PRACTICAL NULLIFICATION.

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each other in bitterness.1 Passionate speeches were, moreover, made at meetings in different districts, at banquets and on similar occasions. Men especially delighted in toasts, in which eloquence went far beyond the bounds of good taste, and threats extended to the farthest limits of the "moral high treason" so greatly blamed a short time before.

The terrible earnestness of all these demonstrations lay in the theories of constitutional law upon which they were based. They rested wholly on the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, to which, indeed, the legislature of South Carolina directly appealed." The Colleton district declared: "We must resist the impositions of this tariff . . and follow up our principles to their very last consequence." Resolutions introduced by Dunkin in the legislature gave the legal formula by which this was to come to pass in a way commensurate, so to speak, with the matter. He demanded in this and in all similar cases the convocation of a convention of the states in order to nullify the laws objected to.1

Simultaneously, all sorts of other means were brought into play in order to nullify the tariff practically if not legally. Numerous leagues were formed, which bound

A passage in the resolutions introduced by Cook in the legislature of South Carolina deserves to be quoted, because it is a sign of the spirit in which the radical wing of the state-rights party began to look upon the relation of the states to the federal government. It says: "When a state solemnly protests against an act of congress because it is an usurpation of power, congress ought forthwith to call a convention of the states to decide upon it and suspend its operation until the sense of the states be taken, and if congress, on the application of a state or states, should refuse to call such conventions, neglect to suspend its operation or not immediately repeal the act on the grounds of its unconstitutionality, it thereupon becomes null and void to all intents and purposes." Niles' Reg., XXXV., p. 306.

2 Ibid, XXXV., p. 206.

3 Ibid, XXXIV., pp. 288, 290. 4 Ibid, XXXV., p. 305.

themselves not to buy from the north and west any goods which were protected by the tariff from foreign competition, but instead to use wares of native manufacture. Even in South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, the embitterment against the north produced a momentary possibility of building up a manufacturing industry of their own.1 But it had to be admitted that it would be at least very doubtful whether much could be done by individuals in this way, and an energetic display of state power was therefore demanded. Prohibitory duties were thought of and other projects were broached, which were also in direct opposition to the constitutional provisions in art. I., sec. 10, §§ 1 and 2. It was therefore only talked of, and this did not avail to crown the policy of terrorism with any practical result. The new tariff became a law and the collection of the duties was nowhere opposed. But the accomplishment of the fact did not bring back repose to the land. The outward alarms were weaker for a while, but the agitation was so much the deeper. It was felt on both sides that the decision would come with the next war. The protectionists soon recognized the fact that Tyler's prophecy was still always true and South Carolina prepared herself to test the efficacy of her constitutional means of protection.

1 Niles' Reg., XXXV., pp. 15, 48, 60, 62, 63, 64, 83.

'Part of the events mentioned above happened after the adoption of the tariff.

SECRET WORKINGS OF SLAVERY.

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CHAPTER XI.

THE PANAMA CONGRESS. GEORGIA AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.

After the Missouri compromise, the slavery question apparently slept for some years. Its intimate alliance with the tariff-struggle was only understood by slow degrees, and other problems, which would have brought forward the opposing principles and interests involved in it, did not crop out for the moment. The politicians felt no inclination to artificially create such problems. There were, indeed, Catalines in the south even now, but they were not of such extraordinary talents that they would have ventured to play with this fire, when its ravaging strength had just been so powerfully shown. The justification of the complaints which became so current, later, among all parties and were already becoming loud here and there, that the apple of discord had again been thrown among a people longing for rest by ambitious men, fanatics and demagogues, reduces itself, everything considered, to a minimum. The best proof of this is that slavery, despite the silent agreement of the politicians to try to shun every mention of it, often suddenly and unexpectedly became the determining element in questions which in and for themselves stood in no sort of relation to it.

The most important instance of this sort, which had, indeed, no practical results, but sharply sketched the situation, happened at the beginning of the presidency of the younger Adams.

As early as 1821 the idea of forming a close connection between the Spanish colonies in Central and South America, then engaged in revolution, had been suggested by

3

Colombia.1 A few months before their independence was recognized by the United States,2 a treaty was negotiated between Colombia and Chili (July, 1822) in which a convocation of a congress of the new republics was contemplated. "The construction of a continental system for America," which should "resemble the one already constructed in Europe," was the apparent project of these two powers. The idea ripened very slowly. It was not until the spring of 1825 that the meeting of the congress in Panama was so far assured that the ambassadors of Colombia and Mexico verbally inquired of Clay, who was then secretary of state of the United States, whether an invitation to be represented at the congress would be acceptable to the president. Adams had an answer sent, worded in his own cautious way, to the effect that he first wished to be informed concerning the topics agreed upon for discussion, the nature and form of powers to be given to the "diplomatic agents," and the "organization and method of procedure" of the congress. The ambassadors of the two mentioned states, in their formal letters of invitation, gave very unsatisfactory assurances on these points.5 Clay referred to this in his answers, but at the

4

1 Webster, Works, III., p. 195; report of the senate committee on foreign affairs of Jan. 16, 1826; Niles' Reg., XXX., p. 103. All the documents referring to the congress of Panama, as far as the United States are concerned, can be found in the State Papers (Foreign Relations) and also in Niles' Reg., Vol. XXX. Part of them are printed in Elliot, American Diplomatic Code, II., p. 648, seq.

2 Monroe recommended the recognition to congress in a special message of March 8, 1822, (Elliot, Diplomatic Code, II., pp. 640-642; compare also Adams's dispatch of May 27, 1823, to Anderson, the ambassador of the United States in Colombia) and this was ratified by both houses by the almost unanimous appropriation of the money needed for the creation of embassies. (May 4, 1822, Statutes at Large, III., p. 678.)

3

Report of the senate committee, Jan. 16, 1826.

4 Clay's report of March 14, 1826, to the house of representatives.

5 Salazar (the ambassador of Colombia) to Clay, Nov. 2, 1825, and Obregon (the ambassador of Mexico) to Clay, Nov. 3, 1825.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

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same time declared that the president had decided to accept the invitation "at once.”1

When the question of sending representatives to the congress came up in the senate, and later in the house, the Opposition tried to make capital ont of this piece of inconsistency. It was too meaningless in itself to deserve any censure. Its interest was due simply to the fact that it lifted for a moment the veil of the future.

Adams, both as a statesman and as an individual, resembled his father in many respects. He was of an earnest, deeply moral nature, and knew how to stamp this character upon his administration in a degree which, compared with all the following presidencies, makes an extremely favorable impression. Political ambition was one of his most prominent characteristics; but this did not degenerate in him, as it did in his father, into morbid vanity. He did not know what the fear of man meant. In the struggle for the right of petition, which he afterwards carried on alone in the house of representatives for a long while, he found a certain satisfaction in driving to frenzy, by his biting satire, the representatives of the slaveholding interest, who then held almost absolute power. But his scorn for all the arts of demagogues not infrequently turned into rudeness, and his firmness into obstinacy; and yet, at the same time, under certain circumstances, he let himself be influenced too much by others. During his long diplomatic service he had acquired a habit of prudent examination, which sometimes led, in the more difficult questions, to irresolution and vacillation. This is, however, partly due to the fact that sober, statesmanlike thought and idealism were not properly fused together in his nature. The former decidedly outweighed the other; but yet the latter made itself felt, and not infrequently in a destructive way.

1 The answers are dated Nov. 30.