sion to those laws was a state of vassalage, and that resistance to them was equal, in patriotic merit, to the opposition our fathers offered to the oppressive laws of Great Britain. You were told that this opposition might be peaceably-might be constitutionally made-that you might enjoy all the advantages of the Union, and bear none of its burdens. Eloquent appeals to your passions, to your state pride, to your native courage, to your sense of real injury, were used to prepare you for the period when the mask which concealed the hideous features of DISUNION should be taken off. It fell, and you were made to look with complacency on objects which not long since you would have regarded with horror. Look back at the arts which have brought you to this state-look forward to the consequences to which it must inevitably lead! Look back to what was first told you as an inducement to enter into this dangerous course. The great political truth was repeated to you, that you had the revolutionary right of resisting all laws that were palpably unconstitutional and intolerably oppressiveit was added that the right to nullify a law rested on the same principle, but that it was a peaceable remedy! This character which was given to it, made you receive with too much confidence the assertions that were made of the unconstitutionality of the law, and its oppressive effects. Mark, my fellow-citizens, that, by the admission of your leaders, the unconstitutionality must be palpable, or it will not justify either resistance or nullification! What is the meaning of the word palpable in the sense in which it is here used?—that which is apparent to every one, that which no man of ordinary intellect will fail to perceive. Is the unconstitutionality of these laws of that description? Let those among your leaders who once approved and advocated the principle of protective duties, answer the question; and let them choose whether they will be considered as incapable, then, of perceiving that which must have been apparent to every man of common understanding, or as imposing upon your confidence and endeavoring to mislead you now. In either case, they are unsafe guides in the perilous path they urge you to tread. Ponder well on this circumstance, and you will know how to appreciate the exaggerated language they address to you. They are not champions of liberty emulating the fame of our revolutionary fathers, nor are you an oppressed people contending, as they repeat to you, against worse than colonial vassalage.

You are free members of a flourishing and happy Union. There is no settled design to oppress you. You have indeed felt the unequal operation of laws which may have been unwisely, not unconstitutionally passed, but that inequality must necessarily be removed. At the very moment when you were madly urged on the unfortunate course you have begun, a change in public opinion had commenced. The nearly approaching payment of the public debt, and the consequent necessity of a diminution of duties, had already produced a considerable reduction, and that too on some articles of general comsumption in your state. The importance of this change was understood, and you were authoritatively told that no further alleviation of your burdens was to be expected, at the very time when the condition of the country imperiously demanded such a modification of the duties as should reduce them to a just and equitable scale. But, as if apprehensive of the effect of this change, in allaying your discontents, you were precipitated into the fearful state in which you now find yourselves.

I have urged you to look back to the means that were used to hurry you on to the position you have now assumed, and forward to the conse

quences it will produce. Something more is necessary. Contemplate the condition of that country of which you still form an important part!consider its government uniting in one bond of common interest and general protection so many different states-giving to all their inhabitants the proud title of American citizens-protecting their commerce-securing their literature and their arts-facilitating their intercommunicationdefending their frontiers-and making their names respected in the remotest parts of the earth! Consider the extent of its territory, its increasing and happy population, its advance in arts, which render life agreeable, and the sciences which elevate the mind! See education spreading the lights of religion, humanity, and general information, into every cottage in this wide extent of our territories and states! Behold it as the asylum where the wretched and the oppressed find a refuge and support! Look on this picture of happiness and honor, and say, wE, TOO, ARE CITIZENS OF AMERICA-Carolina is one of these proud states; her arms have defended-her best blood has cemented this happy Union! And then add, if you can, without horror and remorse, this happy Union we will dissolve-this picture of peace and prosperity we will defacethis free intercourse we will interrupt these fertile fields we will deluge with blood-the protection of that glorious flag we renounce the very name of Americans we discard. And for what, mistaken men! for what do you throw away these inestimable blessings-for what would you exchange your share in the advantages and honor of the Union? For the dream of a separate independence--a dream interrupted by bloody conflicts with your neighbors, and a vile dependence on foreign power. If your leaders could succeed in establishing a separation, what would be your situation? Are you united at home-are you free from the apprehension of civil discord, will all its fearful consequences? Do our neighboring republics, every day suffering some new revolution or contending with some new insurrection-do they excite your envy? But the dictates of a high duty oblige me solemnly to announce that you can not succeed. The laws of the United States must be executed. I have no discretionary power on the subject--my duty is emphatically pronounced in the constitution. Those who told you that you might peaceably prevent their execution, deceived you they could not have been deceived themselves. They know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the execution of the laws, and they know that such opposition must be repelled. Their object. is disunion but be not deceived by names: disunion, by armed force, is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences--on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours may fall the punishment-on your unhappy state will inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the government of your country. It can not accede to the mad project of disunion, of which you would be the first victims-its first magistrate can not, if he would, avoid the performance of his duty-the consequence must be fearful for you, distressing to your fellow-citizens here, and to the friends of good government throughout the world. Its enemies have beheld our prosperity with a vexation they could not conceal-it was a standing refutation of their slavish doctrines, and they will point to our discord with the triumph of malignant joy. It is yet in your power to disappoint them. There is yet time to show that the descendants of the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Rutledges, and of the thousand other names which adorn the pages of your revolutionary history, will not abandon that Union, to

