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American Statesmen like John Tyler were well-aware of the formation and character of the Union over which they presided. His belief was that sovereignty resided in the individual States, and not the federate Union. Additionally, he stresses that the Constitution was not ratified by a mass of people, but by people acting as individual and sovereign States. A clash between South Carolina and the federal government came when the former, acting through a State convention, declared the tariff laws of 1828 and 1832 unconstitutional, and therefore null and void. The following excerpts are from Tyler’s February 6, 1833 speech opposing Andrew Jackson’s plan to use force against South Carolina.
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com The Great American Political Divide
State Allegiance and Obedience
“The government was created by the States, is amenable [to] the States, is preserved by the States, and may be destroyed by the States.”
The Federal government holds its “existence at the pleasure of these States.”
“They may strike you [the Federal government] out of existence by a word; demolish the Constitution, and scatter its fragments to the winds.”
The true state of the case is this: It is because I owe allegiance to the State of Virginia that I owe obedience to the laws of this federal government. My State requires me to render such obedience. She has entered into a compact, which, while it continues, is binding on all her people. So would it be if she had formed a treaty with a foreign power. I should be bound to obey the stipulations of such a treaty, because she willed it . . . it is because I owe allegiance there, that I owe obedience here . . .”
“I owe no responsibility, politically speaking, elsewhere than to my State.”
“A redress of grievances and not force is the proper remedy in this [Nullification] crisis. It is an argument of pride to say that the government should not yield while South Carolina is showing a spirit of revolt. It was just such an argument that was used against the American colonies by the British government . . . Civil war is imminent, and to prevent is a resort to force should be deprecated.”
But is it a bad mode of settling disputes to make soldiers your ambassadors, and to point to the halter and the gallows as your ultimatum.”
(John Tyler, Champion of the Old South, Oliver Perry Chitwood, American Political Biography Press, 2006, (AHA, 1939), excerpts pp. 116-117)
