STATE SOVEREIGNTY, AND A CERTAIN DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION, BY BENJAMIN ROMAINE, An Old Citizen of New-York. To the Honorable John C. Calhoun, NOW VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, NEW-YORK: J. KENNADAY, PRINTER, NO. 2 DEY-STREET. 1832. TO THE PUBLIC. In August 1831. Vice President Calhoun's first and most extraordinary publication, made its appearance, occupying seven columns of close newspaper print, declaring the right of a state to nulify the laws of the United States, on the ground of its Sovereignty. It is a solecism in language and false in fact, to call that Sovereign, which is subject to the control of another. What shall restrain a Sovereign power, but its limitations? If the states are all Sovereign, and without an effectual check, or limitation, then is the United States Sovereignty null, because of its limitations: and this is the sum of the whole matter, now at issue. The Vice President now makes his second public appearance, in the Charleston Mercury, of date the 23d August last, 1832,-in twelve additional columns of close newspaper print, which does not add a single important idea to his seven column production of August 1831. The wordy webb indeed, is now of far finer texture, and well calculated to the purposes of it. It is a mere tissue of political metaphysicks, to be believed without the possibility of understanding it. On the face of the matter, the Vice President is now drawn out by the request of Governor Hamilton of South Carolina,--who has been transformed, in a few short months, from a private soldier of the malitia to a Major Generalship, in addition to his gubernatorial command. It would thus appear that all things are now ready for the noble work of nulification as originally planed by that notorious Englishman and monarchist, President Cooper of South Carolina College, and Robert Y. Hayne a and Stephen Miller, Senators, and George McDuffee. Warren R. Davis, John M. Felder, John H. Grifen, W. T. Nockles and Robert W. Barnwell, all members of Congress: had also, recently proclaimed, and fixed their Signatures to a like manifesto. I am happy to make known, that all these gentlemen are of South Carolina only. It is now already seen, in every direction, that Vice President Calhoun's "sentiments and opinions of the relation which the states and general gov |