fails to exercise a power necessary and proper to the discharge of the duty prescribed by the Constitution it violates the public trusts not less than it would in transcending its proper limits.  To refrain, therefore, from the high and solemn duties thus enjoined, however painful the performance may be, and thereby tacitly permit the rightful authority of the Government to be contemned and its laws obstructed by a single State, would neither comport with its own safety nor the rights of the great body of the American people.

It being thus shown to be the duty of the Executive to execute the laws by all constitutional means, it remains to consider the extent of those already at his disposal and what it may be proper further to provide.

In the instructions of the Secretary of the Treasury to the collectors in South Carolina the provisions and regulations made by the act of 1799, and also the fines, penalties, and forfeitures for their enforcement, are particularly detailed and explained.  It may be well apprehended, however, that these provisions may prove inadequate to meet such an open, powerful, organized opposition as is to be commenced after the 1st of February next.

Subsequently to the date of these instructions and to the passage of the ordinance, information has been received from sources entitled to be relied on that owing to the popular excitement in the State and the effect of the ordinance declaring the execution of the revenue laws unlawful a sufficient number of persons in whom confidence might be placed could not be induced to accept the office of inspector to oppose with any probability of success the force which will no doubt be used when an attempt is made to remove vessels and their cargoes from the custody of the officers of the customs, and, indeed, that it would be impracticable for the collector, with the aid of any number of inspectors whom he may be authorized to employ, to preserve the custody against such an attempt.

The removal of the custom-house from Charleston to Castle Pinckney was deemed a measure of necessary precaution, and though the authority to give that direction is not questioned, it is nevertheless apparent that a similar precaution can not be observed in regard to the ports of Georgetown and Beaufort, each of which under the present laws remains a port of entry and exposed to the obstructions meditated in that quarter.

In considering the best means of avoiding or of preventing the apprehended obstruction to the collection of the revenue, and the consequences which may ensue, it would appear to be proper and necessary to enable the officers of the customs to preserve the custody of vessels and their cargoes, which by the existing laws they are required to take, until the duties to which they are liable shall be paid or secured.  The mode by which it is contemplated to deprive them of that custody is the process of replevin and that of capias in withernam, in the nature of a distress from the State tribunals organized by the ordinance.