In Columbia the proclamation was received with the deepest indignation, and the legislature, still in session, immediately asked the governor to issue a counter-proclamation to warn the people of South Carolina against that of the President and exhort them to remain true to the state. Robert Y. Hayne had been elected governor and had taken the new oath prescribed for that officer, that he would "well and truly keep and enforce the ordinance of the state and such laws as may be passed in obedience thereto." He immediately issued his counter-proclamation, which began by calling upon the people to be on their guard against the "dangerous and pernicious" doctrines contained in the President's proclamation, and concluded with a command for them to support at all hazards the dignity and liberties of the state.[1] It was an ably written and strong paper, but the Union men could see no merit even in its literary composition. They ridiculed it as the height of madness, caused by an inflated sense of power.[2]
- ↑ Mercury, December 22, 1832; Niles' Register, December 22.
- ↑ Gazette, December 22, 1832 . The Union men published a parody on it, beginning thus: "By virtue of that palpable absurdity which has grown out of the numerous 'conjunctures' with which it has been our fate to be afflicted, that as a sovereign state the Free Trade Association 'has the inherent power to do all those acts which by
