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Nullification crisis

Between 1828 and 1833, South Carolina, a state in the United States, argued it had the authority to selectively "nullify" federal legislation from applying within its borders—specifically a protective tariff passed in 1828 that nullification proponents argued unconstitutionally benefited northern states at the expense of southern states—resulting in a confrontation between the state and the federal government that became known as the nullification crisis. President Andrew Jackson was a southerner but nevertheless believed in the legislative authority of the federal government over state governments and condemned the nullification argument as unconstitutional. John C. Calhoun, Jackson's vice president and a South Carolinian, broke with Jackson's government over the issue and defended nullification as valid.

Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them.

Historians place the nullification crisis within the prelude to the American Civil War. Although the tariff was not directly connected to slavery in the United States, it threatened to spark political division along regional lines—south against north—and it articulated a sentiment for strong states' rights against federal policymaking, a political position that became increasingly associated with southern defensiveness against northern abolitionism. Individuals both for and against nullification acknowledged its implications for slavery.

At the crisis' peak, a state convention in South Carolina passed an Ordinance of Nullification on November 24, 1832, declaring the Tariff of 1828 (as well as a compromise tariff passed in 1832) unconstitutional and void in South Carolina. On March 1, 1833, the United States Congress responded by passing an additional compromise tariff that lowered the tax even further as well as the Force Bill, a law authorizing the president of the United States to use military force against South Carolina. Satisfied with the 1833 tariff, the South Carolina convention repealed its Ordinance of Nullification, resolving the political crisis, though it nevertheless passed an additional ordinance declaring the Force Bill void, maintaining the claim that they had authority to nullify federal legislation.

Quotes

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A positive and permanent rule giving such a power, to such a minority, over such a majority, would overturn the first principle of free government.
 
I consider the tariff act as the occasion, rather than the real cause of the present unhappy state of things.
 
Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attaching this importance to the Constitution of our country? Was our devotion paid to the wretched, inefficient, clumsy contrivance, which this new doctrine would make it?
 
To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation.
 
We are called to decide whether these laws possess any force and that Union the means of self-preservation.
 
The unhallowed attempt to cement the union with the blood of our citizens… would reduce the free and sovereign States of this confederacy to mere dependent provinces.
 
For in the South they make a rout, / And all about Nullification.
 
Should odious discriminations be instituted for the purpose of continuing in force the protective principle, South Carolina will feel herself free to resist.
 
Sir, if a Confederacy of the Southern States could now be obtained, should we not deem it a happy termination—happy beyond expectation, of our long struggle for our rights against oppression?
 
