That they have not, in some recent instances, been | changes of political opinion which the last thirty years rightly observed in practice, is true, and "pity 'tis 'tis have witnessed, (and they have been almost without true." But as General Jackson is himself an anomaly, number,) there never has been more than an inconsideand can afford no rule for any other man, we may rea-rable party at the north who held the doctrines estabsonably hope that the feeling which led some of the lished by the republicans in 1798. From the adoption southern states to vindicate his monstrous violations of of the constitution to the present time, that entire portheir own principles, sprung from no settled conviction of the country has held the opinion that the contions, but was the mere madness of the hour-the out-stitution of the United States was adopted by the peopourings of an extravagant personal devotion. This ple of all the states, as one great political community, at least we know, that in no instance in which that pe- and not by the people of the several states, in their culiar man has laid his death-grasp upon the constitu- character of sovereign states. As a consequence of tion, has he failed to do it in the name of the people, and this doctrine, they have denied the sovereignty of the professedly in vindication of the very principles which states; denied that they held, as states, any check he was in the act of violating. The people, therefore, upon the usurpations of the federal government; have may correctly be said to have held those principles asserted for that government the exclusive right to judge "uniformly," however they may occasionally have been of the constitutionality of its own measures; thus givdeceived in regard to certain public measures which ing it, in effect, all power, whether granted by the conviolated and overthrew them. And they hold the same stitution or not. Some of their ablest men have devoprinciples still. If then the constitution of the United ted themselves to the establishment of these extraordiStates be such as is here supposed, the southern states nary doctrines by long and labored treatises. It was can scarcely be said to hold principles unfriendly to the not enough that Mr. Jay denied that the states ever Union, since all their principles tend to support that were sovereign, and that others, of scarcely less standvery constitution from which the Union derives its ing and influence, fell into the same strange historical being. And if we look to their conduct as states, or to mistake. In more recent times, two of their ablest the conduct of their people, they will be found, under jurists, Judges Story and Kent, have published learned all circumstances, true to their country, abounding in commentaries upon the constitution, to establish the proofs of steady loyalty to the constitution. If a patient same monarchical doctrines. In the Congress of the endurance of wrongs, if a long toleration of abuses United States they are constantly asserted, and so which strike at their highest interests, are proofs of popular have they become north of a certain parallel disaffection to the Union, the south are fairly amenable of latitude, that Mr. Webster, their great champion in to the charge. These are the only proofs they have the Senate, has acquired, by his efforts in sustaining ever given that the charge is true. them, the title of "Defender of the Constitution!!" We are aware that the measures adopted by South These gentlemen seem to forget that Consolidation is Carolina, on a late memorable occasion, are consider-not Union. The Union is the creature of the constitued by a certain party among us, not only as an open breach of the constitution in themselves, but as evidence of a fixed design to overthrow it. We have no purpose, at present, to enter into an examination of that question. It has not yet, for the last time, engaged public attention, nor has public opinion yet fixed the true character of those measures. Their efficacy is sufficiently proved by their results; and whether it was prudent or imprudent to adopt them on the particular occasion, is a question which does not enter into our judgment of their constitutionality. Even if we conclude, for the sake of argument, (the concession cannot be made for any other purpose) that the occasion did not warrant the application of the principles asserted, the principles themselves may not, for that reason, be the less true. That they are true is easily shown, not only by the general reasoning which belongs to the subject, but by the fact that at least six of the sovereign states of this Union have solemnly asserted them. The time is not distant when, throughout the southern states at least, this bold and manly act of South Carolina will be universally regarded as a trium-states might exist together under a monarchy in form, as phant vindication of the constitution, offering a wise lesson and a fit example to all other states which are not disposed to surrender all their rights at the feet of the federal government.

