"Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections—let me indulge in refreshing remembrance of the past—let me remind you that in early times, no states cherished greater harmony, both of principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and South Carolina. Would to God that harmony might again return! Shoulder to shoulder they went through the revolution—hand in hand they stood round the administration of Washington, and felt his own great arm lean on them for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist, alienation and distrust, are the growth, unnatural to such soils, of false principles since sown. They are weeds, the seeds of which that same great arm never scattered.
"Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts—she needs none. There she is—behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history: the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill—and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every state, from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie forever. And, Sir, where American liberty raised its first voice; and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it—if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it—if folly and madness—if uneasiness, under salutary and necessary restraint—shall succeed to separate it from that union, by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked: it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigour it may still retain, over the friends who gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory, and on the very spot of its origin." pages 406, 407.
The next day, Mr. Webster went into a grave and formal examination of the doctrines of nullification, or the right of the state legislatures to interfere, whenever, in their judgment, the general government transcends its constitutional limits, and to arrest the operation of its laws. Four days had hardly elapsed, since this doctrine had been announced with an air of assured success in the Senate; and these four days had been filled with active debate and contest. Of course, here again, there had been neither time nor opportunity for especial preparation. Happily, too, there was no need of it. The fund, on which the demand was so triumphantly made, was equal to the draft, great and unexpected as it was. Mr. Webster's mind is full of constitutional law and legislation. On all such subjects, he needs no forecast, no preparation, no brief;—and, on this occasion, he had none. He but uttered opinions and arguments, which had grown mature with his years and his judgment, and which were as familiar to him as household words. We have, therefore, no elaborate, documentary discussion,—no citation of books or authorities. It is with principles, great constitutional principles, he deals; and it is in plain, direct arguments, which all can understand, that he defends them. There is nothing technical, nothing abstruse, nothing indirect, either in the subject or its explanation. On the contrary, all is straight forward—obvious—to the purpose. For instance, after stating the question at issue to be, "whose prerogative is it, to decide on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the laws?" he goes on:—
"This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government, and the source of its power. Whose agent is it? Is it the creature of the state legislatures, or the creature of the people? If the government of the United States be the agent of the state governments, then they may control it, provided they can agree in the manner of controlling it; if it be the agent of the people, then the people alone can control it, restrain it, modify, or reform it. It is observable enough, that the doctrine for which the honourable gentleman contends, leads him to the necessity of maintaining, not only that this general government is the creature of the states, but that it is the creature of each of the states severally; so that each may assert the power, for itself, of determining whether it acts within the limits of its authority. It is the servant of four and twenty masters, of different wills and different purposes, and yet bound to obey all. This absurdity (for it seems no less) arises from a misconception as to the origin of this government and its true character. It is, Sir, the people's constitution, the people's government,—made for the people,—made by the people,—and answerable to the people. The people of the United States have declared that this constitution shall be the supreme law. We must either admit the proposition, or dispute their authority. The states are, unquestionably, sovereign, so far as their sovereignty is not affected by this supreme law. But the state legislatures, as political bodies, however sovereign, are yet not sovereign over the people. So far as the people have given power to the general government, so far the grant is unquestionably good, and the government holds of the people, and not of the state governments. We are all agents of the same supreme power, the people.—The general government and the state governments derive their authority from the same source. Neither can, in relation to the other, be called primary, though one is definite and restricted, and the other general and residuary. The national government possesses those powers which it can be shown the people have conferred on it, and no more. All the rest belongs to the state governments, or to the people themselves. So far as the people have restrained state sovereignty, by the expression of their will, in the constitution of the United States, so far, it must be admitted, state sovereignty is effectually controlled. I do not contend that it is, or ought to be controlled farther. The sentiment to which I have referred, propounds that state sovereignty is only to be controlled by its own "feeling of justice;" that is to say, it is not to be controlled at all; for one who is to follow his own feelings is under no legal control.—Now, however men may think this ought to be, the fact is, that the people of the United States have chosen to impose control on state sovereignties. There are those, doubtless, who wish they had been left without restraint; but the constitution has ordered the matter differently. To make war, for instance, is an exercise of sovereignty; but the constitution declares that no state shall make war. To coin money is another exercise of sovereign power; but no state is at liberty to coin money. Again, the constitution says that no sovereign state shall be so sovereign as to make a treaty. These prohibitions, it must be confessed, are a control on the state sovereignty of South Carolina, as well as of the other states, which does not arise "from her own feelings of honourable justice." Such an opinion, therefore, is in defiance of the plainest provisions of the constitution." pages 410, 411.
