be

And we, the people of South Carolina, to the end that it may fully understood by the Government of the United States, and the people of the co-States, that we are determined to maintain this, our ordinance and declaration, at every hazard, do further declare, that we will not submit to the application of force on the part of the Federal Government, to reduce this State to obedience; but that we will consider the passage, by Congress, of any act authorizing the employment of a military or naval force against the State of South Carolina, her constituted authorities or citizens; or any act; abolishing or closing the ports of this State, or any of them, or otherwise obstructing the free ingress and egress of vessels, to and from the said ports; or any other act on the part of the Federal Government to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harrass her commerce, or to enforce the acts hereby declared to be null and void, otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union: and that the people of this State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connexion with the people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed to organise a separate Government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do.

Done in Convention, at Columbia, the twenty-fourth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, and in the fifty-seventh year of the Declaration of the Independence of the United States of America.

JAMES HAMILTON, JUN. President of the
Convention, and Delegate from St. Peters.

James Hamilton, sen.

Richard Bohun Baker, sen.

Samuel Warren,

Nathaniel Heyward,

Robert Long,

J. B. Earle,

L. M. Ayer,
Benjamin Adams,
James Adams,
James Anderson,
Robert Anderson,

William Arnold,
John Ball,
Barnard E. Bee,
Thomas W. Boone,
R. W. Barnwell,
Isaac Bradwell, jr.
Thomas G. Blewett,
P. M. Butler,
John G. Brown,
J. G. Brown,

John Bauskett,
A. Burt,

(S. No. 2.]

4

James Lynah,

Francis Y. Legare,

Alex. J. Lawton,
John Lipscomb,
John Logan,
J. Littlejohn,
A. Lancaster,
John Magrath,
Benj. A. Markley,
John S. Maner,
Wm. M. Murray,
R. G. Mills,
John B. McCall,
D. H. Means,
R. G. Mays,
George McDuffie,
James Moore,
John L. Miller,
Stephen D. Miller,
John B. Miller,
R. P. McCord,
John L. Nowell,
Jennings O'Bannon,

ADDRESS

To the People of South Carolina, by their Delegates in Convention.

FALLOW CITIZENS,

The situation in which you have been placed by the usurpations of the Federal Government, is one which you ao peculiarly feel, as to render all reference to it at this moment unnecessary. For the last ten years the subject of your grievances has been presented to you. This subject you have well considered. You have viewed it in all its aspects, bearings and tendencies, and you seem more and more confirmed in the opinion, expressed by both branches of the Legislature, that the Tariff, in its operation, is not only "grossly unequal and unjust, but is such an abuse of power as is incompatible with the principles of a Free Government, and the great ends of civil society;" and that if persisted in, "the fate of this State would be poverty and utter desolation." Correspondent with this conviction, a disposition is manifested in every section of the country, to arrest, by some means or other, the progress of this intolerable evil. This disposition having arisen from no sudden excitement, but having been gradually formed by the free and temperate discussions of the Press, there is no reason to believe that it can ever subside by any means short of the removal of the urgent abuse; and it is under this general conviction, that we have been convened to take into consideration, not only the character and extent of your grievances, but. also the mode and measure of redress.

This duty, fellow citizens, we have discharged to the best of our judgments, and the result of our deliberations will be found in the DECLARATION and ORDINANCE just passed by us, founded on the great and undeniable truth, that in all cases of a palpable, oppressive and dangerous infraction of the Federal compact, each State has a right to annul, and to render inoperative within its limits, all such unauthorized acts. After the luminous expositions which have been already furnished by so many great minds, that the exercise of this right is compatible with the first principles of our anomalous scheme of government, it would be superfluous here to state at length the reasons by which this mode of redress is to be sustained. A deference, however, for the opinions of those of our fellow citizens, who have hitherto dissented from us, demands that we should briefly state the principal ground upon which we place the right and the expediency of Nullification

The Constitution of the United States, as is admitted by cotemporaneous writers, is a compact between Sovereign States.

