that though disunion was not desired, the people were nevertheless prepared to stick to their principles even to that end, if necessary; the talk about disunion was to be used only to show that if the oppression did not cease, and if in fact it became unbearable, there was an alternative, however much it was dreaded.[1]
The Charleston Gazette objected in toto to discussions of this nature as idle, mischievous, and pregnant with the most fatal consequences; for, "when men desperate in fortune, surveying from a precipice with indifferent eyes the extended chasm below them, begin to argue with themselves the possibilities of surviving a leap into its bosom, it is but a slight transition indeed from the speculation to the actual experiment." This editor took an interesting fatalistic view of the South's position. He thought the tariff oppressive, unconstitutionally so, and held that the practice of the government was oppressive to the South in many particulars; but he did not believe that any change in those measures then supposed to bear directly and heavily upon the South would tend very greatly to its relief. The evils of the condition of those living in this section of
- ↑ January 29, February 8, March 1, 1830.
