Congress, to which this city was then entitled. He immediately
distinguished himself as a working member. This appellation is given in
Congress to members who labor faithfully in Committees, consider petitions
and report upon them, investigate claims, inquire into matters referred to
their judgment, frame bills and present them through their Chairman.
Besides these, there are the talking members who take part in every
debate, often without knowing anything of the question, save what they
learn while the debate is proceeding, and the idle members, who do nothing
but vote--generally I believe, without knowing anything of the question
whatever; but to neither of these classes did Verplanck belong. He was a
diligent, useful, and valued member of the Committee of Ways and Means,
and at an important period of our political history was its Chairman.

Then arose the great controversy concerning the right of a State to
refuse obedience at pleasure to any law of Congress, a right contended for
under the name of nullification by some of the most eminent men of the
South, whose ability, political influence, and power of putting a
plausible face on their heresy, gave their cause at first an appearance of
great strength, and seemed to threaten the very existence of the Union.

With their denial of the binding force of any law of Congress which a
State might think proper to set aside, these men combined another
argument. They denied the power of Congress, under the Constitution, to
levy duties on imported merchandize, for the purpose of favoring the home
manufacturer, and maintained that it could only lay duties for the sake of
raising a revenue. Mr. Verplanck favored neither this view nor their
theory of nullification. He held that the power to lay duties being given
to Congress, without reservation by the Constitution, the end or motive of
laying them was left to the discretion of the Legislature. He showed also
that the power to regulate commerce given to that body in the