So, in reading Mr. Calhoun’s disquisition upon government, we are constantly reminded that the author was a man who had only escaped trial and execution for treason by suddenly arresting the treasonable measures which he had caused to be set on foot.  Though it contains but one allusion to events in South Carolina in 1833, the work is nothing but a labored, refined justification of those events.  It has been even coupled with Edwards on the Will, as the two best examples of subtle reasoning which American literature contains.  Admit his premises, and you are borne along, at a steady pace, in a straight path, to the final inferences:  that the sovereign State of South Carolina possesses, by the Constitution of the United States, an absolute veto upon every act of Congress, and may secede from the Union whenever she likes; and that these rights of veto and secession do not merely constitute the strength of the Constitution, but are the Constitution,—­and do not merely tend to perpetuate the Union, but are the Union’s self,—­the thing that binds the States together.

Mr. Calhoun begins his treatise by assuming that government is necessary.  He then explains why it is necessary.  It is necessary because man is more selfish than sympathetic, feeling more intensely what affects himself than what affects others.  Hence he will encroach on the rights of others; and to prevent this, government is indispensable.

But government, since it must be administered by selfish men will feel more intensely what affects itself than what affects the people governed.  It is, therefore, the tendency of all governments to encroach on the rights of the people; and they certainly will do so, if they can.  The same instinct of self-preservation, the same love of accumulation, which tempts individuals to over-reach their neighbors, inclines government to preserve, increase, and consolidate its powers.  Therefore, as individual selfishness requires to be held in check by government, so government must be restrained by something.

This something is the constitution, written or unwritten.  A constitution is to the government what government is to the people:  it is the restraint upon its selfishness.  Mr. Calhoun assumes here that the relation between government and governed is naturally and inevitably “antagonistic.”  He does not perceive that government is the expression of man’s love of justice, and the means by which the people cause justice to be done.

Government, he continues, must be powerful; must have at command the resources of the country; must be so strong that it can, if it will, disregard the limitations of the constitution.  The question is, How to compel a government, holding such powers, having an army, a navy, and a national treasury at command, to obey the requirements of a mere piece of printed paper?

Power, says Mr. Calhoun, can only be resisted by power.  Therefore, a proper constitution must leave to the governed the power to resist encroachments.  This is done in free countries by universal suffrage and the election of rulers at frequent and fixed periods.  This gives to rulers the strongest possible motive to please the people, which can only be done by executing their will.