a right to pass laws for raising revenue and each State
have a right to oppose their execution--two rights directly opposed to
each other; and yet is this absurdity supposed to be contained in an
instrument drawn for the express purpose of avoiding collisions between
the States and the General Government by an assembly of the most
enlightened statesmen and purest patriots ever embodied for a similar
purpose.

In vain have these sages declared that Congress shall have power to lay
and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; in vain have they
provided that they shall have power to pass laws which shall be
necessary and proper to carry those powers into execution, that those
laws and that Constitution shall be the "supreme law of the land, and
that the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the
constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding;" in
vain have the people of the several States solemnly sanctioned these
provisions, made them their paramount law, and individually sworn to
support them whenever they were called on to execute any office. Vain
provisions! ineffectual restrictions! vile profanation of oaths!
miserable mockery of legislation! if a bare majority of the voters in
any one State may, on a real or supposed knowledge of the intent with
which a law has been passed, declare themselves free from its operation;
say, here it gives too little; there, too much, and operates unequally;
here it suffers articles to be free that ought to be taxed; there it
taxes those that ought to be free; in this case the proceeds are
intended to be applied to purposes which we do not approve; in that, the
amount raised is more than is wanted. Congress, it is true, are invested
by the Constitution with the right of deciding these questions according
to their sound discretion. Congress is composed of the representatives
of all the States and of all the people of all the States. But _we_,
part of the people of one State, to whom the Constitution has given no
power on the subject, from whom it has expressly taken it away; _we_,
who have solemnly agreed that this Constitution shall be our law; _we_,
most of whom have sworn to support it--_we_ now abrogate this law and
swear, and force others to swear, that it shall not be obeyed; and we do
this not because Congress have no right to pass such laws--this we do
not allege--but because they have passed them with improper views. They
are unconstituti