Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/98

 them to hear so much of her right to do so and still remain a component portion of the confederacy. The act itself was revolution, and she must either conquer or be conquered by the Union; or the Union must peaceably acquiesce in the separation, and the state must become an independent and disconnected sovereignty.

If the "good people of South Carolina" had made up their minds that the time had arrived when the Union was in point of fact of no " value." ; that actual separation and war were preferable to any further endurance of congressional usurpation and injustice; then let them so declare themselves and act accordingly. The Union men pledged themselves to sink or swim in the storm with the people of the state, but they insisted that the people exercise no self-deception about it. Let things be called by their true names and followed out to their legitimate consequences. It would be worse than idle to argue that such an act was anything but revolution.