"The bargain between Freedom and Slavery contained in the Constitution of the United States, is morally and politically vicious, inconsistent with the principles on which alone our Revolution can be justified; cruel and oppressive, by riveting the chains of Slavery; and grossly unequal and impolitic, by admitting that Slaves are at once enemies to be kept in subjection, property to be secured and returned to their owners, and persons not to be repre sented themselves, but for whom their masters are privileged with nearly a double share of representation;" and Whereas (to quote the language of Wm. Ellery Channing) "We in the Free States cannot fly from the shame or guilt of the Institution of Slavery, while there are proon this subject our fathers, in framing the Constitution, visions of the Constitution binding us to give it support. swerved from the right. We, their children, see the path of duty more clearly than they, and must walk in it. No blessings of the Union can be a compensation for taking part in the enslaving of our fellow-creatures;" and Whereas (to quote the language of Josiah Quincy, Sen.), will not be submitted to. The "irrepressible conflict" doctrine, announced and advocated by the ablest and most distinguished leader of the Republican party, is an open declaration of war against the institution of African Slavery, wherever it exists; and I would be disloyal to Virginia and the South if I did not declare that the election of such a man, entertaining such sentiments, and advocating such doctrines, ought to be resisted by the slaveholding States. The idea of permitting such a man to have the control and direction of the army and navy of the United States, and the appointment of high judicial and executive officers, postmasters included, cannot be entertained by the South for a moment. The Hon. William L. Yancy, a leading and prominent Democratic politician of Alabama, and formerly member of Congress from that State, wrote the following letter in 1858, which the Washington States, a Democratic Journal, recently published under the title of the "Scar-"The arm of the Union is the very sinew of the subjection let Letter:" DEAR SIR: ceived. MONTGOMERY, June 15, 1858. I hardly agree with you that a general movement can be made that will clear out the Augean stable. If the Democracy were overthrown, it would result in giving place to a greater and hungrier swarm of flies. The remedy of the South is not in such a process. It is in a diligent organization of her true men for prompt resistance to the next aggression. It must come in the nature of things. No national party can save us; no sectional party can ever do it. But if we could do as our fathers did-organize committees of safety all over the Cotton States (and it is only in them that we can hope for any effective movement)-we shall fire the Southern heart, instruct the Southern mind, give courage to each other, and at the PROPER MOMENT, by one organized concerted action, we can precipitate the Cotton States into a revolution. The idea has been shadowed forth in the South by Mr. Ruffin; has been taken up and recommended in The Advertiser (Published at Montgomery. Alabama), under the name of "League of United Southerners," who, keeping up their old party relations on all other questions, will hold the Southern issue paramount, and will influence parties, legislatures, and statesmen. I have no time to enlarge, but to suggest merely. In haste, yours, etc., TO JAMES S. SLAUGHTER, Esq. W. L. YANCEY. The Montgomery (Ala.) Confederation thus gives the record of the leading secession delegates from the Charleston Convention from that State. It says: No one can be deceived as to what are the objects of the Charleston Convention. Listen to what their men say: "I want the Cotton States precipitated into a revolution."- Wm. L. Yancey. "If I had the power, I would dissolve this Government in two minutes."-J. T. Morgan. "Let us break up this rotten, stinking, and oppressive Government."-George Gayle. "Resistance! Resistance to death against the Government is what we want now."-David Hubbard. AN ANTI-SLAVERY VIEW OF DISUNION. The following Resolutions, prepared by Wm. Lloyd Garrison, were adopted at a Convention of the non-voting Abolitionists (better known as Garrisonians), at Albany, New-York, on the 2d of February, 1859: of the Slaves; it is the Slaveholder's main strength; its continuance is his forlorn hope;" and Whereas (to quote the language of Mr. Underwood, of Kentucky, as uttered on the floor of Congress), "The Dissolution of the Union, making the Ohio River and Mason and Dixon's line the boundary line, is the Dissolution of Slavery. It had been the common practice for Southern men to get up on this floor and say, 'Touch this subject and we will Dissolve the Union as a remedy.' Their remedy was the destruction of the thing which they wished to save, and any sensible man could see it ;" and nessee, on the same occasion), "The South has nothing to Whereas (to quote the language of Mr. Arnold, of Ten rely on, if the Union be Dissolved; for, supposing that Dissolution to be effected, a million of Slaves are ready to rise and strike for Freedom at the first tap of the drum :" therefore, Union, the Abolitionists are justified by every precept of 1. Resolved, That in advocating the Dissolution of the the Gospel, by every principle of morality, by every claim Death," which ought to be annulled, and “an agreement of humanity; that such a Union is a "Covenant with with Hell," which a just God cannot permit to stand; and that it is the imperative and paramount duty of all who would keep their souls from blood-guiltiness, to deliver the oppressed out of the hand of the spoiler, and usher in the day of Jubilee; to seek its immediate overthrow by all righteous instrumentalities. 