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APPEAL TO SOUTH CAROLINA.

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the Atlantic or the Gulf, for their own ben-
efit? Shall there be a free port in one State
and onerous duties in another? No one be-
lieves that any right exists in a single State
to involve all the others in these and count-
less other evils, contrary to engagements sol-
emnly made. Every one must see that the
other States, in self-defense, must oppose it
at all hazards.'
""

of sovereign power. The States, then, for | grant? Will the inhabitants of the inland all these important purposes, were no longer States agree to pay the duties that may be sovereign. The allegiance of their citi-imposed without their assent by those on zens was transferred, in the first instance, to the Government of the United States; they became American citizens, and owed obedience to the Constitution of the United States, and to laws made in conformity with the powers it vested in Congress. This last position has not been, and cannot be, denied. How, then, can that State be said to be sovereign and independent, whose citizens owe obedience to laws not made by it, and whose magistrates are sworn to disregard those laws, when they come in conflict with those passed by another? What shows, conclusively, that the States cannot be said to have reserved an undivided sovereignty, is, that they expressly ceded the right to punish treason-not treason against their separate power, but treason against the United States. Treason is an offense against sovereignty, and sovereignty must reside with the power to punish it."

Mr. Jefferson Davis, in one of his earlier manifestoes from Richmond, saw fit to speak of the severance of our Union as "the dissolution of a league." General Jackson anticipated and refuted this assumption as follows:

"How is it that the most perfect of those several modes of Union should now be considered as a mere league, that may be dis

solved at pleasure? It is from an abuse of terms. Compact is used as synonymous with league, although the true term is not employed, because it would at once show the fallacy of the reasoning. It would not do to say that our Constitution was only a league, but it is labored to prove it a compact (which, in one sense, it is), and then to argue that, as a league is a compact, every compact between nations must, of course, be a league, and that, from such an engagement, every sovereign power has a right to recede. But it has been shown that, in this sense, the States are not sovereign, and that, even if they were, and the national constitutution had been formed by compact, there would be no right in any one State to exonerate itself from its obligations.

"So obvious are the reasons which forbid this secession, that it is necessary only to allude to them. The Union was formed for the benefit of all. It was produced by mutual sacrifices of interests and opinions. Can those sacrifices be recalled? Can the States who magnanimously surrendered their title to the territories of the West, recall the

Having thus frankly and vigorously set forth the fundamental principles of our political system, though at much greater length, and with a variety and fullness of illustration, General Jackson proceeds to proclaim

"That the duty imposed on me by the Constitution 'to take care that the laws be faithfully executed' shall be performed to the extent of the powers already vested in of Congress shall devise and intrust to me me by law, or of such others as the wisdom for that purpose; and to warn the citizens of South Carolina, who have been deluded they will incur by obedience to the illegal into an opposition to the laws, of the danger and disorganizing Ordinance of the Convention."

And he closes a most pathetic and eloquent appeal to the people of South Carolina in these memorable and stirring words:

"Contemplate the condition of that country of which you still form an important part!-consider its Government, uniting in one bond of common interest and general protection so many different States-giving to all their inhabitants the proud title of American citizens-protecting their commerce-securing their literature and their arts-facilitating their intercommunication

defending their frontiers-and making their names respected in the remotest parts of the earth! Consider the extent of its territory, its increasing and happy population, its advance in the arts, which render life agreeable, and the sciences which elevate the mind! See education spreading the lights of religion, humanity, and general information, into every cottage in this wide extent of our territories and States! Behold it as the asylum where the wretched and the oppressed find a refuge and support! Look on this picture of happiness and honor,

