may interfere, in a case of deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of a power not granted.  The honorable member supposes the tariff law to be such an exercise of power; and that consequently a case has arisen in which the State may, if it see fit, interfere by its own law.  Now it so happens, nevertheless, that Mr. Madison deems this same tariff law quite constitutional.  Instead of a clear and palpable violation, it is, in his judgment, no violation at all.  So that, while they use his authority in a hypothetical case, they reject it in the very case before them.  All this, sir, shows the inherent futility, I had almost used a stronger word, of conceding this power of interference to the State, and then attempting to secure it from abuse by imposing qualifications of which the States themselves are to judge.  One of two things is true; either the laws of the Union are beyond the discretion and beyond the control of the States; or else we have no constitution of general government, and are thrust back again to the days of the Confederation. * * *

I must now beg to ask, sir, whence is this supposed right of the States derived?  Where do they find the power to interfere with the laws of the Union?  Sir, the opinion which the honorable gentleman maintains, is a notion founded in a total misapprehension, in my judgment, of the origin of this government, and of the foundation on which it stands.  I hold it to be a popular government, erected by the people; those who administer it, responsible to the people; and itself capable of being amended and modified, just as the people may choose it should be.  It is as popular, just as truly emanating from the people, as the State governments.  It is created for one purpose; the State governments for another.  It has its own powers; they have theirs.  There is no more authority with them to arrest the operation of a law of Congress, than with Congress to arrest the operation of their laws.  We are here to administer a constitution emanating immediately from the people, and trusted by them to our administration.  It is not the creature of the State governments.

This government, sir, is the independent off-spring of the popular will.  It is not the creature of State legislatures; nay, more, if the whole truth must be told, the people brought it into existence, established it, and have hitherto supported it, for the very purpose amongst others, of imposing certain salutary restraints on State sovereignties.  The States cannot now make war; they cannot contract alliances; they cannot make, each for itself, separate regulations of commerce; they cannot lay imposts; they cannot coin money.  If this Constitution, sir, be the creature of State legislatures, it must be admitted that it has obtained a strange control over the volitions of its creators.