Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)

On the 15th May, 1800, Governor Monroe writes to Mr. Madison as follows:

"Besides, I think there is cause to suspect the sedition law will be carried into effect in this State at the approaching federal court, and I ought to be there (Richmond) to aid in preventing trouble… I think it possible an idea may be entertained of opposition, and by means whereof the fair prospect of the republican party may be overcast. But in this they are deceived, as certain characters in Richmond and some neighboring counties are already warned of their danger, so that an attempt to excite a hot-water insurrection will fail."

And on the 4th of June, 1800, he wrote again, as follows:

"The conduct of the people on this occasion was exemplary, and does them the highest honor. They seemed aware that the crisis demanded of them a proof of their respect for law and order, and resolved to show they were equal to it. I am satisfied a different conduct was expected from them, for every thing that could was done to provoke it. It only remains that this business be closed on the part of the people, as it has been so far acted; that the judge, after finishing his career, go off in peace, without experiencing the slightest insult from any one; and that this will be the case I have no doubt."

Governor Monroe was correct in the supposition that the sedition law would be carried into effect, at the approaching session of the federal court, and he was also right in the anticipation that the people would know how to distinguish between the exercise of means to procure the repeal of an act, and the exercise of violence to stop its operation. The act was enforced; was "carried into effect" in their midst, and a fellow-citizen incarcerated under its odious provisions, without a suggestion of official or other interference. Thus we have the contemporaneous interpretation of the resolutions exemplified and set at rest, by the most powerful of arguments: by the impressive fact, that when the public indignation was at its height, subsequent to the resolutions of 1798, and subsequent to the report of '99, and when both had been universally disseminated and read, and they had had, with the debates upon them, their entire influence on the public mind; that at that moment, the act of Congress against which the resolutions were chiefly aimed, and the indignation of the community chiefly kindled, was then and there carried into execution, and that in a form – the unjust deprivation of a citizen of his liberty – the most obnoxious to a free people, and the most likely to rouse their opposition; yet quietly and peaceably done, by the simple, ordinary process of the federal court. This fact, so creditable to the people of Virginia, is thus noted in the annual message of Governor Monroe, to the general assembly, at their next meeting, December, 1800:

"In connection with this subject [of the resolutions] it is proper to add, that, since your last session, the sedition law, one of the acts complained of, has been carried into effect in this commonwealth by the decision of a federal court. I notice this event, not with a view of censuring or criticising it. The transaction has gone to the world, and the impartial will judge of it as it deserves. I notice it for the purpose of remarking that the decision was executed with the same order and tranquil submission on the part of the people, as could have been shown by them on a similar occasion, to any the most necessary, constitutional and popular acts of the government."

Governor Monroe then adds his official and personal testimony to the proper intent and character of the proceedings of '98, '9, as follows:

"The general assembly and the good people of this commonwealth have acquitted themselves to their own consciences, and to their brethren in America, in support of a cause which they deem a national one, by the stand which they made, and the sentiments they expressed of these acts of the general government; but they have looked for a change in that respect, to a change in the public opinion, which ought to be free; not to measures of violence, discord and disunion, which they abhor."

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

VIRGINIA RESOLUTIONS OF 1798: – DISABUSED OF NULLIFICATION, BY THEIR AUTHOR

Vindicated upon their words, and upon contemporaneous interpretation, another vindication, superfluous in point of proof, but due to those whose work has been perverted, awaits these resolutions, derived from the words of their author (after seeing their perversion); and to absolve himself and his associates from the criminal absurdity attributed to them.

The contemporary opponents of the Resolutions of 1798 said all the evil of them, and represented them in every odious light, that persevering, keen and enlightened opposition could discover or imagine. Their defenders successfully repelled the charges then made against them; but could not vindicate them from intending the modern doctrine of Nullification, because that doctrine had not then been invented, and the ingenuity of their adversaries did not conceive of that ground of attack. Their venerable author, however – the illustrious Madison[7 - Mr. Madison did not introduce the Resolutions into the Virginia legislature. He was not a member of that body in 1798. The resolutions were reported by John Taylor, of Caroline. Mr. Madison, however, was always reputed to be their author, and in a letter to Mr. James Robertson, written in March, 1831, he distinctly avows it. He was both the author and reporter of the Report and Resolution of 1799-1800.] – was still alive, when this new perversion of his resolutions had been invented, and when they were quoted to sustain doctrines synonymous with disorganization and disunion. He was still alive, in retirement on his farm. His modesty and sense of propriety hindered him from carrying the prestige and influence of his name into the politics of the day; but his vigorous mind still watched with anxious and patriotic interest the current of public affairs, and recoiled with instinctive horror both from the doctrine and attempted practice of Nullification, and the attempted connection of his name and acts with the origination of it. He held aloof from the public contest; but his sentiments were no secret. His private correspondence, embracing in its range distinguished men of all sections of the Union and of all parties, was full of the subject, from the commencement of the Nullification excitement down to the time of his death: sometimes at length, and argumentatively; sometimes with a brief indignant disclaimer; always earnestly and unequivocally. Some of these letters, although private, were published during Mr. Madison's lifetime, especially an elaborate one to Mr. Edward Everett; and many of the remainder have recently been put into print, through the liberality of a patriotic citizen of Washington (Mr. J. Maguire), but only for private distribution, and hence not accessible to the public. They are a complete storehouse of material, not only for the vindication of Madison and his compeers, from the doctrine of Nullification, but of argument and reasons against Nullification and every kindred suggestion.

