Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/563

have dictated these terms, or rather this rejection of all terms, in the name of the people of South Carolina. It is true, that the governor of the state speaks of the submission of their grievances to a convention of all the states, which, he says, they 'sincerely and anxiously seek and desire.' Yet this obvious and constitutional mode of obtaining the sense of the other states, on the construction of the federal compact, and amending it, if necessary, has never been attempted by those, who have urged the state on to this destructive measure. The state might have proposed to call for a general convention to the other states; and congress, if a sufficient number of them concurred, must have called it. But the first magistrate of South Carolina, when he expressed a hope, that, 'on a review by congress and the functionaries of the general government of the merits of the controversy,' such a convention will be accorded to them, must have known, that neither congress, nor any functionary of the general government, has authority to call such a convention, unless it be demanded by two thirds of the states. This suggestion, then, is another instance of the reckless inattention to the provisions of the constitution, with which this crisis has been madly hurried on; or of the attempt to persuade the people, that a constitutional remedy had been sought and refused. If the legislature of South Carolina 'anxiously desire' a general convention to consider their complaints, why have they not made application for it, in the way the constitution points out? The assertion, that they 'earnestly seek' it, is completely negatived by the omission."