| The bill passed by the House of Representatives. |
It will be seen, however, that the support of, and the opposition to, the tariff respectively had not yet become entirely sectional, though an advance had been made since 1824 toward that result. The bill passed the House on February 10th, 1827, but the Senate did not reach its consideration before the conclusion of the session.
| Hostility to the measure in South Carolina. |
It had the effect, however, of arousing most intense excitement and bitter opposition in South Carolina. In fact, it is from this date and issue that we must trace the history of nullification in South Carolina. In the summer following the Congressional session of 1826-27 the chief personages of the Commonwealth assembled at Columbia. The Governor, Mr. Taylor, presided, and the principal orator of the occasion was the President of the College of the Commonwealth, Dr. Cooper, a man of rare powers and great learning, an Englishman by birth and education, a free-trader in his political economy, and a "States' rights" man in his political science. In his speech he suggested disunion as preferable to submission to the tariff legislation of Congress. The resolutions passed by the assembly were not so inflammatory as the Doctor's speech, but they declared that such legislation was calculated to give rise to the inquiry whether the Union was of any benefit, under such conditions, to the Southern Commonwealths.
| The bill neglected by the Senate. |
Copies of these resolutions were sent to the legislative bodies of the several Southern Commonwealths, but they evoked no response whatsoever. The proposed tariff had, by the inaction of the Senate, been virtually abandoned, and it was therefore unnecessary to protest against its passage as law, or make threats against its execution.
| The Tariff of 1828. |
At the beginning of the next session of Congress, that of 1827-28, the committee on Manufactures brought in another bill. It advanced the duty on iron by from ten to fifteen per centum; it advanced the duty on wool by from about fifty to more than one hundred per centum, imposing both a specific and an ad valorem duty upon it. It changed the duty upon woollen goods costing less than $2.50 a square yard from an ad valorem to a specific duty, and increased the duty by about twenty per centum. It retained the ad valorem duty on woollens costing more than $2.50 a square yard, and increased the same by about twenty per centum, and in addition thereto it imposed a minimum valuation of $4 a square yard upon all such goods costing between $2.50 and $4 a square yard, which would effect an additional increase of duty of about fifty per centum on the average. It finally increased the duty on hemp by about twenty-five per centum immediately, and by about eighty per centum in three years.