As you know, we are in the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and I’d like to occasionally stimulate some discussion of this horrendous tragedy. One of the events that helped set the stage was the “nullification crisis” of 1828-1833. The role of John C. Calhoun has also been under-recognized.
"Nullification Crisis
The American System, advocated by Henry Clay in Congress and supported by many nationalist supporters of the War of 1812 such as John C. Calhoun, was a program for rapid economic modernization featuring protective tariffs, internal improvements at Federal expense, and a national bank. The purpose was to develop American industry and international commerce. Since iron, coal, and water power were mainly in the North, this tax plan was doomed to cause rancor in the South where economies were agriculture-based.[15][16] Southerners claimed it demonstrated favoritism toward the North.[17][18]
The nation suffered an economic downturn throughout the 1820s, and South Carolina was particularly affected. The highly protective Tariff of 1828 (also called the "Tariff of Abominations"), designed to protect American industry by taxing imported manufactured goods, was enacted into law during the last year of the presidency of John Quincy Adams. Opposed in the South and parts of New England, the expectation of the tariff’s opponents was that with the election of Andrew Jackson the tariff would be significantly reduced.[19]
By 1828 South Carolina state politics increasingly organized around the tariff issue. When the Jackson administration failed to take any actions to address their concerns, the most radical faction in the state began to advocate that the state declare the tariff null and void within South Carolina. In Washington, an open split on the issue occurred between Jackson and his vice-president John C. Calhoun, the most effective proponent of the constitutional theory of state nullification through his 1828 "South Carolina Exposition and Protest".[20]
Congress enacted a new tariff in 1832, but it offered the state little relief, resulting in the most dangerous sectional crisis since the Union was formed. Some militant South Carolinians even hinted at withdrawing from the Union in response. The newly elected South Carolina legislature then quickly called for the election of delegates to a state convention. Once assembled, the convention voted to declare null and void the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 within the state. President Andrew Jackson responded firmly, declaring nullification an act of treason. He then took steps to strengthen federal forts in the state. [Ironically, Jackson was himself a slave-owner and planter who at least at one time claimed to have been born in S.C. He was generally opposed to expansion of federal power, (e.g. opposed to the Bank of the U.S.), He was also, however, a land-speculator]
Violence seemed a real possibility early in 1833 as Jacksonians in Congress introduced a "Force Bill" authorizing the President to use the Federal army and navy in order to enforce acts of Congress. No other state had come forward to support South Carolina, and the state itself was divided on willingness to continue the showdown with the Federal government. The crisis ended when Clay and Calhoun worked to devise a compromise tariff. Both sides later claimed victory. Calhoun and his supporters in South Carolina claimed a victory for nullification, insisting that it had forced the revision of the tariff. Jackson's followers, however, saw the episode as a demonstration that no single state could assert its rights by independent action.
Calhoun, in turn, devoted his efforts to building up a sense of Southern solidarity so that when another standoff should come, the whole section might be prepared to act as a bloc in resisting the federal government. As early as 1830, in the midst of the crisis, Calhoun identified the right to own slaves as the chief southern minority right being threatened:
“I consider the tariff act as the occasion, rather than the real cause of the present unhappy state of things. The truth can no longer be disguised, that the peculiar domestick [sic] institution of the Southern States [slavery] and the consequent direction which that and her soil have given to her industry, has placed them in regard to taxation and appropriations in opposite relation to the majority of the Union, against the danger of which, if there be no protective power in the reserved rights of the states they must in the end be forced to rebel, or, submit to have their paramount interests sacrificed, their domestic institutions subordinated by Colonization and other schemes, and themselves and children reduced to wretchedness.”[21][22]
On May 1, 1833, Jackson wrote of this idea, "the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question."[23]"
MAIN SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_Crisis, EDITED
This crisis was part of the background of the later 1860 crisis ignited by the election of Lincoln who advocated that slavery not be permitted in any new states or territories. Lincoln did not advocate abolition of slavery in territories in which is currently existed. In contrast the forceful reaction to southern resistance, Lincoln’s predecessor Buchanan, just threw up his hands and did nothing. Although from Pennysylvania, Buchanan was a slavery sympathizer who agreed with the Supreme Court’s ominous decision in Dred Scott. Note especially the efforts of Calhoun to set up disagreements about slavery as a cause that could unite all of the south and make secession possible. Note the rhetoric about the north “colonizing” and "reducing southern children to “wretchedness.” Finally, note Jackson's comment that slavery would be the "pretext" for future southern action. Was it a "pretext?" Given the religious and other fervors of northerners who were rabidly opposed to slavery, it was not a pretext for them. Given the religious and other supports for slavery in the Sourth, was it also a "pretext" for Southerners advocating secession? Of course, that's another huge topic. Although there is much blame to go around for secession and the civil war, Calhoun’s culpability needs to be recognized.
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