preserve their political connection with the people of the other
States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government
and to do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent
states may of right do.

This solemn denunciation of the laws and authority of the United States
has been followed up by a series of acts on the part of the authorities
of that State which manifest a determination to render inevitable a
resort to those measures of self-defense which the paramount duty of the
Federal Government requires, but upon the adoption of which that State
will proceed to execute the purpose it has avowed in this ordinance of
withdrawing from the Union.

On the 27th of November the legislature assembled at Columbia, and on
their meeting the governor laid before them the ordinance of the
convention. In his message on that occasion he acquaints them that "this
ordinance has thus become a part of the fundamental law of South
Carolina;" that "the die has been at last cast, and South Carolina has
at length appealed to her ulterior sovereignty as a member of this
Confederacy and has planted herself on her reserved rights. The rightful
exercise of this power is not a question which we shall any longer
argue. It is sufficient that she has willed it, and that the act is
done; nor is its strict compatibility with our constitutional obligation
to all laws passed by the General Government within the authorized
grants of power to be drawn in question when this interposition is
exerted in a case in which the compact has been palpably, deliberately,
and dangerously violated. That it brings up a conjuncture of deep and
momentous interest is neither to be concealed nor denied. This crisis
presents a class of duties which is referable to yourselves. You have
been commanded by the people in their highest sovereignty to take care
that within the limits of this State their will shall be obeyed." "The
measure of legislation," he says, "which you have to employ at this
crisis is the precise amount of such enactments as may be necessary to
render it utterly impossible to collect within our limits the duties
imposed by the protective tariffs thus nullified."

He proceeds:

That you should arm every citizen with a civil process by which he
may claim, if he pleases, a restitution of his goods seized under
the existing imposts on his giving security to abide the issue of a
suit at law, and