It is in the name of liberty and to protect minorities, that nullification professes to act; while in its first ordinance it sweeps away the dearest rights of a large minority of the people of Carolina, and binds the freedom of conscience in adamantine chains. It deprives American citizens of that last and hitherto sacred refuge from oppression, a trial by an impartial jury, and requires the very judges upon the bench and jurors within the box to be sworn to condemn the unhappy man whose only crime was this: that he claimed the Government of the Union as his birthright, and acknowledged the duty of obedience to its laws. Such are the opening scenes of nullification; and, if not arrested, where or how will the drama close? In all the horrors of civil war. Turn your eyes upon the scenes of the French Revolution, and behold them about to be reacted within the limits of a sister State. Already nullification calls upon its twelve thousand bayonets; friend is rising against friend, and brother against brother, under the banner of Carolina on the one side, of the Union on the other; the inflammable materials are ready, the spark approaches, the explosion may soon take place, and the genius of liberty, rising in anguish from the bloodstained fields of Carolina, spread her pinions, and wing her way forever from a world, on one side of whose waters despotism reigns triumphant, and, upon the other, anarchy, with one foot upon the scroll of the Declaration of American Independence, and with the other upon the broken tablet of the Constitution of the Union, shall wave that sceptre, whereon shall be inscribed the motto, never to be effaced: 'Man is incapable of self-government.' Yes, this is the best, the brightest, the last experiment of self-government: universal _freedom_ or universal _bondage_ is staked on the result of the success or failure of the American Union; and as it shall be maintained and perpetuated, or broken and dissolved, the light of liberty shall beam upon the hopes of mankind, or be forever extinguished, amid the scoffs of exulting tyrants and the groans of a world in bondage. Rising, then, above all minor considerations, and lifting our souls to the contemplation of that lofty eminence on which Heaven itself has vouchsafed to place the American people, as the only guardians of the hopes and liberties of mankind, let us act as becomes the depositaries of that sacred fire which burns on the altars of the American Union, and resolve that this Union shall be preserved, all whole and inviolate, as we received it from the hands of our forefathers.