Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/218

Rh a separate confederacy should the obnoxious measure not be repealed within a given period. There would be no compact, treaty, or instrument of alliance of any kind attending this first stage of the proceedings. If the tariff states should disregard this plain warning, then the very first proceedings at a subsequent southern convention would be a solemn act of separation. Thus far, accordingly, there was nothing to be adopted in the form of a compact, treaty, or agreement. Such an instrument, declaring the mutual duties and obligations of the contracting parties, in case coercion were attempted, would be the necessary accompaniment of the act of separation and not a measure preceding it.

Langdon Cheves, who was for a time claimed by both parties, came out in favor of the Unionists on this proposal. Cheves believed that the southern states could constitutionally meet in convention to deliberate, if not to act. He believed, moreover, that a union of the aggrieved states and people was the only safe or hopeful measure of redress. The condition of party division in South Carolina appeared to him an