wise obstructing the free ingress
or egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act of the
Federal Government to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or
harass her commerce, or to enforce the said acts otherwise than through
the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer
continuance of South Carolina in the Union; and that the people of the
said State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further
obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection with the
people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a
separate government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign
and independent States may of right do:

And whereas the said ordinance prescribes to the people of South
Carolina a course of conduct in direct violation of their duty as
citizens of the United States, contrary to the laws of their country,
subversive of its Constitution, and having for its object the
destruction of the Union--that Union, which, coeval with our political
existence, led our fathers, without any other ties to unite them than
those of patriotism and common cause, through a sanguinary struggle to a
glorious independence--that sacred Union, hitherto, inviolate, which,
perfected by our happy Constitution, has brought us, by the favor of
Heaven, to a state of prosperity at home, and high consideration abroad,
rarely, if ever, equaled in the history of nations; to preserve this
bond of our political existence from destruction, to maintain inviolate
this state of national honor and prosperity, and to justify the
confidence my fellow-citizens have reposed in me, I, Andrew Jackson,
President of the United States, have thought proper to issue this, my
PROCLAMATION, stating my views of the Constitution and laws applicable
to the measures adopted by the Convention of South Carolina, and to the
reasons they have put forth to sustain them, declaring the course which
duty will require me to pursue, and, appealing to the understanding and
patriotism of the people, warn them of the consequences that must
inevitably result from an observance of the dictates of the Convention.

Strict duty would require of me nothing more than the exercise of those
powers with which I am now, or may hereafter be, invested, for
preserving the Union, and for the execution of the laws. But the
imposing aspect which opposition has assumed in this case, by clothing
itself with State autho