The Arkansas advocate., 1830-11-24

as awhole be Unanimously accepted. Free constitutions will rarely if ever be formed, without reciprocal concessions, without articles conditioned on and ba- lancing each other. Is there a oonsti- tuition of single State out of the twen- ty-four that would bear the experiment of having its component parts submitted to the people and separately decided on2
 What the fate of the constitution of the United States would be if q small proportion of the States could expunge parts ef fl particularly ff;aftiiseiiiii5siiii valued large majority, can have but ono an< swer.
 The difficulty is not removed by lins- ting the doctrine to cases of construc- ton. How many cases of that sort, cardinal provisions of the cori- stitution, have occurred? How many now eSistg how many may hereafter spring up? How many might be irA geniously created, ii entitled 10 the priyi- lege of decision in the mode propos< ed?
 Is it certain that the principle of that mode would not reach further thau is contemplated. If a single State can of rightreguire three fourthsofit its co-States to overrnle it's exposition of the consti- tutoH, because that proportion is au- thorised to amend it, would the plea be less plausible that, as the constitution was unanimously established, it ought to be unanimously expoundedf
 The reply to all such suggestions seems to be unavoidable and irresistible: that the Constitution is compact; ]; that it's text is to be be expeundea according to the provisions for expounding it--nla- king part of the compact; and that none Of the parties can rightfully re- @nounce the expounding provision more thanany other part When such 3 sisht accrues, as may accrue, 1t must grow out of abuses of the compact, releasing the sufferers from their fcalty toit.
 In favor of the nuiIlfying claim for the States, individually, it appears. as you observe, that the proceedings of lhe Legislature of Virginia, in '98, and in
 99against the Alien and Sedition Acts, are much dwelt upon.
 It may often happen, as experience proves that erroneous constructions not anticipated, may not be sufficiently guarded against, in the language used; and lis due to the distinguished indi- yiduals, who have misconceiyed the in- tention of those proceedings, to sup pose that the meaning of the Legisla- ture, though we'll comprehended at the time, may not now be obvious to those uBacdaainted with the contemporary indications and impressions.
 But, it is believed, that by keeping in view fllc distinction between the governmental the States,and the States in the sense in which they were parties to the constitution; between the rights of the parties, in their concurrent and their individual capacities; between the several modes and objects of interposi- tion against the abuses of power, and especially between interpretations within the puview of the constitution, ard in- Propositions appealing from the Consti- tuition to the rights of nature. paramount to all constitutions; with al, atten- ton, always of explanatory use to the views and arguments winch were conr bated, the Resolutions of Virginia, aa vindicated in the report on them, will be found entitled to an exposition, show ing 2 consistency in their parts, and an inconsistency of the whole with the docs Urine under consideration
 That the legislature could not have inr tended to sanction such a doctrine, is to be inferred from the debates in tho House of Delegates, and from the ad~ dress of the two houses to their constit,y- ents, on the subject of the Resolutions The tenor of the debates, which were ably conducted, and are understood to have been revised for the press by most, ifnot all of the speakers, discloses TO re~ ference Whateyertoa a acenstitutionalright of an individual State to arrest by force the operation of a law of the United States. Concert among the States for redress against the Alien and Sedition Laws, as acts of usurped power, was q leading sentiment; aHd the attainment of concert, the immediate object of the courses the iegisiatT :, .iiois was that Of inviting the other States ito concur in declaring the acts to he un-