EDITOR'S REMARKS. withdrawn. Of promises and prophecies the manufacturer will furnish & plentiful supply; but no manufacture ever succeeded by means of a Tariff, that might not have succeeded without it. Nor have we a right to compel the present generation to pay for the expectations, as yet unrealized, of a distant posterity. We impose a tax in support of our own credulity. Hence it is manifest, that exactly in proportion as we throw obstacles in the way of introducing foreign commodities, we destroy commerce. In the same proportion exactly, we discourage and repress the production of all those commodities, the produce of domestic industry, which furnish the materials of Export; for if we discourage and repress Importation, we need not export what foreigners cannot pay for. Commerce is the mutual interchange of commodities: labour for labour; and if we refuse to buy from the foreigner, the foreigner will refuse to buy from us. The American system is acknowledged and avowed by its advocates, to embrace every possible production that can be raised or manufactured at home. Hence it contemplates the gradual exclusion of every imported commodity, and the total annihilation of all commerce; destroying at one fell sweep, the whole domestic industry of export, every vessel employed in exportation, every sailor hired to navigate our mercantile navy, and every trade, and every workman, to whom that navy gives employment. And this is called protecting domestic industry! The infatuation of the merchants on this question, (Boston excepted,) has excited the utmost astonishment; for they have tamely witnessed the progress of a plan that contemplates their utter destruction. But the determination to make the South the colonist and tributary of the North, has been pursued with an insane perseverance, that is not even yet extinct. And if it has not yet fully succeeded, to the bold and strenuous opposition of South Carolina alone, must that want of success be imputed. The nullification of the Force-Bill, has placed that state on a proud pre-eminence. Many other considerations and arguments bearing against the policy of a protecting Tariff, will be found in the series of records which this brief essay is intended to introduce and illustrate. The editor is of opinion, that if they are carefully perused, the reader will come to the same conclusion, that Joel Barlow first suggested, which Dr. Channing has lately avowed, and the European Economists now advocate, that all mysterious and concealed taxation is a disgrace to the Government that employs it, and to the nation that permits it. That every Tariff is essentially founded on deception, and every custom house a proof of ignorance in the people, and their willingness to be duped and cheated. Nor can Liberty be expected to flourish in that community, which encourages the government in exclaiming Si populus vult decipi decipiatur. If commerce with a part of the world is desirable, commerce with the whole world is more so. Raise your taxes within yourselves, and the cheapness of every article your merchants can supply, will remunerate you ten times over. What right have you to expect honesty in your public servants in other particulars, when you encourage them in the dishonesty of Tariff taxation? Commerce flourishes by extending the blessings of mutual intercourse-not by contriving how we shall most effectually defalcate our neighbour's gains. The abolition of all duties on import, is an event, in the opinion of the Editor, fervently and devoutly to be wished an opinion which he is well persuaded is the prevailing sentiment at this moment, of every political economist throughout Great Britain, where that science is more profoundly, more extensively, and more successfully cultivated than elsewhere. We are beginning to see the advantage in our own country of moving in the same useful and honourable course of investigation. There are certain phrases used in these documents, then, and now, well understood, whose meaning time may render ambiguous. Consolidation. The merging and absorbing the separate State Governments into one great, central, indivisible, national Government; as emanating from the whole people: in contradistinction to our present federal government of United STATES. This seems to have been the aim of many politicians among us, about the time of the Convention in 1787. They were defeated in the Convention by their opponents of the states or federal party. The friends of consolidation were nationalists. After the publication of the work called the "Federalist," the joint production of Messrs. Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, the national party assumed the name of Federalists; by which they were afterwards designated in party warfare, until the accession of General Jackson; since that time, names and parties have been strangely intermingled, modified, and confused. The object of the modern Federal (or national) party, was a single government, with full power of controul over the separate states, and the people, with great revenues, extensive patronage, and an imposing character of power and resources in the eyes of Europe. To effect this, the central government at Washington must be considered as the national government, paramount, predominant, and uncontroulable; the states must be sunk into municipalities, and the constitution of 1787 explained away by construction and implication, or boldly set at nought by open usurpation. All these means and measures have been resorted to; and in fact, they form the subjects of remonstrance and complaint in the documents that follow. Many good and able men have arranged themselves on each side of this great party distinction. But a Carolinian must stand by the doctrines and decisions of his own State, as the legislatures and conventions have deliberately propounded them. STATES-RIGHTS: not state rights, which are the rights appertaining to a particular State. States-Rights, are-1. The rights of Sovereignty and Independence; see "Federalist" Nos. 28, 31-the rights appertaining to the confederated States of the