| Jackson and Calhoun. |
There is no doubt that the South Carolinians were encouraged by the course of events in Georgia to believe that they would have something like the same experiences and results in their contest with the Government. In this they do not seem to have fully realized the fact that President Jackson did not agree with them in their view of the unconstitutionality of the tariff, as he agreed with the Georgians in their view of the Indian question. Moreover, there was a personal element in the controversy which they do not seem to have appreciated at all. Jackson had, down to 1830, supposed that Mr. Crawford was the member of the Cabinet of Mr. Monroe, in 1819, who wanted to have him arrested and tried by a court-martial for disobeying orders, or acting in excess of orders, during the Seminole War, and that Mr. Calhoun was his defender. Jackson's hatred of Crawford had been intense during these years for this reason. In 1830 Governor Forsyth, of Georgia, revealed to Jackson the truth in regard to this matter, which was that Calhoun was for arraigning him and Adams was his defender. Jackson immediately demanded an explanation of Calhoun, but the reply did not at all satisfy him, and the hostility which he had felt for Crawford was now turned with redoubled force against Calhoun. Calhoun was now regarded by Jackson as a traitor to Jackson, and that meant, in Jackson's mind, that he was a traitor to his country. Any movement against the Government or the laws of the United States headed by Calhoun would be considered by Jackson as rebellion, most surely so while Jackson was President.
| The call of the Convention of 1832 in South Carolina. |
Following the principles developed in Mr. Calhoun's letter of August 28th, 1832, Governor Hamilton issued a call for a special session of the legislature of South Carolina, in the autumn of 1832, for the purpose of effecting through it the assembly of the convention of the Commonwealth. The party in favor of nullification had at last secured both branches of the legislature, and on October 24th, 1832, the assembled legislature voted to issue the call for the convention, and appointed November 19th as the day upon which it should meet.
| The work of the Nullification Convention. |
The convention assembled at the time designated, elected Governor Hamilton as its chairman, and appointed a committee of twenty-one members to consider the situation and report a proposition to meet it. In due time this committee made its report to the convention, in which was contained, first, a review of the development of the tariff from a revenue measure to a measure for the protection of manufactures, of the ten years of fruitless struggle in Congress by the South against the oppression inflicted by the protective system upon that section, and of the theories advanced by the fathers of the Republic for meeting, in last instance, such a condition of affairs; and, second, the famous Ordinance of Nullification as the remedy of last resort. The convention voted to receive the report and to adopt its recommendations. On November 24th the convention passed, in solemn form, the Ordinance of Nullification of the existing tariff laws of the United States.
| The Nullification Ordinance. |