returning veneration for that Union, which, if we may dare to penetrate his designs, he has chosen as the only means of attaining the high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire.

EDWARD LIVINGSTON,

Secretary of State.

ANDREW JACKSON.

December 10, 1832.

LIVINGSTON'S VIEWS.

I think that the Constitution is the result of a compact, entered into by the several States; by which they surrendered a part of their sovereignty to the Union, and vested the part so surrendered in a general government.

That this government is partly popular, acting directly on the citizens of the several States, partly federative, depending for its existence and action on the existence and action of the several States.

That by the institution of this government the States have unequivocally surrendered every constitutional right of impeding or resisting the execution of any decree or judgment of the Supreme Court, in any case of law or equity between persons, or on matters of whom or on which that court has jurisdiction, even if such decree or judgment should in the opinion of the States, be unconstitutional.

That, in cases in which a law of the United States may infringe the constitutional right of a State, but which, in its operation, cannot be brought before the Supreme Court, under the terms of the jurisdiction expressly given to it over particular persons or matters, that court is not created the umpire between a State that may deem itself aggrieved and the general government.

That among the attributes of sovereignty retained by the States is that of watching over the operations of the general government, and protecting its citizens against their unconstitutional abuse; and that this can be legally done,

First, in the case of an act in the opinion of the State palpably unconstitutional, but affirmed in the Supreme Court in the legal exercise of its functions,

By remonstrating against it to Congress;

By an address to the people in their elective functions to change or instruct their representatives;

By a similar address to the other States, in which they will have a right to declare that they consider the act as unconstitutional and therefore void;

By proposing amendments to the Constitution in the manner pointed out by that instrument;

And, finally, if the act be intolerably oppressive, and they find the general government persevere in enforcing it, by a resort to the natural right which every people have to resist extreme oppression.

Secondly, if the act be one of those few which in their operation cannot be submitted to the Supreme Court, and be one that will in the opinion of the State, justify the risk of a withdrawal from the Union, that this last extreme remedy may at once be resorted to.

That the right of resistance to the operation of an act of Congress, in the extreme cases above alluded to, is not a right derived from the Constitiution, but can be justified only on the supposition that the Constititution has been broken, and the State absolved from its obligation; and that, whenever resorted to, it must be at the risk of all the penalties attached to an unsuccessful resistance to established authority.

That the alleged right of a State to put a veto on the

execution of a law of the United States, which such State may declare to be unconstitutional, attended (as, if it exist, it must be) with a correlative obligation on the part of the general government to refrain from executing it, and the further alleged obligation on the part of that government to submit the question to the States by proposing amendments, are not given by the Constitution, nor do they grow out of any of the reserved powers.

That the exercise of the powers last mentioned, would introduce a feature in our government, not expressed in the Constitution, not implied from any right of sovereignty reserved to the States, not suspected to exist by the friends or enemies of the Constitution when it was framed or adopted, not warranted by practice or contemporaneous exposition, nor implied by the true construction of the Virginia Resolutions in '98.

That the introduction of this feature in our government would totally change its nature, make it inefficient, invite to dissension, and end, at no distant period, in separation; and that, if it had been proposed in the form of an explicit provision in the Constitution, would have been unanimously rejected, both in the Convention which framed that instrument, and in those which adopted it.

That the theory of the federal government being the result of the general will of the people of the United States in their aggregate capacity, and founded, in no degree, on compact between the States, would tend to the most disastrous practical results; that it would place three-fourths of the States at the mercy of onefourth, and lead inevitably to a consolidated government, and finally to monarchy, if the doctrine were generally admitted.

WEBSTER'S FOUR PROPOSITIONS.

1. That the Constitution is not a league, confederacy or compact between the people of the several States in their sovereign capacities; but a government proper, founded on the adoption of the people, and creating direct relations between itself and individuals.

2. That no State authority has power to dissolve these relations; that nothing can dissolve them but revolution; and that consequently there can be no such thing as secession without revolution.

3. That there is a supreme law, consisting of the Constitution of the United States, acts of Congress passed in pursuance of it, and treaties; and that in cases not capaple of assuming the character of a suit in law or equity, Congress must judge of and finally interpret this supreme law, so often as it has occasion to pass acts or legislation; and in cases capable of assuming, and actually assuming, the character of a suit, the Supreme Court of the United States is the final interpreter.

4. That an attempt of a State to abrogate, annul, or nullify an act of Congress, or to arrest its operation within her limits, on the ground that in her opinion such law is unconstitutional, is a direct usurpation of the just powers of the general government, and of the equal rights of the other States, a plain violation of the Constitution, and a proceeding essentially revolutionary in its character and tendency.

CHAPTER VII.

SECESSION IN 1861.

EFFERSON'S prophecy proved true. The sec

tional line having been drawn geographically, sectionalism began to organize as such. Churches fell apart across the barrier. There were the Northern and the Southern Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists. The question arose once more, "Is Christ divided?” Political parties strove in vain to straddle without partiality the dividing ridge. At the North, anti-slavery began to be anti Southern-slavery. The South resented meddling with their domestic affairs. Slavery instead of being universally condemned was approved from the rostrum and the pulpit. It could not have endured or tolerated opposition. No one knows how much suppressed sentiment to the contrary existed. Miss Martineau in 1836 says, "Among the many hundreds of persons in the slave States, with whom I conversed on the subject of slavery, I met with only one who defended the institution altogether. All the rest who vindicated its existence, did so on the ground of the impossibility of doing it away." But that was when there was an exact sectional balance of thirteen slave States to thirteen free States. Governor McDuffie of South Carolina about that time declared slavery was 328