of the government, or what may be called the negative power of government, was too strong, except Poland, where every freeman possessed a veto; but even there, although it existed in so extravagant a form, it was the source of the highest and most lofty attachment to liberty, and the most heroic courage: qualities that more than once saved Europe from the domination of the crescent and cimeter. It is worthy of remark, that the fate of Poland is not to be attributed so much to the excess of this negative power of itself, as to the facility which it afforded to foreign influence in controlling its political movements.

I am not surprised that, with the idea of a perfect government which the senator from Massachusetts has formed-a government of an absolute majority, unchecked and unrestrained, operating through a representative body-that he should be so much shocked with what he is pleased to call the absurdity of the state velo. But let me tell him that his scheme of a perfect government, as beautiful as he conceives it to be, though often tried, has invariably failed, and has always run, whenever tried, through the same uniform process of faction, corruption, anarchy, and despotism. He considers the representative principle as the great modern improvement in legislation, and of itself sufficient to secure liberty. I cannot regard it in the light in which he does. Instead of modern, it is of remote origin, and has existed, in greater or less perfection, in every free state, from the remotest antiquity. Nor do I consider it as of itself sufficient to secure liberty, though I regard it as one of the indispensable means-the means of securing the people against the tyranny and oppression of their rulers. To secure liberty, another means is still necessary-the means of securing the different portions of society against the injustice and oppression of each other, which can only be effected by veto, interposition, or nullification, or by whatever name the restraining or negative power of government may be called.

The senator appears to be enamoured with his conception of a consolidated government, and avows himself to be prepared, seeking no lead, to rush, in its defence, to the front rank, where the blows fall heaviest and thickest. I ad

mire his gallantry and courage, but I will tell him that he will find in the opposite ranks, under the flag of liberty, spirits as gallant as his own; and that experience will teach him that it is infinitely easier to carry on the war of legislative exaction by bills and enactments, than to extort by sword and bayonet from the brave and the free.

The bill which has passed this body is intended to decide this great controversy between that view of our government entertained by the senator and those who act with him, and that supported on our side. It has merged the tariff, and all other questions connected with it, in the higher and direct issue which it presents between the federal and national system of governments. I consider the bill as far worse, and more dangerous to liberty, than the tariff. It has been most wantonly passed, when its avowed object no longer justified it. consider it as chains forged and fitted to the limbs of the states, and hung up to be used when occasion may require. We are told, in order to justify the passage of this fatal measure, that it was necessary to present the olive-branch with one hand and the sword with the other. We scorn the alternative. You have no right to present the sword. The Constitution never put the instrument in your hands to be employed against a state; and as to the olive-branch, whether we receive it or not will not depend on your menace, but on our own estimate of what is due to ourselves and the rest of the community in reference to the difficult subject on which we have taken issue.

The senator from Massachusetts has struggled hard to sustain his cause, but the load was too heavy for him to bear. I am not surprised at the ardour and zeal with which he has entered into the controversy. It is a great struggle between power and liberty-power on the side of the North, and liberty on the side of the South. But, while I am not surprised at the part which the senator from Massachusetts has taken, I must express my amazement at the principles advanced by the senator from Georgia, nearest me (Mr. Forsyth). I had supposed it was impossible that one of his experience and sagacity should not perceive the new and dangerous direction which this controversy is about to take. For the first time, we have heard an ominous reference to a provision in the Constitution which I have never known to be before alluded to in discussion, or in connexion with any of our measures. I refer to that provision in the Constitution in which the General Government guaranties a republican form of government to the states-a power which hereafter, if not rigidly restricted to the objects intended by the Constitution, is destined to be a pretext to interfere with our political affairs and domestic institutions in a manner infinitely more dangerous than any other power which has ever been exercised on the part of the General Government. I had supposed that every Southern senator, at least, would have been awake to the danger which menaces us from this new quarter; and that no sentiment would be uttered, on their part, calculated to countenance the exercise of this dangerous power. With these impressions, I heard the senator, with amazement, alluding to Carolina as furnishing a case which called for the enforcement of this guarantee. Does he not see the hazard of the indefinite extension of this dangerous power? There exists in every Southern State a domestic institution, which would require a far less bold construction to consider the government of every state, in that quarter, not to be Republican, and, of course, to demand, on the part of this government, a suppression of the institution to which I allude, in fulfilment of the guarantee. I believe there is now no hostile feelings combined with political considerations, in any section, connected with this delicate subject. But it requires no stretch of the imagination to see the danger which must one day come, if not vigilantly watched. With the rapid strides with which this government is advancing to power, a time will come, and that not far distant, when petitions will be received from the quarter to which I allude for protection: when the faith of the guarantee will be, at least, as applicable to that case as the senator from Geor

gia now thinks it is to Carolina. Unless his doctrine be opposed by united and firm resistance, its ultimate effect will be to drive the white population from the Southern Atlantic States.

VII.

SPEECH ON THE SUBJECT OF THE REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITES FROM THE BANK OF

THE UNITED STATES, JANUARY 13, 1834.

THE Special Order now came up, the question being on Mr. CLAY's resolutions in regard to the removal of the Public Deposites.

Mr. CALHOUN then rose, and said, that the statement of this case might be given in a very few words. The 16th section of the act incorporating the Bank provides that, wherever there is a bank or branch of the United States Bank, the public moneys should be deposited therein, unless otherwise ordered by the Secretary of the Treasury, and that, in that case, he should report to Congress, if in session, immediately; and, if not, at the commencement of the next session. The secretary, acting under the provision of this section, has ordered the deposites to be withheld from the Bank, and has reported his reasons, in conformity with the provisions of the section. The Senate is now called upon to consider his reasons, in order to determine whether the secretary is justified or not. I have examined them with care and deliberation, without the slightest bias, as far as I am conscious, personal or political. I have but a slight acquaintance with the secretary, and that little is not unfavourable to him. I stand wholly disconnected with the two great parties now contending for ascendency. My political connexions are with that small and denounced party which has voluntarily wholly retired from the party strifes of the day, with a view of saving, if possible, the liberty and the Constitution of the country, in this great crisis of our affairs.

Having maturely considered, with these impartial feelings, the reasons of the secretary, I am constrained to say that he has entirely failed to make out his justification. At the very commencement, he has placed his right to remove the deposites on an assumption resting on a misconception of the case. In the progress of his argument he has entirely abandoned the first, and assumed a new and greatly enlarged ground, utterly inconsistent with the first, and equally untenable; and yet, as broad as his assumptions are, there is an important part of the transaction which he does not attempt to vindicate, and to which he has not even alluded. I shall, said Mr. CALHOUN, now proceed, without farther remark, to make good these assertions.

The secretary, at the commencement of his argument, assumes the position that, in the absence of all legal provision, he, as the head of the financial department, had the right, in virtue of his office, to designate the agent and place for the safe-keeping of the public deposites. He then contends that the 16th section does not restrict his power, which stands, he says, on the same ground that it had before the passing of the act incorporating the Bank. It is unnecessary to inquire into the correctness of the position assumed by the secretary; but, if it were, it would not be difficult to show that when an agent, with general powers, assumes, in the execution of his agency, a power not delegated, the assumption rests on the necessity of the case; and that no power, in such case, can be lawfully exercised, which was not necessary to effect the object intended. Nor would it be difficult to show that, in this case, the power assumed by the secretary would belong, not to him, but to the treasurer, who, under the act organizing the Treasury Department, is expressly charged with the safe-keeping of the public funds, for which he is responsible under bond, in heavy penalties.