American Eloquence, Volume 1: Studies In American Political History (1896)
History
American Eloquence, Volume 1: Studies In American Political History (1896)
Speeches, addresses, etc., American; United States -- History; United States -- Politics and government
Observe, sir, that this resolution holds the tariff of 1828, and every
other tariff designed to promote one branch of industry at the expense
of another, to be such a dangerous, palpable, and deliberate usurpation
of power, as calls upon the States, in their sovereign capacity, to
interfere by their own authority. This denunciation, Mr. President, you
will please to observe, includes our old tariff of 1816, as well as all
others; because that was established to promote the interest of the
manufacturers of cotton, to the manifest and admitted injury of the
Calcutta cotton trade. Observe, again, that all the qualifications are
here rehearsed and charged upon the tariff, which are necessary to bring
the case within the gentleman's proposition. The tariff is a usurpation;
it is a dangerous usurpation; it is a palpable usurpation; it is a
deliberate usurpation. It is such a usurpation, therefore, as calls upon
the States to exercise their right of interference. Here is a case,
then, within the gentleman's principles, and all his qualifications of
his principles. It is a case for action. The Constitution is plainly,
dangerously, palpably, and deliberately violated; and the States must
interpose their own authority to arrest the law. Let us suppose the
State of South Carolina to express the same opinion, by the voice of her
Legislature. That would be very imposing; but what then? It so happens
that, at the very moment, when South Carolina resolves that the tariff
laws are unconstitutional, Pennsylvania and Kentucky resolve exactly the
reverse. They hold those laws to be both highly proper and strictly
constitutional. And now, sir, how does the honorable member propose to
deal with this case? How does he relieve us from this difficulty upon
any principle of his? His construction gets us into it; how does he
propose to get us out?
In Carolina the tariff is a palpable, deliberate usurpation; Carolina,
therefore, may nullify it, and refuse to pay the duties. In Pennsylvania
it is both clearly constitutional and highly expedient; and there the
duties are to be paid. And yet we live under a government of uniform
laws, and under a constitution, too, which contains an express
provision, as it happens, that all duties shall be equal in all States.
Does not this approach absurdity?
If there be no power to settle such questions, independent of either of
the States, is not the whole Union a rope of sand? Are we not thrown
back again precisely upon the old Confederation?
It is too plain to be argued. Four-and-twenty interpreters of
constitutional law, each with a power to decide for itself, and none
with authority to bind any body else, and this constitutional law the
only bond of their union! What is such a state of things but a mere
connection during pleasure, or to use the phraseology of the times,
during feeling? And that feeling, too, not the feeling of the people,
who established the Constitution, but the feeling of the State
governments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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