Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/45

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Nullification Controversy in South Carolina

conservatives were especially severe in their accusations and denunciations of the radicals, whom they styled Disunionists. In Edgefield district the Disunionists seem to have boycotted the Edgefield Hive, edited by Dr. A. Landrum. This action the Charleston Gazette declared to be simply typical of the policy of coercion pursued by that party in both the upper and the lower country, to force into the views of "the wild and heated demagogues of the day" all who would not "throw up the cap and hurrah for disunion." This editor continued his fight against the "traitors" who worked in secret to destroy the Union, and hoped that ere long they would be dragged forth and exposed. By the last of August he noticed that the gang of professional office-hunters connected with the junto, seeing that the idea of disunion was not becoming popular, began to talk more for the Union side, in order to get elected. He favored putting the clique out of office and electing industrious, sober-minded citizens.[1]

Not only were the majority of the people strongly against disunion at this time, but some were even pro-tariff in sentiment. A series of

  1. Gazette, August ii, 26, 30, 1828.