it, quoad New England; for we had a strong, palpable, and oppressive case.  Sir, we believed the embargo unconstitutional; but still that was matter of opinion, and who was to decide it?  We thought it a clear case; but, nevertheless, we did not take the law into our own hands, because we did not wish to bring about a revolution, nor to break up the Union; for I maintain, that between submission to the decision of the constituted tribunals, and revolution, or disunion, there is no middle ground; there is no ambiguous condition, half allegiance and half rebellion.  And, Sir, how futile, how very futile it is, to admit the right of State interference, and then attempt to save it from the character of unlawful resistance, by adding terms of qualification to the causes and occasions, leaving all these qualifications, like the case itself, in the discretion of the State governments.  It must be a clear case, it is said, a deliberate case, a palpable case, a dangerous case.  But then the State is still left at liberty to decide for herself what is clear, what is deliberate, what is palpable, what is dangerous.  Do adjectives and epithets avail any thing?

Sir, the human mind is so constituted, that the merits of both sides of a controversy appear very clear, and very palpable, to those who respectively espouse them; and both sides usually grow clearer as the controversy advances.  South Carolina sees unconstitutionality in the tariff; she sees oppression there also, and she sees danger.  Pennsylvania, with a vision not less sharp, looks at the same tariff, and sees no such thing in it; she sees it all constitutional, all useful, all safe.  The faith of South Carolina is strengthened by opposition, and she now not only sees, but resolves, that the tariff is palpably unconstitutional, oppressive, and dangerous; but Pennsylvania, not to be behind her neighbors, and equally willing to strengthen her own faith by a confident asseveration, resolves also, and gives to every warm affirmative of South Carolina, a plain, downright, Pennsylvania negative.  South Carolina, to show the strength and unity of her opinion, brings her assembly to a unanimity, within seven voices; Pennsylvania, not to be outdone in this respect any more than in others, reduces her dissentient fraction to a single vote.  Now, Sir, again, I ask the gentleman, What is to be done?  Are these States both right?  Is he bound to consider them both right?  If not, which is in the wrong? or rather, which has the best right to decide?  And if he, and if I, are not to know what the Constitution means, and what it is, till those two State legislatures, and the twenty-two others, shall agree in its construction, what have we sworn to, when we have sworn to maintain it?  I was forcibly struck, Sir, with one reflection, as the gentleman went on in his speech.  He quoted Mr. Madison’s resolutions, to prove that a State may interfere, in a case of deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise