Аст REQUIRING OATH.

Time for Oath to be taken.

Time for military officers to

take the Oath.

When the

require the Oath to be taken.

Court of Common Pleas, or Commissioner in Equity, for the District in which the officer resides, and in all other cases the certificate shall be lodged in the office of the Secretary of State.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That every Judge of the Court of Appeals, Judge of the Circuit Court, Chancellor, and Recorder of the City Court of Charleston, now in office, shall take the said oath, at or before the time when he shall sit in judgment upon any case or matter, civil or criminal, at Chambers or in open Court, in which shall be in question, directly or indirectly, the aforesaid Ordinance, or any Act or Acts of the Legislature that may be passed in pursuance thereof: And every civil officer who held his office at the passing of the said Ordinance, shall take the said oath, before, or at the time when, in the execution of his office, he may be required to perform any duty consequent upon, or in any wise connected with the said Ordinance, or any Act of the Legisla ture passed in pursuance thereof, except the administering of an oath, or filing a certificate under this act.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That every military officer, who held his office at the passing of the said Ordinance, shall take the said oath, before, or at the time, when he shall be called into service, under any Act of the Legislature passed in pursuance of the said Ordinance, or for carrying the same into effect.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That the Governor may, whenevGovernor may er in his opinion the public interests demand it, by Proclamation, require all, or any particular officers, civil or military, within the State, or within any particular District thereof, to take the said oath, within not less than one week from the publication of the Proclamation, in the District in which such officer may be, and such officer shall take the oath within the time required by the said Proclamation; and on refusal, neglect or omission to do so, by any such officer, his office shall be vacated. In the Senate House, the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, and the fifty-seventh year of the Independence of the United States of America.

H. DEAS, President of the Senate.

H. L. PINCKNEY, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

See Sect. 10 of the act to provide for the Military organization of the State, passed 19th

Dec. 1833, and the cases on allegiance, 2 Hill's Rep. p. I.

DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE CONVENTION.

SECOND SESSION, WHICH BEGAN MARCH 11, 1833.

[1.}

LETTER FROM THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE

CONVENTION.

TO JAMES HAMILTON, Jun. Esq.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
Columbia, March 11, 1833.

President of the Convention of the People of South Carolina.

SIR-I herewith transmit you a letter which I have received from the Hon. Benjamin Watkins Leigh, Commissioner from the State of Virginia, which, together with the Correspondence in relation to Mr. Leigh's Misgion, and the Resolutions of Virginia, of which he is the bearer, you are requested to lay before the Assembly over which you preside.

am very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

SIR-Having, at our first interview, presented you the Resolutions of the General Assembly of Virginia of the 26th January last, on the subject of Federal Relations, I have now to request your Excellency to lay those Resolutions before the Convention of the People of South Carolina, which, at my instance, has been re-assembled for the purpose of considering them.

The General Assembly of Virginia has expressed, in its own language, its sentiments concerning the unhappy controversy between the State of South Carolina and the Federal Government, and its motives, its views VOL. I.-48.

DOCUMENTS. 1833.

CONVENTION and object, in making this intercession. In these respects, therefore, the Commissioner it has thought proper to depute to South Carolina, can have nothing to add, and nothing even to explain. The duty presented to him is simple and precise. He is instructed to communicate the Preamble and Resolutions to the proper Authorities of this State, and "to give them such direction as in his judgment may be best calculated to promote the objects which the Legislature of Virginia has in view:" and this part of his duty he has already, by the prompt and cordial compliance of those Authorities, had the happiness to accomplish, to the entire satisfaction (as he has reason to believe) of the Legislature of Virginia. And he is further instructed and "authorized to express to the public Authorities and People of this, our sister State, the sincere good will of the Legislature and People of Virginia, towards their sister State, and their anxious solicitude that the kind and respectful representations they have addressed to her, may lead to an accommodation of the differences between this State and the General Government."

:

Virginia is animated with an ardent and devoted attachment to the Union of the States, and to the rights of the several States that compose the Union and if similarity of situation and of interests naturally induce her to sympathize, with peculiar sensibility, in whatever effects the prosperity and happiness of South Carolina, and the other Southern States, she knows how to reconcile this sentiment with her affection and duty towards each and every other State, severally, and towards the United States. She is most solicitous to maintain and preserve our present institutions, which, though they partake of imperfection, from which no human institutions can ever be exempt, and notwithstanding some instances of mal-administration or error, to which all governments are liable, are yet, as she confidently believes, the happiest frame of polity that is now or ever has been enjoyed by any people-to maintain and preserve the whole, and every part of these institutions, in full vigor and purity; to uphold the Union, and the States; to maintain the Federal Government in all its just powers, administered according to the pure principles of the Constitution, without the least departure from the limitations prescribed by the compact, fairly understood; and the State Governments in all their rights and authority, as absolutely necessary to the good government and happiness of their respective citizens. Consolidation and disunion are alike abhorrent from her affections and her judgment—the one involving, at the least, a forfeiture of the manifold advantages and blessings so long and so generally felt and acknowledged to have been derived from the Union; and the other having an apparent, perhaps inevitable tendency to military despotism. And she is apprehensive, for reasons too obvious to need particular mention, that in case any differences between the Federal Government and the States shall ever be brought to the arbitrament of force, the result, let it be what it may, must effect such a change in our existing institutions as cannot but be evil, since it would be a change from those forms of government which we have experienced to be good, and under which we have certainly been, in the main, free, prosperous, contented and happy. Therefore, in the present controversy between the Federal Government and the State of South Carolina, she deprecates any resort to force by either, and is sanguine in the hope, that, with proper moderation and forbearance on both sides, this controversy may be adjusted (as all our controversies hitherto have been) by the influence of truth, reason and justice.