support which so many of them fought and bled and died. I adjure you, as you honor their memory-as you love the cause of freedom, to which they dedicated their lives as you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your state the disorganizing edict of its conventionbid its members to reassemble and promulgate the decided expressions of your will to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor-tell them that, compared to disunion, all other evils are light, because that brings with it an accumulation of all--declare that you will never take the field unless the star-spangled banner of your country shall float over you—that you will not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and scorned while you live, as the authors of the first attack on the constitution of your country! Its destroyers you can not be. You may disturb its peace-you may interrupt the course of its prosperity -you may cloud its reputation for stability-but its tranquillity will be restored, its prosperity will return, and the stain upon its national character will be transferred and remain an eternal blot on the memory of those who caused the disorder.

Fellow-citizens of the United States! The threat of unhallowed disunion, the names of those (once respected) by whom it was uttered, the array of military force to support it, denote the approach of a crisis in our affairs, on which the continuance of our unexampled prosperity, our political existence, and perhaps that of all free governments, may depend. The conjuncture demanded a free, a full, and explicit enunciation, not only of my intentions, but of my principles of action; and as the claim was asserted of a right by a state to annul the laws of the Union, and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank exposition of my opinions, in relation to the origin and form of our government, and the construction I give to the instrument by which it was created, seemed to be proper. Having the fullest confidence in the justness of the legal and constitutional opinion of my duties which has been expressed, I rely with equal confidence on your undivided support in my determination to execute the laws-to preserve the Union by all constitutional means—to arrest, if possible, by moderate, but firm measures, the necessity of a recourse to force and if it be the will of Heaven, that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that it be not called down by any offensive act on the part of the United States.

Fellow-citizens the momentous case is before you. On your undivided support of your government depends the decision of the great question it involves, whether your sacred Union will be preserved, and the blessing it secures to us as one people shall be perpetuated. No one can doubt, that the unanimity with which that decision will be expressed will be such as to inspire new confidence in republican institutions, and that the prudence, the wisdom, and the courage, which it will bring to their defence, will transmit them unimpaired and invigorated to our children. May the great Ruler of nations grant, that the signal blessings with which he has favored ours may not, by the madness of party, or personal ambition, be disregarded and lost and may his wise providence bring those who have produced this crisis to see the folly, before they feel the misery of civil strife: and inspire a returning veneration for that Union which, if we may dare to penetrate his designs, he has chosen as the only means of attaining the high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire.

NULLIFICATION MESSAGE.

JANUARY 16, 1833.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:

In my annual message, at the commencement of your present session, I adverted to the opposition to the revenue laws in a particular quarter of the United States, which threatened, not merely to thwart their execution, but to endanger the integrity of the Union. And although I then expressed my reliance that it might be overcome by the prudence of the officers of the United States, and the patriotism of the people, I stated that, should the emergency arise rendering the execution of the existing laws impracticable from any cause whatever, prompt notice should be given to Congress, with the suggestion of such views and measures as might be necessary to meet it.

Events which have occurred in the quarter then alluded to, or which have come to my knowledge subsequently, present this emergency.

