DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION TO INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS AND PROTECTION
Jackson's Ideas Concerning Internal Improvements--The Maysville Road
Bill--The Slavery Question not Involved in the Vote on the Bill or in
the Veto--Railway Building Begun--The Commencement of the Struggle for
the Repeal of the Tariff of 1828--Jackson on the Tariff of 1828, in
his First Annual Message--George McDuffie as South Carolina's
Political Economist--Dr. Thomas Cooper--Mr. McDuffie's Tariff
Bill--The Tariff Bill of 1830--McDuffie's Amendment--McDuffie's
Doctrine that the Producers of Exports Pay Finally the Duties on the
Imports--The Acceptance of Mr. McDuffie's Doctrine at the
South--Growing Belief in the Incapacity of Slave Labor for
Manufacture--The Tariff Pronounced Unconstitutional--Growth of the
Protection Idea--Jackson on the Tariff and the Surplus Revenue Derived
therefrom, in the Message of December, 1830--Southern
Disappointment--"The South Carolina Exposition"--Calhoun's Doctrine of
"States' rights"--Nullification in Theory--The Nullification and
Anti-nullification Parties in South Carolina--First Attempt to try the
Validity of the Tariff in the United States Courts--Nullification and
Rebellion--Jackson's Message of December, 1831, on the Tariff
Issue--The Bill from the Committee on Ways and Means--The Tariff Bill
of 1832 from the Committee on Manufactures--Passage of the Tariff of
1832 by the House of Representatives--The "American System."
[Sidenote: Jackson's ideas concerning internal improvements.]
In his first annual message President Jackson referred to the general
dissatisfaction with the manner of {167} dealing with the question of
internal improvements which had prevailed to that time, and proposed
that the general Government should abandon the subject entirely and
should distribute the surplus of the revenue, above the wants of the
Government, among the Commonwealths, and leave to them the expenditure
of the money upon internal improvements.
[Sidenote: The Maysville Road Bill.]
The Congress, however, paid no regard to the President's
recommendation. In May, 1830, it sent up to the President for his
approval a bill authorizing and requiring the Government to take stock
in a Kentucky turnpike, running from Maysville on the Ohio River to
Lexington, some sixty miles inward.
[Sidenote: The veto of the Bill.]
The President vetoed the bill, May 27th. His special reason was that
the road was not a national, but a local, matter. He did not attack
the Monroe principle upon the general subject of internal
improvements, but he referred to the recommendation contained in his
annual message as still expressing his view of the manner in which the
Government should rid itself of the embarrassments into which it was
being farther and farther drawn by the practice of voting national
money for internal improvements. He argued that the subject must be
considered upon its own merits, and not brought into connection with
the tariff policy. He thus saw the prospect of the expenditure of
millions of national money upon internal improvements in order to
relieve the protectionists of the embarrassment of a great surplus,
and denounced it. He contended that the Government should adopt its
policy upon each of these subjects as if the other did not exist. He
urged, finally, that, if the people wanted the general Government to
undertake internal improvements, they should {168} so amend the
Constitution as to give the Government sufficient jurisdiction over
the roads and canals, which it might build, to protect them against
wanton injury, and to collect the tolls necessary to keep them in
repair. This he declared to be necessary to any satisfactory exercise
of powers upon the general subject by the Government.
The veto certainly exerted some influence upon the minds of the
Representatives. A majority still voted for the bill, but it was a
much reduced majority. The vote upon the vetoed bill stood ninety-six
to ninety. The bill was therefore lost.
[Sidenote: The slavery question not involved in the vote on the bill
or in the veto.]
The exact question at issue was not, as we have seen, the general
policy of internal improvements, but it was whether the Maysville road
was a national improvement. An analysis of the vote upon the subject
may not, therefore, have any significance, from the point of view of
the general question. Roughly, we may say that a majority of the
Representatives from the South voted against the bill, a large
majority of those from the Northwest voted for it, a majority of those
from Pennsylvania and New Jersey voted for it, while a majority of
those from New York voted against it, and, lastly, the Representatives
from New England were divided. It thus appears rather far fetched to
ascribe the attitude of the opponents of the bill, in any section, to
the influence of the slavery interest. Those who voted against the
bill said they did so because the object for which the appropriation
was sought was a local affair, managed by a private corporation, for
private gain. That uncompromising enemy of slavery, Mr. John W.