From the letter to Mr. Everett, published in the North American Review, shortly after it was written (August, 1830), the following extracts are taken:

"It (the constitution of the United States) was formed by the States, that is, by the people in each of the States, acting in their highest sovereign capacity; and formed consequently by the same authority which formed the State constitutions.

"Being thus derived from the same source as the constitutions of the States, it has, within each State, the same authority as the constitution of the State, and is as much a constitution in the strict sense of the term within its prescribed sphere, as the constitutions of the States are within their respective spheres; but with this obvious and essential difference, that being a compact among the States in their highest sovereign capacity, and constituting the people thereof one people for certain purposes, it cannot be altered or annulled at the will of the States individually, as the constitution of a State may be at its individual will."

"Nor is the government of the United States, created by the constitution, less a government in the strict sense of the term, within the sphere of its powers, than the governments created by the constitutions of the States are, within their several spheres. It is like them organized into legislative, executive and judiciary departments. It operates, like them, directly on persons and things. And, like them, it has at command a physical force for executing the powers committed to it.

"Between these different constitutional governments, the one operating in all the States, the others operating separately in each, with the aggregate powers of government divided between them, it could not escape attention, that controversies would arise concerning the boundaries of jurisdiction."

"That to have left a final decision, in such cases, to each of the States, could not fail to make the constitution and laws of the United States different in different States, was obvious, and not less obvious that this diversity of independent decisions, must altogether distract the government of the Union, and speedily put an end to the Union itself."

"To have made the decision under the authority of the individual States, co-ordinate in all cases, with decisions under the authority of the United States, would unavoidably produce collisions incompatible with the peace of society."

"To have referred every clashing decision, under the two authorities, for a final decision, to the States as parties to the constitution, would be attended with delays, with inconveniences and expenses, amounting to a prohibition of the expedient."

"To have trusted to 'negotiation' for adjusting disputes between the government of the United States and the State governments, as between independent and separate sovereignties, would have lost sight altogether of a constitution and government of the Union, and opened a direct road, from a failure of that resort, to the ultima ratio, between nations wholly independent of, and alien to each other… Although the issue of negotiation might sometimes avoid this extremity, how often would it happen among so many States, that an unaccommodating spirit in some would render that resource unavailing?"

After thus stating, with other powerful reasons, why all those fanciful and impracticable theories were rejected in the constitution, the letter proceeds to show what the constitution does adopt and rely on, "as a security of the rights and powers of the States," namely:

"1. The responsibility of the senators and representatives in the legislature of the United States to the legislatures and people of the States; 2. The responsibility of the President to the people of the United States; and, 3. The liability of the executive and judicial functionaries of the United States to impeachment by the representatives of the people of the States in one branch of the legislature of the United States, and trial by the representatives of the States, in the other branch."

And then, in order to mark how complete these provisions are for the security of the States, shows that while the States thus hold the functionaries of the United States to these several responsibilities, the State functionaries, on the other hand, in their appointment and responsibility, are "altogether independent of the agency or authority of the United States."

Of the doctrine of nullification, "the expedient lately advanced," the letter says:

"The distinguished names and high authorities which appear to have asserted and given a practical scope to this doctrine, entitle it to a respect which it might be difficult otherwise to feel for it."

"The resolutions of Virginia, as vindicated in the report on them, will be found entitled to an exposition, showing a consistency in their parts, and an inconsistency of the whole with the doctrine under consideration."

"That the legislature could not have intended to sanction any such doctrine is to be inferred from the debates in the House of Delegates. The tenor of the debates, which were ably conducted, discloses no reference whatever to a constitutional right in an individual State to arrest by force a law of the United States."

"If any further light on the subject could be needed, a very strong one is reflected in the answers to the resolutions, by the States which protested against them… Had the resolutions been regarded as avowing and maintaining a right, in an individual State, to arrest by force the execution of a law of the United States, it must be presumed that it would have been a conspicuous object of their denunciation."

