consideration, during the session of 1799, 1800, when it was referred to a select committee, by whom was made that celebrated report, which is familiarly known as Madison's Report,' and which deserves to last as long as the Constitution itself. In that report, which was subsequently adopted by the Legislature, the whole subject was deliberately re-examined, and the objections urged against the Virginia doctrines carefully considered. The result was, that the Legislature of Virginia re-affirmed all the principles laid down in the resolutions of 1798, and issued to the world that admirable report, which has stamped the character of Mr Madison as the preserver of that Constitution which he had contributed so largely to create and establish. But our authorities do not stop here. The State of Kentucky responded to Virginia, and on the 10th of November, 1798, adopted these celebrated resolutions, well known to have been penned by the Author of the Declaration of American Independence. In In those resolutions the Legislature of Kentucky declares That the government created by this compact, was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party had an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.' At the ensuing session of the Legislature, the subject was reexamined, and on the 14th November, 1799, the resolutions of the preceding year, were deliberately reaffirmed, and it was among other things solemnly declared: 'That if those who administer the General Government be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, an annihilation of the State Governments, and the erection upon their ruins of a general consolidated government will be the inevitable consequence. The principles of construction contended for by sundry of the State Legislatures, that the General Government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the Constitution, would be the measure of their powers. That the several States who formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction, and that a nullification by those sovereignties, of all authorized acts done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.' Time and experience confirmed Mr Jefferson's opinion on this all important point. In the year 1821, he expressed himself in this emphatic manner. It is a fatal heresy to suppose that either our State Governments are superior to the Federal, or the Federal to the States; neither is authorized literally to decide which belongs to itself or its copartner in government: in differences of opinion, between their different sets of public servants, the appeal is to neither, but to their employers peaceably assembled by their representatives in Convention.' The opinion of Mr Jefferson on this subject has been so repeatedly and so solemnly expressed, that they may be said to have been among the most fixed and settled convictions of his mind. In the protest prepared by him for the Legislature of Virginia, in December, 1825, in respect to the powers exercised by the Federal Government in relation to the Tariff, and Internal Improvements, which he declares to be usurpations of the powers retained by the States, mere interpolations into the compact, and direct infractions of it,' he solemnly reasserts all the principles of the Virginia resolutions of '98-protests against these acts of the Federal branch of the Government as null and void, and declares that although Virginia would consider a dissolution of the Union as among the greatest calamities that could befall them, yet it is not the greatest. There is one yet greater submission to a Government of unlimited powers. Itis only when the hope of this shall become so absolutely desperate that further forbearance could not be indulged.' -- Such, sir, are the high and imposing authorities in support of the Carolina doctrine,' which is in fact the doctrine of the Virginia resolutions of 1798. At that day the whole country was divided on this very question. It formed the line of demarcation between the federal and republican parties, and the great political revolution which then took place, turned upon the very question involved in these resolutions. That question was decided by the people, and by that decision the Constitution was, in the emphatic language of Mr Jefferson, saved at its last gasp.' I should suppose it would require more selfrespect than any gentleman here would be willing to assume, to treat lightly, doctrines derived from such high sources. Resting on authority like this, I will ask gentlemen, whether South Carolina has not manifested a high regard for the Union, when under a tyranny ten times more grievous than the alien and sedition laws, she has hitherto gone no farther than to petition, remonstrate, and to solemnly protest against a series of measures which she believes to be wholly unconstitutional, and utterly destructive of her interests. South Carolina has not gone one step farther than Mr Jefferson himself was disposed to go in relation to the present subject of our present complaints not a step farther than the statesmen from New England were disposed to go under similar circumstances; no farther than the senator from Massachusetts himself once considered as within the limits of a constitutional opposition.' The doctrine that it is the right of a State to judge of the violations of the Constitution on the part of the Federal Government, and to protect her citizens from the operations of unconstitutional laws, was held by the enlightened citi zens of Boston, who assembled in Faneuil hall, on the 25th of January, in 1809. They state, in that celebrated memorial, that 'they looked only to the State legislature, who were competent to devise relief against the unconstitutional acts of the General Government. That your power, (say they) is adequate to that object, is evident from the organization of the confederacy.' A distinguished senator from one of the New England States, (Mr Hillhouse,) in a speech delivered here, on a bill for enforcing the embargo, declared 'I feel myself bound in conscience to declare, (lest the blood of those who shall fall in the execution of this measure shall be on my head,) that I consider this to be an act which directs a mortal blow at the liberties of my country an act containing unconstitutional provisions, to which the people are not bound to submit, and to which, in my opinion, they will not submit.' And the senator from Massachusetts, himself, in a speech delivered on the same subject in the other House, said, this opposition is constitutional and legal; it is also conscientious. It rests on settled and sober conviction, that such policy is destructive to the interests of the people, and dangerous to the being of Government. The experience of every day confirms these sentiments. Men who act from such motives are not to be discouraged by trifling obstacles, nor awed by any dangers. They know the limit of constitutional opposition; up to that limit, at their own discre tion, they will walk, and walk fearlessly.' How the being of the Government' was to be endangered by constitutional opposition' to