Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/215

196 The Union party was not to be excelled. It, too, held numerous meetings, issued addresses, held celebrations when occasion warranted, gave dinners and barbecues, and listened to long addresses by its orators. In Charleston, since the old societies (the '76 Association, the Cincinnati Society, the Revolutionary Society) had come to be controlled by the Nullifiers, the Union men formed a new one, which they named the Washington Society.

When any person went over from one party to the other, the party which gained the recruit heralded the fact over the state as a sign of the continued growth of its numbers. Each side was prone to claim all the intelligence, stability, virtue, and patriotism of the state, though at least one editor believed that the most talented, patriotic, and virtuous sons of Carolina were about equally divided between the two parties. Where there were so many distinguished and honorable persons—ex-governors, judges, members of Congress, and distinguished members of the legislature—to be found in the ranks of each party, it