Tested by the constitution in its most approved and well settled construction, the principles of the south have been always found to vindicate and sustain it. How stand the principles of the north when brought to the same test? It is remarkable that in all the

tion. It exists according to the constitution, or else it does not exist at all. It is a great mistake to suppose that the Union can be preserved, merely by keeping the states together under the same government, whatever the powers of that government may be. This is indeed Union in a certain sense-the making of one thing by melting up many other things together. But the constitution recognizes no such political chemistry as this. If the Union may be destroyed by opposing the federalgovernment, and actually severing the states, it may be as effectually destroyed by giving to that government powers unknown to the constitution, and destroying the separate and sovereign character of the states. If ours be a Union at all, it is a federal compact: if a compact at all, it was made by parties competent to make it; and that competency implies, in this case, sovereign power, and nothing short of it. What then becomes of the Union, when the very elements of which it is composed are destroyed? He who denies that the states are sovereign, denies the validity of that compact which exists only by the exercise of that sovereignty. The

well as in substance? Would this be Union? Yes; it is the very Union for which the northern states have ever contended. Their principles tend directly towards it, and it will presently appear that their measures have already gone a great way to establish it. They seem to think, with Mr. Hugh Trevor, in the work before us, that "Union upon any terms is better than disunion under any circumstances." But in this opinion the people of the south have not yet concurred, nor will

they concur in it, until they lose that proud feeling of principles. Notwithstanding the perilous position in independence, and that ardent love of liberty and of their country, by which they have heretofore been distinguished.

which it placed the country; notwithstanding the absolute certainty that, if carried out in practice, it would produce civil war, and thus at once dissolve the Union; notwithstanding the countless evils which that event, occurring under such circumstances, must have brought in its train, the detestable measure was urged with a zeal and perseverance wholly uncalled for by the occa

The principles thus established, denying the sovereignty of the states, and subjecting them to military coercion whenever they should presume to resist the usurpations of the federal government, necessarily declared that government to be supreme and irresponsible. All that has since followed has been but the natural course of events, and therefore should not excite any surprise whatever. All experience proves that the distribution of the powers of government between the three separate and co-ordinate branches, the legislative, executive, and judiciary, affords no substantial security to the people. The independence of those departments is merely nominal. It is the natural tendency of all power to increase; and it is not in human wisdom to contrive any balance so accurate as to prevent it. The check must be extraneous of the government itself, or else it cannot be found any where. Of all the departments of government, the executive has the strongest temptation to enlarge its own powers. The other departments are composed of many persons, to

The results of these consolidation doctrines have already been realized in some of the leading measures of the present administration. In the earlier periods of our political history, attacks upon the constitution were generally made indirectly, and under plausible pretences.sion. Indeed, Mr. Webster, the great leader of the The public mind was not then prepared to see that in- triumphant party at the north, did not hesitate to place strument openly defied. The alien and sedition laws the propriety and necessity of the measure upon his did indeed violate it plainly enough, and those laws own peculiar ground. The south heard him, with ascost the administration which passed them their places. tonishment, declare that the occasion was a fit one, and The power of the people displayed itself effectually ought for that reason to be embraced, to test the powers of on that occasion, and established principles which pro- the federal government! Such an appeal could scarcely mised to secure the states and the people against any be heard with indifference by those who had been ensimilar attack upon their constitutional rights for ages deavoring, ever since the adoption of the constitution, to come. It required that generations should pass away to enlarge the powers of that government. Accordbefore the exploded doctrines of 1798 could be again ingly, the northern members of Congress, almost withopenly brought into the administration of the govern-out a dissenting voice, voted for the force bill, and their ment. In the meantime, however, those doctrines were constituents approved and sustained them. still cherished at the north, and were secretly and treacherously working their way, step by step, into power. Their progress may be easily traced, for it was not so secret as to be unobserved. At every stage they were boldly met by the south, and in every contest they triumphed. Nothing was wanting but a fit occasion to bring them again before the public, as the avowed doctrines of the government; and unhappily, that occasion was soon presented. It was reserved for the uncalculating hardihood of General Jackson to aim the first blow at the Union, through the heart of state sovereignty. The proclamation asserted every principle necessary to make ours a consolidated government, and not a federative union of independent states. It is true that this blow was struck by a southern hand; but that hand, it is notorious, was guided by northern influence. It cost the administration its ablest friends at the south, whilst at the north it was hailed with one general acclaim of approbation and praise. Instantly, and as if actuated by one irresistible impulse, those who had been the most firm in their support of the pre-whom in the aggregate their powers belong, and who canceding administration, and who boasted that the prin- not individually exert any considerable portion of them. ciples which fell with the elder Adams should rise again On the other hand, the executive is one, and the powers with the younger, rushed to the support of General of his office rest in him alone. It requires more virtue Jackson, and became his warmest and most approved than we usually find in public rulers, to distinguish befriends. In this they were perfectly consistent. In tween the personal rights and powers of such an exsupporting the proclamation they did but support their ecutive, and those which belong to his public station. own cherished principles, long openly denounced by all Every addition to the powers of his office soon comes administrations, and now again brought into power to be considered an addition to his own; and thus he is with fresh éclat and redoubled strength. The force bill under the strongest personal temptation to make them was the natural and necessary consequence of the as great as possible. Thus invited to encroach upon principles asserted in the proclamation. From the mo- the other departments, his very position enables him to ment that bill passed, the wisest and most devoted pa- do so. Even in England, where a free House of Comtriots at the south considered the constitution as virtu- mons and an independent Judiciary now exert a salually destroyed. They were willing to struggle yet a tary check upon the powers of the crown, the encroachlittle longer (and they have struggled) for the restora-ments of the king have cost the country more than one tion of the true principles of the government; but revolution. So far as our own executive is concerned, hitherto they have struggled in vain, so far as its actual we have ample evidence, in the experience of the last few administration is concerned. With as little success they years, that he possesses abundant means to subject all have invoked the aid of the northern states. The doc- the other powers of the government to his own. To trines of the proclamation are still their doctrines, and declare, therefore, that the federal government is suthe force bill still dishonors the statute book. Nay, preme, is in effect to declare that the President is the south has not forgotten that that bill was regarded supreme. Why, then, should we be surprised that as the peculiar and distinguishing triumph of northern Congress and the Judiciary are his creatures; that all

