Chauncey Samuel Boucher

“ The editor repeated the usual story of South Carolina's wrongs and sufferings in the Union, [20] 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 of it) of doubtful policy is thus worked up into the most horrid phantom which can disturb the vision of freemen; and over their terrified imagination a demoniac sorcery is thus exercised to lead them into crime and to tempt them to their destruction. ”

“ The doctrine of nullification was brought to conspicuous notice by James Hamilton, Jr., at a Walterboro gathering, on October 12, 1828. "Our reliance, then, is on the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98—and upon these we put our citadel where no man can harm it." Nullification, he said, might be applied by the state either through its legislature or by a convention of the people in their sovereignty, and need not result in a dissolution of the Union, unless that was willed by their opponents. ”

“ After the passage of the tariff bill of 1824 numerous anti-tariff meetings were held in various parts of the state. The tariff was denounced as a system of robbery and plunder, destructive to the southern states. Meetings adopted resolutions which pledged the participants to purchase no northern manufactures and no Kentucky horses; men delighted to talk of sacrifices for the sake of principle. ”

“ Government thought proper to interfere in our concerns and has succeeded at last, by continued acts of injustice and oppression, in blighting the hopes and ruining the prospects of our people. Commerce, which once poured its treasures at our feet, is now driven from our shores. Agriculture, which amply repaid the labor of our planters, now scarcely affords them a bare subsistence. ”

“ It certainly enabled those enlisted against our rights to appeal with great success to the prejudices of the people in favor of the Union, before they had been sufficiently enlightened as to the outrageous oppression practiced upon them. ”

“ The aid of a reasonable tariff to support manufactiurers in the competition to supply a pre-occupied market was indispensable, he argued, and in the end would fully indemnify the consumers, for it contained in itself a counteracting influence, which, by exciting competition, secured the community against increase of price, and furnished an indenmity by communicating a value to labor of every description. ”

“ Sufficient opposition was aroused by the time the legislature met in November for that body to feel justified in making an official declaration for the state. Both houses approved a set of resolutions which asserted the right of the people or the legislature of any state "to every extent not limited, to remonstrate against violations of the fundamental compact ... between the people of the different states with each other as separate independent sovereignties." ”

“ By the middle of July communications denouncing the tariff were numerous in the southern papers, and especially in South Carolina many men wrote for publication. These communicated articles were signed with various fantastic names. The nom de plume was sometimes the name of some famous historic character of the state, nation, or world, some doctrine or theory, or was indicative of some class which the writer thought he represented. A man occasionally wrote under more than one name. ”

“ All tariff acts, the object of which was not the raising of revenue nor the regulation of foreign commerce but the promotion of domestic manufactures, were pronounced violations of the Constitution, "in its spirit," which ought to be repealed. They also denied the constitutional power of Congress to construct internal improvements. [4]
By this time John C. Calhoun saw clearly the danger to which the power of Congress to pass protective tariffs might lead ”

“ Calhoun wrote this report, and it was sent to the committee and reported by it to the House for adoption. The legislature was not ready to adopt the report, which was the very embodiment of nullification disguised by a great deal of metaphysical ingenuity, but it adopted instead a set of relatively tame resolutions, and ordered the report to be printed. These, resolutions declared that the tariff acts were unconstitutional and should be resisted, and invited the other states to co-operate with South Carolina in resistance. ”

“ A meeting of the manufacturing interests at Harrisburg to devise measures to pass a tariff bill then pending set the dangerous example of—
separate representation and association of great geographical interests to promote their prosperity at the expense of other interests ... which of all measures that can be conceived is calculated to give the greatest opportunity to art and corruption and to make two of one nation ... It must lead to defeat or oppression or resistance, or the correction of what perhaps is a great defect in our system ”

“ The people always knew that if any subject became important during any month, there was likely to be a meeting on the next sale day to consider it; prominent leaders were occasionally present to address the people, and at times open debates were held. If there was intense party feeling and sharp division, the parties would meet separately.
On the sale days of August and succeeding months in 1828, meetings were held at various places over the state to express again the opposition of the people to the tariff, and to discuss possible plans of resistance. ”

“ It was argued with great adroitness and effect that the opposition to the tariff was a mere scheme of some of the southern politicians to gratify their ambition in obtaining that power which would be inaccessible while we maintained our political relations with the other portions of the country. We are as well satisfied as we can be of any fact from observation, that the friends of spirited resistance to the tariff have had to encounter no obstacle more embarrassing than the revulsion of feeling produced by the indiscreet violence of Dr. ”

“ They recommended that the governor open a correspondence with the South Carolina delegation in Congress and concert such measures with them, during the recess of the legislature, as the events of the present Congress might make necessary; they expressed high confidence in the zeal, firmness, and discretion of the governor and the delegation in Congress, but asked that such measures as they might decide upon as best be laid before the legislature or the people. ”

“ The Winyaw Intelligencer, although firmly opposed to the tariff, also regretted the proceedings as premature, and the Richmond Enquirer, taking the same ground, called upon the citizens of Colleton to pause and avoid such a program as their enemies were most anxious they should adopt.
As yet the doctrine of nullification was not generally indorsed nor even discussed; other methods were proposed. These were non-consumption, the establishment of state excises, and the establishment of southern manufactures. Each had a few strong advocates, [30] but many objections were raised. ”

“ For these meetmgs and complaints, however, the participants were censured by "all the presses in the pay of the administration, led on and marshalled by the National Intelligencer." These presses held that the attacks upon the tariff act were mere pretexts to cover deep and traitorous designs of the leaders of the Jackson party looking to the dissolution of the Union, with a view to the erection of a separate empire for Andrew Jackson and themselves. ”

“ The Columbia Telescope did not rest so quietly on its oars as did other papers of the state, and in its comments on the Independence Day celebration took occasion to remark that the government since its establishment had changed very materially for the worse. ”

“ The light of day shines not upon them; poor, cowardly assassins, they stab only in the dark." [36]
Such accusations were based purely upon suspicion. The accusers had to admit that their charges could not be substantiated by positive citations. In May the Mercury had advised caution and careful consideration before action. In June it had approved the suggestion of the Walterboro meeting, that the legislature or a convention be asked to take steps toward such "open resistance" as became a "Sovereign and Independent State" ”

“ Plantations, once the abode of elegance and wealth, have been deserted and abandoned. Property, once immensely valuable, has fallen to less than half its value. Industry no longer finds employment. Poverty and embarrassment universally prevail, and nothing is to be seen or heard, from the seaboard to the mountains, but the signs of decay and the language of despair." ↑ Mercury, August 23, 1828. ↑ Charles H. Ambler, Thomas Ritchie, p. 114. ↑ Charleston Courier, February 12, 1828. This paper will be referred to hereafter as the Courier. See Houston, Nullification in South Carolina, pp. ”

“ Gazette, July 1, 1831; B. F. Perry, Reminiscences and Speeches. ↑ Courier, February 11, 1829. ↑ Many men believed, as James H. Hammond said in his July 4 address at Columbia, that "the Powers that presided in our day of darkness are no longer lords of the ascendant. Another star has risen and there are streaks of light already visible in the horizon which augur the dawn of a new and bright day. ”