ALS signed “Albert Moore Sm.,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 8 x 9.75, Beaufort, South Carolina, November 3, 1832. Letter to John Milton Clapp of Lowell, Massachusetts regarding tariffs and the recent ordinance of nullification. In part: “I cant forbear making a passing allusion to the present critical state of our public affairs and especially the very delicate position my native State now occupies toward her confederate Sisters. The blow so long impending has descended. South Carolina after arguing, remonstrating, petitioning, entreating for ten long years, has placed herself at length upon her Sovereignty and felled by a single stroke the most gigantic, iniquitous, withering system of Taxation that ever cursed a people calling themselves free. After the First of February next the Tariff Laws are declared null & void within her limits and shall be enforced not until there are none but slaves and Traitors left to submit to it. Such is our resolution; and let me assure you, did you know us, you would scarcely doubt its desperate firmness. South Carolina may become ‘the cemetery of freemen' but never—never the habitation of Slaves. We believe our remedy peaceful, but we will sustain it be its character whatever you choose to make it. The Issue is now fairly tendered ‘Repeal the Tariff—or Repeal the Union.’” In very good condition, with intersecting folds, and chipping and dampstaining to edges. RR Auction COA.
