To make this assertion good, Sir, let us see how the case stands.  The Legislature of South Carolina, it is said, will nullify the late revenue or tariff law, because, they say, it is not warranted by the Constitution of the United States, as they understand the Constitution.  They, as well as the President of the United States, have sworn to support the Constitution.  Both he and they have taken the same oath, in the same words.  Now, Sir, since he claims the right to interpret the Constitution as he pleases, how can he deny the same right to them?  Is his oath less stringent than theirs?  Has he a prerogative of dispensation which they do not possess?  How can he answer them, when they tell him, that the revenue laws are unconstitutional, as they understand the Constitution, and that therefore they will nullify them?  Will he reply to them, according to the doctrines of his annual message in 1830, that precedent has settled the question, if it was ever doubtful?  They will answer him in his own words in the veto message, that, in such a case, precedent is not binding.  Will he say to them, that the revenue law is a law of Congress, which must be executed until it shall be declared void?  They will answer him, that, in other cases, he has himself refused to execute laws of Congress which had not been declared void, but which had been, on the contrary, declared valid.  Will he urge the force of judicial decisions?  They will answer, that he himself does not admit the binding obligation of such decisions.  Sir, the President of the United States is of opinion, that an individual, called on to execute a law, may himself judge of its constitutional validity.  Does nullification teach any thing more revolutionary than that?  The President is of opinion, that judicial interpretations of the Constitution and the laws do not bind the consciences, and ought not to bind the conduct, of men.  Is nullification at all more disorganizing than that?  The President is of opinion, that every officer is bound to support the Constitution only according to what ought to be, in his private opinion, its construction.  Has nullification, in its wildest flight, ever reached to an extravagance like that?  No, Sir, never.  The doctrine of nullification, in my judgment a most false, dangerous, and revolutionary doctrine, is this:  that the State, or a State, may declare the extent of the obligations which its citizens are under to the United States; in other words, that a State, by State laws and State judicatures, may conclusively construe the Constitution for its own citizens.  But that every individual may construe it for himself is a refinement on the theory of resistance to constitutional power, a sublimation of the right of being disloyal to the Union, a free charter for the elevation of private opinion above the authority of the fundamental law of the state, such as was never presented to the public view, and the public astonishment, even by nullification itself.  Its first appearance is in the veto message.  Melancholy, lamentable, indeed, Sir, is our condition, when, at a moment of serious danger and wide-spread alarm, such sentiments are found to proceed from the chief magistrate of the government.  Sir, I cannot feel that the Constitution is safe in such hands.  I cannot feel that the present administration is its fit and proper guardian.