NULLIFICATION. 



65 



remedy. It may be added here that the locality 

 . y^.,, has much to do with the question what 

 5ee g j., g'jV constitutes a nuisance. People living in 

 Am Rep ) " POP 11 ! 0118 manufacturing towns must ex- 

 pect more noise, smoke, and disturbance 

 than those living elsewhere ; consequently a manu- 

 factory which might be a nuisance if situated entirely 

 among residences would not necessarily be so in such 

 a town. The following are some instances of public 

 nuisances : The bathing in a public river in sight of 

 the neighboring houses ; rude or riotous games or 

 sports, involving a4)reaeh of the peace; the keeping 

 of a disorderly or gaming house ; keeping a dangerous 

 animal, known to be such, and suffering hiai to go at 

 large ; exposing a person having a contagious disease 

 in public ; the bringing a horse infected with glanders 

 . into a public place ; the selling tainted or unwhole- 

 some food ; the leaving a corpse unburied ; the storing 

 of combustible articles in undue quantities or in im- 

 proper places. Private nuisances may be either to 

 corporeal hereditaments, e. g., the building of a house 

 so as to throw the rain-water on the adjoining tene- 

 ment; or to incorporeal hereditaments, e. g., obstruct- 

 ing a right of way, interfering with a franchise, etc. 



Annoyances from odors, smoke, unhealthy exhala- 

 tions, noise, etc., are in the nature of private nui- 

 sances and will be restrained by injunction at the in- 

 stance of the person injured. An action for damages 

 will also lie in such cases. (T. B.) 



NULLIFICATION. This term, as used in the 

 history of the United States, refers to the public acts 

 of South Carolina, declaring certain acts of Con- 

 gress to be in excess of the constitutional authority of 

 that body, and therefore void of efficacy, and com- 

 manding her citizens to refrain from yielding obe- 

 dience to them. 



On May 19, 1828, an act of Congress was passed 

 imposing duties upon certain commodities imported 

 into the United States from foreign countries. Acts 

 of a similar character, previously passed by Congress, 

 to meet certain exigencies, financial and commercial. 

 had not encountered resistance in any of the States. 

 During the discussion of this act it was characterized 

 in several of the States, notably in South Carolina, 

 as intended distinctly for the protection of domestic 

 manufactures. The Legislature O f South Carolina 

 had in 1825 declared "that it is an unconstitutional 

 exercise of power on the part of Congress to lay duties 

 to protect domestic manufactures." 



The discussions attending the action of the Legisla- 

 ture just referred to disclose the origin of the opposi- 

 tion to protective legislation, in part, in its inconsistency 

 with the views of the national Constitution that pre- 

 vailed in that State, as in others of the Southern 

 group, and, in part, in the nature and condition of the 

 productive industry of that section, that was then re- 

 garded as excluding the development of manufactures. 

 The production to which South Carolina looked as the 

 basis of her economic system and to which her insti- 

 tutions and laws were conformed was th it of cotton, 

 the staple of the largest existing manufactures, for 

 which tne principal markets were European, and the 

 necessities of cotton-planting appeared to those en- 

 gaged in it to demand the perpetuation of legal 

 slavery as the only form in which labor could be ap- 

 plied to that industry under existing climatic condi- 

 tions. The cotton-planting interest considered that 

 the industrial development of the respective groups 

 of States, Northern and Southern, must disclose di- 

 vergences of interest and policy, widening with the 

 rrowth of the country, that could not be harmonized 

 under a government unitizmg these groups. Viewed 

 from the same standpoint it seemcda necessity, not 

 only that the domestic institutions of the cotton-pro- 

 ducing States should be entirely free from the in- 

 fluence of other communities differently situated, but 

 that the commercial intercourse between the great 

 staple producer and the best markets of the world 

 You IV.- K 



should be free from conflicting interests. These pru- 

 dential considerations were fully recognized in the 

 Legislature of South Carolina and indicate the state 

 of interests that formulated a political policy tending 

 to deny to the government of the Unitea States a na- 

 tional character and to subject it to a controlling power 

 held in reserve not only by groups of States united in 

 interest, but by individual States, to be exercised as 

 their views of their own interest might suggest. The 

 policy that thus connected itself with the cotton in- 

 terest had preceded the development of that industry, 

 having relation to other staples produced in the South- 

 ern section of the Union, and was brought into a dis- 

 tjnct statement by the Kentucky and Virginia Reso- 

 tions of 1798 and 1799. This doctrine, as advanced by 

 those resolutions and subsequently applied in the at- 

 tempt of South Carolina to nullify the revenue laws 

 of the United States, is considered in another place 

 under STATES RIGHTS. 



As stated in the legislative records of South Caro- 

 lina, discussing the right to nullify the action of Con- 

 gress, that doctrine involves several distinct proposi- 

 tions which will be briefly noted. The Constitution 

 was regarded as a compact between sovereign States, 

 and not as an organic act of the peoples of the States 

 uniting in. the Constitution of a government of the 

 whole ; certain agencies were thereby created as the 

 common agencies of the sovereign parties to the com- 

 pact, and the powers and duties of such agencies 

 specifici-lly defined, Jo as to exclude any enlargement 

 thereof by implication, such as could be made if the 

 fundamental intention was the production of a sover- 

 eign government: the allegiance of the citizens of the 

 States was regarded as wholly due to their respective 

 State governments, and capable of being claimed by 

 the general government only through the assent of 

 such States ; the legislative, executive, and judicial 

 departments of the government of the United States 

 were regarded as functions depending upon the assent 

 of the sovereign States, and could not be exercised to 

 control the source from which their authority was de- 

 rived ; that any State could, consistently with the 

 compact, retire from it whenever, in its judgment, the 

 powers conferred were abusively exercised to the preju- 

 dice of its honor or its interests. 



From the premises just stated it was concluded that 

 as the power to promote manufactures by means of im- 

 posts on foreign goods was not among the enumerated 

 powers specifically conferred upon Congress, it was not 

 capable of being exercised, ana the attempt to exercise 

 it on the part of Congress was an assumption of pow- 

 ers that belonged to the States, and accordingly that it 

 was competent for any one of the States to refuse to 

 allow the execution of such laws within its territories, 

 or, if that course was deemed desirable, to retire from 

 the union of the States. 



On Dec. 19, 1827, the Legislature of South Carolina 

 reiterated the declaration of 1825, as above stated. 

 This action was upon an elaborate report of a Senate 

 committee declaring that such usurpation of authority 

 by Congress must DC resisted by the States in their 

 sovereign character, and was not proper for submis- 

 sion to the judiciary of the United States. 



After the passage of the act of 1828, and on Dec. 

 19 of that year, tho Legislature of that State protested 

 against the act on the broad ground before affirmed, 

 and already stated, and directed such resolutions to be 

 communicated to the governors of the respective 

 States, to be laid before their respective Legislatures, 

 to determine on such ulterior measures as they may 

 think the occasion demands. Such communication 

 took place and was responded to by Virginia and 

 Georgia in terms approving the general views of South 

 Carolina as to the limitations of the authority of Con- 

 gress, but indicating unwillingness to sanction the 

 attitude of hostility assumed by South Carolina towards 

 the United States. 



On Dec. 17, 1830, the Legislature of South Carolina 



