es from the virtuous, and the great, and the
mighty? No, sir; it says no such thing. The right of petition belongs to
all; and so far from refusing to present a petition because it might
come from those low in the estimation of the world, it would be an
additional incentive, if such an incentive were wanting.

NULLIFICATION

From his Fourth of July Oration at Quincy, 1831

Nullification is the provocation to that brutal and foul contest of
force, which has hitherto baffled all the efforts of the European and
Southern American nations, to introduce among them constitutional
governments of liberty and order. It strips us of that peculiar and
unimitated characteristic of all our legislation--free debate; it makes
the bayonet the arbiter of law; it has no argument but the thunderbolt.
It were senseless to imagine that twenty-three States of the Union would
suffer their laws to be trampled upon by the despotic mandate of one.
The act of nullification would itself be null and void. Force must be
called in to execute the law of the Union. Force must be applied by the
nullifying State to resist its execution--

"Ate, hot from Hell,
Cries Havoc! and lets slip the dogs of war."

The blood of brethren is shed by each other. The citizen of the
nullifying State is a traitor to his country, by obedience to the law of
his State; a traitor to his State, by obedience to the law of his
country. The scaffold and the battle-field stream alternately with the
blood of their victims. Let this agent but once intrude upon your
deliberations, and Freedom will take her flight for heaven. The
Declaration of Independence will become a philosophical dream, and
uncontrolled, despotic sovereignties will trample with impunity, through
a long career of after ages, at interminable or exterminating war with
one another, upon the indefeasible and unalienable rights of man.

The event of a conflict of arms, between the Union and one of its
members, whether terminating in victory or defeat, would be but an
alternative of calamity to all. In the holy records of antiquity, we
have two examples of a confederation ruptured by the severance of its
members; one of which resulted, after three desperate battles, in the
extermination of the seceding tribe. And the victorious people, instead
of exulting in shouts of triumph, "came to the House of God, and abode
there till even before God; and lifted up their voices, and wept sore,
and said,--O L