Thus the Nullifiers had a two-thirds majority in both houses and could adopt their oath as an amendment to the constitution. Their popular vote, however, was somewhat short of a two-thirds majority of the votes cast.[1] The Union papers immediately pointed out this fact and urged that while so large a minority was opposed to measures which they believed would deprive them of "all the rights that a patriot held sacred," their oppressors should "take timely warning, lest an insulted and injured people follow that course which none but slaves would for a moment hesitate to pursue." They asserted that in spite of a provision in the constitution that two-thirds of both branches of the legislature of two suc--
- ↑ The Mercury, November 1, 1834, doubted the assertion that the State Rights party did not have two-thirds, and declared that they very nearly had that majority; the census showed 45,000 voters and the Mercury estimated the Union voters at 15,000. See Maps X and XI and p. 107, n. 3.
great in their party since the compromise of the tariff question, and because the people were not likely to turn out well when the majority in their district was known to be large and there was therefore no spirited opposition (Messenger, November 5). In the state's delegation to Congress, the Union men gained one more member. They now had two of the nine; James Rogers, from the district composed of York, Chester, Spartanburg, and Union, and Richard I. Manning, from the district composed of Kershaw, Sumter, Lancaster, and Chesterfield (Journal, November 1).
