interests of the Democratic party. Jefferson was ready to nullify
the alien and sedition laws and the Constitution of the United
States in the Kentucky resolutions of 1798. The very Federalists
who fought him in that day and denounced him as a traitor and
nullifier lived to proclaim and practice doctrines of
nullification in behalf of State's rights during the War of 1812.

In the administration of Jefferson the Federal Government began
the construction of the great national road without any express
authority from the Constitution and notwithstanding the fact that
the construction of highways was admittedly a State matter.... On
August 24, 1912, the Congress of the United States, then
controlled by the Democratic party, voted $5,000,000 for the
construction of experimental and rural-delivery routes and to aid
the States in highway construction. From high in the councils of
that party we now have the advocacy of national ownership of
railways, telegraph and telephone lines.

In the early days of the republic the Democratic party protested
even in armed insurrection in Pennsylvania against the
inquisitorial excise tax, which, to use the language of that
day, "penetrated a sphere of taxation reserved to the State."
Today this party has placed upon the statute books the most
inquisitorial tax ever laid in the history of our country by the
act of April 9, 1912--a tax on white phosphorus matches, not for
the purpose of raising revenues, for which the taxing power is
conferred, but admittedly for the purpose of destroying an
industry which it could not touch otherwise. The match industry
was found to be injurious to a few hundred workingmen, women and
children. The Democratic party wisely and justly cast to the four
winds all talk about the rights of States, made the match
business a national affair and destroyed its dangerous features.
Men and women all over the country rose up and pronounced it a
noble achievement. Republicans joined with the Democrats in
claiming the honor of that great humane service.

I have not yet finished with this tattered shibboleth. The State
had the right to nullify Federal law in 1798, so Jefferson taught
and Kentucky practiced. Half a century elapsed; the State of
Wisconsin, rock-ribbed Republican, nullified the f