Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/324

Rh had indeed been established by law under the force act and that unless there should be a complete reaction which would repeal that act and completely reform the government, the South must expect and prepare to sink under corruption and despotism. His hope of avoiding this catastrophe was placed in the agency of state rights to be used by the southern states as South Carolina had employed them against the tariff. To the State Rights party it seemed that the force act was destined to be the dividing line between the Republicans and the Federalists, as were the Alien and Sedition laws in former days. The present federalism, they believed, had assumed a bolder tone than that of an earlier time, for it had come out in open advocacy of a government without limitation of powers and even dared to place the purse and the sword of the nation in the hands of a single individual, to be used at his discretion.

Some of the President's closest political sympathizers believed that he had been too hasty in his message asking for the force bill; that his message and the bill should not have appeared