For the power to strike out,
and the power of deciding, without appeal, upon the construction of what
is already in, are substantially and practically the same.
And, Gentlemen, what a spectacle should we have exhibited under the
actual operation of notions like these! At the very moment when our
government was quoted, praised, and commended all over the world, when
the friends of republican liberty everywhere were gazing at it with
delight, and were in perfect admiration at the harmony of its movements,
one State steps forth, and, by the power of nullification, breaks up the
whole system, and scatters the bright chain of the Union into as many
sundered links as there are separate States!
Seeing the true grounds of the Constitution thus attacked, I raised my
voice in its favor, I must confess with no preparation or previous
intention. I can hardly say that I embarked in the contest from a sense
of duty. It was an instantaneous impulse of inclination, not acting
against duty, I trust, but hardly waiting for its suggestions. I felt it
to be a contest for the integrity of the Constitution, and I was ready
to enter into it, not thinking, or caring, personally, how I might come
out.
Gentlemen, I have true pleasure in saying that I trust the crisis has in
some measure passed by. The doctrines of nullification have received a
severe and stern rebuke from public opinion. The general reprobation of
the country has been cast upon them. Recent expressions of the most
numerous branch of the national legislature are decisive and imposing.
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