Taylor, of New York, was prominent among those who took this position
and voted against the bill. He even pronounced it unconstitutional,
and was inclined to the {169} view, as we have seen, that internal
improvements generally were left by the Constitution for the
Commonwealths to construct and control.
[Sidenote: Too much influence in determining the national policy
toward internal improvements usually ascribed to the veto.]
It is usual to attribute to the veto of this bill the overthrow of the
policy of internal improvements by the general Government. This
proposition will hardly bear close examination. Congress continued to
make appropriations for internal improvements, which the President
usually vetoed, if they were in separate bills, and usually approved,
if they were included in the general appropriation bills. It is
calculated that while Adams signed appropriations for internal
improvements to the amount of less than two millions and a half of
dollars, Jackson approved disbursements for these purposes to the
amount of more than ten millions of dollars.
[Sidenote: Railway building begun.]
The fact is that the building of railways was the chief force which
put an end to road- and canal-making by the general Government. The
construction of the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, the parent of the New
York Central system, was begun in 1825. In 1827 the survey of the
Boston and Albany line was begun. The same year the Pennsylvania
system had its origin. One year later the Baltimore and Ohio system
was founded. The year of the veto of the Maysville road bill forty-one
miles of railroad were being operated in the United States, and at the
close of the decade more than two thousand miles. As the railway
system spread over the country, through private enterprise, the
appropriations of national money for internal improvements became more
and more confined to the specific improvements of rivers and harbors.
The roads and canals of a national character were being made
unnecessary by the extension of {170} the railways. It is undoubtedly,
then, far more plausible and natural to attribute the overthrow of the
policy of internal improvements by the general Government to the
growth of the railways, constructed and operated by private
corporations under Commonwealth charters, on the one side, and, on the
other, to the settled conviction that the general Government did not
have the constitutional powers adequate to the successful
establishment and protection of a system of works based upon that
policy, and to the unsatisfactory experience which the country had had
in attempting to distinguish local from national enterprises and to
confine appropriations to those of the latter character.
It is difficult to see any special connection of the interests of
slavery with the decline of the policy. It is true that the
slaveholders were becoming strict constructionists generally. They had
learned from the Missouri struggle that Congress must not be allowed
to magnify its powers when forming the Territories into Commonwealths,
and they had learned from the tariff struggles that Congress must not
be allowed to magnify its powers in regard to the regulation of
foreign commerce and the raising of revenue, but, as to internal
improvements, no reliable evidence of a consciousness, on the part of
the slaveholders, of any particular connection between their peculiar
interest and a policy upon this subject by the general Government is
discoverable.
On the contrary, in the struggle for the repeal of the Tariff of 1828
the influence of the slavery interest is easily remarked, and is
clearly seen to have been controlling.
[Sidenote: The commencement of the struggle for the repeal of the
Tariff of 1828.]
On February 10th, 1829, Mr. William Smith, the senior Senator from
South Carolina, presented to the Senate the protest of the legislature
of South {171} Carolina against Congressional protection to domestic
manufactures. This memorial pronounced all such acts to be
unconstitutional, except as incidental to raising the revenue or
regulating commerce, and impolitic even then, when their operation
would be unequal upon the different sections of the country, and felt
by any section to be oppressive. The language of the paper was
respectful, moderate, dignified, and forcible, and it contained no
threats of disunion, or of violent or unlawful resistance. The
legislature asked that the protest should be entered on the journal of
the Senate. The Senate, however, only ordered it to be printed.
The South Carolinians promised themselves, nevertheless, some measure
of relief from what they supposed would be the policy of the newly
elected President. Being a Southern man, it was naturally supposed
that he would recognize Southern interests in the policy upon this
subject which he would recommend. But, while Jackson had not committed
himself to protection for the sake of the manufacturers or of the
producers of raw material, he was a strong Union man and an American,
and the argument for the tariff from the point of view of national
industrial independence exercised a prevailing influence in
determining his attitude toward the subject.
[Sidenote: Jackson on the Tariff of 1828, in his first annual
message.]
[Sidenote: Jackson's views on the Tariff as a general policy.]