2. Resolved, That (to quote the language of William H. Seward) "they who think this agitation is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether: it forces and it means that the United States must and will, is an Irrepressible Conflict between opposing and enduring sooner or later, become either entirely a Slaveholding Natior or entirely a Free Labor Nation. It is the failure to apprehend this great truth that induces so many unand Slave States; and it is the existence of this great fact successful attempts at final Compromise between the Free that renders all such pretended Compromises, when made, vain and ephemeral." Therefore, 3. Resolved, That no matter how sincerely or zealously any Political Party may be struggling with side issues, in relation to Slavery, to prevent its extension, or otherwise cripple its power, while standing within the Union and sanctioning its Pro-Slavery Compromises, and refusing to attack the Institution itself, its position is morally indefensible; it rests upon a sandy foundation; its testimonies are powerless, and its example fatal to the cause of liberty: hence we cannot give it any support. 4. Resolved, That "better a thousand times that all North America should be obliterated by a concurrence of over buried Cities, than that we, after all our light and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, as a dead, revenging sea Liberty, should live only by removing the truth that gave us being, or should set the example to a terrified and struggling world of a Nation claiming and daring to exist Whereas (to quote the language of John Quincy Adams), only by sustained and sanctified oppression." THE POWER OF THE SUPREME COURT. In view of the Dred Scott dicta and other encroachments upon the Liberties of the People and the rights of the States, that may well be apprehended from future decisions of a Federal partisan Judiciary, the opinions of the leaders of the old Jeffersonian Republican party on the powers and duties of the Supreme Court become matter of public interest. OPINIONS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. In a letter to John Adams, dated Sept. 11, 1804, Mr. Jefferson says: You seemed to think that it devolved on the Judges to decide on the validity of the Sedition Law. But nothing in the Constitution has given them a right to decide for the Executive, more than the Executive to decide for them, Both magistrates are equally independent in the sphere of action assigned to them. The Judges, believing the law constitutional, had a right to pass a sentence of fine and imprisonment, because the power was placed in their hands by the Constitution. But the Executive, believing the law to be unconstitutional, were bound to remit the execution of it, because that power had been confided to them by the Constitution.' Again, in a letter to Judge Roane, dated Poplar Forest, Sept. 6, 1819, Mr. Jefferson reJefferson remarks: se. In denying the right they usurp in exclusively explaining the Constitution, I go further than you do, if I understand rightly your quotation from the Federalist, of an opinion that "The Judiciary is the last resort in relation to the other departments of the Government, but not in relation to the rights of the parties to the compact under which the Judiciary is derived." If this opinion be sound, then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de For intending to establish three departments, coördinate and independent, that they might check and balance one another, it has given, according to this opinion, to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of the others, and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax, in the hands of the Judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please. It should be remembered, as an eternal truth in politics, that whatever power in any government is independent, is absolute also; in theory only at first,while the spirit of the people is up, but in practice as fast as that relaxes. Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law. My construction of the Constitution is very different from that you quote. It is that each department is truly independent of the others, and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the Constitution in the cases submitted to its action, and especially where it is to act ultimately and without appeal. In a letter to Mr. Jarvis, dated Monticello, Sept. 28, 1820, Mr. Jefferson says: Under date of Montecello, Dec. 25, 1820, he writes to Thomas Ritchie as follows: The Judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under-ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our Constitution from a courdination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone. On the 18th of August, 1821, Mr. Jefferson writes to Mr. C. Hammond, as follows: It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression, that the germ of disso lution of our Federal Government is in the constitution in of the Federal Judiciary-an irresponsible body, working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step, like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the Government of all be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed; because, when all government, domestic and