# A Review of the Proclamation of President Jackson/VI

VI.
Norfolk, January 12, 1833.
Although in my last number, I have established beyond all doubt, as I think, that the Articles of Confederation, so far from being intended to amalgamate the People of the several States into one Nation, were designed to form them into a Confederacy, in which each State retained expressly its own sovereignty, freedom and independence, yet there are certain remarks made in the Proclamation, as to the character of the Confederacy thereby created, which must not be passed unnoticed. I propose in this number, therefore, briefly to examine these remarks, before I prosecute my enquiries further.
It is so fashionable now, amongst those who adopt the new theory, to depreciate the old confederation, in order to infer from its supposed defects, the existence of sufficient power in the present government of the United States, to prevent their possible recurrence, that I am not astonished at any neophyte to the new faith, who follows former examples of this kind.
But when such things appear in a State paper, intended for the instruction of the People in their political history, and to deduce from thence their present political condition, I must confess, that I expected much more of accuracy in such statements, than I have yet found in this Proclamation.
The statements in themselves, are of little consequence at the present day, except as they manifest a disposition, to exhibit under false lights, facts and truths, which are supposed to have some bearing upon the new doctrines. So considered, they are worthy of notice. For this reason, I have already noticed many such assertions; and as my sole object is Truth, I will now proceed to point out others. The author of this Proclamation says, "But the defects of the Confederation need not be detailed. Under its ​operation, we could scarcely be called a Nation. We had neither prosperity at home, nor consideration abroad." Yet it was under the operation of the Confederation alone, that the People of the United States gloriously achieved their independence, after a long and bloody war, compared with which, all subsequent wars have been but as the pastimes of children. It was under the operation of this Confederation alone, that Treaties of Alliance, of Amity and Commerce, and of Peace, were contracted with many of the principal Powers of the World, with France, with the United Netherlands, with Sweden, with Prussia, with Great Britain, and with Morocco, which Treaties have served as the model of every other of the like kind that has since been concluded. But the conquest of Freedom and Independence at home, and the conclusion of such leagues with some of the most powerful nations upon the face of the earth, in the eye of this author, seem to prove only, that we had neither prosperity at home, nor consideration abroad. Let us not rob the dead, in order to deck the living. The old Confederation was the wisest system of that sort, which the wisdom of mankind had every produced; and but for a single circumstance, ascribable rather to the poverty of the people than to any defect in the system itself, it would probably have endured to the present day, a proud monument of the sagacity of its authors. Let those who prefer grandeur to liberty, decry it as they may, their objections apply equally to all Confederacies, and strike at the root of free government, wherever it may perchance spring up in a territory of much extent.
I agree with this author, when in this paragraph, he says, that under the operation of this Confederation, "we could scarcely be called a nation." But I wonder why the Articles of Confederation should have been cited by him, to prove, that by these the States had agreed to form on Nation, if this formation scarcely deserved a name. The first Nation, created by the People, the existence of which, he said, was announced in the Declaration of Independence, vanished under the "Presto Begone" of a magician who created a second Nation by the terms of this Confederation. By these it was then said, that the States "agreed, that they would collectively, form one Nation," for certain purposes. The first nation, when its character was developed by him, turned ​out to be no nation at all, but was then admitted by himself, to have been a mere Confederacy; and no sooner did he create a second Nation out of this confederation, to destroy the first, than he now tells us, that this second we can scarcely call a nation.—Although consistency is not ever conclusive evidence of truth, yet the want of consistency has always been regarded as an admission of error, somewhere. Whether this error consists, in inferring the existence of the first Nation, in asserting that of the second, or in announcing that this last scarcely deserved to be called a nation, I leave to him and others to determine. At the moment when he is thus depreciating the old Confederation, this author seems much disposed, to bestow upon it many and far greater powers, than its warmest friends every claimed for it. Thus, he says, that it was formed for the purpose of conducting "all our foreign relations." This is certainly not so. To say nothing of other subjects; with the regulation of the great subject of foreign Commerce, which, in modern times, involves by far the most interesting of all the foreign relations of every States, the old Confederacy had nothing to do, except what might be effected by Treaties. At that day, however, commercial Treaties were rare, and the terms upon which such Treaties might be concluded by Congress, were much restricted, by the ninth Article of the Confederation, so that the whole power of regulating their own domestic Trade and Navigation, and almost all their foreign Commerce, devolved upon the several States exclusively. So true is this, that the manner in which this power was constantly exercised by them, was one of the great causes assigned for the amendment of the old Articles of Confederation by the present Federal Constitution.
