thorough consideration and consultation with John C. Calhoun, William C. Preston, James Hamilton, Jr., George McDuffie, and other leaders of the party. He had discovered that the question was one of great delicacy and difficulty, and one concerning which there was much difference of opinion. "On the one hand," he said in a letter to Hammond, written on the day he issued the proclamation, "the outrage is so monstrous that the failure to meet it promptly and decisively may have a depressing effect; but on the other hand, there is much danger of rash action under the impulse of popular excitement." The decisive point was this: if the legislature were called at once, what could it do? The members of the legislature could not call a convention, amend the constitution, impeach or remove the judges, nor do any act which required a vote of two-thirds. This he had ascertained "beyond a reasonable doubt." An unsuccessful attempt at any one of those measures might prove disastrous to the party. The members of the legislature therefore could do nothing more than express opinions and amend the militia law in conformity with the decision, unless they should remodel the court so as to have the decision reversed. This last
