Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/72

 confession that in 1821 he was laboring under "an honest but blind delusion" in advocating the exercise by Congress of powers which he had since come to see were ruinous to South Carolina. He added that he was not alone in this change of sentiment between 1821 and 1830, but that nineteen-twentieths of South Carolina citizens had also thus changed.

Although the South Carolina Exposition came out during the legislative session of 1828, the following year, as has been shown, was one of lull. During and after the session of Congress, which sat through the first part of 1830 without giving satisfactory relief, many went back to the nullification doctrine and from that time on a number of leaders urged that it be carried to the point of action. At first the doctrine suffered because of the disunion imputation, and soon the main object of the nullification advocates became the removal of the disunion stigma.

In this period of educating the people as to the merits of nullification, one of the writers who early in the year attracted considerable attention was "Hampden." This writer was Francis W. Pickens,