Weekly national intelligencer., 1851-01-18


the State of South Carolina had to bestow upon the
affairs of the General Government.
At the period at which Mr.. HAYNE and Mr..
Hamilton came into public;life lin the year 1929
the country was, if we may use the expression, in
transition state about to exchange the last of the
Presidents of the Revolutionary Era for some one
of the succeeding generation. Up to the time Of
which we speak, though occasional complaints Of
inequality or oppressiveness of the duties on i'm
ports had been heard from Southern men in the
Halls of Congress, hostility to the Tariff had hardly
then become, as it was afterwards attempted to
make it. an article of political faith upon which
opposition was to be made in Congress to the Ad-
mnistration, and eventually, in the State of South
Carolina, to the execution Of laws passed by Con-
gress in the clearest exercise of constitutional
authority.
In the course of the canvass for the succession to
Mr.. MONROE, the friends OF Mr. CALHOUN presented
his name as one Of the competitors in the race:
public journals were established to support his
claims, and they were advocated by bis Congress
sional friends and others with characteristic anima-
ton and earnestness against those of the other emf
nent men whose names were before the Public. The
State Of Pennsylvania, however, on whose support
Mr.. CALHOUN had in great degree relied, evincing
a preference for Gen. JACKSON, the friends of the
former, with his consent, Withdrew his name from
the competition for the Presidency. He became
the candidate for the Vice-Presidency, and was
elected and at the expiration of his first term of
four years he was reelected to the same Office.
1t not, if we remember rightly, until after the
great debate in the Senate upon Mr.. FooT's Reso-
luton concerning the Public Lands, in which Mr.
WEBSTER so triumphanty sustained the Constiu-
ton against the assaults upon it, that the idea
broached in any public assembly. The occa-
sion on which it was introduced was the ceIe-
bration in this city, the 18th day of April, $780,
Of the anniversary of the birthday of Thomas JET
FERsoN, at which, besides large assembly of the
political friends of the Administration, President
JACKSON, then in the zenith Of his power was
present; when Mr. Senator HAYNE, replying to a
toast, in which no aIlusion had been made to the
politics of South Carolina undertook to define the
"position of South Carolina in relation to certain
" powers assumed and measures adopted by the
" Federal Government, and the grounds of her op-
"postion to those measures &c. 1t being an
idea quite new to the greater part Of the company
sition to the powers referred to- Chiefly, of course
the power to raise revenue by taxes upon i'm
ports,) the speech of Mr.. HAYNE was listened to
with great attention. In resisting the Tariff policy
the operation of which, he said, had been grievous
upon the South, to relieve themselves from its
pressure was not the only object of the South
Carolinians. "We are striving" said he, :" fol
the establishment of those great fundamental
principles on which our Government is based
and which are essential to the permanence o,
our free institutions. Gentlemen might be
assured" he said, "that no free Government
could long endure under the influence of such 9
system. "The South" said he, sis striving to
resist this system by all the means in her power
if she succeeds lin resisting the Tariff system she
will save the Constitution" &c.-concluding by say
ing, !" We shall 60 steadily forward doubling moth
ing and fearing nothing) in the full that
the Constitution ,CiH be restored" &c. This for
NAL annuncation of determination on the part of
South Carolina to restore Constitution which was
still supposed to be sound and heart-whole, was
generally considered as an ntimation of the design
of the State to nullify" the Tariff laws, and was
so interpreted by the journals of the day, and by
Gen. JACKSON himself, who, taken as much by sur
prise as any one at the disclosure, festive oc-
casion, of designs so little expected, being soon
after called upon for sentiment, gave the following
well-remembered toast, italicized in the copy fur
nished by him as it is here:
"Our Federal Union: 1t must be PRESCRIBED"
The discomfort of the South at this period was
depicted in still higher colors in speech delivered
in the same month in the House of Represen-
tatives by Mr.. McDUFFIE, in which he de-
clared that the Southern States are to all intents
and purposes re-colonized, as much so as if the
British Parliament had the supreme legislative
power of regulating their commerce." One would
have thought an all-suficient answer to such an
argument as this-whch, however, appears to have
been urged in serousness-that' the Constitution
confers in very terms the precise power to the ex-
ercise of which the orator objected, saying Con-
gress SHALL HAVE poUer to regulate comm cree
with foreign Powers and among the several States"
Inmatng the probability of resistance of the law by
force, the peroration Of Mr.. McDuFrIE's speech
was an appeal of the most solemn character to
the advocates Of discriminating duties to retrace
&C tbp;r stens as speedily as posi- ble and relieve