In his message of December 8th, 1829, he wrote that the Tariff of 1828
had not proved itself so beneficial to the manufacturers or so
injurious to commerce and agriculture as had been anticipated; that he
regretted that all nations would not abolish restrictions, and refer
the management of trade to individual enterprise; that since, however,
they would not do so, a tariff was the necessary policy of the United
States; but that in the {172} face of the fact that the national debt
would soon be paid, and the sinking fund would not be much longer
required, a modification of the existing tariff in the direction of a
reduction of duties would soon be the true and necessary policy; and
that the principle to be followed in making such a modification ought
to be to reduce the duties upon such articles as might come into
competition with home products no further than would leave to the
latter a fair chance in such competition; and that from the general
principle of a reduction to this point must be excepted the duties on
the implements and prime necessities of war, all of which should enjoy
a higher protection than that accorded to other articles. Evidently,
according to this doctrine, the chief reductions should fall upon
articles not coming into competition with home products, such articles
as tea, coffee, etc., at that time termed the unprotected articles.
Jackson had thus anticipated Clay's American system of the tariff by
nearly three years, as we shall see.
The South Carolinians were greatly disappointed by this expression of
the President's views, although they claimed that the message
recommended substantial tariff reduction. This part of the message was
referred to the committee on Manufactures, according to the rule of
procedure which had prevailed in the House of Representatives for
nearly a decade, and which showed that the matter of the tariff was
not regarded as something purely incidental to the raising of revenue.
[Sidenote: George McDuffie as South Carolina's political economist.]
[Sidenote: Dr. Thomas Cooper.]
The claim was now put forward, however, that the subject properly
belonged to the domain of the committee on Ways and Means. Mr. George
McDuffie, of South Carolina, was at this moment the chairman of this
committee. He was a man of keen intelligence, strong {173} courage,
and great persistence. He was the political economist of the
slave-labor system, as Calhoun was its political scientist and
constitutional lawyer. It is to be surmised, at least, that he learned
much of his political economy from the notorious, if not famous, Dr.
Thomas Cooper, the British President of South Carolina College. It is
true that Mr. McDuffie's college days had passed before Dr. Cooper
taught in the institution, but the Doctor wrote and published much
upon economic and political subjects between 1820 and 1830. In fact,
he set the direction of thought upon such subjects in South Carolina
and throughout a large portion of the South during that period. As has
been already mentioned, he was an Englishman by birth. He had spent a
part of his earlier life in France, and had imbibed the doctrines of
French republicanism. For this reason he was disliked and shunned by
conservative men in England to such a degree as to make longer
residence in his native country uncomfortable to him. He came to the
United States in the last decade of the eighteenth century. His
radical views and his violent expressions of them soon drew attention
to him here. He was one of the men prosecuted under the Alien and
Sedition laws of 1798. He made his way to South Carolina about the
beginning of the third decade of this century, and found there a well
prepared soil for his Girondist views of federal Government and his
free-trade views in political economy. A true estimate of
responsibilities for the events of 1832 in South Carolina would
probably hold him more culpable than Calhoun himself. It was from such
a thinker, and he was a keen and vigorous thinker, that Mr. McDuffie
received impulse, if not actual instruction, in his reasoning.
Mr. McDuffie argued that the power to impose a tariff {174} was not
expressly vested by the Constitution in the Government; that,
therefore, if it existed at all, as a power of the Government, it must
be incidental to some express provision; and that it could be
incidental only to the power for raising the revenue. He, therefore,
contended further that all tariff bills must originate in the House of
Representatives, and in the regular revenue committee of that House,
the committee of Ways and Means.
[Sidenote: Mr. McDuffie's Tariff Bill.]
Congress had disregarded the protest of the South Carolina Legislature
of the previous February. It was well known that the committee on
Manufactures in the House was favorable to the maintenance of the
existing duties. It seemed, therefore, to Mr. McDuffie, and those who
thought with him, both natural and necessary that the committee of
Ways and Means should claim their constitutional prerogative, and make
an effort to get the ear of Congress to their representations.
Consequently, on February 5th, 1830, Mr. McDuffie reported a tariff
bill from his committee, without having had the subject specifically
referred to them by the House. The bill provided for a moderate
reduction of the tariff all around, but still left a duty of
thirty-three and one-third per centum _ad valorem_ upon woollen
fabrics.
The interest attaching to this proposition lies in the fact that it
contains substantially the terms upon which the South Carolinians were
willing to compromise the tariff question. It shows them to have been
still moderate tariff men, rather than out and out free-traders. To
the unprejudiced mind of the present day it certainly appears to have
been an offer which merited some consideration, but, after a single
reading, it was ordered to lie on the table, from which it was never
taken up.
{175} [Sidenote: The Tariff Bill of 1830.]
Meanwhile the committee on Manufactures were very deliberately
maturing a measure. It was reported to the House early in April, and
taken up for consideration on the 15th. It was nothing more than an
administrative measure for the purpose of securing a stricter
execution of the existing tariff.
