d the right now
claimed by South Carolina. The war into which we were forced to support
the dignity of the nation and the rights of our citizens might have
ended in defeat and disgrace, instead of victory and honor, if the
States who supposed it a ruinous and unconstitutional measure had
thought they possessed the right of nullifying the act by which it was
declared and denying supplies for its prosecution. Hardly and unequally
as those measures bore upon several members of the Union, to the
legislatures of none did this efficient and peaceable remedy, as it is
called, suggest itself. The discovery of this important feature in our
Constitution was reserved to the present day. To the statesmen of South
Carolina belongs the invention, and upon the citizens of that State will
unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it to practice.

If the doctrine of a State veto upon the laws of the Union carries with
it internal evidence of its impracticable absurdity, our constitutional
history will also afford abundant proof that it would have been
repudiated with indignation had it been proposed to form a feature in
our Government.

In our colonial state, although dependent on another power, we very
early considered ourselves as connected by common interest with each
other. Leagues were formed for common defense, and before the
declaration of independence we were known in our aggregate character as
_the United Colonies of America_. That decisive and important step was
taken jointly. We declared ourselves a nation by a joint, not by several
acts, and when the terms of our Confederation were reduced to form it
was in that of a solemn league of several States, by which they agreed
that they would collectively form one nation for the purpose of
conducting some certain domestic concerns and all foreign relations. In
the instrument forming that Union is found an article which declares
that "every State shall abide by the determinations of Congress on all
questions which by that Confederation should be submitted to them."

Under the Confederation, then, no State could legally annul a decision
of the Congress or refuse to submit to its execution; but no provision
was made to enforce these decisions. Congress made requisitions, but
they were not complied with. The Government could not operate on
individuals. They had no judiciary, no means of collecting revenue.

But the defects of the Confederation need not be detailed. Under its
operati