They argued that it was a constitutional right; that they could live within the Constitution and beyond it,--inside the house and outside it at one and the same time.

They contended that, the Constitution being a compact between the States, the Federal government was the creation of the States; yet, in the same breath, they declared that the general government was a party to the contract from which it had itself emanated, in order to get rid of the difficulty of proving that, while the single dissenting State could decide against the validity of a law, the twenty or more other States, also parties to the contract, had no right to deliver an opposite judgment which should be binding as the opinion of the majority of the court.

There was nothing very ingenious or very profound in the argument by which Mr.Webster demonstrated the absurdity of the doctrine which attempted to make nullification a peaceable constitutional privilege, when it could be in practice nothing else than revolution.

But the manner in which he put the argument was magnificent and final.

As he himself said, in this very speech of Samuel Dexter, "his statement was argument, his inference demonstration." The weak places in his armor were historical in their nature.