federal aid was, in practice, little more than a rough general rule, to be honored in the breach as well as in the observance. There was force in Clay's slur that constitutional scruples did not avail to prevent appropriations for favorite objects.1 What Jackson did, in short, was to put a stop to the development, at federal expense, of interstate communication by means of roads and canals. The larger field of internal river communication, in his day as now a prolific source of extravagance and waste, he left practically untouched.

VOL. XVII

1 Debates of Congress, VIII., 1183.

CHAPTER IX

NULLIFICATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA

(1829-1833)

WAYNE'S defence of nullification, in the "great

HA

debate," was hailed by many in the south as a complete refutation of Webster's argument and a convincing exposition of the doctrine of strict construction. In South Carolina, where personal leadership was most aggressive and jealousy of federal encroachment most keen, opposition to the tariff became identified, as it had not been at first, with nullification. The aristocracy of leading families was largely a unit on the subject; and the control of politics in the state had been thus far largely in their hands. Elsewhere in the south the state

of public opinion was not so clear. The general assembly of Kentucky, in February, 1830, resolved in favor of protection and internal improvements, and the legislature of Louisiana passed resolutions, in April, in favor of the tariff of 1828.1 Such action was explained by the interest of these states in sugar and hemp. In general, however, there was an im

1 Niles' Register, XXXVII., 428; XXXVIII., 203.

pression that the south was of one mind, and that the mind of South Carolina.

A strong ground of hopefulness for the anti-tariff men lay in the supposed attitude of Jackson, who had not as yet expressed any unequivocal opinion on the subject of the tariff, but who was understood to be a strict constructionist; and his annual message of December, 1829, indicated opposition to protection. March 31, 1830, he was renominated for president by the Democratic members of the Pennsylvania legislature,' and similar action was shortly taken in other states. When, accordingly, at the banquet in Washington, April 13, 1830, in celebration of Jefferson's birthday, he proposed the toast, "Our Federal Union; it must be preserved!" the shock to his supporters was great. The toast was at once interpreted as an intimation that the Union was in danger, and that the public must rally to its defence.

If such was Jackson's fear, he was not alone in it. Webster wrote, in 1833, that he had become "thoroughly convinced" as early as December, 1828, "that the plan of a Southern Confederacy had been received with favor by a great many of the political men of the South.": There is no evidence that Calhoun, against whom Jackson's toast was immediately directed, was a party to any such scheme. His letters abound with expressions 1 Niles' Register, XXXVIII., 169. * Webster, Private Corresp., I., 534.

of sincere attachment to the Union. But he was sad; and disappointed as he was at Jackson's candidacy for re-election, and daily more entangled in the controversy over the Florida affair, he could only write, gloomily: "The times are perilous beyond any that I have ever witnessed. All of the great interests of the country are coming into conflict, and I must say, and with deep regret I speak it, that those to whom the vessel of state is entrusted seem either ignorant, or indifferent about the danger."

The Maysville veto, with its insistence on the necessity of conserving the original powers of the states, was momentarily reassuring. To Hayne it 'opened to the Southern States the first dawning of returning hope." " Acts of May 20 and 29, 1830, reduced the duties on coffee, tea, cocoa, molasses, and salt, and allowed a drawback on spirits distilled from foreign materials. During the summer the organization of the nullifiers was earnestly pushed, as was that of their opponents, the State Rights and Union party, the issue being the calling of a state convention to consider the propriety of nullification. The union sentiment in South Carolina, though it had been unable to prevent the adoption of the "Exposition" in 1828, was strong. Hayne described it as consisting of "all the Adams and Clay men, a few seceders from the Jackson

'Calhoun, Corresp. (Jameson's ed.), 273.

2 Ames, State Docs. on Federal Relations, IV., 32.

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ranks, and the dissatisfied of all parties." At a state-rights celebration at Charleston, July 5, the opposing views were ably expounded by Hayne and William Drayton. Jackson, who laid the whole movement at the door of "the ambitious Demagogue," Calhoun, gave the Unionists his moral support.'

The annual message of December 6, 1830, was not calculated to allay the hostility of South Carolina. Jackson admitted, indeed, that the existing tariff taxed "some of the comforts of life unnecessarily high," attempted "to protect interests too local and minute to justify a general exaction," and tried "to force some kinds of manufactures for which the country is not ripe "; but he also asserted his belief in the right of Congress to levy protective duties, and declared that the abandonment of protection "is neither to be expected or desired." In South Carolina the Unionists were able to prevent the passage by the legislature of a bill for calling a convention; but resolutions embodying parts of the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, and declaring the right of a state to "interpose,” were adopted. In Congress, the house committee on judiciary reported favorably, January 24, 1831, a resolution repealing the section of the judiciary act which provided for appeals from state courts to

1 Hayne to Van Buren, October 23, 1830, Van Buren MSS. 'Sumner, Jackson (rev. ed.), 259; Niles' Register, XXXVIII., 375-392. Richardson, Messages and Papers, II., 524. Niles' Register, XXXIX., 304, 305, 330.