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ration? This new government had the sole power to lay and _collect_ 'duties on imports;' did each State remain an absolute sovereignty in this respect, and with absolute powers to judge if the object of the duties was constitutional, and annul the law? The General Government was the only sovereign as regards these powers; but a single State, having none of these powers, is made the absolute judge whether they can or cannot be exercised: then no powers have yet been granted to the General Government by any State, if each possesses the right to interdict the exercise of any of these powers. But, could this General Government exist without the authority to give one uniform effect to the execution of its powers in all the States? Created with all the organs of a government, legislative, judicial, and executive, may it enact, but not expound, or enact and expound, but not execute? Must it stop at the boundary of each State, and ask what power it possesses, and act upon the contradictory responses of each State? Must it possess one set of powers in one State, and another and wholly opposite set of powers in another State? May it lay a tariff in one State, and not in another, and yet this tariff required to be uniform in every State? Is it one constitution, and susceptible of one only true construction, or twenty-four constitutions, with twenty-four various and contradictory constructions, and all right, because all pronounced by absolute sovereigns exercising the uncontrolled power of ultimate judgment? Has it any powers, and what are they? Will Mississippi submit this question to Massachusetts or Carolina, or is a government created whose powers cannot be ascertained? Must anarchy govern? Can there be no decision, or is that of a single State, or of a small minority of the States, to sweep away the legislation of a majority, or two thirds of the States? According to the new theory, each State has the constitutional power in the first instance, and one fourth in the last resort, to judge what powers each State may exercise, and the other States must submit. Now, this is impossible, where the legislation of the two States is contradictory; and, if possible, is not a mere negative, but a positive power. It is a government without limitation of power, in a single State, aided by one fourth of the States--a government by which the minority may control the majority in all cases whatsoever. Thus, Carolina frames any law or ordinance
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