Though the subject matter of that compact was a Government, the powers of which Government were to operate, to a certain extent, upon the People of those Sovereign States, aggregately, and not upon the State Authorities, as is usual in confederacies, still the Constitution is a Confederacy. First. It is a Confederacy, because in its FOUNDATIONS it possesses not one single feature of nationality. The people of the separate States, as distinct political communities, ratified the Constitution, each State acting for itself, and binding its own citizens, and not those of any other State. The act of ratification declares it "to be binding on the States so ratifying. The States are its authors-their power created it-their voice clothed it with authority-the Government it formed is in reality their Government, and the Union of which it is a bond is a Union of States, and not of individuals." Secondly. It is a Confederacy, because the EXTENT of the powers of the Government depends, not upon the People of the United States collectively, but npon the State legislatures, or on the people of the separate States, acting in their State Conventions, each State being represented by à single vote,

It must never be forgotten, that it is to the creating and to the controlling power, that we are to look for the true character of the Federal Government; for the present controversy is, not as to the SOURCES from which the ordinary powers of the Government are drawn; these are partly federal and partly national. Nor is it relevant to consider upon whom these powers operate. In this last view, the Government, for limited purposes, is entirely national. The true question is, who are the parties to the compact? Who created, and who can alter and destroy it? Is it the States or the People? This question has been already answered. The States, as States, ratified the compact. The People of the United States, collectively, had no agency in its formation. There did not exist then, nor has there existed at any time since, such a political body as the People of the United States. There is not now, nor has there ever been such a relation existing, as that of a citizen of NewHampshire, and a citizen of South Carolina, bound together in the same Social Compact. It would be a waste of time to dwell longer on this part of our subject, We repeat, that as regards the FounDATION, and the EXTENT of its powers, the Government of the United States is, strictly, what its name implies, a FEDERAL Government—a league between several Sovereigns, and in these views, a more perfect Confederacy has never existed in ancient or modern times.

On looking into this Constitution, we find that the most important sovereign powers are delegated to the central Goverment, and all other powers are reserved to the States. A foreign or an inattentive reader, unacquainted with the origin, progress and history of the Constitution, would be very apt, from the phraseology of the instrument, to regard the States as having divested themselves of their Sovereignty, and to have become great corporations subordinate to one Supreme Government. But this is an erFor. The States are as Sovereign now, as they were prior to

It is

their entering into the compact. In common parlance, and to avoid circumlocution, it may be admissable enough to speak of delegated and reserved Sovereignty. But correctly speaking, Sovereignty is an unit. It is "one, indivisible and unalienable." therefore an absurdity to imagine, that the Sovereignty of the States is surrendered in part and retained in part. The Federal Constitution is a treaty, a confederation, an alliance by which sơ many Sovereign States agree to exercise their sovereign powers conjointly upon certain objects of external concern, in which they are equally interested, such as WAR, PEACE, COMMERCE, Foreign Negotiation, and Indian Trade; and upon all other subjects of civil government, they were to exercise their Sovereignty separately. This is the true nature of the compact.

For the convenient conjoint exercise of the Sovereignty of the States there must of necessity be some common agency or functionary. This agency is the Federal Government. It represents the confederated States, and executes their joint will, as expressed in the compact. The powers of this government are wholly derivative. It possesses no more inherent sovereignty, than an incorporated town, or any other great corporate body-it is a political corporation, and like all corporations, it looks for its powers to an exterior source. That source is the States. It wants that "irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled authority," without which, according to jurists, there can be no sovereignty. As the States conferred, so the States can take away its powers. All inherent sovereignty, is therefore in the States. It is the MORAL OBLIGATION alone, which each State has chosen to impose upon herself, and not the want of sovereignty, which restrains her from exercising all those powers, which (as we are accustomed to express ourselves) she has surrendered to the Federal Government. The present organization of our Government, as far as regards the terms in which the powers of Congress are delegated, in no wise differs from the old Confederation. The powers of the Old Congress were delegated rather in stronger language, than we find them written down in the new charter, and yet he would hazard a bold assertion, who would say, that the States of the Old Confederacy, were not as Sovereign as Great Britain, France and Russia, would be in an alliance offensive and defensive. It was not the reservation in express terms of the "Sovereignty, Freedom, and Independence of each State" which made them Sovereign. They would have been equally Sovereign, as is universally admitted, without such a reservation.

We have said thus much upon the subject of Sovereignty because the only foundation upon which we can safely erect the right of a State to protect its citizens, is, that South Carolina by the Declaration of Independence, became and has since continued a Free, Sovereign and Independent State. That as a Sovereign State, she has the inherent power, to do all those acts, which by the law of nations, any Prince or Potentate may of right do. That like all independent States, she neither has, nor ought she to suffer any other restraint upon her sovereign will and pleasure,