/</•> 
 
 / 
 
 WASHINGTON'S 
 
 FAREWELL ADDRESS; 
 
 THE 
 
 1 
 
 PROCLAMATION OF JACKSON 
 
 AGAINST 
 
 NULLIFICATION; 
 
 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1862 . 
 
In the House of Representatives of the United States, 
 
 Tuesday , March 11, 1862. 
 
 On motion of Mr. E. P. Walton, from the Committee on Printing — 
 
 Resolved , That fifty thousand extra copies of the Farewell Address of George Washington, 
 together with the Proclamation of President Jackson of December 10, 1832', and the 
 Declaration of American Independence, be printed for the use of the House. 
 
 Attest : 
 
 EMERSON ETHERIDGE, Clerk. 
 
) U 2 - 
 
 WASHINGTON’S 
 
 FAREWELL ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 SEPTEMBER, 1 796. 
 
 Friends and fellow-citizens : 
 
 The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the Executive govern- 
 ment of the United States being not far distant, and the- time actually arrived 
 when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be 
 clothed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may 
 conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now 
 apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among 
 the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made. 
 
 I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured that this 
 resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations 
 appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful citizen to his country; and 
 that in withdrawing the tender of service which silence, in my situation, might 
 imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for your future interest ; no 
 deficiency of grateful respect for your past kindness ; but am supported by a 
 full conviction that the step is compatible with both. 
 
 The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which your 
 suffrages have twice called me, have been a uniform sacrifice of inclination to 
 the opinion of duty, and to a deference for what appeared to be your desire. I 
 constantly hoped that it would have been much earlier in my power, con- 
 sistently with motives which I was not at liberty to disregard, to return to that 
 retirement from which I had been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my in- 
 clination to do this previous to the last election had even led to the preparation 
 of an address to declare it to you ; but mature reflection on the then perplexed 
 and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations, and the unanimous advice 
 of persons entitled to my confidence, impelled me to abandon the idea. 
 
 I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as internal, no 
 longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of 
 duty or propriety ; and am persuaded, whatever partiality may be retained for 
 my services, that, in the present circumstances of our country, you will not dis- 
 approve my determination to retire. 
 
 The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust were explained 
 on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I will only say that I 
 have, with good intentions, contributed towards the organization and administra- 
 tion of the government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was 
 
4 
 
 Washington’s farewell address. 
 
 capable. Not unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications, 
 experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others, has 
 strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and every day the increasing 
 weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is 
 as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied that if any circumstances 
 had given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the con- 
 solation to believe that while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political 
 scene, patriotism does not forbid it. 
 
 In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the career 
 of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the deep acknowledg- 
 ment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my beloved country for the many 
 honors it has conferred upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with 
 which it has supported me; and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of 
 manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, 
 though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our 
 country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as 
 an instructive example in our annals, that, under circumstances in which the 
 passions, agitated in every direction, were liable to mislead, amidst appearances 
 sometimes dubious, vicissitudes of fortune, often discouraging in situations in 
 which, not unfrequently, want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, 
 the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guar- 
 antee of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with 
 this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to un- 
 ceasing vows, that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its benefi- 
 cence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free 
 Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacrediy maintained ; 
 that its administration, in every department, may be stamped with wisdom and 
 virtue ; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States, under the au- 
 spices of liberty, may be made complete, by so careful a preservation, and so 
 prudent a use of this blessing, as will acquire to them the glory of recommend- 
 ing it to the applause, the affection, and the adoption of every nation which is 
 yet a stranger to it. 
 
 Here, perhaps, I ought to stop ; but a solicitude for your welfare, which 
 cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger natural to that 
 solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn con- 
 templation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments, which 
 are the result of much reflection — of no inconsiderable observation — and which 
 appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. 
 These will be afforded to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in 
 them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no 
 personal motive to bias his counsel ; nor can I forget, as an encouragement to 
 it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar 
 occasion. 
 
 Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no 
 recommendatioii of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. 
 
 The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear 
 to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real inde- 
 pendence ; the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad ; of your 
 safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. 
 But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quar- 
 ters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your 
 minds the conviction of this truth — as this is the point in your political fortress 
 against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most con- 
 stantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed — it is of 
 infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your 
 national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should 
 
WASHINGTON’S FAREWELL ADDRESS. 
 
 cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it ; accustoming your- 
 selves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and 
 prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing 
 whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can, in any event, be abandoned ; 
 and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate 
 any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which 
 now link together the various parts. 
 
 For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by 
 birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate 
 your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national 
 capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appella- 
 tion derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you 
 have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have, 
 in a common cause, fought and triumphed together ; the independence and lib- 
 erty you possess are the work of joint counsels and joint efforts, of common 
 dangers, sufferings, and successes. 
 
 But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your 
 sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to 
 your interest; here every portion of our country finds the most commanding 
 motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole. 
 
 The north, in an unrestrained intercourse with the south, protected by the 
 equal laws of a common government, finds, in the productions of the latter, great 
 additional resources of maritime and commercial enterprise, and precious materials 
 of manufacturing industry. The south, in the same intercourse, benefiting by 
 the same agency of the north, sees its agriculture grow, and its commerce expand. 
 Turning partly into its own channels the seamen of the north, it finds its par- 
 ticular navigation invigorated; and while it contributes, in different ways, to 
 nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation, it looks for- 
 ward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which itself is unequally 
 adapted. The east, in like intercourse with the west, already finds, and in the 
 progressive improvement of interior communication, by land and water, will 
 more and more find a valuable vent for the commodities which it brings from 
 abroad or manufactures at home. The west derives from the east supplies 
 requisite to its growth and comfort ; and what is perhaps of still greater con- 
 sequence, it must, of necessity, owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable out- 
 lets for its own productions, to the weight, influence, and the future maritime strength 
 of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an indissoluble community of 
 interest as one nation. Any other tenure by which the west can hold this 
 essential advantage, whether derived from its own separate strength, or from an 
 apostate and unnatural connexion with any foreign power, must be intrinsically 
 precarious. 
 
 While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular 
 interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find, in the united mass 
 of means and efforts, greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater 
 security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by 
 foreign nations ; and what is of inestimable value, they must derive from union 
 an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently 
 afflict neighboring countries not tied together by the same government, which 
 their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite 
 foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. 
 Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military 
 establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, 
 and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty; in 
 this sense it is that your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your 
 liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of 
 the other. 
 
6 
 
 Washington’s farewell address. 
 
 These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting and 
 virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a primary object of 
 patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common government can embrace 
 so large a sphere ? Let experience solve it. To listen to mere speculation in 
 such a case were criminal. We are authorized to hope that a proper organiza- 
 tion of the whole, with the auxiliary agency of governments for the respective 
 subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a 
 fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, 
 affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated 
 its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of 
 those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands. 
 
 In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs, as a 
 matter of serious concern, that any ground should have been furnished for 
 characterizing parties by geographical discriminations ; northern and southern ; 
 Atlantic and western; whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief 
 that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expe- 
 dients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent 
 the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too 
 much against the jealousies and heart-burnings which spring from these mis- 
 representations : they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be 
 bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of our western country 
 have lately had a useful lesson on this head. They have seen in the negotiation 
 by the Executive, and in the unanimous ratification by the Senate of the treaty 
 with Spain, and in the universal satisfaction at that event throughout the 
 United States, a decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated 
 among them of a policy in the general government and in the Atlantic States 
 unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi. They have been wit- 
 nesses to the formation of two treaties : that with Great Britain and that with 
 Spain, which secure to them everything they could desire, in respect to our 
 foreign relations, towards confirming their prosperity. Will it not be their 
 wisdom to rely for the preservation of these advantages on the Union by which 
 they were procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if 
 such there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them 
 with aliens ? 
 
 To the efficacy and permanency of your union, a government for the whole is 
 indispensable. No alliance, however strict between the parts, can be an ade- 
 quate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interrup- 
 tions which all alliances, in all times, have experienced. Sensible of this mo- 
 mentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay by the adoption of a 
 constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate 
 union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This 
 government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted 
 upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, 
 in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing 
 wdthin itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confi- 
 dence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, 
 acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of 
 true liberty. The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make 
 and to alter their constitutions of government; but the constitution which at any 
 time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is 
 sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the 
 people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey 
 the established government. 
 