foreign, little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one Government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the Government from which we separated. It will be as in Europe, where every man must be either pike or gudgeon, hammer or anvil. Our functionaries and theirs are wares from the same workshop, made of the same materials, and by the same hand. If the States look with apathy on this silent descent of their Government into the gulf which is to swallow all, we have only to weep over the human character, formed uncontrollable but by a rod of iron, and the blasphemers of man as incapable of self-government, become his true historians. In a letterto Judge Johnson, dated Monticello, March 4, 1820, he says I cannot lay down my pen without recurring to one of the subjects of my former letter, for, in truth, there is no danger I apprehend so much as the consolidation of our Government by the noiseless, and therefore unalarming, instrumentality of the Supreme Court. This is the form in which Federalism now arrays itself. In a letter dated June 12, same year, he says, The practice of Judge Marshall, of traveling out of his case to prescribe what the law would be in a moot case not before the court is very irregular and very censurable. In writing to Mr. W. H. Torrance, June 11, 1815, Mr. Jefferson says: The second question, whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly of a law, has been heretofore a subject of consideration there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legis lative branches. Questions of property, of character, and of crime, being ascribed to the judges through a definite course of legal proceeding, laws involving such You seem, in pages 84 and 148, to consider questions, belong, of course, to them; and as they decide the Judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional on them ultimately, and without appeal, they, of course, questions-a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one decide for themselvs. The constitutional validity of the which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. law or laws again prescribing executive action, and to Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so. be administered by that branch ultimately, and without They have, with others, the same passions for party, for appeal, the Executive must decide for themselves, also, power, and the privilege of their corps. Their maxim is, whether, under the Constitution, they are valid or not. "boni judicis est ampliare jurisdictionem," and their So also, as to laws governing the proceedings of the Legpower the more dangerous as they are in office for life, islature, that body must judge for itself the constitutionand not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the ality of the law, and equally without appeal or control elective control. The Constitution has erected no such from its coördinate branches. And, in general, the single tribunal, knowing that, to whatever hands confided, branch which is to act ultimately, and without appeal on with the corruptions of time and party, its members would any law, is the rightful expositor of the validity of the become despots. It has more wisely made all the depart-law, uncontrolled by the opinions of the other coördiments co-equal and co-sove: eign within themselves. nate authorities. John Taylor, of Caroline, Va., who used in his day to speak and write as one having authority" in the old Jeffersonian Republican party, in an essay entitled "New Views of the Constitution," says: The perseverance of the gentleman in favor of a National Government proves that the subject was thoroughly considered; and the solemn preference of the Federal form demonstrates that no construction by which the preference will be frustrated can be just. Its basis was State sovereignty, compatible with a federal limited Government, but incompatible with a supreme National Government. Hence State Sovereignty was denied by the gentlemen who proposed a National Government. This sovereignty is the foundation of all the powers reserved to the States. Unless they are sus for that I think I have shown to be impossible, with the ise, and because the people have retained in their own powers which the Legislature may safely use and exerhands the power of controlling and directing the Legislature, by their immediate and mediate elections of President, Senate, and House of Representatives.--See ib., page 73. Mr. Cocke, of Tennessee, on the same subject, said: We have been told that the nation is to look up to these immaculate judges to protect their liberties; to protect the people against themselves.-Ib., page 75. In the House, Robert Williams, of North Carolina, said: If this doctrine is to extend to the length gentlemen ained by it, they are baseless. State legislative, ex-contend, then is the sovereignty of the Government to be ecutive, and judicial powers, must all or none flow from the other departments of the Government may do, they swallowed up in the vortex of the Judiciary. Whatever this source. All are necessary to sustain the State Republican Governments. Subject either to a master, Will not the people be astonished to hear that their laws can undo. You may pass a law, but they can annulit. and the others become subject to the same master. If the State judicial power, as flowing from State soy- depend upon the will of the judges, who are themselves the State judicial power, as flowing from State sov feignty, is not independent, State legislative and ex-independent of all law ?