the offices of the country are held at his will and for, have afforded, in their own conduct, abundant reason his pleasure; that the entire legislation of the country to believe. When the embargo laws pressed heavily is under his control; that he has seized upon the public treasure in spite of Congress, who are directed by the constitution to keep and manage it; that he controls the legislation of the states, and appoints his own successor!!!

Many of those who rejoiced in the proclamation, and triumphed in the force bill, are now foremost to cry out against these enormities. Some of those measures affect their peculiar interests rather too closely to be patiently endured. Their complaints are without justice. They have no right to murmur at the necessary consequences of their own principles-principles which they even now will not abandon, with all these disastrous results before them. They have themselves laid the train, and they ought not to complain if they suffer in the explosion.

on their commercial interests, they denied the constitutional power of Congress to pass them. Congress were not then the rightful judges of the constitutionality of their own measures, for the north was not then in possession of the government. The tariff of 1816 was a reduction of the war duties. That tariff was supposed to operate unfavorably on the commercial interests of the north, and accordingly it was complained of as too high, and vehemently opposed. It was in vain to tell them that a debt of two hundred millions of dollars, brought upon the country by the war, rendered such a measure absolutely necessary. The "Defender of the Constitution" affected to believe, that it was, at least, very doubtful, whether that instrument did not forbid Congress to enact any tariff, beyond the current demands of the government. Where were those scruples in 1828? At that time the capital of the north had taken a direction towards manufactures. Indeed that had already become the predominant interest. From that time no northern man was heard to urge a doubt of the power of Congress to impose any rate of duties whatever. The tariff built up their manufactories, and gave them a monopoly of the southern market, both to buy and to sell. Every year they clamored for more protection, until every species of their manufactures, from a button to a piece of broad cloth, was made the subject of special legislation. In the meantime the public debt had been annually reduced, until there was no longer the least pretext for high duties in reference to that. Still the odious system was pressed upon the south, with none the less force, because every pretext of public necessity which had originally suggested it, had ceased to exist. The whole series of measures upon this subject, is a history of gross oppression on the one part, and patient suffering on the other. They afford a happy illustration of that patriotism which values the government, only as it enables the strongest or the most cunning to oppress the weak; a striking proof of that "love of the Union," which does not hesitate to bring all the institutions of the country into jeopardy, rather than surrender one farthing of extorted gain-that love of the Union, which is measured only by the advantages to be derived from the exercise of powers not properly belonging to it, can scarcely claim the respect of any sincere friend of the constitution. We freely admit that this picture appears somewhat harsh in some of its features, but the history of the

