States or individuals for the same object. Nullification, on the contrary, presupposes the relation of principal and agent; the one granting a power to be executed, the other, appointed by the grantor, with authority to execute the power. Nullification is simply a declaration made by the principal, in due form, that the act of an agent transcending his authority is null and void." Referring to the rights of the federal courts to decide a question in controversy between the States and Congress, or the Executive, the letter said:

"The construction which would confer on the Supreme Court the power in question, rests on the ground that the Constitution has conferred on that tribunal the high and important right of deciding on the constitutionality of laws That the Court possesses this power, I do not deny. But I do deny, utterly, that it is conferred by the Constitution, either in the provisions above cited, or any other. It is a power derived from the necessity of the case; and so far from being possessed by the Supreme Court exclusively, or peculiarly, it not only belongs to every court of the country, high or low, civil or criminal, but to all foreign courts before which a case may be brought involving the construction of a law which may conflict with the provisions of the Constitution. The reason is plain. When there are two sets of rules prescribed in reference to the same subject, one set by a higher, the other by a lower authority, the judicial tribunal called in to decide the case must unavoidably determine, should the two conflict, which is the law: and that necessity compels it to determine that the rule prescribed by the inferior authority if, in its opinion, inconsistent with the higher, is void be the conflict between the Constitution and the statute, or between a charter and the by-laws of a corporation, or between any higher or inferior authority whatever. The principle involved and the source of authority are the same in all cases. Being derived from necessity, it is confined within its limits and cannot pass an inch beyond the narrow confines of the case before the court. The court must decide between the parties amenable to its process - excluding thereby political questions — which of the two, the act of Congress or the Constitution really is the law. And yet, from this resultant, united power, derived from necessity, and held in common with every court in the world, which, by possibility, may take cognizance of a case involving our Constitution and laws, it is attempted to confer on our Supreme Court power which would make a thorough and radical change in our system, and which, moreover, was positively refused by the Convention."

Never had a political question been so ably discussed before the people, as the question of nullification in South Carolina. Never before in the history of parties in the United

States had a party been so thoroughly organized, as the Nullifiers. On the first Monday in every month-sales day they met at the court house, in every district below the mountains. Every Nullifier wore the blue cockade; wore it to the meeting where Calhoun, Preston, McDuffie, Miller, Rhett, Warren R. Davis, Colcock, Hayne, Hamilton, Cooper, expounded profoundest theories of government; wore it to church, and to dinner. Agitation was the highest and noblest duty of the district club, and of every member. Agitation separated sons from fathers, brother from brother, parted friends, but went on. Every militia election turned on nullification, and every decree of a court of justice, high or low, was jealously watched to determine the politics of the presiding judge. Hardly a meeting met or dissolved without a hostile collision of partisans. Rich and poor were Nullifiers; and rich and poor were Union men. In the low country, where Cavalier and Huguenot descendants lived in wealth, the Nullifiers controlled; in the up country, where the ScotchIrish descendants inhabited, with comparatively few slaves, the Union sentiment was strong.

No sooner did Governor Hamilton learn that the Nullifiers had carried the election, in the fall of 1832, than he summoned the new Legislature, in extra session, to recommend the calling of a sovereign convention. The convention was called and met, shortly before the Legislature assembled in regular session in November. Mr. Calhoun prepared its "Address to the People of the United States." "The government is neither the Union nor its representative, except as an agent to execute its powers (said the document.) The States themselves, in their confederated character, represent the authority of the Union. * Correctly understood, it is not the State that interposes to arrest an unconstitutional act, but the government, that passed it, which resists the authority of the Union." Almost every prominent man in the State sat in the convention. The Governor presided. The three Judges of the Court of Appeals, William Harper, Nullifier, and David Johnson and John Belton O'Neal, Union men, were delegates. Judge Huger, of the Circuit Court, resigned his life office to become a delegate; Judge Richardson, of the same branch of the judiciary, was a delegate, but did not resign. Robert Y.

