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A Year of Campaigning
121
Thus during the first half of 1831, while Congress was in session, the Nullification presses in South Carolina kept pounding away, first on the tariff and then on nullification, painting that remedy in ever more beautiful colors.[1]
- ↑ Mercury, March 11, April 13, May 28, 1831; Camden and Lancaster Beacon, March 15, 23; Messenger, July 6, 20, August 3; Charleston State Rights and Free Trade Evening Post, October, 1831. The Nullifiers saw the need of another paper in Charleston besides the Mercury, and established the Post on October 1, 1831. The editors took pains to answer any and all objections raised against the nullification doctrine (Camden and Lancaster Beacon, March 15, 1831; Pendleton Messenger, September 38). For example, some persons asked: Since in the state of South Carolina the majority claimed the right to govern the minority, must it not be granted that the majority of the Union should govern the minority? By no means, it was answered, for the cases were absolutely dissimilar. The Post, October 31, 1831, presented such an answer. The state was a single consolidated government, which, being democratic, must be ruled by the majority; but the general government was a federal government and must be governed strictly by the terms of confederation. These nowhere prescribed that a majority of the states should govern a minority. When a state disputed the authority of the federal government to perform certain acts, it was not a question between a majority and a minority. It was a question between two parties—the protesting state being one party and the other states the other party. In a single state the governing power might safely be left with the majority, as their interests and those of the minority must in all cases of importance be identical; but not so in the confederation of states, differing in climate, productions, and the character of their population. Here it was necessary that there be provided, as had been done, some protection for those states a sacrifice of whose interests and safety might be attempted in the federative council. The right of interposition was therefore left,
