Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/133

 burden of the tariff was unequal and that it was unconstitutional. The Charleston Southern Patriot continually pleaded for "justice and sound reasoning" on this subject. It held that the reasonings of the party which proposed a most unusual remedy for southern wrongs were built entirely on the unsupported assmnption that South Carolina, in common with the other southern states, suffered peculiar injury from federal legislation. In vain had proof been demanded that the South was enduring a wrong which did not affect the people of the United States collectively, with the exception of the small number engaged in manufactures.

The charge was denied that the Patriot was trying to reconcile the southern states to the tariff and the American system; the editor claimed to be one of the first who had raised a cry against it, but he was for the truth about it, and against exaggerations which only put arguments at the command of the promoters of that system. He believed the system wrong for the country as a whole, and not so particularly for the South and South Carolina, as was represented by the Nullifiers. It was admitted that the South