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P R O C L A M A T I O N T O T H E P E O P L E

O F T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S

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–––––––––––––––––––––– Andrew Jackson ––––––––––––––––––––––

…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.…

This, then, is the position in which we stand: 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repealed, or that they are no longer a member of the Union.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, and that the course they are urged to pursue is one of

ruin and disgrace to the very State whose rights they affect to support.

Fellow-citizens of my native State, let me not only admonish you, as the First

Magistrate of our common country, not to incur the penalty of its laws, but use the

influence that a father would over his children whom he saw rushing to certain

ruin. In that paternal language, with that paternal feeling, let me tell you, my

countrymen, that you are deluded by men who are either deceived themselves or

wish to deceive you. Mark under what pretenses you have been led on to the brink

of insurrection and treason on which you stand. First, a diminution of the value of

your staple commodity, lowered by overproduction in other quarters, and the

consequent diminution in the value of your lands were the sole effect of the tariff

laws. The effect of those laws was confessedly injurious, but the evil was greatly

exaggerated by the unfounded theory you were taught to believe—that its burthens

were in proportion to your exports, not to your consumption of imported articles.

Your pride was roused by the assertion that a submission to those laws was a state

of vassalage and that resistance to them was equal in patriotic merit to the

opposition our fathers offered to the oppressive laws of Great Britain. You were

told that this opposition might be peaceably, might be constitutionally, made; that

you might enjoy all the advantages of the Union and bear none of its burthens.

Eloquent appeals to your passions, to your State pride, to your native courage, to

your sense of real injury, were used to prepare you for the period when the mask

which concealed the hideous features of disunion should be taken off. It fell, and

you were made to look with complacency on objects which not long since you

would have regarded with horror. Look back to the arts which have brought you

to this state; look forward to the consequences to which it must inevitably lead!

Look back to what was first told you as an inducement to enter into this

dangerous course. The great political truth was repeated to you that you had the

revolutionary right of resisting all laws that were palpably unconstitutional and

intolerably oppressive. It was added that the right to nullify a law rested on the

same principle, but that it was a peaceable remedy. This character which was given

to it made you receive with too much confidence the assertions that were made of

the unconstitutionality of the law and its oppressive effects. Mark, my fellowcitizens,

that by the admission of your leaders the unconstitutionality must be

palpable, or it will not justify either resistance or nullification. What is the meaning

of the word palpable in the sense in which it is here used? That which is apparent

to everyone; that which no man of ordinary intellect will fail to perceive. Is the

unconstitutionality of these laws of that description? Let those among your leaders

who once approved and advocated the principle of protective duties answer the

question; and let them choose whether they will be considered as incapable then

of perceiving that which must have been apparent to every man of common

understanding, or as imposing upon your confidence and endeavoring to mislead

you now. In either case they are unsafe guides in the perilous path they urge you to

tread. Ponder well on this circumstance, and you will know how to appreciate the

exaggerated language they address to you. They are not champions of liberty,

emulating the fame of our Revolutionary fathers, nor are you an oppressed people,

contending, as they repeat to you, against worse than colonial vassalage. You are

free members of a flourishing and happy Union. There is no settled design to

oppress you. You have indeed felt the unequal operation of laws which may have

been unwisely, not unconstitutionally, passed; but that inequality must necessarily

be removed. At the very moment when you were madly urged on to the

unfortunate course you have begun a change in public opinion had commenced.

The nearly approaching payment of the public debt and the consequent necessity

of a diminution of duties had already produced a considerable reduction, and that,

too, on some articles of general consumption in your State. The importance of this

change was underrated, and you were authoritatively told that no further

alleviation of your burthens was to be expected at the very time when the

condition of the country imperiously demanded such a modification of the duties

as should reduce them to a just and equitable scale. But, as if apprehensive of the

effect of this change in allaying your discontents, you were precipitated into the

fearful state in which you now find yourselves.

I have urged you to look back to the means that were used to hurry you on to

the position you have now assumed and forward to the consequences it will

produce. Something more is necessary. Contemplate the condition of that country

of which you still form an important part. Consider its Government, uniting in one

bond of common interest and general protection so many different States, giving to

all their inhabitants the proud title of American citizen, protecting their commerce,

securing their literature and their arts, facilitating their intercommunication,

defending their frontiers, and making their name respected in the remotest parts of

the earth. Consider the extent of its territory, its increasing and happy population,

its advance in arts which render life agreeable, and the sciences which elevate the

mind! See education spreading the lights of religion, morality, and general

information into every cottage in this wide extent of our Territories and States.

Behold it as the asylum where the wretched and the oppressed find a refuge and

support. Look on this picture of happiness and honor and say, We too are citizens

of America. Carolina is one of these proud States; her arms have defended, her best

blood has cemented, this happy Union. And then add, if you can, without horror

and remorse, This happy Union we will dissolve; this picture of peace and

prosperity we will deface; this free intercourse we will interrupt; these fertile fields

we will deluge with blood; the protection of that glorious flag we renounce; the

very name of Americans we discard. And for what, mistaken men? For what do

you throw away these inestimable blessings? For what would you exchange your

share in the advantages and honor of the Union? For the dream of a separate

independence—a dream interrupted by bloody conflicts with your neighbors and a

vile dependence on a foreign power. If your leaders could succeed in establishing

a separation, what would be your situation? Are you united at home? Are you free

from the apprehension of civil discord, with all its fearful consequences? Do our

neighboring republics, every day suffering some new revolution or contending with

some new insurrection, do they excite your envy? But the dictates of a high duty

oblige me solemnly to announce that you can not succeed. The laws of the United

States must be executed. I have no discretionary power on the subject; my duty is

emphatically pronounced in the Constitution. Those who told you that you might

peaceably prevent their execution deceived you; they could not have been deceived

themselves. They know that a forcible opposition could alone prevent the

execution of the laws, and they know that such opposition must be repelled.

Their object is disunion. But be not deceived by names. Disunion by armed force

is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you are, on the heads of the

instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences; on their heads be the dishonor,

but on yours may fall the punishment. On your unhappy State will inevitably fall

all the evils of the conflict you force upon the Government of your country. It can

not accede to the mad project of disunion, of which you would be the first victims.

Its First Magistrate can not, if he would avoid the performance of his duty. The

consequence must be fearful for you, distressing to your fellow-citizens here and to

the friends of good government throughout the world. Its enemies have beheld our

prosperity with a vexation they could not conceal; it was a standing refutation of

their slavish doctrines, and they will point to our discord with the triumph of

malignant joy. It is yet in your power to disappoint them. There is yet time to show

that the descendants of the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Rutledges, and of the

thousand other names which adorn the pages of your Revolutionary history will

not abandon that Union to support which so many of them fought and bled and

died. I adjure you, as you honor their memory, as you love the cause of freedom,

to which they dedicated their lives, as you prize the peace of your country, the lives

of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the

archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its convention; bid its members to

reassemble and promulgate the decided expressions of your will to remain in the

path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor. Tell them that

compared to disunion all other evils are light, because that brings with it an

accumulation of all. Declare that you will never take the field unless the starspangled

banner of your country shall float over you; that you will not be

stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and scorned while you live, as the authors

of the first attack on the Constitution of your country. Its destroyers you can not

be. You may disturb its peace, you may interrupt the course of its prosperity, you

may cloud its reputation for stability; but its tranquillity will be restored, its

prosperity will return, and the stain upon its national character will be transferred

and remain an eternal blot on the memory of those who caused the disorder.…

Fellow-citizens, the momentous case is before you. On your undivided support

of your Government depends the decision of the great question it involves—

whether your sacred Union will be preserved and the blessing it secures to us as

one people shall be perpetuated. No one can doubt that the unanimity with which

that decision will be expressed will be such as to inspire new confidence in

republican institutions, and that the prudence, the wisdom, and the courage which

it will bring to their defense will transmit them unimpaired and invigorated to our

children.

May the Great Ruler of Nations grant that the signal blessings with which He

has favored ours may not, by the madness of party or personal ambition, be

disregarded and lost; and may His wise providence bring those who have produced

this crisis to see the folly before they feel the misery of civil strife, and inspire a

returning veneration for that Union which, if we may dare to penetrate His

designs, He has chosen as the only means of attaining the high destinies to which

we may reasonably aspire.

In testimony whereof I have caused the seal of the United States to be hereunto

affixed, having signed the same with my hand. Done at the city of Washington,

this 10th day of December, A. D. 1832, and of the Independence of the United

States the fifty-seventh.

ANDREW JACKSON.