Marshall closes with a passage of eloquence almost equal to, and of higher moral grandeur than, the finest passages in M'Culloch vs. Maryland and in Cohens vs. Virginia. So the decision of the court was that the judgment of the Georgia court be "reversed and annulled."[1472]
Congress was intensely excited by Marshall's opinion; Georgia was enraged; the President agitated and belligerent. In a letter to Ticknor, written five days after the judgment of the court was announced, Story accurately portrays the situation: "The decision produced a very strong sensation in both houses; Georgia is full of anger and violence.... Probably she will resist the execution of our judgement, & if she does I do not believe the President will interfere.... The Court has done its duty. Let the nation do theirs. If we have a government let its commands be obeyed; if we have not it is as well to know it at once, & to look to consequences."[1473]
Story's forecast was justified. Georgia scoffed at Marshall's opinion, flouted the mandate of the Supreme Court. "Usurpation!" cried Governor Lumpkin. He would meet it "with the spirit of determined resistance."[1474] Jackson defied the Chief Justice. "John Marshall has made his decision:—now let him enforce it!" the President is reported to have said.[1475] Again the Supreme Court found itself powerless; the judgment in Worcester vs. Georgia came to nothing; the mandate was never obeyed, never heeded.[1476]
For the time being, Marshall was defeated; Nationalism was prostrate; Localism erect, strong, aggressive. Soon, however, Marshall and Nationalism were to be sustained, for the moment, by the man most dreaded by the Chief Justice, most trusted by Marshall's foes. Andrew Jackson was to astound the country by the greatest and most illogical act of his strange career—the issuance of his immortal Proclamation against Nullification.
Georgia's very first assertion of her "sovereignty" in the Indian controversy had strengthened South Carolina's fast growing determination to resist the execution of the Tariff Law. On January 25, 1830, Senator Robert Young Hayne of South Carolina, in his brilliant challenge to Webster, set forth the philosophy of Nullification: "Sir, 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."[1477]
Webster's immortal reply, so far as his Constitutional argument is concerned, is little more than a condensation of the Nationalist opinions of John Marshall stated in popular and dramatic language. Indeed, some of Webster's sentences are practically mere repetitions of Marshall's, and his reasoning is wholly that of the Chief Justice.
"We look upon the States, not as separated, but as united under the same General Government, having interests, common, associated, intermingled. In war and peace, we are one; in commerce, one; because the authority of the General Government reaches to war and peace, and to the regulation of commerce."[1478]
What is the capital question in dispute? It is this: "Whose prerogative is it to decide on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the laws?"[1479] Can States decide? Can States "annul the law of Congress"? Hayne, expressing the view of South Carolina, had declared that they could. He had based his argument upon the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions—upon the theory that the States, and not the people, had created the Constitution; that the States, and not the people, had established the General Government.
But is this true? asked Webster. He answered by paraphrasing Marshall's words in M'Culloch vs. Maryland: "It is, sir, the people's constitution, the people's Government; made for the people; made by the people; and answerable to the people.[1480] The people ... have declared that this Constitution shall be the supreme law....[1481] Who is to judge between the people and the Government?"[1482]
The Constitution settles that question by declaring that "the judicial power shall extend to all cases arising under the Constitution and laws."[1483] Because of this the Union is secure and strong. "Instead of one tribunal, established by all, responsible to all, with power to decide for all, shall constitutional questions be left to four and twenty popular bodies, each at liberty to decide for itself, and none bound to respect the decisions of others?"[1484]