 All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associa- 
 tions, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, 
 counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authori- 
 
WASHINGTON S FAREWELL ADDRESS. 
 
 7 
 
 ties, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They 
 serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force, to put 
 in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small 
 but artful and enterprising minority of the community ; and, according to the 
 alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the 
 mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the 
 organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested by common councils, and 
 modified by mutual interests. 
 
 However combinations, or associations of the above description may now and 
 then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to 
 become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will 
 be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the 
 reins of government ; destroying, afterwards, the very engines which had lifted 
 them to unjust dominion. 
 
 Towards the preservation of your government and the permanency of your 
 present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance 
 irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with 
 care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, However specious the pretexts. 
 One method of assault may be to effect in the forms of the Constitution altera- 
 tions which impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot 
 be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, 
 remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character 
 of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest 
 standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a 
 country ; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opin- 
 ion, exposes to perpetual change from the endless variety of hypothesis and 
 opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your 
 common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much 
 vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty, is indispensable. 
 Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed 
 and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name where 
 the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine 
 each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to 
 maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyments of the rights of person and 
 property. 
 
 I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with par- 
 ticular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let 
 me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you, in the most solemn 
 manner, against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally. 
 
 The spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in 
 the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes, in 
 all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of 
 the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst 
 enemy. 
 
 The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit 
 of revenge, natural to party dissension, which, in different ages and countries, 
 has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But 
 this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders 
 and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security 
 and repose in the absolute power of an individual, and, sooner or later, the 
 chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his com- 
 petitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins 
 of public liberty. 
 
 Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which, nevertheless, 
 ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the 
 
8 
 
 WASHINGTON S FAREWELL ADDRESS. 
 
 spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to 
 discourage and restrain it. 
 
 It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public 
 administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false 
 alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments, occasionally, 
 riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, 
 which lind a facilitated access to the government itself, through the channels of 
 party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to 
 the policy and will of another. 
 
 There is an opinion that parties, in free countries, are useful checks upon the 
 administration of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. 
 This, within certain limits, is probably true ; and in governments of a monarch- 
 ical cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit 
 of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, 
 it is a spirit hot to be encouraged. From their natural tendency it is certain 
 there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And 
 there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public 
 opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a 
 uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, 
 it should consume. 
 
 It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking, in a free country, should 
 inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to confine themselves 
 within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the 
 powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroach- 
 ment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to 
 create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of 
 that love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human 
 heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of 
 reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing 
 it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public 
 weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient 
 and modern — some of them in our own country and under our own eyes. To 
 preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of 
 the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in 
 any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which 
 the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation ; for 
 though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary 
 weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always 
 greatly overbalance, in permanent evil, any partial or transient benefit which 
 the use can at any time yield. 
 
 Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion 
 and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the 
 tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human 
 happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere 
 politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. A 
 volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity. 
 Let it simply be asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for 
 life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instru- 
 ments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the 
 supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may 
 be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, 
 reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can 
 prevail in exclusion of religious principles. 
 
 It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular 
 government. The rule indeed extends, with more or less force, to every species 
 
Washington's farewell address. 
 
 9 
 
 of free government. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indiffer- 
 ence upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric ? 
 
 Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general 
 diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives 
 force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. 
 
 As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. 
 One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occa- 
 sions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely dis- 
 bursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements 
 to repel it ; avoiding, likewise, the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning 
 occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge 
 the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throw- 
 ing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear. The execution 
 of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it is necessary that public 
 opinion should co-operate. To facilitate to them the performance of their duty, 
 it is essential that you should practically bear in mind that, towards the pay- 
 ment of debts there must be revenue ; that to have revenue there must be taxes ; 
 that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and 
 unpleasant; that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of 
 the proper objects, (which is always a choice of difficulties,) ought to be a 
 decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of the government in 
 making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the measures for obtaining revenue 
 which the public exigencies may at any time dictate. 
 
 Observe good faith and justice towards all nations ; cultivate peace and har- 
 mony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct, and can it be that 
 good policy does not equally enjoin it ? It will be worthy of a free, enlight- 
 ened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnani- 
 mous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice 
 and benevolence. Who can doubt but, in the course of time and things, the 
 fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might 
 be lost by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not con- 
 nected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The experiment, at 
 least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas ! 
 is it rendered impossible by its vices ? 
 
 In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent 
 inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for 
 others, should be excluded, and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings 
 towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another 
 an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is, in some degree, a slave. It is a 
 slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it 
 astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another 
 disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes 
 of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable when accidental or trilling occa- 
 sions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and 
 bloody contests. The nation, prompted by ill will and resentment, sometimes 
 impels to war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The 
 government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts, 
 through passion, what reason would reject; at other times it makes the animosity 
 of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, 
 and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps 
 the liberty, of nations has been the victim. 
 
 So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation to another produces a 
 variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of 
 an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, 
 and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a parti- 
 cipation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or 
 
10 
 
 WASHINGTON S FAREWELL ADDRESS. 
 
 justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges 
 denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the conces- 
 sions, by unnecessarily parting with wliat ought to have been retained, and by 
 exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate in the parties from whom 
 equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded 
 citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation) facility to betray or sac- 
 rifice the interest of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with 
 popularity ; gilding with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation a 
 commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, 
 the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. 
 
 As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are 
 particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent patriot. How 
 many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practice 
 the art of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public 
 councils ! Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great and power- 
 ful nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter. 
 
 Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me, 
 fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake ; since 
 history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful 
 foes of republican government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impar- 
 tial, else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead 
 of a defence against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and exces- 
 sive dislike for another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on 
 one side, and serve to vail and even second the arts of influence on the other. 
 Beal patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become 
 suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confi- 
 dence of the people, to surrender their interests. 
 
 The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending 
 our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as pos- 
 sible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with 
 perfect good faith. Here let us stop. 
 
 Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very re- 
 mote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes 
 of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be 
 unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes 
 of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or 
 enmities. 
 
 Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different 
 course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is 
 not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when 
 we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time 
 resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the 
 impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving 
 us provocation ; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by 
 justice, shall counsel. 
 
 Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation 1 Why quit our own 
 to stand upon foreign ground 1 Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of 
 any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European 
 ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice ? 
 
 It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of 
 the foreign world ; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it ; for let me 
 not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. 
 I hold the maxim, no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that hon- 
 esty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be 
 observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and 
 would be unwise to extend them. 
 
Washington’s farewell address. 
 
 11 
 
 Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a re- 
 spectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for ex- 
 traordinary emergencies. 
 
 Harmony and a liberal intercourse with all nations are recommended by 
 policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold 
 an equal and impartial hand ; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or 
 preferences ; consulting the natural course of things ; diffusing and diversifying, 
 by gentle means, the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing ; establishing, 
 with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the 
 rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them, conven- 
 tional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opin- 
 ions will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or 
 varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate ; constantly keeping in 
 view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another ; 
 that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept 
 under that character ; that by such acceptance it may place itself in the condi- 
 tion of having equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with 
 ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect 
 or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which ex- 
 perience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard. 
 
 In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate 
 friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could 
 wish ; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our 
 nation from running the course which lias hitherto marked the destiny of nations ; 
 but if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial 
 benefit, some occasional good ; that they may now and then recur to moderate 
 the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigues, to 
 guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism, this hope will be a full 
 recompense for the solicitude for your welfare by which they have been dictated. 
 
 How far, in the discharge of my official duties, I have been guided by the 
 principles which have been delineated, the public records and other evidences of 
 my conduct must witness to you and the world. To myself the assurance of 
 my own conscience is, that I have at least believed myself to be guided by 
 them. 
 
