rest so quietly on its oars as did other papers of the state, and in its comments on the Independence Day celebration took occasion to remark that the government since its establishment had changed very materially for the worse.[1]
The Telescope now studiously answered the northern papers which were attacking South Carolina with charges of "Treason, Rebellion, Disunion, Blood, Carnage, Etc.," and admitted with Thomas Jefferson that even disunion was not the greatest scourge which could afflict the nation, and that whenever the original terms and purposes of the Union had been essentially and permanently changed (which condition, it strongly hinted at various times, was at hand), it could no longer be desirable to any sensible, honest, or patriotic man. A little later this editor argued that disunion would not be so disastrous to the South as pictured by some,[2] and accused the Edgefield Carolinian, and the whole community thereabout, of being too nationalistic in their
- ↑ Columbia Telescope, July 10, 1829. This paper will be referred to hereafter as the Telescope.
- ↑ He declared that the South could go out, as far as the results of disunion were concerned, with security; but that he was not anxious for disunion, unless driven to it; that it was to be preferred, however, to further submission to the tariff and internal improvements — the American system.
