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Never, perhaps, did statesmen begin their task of constitution-making with so much aid from preceding circumstances as the great men of the Revolution. A social neighbourhood of colonies, all suffering under colonial grievances, and all varying in their internal government, afforded a broad hint of the present system, and fine facilities for putting it in practice. There was much less speculation in the case than might appear from a distance; and this fact so far takes away from the superhuman character of the wisdom which achieved the completion of the United States' constitution, as to bring the mind down from its state of amazement into one of very wholesome admiration.

The state governments are the conservative power, enabling the will of the majority to act with freedom and convenience. Though the nation is but an aggregation of individuals, as regards the general government, their division into States, for the management of their domestic affairs, precludes a vast amount of confusion and discord. Their mutual vigilance is also a great advantage to their interests, both within each State, and abroad. No tyrant, or tyrannical party, can remain unwatched and unchecked. There is, in each State, a people ready for information and complaint, when necessary; a legislature ready for deliberation; and an executive ready to act. Many States, in other ages and regions, have been lost through the necessity of creating their instruments when they should have been acting. State organisation is never managed without dispute; and it makes the entire difference in the success of resistance to aggression whether the necessary apparatus has to be created in haste and confusion, or whether everything is in readiness for executing the will of the majority.

Under no other arrangement, perhaps, could the advantage be secured of every man being, in his turn, a servant of the commonwealth. If the general government managed everything, the public service would soon become the privilege of a certain class, or a number of classes of men; as is seen to be the case elsewhere. The relation and gradation of service which are now so remarkable a feature in the United States commonwealth, could never then happen naturally, as they now do. Almost every man serves in his township in New England, and in the corresponding ward or section elsewhere; and has his capability tried; and, if worthy, he serves his county, his State, and finally the Union, in Congress. Such is the theory: and if not followed up well in practice, if some of the best men never get beyond serving their township, and some of the worst now and then get into Congress, the people are unquestionably better served than if the selection of servants depended on accident, or the favour of men in power. Whatever extraneous impediments may interfere with the true working of the theory, every citizen feels, or ought to feel, what a glorious career may lie before him. In his country, every road to success is open to all. There are no artificial disqualifications which may not be surmounted. All humbug, whether of fashion and show, of sanctimoniousness, of licentiousness, or of anything else, is there destined to speedy failure and retribution. There is no hereditary humbug in the United States. If the honest, wise man, feels himself depressed below the knave, he has, if he did but know it, only to wait patiently a little while, and he will have his due. Though truth is equally great everywhere, and equally sure ultimately to prevail, men of other countries have often to wait till they reach the better country than all, before they witness this ultimate prevalence, except with the eye of faith. The young nation over the Atlantic, is indulged, for the encouragement, with a speedier retribution for her well or ill doings; and almost every one of her citizens, if he be truly honourable, may trust to be fitly honoured before he dies.

Another conservative effect of the state governments is the facilities they afford for the correction of solecisms, the renovation of institutions as they are outgrown, and the amendment of all unsuitable arrangements. If anything wants to be rectified in any State, it can be done on the mere will of the people concerned. There is no imploring of an uninterested government at a distance—a government so occupied with its foreign relations as to have little attention to spare for domestic grievances which it does not feel. There is no waiting any body's pleasure; nobody's leave to ask. The remedy is so close at hand, those who are to give it are so nearly concerned, that it may always, and, for the most part, speedily, be obtained, upon good cause being shown. No external observance is needed, except of the few and express prohibitions which the general and state governments have interchanged.

