The industrial antithesis between the North and the South became more exactly organized under the issue presented by this bill. Massachusetts joined the high protection ranks, and Kentucky went over to the side of the South. Missouri, however, still voted for the tariff, while New York City still preserved its attitude of opposition, and Maine's Representatives were evenly divided in the final vote on the bill. The protection phalanx from Pennsylvania was broken, too, by the defection of her two most important Representatives, Ingham and Buchanan. The attitude of {159} Buchanan was a matter of especial note. He held that the constitutionality of the tariff and the policy of a moderate protection had been completely settled by the founders of the Constitution and by the uniform practice of the Government, but that so high a tariff as the one now proposed on woollens was impolitic, from the point of view of the general welfare, and unjust, from that of an equal distribution of the burdens of taxation. Mr. Buchanan owed much of his subsequent success to the moderate views which he advanced and adhered to at this juncture. [Sidenote: The bill passed by the House of Representatives.] It will be seen, however, that the support of, and the opposition to, the tariff respectively had not yet become entirely sectional, though an advance had been made since 1824 toward that result. The bill passed the House on February 10th, 1827, but the Senate did not reach its consideration before the conclusion of the session. [Sidenote: Hostility to the measure in South Carolina.] It had the effect, however, of arousing most intense excitement and bitter opposition in South Carolina. In fact, it is from this date and issue that we must trace the history of nullification in South Carolina. In the summer following the Congressional session of 1826-27 the chief personages of the Commonwealth assembled at Columbia. The Governor, Mr. Taylor, presided, and the principal orator of the occasion was the President of the College of the Commonwealth, Dr. Cooper, a man of rare powers and great learning, an Englishman by birth and education, a free-trader in his political economy, and a "States' rights" man in his political science. In his speech he suggested disunion as preferable to submission to the tariff legislation of Congress. The resolutions passed by the assembly were not so inflammatory as the Doctor's speech, but they declared that such legislation {160} was calculated to give rise to the inquiry whether the Union was of any benefit, under such conditions, to the Southern Commonwealths. [Sidenote: The bill neglected by the Senate.] Copies of these resolutions were sent to the legislative bodies of the several Southern Commonwealths, but they evoked no response whatsoever. The proposed tariff had, by the inaction of the Senate, been virtually abandoned, and it was therefore unnecessary to protest against its passage as law, or make threats against its execution.