hether South Carolina has not manifested a high regard for the Union,
when, under a tyranny ten times more grievous than the alien and
sedition laws, she has hitherto gone no further than to petition,
remonstrate, and to solemnly protest against a series of measures which
she believes to be wholly unconstitutional and utterly destructive of
her interests. Sir, South Carolina has not gone one step further than
Mr. Jefferson himself was disposed to go, in relation to the present
subject of our present complaints--not a step further than the statesmen
from New England were disposed to go under similar circumstances; no
further than the Senator from Massachusetts himself once considered as
within "the limits of a constitutional opposition." The doctrine that it
is the right of a State to judge of the violations of the Constitution
on the part of the Federal Government, and to protect her citizens from
the operations of unconstitutional laws, was held by the enlightened
citizens of Boston, who assembled in Faneuil Hall, on the 25th of
January, 1809. They state, in that celebrated memorial, that "they
looked only to the State Legislature, which was competent to devise
relief against the unconstitutional acts of the General Government. That
your power (say they) is adequate to that object, is evident from the
organization of the confederacy." * * *

Thus it will be seen, Mr. President, that the South Carolina doctrine is
the Republican doctrine of '98,--that it was promulgated by the fathers
of the faith,--that it was maintained by Virginia and Kentucky in the
worst of times,--that it constituted the very pivot on which the
political revolution of that day turned,--that it embraces the very
principles, the triumph of which, at that time, saved the Constitution
at its last gasp, and which New England statesmen were not unwilling to
adopt when they believed themselves to be the victims of
unconstitutional legislation. Sir, as to the doctrine that the Federal
Government is the exclusive judge of the extent as well as the
limitations of its power, it seems to me to be utterly subversive of the
sovereignty and independence of the States. It makes but little
difference, in my estimation, whether Congress or the Supreme Court are
invested with this power. If the Federal Government, in all, or any, of
its departments, is to prescribe the limits of its own authority, and
the States are bound to submit to the decision, and are not to be