Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/138

 CHAPTER IV

A YEAR OF CAMPAIGNING (1831)

The leaders of the State Rights party, although defeated in their attempt to procure a convention, had interpreted the legislature's vote on the resolutions, especially the sixth, to mean that the legislature would be prepared to act as soon as the members then in doubt had lost all hope of redress from Congress. Thenceforward their program was to draw from the work of Congress lessons of misplaced confidence, preach against the tariff with renewed vigor, and thus to try to prepare the people for positive action. By this process many recruits were gained.

To Calhoun it appeared certain that the general government would not relax its hold unless compelled to do so; and it could not be forced to this action unless the South should unite in earnest and vigorous pressure, which he thought it almost hopeless to expect so long as Jackson maintained his popularity and his straddle on the tariff, unless one of the states should nullify the tariff acts. He therefore concluded that South 119