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for the safety of the people of South Carolina. It advises them to put on their armor. It puts them in military array; and for what purpose but for the use of force? The provisions of these laws are infinitely worse than those of the feudal system, so far as they apply to the citizens of Carolina. But with its operation on their own citizens he had nothing to do. Resistance was just as inevitable as the arrival of the day on the calendar. In addition to these documents, what did rumor say— rumor, which often falsifies, but sometimes utters truth. If we judge by newspaper and other reports, more men were now ready to take up arms in Carolina than there were during the revolutionary struggle. The whole State was at this moment in arms, and its citizens were ready to be embattled the moment any attempt was made to enforce the revenue laws. The city of Charleston wore the appearance of a military depot.

SENATOR TYLER.-In the course of the examination I have made into this subject I have been led to analyze certain doctrines which have gone out to the world over the signature of the President. Since I have held a place on this floor I have not courted the smiles of the Executive; but whenever he has done any act in violation of the constitutional rights of the citizen, or trenching on the rights of the Senate, I have been found in opposition to him, and I will now say, I care not how loudly the trumpet may be sounded, nor how low the priests may bend their knees before the object of their idolatry, I will be at the side of the President, crying in his ear, "Remember, Philip, thou art mortal!"

I object to the first section because it confers on the President the power of closing old ports of entry and establishing new ones. It has been rightly said by the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Bibb] that this was a prominent cause which led to the Revolution. The Boston port bill, which removed the custom-house from Boston to Salem, first roused the people to resistance. To guard against this very abuse the Constitution had confided to Congress the power to regulate commerce; the establishment of ports of entry formed a material part of this power, and one which required legislative enactment. Now I deny that Congress can deputize its legislative powers. If it may one, it may all; and thus a majority here can, at their pleasure, change the very character of the Government. The President might come to be invested with authority to make all laws which his discretion might dictate. It is vain to tell me (said Mr. T.) that I imagine a case which will never exist. I tell you, sir, that power is cumulative, and that patronage begets

power. The reasoning is unanswerable. If you can part with your power in one instance, you may in another and another. You may confer upon the President the right to declare war; and this very provision may fairly be considered as investing him with authority to make war at his mere will and pleasure on cities, towns, and villages. The prosperity of a city depends on the position of its custom-house and port of entry. Take the case of Norfolk, Richmond, and Fredericksburg, in my own State; who doubts but that to remove the custom-house from Norfolk to Old Point Comfort, of Richmond to the mouth of the Chickahominy, or of Fredericksburg to Tappahannock or Urbanna, would utterly annihilate those towns? I have no tongue to express my sense of the probable injustice of the measure. Sir, it involves the innocent with the guilty. Take the case of Charleston; what if ninety-nine merchants were ready and willing to comply with your revenue laws, and that but one man could be found to resist them; would you run the hazard of destroying the ninety-nine in order to punish one? Trade is a delicate subject to touch; once divert it out of its regular channels and nothing is more difficult than to restore it. This measure may involve the actual property of every man, woman, and child in that city; and this, too, when you have a redundancy of millions in your treasury, and when no interest can sustain injury by awaiting the actual occurrence of a case of resistance to your laws before you would have an opportunity to legislate.

He is further empowered to employ the land and naval forces to put down all "aiders and abettors." How far will this authority extend? Suppose the legislature of South Carolina should happen to be in session: I will not blink the question, suppose the legislature to be in session at the time of any disturbance, passing laws in furtherance of the ordinance which has been adopted by the convention of that State; might they not be considered by the President as aiders and abettors? The President might not, perhaps, march at the head of his troops, with a flourish of drums and trumpets, and with bayonets fixed, into the state-house yard at Columbia; but, if he did so, he would find a precedent for it in English history.

There is no ambiguity about this measure. The prophecy has already gone forth; the President has said that the laws will be obstructed. The President has not only foretold the coming difficulties, but he has also assembled an army. The city of Charleston, if report spoke true, is now a beleagured city; the cannon of Fort Pinckney are pointing at it; and, although they are now quietly sleeping, they are ready to open their

thunders whenever the voice of authority shall give the command. And shall these terrors be let loose because some one man may refuse to pay some small modicum of revenue, which Congress, the day after it came into the treasury, might vote in satisfaction of some unfounded claim? Shall we set so small a value upon the lives of the people? Let us at least wait to see the course of measures. We can never be too tardy in commencing the work of blood.

