NULLIFICATION CRISIS
By the early 1800s , cotton, in the South, was king, and the biggest customer for southern cotton was England, which spun the cotton into cloth, then exported the finished cloth to the United States. Because of its higher quality, British fabric was more sought after in the United States than the domestic made cloth. The result was that northern textile industires suffered. The South enjoyed almost complete free trade with England and other European countries. This was a great benefit to the agricultural economy of the South, but it was a drag on the industrial economy of the North. To push Americans into buying American made goods, Congress passed a strong protective tariff law in 1828, levying a heavy tax on all imported manufactured goods. Northerners welcomed the tariff, while southerners took to cursing it as the “Tariff of Abominations.”
John C. Calhoun, Vice President from South Carolina, resurrected the idea that any state could pronounce a federal tariff as “null and void” if that state deemed it unconstitutional. When Congress passed the Tariff of 1832, South Carolina enacted an Ordinance of Nullification forbidding the collection of tariff duties in the state. Senator, Robert Hayne, from South Carolina pushed the issue even futhern when he added to Calhoun’s nullification theory the argument that not only could a state nullify a federal law, a state could also, as a last resort, withdraw from the Union. In response, Massachusetts senator, Daniel Webster, defended the power of the federal government verses the alleged rights of the states: “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!”
Nullification brought the nation to a crisis and a showdown between the will of a single state verses the law of the land. The crisis reached beyond a tariff on imports. Calhoun and his fellow South Carolinians were fighting for the preservation of an economy based on slavery. They clearly saw that slavery would, someday, be abolished by a northern majoity in Congress. The nullification doctrine seemed the only way to get around the democratic prinicple of majority rule, especially if the doctrine was connected to the threat of secession.
President Jackson responded to nullification by denying any state had the right to not obey federal laws and threatened to use the military to enforce the collection of import duties. Henry Clay finally proposed a compromise in which the tariffs would be gradually reduced over a ten year period. Faced with the use of federal troops, South Carolina withdrew it nullfication law and avoided a national crisis. Jackson showed that despite his support for states’ rights, he would use force to preserve the Union.
NULLIFICATION CRISIS
1. Explain how the illustration represents the effects of the tariffs?