Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/39

 of Congress to enact it and thus tend to fix the oppression irrevocably upon the country. He praised them for clearly denying the constitutionality of the act and recommending distinctly such "open resistance" as became "a Sovereign and Independent State."

But the Walterboro meeting was proceeding too fast for the rest of the party, or at least faster than the other opponents of the tariff thought politic. While the Mercury itself later admitted this, the Columbia Telescope, which was generally understood to be the principal organ of the less conservative anti-tariff men of the interior, at once disapproved of the proceedings of the meeting and declared itself as preferring non-consumption as a more advisable mode of defeating the operation of the system. The Winyaw Intelligencer, although firmly opposed to the tariff, also regretted the proceedings as premature, and the Richmond Enquirer, taking the same ground, called upon the citizens of Colleton to pause and avoid such a program as their enemies were most anxious they should adopt.

As yet the doctrine of nullification was not generally indorsed nor even discussed; other