Source: President
Jackson Denounces Nullification
December 10, 1832
A small majority of the
citizens of one State in the Union have elected delegates to a State
convention; that convention has ordained that all the revenue laws of the
United States must be repealed, or that they are no longer a member of the
Union. The governor of that State has recommended to the legislature the
raising of an army to carry the secession into effect, and that he may be
empowered to give clearances to vessels in the name of the State. No act of
violent opposition to the laws has yet been committed, but such a state of
things is hourly apprehended. And it is the intent of this instrument to
proclaim, not only that the duty imposed on me by the Constitution "to
take care that the laws be faithfully executed" shall be performed to the
extent of the powers already vested in me by law, or of such others as the
wisdom of Congress shall devise and intrust to me for
that purpose, but to warn the citizens of South Carolina who have been deluded
into an opposition to the laws of the danger they will incur by obedience to
the illegal and disorganizing ordinance of the convention; to exhort those who
have refused to support it to persevere in their determination to uphold the
Constitution and laws of their country; and to point out to all the perilous
situation into which the good people of that State have been led.