Chapter LXXIX: Proclamation Against Nullification

The ordinance of nullification reached President Jackson in the first days of December, and on the tenth of that month the proclamation was issued, of which the following are the essential and leading parts:

"Whereas a convention assembled in the State of South Carolina
have passed an ordinance, by which they declare 'that the
several acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United
States, purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and
imposts on the importation of foreign commodities, and now
having actual operation and effect within the United States,
and more especially' two acts for the same purposes, passed
on the 29th of May, 1828, and on the 14th of July, 1832, 'are
unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and
violate the true meaning and intent thereof, and are null and
void, and no law,' nor binding on the citizens of that State, or
its officers: and by the said ordinance, it is further declared
to be unlawful for any of the constituted authorities of the
State or of the United States to enforce the payment of the
duties imposed by the said acts within the same State, and that
it is the duty of the legislature to pass such laws as may be
necessary to give full effect to the said ordinance:

"And whereas, by the said ordinance, it is further ordained,
that in no case of law or equity decided in the courts of said
State, wherein shall be drawn in question the validity of the
said ordinance, or of the acts of the legislature that may be
passed to give it effect, or of the said laws of the United
States, no appeal shall be allowed to the Supreme Court of the
United States, nor shall any copy of the record be permitted or
allowed for that purpose, and that any person attempting to take
such appeal shall be punished as for a contempt of court:

"And, finally, the said ordinance declares that the people of
South Carolina will maintain the said ordinance at every hazard;
and that they will consider the passage of any act, by Congress,
abolishing or closing the ports of the said State, or otherwise
obstructing the free ingress or egress of vessels to and from
the said ports, or any other act of the federal government to
coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her
commerce, or to enforce the said acts otherwise than through the
civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer
continuance of South Carolina in the Union; and that the people
of the said State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from
all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political
connection with the people of the other States, and will
forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, and do all
other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may
of right do:

"And whereas the said ordinance prescribes to the people of
South Carolina a course of conduct in direct violation of their
duty as citizens of the United States, contrary to the laws
of their country, subversive of its constitution, and having
for its object the destruction of the Union--that Union which,
coeval with our political existence, led our fathers, without
any other ties to unite them than those of patriotism and a
common cause, through a sanguinary struggle to a glorious
independence--that sacred Union, hitherto inviolate, which,
perfected by our happy constitution, has brought us, by
the favor of Heaven, to a state of prosperity at home, and
high consideration abroad, rarely, if ever, equalled in the
history of nations: To preserve this bond of our political
existence from destruction, to maintain inviolate this state of
national honor and prosperity, and to justify the confidence
my fellow-citizens have reposed in me, I, Andrew Jackson,
President of the United States, have thought proper to issue
this my proclamation, stating my views of the constitution
and laws applicable to the measures adopted by the convention
of South Carolina, and to the reasons they have put forth to
sustain them, declaring the course which duty will require me to
pursue, and, appealing to the understanding and patriotism of
the people, warn them of the consequences that must inevitably
result from an observance of the dictates of the convention.

"Strict duty would require of me nothing more than the exercise
of those powers with which I am now, or may hereafter be,
invested, for preserving the peace of the Union, and for
the execution of the laws. But the imposing aspect which
opposition has assumed in this case, by clothing itself with
State authority, and the deep interest which the people of the
United States must all feel in preventing a resort to stronger
measures, while there is a hope that any thing will be yielded
to reasoning and remonstrance, perhaps demanded, and will
certainly justify, a full exposition to South Carolina and the
nation of the views I entertain of this important question, as
well as a distinct enunciation of the course which my sense of
duty will require me to pursue.

