Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/28

 hundreds of these writers who produced merely one or a few articles of no merit, who wrote simply to see something of their own in print; others, however, had marked ability which was recognized by the people of the state and country.

"Leonidas," one of these anon3anous writers, in July, 1828, noted a rising spirit of discontent against the tariff bill "now in operation by the usurped powers of the Congress of the United States," and asserted that those who were confident in the belief that this spirit would exhaust itself or be smothered by opposition and intimidation, considered too lightly the genius of the southern states and the principles for the sake of which the awakened people were gathering up their energies to meet the alarming crisis.

As regards the attitude of the North to the outcry of the South, it seemed to one South Carolina editor impossible for anyone who did not read the northern papers to form the slightest conception of the general tone of contempt, affected pity, and ridicule which they invariably employed toward the southern states, and especially of late toward South Carolina.