set up the doctrine that the system was
unconstitutional. "_And the people_," says the honorable gentleman,
"_received the doctrine_." This, I believe, is true, Sir. The people did
then receive the doctrine; they had never entertained it before. Down to
that period, the constitutionality of these laws had been no more
doubted in South Carolina than elsewhere. And I suspect it is true, Sir,
and I deem it a great misfortune, that, to the present moment, a great
portion of the people of the State have never yet seen more than one
side of the argument. I believe that thousands of honest men are
involved in scenes now passing, led away by one-sided views of the
question, and following their leaders by the impulses of an unlimited
confidence. Depend upon it, Sir, if we can avoid the shock of arms, a
day for reconsideration and reflection will come; truth and reason will
act with their accustomed force, and the public opinion of South
Carolina will be restored to its usual constitutional and patriotic
tone.

But, Sir, I hold South Carolina to her ancient, her cool, her
uninfluenced, her deliberate opinions. I hold her to her own admissions,
nay, to her own claims and pretensions, in 1789, in the first Congress,
and to her acknowledgments and avowed sentiments through a long series
of succeeding years. I hold her to the principles on which she led
Congress to act in 1816; or, if she have changed her own opinions, I
claim some respect for those who still retain the same opinions. I say
she is precluded from asserting that doctrines, which she has herself so
long and so ably sustained, are plain, palpable, and dangerous
violations of the Constitution.

Mr. President, if the friends of nullification should be able to
propagate their opinions, and give them practical effect, they would, in
my judgment, prove themselves the most skilful "architects of ruin," the
most effectual extinguishers of high-raised expectation, the greatest
blasters of human hopes, that any age has produced. They would stand up
to proclaim, in tones which would pierce the ears of half the human
race, that the last great experiment of representative government had
failed. They would send forth sounds, at the hearing of which the
doctrine of the divine right of kings would feel, even in its grave, a
returning sensation of vitality and resuscitation. Millions of eyes, of
those who now feed their inherent love of liberty on the success of the
American example,