was an essential principle for conserving the government.[1]
The Union men held that if the right to nullify was possessed by one state, it must inhere in all, together with the means of enforcing it. But by what process could Tennessee nullify the tariff acts? She had no ports which she could declare free. The State Rights men answered that, in the first place, South Carolina rights did not depend on whether Tennessee had a seaport or not; and that, secondly, Tennessee could nullify by resolving to support a seaboard state which nullified.
The Union men contended that there was no such potency in state sovereignty as the Nullifiers ascribed to it. It could not, by any action of the legislature or convention, confer on the citizen, any right to resist the legislation of Congress which he did not possess without such action. The federal court might interfere, and citizens resisting the operation of the tariff act might be tried for treason against the United States. To
- ↑ Patriot, March 22, 1832; Courier, May 5, July 3, October 27. Said the Nullifiers: "By arresting the operation of unconstitutional laws it brings the government back within its legitimate sphere, checks the career of profligacy and corruption, removes the causes of sectional jealousy and hatred, causes the government to be administered as it should be, with equity, impartiality, and purity, and thus assures the harmony of the people and the durability of the Union."