"The ordinance is founded, not on the indefeasible right of
resisting acts which are plainly unconstitutional and too
oppressive to be endured, but on the strange position that any
one State may not only declare an act of Congress void, but
prohibit its execution; that they may do this consistently
with the constitution; that the true construction of that
instrument permits a State to retain its place in the Union,
and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may
choose to consider as constitutional. It is true, they add,
that to justify this abrogation of a law, it must be palpably
contrary to the constitution; but it is evident, that to give
the right of resisting laws of that description, coupled
with the uncontrolled right to decide what laws deserve that
character, is to give the power of resisting all laws. For as,
by the theory, there is no appeal, the reasons alleged by the
State, good or bad, must prevail. If it should be said that
public opinion is a sufficient check against the abuse of this
power, it may be asked why it is not deemed a sufficient guard
against the passage of an unconstitutional act by Congress.
There is, however, a restraint in this last case, which makes
the assumed power of a State more indefensible, and which
does not exist in the other. There are two appeals from an
unconstitutional act passed by Congress--one to the judiciary,
the other to the people and the States. There is no appeal from
the State decision in theory, and the practical illustration
shows that the courts are closed against an application to
review it, both judges and jurors being sworn to decide in its
favor. But reasoning on this subject is superfluous, when our
social compact, in express terms, declares that the laws of
the United States, its constitution, and treaties made under
it, are the supreme law of the land; and, for greater caution,
adds 'that the judges in every State shall be bound thereby,
any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the
contrary notwithstanding.' And it may be asserted without fear
of refutation, that no federative government could exist without
a similar provision. Look for a moment to the consequence. If
South Carolina considers the revenue laws unconstitutional,
and has a right to prevent their execution in the port of
Charleston, there would be a clear constitutional objection to
their collection in every other port, and no revenue could be
collected any where; for all imposts must be equal. It is no
answer to repeat, that an unconstitutional law is no law, so
long as the question of its legality is to be decided by the
State itself; for every law operating injuriously upon any local
interest will be perhaps thought, and certainly represented, as
unconstitutional, and, as has been shown, there is no appeal.

"If this doctrine had been established at an earlier day, the
Union would have been dissolved in its infancy. The excise law
in Pennsylvania, the embargo and non-intercourse law in the
Eastern States, the carriage tax in Virginia, were all deemed
unconstitutional, and were more unequal in their operation than
any of the laws now complained of; but fortunately none of
those States discovered that they had 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 defence, 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 operation we could scarcely be called a nation. We
had neither prosperity at home, nor consideration abroad. This
state of things could not be endured, and our present happy
constitution was formed, but formed in vain, if this fatal
doctrine prevail. It was formed for important objects that are
announced in the preamble made in the name and by the authority
of the people of the United States, whose delegates framed,
and whose conventions approved it. The most important among
these objects, that which is placed first in rank, on which all
the others rest, is 'to form a more perfect Union.' Now, is it
possible that even if there were no express provision giving
supremacy to the constitution and laws of the United States over
those of the States--can it be conceived that an instrument made
for the purpose of 'forming a more perfect Union' than that of
the confederation, could be so constructed by the assembled
wisdom of our country, as to substitute for that confederation
a form of government dependent for its existence on the local
interest, the party spirit of a State, or of a prevailing
faction in a State? Every man of plain, unsophisticated
understanding, who hears the question, will give such an answer
as will preserve the Union. Metaphysical subtlety, in pursuit of
an impracticable theory, could alone have devised one that is
calculated to destroy it.

"The constitution declares that the judicial powers of the
United States extend to cases arising under the laws of the
United States, and that such laws, the constitution and treaties
shall be paramount to the State constitutions and laws. The
judiciary act prescribes the mode by which the case may be
brought before a court of the United States: by appeal, when
a State tribunal shall decide against this provision of the
constitution. The ordinance declares there shall be no appeal;
makes the State law paramount to the constitution and laws of
the United States; forces judges and jurors to swear that they
will disregard their provisions; and even makes it penal in a
suitor to attempt relief by appeal. It further declares that it
shall not be lawful for the authorities of the United States, or
of that State, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the
revenue laws within its limits.

"Here is a law of the United States, not even pretended to be
unconstitutional, repealed by the authority of a small majority
of the voters of a single State. Here is a provision of the
constitution which is solemnly abrogated by the same authority.

"On such expositions and reasonings, the ordinance grounds not
only an assertion of the right to annul the laws of which it
complains, but to enforce it by a threat of seceding from the
Union, if any attempt is made to execute them.