If the majority shall pass this bill they must do it on their own responsibility; I will have no part in it. When gentlemen recount the blessings of union; when they dwell upon the past, and sketch out, in bright perspective, the future, they awaken in my breast all the pride of an American; my pulse beats responsive to theirs, and I regard union, next to freedom, as the greatest of blessings. Yes, sir, "the Federal Union must be preserved." But how? Will you seek to preserve it by force? Will you appease the angry spirit of discord by an oblation of blood? Suppose that the proud and haughty spirit of South Carolina shall not bend to your high edicts in token of fealty; that you make war upon her, hang her governor, her legislators, and judges, as traitors, and reduce her to the condition of a conquered province-have you preserved the Union? This Union consists of twenty-four States; would you have preserved the Union by striking out one of the States-one of the old thirteen? Gentlemen had boasted of the flag of our country, with its thirteen stars. When the light of one of these stars shall have been extinguished will the flag wave over us, under which our fathers fought? If we are to go on striking out star after star, what will finally remain but a central and a burning sun, blighting and destroying every germ of liberty? The flag which I wish to wave over me is that which floated in triumph at Saratoga and Yorktown. It bore upon it thirteen States, of which South Carolina was one. Sir, there is a great difference between preserving union and preserving government; the Union may be annihilated, yet government preserved; but, under such a government, no man ought to desire to live.

Senator Calhoun introduced the following resolu

tions:

"Resolved, That the people of the several States composing these United States are united as parties to a constitutional compact, to which the people of each State acceded as a separate sovereign community, each binding itself by its own particular

ratification; and that the Union, of which the said compact is the bond, is a union between the States ratifying the same.

"Resolved, That the people of the several States, thus united by the constitutional compact, in forming that instrument, and in creating a general government to carry into effect the objects for which they were formed, delegated to that government, for that purpose, certain definite powers, to be exercised jointly, reserving at the same time, each State to itself, the residuary mass of powers, to be exercised by its own separate government; and that whenever the general Government assumes the exercise of powers not delegated by the compact its acts are unauthorized, and are of no effect; and that the same Government is not made the final judge of the powers delegated to it, since that would make its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among sovereign parties, without any common judge, each has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of the infraction as of the mode and measure of redress.

"Resolved, That the assertions that the people of these United States, taken collectively as individuals, are now, or ever have been, united on the principle of the social compact, and as such are now formed into one nation or people, or that they have ever been so united in any one stage of their political existence; that the people of the several States composing the Union have not, as members thereof, retained their sovereignty; that the allegiance of their citizens has been transferred to the general Government; that they have parted with the right of punishing treason through their respective State governments; and that they have not the right of judging in the last resort as to the extent of the powers reserved, and, of consequence, of those delegated; are not only without foundation in truth, but are contrary to the most certain and plain historical facts, and the clearest deductions of reason; and that all exercise of power on the part of the general Government, or any of its departments, claiming authority from so erroneous assumptions, must of necessity be unconstitutional, must tend directly and inevitably to subvert the sovereignty of the States, to destroy the federal character of the Union, and to rear on its ruins a consolidated government, without constitutional check or limitation, and which must necessarily terminate in the loss of liberty itself."

To these resolutions Senator Grundy offered a counter set, as follows:

"1. Resolved, That by the Constitution of the United States certain powers are delegated to the general Government, and those not delegated, or prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

"2. Resolved, That one of the powers expressly granted by the Constitution to the general Government, and prohibited to the States, is that of laying duties on imports.

"3. Resolved, That the power to lay imposts is by the Constitution wholly transferred from the State authorities to the general Government, without any reservation of power or right on the part of the State.

"4. Resolved, That the tariff laws of 1828 and 1832 are exercises of the constitutional power possessed by the Congress of the United States, whatever various opinions may exist as to their policy and justice.

"5. Resolved, That an attempt on the part of a State to annul an act of Congress passed upon any subject exclusively confided by the Constitution to Congress is an encroachment on the rights of the general Government.

"6. Resolved, That attempts to obstruct or prevent the execution of the several acts of Congress imposing duties on imports, whether by ordinances of conventions or legislative enactments, are not warranted by the Constitution, and are dangerous to the political institutions of the country."

Senator Calhoun spoke to his resolutions as follows:

"We have now sufficient experience to ascertain that the tendency to conflict in this action is between Southern and other sections. The latter, having a decided majority, must habitually be possessed of the powers of the Government, both in this and in the other House; and, being governed by that instinctive love of power so natural to the human breast, they must become the advocates of the power of Government, and in the same degree opposed to the limitations; while the other and weaker section is as necessarily thrown on the side of the limitations. In one word, the one section is the natural guardian of the delegated powers, and the other of the reserved; and the struggle on the side of the former will be to enlarge the powers, while that on the opposite side will be to restrain them within their constitutional limits. The contest will, in fact, be a contest between power and liberty, and such he considered the present; a contest in which the weaker section, with its peculiar labor, productions, and situation, has at stake all that can be dear to freemen.

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