they had never entertained it before.  Down to that period, the constitutionality of these laws had been no more doubted in South Carolina than elsewhere.  And I suspect it is true, Sir, and I deem it a great misfortune, that, to the present moment, a great portion of the people of the State have never yet seen more than one side of the argument.  I believe that thousands of honest men are involved in scenes now passing, led away by one-sided views of the question, and following their leaders by the impulses of an unlimited confidence.  Depend upon it, Sir, if we can avoid the shock of arms, a day for reconsideration and reflection will come; truth and reason will act with their accustomed force, and the public opinion of South Carolina will be restored to its usual constitutional and patriotic tone.

But, Sir, I hold South Carolina to her ancient, her cool, her uninfluenced, her deliberate opinions.  I hold her to her own admissions, nay, to her own claims and pretensions, in 1789, in the first Congress, and to her acknowledgments and avowed sentiments through a long series of succeeding years.  I hold her to the principles on which she led Congress to act in 1816; or, if she have changed her own opinions, I claim some respect for those who still retain the same opinions.  I say she is precluded from asserting that doctrines, which she has herself so long and so ably sustained, are plain, palpable, and dangerous violations of the Constitution.

Mr. President, if the friends of nullification should be able to propagate their opinions, and give them practical effect, they would, in my judgment, prove themselves the most skilful “architects of ruin,” the most effectual extinguishers of high-raised expectation, the greatest blasters of human hopes, that any age has produced.  They would stand up to proclaim, in tones which would pierce the ears of half the human race, that the last great experiment of representative government had failed.  They would send forth sounds, at the hearing of which the doctrine of the divine right of kings would feel, even in its grave, a returning sensation of vitality and resuscitation.  Millions of eyes, of those who now feed their inherent love of liberty on the success of the American example, would turn away from beholding our dismemberment, and find no place on earth whereon to rest their gratified sight.  Amidst the incantations and orgies of nullification, secession, disunion, and revolution, would be celebrated the funeral rites of constitutional and republican liberty.

But, Sir, if the government do its duty, if it act with firmness and with moderation, these opinions cannot prevail.  Be assured, Sir, be assured, that, among the political sentiments of this people, the love of union is still uppermost.  They will stand fast by the Constitution, and by those who defend it.  I rely on no temporary expedients, on no political combination; but I rely on the true American feeling, the genuine patriotism of the people, and