tion.

CHAPTER V.

TARIFF COMPROMISE.

Nullifica- THE alleged right of a state to nullify any act which it deemed unconstitutional on the part of the general government was but another form of asserting that the state, and not the nation, was the sovereign authority according to the Constitution. It had been maintained, as we have seen, by Jefferson and Madison in 1798, and by the New England federalists in 1814 and 1815. It was now renewed, and became the great question before the country during the administrations of Adams and Jackson.

In

Many years before, Georgia had ceded her Georgia. western lands, covering the present Alabama and Mississippi, on condition that the United States government would buy and transfer to her the large tracts still held by the Creeks and Cherokees within her borders. This the government began to do; but some difficulty with the Creeks, who had not been fairly dealt with, delayed the execution of the contract. The governor of Georgia hinted at anti-slavery motives on the part of the administration, and called upon the adjoining states to stand by their arms. President Adams communicated the matter to Congress, asserting his intention "to enforce the laws, and fulfil the duties of the nation by all the force committed for that purpose to his charge." Whereat the governor wrote to the secretary of war, "From the first (361)

31

decisive act of hostility, you will be considered and treated as a public enemy," (1827.) Fortunately, the winds. ceased. The state that had set itself against the nation more decidedly than had ever yet been done returned to its senses. As for the unhappy Indians, not only the Creeks, but all the other tribes that could be persuaded to move, were gradually transported to more distant territories in the west.

Other causes were operating to excite the states, Tariffs. or some of them, against the general government.

The tariff of 1816, intended to assist the nation in recovering from the losses of war, had also been intended to protect domestic manufactures against importations from abroad. It was urged by the Southern States in the opinion that cotton would command higher prices if manufactured at home, and was resisted by the Northern, especially the New England States, whose interests were then commercial rather than manufacturing or agricultural. But after the adoption of the tariff, the Northern and Middle States devoted more and more of their capital to manufactures, while the cotton-growing states continued to raise the raw material without attempting to manufacture it; so that the northern and southern sections gradually changed front, until the southern became violently opposed to protective duties, by which, as one of its chief leaders declared, its interests had been shamefully sacrificed, while, on the other hand, the manufacturers, not merely of cotton, but of woollen, hemp, iron, and other materials, in the Eastern and Middle States, demanded protection; "and it matters not," they said at a convention in Harrisburg, (1827,) "if it amounts to prohibition." The controversy resulted in the triumph of the protective, or, as its supporters called it, the American, system in the tariff of 1828.

(

Exposi

Several of the Southern States declared this to tion and be unconstitutional. South Carolina did more, and

protest

of South her legislature issued an Exposition and Protest, Carolina. in which the resistance of the state to the general government was not only threatened, but justified, (December, 1828.) "The existence,” it was argued, "of the right of judging of their powers, clearly established from the sovereignty of the states, as clearly implies a veto or control on the action of the general government on contested points of authority; and this very control is the remedy which the Constitution has provided to prevent the encroachment of the general government on the reserved rights of the states. There exists a case [the

tariff] which would justify the interposition of this state, and thereby compel the general government to abandon an unconstitutional power." It was at this same time, “in December, 1828," wrote Daniel Webster, "I became thoroughly convinced that the plan of a southern confederation had been received with favor by a great many of the political men of the south." Secession was the inevitable consequence of nullification.

Jackson's

Andrew Jackson succeeded to the presidency, first acts. (1829.) His first act was to remove hundreds of public officers in order to provide for his followers. In this he had no example among his predecessors, for all the six together had made just sixty-four removals from office, and no more. His next act of importance was to recommend Congress to modify the tariff of the year before, which was the same as to recommend concession to the demands of South Carolina and other discontented states. Some months later, (May, 1830,) Congress adopted a few modifications, that would have been unimportant but for the precedent of giving way on the part of the nation.

Web

fence of

the na

tion.

But before this action was taken, the nation and

ster's de- its sovereignty had been nobly defended in the Senate of the United States. Senator Foot, of Connecticut, offered a resolution at the close of the previous year, (1829,) concerning the disposition of the public lands; but these were soon lost sight of in the debates which followed concerning the relative powers of the states and the national government. Robert Y. Hayne, a senator from South Carolina, appeared in support of the theories to which his state was committed; but every one knew that he was speaking for a greater leader, John C. Calhoun, vice president of the United States under Jackson, as he had been under Adams, and yet more influential as the head and front of nullification. Hayne's first speech on this question (January 19, 1830) was answered by Webster the next day, and with such effect that Hayne's rejoinder was not completed for several days, when Webster spoke the second time, (January 26,) and with greater effect than had or has ever been witnessed in either house of Congress. His purpose was to lay the axe at the root of nullification; and this he did by a close and decisive argument that the national government is not a compact among sovereign states, but a government established by the people, and to be resisted, if at all, only by appeal from one of its branches to another, or by the right of revolution against them all. "I trust," said the great orator, to whom the proud title of Defender of the Constitution was given by his grateful countrymen, "the crisis has in some measure passed by," (1831.)

Bad

But not even Webster could then see how periltemper. ous the crisis continued. A visitor at Washington, early in 1831, describes the temper in Congress; and the temper there prevailed elsewhere: "When we entered the House, there was a debate going on relative to reduction

of duty on salt. Some southern members spoke with great vehemence, but nobody on the floor paid any attention to them. They spoke of their oppression, of throwing themselves on the sovereignty of their states, of being goaded to rebellion, of the time being near when Vengeance should stalk about these halls. It was melancholy to see such feelings aroused among our countrymen, and more painful to see them quite disregarded."

South

A year and more later, the storm long brewing Carolina broke upon the country. Congress, having reduced nullifies. the high duties upon some articles, but left them upon others, refused to abandon protection in the new tariff of 1832. The South Carolina members of Congress immediately united with Vice President Calhoun in an address declaring their conviction "that the protecting system must now be regarded as the settled policy of the country," and recommending "a struggle" to transmit to posterity "the rights and liberties received as a precious inheritance from an illustrious ancestry." The legislature of South Carolina summoned a convention of the state, which met at Columbia, under the presidency of Governor Hamilton, (November 19.) A few days sufficed to pass an ordinance declaring "that the several acts, and parts of acts, purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties on importation are unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States, and violate the true intent and meaning thereof, and are null and void, and no law, nor binding upon the State of South Carolina, its officers and citizens; and that it shall be the duty of the legislature to adopt such measures and pass such acts as may be necessary to give full effect to this ordinance, and to prevent the enforcement and arrest the operation of the said acts, and parts of acts, of the Congress of the United States within the limits of the state," (November 24.)