Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/169

 duty." Accordingly, the State Rights men, after the publication of this letter, held meetings all over the state to reprimand the President and to refute his insinuation that the State Rights and Free Trade party opposed the Union. Colleton district, which eagerly seized such opportunities, at a meeting at Walterboro denounced Jackson's threat of coercion as a gross assertion of tyrannical power. Thereafter most of the meetings held to form State Rights associations took occasion to censure the President.

As late as October 15, 1830, the general impression appears to have been that the Jackson administration was entirely in sympathy with the Nullifiers. Some of the Union men saw, however, that though the Nullifiers were thus confident and called themselves the only true Jackson men, their doctrines, if ever put into practice, would bring disgrace to his name; this he must see before long, and then the delusion of the Nullifiers would be banished. The idea, however, that the Unionists