John C. Calhoun Explains the Unconstitutionality of the Protective Tariff and Hence Why Nullification Was South Carolina's Rightful Option | Eastern North Carolina Now


    In 1828, Congress profoundly increased the punishing tariff on the South. It increased it from the rate adopted in 1824 (37%) to 50%. It was so severe that the South termed the Tariff of 1828 the "Tariff of Abominations." South Carolina threatened to leave the Union. In order to address the conflict created by the high tariff, Congress passed a new tariff bill in 1832, slightly lowering the rate. However, it was still deemed unsatisfactory by many in the South, especially in South Carolina.

    When Congress failed to adequately lower the high tariff in 1832, South Carolina knew it needed to take a stand against the government on this issue. And it would need to be a strong stand. John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, was Vice President at the time. So strongly did he feel about what South Carolina's response should be to the tariff that he resigned the vice presidency and sought election to the Senate, where he felt he could best represent his state. He easily won a Senate seat.

    Calhoun convinced his state that the proper remedy was the one that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison themselves had articulated clearly in 1798 - Nullification. Nullification is the right of a state to refuse to enforce a law that is enacted beyond the powers granted to the federal government in the Constitution. Although there had been talk of secession, Calhoun believed the proper remedy was nullification. So, in order to show its affection and continued loyalty to the union and its hope that Congress would reconsider its actions, it chose merely to refuse to pay the tariff. On November 24, 1832, South Carolina passed an Ordinance of Nullification which in effect stated that because the Congress over-stepped its constitutional authority with its power to establish tariffs, the state was under no obligation to obey the Tariff Bill of 1832.

    Senator John Calhoun of SC explained that the government created by the Constitution was tasked with only limited powers and ONLY when the government acts within those powers are the States constitutionally obligated to respect its laws and actions. Calhoun correctly explained that Congress was only tasked with the ability to raise tariffs for "revenue purposes" only and those tariffs must be imposed equally among the States. The high protective tariffs passed in 1824, then increased in 1828, and then renewed (although slightly decreased) in 1832, were not for revenue for the federal government but were merely a stream of revenue to temporarily pass through the government to the North where they directly benefited its industry and infrastructure. Wealth was funneled from the South to the North via federal legislation intended exactly for that purpose. It was a direct subsidization scheme.

    In 1835, explaining why South Carolina took the action it did, Calhoun said:

       "The obnoxious Act of 1828 reversed the principle adopted by the bill of 1816, of laying higher duties on the unprotected than the protected articles, by repealing almost entirely the duties laid upon the former, and imposing the burden almost entirely on the latter. It was thus that instead of relief - instead of an equal distribution of the burdens and benefits of the Government, on the payment of the debt, as had been fondly anticipated - the duties were so arranged as to be, in fact, bounties on one side and taxation on the other; thus placing the two great sections of the country in direct conflict in reference to its fiscal action, and thereby letting in that flood of political corruption which threatens to sweep away our Constitution and our liberty. This unequal and unjust arrangement was pronounced, both by the administration, through its proper organ, the Secretary of the Treasury, and by the opposition, to be a permanent adjustment; and it was thus that all hope of relief through the action of the General Government terminated; and the crisis so long apprehended at length arrived, at which the State was compelled to choose between absolute acquiescence in a ruinous system of oppression, or a resort to her reserved powers - powers of which she alone was the rightful judge, and which only, in this momentous juncture, could save her. She determined on the latter.