—Ib., pages 531, 532. ecutive power cannot be independent, because all rest upon the same foundation; and because if a supreme federal Judiciary can control State Courts, it can also control State Legislatures and Executives. Thus a federal form of Government would be rejected, though it was established, and a National Government would be established, though it was rejected. The legal features of the Constitution, in relation to judges, is expressed in the sixth article: "The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State are to be bound thereby." Can the judgments of the Federal court be a supreme law over this supreme law? Is there no difference between the supremacy of a Federal court over inferior Federal courts, and the supremacy of the Constitution over all courts? The supremacy of the Constitution is a guaranty of the independent powers, within their respective spheres, allowed by the Federalist to the State and Federal Governments. A supremacy in the court might abridge or alter these spheres. The State judges are bound by the Constitution and by an oath to obey the supremacy of the Constitution, and not even required to obey the supremacy of the Federal court. Why are all the departments of the State and Federal Governments equally bound to obey the supremacy of the Constitution? Because the State and Federal Governments were considered as checking or balancing departments. Had either been considered as subordinate to a supremacy in the other, it would have been tyrannical to require it by an oath to support the supremacy of the Constitution, and also to break that oath by yielding to the usurped supremacy of the other. During the administration of John Adams, the Judiciary system was remodeled in such way as to create a large number of Circuit Judgeships, and to make the Supreme Court simply a Court of Appeal from the inferior jurisdictions. After the election of Mr. Jefferson, with a Republican (Democratic) majority in Congress the act was repealed. During the debate in the Senate, which was protracted, on this repeal bill, Mr. Jackson of Georgia, said: We have been asked if we are afraid of having an army of judges? For myself, I am more afraid of an army of judges under the patronage of the President, than of an army of soldiers. The former can do us more harm. They may deprive us of our liberties, if attached to the Executive, from their decisions; and from the tenure of office contended for, we cannot remove them; while the soldier, however he may act, is enlisted, or if not enlisted, only subsisted for two years; whilst the judge is enlisted for life, for his salary cannot be taken from him.-See Annals of Congress, 1801-2, page 47. During the same discussion, Mr. Mason, of Virginia, said : The objects of courts of law, as I understand them, are to settle questions of right between suitors, to enforce obedience to the laws, and to protect the citizens against the oppressive use of power in the Executive offices. Not to protect them against the Legislature, John Randolph, of Roanoke, said: But, sir, if you pass the law, the judges are to put their veto upon it by declaring it unconstitutional. Here is a new power, of a dangerous and uncontrollable nature, contended for. The decision of a constitutional question must rest somewhere. Shall it be confided to men immediately responsible to the people, or to those who are irresponsible? for the responsibility by impeachment is little less than a name. From whom is a corrupt decision most to be feared? To me it appears that the power which has the right of passing, without appeal, on the validity of your laws, is your sovereign. But, sir, are we not as deeply interested in the true exposition of the Constitution as the judges can be? With all due deference to their talents, is not Congress as capable of forming a correct opinion as they are ? Are not its members acting under a responsibility to public opinion, which can and will check their aberrations from duty? Let a case, not an imaginary one, be stated: Congress violates the Constitution by fettering the press; the judicial corrective is applied to; far from protecting the liberty of the citizen, or the letter of the Constitution, you find them outdoing the legislature in zeal; pressing the common law of England to their service where the sedition law did not apply. Suppose your reliance had been altogether on this broken staff, and not on the elective principle? Your press might have been enchained till doomsday, your citizens incarcerated for life, and where is your remedy? But if the construction of the Constitution is left with us, there are no longer limits to our power; and this would be true, if an appeal did not lie through the elections, from us to the nation, to whom alone, and not a few privileged individuals, it belongs to decide, in the last resort, on the Constitution. In their inquisitorial capacity, the Supreme Court, relieved from the tedious labor of investigating judicial points by the law of the last session, may easily direct the Executive, by mandamus, in what mode it is their pleasure that we should execute his functions. They will also have more leisure to attend to the legislature, and forestall, by inflammatory pamphlets, their decisions on public, we shall retain the right of debating, but not of all important questions; whilst, for the amusement of the voting.-Ib., pages 661, 662. Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, said: We have heard much about the judges, and the necessity of their independence. I will state one fact, to show that they have power as well as independence. Soon after the establishment of the Federal Courts, they issued a writ not being a professional man, I shall not undertake to give its name-to the Supreme Court of North Carolina, directing a case then depending in the State Court to be brought into the Federal Court. The State judges refused to obey the summons, and laid the whole proceedings before the legislature, who approved their conduct, and, as well as I remember, unanimously; and this in that day was not called disorganizing.—10. page 711. John Bacon, of Massachusetts, said: The Judiciary have no more right to prescribe, di ect, or control the acts of the other departments of the Gov ernment, than the other departments of the Govern- | preme Court of the United States annulled the ment have to prescribe or direct those of the Judiciary. judgment in the State court, and issued a manIb., page 983. THE SEDITION LAW. When the case of Matthew Lyon was before the United States Senate in 1818, on petition asking indemnity for a fine imposed upon him under the Sedition Law, John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, said: The judiciary is a valuable part of the Government, and ought to be highly respected, but is not infallible. The Constitution is our guide-our supreme law. Blind homage can never be rendered by freemen to any power. In all cases of alleged violations of the Constitution, it was for Congress to make a just discrimination. Benton's Abridgment, vol. 6, page 184. Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, on the same day said: According to some gentlemen, we were to regard the Judiciary more than the law, and both more than the Constitution. It was a misfortune the judges were not equal in infallibility to the God who made them. The truth was, if the judge was a party-man out of power, he would be a party-man in. The office would not change human nature. He had no doubt that the Sedition Law, and the proceedings under it, had more effect in revolutionizing the Government than all its other acts. He well remembered the language of the times-pay your taxes, but don't speak against government.-Ibid., page 187. Hon. James Barbour, of Virginia, made a report on the subject of the petition, of which the following is an extract: The first question that naturally presents itself in the investigation is, was the law constitutional? The committee have no hesitation in pronouncing, in their opinions, it was not. The committee are aware that, in opposition to this view of the subject, the decision of some of the judges of the Supreme Court, sustaining the constitutionality of the law, has been frequently referred to, as sovereign and conclusive of the question. The committee entertain a high respect for the purity and intelligence of the Judiciary. But it is a rational re date to the Superior Court of Georgia, to carry its judgment of reversal into execution. Judge Benning proceeds: Now, what did Georgia do on receipt of this special mandate? Through every department of her government she treated the mandate and the writ of error with contempt the most profound. She did not even protest against jurisdiction, as she had done in the case of Chisholm's executors; but she kept Worcester and Butler in the penitentiary, and she executed, in the Creek nation, the laws, for violating which they had been put in the penitentiary. Judge Benning, in delivering his opinion, says further: It was not only in this case that Georgia occupied this position; she did it in two other cases, and those, cases of life and death: the case of Tassels, and that of Graves. One of these happened before those of Worcester and Butler, namely, in 1830; the other afterward, in 1834. The Supreme Court had issued writs of error in each of these cases, on the application of the defendants to the State of Georgia; but, as the cases are not reported, it is to be presumed that these writs never got back to the Supreme Court; or that, if they ever did, it was too late. It is certain that Georgia hung the applicants for the writ. In the Tassels case, the legislature passed these, among other resolutions: Resolved, That the State of Georgia will never so far compromit her sovereignty, as an independent State, as to become a party to the case sought to be made before the Supreme Court of the United States by the writ in question. Resolved, That his excellency the Governor be, and he and every other officer of this State is hereby, requested and enjoined to disregard any and every mandate and process that has been or shall be served on him or them, purporting to proceed from the Chief Justice or any Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, for the purpose of arresting the execution of any of the criminal laws of this State. Similar resolutions were passed, as to the spect, limited by a knowledge of the frailty of human na-case of Graves, by the legislature of 1834. ture, and the theory of the Constitution, which declares, not only that Judges may err in opinion, but also may commit crimes, and hence has provided a tribunal for the trial of offenders. GEORGIA. In the case of Paddleford, Fay, & Company v. the Mayor and Aldermen of the city of Savannah, Judge Benning, in delivering the opinion of the court, recited two or three cases in which the State of Georgia had acted in disregard of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the case of Chisholm, executor, against Georgia, the Supreme Court of the United States Ordered, that unless the said State shall either in due form appear, or show cause to the contrary, in this court, by the first day of next term, judgment by default shall be entered against the said State. The reporter adds, in a note, that "in February term, 1794, judgment was rendered for the plaintiff, and a writ of inquiry awarded. The writ, however, was not sued out and executed; so that this cause, and all of the other suits against States, were swept at once from the records of the court by the amendment of the Federal Constitution.” Georgia treated the court with contempt in respect to this case. Her position was, that the court had no jurisdiction of her as a party.