[Sidenote: McDuffie's Amendment.]
Mr. McDuffie made another effort to move the House to consider a
reduction of duties, in the form of an amendment to this bill. He
offered such an amendment, which provided for a return to the duties
imposed before 1824 upon woollens, cottons, iron, hemp, etc.
[Sidenote: McDuffie's doctrine that the producers of exports pay
finally the duties on the imports.]
It was in support of this amendment that he made his famous argument
of April 29th, 1830, in which he developed, for the first time, the
doctrine in regard to the final payment of the duties which furnished
the economic basis of nullification. That doctrine was that the
producers of the exports, which are exchanged in the foreign markets
for the imports, pay, finally, the duty upon the imports. His course
of reasoning in the establishment of this doctrine was as follows: He
reduced all trade ultimately to barter between producers, and then
declared it to be self-evident that when a producer of exports should
be obliged to pay a duty of twenty-five per centum upon the imports,
which he had received in pay for his exports, before he could bring
them into the country of his residence, he had received finally
twenty-five per centum less for his exports than he would have
received had he not been compelled to pay any duty upon his imports.
Mr. McDuffie then drew from the statistics of the foreign trade of the
United States the fact that the sections cultivating cotton and rice,
constituting less than {176} one-fifth of the Union, both in territory
and population, produced thirty of the fifty-eight millions' worth of
annual exports; and finally drew the conclusion from these premises
that one-fifth of the people, the population of the planting sections,
paid more than one-half of the duties on the imports of the country.
[Sidenote: The danger in Mr. McDuffie's conclusions.]
If this were true it was indeed a grievous burden. And if the people
of the South, or that part of the South devoted to the production of
these staples, believed it to be true, then would the reason for one
great scruple against resistance to the execution of the tariff laws
be removed, namely, the general belief theretofore prevailing, from
the doctrine that the consumers of the imports ultimately pay the
duties, that the burden of the duties fell nearly equally upon the
different sections. So long as this belief was general the sense of
oppression in any particular part or section of the country could not
become very keen. Substitute for this old idea, however, the new
doctrine advanced by Mr. McDuffie, and, under the existing
distribution of the articles of export, there could not fail to be
developed a most bitter sense of wrong and oppression on the part of
the producers of the Southern staples.
[Sidenote: The acceptance of Mr. McDuffie's doctrine at the South.]
The Southerners, especially the South Carolinians, did embrace the new
doctrine, apparently, at least, with all sincerity. It was utterly
futile that Mr. Gorham and Mr. Everett pointed out to them the fact
that they consumed only a comparatively small portion of the imports
received in exchange for their exports, and sold the rest to the
people of the other sections with the duties added on, thus shifting
the duties upon the other sections. They clung to the new doctrine as
if it were something for which they had long been seeking, and to
which their {177} hearts were already too much attached to be drawn
away by argument.
[Sidenote: Growing belief in the incapacity of slave labor for
manufacture.]
It was in this speech, furthermore, that Mr. McDuffie abandoned his
former view of the capacity of slave labor for manufacturing industry,
and embraced and enounced the doctrine held before this by Colonel
Hayne upon that subject, which was that slave labor could only be
employed successfully in agriculture. This was, of course, another
necessary element in the consolidation of the interests of the South
against the tariff.
[Sidenote: The Tariff pronounced unconstitutional.]
It was in this speech, also, that Mr. McDuffie, for the first time,
pronounced the tariff unconstitutional. He did not yet declare any and
every tariff unconstitutional, but only such a tariff as sacrificed
one interest to another, or the interests of one section to those of
another. This he claimed the existing tariff did do. The belief in the
unconstitutionality of the tariff was, of course, another necessary
element in the preparation for resistance to its execution.
[Sidenote: McDuffie's threat of resistance to the execution of the
Tariff laws.]
Finally, Mr. McDuffie uttered, in this speech, the threat of
resistance to the execution of the tariff laws, the threat of
nullification. It was ill timed, as threats generally are, and it had
the effect of producing the large majority by which Mr. McDuffie's
amendment was voted down.
The bill suffered some modification in the course of its passage, but
its principle remained the same. It reduced the duty on no article
whatever, but only provided for a stricter enforcement of the existing
laws.
[Sidenote: Growth of the protection idea.]