It is amusing to look over the proceedings of the state legislatures for any one year. Maine amends her libel law, decreeing that proof of truth shall be admitted as justification. Massachusetts decrees a revision and consolidation of her laws, and the annihilation of lotteries. Rhode Island improves her quarantine regulations. Connecticut passes an act for the preservation of corn-fields from crows. Vermont decrees the protection of the dead in their graves. New York prohibits the importation of foreign convicts. New Jersey incorporates a dairy company. Pennsylvania mitigates the law which authorises imprisonment for debt. Maryland authorises a geological survey. Georgia enlarges her law of divorce. Alabama puts children, in certain circumstances, under the protection of chancery. Mississippi decrees a census. Tennessee interdicts barbacues in the neighbourhood of camp meetings. Ohio regulates the care of escheated lands. Indiana prohibits a higher rate of interest than ten percent. Missouri authorises the conveyance of real estate by married women. And so on. It seems difficult to imagine how many abuses can reach an extreme, or be tardy of cure, where the will of the majority is not only speedily made known, but where the division of employment is so skilfully arranged that the majority may be trusted to understand the case on which they are to decide.

It has always appeared to me that much misapprehension is occasioned by its being supposed that the strength of the general government lies in the number of its functions; and its weakness in the extent of its area. To me it appears directly the reverse. A government which has the management of all the concerns of a people, the greater and the smaller, preserves its stability by the general interest in its more important functions. If you desire to weaken it, you must withdraw from its guardianship the more general and important of its affairs. If you desire to shield it from cavil and attack, you must put the more local and partial objects of its administration under other management. If the general government of the United States had to manage all legislation and administration within their boundaries, it could hardly hold together one year. If it had only one function, essential to all, and impossible to be otherwise fulfilled, there seems no reason why it should not work prosperously till there are fifty States around it, and longer. The importance of the functions of the general government depends partly upon the universality of the interest in them; and partly upon the numbers included under them. So far, therefore, from the enlargement of the area of the United States being perilous to the general government, by making it "cumbrous," as many fear, it seems to me likely to work a directly contrary effect. There are strong reasons why an extension of her area would be injurious to her, but I cannot regard this as one. A government which has to keep watch over the defence, foreign policy, commerce, and currency, of from twenty-five to fifty small republics, is safer in the guardianship of its subjects than if it had to manage these same affairs for one large republic, with the additional superintendence of its debtors, its libellers, and the crows of its corn-fields.

Little or no room for rebellion seems to be left under the constitution of the United States. In the progress of human affairs, familiar evils expire with worn-out institutions, and new dangers arise out of the midst of renovated arrangements. Assassinations are the form which resistance to government assumes in pure despotisms. Rebellion is the name it bears under governments somewhat more liberal. In the United States, nothing worse than professed Nullification has yet been heard of—unless Colonel Burr's secret schemes were indeed treasonable. A brief account of the South Carolina Nullification may exhibit the relations, and occasional enmities of the general and states government in a clearer way than could be done, otherwise than by a narrative of facts. This little history shows, among many other things, that America follows the rest of the world in quoting the constitution as a sanction of the most opposite designs and proceedings: what different sympathies respond to the word "patriotism;" and of how little avail is the letter of the constitution, when there is variance as to its spirit.

Georgia laid claim, some years ago, to the Cherokee territory, on the ground that the United States had no right to make the laws and treaties by which the Cherokees were protected; that such legislation was inconsistent with the reserved rights of the sovereign state of Georgia. Georgia thus acted upon the supposition, that she was to construe the federal compact in her own way, and proceed according to her own construction. Congress checked her in this assumption, and rejected her pretensions by an almost unanimous vote. Soon after the accession of General Jackson to the presidentship, Georgia, either presuming upon his favour, or wishing to test his dispositions, began to encroach upon the Cherokee lands. The Cherokees appealed to the federal government for protection, under the laws and treaties framed for that very purpose. The President replied, that Georgia was right in annulling those laws and treaties, and that the executive could not interfere. The Indian cause was brought before the Supreme Court. There was difficulty about the character in which the plaintiffs were to sue, and as to whether they could sue at all, under that provision of the constitution which authorises foreign nations to demand justice from the federal tribunals. The court expressed a strong, opinion however, that the Cherokees were entitled to protection from the Executive.