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ants of the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Rutledges, and of the thousand other names which adorn the pages of your Revolutionary history, will not abandon that Union, to support which so many of them fought, and bled, and died. I adjure you, as you honor their memory, as you love the cause of freedom to which they dedicated their lives-as you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its Convention-bid its members to reassemble and promulgate the decided expression of your will to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor-tell them that, compared to disunion, all other evils are light, because that brings with it an accumulation of all-declare that you will never take the field unless the star-spangled banner of your country shall float over you that you will not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonor

and say, WE, TOO, ARE CITIZENS OF AMERICA. Carolina is one of these proud States; her arms have defended, her best blood has And then cemented, this happy Union ! add, if you can, without horror and remorse, 'This happy Union we will dissolve -this picture of peace and prosperity we will deface-this free intercourse we will interrupt—these fertile fields we will deluge with blood-the protection of that glorious flag we renounce the very name of Americans we discard.' And for what, mistaken men! for what do you throw away these inestimable blessings-for what would you exchange your share in the advantages and honor of the Union? For the dream of a separate independence-a dream interrupted by bloody conflicts with your neighbors, and a vile dependence on foreign power! If your leaders could succeed in establishing a separation, what would be your situation? Are you united at home? Are you free from the apprehension of civil discord, with all its fearful consequences? Do our neigh-ed and scorned while you live, as the authors boring republics, every day suffering some new revolution or contending with some new insurrection, do they excite your envy? "But the dictates of a high duty oblige me solemnly to announce that you cannot succeed. The laws of the United States must be executed. I have no discretionary power on the subject-my duty is emphatically pronounced in the Constitution. Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their execution, deceived you they could not have been deceived themselves. They

know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the execution of the laws, and they know that such opposition must be repelled. Their object is disunion: be not deceived by names. Disunion, by armed force, is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences on their heads be the dishonor; but on yours may fall the punishment-on your unhappy State will inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the Government of your country. It cannot It cannot accede to the mad project of disunion, of which you would be the first victims-its first magistrate cannot, if he would, avoid the performance of his duty-the consequence must be fearful for you, distressing to your fellow-citizens here, and the friends of good government throughout the world. Its enemies have beheld our prosperity with a vexation they could not conceal-it was a standing refutation of their slavish doctrines, and they would point to our discords with the triumph of malignant joy. It is yet in your power to disappoint them. There is yet time to show that the descend

of the first attack on the Constitution of your country! Its destroyers you cannot be. You may disturb its peace-you may interrupt the course of its prosperity-you may cloud its reputation for stability-but its tranquillity will be restored, its prosperity will return, and the stain upon its national character will be transferred, and remain an eternal blot on the memory of those who caused the disorder.”

Turning from the deluded minority to the loyal and Union-loving majority of the American people, the President concludes his Proclamation as follows:

"Fellow-citizens of the United States! The threat of unhallowed disunion, the names of those (once respected) by whom it was uttered, the array of military force to support it, denote the approach of a crisis in our affairs, on which the continuance of our unexampled prosperity, our political existence, and perhaps that of all free governments, may depend. The conjuncture demanded a full, a free, and explicit annunciation, not only of my intentions, but of my principles of action; and, as the claim was asserted of a right by a State to annul the laws of the Union, and even to secede from it, at pleasure, a frank exposition of my opinions in relation to the origin and form of our Government, and the construction I give to the instrument by which it was created, seemed to be proper. Having the fullest confidence in the justness of the legal and constitutional opinion of my duties, which has been ex

GENERAL JACKSON ON THE RIGHT OF SECESSION.

pressed, I rely with equal confidence on your undivided support in my determination to execute the laws-to preserve the Union by all constitutional means-to arrest, if possible, by moderate, but firm measures, the necessity of a recourse to force. And if it be the will of Heaven that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that it be not called down by any offensive act of the United States.

“Fellow-citizens! the momentous case is before you. On your undivided support of your Government depends the decision of the great question it involves, whether your sacred Union will be preserved, and the blessing it secures to us as one people shall be perpetuated. No one can doubt that the unanimity with which that decision will be expressed will be such as to inspire new confidence in republican institutions, and that the prudence, the wisdom, and the courage which it will bring to their defense, will transmit them unimpaired and invigorated to our children.

