South Carolina, in 1832, declared through her State Convention that the protective tariff acts were no law, nor binding on the State, its officers or citizens. President Jackson, while he was ready and willing to suppress any such rebellion by force, was not sorry to see his adherents in Congress make use of it to overthrow protection; and a "compromise tariff," to which the protectionists agreed, was passed in 1833. It reduced the duties by an annual percentage for ten years. The nullifiers claimed this as a triumph, and formally repealed the ordinance of nullification, as if it had accomplished its object. But, in its real intent, it had failed wretchedly. It had asserted State sovereignty through the State's proper voice of a convention. When the time fixed for the execution of the ordinance arrived, Jackson's intention of taking the State's sovereignty by the throat had become so evident that an unofficial meeting of nullifiers suspended the ordinance until the passage of the compromise tariff had made it unnecessary. For the first time, the force of a State and the national force had approached threateningly near collision, and no State ever tried it again. When the tariff of 1842 reintroduced the principle of protection, no one thought of taking the broken weapon of nullification from its resting-place; and secession was finally attempted only as a sectional movement, not as the expression of the will of a State, but as a concerted revolution by a number of States. It seems certain that nationality had attained force enough, even in 1833, to have put State sovereignty forever under its feet; and that but for the cohesive sectional force of slavery and its interests, the development of nationality would have been undisputed for the future.