Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/125

 unconstitutional acts." This was adopted by a vote of 90 to 24. The fourth and sixth resolutions were the ones in which the State Rights men took greatest comfort. Although they were not able to get a convention, they had persuaded the legislature to assert in formal resolutions what they claimed to be the doctrine of nullification. This was at least a positive step in advance of the legislative proceedings of 1828.

The Union men now insisted that their victory did not mean that submission was to be the program of the state. They rejoiced that the crude, half-way measure of a convention had failed, and with it an attempt at nullification, which its originators had endeavored to present in such a way as to avoid the responsibilities which might logically be expected to result from its adoption. The Union men now professed themselves ready to adopt any plan by which the South might be relieved, in a way constitutional and expedient, from all or any of the burdens which it was thought she bore. They had simply shown that they would not be driven by excitement to embark upon unknown seas, under the command of Turn-