Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/318

Rh abnegation of all other allegiance from the moment it was taken. It would be a contradiction to subscribe at the same time to an oath of paramount allegiance to the state and an oath of paramount allegiance to the United States.

It was toward the end of the session of the convention that the oath question came up. The debate became bitter and so personal that on a Saturday evening it was suggested that adjournment be taken over Sunday, "to hear prayers and cool off." On the following Monday, since the Nullifiers were not able to agree among themselves, the convention agreed as a compromise to refer the entire question of oaths to the legislature. This satisfied neither the radical Nullifiers, who wanted the convention to prescribe the oath at once, nor the Union men, who wanted the whole matter dropped now and forever. This grant of power by the convention to the legislature to settle the matter was decried by the Union men as a provision to disfranchise, keep out of office, and "chain to the chariot wheels of a crowd of despots who ruled the madness of the hour" nearly half the citizens of the state. It was held to be "an odious and tyrannical usurpation,"