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The Great Republic by the Master Historians
The Ordinance of Nullification
by Bancroft, Hubert H.
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[One chief cause of political disturbance in America was temporarily removed in
the passage of the "Missouri Compromise" measure. Another remained, which was
destined to produce no small sum of future trouble. It sprang from the same
source as the other, the institution of slavery, and the diversity of interests
that necessarily grew up between the free and the slave States. The tendency to
territorial expansion, which was due to the exclusively agricultural interests
of the cotton-raising States, and to the need of a market for their steadily-
increasing slave property, was provided for, for the time being, by the one
measure. The remaining cause of controversy was of a different character, and
one which could be satisfactorily settled by no compromise. It became then, and
to a great extent yet remains, the main controversial feature of American
political parties, and is a source of difference of opinion which can be
definitively removed only by the growth of a harmony of interests throughout
America.
For a long period after the settlement of the American colonies their industries
were mainly agricultural. The growth of commercial interests was restricted by
English laws. The colonies were permitted to trade only with the mother-country,
even their trade with one another being made illegal. And the products of
America were largely carried in English ships. After the Revolution this state
of affairs ceased to exist. The shipping interests of America rapidly extended,
its commerce spread to all parts of the habitable world, and in the early years
of the nineteenth century the business of importation and exportation grew with
extraordinary rapidity.
Up to this period the main industries of America were in harmony. The excess
products of the farm, the forest, and the mine needed a market, which could be
found only in foreign lands. Articles of comfort and luxury were demanded in
return, and these also had to be sought for abroad. The commercial population of
America grew rich through this double duty of carrying home products abroad and
bringing foreign products home. Tariff charges, or taxation of imports and
exports, militated against both these interests, and were restricted to the
absolute demands of revenue. The call for protection of American productive
interests was as yet too feeble to be clearly heard.
Only very slowly did the manufacturing interests of the United States develop,
and a home market for the products of mine, forest, and farm grow up. The
restrictive policy of England had borne even more severely on this than on the
commercial interest. During the long colonial period manufacturing industry
languished, discouraged by these restrictions, and at the opening of the
Revolution it was of minor importance as compared with the other industries of
the country. The establishment of American independence removed the legal
restrictions which had been imposed by the jealousy of English manufacturers,
but there remained the influence of an overpowering competition. The vast
capital, the abundant machinery, and the skilled labor of English workshops
depressed,. by their unequal rivalry, the infant manufactures of America, the
cost of ocean-transportation and the small duty-charges being insufficient to
overcome the difference in advantages for production. There was no hindrance to
the minor trades, which required labor on the spot, and iron and some other
branches of general manufacture made some progress, but the competition was too
severe for any rapid growth of the manufacturing industries on this side of the
ocean.
The conditions attending the second war with Great Britain changed this state of
affairs, and tended to the special encouragement of American manufactures. The
commercial restrictions established by England and France, which cut off America
from both its buying and its selling market, the embargo and non-intercourse
acts, which intensified this difficulty, and the disturbance to commerce by the
war that succeeded, had the tendency to force America to consume nearly all its
products at home, and to produce by home labor, as fully as possible, the much-
needed articles which had previously been received from the workshops of England
and the Continent. As a consequence, the manufacturing interests of America grew
and diversified with a rapidity that was in decided contrast with the slowness
of their preceding development, and by the close of the war a marked and
important advance had been made. The manufacture of cotton, for instance,
increased from ten thousand bales in 1810 to ninety thousand bales in 1815,
nearly enough iron was made to supply the country, and several other branches of
manufacture were highly prosperous.
With the close of the war, however, competition again came into active play. The
country was flooded with English goods, at a price and of a quality which
American goods could not rival. The high rates of labor which followed the war
added to the discrepancy in price, and many American manufacturers were ruined,
while the remainder sustained themselves only with great difficulty. Congress
was called upon to remedy the evil which had thus suddenly arisen. Protection of
American industry against foreign competition became necessary, if our workshops
were to continue in existence, and to the old party cries a new one was added,
that of protective tariff.
Two interests, as we have seen, were opposed to this, those of agriculture and
commerce. Neither these nor manufactures were at first such sectional interests
as they later became. Pennsylvania was the State in which manufactures had most
developed. Commerce was the leading pursuit farther north, and the tariff of
1816 was carried by the support of several Southern members against New England
generally. Yet the rapid development in the South of agricultural industry, and
the natural desire to obtain the cheapest goods in return for the products of
their fields, without regard to whether they came from the North or from abroad,
soon brought non-tariff into prominence as a Southern party principle. In the
North opinion was more divided. Its shipping interest was large, and for the
advancement of that low tariff seemed desirable. But its manufacturing interest
was growing steadily more important, and for the rapid development of that a
protective tariff had become a necessity.