The Supreme Court and Georgia were thus brought into opposition, while the Executive took the part of Georgia. Compassion for the Cherokees was now swallowed up in anxiety about the decision of the question of state rights. The Executive had, as yet, only negatively declared himself, however; and the Supreme Court had not been driven on to deliver a verdict against the Georgian laws, by which the Cherokees were oppressed. The topic of the right of a State to annul the laws and treaties of the federal government was meantime generally discussed; and reconsideration was forced upon the President.

South Carolina presently followed the example of Georgia. She annulled the acts of Congress, which regarded such revenue laws as she considered contrary to general principles, and to her own interests. The President now perceived that if every State proceeded to nullify the acts of Congress, upon its own construction of the federal constitution, the general government could not be secure of its existence for a day. While the Executive was still in a position of observation, the Supreme Court pronounced, in another case, a verdict against the unconstitutional laws of Georgia. In 1829, the legislature of Virginia asserted the right of each State to construe the federal constitution for itself: and thus there appeared to be three States already in the course of withdrawing from the Union.

Congress went on legislating about the tariff, without regard to this opposition; and the protests of certain States against their proceedings were quietly laid on the table, as impertinences. The South Carolina advocates of Nullification worked diligently in their own State to ripen the people sufficiently to obtain a convention which should proclaim their doctrine as the will of the State: in which case, they doubted not that they should secure the countenance and co-operation of most or all of the southern States. A convention in favour of free trade met at Philadelphia; another in favour of the tariff met at New York; and the nullifiers saw reason to turn the discussion of the quarrel as much as possible from the principle of Nullification to the principle of free trade. They perceived the strength of the latter ground, whether or not they saw the weakness of the former; and by their skilful movement upon it, they eventually caused a greater benefit to the nation, than their discontent did harm to themselves.

The President was invited to dine at Charleston on the 4th of July, 1831; and in his answer, he thought fit to announce that he should do his duty in case of any attempt to annul the laws of the Union. This was a virtual retractation of his encouragement to Georgia. A committee of the legislature of South Carolina reported the letter to be at variance with the duties of the President, and the rights of the States. The heat was rising rapidly. The nullifiers were loud in their threats, and watchful in observing the effect of those threats abroad. North Carolina repudiated the whole doctrine of Nullification: other neighbouring States showed a reluctance to sanction it. The President's next message recommended a modification of the tariff, which was known to be no favorite of his; but the modification he proposed had no other bearing than upon the amount of the revenue.

During the session of Congress of 1832, various alterations were made in the duties, which it was hoped would be to the satisfaction of South Carolina: but the complaint of her representatives was, that the reductions which were ordained were on those articles in which she had no interest; while her burdens were actually increased. These representatives met at Washington, and drew up an address to the people of South Carolina, in which they declared their wrongs, and inquired whether they were to be tamely submitted to.

The legislature of South Carolina, after the next election, exhibited a large majority in both houses in favour of Nullification. A convention was called at Columbia, in consequence of whose proceedings an ordinance was prepared, and speedily passed through the legislature, declaring all the acts of Congress imposing duties on imported goods, to be null and void within the state of South Carolina. It prohibited the levying of all such duties within the State, and all appeals on the subject to the Supreme Court. A number of minor provisions were made to hinder the levy of import duties. The governor was empowered to call the militia into service against any opposition which might be made by the general government to this bold mode of proceeding. The entire military force of the State, and the services of volunteers, were also placed at his disposal. Arms and ammunition were ordered to be purchased.

This was too much for the President's anxiety about consistency. He ordered all the disposable military force to assemble at Charleston; sent a sloop of war to that port, to protect the federal officers in the discharge of their duties; and issued a vigorous proclamation, stating the constitutional doctrine, about the mutual relations of the general and state governments, and exhorting the citizens of South Carolina not to forfeit their allegiance. Governor Hayne issued a counter proclamation, warning the citizens of the State against being seduced from their state allegiance by the President. This was at the close of 1832.

