Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/345

326 contained in the constitution. The convention itself, they said, could not have amended the constitution unless it had been elected by the people for this particular purpose. At all events, they declared, it must be admitted that they could not delegate their power of amendment; yet when they authorized the legislature to impose the new oaths they undertook to delegate authority to alter the constitution, where an oath of fidelity to the state was already imposed; it therefore followed that the legislature could not pass a law imposing a new oath on the military officers of the state, pretending to derive their right to do this" from the convention. The Nullifiers in answer attacked the Union party for now objecting that the convention went beyond its true power, when in objecting to the call of the convention the Unionists had asserted that the convention would be all-powerful. The Union presses then answered that it had been argued that a convention might act as if it were omnipotent, but not that it would have the right so to act, and that the event had justified the fears of its opponents.

In the upper part of the state, in the mountainous districts and in Greenville especially, the