Web

fence of

the na

tion.

But before this action was taken, the nation and ster's de- its sovereignty had been nobly defended in the Senate of the United States. Senator Foot, of Connecticut, offered a resolution at the close of the previous year, (1829,) concerning the disposition of the public lands; but these were soon lost sight of in the debates which followed concerning the relative powers of the states and the national government. Robert Y. Hayne, a senator from South Carolina, appeared in support of the theories to which his state was committed; but every one knew that he was speaking for a greater leader, John C. Calhoun, vice president of the United States under Jackson, as he had been under Adams, and yet more influential as the head and front of nullification. Hayne's first speech on this question (January 19, 1830) was answered by Webster the next day, and with such effect that Hayne's rejoinder was not completed for several days, when Webster spoke the second time, (January 26,) and with greater effect than had or has ever been witnessed in either house of Congress. His purpose was to lay the axe at the root of nullification; and this he did by a close and decisive argument that the national government is not a compact among sovereign states, but a government established by the people, and to be resisted, if at all, only by appeal from one of its branches to another, or by the right of revolution against them all. "I trust," said the great orator, to whom the proud title

of Defender of the Consti

tution was given by his grateful countrymen, “the crisis has in some measure passed by," (1831.)

Bad

But not even Webster could then see how periltemper. ous the crisis continued. A visitor at Washington, early in 1831, describes the temper in Congress; and the temper there prevailed elsewhere: "When we entered the House, there was a debate going on relative to reduction

of duty on salt. Some southern members spoke with great vehemence, but nobody on the floor paid any attention to them. They spoke of their oppression, of throwing themselves on the sovereignty of their states, of being goaded to rebellion, of the time being near when Vengeance should stalk about these halls. It was melancholy to see such feelings aroused among our countrymen, and more painful to see them quite disregarded."

South

A year and more later, the storm long brewing Carolina broke upon the country. Congress, having reduced nullifies. the high duties upon some articles, but left them upon others, refused to abandon protection in the new tariff of 1832. The South Carolina members of Congress immediately united with Vice President Calhoun in an address declaring their conviction "that the protecting system must now be regarded as the settled policy of the country," and recommending "a struggle" to transmit to posterity "the rights and liberties received as a precious inheritance from an illustrious ancestry." The legislature of South Carolina summoned a convention of the state, which met at Columbia, under the presidency of Governor Hamilton, (November 19.) A few days sufficed to pass an ordinance declaring "that the several acts, and parts of acts, purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties on importation are unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States, and violate the true intent and meaning thereof, and are null and void, and no law, nor binding upon the State of South Carolina, its officers and citizens ; and that it shall be the duty of the legislature to adopt such measures and pass such acts as may be necessary to give full effect to this ordinance, and to prevent the enforcement and arrest the operation of the said acts, and parts of acts, of the Congress of the United States within the limits of the state," (November 24.)

And

In all this there was nothing new. But South threatens Carolina went further than any of her predecessors to secede. in nullification. "We, the people of South Carolina," concluded the ordinance of the convention, "do further declare that we will not submit to the application of force, on the part of the federal government, to reduce this state to obedience, but that we will consider the passage by Congress of any act to enforce the acts hereby declared to be null and void, otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union; and that the people of this state will forthwith pro

ceed to organize a separate government."

Resolution of

ment.

If the state was resolute, the general government was no less so. The president was in his element. govern- A crisis which he was eminently adapted to meet had arrived. It called forth all his independence, all his nationality. Other men-more than one of his predecessors would have doubted the course to be pursued; they would have staid to inquire into the powers of the Constitution, or to count the resources of the government; nay, had they been consistent, they would have inclined to the support, rather than to the overthrow, of the South Carolina doctrine. Jackson did not waver an instant. He took his own connsel, as he was wont to do, and declared for the nation against the state; then ordered troops and a national vessel to the support of the government officers in South Carolina. "No act of violent opposition to the laws has yet been committed," — thus the president declared in a proclamation; "but such a state of things is hourly apprehended; and it is the intent of this instrument to proclaim not only that the duty imposed on me by the Constitution, to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, shall be performed, but to warn the citizens of South Car

olina

that the course they are urged to pursue is one of ruin and disgrace to the very state whose right they affect to support," (December.) The appeal to the South Carolinians was the more forcible in coming from one of themselves, as it were; Jackson being a native of their state. Addressing Congress in an elaborate message, (January 16, 1833,) the president argued down both nullification and secession, maintaining that "the result of each is the same; since a state in which, by a usurpation of power, the constitutional authority of the federal government is openly defied and set aside, wants only the form to be independent of the Union." He then proceeded to recount the measures which he had taken, and to propose those which he considered it necessary for Congress to take. Congress responded, after some delay, by an enforcing act, the primary object of which was to secure the collection of the customs in the South Carolina ports. To this Calhoun, who had resigned the vice presidency in order to represent South Carolina in the Senate, opposed himself in vain; while Webster argued against him as he had done against Hayne two years before, (February.)

Resolu

The government did not stand alone. One after tion of another the states, by legislative or by individual prostates. ceedings, came out in support of the national principle. The principle of state sovereignty, that might have found support but for the extremity to which it had been pushed, seemed to be abandoned. South Carolina was left to herself, even by her neighbors, usually prone to take the same side. Only Virginia came forward, appealing to the government as well as to South Carolina to be done with strife. As if to show her sympathy for the cause of the state, Virginia appointed a commissioner to convey her sentiments to the people of South Carolina. Otherwise the states ranged themselves distinctly, though not all actively, on the side of the nation.

Tariff

But on one point there was a decided reservation compro- with many of the states. The tariff was openly mise. condemned by North Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia; the last state proposing a southern convention, to take some measures of resistance to the continuance of a system so unconstitutional. Henry Clay took the matter up in the Senate. He had been the advocate of the Missouri Compromise, and now, in consultation with others, brought forward a tariff compromise. This proposed that the duties on all imports exceeding twenty per cent. should be reduced to that rate by successive diminutions through the next ten years, (till June 30, 1842.) Unlike the Missouri question, the tariff question was disposed of without protracted struggles. The advocates of protection opposed the compromise as a financial measure, but far graver objections were brought against it as a political measure. Webster considered it as "yielding great principles to faction," and others thought with him that it was no time to waive the national supremacy at the moment that a state was in open rebellion against it. But the compromise became a law, (March 2.) "The lightning," as one of Clay's correspondents wrote to him, was "drawn out from the clouds lowering over the country," and South Carolina returned to her former position. But that was full of insubordination, and the clouds still lowered.

The president's

The president never ceased to regret that he had not done as he threatened, and arrested Calhoun

regret. for high treason. It was a regret in which many shared, believing that the time had come to test the strength of the national government, and that the trial of its second officer, on the charge of conspiring against it, would have been a better opportunity of settling the relations between the nation and the state than could be found in enforcing acts or compromises.