"What more dangerous than nullification, or more evident than the progress it continues to make, either in its original shape or in the disguises it assumes? Nullification has the effect of putting powder under the constitution and Union, and a match in the hand of every party to blow them up, at pleasure. And for its progress, hearken to the tone in which it is now preached; cast your eyes on its increasing minorities in most of the Southern States, without a decrease in any one of them. Look at Virginia herself, and read in the gazettes, and in the proceedings of popular meetings, the figure which the anarchical principle now makes, in contrast with the scouting reception given to it but a short time ago.
"It is not probable that this offspring of the discontents of South Carolina will ever approach success in a majority of the States. But a susceptibility of the contagion in the Southern States is visible; and the danger not to be concealed, that the sympathy arising from known causes, and the inculcated impression of a permanent incompatibility of interests between the South and the North, may put it in the power of popular leaders, aspiring to the highest stations, to unite the South, on some critical occasion, in a course that will end in creating a new theatre of great though inferior extent. In pursuing this course, the first and most obvious step is nullification, the next, secession, and the last, a farewell separation. How near has this course been lately exemplified! and the danger of its recurrence, in the same or some other quarter, may be increased by an increase of restless aspirants, and by the increasing impracticability of retaining in the Union a large and cemented section against its will. It may, indeed, happen, that a return of danger from abroad, or a revived apprehension of danger at home, may aid in binding the States in one political system, or that the geographical and commercial ligatures may have that effect, or that the present discord of interests between the North and the South may give way to a less diversity in the application of labor, or to the mutual advantage of a safe and constant interchange of the different products of labor in different sections. All this may happen, and with the exception of foreign hostility, hoped for. But, in the mean time, local prejudices and ambitious leaders may be but too successful in finding or creating occasions for the nullifying experiment of breaking a more beautiful China vase[9] than the British empire ever was, into parts which a miracle only could reunite."
Incidentally, Mr. Madison, in these letters, vindicates also his compeers, Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Monroe. In the letter to Mr. Cabell, of May 31, 1830, he says:
"You will see, in vol. iii., page 429, of Mr. Jefferson's Correspondence, a letter to W. C. Nicholas, proving that he had nothing to do with the Kentucky resolutions, of 1799, in which the word 'nullification' is found. The resolutions of that State, in 1798, which were drawn by him, and have been republished with the proceedings of Virginia, do not contain this or any equivalent word."
In the letter to Mr. Trist, of December, 1831, after developing at some length the inconsistencies and fatuity of the "nullification prerogative," Mr. Madison says:
"Yet this has boldly sought a sanction, under the name of Mr. Jefferson, because, in his letter to Mr. Cartwright, he held out a convention of the States as, with us, a peaceful remedy, in cases to be decided in Europe by intestine wars. Who can believe that Mr. Jefferson referred to a convention summoned at the pleasure of a single State, with an interregnum during its deliberations; and, above all, with a rule of decision subjecting nearly three fourths to one fourth? No man's creed was more opposed to such an inversion of the republican order of things."
In a letter to Mr. Townsend of South Carolina, December 18, 1831:
"You ask 'whether Mr. Jefferson was really the author of the Kentucky resolutions, of 1799;' [in which the word 'nullify' is used, though not in the sense of South Carolina nullification.] The inference that he was not is as conclusive as it is obvious, from his letter to Col. Wilson Cary Nicholas, of September 5, 1799, in which he expressly declines, for reasons stated, preparing any thing for the legislature of that year.
"That he (Mr. Jefferson) ever asserted a right in a single State to arrest the execution of an act of Congress—the arrest to be valid and permanent, unless reversed by three fourths of the States—is countenanced by nothing known to have been said or done by him. In his letter to Major Cartwright, he refers to a convention as a peaceable remedy for conflicting claims of power in our compound government; but, whether he alluded to a convention as prescribed by the constitution, or brought about by any other mode, his respect for the will of majorities, as the vital principle of republican government, makes it certain that he could not have meant a convention in which a minority of seven States was to prevail over seventeen, either in amending or expounding the constitution."
In the letter (before quoted) to Mr. Trist, December 23, 1832:
"It is remarkable how closely the nullifiers, who make the name of Mr. Jefferson the pedestal for their colossal heresy, shut their eyes and lips whenever his authority is ever so clearly and emphatically against them. You have noticed what he says in his letters to Monroe and Carrington, pages 43 and 302, vol. ii., with respect to the powers of the old Congress to coerce delinquent States, and his reasons for preferring for the purpose a naval to a military force; and, moreover, that it was not necessary to find a right to coerce in the federal articles, that being inherent in the nature of a compact."
In another letter to Mr. Trist, dated August 25, 1834: