[78] Charleston Mercury, Jan. 12, 1850.
[79] Pinckney; Life of Calhoun, pp. 167-181.
[80] Cleveland; Controversy between Calhoun & Hayne p. 7.
[81] Hammond; Oration on Calhoun, Press of Walker & James 1850, C. L. S. Vol. XV p. 23.
CHAPTER V
The Nullification episode has been generally treated as a struggle between Jackson and Calhoun. In its outward manifestations it was a contest between the President and the State of South Carolina; but in the settlement it really was a struggle between Calhoun and Clay.
The position of Henry Clay, in 1833, was one to test to the utmost the powers of that great politician. In the preceding year he had sternly refused Hayne’s amendment to his tariff bill, enacting his own view coupled with a threat of enforcement. He had, however, seen his Act nullified by the State of South Carolina, under the governorship of Hayne, and himself beaten overwhelmingly for the presidency by Jackson, who, while threatening coercion in South Carolina, had nevertheless, made Hayne’s amendment to the tariff the basis of his own recommendation on that subject to Congress. A bill had been introduced in the House, to restore the duties to the scale of 1816. What could Clay do to redeem himself and his cause? Back to the Senate, in Hayne’s vacant seat, was Clay’s “old companion at arms with a practical power of attorney from the recalcitrant State.”[82]
Clay at once entered into negotiations with Calhoun himself, introducing a bill in the Senate, to the two principles of which, viz., “that time should be given the manufacturers and that an ad valorem duty should be provided for”, Calhoun assented and the bill was referred to a select committee consisting of: Clay, Clayton, Calhoun, Grundy, Webster, Rives, and Dallas.
Then up came the Revenue Collection Bill, supported by thirty-two Senators, and passed with only seven besides Calhoun opposing, and the great politician from Kentucky had Calhoun safely tangled in his net. Against the protest of the latter, he amended his tariff bill with a provision that in the valuation of imported articles, “the valuation should be at the port in which the goods were imported.” Calhoun argued that this would be a great injustice to the South, as the price of goods being cheaper in the Northern than in the Southern cities, a home valuation would give the former a preference.[83] But that was exactly what Clay had proposed, and was determined to do, and although Webster and Silsbee of Massachusetts, Hill of New Hampshire, Dallas of Pennsylvania and Kane and Benton of Missouri came to Calhoun’s support, Calhoun fearing evidently to wreck his compromise with Clay, yielded this vital point. To consider all that was involved in the surrender of Calhoun, it will be necessary to revert to the past and to consider some political views emanating from the mightiest intellect South Carolina ever produced.
Prior to the framing of the Constitution of the United States and subsequent to the peace between Great Britain and the States, the value of the imports from Great Britain to America had exceeded the value of the exports from America to Great Britain to such an amount as to be nearly three times as great; while the commerce between the two countries was very nearly ten times as great as that between the States and the rest of the world. This condition had produced anything but prosperity for America.