which he never could disentangle himself. Let us pass to the year
1828, a most important one in the history of the country and of Mr.
Calhoun; for then occurred the first of the long series of events
which terminated with the surrender of the last Rebel army in 1865.
The first act directly tending to a war between the South and the
United States bears date December 6, 1828; and it was the act of John
C. Calhoun.
It was the year of that Presidential election which placed Andrew
Jackson in the White House, and re-elected Mr. Calhoun to the
Vice-Presidency. It was the year that terminated the honorable part of
Mr. Calhoun's career and began the dishonorable. His political
position in the canvass was utterly false, as he himself afterwards
confessed. On the one hand, he was supporting for the Presidency a man
committed to the policy of protection; and on the other, he became the
organ and mouthpiece of the Southern party, whose opposition to the
protective principle was tending to the point of armed resistance to
it. The tariff bill of 1828, which they termed the bill of
abominations, had excited the most heated opposition in the cotton
States, and especially in South Carolina. This act was passed in the
spring of the very year in which those States voted for a man who had
publicly endorsed the principle involved in it; and we see Mr. Calhoun
heading the party who were electioneering for Jackson, and the party
who were considering the policy of nullifying the act which he had
approved. His Presidential aspirations bound him to the support of
General Jackson; but the first, the fundamental necessity of his
position was to hold possession of South Carolina.
The burden of Mr. Calhoun's later speeches was the reconciliation of
the last part of his public life with the first. The task was
difficult, for there is not a leading proposition in his speeches
after 1830 which is not refuted by arguments to be found in his public
utterances before 1828. In his speech on the Force Bill, in 1834, he
volunteered an explanation of the apparent inconsistency between his
support of General Jackson in 1828, and his authorship of the "South
Carolina Exposition" in the same year. Falsehood and truth are
strangely interwoven in almost every sentence of his later writings;
and there is also that vagueness in them which comes of a superfluity
of words. He says, that for the strict-constructionist party to have
presented a candidate openly and fully identified with their opinions
would have been to court defeat; and thus they were obliged either to
abandon the contest, or to select a candidate "whose opinions were
intermediate or doubtful on the subject which divided the two
sections,"--a candidate "who, at best, was but a choice of evils."
Besides, General Jackson was a Southern man, and it was hoped that,
notwithstanding his want of experience, knowledge, and self-control,
the advisers whom he would invite to assist him would compensate for
those defects. Then Mr. Calhoun proceeds to state, that the contest
turned chiefly upon the question of protection or free trade; and the
strife was, which of the two parties should go farthest in the
advocacy of protection. The result was, he says, that the tariff bill
of 1828 was passed,--"that disastrous measure which has brought so
many calamities upon us, and put in peril the liberty and union of the
country," and "poured millions into the treasury beyond the most
extravagant wants of the country."
The passage of this tariff bill was accomplished by the tact of Martin
Van Buren, aided by Major Eaton, Senator from Tennessee. Mr. Van Buren
was the predestined chief of General Jackson's Cabinet, and Major
Eaton was the confidant, agent, and travelling manager of the
Jacksonian wire-pullers, besides being the General's own intimate
friend. The events of that session notified Mr. Calhoun that, however
manageable General Jackson might be, he was not likely to fall into
the custody of the Vice-President. General Jackson's election being
considered certain, the question was alone interesting, who should
possess him for the purposes of the succession. The prospect, as
surveyed that winter from the Vice-President's chair, was not assuring
to the occupant of that lofty seat. If General Jackson could not be
used as a fulcrum for the further elevation of Mr. Calhoun, would it
not be advisable to begin to cast about for another?
The tariff bill of 1828 was passed before the Presidential canvass had
set in with its last severity. There was time for Mr. Calhoun to
withdraw from the support of the man whose nearest friends had carried
it through the Senate under his eyes. He did not do so. He went home,
after the adjournment of Congress, to labor with all his might for the
election of a protectionist, and to employ his leisure hours in the
composition of that once famous paper called the "South Carolina
Exposition," in which protection was declared to be an evil so
intolerable as to justify the nullification of an act founded upon it.
