Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/355

336 thought that the ultra-consolidation opinions of O'Neall and Johnson justified immediate and severe rebuke. Some talked of an immediate call of the legislature to remove the judges. Others thought the governor ought to nullify the decision by withholding commissions. Some of the presses at once began and continued for some time an abusive tirade against the Union judges. Some there were who thought that the convention had committed an error in discussing the oath and in giving it an importance that it would not otherwise have had; that the legislature had made a greater error in passing it in the military bill; and that the greatest of all errors would be to attempt to retrieve by calling an extra session of the legislature to remove the judges. Some even admitted that the judges were right in their decision, but felt that the doctrines put forth by Johnson and O'Neall were uncalled for and so extreme as to demand the removal of these judges in a quiet way at least.

State Rights meetings were held in many quarters to denounce the decision of the court as