Disappointed by the Tariff of Abominations and the Tariff of 1832, the South Carolina government declared that the Tariff of 1828 and the Tariff of 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable within the state of South Carolina. Jackson issued the Proclamation to the People of South Carolina, in which he called the positions of the nullifiers as "impractical absurdity." He provided this concise statement of his belief: “ I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which It was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.[4] ” The state, ready to defend itself from the government, began making military preparations to resist federal enforcement.[5] Meanwhile, Congress passed the Force Bill, which granted Jackson the ability to use whatever force necessary to enforce federal tariffs.[6]