Hayne, lately a Senator, S. D. Miller, Senator, George McDuffie, Representative, Colcock, President of the Bank of South Carolina, Ex-Governor Middleton, Rhett, Perry, and many others, then famous or destined soon to reach distinction, were delegates in attendance. Monday at noon was the time at which the convention was called to meet. Excitement was so intense at the hotels that at a caucus of the Union men, held Sunday evening, it was proposed, and seriously discussed, that being in a hopeless minority, they should not take their seats. "If we take our seats," said the gallant Huger, whose valor had been, ere now, well proven, "if we take our seats, we shall hear things that will call for blood. If they talk, as I suppose they will, blood must be shed. It cannot be avoided." Perry, one of the youngest delegates, opposed the precaution advised. Governor Hamilton, upon taking the chair, delivered an elaborate but temporate address. The convention, though firm, was duly impressed with the solemnity of the occasion. The Nullifiers bore themselves with utmost respect towards the cause they had come to defend and towards their now impotent adversaries. A committee of twenty-one was appointed to take under consideration the grievance of the State and to report. This was the work of the first day. No oath was required of the delegates. There seems to have been no session Tuesday, but Wednesday the committee reported Ordinance of Nullification. The Ordinance assumed that the act of Nullification would be peaceable, but it proIvided that if the interposition of the Ordinance to arrest the oppressive and unconstitutional act of Congress should be met by an attempt, on the part of the federal government, to coerce the State into obedience, the State should, in that event, resume her sovereignty entire, and withdraw from the Union. Judge Harper had drawn it. It was adopted without debate. Huger, Richardson, Manning, and other leading Union men refused to sign it. Turnbull wrote the Address to the People of South Carolina; Hayne wrote the Exposition on the Tariff. Each document was of a very high order of ability and left an enduring influence on the public mind.

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It was now made known that General Jackson, in the contest of 1832, had defeated Mr. Clay, and was re-elected President by a larger majority than that gained over Mr.

Adams. Thus, in so far as the people had spoken, the principle of consolidation, represented by Clay and Adams, from different standpoints, was defeated ignominiously. But, the people of the United States were not yet ready to brave the most resolute of Presidents. General Jackson was highly incensed at South Carolina. Hayne resigned from the Senate to allow Calhoun to take the place. Calhoun retained his seat in the Senate while the convention at Columbia acted. He

was far from idle. Indeed his presence in his seat was important to sustain his theory, that South Carolina had not seceded, but had "interposed" her constitutional right to check an unconstitutional act of her agent. There had been,

for many years, a warm friendship between General Jackson and Calhoun. Jackson had drank to his own toast: "John C. Calhoun; an honest man is the noblest work of God." But this was of the past.

The President of the United States received, promptly, from the Governor of South Carolina a copy of the Ordinance of Nullification, and as promptly met it by a proclamation, and a special message to Congress. These federal documents are justly entitled to take rank as great determining influences in the rivalry of sectional civilizations within the Union. They promoted, inestimably, the dogma of Mr. Clay and the radicalism of Mr. John Quincy Adams. Their influence was, indeed, abnormal. No President had ever held so enormous a personal following to his support as Jackson. Coming into office at a time when new parties were being formed on 'new issues, he, as has just been said, introduced suddenly a vicious practice, hitherto unknown in the government, a systematized distribution of the honors and emoluments of office as a reward to his personal adherents. On the turn of a great principle, he had defeated Adams before the people, in 1828; on the same issue, better defined, he had beaten Clay, even more signally, in 1832, but neither Adams nor Clay had so given emphasis to the essential doctrine of centralization as this President through whom the public devotion to State Rights had been pledged in two general elections. In the spoils system of a Democratic administration were planted the ineradicable passions of revolution. The famous proclamation argued, with great

reiteration, that State sovereignty was subordinate to National sovereignty. The substance of the President's argument was, that under no circumstances could a State be allowed to interpose to check the asserted authority of the federal government. "The terms used (said the President) in the construction of the Constitution show it to be a government, in which the people of all the States collectively are represented." Yet in truth, the people "of all the States collectively" have never been represented in any one of the three branches of the government. Presidents have been inducted into office against whose election a majority of the qualified electors have appeared at the polls and cast their votes; and by reason of the fact, that the people collectively, do not determine Presidential elections, but the people of the separate States. The popular House of Congress is not chosen by the people collectively, and therefore does not represent a collective, national constituency. The proclamation proceeded: "It is a government in which all the people are represented, which operates directly upon the people individually." This was the argument of Webster in his reply to Hayne, and being now appropriated by the leader of the party opposed, as had been believed, to the party of Webster, he brought immense force to its support. There was, nevertheless, no ground for assuming that the citizens of a State, obeying its laws, could commit treason against another State or several States conjointly. Virginia and New York in their acts of ratification, had expressly reserved the right of resuming their complete sovereignty. Massachusetts declared she was entering a "compact." Rhode Island declared, when acceding to the Union, that "the powers of government may be resumed by the people whensoever necessary to their happiness." South Carolina had attached to her ordinance of ratification of the Constitution, an express provision, that federal taxation should be limited to "public exigencies." Robert Y. Hayne, who had now come into the office of Governor of South Carolina, was directed by the Legislature in session, cotemporaneously with the convention, to reply to the President's proclamation. The Governor's response was "elegant in its composition, elaborate and conclusive in its argument, exposing the sophistries of the President, just and clear in its constitutional exposition and rousing