American Union, as sovereign and independent communities, and which have never been conceded by those States to Congress. Congress, under the constitution of 1787, and its amendments, can exercise no rights or powers, but such as are expressly enumerated and delegated, or that necessarily and unavoidably flow from those that are. Every other right and power is reserved by, and remains vested in the States; to be delegated or not, hereafter, as the states may see fit. The attempt of the now-called federal party, from the time of Alexander Hamilton, to the present day; an attempt that began in the Convention, and is now the prevailing aim of the controuling majority, was to establish a great central Government, in which the separate States should be merged as subordinate municipalities. A Government, not consisting of confederated, independent, and Sovereign States, but of an indivisible consolidated character, to which the several states owe allegiance and submission. Hence the denial of the right of Secession, and the attempt to coerce by force, our own State of South Carolina. The powers actually conferred on Congress are to be found enumerated in, and delegated by, the constitution: the reserved rights of the States are not to be sought for in that instrument, because they are reserved out of it. See the 11th and 12th amendments to the constitution. NULLIFICATION. To nullify: to annul: to make void. The Kentucky resolutions, (on the Alien and Sedition Laws,) of Thurs- EDITOR'S REMARKS. EDITOR'S REMARKS. day, November 14, 1799, now known to have been drawn up by Thomas Jefferson, as appears by the letter of Warren Davis, Esq. Richmond, March 8th, 1832, in the Richmond Enquirer of March 18, republished in a collection of documents, by Jonathan Elliot, of Washington-contains the following passage, viz: That if those who administer the General Government, be permitted to transgress the limits fixed by that compact, (the Constitution) by a total disregard to the special delegations of power therein contained, an annihilation of the State governments, and a creation upon their ruins, of a general consolidated government, will be the inevitable consequence. 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, stops 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 NULLIFICATION by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done under colour of that instrument, is the rightful remedy. This is in full conformity to the doctrine laid down in the Federalist, Nos. 28, 78: to the third resolution of the Virginia Legislature, on the Alien and Sedition Laws, drawn up by Mr. Madison, January 21, 1798; to the opinions of Chief Justice Parsons, of Massachusetts, Gov. McKean, and Chief Justice Tighlman, in the case of Olmstead ; and to the decisive assemblage of precedents and opinions, collected in the genuine book of Nullification, by Hampden: (Mr. Cruger) Charleston, 1831. That book shews beyond all contradiction, that the remedy of nullification against the usurpations of Congress, has been adopted and practiced, openly, avowedly, decidedly, undeniably, by Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama, as well as by South Carolina. So that it is very difficult to account for the present outcry against that doctrine from any motives of fact, argument, or honest intention. That it should be regarded as rank heresy, by an encroaching Congress, and a despotic administration, is natural and desirable. I refer to that book of Mr. Cruger, as absolutely unanswerable. Nullification is a term well known in English Jurisprudence; it is a subject that occupies a great part of a volume, in Bentham's treatise on Judicial evidence; nor indeed, could better authority be produced in its favour, than Mr. Jefferson's own. A nullifier is of opinion, that any and every law passed by competent authority, whether it be wise or unwise, ought to be obeyed. That any and every law passed by incompetent authority, be it wise or unwise, is null and void; and ought not to be obeyed. It is every man's duty not to encourage and connive at, but resist usurpation. The legislative, executive, and judicial departments of our federal government, constitute a corporation. They are agencies, appointed to put in execution the form of government, devised by the convention, and delineated in the constitution. The powers, authorities, and jurisdictions they are entitled to execute, are such as the constitution confers on them, and no other. By that instrument, they were created; by that instrument, they are limited; and beyond it they are not known. The universal law of all Mandates, Commissions, Powers, and Authorities, given or committed by a Principal to an Agent, is, that all acts done by the Agent, conformably to the powers entrusted to him in REMARKS. his commission, are valid and binding on his Principal: all acts done by EDITOR'S the Agent not authorized by the commission under which he acts, are null and void. Thus, by the civil law as laid down in Justinian's Institutes, an elementary work, Lib. 3, tit. 27, sect. 8, De executione Mandati, "He who executes a commission must not exceed the bounds "thereof. Thus, if a person should commission you to purchase lands, or become security for Titius, to the amount of a hundred pieces of "gold, you may not become bound for a greater sum, or purchase the "lands at a higher price." To like purpose the Civil Law in Dig. 17, 1, 5, 2. So in the English and our own law, "an agent constituted with limited and circumscribed powers, cannot bind the principal by any act in which he exceeds his authority." See Livermore on Agency, v. i, p. 108, 3 Term Rep. 757. 