It ought not, perhaps, to surprise us, that the people of the north have, with such remarkable unanimity, adopted principles such as these. Destructive as they are of the constitution, and at war with the very being of our federal Union, those people believe that no other principles can so well advance their own peculiar interests. And if the existence of free government is nothing if the preservation of the rights of the states and of the people is nothing-if it is more important to grow rich than to be independent and free, they are right. Their principles have indeed advanced their own interests with giant strides; and precisely in the same degree they have repressed and destroyed those of the south. In all countries the measures of government necessarily exert a material influence upon private interests. Hence, when those interests are distinctly marked, it becomes an object of importance to each one to obtain the possession and control of the government. The numerical majority of the people is at the north; and of course they have the government in their own hands, whenever they establish the doctrine that ours is a government of the people of the United States, and not of the people of the several states. In that case, the majority, to whom the right to govern is conceded, is a majority of all the peoplethat is, of their representatives in Congress, where New York speaks as forty, and Delaware as one. A government thus constituted, and relieved of all the checks imposed upon it by state sovereignty, possesses all the power which is necessary for any purpose. It becomes a most convenient and effective machine in the hands of a majority holding an interest peculiar to them-country proves, that it is nowise unfaithful to the truth. selves—an interest which flourishes precisely as those of the minority are repressed. Here is reason enough for the principles of the north. The truth is, they are not so much attached to the union as to the unity of these states. The Union would be worthless to them with the check and balance left in the state governments by the constitution. They find their interests in a strong federal government. It is not the Union which they love, but the strong chain (and the stronger it is the more they love it) which binds together the states indissolubly, under the same government, or under any government, which gives to their own numerical majority free scope, in speculating on the rights and interests of the minority.

It appears to us that they whose principles strike at the very nature of our federal government, and introduce the worst abuses into the administration of it, demand too much when they claim to be considered the exclusive friends of the Union. The south makes no boast of its patriotism. It is the singular fate of that people to be suspected of disaffection to the Union, precisely in proportion as they uphold its true principles. But, in their view of the subject, the federal government is not the Union. If they be charged with disaffection to that government, as now expounded by northern politicians, and understood by almost the entire body of northern men, they not only acknowledge, but proclaim it. Believing that he alone can claim to be the friend of the That this is the true source of their principles, they | Union, who not only holds its theoretical principles,

but promptly and boldly resists every practical viola- | violations of law in the heads of departments; and has tion of them, it is not possible for them to love a go-insulted the country by appointing public defaulters vernment which saps those principles by insidious mea- and men of dissolute habits and blasted fame, to places sures, or brings them into jeopardy by open violence. of great trust and profit. He has notoriously lent him