Nor is this all. The Proclamation, in speaking of the Articles of Confederation, proceeds to say, that in that instrument "is found an Article, which declares, that every State shall abide by the determination of Congress on all questions, which by that Confederation should be submitted to them." And immediately adds, "under the Confederation, then, no State could legally annul a decision of the Congress, or refuse to submit to its execution."
​Thus a pledge of faith on the part of the States, to abide by the determination of Congress on all questions, which by that Confederation should be submitted to them, is supposed to justify the author of this Proclamation in asserting, and as a consequence too of this, that no State could legally refuse to submit to the execution of any of their decisions. Vain would have been the reservation made in the second Article of the Confederation "by the jealousy of the States of all their power, jurisdiction and right, which was not by that confederation" expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled, if it was true, that no State could legally refuse to submit to the execution of a decision of the Congress, whether such decision was made to settle a question submitted to that body, or not.
But common sense tells every one, that when parties agree to submit some matter to the arbitrament of another, such a submission cannot authorize the arbiter to determine any thing, which was not submitted to him, or bind the faith of the parties to abide by any such unauthorized determination.
The President himself, has recently furnished a striking illustration of this obvious truth, in denying the obligation of the award made by the King of the Netherlands, (to whom Great Britain and the United States, by a compact as solemn as this our league of Confederation, had submitted the question concerning their common boundary,) upon the simple ground, that this arbiter had undertaken to determine what was never submitted to him.
If any one will take the trouble to examine the Articles of Confederation, he will find that there were but few questions submitted by that instrument to the determination of Congress. They are all stated in the ninth article; and are such, as to the submission of which, no two persons would or could disagree, probably. But should a question, unfortunately, have arisen, whether any matter was submitted, or not, as the parties to such a question, were admitted in the instrument itself, to be sovereign States, it resulted from necessity, that each had retained the right of deciding such a question for itself.—This effect was not the consequence of any want of power in the Old Congress "to enforce" their decisions, as the Proclamation supposes, for mere power ​can never make it right; it flowed from the very nature of the case. No arbiter is ever at liberty to decide for the parties, what is the subject submitted to him by them: it is his province to determine only that which they agree us so submitted. If the parties and their common arbiter differ, as to the extent of their submission, it would be idle for him to decide this matter, because the parties would at once agree to annul his decision, and to hold it for naught.
But if the common arbiter and one of the parties concur as to this point, and therein differ from the other party, wherever there exists a tribunal superior to them all, to that forum the dissenting party may appeal, to determine whether the matter decided was within his submission, or not.
Where no such tribunal exists however, (as is always the case where sovereigns are the parties,) it is of necessity, that each must decide this question for itself.
Nor is the faith of any pledged by the submission, to abide by any decision which it believes to have been unauthorized by that act. There is no necessity to "annul" such a decision, because if made without authority, it is already null and void of itself; and in refusing to submit to its execution, the party so refusing simply affirms this fact, and denies the obligation of an act of lawless power and usurped authority.
