Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/366

Rh was a consolidated government, a great nation, one and indivisible; while the State Rights party believed it to be a federal or confederated government, founded in compact between free, sovereign, and independent states, imited only for special purposes, written down in the Constitution, and in which each state retained its sovereignty unimpaired; this was the point on which the whole controversy turned, and the amendment of the constitution would settle the question in South Carolina forever; this was the vital importance of the October elections. The Unionists knew all this, said the State Rights men, and though confessedly in a minority they still hoped they might be able to carry one-third of the members either in the Senate or in the House; and as this would defeat the amendment they would pursue this last hope in great desperation. Let the State Rights party then be on its guard.

In an effort to discredit the Union party, the Nullifiers did all they could to prove that the Unionists were contemplating a resort to arms to resist the oath. To prove this, and to show that the creed of the party was one of pure consolidation, they cited an appeal in behalf of the