"May the great Ruler of nations grant, that the signal blessings with which He has favored ours may not, by the madness of party, or personal ambition, be disregarded and lost and may His wise providence bring those who have produced this crisis to see the folly, before they feel the misery, of civil strife; and inspire a returning veneration for that Union, which, if we may dare to penetrate His designs, He has chosen as the only means of attaining the high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire."

General Jackson's Special Message against Nullification" is equally decided and thorough in its hostility to the Calhoun heresy, under all its aspects, and dissects the Ordinance of Nullification, and the legislative acts based thereon, with signal ability and cogency. A single extract, bearing directly upon the alleged right of Secession, will here be given :

"The right of the people of a single State to absolve themselves at will, and without the consent of the other States, from their most solemn obligations, and hazard the liberties and happiness of the millions composing this Union, cannot be acknowledged. Such authority is believed to be utterly repugnant both to the principles upon which the General Government is constituted, and

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to the objects which it was expressly formed to attain.

"Against all acts which may be alleged to transcend the constitutional power of Government, or which may be inconvenient or oppressive in their operation, the Constitution itself has prescribed the modes of redress. It is the attribute of free institutions that, under them, the empire of reason and law is substituted for the power of the sword. To no other source can appeals for supposed wrongs be made, consistently with the obligations of South Carolina; to no other can such appeals be made with safety at any time; and to their decisions, when constitutionally pronounced, it becomes the duty, no less of the public authorities than of the people, in every case to yield a patriotic submission.

"That a State, or any other great portion of the people, suffering under long and intolerable oppressions, and having tried all constitutional remedies without the hope of redress, may have a natural right, when their happiness can be no otherwise secured, and when they can do so without greater injury to others, to absolve themselves from their obligations to the Government, and appeal to the last resort, need not, on the present occasion, be denied.

"The existence of this right, however, must depend on the causes which justify its exercise. It is the ultima ratio, which presupposes that the proper appeals to all other means of redress have been made in good faith, and which can never be rightfully resorted to unless it be unavoidable. It is not the right of the State, but of the individIt is the right of mankind generally to seual, and of all the individuals in the State. cure, by all means in their power, the blessings of liberty and happiness; but when for tarily associated themselves under any partithese purposes any body of men have voluncular form of government, no portion of acknowledging the correlative right in the them can dissolve the association without remainder to decide whether that dissolution can be permitted consistently with the right dependent upon the power to enforce general happiness. In this view, it is a it. Such a right, though it may be admitted to preëxist, and cannot be wholly surrendered, is necessarily subjected to limitations in all free governments, and in compacts of all kinds, freely and voluntarily entered into, and in which the interest and welfare of the individual become identified with those of the community of which he is a member. In compacts between individuals, however deeply they may affect their relations, these principles are acknowledged to create a

20 January 16, 1833.

sacred obligation; and in compacts of civil government, involving the liberty and happiness of millions of mankind, the obligation cannot be less."

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few months which followed a most vigorous and determined struggle to

defeat his re-election.

At the South, the case was somewhat different, though in every State -South Carolina, of course, except

proved by a decided majority. The great mass of the voting population of nearly all these States had just given General Jackson their suffrages for the second or third time-they had long enough been told that he was a despot, an usurper, a tyrant, etc., without believing it; and they were little inclined to repudiate in a moment the convictions and the associations of a lifetime. In Virginia alone was there any official exhibition of sympathy with South Carolina in her self-invoked peril; and she sent a commissioner to that State rather to indicate her fraternal regard than to proffer any substantial assistance.

