has been a time, when, rising in this place, on the same question, I
felt, I must confess, that something for good or evil to the
Constitution of the country might depend on an effort of mine. But
circumstances are changed. Since that day, Sir, the public opinion has
become awakened to this great question; it has grasped it; it has
reasoned upon it, as becomes an intelligent and patriotic community, and
has settled it, or now seems in the progress of settling it, by an
authority which none can disobey, the authority of the people
themselves.

I shall not, Mr. President, follow the gentleman, step by step, through
the course of his speech. Much of what he has said he has deemed
necessary to the just explanation and defence of his own political
character and conduct. On this I shall offer no comment. Much, too, has
consisted of philosophical remark upon the general nature of political
liberty, and the history of free institutions; and upon other topics, so
general in their nature as to possess, in my opinion, only a remote
bearing on the immediate subject of this debate.

But the gentleman's speech made some days ago, upon introducing his
resolutions, those resolutions themselves, and parts of the speech now
just concluded, may, I presume, be justly regarded as containing the
whole South Carolina doctrine. That doctrine it is my purpose now to
examine, and to compare it with the Constitution of the United States. I
shall not consent, Sir, to make any new constitution, or to establish
another form of government. I will not undertake to say what a
constitution for these United States ought to be. That question the
people have decided for themselves; and I shall take the instrument as
they have established it, and shall endeavor to maintain it, in its
plain sense and meaning, against opinions and notions which, in my
judgment, threaten its subversion.

The resolutions introduced by the gentleman were apparently drawn up
with care, and brought forward upon deliberation. I shall not be in
danger, therefore, of misunderstanding him, or those who agree with him,
if I proceed at once to these resolutions, and consider them as an
authentic statement of those opinions upon the great constitutional
question by which the recent proceedings in South Carolina are attempted
to be justified.

These resolutions are three in number.

The third seems intended to enumerate, and to deny, the several opinions
expressed in the President