The Great Conspiracy, Volume 1

by John Alexander Logan

These inflammatory utterances, in South Carolina especially, stirred the Southern heart more or less throughout the whole cotton belt; and the pernicious principles which they embodied found ardent advocates even in the Halls of Congress. In the Senate, Mr. Hayne, of South Carolina, was their chief and most vehement spokesman, and in 1830 occurred that memorable debate between him and Daniel Webster, which forever put an end to all reasonable justification of the doctrine of Nullification, and which furnished the ground upon which President Jackson afterward stood in denouncing and crushing it out with the strong arm of the Government.

In that great debate Mr. Hayne's propositions were that the Constitution is a "compact between the States," that "in case of a plain, palpable violation of the Constitution by the General Government, a State may interpose; and that this interposition is constitutional"—a proposition with which Mr. Webster took direct issue, in these words: "I say, the right of a State to annul a law of Congress cannot be maintained, but on the ground of the inalienable right of man to resist oppression; that is to say, upon the ground of revolution. I admit that there is an ultimate violent remedy, above the Constitution and in defiance of the Constitution, which may be resorted to when a revolution is to be justified. But I do not admit that, under the Constitution, and in conformity with it, there is any mode in which a State Government, as a member of the Union, can interfere and stop the progress of the general movement by force of her own laws under any circumstances whatever." Mr. Webster insisted that "one of two things is true: either the laws of the Union are beyond the discretion and beyond the control of the States, or else we have no Constitution of General Government, and are thrust back again to the days of the Confederation;" and, in concluding his powerful argument, he declared that "even supposing the Constitution to be a compact between the States," Mr. Hayne's doctrine was "not maintainable, because, first, the General Government is not a party to the compact, but a Government established by it, and vested by it with the powers of trying and deciding doubtful questions; and secondly, because, if the Constitution be regarded as a compact, not one State only, but all the States are parties to that compact, and one can have no right to fix upon it her own peculiar construction."

While the comparatively miserable condition of the cotton-growing States of the South was attributed by most of the Southern Free Traders solely to the Protective Tariff of 1828, yet there were some Southerners willing to concede—as did Mr. Hayne, in the Senate (1832)—that there were "other causes besides the Tariff" underlying that condition, and to admit that "Slaves are too improvident, too incapable of that minute, constant, delicate attention, and that persevering industry which are essential to manufacturing establishments," the existence of which would have made those States prosperous. But such admissions were unwilling ones, and the Cotton-lords held only with the more tenacity to the view that the Tariff was the chief cause of their condition.

The Tariff Act of 1832, essentially modifying that of 1828, was passed with a view, in part, to quiet Southern clamor. But the Southern Cotton States refused to be mollified. On the contrary, the Free Traders of South Carolina proceeded to extreme measures, putting in action that which they had before but threatened. On November 19, 1832, the leading men of South Carolina met in Convention, and a few days thereafter—[November 24,1882]—unanimously passed an Ordinance of Nullification which declared the Tariff Acts of 1828 and 1832 "Unauthorized by the Constitution," and "null, void, and no law, nor binding on this State, its officers, or citizens." The people of the State were forbidden by it to pay, after the ensuing February 1st, the import-duties therein imposed. Under the provisions of the Ordinance, the State Legislature was to pass an act nullifying these Tariff laws, and any appeal to the United States Supreme Court against the validity of such nullifying act was prohibited. Furthermore, in the event of the Federal Government attempting to enforce these Tariff laws, the people of South Carolina would thenceforth consider themselves out of the Union, 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."

At the subsequent meeting of the Legislature, Mr. Hayne, who had been a member of the Convention, having resigned his seat in the United States Senate, was elected Governor of the State. He declared in his message that he recognized "No allegiance as paramount to that which the citizens of South Carolina owe to the State of their birth or their adoption"—that doctrine of "paramount allegiance to the State" which in after-years gave so much trouble to the Union and to Union-loving Southerners—and declared that he held himself "bound by the highest of all obligations to carry into effect, not only the Ordinance of the Convention, but every act of the Legislature, and every judgment of our own Courts, the enforcement of which may devolve upon the Executive," and "if," continued he, "the sacred soil of Carolina should be polluted by the footsteps of an invader, or be stained with the blood of her citizens, shed in her defense, I trust in Almighty God * * * even should she stand alone in this great struggle for constitutional liberty, encompassed by her enemies, that there will not be found, in the wide limits of the State, one recreant son who will not fly to the rescue, and be ready to lay down his life in her defense." In support of the contemplated treason, he even went to the length of calling for an enrolling of volunteer forces and of holding them ready for service.

But while South Carolina stood in this treasonable and defiant attitude, arming for war against the Union, there happened to be in the Presidential chair one of her own sons—General Jackson. Foreseeing what was coming, he had, prior to the meeting of the Convention that framed the Nullification Ordinance, ordered General Scott to Charleston to look after "the safety of the ports of the United States" thereabouts, and had sent to the Collector of that port precise instructions as to his duty to resist in all ways any and all attempts made under such Ordinance to defeat the operation of the Tariff laws aforesaid. Having thus quietly prepared the arm of the General Government for the exercise of its power, he issued in December a Proclamation declaring his unalterable resolution to treat Nullification as Treason—and to crush it.

In that famous document President Jackson said of Nullification: "If this doctrine had been established at an earlier day, the Union would have been dissolved in its infancy. The Excise law in Pennsylvania, the Embargo and Non-intercourse law in the Eastern States, the Carriage-tax in Virginia, were all deemed unconstitutional, and were more unequal in their operation than any of the laws now complained of; but fortunately, none of those States discovered that they had the right now claimed by South Carolina. * * * The discovery of this important feature in our Constitution was reserved for the present day. To the statesmen of South Carolina belongs the invention, and upon the citizens of that State will unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it to practice. * * * I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded and destructive of the great object for which it was formed. * * * 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."

Farther on, in his moving appeal to the South Carolinians, he bids them beware of their leaders: "Their object is disunion; be not deceived by names. Disunion, by armed force, is Treason." And then, reminding them of the deeds of their fathers in the Revolution, he proceeds: "I adjure you, as you honor their memory, as you love the cause of freedom to which they dedicated their lives, as you prize the peace of your country, the lives of its best citizens, and your own fair fame, to retrace your steps. Snatch from the archives of your State the disorganizing edict of its Convention—bid its members to reassemble and promulgate the decided expression of your will to remain in the path which alone can conduct you to safety, prosperity, and honor—tell them that, compared to disunion, all other evils are light, because that brings with it an accumulation of all—declare that you will never take the field unless the Star-spangled banner of your country shall float over you—that you will not be stigmatized when dead, and dishonored and scorned while you live, as the authors of the first attack on the Constitution of your country! Its destroyers you cannot be."

After asserting his firm "determination to execute the laws—to preserve the Union by all constitutional means"—he concludes with the prayer, "May the great Ruler of Nations grant, that the signal blessings with which He has favored, ours may not, by the madness of party, or personal ambition be disregarded and lost; and may His wise providence bring those who have produced this crisis to see the folly before they feel the misery, of civil strife; and inspire a returning veneration for that Union, which, if we may dare to penetrate His designs, He has chosen as the only means of attaining the high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire."

The firm attitude of General Jackson, together with the wise precautionary measures he had already taken, and the practical unanimity with which his declaration to crush out the Treason was hailed in most of the Southern as well as the Northern States, almost at once broke the back of Nullification.