s neither more nor less, as it strikes me,
than a plain attempt to overthrow the government. The constituted
authorities of the United States are no longer a government, if they be
not masters of their own will; they are no longer a government, if an
external power may arrest their proceedings; they are no longer a
government, if acts passed by both houses, and approved by the
President, may be nullified by State vetoes or State ordinances. Does
any one suppose it could make any difference, as to the binding
authority of an act of Congress, and of the duty of a State to respect
it, whether it passed by a mere majority of both houses, or by three
fourths of each, or the unanimous vote of each? Within the limits and
restrictions of the Constitution, the government of the United States,
like all other populpr governments, acts by majorities. It can act no
otherwise. Whoever, therefore, denounces the government of majorities,
denounces the government of his own country, and denounces all free
governments. And whoever would restrain these majorities, while acting
within their constitutional limits, by an external power, whatever he
may intend, asserts principles which, if adopted, can lead to nothing
else than the destruction of the government itself.

Does not the gentleman perceive, Sir, how his argument against
majorities might here be retorted upon him? Does he not see how cogently
he might be asked, whether it be the character of nullification to
practise what it preaches? Look to South Carolina, at the present
moment. How far are the rights of minorities there respected? I confess,
Sir, I have not known, in peaceable times, the power of the majority
carried with a higher hand, or upheld with more relentless disregard of
the rights, feelings and principles of the minority;--a minority
embracing, as the gentleman himself will admit, a large portion of the
worth and respectability of the State;--a minority comprehending in its
numbers men who have been associated with him, and with us, in these
halls of legislation; men who have served their country at home and
honored it abroad; men who would cheerfully lay down their lives for
their native State, in any cause which they could regard as the cause of
honor and duty; men above fear, and above reproach, whose deepest grief
and distress spring from the conviction, that the present proceedings of
the State must ultimately reflect discredit upon her. How is this
minority, how