Nor can we forbear to mention another of the fruits of reformation.-Though its object was to prevent not to cure drunkenness, yet thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, are indebted to it for their recovery from a bondage, compared with which the chains upon the poor African are perfect liberty; for the drunkard's bondage is that of the mind, and "the iron has entered his soul." Formerly the condition of the drunkard was hopeless; for, under the universal custom of drinking spirits, turn whatsoever way he would, he was met by irresistible solicitations to his master appetite; and his dearest friends, and those with whom he had the most familiar intercourse were unwittingly made, by their use of spirits, his most fatal snare. But there are still hundreds of thousands of drunkards in our land; and where in all the wide earth shall we look for more pitiable beings? If rum has not transformed their bodies so far as the potions of Circe transformed the bodies of the men of Ulysses, yet it has equalled those potions in debasing and brutalizing the spirit. Temperate drinkers! it rests with you to determine, whether these wretches shall be restored; restored to themselves; to their families; to their country; to the hopes of heaven. Give up your temperate drinking, and they are so restored; for, in an atmosphere of total abstinence they can be brought to life. But, if you continue to drink spirits, they will; for they cannot unbind themselves from the power of your example. They must perish in that case, because you will let them,-will make them perish. We beseech you, temperate drinkers, not to continue indifferent to this numerous and wretched class of your fellow-men. We beseech you still more earnestly not to oppose and sneer at the only means of rescuing these victims of intemperance from their indescribable woes; for there are some temperate drinkers, who are wont to be even thus cruel,-and that too, notwithstanding they may have among these victims a besotted father, or son, or brother, who are perishing for the safety, which the temperance reformation alone provides for them. How many more of these wretches would probably have long since attained to this safety, had it not been for the indifference and opposition of temperate drinkers to the cause of temperance, and for their thoughtless and inconsiderate ridicule of it! Most of the work is still undone. Much as has been achieved under the temperance reformation, far more remains to be done. There is a very common, but equally mistaken as common, notion, that the work in which we are engaged is done; or at least so far advanced, that its completion must necessarily follow. But instead of exulting in the idea that the work is done, we have much more reason to fear, that what has been done in it will be lost, and lost too, in a great measure, by this same common and mistaken impression, that our cause has passed through its dangers, and is now safe. The price of temperance, the price of our great cause, like the price of liberty, is unceasing vigilance, unremitting activity for its promotion; and it is already found, that in many places in our country, where that vigilance is nodding and that activity is relaxed, there the cause of temperance has begun to retrograde, and drunkards and their only-one-stairs-above neighbors, the temperate drinkers, are again beginning to multiply. A very great advantage, which our first efforts under the temperance reformation had, is now spent. We mean the charm of novelty. The public mind has been so much handled with this subject, that it has lost much of its sensibility to it; and temperance is becoming to very many an old and uninteresting topic; uninteresting, not because its intrinsic importance has at all abated, but simply because it has become old, and has by the frequency of its appeals hardened, where it has not subdued. The cause of temperance, like any other virtuous cause in this depraved world, has to contend against strong currents in the natural dispositions and selfish interests of men; and it will no more go of itself than water will run up hill. Our contest with rum is still very doubtful. The vice of intemperance is intrenched in strong, fearfully strong interests, and it will require the most persevering concert of all its foes to dislodge it. Look at the maker and vender of spirits. How directly is their occupation interested in having intemperance go on, rapidly multiplying its victims! Look at the village demagogue. Take away rum from the field of his influence, deprive him of the aid of the distillery, the bar-room and the grocery, and you deprive him of his dearest hopes. It is rum, which opens the ears of his admiring listeners to his sage instructions, and melts their hearts to his patriotic appeals. Look at the race-course,-at the lottery, at the gaming-table,-at the theatre, and particularly at that "house," which "is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death," and see how essential to all these is the inspiration of rum!-When we consider that rum is the great animating principle of almost all our public and of not a few of our private vices; and that all of them would languish, and not a few of them expire without it; when we consider that rum is by far the most successful device of Satan for inflaming and strengthening the corrupt passions of men,-how can we hope for a speedy and easy conquest over it? So far from its being speedy and easy, we must have much help to be able to achieve it at all and in the name of our country,-in the name of humanity, -in the name of God, we call for this help on all who love their country, on all, who love their fellow-men,-on all, who love their Maker. Let each individual do his duty to our cause, and it is safe; and then our beloved land will be cleansed of the pollutions of this vice; and the fires of this Moloch, through which a custom, more cruel than the Suttee, has hitherto compelled our children to pass, will be extinguished; and then the people of these United States will be (most joyful thought!) a sober people. ART. VIII.-Nullification. 1. Correspondence between Governor Hamilton and Vice President Calhoun, July and August, 1832. 2. Addresses and Reports of the Convention held at Columbia, S. C. in November, 1832. 