Newspapers / The Tarborough Southerner (Tarboro, … / May 31, 1831, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of The Tarborough Southerner (Tarboro, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
gratuiations to the 'good people in that part of ,Tyrrel upon this signal display of concern for their interest manifested by the Doctor, I will take the liberty to say that ho would 'have given a more unequivocal evidence of regar for the interest of his constitu ents, if while Congress was appropri ating large sums of money for the improvement of rivers and harbors in other Slates, he had put in our claim for a share. It was well known that there was a majority in Congress in favor of internal improvements, anil that the bills for appropriations would in all probability pass. In this state of tilings was it not the obvious duty of your Representative, whenever such a bill was introduced to offer an amendment providing for the -interests of his constituents? Although he may have designed to vote against the bill upon its final passage he should have supported and voted for bis amendment, so that if the bill did pass notwithstanding his opposition, and his principle ccfuld not prevail, the interests of his constituents should be provided for upon the same prin ciple that any member of the Legisla ture would offer amendments to a bill the general policy of which he disapproved, thereby endeavoring so far as it was in his power to advance its beneficial operations and prevent that which appeared injurious, if the bill should eventually become a law. I take it for granted that s:ich a course would be entirely consistent with parliamentary lules, because it is in accordance with common sense. In my first address to you, fellow citizens, is contained the 25.h section of the Judiciary act, it will therefore be superfluous to recite it at large on the present occasion. The advocates, for nullification treat the discussion of; the constitutionality of this law as one of great subtlety and abstrusrr.ess, throwing into it a reasonable portion of metaphysical jargon, and when they have spread over the minds of their hearers or readers a cloud of sufficient mystery and darkness, spring to their conclusion and leave lis to grope for the path they have travelled and to wonder at the confi dent hoisting which they seem to feel themselves authorized to display. To me the subject appears to be in volved in neither mystery nor meta physics, but to be a plain, practical one, within the grasp of any ordinary understanding. The object of the 25lh section is to prescribe the man ner in which, cases arising under the Constitution, the taxes of the (J tuted Mates and treaties, (not all cases as has been asserted,) are to be .brought up before the Supreme Court for final determination after having been first decided in the courts of a State. For the sake of perspicuity . the particular circumstances under which the appeal is granted will be omitted not being at all material to the discussion the naked question being whether cases of this descrip tion determined by the State Courts can be revised by the Supreme Court of the United States. The 1st section of the 3d article of the Constitution declares that "The Judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as Con gress may from time to time ordain and establish." The 2d section of the same article declares that The judicial fiovjer shall extend to all cases in law and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States and treaties.' The 2d section of the 6th article declares that "The Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the autho rity of the United States, shall be the su-' preme law of the land." The last clause of the Sth section of the 1st article declares that "Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the ioregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Govern ment of the United States, or any dcfiart ment or officer thereof." It is thus apparent if any State court should enforce a law which the Slate was prohibited from passing by the Constitution of the United States, or should adjudge an act of Congress unconstitutional, or should refuse to give effect to any treaty made by the United States, that these would be cases arising under the Constitu tion the laws of the United States and treaties, and if so, then the ju. dic.al power of the United States e.r tends to them and as the Judiciary is a department 0f the govern, mcnt, Congress is authorised to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for car rying into execution the power thus vested in the Judiciary and in pursuance of this autho rity, they have introduced into the Judiciary act the provisions of the 2oh section, without which my State might make void the laws of theUniori, trample up on the Constitution, and set at nought all national treaties. Of what avail then would bo the guaranty that the Constitu tion, laws and treaties of the U- nited States should be the su preme law of the land! What a miserable mockery to talk of a supremacy which cannot be asserted! Let us then see by what pro cess it is, that premises appa rently so plain and conclusions so obvious are attempted to be resisted or obscured: and it shall be my business in this ex amination to meet the argu ments of the nullifiers general ly, as well as what has been ur ged by our late Representative j particularly; and by him we are gravely informed, that the 25th section is a part "of an old act of Congress," and so it is, co eval with our national exist ence; but is it on that account to be the less respected! Are laws to be disregarded because tliey have been long established and sanctioned by the experi ence of ages! By that kind of reasoning we should subvert the