No man who remembers the tone of public sentiment self to the fraudulent purposes of speculators in the pubin regard to the principles and practices of the govern-lic lands. And to crown the climax of abuses, he has ment, only eight years ago, could possibly realize the openly interfered in state elections; has tampered with present condition of things, if he had not seen it. To state legislatures, and employed himself, with shamethose who carry their recollections still farther back, to less indelicacy and treasonable hardihood, in prostrating the eras of Jefferson and Madison, the picture now ex- the last bulwark of public liberty, by imposing upon hibited must be still more strange and appalling. The the people a President of his choosing, as his own suchistory of the world exhibits no instance of so rapid a cessor. To effect all these things, it was absolutely declension in government from the purity of its first necessary to corrupt in an extreme degree, the great principles. Here, the spirit of corruption has, within a body of the people, or to impose upon their confidence few short years, effected changes, such as have never and credulity by practices unknown in the purer days been witnessed in other countries, except by the same of the republic. Whatever be the means by which he means, acting through many generations, or by violence has worked, the result is before the country. The will and revolution. The President of the United States, of the President, under this administration at least, is adding to great personal popularity the influence ac- the law of the land. quired by a profligate abuse of the public patronage, If it should be said that these objections apply only has asserted principles absolutely at war with free to the present incumbent of office, and not to the federal government, and has carried measures, by his own government as such, we reply, that they are founded mere will, which would have brought any limited on no temporary causes. It is not at all surprising that monarch in Europe to the block. He has effectually General Jackson has been sustained in all his measures overthrown all the co-ordinate branches of the govern- of fraud, violence and usurpation, nor that he now exment. It was not enough to assert, that every power erts an influence far beyond that of his most accomof every office connected with the executive, was in plished predecessor. The proclamation drew to him, him; that he was the chief of every bureau, and that not only the entire remains of the old and honest federal all the nominal heads were his officers, bound to do his party, but also that whole section of country which saw, will. He has also denied to the senate the power ex-in the principles of that document, an assurance of profit pressly granted in the constitution, of controlling his to themselves. Add to these an hundred thousand appointments to office. It is true, he has not ventured office holders, who depend on the will of the President to do this in terms, but he has done it in effect, by re- for bread, and thrice that number of hungry expectants, fusing to nominate any other than his own creatures, who look for their reward only in consulting and obeyeven after the senate has pronounced those same crea- ing that will; and thrice that number again, whose tures unworthy of confidence. In this way some of the personal interests are connected by a thousand ramifimost important trusts of the country have been left cations, either with the incumbents or the expectants unfilled, and some of its most important interests ne- of office; add to these the still more numerous herd glected for years together. He has assumed upon who live upon the treasury in consideration of partizan himself the faculty of exclusive legislation, by a capri-services, and we see at once the entire source of Genecious and tyrannical use of the veto power. He has ral Jackson's remarkable success. There is no mystery denied to the judiciary its legitimate function of inter-in his popularity. Any other President who shall use preting the laws, whenever that interpretation inter- the same means will be equally popular and equally fered with his own views. He has seized, by violence, successful; and unhappily there is too much danger upon the public treasure, and has asserted, in a delibe- that the example will be followed. The fault is not in rate official communication, that the custody of that the government, but in its abuses; in the introduction treasure belonged only to him, and that the representa- of principles unknown to the constitution, and of prac tives of the people in Congress could not constitutionally tices which such principles alone could tolerate. take it away! The constitution gave him the sword of This view of the federal government in its present the country, and the force bill assured him that he theory and actual practice, presents a strong appeal to would encounter but few checks in the use of it. Noth-all the people of the United States indiscriminately. ing more was necessary than this lawless grasp at the It ought, we think, to excite alarm every where; but treasury, to clothe him with absolute power. Having we dare not hope that it will awaken the people of the thus possessed himself of the public money, he has north to that impartial examination of the character wasted millions upon millions without any known pub- and tendencies of their own principles, which would Ec object, until the expenses of the government have induce them to co-operate heartily in the establishment become three fold greater than at any former period. of the constitution upon its true foundations. But the He has deposited the public moneys with political south have other and peculiar causes of complaint. favorites, and encouraged the use of them for the pur-The pertinacity with which the tariff system was adpose of gaining partisans by corrupting the people. hered to; the air of triumph with which its most exHe has issued capricious and unnecessary orders from treme measures were carried; the contumelious indifthe treasury, by which the currency of the country has ference with which the complaints of the south were been deranged, and its business disastrously hindered heard, and the long suffering of the south under it, have and embarrassed. He has countenanced the worst dis-done more to disgust those people and to alienate them orders, the most profligate corruption, and the boldest from the federal government, than all other causes

the federal executive to make war on one of their own confederated states!!

This is an elegant commentary on their principles. Those who saw a system of laws as odious as the tariff, and of doubtful constitutionality at least, ready to be enforced at the point of the sword, could not doubt the power of the government to enforce by the same means any and every other law, constitutional or not, by which their own peculiar interests might be advanced!!

