Jefferson's Construction

Judge Cooley's lecture in University hall Wednesday afternoon on "Nullification" was a clear, forcible and original declaration of the status of state rights doctrine as expounded by Jefferson, Madison, the men of the Hartford convention, and later and difl'erently by Hayne in the debate with Webster. The judge is rather feeble, but his ideas and their expression were those of a man ín his prime. Though speaking extemporaneously, his sentenees were gems, nearly perfect in every respect, expressing clearly, exactly and with fine rhetorical effect the ideas he sought to convey. He said in substance : One who atthis late clay assumes to epeak on such a subject as {mine needs an excuse. My excuse is that tbis subject has been so employed by assumed writets of history as to mislead the public, and to sonie extent the correction necessary can be made here today. The Webster-Hayne debate itself constituted an important historical event to the people on great national principies. It is said by sonie that the sentiïnents expressed by Hayne were dominant in the south at the time of tbe debate, and itis to correct that misrepresentatie that I speak here today. The doctrine of nullification took its birth in the days of the republie, when in the heat of the Alien and Sedition luw excitement the famous Kentucky resolutions of 1798 were drawnup by Thomas Jefferson and passed by the Kentucky legislature. From them it may be inferred loosely that he said that nullification was a remedy in case of persistent national tyrrany. But when Madison together with Tliomas Jefferson drew up the Virginia resolutions, of a similar import, and almost immediately following, the word nullification was dvnpped, and the idea of Jefferson and Madison in referring to the word nullification was that the states together and not separately shoulcl meet and mutually resol ve that the national governmentshouldcease. ísot a word in either the Kentucky or Virginia resolutions conveys the idea that there should be oppositiou on the part of any single state toa federal law. They rather speak warnily in attachment to the constitution, and the national government. But it is on these resolutions that the state rights doctrine was founded. On the otlier hand the other states, Bhode Island leading, replyed warmly to the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, affirming emphatically the right of the federal power to pass, enforce and construe federal laws. The real significance of these resolutions was to enuncíate a platform around wbich the state rights party should rally, and we are bound to think that they contained the extreme views of Jefferson who was a candidate lor the presuiency at the time. On the whole the resolutions are rather appeals to the people to keep the federal government within the bounds of the constitution. The replies to these resolutions already spoken of were so many and pointed that Madison deemed it wise to rnake a long and careful response to them. In this response he enumerates plainly the remedies when the federal authority is extended by tyranny beyond the limits of the federal constitution, and he says not a word that looks to auy treason or to any forcible opposition to the federal power or that would meau that any state acting, or all acting together, except in a constitutional rnanner,[cau nullify a federal law. Again, he rather makes an appeal to the people to jealously regard their rights by seeing that the national governnient is conducted by liuvful means and by honest men. A few years later Jefferson himself in his inaugural address speaks of all being federalists and all being republicans and all rushing to the support of the federal authority, which he probably claimed constituted the strongest and grandest government on the earth. And yet he is represented as teaching the doctrine of secession in 1798. The events of his adininistration showed that the feeling grew in him, and iii liis adherents, that the natiónal government shonldbe a more stable and compact one. The embargo he laid on trade with England lay heavily on the New Englaud people, who turned on JefFerson and his party and eharged them with usurping powers not warranted by the constitutiou. They even talked of armed resistance and the secession oL New England and this talk grew during our war with England. The result was the Hartford convention. Now observe, there was no toleration of this secession by Jefferson and the state rights party. Jefferson was very angry at it and resented the statement that the conduct of the New Englanders found support in the Kentucky-Virginia resolutions of 1798. The Hartford convention was called the outgrowth of treason, aud by it the federal power was strengthened and the state rights party carne directly to adopt federal doctrine. All through the south the calling of the Hartford convention had the effect to strengthen very considerably the natianal sentiment. Meantime the federal ■' supreme court had been declaring views supporting the national construction and the country had accepted them. When, therefore, Isaac H. Hayne declared the proper remedy against federal authority was nullification, lie was attacking settled construction. I say this because it is said that it was Webster and not Hayne who was advancing new doctrines. In examining, then, the Kentucky resolutious, we find that there niight have been expressed in thern the generally accepted doctrine that a people can overthrow their government by revolution when it becomes too oppressive. But even that expression became nnimportant in the light of the later Virginia resolutions which both Madison and Jefferson drew. When Webster and Hayne spoke, the representative of the state rights party and the disciple of Jeffersoo aud Madison, Andrew Jackson, was president. lf there liad beeu anyone brought up to support the Virginia-Kentucky resolutions it was he, and it is hardly to be supposed tbat he would have been so strong in opposition to nullification, if it had been a part of the teachings he had received. Madison himself near that time expressed bis surprise to Edward Everett that secession should have been predicated of the Virginia-Kentucky resolutions. Behind Hayne in the great nullification debate was the sentiment in bis own state and ai unsettled feeling throughout the country ou account 01 the new protective policy. Beliind Webster was the settled construction of the constitution and the overwhelining sentiment of the country, and more than all, the iron purpose of Andrew Jackson to uphold the law. The doctrine of Hayne was at that time a mere threat'to nulliíy, whicii unfortunately grew into the disastrouspolicy of secession. Webster' s chief merit was to make plain to the common people what Chief Justice Marshall had settled for the legal iniud, the national spirit of union in the federal constitution.