I9I2.] OF THE UNITED STATES. 375 



" It has been contended that if a law passed by a State in the exercise 

 of its acknowledged sovereignty, comes into conflict with a law passed by 

 Congress in pursuance of the Constitution, they affect the subject and each 

 other, like equal opposing powers." 



Unsound that contention was declared by the Court to be. But it 

 was in effect the contention of that powerful body which spoke 

 through Calhoun, and which strove to dominate the Union. In the 

 writings of that brilliant intellect, are concentrated the emotions, 

 the reasoning, the political conceptions of the slavocracy. And in 

 them we find an attempt at a logical basis for the doctrine we know 

 as " State rights " — an attempt both able and sincere.-'"^ The 

 States, he said, are sovereign; certain of their powers only they have 

 delegated. All acts done by the Union beyond its delegated powers 

 are void. It is for the States to differ from the Union with reluctance 

 as to the exercise of such a power ; but if they assert their difference, 

 they assert it as a sovereign party to a treaty asserts its right to 

 insist on its own interpretation. No jurisdiction lies in any Federal 

 court, no power lies in any Federal agent, to overcome the declara- 

 tion of the State, when it " nullifies " the Federal law. In the view 

 of such a man and of the powerful party which supported him, the 

 functions of State legislation expanded, and of Federal activities 

 lessened. The Judiciary Act, so far as it allowed an appeal from 

 the State Courts to the United States Supreme Court, he declared to 

 be unconstitutional.-*" And when the tariff' act of 1832 was "nulli- 

 fied " by South Carolina in a declaration written by Calhoun,^^' at 

 the time vice-president of the United States, Congress hastened to 

 compromise. Is it strange that with such ideas obtaining credence 

 in so many minds, hesitation existed on the part of some to declare 

 the apparent meaning of Article VI. of the Constitution to be the 

 real meaning; that the term "police power of the States" conveyed 

 an illusory accent of authority; and the declarations of Federal will 

 received a qualified and timid adherence? The mandate of the 



■^ See " A Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United 

 States," Calhoun's Works, Vol. I., p. iii. "Address to the People of South 

 Carolina," Ibid., Vol. VI., p. 124. Letter to Governor Hamilton, Ibid., VI.. 

 p. 144. 



^ " A Discourse on the Constitution, Ibid., Vol. I., at p. 318, ff. 



^'' " Address to the People of the United States," Ibid., Vol. VI., p. 193. 