That protection of manufactures against undue competition until grown strong
enough to stand without support, and the consequent development on American soil
of all the industries adapted to its people, climate, and natural conditions,
were measures essential to the best good of the country, was theoretically
undeniable. But theoretical considerations, and the question of future
advantage, have very little to do with the management of human affairs. Men are
governed by their present interests, in many cases even where wise enough to see
that those interests are opposed to the present or future interests of mankind
at large. A tariff controversy therefore at once arose, which developed into
what has been denominated, a "thirty-year tariff war," since it extended from
1816 to 1846, during which period it was among the most prominent political
questions of the country.
The tariff bill of 1816 was a sort of compromise between the conflicting
interests. A high duty was advocated on all goods which could unquestionably be
produced in sufficient quantity in the United States. A bill was passed in which
this classification of dutiable articles was adopted, but in which protection
was admitted as an incidental feature only, and the raising of revenue made the
predominant principle in calculating duties. With this compromise nobody was
satisfied. New agitation at once began, and in 1820 a bill was passed by the
House in favor of an openly protective system. This bill was rejected by the
Senate. Yet the protectionists, who were steadily growing in power, would not
let the question rest, while the North and the South became definitively divided
on this measure, the latter losing its earlier division of sentiment and
becoming decidedly in favor of low tariff.
With this change in opinions and national questions came a change in parties.
With the end of the war the old Federal party had virtually passed out of
existence. The Republican party, which became overwhelmingly predominant, now
split into two new parties, the Democratic and the National Republican (which
later became known as the Whig party), between which the country was for many
years afterwards divided. The tariff for a considerable period remained the
leading political problem. The depression of industries which followed the era
of high prices and prosperity after the war gave the protectionists a strong
weapon, of which they did not fail to make active use. In 1824 the question
again became prominent before Congress. The plantation States were now unanimous
in their opposition to the tariff measure, yet it passed both Houses by small
majorities. In 1828 a new revision of the tariff was made in favor of
protection. The fight had now become bitter. The general growth of manufacturing
interests throughout the North had given the protectionists the balance of
strength, and the free-traders, finding themselves powerless to gain their ends
in Congress, began to indulge in treasonable language, claiming that individual
States had the right to refuse to submit to laws which worked adversely to their
interests.
It was particularly in South Carolina that this doctrine was advocated, and the
power of a State to nullify, or to render null and void the operation of a
Federal law, was openly advocated by hot-headed Congressmen of that State, who
wished to apply this dangerous principle, which was but a step short of
secession from the Union, to the tariff bill of 1828. Mr. Hayne of South
Carolina, the opponent of Daniel Webster in the most famous oration of the
latter, was an ardent advocate of this doctrine, and, while bitterly denouncing
New England in that famous controversy, he openly urged on the floor of Congress
the doctrine of "Nullification," claiming that any State when deeming itself
oppressed by a law of Congress considered unconstitutional by the State
legislature, had the right to declare this law null and void and to release its
citizens from the duty of obedience. The crushing reply which Webster gave to
this argument, and the remarkable ability with which he unfolded the principles
of the constitutional government of the United States, had little effect on the
discontented State, which two years afterwards passed an ordinance of
nullification of the tariff laws. A brief account of the manner in which this
act of rebellion was crushed by President Jackson we extract from the
"Biographical Memoir of Daniel Webster," by Edward Everett, including in our
selection a description of other vigorous measures adopted by the hard-headed
"hero of New Orleans."]
It may be stated as the general characteristic of the political tendencies of
this period that there was a decided weakening of respect for constitutional
restraint. Vague ideas of executive discretion prevailed on the one hand in the
interpretation of the Constitution, and of popular sovereignty on the other, as
represented by a President elevated to office by overwhelming majorities of the
people. The expulsion of the Indian tribes from the Southern States, in
violation of the faith of treaties and in open disregard of the opinion of the
Supreme Court of the United States as to their obligation; the claim of a right
on the part of a State to nullify an act of the general government; the
violation of the charter of the bank, and the Presidential veto of the act of
Congress rechartering it; the deposit of the public money in the selected State
banks with a view to its safe keeping and for the greater encouragement of trade
by the loan of the public funds; the explosion of this system, and the adoption
of one directly opposed to it, which rejected wholly the aid of the banks and
denied the right of the government to employ the public funds for any but fiscal
purposes; the executive menaces of war against France; the unsuccessful attempt
of Mr. Van Buren's administration to carry on the government upon General
Jackson's system; the panic of 1837, succeeded by the general uprising of the
country and the universal demand for a change of men and measures,--these are
the leading incidents in the chronicle of the period in question. .
