Strictures on NullificationEverett, Alexander Hill
History
Strictures on Nullification
Everett, Alexander Hill
Nullification (States' rights)
Is it in fact to be endured, that men of talents, reputation, commanding
stations in society, shall denounce as inexpedient, unconstitutional,
intolerably oppressive, as furnishing legitimate motives for resistance,
measures, which not ten years ago they openly supported, nay, themselves
originated and pressed upon the country? That they shall claim and
insist upon, as their dearest and most essential rights, pretensions,
which not ten years ago they denounced as chimerical, unconstitutional,
anarchical, involving in practice the destruction of all government? Can
the people of the United States believe, that the persons by whom these
diametrically opposite opinions have been successively maintained with
equal warmth and zeal, have been perfectly sincere in both? Or if, in
the exercise of a perhaps excessive charity, they believe them to have
been sincere, will they consider them as persons of a sufficiently sound
and cool judgment to be followed with safety, through the dangerous
paths into which they would lead us,--over the unfathomable precipices,
to the brink of which they have already brought their deluded
retainers?--We think not.
We have left ourselves but little room for direct remark upon the
Ordinance of the Carolina Convention; and if the views which we take of
its operation and character be correct, it does not necessarily call for
any extended commentary. We copy the entire document, as a sort of
political curiosity, and shall annex a few observations.
'_An Ordinance to nullify certain Acts of the Congress of the United
States, purporting to be laws laying duties and imposts on the
Importation of Foreign Commodities._
Whereas the Congress of the United States, by various Acts,
purporting to be Acts laying duties and imposts on foreign imports,
but in reality intended for the protection of Domestic Manufactures,
and the giving of bounties to classes and individuals engaged in
particular employments, at the expense and to the injury and
oppression of other classes and individuals, by wholly exempting
from taxation certain foreign commodities, such as are not produced
or manufactured in the United States, to afford a pretext for
imposing higher and excessive duties on articles similar to those
intended to be protected, hath exceeded its just powers under the
Constitution, which confers on it no authority to afford such
protection, and hath violated the true meaning and intent of the
Constitution, which provides for equality in imposing the
burdens of taxation upon the several States and portions of the
Confederacy;--And, whereas the said Congress, exceeding its just
power to impose taxes and collect revenue for the purpose of
effecting and accomplishing the specific objects and purposes which
the Constitution of the United States authorized it to effect and
accomplish, hath raised and collected unnecessary revenues, for
objects unauthorized by the Constitution:--
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