The whole world are in arms against your institutions.
  • The United States of America and the people of every State of which they are composed are each of them sovereign powers. The legislative authority of the whole is exercised by Congress under authority granted them in the common Constitution. The legislative power of each State is exercised by assemblies deriving their authority from the constitution of the State. Each is sovereign within its own province. The distribution of power between them presupposes that these authorities will move in harmony with each other. The members of the State and General Governments are all under oath to support both, and allegiance is due to the one and to the other. The case of a conflict between these two powers has not been supposed, nor has any provision been made for it in our institutions; as a virtuous nation of ancient times existed more than five centuries without a law for the punishment of patricide.
  • If it be conceded, as it must by every one who is the least conversant with our institutions, that the sovereign power is divided between the states and general government, and that the former holds its reserved rights, in the same high sovereign capacity, which the latter does its delegated rights; it will be impossible to deny to the states the right of deciding on the infraction of their rights, and the proper remedy to be applied for the correction. The right of judging, in such cases, is an essential attribute of sovereignty of which the states cannot be divested, without losing their sovereignty itself; and being reduced to a subordinate corporate condition. In fact, to divide power, and to give to one of the parties the exclusive right of judging of the portion allotted to each, is in reality not to divide at all; and to reserve such exclusive right to the general government, (it matters not by what department it be exercised,) is in fact to constitute it one great consolidated government, with unlimited powers, and to reduce the states to mere corporations.
  • But it is understood that the nullifying doctrine imports that the decision of the State is to be presumed valid, and that it overrules the law of the United States, unless overruled by three fourths of the States.
    Can more be necessary to demonstrate the inadmissibility of such a doctrine, than that it puts it in the power of the smallest fraction over one fourth of the United States, that is, of seven states out of twenty four, to give the law, and even the Constitution to seventeen States; each of the seventeen having as parties to the Constitution, an equal right with each of the seven, to expound it, and to insist on the exposition. That the seven might, in particular instances be right, and the seventeen wrong, is more than possible. But to establish a positive and permanent rule giving such a power, to such a minority, over such a majority, would overturn the first principle of free government, and in practice necessarily overturn the government itself.
    It is to be recollected that the Constitution was proposed to the people of the States as a whole, and unanimously adopted by the States as a whole, it being a part of the Constitution that not less than three fourths of the States should be competent to make any alteration in what had been unanimously agreed to.
  • I consider the tariff act as the occasion, rather than the real cause of the present unhappy state of things. The truth can no longer be disguised, that the peculiar domestick [sic] institution of the Southern States and the consequent direction which that and her soil and climate have given to her industry, has placed them in regard to taxation and appropriations in opposite relation to the majority of the Union, against the danger of which, if there be no protective power in the reserved rights of the states they must in the end be forced to rebel, or, submit it to have their paramount interests sacrifices, their domestick [sic] institutions subordinated by Colonization and other schemes, and themselves and children reduced to wretchedness. Thus situated, the denial of the right of the State to interpose constitutionally in the last resort, more alarms the thinking, than all the other causes; and however strange it may appear, the more universally the state is condemned, and her right denied, the more resolute she is to assert her constitutional powers lest the neglect to assert should be considered a practical abandonment of them, under such circumstances.
    • John C. Calhoun, letter, September 11, 1830, quoted in Richard E. Ellis, The Union at Risk: Jacksonian Democracy, States' Rights and the Nullification Crisis (Oxford University Press, 1987), 193, 211, 214
  • Should the nullifiers succeed in their views of separation, and the Union be in consequence dissolved, the following will be an appropriate epitaph. [...] HERE, To the ineffable joy of the Despots, and Friends of Despotism, throughout the world, and the universal distress and mortification of the friends of human liberty and happiness, lie the shattered remains of the noblest fabric of Government, ever devised by man, The Constitution of the Untied States. The fatal result of its dissolution was chiefly produced, by the unceasing efforts of some of the most highly gifted men in the U. S. whose labours, for a series of years have had this sinister tendency, by the most exaggerated statements of the distress and sufferings of South Carolina, (unjustly ascribed to the tariffs of duties on imports) which, whatever they were, arose from the blighting, blasting, withering effects of SLAVERY; together with the depreciation of the great Staple of the State, the inevitable consequence of over-production: caused, in a great degree, by the depression of the Manufactures of the country, in 1816, 1817, 1818, 1819, 1820 & 1821, for want of protection of the government, WITHHELD BY THE MISERABLE TARIFF OF 1816: which overspread the land with distress, and wretchedness, and bankruptcy; and produced in three years more decay and ruin of national prosperity, than a war of equal duration would have done.
