Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/378

Rh the allegiance they bore to the United States, to the full extent of all the powers conferred by the federal Constitution. And they did not deem it inconsistent with the good faith with which they had accepted this accommodation and intended to maintain it, to declare that while they were swearing to be faithful to the state, they intended "to support the Constitution and laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, as the supreme law of the land."

The Nullifiers of course claimed that the report of the committee though mild and temperate had really conceded nothing. They maintained that this report did not compromise a single principle of those for which their party had contended, but merely was not extreme in the assertion of them. The most influential leaders of the party were willing to adopt the report as submitted if it would give the Union men any satisfaction. Some, however, wanted the allegiance due to the state stated in stronger terms, and an amendment was offered to the effect that the state in her sovereign capacity had the exclusive right to determine what obligations the citizens of South Carolina owed the federal government. It failed, by a vote of 32