made in the name of all. Troops were raised for the joint defence. How, then, with all these proofs, that under all changes of our position we had, for designated purposes and defined powers, created national governments how is it, that the most perfect of those several modes of union should now be considered as a mere league that may be dissolved at pleasure? It is from an abuse of terms. Compact is used as synonymous with league, although the true term is not employed, because it would at once show the fallacy of the reasoning. It would not do to say that our Constitution was only a league, but it is labored to prove it a compact, (which in one sense it is,) and then to argue that as a league is a compact, every compact between nations must of course be a league, and that from such an engagement every sovereign power has the right to recede. But it has been shown that, in this sense, the States are not sovereign, and that even if they were, and the national Constitution had been formed by compact, there would be no right in any one State to exonerate itself from its obligations.

So obvious are the reasons which forbid this secession, that it is necessary only to allude to them. The Union was formed for the benefit of all. It was produced by mutual sacrifices of interests and opinions. Can those sacrifices be recalled? Can the States, who magnanimously surrendered their title to the territories of the west, recal the grant? Will the inhabitants of the inland States agree to pay the duties that may be imposed without their assent by those on the Atlantic or the Gulf, for their own benefit? Shall there be a free port in one State, and onerous duties in another? No one believes that any right exists in a single State to involve all the others in these and countless other evils contrary to the engagements solemnly made. Every one must see that the other States, in self defence, must oppose it at all hazards.

These are the alternatives that are presented by the Convention : a repeal of all the acts for raising revenue, leaving the Government without the means of support, or an acquiescence in the dissolution of our Union by the secession of one of its members. When the first was proposed, it was known that it could not be listened to for a moment. It was known, if force was applied to oppose the execution of the laws that it must be repelled by force; that Congress could not, without involving itself in disgrace and the country in ruin, accede to the proposition: and yet if this is not

done in a given day, or if any attempt is made to execute the laws, the State is, by the ordinance, declared to be out of the Union. The majority of a Convention assembled for the purpose, have dictated these terms, or rather this rejection of all terms, in the name of the people of South Carolina. It is true that the Governor of the State speaks of the submission of their grievances to a Convention of all the States, which, he says, they "sincerely and anxiously seek and desire." Yet this obvious and constitutional mode of obtaining the sense of the other States on the construction of the federal compact, and amending it, if necessary, has never been attempted by those who have urged the State on to this destructive measure. The State might have proposed the call for a General Convention to the other States; and Congress, if a sufficient number of them concurred, must have called it. But the first magistrate of South Carolina, when he expressed a hope that, "on a review by Congress and the functionaries of the General Government, of the merits of the controversy," such a Convention will be accorded to them, must have known that neither Congress, nor any functionary of the General Government, has authority to call such a Convention, unless it be demanded by two-thirds of the States. This suggestion, then, is another instance of the reckless inattention to the provisions of the Constitution with which this crisis has been madly hurried on; or of the attempt to persuade the people that a constitutional remedy had been sought and refused. If the Legislature of South Carolina "anxiously desire" a General Convention to consider their complaints, why have they not made application for it in the way the Constitution points out? The assertion that they "earnestly seek it" is completely negatived by the omission.

This, then, is the position in which we stand. A small majority of the citizens of one State in the Union have elected delegates to a State Convention; that Convention has ordained that all the revenue laws of the United States must be repealed, or that they are no longer a member of the Union. The Governor of that State has recommended to the Legislature the raising of an army to carry the secession into effect, and that he may be empowered to give clearances to vessels in the name of the State. No act of violent opposition to the laws has yet been committed, but such a state of things is hourly apprehended; and it is the intent of this instrument to proclaim, not only that the duty imposed on

me by the Constitution "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed," shall be performed to the extent of the powers already vested in me by law, or of such others as the wisdom of Congress shall devise and entrust to me for that purpose, but to warn the citizens of South Carolina who have been deluded into an opposition to the laws, of the danger they will incur by obedience to the illegal and disorganizing ordinance of the Convention; to exhort those who have refused to support it to persevere in their determination to uphold the Constitution and laws of their country; and to point out to all the perilous situation into which the good people of that State have been led, and that the course they are urged to pursue is one of ruin and disgrace to the very State whose rights they affect to support.

Fellow citizens of the United States! The threat of unhallowed disunion the names of those once respected, by whom it was uttered the array of military force to support it- denote the approach of a crisis in our affairs, on which the continuance of our unexampled prosperity, our political existence, and perhaps that of all free governments, may depend. The conjuncture demanded a free, a full, and explicit enunciation, not only of my intentions, but of my principles of action; and, as the claim was asserted of a right by a State to annul the laws of the Union, and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank exposition of my opinions in relation to the origin and form of our Government, and the construction I give to the instrument by which it was created, seemed to be proper. Having the fullest confidence in the justness of the legal and constitutional opinion of my duties, which has been expressed, I rely, with equal confidence, on your undivided support in my determination to execute the laws to preserve the Union by all constitutional means to arrest, if possible, by moderate but firm measures, the necessity of a recourse to force; and, if it be the will of Heaven, that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that it be not called down by any offensive act on the part of the United States. . .