most valuable and dearly cherished institutions of our country. There seems to be a strange misapprehension of the mean ing of the friends of the Union, when they assert that a propo sition to repeal the 25th section is equivalent to a proposition to repeal the Union the meaning of which though plain I should think to most minds, seems not to be understood by Dr. Hall, and upon his misunderstanding of it, is based nearly the whole of what he says upon this sub ject in both his circulars. In order, therefore, to prevent if possible, future misapprehen sion I will add, that the mean ing of the phrase is, that a re peal of the said section would obviously produce- such a state of things as must necessarily dissolve the Union and to sav that Congress have the power to repeal laws which they have heretofore passed and that the repeal of a law essential to the vital interests of the country would be ruinous, is neither "the old British tory doctrine" nor "the high church and state party doctrine;" but every day common sense and republican principle. And here 1 will take the liberty to remark, that it al ways creates a shrewd suspi cion of the soundness of a cause, when slander urges unworthy prejudices in its support, more especially when the slander has neither the praise of novelty nor the semblance of equity to recommend it. Whether there are any un constitutional provisions' in oth er parts of the Judiciary act, it is not at this time material to enquire, though the Doctor, notwithstanding his broad and unqualified assertion, does not produce any evidence of the fact, except a solitary instance of one short clause in the 13th section, which conferred an au thority on the Supreme Court which they declined to exercise, because '.not ' in their opinion, warranted by the Constitution. Surely it is an extraordinary reason for ropealing the 25th section, because the 13th con tains a provision declared to be of no force by the Supreme Court, and therefore as harm less as if stricken out of the statute book. It is- moreover not a little singular, that the Supreme Court should be very good authority with the nullifi ers in the case of Marbury vs. Madison, and should be utterly disregarded in the multitude of cases in which they have ad judged and admitted the consti tutionality of the 25th section. Yea the Doctor can quote the very language of the Supreme Court in the case of Gibbons and Ogdcn to answer his own purposes, and at the same time totally omit and disregard the fact that the constitutionality of the. 25th section is distinctly re cognized in that very case. VVrhile adverting to the autho rities on this subject, it will be as well to take notice of those offered by Mr. Davis, of South Carolina; in his report intro ductory to the bill to repeal the 25th section. Whatever consTruction may be given to the Virginia and Kentucky re solutions, it is very certain, that there is not a single act of the Republican party to be found, in the records of our National Le- j And to prevent any person gislature, since the destinies of having an overweening confi our happy country have beenjdence in Mr. Davis, from re placed under their enlightened 'pealing his mistakes under the and patriotic guidance, in which j impression that they are argu the opinions nnd principles of ; ments, I will add that the above the nullifiers are avowed or irn- quotation is from the 82d num plied; and besides that, they ! her of the celebrated papers have been expressly disavowed, ; written by .Jay, Madison and by Mr. Madison. The 25t h I lamilton, in the year 1738, and section has continued through out their successive administra tions to be the undisputed law of the hand and in dailv use, and has never been questioned save in the solitary instance of Hun ter and Fairfax, and even in that case the judgment of the Supreme Cou t, pronounced in pursuance of its provisions, was duly carried into effect. To hold this law to be unconstitu tional and subversive of repub lican principles, while? it is cer tain that the republicans having the power in their own hands, never attempted its repeal, but sanctioned its constant and ac tive use, is a uross slander on the patriot names of Jefferson and Madison and the whole Republican party. If the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has decided, as 'Mr. 'Davis says they did in the case of the Commonwealth a gainst Cobbett, it would be no thing to the purpose in this dis cussion, because that was an application to remove the case into the Circuit Court of the United States and not the Su preme Court, made under the 12th and not the 25th section of; the Judiciary act. But the Su preme Court of that "most Re publican State," as Mr. Davis calls her, did not decide th.it the 12th or any other section of the act was unconstitutional, but that Cobbett had not bro't his case within thp nrnvisinno . . wrw..w.uoui me law. Thus then the matter stands upon authority. To the Virgi nia and Kentucky resolutions, got up at a time of great excite ment, are opposed the denial of Mr. Madison, who is admitted to have been in part their au thor, and the uniform practice of the Republican party in Con gress under the guidance of Jefferson, Madison and Mon roe. To the opinion of the Court of Virginia are opposed the multiplied decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, sanctioned by every ad ministration since our national existence. ai - n ii -i i Mr. Davis labors wjlh some) diligence and apparent earnest ness to prove that the "inferior courts," mentioned in the Con stitution, do not include the State courts and then con cludes that the advocates for the constitutionality of the 25th section, do not claim the power under any such construction, but under the comprehensive words "all