Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/86

 In the movement leading to the organization of the Union party the most prominent figure, in the uplands at least, was Benjamin F. Perry, who in January, 1830, launched the Greenville Mountaineer. Perry was a clear thinker, an able writer, and a fearless advocate. In contrast to the Nullifiers, who preached state sovereignty as the sine qua non of existence and belittled the Union on all occasions, the first principle in Perry's faith was a belief in the people as the only true and legitimate sovereigns; and the next dearest object of his thoughts was the Union of the United States. The only circumstance that could induce him to contemplate a dissolution would be the necessity of doing so to preserve republican government; but that such a contingency would ever arise he could not believe.

The great body of the Union men were opposed to all protective duties; they thought the existing tariff unjust, oppressive, and a fraud upon the Constitution, because it purported to be a revenue measure and was avowedly a protective measure. But they preferred to suffer while evils were sufferable, relying on a returning sense of justice in the American people.