Chauncey Samuel Boucher

“ The friends of nullification might say what they pleased, but the exercise of this veto power by the states, with the right of an appeal to a federal convention, was nothing more nor less than taking all power out of the hands of the majority and putting it into those of the minority. It was in fact the establishment of an aristocracy of the very worst kind. The majority, indeed almost three-fourths of the people, would be governed by one-fourth. ”

“ To Drayton's assertion that a government whose acts were not obligatory on its citizens would be a strange anomaly, it 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. ”

“ Some of the Nullifiers admitted that the debate on abstract principles left the issue an open one until decided by a concrete case. This they thought to be at hand, and they held it the duty of South Carolina to force the issue. It would be a glorious achievement if the people of South Carolina asserted and maintained her sovereignty. But if they meanly shrank from the contest, awed by imaginary fears, and submitted to all the wrongs heaped upon them, unmitigated oppression would be their present doom, and future infamy their merited reward. The October elections must decide her fate. ”

“ Drayton, however, spoke against nullification, and upheld the federal judiciary in a way that long rankled in the minds of the Nullifiers and called forth many an article and editorial to show that there were cases in which a state might throw itself upon its sovereignty and protect its citizens from an unconstitutional law, in spite of a decision of the Supreme Court that the law was constitutional; the Constitution itself, indeed, needed the protecting shield of state sovereignty against Congress and the Supreme Court. ”

“ Some of the Union men agreed that when they could be made to perceive any, even a metaphysical, distinction between nullifying a statute of the United States and absolute rebellion, they would take a stand that moment for nullification, for South Carolina had suffered under an unrighteous legislation on the part of Congress long enough and severely enough to warrant any step on her part short of severance of the Union. ”

“ If this, the Union men felt, were consistent with the true principles of a republican government, if it were not the commencement of a vile aristocracy, which must end in anarchy, then they knew nothing about the nature and theory of government. If the majority were unworthy of being intrusted with power, the minority were more so, and consequently they had better "petition the Almighty, as the children of Israel did in olden times," to give them a king, who might rule them in peace and head their armies in war. ”

“ Could a sovereign state, having in herself the undoubted means of redress, "with worse than womanish weakness" forbear to use them? Had her citizens who did so the hearts of men? The doctrine of state rights must be their sole safety, and many rejoiced at the spread of this doctrine as a result of the Webster-Hayne debate. [7]
There were some, however, who viewed the action of Congress as a promise of a better program for the future. [8] The Courier was even accused of trying to show the tariff to be not an evil to the South, but a positive good. ”

“ General Robert Y. Hayne came out, in a letter made public (Columbia Southern Times, February 8) , to show that this was sacrificing all principle, and a meeting at Walterboro, always in the van, denounced the petition of the company as destitute of propriety and expediency and unworthy of being countenanced by the citizens of South Carolina (Mercury, February 17) . It was not that they opposed the railroad, but that the state was engaged in a struggle for political liberties, the successful issue of which was endangered by such a petition. ”

“ But they preferred to suffer while evils were sufferable, relying on a returning sense of justice in the American people. To them the Constitution was a complex but harmonious scheme of civil polity, every part of which was equally necessary to the support and well-being of the whole. The powers of sovereignty were distributed among the several state legislatures and the government of the United States. To the federal government had been delegated certain express powers, and in the exercise of these powers this government was unlimited. ”

“ North, East, and West, Even separated from the rest of the Union, standing alone among the distinct and divided sovereignties of the land, the South would be worse off, less secure, a prey to more powerful neighbors. ”

“ When the people showed signs of being ready for it, these petty leaders would be in the van; but they would not declare themselves thus early, when their leadership would count for most. For such men he had only contempt, and he predicted that they would inevitably be lost "in the great struggle that must sooner or later agitate this country deeper than it has ever yet anticipated." ”

“ The Charleston Courier bristled with articles and editorials against the nullification doctrine, and the Charleston City Gazette, the Charleston Southern Patriot, and the Camden Journal kept up an intermittent fire against the heresy. [47]
Excitement was so intense that prudence could not be assured; men were neglecting their business for politics, and boys were being reared as professional politicians. ”

“ In a letter to Hammond, editor of the Times (Hammond Papers:- Pickens to Hammond, March 8, 1830) , asking him to publish the articles, Pickens showed clearly how deeply he felt the importance of the situation. He said in part: "I have thought long and intensely on these subjects; I write not in haste or in passion, but in cool reflection and fixed determination. I have ... investigated my conclusions and I write to enlighten those who have not the means of knowing, as well as to excite those who know and feel not. ”

“ The evils of the condition of those living in this section of the country arose from their unequal representation, which failed to present to the rapacities of others, not otherwise restrained, any bulwark of sufficient importance to secure them a proper consideration and the equal justice due them in common with their brethren. ”

“ Most of them professed love for the Union, but greater love for state sovereignty to resist oppression. Clearly, however, there was no strong demand for nullification, and secession was far from the thoughts of all but a few. [28]
At Charleston on July 1 a "public dinner" was given in honor of William Drayton and Robert Y. Hayne, "exclusively by Friends of the Southern States," [29] About six hundred banqueters were accommodated at the city hall. Hayne had before been the spokesman for the Nullifiers and he did not disappoint them this time. ”

“ A letter was sent to Drayton by the Charleston committee, requesting him to support the memorial in which Congress was asked to buy stock in the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company. He replied that he could not do so, because he did not believe such a course on the part of Congress a constitutional one. The arguments usually presented to impute such power to Congress he considered mere sophistry. The Mercury strongly approved Drayton's course (Mercury, January 26, 27, 1830) . ”

“ But at the same time he believed that a great body of the intelligent citizens were far ahead of some of the would-be leaders, lawyers particularly, who would not risk the loss of popular favor by associating themselves with the tenet of disunion. ”

“ But he said that the trade of the city could be made much greater if its citizens were to take pains to develop direct trade with Europe. What the people needed was to think more of improving trading facilities and commercial conditions generally, and less about tariff and anti-tariff. ”

“ But as the months of the session passed without action, the conviction rapidly, spread that the congressional prospect was hopeless. A report of the House Committee on Manufactures very early declared it inexpedient to make any alteration whatever in the existing protective system. ”