Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/78

 Still others who saw clearly the relation of nullification to secession professed loudly that the party in South Carolina opposed to the usurpations of the federal government did not desire disunion; they claimed to contemplate nothing but a peaceable and constitutional assertion of the rights of the state; but they admitted that if she were opposed in restoring the Constitution to her conception of its purity, the Union might be dissolved; they then placidly washed their hands of all blame in such an event by saying that such blame must be laid at the door of those who first trampled on the Constitution. Many of this class were not entirely honest in their public professions. In reading the editorials of many of the ardent nullification sheets the reader feels that while they tried to belittle the possibility of disunion, and to shift all blame for such an event from their shoulders, yet they really saw that disunion was quite likely to result from the step they urged.