Nullification Advocated and Denounced
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was answered that a government whose every act was obligatory on its citizens would be much more dangerous, if not equally anomalous; the peculiarly happy feature of our government was, it was said, that to resist the unconstitutional and oppressive abuses of power was not rebellion nor revolution, as in other governments, because of the possible intervention of the state veto.[1]
Other men spoke at this dinner, among whom were James Hamilton, Jr., Robert J. Turnbull, Henry L. Pinckney, and Langdon Cheves. The first three were Nullifiers; but the last-named observed that the southern states were all equally interested in the existing crisis and that it would
- ↑ Drayton recommended a course of reasoning with the North as all that was warrantable or necessary to induce it to yield on the tariff. Such a program was said to be worthy of a new leaf in "the history of knight errantry, expressly to record the adventures of a champion who would venture forth armed only with his bugle, expecting to demolish ramparts and prostrate veteran warriors by its enchanting sounds alone; and, what would add infinitely to the romance of his achievements, by proclaiming with loud voice to all he meets, the appalling alternative, that if they did not yield, he would." Nothing but decided and immediate action would do, said the editor of the Times, July 22, 26, 1830. "Moultrie" in the Mercury, August 7, took almost the same position. He noticed the "crocodile eulogiums" pronounced by the northern press on Drayton's speech, because it counseled conservatism which the northerners interpreted to be an assurance that their aggressions would not be resisted seriously.