By another bill, which received the President's approval on May 20th
(1830), eight days before this administrative bill was signed, the
duties on tea, coffee, and cocoa had been reduced. This meant that the
protectionists were very {178} willing to free those articles from
duty which did not come into competition with home productions, in
order to preserve and increase the duties on those that did. This was
the direction in which the tariff system was growing. It became, two
years later, the pronounced principle of the "American system," as we
shall see.
[Sidenote: Jackson on the Tariff and the surplus revenue derived
therefrom, in the message of December, 1830.]
In the message of December 7th, 1830, President Jackson defended the
constitutionality of the protective system, said that the existing
tariff needed some corrections in details, and expressed the opinion
that no law reducing duties could be made which would be satisfactory
to the American people that would not leave a considerable surplus in
the Treasury. He suggested the employment of such surplus upon
internal improvements under the direction of the legislatures of the
several Commonwealths.
[Sidenote: Southern disappointment.]
This was a stunning blow to the hopes of the Southerners. The
extinction of the debt and the existence of an unemployed surplus were
the conditions to which they had looked forward as necessitating in
all conservative minds the reduction of the duties. But here was a
plan, suggested by a Southern President, for relieving the Treasury of
any amount of surplus for an indefinite period, without the reduction
of a single penny of duty upon a single article. Thus encouraged the
protectionists in both Houses of Congress refused, during the session
of 1830-31, to consider any propositions looking toward a reduction of
duties.
It is hardly a cause of wonder that the South Carolinians began to
despair of obtaining through Congress any relief from what they
regarded as dire oppression, and that some of them were reviewing the
Constitution, and the political principles upon which it was founded,
with {179} the purpose of finding other means with which to meet the
great emergency. It was in this part of the work that Mr. Calhoun took
the lead.
[Sidenote: "The South Carolina Exposition."]
[Sidenote: Calhoun's doctrine of "States' rights."]
As far back as 1828, just after the enactment of the tariff measure
which was giving so much offence, Mr. Calhoun had started out in this
direction in the paper which he furnished the South Carolina
legislature, which served as the basis of the first pronunciamento
from that body upon the subject, the so-called South Carolina
Exposition. This document by Mr. Calhoun was comparatively temperate
in its language and not very clear in its political doctrines and its
constitutional interpretation. The great debate between Hayne and
Webster on the floor of the Senate, over which body Mr. Calhoun, as
Vice-President, presided, in regard to the fundamental principles of
the Union, taught Mr. Calhoun several very important points in the
evolution of his doctrine of "States' rights." Especially was he
warned against the great error, made by Mr. Hayne, of representing the
United States Government as one of the parties to the "constitutional
pact" and the "States" as the other. Mr. Webster so completely
demolished this theory that Mr. Calhoun was preserved from introducing
this fallacy or any of its corollaries into his reasoning, if he had
ever been inclined to do so. In his "Address on the Relations of the
States and Federal Government," and in his "Address to the People of
South Carolina," both published in the summer of 1831, he shows that
he had maturely reflected upon all that had been said and written upon
the fundamental question of the relation of the "States" to the Union
and to the general Government. He had given up his hope both in the
Congress and in the President. With him the question of the tariff had
now, {180} therefore, been removed from the domain of governmental
policy into that of constitutional powers and political principle.
This was the point of view which he took in the documents just
mentioned.
He began, as innovators generally do, with the assertion that his
interpretation of the Constitution was no new invention of his own,
but was the ancient principle of the Constitution. That principle was,
he contended, that the Constitution was made by the "States," as
sovereign bodies, and that through it the "States" created only a
governmental agent for their general affairs. The term or phrase
United States was only the name of the general governmental agent of
the "States." Sovereignty was in the "States" only. Consequently, when
the United States assumed powers not conferred by the "States" in the
Constitution, the "States," by virtue of the sovereign attribute,
might and should interpose, interpose individually, not collectively
as they, of course, might do constitutionally through the regular form
of procedure for amending the Constitution.
[Sidenote: Nullification in theory.]