  • And we, the people of South Carolina, to the end that it may be fully understood by the government of the United States, and the people of the co-States, that we are determined to maintain this our ordinance and declaration, at every hazard, 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 authorizing the employment of a military or naval force against the State of South Carolina, her constitutional authorities or citizens; or any act abolishing or closing the ports of this State, or any of them, or otherwise obstructing the free ingress and egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act on the part of the federal government, to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her commerce or 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 henceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the other States; and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do.
  • Were we mistaken, my countrymen, in attaching this importance to the Constitution of our country? Was our devotion paid to the wretched, inefficient, clumsy contrivance, which this new doctrine would make it? Did we pledge ourselves to the support of an airy nothing—a bubble that must be blown away by the first breath of disaffection? Was this self-destroying, visionary theory the work of the profound statesmen, the exalted patriots, to whom the task of constitutional reform was intrusted? Did the name of Washington sanction, did the States deliberately ratify, such an anomaly in the history of fundamental legislation? No. We were not mistaken. The letter of this great instrument is free from this radical fault; its language directly contradicts the imputation; its spirit, its evident intent, contradicts it. No, we did not err. Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them. The sages, whose memory will always be reverenced, have given us a practical, and, as they hoped, a permanent constitutional compact.
  • To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not a nation because it would be a solecism to contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any offense. Secession, like any other revolutionary act, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right, is confounding the meaning of terms, and can only be done through gross error, or to deceive those who are willing to assert a right, but would pause before they made a revolution, or incur the penalties consequent upon a failure.
  • She [South Carolina] cannot bring herself to believe, that standing as she does on the basis of the constitution, and the immutable principles of truth and justice, any attempt will be made by her confederate States, and least of all by the Government which they have created, for special purposes, to reduce her to subjection by military force. A confederacy of sovereign states, formed by the free consent of all, cannot possibly be held together, by any other tie than mutual sympathies and common interest. The unhallowed attempt to cement the union with the blood of our citizens, (which if successful would reduce the free and sovereign States of this confederacy to mere dependent provinces) South Carolina has solemnly declared, would be regarded by her, as absolving her "from all further obligation to maintain or preserve her political connexion with the people of the other States."
  • Why Yankee land is at a stand,
    And all in consternation;
    For in the South they make a rout,
    And all about Nullification.
    Sing Yankee doodle doodle doo,
    Yankee doodle dandy,
    Our foes are few our hearts are true,
    And Jackson is quite handy.
    Those Southern knaves are blustering blades,
    Their cash they think is handy,
    But we of the North are the right sort,
    And the Union is the dandy
    Sing Yankee doodle doodle doo,
    Yankee doodle dandy,
    Stand to your arms nor fear alarms,
    Just play Yankee doodle dandy.
  • The southern people have a right to complain of the tariff in that I join them—it is a foolish as well as an unjust policy. But has a child son a right to cut his mothers [sic] throat to rip open the womb which conceived him—because his mother may have exhibited a momentary partiality for his brothers, especially when that mother shows a sense of her injustice and is endeavouring to readjust the balance of her affections. The failure of the Nullifiers will cover them with confusion and popular odium—but their success would consign them to eternal infamy and endless execration. Forgive the earnestness of my language—but this nullification is a cancer in my heart, & I believe in that of every Citizen of the U. States who finds himself absent from that dear Country. I cannot sleep for it—and I sometimes think of going home immediately—for if there should be a civil contest I should feel myself bound in honour to take my part in all its melancholy horrors[.]
    • Henry Lee IV, letter to Andrew Jackson, January 6, 1833, via The Papers of Andrew Jackson, vol. 11, 1833, eds. Daniel Feller, Laura-Eve Moss, and Thomas Coens (University of Tennessee Press, 2019), 14–15, strikethrough original
