The most formidable group of all these was in Charleston, but there were a few scattered through the interior of the state, some of whom were newcomers from the North and were not allowed to forget it. Some were shopkeepers who were said by their critics to have been "misled by the artful sophistry about prices which the Yankee wholesale dealers in Charleston and elsewhere" were always passing along with their commodities; and a few were substantial farmers who had "taken Niles" Register until their faculties" were "all bewildered."[1]
But by far the greater number of those opposed to a convention were men who hated the tariff but loved the Union and South Carolina enough to wish to avoid any measure which might endanger either. They believed that if a convention were called, it must, as Judge William Harper said, if it acted at all, nullify the laws of Congress; they quoted Colonel William Drayton to the effect that nullification meant disunion, and Langdon Cheves's opinion that a convention must assume "revolutionary vigor." All this, they said, meant that South Carolina was to revolt alone against the United States; this would be
- ↑ Hammond Papers: D. L. Wardlaw to Hammond, July 24, 1830.