 In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of the 22d 
 of April, 1793, is the index to my plan. Sanctioned by your approving voice, 
 and by that of your representatives in both houses of Congress, the spirit of 
 that measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to 
 deter or divert me from it. 
 
 After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, 
 I was well satisfied that our country, under all the circumstances of the case, 
 had a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take, a neutral posi- 
 tion. Having taken it, I determined, as far as should depend upon me, to 
 maintain it with moderation, perseverance, and firmness. 
 
 The considerations which respect the right to hold this conduct it is not 
 necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe that, according to my 
 understanding of the matter, that right, so far from being denied by any of the 
 belligerent powers, has been virtually admitted by all. 
 
 The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without anything 
 more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, 
 in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace 
 and amity towards other nations. 
 
 The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be referred 
 to your own reflections and experience. With me, a predominant motive has 
 been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent 
 institutions, and to progress, without interruption, to that degree of strength 
 
12 
 
 Washington’s farewell address. 
 
 and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command 
 of its own fortunes. 
 
 Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of 
 intentional error, I am, nevertheless, too sensible of my defects not to think it 
 probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I 
 fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may 
 tend. I shall also carry with me the hope that my country will never cease 
 to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years of my life dedi- 
 cated to its service, with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will 
 be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest. 
 
 Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that 
 fervent love towards it which is so natural to a man who views in it the native 
 soil of himself and his progenitors for several generations, I anticipate with 
 pleasing expectation that retreat in which I promise myself to realize, without 
 alloy, the sweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, 
 the benign influence of good laws under a free government — the ever favorite 
 object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, 
 labors, and dangers. 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 United States, September 17, 1796. 
 
PROCLAMATION 
 
 AND’W JACKSON, PRESIDENT UNITED STATES, 
 
 AGAINST 
 
 NULLIFICATION. 
 
 DECEMBER 10, 1832. 
 
 Whereas a convention assembled in the State of South Carolina have passed 
 an ordinance, by which they declare “ That the several acts and parts of acts of 
 the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws for the imposing 
 of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities, and now having 
 actual operation and effect within the United States, and more especially,” two 
 acts for the same purposes passed on the 29th of May, 1828, and on the 14th 
 of July, 1832, “ are unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States, and 
 violate the true meaning and intent thereof, and are null and void, and no law,” 
 nor binding on the citizens of that State or its officers ; and by said ordinance, 
 it is further declared to be unlawful for any of the constituted authorities of the 
 State or of the United States to enforce the payment of the duties imposed by 
 the said acts within the same State, and that it is the duty of the legislature to 
 pass such laws as may be necessary to give full effect to the said ordinance ; 
 
 And whereas, by the said ordinance, it is further ordained, that in no case of law 
 or equity decided in the courts of said State, wherein shall be drawn in question 
 the validity of the said ordinance, or of the acts of the legislature that may be 
 passed to give it effect, or of the said laws of the United States, no appeal shall 
 be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, nor shall any copy of 
 the record be permitted or allowed for that purpose, and that any person attempt- 
 ing to take such appeal shall be punished as for a contempt of court ; 
 
 And, finally, the said ordinance declares that the people of South Carolina 
 will maintain the said ordinance at every hazard ; and that they will consider 
 the passage of any act by Congress abolishing or closing the ports o^ the said 
 State, or otherwise obstructing the free ingress or egress of vessels to and from 
 the said ports, or any other act of the federal government to coerce the State, 
 shut up her ports, destroy or harass her commerce, or to enforce the said acts 
 otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with 
 the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union; and that the people of 
 the said State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obliga- 
 tion to maintain or preserve their political connexion with the people of the 
 other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, and 
 do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of 
 right do. 
 
14 
 
 PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON. 
 
 And whereas the said ordinance prescribes to the people of South Carolina a 
 course of conduct in direct violation of their duty as citizens of the United 
 States, contrary to the laws of their country, subversive of its Constitution, and 
 having for its object the destruction of the Union, that Union which, coeval 
 with our political existence, led our fathers, without any other ties to unite them 
 than those of patriotism and a common cause, through a sanguinary struggle to 
 a glorious independence ; that sacred Union, hitherto inviolate, which, perfected 
 by our happy Constitution, has brought us, by the favor of heaven, to a state of 
 prosperity at home, and high consideration abroad, rarely, if ever, equalled in 
 the history of nations. To preserve this bond of our political existence from 
 destruction, to maintain inviolate this state of national honor and prosperity, and 
 to justify the confidence my fellow-citizens have reposed in me, I, Andrew 
 Jackson, President of the United States, have thought proper to issue this my 
 proclamation, stating my views of the Constitution and laws applicable to the 
 measures adopted by the convention of South Carolina, and to the reasons they 
 have put forth to sustain them, declaring the course which duty will require me 
 to pursue, and appealing to the understanding and patriotism of the people, 
 warn them of the consequences that must inevitably result from an observance 
 of the dictates of the convention. 
 
 Strict duty would require of me nothing more than the exercise of those 
 powers with which I am now, or may hereafter be invested, for preserving the 
 peace of the Union, and for the execution of the laws. But the imposing aspect 
 which opposition has assumed in this case, by clothing itself with State authority, 
 and the deep interest which the people of the United States must all feel in 
 preventing a resort to stronger measures, while there is a hope that anything 
 will be yielded to reasoning and remonstrance, perhaps demand, and will certainly 
 justify, a full exposition to South Carolina and the nation of the views I enter- 
 tain of this important question, as well as a distinct enunciation of the course 
 which my sense of duty will require me to pursue. 
 
 The ordinance is founded, not on the indefeasible right of resisting acts which 
 are plainly unconstitutional, and too oppressive to be endured, but on the strange 
 position that any one State may not only declare an act of Congress void, but 
 prohibit its execution ; that they may do this consistently with the Constitution ; 
 that the true construction of that instrument permits a State to retain its place 
 in the Union, and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may choose 
 to consider as constitutional. It is true, they add, that to justify this abroga- 
 tion of a law, it must be palpably contrary to the Constitution ; but it is evident 
 that, to give the right of resisting laws of that description, coupled with the 
 uncontrolled right to decide what laws deserve that character, is to give the 
 power of resisting all laws. For, as hy the theory, there is no appeal, the 
 reasons alleged by the State, good or bad, must prevail. If it should be said 
 that public opinion is a sufficient check against the abuse of this power, it may 
 be asked why it is not deemed a sufficient guard against the passage of an uncon- 
 stitutional act by Congress ? There is, however, a restraint in this last case, 
 which makes the assumed power of a State more indefensible, and which does 
 not exist in the other. There are two appeals from an unconstitutional act 
 passed hy Congress — one to the judiciary, the other to the people and the 
 States. There is no appeal from the State decision in theory, and the practical 
 illustration shows that the courts are closed against an application to review it, 
 both judges and jurors being sworn to decide in its favor. But reasoning on 
 this subject is superfluous, when our social compact, in express terms, declares 
 that the laws of the United States, its Constitution, and treaties made under it, 
 are the supreme law of the land; and, for greater caution, adds “that the 
 judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or 
 laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.” And it may be asserted 
 without fear of refutation, that no federative government could exist without a 
 
PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON. 
 
 15 
 
 similar provision. Look for a moment to the consequence. If South Carolina 
 considers the revenue laws unconstitutional, and has a right to prevent their 
 execution in the port of Charleston, there would be a clear constitutional objec- 
 tion to their collection in every other port, and no revenue could be collected 
 anywhere, for all imposts must be equal. It is no answer to repeat that an 
 unconstitutional law is no law, so long as the question of its legality is to be 
 decided by the State itself; for every law operating injuriously upon any local 
 interest will be perhaps thought, and certainly represented, as unconstitutional, 
 and, as has been shown, there k no appeal. 
 