Although unknown to me at the date of the annual message, the convention which assembled at Columbia, in the state of South Carolina, passed, on the 24th of November last, an ordinance declaring certain acts of Congress therein mentioned within the limits of that state to be absolutely null and void, and making it the duty of the legislature to pass such laws as would be necessary to carry the same into effect, from and after the 1st of February next. A copy of that ordinance has been officially transmitted to me by the governor of South Carolina, and is now communicated to Congress.

The consequences to which this extraordinary defiance of the just authority of the government might too surely lead were clearly foreseen, and it was impossible for me to hesitate as to my own duty in such an emergency. The ordinance had been passed, however, without any certain knowledge of the recommendation which, from a view of the interests of the nation at large, the executive had determined to submit to Congress, and a hope was indulged that, by frankly explaining his sentiments and the nature of those duties which the crisis would devolve upon him, the authorities of South Carolina might be induced to retrace their steps. In this hope I determined to issue my proclamation of the 11th of December last, a copy of which I now lay before Congress.

I regret to inform you that these reasonable expectations have not been realized, and that the several acts of the legislature of South Carolina, which I now lay before you, and which have all and each of them finally passed, after a knowledge of the desire of the administration to modify the laws complained of, are too well calculated, both in their positive enactments and in the spirit of opposition which they obviously encourage, wholly to obstruct the collection of the revenue within the limits of that

state.

Up to this period, neither the recommendation of the executive in regard to our financial policy and impost system, nor the disposition manifested by Congress promptly to act upon that subject, nor the unequivocal expression of the public will in all parts of the Union, appears to have produced any relaxation in the measures of opposition adopted by the state of South Carolina; nor is there any reason to hope that the ordinance and laws will be abandoned.

I have no knowledge that an attempt has been made, or that it is in contemplation, to reassemble either the convention or the legislature; and it will be perceived that the interval before the first of February is too short to admit of the preliminary steps necessary for that purpose. It appears, moreover, that the state authorities are actively organizing their military resources, and providing the means, and giving the most solemn assurances of protection and support to all who shall enlist in opposition to the revenue laws.

A recent proclamation of the present governor of South Carolina, has openly defied the authority of the executive of the Union, and general orders from the headquarters of the state announced his determination to accept the services of volunteers, and his belief that should their country need their services they will be found at the post of honor and duty, ready to lay down their lives in her defence. Under these orders, the forces referred to are directed to "hold themselves in readiness to take the field at a moment's warning;" and in the city of Charleston, within a collection district and a port of entry, a rendezvous has been opened for the purpose of enlisting men for the magazine and municipal guard. Thus, South Carolina presents herself in the attitude of hostile preparation, and ready even for military violence, if need be, to enforce her laws for preventing the collection of the duties within her limits.

Proceedings thus announced and matured must be distinguished from measures of unlawful resistance by irregular bodies of people, who, acting under temporary delusion, may be restrained by reflection, and the influence of public opinion, from the commission of actual outrage. In the present instance, aggression may be regarded as committed when it is officially authorized, and the means of enforcing it fully provided.

Under these circumstances, there can be no doubt that it is the determination of the authorities of South Carolina, fully to carry into effect their ordinance and laws after the first of February. It therefore becomes my duty to bring the subject to the serious consideration of Congress, in order that such measures as they in their wisdom may deem fit, shall be seasonably provided; and that it may be thereby understood that, while the government is disposed to remove all just cause of complaint, as far as may be practicable, consistently with a proper regard to the interests of the community at large, it is nevertheless determined that the supremacy of the laws shall be maintained.

In making this communication, it appears to me to be proper, not only that I should lay before you the acts and proceedings of South Carolina, but that I should also fully acquaint you with those steps which I have already caused to be taken for the due collection of the revenue, and with my views of the subject generally, that the suggestions which the constitution requires me to make in regard to your future legislation, may be better understood.

This subject having early attracted the anxious attention of the executive. as soon as it was probable that the authorities of South Carolina seriously meditated resistance to the faithful execution of the revenue laws, it was deemed advisable that the secretary of the treasury should particularly instruct the officers of the United States in that part of the Union, as to the nature of the duties prescribed by the existing laws.

Instructions were accordingly issued on the 6th of November to the collectors in that state, pointing out their respective duties, and enjoining upon each a firm and vigilant, but discreet performance of them in the VOL. II.-6