ence and, on the contrary, maintained that Madison's doctrine was directly opposed to nullification as upheld by Calhoun. He said:

The right and duty of "the States" to interpose certainly does not mean the right of "a State" to nullify and set at nought. The States-less than the whole number-have a right to interpose, secured, as already shown, in the Constitution; and this, not only persuasively, but peremptorily; to compel the action they may desire; and it is demonstrable that it was this constitutional provision that the Virginia legislature had in mind, as a last resort. The resolutions do not speak anywhere of the right of a State, but use the plural number, States. Virginia exercises the right that pertains to a State-all the right that, in the premises, she pretends to-in passing the resolutions, declaring her views, and inviting the like action of her co-States. Instead, therefore, of the resolutions being identical with nullification (according to Calhoun), the two doctrines are not merely hostile, but exactly opposites; the sum of the Virginia doctrine being that it belongs to a State to take, as Virginia does in this instance, the initiative in impeaching any objectionable action of the Federal Government, and to ask her co-States to coöperate in procuring the repeal of a law, a change of policy, or an amendment of the Constitutionaccording as one or the other, or all, may be required to remedy the evil complained of; whereas nullification claims that a single State may, of its own motion, nullify any act of the Federal Government it objects to, and stay its operation, until threefourths of all the States come to the aid of the national authority and reënact the nullified measure. One submits to the law till a majority repeal it, or a convention provides a constitutional remedy for it; the other undertakes to annul the law, and suspend its operation, so long as three-fourths of the States are not brought into active coöperation to declare it valid. The resolutions maintain the Government in all functions, only seeking to call into use the particular function of repeal or amendment; nullification would stop the functions of Government and arrest laws indefinitely; and is incapable of being brought to actual experiment, in a single instance, without a subversion of authority, or civil war. To this essential, radical, antagonistic degree do the Virginia resolutions and the doctrine of nullification differ, one from the other; and thus unjustly are the Virginia Republicans of 1798 accused of planting the seeds of dissolution-a "deadly poison," as Mr, Madison himself em

phatically calls the doctrine of nullification-in the institutions they had so labored to construct.

The theory of a "compact" between the States and the Federal Government, as expressed by Jefferson and Madison in the resolutions, was made a basis of the claim of the "Secessionists" of a later period, although they found more logical grounds in the theory of Calhoun that the "compact" was between the States themselves, and that the Federal Government was the result of the compact and not a party to it.

"Daniel Webster," says Prof. Alexander Johnston in his "American Political History," "ridiculed unsparingly the idea that the States could form a compact with another party which was only created by the compact and non-existent before it."

"Jefferson and his school would have looked upon forcible resistance by a single State to an oppressive Federal law. as . . . revolutionary . . It was so stated in 1829-30 by Edward Livingston, the devoted adherent of Jefferson in 1798.

"In a constitutional point of view, this fundamental difference between the right of 'the States' in natural convention, and of a single State, proprio vigore,' to 'nullify' acts of Congress, and to interpret the Constitution, above and beyond the Federal judiciary, is the essential difference between the 'nulli'fication' of Jefferson and that of Calhoun. The strongest evidence to the contrary is a sentence in Jefferson's original draft of the Kentucky resolutions. It is as follows: 'that every State has a natural right, in cases not within the compact, to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits.' This was struck out in the final copy of the resolutions, but by whom is not known. Various explanations of this sentence have been offered, the most plausible being that the inexcusable sentence was due only to heat of composition, and was struck out by Jefferson on his realizing the full force of what he had written. On the one hand, this sentence has arrayed against it a great mass of contemporary testimony; on the other, if it is to stand as Jefferson's perfected theory, every atom of Calhoun's perfected theory finds in it a perfect antetype.

"It is also fair and proper, in this connection, to call the reader's special attention to a letter of December 24, 1825, "Of its own force."

from Jefferson to Madison, which has never hitherto received the prominence which it deserves. It is on the subject of internal improvements. He regards opposition to the new system as 'desperate,' but proposes a new series of resolutions, to be passed by the Virginia legislature, as a protest against it. They are much like the Resolutions of 1798, but conclude by demanding an amendment to the Constitution to grant the doubtful power, and by promising for the State and imposing upon the citizens of the State an acquiescence in the acts 'which we have declared to be a usurpation' 'until the legislature shall otherwise and ultimately decide.'"