Everything being thus ready for an explosion, South Carolina, appeared willing to wait the result of another session. This was needful enough; for she was as yet uncertain whether she was to have the assistance of any of her sister States. Mr. Calhoun, the vice-president, resigned his office, and became a senator in the room of governor Hayne: and thus the nullification cause was in powerful hands in the senate. Its proceedings were watched with the most intense anxiety by the whole Union. The crisis of the Union was come.

In the discontented State, the union party, which was strong, though excluded from the government, was in great sorrow and fear. Civil war seemed inevitable; and they felt themselves oppressed and insulted by the imposition of the oath of allegiance to the State. The nullifiers justified this requisition by saying that many foreigners resident in Charleston, who did not understand the case, believed that their duty to the general government required them to support it, while its vessels of war and troops were in port; however well they might be disposed to the nullification cause. It was merely as a method of enlightenment, it was protested, that this oath was imposed.

The ladies, meanwhile, had a State Rights ball at the arsenal, and contributed their jewels for the support of the expected war. I could not learn that they made lint—the last test of woman's earnestness for war; but I was told by a leading nullifier that the ladies were "chock full of fight." The expectation of war was so nearly universal that I could hear of only one citizen of Charleston who discouraged the removal of his wife and children from the city, in the belief that a peaceful settlement of the quarrel would take place.

The legislatures of the States passed resolutions, none of them advocating nullification; (even Georgia forsaking that ground;) many condemned the proceedings of South Carolina; but some, while doing so, made strong remonstrances against the tariff. Five of the States, in which manufactures had been set up, declared their opposition to any alteration of the tariff. It is amusing now to read the variety of terms in which the South Carolina proceedings were condemned; though, at the time, the reports of these resolutions must have carried despair to the hearts of the citizens of the solitary discontented State. The effect of these successive shocks is still spoken of in strong and touching language by those who had to sustain them.

While the South Carolina militia were training, and the munitions of war preparing, the senators and representatives of the State were wearing stern and grave faces at Washington. The session was passing away, and nothing but debate was yet achieved. Their fellow legislators looked on them with grief, as being destined to destruction in the field, or on the scaffold. They were men of high spirit and gallantry; and it was clear that they had settled the matter with themselves and with each other. They would never submit to mere numbers; and would oppose force to force, till all of their small resources was spent. No one can estimate their heroism, or desperation, whichever it may be called, who has not seen the city and State which would have been the theatre of the war. The high spirit of South Carolina is of that kind which accompanies fallen, or inferior fortunes. Pride and poverty chafe the spirit. They make men look around for injury, and aggravate the sense of injury when it is real. In South Carolina, the black population outnumbers the white. The curse of slavery lies heavy on the land, and its inhabitants show the usual unwillingness of sufferers to attribute their maladies to their true cause. Right as the South Carolinians may be as to the principle of free trade, no tariff ever yet occasioned such evils as they groan under. If not a single import duty had ever been imposed, there would still have been the contrasts which they cannot endure to perceive between the thriving States of the north and their own. Now, when they see the flourishing villages of New England, they cry "We pay for all this." When the north appears to receive more favour from the general government, in its retrospective recompenses for service in war, the greater proportion of which service was rendered by the north, the south again cries, "We pay for all this." It is true that the south pays dearly; but it is for her own depression, not for others' prosperity. When I saw the face of the nullifiers' country, I was indeed amazed at their hardihood. The rich soil, watered by full streams, the fertile bottoms, superintended by the planters' mansions, with their slave quarter a little removed from the house, the fine growth of trees, and of the few patches of pasturage which are to be seen, show how nourishing this region ought to be. But its aspect is most depressing to the traveller. Roads nearly impassable in many parts, bridges carried away and not restored, lands exhausted, and dwellings forsaken, are spectacles too common in South Carolina. The young men, whose patrimony has deteriorated, migrate westward with their 'force;' selling their lands, if they can; if not, forsaking them. There are yet many plantations of unsurpassed fertility; but there are many exhausted: and it is more profitable to remove to a virgin soil than to employ slave labour in renovating the fertility of the old. There is an air of rudeness about the villages, and languor about the towns, which promise small resource in times of war and distress. And then, the wretched slave population is enough to paralyse the arm of the bravest community, and to ensure defeat to the best cause. I saw the soldiers and the preparations for war at Charleston, two years after the crisis was past. When I was to be shown the arms and ammunition, it appeared that "the gentleman that had the key was not on the premises." This showed that no immediate invasion was expected; but it was almost incredible what had been threatened with such resources. The precautionary life of the community, on account of the presence of so large a body of slaves, may be, in some sort, a training for war; but it points out the impediments to success. If South Carolina had, what some of her leading men seem to desire, a Lacedemonian government, which should make every free man a soldier, she would be farther from safety in peace, and success in war, than any quaker community, exempt from the curse of a debased and wronged servile class. One glance over the city of Charleston is enough to show a stranger how helpless she is against a foreign foe, if unsupported. The soldiers met, at every turn, the swarms of servile blacks, the very luxuries and hospitalities of the citizens, grateful as these luxuries are to the stranger, and honourable as these hospitalities are to his entertainers, betoken a state of society which has no strength to spare from the great work of self-renovation. Those who remained at home during the winter of 1832 and 1833, might be hopeful about the conflict, from being unaware of the depressed condition of their State, in comparison with others: but the leaders at Washington might well look stern and grave. It is no impeachment of their bravery, if their hearts died within them, day by day.

