"That the Constitution is not a league, confederacy, or compact between the people of the several States in their sovereign capacity, but a government proper, founded on the adoption of the people, and creating direct relations between itself and individuals. That no State authority has power to dissolve these relations. That as to certain purposes the people of the United States are one people."
Nullification, attempted first on account of a protective tariff to foster home and young industries and for needed revenue to carry on the Federal government, was in two years, by its author, Calhoun, transferred, for a new cause on which to attempt to justify it— from the tariff to domestic slavery. Calhoun soon discovered and admitted that the South could not be united against the North and for disunion on opposition to a protective tariff. He therefore promptly sought an opportunity to bring forward in Congress the slavery question, and to attack the "agitators" and opponents of slavery extension in the North, and to threaten disunion if the institution of slavery was not permitted to dictate the political policy of the Republic.
The exact method of reviving in Congress the whole subject of slavery so soon after nullification had been so signally suppressed by Jackson is worth briefly stating.
President Jackson, in his Annual Message, December, 1835, called attention to attempts to use the mails to circulate matter calculated to excite slaves to insurrection, but he did not recommend any legislation to prevent it. Mr. Calhoun moved in the Senate that so much of the message relating to mail transportation of incendiary publications be referred to a select committee of five.
He was made chairman of this committee, and, on his request, three others from the South, with but one from the North, were put on the committee, and he promptly made an elaborate and carefully- prepared report, going into the whole doctrine of states-rights and nullification.
In it he said:
"That the States which form our Federal Union are sovereign and independent communities, bound together by a constitutional compact, and are possessed of all the powers belonging to distinct and separate States, etc.
"The Compact itself expressly provides that all powers not delegated are reserved to the States and the people. . . . On returning to the Constitution, it will be seen that, while the power of defending the country against external danger is found among the enumerated, the instrument is wholly silent as to the power of defending the internal peace and security of the States: and of course reserves to the States this important power, etc.
"It belongs to slave-holding States, whose institutions are in danger, and not to Congress, as is supposed by the message, to determine what papers are incendiary and intended to excite insurrection among the slaves, etc.
"It has already been stated that the States which comprise our Federal Union are sovereign and independent communities, united by a constitutional compact. Among its members the laws of nations are in full force and obligation, except as altered or modified by the compact, etc.