interest and the duty of any State, after ineffectual remonstrance to the general government, to SECEDE from an Union thus perverted. The right of secession is so well argued by Judge Tucker of Virginia, in his notes to Blackstone's Commentaries, Vol. 1, that it suffices to refer to that well known publication. In fact, our own revolution can be no otherwise defended. But it seems to be the doctrine of the present administration, that secession is to be prevented by COERCION. Force and Violence, War and Punishment, are now the favorite instruments for convincing the understanding, where a State presumes to doubt the constitutionality of the acts of the Government at Washington. South Carolina by nullifying that legislative infamy, THE FORCE BILL, has made her reply to this most insolent threat. On this subject of coercion, I refer the reader to the Speech of that able man, Robert J. Turnbull, at Charleston, on the 4th July, 1831, page 49. He there shows from the Journal of the Convention, that an attempt was made, first by Governor Randolph, and afterwards by Mr. Patterson, (Journ. 68, 126) to enable Congress or the Federal Executive, to call forth the force of the Union against any State opposing an act of Congress. This proposal was promptly rejected, and never afterwards renewed. The remedy left to Congress is the constitutional call of a Convention, to which South Carolina would readily accede. We seek no hostilities. If our opponents force them upon us, the resulting evils must be imputed to themselves alone. ALLEGIANCE: Is the paramount submission due by the citizen to the Constitution and Government of the State to which he belongs. In this country we have a double government, viz: that of the State, and that of the United States. The latter is subsequent in point of time; derivative and subordinate in its creation and character; and limited in its objects and its authority. It was created by the existing separate States, for special purposes of foreign, not of domestic relations, and with confined and special powers adapted to those purposes. It has a controuling power, so far as the confederated states have chosen to confer that power, and no farther. All the powers conferred on it, can be modified or repealed by any future Convention of the States. It is manifestly an agency, appointed to put in execution the limited authority conferred on it by the Constitution; no other and no more. To this derivative, limited and subordinate government, the citizens of the various States owe obedience, because their own state, as party to this confederation, enjoins it but allegiance is a term applicable only to that submission which we owe to our own Sovereign State; which was such before the federal government was created; which is so still; and which will be such when the federal government is altered or dissolved. This is undoubtedly the doctrine of South Carolina, distinctly expressed in the Ordinance of the Convention nullifying the Force Bill. It is corroborated by the two acts of 1777 and 1778, enforcing an oath of allegiance and fidelity, already inserted. The opinion delivered by the majority of the Bench of the Court of Appeals, in the State ex relatione McCready v. Hunt, and ex relatione Daniell v. Me Meekin, 2 Hill's Rep. 1, did not meet with the approbation of the great majority of the citizens of South Carolina. The public dissatisfaction produced a re-organization of the Court of Appeals in the Session of the Legislature of December, 1835.The construction deliberately given in several reported cases* to the Uni *The decisions and dicta of the Supreme Court of the United States that countenance the doctrine of consolidation,are (inter alia) Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheat. 324: McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 403: Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 225. EDITOR'S REMARKS. EDITOR'S REMARKS. ted States' Constitution, by the decisions of the federal judiciary, adopted and sedulously dispersed by the various commentaries of Judge Story, and the northern Jurists generally, lead so directly to the consolidation of our federative into a great central government, one and indivisible-in all respects of paramount authority-to which the sovereignty and independence of the individual states must give way as subordinate institutions-that the liberties of the people have been, and still are in manifest danger; and we are placed by this combination of northern authorities on the direct road of Despotism. The reason is manifest. These northern doctrines lead to the omnipotence of a federal majority, by which the rights of a minority are construed away whenever it suits that majority to adopt their own convenient construction and that majority has been, is, and is likely to be for years to come, a northern majority. If a citizen of this State be asked, "are an American?" His reply ought to be, "Sir, I am a South Carolinian." : you The power of a majority. The northern doctrine is, that from the very nature of all government, the will of the majority must be regarded as predominant. For it is absurd to say that we must be governed by the will of a minority. The reply is, that the confederated States have not agreed to be governed by an uncontrolable majority; they are to be governed according to the terms of their common compact, to wit, the Constitution of the United States. By that compact, certain powers and authorities are enumerated and expressly delegated, by which a Congress-majority is limited and bound. All powers and authorities not expressly delegated and enumerated, are withheld from Congress, and reserved to and by the States that entered into that contract; as appears by the 11th and 12th amendments of that constitution. The majority, therefore, must govern, not according to their own discretion, but according to the powers given to them in the Constitution, and in no other manner. Even the Omnipotence of the British Parliament is controuled by certain acknowledged constitutional limitations, which are habitually referred to, as undeniably binding. The general Welfare. It is urged by the prevailing and dominant party, that the