cases in law and equity." But then he asserts that they , have lately assumed this position, in consequence of the unanswerable opinion of the Court of Virginia. To this as sertion I shall at present offrr but one objection, which is, that it is not true and if the honor able member's reading had been in a moderate ratio to his spirit, he would have known that long before the case of Hunter and Fairfax had been discussed or dreamt of, it had been ex- pressly maintained, as it is now, that "The Constitution in direct terms gives an appellate jurisdiction to the Supreme Court in all the enumerated cases of Fed eral cognizance, in which it is not to have an original one: without a single expres sion to confine its operation to the interior Federal courts. The objects of the ap peal, not the tribunals from which it is to bc m:ule 'c ulone contemplated, addressed to the people of the State of New-York, for the pur pose of prevailing on them to adopt this very Constitution. Indeed there can be no difficulty with a candid man, if the differ ent objects of the 1st and 2d sections of the 3th article are borne in mind and kept dis tinctly in view the purpose of the first section being simply to create the organ through which the judicial power was to be exercised the purpose of the second section being to describe the extent of that power. Let us next enquire into the expediency of repealing the 25th section of the Judiciary act and this is no other, nei ther more nor less, than an en quiry into the expediency of dissolving the Union: and this I say, because it is not only openly avowed by many of the party and advocated in the nul lifying papers of South-Carolina and Georgia, but because it is the necessary tendency and ir resistable consequence of such a measure. Now let us bear in mind that if a law, so obnoxious to the nullifiers, should be re- pealed, the d ecision of the courts in each State would be final, all appeal to any superior : tribunal limner ttk ! it n!Q,. u ' i there are twenty-four States, each having a Legislature nnrl V bllllllUL,! Mil Judiciary of its own. Is it not : .t . iiiuvimuie mat these various courts, having no common pow er to supervise their decisions, would make different construc tions upon the laws of the Uni ted States, the Constitution and treaties, and generate a confu sion perplexing and intolerable as Egyptian darkness? Add to this, the Legislatures of the se veral States being liberated from all restraint, would begin to display the fondness for pow er, and their hostility to the General Government in everv way that might be suggested by short-sighted interest, by caprice or resentment. In her present temper South-Carolina 7 rii 1 , 1 ,7 1 . 1 t ' ry "wuiu utxiuic iiju j. arm svstem unconstitutional, and prohibit the collection of therein the General Governmem l.v if she refused, the rest States would consider it l!'e tolerable grievance thvVD should submit. Newv y might tax the produce w from other States and 3d cate the vessels on refus j pay. All which cases andtli sands of others which will dily suggest themselves, State is to settle the matter f0r herself and that, she must.?! win uo, ir these provisions the Judiciary act are repeaU Is it not manifest beyond ii contradiction that this state t things must dissolve the Uni0m and prove the melancholy binger of a storm of fire" blood, which would spread solation over all that is nVm" patriotism ami uumarmy! Fellow-citizens! I will not ir suit your patriotic fueling bj supposing for a moment that you are willing to see the iVlr fabric of American freedom' cemented with the blood anj reared by the wisdom and pa. triotism of our Revolutionary fathers, crumbled in the dust and scattered to the winds. Beyond example havewebcea free, prosperous and happy, attracting the admiration avi applause of the whole world, while our poets have sun and hearts have .responded to the song, that ours was "the land of the free and the home of the brave." Let us then cling to the laws and the instituuem of our fathers with the grasp of death, while the expiring sigh that bursts from our bosom shall be breathed in ardent prayer for their continuance to remotest generations. J. R. LLOYD, 2Gth May, 1031. Sir am boat disaster. Wo learn by a slip from our atien j tive correspondents of the New lurk Mercantile Advertiser, that the steam boat Washing ton, which left New York on Saturday afternoon, for Provi dence, (R. I.) was accidentally run into at 12 o'clock at night, by the Chancellor Livingston, and was so much injured thai she sunk in 15 or 20 minutes. The 2d engineer, Mr. Sherman, was drowned, and two male cabin passengers, names not yet ascertained, are missing All the other passengers werJ saved, and proceeded to Fron deuce in the President. The baggage, about 50 packages (one half the quantity onboard) of .merchandize, 20,000 m specie, and the same amount m notes, also saved. Subsequent accounts say, the Engineer was the only per son killed. Arabian Horses... The Arabi an Horses presented by Sultan Mahmoud to Mr. Rhind, sold in New York on the 1 inst. at the following prices: Stambaul, chesnut, Yemen, grey, Kocklani, bay, Zilcaadi. chesnut. 53 450 430 Stambaul, it is said, will sent to Kentucky, Zilcaadi ana Yemen proceed to New 15runS' wick,N. J. and the destina of Kocklani, is not yet l;no These fine horses sold at about one fourth of the price, that1 was expected they would bring The purchaser of the grey (e men,) in less than twenty nliD' utes after the sale, refused f thousand dollars for him, wh was offered by a gentleman u:n could not arrive in time to a tend the sale.
The Tarborough Southerner (Tarboro, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
May 31, 1831, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75