And this being the case, it is apparent that, even if the acts which the nullifiers propose to perform were justifiable, it would be on principles other than those which they profess; that their theory would still be erroneous, and their language incongruous and absurd. In certain extreme cases, the citizen is justified in resisting the execution of the law; but even then he has neither the right nor the power to _annul_ or _repeal_ it. This is an operation, which from its nature can only be performed by the same authority which enacted the law, viz: the Government of the country. The supposition made by the nullifiers, that in certain cases a citizen or a certain number of citizens have a right to annul or repeal the law of the land, is not merely an error, but a manifest absurdity, involving a contradiction in terms. In the cases which justify resistance, the principle upon which the citizen proceeds, is not that he has a legal or constitutional right to annul or repeal the offensive law,--which is the doctrine of the nullifiers,--but that he has a right, which he admits to be illegal and unconstitutional, but which he claims as a natural one, to make a violent opposition to its execution. Such is the second 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. The General Government, if it be an agency, is an agency of a peculiar kind, which, from its nature, is not revocable at the discretion of the parties that constituted it, which construes its own powers, and which has a right to enforce its construction of them against that of its principals, excepting in those extreme cases that authorize rebellion.