Constitution contemplates the general welfare as the polar star of all legislation. That whatever, therefore, is required by the general welfare, the majority may, and ought to enact. And as the majority alone can decide what measure is or is not conformable with the general welfare, and required by it, the enactments of the majority are of necessity binding on the minority, and on the States and people. This is the favorite doctrine, very positively delivered, of Mr. President John Q. Adams. To this it is replied, that the Constitution marks out and describes how, and under what enumerated powers and authorities, the general welfare is to be consulted and pursued. The pretence of enacting whatever the general The Constitution gives power to the federal judiciary to take cognizance of cases in law and equity, but not political cases: casus federis. It gives them no jurisdiction whatever, in the case of a State against the U. States, or vice versa. Examine the article in the Constitution conferring and enumerating judiciary powers. It is not to be expected, that a court composed of technical lawyers, can be fully competent to the decision of great questions of State, that legislators and statesmen are peculiarly appointed to decide. A great lawyer is one thing; a great statesman another. Their modes of considering questions are different. It is a farce, to expect perfect impartiality of decision in questions between the people and the executive, from Judges nominated, and in fact appointed by the executive, from a desire of rewarding a political partizan, or gaining a political adherent, in an influential situation. In the case of the Tariff, Judge Johnson of Charleston and Judge Baldwin of Pittsburgh, were openly committed in favour of the executive measure. Is not Chief Justice Taney notoriously liable to the same objection ? welfare may require, and of judging of the measure proposed, without regard to the limitations of the Constitution, is neither more nor less than despotism. It is treating the Constitution as useless and worthless; a mere dead letter. Under such an assumption of power by a Congress majority, the minority has no rights, the States no sovereignty or independence, and the people no liberty or property. No act of despotism can be imagined which a majority with unlimited discretion to pronounce on the general welfare, may not ordain and perpetrate. A constitution of limited powers, is a mockery under the modern pretence of general welfare. This question, so far as good sense could settle it, was settled by the report of the Virginia minority on the Alien and Sedition Laws, drawn up by Mr. Madison in 1799, as follows: "The true and fair construction of this expression (the general welfare) "both in the original and existing federal compacts, appears to the Com"mittee too obvious to be mistaken. In both, (viz. the old articles of con"federation and the present Constitution) is subjoined to this authority, an "enumeration of the cases to which their powers shall extend. Money, "cannot be applied to the general welfare, otherwise than by an application "of it to some particular measure conducive to the general welfare."Whenever, therefore, money has been raised by the general authority, "and is to be applied to a particular measure, a question arises, whether "the particular measure be among the enumerated authorities vested in Congress. If it be, the money required for it, may be applied to it.— "If it be not, no such application can be made. This fair and obvious interpretation, coincides with, and is enforced by the clause in the consti"tution which declares that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury but "in consequence of appropriations by law. An appropriation of money to the general welfare, would be deemed rather a mockery than an observance "of this constitutional objection. 66 66 "Whether the exposition of the phrase here combated, would not by degrees consolidate the States into one sovereignty, is a question concern"ing which the Committee can perceive little room for difference of opin❝ion. To consolidate the States into one sovereignty, nothing more can "be wanted than to supercede their respective sovereignties in the cases "reserved to them, by extending the Sovereignty of the United States to "all cases of the general welfare; that is to say, to all cases whatsoever." So far Mr. Madison. Human ingenuity cannot devise a principle of despotic government more perfect, than the uncontrouled omnipotence of a majority-and a discretionary construction of the General Welfare as the guiding rule by which a majority may regulate its conduct. Internal Improvements. This is one of the measures justified on the principle of promoting the general welfare. The objection to this measure is, that though brought forward in the Convention, the Constitution does not authorize it. The plan of internal improvement introduced under Mr. J. Q. Adams's sanction, was intended to absorb all increase of revenue, and to prevent any surplus; so that no argument should be drawn from the flourishing condition of the Treasury, to lessen or discontinue the Tariff. By degrees it became what it still is, a scramble among the States, which should obtain for internal improvements the greatest amount of the public money. The appropriations under this head, were and still are, squandered with merciless dissipation, for objects trifling in themselves, and of mere local utility. This system threatens an impoverishment of the Treasury, and a dissipation of the public resources, that ought to alarm even its advocates. How the progress of this demoralizing evil is to be EDITOR'S REMARKS. EDITOR'S REMARKS. stoped, who can tell? Thank heaven, South Carolina has permitted herself to be plundered, scorning to join in the general scramble. The system of internal improvements commenced in 1817, with the appropriations for the Cumberland Road, (from Cumberland in Maryland, to the Ohio,) which has required and received, and still does claim annual sums from Congress for its completion and repair. This road may be very useful to the country through which it passes: but of what use is it to Maine or Vermont, or South