With  interests  of  such  overwhelming  magni
tude  imperiled,  the  people  of  the  Southern
States  were  driven  by  the  conduct  of  the  North
to  the  adoption  of  some  course  of  action  to
avoid  the  dangers  with  which  they  were  openly
menaced.  With  this  view,  the  Legislatures  of
the  several  States  invited  the  people  to  select
delegates  to  conventions  to  be  held  for  the  pur
pose  of  determining  for  themselves  what  meas
ures  were  best  to  be  adopted  to  meet  so  alarm
ing  a  crisis  in  their  history.
Here  it  may  be  proper  to  observe  that,  from
a  period  as  early  as  1798,  there  had  existed  in
all  of  the  States  of  the  Union  a  party  almost
uninterruptedly  in  the  majority,  based  upon
the  creed  that  each  State  was,  in  the  last  re
sort,  the  sole  judge  as  well  of  its  wrongs  as  of
the  mode  and  measures  of  redress.  Indeed,  it
is  obvious  that  under  the  law  of  nations  this
principle  is  an  axiom  as  applied  to  the  rela
tions  of  independent  sovereign  States,  such  as
those  which  had  united  themselves  under  the
constitutional  compact.
The  Democratic  party  of  the  United  States
repeated,  in  its  successful  canvass  in  1836,  the
deduction  made  in  numerous  previous  political
contests,  that  it  would  faithfully  abide  by,  and
uphold  the  principles  laid  down  in  the  Ken
tucky  and  Virginia  Legislatures  of  1799,  and
that  it  adopts  those  principles  as  constituting
one  of  the  main  foundations  of  its  political
creed.
