ntire doctrine of Nullification is comprised in a sentence uttered
by Vice-President Calhoun, the head of that party in the South,
before the Senate of the United States, in the year 1833: could: "The
Constitution is a compact to which the States were parties in their
sovereign capacity; now, whenever a compact is entered into by parties
which acknowledge no tribunal above their authority to decide in the
last resort, each of them has a right to judge for itself in relation
to the nature, extent, and obligations of the instrument." It is
evident that a similar doctrine destroys the very basis of the Federal
Constitution, and brings back all the evils of the old confederation,
from which the Americans were supposed to have had a safe deliverance.

When South Carolina perceived that Congress turned a deaf ear to its
remonstrances, it threatened to apply the doctrine of nullification to
the federal tariff bill. Congress persisted in its former system; and at
length the storm broke out. In the course of 1832 the citizens of
South Carolina, *b named a national Convention, to consult upon the
extraordinary measures which they were called upon to take; and on
November 24th of the same year this Convention promulgated a law, under
the form of a decree, which annulled the federal law of the tariff,
forbade the levy of the imposts which that law commands, and refused to
recognize the appeal which might be made to the federal courts of law.
*c This decree was only to be put in execution in the ensuing month of
February, and it was intimated, that if Congress modified the tariff
before that period, South Carolina might be induced to proceed no
further with her menaces; and a vague desire was afterwards expressed
of submitting the question to an extraordinary assembly of all the
confederate States.

[Footnote b: That is to say, the majority of the people; for the
opposite party, called the Union party, always formed a very strong and
active minority. Carolina may contain about 47,000 electors; 30,000 were
in favor of nullification, and 17,000 opposed to it.]

[Footnote c: This decree was preceded by a report of the committee
by which it was framed, containing the explanation of the motives and
object of the law. The following passage occurs in it, p. 34:--"When
the rights reserved by the Constitution to the different States are
deliberately violated, it is the duty and the right of those States
to interfere, in order to check the