him but this, that there is no real family love in him? You and I are farmers, we never talk politics; our talk is of oxen; but remember this; that any man who attempts to excite one part of this country against another, is just as wicked as he would be who should attempt to get up a quarrel between John Taylor and his neighbor old Mr. John Sanborn, or his other neighbor Captain Burleigh. There are some animals that live best in the fire; and there are some men, who delight in heat, smoke, combustion, and even general conflagration. They do not follow the things which make for peace. They enjoy only controversy, contention, and strife. Have no communion with such persons, either as neighbors or politicians. You have no more right to say that slavery ought not to exist in Virginia, than a Virginian has to say, that slavery ought to exist in New Hampshire. This is a question left to every State, to decide for itself, and if we mean to keep the States together, we must leave to every State this power of deciding for itself.

I think I never wrote you a word before upon politics. I shall not do it again. I only say love your country, and your whole country, and when men attempt to persuade you to get into a quarrel with the laws of other States, tell them, "that you mean to mind your own business," and advise them to mind theirs.

John Taylor! you are a free man; you possess good principles, you have a large family to rear and provide for by your labor. Be thankful to the government, which does not oppress you, which does not bear you down by excessive taxation; but which holds out to you and to yours the hope of all the blessings which liberty, industry, and security may give.

John Taylor! thank God, morning and evening, that you were born in such a country. John Taylor! never write me another word upon politics.

Give my kindest remembrance to your wife and children; and when you look from your eastern windows upon the graves of my family, remember that he, who is the author of this letter, must soon follow them to another world.

WASHINGTON, 17 March, 1852.

DAN'L WEBSTER.

John Caldwell Calhoun.

BORN in Abbeville District, S. C., 1782. DIED in Washington, 1850.

STATE SOVEREIGNTY EXPOUNDED BY ITS GREATEST CHAMPION. [From the Letter to Gov. Hamilton, written at Fort Hill, S. C., 28 August, 1832.]

CITIZENS DIRECTLY ANSWERABLE TO THEIR RESPECTIVE STATES.

I WILL next proceed to state some of the results which necessarily follow from the facts which have been established.

The first, and, in reference to the subject of this communication, the most important, is, that there is no direct and immediate connection between the individual citizens of a State and the General Government. The relation between them is through the State. The Union is a union of States as communities, and not a union of individuals. As members of a State, her citizens were originally subject to no control but that of the State, and could be subject to no other, except by the act of the State itself. The Constitution was, accordingly, submitted to the States for their separate ratification; and it was only by the ratification of the State that its citizens became subject to the control of the General Government The ratification of any other, or all the other States, without its own, could create no connection between them and the General Government, nor impose on them the slightest obligation. Without the ratification of their own State, they would stand in the same relation to the General Government as do the citizens or subjects of any foreign state; and we find the citizens of North Carolina and Rhode Island actually bearing that relation to the Government for some time after it went into operation; these States having, in the first instance, declined to ratify. Nor had the act of any individual the least influence in subjecting him to the control of the General Government, except as it might influence the ratification of the Constitution by his own State. Whether subject to its control or not, depended wholly on the act of the State. His dissent had not the least weight against the assent of the State, nor his assent against its dissent. It follows, as a necessary consequence, that the act of ratification bound the State as a community, as is expressly declared in the article of the Constitution above quoted, and not the citizens of the. State as individuals; the latter being bound through their State, and in consequence of the ratification of the former. Another, and a highly important consequence, as it regards the subject under investigation, follows with equal certainty; that, on a question whether a particular power exercised by the General Government be granted by the Constitu

tion, it belongs to the State as a member of the Union, in her sovereign capacity in convention, to determine definitively, as far as her citizens are concerned, the extent of the obligation which she contracted; and if, in her opinion, the act exercising the power be unconstitutional, to declare it null and void, which declaration would be obligatory on her citizens. In coming to this conclusion, it may be proper to remark, to prevent misrepresentation, that I do not claim for a State the right to abrogate an act of the General Government. It is the Constitution that annuls an unconstitutional act. Such an act is of itself void and of no effect. What I claim is, the right of the State, as far as its citizens are concerned, to declare the extent of the obligation, and that such declaration is binding on them -a right, when limited to its citizens, flowing directly from the relation of the State to the General Government on the one side, and its citizens on the other, as already explained, and resting on the most plain and solid reasons.

THE RIGHT OF NULLIFICATION.

I have now, I trust, conclusively shown that a State has a right, in her sovereign capacity, in convention, to declare an unconstitutional act of Congress to be null and void, and that such declarations would be obligatory on her citizens, -as highly so as the Constitution itself,-and conclusive against the General Government, which would have no right to enforce its construction of its powers against that of the State.

I next propose to consider the practical effect of the exercise of this high and important right-which, as the great conservative principle of our system, is known under the various names of nullification, interposition, and State veto-in reference to its operation viewed under different aspects: nullification,-as declaring null an unconstitutional act of the General Government, as far as the State is concerned; interposition,— as throwing the shield of protection between the citizens of a State and the encroachments of the Government; and veto,—as arresting or inhibiting its unauthorized acts within the limits of the State.

I have already shown that the declaration of nullification would be obligatory on the citizens of the State;-as much so, in fact, as its declaration ratifying the Constitution, resting, as it does, on the same basis. It would to them be the highest possible evidence that the power contested was not granted, and, of course, that the act of the General Government was unconstitutional. They would be bound, in all the relations of life, private and political, to respect and obey it; and, when called upon as jurymen, to render their verdict accordingly, or as judges, to pronounce judgment in conformity with it. The right of jury trial is secured by the Constitution (thanks to the jealous spirit of liberty, doubly