Virginia, remembering the history of South Carolina, her services in war and in peace, and her contributions of virtue and intelligence to the

DOCUMENTS.

1833.

common councils of the Union, and knowing well the generosity, the CONVENTION magnanimity, and the loyalty of her character, entertained the most perfect confidence, that these sentiments, so cherished by herself, would find a response in the heart and understanding of every citizen of this State. And that confidence induced her intercession on the present occcasion. She has not presumed to dictate, or even to advise. She has addressed her entreaty to the Congress of the United States, to redress the grievance of which South Carolina complains. And she has spoken to South Carolina also, as one Sovereign State, as one State of this Union, ought to speak to another. She has earnestly, affectionately, and respectfully requested and entreated South Carolina "to rescind or suspend her late Ordinance, and to await the result of a combined and strenuous effort of the friends of Union and Peace, to effect an adjustment and conciliation of all public differences now unhappily existing." She well hoped, that this State "would listen willingly and respectfully to her voice;" for she knew and felt that South Carolina could not descend from the dignity, and would nowise compromit the rights of her sovereignty, by yielding to the intercession of a sister State.

If, therefore, no other considerations could have been presented to the Convention of the People of South Carolina, if no other motives for compliance could have been suggested, than the intercession of Virginia, offered in the temper and manner it has been, and the interest we all have in the Union, the common attachment we feel for our tried republican institutions, the aversion from civil discord and commotion, and the wise and just dread of changes of which no sacacity can foresee the consequences-it might have been hoped and expected, that the Convention would rescind, or at least suspend for a time, its late Ordi

nance.

But, in truth, the Convention comes now to a consideration of this subject, under a state of circumstances not anticipated by Virginia when she interposed her good offices to promote a peaceable adjustment of the controversy between this State and the Federal Government. There has been made that "combined and strenuous effort of the friends of peace and union, to effect an adjustment and conciliation" of this controversythe result of which South Carolina was requested and expected to awaitand that effort, it is hoped, will prove successful. The recent act of Congress, "to modify the act of the 14th July, 1832, and all other acts imposing duties on imports," is such a modification of the tariff laws as (I trust) will leave little room for hesitation on the part of the Convention of the People of South Carolina, as to the wisdom and propriety of rescinding its Ordinance.

Forbearing, therefore, to enter at large into the many and forcible considerations of justice and policy, which, independently of this measure of Congress, might, I humbly conceive, have sufficed to induce the Convention to suspend, if not to rescind the Ordinance, I shall rest in the hope, that the wisdom of the Convention will adopt, at once, the course which the dignity and patriotism of South Carolina, her attachment to the Union, so constantly expressed, and manifested by her deeds, her duty to herself and towards her sister States, and (I hope I may add, without presumption) her respect for the intercession of Virginia, shall dictate to be proper; and that that course will lead to a renewal of perfect harmony.

Sensible as I am, how little any effort of mine has or could have contributed to the result I now anticipate, I shall be well content with the honor of having been the bearer of the Resolutions of Virginia, and of a

CONVENTION favorable answer to them-happy in being the humblest instrument of DOCUMENTS. such a work.

1833.

I have the honor to be, with profound respect,

Your most obedient servant,

B. W. LEIGH.

To His Excellency ROBERT Y. HAYNE,

Governor of South Carolina.

[II.]

LETTER FROM THE GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA TO THE GOVERNOR OF SOUTH

CAROLINA.

VIRGINIA.

EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT,
January 26, 1833.

To His Excellency,

ROBERT Y. HAYNE.

SIR-This will be delivered to you by the Hon. Benjamin Watkins Leigh, a distinguished citizen of Virginia, who has been elected by the General Assembly, a Commissioner of this State, to the State of South Carolina, in conformity to a Preamble and Resolutions on the subject of Federal Relations, this day adopted by the General Assembly of Virginia.

Mr. Leigh will make known to you any further views, that may be entertained, on the subject of the Preamble and Resolutions.

I have the honor to be,

With high consideration and respect,

Your Excellency's most obedient servant,

JOHN FLOYD.