State
which has imposed the obligation to declare, in the last resort, the
extent of this obligation, as far as her citizens are concerned; and
this upon the plain principles which exist in all analogous cases of
compact between sovereign bodies. On this principle the people of the
State, acting in their sovereign capacity in convention, precisely as
they did in the adoption of their own and the Federal Constitution,
have declared, by the ordinance, that the acts of Congress which
imposed duties under the authority to lay imposts, were acts not for
revenue, as intended by the Constitution, but for protection, and
therefore null and void. The ordinance thus enacted by the people of
the State themselves, acting as a sovereign community, is as obligatory
on the citizens of the State as any portion of the Constitution. In
prescribing, then, the oath to obey the ordinance, no more was done
than to prescribe an oath to obey the Constitution. It is, in fact,
but a particular oath of allegiance, and in every respect similar to
that which is prescribed, under the Constitution of the United States,
to be administered to all the officers of the State and Federal
governments; and is no more deserving the harsh and bitter epithets
which have been heaped upon it than that or any similar oath. It ought
to be borne in mind that, according to the opinion which prevails in
Carolina, the right of resistance to the unconstitutional acts of
Congress belongs to the State, and not to her individual citizens; and
that, though the latter may, in a mere question of *meum* and *tuum,*
resist through the courts an unconstitutional encroachment upon their
rights, yet the final stand against usurpation rests not with them, but
with the State of which they are members; and such act of resistance by
a State binds the conscience and allegiance of the citizen. But there
appears to be a general misapprehension as to the extent to which the
State has acted under this part of the ordinance. Instead of sweeping
every officer by a general proscription of the minority, as has been
represented in debate, as far as my knowledge extends, not a single
individual has been removed. The State has, in fact, acted with the
greatest tenderness, all circumstances considered, toward citizens who
differed from the majority; and, in that spirit, has directed the oath
to be administered only in the case of some official act directed to be
performed in which obedienc