Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/116

 treason and would be treated as such. Furthermore, if the Union were saved in spite of South Carolina's folly, as would probably be the case, the state would suffer. Nullification undertaken by South Carolina would result as the revocation of the Edict of Nantes had done in France — it would cause the emigration of a large part of all classes of the population. Some there were, too, who took sides merely from the habit of opposition to rivals who now happened to have declared themselves on the other side.

The man who was looked upon as the logical organizer of the Union or Anti-Convention party was Joel R. Poinsett. He had just returned from a mission to Mexico and was finishing his business in Washington and Philadelphia in July, when he was urged to return to South Carolina to help the Unionists, whose cause needed careful and judicious management. When Poinsett arrived in Columbia he found there some old and valued friends, who, though opposed to the nullification doctrine, regarded opposition as hopeless against such an array as had declared themselves for nullification; and he found the same views