་

No. 56. Act for Enforcing the Tariff

March 2, 1833

IN his annual message of Dec. 4, 1832, Jackson suggested that "the policy of protection must be ultimately limited to those articles of domestic manufacture which are indispensable to our safety in time of war"; and the annual report of the Secretary of the Treasury recommended a reduction of duties to a revenue basis. December 27 Verplanck of New York reported from the House Committee of Ways and Means a bill to reduce the tariff. January 16, 1833, Jackson sent to Congress his message on nullification, reviewing the progress of events in South Carolina, and asking for additional legislation to enforce the revenue laws. On the 21st a bill to enforce the collection of the revenue was reported in the Senate by Wilkins of Pennsylvania, from the Committee on the Judiciary. The tariff bill, sharply antagonized by protectionist members, was meantime making its way through the House. February 12 Clay introduced in the Senate a compromise tariff bill. On the 20th the Senate passed the "force bill" by a vote of 32 to 1, and on the following day took up Clay's bill. On the 25th the House recommitted its tariff bill, by a vote of 95 to 54, with instructions to report the compromise tariff in its place; on the 26th the latter passed the House, the vote being 119 to 85. The same day the Senate laid Clay's bill on the table, and March I passed the House bill, by a vote of 29 to 16. The "force bill" passed the House March 1, by a vote of 149 to 47. In the meantime, many State legislatures had passed resolutions against nullification. The South Carolina ordinance was to go into effect Feb. 1, but action was deferred pending Congressional settlement of the tariff. The passage of the compromise tariff was regarded as a signal victory by the nullifiers. The convention was summoned to meet March 11; on the 18th it dissolved, after repealing the ordinance of nullification and adopting an ordinance nullifying the "force bill."

REFERENCES. Text in U. S. Stat. at Large, IV., 632-635. For the proceedings, see the House and Senate Journals, 22d Cong., 2d Sess.; for the discussions, see the Cong. Debates, or Benton's Abridgment, XII. Niles's Register, XLIII., contains abstracts of debates and numerous documents. The message of Jan. 16 is in the Journals. The speeches of Webster and Calhoun on the "force bill" are in the Cong. Debates, and also Calhoun's Works (ed. 1853), II., 197–309, and Webster's Works (ed. 1857), III., 448– 505. The events are discussed at length in Benton's Thirty Years' View, I., chaps. 80-86; see also Houston, op. cit.; Curtis's Webster, I., chap. 19; Tyler's Letters and Times of the Tylers, I., chap. 14.

An Act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That whenever, by reason of unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages of persons, it shall become impracticable, in the judgment of the

President, to execute the revenue laws, and collect the duties on imports in the ordinary way, in any collection district, it shall and may be lawful for the President to direct that the custom-house for such district be established and kept in any secure place within some port or harbour of such district, either upon land or on board any vessel; and, in that case, it shall be the duty of the collector to reside at such place, and there to detain all vessels and cargoes arriving within the said district until the duties imposed on said cargoes, by law, be paid in cash, deducting interest according to existing laws; and in such cases it shall be unlawful to take the vessel or cargo from the custody of the proper officer of the customs, unless by process from some Court of the United States; and in case of any attempt otherwise to take such vessel or cargo by any force, or combination, or assemblage of persons too great to be overcome by the officers of the customs, it shall and may be lawful for the President of the United States, or such person or persons as he shall have empowered for that purpose, to employ such part of the land or naval forces, or militia of the United States, as may be deemed necessary for the purpose of preventing the removal of such vessel or cargo, and protecting the officers of the customs in retaining the custody thereof.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the jurisdiction of the circuit courts of the United States shall extend to all cases, in law or equity, arising under the revenue laws of the United States, for which other provisions are not already made by law; and if any person shall receive any injury to his person or property for or on account of any act by him done, under any law of the United States, for the protection of the revenue or the collection of duties on imports, he shall be entitled to maintain suit for damage therefor in the circuit court of the United States in the district wherein the party doing the injury may reside, or shall be found. And all property taken or detained by any officer or other person under authority of any revenue law of the United States, shall be irrepleviable, and shall be deemed to be in the custody of the law, and subject only to the orders and decrees of the courts of the United States having jurisdiction thereof. And if any person shall dispossess or rescue, or attempt to dispossess or rescue, any property so taken or detained as aforesaid, or shall aid or assist therein, such person shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanour, and shall be liable to such punishment as is provided