Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/323

304 the people, was a peaceable and constitutional modification of the tariff. The tariff was made the ostensible object, when a separation of the union by the Potomac, and a southern confederacy, was the true one. The proclamation drew the attention of the people to the subject, and from Maine to Louisiana, the united voice of the people repudiated the absurd and wicked doctrine of nullification and secession, and the advices of today inform us that South Carolina has repealed her ordinance and all the laws based upon it. Thus dies nullification and the doctrine of secession, never more to be heard of, only in holding up to scorn and indignation its projectors and abettors, and handing them down to posterity as traitors to the best of governments.

The Wilkins bill received far more attention than did the tariff law. The nullification leaders pointed out that the question had assumed a different form; that the issue now was between a consolidated government, exercising the powers claimed under the bloody bill, trampling down the authorities and rights of the states, and a confederacy of sovereignties. They predicted that the new issue would unite the South, and that the South united would triumph or be forced to submit to an irresponsible despotism. John C. Calhoun believed that a consolidated government