Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/21

 From the time of the South Carolina resolutions of 1825 against "governmental usurpations" until the South Carolina Exposition of 1828, the people of the state became more and more outraged by the "usurpations," chief among which was the tariff, until most of the people of the state considered not only warrantable, but highly proper, an opposition of a decidedly strong character. But until the fall of 1828 few dared to think, or to admit thinking, of a direct conflict of state and federal authorities. Even then, when th proposition which might bring about such a conflict came, it had to come in the guise of a peaceable measure, if not honestly so.

After the passage of the tariff bill of 1824 numerous anti-tariff meetings were held in various parts of the state. The tariff was denounced as a system of robbery and plunder, destructive to the southern states. Meetings adopted resolutions which pledged the participants to purchase no northern manufactures and no Kentucky horses; men delighted to talk of sacrifices for the sake of principle. George McDuffie was reported to have pulled off his broadcloth coat and to have given it to his servant, saying that it was fit only for the livery of a slave. Judge Daniel £. Huger is said