By 1832, the South Carolina Nullifiers were openly led by Vice President Calhoun. The extremists were in control in South Carolina to push events toward the crisis which forced Jackson to rush back to Washington from Nashville. The state’s legislature proclaimed that any effort by Federal authorities to collect the duties after February 1, 1833, would cause South Carolina to secede from the Union.
When news of this proclamation reached Jackson, he ordered seven revenue cutters and a warship dispatched to Charleston. Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott set his men to work preparing harbor defenses against attack from the land. The situation was at the stage where only recklessness was needed to set off a conflict. At this time Jackson wrote a friend that “no state or states has the right to secede ... nullification therefore means insurrection and war; and other states have a right to put it down....”
Jackson issued a proclamation warning the citizens of South Carolina not to follow the Nullifiers, whose “object is disunion.” He warned that “disunion by armed force is treason” and that those who followed this path must suffer the “dreadful consequences.” The proclamation spread excitement throughout the country. Many men volunteered for military duty in case of a conflict. Several state legislatures met to denounce nullification. But in South Carolina Robert Y. Hayne—who had resigned from his Senate seat to become governor of the state—issued his own proclamation in which he vowed to maintain South Carolina’s sovereignty or else to perish “beneath its ruins.” Hayne called for the organization of “Mounted Minute Men,” which, he said, would permit him to place “2,500 of the elite of the whole state upon a given point in three or four days....”
The only concession held forth by Jackson in this cold war was his approval of a bill for introduction in the House which would call for a reduction of tariff rates. His willingness to go along with this measure did not eliminate the threat of a shooting conflict.
While holding an olive twig of compromise in one hand, Jackson held a sword in the other. He sent a request to Congress asking authority to use Federal troops if necessary to collect the customs. Even as the cheers and curses sounded over this move, Jackson sent a letter to Gerald R. Poinsett, a Unionist leader in South Carolina, outlining his plans to use strong measures to enforce Federal authority. No doubt he intended his letter to reach the hands of the Nullificationists. He said should Congress fail to act on his request for authority to use military force, and should South Carolina oppose with armed force the collection of the customs duties, then “I stand prepared to issue my proclamation warning them to disperse. Should they fail to comply I will ... in ten or fifteen days at fartherest have in Charleston ten to fifteen thousand well organized troops well equipped for the field, and twenty or thirty thousand more in their interior. I have a tender of volunteers from every state in the Union. I can if need be, which God forbid, march 200,000 men in forty days to quell any and every insurrection that might arise....”
Not only would he take these measures against South Carolina, Jackson added, but if the governor of Virginia should make any move to prevent Federal troops from moving through the state against South Carolina then “I would arrest him....” The President also was prepared to call on Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina to furnish 35,000 troops to carry out his orders.
Jackson’s request of Congress for authority to use troops in forcing the collection of customs was immediately called the “Force Bill.” To the extremists it was known as the “Bloody Bill.” Vice President John Calhoun said darkly that if the bill should pass then “it will be resisted at every hazard, even that of death.”
It was at this point that the Great Compromiser, Henry Clay, moved to seek the solution which would avoid bloodshed and perhaps civil war. He introduced in the House his own bill to lower tariffs by 20 per cent over a period of ten years. The Clay bill was pushed through Congress along with the Jackson Force Bill and both were sent to the President for his signature. Jackson won his demand for authority to send troops to South Carolina to put down any move toward secession or nullification of the tariff laws, and he signed the compromise tariff bill even though it was, in a measure, appeasement of the Nullificationists. Clay’s tariff bill was a face-saving measure for South Carolina. The head-on conflict between Federal and state forces was averted—at least for the time being.
In Jackson’s administration there was one man whose name appears mostly in the footnotes of that turbulent period, but it is a name that deserves special mention in this chronicle. The man was Samuel Swartwout, Collector of Customs in New York City during Jackson’s two terms in the White House. He rates special mention and a shadowy niche in American history because he was the first and only man to steal a million dollars from the Treasury of the United States. In fact, he stole $1,250,000.
Swartwout was a young man when he plunged into New York politics. He was a dark-haired, personable man who made himself useful by running errands for the political bosses until he reached a position of backroom fixer and schemer with no small amount of influence. He was the bluff, hearty type who made friends easily. And while he never was a central figure in the making of history, he was one of those men whose names continually cropped up in the affairs of the men who did make history in his time.