"
On their return from the session of 1828, the South Carolina
delegation added fuel to the fire. In a caucus of the members, held
shortly after the passage of the tariff, proposals were even made
for the delegation to vacate their seats in Congress as a protest,
and in this temper they returned to their state. [Footnote: Niles'
Register, XXXV., 184, 202.] McDuffie told his constituents that
there was no hope of a change of the system in Congress; that the
southern states, by the law of self-preservation, were free to save
themselves from utter ruin; and that the government formed for their
protection and benefit was determined to push every matter to their
annihilation. He recommended that the state should levy a tax on the
consumption of northern manufactured goods, boycott the live-stock
of Kentucky, and wear homespun; and he closed by drawing a
comparison between the wrongs suffered by the colonists when they
revolted from Great Britain and that by which the south was now
oppressed.
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