concerning South Carolina nullification, that when, in 1833, she had pushed on to the very verge of open resistance, Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Webster had an encounter in the Senate over certain resolutions introduced by Mr. Calhoun for the purpose of presenting his views of the Constitution in opposition to the passage of a bill designed to enforce the collection of the revenue in South Carolina. Mr. Calhoun's doctrine was stated in his resolutions with great precision and in a beautifully logical order of premise and conclusion. Whether his premises were correctly assumed is another matter; but even one who denies them must admit the ingenuity, the clearness, and the compactness of the argumentative process by which he arrived at his conclusions. I wish my younger readers, as a purely intellectual exercise, to note the steps in this great man's reasoning, which led him to maintain the doctrines from which the right of secession was deduced nearly thirty years afterwards. They will also profit, perhaps, if they will attend to the singularly skilful admixture of truth with what the opposite doctrine regards as error, introduced into this powerful piece of logical statement; and then they should also observe the absence of certain important facts which Mr. Calhoun did not notice.

His grand premise was this: "That the people of the several states composing these United States are united in a constitu tional compact, to which the people of each state acceded as a separate sovereign community, each binding itself by its own peculiar ratification; and that the Union, of which the said compact is the bond, is a union between the states ratifying the same."

This being assumed as the truth, in respect to what took place in the formation and adoption or ratification of the Constitution, the next step in the process conducts to his conclusion, in the following manner:

"That the people of the several states thus united by the

Mr. Webster's reply to Mr. Calhoun on this occasion was a much less rhe torical speech than his reply to Hayne in 1830. I have said elsewhere that the reply to Calhoun is the best and clearest exposition of the Constitution of the United States as a fundamental law, in opposition to the doctrine of compact between sovereignties, that Mr. Webster has left us. (Life of Webster, I. 451.) The full text of Mr. Calhoun's argument is to be found in his Works, II. 197 et seq.

constitutional compact, in forming that instrument, and in creating a general government to carry into effect the objects for which they were formed, delegated to that government, for that purpose, certain definite powers, to be exercised jointly; reserving, at the same time, each state to itself, the residuary mass of powers to be exercised by its own separate government; and that whenever the general government assumes the exercise of powers not delegated by the compact, its acts are unauthorized, and of no effect; and that the same government is not made the final judge of the powers delegated to it, since that would make its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among sovereign parties, without any common judge, each has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of the infraction as of the mode and measure of redress."

Here was a doctrine, stated with great clearness of language, which conducts directly to this result: that the separate states, which have acceded as sovereigns to a compact, may secede from that compact when they think it has been broken; and if this is true, there is no good reason why they may not secede if they think there is imminent danger of its being broken. But whether the premise which regards the Constitution as a compact between sovereign states, instead of being a Constitution of government, or fundamental law, made by the people, who are the source of all law, is correct, depends upon the view that we take of certain historical facts and occurrences, and the interpretation we give to the public instruments which embodied those occurrences. When we come to analyze the public events and the public action that constituted the adoption of the Constitution, it becomes a question of intent, of understanding, of purpose, on the part of the people who participated in that great public transaction; and here the way divides into very different paths, which will lead to very opposite results, according as we choose the one or the other. Is it true that the people of the several states, in establishing the Constitution, acted and intended to act as independent sovereigns act when they enter into a mutual compact? Or, on the other hand, is it true that, by uniting in a mutual cession of certain powers of government, they made a fundamental law, which became enacted as law by reason of their all uniting in making it

the supreme law of the land? The latter is what they had the clear right and unquestionable power to do, just as they had to do the former. The question is, Which did they intend to do? According to the Websterian doctrine, among the many minor proofs that they intended to do the latter, and not the former, stand the great facts to which I have already adverted, which Mr. Calhoun omitted from his formal statement-namely, that they declared the Constitution to be the supreme law of the land; that they made in it a judicial tribunal for the express purpose of declaring its meaning; and that they provided a process for amending this fundamental law, as law, and not as an agreement, compact, bargain, or treaty between sovereigns. It was certainly true, as Mr. Calhoun said, that the powers of the general government are delegated powers - that is, they are powers which the government possessed by no original and inherent authority of its own, but which it derived from some authority competent to confer them. It is true, also, as he said, that they are definite powers, and that all other powers of government are reserved by each state for itself. It is equally true that whenever the general