This Exposition was the beginning of our woe,--the baleful egg from
which were hatched nullification, treason, civil war, and the
desolation of the Southern States. Here is Mr. Calhoun's own account
of the manner in which what he correctly styles "_the double
operation_" was "pushed on" in the summer of 1828:--
"This disastrous event [the passage of the tariff bill of
1828] opened our eyes (I mean myself and those immediately
connected with me) as to the full extent of the danger and
oppression of the protective system, and the hazard of
failing to effect the reform intended through the election
of General Jackson. With these disclosures, it became
necessary to seek some other ultimate, but more certain
measure of protection. We turned to the Constitution to find
this remedy. We directed a more diligent and careful
scrutiny into its provisions, in order to understand fully
the nature and character of our political system. We found a
certain and effectual remedy in that great fundamental
division of the powers of the system between this government
and its independent co-ordinates, the separate governments
of the States,--to be called into action to arrest the
unconstitutional acts of this government by the
interposition of the States,--the paramount source from
which both governments derive their power. But in relying on
this our ultimate remedy, we did not abate our zeal in the
Presidential canvass; we still hoped that General Jackson,
if elected, would effect the necessary reform, and thereby
supersede the necessity for calling into action the
sovereign authority of the State, which we were anxious to
avoid. With these views the two were pushed with equal zeal
at the same time; which double operation commenced in the
fall of 1828, but a few months after the passage of the
tariff act of that year; and at the meeting of the
Legislature of the State, at the same period, a paper known
as the South Carolina Exposition was reported to that body,
containing a full development, as well on the constitutional
point as on the operation of the protective system,
preparatory to a state of things which might eventually
render the action of the State necessary in order to protect
her rights and interest, and to stay a course of policy
which we believed would, if not arrested, prove destructive
of liberty and the Constitution."--_Works_, II. 396.
Mr. Calhoun omits, however, to mention that the Exposition was not
presented to the Legislature of South Carolina until after the
Presidential election had been decided. Nor did he inform his hearers
that the author of the paper was Mr. Vice-President Calhoun. Either
there was a great dearth of literary ability in that body, or else Mr.
Calhoun had little confidence in it; for nearly all the ponderous
documents on nullification given to the world in its name were penned
by Mr. Calhoun, and appear in his collected works. If the Legislature
addressed its constituents or the people of the United States on
_this_ subject, it was he who prepared the draft. The South Carolina
Exposition was found among his papers in his own handwriting, and it
was adopted by the Legislature with only a few alterations and
suppressions. There never was a piece of mischief more completely the
work of one man than the nullification troubles of 1833-34.
The South Carolina Exposition, when Mr. Calhoun had completed it, was
brought before the public by one of the usual methods. The Legislature
of South Carolina passed the following resolutions:--
"_Resolved_, That it is expedient to protest against the
unconstitutional and oppressive operation of the system of
protective duties, and to have such protest entered on the
journals of the Senate of the United States. Also, to make a
public exposition of our wrongs, and of the remedies within
our power, to be communicated to our sister States, with a
request that they will co-operate with this State in
procuring a repeal of the tariff for protection, and an
abandonment of the principle; and if the repeal be not
procured, that they will co-operate in such measures as may
be necessary for averting the evil.
"_Resolved_, That a committee of seven be raised to carry
the foregoing resolution into effect."
The resolution having been carried, the following gentlemen were
appointed to father Mr. Calhoun's paper: James Gregg, D.L. Wardlaw,
Hugh S. Legaré, Arthur P. Hayne, William C. Preston, William Elliott,
and R. Barnwell Smith. The duty of this committee consisted in causing
a copy of Mr. Calhoun's paper to be made and presenting it to the
Legislature. This was promptly done; and the Exposition was adopted by
the Legislature on the 6th of December, 1828. Whether any protest was
forwarded to the Secretary of the United States Senate for insertion
in the journal does not appear. We only know that five thousand copies
of this wearisome and stupid Exposition were ordered to be printed,
and that in the hubbub of the incoming of a new administration it
attracted scarcely any attention beyond the little knot of original
nullifiers. Indeed, Mr. Calhoun's writings on this subject were
"protected" by their own length and dulness. No creature ever read one
of them quite through, except for a special purpose.
The leading assertions of this Exposition are these:--1. Every duty
imposed for protection is a violation of the Constitution, which
empowers Congress to impose taxes for revenue only. 2. The _whole_
burden of the protective system is borne by agriculture and commerce.
3. The _whole_ of the advantages of protection accrue to the
manufacturing States. 4. In other words, the South, the Southwest, and
two or three commercial cities, support the government, and pour a
stream of treasure into the coffers of manufacturers. 5. The result
must soon be, that the people of South Carolina will have either to
abandon the culture of rice and cotton, and remove to some other
country, or else to become a manufacturing community, which would only
be ruin in another form.
Lest the reader should find it impossible to believe that any man out
of a lunatic asylum could publish such propositions as this last, we
will give the passage. Mr. Calhoun is endeavoring to show that Europe
will at length retaliate by placing high duties upon American cotton
and rice. At least that appears to be what he is aiming at.
"We already see indications of a commercial warfare, the
termination of which no one can conjecture, though our fate
may easily be. The last remains of our great and once
flourishing agriculture must be annihilated in the conflict.
In the first instance we will[1] be thrown on the home
market, which cannot consume a fourth of our products; and,
instead of supplying the world, as we would with free trade,
we would be compelled to abandon the cultivation of three
fourths of what we now raise, and receive for the residue
whatever the manufacturers, who would then have their policy
consummated by the entire possession of our market, might
choose to give. Forced to abandon our ancient and favorite
pursuit, to which our soil, climate, habits, and peculiar
labor are adapted, at an immense sacrifice of property, we
would be compelled, without capital, experience, or skill,
and with a population untried in such pursuits, to attempt
to become the rivals, instead of the customers, of the
manufacturing States. The result is not doubtful. If they,
by superior capital and skill, should keep down successful
competition on our part, we would be doomed to toil at our
unprofitable agriculture,--selling at the prices which a
single and very limited market might give. But, on the
contrary, if our necessity should triumph over their capital
and skill, if, instead of raw cotton we should ship to the
manufacturing States cotton yarn and cotton goods, the
thoughtful must see that it would inevitably bring about a
state of things which could not long continue. _Those who
now make war on our gains would then make it on our labor_.
They would not tolerate that those who now cultivate our
plantations, and furnish them with the material and the
market for the product of their arts, should, by becoming
their rivals, take bread from the mouths of their wives and
children. The committee will not pursue this painful
subject; but as they clearly see that the system if not
arrested, must bring the country to this hazardous
extremity, neither prudence nor patriotism would permit them
to pass it by without raising a warning voice against an
evil of so menacing a character."--_Works_, VI. 12.
The only question which arises in the mind of present readers of such
passages (which abound in the writings of Mr. Calhoun) is this: Were
they the chimeras of a morbid, or the utterances of a false mind?
Those who knew him differ in opinion on this point. For our part, we
believe such passages to have been inserted for the sole purpose of
alarming the people of South Carolina, so as to render them the more
subservient to his will. It is the stale trick of the demagogue, as
well as of the false priest, to subjugate the mind by terrifying it.
Mr. Calhoun concludes his Exposition by bringing forward his remedy
for the frightful evils which he had conjured up. That remedy, of
course, was nullification. The State of South Carolina, after giving
due warning, must declare the protective acts "null and void" in the
State of South Carolina after a certain date; and then, unless
Congress repealed them in time, refuse obedience to them. Whether this
should be done by the Legislature or by a convention called for the
purpose, Mr. Calhoun would not say; but he evidently preferred a
convention. He advised, however, that nothing be done hastily; that
time should be afforded to the dominant majority for further
reflection. Delay, he remarked, was the more to be recommended,
because of
"the great political revolution which will displace from
power, on the 4th of March next, those who have acquired
authority by setting the will of the people at defiance, and
which will bring in an eminent citizen, distinguished for
his services to his country and his justice and patriotism";
under whom, it was hoped, there would be "a complete restoration, of
the pure principles of our government." This passage Mr. Calhoun could
write _after_ witnessing the manoeuvres of Mr. Van Buren and Mr.
Eaton! If the friends of Mr. Adams had set the will of the people at
defiance on the tariff question, what had the supporters of General
Jackson done? In truth, this menace of nullification was the second
string to the bow of the Vice-President. It was not yet ascertained
which was going to possess and use General Jackson,--the placid and
flexible Van Buren, or the headstrong, short-sighted, and
uncomfortable Calhoun. Nullification, as he used daily to declare, was
a "reserved power."
