being the greatest exporting States, while more than a due proportion of the revenue had been disbursed at the North. "But while these measures were destroying the equilibrium between the two sections, the action of the government was leading to a radical change in its character. It was maintained that the government itself had the right to decide, in the last resort, as to the extent of its powers, and to resort to force to maintain the power it claimed. The doctrines of General Jackson's proclamation, subsequently asserted and maintained by Mr. Madison, the leading framer and expounder of the Constitution, were the doctrines which, if carried out, would change the character of the government from a federal republic, as it came from the hands of its framers, into a great national consolidated democracy." Mr. Calhoun also spoke of the anti-slavery agitation, which, if not arrested, would destroy the Union; and he passed a censure upon Congress for receiving abolition petitions. Had Congress in the beginning adopted the course which he had advocated, which was to refuse to take jurisdiction, by the united voice of all parties, the agitation would have been prevented. He charged the North with false professions of devotion to the Union, and with having violated the Constitution. Acts had been passed in Northern States to set aside and annul the clause of the slavery question, with the avowed purpose of abolishing slavery in the States, which was another violation of the Constitution. And during the fifteen years of this agitation, in not a single instance had the people of the North denounced these agitators. How then could their professions of devotion to the Union be sincere?