THE ISSUE DEFINED.

403

sovereignty." If South Carolina was sincerely anxious to remedy any supposed grievance, plainly its duty was to proceed in one of the methods pointed out by the Constitution: either to amend the supreme law through the initiative of Congress, or through a convention called by two-thirds of the States.

But the power of Jackson's proclamation, it must be admitted, lay not so much in its argument and in its reply to Calhoun and his disciples, as in its appeal to the American people, and especially to the citizens of South Carolina to sustain the Constitution and the laws of the government. It clearly defined the issue: Union or disunion. "Be not deceived by names," concluded his appeal to the people of that State, "disunion by armed force is treason. Are you really ready to encourage guilt? If you are, on the heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences; on their heads be the dishonor, but on yours may fall the punishment. On your unhappy State will inevitably fall all the evils of the conflict you force upon the government of your country. It cannot accede to the mad project of disunion of which you would be the first victims." Before a generation had passed away these words had proved a prophecy.1

The response of the Nation to the President's proclamation was immediate and overwhelming. Public meetings were held all over the Union and the State legislatures, with few exceptions, passed resolutions commending the President's course and condemning South

1 A remarkable fulfillment of this prophecy is recorded in the Appendix of the Journal of the Convention of South Carolina, held in 1860, 1861 and 1862, together with the Ordinances, Reports, Resolutions, etc. Published by order of the Convention, Columbia, South Carolina: R. W. Gibbes, printer to the Convention, 1862, pp. 459-301.

404

CLAY'S COMPROMISE.

Carolina.1 But it was the prompt action of the President and Congress which constituted the most important reply to the South Carolina ordinance and the argument of Calhoun. Preparations were made to collect the duty by force. The collector of the port of Charleston was duly instructed, and troops, under charge of General Scott, were sent to the State, and the navy was ordered to support him. A collision of authorities seemed certain. At the height of the excitement Clay came forward with a compromise tariff act, which provided for a gradual decrease of the duties, which was passed, the immediate effect of which was the suspension of the nullification ordinance by South Carolina and its repeal soon afterward.5 Jackson kept constantly informed of the state of affairs at Charleston, and one of his political lieutenants, writing on the day after the repeal, described the conclusion of the whole matter. Clay's bill and the stern purpose of the President to enforce the law, had changed the hearts of many of the nullifiers, so much so, that when the convention assembled, on the fifteenth of March, only four of them voted against a repeal of the ordinance, because they thought that Clay's bill "did not fully abandon the principle of protection." But McDuffie, who divided

1 For a typical set of Resolutions (with citations of those of other States) see the Resolves of the General Court of Massachusetts, January, 1832, to April, 1834; pp. 290-408, 646: see the New Hampshire Resolutions against legislation "On the Subject of the Tariff and the Doctrines of Nullification," July 6, 1833; Laws of New Hampshire, Concord, 137.

2 The Force Bill was passed March 2, 1833, empowering the President to suppress obstructions to the laws by military force or other means within any State; Statutes at Large, IV, 634.

3 October and November, 1833; Congressional Debates, IX, App, 187, et seq.

4 February 26, 1833.

5 March 16, 1833.

with Calhoun the leadership of the nullification movement, spoke "lovingly" of Clay as "our ally in the West whom we have recently gained," and congratulated the convention on the triumph of nullification through Clay's compromise act.1 To crown all, Governor Hamilton made a conciliatory speech, and the offensive ordinance was repealed. Jackson's endorsement of this letter was forceful, characteristic and unique, a tribute which he would willingly have seen inscribed as an epitaph for the authors of nullification: "The Ordinance & all law under it repealed-so ends the wicked & disgraceful conduct of Calhoun, McDuffie & their co nullies. They will only be remembered, to be held up to scorn, by every one who loves freedom, our glorious constitution & government of laws."2

1 Clay's part in the compromise has been the subject of endless discussion, the central theme of which is whether he in any way "abandoned the policy of protection." Whether or not he really did so, it would seem that many Southern Democrats believed that he did. This Southern opinion comes to light in the correspondence of later years, thus the Honorable W. W. Payne of Gainesville, Alabama, writing to Blair and Rives, April 29, 1843, (MS. letter) says: "I find that the Whigs of the South are going to take the novel ground of denying Clay to be a protective tariff man; with the less informed this may have some influence, but as the advocacy of the protective policy will destroy any man in this latitude my object is to fortify myself with the necessary proofs on this point. That H. Clay is a protective tariff man, we all know, but I want the proof of the fact."