Calhoun, like every other real statesman of his day, held that there
is a domain of liberty secured not only to the minority, but to the
individual, by the Constitution, upon which the majority shall not
encroach. The practical question was how to prevent the majority, in
possession of the powers and machinery of the Government, from doing
so. The answer to this question developed by precedent, and formulated
clearly by Webster at that very moment, was that it could be done only
by invoking the aid of the judicial power of the United States. But
Calhoun said in reply to this, that the United States courts were a
part of the Government, substantially under the control of Congress
and the President, through the power of Congress to constitute
judgeships at pleasure, and of the President and the {181} Senate to
fill them, and that they were interested, therefore, in the
usurpations of power by the Government. He further held that these
courts could not decide political questions, although these questions
might incidentally involve the most sacred rights of individuals, and
that, anyhow, they were as much subject to the "States," acting in
their sovereign capacities, as any other part of the Government. He
could see no way for preserving the rights of the minority and of
individuals, in last resort, against governmental usurpation, save
through the power of "_each of the parties_ to the compact" to prevent
the execution within the territory subject to its jurisdiction of such
governmental measures as it might deem usurpations.
[Sidenote: The nullification and anti-nullification parties in South
Carolina.]
Down to the time of these utterances of Calhoun the party in South
Carolina opposed to any resistance, by force, to the execution of the
tariff laws, had been able to prevent the outbreak of nullification.
The leaders of this party were among the most distinguished and
influential men of the Commonwealth. They were Mr. Drayton, the member
of Congress from the Charleston district, Judge Johnson of the United
States Supreme Court, Mr. Petigru, Mr. Grimke, the Lowndes, and others
of scarcely less note. In the first half of the year 1831 they still
held control of the municipal government of Charleston, and of the
legislature of the Commonwealth, although the "States' rights" men had
obtained the governorship. Nearly all of the opponents of
nullification denounced the tariff laws as unjust and oppressive to
the South, but they also denounced the doctrine that the execution of
any law of the United States could be constitutionally resisted,
except by means of the judicial processes provided for the case by the
Constitution itself. Resistance in any other {182} manner, they
declared, would be rebellion at the outset, revolution if successful.
They said that they were not willing to assume any such
responsibilities in opposing the tariff laws, and that they regarded
the blessings of the Union as too great and manifold to hazard
disunion, even if it could be successfully and peaceably accomplished.
Their views were so candid and reasonable that, in spite of the
intense excitement which prevailed during the legislative session
following the failure of the attempt to modify the tariff, they
prevented the nullifiers from securing a sufficient majority in the
legislature to order the call of a convention. The nullifiers had
committed themselves to the doctrine that the nullifying power was a
power of sovereignty, not of government, and that it resided,
therefore, in the convention, not in the legislature. So long, then,
as the assembly of the convention could be prevented, nullification
could be certainly thwarted.
[Sidenote: Capture of the municipal government of Charleston by the
nullifiers.]
But the publication of Calhoun's new doctrine in the summer of 1831
gave great strength to the nullifiers, and in the municipal election
of the latter part of the year they captured the mayorship of
Charleston.
[Sidenote: First attempt to try the validity of the Tariff in the
United States courts.]
One of the strongest moral forces in the hands of the opponents of
nullification against which the nullifiers had to contend was the
generally received doctrine that the constitutional means for meeting
Congressional usurpation in any given case was a process in the United
States courts. Unless they could say that they had tried this means in
vain, they would still have to suffer the imputation of too hasty
action, if nothing more. In order to escape this, two Charleston
lawyers imported a package of dutiable goods, gave bonds for the
payment of the duty, {183} refused payment, and were sued upon their
bonds in the United States District Court. The plan was to have the
question of the constitutionality of the tariff submitted to the jury,
but the court refused to allow the jury to decide any question except
that which pertained to the due execution of the bond.
[Sidenote: Nullification and rebellion.]
The nullifiers could now declare that every means suggested by their
opponents as regular and lawful had been tried and had failed, and
that there now remained only submission to oppression, or
nullification, or rebellion. They said that no true South Carolinian
could accept the first, and that, therefore, the choice lay between
nullification and rebellion. Calhoun taught that there was a vast
difference between the two; that the former was a constitutional, as
well as a sovereign, method of resistance. He asserted that it was the
great conservative principle of the Constitution, and defined it to be
that reserved right whereby a "State," in convention assembled, might
suspend the operation of a Congressional act upon its citizens which
it considered unconstitutional, until conventions in three-fourths of
the "States" should pronounce the Congressional act to be
constitutional. He did not claim that this right was reserved
specifically, but by implication from the general language of the
Tenth Amendment. He was doubtless sincere, or at least thought he was.
Many of his followers certainly were, and the masses, who could not
understand the doctrine, but took it on faith, were so certain of its
truth that they were ready to risk anything for its vindication.
