Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/234

Rh in any state court, in any case in which the ordinance or acts of the legislature were questioned, unless he should take such an oath. It announced for the people of South Carolina that they would not submit to the use of force by the federal government to reduce the state to obedience; that they would consider the passage by Congress of any act authorizing the employment of a military or naval force against the state or her citizens—

or any other act on the part of the federal government to coerce the state, shut up her ports, destroy or harrass her commerce, or to enforce the acts hereby declared to be null and void, otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union; and that the people of this state will henceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of other states, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent states may of right do.

An address to the people of South Carolina, written by Robert J. Turnbull, was intended for the benefit of the Union men. It first stated that nullification was a natural, sovereign, reserved right, and then attempted to answer the various