 If this doctrine had been established at an earlier day the Union would have 
 been dissolved in its infancy. The excise law in Pennsylvania, the embargo 
 and non-intercourse law in the eastern States, the carriage tax in Virginia, were 
 all deemed unconstitutional, and were more unequal in their operation than any 
 of the laws now complained of; but fortunately none of those States discovered 
 that they had the right now claimed by South Carolina. The war into which 
 we were forced to support the dignity of the nation and the rights of our citizens 
 might have ended in defeat and disgrace instead of victory and honor, if the 
 States who supposed it a ruinous and unconstitutional measure had thought 
 they possessed the right of nullifying the act by which it was declared, and 
 denying supplies for its prosecution. Hardly and unequally as those measures 
 bore upon several members of the Union, to the legislatures of none did this 
 efficient and peaceable remedy, as it is called, suggest itself. The discovery of 
 this important feature in our Constitution was reserved to the present day. To 
 the statesmen of South Carolina belongs the invention, and upon the citizens of 
 that State will unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it to practice. 
 
 If the doctrine of a State veto upon the laws of the Union carries with it 
 internal evidence of its impracticable absurdity, our constitutional history will 
 also afford abundant proof that it would have been repudiated with indignation 
 had it been proposed to form a feature in our government. 
 
 In our colonial state, although dependent on another power, we very early 
 considered ourselves as connected by common interest with each other. Leagues 
 were formed for common defence, and before the declaration of independence 
 we were known in our aggregate character as the United Colonies of 
 America. That decisive and important step was taken jointly. We declared 
 ourselves a nation by a joint, not by several acts, and when the terms of our 
 confederation were reduced to form, it was in that of a solemn league of several 
 States, by which they agreed that they would collectively form one nation for 
 the purpose of conducting some certain domestic concerns and all foreign rela- 
 tions. In the instrument forming that Union is found an article which declares 
 that 1 “every State shall abide by the determinations of Congress on all questions 
 which, by that confederation, should be submitted to them.” 
 
 Under the confederation, then, no State could legally annul a decision of the 
 Congress or refuse to submit to its execution ; but no provision was made to 
 enforce these decisions. Congress made requisitions, but they were not com- 
 plied with. The government could not operate on individuals. They had no 
 judiciary, no means of collecting revenue. 
 
 But the defects of the confederation need not be detailed. Under its opera- 
 tion we could scarcely be called a nation. We had neither prosperity at home 
 nor consideration abroad. This state of things could not be endured, and our 
 present happy Constitution was formed, but formed in vain, if this fatal doc- 
 trine prevails. It was formed for important objects that are announced in the 
 preamble made in the name and by the authority of the people of the United 
 States, whose delegates framed and whose conventions approved it. The most 
 important among these objects, that which k placed first in rank, on which all 
 the others rest, is, “ to form a more perfect Union” Now, is it possible that 
 
16 
 
 PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON. 
 
 even if there were no express provision giving supremacy to the Constitution 
 and laws of the United States over those of the States, can it be conceived 
 that an instrument made for the purpose of “ forming a more perfect Union ” 
 than that of the confederation, could be so constructed by the assembled wisdom 
 of our ( ountry as to substitute for that confederation a form of government de- 
 pendent for its existence on the local interest, the party spirit of a State, or ot 
 a prevailing faction in a State ? Every man of plain, unsophisticated under- 
 standing, who hears the question, will give such an answer as will preserve the 
 Union. Metaphysical subtlety, in pursuit of an impracticable theory, could 
 alone have devised one that is calculated to destroy it. 
 
 I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by 
 one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted 
 
 EXPRESSLY BY THE LETTER OF THE CONSTITUTION, UNAUTHORIZED BY ITS 
 SPIRIT, INCONSISTENT WITH EVERY PRINCIPLE ON WHICH IT WAS FOUNDED, 
 AND DESTRUCTIVE OF THE GREAT OBJECT FOR WHICH IT WAS FORMED. 
 
 After this general view of the leading principle, we must examine the par- 
 ticular application of it which is made in the ordinance. 
 
 The preamble rests its j ustification on these grounds : It assumes as a fact 
 that the obnoxious laws, although they purport to be laws for raising revenue, 
 were in reality intended for the protection of manufactures, which purpose it 
 asserts to be unconstitutional ; that the operation of these laws is unequal ; that 
 the amount raised by them is greater than is required by the wants of the 
 government ; and, finally, that the proceeds are to be applied to objects un- 
 authorized by the Constitution. These are the only causes alleged to justify an 
 open opposition to the laws of the country, and a threat of seceding from the 
 Union if any attempt should be made to enforce them. The first virtually ac- 
 knowledges that the law in question was passed under a power expressly given 
 by the Constitution to lay and collect imposts ; but its constitutionality is drawn 
 in question from the motives of those who passed it. However apparent this 
 purpose may be in the present case, nothing can be more dangerous than to 
 admit the position that an unconstitutional purpose, entertained by the mem- 
 bers who assent to a law enacted under a constitutional power, shall make that 
 law void ; for how is that purpose to be ascertained ? Who is to make the 
 scrutiny 1 How often may bad purposes be falsely imputed ! in how many 
 cases are they concealed by false professions ! in how many is no declaration of 
 motive made ! Admit this doctrine, and you give to the States an uncontrolled 
 right to decide, and every law may be annulled under this pretext. If, there- 
 fore, the absurd and dangerous doctrine should be admitted that a State may 
 annul an unconstitutional law, or one that it deems such, it will not apply to 
 the present case. 
 
 The next objection is, that the laws in question operate unequally. This ob- 
 jection may be made with truth to every law that has been or can be passed. 
 The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would ope- 
 rate with perfect equality. If the unequal operation of a law makes it uncon- 
 stitutional, and if all laws of that description may be abrogated by any State 
 for that cause, then indeed is the federal Constitution unworthy of the slightest 
 effort for its preservation. We have hitherto relied on it as the perpetual bond 
 of our Union. We have received it as the work of the assembled wisdom of 
 the nation. We have trusted to it as to the sheet-anchor of our safety in the 
 stormy times of conflict with a foreign or domestic foe. We have looked to it 
 with sacred awe as the palladium of our liberties, and with all the solemnities 
 of religion have pledged to each other our lives and fortunes here and our hopes 
 of happiness hereafter, in its defence and support. Were we mistaken, my 
 countrymen, in attaching this importance to the Constitution of our country ? 
 Was our devotion paid to the wretched, inefficient, clumsy contrivance which 
 this new doctrine would make it 1 Hid we pledge ourselves to the support of 
 
PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON. 
 
 17 
 
 an airy nothing — a bubble that must be blown away by the first breath of dis- 
 affection ? Was this self-destroying, visionary theory the work of the profound 
 statesmen, the exalted patriots, to whom the task of constitutional reform was 
 intrusted? Did the name of Washington sanction — did the States deliberately 
 ratify such an anomaly in the history of fundamental legislation? No. We 
 were not mistaken. The letter of this great instrument is free from this radical 
 fault; its language directly contradicts the imputation; its spirit, its evident 
 intent, contradicts it. No, we did not err. Our Constitution does not contain 
 the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them. 
 The sages, whose memory will always be reverenced, have given us a practical, 
 and, as they hoped, a permanent constitutional compact. The Father of his 
 Country did not affix his revered name to so palpable an absurdity. Nor did 
 the States, when they severally ratified it, do so under the impression that a 
 veto on the laws of the United States was reserved to them, or that they could 
 exercise it by implication. Search the debates in all their conventions ; examine 
 the speeches of the most zealous opposers of federal authority ; look at the 
 amendments that were proposed. They are all silent : not a syllable uttered, 
 not a vote given, not a motion made to correct the explicit supremacy given to 
 the laws of the Union over those of the States, or to show that implication, as 
 is now contended, could defeat it. No, we have not erred. The Constitution 
 is still the object of our reverence, the bond of our Union, our defence in danger, 
 the source of our prosperity in peace : it shall descend as we have received it, 
 uncorrupted by sophistical construction, to our posterity ; and the sacrifices of 
 local interest, of State prejudices, of personal animosities, that were made to 
 bring it into existence, will again be patriotically offered for its support. 
 
 The two remaining objections made by the ordinance to these laws are, that 
 the sums intended to be raised by them are greater than are required, and that 
 the proceeds will be unconstitutionally employed. 
 
