A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, part 3: Andrew Jackson, 1st term

by Unknown

Upon the power of Congress, the veto of the Executive and the authority of the judiciary, which is to extend to all cases in law and equity arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, are the obvious checks, and the sound action of public opinion, with the ultimate power of amendment, are the salutary and only limitation upon the powers of the whole.

However it may be alleged that a violation of the compact by the measures of the Government can affect the obligations of the parties, it can not even be pretended that such violation can be predicated of those measures until all the constitutional remedies shall have been fully tried. If the Federal Government exercise powers not warranted by the Constitution, and immediately affecting individuals, it will scarcely be denied that the proper remedy is a recourse to the judiciary. Such undoubtedly is the remedy for those who deem the acts of Congress laying duties and imposts, and providing for their collection, to be unconstitutional. The whole operation of such laws is upon the individuals importing the merchandise. A State is absolutely prohibited from laying imposts or duties on imports or exports without the consent of Congress, and can not become a party under these laws without importing in her own name or wrongfully interposing her authority against them. By thus interposing, however, she can not rightfully obstruct the operation of the laws upon individuals. For their disobedience to or violation of the laws the ordinary remedies through the judicial tribunals would remain. And in a case where an individual should be prosecuted for any offense against the laws, he could not set up in justification of his act a law of the State, which, being unconstitutional, would therefore be regarded as null and void. The law of a State can not authorize the commission of a crime against the United States or any other act which, according to the supreme law of the Union, would be otherwise unlawful; and it is equally clear that if there be any case in which a State, as such, is affected by the law beyond the scope of judicial power, the remedy consists in appeals to the people, either to effect a change in the representation or to procure relief by an amendment of the Constitution. But the measures of the Government are to be recognized as valid, and consequently supreme, until these remedies shall have been effectually tried, and any attempt to subvert those measures or to render the laws subordinate to State authority, and afterwards to resort to constitutional redress, is worse than evasive. It would not be a proper resistance to "a government of unlimited powers," as has been sometimes pretended, but unlawful opposition to the very limitations on which the harmonious action of the Government and all its parts absolutely depends. South Carolina has appealed to none of these remedies, but in effect has defied them all. While threatening to separate from the Union if any attempt be made to enforce the revenue laws otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, she has not only not appealed in her own name to those tribunals which the Constitution has provided for all cases in law or equity arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, but has endeavored to frustrate their proper action on her citizens by drawing the cognizance of cases under the revenue laws to her own tribunals, specially prepared and fitted for the purpose of enforcing the acts passed by the State to obstruct those laws, and both the judges and jurors of which will be bound by the import of oaths previously taken to treat the Constitution and laws of the United States in this respect as a nullity. Nor has the State made the proper appeal to public opinion and to the remedy of amendment; for without waiting to learn whether the other States will consent to a convention, or if they do will construe or amend the Constitution to suit her views, she has of her own authority altered the import of that instrument and given immediate effect to the change. In fine, she has set her own will and authority above the laws, has made herself arbiter in her own cause, and has passed at once over all intermediate steps to measures of avowed resistance, which, unless they be submitted to, can be enforced only by the sword.

In deciding upon the course which a high sense of duty to all the people of the United States imposes upon the authorities of the Union in this emergency, it can not be overlooked that there is no sufficient cause for the acts of South Carolina, or for her thus placing in jeopardy the happiness of so many millions of people. Misrule and oppression, to warrant the disruption of the free institutions of the Union of these States, should be great and lasting, defying all other remedy. For causes of minor character the Government could not submit to such a catastrophe without a violation of its most sacred obligations to the other States of the Union who have submitted their destiny to its hands.

There is in the present instance no such cause, either in the degree of misrule or oppression complained of or in the hopelessness of redress by constitutional means. The long sanction they have received from the proper authorities and from the people, not less than the unexampled growth and increasing prosperity of so many millions of freemen, attest that no such oppression as would justify, or even palliate, such a resort can be justly imputed either to the present policy or past measures of the Federal Government.

The same mode of collecting duties, and for the same general objects, which began with the foundation of the Government, and which has conducted the country through its subsequent steps to its present enviable condition of happiness and renown, has not been changed. Taxation and representation, the great principle of the American Revolution, have continually gone hand in hand, and at all times and in every instance no tax of any kind has been imposed without their participation, and, in some instances which have been complained of, with the express assent of a part of the representatives of South Carolina in the councils of the Government. Up to the present period no revenue has been raised beyond the necessary wants of the country and the authorized expenditures of the Government; and as soon as the burthen of the public debt is removed those charged with the administration have promptly recommended a corresponding reduction of revenue.

That this system thus pursued has resulted in no such oppression upon South Carolina needs no other proof than the solemn and official declaration of the late chief magistrate of that State in his address to the legislature. In that he says that—

The occurrences of the past year, in connection with our domestic concerns, are to be reviewed with a sentiment of fervent gratitude to the Great Disposer of Human Events; that tributes of grateful acknowledgment are due for the various and multiplied blessings He has been pleased to bestow on our people; that abundant harvests in every quarter of the State have crowned the exertions of agricultural labor; that health almost beyond former precedent has blessed our homes, and that there is not less reason for thankfulness in surveying our social condition.

It would indeed be difficult to imagine oppression where in the social condition of a people there was equal cause of thankfulness as for abundant harvests and varied and multiplied blessings with which a kind Providence had favored them.

Independently of these considerations, it will not escape observation that South Carolina still claims to be a component part of the Union, to participate in the national councils and to share in the public benefits without contributing to the public burdens, thus asserting the dangerous anomaly of continuing in an association without acknowledging any other obligation to its laws than what depends upon her own will.

In this posture of affairs the duty of the Government seems to be plain. It inculcates a recognition of that State as a member of the Union and subject to its authority, a vindication of the just power of the Constitution, the preservation of the integrity of the Union, and the execution of the laws by all constitutional means.