us will be dangerous indeed. . . . Something
of the kind was indispensable to the South. On the contrary, if
we should not meet it as we ought, I fear, greatly fear, our _doom_
will be fixed."(51)

Comment is unnecessary, but the letter, almost exultantly, mentions
as fortunate that the Wilmot Proviso was offered, as it gave an
opportunity to unite the South.

It proceeds:

"With this impression, I would regard any compromise or adjustment
of the proviso, _or even its defeat_, without meeting the danger
in its whole length and breadth, as very unfortunate for us.

"This brings up the question, how can it be so met, without resorting
to the dissolution of the Union.

"There is and can be but one remedy short of disunion, and that is
to retaliate on our part by refusing to fulfill the stipulations
in their (other States) favor, or such as we may select, as the
most efficient."

The letter, still proceeding to discuss modes of dissolution or
retaliation against Northern States, declares a convention of
Southern States indispensable, and their co-operation absolutely
essential to success, and says:

"Let that be called, and let it adopt measures to bring about the
co-operation, and I would underwrite for the rest. The non-
slaveholding States would be compelled to observe the stipulations
of the Constitution _in our favor_, or abandon their trade with
us, _or to take measures to coerce us_, which would throw on them
the responsibility of dissolving the Union. Their unbounded avarice
would in the end control them."(52)

It is certain that President Jackson's heroic proclamation of
December, 1832, aborted the project of nullification under the
South Carolina Ordinance, and certain it is, also, that the
disappointed leaders of it turned from a protective tariff as a
ground for it, to what they regarded as a better excuse, to wit:
A slavery agitation, generated out of false alarms in the slave
States.

After the tariff compromise of 1833, in which Calhoun sullenly
acquiesced, he returned home and immediately announced that the
South would never unite against the North on the tariff question,
--"That the sugar interest of Louisiana would keep her out,--and
consequently the basis of Southern union must be shifted to the
slave question," which was then accordingly done.(53)

Jackson, discussing nullification, is reported to have said:

"It was the _tariff_ this time; next time it will be the _negro_."

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