If this was not so, no prudent individual would, and no sovereign could agree, to submit any matter whatever, however unimportant it might be, to the arbitrament of another.—For, if the submission of one matter, could ever be considered as communicating a right to determine any other matter not submitted; or what is the same thing, if the submission of one matter to the arbitrament of a common arbiter, communicated to him, the right to determine for the parties, the extent of their submission, and bind their faith to abide by his determination, whatever that may be, this arbiter, although designed to be a Judge merely, becomes at once a sovereign, whose authority is without stint or limit. In the case of a submission made by the sovereigns, they would strip themselves of sovereignty by the every act of submission; for he who holds all his rights at the will or discretion of any other, is no longer a sovereign, but a mere dependent for the enjoyment of such rights upon this other.
​I have spent more time in exhibiting the falsehood of this new doctrine put forth in the Proclamation, than its native deformity perhaps required. But it was necessary to do so, I though, because it ws obviously designed, to constitute the foundation of another proposition, of a like kind, which is afterwards announced; and it was better to crush this monster while yet in its egg state, than suffer it to be hatched unnoticed, and then to come upon us in all the terrors of a fiery Dragon, bearing death on its wings, and pestilence in its breath. I have thus brought down the political history of these now United States, from a very early period, to that of which I have last spoke. I have shewn, that in their colonial state, they constituted several distinct Societies, whose affairs were regulated by governments absolutely independent of each other; that hte misrule of the mother country induced them to revolt against its authority, and to shake off these governments, but that in throwing off their former governments, they did not dissolve their former associations—the Societies remained, after the governments were no more.—That the necessity for government to regulate the affairs of every Society, then compelled these communities, to establish some form of government, each for itself; and so to assert, each in its own sovereignty and independence.—That a decent respect for the opinions of mankind, induced them all to announce this their new condition; and to justify the step they had taken.—And that this was the sole object of the Declaration of Independence, which so far from proclaiming that they were One People or One Nation, in its own terms declared them to be free and Independent States.
I have shewn further, that to secure the benefits of harmonious design, and concert and promptitude of action, in this their new condition it became important, to confirm their Union by a league of confederacy, declaring what were the objects of this Union, and by what means these objects might be attained.—That this was the sole purpose of the Articles of Confederation, which while establishing a general government for all, expressly reserved to each of the States, teh sovereignty, freedom and independence they had before assumed respectively, and so much of their former powers, jurisdictions and rights, as were not, by that act, expressly delegated to the government thereby created—and ​that it is false, to suppose, that under these Articles, the government thereby created became an absolute government without limits to its authority; for although the several States were bound to submit to its decision in all matters referred to its determination by the Articles of Confederation themselves, yet these were but few in number, and the question as to the extent of the submission, never was, and could not have been submitted by the States reserving their sovereignty, but the determination of this question, so far as it might interest any one, was necessarily retained by each of the States for itself.
From all this, I feel myself justified in saying, that the original sovereignty of the States, assumed by them in 1776, remained unimpaired, until the adoption of the present Constitution of the Untied States in 1789. Whether by this instrument, that sovereignty was then annulled, is the question which I will next examine. At present, I will take leave to say, that as the existing political condition of these State,s is to be sought for in the Federal Constitution alone, it is to be regretted that the President thought it right, in his late Proclamation, to ascend to a period antecedent to the formation of this government, in order to teach the People, what is their situation under it. There was no necessity for this certainly, as he himself has proved; and if he had confined himself to a construction of the present Constitution, although he might have been supposed to err in this, he would at least have avoided such numerous inconsistencies, and gross historical mistakes, as are now exhibited every where in his work, to the great mortification of many of those who wished to be his friends.
But the new school of which he has become a proselyte, in exacting passive obedience and non-resistance to all its precepts, seems to have imposed upon him as a probationary penance for all his former sins against its faith, that he should not only publicly abjure the creed whose truth he has so often and so recently affirmed, but that he should also proclaim from his high place, the infallibility and supremacy of the Pontiff, and that these States never were his sovereigns. Less than this would not have been accepted as a sufficient atonement for his former offences, or as a satisfactory token to entitle him to admission to the communion of those politcial Saints, the sanctity of some of whom, is at least as questionable, as the truth of their new doctrines.