All this would be unintelligible to our foreign philosopher, but American citizens know very well what it means.  Through this fine lattice-work fence they discern the shining countenance of the colored person.

But now, what remedy?  Mr. Calhoun approaches this part of the subject with the due acknowledgment of its difficulty.  The remedy, of course, is Nullification; but he is far from using a word so familiar.  There is but one mode, he remarks, by which the majority of the whole people can be prevented from oppressing the minority, or portions of the minority, and that is this: 

“By taking the sense of each interest or portion of the community, which may be unequally and injuriously affected by the action of the government, separately, through its own majority, or in some other way by which its voice can be expressed; and to require the consent of each interest, either to put or to keep the government in motion.”

And this can only be done by such an “organism” as will “give to each division or interest either a concurrent voice in making and executing the laws or a veto on their execution.”

This is perfectly intelligible when read by the light of the history of 1833.  But no human being unacquainted with that history could gather Mr. Calhoun’s meaning.  Our studious foreigner would suppose by the word “interest,” that the author meant the manufacturing interest, the commercial and agricultural interests, and that each of these should have its little congress concurring in or vetoing the acts of the Congress sitting at Washington. We, however, know that Mr. Calhoun meant that South Carolina should have the power to nullify acts of Congress and give law to the Union.  He does not tell us how South Carolina’s tyrant Majority is to be kept within bounds; but only how that majority is to control the majority of the whole country.  He has driven his problem into a corner, and there he leaves it.

Having thus arrived at the conclusion, that a law, to be binding on all “interests,” i.e. on all the States of the Union, must be concurred in by all, he proceeds to answer the obvious objection, that “interests” so antagonistic could never be brought to unanimous agreement.  He thinks this would present no difficulty, and adduces some instances of unanimity to illustrate his point.

First, trial by jury.  Here are twelve men, of different character and calibre, shut up in a room to agree upon a verdict, in a cause upon which able men have argued upon opposite sides.  How unlikely that they should be able to agree unanimously!  Yet they generally do, and that speedily.  Why is this?  Because, answers Mr. Calhoun, they go into their room knowing that nothing short of unanimity will answer; and consequently every man is disposed to agree with his fellows, and, if he cannot agree, to compromise.  “Not at all.”  The chief reason why juries generally agree is, that they are not interested in the matter in dispute.  The law of justice is so plainly written in the human heart, that the fair thing is usually obvious to disinterested minds, or can be made so.  It is interest, it is rivalry, that blinds us to what is right; and Mr. Calhoun’s problem is to render “antagonistic” interests unanimous.  We cannot, therefore, accept this illustration as a case in point.