1 Espin. Rep. 111, 5 Term Rep. 567. Nor does the Law allow of Implication or Construction, 5 Johnson's N. Y. Rep. 58. "By the court: the plaintiff was "not to know or infer any authority beyond what was given: and if the "agent exceed that authority, his principals are not bound. A power to "sell, does not of itself convey a power to warrant the title." The principle of decision is the same, whether the object be great or small, of more or less moment or value. The rights and powers delega ted to the Congress of the United States, are rights and powers not deduced from construction or implication, but enumerated rights. Such is the expression in the 11th amendment. The 12th amendment declares that these rights and powers are delegated; and that such as are not enumerated and delegated, still belong to the states, or the people, and are reserved, not surrendered. The delegation of rights and powers to act in some certain manner, for some certain purpose, constitutes an Agency (Mandatum.) The Delegator is the principal (Mandator :) the person to whom the delegation is made, is the Mandatory. There exists no other description or definition of Principal and Agent. By the universal Law of Principal and Agent, every act of Congress which is not clearly authorized by the Constitution, which alone points out and contains the enumerated and delegated powers, is of itself an ipso facto, null and void; not binding on the prin cipals or any of them. If there be any such thing as legal principal in force any where, this position is universal and undeniable. Who are the Principals? The States who created the Convention; who created each and every department of the federal government, describing and limiting their duties and powers, and who may disorganize and destroy, or alter and modify the federal government by any new Convention. To nullify, then, is a mere declaration of a legal fact: it is a refusal to confirm the unauthorised act of an agent who has exceeded his power and commission. It is a refusal to obey a law which is in itself no law, but null and void, because it is not based upon any constitutional authority. The oath to support the Constitution, binds us to obey and confirm what is done or enacted agreeably to its tenor and jurisdiction; and it equally binds us to refuse obedience to what is not done or enacted within its tenor and jurisdiction; otherwise we sanction usurpation. Nor can the reserved rights claimed by any individual state, be submitted to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States. "First. Because it has no power but what is given to it by the second section of the third act of the Constitution, which does not contain the power of deciding a question of jurisdiction, or of State Sovereignty, or any other question, where a State and the United States are the contending parties: none such is there enumerated EDITOR'S REMARKS. Secondly. No Sovereign power can submit the question of its own Sovereignty to a delegated, derivative, subordinate court, instituted to decide municipal questions. No principal can permit his agent to decide whether he is principal or not. No tenant can impeach his Landlord's title. 66 Thirdly. No party can be compelled to submit a question to a tribunal nominated and appointed by the other party; and where some of the judges have already decided the question before it can come before them. This is the case with Judge Johnson and Judge Baldwin. 66 Fourthly. The fraud of Congress in the caption of the law, prevents the question of constitutionality from coming before the court. The law of 1824, (as well as that of 1828) appears on the face of it as a revenue law, when it is in reality a law intended solely to protect manufacturers, and was not intended for revenue. Mr. Todd, afterwards Chairman of the Committee of manufactures, in arguing in favor of the Tariff, on Feb. 10, 1824, said, "they cry, you cut off importation-you ruin trade! why, "this is the very object of the Tariff: to check the importation of foreign goods, and give the manufacture of the articles now imported, to our "own workmen:" on another occasion, as Chairman of the Committee, he declared openly in the House of Representatives, that the revenue needed no addition, for there was a surplus of 9 millions in the treasury, and the law he proposed (and which was afterwards carried) was solely intended to give the manufacturer the monopoly of the home market for articles now imported. None of this can be stated or appear before the federal judiciary. They profess to decide only on the face of the record. 66 Fifthly. The federal judiciary was appointed to decide suits in law and equity-civil and municipal, not POLITICAL questions, or difficulties relating to State Sovereignties. These high questions must be decided by the several States, and the United States, for themselves, and by themselves, not by a court consisting of technical lawyers: unless a Convention be called. "Sixthly. This is a question whether the right claimed by Congress is one of the enumerated or the reserved rights: can we submit a reserved right to this subordinate tribunal? They belong to ourselves to decide on, and no one else, at our own risk: unless a Convention of the States be determined on to say whether Congress has this contested power of laying protecting duties in favor of home monopolists. Let such a Convention be called as it ought to be, and we shall be contented. We ask for that tribunal, and will submit to no other, for it is the constitutional mode of deciding this question. The Constitution embraces and enumerates not one of our reserved rights: how then can the derivative subordinate agent, the creature of the Constitution, decide a question with which the Constitution has nothing to do?" Nor can Congress give any power to the federal judiciary (as it has attempted to do by the 25th clause of the Judiciary Act) but what is enumerated in the Constitution where this agency is erected, to wit, Art. 3, Sect. 2. It is impossible to get over the reasoning of Warren Davis, in his able report on this subject. The power of the federal judiciary is derived, not from the act of Congress, but from the Constitution; an act of Congress cannot confer what the Constitution has refused. See the case of Harcourt v. Fox, in Showers' Reports. If a series of usurpations all tending to convert a confederated into a consolidated Government, and to destroy the sovereignty and independence of the separate States, should threaten success, it will become the |