2 MS. letter Augustus Fitch to the President of the United States, Columbia, March 16, 1833. The extreme nullifiers were a minority in the Democrat party at the South, as the correspondence of the times shows, thus the correspondent of Francis P. Blair, Editor of the Globe, signing himself a Clark man, and writing from Milledgeville, Georgia, May 28, 1832, says: "Never was any party more opposed to any doctrine than the Clarke party of Georgia are to anti-Republican disorganization and consolidating heresy nullification, as set forth by some of the leading politicians of South Carolina;" and again speaks of the doctrine as that of "the odious principles of nullification."

406

WEBSTER'S POSITION.

Thus the great issue involved in nullification was compromised. On the constitutionality of nullification, men were left to differ. It was an old issue, older than the government, and had come up in one form or another repeatedly. Was the Union a Confederacy or a Nation? Webster and Hayne had discussed this question at the time of the Foote resolution, and Webster and Calhoun discussed it again when the force bill passed.1 According to Calhoun, the political system under which the American people lived, was a compact the parties of which were separate and sovereign communities, the several States. Because of its sovereignty, each State had the right to judge for itself whether Congress had violated the Constitution and in case of violation to choose its own mode and measure of redress.2 Ours was a federal system and with it went all the consequences of such a system. The practical effect of this theory was nullification, it remained for time to show whether it would also be secession.

Against this theory of the government Webster maintained that the Constitution of the United States was not a league, confederacy or compact between the people of the several States in their sovereign capacities, but a government prepared and founded on the adoption of the people and creating direct relations between itself and individuals. No State had power to dissolve these relations, revolution alone could dissolve them. In all cases in dispute between the States or the people of the United States, capable of assuming the character of a suit, the Supreme Court was the final interpreter. Any attempt by a State to nullify an act of Congress on the ground that

1 February 15-27, 1833.

2 Calhoun, February 15, 16, 1833; Works, II, 198, ei seq.: see also Id. 262, et seq.

IS THE CONSTITUTION A COMPACT?

407

in its opinion that act was unconstitutional, was a "direct usurpation of the just powers of the government and of the equal rights of their States; a plain violation of the Constitution and proceedings essentially revolutionary in its character and tendency." Whether the Constitution was a compact in its sovereign capacity was a question, Webster maintained, which must be mainly argued from what is contained in the instrument itself. This declared itself to be a Constitution, "not a league, compact or confederacy, but a fundamental law." To espouse the doctrines of nullification was to reject the first great principle of republican government,—that the majority must govern.1 Nullification, therefore, meant secession, sesession would be revolution and must terminate in the destruction of the Union. The great issue whether the Union was a Confederacy or a Nation was compromised, but not settled at this time. The Compromise of 1833, neither convinced the nullifiers that they were wrong, nor established beyond doubt in the public mind the national character of the general government. Clay's compromise tariff act2 so modified the duties imposed by the act of 1832, as to amount in the opinion of aggressive Northerners almost to a surrender of the policy of protection, and to that degree to acknowledge the right of nullification. The force bill passed on the same day of Clay's compromise and constituted the national part of the general action, but went no further than particularly to authorize the President to execute the laws. To that extent it supported the President's proclamation and Webster's theory of the Union. But there was a more ragged edge to the Compromise of '33, than to that of 1820. It was

1 Webster's speech in reply to Calhoun, February 16, 1833; Works, III, 451, et seq.

2 March 2, 1833; Statutes at Large, IV, 629.