the
Union if any attempt should be made to enforce them. The first virtually
acknowledges that the law in question was passed under a power expressly
given by the Constitution to lay and collect imposts; but its
constitutionality is drawn in question from the _motives_ of those who
passed it. However apparent this purpose may be in the present case,
nothing can be more dangerous than to admit the position that an
unconstitutional purpose entertained by the members who assent to a law
enacted under a constitutional power shall make that law void. For how
is that purpose to be ascertained? Who is to make the scrutiny? How
often may bad purposes be falsely imputed, in how many cases are they
concealed by false professions, in how many is no declaration of motive
made? Admit this doctrine, and you give to the States an uncontrolled
right to decide, and every law may be annulled under this pretext. If,
therefore, the absurd and dangerous doctrine should be admitted that a
State may annul an unconstitutional law, or one that it deems such, it
will not apply to the present case.

The next objection is that the laws in question operate unequally. This
objection may be made with truth to every law that has been or can be
passed. The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that
would operate with perfect equality. If the unequal operation of a law
makes it unconstitutional, and if all laws of that description may be
abrogated by any State for that cause, then, indeed, is the Federal
Constitution unworthy of the slightest effort for its preservation. We
have hitherto relied on it as the perpetual bond of our Union; we have
received it as the work of the assembled wisdom of the nation; we have
trusted to it as to the sheet anchor of our safety in the stormy times
of conflict with a foreign or domestic foe; we have looked to it with
sacred awe as the palladium of our liberties, and with all the
solemnities of religion have pledged to each other our lives and
fortunes here and our hopes of happiness hereafter in its defense and
support. Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attaching this importance
to the Constitution of our country? Was our devotion paid to the
wretched, inefficient, clumsy contrivance which this new doctrine would
make it? Did we pledge ourselves to the support of an airy nothing--a
bubble that must be blown away by the first breath of disaffection? Was
this self-destroying, visionary theory the work