"

In the subsequent portion of this address Mr. Adams, regarding the
principles of nullification as being at the basis of Mr. Tyler's whole
policy, enters at large into its nature, and thus speaks of its origin
and association with democracy:

"Let me advert again to the important disclosure in the letter of
Mr. Appleton to his constituents, from which I have taken the
liberty of reading to you an extract. Nullification was generated
in the hot-bed of slavery. It drew its first breath in the land
where the meaning of the word democracy is that a majority of the
people are the goods and chattels of the minority; that more than
one half of the people are not men, women, and children, but
things, to be treated by their owners, not exactly like dogs and
horses, but like tables, chairs, and joint-stools; that they are
not even fixtures to the soil, as in countries where servitude is
divested of its most hideous features,--not even beings in the
mitigated degradation from humanity of beasts, or birds, or
creeping things,--but destitute not only of the sensibilities of
our own race of men, but of the sensations of all animated nature.
That is the native land of nullification, and it is a theory of
constitutional law worthy of its origin. _Democracy_, pure
democracy, has at least its foundation in a generous theory of
human rights. It is founded on the natural equality of mankind. It
is the corner-stone of the Christian religion. It is the first
_element_ of _all_ lawful government upon earth. Democracy is
self-government of the community by the conjoint will of the
majority of numbers. What communion, what affinity, can there be
between that principle and nullification, which is the despotism of
a corporation--unlimited, unrestrained, _sovereign_ power? Never,
never was amalgamation so preposterous and absurd as that of
nullification and democracy."

Of the hostility of nullification to the prosperity of the free states
he thus speaks:

"The root of the doctrine of nullification is that if the internal
improvement of the country should be left to the legislative
management of the national government, and the proceeds of the
sales of the public lands should be applied as a perpetual and
self-accumulating fund for that purpose, the blessings unceasingly
showered upon the people by this process wou