And besides the Proclamation there was the "Force Bill," which rested upon the same theory of the political system of the country as the Proclamation. The Congress as well as the President was now inculcating the national doctrine. Calhoun and his friends knew what an influence this would exert. He said that he and they would never rest content until this measure was expunged from among the Acts of Congress.
It is true that the passage of the new Tariff Act appeared to take the virtue out of the Proclamation and the "Force Bill;" but it is not at all probable that the nullifiers would have retreated from their ground so promptly, to say the least, except for the determined { 241} words of the President and the Congress, and the popular approval with which they were received; and it is almost certain that, when it came to the great crisis, twenty-eight years later, the people would not have understood and supported the great principle that the general Government has the right of self-preservation, in the exercise of all its powers, throughout the whole territory of the Union, against everything and everybody but the sovereign nation itself, except for the great education in national principles which they received from the Proclamation, and through the enactment of the law which gave the sanction of Congress to the enforcement of its principles.
The Philosophy of Abolition--William Lloyd Garrison--The Civil Status under the Constitution of 1787--Points at which Slavery Could be Legally Attacked--Garrison's Methods--The Southampton Massacre--The Attempt to Suppress the Abolition Movement at the North--Growth of the Abolition Movement--The Methods of the Moderate Abolitionists--The Abolition Petitions--The Earlier Method of Dealing with the Petitions--Beginning of the Conflict over the Abolition Petitions--The New Method for Dealing with Petitions in the House of Representatives--True View of the Right of Petition--Mr. Polk's Fatal Error in Regard to the Right of Petition--The Pinckney Resolutions--The New Rule of the House of Representatives in Regard to the Abolition Petitions--The Increase of Petitions, and the Denunciation of the Pinckney Rule--The Final Denial of the Right of Petition on the Subject of Slavery by the House of Representatives--The Abolition Petitions in the Senate--Mr. Rives and Mr. Calhoun in Regard to the Morality of Slavery--Mr. Calhoun's Resolutions in Regard to the Political Relations of Slavery--The Anti-Slavery Petition from the Vermont Legislature--The Abolition Documents and the United States Mails--The Postmaster-General's Ruling in Regard to the Abolition Documents in the Mails--Jackson on the Use of the Mails by the Abolitionists--Mr. Calhoun's Report and Bill on the Subject--Clay's Criticism of Calhoun's Proposition--The Act of Congress Protecting the Abolition Documents in the Mails--General Results of the Struggle over the Right of Petition and the Freedom of the Mails.