combined. It appeared quite clear to them, that it was not within the legitimate province of the government, to foster the industry of one part of the country, at the expense of that of the other. It was not enough to tell them that the tariff laws were general in their operation, and that they might become manufacturers as well as the people of the north. They felt this to be a mere mockery, since from the very nature of their country and its institutions, no such change in their habits and pursuits was practicable. Neither could they be satis- But the just complaints of the south do not stop here. fied with specious arguments designed to convince them For years past, they have seen the people of the north that the system was in fact the very best for their own organizing themselves for a systematic attack upon the agricultural interests. As they alone felt the chain, most important of their institutions. It is not enough they claimed the exclusive right to say whether it galled to plunder us indirectly, through the agency of federal them or not. They believed that the tariff laws were laws; but we are now boldly told, that we have no unconstitutional; and they knew, that whether consti- | right to the property which we have inherited from our tutional or not, they were oppressive and odious to them. Conscious that the wealth and prosperity of the country depended mainly upon their industry; that the very manufactures which this system established could not exist without the products of their labor; they felt that something was due even to their honest errors of opinion, if errors they were. It is to be borne in mind, that the questions growing out of the tariff system, very soon became altogether sectional in their character. North of a certain meridian, all were tariff men; south of that meridian, all were opposed to it. The north perceived that it was growing daily richer and richer, by means of that system; while the south perceived, that although it produced almost the whole material of the national wealth, it daily grew poorer and poorer. Looking around them for the cause of this extraordinary state of things, they saw, or thought they saw it in the tariff laws. During ten whole years, they labored to prove those laws unconstitutional, unwise and impolitic. Year after year they entreated, remonstrated, and threatened, in order to obtain at least some mitigation of these intolerable evils. Then was the time | for a liberal and enlightened spirit of patriotism in the north, to display itself; then was the time for that love of the Union, which they so loudly boast, to step in and appease these dangerous dissensions. A reasonable concession to the deep and settled convictions of the south upon this subject, would have gone far to conciliate them, and might have secured the Union for ages to come, against all danger of disaffection at the south. Instead of this, however, their complaints were heard with open contumely; the advocates of their rights were derided as the "administrators de bonis non, of deceased principles." Every year witnessed some new effort to extend the odious system, or to render its provisions more and more intolerable to the south. A combination among all the manufacturing interests of the north, secured the success of every measure, for the protection of each of them, until at length the system was so infinitely extended and ramified, that the most obscure manufacturer, in the most obscure place, drew its share of the spoils of the south. At length, when the power of longer endurance was utterly worn out; when patience was exhausted and hope destroyed, one southern state was bold enough to place itself in an attitude of resistance, not by arms but by the peaceful action of its judiciary power. In-striking violation of the constitution which we shall stantly the federal sword was drawn, and the "defenders witness in the usurpations of federal power. of the constitution !" one and all, were seen harking on

fathers, or acquired by our own industry. So long as the abolitionists confined themselves to their own per sonal exertions, they afforded the south no just ground of complaint against the federal government. We looked on them indeed as our worst enemies, as the most heartless and atrocious conspirators against our peace and our lives. We considered their conduct also as the most conclusive proof of the temper of the people among whom they originated, and by whose countenance and support they have multiplied to a most formidable extent. Still, however, they were but individuals, and did but show in this as in other things, that there can be no true affinity between the Roundhead and the Cavalier. The south has long perceived that any progress which a mere private association could hope to make in overthrowing all the social institutions of an entire country, must be altogether too slow for the impatient ardor of the fanatic. Besides, there is an obvious political reason why slavery at the south should be obnoxious to northern feelings. A portion of that population is now represented in Congress. Destroy slavery, and you diminish the weight of the south, and thus increase the numerical majority which is so favorable to the views and interests of the north. The south therefore were prepared to expect, though they hoped for better things, that the power of the federal government would be invoked to carry out the designs of the abolitionists. But they were not prepared to witness, at least in so short a time, the firm lodgement which that party has acquired in Congress. It is already the settled doctrine of that body, that they have a perfect right to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. What more can they desire? The same constitution which guards the rights of property in the states, guards them also in the District of Columbia. That instrument gives Congress no authority to invade those rights any where. It is easy to perceive therefore, that this claim of power over the District of Columbia is but a pretence for the claim of the same power over the states. The fit occasion has not yet arrived, nor is the power of the federal government yet so firmly consolidated as to promise success to so bold an undertaking. But if the principles which have been so actively at work for the last twenty years, should continue much longer unrebuked, the abolition of slavery at the south, by an act of Congress, will not be the most

Every candid mind must admit that these things