  • Was this to be permitted the Government would loose [sic] the confidence of its citizens & it would induce disunion every where[.] No my friend, the crisis must be now met with firmness, our citizens protected, & the modern doctrine of nullification & secession put down forever—for we have yet to learn, whether some of the eastern states may not secede or nullify, if the tariff is reduced. I have to look at both ends of the union to preserve it.
    • Andrew Jackson, letter to Martin Van Buren, January 13, 1833, via The Papers of Andrew Jackson, vol. 11, 1833, eds. Daniel Feller, Laura-Eve Moss, and Thomas Coens (University of Tennessee Press, 2019), 31
  • The parties in So. C. [South Carolina] are arming on both sides, & drilling in the night, & I expect soon to hear that a civil war of extermination has commenced. I will meet all things with deliberate firmness & forbearence, but wo, to those nullifiers who shed the first blood. The moment I am prepared with proof I will direct prosecutions for treason to be instituted against the leaders, and if they are surrounded with 12,000 bayonets our marshall shall be aided by 24,000 & arrest them in the midst thereof—nothing must be permitted to weaken our government at home or abroad.
    • Andrew Jackson, letter to Martin Van Buren, January 13, 1833, via The Papers of Andrew Jackson, vol. 11, 1833, eds. Daniel Feller, Laura-Eve Moss, and Thomas Coens (University of Tennessee Press, 2019), 31–32
  • The rich inheritance bequeathed by our fathers has devolved upon us the sacred obligation of preserving it by the same virtues which conducted them through the eventful scenes of the Revolution and ultimately crowned their struggle with the noblest model of civil institutions. They bequeathed to us a Government of laws and a Federal Union founded upon the great principle of popular representation. After a successful experiment of forty-four years, at a moment when the Government and the Union are the objects of the hopes of the friends of civil liberty throughout the world, and in the midst of public and individual prosperity unexampled in history, we are called to decide whether these laws possess any force and that Union the means of self-preservation. The decision of this question by an enlightened and patriotic people can not be doubtful. For myself, fellow-citizens, devoutly relying upon that kind Providence which has hitherto watched over our destinies, and actuated by a profound reverence for those institutions I have so much cause to love, and for the American people, whose partiality honored me with their highest trust, I have determined to spare no effort to discharge the duty which in this conjuncture is devolved upon me.
    • Andrew Jackson, written message read to the Senate and House of Representatives on January 16, 1833, Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States (1833), 186–204, here 204
  • Resolved, That whilst this Convention as an offering to the peace and harmony of this Union, in a just regard to the interposition of the highly patriotic Commonwealth of Virginia, and with a proper deference to the united vote of the whole Southern States in favor of the recent accommodation of the tariff, has made the late modification of the tariff, approved by the act of Congress of the 2nd March, 1833, the basis of the repeal of her Ordinance of the 24th November, 1832—Yet this Convention owes it to itself, to the people they represent, and the posterity of that people, to declare that they do not, by reason of said repeal, acquiesce in the principle of the substantive power existing on the part of Congress to protect domestic mannfactures [sic]: and hence, on the final adjustment in 1842, of the reductions, under the act of the 2nd March, 1833, or any previous period, should odious discriminations be instituted for the purpose of continuing in force the protective principle, South Carolina will feel herself free to resist such a violation of what she conceives to be the good faith of the act of the 2nd March, 1833, by the interposition of her sovereignty, or in any other mode she may deem proper.
    • James Hamilton Jr., resolution introduced March 11, 1833, as printed in Speeches Delivered in the Convention, of the State of South-Carolina, Held in Columbia, in March, 1833 (Charleston: E. J. Van Brunt, 1833), 6
  • Sir, if a Confederacy of the Southern States could now be obtained, should we not deem it a happy termination—happy beyond expectation, of our long struggle for our rights against oppression? I fear that there is no longer hope or liberty for the South, under a Union, by which all self-government is taken away. A people, owning slaves, are mad, or worse than mad, who do not hold their destinies in their own hands. Do we not bear the insolent assumption by our rulers, that slave labour shall not come into competition with free? Nor is it our northern brethren alone—the whole world are in arms against your institutions. Every stride of this Government, over your rights, brings it nearer and nearer to your peculiar policy; and even now, it stands, with the Bill of Blood in one hand, and the Sword in the other, and Carolina must bow her dishonoured head, and breathe forth the slavish or hypocritical profession of "ardently attached to the Union of these States." Sir, let slaves adore and love a despotism—it is the part of freemen to detest and to resist it.
    • Robert Barnwell Rhett, speech, March 11, 1833, as printed in Speeches Delivered in the Convention, of the State of South-Carolina, Held in Columbia, in March, 1833 (Charleston: E. J. Van Brunt, 1833), 25
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