US Presidency
1833

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.