 The Constitution lias given expressly to Congress the right of raising revenue, 
 and of determining the sum the public exigencies will require. The States 
 have no control over the exercise of this right other than that which results 
 from the power of changing the representatives who abuse it, and thus procure 
 redress. Congress may, undoubtedly, abuse this discretionary power, but the 
 same may be said of others with which they are vested. Yet the discretion 
 must exist somewhere. The Constitution has given it to the representatives of 
 all the people, checked by the representatives of the States and by the Execu- 
 tive power. The South Carolina construction gives it to the legislature or the 
 convention of a single State, where neither the people of the different States, 
 nor the States in their separate capacity, nor the Chief Magistrate elected by 
 the people, have any representation. Which is the most discreet disposition of 
 the power ? I do not ask you, fellow-citizens, which is the constitutional dis- 
 position ; that instrument speaks a language not to be misunderstood. But if 
 you were assembled in general convention, which would you think the safest 
 depository of this discretionary power in the last resort? Would you add a 
 clause giving it to each of the States, or would you sanction the wise provisions 
 already made by your Constitution ? If this should be the result of your de- 
 liberations when providing for the future, are you, can you be ready to risk all 
 that we hold dear to establish, for a temporary and a local purpose, that which 
 you must acknowledge to be destructive, and even absurd, as a general pro- 
 vision ? Carry out the consequences of this right vested in the different States, 
 and you must perceive that the crisis your conduct presents at this day would 
 recur whenever any law of the United States displeased any of the States, and 
 that we should soon cease to be a nation. 
 
 The ordinance, with the same knowledge of the future that characterizes a 
 former objection, tells you that the proceeds of the tax will be unconstitution- 
 ally applied. If this could be ascertained with certainty, the objection would, 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON. 
 
 with more propriety, he reserved for the law so applying the proceeds, but 
 surely cannot he urged against the laws levying the duty. 
 
 These are the allegations contained in the ordinance. Examine them seri- 
 ously, my fellow-citizens — -judge for yourselves. I appeal' to you to determine 
 whether they are so clear, so convincing, as to leave no doubt of their correct- 
 ness ; and even if you should come to this conclusion, how far they justify the 
 reckless, destructive course which you are directed to pursue. Review these 
 objections, and the conclusions drawn from them, once more. What are they ? 
 Every law, then, for raising revenue, according to the South Carolina ordinance, 
 may be rightfully annulled, unless it be so framed as no law ever will or can 
 be framed. Congress has a right to pass laws for raising revenue, and each 
 State has a right to oppose their execution — two rights directly opposed to each 
 other ; and yet is this absurdity supposed to be contained in an instrument 
 drawn for the express purpose of avoiding collisions between the States and the 
 general government, by an assembly of the most enlightened statesmen and 
 purest patriots ever embodied for a similar purpose. 
 
 In vain have these sages declared that Congress shall have power to lay and 
 collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises ; in vain have they provided that 
 they shall have power to pass laws which shall be necessary and proper to 
 carry those powers into execution ; that those laws and that Constitution shall 
 be the “supreme law of the land, and that the judges in every State shall be 
 bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the con- 
 trary notwithstanding.” In vain have the people of the several States solemnly 
 sanctioned these provisions, made them their paramount law, and individually 
 sworn to support them whenever they were called on to execute any office. 
 Vain provisions ! ineffectual restrictions ! vile profanation of oaths ! miserable 
 mockery of legislation ! if a bare majority of the voters in any one State may, 
 on a real or supposed knowledge of the intent with which a law has been passed, 
 declare themselves free from its operation — say here it gives too little, there too 
 much, and operates unequally ; here it suffers articles to be free that ought to 
 be taxed — there it taxes those that ought to be free ; in this case the proceeds 
 are intended to be applied to purposes which we do not approve — in that the 
 amount raised is more than is wanted. 
 
 Congress, it is true, is invested by the Constitution with the right of deciding 
 these questions according to its sound discretion. Congress is composed of the 
 representatives of all the States, and of all the people of all the States ; but 
 we, part of the people of one State, to whom the Constitution has given no 
 power on the subject, from whom it has expressly taken it away — we, who have 
 solemnly agreed that this Constitution shall be our law — ice, most of whom have 
 sworn to support it — we now abrogate this law, and swear, and force others to 
 swear, that it shall not be obeyed. And we do this not because Congress have 
 no right to pass such laws — this we do not allege — but because they have 
 passed them with improper views. They are unconstitutional from the motives 
 of those who passed them, which we can never with certainty know ; from 
 their unequal operation, although it is impossible, from the nature of things, 
 that they should be equal; and from the disposition which we presume may be 
 made of tlieir proceeds, although that disposition has not been declared. This 
 is the plain meaning of the ordinance in relation to laws which it abrogates for 
 alleged unconstitutionality. But it does not stop there. It repeals, in express 
 terms, an important part of the Constitution itself, and of laws passed to give it 
 effect, which have never been alleged to be unconstitutional. The Constitution 
 declares that the judicial powers of the United States extend to cases arising 
 under the laws of the United States, and that such laws, the Constitution and 
 treaties, shall be paramount to the State constitutions and laws. The judiciary 
 act prescribes the mode by which the case may be brought before a court of the 
 United States, by appeal, when a State tribunal shall decide against this pro- 
 
PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON. 
 
 19 
 
 vision of the Constitution. The ordinance declares there shall be no appeal ; 
 makes the State law paramount to the Constitution and laws of the United 
 States ; forces judges and jurors to swear that they will disregard their pro- 
 visions ; and even makes it penal in a suitor to attempt relief by appeal. It fur- 
 ther declares that it shall not be lawful for the authorities of the United States, 
 or of that State, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the revenue laws 
 within its limits. 
 
 Here is a law of the United States, not even pretended to be unconstitutional, 
 repealed by the authority of a small majority of the voters of a single State. 
 Here is a provision of the Constitution which is solemnly abrogated by the 
 same authority. 
 
 On such expositions and reasonings the ordinance grounds not only an asser- 
 tion of the right to annul the laws of which it complains, but to enforce it by a 
 threat of seceding from the Union if any attempt is made to execute them. 
 
 This right to secede is deduced from the nature of the Constitution, which, 
 they say, is a compact between sovereign States, who have preserved their 
 whole sovereignty, and therefore are subject to no superior ; that, because they 
 made the compact they can break it when, in their opinion, it has been departed 
 from by the other States. Fallacious as this course of reasoning is, it enlists 
 State pride, and finds advocates in the honest prejudices of those who have not 
 studied the nature of our government sufficiently to see the radical error on 
 which it rests. 
 
 The people of the United States formed the Constitution, acting through the 
 State legislatures in making the compact, to meet and discuss its provisions, and 
 acting in separate conventions when they ratified those provisions ; but the terms 
 used in its construction show it to be a government in which the people of the 
 States collectively are represented. We are one people in the choice of the 
 President and Vice-President. Here the States have no other agency than to 
 direct the mode in which the votes shall be given. The candidates having the 
 majority of all the votes are chosen. The electors of a majority of States may 
 have given their votes for one candidate, and yet another may be chosen. The 
 people, then, and not the States, are represented in the executive branch. 
 
 In the House of Representatives there is this difference, that the people of 
 one State do not, as in the case of President and Vice-President, all vote for 
 the same officers. The people of all the States do not vote for all the members, 
 each State electing only its own representatives. But this creates no material 
 distinction. When chosen, they are all representatives of the United States, 
 not representatives of the particular State from which they come. They are 
 paid by the United States, not by the State, nor are they accountable to it for 
 any act done in the performance of their legislative functions ; and however 
 they may in practice, as it is their duty to do, consult and prefer the interests 
 of their particular constituents when they come in conflict with any other par- 
 tial or local interest, yet it is their first and highest duty, as representatives of 
 the United States, to promote the general good. 
 
 The Constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league, 
 and whether it be formed by compact between the States or in any other man- 
 ner, its character is the same. It is a government in which all the people are 
 represented, which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the 
 States — they retained all the power they did not grant. But each State having 
 expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute, jointly with the other 
 States, a single nation, cannot from that period possess any right to secede, be- 
 cause such secession does not break a league, but destroys the unity of a nation, 
 and any injury to that unity is not only a breach which would result from the 
 contravention of a compact, but it is an offence against the whole Union. To 
 say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the 
 United States are not a nation, because it would be a solecism to contend that 
 
20 
 
 PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON. 
 
 any part of a nation might dissolve its connexion with the other parts, to their 
 injury or ruin, without committing any offence. Secession, like any other revo- 
 lutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression ; hut to 
 call it a constitutional right is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only 
 he done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, 
 hut would pause before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent 
 on a failure. 
 