—Georgia Reports, vol. 14, page 479. The Judge proceeds to say, "in this that position Georgia triumphed," and that the judgment against her "fell dead." PENNSYLVANIA. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in the case of the Commonwealth v. Cobbett, gave a unanimous opinion in 1788, from which the following is an extract: If a State should differ with the United States about the construction of them, there is no common umpire but the people, who should adjust the affair by making amendIn such a case, the Constitution of the United States is ments in the constitutional way, or suffer from the defect. federal; it is a league or treaty made by the individual States as one party, and all the States as another party. When two nations differ about the meaning of any clause, sentence, or word, in a treaty, neither has an exclusive right to decide it; they endeavor to adjust the matter by negotiation; but if it cannot be thus accomplished, each has a right to retain its own interpretation, until a reference be had to the mediation of other nations, and arbitration, or the fate of war. There is no provision in the Constitution that in such a case the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States shall control and be conclusive; neither can the Congress by a law confer that power.Respublica v. Cobbett, 3 Dallas's Reports, page 475. VIRGINIA. The Court of Appeals of Virginia, in 1814, in the case of Hunter v. Martin, devisee of Fairfax, entered the following unanimous opinion, after full argument : The court is unanimously of opinion that the appellate power of the Supreme Court of the United States does not The Judge next cites the case of Worcester Constitution of the United States; that so much of the extend to this court, under a sound construction of the and Butler, who had settled on the Cherokee twenty-fifth section of the act of Congress to establish the lands in Georgia, contrary to the laws of the judicial courts of the United States as extends the appelState, and for which offense they were sent to in pursuance of the Constitution of the United States; late jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to this court is not the penitentiary. On a writ of error, the Su-that the writ of error in this case was improvidently al lowed under the authority of that act; that the proceedIngs thereon in the Supreme Court were coram non judice in relation to this court; and that obedience to its mandate be declined by this court. In times of violent party excitement, agitating the whole nation, to expect that judges will be entirely exempt from its influence, argues a profound ignorance of mankind. Although clothed with the ermine, they are still men, and carry into the judgment seat the passions and motives common to their kind. Their decisions on party questions reflect their individual opinions, which frequently betray them unconsciously into error, To balance the judgment of a whole people by that of two or three men, no matter what may be their official elevation, is to exalt the creature of the Constitution above its creator, and to assail the foundation of our political fabric; which is, that the decision of the people is infallible, from which there is no appeal but to Heaven.-See Benton's Abridgment, vol. 6, pages 660, 661. Mahlon Dickerson, of New-Jersey, said: But I must beg leave to differ from the honorable gentleman (Mr. Walker, of Georgia) when he informs us that our independent Judiciary is the bulwark of the liberties of the people. By which he must mean, defenders of the people against the oppressions of the Government. From what I witnessed in the years 1798, 1799, and 1800, I never shall, I never can, consider our Judiciary as the bulwark of the liberties of the people. The people must look out for other bulwarks for their liberties.-See ib., page 701, the Queen of Scots, the judges were instructed to condemn her, and by their sentence she came to the block. This horrid deed was covered by the cloak of judicial proceedings. When Charles I., determined to change the religion of Scotland, he made use of the Court of High Commission to effect the object. By the same judi cial power, the advocates for the doctrines of the Re formation have so often been divested of their religious privileges, and doomed to seal with their blood that religion which bore them triumphantly through the vale of death. The short, though splendid history of this Government furnishes nothing that can induce us to look with a very favorable eye to the Federal Judiciary as a safe deposi tory of our liberties. When a law was enacted in viola tion of a vital principle of the Constitution, that which was designed to secure the freedom of speech and of the press, the victims of its operation looked in vain to the judges to arrest the progress of usurpation. If this power could