our bleeding countrymen;
would the ordinance be constitutional, or would not the acts it required
to be performed be treason against the Government of the Union?

It is said a State cannot commit treason; no, but its citizens may; nor
would they be rightfully acquitted because sustained by the judgment of
a single State. If each State possesses an equal right to pass ultimate
judgment upon any act of Congress, and two States enact ordinances
directly contradictory to the same law, do they not, like the meeting of
equal forces in mechanics, nullify each other? or must the same law be
enforced in one State and disregarded in the other? Not without
violating the Constitution; for if New York pronounces the Tariff valid,
and South Carolina declares it void, and suits are instituted in each
State on bonds given for the payment of duties on imports introduced
into each, must the duties be collected in one State, but not in the
other? This would be to set at open defiance those clauses of the
Constitution which declare that all imposts 'shall be uniform throughout
the United States,' and that 'no preference shall exist in the
collection of revenue in the ports of one State over those of another.'
Upon an appeal from the decisions by the Federal district courts of New
York and Carolina, in the suits on the bonds for these duties, how would
the Supreme Court of the Union decide the question? by enforcing the
payment of the bonds given in Carolina? No; for that State had exercised
the right of ultimate judgment, and pronounced the law invalid; would
the court decide against the validity of the bond given in New York? No;
for that State, in exercising its equal right of pronouncing ultimate
judgment, had declared that the law was valid. Or would they enforce the
payments of the duties in New York and not in South Carolina? This, we
have seen, would violate both the clauses of the Constitution last
quoted. The only remaining judgment would be, to disregard the edict of
a single State, and to enforce the payment of the duties in both States,
or in neither, as the act of Congress might or might not be repugnant to
the provisions of the Constitution. If Kentucky and Virginia thought
they possessed the power in regard to the alien and sedition laws now
claimed by Carolina in regard to the Tariff, where is the ordinance
nullifying those laws? Or would they be nullified by resolutions
expressing only the judgment and opinion of the Legisl