Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/61

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Nullification Controversy in South Carolina

of the Exposition. The editor himself simply remarked that whether the next legislature would talk and talk and deal in rhetorical flourishes, as the last had done, until the members bewildered themselves and disgusted their hearers, he knew not, but he firmly believed that no good would be done.[1]

In this period of waiting some predicted that if Congress should persist in its past course it would find that, even though there were apparently now a moderate and a violent party, the line between them was either faint or undiscernible;[2] others raised their voices in warning against the dangers of petty jealousies, local prejudices, selfish interests, apathy, timidity, or anything that would cause division before the enemy.[3] But, in spite of such opinions and warnings, South Carolina was by no means a unit even as to the doctrine of state rights. Quite a number of men in the state were more or less nationalistic in their political leanings, and, among those who were reckoned adherents of a pure state-rights belief there were many who, deep in their hearts,

  1. Telescope, October 9, 30, 1829.
  2. Mercury, August 6, 1829.
  3. Telescope, October 30, 1829; Hammond Papers: Hammond's July|4 address.