ration? This new government had the sole power to lay and
_collect_ 'duties on imports;' did each State remain an absolute
sovereignty in this respect, and with absolute powers to judge if the
object of the duties was constitutional, and annul the law? The General
Government was the only sovereign as regards these powers; but a single
State, having none of these powers, is made the absolute judge whether
they can or cannot be exercised: then no powers have yet been granted to
the General Government by any State, if each possesses the right to
interdict the exercise of any of these powers. But, could this General
Government exist without the authority to give one uniform effect to the
execution of its powers in all the States? Created with all the organs
of a government, legislative, judicial, and executive, may it enact, but
not expound, or enact and expound, but not execute? Must it stop at the
boundary of each State, and ask what power it possesses, and act upon
the contradictory responses of each State? Must it possess one set of
powers in one State, and another and wholly opposite set of powers in
another State? May it lay a tariff in one State, and not in another, and
yet this tariff required to be uniform in every State? Is it one
constitution, and susceptible of one only true construction, or
twenty-four constitutions, with twenty-four various and contradictory
constructions, and all right, because all pronounced by absolute
sovereigns exercising the uncontrolled power of ultimate judgment? Has
it any powers, and what are they? Will Mississippi submit this question
to Massachusetts or Carolina, or is a government created whose powers
cannot be ascertained? Must anarchy govern? Can there be no decision, or
is that of a single State, or of a small minority of the States, to
sweep away the legislation of a majority, or two thirds of the States?
According to the new theory, each State has the constitutional power in
the first instance, and one fourth in the last resort, to judge what
powers each State may exercise, and the other States must submit. Now,
this is impossible, where the legislation of the two States is
contradictory; and, if possible, is not a mere negative, but a positive
power. It is a government without limitation of power, in a single
State, aided by one fourth of the States--a government by which the
minority may control the majority in all cases whatsoever. Thus,
Carolina frames any law or ordinance