the embargo, I leave to the gentleman to explain. Thus, will be seen, Mr President, that the South Carolina doctrine is the republican doctrine of '98; that it was promulgated by the fathers of the faith that it was maintained by Virginia and Kentucky in the worst of times-that it constituted the very pivot on which the political revolution of that day turned that it embraces the very principles, the triumph of which, at that time, saved the Constitution at its last gasp, and which New England statesmen were not unwilling to adopt, when they believed themselves to be the victime of unconstitutional legislation, As to the doctrine that the Federal Government is the exclusive judge of the extent as well as the limitations of its powers, it seems to me to be utterly subversive of the sovereignty and independence of the States. It makes but little difference, in my estimation, whether Congress or the Supreme Court are invested with this power. If the Federal Government, in all or any of its departments, are to prescribe the limits of its own authority, and the States are bound to submit to the decision, and are not to be allowed to examine and decide for themselves, when the barriers of the Constitution shall be overleaped, this is practically a government without limitation of powers.' The States are at once reduced to mere petty corporations, and the people are entirely at your mercy. I have but one word more to add. In all the efforts that have been made by South Carolina, to resist the unconstitutional laws which Congress has extended over them, she has kept steadily in view the preservation of the Union, by the only means by which she believes it can be long preserved a firm, manly, and steady resistance against usurpation. The measures of the Federal Government have, it is true, prostrated her interests, and will soon involve the whole South in irretrievable ruin. But even this evil, great as it is, is not the chief ground of our complaints. It is the principle involved in the contest, a principle, which, substituting the discretion of Congress for the limitations of the Constitution, brings the States and the people to the feet of the Federal Government, and leaves them nothing they can call their own. If the measures of the Federal Government were less oppressive, we should still strive against this usurpation. The South is acting on a principle she has always held sacred-resistance to unauthorized taxation. These are the principles which induced the immortal Hampden to resist the payment of a tax of twenty shillings. Would twenty shillings have ruined his fortune? No! but the payment of half twenty shillings, on the principle on which it was demanded, would have made him a slave. If in acting on these high motives- if animated by that ardent love of liberty which has always been the most prominent trait in the Southern character we should be This speech, addressed as it was to the local prejudices of the South and West, and obviously with a view of uniting those great sections of the country, in a crusade against the predominant party in the Eastern States, called up Mr Webster in a reply, which for power and effect, never was surpassed on the floor of Congress. From the pointed and marked character of the attack, and the manner in which the speech of Mr Hayne was eulogized throughout the country, by the friends of the administration, it was evident that they believed a fatal blow had been aimed at the political standing of the Senator from Massachusetts. The reply, however, was yet to come, and his acknowledged ability caused some apprehension as to the result. Public attention was strongly excited, and the Senate Chamber was crowded to overflowing, in expectation of the reply. Following Mr Hayne in debate, Mr Webster commenced by remarking upon the manner in which they had wandered from the resolution before the Senate, and asked the Secretary to read the resolution. He then proceeded. We have thus heard, sir, what the resolution is which is actually before us for consideration; and it will readily occur to every one that it is almost the only subject about which something has not been said in the speech, running through two days, by which the Senate has now been entertained by the gentleman from South Carolina. Every topic in the wide range of our public affairs, whether past or present-everything, general or local, whether belonging to national politics or party politics, seems to have attracted more or less of the honorable member's attention, save only the resolution before us. When this debate was to be resumed, on Thursday morning, it so happened that it would have been convenient for me to be elsewhere. The honorable member, however, did not incline to put off the discussion to another day. He had a shot, he said, to return, and he wished to discharge it. That shot, which it was kind thus to inform us was coming, that we might stand out of the way, or prepare ourselves to fall before it, and die with decency, has now been received. Under all advantages, and with expectation awakened by the tone which preceded it, it has been discharged, and has spent its force. It may become me to say no more of its effect, than that, if nobody is found, after all, either killed or wounded by it, it is not the first time in the history of human affairs that the vigor and success of the war have not quite come up to the lofty and sounding phrase of the manifesto. But the gentleman inquires why he was made the object of such a reply? Why was he singled out? If an attack had been made on the East, he, he assures us, did not begin it-it was the gentleman from Missouri. 1 answered the gentleman's speech because I happened to hear it; and because, also, I chose to give an answer to that speech, which if unanswered, I thought most likely to produce injurious impressions. I did not stop to inquire who was the original drawer of the bill. I found a responsible indorser before me, and it was my purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to his just responsibility without delay. But this interrogatory of the honorable member was only introductory to another. He proceeded to ask me, whether I had turned upon him, in this debate, from the consciousness that I should find an overmatch, if I ventured on a contest with his friend from Missouri. If the honorable member, ex gratia modestia, had chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay him a compliment without intentional disparagement to others, it would have been quite according to the friendly courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrate ful to my own feelings. I an not one of those who esteem any tribute of regard, whether light and occasional, or more serious and deliberate, which may be bestowed on others, as so much unjustly withholden from themselves. But the tone and manner of the gentleman's question, forbid me that I thus interpret it. I am not at liberty to consider it as nothing more than a civility to his friend. It had an air of taunt and disparagement, a little of the loftiness of asserted superiority, |