under the lead of Webster, gave all her votes except one against it. It was not until four years later that Webster gave in his adhesion to the American system of CLAY.

severe.

In 1828 the question had assumed a most serious sectional aspect. When Jefferson was President, the maritime States of the North had bitterly opposed the embargo laws, which virtually kept their ships rotting at the wharves. They boldly declared that the enforcement of the embargo was adequate cause for dissolution of the Union. But now, in 1828, and in 1830, they favored a protective tariff, which operated upon the agricultural States as the embargo had upon the maritime States. Its operation was claimed to be even more No one pretended that it was simply a tariff for revenue. It was intended to protect certain branches of industry by paying them a bonus wrung from other branches, and especially from the agricultural labor of the South. It was spoken of as a Bill of Abominations. All that the South asked was that she might buy her cotton gins, her ploughs, her hoes, and her clothing at moderate and just prices, and not be compelled to pay a subsidy to Massachusetts for the one article, or to Pennsylvania for another. African slavery had made the South purely agricultural, and all agricultural States naturally and necessarily favor free trade. Perhaps under other circumstances, however violative of the spirit of the Constitution, the South might have found a protective tariff an incentive to manufactories of iron in Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama, of cotton goods in nearly all of the Atlantic and Gulf States south of the Chesapeake, and of leathern goods in the vast pine forests of the

coast, as it was certainly an incentive to the production of sugar in Louisiana. But while agriculture was the sole occupation of the Southern people, the tariff fell upon the cotton States with crushing burthen. With one-third of the population they paid two-thirds of the revenue of the Union.

The opening of richer cotton fields in Alabama had diminished the value of land in South Carolina, and the commercial importance of Charleston had receded, it was said, before the blighting effects of the tariff. Within a few years past a thriving foreign commerce had been carried on direct with Europe, but now the forty ships which had sought the harbor of Charleston had all disappeared. The ship yards had been broken up; the merchants had become bankrupt or had sought other pursuits; mechanics were thrown out of employment, and the very streets were assuming the silence of inactivity. Said Mr. Hayne: If we fly "from the city to the country, what do we there behold? "fields abandoned; the hospitable mansions of our "fathers deserted; agriculture drooping; our slaves, "like their masters, working harder and faring worse; "the planter striving with unavailable efforts to avert "the ruin that is before him."

6.

If there had been a necessity for such protection tr, the interests of one branch of industry at the expense of another, the case would not have appeared so bad; but it was shown from the custom-house books that many species of our manufactures, and especially those of cotton, were going abroad to distant countries, and sustaining themselves there against all competition and beyond the fostering care of our laws. The only effect of protective duties in such cases was clearly to cut off

importations, to create a monopoly at home, and to enable manufacturers to sell their goods higher to their own fellow-citizens of the South who produced the raw material than to the distant inhabitants of the Mediterranean and of India.

JOHN C. CALHOUN saw very plainly that the question of free trade was that which, keeping the more dangerous question of slavery in the back ground, was destined to divide the republic into two great parties. Upon this question he could rally the agricultural States to his standard, and would have the advantage of fighting on a higher level than he would be compelled to stand upon were the issue simply upon slavery. He had given up all hope that President Jackson would aid him in destroying the protective system by ordinary parliamentary measures. On July 26, 1831, at Fort Hill, he issued an address to the people of South Carolina, setting forth the declaration of the Virginia resolutions and asserting the right of interposition, "be it "called as it may, State right, veto, nullification or by any other name." In 1832 the tariff had received the sanction of the President. Calhoun in a letter

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to Governor Hamilton of South Carolina reviewed the situation quite elaborately and announced the doctrine of nullification. "Nullification," said he, " is the great “is "conservative principle of the Union." "Not a pro"vision can be found in the Constitution authorizing "the General Government to exercise any control over "a State by force, by veto, by judicial process, or in 66 any other form-a most important omission, designed "and not accidental" That Calhoun regarded nullification as a peaceful remedy appears throughout his letter. The calling out of the military power of the

66

Union, he said, would be useless because no opponents

would be found, for "it would be

a con

He insisted that

"flict of moral, not physical force." the legal relation between the Federal and State governments would not be broken up.

He denied the right of a State Legislature to nullify a Federal law. It must be done by a State convention. A motion was made in the South Carolina Legislature to call a State convention, but failed of the regular twothirds vote. Another effort was more successful, and a convention was called to meet at Columbia, November 18th. A nullification ordinance was adopted November 24th, declaring that the tariff of May 19, .828, and that of July 24, 1832, were null and void, and instructing the Legislature to pass laws necessary for enforcing the ordinance, after the first day of February next, for preventing the collection of duties imposed by the nullified laws. The convention announced that every measure of coercion on the part of the Federal Government would be regarded "as inconsistent with "the longer continuance of South Carolina in the "Union." The convention then adjourned until March to await the action of Congress.

There were many leading men of the South, who, while sympathizing with those who complained of the obnoxious tariff and, not denying the right of a State in the ultimate resort to judge of the measure of its grievances and the mode of redress, nevertheless held that South Carolina had placed herself in a wrong attitude by passing her ordinance at a time when the Presidential election, two weeks before, had gone overwhelmingly against CLAY's American system, and when a large majority of opponents of the odious tariff

had been returned to Congress under a pledge for its repeal or modification. A majority of the people of

the South believed that the case was not such an one as was described in the resolutions of '98, and in those of the Hartford convention, as a "deliberate, palpable "and dangerous" exercise of powers not granted by the compact. It was not a deliberate act of the United States; because after full debate in Congress, and an appeal to the country in a Presidential canvass in which the tariff was a leading question, the verdict of the people of the United State had been against it. It was not a dangerous act because the verdict of the election being adverse, it was now certain that its dangerous and oppressive features would be removed. Recognizing the fact that the Constitution itself was a bundle of compromises, these patriotic citizens of the South were willing to endure all burdens of Government which were not absolutely too grievous to be borne and without remedy, rather than rush to unknown evils beyond the confines of the Federal system. They believed in an appeal to the judiciary whenever the question could be reached in that way; if it was a question which could not be so reached, they appealed to the people at the next election. Hence they now protested against the hasty action of South Carolina.

Another large body of Southern people held that the remedy adopted by South Carolina was not the To secede from the Union was one thing; proper one. to remain in the Union and nullify a Federal law was quite another thing. Nullification would make the Union "a rope of sand," and place her precisely in the position she occupied under the articles of confederation when she had power to enact laws but no power