Strictures on Nullification. Everett Alexander Hill

would be a national bankruptcy, which would of course be followed instantaneously by domestic convulsions, a complete breaking up of the Government, and a dissolution of the Union.

      Such, if the process of nullification, which, as we have seen, would be found utterly impracticable at every step, could be carried into effect, would be its practical results. Such would be its results, supposing it to proceed without opposition from any quarter, and to operate throughout in the manner most agreeable to the views set forth in Mr. Calhoun's exposition. Is it possible that a statesman of distinguished talents and patriotic feelings, – that a large majority of the citizens of a high-minded, generous and intelligent State, can look forward to such results with satisfaction? – that they can consider a course of measures which, waving any question of its constitutionality or practicability, and supposing it to go into quiet operation without opposition in any quarter, and to work to their heart's content in every particular, could still produce nothing better than the results which we have described, – as expedient? – Is it not more probable that the Vice-President and his political friends, by confining their attention exclusively to one partial view of the subject, and employing with fanatical earnestness all their energies in recommending this one view to the public favor, have entirely lost sight of all others, and are rushing forward, without even realizing its existence, to a precipice which is accurately and distinctly laid down by themselves in their own political charts?

      However this may be, it is plain from the most cursory survey of the doctrine of nullification, that it is wholly unsanctioned by the Constitution, although it contemplates important proceedings, not only by the States but by the General Government, which of course can only act under constitutional authority: that it is in all its important points utterly impracticable, and that could it even be carried into effect, and that in the manner most agreeable to the views of its partisans, it would at once break up the Government, and spread desolation and ruin through the country. We now proceed to examine some of the arguments, by which this enormous political heresy is supported in the document before us. We have already quoted the passages containing the statement of the doctrine in Mr. Calhoun's own language. The leading argument by which he sustains it is as follows.

      1. The General Government is an agent with limited powers, constituted by the States as principals to execute their joint will, expressed in the Constitution.

      2. But in private affairs, a principal has a right to revoke or modify the powers of his agent at discretion, to put his own construction upon them, and to disavow and annul any acts done by the agent upon a mistaken construction of his powers; while the agent, on his part, has no right to enforce his construction against that of his principal.

      3. In the same way, any one State has a right to put its own construction upon the Constitution, by which the States create the General Government their common agent, and to disavow and annul any acts done by the General Government upon a mistaken construction of these powers, while the General Government, on its part, has no right to enforce its own construction of the Constitution against that of its principal.

      The correctness of this reasoning, says the Vice-President, in its application 'to the ordinary transactions of life, no one will doubt, nor can it be possible to assign a reason, why it is not as applicable to the case of a Government as to that of individuals.' Not anticipating the nature of the objections that may be made to his reasoning, the Vice-President of course does not attempt to refute them, nor does he think it necessary to illustrate, explain or enforce his own theory, but, under the comfortable assurance that in its application to the ordinary transactions of life no one will doubt it, and that it cannot be possible to assign a reason why it should not be applied in the case of Governments, he jumps at once to his conclusion, that it is and ought to be applicable to that of the United States. Now it is obvious to us, that this reasoning, far from commanding the universal assent which the Vice-President seems to expect for it, will be considered by most intelligent and unprejudiced readers as open to various weighty and decisive objections. Admitting that the General Government may, in a certain sense of the term, be properly described as the agent of the States, the other proposition, that a principal has an unlimited right to construe the powers and disavow the acts of his agent is, even in private affairs, far from being equally clear; and were this even true in private affairs, it would by no means follow that any one State has an equally good right to annul at discretion the acts of the General Government. We shall enlarge a little upon each of these points.

      1. It is not true that a principal has, in the ordinary transactions of life, an unlimited right to construe the powers and disavow the acts of his agent. Although an agent may have construed his powers in a different manner from that in which his principal intended that they should be understood, yet if he can make it appear that he has exercised ordinary diligence and acted with good faith, he has a right to enforce his construction against that of his principal, and the law will sustain him in it. A merchant, for example, addresses a letter of instructions to a shipmaster or supercargo, and the latter in consequence makes contracts which the principal did not intend that he should make; the principal will nevertheless be bound by them, unless he can show that the agent has been guilty of neglect or fraud; for it is his own fault if he has not made his instructions intelligible, or has chosen his agent so badly that he cannot understand plain language.

      The argument from analogy, and it is the only one by which the Vice-President undertakes to support his main position, therefore fails entirely. If the attitude of the General Government toward the States be the same as that of an agent in relation to his principal, it then follows that the General Government has a right to enforce its construction of the Constitution against that of the States, provided always that it act with good faith, and in the exercise of all the diligence and attention which the case requires.

      2. But admitting even that, in private affairs, a principal has an unlimited right to construe the powers and disavow the acts of his agent, we cannot agree with the Vice-President, that it is impossible to assign a reason why any single State has not an equally good right to annul at discretion the acts of the General Government. We think that at least two very sufficient reasons may be given, why this conclusion would not follow.

      The first reason is that the General Government, if it be regarded as an agency, is an agency for a joint concern, comprehending four and twenty principals. Now if we admit that principals have an unlimited right to construe the powers and disavow the acts of their agents, it is quite obvious that, in the case of a joint concern, this right cannot belong to any one of the partners acting separately from the others, but must belong to the whole firm, expressing their intentions for this purpose through the organs and in the form which they habitually employ for all other purposes. But the proposition of the Vice-President is, that any one State has a right, without consulting the other States, to nullify at discretion any act of the General Government. That is, that any one partner in the joint concern has a right, without even consulting his co-partners, to construe the powers of the common agent in his own way, and to assume or avoid, at discretion, his share of responsibility for the acts which an agent may have performed in the name of the firm.

      It is almost needless to say that this is not the principle on which partnership concerns are generally managed, and that a partnership concern, which should be managed on this principle, would not be likely to possess unlimited credit or to carry on for any length of time a very lucrative business.

      The Vice-President anticipates this objection, and for the purpose of meeting it has introduced the second and third points in his theory, as stated at the commencement of this article. As the manner in which he treats this part of the subject is quite curious, we shall quote his own words.

      'It may, however, be proper to notice a distinction between the case of a single principal and his agent, and that of several principals and their joint agent, which might otherwise cause some confusion. In both cases, as between the agent and a principal, the construction of the principal, whether he be a single principal, or one of several, is equally conclusive; but, in the latter case, both the principal and the agent bear a relation to the other principals, which must be taken into the estimate, in order to understand fully all the results which may grow out of the contest for power between them. Though the construction of the principal is conclusive against the joint agent, as between them, such is not the case between him and his associates.