University of Virginia Library

TO C. E. HAYNES.

. . . . . . . . .

The distinction is obvious between, Ist, Such
interpositions on the part of the States against
unjustifiable acts of the Federal Government as are
within the provisions and forms of the Constitution.

These provisions & forms certainly do not embrace
the nullifying process proclaimed in South Carolina
which begins with a single State and ends with the
ascendency of a minority of States over a majority;
of 7 over 17; a federal law, during the process,
being arrested within the nullifying State; and, if a
revenue law, frustrated thro' all the States; 2 interpositions
not within the purview of the Constitution
by the States in the sovereign capacity in which they
were parties to the constitutional compact. And here
it must be kept in mind that in a compact like that
of the U. S. as in all other compacts, each of the
parties has an equal right to decide whether it has
or has not been violated and made void. If one
contends that it has, the others have an equal right
to insist on the validity and execution of it.

It seems not to have been sufficiently noticed
that in the proceedings of Virginia referred to, the
plural terms States was invariably used in reference
to their interpositions; nor is this sense affected by
the object of maintaining within their respective limits
the authorities rights and liberties appertaining
to them, which could certainly be best effectuated
for each by co-operating interpositions.

It is true that in extreme cases of oppression
justifying a resort to original rights, and in which
passive obedience & non-resistence cease to be obligatory
under any Government, a single State or any
part of a State might rightfully cast off the yoke.
What would be the condition of the Union, and the
other members of it, if a single member could at

will renounce its connexion and erect itself, in the
midst of them, into an independent and foreign
power; its geographical relations remaining the same,
and all the social & political relations, with the others
converted into those of aliens and of rivals, not to
say enemies, pursuing separate & conflicting interests?
Should the seceding State be the only channel of
foreign commerce for States having no commercial
ports of their own, such as that of Connecticut, N.
Jersey, & North Carolina, and now particularly all the
inland States, we know what might happen from
such a state of things by the effects of it under the
old Confederation among States bound as they were
in friendly relations by that instrument. This is a
view of the subject which merits more developments
than it appears to have received.

I have sketched these few ideas more from an
unwillingness to decline an answer to your letter than
from any particular value that may be attached to
them. You will pardon me therefore for requesting
that you will regard them as for yourself, & not for
publicity, which my very advanced age renders
every day more and more to be avoided.