the
collector at Charleston go on and collect the revenue duties, and use
force if necessary, and he issued a long address to the Nullifiers. On
the one hand, he urged them to yield. On the other, he told them that
"the laws of the United States must be executed.... Those who told you
that you might peacefully prevent their execution deceived you.... Their
object is disunion, and disunion by armed force is treason."

%335. Webster's Great Reply to Calhoun.%--Calhoun, who since 1825 had
been Vice President of the United States, now resigned, and was at once
made senator from South Carolina. When Congress met in December, 1832,
the great question before it was what to do with South Carolina. Jackson
wanted a "Force Act," that is, an act giving him power to collect the
tariff duties by force of arms. Hayne, who was now governor of South
Carolina, declared that if this was done, his state would leave
the Union.

A great debate occurred on the Force Act, in which Calhoun, speaking for
the South, asserted the right of a state to nullify and secede from the
Union, while Webster, speaking for the North, denied the right of
nullification and secession, and upheld the Union and the
Constitution.[1]

[Footnote 1: Johnston's _American Orations_, Vol. I., pp. 196-212;
Webster's _Works_, Vol. III., pp. 248-355, 448-505; Rhodes's _History
of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 50-52.]

%336. The Compromise of 1833%.--Meantime, Henry Clay, seeing how
determined each side was, and fearing civil war might follow, came
forward with a compromise. He proposed that the tariff of 1832 should be
reduced gradually till July, 1842, when on all articles imported there
should be a duty equal to twenty per cent of their value. This was
passed, and the Compromise Tariff, as it is called, became a law in
March, 1833. A new convention in South Carolina then repealed the
ordinance of nullification.

%337. War on the Bank of the United States%.--While South Carolina
was thus fighting internal improvements and the tariff, the whole
Jackson party was fighting the Bank of the United States. You will
remember that this institution was chartered by Congress in 1816; and
its charter was to run till 1836. Among the rights given it was that of
having branches in as many cities in the country as it pleased, and,
exercising this right, it speedily established branches in the chief
cities of the South and West. The South and West were already full of
state ba