In the Twenty-Second Congress (the second of General Jackson's administration)
the bank question became prominent [the question of rechartering the Bank of the
United States, founded in 1816, and whose charter would expire in 1836]. General
Jackson had in his first message called the attention of Congress to the subject
of the bank. No doubt of its constitutionality was then intimated by him. In the
course of a year or two an attempt was made, on the part of the executive, to
control the appointment of the officers of one of the Eastern branches. This
attempt was resisted by the bank, and from that time forward a state of warfare,
at first partially disguised, but finally open and flagrant, existed between the
government and the directors of the institution. In the first session of the
Twenty-Second Congress (1831-32) a bill was introduced by Mr. Dallas, and passed
the two Houses, to renew the charter of the bank. This measure was supported by
Mr. Webster, on the ground of the importance of a national bank to the fiscal
operations of the government, and to the currency, exchange, and general
business of the country. No specific complaints of mismanagement had then been
made, nor were any abuses alleged to exist. The bank was, almost without
exception, popular at that time with the business interests of the country, and
particularly at the South and West. Its credit in England was solid; its bills
and drafts on London took the place of specie for remittances to India and
China. Its convenience and usefulness were recognized in the report of the
Secretary of the Treasury (Mr. McLane), at the same time that its
constitutionality was questioned and its existence threatened by the President.
So completely, however, was the policy of General Jackson's administration the
impulse of his own feelings and individual impressions, and so imperfectly had
these been disclosed on the present occasion, that the fate of the bill for
rechartering the bank was a matter of uncertainty on the part both of adherents
and opponents. Many persons on both sides of the two Houses were taken by
surprise by the veto. When the same question was to be decided by General
Washington, he took the opinion in writing of every member of the Cabinet.
But events of a different complexion soon occurred, and gave a new direction to
the thoughts of men throughout the country. The opposition of South Carolina to
the protective policy had been pushed to a point of excitement at which it was
beyond the control of party leaders. Although, as we have seen, that policy had
in 1816 been established by the aid of distinguished statesmen of South Carolina
[Mr. Calhoun and others], who saw in the success of American cotton manufactures
a new market for the staple of the South, in which it would take the place of
the cotton of India, the protective policy at a later period had come to be
generally considered unconstitutional at the South. A change of opinion somewhat
similar had taken place in New England, which had been originally opposed to
this policy, as adverse to the commercial and navigating interests. Experience
gradually showed that such was not the case. The enactment of the law of 1824
was considered as establishing the general principle of protection as the policy
of the country. It was known to be the policy of the great central States. The
capital of the North was to some extent forced into new channels. Some branches
of manufactures flourished, as skill was acquired and improvements in machinery
made. The coarse cotton fabrics which had enjoyed the protection of the minimum
duty prospered, manufacturing villages grew up, the price of the fabric fell,
and as competition increased the tariff did little more than protect the
domestic manufactures from fraudulent invoices and the fluctuation of foreign
markets. Thus all parties were benefited, not excepting the South, which gained
a new customer for her staple..
Unfortunately, no manufactures had been established in the South. The vast
quantities of new and fertile land opened in the west of Georgia, in Alabama,
and Mississippi, injured the value of the old and partly exhausted lands of the
Atlantic States. Labor was drawn off to found plantations in the new States, and
the injurious consequences were ascribed to the tariff. Considerations of a
political nature had entirely changed the tolerant feeling which, up to a
certain period, had been shown by one class of Southern politicians towards the
protective policy. With the exception of Louisiana, and one or two votes in
Virginia, the whole South was united against the tariff. South Carolina had
suffered most by the inability of her worn lands to sustain the competition with
the lands of the Yazoo and the Red River, and to her the most active opposition,
under the lead of Mr. Calhoun, was confined. The modern doctrine of
nullification was broached by her accomplished statesmen, and an unsuccessful
attempt made to deduce it from the Virginia resolutions of 1798. Mr. Madison, in
a letter addressed to the writer of these pages in August, 1830, firmly resisted
this attempt; and, as a theory, the whole doctrine of nullification was
overthrown by Mr. Webster in his speech of the 26th of January, 1830. But public
sentiment had gone too far in South Carolina to be checked; party leaders were
too deeply committed to retreat; and at the close of 1832 the ordinance of
nullification was adopted by a State convention.
