Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/237

218 the State Rights delegates adopted these measures unhesitatingly, confident that they were doing the bidding of the people expressed by their election. The convention was composed generally of men who had advanced to middle life or beyond it. There were but few young men, probably not one under twenty-five, and very few under thirty; there were several who had served in the Revolutionary War. The wealth of the state was well represented. Of talent, no one would deny that the convention could boast of a large share, for the papers adopted by the convention were pronounced, even by men of the opposition, as among the most able they had ever read.

The state legislature convened immediately after the convention adjourned, and proceeded to pass the acts necessary to carry the ordinance of nullification into effect. The governor's message had in it several features which called forth bitter resentment from the Union men. It was pronounced by them such a document as would harmonize with the acknowledged attributes of an "Eastern Despot, haughtily addressing his slaves," for it bore no feature which would entitle