 Because the Union was formed hy compact, it is said the parties to that com- 
 pact may, when they feel themselves aggrieved, depart from it ; hut it is pre- 
 cisely because it is a compact that they cannot. A compact is an agreement or 
 binding obligation. It may by its terms have a sanction or penalty for its 
 breach, or it may not. If it contains no sanction, it may be broken with no 
 other consequence than moral guilt; if it have a sanction, then the breach insures 
 the designated or implied penalty. A league between independent nations gen- 
 erally has no sanction other than a moral one ; or if it should contain a penalty, 
 as there is no common superior, it cannot be enforced. A government, on the 
 contrary, always has a sanction, express or implied, and in our case it is both 
 necessarily implied and expressly given. An attempt, by force of arms, to de- 
 stroy a government is an offence by whatever means the constitutional compact 
 may have been formed, and such government has the right, by the law of self- 
 defence, to pass acts for punishing the offender, unless that right is modified, 
 restrained, or resumed by the constitutional act. In our system, although it is 
 modified in the case of treason, yet authority is expressly given to pass all laws 
 necessary to carry its powers into effect, and under this grant provision has been 
 made for punishing acts which obstruct the due administration of the laws. 
 
 It would seem superfluous to add anything to show the nature of that union 
 which connects us ; but as erroneous opinions on this subject are the foundation 
 of doctrines the most destructive to our peace, I must give some further devel- 
 opment to my views on this subject. No one, fellow-citizens, has a higher 
 reverence for the reserved rights of the States than the magistrate who now 
 addresses you. No one would make greater personal sacrifices or official exer- 
 tions to defend them from violation, but equal care must be taken to prevent on 
 their part an improper interference with or resumption of the rights they have 
 vested in the nation. The line has not been so distinctly drawn as to avoid 
 doubts in some cases of the exercise of power. Men of the best intentions and 
 soundest views may differ in their construction of some parts of the Constitution, 
 but there are others on which dispassionate reflection can leave no doubt. Of 
 this nature appears to be the assumed right of secession. It treats, as we have 
 seen, on the alleged undivided sovereignty of the States, and on their having 
 formed, in this sovereign capacity, a compact which is called the Constitution, 
 from which, because they made it, they have the right to secede. Both of these 
 positions are erroneous, and some of the arguments to prove them so have been 
 anticipated. 
 
 The States severally have not retained their entire sovereignty. It has been 
 shown that in becoming parts of a nation, not members of a league, they sur- 
 rendered many of their essential parts of sovereignty. The right to make 
 treaties, declare war, levy taxes, exercise exclusive judicial and legislative pow- 
 ers, were all of them functions of sovereign power. The States, then, for all 
 these purposes, were no longer sovereign. The allegiance of their citizens was 
 transferred in the first instance to the government of the United States. They 
 became American citizens, and owed obedience to the Constitution of the United 
 States, and to laws made in conformity with the powers it vested in Congress. 
 This last position has not been and cannot be denied. How, then, can that 
 State be said to be sovereign and independent whose citizens owe obedience to 
 laws not made by it, and whose magistrates are sworn to disregard those laws 
 when they come in conflict with those passed by another ] What shows con- 
 
PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON. 
 
 21 
 
 clusively that the States cannot he said to have reserved an undivided sov- 
 ereignty is, that they expressly ceded the right to punish treason — not treason 
 against their separate power, hut treason against the United States. Treason is 
 an offence against sovereignty , and sovereignty must reside with the power to 
 punish it. But the reserved rights of the States are not less sacred because 
 they have, for their common interest, made the general government the depository 
 of these powers. 
 
 The unity of our political character (as has been shown for another purpose) 
 commenced with its very existence. Under the royal government we had no 
 separate character; our opposition to its oppression began as United Colo- 
 nies. We were the United States under the confederation, and the name 
 was perpetuated, and the Union rendered more perfect, by the federal Constitu- 
 tion. In none of these stages did we consider ourselves in any other light than 
 as forming one nation. Treaties and alliances were made in the name of all. 
 Troops were raised for the joint defence. How, then, with all these proofs, that 
 under all changes of our position we had, for designated purposes and defined 
 powers, created national governments — how is it, that the most perfect of those 
 several modes of union should now be considered as a mere league that may be 
 dissolved at pleasure ? It is from an abuse of terms. Compact is used as sy- 
 nonymous with league, although the true term is not employed, because it would 
 at once show the fallacy of the reasoning. It would not do to say that our 
 Constitution was only a league, but it is labored to prove it a compact, (which 
 in one sense it is,) and then to argue that as a league is a compact, every com- 
 pact between nations must, of course, be a league, and that from such an engage- 
 ment every sovereign power has a right to recede. But it has been shown that, 
 in this sense, the States are not sovereign, and that even if they were, and the 
 national Constitution had been formed by compact, there would be no right in 
 any one State to exonerate itself from its obligations. 
 
 So obvious are the reasons which forbid this secession, that it is necessary 
 only to allude to them. The Union was formed for the benefit of all. It was 
 produced by mutual sacrifices of interests and opinions. Can those sacrifices be 
 recalled 1 ? Can the States, who magnanimously surrendered their title to the 
 territories of the west, recal the grant? Will the inhabitants of the inland States 
 agree to pay the duties that may be imposed without their assent by those on 
 the Atlantic or the Gulf, for their own benefit? Shall there be a free port in 
 one State and onerous duties in another? No one believes that any right exists 
 in a single State to involve all the others in these and countless other evils con- 
 trary to the engagements solemnly made. Every one must see that the other 
 States, in self-defence, must oppose it at all hazards. 
 
 These are the alternatives that are presented by the convention : a repeal of 
 all the acts for raising revenue, leaving the government without the means of 
 support, or an acquiescence in the dissolution of our Union by the secession of 
 one of its members. When the first was proposed, it was known that it could 
 not be listened to for a moment. It was known, if force was applied to oppose 
 the execution of the laws that it must be repelled by force ; that Congress could 
 not, without involving itself in disgrace and the country in ruin, accede to the 
 proposition; and yet if this is not done in a given day, or if any attempt is made 
 to execute the laws, the State is, by the ordinance, declared to be out of the 
 Union. The majority of a convention assembled for the purpose have dictated 
 these terms, or rather this rejection of all terms, in the name of the people of 
 South Carolina. It is true that the governor of the State speaks of the sub- 
 mission of their grievances to a convention of all the States, which, he says, 
 they “sincerely and anxiously seek and desire.” Yet this obvious and consti- 
 tutional mode of obtaining the sense of the other States on the construction of 
 the federal compact, and amending it, if necessary, has never been attempted by 
 those who have urged the State on to this destructive measure. The State 
 
22 
 
 PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON. 
 
 might have proposed the call for a general convention to the other States, and 
 Congress, if a sufficient number of them concurred, must have called it. But 
 the first magistrate of South Carolina, when he expressed a hope that, “on a 
 review by Congress, and the functionaries of the general government, of the 
 merits of the controversy,” such a convention will be accorded to them, must 
 have known that neither Congress nor any functionary of the general govern- 
 ment has authority to call such a convention, unless it be demanded by two- 
 thirds of the States. This suggestion, then, is another instance of the reckless 
 inattention to the provisions of the Constitution with which this crisis has been 
 madly hurried on, or of the attempt to persuade the people that a constitutional 
 remedy had been sought and refused. If the legislature of South Carolina 
 “anxiously desire” a general convention to consider their complaints, why have 
 they not made application for it in the way the Constitution points out ? The 
 assertion that they “ earnestly seek it” is completely negatived by the omission. 
 
