res me to make in regard to your future legislation
may be better understood.

This subject having early attracted the anxious attention of the
Executive, as soon as it was probable that the authorities of South
Carolina seriously meditated resistance to the faithful execution of the
revenue laws it was deemed advisable that the Secretary of the Treasury
should particularly instruct the officers of the United States in that
part of the Union as to the nature of the duties prescribed by the
existing laws.

Instructions were accordingly issued on the 6th of November to the
collectors in that State, pointing out their respective duties and
enjoining upon each a firm and vigilant but discreet performance of them
in the emergency then apprehended.

I herewith transmit copies of these instructions and of the letter
addressed to the district attorney, requesting his cooperation. These
instructions were dictated in the hope that as the opposition to the
laws by the anomalous proceeding of nullification was represented to be
of a pacific nature, to be pursued substantially according to the forms
of the Constitution and without resorting in any event to force or
violence, the measures of its advocates would be taken in conformity
with that profession, and on such supposition the means afforded by the
existing laws would have been adequate to meet any emergency likely to
arise.

It was, however, not possible altogether to suppress apprehension of the
excesses to which the excitement prevailing in that quarter might lead,
but it certainly was not foreseen that the meditated obstruction to the
laws would so soon openly assume its present character.

Subsequently to the date of those instructions, however, the ordinance
of the convention was passed, which, if complied with by the people of
the State, must effectually render inoperative the present revenue laws
within her limits.

That ordinance declares and ordains--

That the several acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the
United States purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and
imposts on the importation of foreign commodities, and now having
operation and effect within the United States, and more especially
"An act in alteration of the several acts imposing duties on
imports," approved on the 19th of May, 1828, and also an act
entitled "An act to alter and amend the several acts imposing duties
on imports," approved on the 1