The session was within fourteen days of its close, when Mr. Clay brought in a bill which had been carefully prepared as a compromise between the contending parties. It provided that all import duties exceeding twenty per cent. should be gradually reduced, till, in 1842, they should have declined to that amount; leaving liberty to augment the duties again, in case of war. This bill, with certain amendments, not affecting its principle, was passed, as was the Enforcing Bill—for enforcing the collection imposed by act of Congress. A convention was held in South Carolina: the obnoxious ordinance was repealed; the Enforcing Bill was, indeed, nominally nullified; but no powers were offered to the legislature for enforcing the nullification; and the quarrel was, to all intents and purposes, at an end.

The triumph remained—if triumph there were—with South Carolina. This was owing to the goodness of her principle of free trade; and in no degree, to the reasonableness of her nullifying practices. The passage of the Compromise Bill was a wise and fortunate act. Its influence on the planting and manufacturing interests is a subject to be considered in another connexion. Its immediate effect in honourably reconciling differences which had appeared irreconcileable, was a blessing, not only to the United States, but to the world. The lustre of democratic principles would have been shrouded to many eyes by a civil war among the citizens of the Union; while now, the postponement of a danger so imminent, the healing of a breach so wide, has confirmed the confidence of many who feared that the States remained united only for want of a cause of separation.

Some ill effects remain—especially in the irritation of South Carolina. There is still an air of mystery and fellowship about the leading nullifiers, and of disquiet among the Union men of Charleston. But there is cause enough for restlessness in Charleston, as I have before said; and much excuse for pique.

Meanwhile, these events have proved to thousands of republicans the mischief of compromise conveyed in vague phraseology, in so solemn an instrument as a written constitution.

There could not have been a doubt on this case, if the question of construction had not had place, from the unfortunate clause ordaining that the general government shall have all powers necessary for the fulfilment of certain declared purposes. While this provision, thus worded, remains, the nullification theory will be played off, from time to time. The good consequence will arise from this liability, that a habit will be formed of construing the constitution liberally, with regard to the States, wherever there is a doubt as to the exercise of its powers; but this collateral good is no justification of the looseness of language by which the peace and integrity of the Union have been made to hang on a point of construction. The people of the United States will probably show their wisdom in henceforth accepting the benefit by shunning the evil.

In the privacy of their houses, many citizens have lamented to me, with feelings to which no name but grief can be given, that the events of 1832—3 have suggested the words "use" or "value of the Union." To an American, a calculation of the value of the Union would formerly have been as offensive, as absurd, as an estimate of the value of religion would be to a right-minded man. To Americans of this order, the Union has long been more than a matter of high utility. It has been idealised into an object of love and veneration. In answer to this cui bono, many have cried in their hearts, with Lear, "O reason not the need!" I was struck with the contrast in the tone of two statesmen, a chief nullifier and one of his chief opponents. The one would not disguise from me that the name of the Union had lost much of its charm in the south, since 1830. The other, in a glow, protested that he never would hear of the Union losing its charm.

