We
shall then see what similarity there is between the New England school
of constitutional opinions, and this modern Carolina school. The
gentleman, I think, read a petition from some single individual
addressed to the legislature of Massachusetts, asserting the Carolina
doctrine; that is, the right of State interference to arrest the laws of
the Union. The fate of that petition shows the sentiment of the
legislature. It met no favor. The opinions of Massachusetts were very
different. They had been expressed in 1798, in answer to the resolutions
of Virginia, and she did not depart from them, nor bend them to the
times. Misgoverned, wronged, oppressed, as she felt herself to be, she
still held fast her integrity to the Union. The gentleman may find in
her proceedings much evidence of dissatisfaction with the measures of
government, and great and deep dislike to the embargo; all this makes
the case so much the stronger for her; for, notwithstanding all this
dissatisfaction and dislike, she still claimed no right to sever the
bonds of the Union. There was heat, and there was anger in her political
feeling. Be it so; but neither her heat nor her anger betrayed her into
infidelity to the government. The gentleman labors to prove that she
disliked the embargo as much as South Carolina dislikes the tariff, and
expressed her dislike as strongly. Be it so; but did she propose the
Carolina remedy? did she threaten to interfere, by State authority, to
annul the laws of the Union? That is the question for the gentleman's
consideration.

No doubt, Sir, a great majority of the people of New England
conscientiously believed the embargo law of 1807 unconstitutional; as
conscientiously, certainly, as the people of South Carolina hold that
opinion of the tariff. They reasoned thus: Congress has power to
regulate commerce; but here is a law, they said, stopping all commerce,
and stopping it indefinitely. The law is perpetual; that is, it is not
limited in point of time, and must of course continue until it shall be
repealed by some other law. It is as perpetual, therefore, as the law
against treason or murder. Now, is this regulating commerce, or
destroying it? Is it guiding, controlling, giving the rule to commerce,
as a subsisting thing or is it putting an end to it altogether? Nothing
is more certain, than that a majority in New England deemed this law a
violation of the Constitution. The very case required by the gentleman
to justif