Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/53

 bring repentance and submission; secondly, to appeal to a convention of the states and thereby obtain a decision on the constitutional question; or, thirdly, to use direct coercion with the bayonet. As to the first, consideration of the commercial tribute South Carolina was paying would prevent its use. The third would destroy the Union and was but a wild speculation, unworthy of serious thought. The second was, he believed, the remedy which would be applied. If three- fourths of the states should decide for the tariff, then South Carolina, resting on her sovereignty, could decide whether to join a confederacy in which the prohibitory system was sanctioned by the very Constitution of the Union. But he confidently believed that the tariff would be rejected and that a purified Constitution would be the result.

Many looked eagerly to the session of the state legislature to point out the way for the state. These were doomed to disappointment. In 1824 Judge Samuel Prioleau, as chairman of a committee to which was referred the part of