Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/181

162 legislature adjourned without doing anything more rash than to pass resolutions in relation to the President's letter.

South Carolina was thus left where she had stood the year before, awaiting the results of the congressional session. The State Rights men made much of their display of forbearance, and justified it on the ground that South Carolina was in duty bound to await the outcome of the memorial of the Philadelphia anti-tariff convention, since she had been so active in that convention and since one of her sons, Judge William Harper, was to be one of its special messengers to Congress. The State Rights men were probably honest in professing that the state's position was what they desired. Be that as it may, the fact remains that the State Rights party had practically no other position open to its choice. Until a new legislature was elected in which the State Rights party should control the two-thirds majority required for calling a convention, the state was not likely to be forced into a more advanced position.