But the instances of carelessness, of levity about the Union, are very rare; and this is the reason why more show of attachment to it is not made. The probabilities of the continuance of the Union are so overwhelming, that no man, not in a state of delusion, from some strong prejudice, can seriously entertain the idea of a dissolution within any assignable period. I met with one gentleman in the north, a clergyman, who expects and desires a dissolution of the Union, saying that the north bore all the expense of the war, and has had nothing but obstruction and injury from the south. I saw, also, one gentleman in South Carolina, who sees no use in the Union, but much expense and trouble. He declares the only effect of it to be the withdrawing of the best men from each State to dawdle away their time at Washington. Another, who desponds about the condition of England, and whose views are often embellished, and sometimes impaired, by his perceptions of analogy, expressed his fears that his own country, an offset from mine, would share the fate of offsets, and perish with the parent. But these are examples of eccentricity.

There are many among the slave-holders of the south who threaten secession. Such of these as are in earnest are under the mistake into which men fall when they put everything to the hazard of one untenable object. The untenable object once relinquished, the delusion will clear away with the disappearance of its cause, and the Union will be to them, with good reason, dearer than it has ever been. The southern States could not exist, separately, with their present domestic institutions, in the neighbourhood of any others. They would have thousands of miles of frontier, over which their slaves would be running away, every day of the year. In case of war, they might be only too happy if their slaves did run away, instead of rising up against them at home. If it was necessary to purchase, Florida because it was a retreat for runaways; if it was necessary, first to treat with Mexico for the restitution of runaways, and then to steal Texas, the most high-handed theft of modern times; if it is necessary to pursue runaways into the northern States, and to keep magistrates and jails in perpetual requisition for the restitution of southern human property, how would the southern States manage by themselves? Only by ridding themselves of slavery; in which case, their alleged necessity of separation is superseded. As for their resources—the shoe-business of New York State is of itself larger and more valuable than the entire commerce of Georgia—the largest and richest of the southern States.

The mere act of separation could not be accomplished. In case of war against the northern States, it would be necessary to employ half the white population to take care of the black; and of the remaining half, no one would undertake to say how many are at heart sick and weary of slavery, and would be, therefore, untrustworthy. The middle slave States, now nearly ready to discard slavery, would seize so favourable an opportunity as that afforded them by the peril of the Union. The middle free States, from Pennsylvania to the Mississippi, having everything to lose by separation, and nothing to gain, would treat the first overt act as rebellion; proceeding against it, and punishing it as such. The case is so palpable as scarcely to need even so brief a statement as this. The fact which renders such a statement worth making is, that most of those who threaten the dissolution of the Union, do it in order to divert towards this impracticable object the irritation which would otherwise, and which will, ere long, turn against the institution of slavery. The gaze of the world is fixed upon this institution. The world is shouting the one question about this anomaly which cannot be answered. The dwellers in the south would fain be unconscious of that awful gaze. They would fain not hear the reverberation of that shout. They would fain persuade themselves and others, that they are too busy in asserting their rights and their dignity as citizens of the Union, to heed the world beyond.

This self and mutual deception will prove a merely temporary evil. The natural laws which regulate communities, and the will of the majority, may be trusted to preserve the good, and to remove the bad elements from which this dissension arises. It requires no gift of prophecy to anticipate the fate of an anomaly among a self-governing people. Slavery was not always an anomaly; but it has become one. Its doom is therefore sealed; and its duration is now merely a question of time. Any anxiety in the computation of this time is reasonable; for it will not only remove a more tremendous cause than can ever again desolate society, but restore the universality of that generous attachment to their common institutions which has been, and will be, to the American people, honour, safety, and the means of perpetual progress.