Nor have the people been slow to exert their powers to reform abuses which they honestly, whether erroneously or not, believed to exist, by displacing representatives whom they considered unfaithful, whenever the occasion has seemed to them of sufficient magnitude to call for its exercise. The commencement of the nineteenth century was made forever memorable in our political annals by a display of this power, and it was again exerted in 1828, in 1840, in 1844, and in 1852. The result of the election of 1848 was altogether occasioned by divisions in the Democratic party, and I feel that I venture nothing in attributing that of 1840 mainly to a mistake in the public mind, which it has since magnanimously acknowledged, and with that atonement I am more than satisfied. But if the incumbents of the legislative and executive departments have no right to decide for themselves constitutional questions that arise in the performance of their official functions; if it be indeed true that the National Legislature, in discharging the important duties of laying and collecting taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; in borrowing money on the credit of the United States; in regulating commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes; in establishing uniform rules of naturalization and on the subject of bankruptcies; in coining money and regulating the value thereof, and of foreign coins, and fixing the standard of weights and measures; in providing punishment for counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States; in establishing post-offices and post-roads; in promoting science and useful arts; in constituting tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court; in defining and punishing piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and offences against the law of nations; in declaring war; granting letters of marque and reprisal, and making rules concerning captures on land and water; in raising and supporting armies; in providing and maintaining a navy; in making rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces; in providing for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrection and repel invasion; in providing for organizing armies and disciplining the militia, and for governing such parts of them as may be employed in the service of the United States; in the exercise of exclusive jurisdiction in all cases whatsoever in the ten-mile-square and in the forts of the United States; and in making necessary and proper laws for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in _any department_ or officer thereof: and that the President, in assuming command of the army or navy of the United States and of the militia of the several States, when called into their service; in making treaties by and with the advice of the Senate; and in