the blood of her
citizens, shed in her defense, I trust in Almighty God * * * even should
she stand alone in this great struggle for constitutional liberty,
encompassed by her enemies, that there will not be found, in the wide
limits of the State, one recreant son who will not fly to the rescue,
and be ready to lay down his life in her defense." In support of the
contemplated treason, he even went to the length of calling for an
enrolling of volunteer forces and of holding them ready for service.

But while South Carolina stood in this treasonable and defiant attitude,
arming for war against the Union, there happened to be in the
Presidential chair one of her own sons--General Jackson. Foreseeing
what was coming, he had, prior to the meeting of the Convention that
framed the Nullification Ordinance, ordered General Scott to Charleston
to look after "the safety of the ports of the United States"
thereabouts, and had sent to the Collector of that port precise
instructions as to his duty to resist in all ways any and all attempts
made under such Ordinance to defeat the operation of the Tariff laws
aforesaid. Having thus quietly prepared the arm of the General
Government for the exercise of its power, he issued in December a
Proclamation declaring his unalterable resolution to treat Nullification
as Treason--and to crush it.

In that famous document President Jackson said of Nullification: "If
this doctrine had been established at an earlier day, the Union would
have been dissolved in its infancy. The Excise law in Pennsylvania, the
Embargo and Non-intercourse law in the Eastern States, the Carriage-tax
in Virginia, were all deemed unconstitutional, and were more unequal in
their operation than any of the laws now complained of; but fortunately,
none of those States discovered that they had the right now claimed by
South Carolina. * * * The discovery of this important feature in our
Constitution was reserved for the present day. To the statesmen of
South Carolina belongs the invention, and upon the citizens of that
State will unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it to practice. * *
* I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States,
assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union,
contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized
by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded
and destructive of the great object for which it was form