arrangement among the States, and in which they will appear by their ministers as independent powers. At such a meeting, the rule of deciding questions according to the opinion of the majority has of course no application. Although three-fourths or even all the States, except Carolina, should agree that the compact had not been violated, she would still be at liberty as a sovereign power to adhere to her own construction, and to hold herself in future exempt from the obligation imposed by the articles of union. Such, as we conceive, is the only process consistent with the theory of nullification, which the Vice-President, with submission to his better judgment, does not follow out to its proper and natural conclusion. We find accordingly that Georgia, who, although she has said but little about nullification, has, to do her justice, practised it for two or three years past with a vigor and consistency that rather put to shame the Carolina doctors of the science,--having thought proper to consult the other Southern States upon the propriety of assembling an anti-Tariff Convention,--instead of depending upon the General Government to bring the subject before them in the form provided for amending the Constitution, forthwith despatches her ambassadors to their several seats of Government to communicate her sovereign intentions, where, for aught we know to the contrary, they have been carrying on their negotiations up to this day. So much for the first reason, why the doctrine, that a principal has, in ordinary cases, an unlimited right to construe the powers, and disavow the acts of his agent,--were it even true, as we have shown that it is not,--would in no way help the Vice-President's argument. Carolina is one of a number of principals, composing a partnership concern; and if she have any doubts about the propriety of the proceedings of the common agent, her only course is to consult with her co-partners, and to acquiesce in the opinion of the majority. But there is another reason still more substantial, why the doctrine in question, even if true, would be of no service to the Vice-President:--a reason leading at once to the heart of the whole argument, of which the matters thus far touched upon are merely the 'limbs and outward flourishes;' and that is, that a Government, although it may in a certain sense be called an agency, is an agency of a peculiar kind, carrying with it rights and obligations, of which the nature and extent cannot be deduced by analogy from those which are incident to the relation of agent and principal in private life, and can only be determined by a correct analysis of the structure of society and the original principles of the human constitution.