anarchy, and violence. I repeat, therefore, that if
resistance to the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, in
a matter like the points decided in the Dred Scott case, clearly within
their jurisdiction as defined by the Constitution, shall be forced upon
the country as a political issue, it will become a distinct and naked
issue between the friends and enemies of the Constitution--the friends and
the enemies of the supremacy of the laws."

Why, this same Supreme Court once decided a national bank to be
constitutional; but General Jackson, as President of the United States,
disregarded the decision, and vetoed a bill for a recharter, partly on
constitutional ground, declaring that each public functionary must support
the Constitution "as he understands it." But hear the General's own words.
Here they are, taken from his veto message:

"It is maintained by the advocates of the bank that its constitutionality,
in all its features, ought to be considered as settled by precedent, and
by the decision of the Supreme Court. To this conclusion I cannot assent.
Mere precedent is a dangerous source of authority, and should not be
regarded as deciding questions of constitutional power, except where
the acquiescence of the people and the States can be considered as well
settled. So far from this being the case on this subject, an argument
against the bank might be based on precedent. One Congress, in 1791,
decided in favor of a bank; another, in 1811, decided against it. One
Congress, in 1815, decided against a bank; another, in 1816, decided in
its favor. Prior to the present Congress, therefore, the precedents drawn
from that course were equal. If we resort to the States, the expressions
of legislative, judicial, and executive opinions against the bank have
been probably to those in its favor as four to one. There is nothing in
precedent, therefore, which, if its authority were admitted, ought to
weigh in favor of the act before me."

I drop the quotations merely to remark that all there ever was in the way
of precedent up to the Dred Scott decision, on the points therein decided,
had been against that decision. But hear General Jackson further:

"If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole ground of this act,
it ought not to control the coordinate authorities of this government. The
Congress, the executive, and the courts must, each for itself, be guided
by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each publ