The 19th December saw the publication three different very different texts. On the 19th December 1843, a novella by the celebrated English author Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, was first published by Chapman and Hall, and went on sale. The writing has performed better than Mr. Dickens could have predicted. The name of its principal character has become a noun and a verb in the English language. A not too shabby performance. |
| Tom Paine |
The 19th December 1776 saw the first publication of a series of pamphlets in the Philadelphia Journal titled The American Crisis written by Thomas Paine. They were written in a language the common man of the time could well understand and were signed by Paine using his pseudonym “Common Sense”. It was to bolster the morale of the American colonist, appeal to the English people’s consideration of the American Revolutionary war, clarify the issues at stake and denounce the advocates of a negotiated peace. Pretty strong stuff, it began: These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Another political protest, ostensibly involving the imposition of Tariffs, but in effect about States Rights, was presented on the 19th December 1828 to the South Carolina State House of Representatives, which had five thousand copies of it printed and distributed. It was known as the South Carolina Exposition and Protest, a.k.a. Calhoun’s Exposition. The document was a protest against the Tariff of 1828, also known as the Tariff of Abominations. The document stated that if the tariff was not repealed, South Carolina would secede. It stated also John C. Calhoun's Doctrine of nullification, i.e., the idea that a state has the right to reject federal law, first introduced by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in their Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. In it, Calhoun argued that the tariff of 1828 was unconstitutional because it favored manufacturing over commerce and agriculture. The tariff power, he felt, could only be used to generate revenue, not to provide protection from foreign competition for American industries. He believed that the people of a state or several states, acting in a democratically elected convention, had the retained power to veto any act of the federal government which violated the Constitution. This veto, the core of the doctrine of nullification, was explained by Calhoun in the Exposition:
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| John C. Calhoun |
If it be conceded, as it must be by every one who is the least conversant with our institutions, that the sovereign powers delegated are divided between the General and State Governments, and that the latter hold their portion by the same tenure as the former, it would seem impossible to deny to the States the right of deciding on the infractions of their powers, and the proper remedy to be applied for their correction. The right of judging, in such cases, is an essential attribute of sovereignty, of which the States cannot be divested without losing their sovereignty itself, and being reduced to a subordinate corporate condition. In fact, to divide power, and to give to one of the parties the exclusive right of judging of the portion allotted to each, is, in reality, not to divide it at all; and to reserve such exclusive right to the General Government (it matters not by what department to be exercised, is to convert it, in fact, into a great consolidated government, with unlimited powers, and to divest the States, in reality, of all their rights, It is impossible to understand the force of terms, and to deny so plain a conclusion.
There is something in this argument that led to the secession of the Southern States of America bringing about a civil war. There is also in it a reflection of what is going on in the European Community and the exercise of the Veto by the British Government. In Calhoun’s day, it was ineffectual, not unlike today it would seem.
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