"Is there any need to prove that this odious perversion

of law is a perpetual source of hatred and discord, that it

even tends to social disorganization? Look at the United

States. There is no country in the world where the law is

kept more within its proper domain—which is, to secure

to everyone his liberty and his property. Therefore, there

is no country in the world where social order appears to

rest upon a more solid basis. Nevertheless, even in the

United States, there are two questions, and only two, that

from the beginning have endangered political order. And

what are these two questions? That of slavery and that of

tariffs; that is, precisely the only two questions in which,

contrary to the general spirit of this republic, law has

taken the character of a plunderer. Slavery is a violation,

sanctioned by law, of the rights of the person. Protection

is a violation perpetrated by the law upon the rights of

property; and certainly it is very remarkable that, in the

midst of so many other debates, this double legal scourge,

the sorrowful inheritance of the Old World, should be the

only one which can, and perhaps will, cause the rupture

of the Union. "