Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/93

 whole machinery of government was to stop until a federal convention could be called.

Suppose war were declared and the little state of Rhode Island, seeing that her commerce was about to be cut off and ruined thereby, should say the war was unconstitutional and put her veto on it; this would end the matter until a convention could be called. In the meantime the enemy would be free to range the country and to leave it when he saw fit. The friends of nullification might suppose, however, that a generous foe would wait until the federal convention could settle the constitutionality of the war. But if the votes of three-fourths of the states could not be obtained in favor of the war, the government would have to surrender at discretion to the enemy. The Union men doubted very much whether this would not have been found literally true during the War of 1812 when the Hartford Convention assembled. At that time one-fourth of the states were opposed to the war and could have put an end to it. It could not be said that a division of opinion could never arise as to so plain a matter as the legality of a war, said the Union men, for the people of New England would no doubt have raised that very question during the War of 1812 if they