ed only by
the sword.

In deciding upon the course which a high sense of duty to all the people
of the United States imposes upon the authorities of the Union in this
emergency, it can not be overlooked that there is no sufficient cause
for the acts of South Carolina, or for her thus placing in jeopardy the
happiness of so many millions of people. Misrule and oppression, to
warrant the disruption of the free institutions of the Union of these
States, should be great and lasting, defying all other remedy. For
causes of minor character the Government could not submit to such a
catastrophe without a violation of its most sacred obligations to the
other States of the Union who have submitted their destiny to its hands.

There is in the present instance no such cause, either in the degree of
misrule or oppression complained of or in the hopelessness of redress by
constitutional means. The long sanction they have received from the
proper authorities and from the people, not less than the unexampled
growth and increasing prosperity of so many millions of freemen, attest
that no such oppression as would justify, or even palliate, such a
resort can be justly imputed either to the present policy or past
measures of the Federal Government.

The same mode of collecting duties, and for the same general objects,
which began with the foundation of the Government, and which has
conducted the country through its subsequent steps to its present
enviable condition of happiness and renown, has not been changed.
Taxation and representation, the great principle of the American
Revolution, have continually gone hand in hand, and at all times and in
every instance no tax of any kind has been imposed without their
participation, and, in some instances which have been complained of,
with the express assent of a part of the representatives of South
Carolina in the councils of the Government. Up to the present period no
revenue has been raised beyond the necessary wants of the country and
the authorized expenditures of the Government; and as soon as the
burthen of the public debt is removed those charged with the
administration have promptly recommended a corresponding reduction of
revenue.

That this system thus pursued has resulted in no such oppression upon
South Carolina needs no other proof than the solemn and official
declaration of the late chief magistrate of that State in his address to
the legislature. In that he says that--