t of the United States or in any department or officer
thereof," and also to provide for calling forth the militia for
executing the laws of the Union. In all cases similar to the present the
duties of the Government become the measure of its powers, and whenever
it fails to exercise a power necessary and proper to the discharge of
the duty prescribed by the Constitution it violates the public trusts
not less than it would in transcending its proper limits. To refrain,
therefore, from the high and solemn duties thus enjoined, however
painful the performance may be, and thereby tacitly permit the rightful
authority of the Government to be contemned and its laws obstructed by a
single State, would neither comport with its own safety nor the rights
of the great body of the American people.

It being thus shown to be the duty of the Executive to execute the laws
by all constitutional means, it remains to consider the extent of those
already at his disposal and what it may be proper further to provide.

In the instructions of the Secretary of the Treasury to the collectors
in South Carolina the provisions and regulations made by the act of
1799, and also the fines, penalties, and forfeitures for their
enforcement, are particularly detailed and explained. It may be well
apprehended, however, that these provisions may prove inadequate to meet
such an open, powerful, organized opposition as is to be commenced after
the 1st of February next.

Subsequently to the date of these instructions and to the passage of the
ordinance, information has been received from sources entitled to be
relied on that owing to the popular excitement in the State and the
effect of the ordinance declaring the execution of the revenue laws
unlawful a sufficient number of persons in whom confidence might be
placed could not be induced to accept the office of inspector to oppose
with any probability of success the force which will no doubt be used
when an attempt is made to remove vessels and their cargoes from the
custody of the officers of the customs, and, indeed, that it would be
impracticable for the collector, with the aid of any number of
inspectors whom he may be authorized to employ, to preserve the custody
against such an attempt.

The removal of the custom-house from Charleston to Castle Pinckney was
deemed a measure of necessary precaution, and though the authority to
give that direction is not questioned, it is nevertheless apparent that