"This right to secede is deduced from the nature of the
constitution, which, they say, is a compact between sovereign
States, who have preserved their whole sovereignty, and,
therefore, are subject to no superior; that, because they made
the compact, they can break it when, in their opinion, it has
been departed from, by the other States. Fallacious as this
course of reasoning is, it enlists State pride, and finds
advocates in the honest prejudices of those who have not studied
the nature of our government sufficiently to see the radical
error on which it rests.

"The people of the United States formed the constitution, acting
through the State legislatures in making the compact, to meet
and discuss its provisions, and acting in separate conventions
when they ratified those provisions; but, the terms used in its
construction show it to be a government in which the people of
all the States collectively are represented. We are one people
in the choice of the President and Vice-President. Here the
States have no other agency than to direct the mode in which
the votes shall be given. Candidates having the majority of all
the votes are chosen. The electors of a majority of States may
have given their votes for one candidate, and yet another may be
chosen. The people, then, and not the States, are represented in
the executive branch.

"In the House of Representatives, there is this difference: that
the people of one State do not, as in the case of President
and Vice-President, all vote for the same officers. The people
of all the States do not vote for all the members, each State
electing only its own representatives. But this creates no
material distinction. When chosen, they are all representatives
of the United States, not representatives of the particular
State from which they come. They are paid by the United States,
not by the State, nor are they accountable to it for any act
done in the performance of their legislative functions; and
however they may in practice, as it is their duty to do, consult
and prefer the interests of their particular constituents, when
they come in conflict with any other partial or local interest,
yet it is their first and highest duty, as representatives of
the United States, to promote the general good.

"The constitution of the United States, then, forms a
government, not a league; and whether it be formed by compact
between the States, or in any other manner, its character
is the same. It is a government in which all the people are
represented, which operates directly on the people individually,
not upon the States--they retained all the power they did not
grant. But each State, having expressly parted with so many
powers as to constitute, jointly with the other States, a
single nation, cannot, from that period, possess any right to
secede, because such secession does not break a league, but
destroys the unity of a nation; and any injury to that unity
is not only a breach which would result from the contravention
of a compact, but it is an offence against the whole Union.
To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union,
is to say that the United States are not a nation; because it
would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might
dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or
ruin, without committing any offence. Secession, like any other
revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity
of oppression; but, to call it a constitutional right, is
confounding the meaning of terms; and can only be done through
gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a
right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur
the penalties consequent on a failure.

"Fellow-citizens of my native State, let me not only admonish
you, as the First Magistrate of our common country, not to incur
the penalty of its laws, but use the influence that a father
would over his children whom he saw rushing to certain ruin. In
that paternal language, with that paternal feeling, let me tell
you, my countrymen, that you are deluded by men who are either
deceived themselves, or wish to deceive you. Mark under what
pretences you have been led on to the brink of insurrection and
treason, on which you stand! First, a diminution of the value
of your staple commodity, lowered by over production in other
quarters, and the consequent diminution in the value of your
lands, were the sole effect of the tariff laws.

"The effect of those laws was confessedly injurious, but the
evil was greatly exaggerated by the unfounded theory you were
taught to believe, that its burdens were in proportion to your
exports, not to your consumption of imported articles. Your
pride was roused by the assertion that a submission to those
laws was a state of vassalage, and that resistance to them
was equal, in patriotic merit, to the oppositions our fathers
offered to the oppressive laws of Great Britain. You were told
this opposition might be peaceably, might be constitutionally
made; that you might enjoy all the advantages of the Union, and
bear none of its burdens. Eloquent appeals to your passions,
to your State pride, to your native courage, to your sense
of real injury, were used to prepare you for the period when
the mask, which concealed the hideous features of disunion,
should be taken off. It fell, and you were made to look with
complacency on objects which, not long since, you would have
regarded with horror. Look back to the arts which have brought
you to this state; look forward to the consequences to which
it must inevitably lead! Look back to what was first told you
as an inducement to enter into this dangerous course. The
great political truth was repeated to you, that you had the
revolutionary right of resisting all laws that were palpably
unconstitutional and intolerably oppressive; it was added
that the right to nullify a law rested on the same principle,
but that it was a peaceable remedy! This character which was
given to it, made you receive with too much confidence the
assertions that were made of the unconstitutionality of the
law, and its oppressive effects. Mark, my fellow-citizens,
that, by the admission of your leaders, the unconstitutionality
must be palpable, or it will not justify either resistance or
nullification! What is the meaning of the word palpable, in
the sense in which it is here used? That which is apparent to
every one; that which no man of ordinary intellect will fail
to perceive. Is the unconstitutionality of these laws of that
description? Let those among your leaders who once approved
and advocated the principle of protective duties, answer the
question; and let them choose whether they will be considered
as incapable, then, of perceiving that which must have been
apparent to every man of common understanding, or as imposing
upon your confidence, and endeavoring to mislead you now. In
either case they are unsafe guides in the perilous path they
urge you to tread. Ponder well on this circumstance, and you
will know how to appreciate the exaggerated language they
address to you. They are not champions of liberty emulating the
fame of our revolutionary fathers; nor are you an oppressed
people, contending, as they repeat to you, against worse than
colonial vassalage.