The Unionists, however, branded the doctrine as a deception. An
editorial in one of their principal newspapers contained this
sentence: "But this everlasting cant of devotion to the Union,
accompanied by a recommendation to do those acts that must necessarily
destroy {184} it, is beyond patient endurance from a people not
absolutely confined in their own mad-houses." It was clear to them, at
the outset, that nullification was piecemeal secession and rebellion.
[Sidenote: Jackson's message of December, 1831, on the Tariff issue.]
This was the state of things in South Carolina when Congress assembled
on the first Monday of December, 1831. On the 6th the President's
annual message was laid before the two Houses. It contained a much
more distinct and decided recommendation for the reduction of duties
than he had ever before expressed. He called attention to the prospect
of the early extinguishment of the public debt, when the annual
instalment to the sinking fund would be no longer needed, and
recommended that Congress should at once deal with the question of the
reduction of the duties to a point where they would produce no more
revenue than would be necessary for an economical administration of
the Government. He farther recommended the readjustment of the duties
with a view to equal justice to all national interests, and said that
the interests of both merchant and manufacturer required that the
change should be prospective.
There was no suggestion in the message of increasing the expenditures
of the Government for internal improvements, or for any other purpose.
The plain inference from the message was that by March 4th, 1833, the
debt would all be paid, and the revenue could then be reduced by ten
or twelve millions a year, and should be.
[Sidenote: The question of the proper committee to frame Tariff
Bills.]
This was all that the South Carolinians had asked, and it would have
been the height of folly for them to have pursued extraordinary means
to relieve themselves when regular methods promised at last a prospect
of success. This part of the message was referred to the committee on
Manufactures, of which ex-President John Quincy Adams was then
chairman. Mr. Adams {185} had far more moderate views in regard to the
tariff than the majority of his protectionist brethren, and it could
be reasonably hoped that he would report a bill from his committee
which would be conciliatory in character. The Southerners were not
quite willing, however, to rest entirely on his own good will, and
raised the contention that the subject of the tariff ought to be
referred either to the committee on Ways and Means, or to the
committee on Commerce, since the power to impose duties was incident
either to the raising of revenue or to the regulation of commerce. The
result of the contention was that a resolution was introduced, and
taken up, requesting the committee on Commerce to make a report on the
working of the tariff, and the committee on Ways and Means was allowed
to report a tariff bill, which was read twice and referred to the
committee of the Whole House.
[Sidenote: The bill from the Committee on Ways and Means.]
The bill from the committee on Ways and Means provided for the
reduction of the duty to twelve and one-half per centum _ad valorem_
on all articles; on some, immediately and totally, but on the more
important articles gradually, and in a period of a little more than
three years.
This was undoubtedly an ill digested measure. It was not only a
radical reduction of duties, but it was an indiscriminate reduction.
Mr. McDuffie's own committee were not unanimous in recommending it.
[Sidenote: The Tariff Bill of 1832 from the Committee on
Manufactures.]
On May 23rd Mr. Adams reported the bill from the committee on
Manufactures. Mr. Adams based his bill on the report of the Secretary
of the Treasury, of December 7th, 1831, and proposed the repeal of the
existing system of minimal valuations and the duty on coarse wool
altogether, and a slight reduction of the duties on fine wool and
woollen fabrics.
{186} It was calculated that Mr. Adams' bill would reduce the receipts
from the customs by about five or six millions of dollars, leaving
thus still an annual surplus of some five or six millions after the
extinguishment of the debt.
Mr. McDuffie's bill was taken up first in the committee of the Whole
House. Mr. McDuffie defended it with his argument, already stated,
that the producers of the exports pay finally the duties on the
imports for which the exports are exchanged in the foreign markets,
and cited recent utterances of Professor Senior, the noted political
economist of Oxford University, in support of his position. He could
not, however, convince the House, and his bill was finally disposed of
in less than a week. Mr. Adams' bill was then taken up. It was
understood as proposing a slight reduction all around. It was intended
to do so. But Mr. McDuffie made an argument against it, in which he
undertook to prove, and declared that he did prove, that it
discriminated still further against the South, and imposed a heavier
burden upon that section than it was even then bearing, grievous as
that was. He declared, finally, that he would not submit to it.
[Sidenote: Passage of the Tariff of 1832 by the House of
Representatives.]
The House, however, was neither convinced by his argument nor
intimidated by his threat. It passed the bill on June 28th, by a large
majority, a majority of more than two to one.
Meanwhile the Senate had been occupying itself with an exhaustive
discussion of the principle of the tariff. On January 9th, 1832, Mr.
