Page images
PDF
EPUB

ADDRESS,

To the People of Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maryland, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey, Georgia, Delaware, Rhode Island, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama and Missouri.

We, the People of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, have solemnly and deliberately declared, in our paramount sovereign capacity, that the act of Congress approved the 19th day of May 1828, and the act approved the 14th July 1832, altering and amending the several acts imposing duties on imports, are unconstitutional, and therefore absolutely void, and of no binding force within the limits of this State; and for the purpose of carrying this declaration into full and complete effect, we have invested the legislature with ample powers, and made it the duty of all the functionaries and all the citizens of the State, on their allegiance, to co-operate in enforcing the aforesaid declaration.

In resorting to this important measure, to which we have been impelled by the most sacred of all duties which a free people can owe, either to the memory of their ancestors or to the claims of their posterity, we feel that it is due to the intimate political relation which exists between South Carolina and the other states of this confederacy, that we should present a clear and distinct exposition of the principles on which we have acted, and of the causes by which we have been reluctantly constrained to assume this attitude of sovereign resistance in relation to the usurpations of the Federal Government.

For this purpose, it will be necessary to state, briefly, what we conceive to be the relation created by the Federal Constitution, between the states and the General Government; and also what we conceive to be the true character and practical operation of the system of protecting duties, as it effects our rights, our interests and our liberties.

We hold, then, that on their separation from the Crown, of Great Britain, the several colonies became free and independent States, each enjoying the separate and independent right of self government; and that no authority can be exercised over them or within their limits, but by their consent, respectively given as states. It is equally true, that the Constitution of the United States is a compact formed between the several states, acting as sovereign communites; that the government created by it is a joint agency of the states, appointed to execute the powers enumerated and granted by that instrument; that all its acts not intentionally author

DOCUMENTS.

ized are of themselves essentially null and void; and that the states CONVENTION have the right, in the same sovereign capacity in which they adopted 1832. the Federal Constitution, to pronounce in the last resort, authoritative judgment on the usurpations of the Federal Government, and to adopt such measures as they may deem necessary and expedient to arrest the operation of the unconstitutional acts of that Government, within their respective limits. Such we deem to be the inherent rights of the states; rights, in the very nature of things, absolutely inseparable from sovereignty. Nor is the duty of a State, to arrest an unconstitutional and oppressive act of the Federal Government, less imperative, than the right is incontestible. Each State, by ratifying the Federal Constitution, and becoming a member of the confederacy, contracted an obligation to "protect and defend" that instrument, as well by resisting the usurpations of the Federal Government, as by sustaining that government in the exercise of the powers actually conferred upon it. And the obligation of the oath which is imposed, under the Canstitution, on every functionary of the states, to "preserve, protect and defend" the Federal Constitution, as clearly comprehends the duty of protecting and defending it against the usurpations of the Federal Government, as that of protecting and defending it against violation in any other form or from any other quarter.

It is true, that in ratifying the Federal Constitution, the states placed a large and important portion of the rights of their citizens under the joint protection of all the States, with a view to their more effectual security; but it is not less true, that they reserved a portion still larger and not less important under their own immediate guardianship, and in relation to which their original obligation to protect their citizens, from whatever quarter assailed, remains unchanged and undiminished.

But clear and undoubted as we regard the right, and sacred as we regard the duty of the states to interpose their sovereign power, for the purpose of protecting their citizens from the unconstitutional and oppressive acts of the Federal Government, yet we are as clearly of the opinion, that nothing short of that high moral and political necessity, which results from acts of usurpation, subversive of the rights and liberties of the people, should induce a member of this confederacy to resort to this interposition. Such, however, is the melancholy and painful necessity under which we have declared the acts of Congress imposing protecting duties, null and void within the limits of South Carolina. The spirit and the principles which animated your ancestors and ours in the councils and in the fields of their common glory, forbid us to submit any longer to a system of Legislation now become the established policy of the Federal Government, by which we are reduced to a condition of colonial vassalage, in all its aspects more oppressive and intolerable than that from which our common ancestors relieved themselves by the war of the revolution. There is no right which enters more essentially into a just conception of liberty, than that of the free and unrestricted use of the productions of our industry wherever they can be most advantageously exchanged, whether in foreign or domestic markets. South Carolina produces, almost exclusively, agricultural staples, which derive their principal value from the demand for them in foreign countries. Under these circumstances, her natural markets are abroad; and restrictive duties imposed upon her intercourse with those markets, diminish the exchangeable value of her productions very nearly to the full extent of those duties.

