that they would reap from it only a harvest of greatness and glory. To the Union men, however, such a turn of events seemed to promise nothing short of utter ruin.[1]
Some of the Union men quite early predicted that such a fate was inevitable, because they believed that the State Rights party had the power of the state in its hands.[2] All, however, continued to fight hard for the cause, not willing to acknowledge defeat until the fall elections were over and had gone against them. They asserted that the veto by a state, proposed as a check upon "implied powers" itself involved a more unwarrantable "implied power" on the part of the state. The State Rights men replied that nullification was a substantive power which the states had never surrendered; it was an inherent, original right, and depended neither on implication nor construction of the Constitution.[3]
The Union men affirmed that the doctrine was new, speculative, and but lately developed. The
- ↑ Mercury, July 14, 1832; Courier, July 28.
- ↑ Journal, April 21, 1832. As election time approached, the State Rights men thought caution a better policy, and generally refrained from warlike expressions. They were accused by the Union men of trying to hide the fact that on the election was really to depend the fate of the Union (Mountaineer, September 8, 29).
- ↑ Mercury, August 18, 1832.
