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III

dinary proceedings. It is also important that those who at present constitute a majority of the people of South Carolina should be correctly informed, how for they may calculate in their measures of nullification & disunion, upon the sympathy and support of the other sections of the Union. Attached, as the people of this State are, to the Constitution and Union of the States, which were formed by the exertions and patriotism of our fathers, and under which this favored country has attained to such unparelled [unparalleled ?] happiness & prosperity we cannot but view with the deepest sorrow and regret any approach towards a violation of that Constitution, or a dissolution of the bonds which have hitherto so happily connected the different members of our extensive republic. Should the citizens of South Carolina feel aggrieved by the operation of laws, which they believe to be unconstitutional and oppressive, there are many modes of redress to which legally, and without a violation of the Constitution, they may have recourse. They can appeal to the Supreme Judiciary of the United States which, by the express consent of South Carolina as well as the other States, is constituted a tribunal for the dicision [decision] of questions arising under the Constitution; or if the Constitution is found to be imperfect, and not to promote the objects intended by its adoption, it contains within itself provisions of amendment, which by means of a Convention of the States, may peaceably remedy the evils complained of; - or if neither of these means of redress should afford relief, they might with confidence have relied upon the justice of their country, and the progress of enlightened public sentiment, which will never suffer any portion or individual of this free community to be unduly burthened, or deprived of privileges essential to their happiness and prosperity. It was therefore to have been hoped that patriotism and public duty would have induced