298 ANDREW JACKSON 



lina ; all state officers and jurors were required to take 

 an oath of obedience to this edict; appeals to the 

 federal Supreme Court were prohibited under penal- 

 ties ; and the federal government was warned that 

 an attempt on its part to enforce the revenue laws 

 would immediately provoke South Carolina to secede 

 from the Union. The ordinance of nullification 

 was to take effect on the ist of February, 1833, and 

 preparations for war were begun at once. On the 

 1 6th December the President issued a proclamation 

 in which he declared that he should enforce the laws 

 in spite of any and all resistance that might be 

 made ; and he showed that he was in earnest by 

 forthwith sending Lieutenant David Farragut with 

 a naval force to Charleston harbour and ordering 

 General Scott to have troops ready to enter South 

 Carolina if necessary. In the proclamation, which 

 was written by Livingston, the President thus de- 

 fined his position : l " I consider the power to annul 

 a law of the United States, assumed by one state, 

 incompatible with the existence of the Union, con- 

 tradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, 

 unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every 

 principle on which it was founded, and destructive of 

 the great object for which it was formed." Governor 

 Hayne of South Carolina issued a counter-proclama- 

 tion, and a few days afterward Calhoun resigned the 

 vice-presidency and was chosen to succeed Hayne in 

 the senate. Jackson's resolute attitude was approved 



1 Mrs. Elizabeth B. Lee in her letter to Colonel Gantt, quoted on 

 pages 292-294, wrote, " My Father said to me that the Nullification Procla- 

 mation as first drafted by General Jackson was a far more able paper 

 than the polished substitute based on it and written by Mr. Livingston 

 and adopted by the President." 