"You are free members of a flourishing and happy Union. There
is no settled design to oppress you. You have indeed felt the
unequal operation of laws which may have been unwisely, not
unconstitutionally passed; but that inequality must necessarily
be removed. At the very moment when you were madly urged on
to the unfortunate course you have begun, a change in public
opinion had commenced. The nearly approaching payment of the
public debt, and the consequent necessity of a diminution of
duties, had already produced a considerable reduction, and that,
too, on some articles of general consumption in your State.
The importance of this change was underrated, and you were
authoritatively told that no further alleviation of your burdens
was to be expected, at the very time when the condition of the
country imperiously demanded such a modification of the duties
as should reduce them to a just and equitable scale. But, as
if apprehensive of the effect of this change in allaying your
discontents, you were precipitated into the fearful state in
which you now find yourselves.

"I adjure you, as you honor their memory; as you love the cause
of freedom, to which they dedicated their lives; as you prize
the peace of your country, the lives of its best citizens,
and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from
the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its
convention; bid its members to reassemble, and promulgate the
decided expressions of your will to remain in the path which
alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity and honor. Tell
them that, compared to disunion, all other evils are light,
because that brings with it an accumulation of all. Declare
that you will never take the field unless the star-spangled
banner of your country shall float over you; that you will not
be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and scorned while you
live, as the authors of the first attack on the constitution of
your country. Its destroyers you cannot be. You may disturb its
peace, you may interrupt the course of its prosperity, you may
cloud its reputation for stability, but its tranquillity will
be restored, its prosperity will return, and the stain upon its
national character will be transferred, and remain an eternal
blot on the memory of those who caused the disorder.

"Fellow-citizens of the United States, the threat of unhallowed
disunion, the names of those, once respected, by whom it is
uttered the array of military force to support it, denote the
approach of a crisis in our affairs, on which the continuance of
our unexampled prosperity, our political existence, and perhaps
that of all free governments, may depend. The conjuncture
demanded a free, a full, and explicit enunciation, not only
of my intentions, but of my principles of action; and, as the
claim was asserted of a right by a State to annul the laws of
the Union, and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank
exposition of my opinions in relation to the origin and form of
our government, and the construction I give to the instrument by
which it was created, seemed to be proper. Having the fullest
confidence in the justness of the legal and constitutional
opinion of my duties, which has been expressed, I rely, with
equal confidence, on your undivided support in my determination
to execute the laws, to preserve the Union by all constitutional
means, to arrest, if possible, by moderate, but firm measures,
the necessity of a recourse to force; and, if it be the will of
Heaven that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the
shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that
it be not called down by any offensive act on the part of the
United States.

"Fellow-citizens: The momentous case is before you. On your
undivided support of your government depends the decision of
the great question it involves, whether your sacred Union will
be preserved, and the blessings it secures to us as one people
shall be perpetuated. No one can doubt that the unanimity with
which that decision will be expressed, will be such as to
inspire new confidence in republican institutions, and that the
prudence, the wisdom, and the courage which it will bring to
their defence, will transmit them unimpaired and invigorated to
our children."