the natural result of the
doctrines entertained by the State, and the position which she occupies.
The people of Carolina believe that the Union is a union of States, and
not of individuals; that it was formed by the States, and that the
citizens of the several States were bound to it through the acts of
their several States; that each State ratified the Constitution for
itself, and that it was only by such ratification of a State that any
obligation was imposed upon its citizens. Thus believing, it is the
opinion of the people of Carolina that it belongs to the State which has
imposed the obligation to declare, in the last resort, the extent of
this obligation, as far as her citizens are concerned; and this upon the
plain principles which exist in all analogous cases of compact between
sovereign bodies. On this principle the people of the State, acting in
their sovereign capacity in convention, precisely as they did in the
adoption of their own and the Federal Constitution, have declared, by
the ordinance, that the acts of Congress which imposed duties under the
authority to lay imposts, were acts not for revenue, as intended by the
Constitution, but for protection, and therefore null and void. The
ordinance thus enacted by the people of the State themselves, acting as
a sovereign community, is as obligatory on the citizens of the State as
any portion of the Constitution. In prescribing, then, the oath to obey
the ordinance, no more was done than to prescribe an oath to obey the
Constitution. It is, in fact, but a particular oath of allegiance, and
in every respect similar to that which is prescribed, under the
Constitution of the United States, to be administered to all the
officers of the State and Federal Governments; and is no more deserving
the harsh and bitter epithets which have been heaped upon it than that
or any similar oath. It ought to be borne in mind that, according to the
opinion which prevails in Carolina, the right of resistance to the
unconstitutional acts of Congress belongs to the State, and not to her
individual citizens; and that, though the latter may, in a mere question
of _meum_ and _tuum_, resist through the courts an unconstitutional
encroachment upon their rights, yet the final stand against usurpation
rests not with them, but with the State of which they are members; and
such act of resistance by a State binds the conscience and allegiance of
the citizen. But there appears to be a general mi