on of a crime against the
United States or any other act which, according to the supreme law of
the Union, would be otherwise unlawful; and it is equally clear that if
there be any case in which a State, as such, is affected by the law
beyond the scope of judicial power, the remedy consists in appeals to
the people, either to effect a change in the representation or to
procure relief by an amendment of the Constitution. But the measures of
the Government are to be recognized as valid, and consequently supreme,
until these remedies shall have been effectually tried, and any attempt
to subvert those measures or to render the laws subordinate to State
authority, and afterwards to resort to constitutional redress, is worse
than evasive. It would not be a proper resistance to "_a government of
unlimited powers_," as has been sometimes pretended, but unlawful
opposition to the very limitations on which the harmonious action of the
Government and all its parts absolutely depends. South Carolina has
appealed to none of these remedies, but in effect has defied them all.
While threatening to separate from the Union if any attempt be made to
enforce the revenue laws otherwise than through the civil tribunals of
the country, she has not only not appealed in her own name to those
tribunals which the Constitution has provided for all cases in law or
equity arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States, but
has endeavored to frustrate their proper action on her citizens by
drawing the cognizance of cases under the revenue laws to her own
tribunals, specially prepared and fitted for the purpose of enforcing
the acts passed by the State to obstruct those laws, and both the judges
and jurors of which will be bound by the import of oaths previously
taken to treat the Constitution and laws of the United States in this
respect as a nullity. Nor has the State made the proper appeal to public
opinion and to the remedy of amendment; for without waiting to learn
whether the other States will consent to a convention, or if they do
will construe or amend the Constitution to suit her views, she has of
her own authority altered the import of that instrument and given
immediate effect to the change. In fine, she has set her own will and
authority above the laws, has made herself arbiter in her own cause, and
has passed at once over all intermediate steps to measures of avowed
resistance, which, unless they be submitted to, can be enforc