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of the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constitute a general government for special purposes; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force, that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party; that the government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion, not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; BUT THAT, AS IN

ALL CASES OF COMPACT AMONG POWERS HAVING NO COMMON JUDGE, EACH PARTY HAS AN EQUAL RIGHT TO JUDGE FOR ITSELF, AS WELL OF INFRACTIONS AS OF THE MODE AND MEASURE OF REDRESS."* So much for the postulate.

The conclusion is in these words: Resolved, That........ where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy; that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, [casus non fæderis,] to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits; that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them; that nevertheless, this commonwealth, from motives of regard and respect for its co-States, has wished to communicate with them on the subject; that with them alone it is proper to communicate, they alone being the parties to judge in the last resort of the powers exercised under it, Congress being NOT A PARTY, BUT MERELY THE CREATURE OF THE COMPACT, AND SUBJECT AS TO ITS ASSUMPTIONS OF POWER TO THE FINAL JUDGMENT OF THOSE BY WHOM, AND FOR WHOSE USE ITSELF AND ITS POWERS WERE ALL CREATED AND MODIFIED," &c. Such is the language of Thomas Jefferson! Is it merely a modest "hint at nullification?"

Some alterations were made in the resolutions, as penned * Jefferson's Works, Vol. ix. p. 464–5.

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by Mr. Jefferson, before they were passed by the Legisla ture of Kentucky. But the first resolution above given was not altered at all; it was passed precisely as it came from the pen of Mr. Jefferson, with only one dissentient vote! In the resolutions as passed by the State of Kentucky, we find these words: "That the principle and construction contended for by sundry of the State Legislatures, that the General Government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism-since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the Constitution, would be the measure of their powers: That the several States who formed that instrument being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of the infraction; and, THAT A NULLI

FICATION BY THOSE SOVEREIGNTIES, OF ALL UNAUTHORIZED ACTS DONE UNDER COLOR OF THAT INSTRUMENT IS THE RIGHTFUL REMEDY."*

Such is the language, which Mr. Everett so very modestly calls a "hint at nullification"!

He must be a dull logician, indeed, or a partial one, who does not see, that both nullification and secession flow from the great fundamental doctrine of the Virginia and the Kentucky Resolutions. If, according to that doctrine, stated in the very words of Massachusetts, "the States, who have no common umpire, are to be their own judges, and to execute their own decisions;" then most assuredly they may pronounce in favor of either nullification or secession. Any State may, it is true, bring reproach on this right of sovereignty, by the manner in which it is exercised. I have, indeed, always doubted whether nullification was a wise, or judicious, exercise of the right of State sovereignty. It is certain, that Mr. Webster, as well as many others, has pointed out so many inconveniences, not to say absurdities, connected with the act of nullification; that the right has usually been rejec* Elliot's Debates, Vol: iv., p. 571.

ted with ecntempt. But the exercise of a right is one thing; and the existence of that night is another. A man may, in his own affairs, judge unwisely; but does that prove that he had no right to judge for himself? In like manner, it does not follow, that a sovereign State has no right to be her own judge: because she may judge unwisely. It is, then, false reasoning to conclude that a State has no right to nullify, because the act of nullification is fill of inecuveniences, or even absurdities. Yet this kind of sophistry is precisely the amount of all the logie, which has been urged against nullification. If a man, who has the right to judge for himself in his own business, makes an unwise decision; shall the right, therefore, be taken from him, and given to another? Shall his decision be declared null and void; and the decision of some other person substituted in its place? Nothing could be more unjust and despotic. Nor will any sovereign State submit to be treated in a similar manner by any unauthorized power on farth. The act of nullification has, no doubt, brought reproach on the doctrine of State-rights, and especially on the right of secession; but then this has been just because men have failed to think accurately and profoundly on the subject. They have confounded the propriety, or judiciousness of an act, with the right of the party to do the act, than which a worse solicism could hardly be perpetrated.

Nullification is, however, but indirectly connected with secession. This right flows, as we have seen, directly from the doctrine of Mr. Jefferson, that as in all other cases of compact, among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress.” To say that a State has the right to judge of infractions of the compact of the Constitution by the Federal Government, and also of the mode and measure of redress; and, at the same time, that it has no right to decide upon

secession as the proper remedy; is, it seems to me, simply a contradiction in terms. Now the question is, was Mr. Jefferson guilty of this act of glaring inconsistency, or self-contradiction?

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He "would have turned away with abhorrence," it is said, "from the consequences" which have been deduced from the doctrine of State rights. In this bold assertion, the writer had special reference to the right of secession; which his history of the United States, as it is called, was written to demolish. Hundreds have, indeed, attempted to throw the great weight of Mr. Jefferson's authority in the scale against the right of secession, by means of the following extract from his works: "If to rid ourselves of the present rule of Massachusetts and Connecticut, we break the Union, will the evil stop there? Suppose the New England States alone cut off, will our nature be changed? Are we not men still to the South of that, and with all the passions of men! Immediately, we shall see a Pennsylvania and a Virginia party arise in the residuary confederacy. What a game too will the one party have in their hands, by eternally threatening the other that unless they do so and so, they will join their Northern neighbors. If we reduce our Union to Virginia and North Carolina, immediately the conflict will be established between the representatives of these two States, and they will end by breaking into their separate units."

Now this partial extract, which has gone the rounds of the civilized world, gives an utterly false view of Mr. Jef ferson's opinion. The context to the above passage, which is sometimes permitted to accompany it, shows that Mr. Jefferson really believed in the right of secession, and only argued against the intemperate and too hasty exercise of that right. "If," says he, in the sentence immediately preceding the above extract, "on the temporary superiority of one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the Union, no federal government can exist."

How perfectly true! If, for so trifling a cause, any union of States should be dissolved, it would soon be resolved into its original units. The union would not long exist, and it would not deserve to exist, if its members were such fools as to resort to the right of secession "on the temporary success" of every party therein. But to argue, as Mr. Jefferson does, against the too hasty and intemperate exercise of the right, is to acknowledge the existence of the right itself.

In the Declaration of Independence, Mr. Jefferson said, "that long established governments should not be changed for light and transient causes." Nor, however clear the constitutional right, would he have dissolved the Union for such causes. But does he say, that he would not advocate a scission of the Union for any cause whatever? That in no event whatever, he would resort to the right of secession? There is no such doctrine in his writings; no such glaring self-contradiction in any portion of his works.

On the contrary, in consultation as to what the Kentucky Resolutions of '98 and '99 should contain, he wished the following sentiments to be incorporated therein: "Expressing in affectionate and conciliatory language our warm attachment to the Union with our sister States, and to the instrument and principles by which we are united;

THAT WE ARE WILLING TO SACRIFICE TO THIS EVERY THING BUT THE RIGHTS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT IN THOSE IMPORTANT POINTS WHICH WE HAVE NEVER YIELDED, AND IN WHICH ALONE WE SEE LIBERTY, SAFETY AND HAPPINESS."* Is it not perfectly obvious, from this passage, that Mr. Jefferson had not been so dazzled by the glories of the new Union, as to forget the immortal principles of the Declaration of Independence?

Devoted to the Union, but still adhering to the great principles of 1776, he immediately adds, that we are “not *Jefferson's Works, Vol. iv, p. 305-6.

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