Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/73

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

54

Nullification Controversy in South Carolina

of Edgefield, a statesman of no mean ability.^[1] "Hampden" as a literary character became widely known, but his identity was long kept a secret.^[2] These articles appeared first in the Edgefield Carolinian, but were copied by other papers in the state.^[3] But as yet only the more courageous

↑ Hammond Papers: Pickens to Hammond, March 8, 1830.
↑ Hammond Papers: Eldred Simkins, Sr., to Hammond, March, 1830, shows how much some men wrote for the press over assumed names, and how well the secret as to the identity of these men was kept.
↑ Columbia Southern Times, May 13, 1830. In a letter to Hammond, editor of the Times (Hammond Papers:- Pickens to Hammond, March 8, 1830), asking him to publish the articles, Pickens showed clearly how deeply he felt the importance of the situation. He said in part: "I have thought long and intensely on these subjects; I write not in haste or in passion, but in cool reflection and fixed determination. I have … investigated my conclusions and I write to enlighten those who have not the means of knowing, as well as to excite those who know and feel not. I think it idle to attempt to rouse a community to act before you inform them where they are and what they stand on I am for decided action. I love the Union and think it can only be preserved by an open, fearless, and manly course in the state as a sovereign in this confederacy I have no motive in making the present request of you, or in writing those numbers, but to advance the rights and indicate the wrongs of my degraded and oppressed country. I feel as an injured freeman and hope that the community may feel the same." He said that he would have sent the numbers to Hammond first, had he not feared that the local editors would take it as a desertion of their paper if they suspected the authorship; furthermore, "there had been so much written on the subject in Columbia that the people might begin to think that it was only the community about that place who entertained sentiments and feelings similar to those embodied in the numbers."

[1] Hammond Papers: Pickens to Hammond, March 8, 1830.

[2] Hammond Papers: Eldred Simkins, Sr., to Hammond, March, 1830, shows how much some men wrote for the press over assumed names, and how well the secret as to the identity of these men was kept.

[3] Columbia Southern Times, May 13, 1830. In a letter to Hammond, editor of the Times (Hammond Papers:- Pickens to Hammond, March 8, 1830), asking him to publish the articles, Pickens showed clearly how deeply he felt the importance of the situation. He said in part: "I have thought long and intensely on these subjects; I write not in haste or in passion, but in cool reflection and fixed determination. I have … investigated my conclusions and I write to enlighten those who have not the means of knowing, as well as to excite those who know and feel not. I think it idle to attempt to rouse a community to act before you inform them where they are and what they stand on I am for decided action. I love the Union and think it can only be preserved by an open, fearless, and manly course in the state as a sovereign in this confederacy I have no motive in making the present request of you, or in writing those numbers, but to advance the rights and indicate the wrongs of my degraded and oppressed country. I feel as an injured freeman and hope that the community may feel the same." He said that he would have sent the numbers to Hammond first, had he not feared that the local editors would take it as a desertion of their paper if they suspected the authorship; furthermore, "there had been so much written on the subject in Columbia that the people might begin to think that it was only the community about that place who entertained sentiments and feelings similar to those embodied in the numbers."

[1]

[2]

[3]