Carolina, or Georgia? And why are we to pay the expense of constructing and repairing it? A line of canals from Massachusetts to New Orleans, parallel to the Atlantic coast, or a public road from the British border to the Spanish border, would be a proposal intelligible on the score of public utility, if the object were worth a tenth part of the necessary expenditure; but the major part of the schemes for internal improvements, (nine out of ten of them) are useful to the State alone which has been successful in robbing the public treasury to enrich herself. I refer to the Speech of Judge Wm. Smith, of the Senate, 11 Ap. 1828, full of sound reasoning and instructive detail. Since that time, it might be worth while to enquire of what use to the South are the Breakwater of the Delaware, or the proposed improvements of the Hudson? Are not the States of Pennsylvania and New-YorkStates overflowing with wealth-able to pay for their own internal improvements? Did South Carolina apply to Congress? The whole history of internal improvements, from the Bonus Bill of 1817 to the present day, exhibits a series of profligate expenditure on the part of the Government, of fraudulent draughts on the public treasury for objects merely local, of selfish scrambling among the individual States, who shall best succeed in exhausting the revenue-degrading to the last degree to the American character. We have not yet learnt that no people know how to be free, who do not know how to be just. The Cumberland Road was in part defended on the ground of compact. The general proposal of appropriations for internal improvements, in 1817, 1824, and 1828, was opposed by the following considerations. 1. That being negatived by the Convention, and not included among the powers conceded to Congress, it can only be defended, on the principle of the General Welfare. A principle that sets Congress free from all limits and restraints, and opens wide the door of despotic power; as it includes within itself all power whatever. Thus destroying all the limitations and land marks of the Constitution, and authorizing the assumption of powers by construction and implication, which the Convention expressly negatived, and refused to grant. 2. That it involves, and will induce, a system of enormous and extravagant expenditure, far beyond what the people should be called upon to bear; of indefinite limit, and perpetual duration; and a system of patronage and favouritism so extensive, as to endanger the liberties of the country. Individuals are biassed by jobs, contracts, superintendencies, and the expectation of them. States are bought by proposals of greater sums to be laid out in those States that support the measures of administration. (There are nearly 100 proposals of appropriation, from 1817 to the present time, for objects of no more general utility than the Maysville turnpike.) 3. That it takes from the right of the State governments, to improve their own territory in their own manner, and subjects such an extent of territory to the controul of the Executive and Judiciary of the Union, by means of roads and canals, in addition to fortifications, &c, that the rights of the States are nearly annihilated by adopting this proposal. They are intersected and interfered with in all directions. 4. That it is well calculated to absorb all surplus revenue, and thus perpetuate the northern system of Tariff taxation; which would fall of itself under a system of frugal expenditure, and increasing resources. 5. That if any power be really wanted by Congress, the people, when applied to in the way sanctioned by the Constitution, will readily grant it. But to seize on this extensive and indefinite power denied by the Convention, without application to the people, is rank usurpation; and the acts passed by usurped authority, are, and ought to be regarded as null and void. 6. That under this sweeping claim of the general welfare, and internal improvements built upon it, the public revenue may be dissipated in patronage and bribery. Nor is there any one of the reserved rights of the States, but may be easily prostrated by the influence of the General Government, combining with the larger States. The Union is no longer an Union of separate, sovereign and independent States, but of petty municipalities controulable by the power assumed at Washington. The Holy Alliance may defend its worst and wildest claims under this pretence. It implies despotic power, and mocks controul. The fashionable phrase now is, not a strict, but a liberal construction of the Constitution; which means any construction that suits the views of usurpation in any department of the Federal Government. The long continuance and the successful growth of this system of internal improvements adopted by Congress in open and contemptuous defiance of the Convention and Constitution of 1787, is a deep disgrace on the moral courage and honesty of the country. Every administration will now look to its lucrative influence, and the extent of its patronage, as the surest basis of its power and popularity, and the most efficient means of protecting its own encroachments on the rights of the people. Nor is there any safety against absolute despotism, whatever may be the name given to our form of Government, but a speedy defalcation of twothirds of the patronage which the States have been weak enough to confer on the Executive. Just before his own election, General Jackson complained of the extravagance of Mr. J. Q. Adam's administration, in raising the expenditure of the peace establishment to 12 millions. The public debt is now paid; and while this note is printing, it appears that the appropriations of 1836 have exceeded, it is said, 40 millions of dollars! Such is a brief outline of the very important questions embraced by the records about to be inserted; and which will be better understood after the summary now offered to the reader's perusal. That summary will be of more value twenty years hence than it is now. The Editor presents it as a brief exposition of the constitutional doctrines of South Carolina, supported and corroborated by the documents that follow. THOMAS COOPER. EDITOR'S REMARKS. VOL. I.-29. |