A letter of Jefferson to Justice William Johnston, on June 12, 1823, gives in a nutshell the opinion of the author of the Kentucky resolutions upon the same point:

"The ultimate arbiter is the people of the Union, assembled by their deputies in convention, at the call of Congress, or of two-thirds of the States. Let them decide to which they mean to give an authority claimed by two of their organs [i. e., the Federal Government, or the States]."

THE HARTFORD CONVENTION

The Hartford convention has already been referred to [in Vol. II, page 217] in connection with the Second War with Great Britain. It played, however, a far greater part in our civil and domestic politics than in our military and foreign concerns, dealing as it did with the questions of State and civic rights.

The Administration of James Madison, indeed, believing that the purpose of the convention of representatives from New England legislatures and conventions was nothing less than the dissolution of the Union, sent an army officer to Hartford to oversee its deliberations, and Congress (strongly Republican) requested the President to appoint a day for national fasting and prayer.

The convention deliberated in secret for three weeks, until January 5, 1815, when it adopted a report to the legislature and counties represented.

REPORT OF THE CONVENTION

[ABRIDGED]

The convention is deeply impressed with the arduous nature of its commission, which is to devise relief from the oppressions of the Government without violating constitutional principles. Yet when abuses are so gross as those complained of, and are clothed with the forms of law, and enforced by an Executive whose will is their source, direct and open resistance is the only recourse. Necessity alone can sanction this, and the resistance must not be extended beyond the exigency, it being left to the people, in calmer moments and after full deliberation, to reform the abuses by a change of the Constitution.

The convention believes that some new form of confederacy should be substituted among those States which shall intend to maintain a federal relation to each other. Events may prove that the causes of our calamities are deep and permanent. They may be found to proceed, not merely from the blindness of prejudice, pride of opinion, violence of party spirit, or the confusion of the times; but they may be traced to implacable combinations of individuals, or of States, to monopolize power and office, and to trample without remorse upon the rights and interests of commercial sections of the Union. Whenever it shall appear that these causes are radical and permanent, a separation, by equitable arrangement, will be preferable to an alliance by constraint, among nominal friends, but real enemies, inflamed by mutual hatred and jealousy, and inviting, by intestine divisions, contempt and aggression from abroad. But a severance of the Union by one or more States, against the will of the rest, and especially in a time of war, can be justified only by absolute necessity. These are among the principal objections against precipitate measures tending to disunite the States, and, when examined in connection with the farewell address of the Father of his Country, they must, it is believed, be deemed conclusive.

The power of dividing the militia of the States into classes, and obliging such classes to furnish, by contract or draft, ablebodied men, to serve for one or more years for the defence of the frontier, is not delegated to Congress. With a power in Congress to authorize such a draft or conscription, and in the Executive to decide conclusively upon the existence and continuance of the emergency, the whole militia may be converted into a standing army disposable at the will of the President of the United States.

Had the troops already raised, and in great numbers sacrificed upon the frontier of Canada, been employed for the defence of the country, and had the millions which have been squandered with shameless profusion been appropriated to their payment, to the protection of the coast, and to the naval service, there would have been no occasion for unconstitutional expedients.

That acts of Congress in violation of the Constitution are absolutely void is an undeniable position. It does not, however, consist with respect and forbearance due from a Confederate State toward the general Government to fly to open resistance upon every infraction of the Constitution. The mode and the energy of the opposition should always conform to the nature of the violation, the intention of its authors, the extent of the injury inflicted, the determination manifested to persist in it, and the danger of delay. But in cases of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable infractions of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty of a State, and liberties of the people; it is not only the right but the duty of such a State to interpose its authority for their protection, in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When emergencies occur which are either beyond the reach of the judicial tribunals, or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to their forms, States which have no common umpire must be their own judges, and execute their own decisions.

Without pausing at present to comment upon the causes of the war, it may be assumed as a truth, officially announced, that to achieve the conquest of Canadian territory, and to hold it as a pledge for peace, is the deliberate purpose of the Administration.

The seaboard States have been left to adopt measures for their own defence. The President of the United States has refused to consider the expense of the militia detached by State authority, for the indispensable defence of the State, as chargeable to the Union, on the ground of a refusal by the executive of the State to place them under the command of officers of the regular army. Detachments of militia placed at the disposal of the general Government have been dismissed either without pay, or with depreciated paper.

If the war be continued, there appears no room for reliance upon the National Government for the supply of those means of defence which must become indispensable to secure these States from desolation and ruin. Nor is it possible that the States can discharge this sacred duty from their own resources,