3. An Ordinance to nullify certain Acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be Laws, laying Duties and Imposts on the Importation of foreign Commodities. The discontents on the subject of the Tariff, which have so long existed in several of the Southern States, and particularly in South Carolina, and to which we have, from time to time, adverted in this Journal, have at length reached a crisis. As soon as it was ascertained that the party in favor of Nullification had prevailed in that State at the late elections, the Governor immediately summoned an extraordinary session of the Legislature, which was held accordingly at Columbia, on the 22d of October. In calling together the new Legislature before the end of the current political year, as generally understood, the Governor exercised an authority, which may perhaps be fairly considered as doubtful, although it appears to have been sanctioned by the highest judicial authority of the State. This, however, is a secondary question, upon which we shall not enlarge. In the message which he transmitted to the Legislature at the opening of the extraordinary session, the Governor recommended to them to pass an act authorizing the meeting of a Convention, to deliberate upon the measures to be taken by the State for the purpose of obtaining relief from the operation of the Tariff. The act was accordingly passed by large majorities,-two thirds being required by the Constitution; and the Convention, which was chosen in pursuance of it, opened its session at Columbia on the 19th of November. This body proceeded at once and without much discussion to adopt what they call an Ordinance to nullify' the Revenue laws of the country, which we propose to copy in the course of our remarks. Having published this act, with an accompanying exposition of their motives in passing it, and addresses to the people of the United States and of South Carolina, the Convention adjourned without day, leaving it in charge to a committee appointed for that purpose to summon another meeting, if it should appear expedient. The composition of the Ordinance is attributed to Chancellor Harper; that of the exposition accompanying it to Mr. McDuffie; and that of the addresses to the people of the United States and of South Carolina respectively to General Hayne and Mr. Turnbull. The Legislature of the State have since assembled, and, agreeably to the tenor of the Ordinance, will doubtless pass such laws as may be thought necessary for carrying the measure into full effect. These proceedings constitute a very serious crisis,—the most serious that has occurred in the history of our country since the establishment of the Government, with the exception of that which attended the close of the last war with Great Britain, and from which, by the fortunate intervention of the Peace, we escaped without injury. In the present instance, there seems to be no prospect of evading the difficulty in any such way. We must meet it in front, and either overcome it, or submit to all its consequences. The general principles by which the statesmen of South Carolina undertake to support their views, have been on former occasions pretty fully discussed, in this Journal.* But, considering the great importance and urgent interest of the subject, it may not be wholly superfluous to take, once more, a calm, and as far as may be, impartial survey of the ground in dispute. In doing this, we shall of course leave out of view the topics of the constitutionality and expediency of the measures of the General Government, which are the motive or pretext for the present proceedings in Carolina. * See particularly the article on the debate in the Senate upon the Public Lands. N. A. R. Vol. XXXI. p. 462. Believing, as we do, that the Protecting Policy is founded in a correct understanding of the principles of the Constitution, and of the true interest of the country, we still very cheerfully recognise in our fellow-citizens of all the States, the right to entertain a different opinion, and to act upon it in a legal and constitutional way. The precise question now before us is, whether the present proceedings in South Carolina are legal and constitutional. The most authentic and elaborate exposition of the arguments that are urged in defence of them, is to be found in the letter of the Vice-President of the United States to Governor Hamilton, of August 28, 1832, which we have taken as a text for this article. In the course of our remarks, we shall generally employ the term annul, in preference to the new-fashioned word nullify. The meaning of the two, as given in the dictionaries, is exactly the same, but the former is in better use, and presents to most minds a more distinct idea than the latter. It is well known that one of the most frequent sources of obscurity and confusion in reasoning, is the use of terms which, from whatever cause, are in any degree vague; and we have very little doubt that in the present controversy, the error of the Carolina statesmen may be attributed in part to the unfortunate substitution of the new-fangled terms nullify and nullification, for the corresponding good old English words annul and annulling. Many a professed nullifier would, we suspect, shrink from the assertion that a State has a right to annul an act of the General Government. Mr. Calhoun seldom employs the latter term, and states expressly, that he does not claim for a State the right to abrogate' an act of the General Government. Now, according to Johnson, the meaning of abrogate is to take away from a law its force, to repeal, to annul. To annul, according to the same authority, is to make void, to nullify, to reduce to nothing and finally, to nullify is to annul, to make void. The meaning of the three words, in correct usage, is exactly the same; and Mr. Calhoun, in disclaiming the right of a State to abrogate an act of the General Government, really disclaims the right to annul or nullify such an act, in any proper sense of those terms, and abandons in a single sentence the doctrine which he is at so much pains to establish in the rest of his exposition. In disclaiming the use of the word abrogate, abstaining generally from that of annul, and taking refuge in what Governor Lumpkin very properly : |