Calhoun's public letter of July 26, 1831, to the Pendleton Messenger—his "Exposé," as it was called—was widely printed throughout the state, and was as widely attacked by the Union men, who tried to show that he had a wrong conception of the federal system.[1] The editor of the Columbia Free Press and Hive in particular, not at all chastened by Preston's assault, indulged in elaborate rodomontade against Calhoun and his theories.[2]
- ↑ Mountaineer, August 20, 1831; Patriot, August 11; Free Press and Hive, September 3.
- ↑ The issue of September 3, 1831, contains a choice example. The following appeared on November 5 and is typical: "Whether nullification is a spirit, some goblin damned, or a highly ethereal dementating gas, we confess our knowledge too limited in the abstruse sciences of metaphysics and materialism to decide; we must
of giving dinners for the actual purpose of political excitement and influence, under the pretense of hospitality to distinguished strangers, is the vulgar machinery of party management. A few, so few as to amount to a mere fraction of the community, get up and attend this eating caucus. The guest, who is always a violent partisan, takes leave to say a few words, and to a toast of a line or two gives a preface of three hours. Heated by zeal and wine, the audience d^ hands, beat the table, rattle the glasses, and at the hint of the manager, spontaneously rise up and shout aloud, upon the conclusion of some inflated partisan grandiloquence, especially abusive of the great majority of the people, who do not attend, and are unrepresented. It is thus that the great managers of the party create matter enough to keep the columns of a nullifying paper full for a day or two … " (Courier, May 30).
