Daniel Webster for Young Americans: Comprising the greatest speeches of the defender of the ConstitutionWebster, Daniel
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Daniel Webster for Young Americans: Comprising the greatest speeches of the defender of the Constitution
Webster, Daniel
Readers; Speeches, addresses, etc., American
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 this same opinion, by the voice of
her legislature. That would be very imposing; but what then? Is the
voice of one State conclusive? 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?
[Sidenote: Nullification would make uniform laws impossible.]
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 the
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?
[Sidenote: The Union, with nullification, a mere connection during
pleasure.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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