 This, then, is the position in which we stand. A small majority of the citi- 
 zens of one State in the Union have elected delegates to a State convention, that 
 convention has ordained that all the revenue laws of the United States must be 
 repealed, or that they are no longer a member of the Union. The governor of 
 that State has recommended to the legislature the raising of an army to carry 
 the secession into effect, and that he may be empowered to give clearances to 
 vessels in the name of the State. No act of violent opposition to the laws has 
 yet been committed, but such a state of things is hourly apprehended, and it is 
 the intent of this instrument to proclaim, not only that the duty imposed on me 
 by the Constitution “to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” shall be 
 performed to the extent of the powers already vested in me by law, or of such 
 others as the wisdom of Congress shall devise and intrust to me for that pur- 
 pose, but to warn the citizens of South Carolina who have been deluded into an 
 opposition to the laws, of the danger they will incur by obedience to the illegal 
 and disorganizing ordinance of the convention; to exhort those who have re- 
 fused to support it to persevere in their determination to uphold the Constitution 
 and laws of their country, and to point out to all the perilous situation into 
 which the good people of that State have been led, and that the course they are 
 urged to pursue is one of ruin and disgrace to the very State whose rights they 
 affect to support. 
 
 Fellow-citizens of my native State, let me not only admonish you, as the first 
 magistrate of our common country, not to incur the penalty of its laws, but use 
 the influence that a father would over liis children whom he saw rushing to cer- 
 tain ruin. In that paternal language, with that paternal feeling, let me tell you, 
 my countrymen, that you are deluded by men who are either deceived them- 
 selves or wish to deceive you. Mark under what pretences you have been led 
 on to the brink of insurrection and treason, on which you stand! First, a 
 diminution of the value of your staple commodity, lowered by over production 
 in other quarters, and the consequent diminution in the value of your lands, were 
 the sole effect of the tariff laws. 
 
 The effect of those laws was confessedly injurious, but the evil was greatly 
 exaggerated by the unfounded theory you were taught to believe, that its bur- 
 dens were in proportion to your exports, not to your consumption of imported 
 articles. Your pride was roused by the assertion that a submission to those laws 
 was a state of vassalage, and that resistance to them was equal, in patriotic 
 merit, to the oppositions our fathers offered to the oppressive laws of Great 
 Britain. You were told that this opposition might be peaceably — might be con- 
 stitutionally made; that you might enjoy all the advantages of the Union, and 
 bear none of its burdens. Eloquent appeals to your passions, to your State 
 pride, to your native courage, to your sense of real injury, were used to prepare 
 you for the period when the mask, which concealed the hideous features of dis- 
 union, should be taken off. It fell, and you were made to look with complacency 
 
PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON. 
 
 23 
 
 on objects which, not long since, you would have regarded with horror. Look 
 back to the arts which have brought you to this state ; look forward to the con- 
 -scquences to which it must inevitably lead ! Look back to what was first told you 
 as an inducement to enter into this dangerous course. The great political truth 
 was repeated to you, that you had the revolutionary right of resisting all laws 
 that were palpably unconstitutional and intolerably oppressive ; it was added 
 that the right to nullify a law rested on the same principle, but that it was a 
 peaceable remedy ! This character which was given to it made you receive, with 
 too much confidence, the assertions that were made of the unconstitutionality of 
 the law and its oppressive effects. Mark, my fellow-citizens, that, by the ad- 
 mission of your leaders, the unconstitutionality must be palpable, or it will not 
 justify either resistance or nullification ! What is the meaning of the word pal- 
 pable in the sense in which it is here used? That which is apparent to every 
 one ; that which no man of ordinary intellect will fail to perceive. Is the un- 
 constitutionality of these laws of that description? Let those among your 
 leaders, who once approved and advocated the principle of productive duties, 
 answer the question, and let them chose whether they will be considered as in- 
 capable, then, of perceiving that which must have been apparent to every man 
 of common understanding, or as imposing upon your confidence, and endeavor- 
 ing to mislead you now. In either case they are unsafe guides in the perilous 
 path they urge you to tread. Ponder well on this circumstance, and you will 
 know how to appreciate the exaggerated language they address to you. They 
 are not champions of liberty emulating the fame of our revolutionary fathers ; 
 nor are you an oppressed people, contending, as they repeat to you, against 
 worse than colonial vassalage. 
 
 You are free members of a flourishing and happy Union. There is no settled 
 design to oppress you. You have indeed felt the unequal operation of laws 
 which may have been unwisely, not unconstitutionally passed ; but that inequality 
 must necessarily be removed. At the very moment when you were madly 
 urged on to the unfortunate course you have begun, a change in public opinion 
 had commenced. The nearly approaching payment of the public debt, and the 
 consequent necessity of a diminution of duties, had already produced a consid- 
 erable reduction, and that, too, on some articles of general consumption in your 
 State. The importance of this change was underrated, and you were authori- 
 tatively told that no further alleviation of your burdens was to be expected at 
 the very time when the condition of the country imperiously demanded such a 
 modification of the duties as should reduce them to a just and equitable scale. 
 But, as if apprehensive of the effect of this change in allaying your discontents, 
 you were precipitated into the fearful state in which you now find yourselves. 
 
 I have urged you to look back to the means that were used to hurry you on 
 to the position you have now assumed, and forward to the consequences it will 
 produce. Something more is necessary. Contemplate the condition of that 
 country of which you still form an important part. Consider its government 
 uniting in one bond of common interest and general protection so many different 
 States — giving to all their inhabitants the proud title of American citizens, pro- 
 tecting their commerce, securing their literature and their arts ; facilitating their 
 intercommunication ; defending their frontiers ; and making their name respected 
 in the remotest parts of the earth. Consider the extent of its territory ; its in- 
 creasing and happy population; its advance in arts, which render life agreeable; 
 and the sciences, which elevate the mind ! See education spreading the lights 
 of religion, morality, and general information into every cottage in this wide 
 extent of our Territories and States! Behold it as the asylum where the 
 wretched and the oppressed find a refuge and support ! Look on this picture 
 of happiness and honor, and say, we, too, are citizens of America ! Caro- 
 lina is one of these proud States ; her arms have defended, her best blood has 
 cemented this happy Union ! And then add, if you can, without horror and re- 
 
24 
 
 PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON. 
 
 morse, this happy Union we will dissolve ; this picture of peace and prosperity 
 we will deface ; this free intercourse we will interrupt; these fertile fields we 
 will deluge with blood; the protection of that glorious flag we renounce; the 
 very name of Americans we discard. And for what, mistaken men ; for what 
 do you throw away these inestimable blessings ? For what would you exchange 
 your share in the advantages and honor of the Union? For the dream of 
 separate independence — a dream interrupted by bloody conflicts with your 
 neighbors, and a vile dependence on a foreign power. If your leaders could 
 succeed in establishing a separation, what would be your situation? Are you 
 united at home ; are you free from the apprehension of civil discord, with all its 
 fearful consequences ? Do our neighboring republics, every day suffering some 
 new revolution, or cantending with some new insurrection — do they excite your 
 envy ? But the dictates of a high duty obliges me solemnly to announce that 
 you cannot succeed. The laws of the United States must be executed. I 
 have no discretionary power on the subject ; my duty is emphatically pro- 
 nounced in the Constitution. Those who told you that you might peaceably 
 prevent their execution deceived you ; they could not have been deceived them- 
 selves. They know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the execu- 
 tion of the laws, and they know that such opposition must be repelled. Their 
 object is disunion: but be not deceived by names; disunion, by armed force, is 
 treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the heads 
 of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences; on their heads be the 
 dishonor, but on yours may fall the punishment. On your unhappy State will 
 inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the government of 
 your country. It cannot accede to the mad project of disunion, of which you 
 would be the first victims ; its first magistrate cannot, if he would, avoid the 
 performance of his duty. The consequence must be fearful for you, distressing 
 to your fellow-citizens here, and to the friends of good government throughout 
 the world. Its enemies have beheld our prosperity with a vexation they could 
 not conceal; it was a standing refutation of their slavish doctrines, and they 
 will point to our discord with the triumph of malignant joy. It is yet in your 
 power to disappoint them. There is yet time to show that the descendants of 
 the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Rutledges, and of the thousand other names 
 which adorn the pages of your revolutionary history, will not abandon that 
 Union, to support which so many of them fought, and bled, and died. 
 
