THE NULLIFICATION CONTROVERSY

Jackson was forced early in his presidency to face the issue of the power of the states in relation to the power of the federal government. In 1828 Congress passed a bill authorizing new tariffs on imported manufacturing cloth and iron. The cost of these goods rose dramatically, and legislators in South Carolina began to revisit the doctrine of nullification, whereby individual states could rule on the constitutionality of federal laws. Jackson’s own vice president, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, stated that the practice of nullification was a necessity to protect states from the potential tyranny of the federal government.

In 1830 a debate in the U.S. Senate over western land sales between Robert Hayne of South Carolina and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts evolved into a debate on nullification. In the Webster-Hayne Debate. Daniel Webster argued that if nullification were to proceed, the results would be “states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched ... in fraternal blood!” President Jackson was a believer in states’ rights but firmly opposed the concept of nullification.

New tariffs were imposed on imported goods, and in November of 1832 a specially called convention in South Carolina voted to nullify the law imposing these tariffs. Jackson moved troops and federal marshals to South Carolina to collect the tariff payments there; Congress authorized these decisions when it passed the Force Act. John Calhoun resigned as vice president (Jackson suggested privately that he should be hung). A crisis was avoided when the Congress passed a bill, acceptable to South Carolina, that lowered the amount of the tariffs to be collected.