Clay introduced the famous resolution for making the tariff upon
articles coming into competition with home manufactures a system of
permanent high duties, and for abolishing, or greatly reducing, the
duties upon all other articles.
{187} Senator Hayne immediately grasped the import of this
proposition. He declared that it marked a new era in the tariff
system. He demonstrated that down to that time the protection of
manufactures had been regarded by all persons and parties as a
temporary policy and had been justified as such, while this
proposition looked to its establishment as a permanent principle of
the policy of the country, which neither revenue surplus nor
manufacturing experience should affect.
[Sidenote: The "American System."]
Mr. Clay, who had himself spoken of protection before this as only a
temporary policy, acknowledged the truth of Colonel Hayne's criticism,
and proceeded, in his famous three days' speech, to develop the
arguments for the permanent protective system, the "American System,"
as he termed it, which made up the text-book for the later supporters
of that system. His idea was simply to collect the duties from those
foreign products which come into competition in the home markets with
domestic products, and prevent the accumulation of a Treasury surplus
by fixing the duties so high in rate as to make them largely
prohibitory. As we have seen, this idea had been already foreshadowed
in one of President Jackson's earlier messages. It now received its
complete formulation and its economic justification.
But it was a sad prospect for the South. The South had looked forward
to the extinguishment of the debt as necessarily bringing in its train
the decrease of duties to the gross amount of at least ten millions of
dollars per annum, and now it was called upon to consider the plan for
a decrease of revenue by an increase of duties. It is hardly
astonishing that the disappointment should have been bitter, and that
passionate men should have thought of resistance to what appeared to
them so grievously unjust.
{188} The Senate referred Mr. Clay's resolution, together with an
amendment to it, proposed by Colonel Hayne, for a general reduction of
duties, to its committee on Manufactures. The committee reported a
bill based on Mr. Clay's principle. The Constitution does not,
however, allow the Senate to originate a bill for raising revenue, and
the majority of the Senators voted to lay the bill on the table, and
await the movements in the House.
[Sidenote: The bill in the Senate.]
On June 29th the House bill appeared in the Senate, and was referred
by that body to its committee on Manufactures. On July 2nd Mr.
Dickerson reported from this committee the House bill, with a series
of amendments to it, proposed by the committee. These amendments were
all in the direction of Mr. Clay's idea, and were adopted by the
Senate. The bill as thus amended passed the Senate on July 9th, the
Senators from every Northern Commonwealth voting for it, and those
from every Southern Commonwealth, except Kentucky, Missouri, and
Louisiana, voting against it. Missouri was hardly to be then classed
as a Southern Commonwealth. Louisiana was won by an increase of the
duty on sugar. And only one of the Senators from Kentucky voted
against the measure.
[Sidenote: The bill as finally passed.]
The House of Representatives refused to concur in some of the
amendments, and the measure was sent to a Conference committee. This
committee patched up a compromise, and the bill became a law on July
14th.
On the whole, it was doubtful if the bill, with the changes imposed
upon it by the Senate, would prove to be any relief to the South. Many
of the Southerners claimed that it would increase the burden upon that
section, while none of them appeared to think it would lighten it.
{189} What now were the planters to do? They had waited for the
extinguishment of the debt, and for the period when the Treasury would
no longer require the sixteen millions of dollars per annum applied to
its cancellation, hoping for a general reduction of duties by
something like this sum as the necessary result; but instead of this
they were now offered, as a final solution of the tariff question, a
slight reduction of duties on articles coming into competition with
home products, a practical abolition of the duties on those which did
not come into competition with home products, and an increase in the
expenses of the Government to the amount of the receipts whatever they
might be. This was to be the permanent policy of the country, the
"American System."
They were indeed wofully disappointed, not to say deceived. There
seemed now no further hope of aid to them, from either Congress, the
President, or the courts. They must yield unconditionally and
hopelessly, or resist the execution of the law. The former course was
too much to expect from the proud barons of South Carolina. The only
question was whether some legal basis for the resistance could be
found, or whether it must take on the form of rebellion. We have
already considered Calhoun's doctrine of nullification, and his claim
that it was a constitutional remedy; it now remains for us to trace
briefly the history of the attempt to apply it. Before, however, we
can do this intelligently, we must consider the other political
developments of the year 1832, occasioned chiefly by the presidential
election of that year, but affecting directly or indirectly the
attitude of the Administration toward events in South Carolina, and
the attitude of Congress toward the President in dealing with
nullification.
{190}