       The very point at issue between the two parties there, is, whether nullification is a peaceable and an efficient remedy against an unconstitutional act of the General Government, and may be asserted as such through the State tribunals. Both parties agree that the acts against which it is directed are unconstitutional and oppressive. The controversy is only as to the means by which our citizens may be protected against the acknowledged encroachments on their rights. This being the point at issue between the parties, and the very object of the majority being an efficient protection of the citizens through the State tribunals, the measures adopted to enforce the ordinance, of course, received the most decisive character. We were not children, to act by halves. Yet for acting thus efficiently the State is denounced, and this bill reported, to overrule, by military force, the civil tribunals and civil process of the State! Sir, I consider this bill, and the arguments which have been urged on this floor in its support, as the most triumphant acknowledgment that nullification is peaceful and efficient, and so deeply entrenched in the principles of our system, that it cannot be assailed but by prostrating the Constitution, and substituting the supremacy of military force in lieu of the supremacy of the laws. In fact, the advocates of this bill refute their own argument. They tell us that the ordinance is unconstitutional; that it infracts the constitution of South Carolina, although to me, the objection appears absurd, as it was adopted by the very authority which adopted the constitution itself. They also tell us that the Supreme Court is the appointed arbiter of all controversies between a State and the General Government. Why, then, do they not leave this controversy to that tribunal? Why do they not confide to them the abrogation of the ordinance, and the laws made in pursuance of it, and the assertion of that supremacy which they claim for the laws of Congress? The State stands pledged to resist no process of the court. Why, then, confer on the President the extensive and unlimited powers provided in this bill? Why authorize him to use military force to arrest the civil process of the State? But one answer can be given: That, in a contest between the State and the General Government, if the resistance be limited on both sides to the civil process, the State, by its inherent sovereignty, standing upon its reserved powers, will prove too powerful in such a controversy, and must triumph over the Federal Government, sustained by its delegated and unlimited authority; and in this answer we have an acknowledgment of the truth of those great principles for which the State has so firmly and nobly contended."

http://www.umsl.edu/virtualstl/phase2/1850/events/perspectives/documents/calhoun01.html

    83% of the money supporting the federal government was paid by the South through the various tariffs. The South paid the tariff (tax). It was not fair or legal - as the Constitution mandated that taxes must be collected equally among the States - but in a spirit of good will, the South agreed to it. At first the tariffs were low - 5% to 10%. But then the industrialized North and the greedy money seekers found a lucrative money supply.

    By 1824, the Northern-dominated Congress changed the tariff from a "revenue" tariff to a "protective" tariff in order to subsidize Northern factory owners and investors. Raising tariffs raised the price of European goods when they were imported which means that competition was essentially eliminated on Northern products. In order for Southerners to get the finished products that they once imported from Great Britain and France and Italy and other countries at an affordable price, they would have to buy from a Northern source. The products were inferior. Nonetheless, the market for Northern products thus increased. The North then spent the increased revenue on its own interests.

    The North further benefited from the disruption of the very lucrative 200-year-old trade relationship between the South and Europe. Because European products were taxed heavily in America, England and other European countries did the same to American raw materials (tobacco, sugar, cotton, grain, and rice - the major cash crop being cotton). The price of Southern goods in European markets dropped. And the South had to accept the low prices or not have a market for their goods. OR they could sell their raw materials to the North (also at prices lower than what they were used to before the tariff) and again enrich the North's position economically.

    The union was being ripped apart, but not because of slavery. The issue tearing the North and South apart was money and the crushing tariff and the abuse of Congressional power under the Constitution. Patrick Henry, John Tyler Sr., and Charles Pickney all predicted that the North's growing population advantage (it was even encouraging immigration to work the factories!) would give control of Congress to the Northern money party (which would become the "Whig" party and then the Republican party) which would enact tariff increases and other measures to force the South to subsidize the North. George Mason, who criticized the newly-drafted Constitution over various issues, including the lack of a Bill of Rights, encouraged Virginia and other Southern states not to ratify it. He warned: "The terms of this contract will deliver the Southern farmer, bound and tied, to the New England merchants." He and other Southern delegates to the Philadelphia Convention had tried to make it harder in Congress to pass a tariff - they wanted a 2/3 majority to pass trade (including tariff) bills. In the end, it was voted that a simple majority was all that would be necessary.

    John C. Calhoun has been vilified in history, and still is, for being a slave owner and supporter of slavery. President Andrew Jackson, father of the Democratic Party, the president who signed the 1828 and 1832 tariffs into law and who had Congress pass a Force Bill for his purposes, which he intended to use to send federal troops into South Carolina after he learned about the Ordinance of Nullification in order to forcibly collect the tariff revenue, was ALSO a slave owner and supporter of slavery.
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