| Nullification and rebellion. |
The nullifiers could now declare that every means suggested by their opponents as regular and lawful had been tried and had failed, and that there now remained only submission to oppression, or nullification, or rebellion. They said that no true South Carolinian could accept the first, and that, therefore, the choice lay between nullification and rebellion. Calhoun taught that there was a vast difference between the two; that the former was a constitutional, as well as a sovereign, method of resistance. He asserted that it was the great conservative principle of the Constitution, and defined it to be that reserved right whereby a "State," in convention assembled, might suspend the operation of a Congressional act upon its citizens which it considered unconstitutional, until conventions in three-fourths of the "States" should pronounce the Congressional act to be constitutional. He did not claim that this right was reserved specifically, but by implication from the general language of the Tenth Amendment. He was doubtless sincere, or at least thought he was. Many of his followers certainly were, and the masses, who could not understand the doctrine, but took it on faith, were so certain of its truth that they were ready to risk anything for its vindication.
The Unionists, however, branded the doctrine as a deception. An editorial in one of their principal newspapers contained this sentence: "But this everlasting cant of devotion to the Union, accompanied by a recommendation to do those acts that must necessarily destroy it, is beyond patient endurance from a people not absolutely confined in their own mad-houses." It was clear to them, at the outset, that nullification was piecemeal secession and rebellion.
| Jackson's message of December, 1831, on the Tariff issue. |
This was the state of things in South Carolina when Congress assembled on the first Monday of December, 1831. On the 6th the President's annual message was laid before the two Houses. It contained a much more distinct and decided recommendation for the reduction of duties than he had ever before expressed. He called attention to the prospect of the early extinguishment of the public debt, when the annual instalment to the sinking fund would be no longer needed, and recommended that Congress should at once deal with the question of the reduction of the duties to a point where they would produce no more revenue than would be necessary for an economical administration of the Government. He farther recommended the readjustment of the duties with a view to equal justice to all national interests, and said that the interests of both merchant and manufacturer required that the change should be prospective.
There was no suggestion in the message of increasing the expenditures of the Government for internal improvements, or for any other purpose. The plain inference from the message was that by March 4th, 1833, the debt would all be paid, and the revenue could then be reduced by ten or twelve millions a year, and should be.
| The question of the proper committee to frame Tariff Bills. |
This was all that the South Carolinians had asked, and it would have been the height of folly for them to have pursued extraordinary means to relieve themselves when regular methods promised at last a prospect of success. This part of the message was referred to the committee on Manufactures, of which ex-President John Quincy Adams was then chairman. Mr. Adams had far more moderate views in regard to the tariff than the majority of his protectionist brethren, and it could be reasonably hoped that he would report a bill from his committee which would be conciliatory in character. The Southerners were not quite willing, however, to rest entirely on his own good will, and raised the contention that the subject of the tariff ought to be referred either to the committee on Ways and Means, or to the committee on Commerce, since the power to impose duties was incident either to the raising of revenue or to the regulation of commerce. The result of the contention was that a resolution was introduced, and taken up, requesting the committee on Commerce to make a report on the working of the tariff, and the committee on Ways and Means was allowed to report a tariff bill, which was read twice and referred to the committee of the Whole House.