lies the same or a kindred article
at a diminished price, and the consumer pays the same tribute to the
labor of his own countryman which he must otherwise have paid to foreign
industry and toil.

The tariff of the last session was in its details not acceptable to the
great interests of any portion of the Union, not even to the interest
which it was specially intended to subserve. Its object was to balance
the burdens upon native industry imposed by the operation of foreign
laws, but not to aggravate the burdens of one section of the Union by
the relief afforded to another. To the great principle sanctioned by
that act--one of those upon which the Constitution itself was formed--I
hope and trust the authorities of the Union will adhere. But if any of
the duties imposed by the act only relieve the manufacturer by
aggravating the burden of the planter, let a careful revisal of its
provisions, enlightened by the practical experience of its effects, be
directed to retain those which impart protection to native industry and
remove or supply the place of those which only alleviate one great
national interest by the depression of another.

The United States of America and the people of every State of which they
are composed are each of them sovereign powers. The legislative
authority of the whole is exercised by Congress under authority granted
them in the common Constitution. The legislative power of each State is
exercised by assemblies deriving their authority from the constitution
of the State. Each is sovereign within its own province. The
distribution of power between them presupposes that these authorities
will move in harmony with each other. The members of the State and
General Governments are all under oath to support both, and allegiance
is due to the one and to the other. The case of a conflict between these
two powers has not been supposed, nor has any provision been made for it
in our institutions; as a virtuous nation of ancient times existed more
than five centuries without a law for the punishment of parricide.

More than once, however, in the progress of our history have the people
and the legislatures of one or more States, in moments of excitement,
been instigated to this conflict; and the means of effecting this
impulse have been allegations that the acts of Congress to be resisted
were _unconstitutional_. The people of no one State have ever delegated
to their legislature the power of pronouncing an act