Mr. President, the alleged right of a State to decide constitutional questions for herself necessarily leads to force, because other States must have the same right, and because different States will decide differently; and when these questions arise between States, if there be no superior power, they can be decided only by the law of force.  On entering into the Union, the people of each State gave up a part of their own power to make laws for themselves, in consideration, that, as to common objects, they should have a part in making laws for other States.  In other words, the people of all the States agreed to create a common government, to be conducted by common counsels.  Pennsylvania, for example, yielded the right of laying imposts in her own ports, in consideration that the new government, in which she was to have a share, should possess the power of laying imposts on all the States.  If South Carolina now refuses to submit to this power, she breaks the condition on which other States entered into the Union.  She partakes of the common counsels, and therein assists to bind others, while she refuses to be bound herself.  It makes no difference in the case, whether she does all this without reason or pretext, or whether she sets up as a reason, that, in her judgment, the acts complained of are unconstitutional.  In the judgment of other States, they are not so.  It is nothing to them that she offers some reason or some apology for her conduct, if it be one which they do not admit.  It is not to be expected that any State will violate her duty without some plausible pretext.  That would be too rash a defiance of the opinion of mankind.  But if it be a pretext which lies in her own breast, if it be no more than an opinion which she says she has formed, how can other States be satisfied with this?  How can they allow her to be judge of her own obligations?  Or, if she may judge of her obligations, may they not judge of their rights also?  May not the twenty-three entertain an opinion as well as the twenty-fourth?  And if it be their right, in their own opinion, as expressed in the common council, to enforce the law against her, how is she to say that her right and her opinion are to be every thing, and their right and their opinion nothing?

Mr. President, if we are to receive the Constitution as the text, and then to lay down in its margin the contradictory commentaries which have been, and which maybe, made by different States, the whole page would be a polyglot indeed.  It would speak with as many tongues as the builders of Babel, and in dialects as much confused, and mutually as unintelligible.  The very instance now before us presents a practical illustration.  The law of the last session is declared unconstitutional in South Carolina, and obedience to it is refused.  In other States, it is admitted to be strictly constitutional.  You walk over the limit of its authority, therefore, when you pass a State line.  On one side it is law, on the other side a nullity; and yet it is passed by a common government, having the same authority in all the States.