At the time of General Jackson's inauguration, it would have puzzled
an acute politician to decide which of the two aspirants had the best
chance of succeeding the General. The President seemed equally well
affected toward both. One was Secretary of State, the other
Vice-President. Van Buren, inheriting the political tactics of Burr,
was lord paramount in the great State of New York, and Calhoun was
all-powerful in his own State and very influential in all the region
of cotton and rice. In the Cabinet Calhoun had two friends, and one
tried and devoted ally (Ingham), while Van Buren could only boast of
Major Eaton, Secretary of War; and the tie that bound them together
was political far more than personal. In the public mind, Calhoun
towered above his rival, for he had been longer in the national
councils, had held offices that drew upon him the attention of the
whole country, and had formerly been distinguished as an orator. If
any one had been rash enough in 1829 to intimate to Mr. Calhoun that
Martin Van Buren stood before the country on a par with himself, he
would have pitied the ignorance of that rash man.
Under despotic governments, like those of Louis XIV. and Andrew
Jackson, no calculation can be made as to the future of any public
man, because his future depends upon the caprice of the despot, which
cannot be foretold. Six short weeks--nay, not so much, not
six--sufficed to estrange the mind of the President from Calhoun, and
implant within him a passion to promote the interests of Van Buren.
Our readers, we presume, all know how this was brought to pass. It was
simply that Mr. Calhoun would _not_, and Mr. Van Buren _would_ call
upon Mrs. Eaton. All the other influences that were brought to bear
upon the President's singular mind were nothing in comparison with
this. Daniel Webster uttered only the truth when he wrote, at the
time, to his friend Dutton, that the "Aaron's serpent among the
President's desires was a settled purpose of making out the lady, of
whom so much has been said, a person of reputation"; and that this
ridiculous affair would "probably determine who should be the
successor to the present chief magistrate." It had precisely that
effect. We have shown elsewhere the successive manoeuvres by which
this was effected, and how vigorously but unskillfully Calhoun
struggled to avert his fate. We cannot and need not repeat the story;
nor can we go over again the history of the Nullification imbroglio,
which began with the South Carolina Exposition in 1828, and ended very
soon after Calhoun had received a private notification that the
instant news reached Washington of an overt act of treason in South
Carolina, the author and fomenter of that treason would be arrested
and held for trial as a traitor.
One fact alone suffices to prove that, in bringing on the
Nullification troubles, Calhoun's motive was factious. When General
Jackson saw the coming storm, he did two things. First, he prepared to
maintain the authority of the United States by force. Secondly, he
used all his influence with Congress to have the cause of Southern
discontent removed. General Jackson felt that the argument of the
anti-tariff men, in view of the speedy extinction of the national
debt, was unanswerable. He believed it was absurd to go on raising ten
or twelve millions a year more than the government could spend, merely
for the sake of protecting Northern manufactures. Accordingly, a bill
was introduced which aimed to do just what the nullifiers had been
clamoring for, that is, to reduce the revenue to the amount required
by the government. If Mr. Calhoun had supported this measure, he could
have carried it. He gave it no support; but exerted all his influence
in favor of the Clay Compromise, which was expressly intended to save
as much of the protective system as could be saved, and which reduced
duties gradually, instead of suddenly. Rather than permit the abhorred
administration to have the glory of pacificating the country, this
lofty Roman stooped to a coalition with his personal enemy, Henry
Clay, the champion and the soul of the protectionist party.
No words can depict the bitterness of Calhoun's disappointment and
mortification at being distanced by a man whom he despised so
cordially as he did Van Buren. To comprehend it, his whole subsequent
career must be studied. The numerous covert allusions to the subject
in his speeches and writings are surcharged with rancor; and it was
observed that, whenever his mind reverted to it, his manner, the tone
of his voice, and every gesture testified to the intensity of his
feelings. "Every Southern man," said he on one occasion,
"who is true to the interests of his section, and faithful
to the duties which Providence has allotted him, will be
forever excluded from the honors and emoluments of this
government, which will be reserved only for those who have
qualified themselves by political prostitution for admission
into the Magdalen Asylum."
His face, too, from this time, assumed that haggard, cast-iron,
intense, introverted aspect which struck every beholder.
Miss Martineau, in her Retrospect of Western Travel, has given us some
striking and valuable glimpses of the eminent men of that period,
particularly of the three most eminent, who frequently visited her
during her stay in Washington. This passage, for example, is highly
interesting.