e and the Constitution, as well as Turenne and Vauban. They
would ask him, therefore, somewhat concerning their rights in this
matter. They would inquire whether it was not somewhat dangerous to
resist a law of the United States. What would be the nature of their
offence, they would wish to learn, if they, by military force and array,
resisted the execution in Carolina of a law of the United States, and it
should turn out, after all, that the law was constitutional? He would
answer, of course, treason. No lawyer could give any other answer. John
Fries, he would tell them, had learned that some years ago. "How, then,"
they would ask, "do you propose to defend us? We are not afraid of
bullets, but treason has a way of taking people off that we do not much
relish. How do you propose to defend us?" "Look at my floating banner,"
he would reply; "see there the nullifying law!"

"Is it your opinion, gallant commander," they would then say, "that, if
we should be indicted for treason, that same floating banner of yours
would make a good plea in bar?" "South Carolina is a sovereign State,"
he would reply. "That is true; but would the judge admit our plea?"
"These tariff laws," he would repeat, "are unconstitutional, palpably,
deliberately, dangerously." "That may all be so; but if the tribunal
should not happen to be of that opinion, shall we swing for it? We are
ready to die for our country, but it is rather an awkward business, this
dying without touching the ground! After all, that is a sort of hemp tax
worse than any part of the tariff."

Mr. President, the honorable gentleman would be in a dilemma, like that
of another great general. He would have a knot before him which he could
not untie. He must cut it with his sword. He must say to his followers,
"Defend yourselves with your bayonets"; and this is war--civil war.

Direct collision, therefore, between force and force, is the unavoidable
result of that remedy for the revision of unconstitutional laws which
the gentleman contends for. It must happen in the very first case to
which it is applied. Is not this the plain result? To resist by force
the execution of a law, generally, is treason. Can the courts of the
United States take notice of the indulgence of a State to commit
treason? The common saying, that a State cannot commit treason herself,
is nothing to the purpose. Can she authorize others to do it? If John
Fries had produced an act of Pennsylvania, annulling the l