CONVENTION Under a system of free trade, the aggregate crop of South Carolina DOCUMENTS. Could be exchanged for a larger quantity of manufactures, by at least one

1832.

third, than it can be now exchanged for under the protecting system. It is no less evident, that the value of that crop is diminished by the protecting system very nearly, if not precisely, to the extent that the aggregate quantity of manufactures which can be obtained for it, is diminished. It is, indeed, strictly philosophically true, that the quantity of consumable commodities which can be obtained for the cotton and rice annually produced by the industry of the State, is the precise measure of their aggregate value. But for the prevalent and habitual error of confounding the money price with the exchangeable value of our agricultural staples, these propositions would be regarded as self evident. If the protecting duties were repealed, one hundred bales of cotton or one hundred barrels of rice would purchase as large a quantity of manufactures, as one hundred and fifty will now purchase. The annual income of the State, its means of purchasing and consuming the necessaries and comforts and luxuries of life, would be increased in a corresponding degree.

Almost the entire crop of South Carolina, amounting annually to more than six millions of dollars, is ultimately exchanged either for foreign manufactures, subject to protecting duties, or for similar domestic manufactures. The natural value of the crop would be all the manufactures which we could obtain for it, under a system of unrestricted commerce. The artificial value, produced by the unjust and unconstitutional Legislation of Congress, is only such part of those manufactures as will remain after paying a duty of fifty per cent to the Government, or, to speak with more precision, to the Northern manufacturers. To make this obvious to the humblest comprehension, let it be supposed that the whole of the present crop should be exchanged, by the planters themselves, for those foreign manufactures, for which it is destined, by the inevitable course of trade, to be ultimately exchanged, either by themselves or their agents. Let it be also assumed, in conformity with the facts of the case, that New Jersey, for example, produces, of the very same description of manufactures, a quantity equal to that which is purchased by the cotton crop of South Carolina. We have, then, two States of the same confederacy, bound to bear an equal share of the burthens, and entitled to enjoy an equal share of the benefits of the common government, with precisely the same quantity of productions, of the same quality and kind, produced by their lawful industry. We appeal to your candor, and to your sense of justice, to say whether South Carolina has not a title as sacred and indefeasable, to the full and undiminished enjoyment of these productions of her industry, acquired by the combined operations of agriculture and commerce, as New Jersey can have to the like enjoyment of similar productions of her industry, acquired by the process of manufacture? Upon no principle of human reason or justice, can any discrimination be drawn between the titles of South Carolina and New Jersey to these productions of their capital and labor. Yet what is the discrimination actually made by the unjust, unconstitutional and partial Legislation of Congress? A duty, on an average, of fifty per cent, is imposed upon the productions of South Carolina, while no duty at all is imposed upon the similar productions of New Jersey! The inevitable result is, that the manufactures thus lawfully acquired by the honest industry of South Carolina, are worth, annually, three millions of dollars less to her citizens, than the very same quantity of the very same description of manufactures are worth to the

citizens of New Jersey-a difference of value produced exclusively by CONVENTION the operation of the protecting system.

No ingenuity can either evade or refute this proposition. The very axioms of geometry are not more self evident. For even if the planters of South Carolina, in the case supposed, were to sell and not consume these productions of their industry, it is plain that they could obtain no higher price for them, after paying duties to the amount of $3,000,000, than the manufacturers of New Jersey would obtain for the same quantity of the same kind of manufactures, without paying any duty at all.

