My fourth and last proposition, Mr. President, was, that any attempt by a State to abrogate or nullify acts of Congress is a usurpation on the powers of the general government and on the equal rights of other States, a violation of the Constitution, and a proceeding essentially revolutionary.  This is undoubtedly true, if the preceding propositions be regarded as proved.  If the government of the United States be trusted with the duty, in any department, of declaring the extent of its own powers, then a State ordinance, or act of legislation, authorizing resistance to an act of Congress, on the alleged ground of its unconstitutionally, is manifestly a usurpation upon its powers.  If the States have equal rights in matters concerning the whole, then for one State to set up her judgment against the judgment of the rest, and to insist on executing that judgment by force, is also a manifest usurpation on the rights of other States.  If the Constitution of the United States be a government proper, with authority to pass laws, and to give them a uniform interpretation and execution, then the interposition of a State, to enforce her own construction, and to resist, as to herself, that law which binds the other States, is a violation of the Constitution.

If that be revolutionary which arrests the legislative, executive, and judicial power of government, dispenses with existing oaths and obligations of obedience, and elevates another power to supreme dominion, then nullification is revolutionary.  Or if that be revolutionary the natural tendency and practical effect of which are to break the Union into fragments, to sever all connection among the people of the respective States, and to prostrate this general government in the dust, then nullification is revolutionary.

Nullification, Sir, is as distinctly revolutionary as secession; but I cannot say that the revolution which it seeks is one of so respectable a character.  Secession would, it is true, abandon the Constitution altogether; but then it would profess to abandon it.  Whatever other inconsistencies it might run into, one, at least, it would avoid.  It would not belong to a government, while it rejected its authority.  It would not repel the burden, and continue to enjoy the benefits.  It would not aid in passing laws which others are to obey, and yet reject their authority as to itself.  It would not undertake to reconcile obedience to public authority with an asserted right of command over that same authority.  It would not be in the government, and above the government, at the same time.  But though secession may be a more respectable mode of attaining the object than nullification, it is not more truly revolutionary.  Each, and both, resist the constitutional authorities; each, and both, would sever the Union and subvert the government.

Mr. President, having detained the Senate so long already, I will not now examine at length the ordinance and laws of South Carolina.  These papers are well drawn for their purpose.  Their authors understood their own objects.  They are called a peaceable remedy, and we have been told that South Carolina, after all, intends nothing but a lawsuit.  A very few words, Sir, will show the nature of this peaceable remedy, and of the lawsuit which South Carolina contemplates.