In a letter to Mr. Joseph C. Cabell, May 31, 1830, Mr. Madison says:

"I received yesterday yours of the 26th. Having never concealed my opinions of the nullifying doctrines of South Carolina, I did not regard the allusion to it in the Whig, especially as the manner of the allusion showed that I did not obtrude it… I have latterly been drawn into a correspondence with an advocate of the doctrine, which led me to a review of it to some extent, and particularly to a vindication of the proceedings of Virginia in 1798, '99, against the misuse made of them. That you may see the views I have taken of the aberrations of South Carolina, I enclose you an extract."

And in a letter to Mr. Daniel Webster, written a few days previously, he uses nearly the same language; as also in a letter in February, 1830, to Mr. Trist.

To Mr. James Robertson, March 27, 1831, Mr. Madison writes as follows:

"The veil which was originally over the draft of the resolutions offered in 1798 to the Virginia Assembly having been long since removed, I may say, in answer to your inquiries, that it was penned by me."

"With respect to the terms following the term 'unconstitutional,' viz., 'not law, but null, void, and of no force or effect,' which were stricken out of the seventh resolution, my memory cannot say positively whether they were or were not in the original draft, and no copy of it appears to have been retained. On the presumption that they were in the draft as it went from me, I am confident that they must have been regarded only as giving accumulated emphasis to the declaration, that the alien and sedition acts had, in the opinion of the assembly, violated the constitution of the United States, and not that the addition of them could annul the acts or sanction a resistance of them. The resolution was expressly declaratory, and, proceeding from the legislature only, which was not even a party to the constitution, could be declaratory of opinion only."

To Joseph C. Cabell, Sept. 16, 1831:

"I congratulate you on the event which restores you to the public councils, where your services will be valuable, particularly in defending the constitution and Union against the false doctrines which assail them. That of nullification seems to be generally abandoned in Virginia, by those who had most leaning towards it. But it still flourishes in the hot-bed where it sprung up."

"I know not whence the idea could proceed that I concurred in the doctrine, that although a State could not nullify a law of the Union, it had a right to secede from the Union. Both spring from the same poisonous root."

To Mr. N. P. Trist, December, 1831:

"I cannot see the advantage of this perseverance of South Carolina in claiming the authority of the Virginia proceedings in 1798, '99, as asserting a right in a single State to nullify an act of the United States. Where, indeed, is the fairness of attempting to palm on Virginia an intention which is contradicted by such a variety of contradictory proofs; which has at no intervening period, received the slightest countenance from her, and which with one voice she now disclaims?"

"To view the doctrine in its true character, it must be recollected that it asserts a right in a single State to stop the execution of a federal law, until a convention of the States could be brought about by a process requiring an uncertain time; and, finally, in the convention, when formed, a vote of seven States, if in favor of the veto, to give it a prevalence over the vast majority of seventeen States. For this preposterous and anarchical pretension there is not a shadow of countenance in the constitution; and well that there is not, for it is certain that, with such a deadly poison in it, no constitution could be sure of lasting a year."

To Mr. C. E. Haynes, August 26, 1832:

"In the very crippled and feeble state of my health, I cannot undertake an extended answer to your inquiries, nor should I suppose it necessary if you have seen my letter to Mr. Everett, in August, 1830, in which the proceedings of Virginia, in 1798-'99, were explained, and the novel doctrine of nullification adverted to.

"The distinction is obvious between such interpositions on the part of the States against unjustifiable acts of the federal government as are within the provisions and forms of the constitution. These provisions and forms certainly do not embrace the nullifying process proclaimed in South Carolina, which begins with a single State, and ends with the ascendency of a minority of States over a majority; of seven over seventeen; a federal law, during the process, being arrested within the nullifying State; and, if a revenue law, frustrated through all the States."

To Mr. Trist, December 23, 1832:

"If one State can, at will, withdraw from the others, the others can, at will, withdraw from her, and turn her nolentem volentem out of the Union. Until of late, there is not a State that would have abhorred such a doctrine more than South Carolina, or more dreaded an application of it to herself. The same may be said of the doctrine of nullification which she now preaches as the only faith by which the Union can be saved."

In a letter to Mr. Joseph C. Cabell, December 28, 1832:

"It is not probable that (in the adoption of the resolutions of 1798), such an idea as the South Carolina nullification had ever entered the thoughts of a single member, or even that of a citizen of South Carolina herself."

To Andrew Stevenson, February 4, 1833:

"I have received your communication of the 29th ultimo, and have read it with much pleasure. It presents the doctrine of nullification and secession in lights that must confound, if failing to convince their patrons. You have done well in rescuing the proceedings of Virginia in 1798-'99, from the many misconstructions and misapplications of them."