 I adjure you, as you honor their memory, as you love the cause of freedom, 
 to which they dedicated their lives, as you prize the peace of your country, the 
 lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch 
 from the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its convention ; bid 
 its members to reassemble, and promulgate the decided expressions of your 
 will to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, 
 and honor. Tell them that, compared to disunion, all other evils are light, 
 because that brings with it an accumulation of all. Declare that you will never 
 take the field unless the star-spangled banner of your country shall float over 
 you; that you will not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and scorned 
 while you live, as the authors of the first attack on the Constitution of your 
 country. Its destroyers you cannot be. You may disturb its peace — you may 
 interrupt the course of its prosperity — you may cloud its reputation for stability, 
 but its tranquillity will be restored, its prosperity will return, and the stain upon 
 its national character will be transferred and remain an eternal blot on the 
 memory of those who caused the disorder. 
 
 Fellow-citizens of the United States : The threat of unhallowed disunion — 
 the names of those once respected, by whom it is uttered — the array of military 
 force to support it — denote the approach of a crisis in our affairs on which the 
 continuance of our unexampled prosperity, our political existence, and perhaps 
 that of all free governments may depend. The conjuncture demanded a free, a 
 
PROCLAMATION OF PRESIDENT JACKSON. 
 
 25 
 
 full, and explicit enunciation, not only of my intentions, but of my principles of 
 action ; and, as the claim was asserted of a right by a State to annul the laws 
 of the Union, and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank exposition of my 
 opinions in relation to the origin and form of our government, and the construc- 
 tion I give to the instrument by which it was created, seemed to be proper. 
 Having the fullest confidence in the justness of the legal and constitutional 
 opinion of my duties, which has been expressed, I rely, with equal confidence, 
 on your undivided support in my determination to execute the laws, to preserve 
 the Union by all constitutional means, to arrest, if possible, by moderate but firm 
 measures, the necessity of a recourse to force ; and, if it be the will of Heaven, 
 that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the shedding of a brother’s 
 blood should fall upon our land, that it be not called down by any offensive act 
 on the part of the United States. 
 
 Fellow-citizens : The momentous case is before you. On your undivided 
 support of your government depends the decision of the great question it in- 
 volves, whether your sacred Union will be preserved, and the blessings it secures 
 to us as one people shall be perpetuated. No one can doubt that the unanimity 
 with which that decision will be expressed will be such as to inspire new confi- 
 dence in republican institutions, and that the prudence, the wisdom, and the 
 courage which it will bring to their defence will transmit them unimpaired and 
 invigorated to our children. 
 
 May the Great Ruler of nations grant that the signal blessings with which he 
 has favored ours may not, by the madness of party or personal ambition, be dis- 
 regarded and lost ; and may his wise Providence bring those who have pro- 
 duced this crisis to see their folly before they feel the misery of civil strife, and 
 inspire a returning veneration for that Union which, if we may dare to pene- 
 trate his designs, he has chosen as the only means of attaining the high desti- 
 nies to which we may reasonably aspire. 
 
 In testimony whereof, I have caused the seal of the United States to be 
 hereunto affixed, having signed the same with my hand. 
 
 Done at the City of Washington, this 10th day of December, in the year of 
 our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, and of the independence 
 of the United States the fifty-seventh. 
 
 ANDREW JACKSON. 
 
 By the President : 
 
 Edw. Livingston, 
 
 Secretary of State. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
THE 
 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 « 
 
 IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776. 
 
 THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES 
 
 OF AMERICA. 
 
 When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to 
 dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to 
 assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which 
 the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the 
 opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel 
 them to the separation. 
 
 We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all men are created equal ; that 
 they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that among 
 these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these 
 rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from 
 the consent of the governed ; that whenever any form of government becomes 
 destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, 
 and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, 
 and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to 
 effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that govern- 
 ments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes ; 
 and, accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to 
 suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms 
 to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpa- 
 tions, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them 
 under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such 
 government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has 
 been the patient sufferance of these colonies ; and such is now the necessity 
 which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The his- 
 tory of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and 
 usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny 
 over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. 
 
 He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the 
 public good. 
 
 He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing im- 
 portance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained ; 
 and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. 
 
 He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of 
 people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the 
 legislature — a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He 
 
28 
 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 lias called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and dis- 
 tant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing 
 them into compliance with his measures. 
 
 lie has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly 
 firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. 
 
 He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be 
 elected ; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned 
 to the people at large for their exercise ; the State remaining in the meantime 
 exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within. 
 
 He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States ; for that pur- 
 pose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others 
 to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the^ conditions of new appro- 
 priations of lands. 
 
 He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws 
 for establishing judiciary powers. 
 
 He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices, 
 and the amount and payment of their salaries. 
 
 He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, 
 to harass our people and eat out their substance. 
 
 He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies, without the consent 
 of our legislatures. 
 
 He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the 
 civil power. 
 
 He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our 
 constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of 
 pretended legislation : 
 
 For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us ; 
 
 F or protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which 
 they should commit on the inhabitants of these States ; 
 
 For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world ; 
 
 For imposing taxes on us without our consent ; 
 
 For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury ; 
 
 For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences ; 
 
 For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, 
 establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so 
 as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same 
 absolute rule into these colonies ; 
 
 For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering 
 fundamentally the forms of our governments ; 
 
 For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with 
 power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 
 
 He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and 
 waging war against us. 
 
 He lias plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed 
 the lives of our people. 
 
 He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to com- 
 plete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circum- 
 stances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, 
 and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. 
 
 He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to 
 bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and 
 brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. 
 
 He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to 
 bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose 
 known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and 
 conditions. 
 
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 29 
 
 In every stage of these oppressions we liave petitioned for redress in the 
 most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by re- 
 peated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which 
 may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 
 
 Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have 
 warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an 
 unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circum- 
 stances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their 
 native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our 
 common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt 
 our connexions and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of 
 justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity 
 which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of man- 
 kind, enemies in war, in peace friends. 
 
 We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in 
 General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for 
 the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by authority of the good people 
 of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, 
 and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States ; that they are absolved 
 from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connexion between 
 them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved ; and 
 that, as Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy war, 
 conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts 
 and things which Independent States may of right do. And for the sup- 
 port of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine 
 Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our 
 sacred honor. 
 
 JOHN HANCOCK. 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 Josiah Bartlett. Matthew Thornton. 
 
 William Whipple. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS BAY. 
 
 Samuel Adams. Robert Treat Paine. 
 
 John Adams. Elbridge Gerry. 
 
 RHODE ISLAND, &c. 
 
 Stephen Hopkins. William Ellery. 
 
 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Roger Sherman. William Williams. 
 
 Samuel Huntington. Oliver Wolcott. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 William Floyd. 
 Philip Livingston. 
 
 Francis Lewis. 
 Lewis Morris. 
 
30 
 
 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 
 
 NEW JERSEY. 
 
 Richard Stockton. John Hart. 
 
 John Witherspoon. Abraham Clark. 
 
 Francis IIopkinson. 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Robert Morris. 
 Benjamin Rush. 
 Benjamin Franklin. 
 John Morton. 
 
 James Smith. 
 George Taylor. 
 James Wilson. 
 George Ross. 
 
 George Clymer. 
 
 DELAWARE. 
 
 CiESAR Rodney. Thomas McKean. 
 
 George Read. 
 
 MARYLAND. 
 
 Samuel Chase. Thomas Stone. 
 
 William Paca. Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. 
 
 VIRGINIA. 
 
 George Wythe. Thomas Nelson, Jr. 
 
 Richard Henry Lee. Francis Lightfoot Lee. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson. Carter Braxton. 
 
 Benjamin Harrison. 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA. 
 
 William Hooper. John Penn. 
 
 Joseph Hewes. 
 
 SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 Edward Rutledge. Thomas Lynch, Jr. 
 
 Thomas Hayward, Jr. Arthur Middleton. 
 
 GEORGIA. 
 
 Button Gwinnett. George Walton. 
 
 Lyman Hall. 
 
 Q