ever be exercised to any good purpose, it would be, on such occcasions, to declare the law unconstitutional which aims a deadly blow at the vital principles of freedom; but, so far as the transactions of that day are detailed in our public records, it appears that the Judiciary was a willing instrument of Federal usurpation. That law was executed in all the rigor of the spirit which dictated it. The turbulence of faction found no moderation there; and the people found relief only in their own power. The exercise of their elective franchise removed the evil, and this is their only safe dependence. GEN. JACKSON. It may be RICHARD M. JOHNSON, OF KENTUCKY. Mr. Johnson, who was elected Vice-President The following is an extract from Gen. Jackof the United States by the Democratic party, son's message vetoing the bill for rechartering represented Kentucky in the United States the Bank of the United States. Senate in 1822. I find in Benton's Abridg-found on page 438 of the Senate Journal for ment of the Debates of Congress, vol. 7, page the first session of the Twenty-second Congress, 145, an elaborate speech of Mr. Johnson upon a and is in these words: resolution offered by him, proposing an amendment of the Constitution. His proposition was to amend the Constitution by referring all cases in which a State may be a party to the final adjudication of the Senate. In the course of his remarks, he says: At this time there is, unfortunately, a want of confidence in the Federal Judiciary, in cases that involve political power; and this distrust my be carried to other cases, such as the lawyers call meum et tuum. Each If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole ground of this act, it ought not to control the coordinate authorities of this Government. The Congress, the Executive, and the Court, must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. public officer, who takes an oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President, to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for passage or approval, as it is of the supreme Courts also, like cities and villages, or like legislative judges, when it may be brought before them for judicial bodies, will sometimes have their leaders; and it may decision. The opinion of the judges has no more authorhappen, that a single individual will be the prime cause ity over Congress than the opinion of Congress over the of a decision to overturn the deliberate act of a whole judges; and, on that point, the President is independState, or of the United States; yet, we are admonished ent of both. The authority of the Supreme Court must to receive their opinions as the ancients did the re-not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or sponses of the Delphic oracle, or the Jews, with more propriety, the communications from Heaven, delivered by Urim and Thummim, to the High Priest of God's chosen people, from the sanctum sanctorum. Other causes of difference might be multiplied to a tedious extent; but enough has been said to show that judges, who, like other men, are subject to the frailties, the passions, the partialities, and antipathies, incident to human nature, should not be exempted from responsibility on account of their superior integrity, learning, and capacity; The other side of this question was lucidly or that their decisions should be subject to revision by and ably stated by the late Daniel Webster, in a some competent tribunal, responsible to the people. It is believed that this is the opinion of that great and good speech delivered before the U. S. Senate, on the man who penned the Declaration of Independence, and 27th of January, 1830, in the famous debate who now enjoys, in the shades of Monticello, the bless- between Mr. W. and Mr. Hayne, of South Carings of the principles which it contains. the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE QUESTION. His argument consists of two propositions and an infer- It was the judgment of a court that doomed the im-olina, on Foot's Resolution, as follows: mortal Socrates to drink the hemlock. When the Roman Mr. Hayne having rejoined to Mr. Webster, tyrant could no longer use a hired soldiery to immolate especially on the constitutional question, Mr. the victims of his jealousy, he resorted to courts of law. Webster rose, and, in conclusion, said: When Henry VIII, of England, would exercise cruel despotism under the forms of a free Constitution, the A few words, Mr. President, on this constitutional arguarmy, the court, and the Parliament, were the potentment, which the honorable gentleman has labored to reengines that sustained him, When Mary, his daughter, construct. compelled the Protestants to seal their testimony at the stake, the court gave sanction to the murderous deeds. Her sister and successor, Elizabeth, created the Court of High Commission, and formally invested it with inquisitorial power. She also supported the arbitrary edicts of the Star Chamber. The Puritans, because obnoxious to the free exercise of the prerogatives of the Crown, were imprisoned and dispersed by process of law, and the judges were the supporters of her despotic power, When she would destroy her unfortunate kinswoman, I powers. ence. 1st. That the Constitution is a compact between the States. 2d. That a compact between two, with authority reserved to one to interpret its terms, would be a surrender to that one of all power whatever, 3d. Therefore, (such is his inference,) the General Government does not possess the authority to construe its own |