1 The process of amending the Constitution seems scarcely reconcilable with the hypothesis that the Constitution is a compact between independent sovereign states. An amendment becomes part of the Constitution when ratified by three fourths of the states. It becomes the supreme law of the land to the remaining one fourth which did not ratify it, just as it does to the three fourths which have ratified it. It is, therefore, a process of making a new fundamental law, which shall bind a minority, rather than a process of making a new league or compact between sovereign parties, in which a minority of such parties cannot ordinarily be bound without their individual consent. It is true that the several states have agreed in advance to become bound by the action of three fourths of the whole number; but it is much more in accordance with principle to regard the process of amendment by a fixed majority as a method of enacting new organic law, than it is to consider it as a method of making a new treaty. Whether the process of amending the Constitution of the United States extends to the deprivation of any and all rights reserved to each state under the original Constitution and its Amendment X.-so that three fourths of the states can deprive the remaining one fourth of attributes of sovereignty unquestionably belonging to them as the Constitution originally stood-is a question that depends upon the effect of Amendment X. as a limitation upon the amending power. This question, which could not be discussed in the very limited space of this note, is alluded to here only for the purpose of saying that whether we regard the process of amendment as the enactment of a new fundamental law, or as the making of a new compact between sovereign states, the scope of the amending power is the same.

government assumes the exercise of powers not delegated to it, its acts are unauthorized and of no effect. But the process of ascertaining when and why its acts are unauthorized, and of declaring them to be of no effect, constitutes the immense difference between what I may now call the Webster and the Calhoun doctrine. If there is a process provided for this purpose by the Constitution itself as there certainly is, both in the judicial power and in the power of amending the Constitution-then all other processes for the redress of supposed usurpations are outside of the Constitution; and if they conduct to violent resistance, they are revolutionary-resting, not upon constitutional principles and modes of redress, but on the great natural right of resisting intolerable oppression.

Such is the main substance of the two theories of the Constitution, omitting the minor arguments which were adduced in support of each. And now I have to note what accompanied and followed this discussion of 1833, which attracted a vast attention throughout the country.

In November, 1832, a state convention assembled in South Carolina and adopted an ordinance declaring the revenue laws of the United States to be null and void within the limits of that state, and directing the legislature to pass such state laws as would prevent the collection of the revenue. General Jackson was President of the United States. Supported in this matter by Mr. Webster, in the Senate and in the country-a support which he and his advisers always acknowledged the president took such measures that the nullifiers were obliged to pause. The bill to enforce the collection of the revenue in South Carolina became a law on the 20th of February, 1833; but before this happened the crisis was passed, owing to General Jackson's firmness: although Mr. Calhoun fully developed in the Senate his views respecting the nature of the Constitution, and left them on the public records to encounter the opposite views maintained by Mr. Webster, and to a very considerable extent acted upon by the administration. Great credit has always been given, and very justly, to General Jackson, for the manner in which he met the crisis of nullification. But there is a less well-known incident, which took place in South Carolina, and which had a great effect in sobering and checking many of the

leading nullifiers. There was at that time in Charleston a small body of Union men, led by Mr. Pettigru and Mr. Legaré, two of the most eminent citizens of that state. These gentlemen, who had determined, if needful, to put their lives into the struggle, assembled one evening at the house of Mr. Pettigru, and there drew up and signed a round-robin, which they sent to their friends and neighbors of the nullifying party, informing them distinctly that if they took the first step in any overt resistance to the laws of the United States they would have to take that step over their dead bodies. This had an effect upon some persons who were not disposed, in their excitement, to be deterred by a president's proclamation, or by the possible and distant penalties of treason.

Nullification passed into history as a mere paper war. But the discussions which attended it left deep traces in the opinions of men. Looking back to what was occurring fifty years ago, we can perceive how there came to be a radical difference of opinion about the nature of the Union, between the Northern and the Southern sections of the country. Not only were the educated men in mature life at the period of nullification profoundly impressed by the public discussions of the theory of the Constitution, but the generation of young men who were receiving their education at the institutions of learning paid far more attention to such subjects than is now, unfortunately, given to them at most of our great public schools. In a Northern college the youth imbibed the doctrines of a school which found its grand expression in the speeches of Webster and the commentaries of Story. The influence of the intellectual atmosphere, of admiration for great performances in which we take a local pride, is irresistible. Substantially the Webster doctrine of the nature of the Constitution became the doctrine of the whole North, and of all that portion of the West that was first settled under Northern influences. But if we go to the Southern section of the country, and observe the influences that were there working in the education of the young men of that region, we shall find that the great men of the North were not their demi-gods, their examplers, their teachers.

Nearer to them, perhaps personally known to them—at all events, greatly admired and studied by them-stood the distin