This decisive act roused the hero of New Orleans from the vigilant repose with
which he had watched the coming storm. Confidential orders to hold themselves in
readiness for active service were sent in every direction to the officers of the
army and the navy. Prudent and resolute men were quietly stationed at the proper
posts. Arms and munitions in abundance were held in readiness, and a chain of
expresses in advance of the mail was established from the Capitol to Charleston.
These preparations made, the Presidential proclamation of the 11th of December,
1832, was issued. It was written by Mr. Edward Livingston, then Secretary of
State, from notes furnished by General Jackson himself; but there is not an idea
of importance in it which may not be found in Mr. Webster's speech on Foot's
resolution [the oration in reply to Hayne].
The proclamation of the President was met by the counter-proclamation of
Governor Hayne; and the State of South Carolina proceeded to pass laws for
carrying the ordinance of nullification into effect, and for putting the State
into a condition to carry on war with the general government. In this posture of
affairs the President of the United States laid the matter before Congress, in
his message of the 16th of January, 1833, and the bill "further to provide for
the collection of duties on imports" was introduced into the Senate, in
pursuance of his recommendations. Mr. Calhoun was at this time a member of that
body, having been chosen to succeed Governor Hayne, and having of course
resigned the office of Vice-President. Thus called, for the first time, to
sustain in person before the Senate and the country the policy of nullification,
which had been adopted by South Carolina mainly under his influence, and which
was now threatening the Union, it hardly need be said that he exerted all his
ability and put forth all his resources in defence of the doctrine which had
brought his State to the verge of revolution. It is but justice to add that he
met the occasion with equal courage and vigor. The bill "to make further
provision for the collection of the revenue," or "Force Bill," as it was called,
was reported by Mr. Wilkins from the Committee on the Judiciary on the 21st of
January, and on the following day Mr. Calhoun moved a series of resolutions
affirming the right of a State to annual, as far as her citizens are concerned,
any act of Congress which she may deem oppressive and unconstitutional. On the
15th and 16th of February he spoke at length in opposition to the bill, and in
development and support of his resolutions. On this occasion the doctrine of
nullification was sustained by him with far greater ability than it had been by
General Hayne, and in a speech which we believe is regarded as Mr. Calhoun's
most powerful effort. In closing his speech Mr. Calhoun challenged the opponents
of his doctrines to disprove them, and warned them, in the concluding sentence,
that the principles they might advance would be subjected to the revision of
posterity.
[His speech was answered by Mr. Webster in a vigorous constitutional argument,
concerning whose power and effect we may quote from Mr. Madison: "It crushes
`nullification,' and must hasten an abandonment of `secession.'" It will suffice
to say here, in conclusion of this subject, that the passage of the Force Bill,
and the energetic preparations of the President, deterred the nullifiers. The
President had declared in his proclamation that as chief magistrate of the
country he could not, if he would, avoid performing his duty; that the laws must
be executed; that all opposition to their execution must be repelled, and by
force, if necessary. That Jackson meant all that he said no one for a moment
questioned, and South Carolina hastened to "nullify" her hostile action, though
still loudly advocating her favorite doctrine of "State rights."
The tariff difficulty, which had led to this controversy, was for the time
quieted by another "compromise bill," offered by Henry Clay. This provided for
the gradual reduction of duties till 1843, when they were to reach a general
level of twenty per cent. This bill was accepted by Calhoun and his friends as a
practical concession to their doctrines, and as enabling them to retire with
some dignity from the discreditable attitude into which they had forced their
State. The second administration of President Jackson, beginning in March, 1833,
was mainly devoted to the war on the United States Bank, which had been begun by
his veto of the bill to re-charter that institution.]
The removal of the deposits of the public moneys from the Bank of the United
States [was] a measure productive of more immediate distress to the community
and larger train of evil consequences than perhaps any similar measure in our
political history. It was finally determined on while the President was on his
Northern tour, in the summer of 1833, receiving in every part of New England
those demonstrations of respect which his patriotic course in the great
nullification struggle had inspired. It is proper to state that up to this
period, in the judgment of more than one committee of Congress appointed to
investigate its affairs, in the opinion of both Houses of Congress, who in 1832
had passed a bill to renew the charter, and of the House of Representatives,
which had resolved that the deposits were safe in its custody, the affairs of
the bank had been conducted with prudence, integrity, and remarkable skills. It
was not the least evil consequence of the warfare waged upon the bank, that it
was finally drawn into a position (though not till its Congressional charter
expired and it accepted very unwisely a charter as a State institution) in
which, in its desperate struggle to sustain itself, it finally forfeited the
confidence of its friends and the public, and made a deplorable and shameful
shipwreck at once of its interests and honor, involving hundreds, at home and
abroad, in its own deserved ruin.
Edward Everett
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