21

The unanimity and enthusiasm, with which the people of the Free States responded to these downright manifestations of a purpose to pre-ed-the President's course was apserve at all hazards the integrity of the Union, are still freshly remembered. Those States had just been convulsed by a Presidential contest, wherein their people were about equally divided into zealous advocates and equally zealous opponents of General Jackson's re-election. Though his triumph had been overwhelming, so far as the choice of Electors was concerned, the popular majorities, whereby those electors were chosen, were very meager in several of the States, including New York, Ohio, and New Jersey; while the majorities against him in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Kentucky, were heavy. But the States which had opposed his re-election, the citizens who had deprecated it as confirming and renewing a lease of virtually absolute power in hands too prone to stretch Authority and Prerogative to the utmost, now vied with their late antagonists in pledging devotion and support to the elected chief of the Republic in his efforts to preserve its unity and vitality. Great public meetings were held in the principal cities to give formal and influential expression to the sentiment; the Press, all but unanimously, echoed and stimulated the popular plaudits; and General Jackson was never be fore nor afterward so strong throughout the Free States, as during the

21 Benjamin Watkins Leigh.

There was some windy talk of opposing by force the passage of a Federal army southward through the Old Dominion on an errand of "subjugation;" and her Governor," in his annual Message, said something implying such a purpose. Ex-Governor Troup, of Georgia, and a few other doctrinaires of the extreme State Rights school, muttered some words of sympathy with the Nullifiers, about to be crushed under the iron heel of Federal power-some vague protest against Consolidation; but that was all. Had it become necessary to call for volunteers to assert and maintain the National authority on the soil of the perverse State, they would doubtless have offered themselves by thousands from nearly or quite

?John Floyd, father of the late John B. Floyd, Mr. Buchanan's Secretary of War.

MR. CLAY'S TARIFF COMPROMISE.

every Southern as well as Northern State.

101

the convictions of a majority of the members, which would whelm them But it did not become necessary. in one common ruin. Finally," Mr. Congress in due time took up the Clay was induced to submit his ComTariff, with a view to its revision and promise Tariff, whereby one-tenth of reduction. The Jacksonian ascend- the excess over twenty per cent. of ency was decided in every depart- each and every existing impost was ment of the Government. Andrew to be taken off at the close of that Stevenson (anti-Tariff), of Virginia, year; another tenth two years therewas Speaker of the House, Gulian C. after; so proceeding until the 31st Verplanck (anti-Tariff) was Chair- of June, 1842, when all duties should man of its Committee of Ways and be reduced to a maximum of twenty Means, whence a bill containing per cent. This Compromise Tariff, sweeping reductions and equaliza- being accepted and supported by tions of duties was, at an early an early Mr. Calhoun and the Nullifiers, was period of the session, reported; and, offered in the House, as a substitute though no conclusive action was had for Mr. Verplanck's bill, by Mr. on this measure, the mere fact of Letcher, of Kentucky (Mr. Clay's imits introduction was seized upon by mediate representative and devoted the Nullifiers as an excuse for recoil- friend), on the 25th of February; ing from the perilous position they adopted and passed at once by a had so recklessly assumed. A few vote of 119 to 85; agreed to by the days before the 1st of February, the Senate; and became a law in the Nullifying chiefs met at Charleston, last hours of the session: General and gravely resolved that, inasmuch Jackson, though he openly condemned as measures were then pending in it as an unwise and untimely concesCongress which contemplated such sion to rampant treason, not choosreductions of duties on imports as ing to take the responsibility of vetoSouth Carolina demanded, the exe- ing, nor even of pocketing it, as he cution of the Nullifying Ordinance, clearly might have done. South Carand of course of all legislative acts olina thereupon abandoned her Ordisubsidiary thereto, should be post-nance and attitude of Nullification; poned till after the adjournment of and the storm that lowered so black that body! and imminent suddenly gave place to a sunny and smiling calm.

But Mr. Verplanck's bill" made such slow progress that its passage, even at the last moment, seemed exceedingly doubtful. Mr. Webster forcibly urged that no concession should be made to South Carolina until she should have abandoned her treasonable attitude. The manufacturers beset the Capitol in crowds, remonstrating against legislation under duress, in defiance of the public interest and

23 Reported December 28th.

He

But General Jackson was deeply dissatisfied, and with reason. saw in this easy accommodation the seeds of future perils and calamities. He insisted that Calhoun was a traitor; and to the end of his days regretted that he had not promptly arrested and tried him as such. He denied that dissatisfaction with the Protective policy was the real incite

24 February 12, 1833.

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