Will
he urge the force of judicial decisions? They will answer, that he
himself does not admit the binding obligation of such decisions. Sir,
the President of the United States is of opinion, that an individual,
called on to execute a law, may himself judge of its constitutional
validity. Does nullification teach any thing more revolutionary than
that? The President is of opinion, that judicial interpretations of the
Constitution and the laws do not bind the consciences, and ought not to
bind the conduct, of men. Is nullification at all more disorganizing
than that? The President is of opinion, that every officer is bound to
support the Constitution only according to what ought to be, in his
private opinion, its construction. Has nullification, in its wildest
flight, ever reached to an extravagance like that? No, Sir, never. The
doctrine of nullification, in my judgment a most false, dangerous, and
revolutionary doctrine, is this: that _the State_, or _a State_, may
declare the extent of the obligations which its citizens are under to
the United States; in other words, that a State, by State laws and State
judicatures, may conclusively construe the Constitution for its own
citizens. But that every individual may construe it for himself is a
refinement on the theory of resistance to constitutional power, a
sublimation of the right of being disloyal to the Union, a free charter
for the elevation of private opinion above the authority of the
fundamental law of the state, such as was never presented to the public
view, and the public astonishment, even by nullification itself.
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