A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 364 pages of information about A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents.

A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 364 pages of information about A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents.

He proceeds: 

That you should arm every citizen with a civil process by which he may claim, if he pleases, a restitution of his goods seized under the existing imposts on his giving security to abide the issue of a suit at law, and at the same time define what shall constitute treason against the State, and by a bill of pains and penalties compel obedience and punish disobedience to your own laws, are points too obvious to require any discussion.  In one word, you must survey the whole ground.  You must look to and provide for all possible contingencies.  In your own limits your own courts of judicature must not only be supreme, but you must look to the ultimate issue of any conflict of jurisdiction and power between them and the courts of the United States.

The governor also asks for power to grant clearances, in violation of the laws of the Union; and to prepare for the alternative which must happen unless the United States shall passively surrender their authority, and the Executive, disregarding his oath, refrain from executing the laws of the Union, he recommends a thorough revision of the militia system, and that the governor “be authorized to accept for the defense of Charleston and its dependencies the services of 2,000 volunteers, either by companies or files,” and that they be formed into a legionary brigade consisting of infantry, riflemen, cavalry, field and heavy artillery, and that they be “armed and equipped from the public arsenals completely for the field, and that appropriations be made for supplying all deficiencies in our munitions of war.”  In addition to these volunteer drafts, he recommends that the governor be authorized “to accept the services of 10,000 volunteers from the other divisions of the State, to be organized and arranged in regiments and brigades, the officers to be selected by the commander in chief, and that this whole force be called the State guard.”

A request has been regularly made of the secretary of state of South Carolina for authentic copies of the acts which have been passed for the purpose of enforcing the ordinance, but up to the date of the latest advices that request had not been complied with, and on the present occasion, therefore, reference can only be made to those acts as published in the newspapers of the State.

The acts to which it is deemed proper to invite the particular attention of Congress are: 

First.  “An act to carry into effect, in part, an ordinance to nullify certain acts of the Congress of the United States purporting to be laws laying duties on the importation of foreign commodities,” passed in convention of this State, at Columbia, on the 24th November, 1832.

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A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.