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Nullification Controversy in South Carolina

and eastern sections, respectively. The latter had control of the assembly by about ten votes. They passed resolutions praising South Carolina's resistance but deploring her methods, denouncing the proclamation, and recommending a general convention in case Congress should not reduce the tariff; they sent a commissioner to South Carolina recoromending less speedy action, and finished their work by returning John Tyler to the United States Senate when L. W. Tazewell resigned; Tyler sympathized with nullification and cast the only vote in the Senate against the force bill. But even this was far short of what the South Carolina Nullifiers had wanted.[1]

The sudden resignation of Tazewell, "connected with other signs of the times," caused Jackson to fear that some secret plan, was being hatched in Virginia. Just before the issue of his proclamation he had received from Virginia an expression of hope that he would not be too severe with South Carolina. After the Virginia action following the proclamation, Jackson asserted that he had been "aware of the combination between them and Calhoun & Co.," and that

  1. Charles H. Ambler, Thomas Ritchie, chap. v; also his Sectionalism in Virginia from 1776 to 1861, chap, vi; Jackson Papers: Poinsett to Jackson, January 7, 1833.