to the people; such as affect their property, their liberty, and life.  What is more important than the administration of justice and the execution of the civil and criminal laws?  Can the State governments become insignificant while they have the power of raising money independently and without control?  If they are really useful; if they are calculated to promote the essential interests of the people; they must have their confidence and support.  The States can never lose their powers till the whole people of America are robbed of their liberties.  These must go together; they must support each other, or meet one common fate.  On the gentleman’s principle, we may safely trust the State governments, though we have no means of resisting them; but we cannot confide in the national government, though we have an effectual constitutional guard against every encroachment.  This is the essence of their argument, and it is false and fallacious beyond conception.

With regard to the jurisdiction of the two governments, I shall certainly admit that the Constitution ought to be so formed as not to prevent the States from providing for their own existence; and I maintain that it is so formed; and that their power of providing for themselves is sufficiently established.  This is conceded by one gentleman, and in the next breath the concession is retracted.  He says Congress has but one exclusive right in taxation—­that of duties on imports; certainly, then, their other powers are only concurrent.  But to take off the force of this obvious conclusion, he immediately says that the laws of the United States are supreme; and that where there is one supreme there cannot be a concurrent authority; and further, that where the laws of the Union are supreme, those of the States must be subordinate; because there cannot be two supremes.  This is curious sophistry.  That two supreme powers cannot act together is false.  They are inconsistent only when they are aimed at each other or at one indivisible object.  The laws of the United States are supreme, as to all their proper, constitutional objects; the laws of the States are supreme in the same way.  These supreme laws may act on different objects without clashing; or they may operate on different parts of the same common object with perfect harmony.  Suppose both governments should lay a tax of a penny on a certain article; has not each an independent and uncontrollable power to collect its own tax?  The meaning of the maxim, there cannot be two supremes, is simply this—­two powers cannot be supreme over each other.  This meaning is entirely perverted by the gentlemen.  But, it is said, disputes between collectors are to be referred to the federal courts.  This is again wandering in the field of conjecture.  But suppose the fact is certain; is it not to be presumed that they will express the true meaning of the Constitution and the laws?  Will they not be bound to consider the concurrent jurisdiction; to declare that both the taxes shall have equal operation; that both the powers, in that respect, are sovereign and co-extensive?  If they transgress their duty, we are to hope that they will be punished.  Sir, we can reason from probabilities alone.  When we leave common-sense, and give ourselves up to conjecture, there can be no certainty, no security in our reasonings.