A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, part 3: Andrew Jackson, 1st term
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 2, part 3: Andrew Jackson, 1st term
Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845; Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
This act prescribes the form of the oath, which is, to obey and execute
the ordinance and all acts passed by the legislature in pursuance
thereof, and directs the time and manner of taking it by the officers of
the State--civil, judiciary, and military.
It is believed that other acts have been passed embracing provisions for
enforcing the ordinance, but I have not yet been able to procure them.
I transmit, however, a copy of Governor Hamilton's message to the
legislature of South Carolina; of Governor Hayne's inaugural address to
the same body, as also of his proclamation, and a general order of the
governor and commander in chief, dated the 20th of December, giving
public notice that the services of volunteers will be accepted under the
act already referred to.
If these measures can not be defeated and overcome by the power
conferred by the Constitution on the Federal Government, the
Constitution must be considered as incompetent to its own defense, the
supremacy of the laws is at an end, and the rights and liberties of the
citizens can no longer receive protection from the Government of the
Union. They not only abrogate the acts of Congress commonly called the
tariff acts of 1828 and 1832, but they prostrate and sweep away at once
and without exception every act and every part of every act imposing any
amount whatever of duty on any foreign merchandise, and virtually every
existing act which has ever been passed authorizing the collection of
the revenue, including the act of 1816, and also the collection law of
1799, the constitutionality of which has never been questioned. It is
not only those duties which are charged to have been imposed for the
protection of manufactures that are thereby repealed, but all others,
though laid for the purpose of revenue merely, and upon articles in no
degree suspected of being objects of protection. The whole revenue
system of the United States in South Carolina is obstructed and
overthrown, and the Government is absolutely prohibited from collecting
any part of the public revenue within the limits of that State.
Henceforth, not only the citizens of South Carolina and of the United
States, but the subjects of foreign states may import any description or
quantity of merchandise into the ports of South Carolina without the
payment of any duty whatsoever. That State is thus relieved from the
payment of any part of the public burthens, and duties and imposts are
not only rendered not uniform throughout the United States, but a direct
and ruinous preference is given to the ports of that State over those of
all the other States of the Union, in manifest violation of the positive
provisions of the Constitution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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