Having thus dispossessed the officers of the government of the goods, without payment of duties, and seized and secured them by the strong arm of the State, only one thing more remains to be done, and that is, to cut off all possibility of legal redress; and that, too, is accomplished, or thought to be accomplished.  The ordinance declares, that all judicial proceedings, founded on the revenue laws (including, of course, proceedings in the courts of the United States), shall be null and void.  This nullifies the judicial power of the United States.  Then comes the test-oath act.  This requires all State judges and jurors in the State courts to swear that they will execute the ordinance, and all acts of the legislature passed in pursuance thereof.  The ordinance declares, that no appeal shall be allowed from the decision of the State courts to the Supreme Court of the United States; and the replevin act makes it an indictable offence for any clerk to furnish a copy of the record, for the purpose of such appeal.

The two principal provisions on which South Carolina relies, to resist the laws of the United States, and nullify the authority of this government, are, therefore, these:—­

1.  A forcible seizure of goods, before duties are paid or secured, by the power of the State, civil and military.

2.  The taking away, by the most effectual means in her power, of all legal redress in the courts of the United States; the confining of judicial proceedings to her own State tribunals; and the compelling of her judges and jurors of these her own courts to take an oath, beforehand, that they will decide all cases according to the ordinance, and the acts passed under it; that is, that they will decide the cause one way.  They do not swear to try it, on its own merits; they only swear to decide it as nullification requires.

The character, Sir, of these provisions defies comment.  Their object is as plain as their means are extraordinary.  They propose direct resistance, by the whole power of the State, to laws of Congress, and cut off, by methods deemed adequate, any redress by legal and judicial authority.  They arrest legislation, defy the executive, and banish the judicial power of this government.  They authorize and command acts to be done, and done by force, both of numbers and of arms, which, if done, and done by force, are clearly acts of rebellion and treason.

Such, Sir, are the laws of South Carolina; such, Sir, is the peaceable remedy of nullification.  Has not nullification reached, Sir, even thus early, that point of direct and forcible resistance to law to which I intimated, three years ago, it plainly tended?