“DECIDE FOR YOURSELVES, BEFORE THE POWER OF DECIDING IS TAKEN”: SCARCE IMPORTANT COLLECTION OF FIVE FIRST EDITION PAMPHLETS, 1831-2, KEY UNIONIST WORKS IN SOUTH CAROLINA’S WAR OF WORDS OVER NULLIFICATION, IN ORIGINAL UNCUT WRAPPERS

HUGER, Alfred. A Letter to the People of Spartanburgh District. Columbia: no publisher, December 5, 1832. WITH: [MIDDLETON, Henry]. Prospects of Disunion. Part I. [South Carolina: no publisher, 1832]. WITH: [MIDDLETON, Henry, LEGARÉ, Hugh et al]. Manifesto and Resolutions of the Constitutional State Rights & Union Party…. Charleston, (South Carolina): J.S. Burges, 1831. WITH: [TAYLOR, Thomas et al.]. The Report of the Committee of the Convention of the Union and State Rights Party, Assembled at Columbia, 10th December, 1832…. [Columbia, South Carolina: no publisher, 1832]. WITH: [WASHINGTON SOCIETY]. Address of the Washington Society to the People of South-Carolina. [Charleston: no publisher, 1832]. Five volumes. Octavo, original tan printed self-wrappers, loose signatures or stitched as issued, uncut and partially unopened.

First editions of five major pamphlets in South Carolina’s war over nullification—a stark challenge of federal constitutional authority and a major step toward Civil War—with key anti-nullification (Unionist) works urging restraint in a battle ultimately settled by Andrew Jackson’s assertion of federal rule in his forceful 1832 Proclamation. An important collection in original wrappers.

With passage of unpopular federal tariffs, many in South Carolina urged nullification, arguing “the Union could survive only if the states, as the original parties to the Constitution, had the means to nullify a law if and until the Constitution were to be specifically amended” (Meacham, 184). John Calhoun led the nullifiers, while restraint was urged by Unionists such as Alfred Huger, Hugh S. Legaré and Henry Middleton— whose positions are pre-eminent in this scarce collection of five first edition Unionist pamphlets. By late 1832 “roving bands of armed Unionists and nullifiers confronted each other nightly. Nullifier rhetoric bristled with attacks on majority rule” and Unionists insisted “that South Carolina’s interests were far more secure inside the Union than outside” (Wilentz, 378). Featured are Huger’s Letter to the People, and the Manifesto… of the Constitutional State Rights & Union Party, whose delegates were Huger, Middleton, Legaré and Langdon Cheves. Also herein is Middleton’s Prospects of Disunion: Part I, which warns that unless South Carolina rejects nullification, “The seeds of order, and justice, and good government, which our forefathers collected together and planted so carefully… will have been planted in vain” (11). On passage of South Carolina’s defiant Ordinance of Nullification, Andrew Jackson reasserted federal authority with his 1832 Proclamation—“a triumph of political and constitutional argument” (Wilentz, 380). Turnbull II:284; II:237; II:285; II:252. Sabin 88088; 102036. See Turnbull II:275. Two pamphlet title pages with small inked dates. Prospects with trace of wax seal to margin of rear wrapper.

Generally fresh with light scattered foxing, occasional faint dampstaining, Address of the Washington Society with closed tears affecting text. An extremely good collection of scarce pre-Civil War works.