peal to the United States Courts, by securing the arrest and imprisonment of the tax collectors who made the seizure at Chillicothe. They further secured an order of the Circuit Court sequestrating the money in the treasury of Ohio until the final decision of the Court. Thwarted in the courts, the nullifiers turned to the Legislature. The report of the Auditor of State concerning the proceedings which had occurred since the last session, was referred to a joint committee of the House and Senate. On December 12, 1820, an elaborate report justifying the act of the past year, and denouncing the decision of the Supreme Court in the McCullough case was presented by the joint committee. It was called a "manufactured " case, a decision obtained through a maneuver of consummate policy." It recommended the ignoring of the decision altogether. The committee quoted precedents to justify their advice. With suggestive appropriateness the case of President Jefferson withholding a commission from a justice of the peace of the District of Columbia in defiance of the Supreme Court, was referred to. Said the committee in their report:

"In the case of Marbury vs. Madison, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that William Marbury was entitled to his commission as justice of the peace for the District of Columbia; that the withholding of this commission by President Jefferson was violative of the legal vested right of Mr. Marbury. Notwithstanding this decision, Mr. Marbury never did obtain his commission; the person appointed in his place continued to act; his acts were admitted to be valid, and President Jefferson retained his standing in the estimation of the American people. The decision of the Supreme Court proved to be totally impotent and unavailing.

"So in the case of Fletcher vs. Peck, the Supreme Court decided that the Yazoo purchasers from the State of Georgia were entitled to the lands. But the decision availed them nothing, unless as a make-weight in effecting a compromise.

1 See House Journal of XIXth (Ohio) General Assembly, p. 98.

"These two cases are evidence that in great questions of political rights and political powers, a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States is not conclusive of the rights decided by it. If the United States stand justified in withholding a commission, when the Court adjudged it to be the party's right; if the United States might, without reprehension, retain possession of the Yazoo lands, after the Supreme Court decided that they were the property of the purchasers from Georgia, surely the State of Ohio ought not to be condemned because she did not abandon her solemn legislative acts as a dead letter upon the promulgation of an opinion of that tribunal."

With the same specious reasoning, adopted by the nullifiers of later dates, the committee argued that the State was sovereign, and the Union a compact with limited powers. It announced the astounding doctrine, afterwards reiterated by Buchanan's Attorney-General, that the nation possessed no power of self-preservation. "A combination between one-half of the States, comprising onethird of the people only, possess the power of disorganizing the Federal Government, in all its majesty of supremacy, without a single act of violence." The resolutions of 1798 were quoted at great length, and their principles heartily approved. Then came the remarkable and disloyal recommendation of the committee. It was nothing more nor less than to annul the decision of the Supreme Court of the Union by declaring he Bank f the United States an outlaw, and beyond the protection of the laws of Ohio. Said the Committee:

"For this purpose, the committee recommend that provision be made by law forbidding the keepers of our jails from receiving into their custody, any person committed at the suit of the Bank of the United States, or for any injury done to them; prohibiting our judicial officers fr m taking acknowledgements of conveyan es, where the Bank is a party, or when made for their use, and our recorders from receiving or recording such conveyances; forbidding our justices of the peace, judges, and grand juries, from taking any cognizance of any wrong, alle ged to have been committed upon any species of property,

owned by the Banks, or upon any of its corporate rights or privileges, and prohibiting our notaries public from protesting any notes or bills, held by the Bank or their agents, or made payable to them."

The committee concluded its report by recommending the adoption of a series of resolutions, wherein it was declared to be the sense of the Ohio Legislature that the doctrines asserted by the Legislatures of Kentucky and Virginia, in their resolutions of November and December, 1798, and January, 1800, were the true constructions of the powers of the government. They further declared and maintained, in spite of the decision of the Supreme Court, the right of the State to tax the Bank of the United States. This report was adopted, and in accordance with its recommendation, the Ge: eral Assembly proceeded to its inimical legislati n. On the 29th of January, 1831, they passed "An Act to withdraw from the Bank of the United States the protection of the laws of this State in certain cases."2 This law has no parallel outside of the ordinance of nullification passed by South Carolina in 1832, and the ordinances of secession of 1861. This law, so extraordinary and alarming, and at the same time so repugnant to every idea of common justice, in effect outlawed that which Chief Justice Marshall called one of the "constitutional means employed by the govern ment of the Union to execute its constitutional powers.' It was legislation against a bank constitutionally in existence, and whose charter was "a part of the supreme law of the land." Trampling upon all these considerations, the Ohio Democracy, through its legislature, made it a criminal offense to protect the property of the Bank of the United States; it was contrary to the Ohio Statute to prevent burglary, theft, or arson upon national bank property. It was declared illegal for any judge, justice of the peace, or any other judicial officer appointed "nder 1 Journal of XIXth (Ohio) General Assembly, p. 117. See Chase's Statutes of Ohio, Vol. II, p. 1185.

Ohio authority, to acknowledge or receive proof of acknowledgement of any deed or mortgage to which the Bank or any officer was a party. It was an offense for any recorder to record any such instrument. Notaries public were forbidden to protest United States Bank paper. Such was the climax in Ohio's fight of nullification. Under her laws the Federal Government was stripped and bound, and driven beyond her borders. The protection that was given to an alien or a criminal was denied to the National Government. The resolutions that led to nullification in 1832, and secession in 1861, were proudly announced in 1820 as Ohio's construction of constitutional law. Well did Hamilton with prophetic vision say, when he read them, "This is the first symptom of a spirit which must be killed, or it will kill the Constitution of the United States." The nullifiers of Ohio carried out to the letter these resolutions." They held, as set forth in the legislative report referred to, and as their subsequent acts showed, the doctrine advocated by Jefferson: "that the Government created by this compact (referring o the Constitution) was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; since that would have made its discretion and not the Constitution, the measurer of its powers; but that, as in all cases of compact among powe:s having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infraction as of the mode and measure of redress." The authorities of Ohio judged for themselves the limit of authority of the National Government, and chose the mode of redress. Their measures were more stringent, effective, and more completely nullified the supreme law of the land than did the measures of South Carolina twelve years after. Until the Supreme Court again declared that a State had no right to tax, in the final decision of the case originated in Ohio,' the iron law of non-protection was applied to the Bank.

2 Osborn vs. The Bank of the United States. 9 Wheaton's Reports, 738.

The legislative proceedings herein related, and the conduct of the State officers failed to attract the attention throughout the country that they merited, for the reason that at that time the nation was in the throes of the Missouri Compromise agitation. But enough importance was given to them to place in an unenviable light the great State from whence they came. To have a northern State, and that State anti-slavery Ohio, advocate the doctrine of State sovereignty, when the country was racked over the question of slavery, under threats of disunion from the leaders of State sovereignty, was not indeed comforting to constitutional unity. The cold verdict of history puts the blame where it belongs. The Ohio of to-day need not be ashamed to lay bare the record, neither need it devote any time to apology. The nullification of 1820 was the act of a political school that to-day is dead in that great State.

DANIEL J. RYAN.