66

This single view of the subject exhibits the enormous inequality and injustice of the protecting system, in such a light, that we feel the most consoling confidence that we shall be fully justified by the impartial judgment of posterity, whatever may be the issue of this unhappy controversy. We confidently appeal to our confederate states, and to the whole world, to decide whether the annals of human Legislation furnish a parallel instance of injustice and oppression, perpetrated under the forms of a free Government. However it may be disguised, by the complexity of the process by which it is effected, it is nothing less than the monstrous outrage of taking three millions of dollars annually, from the value of the productions of South Carolina, and transferring it to the people of other and distant communities. No human Government can rightfully exercise such a power. It violates the eternal principles of natural justice, and converts the Government into a mere instrument of legislative plunder. Of all the Governments on the face of the earth, the Federal Government has the least shadow of a constitutional right to exercise such a power. It was created principally, and almost exclusively, for the purpose of protecting, improving and extending that very commerce, which, for the last ten years, all its powers have been most unnaturally and unrighteously perverted to cripple and destroy. The power to regulate commerce with foreign nations," was granted obviously for the preservation of that commerce. The most important of all duties which the Federal Government owes to South Carolina, under the compact of Union, is the protection and defence of her foreign commerce, against all the enemies by whom it may be assailed. And in what manner has this duty been discharged? All the powers of the earth, by their commercial restrictions, and all the pirates of the ocean, by their lawless violence, could not have done so much to destroy our commerce, as has been done by that very Government to which its guardianship has been committed by the Federal Constitution. The commerce of South Carolina consists in exchanging the staple productions of her soil, for the manufactures of Europe. It is a lawful commerce. It violates the rights of no class of people in any portion of the confederacy. It is this very commerce, therefore, which the Constitution has enjoined it upon Congress to encourage, protect and defend, by such regulations as may necessary to accomplish that object. But instead of that protection, which is the only tie of our allegiance, as individual citizens, to the Federal Government, we have seen a gigantic system of restrictions gradually reared up, and at length brought to a fatal maturity, of which it is the avowed object, and must be the inevitable result, to sweep our commerce from the great highway of nations, and cover our land with poverty and ruin.

be

Even the states most deeply interested in the maintenance of the protecting system, will admit that it is the interest of South Carolina to carry on a commerce of exchanges with foreign countries free from restrictions,

DOCUMENTS. 1832.

1832.

CONVENTION prohibitory burthens, or incumbrances of any kind. We feel, and we DOCUMENTS. know, that the vital interests of the State, are involved in such a commerce. It would be a downright insult to our understandings, to tell us that our interests are not injured, deeply injured, by those prohibitory duties, intended and calculated to prevent us from obtaining the cheap manufactures of foreign countries for our staples, and to compel us to receive for them the dear manufactures of our domestic establishments, or pay the penalty of the protecting duties for daring to exercise one of the most sacred of our natural rights. What right, then, human or divine, have the manufacturing states-for we regard the Federal Government as a mere instrument in their hands-to prohibit South Carolina, directly or indirectly, from going to her natural markets, and exchanging the rich productions of her soil, without restriction or incumbrance, for such foreign articles as will most conduce to the wealth and prosperity of her citizens? It will not surely be pretended-for truth and decency equally forbid the allegation—that in exchanging our productions for the cheaper manufactures of Europe, we violate any right of the domestic manufacturers, however gratifying it might be to them, if we would purchase their inferior productions at higher prices.

Upon what principle, then, can the State of South Carolina be called upon to submit to a system, which excludes her from her natural markets, and the manifold benefits of that enriching commerce which a kind and beneficent Providence has provided to connect her with the family of nations, by the bonds of mutual interest? But one answer can be given to this question. It is in vain to attempt to disguise the fact, mortifying as it must be, that the principle by which South Carolina is thus excluded, is in strict propriety of language, and to all rational intents and purposes, a principle of colonial dependence and vassalage, in all respects identical with that which restrained our forefathers from trading with any manufacturing nation of Europe, other than Great Britain. South Carolina now bears the same relation to the manufacturing states of this Confederacy, that the Anglo-American colonies bore to the mother country, with the single exception, that our burthens are incomparably more oppressive than those of our ancestors. Our time, our pride, and the occasion, equally forbid us to trace out the degrading analogy. We leave that to the historian who shall record the judgement which an impartial posterity will pronounce upon the eventful transactions of this day.

It is in vain that we attempt to console ourselves by the empty and unreal mockery of our representation in Congress. As to all those great and vital interests of the State which are effected by the protecting system, it would be better that she had no representation in that body. It serves no other purpose but to conceal the chains which fetter our liberties, under the vain and empty forms of a representative Government. In the enactment of the protecting system, the majority of Congress is, in strict propriety of speech, an irresponsible despotism. A very brief analysis will render this clear to every understanding. What, then, we ask, is involved in the idea of political responsibility, in the imposition of public burthens? It clearly implies that those who impose the burthens, should be responsible to those who bear them. Every representative in Congress should be responsible, not only to his own immediate constituents, but through them and their common participation in the burthens imposed, to the constituents of every other representative. If, in the enactment of a protecting tariff, the majority in Congress imposed upon their own constituents the same burthens which they impose upon the people of South Carolina, that majority would act under

« PreviousContinue »