onal from the motives of those who passed them, which we
can never with certainty know; from their unequal operation, although it
is impossible, from the nature of things, that they should be equal; and
from the disposition which we presume may be made of their proceeds,
although that disposition has not been declared. This is the plain
meaning of the ordinance in relation to laws which it abrogates for
alleged unconstitutionality. But it does not stop there. It repeals in
express terms an important part of the Constitution itself and of laws
passed to give it effect, which have never been alleged to be
unconstitutional.

The Constitution declares that the judicial powers of the United States
extend to cases arising under the laws of the United States, and that
such laws, the Constitution, and treaties shall be paramount to the
State constitutions and laws. The judiciary act prescribes the mode by
which the case may be brought before a court of the United States by
appeal when a State tribunal shall decide against this provision of the
Constitution. The ordinance declares there shall be no appeal--makes the
State law paramount to the Constitution and laws of the United States,
forces judges and jurors to swear that they will disregard their
provisions, and even makes it penal in a suitor to attempt relief by
appeal. It further declares that it shall not be lawful for the
authorities of the United States or of that State to enforce the payment
of duties imposed by the revenue laws within its limits.

Here is a law of the United States, not even pretended to be
unconstitutional, repealed by the authority of a small majority of the
voters of a single State. Here is a provision of the Constitution which
is solemnly abrogated by the same authority.

On such expositions and reasonings the ordinance grounds not only an
assertion of the right to annul the laws of which it complains, but to
enforce it by a threat of seceding from the Union if any attempt is made
to execute them.

This right to secede is deduced from the nature of the Constitution,
which, they say, is a compact between sovereign States who have
preserved their whole sovereignty and therefore are subject to no
superior; that because they made the compact they can break it when in
their opinion it has been departed from by the other States. Fallacious
as this course of reasoning is, it enlists State pride and finds
advocates in the honest prejudices of those wh