Again, what can be more sure and convincing than such plain reasoning as this:—
"I maintain, that, between submission to the decision of the constituted tribunals, and revolution, or disunion, there is no middle ground—there is no ambiguous condition, half allegiance, and half rebellion. And, Sir, how futile, how very futile it is, to admit the right of state interference, and then attempt to save it from the character of unlawful resistance, by adding terms of qualification to the causes, and occasions, leaving all these qualifications, like the case itself, in the discretion of the state governments. It must be a clear case, it is said, a deliberate case; a palpable case; a dangerous case. But then the state is still left at liberty to decide for herself, what is clear, what is deliberate, what is palpable, what is dangerous. Do adjectives and epithets avail any thing? Sir, the human mind is so constituted, that the merits of both sides of a controversy appear very clear, and very palpable, to those who respectively espouse them; and both sides usually grow clearer as the controversy advances. South Carolina sees unconstitutionality in the tariff; she sees oppression there, also; and she sees danger. Pennsylvania, with a vision not less sharp, looks at the same tariff, and sees no such thing in it—she sees it all constitutional, all useful, all safe. The faith of South Carolina is strengthened by opposition, and she now not only sees, but resolves, that the tariff is palpably unconstitutional, oppressive, and dangerous: but Pennsylvania, not to be behind her neighbours, and equally willing to strengthen her own faith by a confident asseveration, resolves, also, and gives to every warm affirmative of South Carolina, a plain, downright, Pennsylvania negative. South Carolina, to show the strength and unity of her opinion, brings her assembly to a unanimity, within seven voices; Pennsylvania, not to be outdone in this respect more than others, reduces her dissentient fraction to a single vote. Now, Sir, again, I ask the gentleman, what is to be done? Are these states both right? Is he bound to consider them both right? If not, which is in the wrong?—or rather, which has the best right to decide? And if he, and if I, are not to know what the constitution means, and what it is, till those two state legislatures, and the twenty-two others, shall agree in its construction, what have we sworn to, when we have sworn to maintain it? I was forcibly struck, Sir, with one reflection, as the gentleman went on in his speech. He quoted Mr. Madison's resolutions, to prove that a state may interfere, in a case of deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a power not granted. The honourable member supposes the tariff law to be such an exercise of power; and that, consequently, a case has arisen in which the state may, if it see fit, interfere by its own law. Now, it so happens, nevertheless, that Mr. Madison deems this same tariff law quite constitutional. Instead of a clear and palpable violation, it is, in his judgment, no violation at all. So that, while they use his authority for a hypothetical case, they reject it in the very case before them. All this, Sir, shows the inherent—futility—I had almost used a stronger word—of conceding this power of interference to the states, and then attempting to secure it from abuse by imposing qualifications, of which the states themselves are to judge. One of two things is true; either the laws of the Union are beyond the discretion, and beyond the control of the states; or else we have no constitution of general government, and are thrust back again to the days of the confederacy." pp. 416, 417.
This is a striking fact about Mr. Madison; but one still more striking occurred after the publication of the speech. His great name and authority had been constantly and confidently appealed to, not only in this debate, by General Hayne, but, on previous occasions, by other favourers of the South Carolina doctrines, until at last it began to be almost feared, that Mr. Madison sustained the positions of the nullifiers. But as he had already shown that the tariff law was quite constitutional, so, now, with no less promptness and power, he came out against the whole doctrine of nullification, and showed that his resolutions of 1798, on which its friends had rested the wild fabric of their argument, as its main pillars, had nothing to do with it; and thus, in conjunction with what had been done in the Senate, brought down the whole temple they had built with such pains and cost, upon the heads of their uncircumcised presumption and extravagance. His letter, indeed, on this subject, is one of the most characteristic efforts of his great wisdom, and one of the most important results of this discussion, since it took from the advocates of nullification all the support of his authority—the magni nominis umbra—the shade and shelter of his great name.
But to return to Mr. Webster; the general tone of the last half of his speech is uncommonly grave and imposing; but there is one passage in which a lighter accent is assumed. It is that in which he runs out General Hayne's nullifying doctrine into practice, and sets him, as a military man, to execute his own nullifying law. The argument of this passage is the more efficacious, because it is concealed under so much wit and good-humour.
"And now, Mr. President, let me run the honourable gentleman's doctrine a little into its practical application. Let us look at his probable modus operandi. If a thing can be done, an ingenious man can tell how it is to be done. Now, I wish to be informed, how this state interference is to be put in practice. We will take the existing case of the tariff law. South Carolina is said to have made up her opinion upon it. If we do not repeal it, (as we probably shall not,) she will then apply to the case the remedy of her doctrine. She will, we must suppose, pass a law of her legislature, declaring the several acts of Congress, usually called the Tariff Laws, null and void, so far as they respect South Carolina, or the citizens thereof. So far, all is a paper transaction, and easy enough. But the collector at Charleston, is collecting the duties imposed by these tariff laws—he, therefore, must be stopped. The collector will seize the goods if the tariff duties are not paid. The state authorities will undertake their rescue; the marshal, with his posse, will come to the collector's aid, and here the contest begins. The militia of the state will be called out to sustain the nullifying act. They will march, Sir, under a very gallant leader: for I believe the honourable member himself commands the militia of that part of the state. He will raise the Nullifying Act on his standard, and spread it out as his banner. It will have a preamble, bearing that the tariff laws are palpable, deliberate, and dangerous violations of the Constitution! He will proceed, with his banner flying, to the custom-house in Charleston;
'All the while, Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds.'