"That the government, formed by the constitution of the United States, was not made the exclusive or final judge of the powers delegated to itself: but that as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.
"That the principle and construction contended for by the party which now rules in the councils of the nation, that the General Government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism; since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the constitution, would be the measure of their powers; that the several states which formed that instrument being sovereign and independent have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction and that a positive defiance by those sovereignties of all unauthorized acts done or attempted to be done under color of that instrument is the right remedy."[[298]]
STATE DEFIANCE OF FUGITIVE SLAVE LAWS
These outspoken and persistent attempts of great states to repudiate their obligations to the constitution and to nullify the laws of Congress had a most reactionary influence upon slaveholders and their sympathizers in Virginia and the South and filled the minds of thoughtful men with the gravest forebodings for the peace and preservation of the Union.
President Buchanan in his message to Congress, December, 1860, refers to the action of the states in nullifying the Fugitive Slave Law enacted by Congress, as "the most palpable violation of constitutional duty which has yet been committed."
Governor Banks in his address before the Legislature of Massachusetts which assembled on the first Wednesday in January, 1861, referring to the statute enacted in that state antagonistic to the act of Congress for the return of fugitive slaves, and the consequent imputation which it brought upon the loyalty of Massachusetts to the Union and its constitution, said:
"It is because in the face of her just claims to high honor I do not love to hear unjust reproaches passed upon her fame—that I say as I do, in the presence of God and with a heart filled with responsibilities that must rest upon every American citizen in these distempered times, I cannot but regard the maintenance of a statute, although it may be within the extremest limits of constitutional power, which is so unnecessary to the public weal and so detrimental to the public peace as an inexcusable public wrong. I hope by common consent it may be removed from the statute book and such guarantees as individual freedom demands be sought in new legislation."[[299]]
CONGRESS ON STATE INTERFERENCE
Congress, in February, 1861, adopted the report of the Committee of Thirty-three of which Thomas Corwin of Ohio was chairman, which after reciting "that all attempts on the part of the Legislatures of any of the states to obstruct or hinder the recovery," of fugitive slaves, "are in derogation of the constitution ... and dangerous to the peace of the Union," resolved
"That the several states be respectfully requested to cause their statutes to be revised, with a view to ascertain if any of them are in conflict with or tend to embarrass or hinder the execution of the laws of the United States ... for the delivery up of persons held to labour by the laws of any state and escaping therefrom; and the Senate and House of Representatives earnestly request that all enactments having such tendency be forthwith repealed as required by a just sense of constitutional obligations and by a due regard for the peace of the Republic."[[300]]