Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 571
that the young men of the State should understand the condition of par
ties, at a season of great peril to the Union; and also because the Con
vention was anterior to the 'Ordinance of Nullification' in a sister State.
No formal action was ever taken at the ballot-box to carry out the objects
of the Convention."
Thus it will be seen that only a partial victory was won by the anti-
tariff agitators. The Legislature of Georgia, while opposed to the sys
tem of protection, strongly disapproved of the tariff agitation. It also
condemned the doctrine of Nullification as neither a peaceful nor a con
stitutional remedy but on the contrary as tending to civil commotion and
disunion. Georgia's extreme conservatism was emphasized in this reso
lution.
South Carolina was much more radical. Under the spell of Cal-
houn's genius, she promptly espoused and boldly asserted the doctrine of
Nullification; and impelled by the fiery temper of the Huguenots she
hastened in 1832, when a new tariff law was enacted, to declare it null
and void within her boundaries. This was followed by a convention of
the people in which secession was threatened. Thereupon President
Jackson issued his famous proclamation and Congress passed a Force
Bill giving him power to send troops into South Carolina and to coerce
her people into accepting these oppressive measures, of Congress.
Georgia's indignation was now aroused. She recalled her own un
happy quarrel with the Federal Government during the administration
of President Adams, when the latter threatened to invade Georgia's soil
with armed troops. South Carolina was now in a similar predicament.
But Mr. Clay's famous Compromise Bill of this year poured oil upon the
troubled waters. This reduced the tariff on a scale satisfactory to its
opponents; and South Carolina thereupon rescinded her action in regard
to Nullification.
Party lines in Georgia underwent radical changes as the result of
these disturbed conditions. Some of the prominent leaders in the Troup
party, including John M. Berrien, George R. Gilmer, William H. Craw-
ford, William C. Dawson, and Augustin S. Clay ton, held a convention
at Milledgeville on November 13, 1833, and formally launched an organi
zation called the State Rights Party of Georgia. Some, if not most
of these, however, were opposed to so extreme a measure as Nullification.
Of course, there were many who did not share in the prevailing hos
tility to a protective tariff; and there were likewise many who, for the
sake of tranquillity within the Union, were willing to subordinate this
issue to higher considerations of patriotism. Senator Forsyth, an origi
nal Troup man, was among this number. Moreover, the remnants of the
old Clark party took refuge under this banner. At a later period these
' styled themselves the Union party of Georgia.
Thus the Troupers and the Clarkites disappeared from the field of
Georgia politics.
Meanwhile, however, in the fall of 1833, Wilson Lumpkin was re-
elected governor, defeating Joel Crawford. During the same year,
George M. Troup, the great apostle of state rights, whose health, never
at any time robust, had suffered impairment, due to the strenuous activi-