is, to resist unconstitutional laws, without overturning the government.  It is no doctrine of mine that unconstitutional laws bind the people.  The great question is, Whose prerogative is it to decide on the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the laws?  On that, the main debate hinges.  The proposition, that, in case of a supposed violation of the Constitution by Congress, the States have a constitutional right to interfere and annul the law of Congress is the proposition of the gentleman.  I do not admit it.  If the gentleman had intended no more than to assert the right of revolution for justifiable cause, he would have said only what all agree to.  But I cannot conceive that there can be a middle course, between submission to the laws, when regularly pronounced constitutional, on the one hand, and open resistance, which is revolution or rebellion, on the other.  I say, the right of a State to annul a law of Congress cannot be maintained, but on the ground of the inalienable right of man to resist oppression; that is to say, upon the ground of revolution.  I admit that there is an ultimate violent remedy, above the Constitution and in defiance of the Constitution, which may be resorted to when a revolution is to be justified.  But I do not admit, that, under the Constitution and in conformity with it, there is any mode in which a State government, as a member of the Union, can interfere and stop the progress of the General Government, by force of her own laws, under any circumstances whatever.

This leads us to inquire into the origin of this government and the source of its power.  Whose agent is it?  Is it the creature of the State Legislatures, or the creature of the people?  If the Government of the United States be the agent of the State governments, then they may control it, provided they can agree in the manner of controlling it; if it be the agent of the people, then the people alone can control it, restrain it, modify, or reform it.  It is observable enough, that the doctrine for which the honorable gentleman contends leads him to the necessity of maintaining, not only that this General Government is the creature of the States, but that it is the creature of each of the States, severally, so that each may assert the power for itself of determining whether it acts within the limits of its authority.  It is the servant of four-and-twenty masters, of different wills and different purposes, and yet bound to obey all.  This absurdity (for it seems no less) arises from a misconception as to the origin of this government and its true character.  It is, sir, the people’s Constitution, the people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.  The people of the United States have declared that this Constitution shall be supreme law.  We must either admit the proposition, or deny their authority.  The States are, unquestionably, sovereign, so far as their sovereignty is not affected by this supreme law.  But the State Legislatures,