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Chapter VII - The Tariff of Abominations,
A Divided Administration The Tariff of Abominations, A Divided Administration 1828 - 1833
Jackson's unwavering support of Georgia's right to remove Indians, even in the face of a supreme Court ruling, bolstered the flagging spirits of a growing group of Southern states' righters who were contemplating drastic action against the federal government over issues of political and economic power. Growing reform movements, especially those against slavery, had made the Southern states fearful of federal power - particularly in South Carolina, where by 1830 the powerful slave-holding planter class dominated politics. Having observed the rapid growth of the abolitionist movement in Great Britain which resulted in the emancipation of slaves in the West Indies in 1833, many apprehensive South Carolinians feared the same thing might occur in their state.
South Carolinians were also perturbed by another issue, the extremely high price of imported goods resulting from tariffs imposed by the complicated maneuverings of Northern congressmen. To protect their interests against what they referred to as the Tariffs of Abomination, South Carolina political leaders formulated the doctrine of nullification which empowered a state to overrule any federal legislation which conflicted with its own. Strangely enough, the principal champion of this movement was John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson's vice-president. Calhoun obstinately insisted that only the power of nullification would protect the minority interest, in this case the interest of South Carolina, from the tyranny of the majority, meaning Congress and the executive branch. Jackson was thus placed in a very embarrassing position since, as president, he was sworn to consistently uphold any federal law.
On January 27, 1830, the marathon ten-day-old debate over nullification continued in the Senate before packed galleries of onlookers who watched as the eloquent Daniel Webster of New Hampshire and Robert Hayne of South Carolina verbally wrestled with the issue of states' rights and the Union. Webster, possessing a ringing voice, "theatrical flair" and the "physical presence of a bull," hushed the noisy crowd as he challenged nullification and the idea that a nation was a compact of states rather than a compact of people. In response, Hayne held his audience spell-bound, arguing that the Union was created by a compact of states and the federal government must not be the judge of its own powers because its powers would then be unlimited. Therefore, Hayne strongly concluded, the states should remain absolutely free to judge when the national government overstepped the bounds of its constitutional authority.
In a rousing rebuttal to the state-compact theory, Webster outlined a nationalistic view of the Constitution. He asserted that from the beginning the American Revolution had been a "crusade of united colonies" rather than of separate ones. He farther argued that true sovereignty resided in the people as a unified whole, and if a single state could nullify a law of the federal government, then the Union would be bound by a "rope of sand." Nullification, he ominously predicted, would result in "states dissevered, discordant, belligerent, on land rent with civil feuds or drenched in fraternal blood." Webster closed his argument with a flourish of patriotic rhetorical passionately exclaiming, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"
On April 13, 1830, at a Jefferson Day dinner, Jackson openly demonstrated his support for Webster's position and his "dread and distrust" of nullification with a toast: "Our Federal Union; it must and shall be preserved." Trembling with anger over Jackson's forceful remark, Calhoun caused an uproar with his own defiant toast: "The Union, next to our liberty most dear." Lines were thus clearly and publicly drawn between states' rights and the Union.
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