ts," the existence of which would
have made those States prosperous. But such admissions were unwilling
ones, and the Cotton-lords held only with the more tenacity to the view
that the Tariff was the chief cause of their condition.

The Tariff Act of 1832, essentially modifying that of 1828, was passed
with a view, in part, to quiet Southern clamor. But the Southern Cotton
States refused to be mollified. On the contrary, the Free Traders of
South Carolina proceeded to extreme measures, putting in action that
which they had before but threatened. On November 19, 1832, the leading
men of South Carolina met in Convention, and a few days thereafter
--[November 24,1882]--unanimously passed an Ordinance of Nullification
which declared the Tariff Acts of 1828 and 1832 "Unauthorized by the
Constitution," and "null, void, and no law, nor binding on this State,
its officers, or citizens." The people of the State were forbidden by
it to pay, after the ensuing February 1st, the import-duties therein
imposed. Under the provisions of the Ordinance, the State Legislature
was to pass an act nullifying these Tariff laws, and any appeal to the
United States Supreme Court against the validity of such nullifying act
was prohibited. Furthermore, in the event of the Federal Government
attempting to enforce these Tariff laws, the people of South Carolina
would thenceforth consider themselves out of the Union, and will
"forthwith proceed to organize a separate Government, and do all other
acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do."

At the subsequent meeting of the Legislature, Mr. Hayne, who had been a
member of the Convention, having resigned his seat in the United States
Senate, was elected Governor of the State. He declared in his message
that he recognized "No allegiance as paramount to that which the
citizens of South Carolina owe to the State of their birth or their
adoption"--that doctrine of "paramount allegiance to the State" which in
after-years gave so much trouble to the Union and to Union-loving
Southerners--and declared that he held himself "bound by the highest of
all obligations to carry into effect, not only the Ordinance of the
Convention, but every act of the Legislature, and every judgment of our
own Courts, the enforcement of which may devolve upon the Executive,"
and "if," continued he, "the sacred soil of Carolina should be polluted
by the footsteps of an invader, or be stained with