From Poland the author descends to the Six Nations, the federal council of which was composed of forty-two members, each of whom had an absolute veto upon every measure. Nevertheless, this confederacy, he says, became the most powerful and the most united of all the Indian nations. He omits to add, that it was the facility with which this council could be wielded by the French and English in turn, that hastened the grinding of the Six Nations to pieces between those two millstones.
Rome is Mr. Calhoun's next illustration. The Tribunus Plebis, he observes, had a veto upon the passage of all laws and upon the execution of all laws, and thus prevented the oppression of the plebeians by the patricians. To show the inapplicability of this example to the principle in question, to show by what steps this tribunal, long useful and efficient, gradually absorbed the power of the government, and became itself, first oppressive, and then an instrument in the overthrow of the constitution, would be to write a history of Rome. Niebuhr is accessible to the public, and Niebuhr knew more of the Tribunus Plebis than Mr. Calhoun. We cannot find in Niebuhr anything to justify the author's aim to constitute patrician Carolina the Tribunus Plebis of the United States.
Lastly, England. England, too, has that safeguard of liberty, "an organism by which the voice of each order or class is taken through its appropriate organ, and which requires the concurring voice of all to constitute that of the whole community." These orders are King, Lords, and Commons. They must all concur in every law, each having a veto upon the action of the two others. The government of the United States is also so arranged that the President and the two Houses of Congress must concur in every enactment; but then they all represent the same order or interest, the people of the United States. The English government, says Mr. Calhoun, is so exquisitely constituted, that the greater the revenues of the government, the more stable it is; because those revenues, being chiefly expended upon the lords and gentlemen, render them exceedingly averse to any radical change. Mr. Calhoun does not mention that the majority of the people of England are not represented in the government at all. Perhaps, however, the following passage, in a previous part of the work, was designed to meet their case:—
"It is a great and dangerous error to suppose that all people are equally entitled to liberty. It is a reward to be earned, not a blessing to be gratuitously lavished on all alike;—a reward reserved for the intelligent, the patriotic, the virtuous, and deserving; and not a boon to be bestowed on a people too ignorant, degraded, and vicious to be capable either of appreciating or of enjoying it."
Mr. Calhoun does not tell us who is to bestow this precious boon. He afterwards remarks, that the progress of a people "rising" to the point of civilization which entitles them to freedom, is "necessarily slow." How very slow, then, it must be, when the means of civilization are forbidden to them by law!
With his remarks upon England, Mr. Calhoun terminates his discussion of the theory of government. Let us grant all that he claims for it, and see to what it conducts us. Observe that his grand position is, that a "numerical majority," like all other sovereign powers, will certainly tyrannize if it can. His remedy for this is, that a local majority, the majority of each State, shall have a veto upon the acts of the majority of the whole country. But he omits to tell us how that local majority is to be kept within bounds. According to his reasoning, South Carolina should have a veto upon acts of Congress. Very well; then each county of South Carolina should have a veto upon the acts of the State Legislature; each town should have a veto upon the behests of the county; and each voter upon the decisions of the town. Mr. Calhoun's argument, therefore, amounts to this: that one voter in South Carolina should have the constitutional right to nullify an act of Congress, and no law should be binding which has not received the assent of every citizen.
Having completed the theoretical part of his subject, the author proceeds to the practical. In his first essay he describes the "organism" that is requisite for the preservation of liberty; and in his second, he endeavors to show that the United States is precisely such an organism, since the Constitution, rightly interpreted, does confer upon South Carolina the right to veto the decrees of the numerical majority. Mr. Calhoun's understanding appears to much better advantage in this second discourse, which contains the substance of all his numerous speeches on nullification. It is marvellous how this morbid and intense mind had brooded over a single subject, and how it had subjugated all history and all law to its single purpose. But we cannot follow Mr. Calhoun through the tortuous mazes of his second essay; nor, if we could, should we be able to draw readers after us. We can only say this: Let it be granted that there are two ways in which the Constitution can be fairly interpreted;—one, the Websterian method; the other, that of Mr. Calhoun. On one of these interpretations the Constitution will work, and on the other it will not. We prefer the interpretation that is practicable, and leave the other party to the enjoyment of their argument. Nations cannot be governed upon principles so recondite and refined, that not one citizen in a hundred will so much as follow a mere statement of them. The fundamental law must be as plain as the ten commandments,—as plain as the four celebrated propositions in which Mr. Webster put the substance of his speeches in reply to Mr. Calhoun's ingenious defence of his conduct in 1833.
The author concludes his essay by a prophetic glance at the future. He remarks, that with regard to the future of the United States, as then governed, only one thing could be predicted with absolute certainty, and that was, that the Republic could not last. It might lapse into a monarchy, or it might be dismembered,—no man could say which; but that one of these things would happen was entirely certain. The rotation-in-office system, as introduced by General Jackson, and sanctioned by his subservient Congress, had rendered the Presidential office a prize so tempting, in which so large a number of men had an interest, that the contest would gradually cease to be elective, and would finally lose the elective form. The incumbent would appoint his successor; and "thus the absolute form of a popular, would end in the absolute form of a monarchical government," and there would be no possibility of even rendering the monarchy limited or constitutional. Mr. Calhoun does not mention here the name of General Jackson or of Martin Van Buren, but American readers know very well what he was thinking of when he wrote the passage.
Disunion, according to Mr. Calhoun, was another of our perils. In view of recent events, our readers may be interested in reading his remarks on this subject, written in 1849, among the last words he ever deliberately put upon paper:—
"The conditions impelling the government toward disunion are very powerful. They consist chiefly of two;—the one arising from the great extent of the country; the other, from its division into separate States, having local institutions and interests. The former, under the operation of the numerical majority, has necessarily given to the two great parties, in their contest for the honors and emoluments of the government, a geographical character, for reasons which have been fully stated. This contest must finally settle down into a struggle on the part of the stronger section to obtain the permanent control; and on the part of the weaker, to preserve its independence and equality as members of the Union. The conflict will thus become one between the States occupying the different sections,—that is, between organized bodies on both sides,—each, in the event of separation, having the means of avoiding the confusion and anarchy to which the parts would be subject without such organization. This would contribute much to increase the power of resistance on the part of the weaker section against the stronger in possession of the government. With these great advantages and resources, it is hardly possible that the parties occupying the weaker section would consent quietly, under any circumstances, to break down from independent and equal sovereignties into a dependent and colonial condition; and still less so, under circumstances that would revolutionize them internally, and put their very existence as a people at stake. Never was there an issue between independent States that involved greater calamity to the conquered, than is involved in that between the States which compose the two sections of the Union. The condition of the weaker, should it sink from a state of independence and equality to one of dependence and subjection, would be more calamitous than ever before befell a civilized people. It is vain to think that, with such consequences before them, they will not resist; especially, when resistance may save them, and cannot render their condition worse. That this will take place, unless the stronger section desists from its course, may be assumed as certain; and that, if forced to resist, the weaker section would prove successful, and the system end in disunion, is, to say the least, highly probable. But if it should fail, the great increase of power and patronage which must, in consequence, accrue to the government of the United States, would but render certain and hasten the termination in the other alternative. So that, at all events, to the one or to the other—to monarchy or disunion—it must come, if not prevented by strenuous or timely efforts."