Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/34

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The Origin of the Conflict
15

that it would not only be impossible ever to bring the government back to the principles "Brutus" (Turnbull) styled pure, but that it would not be desirable if possible, for such a government could not last a twelvemonth. Such principles could not bind the parts together; the very interests and prejudices which, in the view of "Brutus," forbade a closer union were the premises on which "Hamilton" relied to demonstrate its necessity.[1]

The Charleston City Gazette, as early as June 19, 1828, observed that the "question of disunion" was "at last seriously and openly submitted to the consideration of the people of South Carolina," and that the people were asked, not only to calculate the advantages of the Union, but to resist its laws and dissolve the political bonds which held the confederacy together. The editor repeated the usual story of South Carolina's wrongs and sufferings in the Union,[2] and added:

Such is the gloomy picture which is artfully drawn to excite popular frenzy to an act of irretrievable desperation. A measure of the general government (to say the worst
  1. Charleston Courier, February 12, 1828. This paper will be referred to hereafter as the Courier. See Houston, Nullification in South Carolina, pp. 49-51, 71-73.
  2. Such as quoted from the Mercury in n. 1, p. 12.