Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/61

This page needs to be proofread.

WEBSTER land school of constitutional opinions, and this modern Carolina school. The gentleman, I think, read a petition from some single individ- ual addressed to the Legislature of Massachu- setts, asserting the Carolina doctrine; that is, the right of State interference to arrest the laws of the Union. The fate of that petition shows the sentiment of the Legislature. It met no fa- vor. The opinions of Massachusetts were very different. They had been expressed in 1798, in answer to the resolutions of Virginia, and she did not depart from them, nor bend them to the times. Misgoverned, wronged, oppressed, as she felt herself to be, she still held fast her integ- rity to the Union. vThe gentleman may iind in her proceedings much evidence of dissatisfaction with the measures of government, and great and deep dislike to the embargo — all this makes the case so much the stronger for her ; for, notwith- standing all this dissatisfaction and dislike, she still claimed no right to sever the bonds of the Union) There was heat and there was anger in her political feeling. Be it SO; but neither her heat nor her anger betrayed her into infidelity to the government. fThe gentleman labors to prove that she disliked the embargo as much as South Carolina dislikes the tariff, and expressed her dislike as strongly. Be it so; but did she propose the Carolina remedy ? i Did she threaten to interfere, by State authority, to annul the laws of the Union ? That is the question for the gentleman's considera- tion. 51