ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the political divisions within South Carolina during the Nullification Crisis of the early 1830s. In November 1832, a state convention declared two protective tariffs unconstitutional and threatened to secede if the federal government tried to enforce them. The state began preparing for war, and 25,000 “Nullifiers” volunteered to fight against federal “tyranny.” Thousands of South Carolinians, however, resisted the tide of radicalism and worked to hold the Union together. While previous scholars have insightfully analyzed the state’s Nullifiers, this chapter foregrounds the Unionists who opposed them. It contends that Unionists galvanized resistance to nullification, in part, by prophesying the horrors it would unleash. They warned that their state’s radicalism would shatter the Union, destroy slavery, and provoke a catastrophic slave rebellion. They expressed these fears in private letters, newspaper columns, and legislative debates – contesting not only the country’s political present, but also its future. By imagining the Union’s destruction, they hoped to guarantee its survival.
