*

tee, which reported that the Woollens Bill, above all other measures ever yet considered in Congress, was the one best calculated to destroy the revenue and lay an enormous tax on the agriculture of the South; that it had been artfully designed for the advancement of the incorporated companies of New England; that it was admirably adapted for its end; that it had its foundation in avarice, consumed every patriotic feeling, and was fatal to the happiness, the morals, the rights of a large part of our common country. "If such is the character of the measure," said the report, "who can tell how long this Union can exist under it, and how soon may be realized the soul-chilling prediction that it is a rope of sand."" It was conceded that Congress had power to lay import duties, but it was maintained that this power" was given for the purpose of revenue and revenue alone, and that any other use of the power is usurpation on the part of Congress."

The Senate of South Carolina raised the grave question of State rights, and sent a long list of questions to a select committee for consideration. It was to inquire into the origin and nature of the Federal Government and ascertain whether it emanates from the people of the United States at large, or is a compact between the people of the different States with each other; it was to inquire whether, in the event of abuse of power or violation in the letter or spirit of the compact by Congress, it belonged to the people of the State Legislatures to remonstrate; it was to inquire whether any clause in the Constitution authorized Congress so to legislate as to protect the local interests of particular States at the expense of all the United States, and whether domestic manufactures were a local or a general interest; it was to inquire whether Congress could build roads and canals within the limits of a State either with or without the consent of the State; or vote money for any purpose not directly related to the powers in the Constitution; or legislate directly or indirectly on the subject of slavery by aiding any society whose purpose it was to ameliorate the condition of the free colored or the slave population of the United States.

* Executive Documents, Twentieth Congress, First Session, vol. iii, No. 62.

1828.

THE SOUTH RESISTS.

253

Each question was answered in detail in the report, which closed with six resolutions. One of them declared the tariff laws, designed not to raise revenue or regulate commerce, but to promote domestic manufactures, were violations of the Constitution and ought to be repealed.*

When the Legislature of Georgia had listened to a report of a Senate committee on the state of the Republic, it bade the Governor send copies to Congress and to the governors of the sister States assuring them at the same time that Georgia would insist on the construction of the Constitution laid down in the report, and would "submit to no other." †

Alabama complained of the assertion of a power to lay import duties not for the purpose of raising revenue, but in order to shut out foreign in favor of domestic fabrics. It was a power not granted, had no limits, was dangerous and odious, was productive of monopoly, and tended to part the people into nabobs and paupers, to heap up wealth in the hands of the few, and spread poverty, vice, and misery among the many. Already the manufacturing interests had organized for concerted and systematic action against all other interests of the Union. A solemn convention had been convened at Harrisburg to execute a writ of inquiry on the agricultural and other interests of the country; to point out to Congress how much farther the scheme of oppression might be prudently carried. The allied powers of avarice, monopoly, and ambition, through this Harrisburg Convention, had called for a further subsidy on the labor of the South and Southwest in the shape of a Woollens Bill, to pamper the gentlemen wool-growers and wool-carders of the Northeast, and this at a time when gin cotton was languishing and prostrate. When combinations so formidable sought to throw the overgrown weight of the General Government on the Southern and Southwestern States, dry up their commerce and degrade them from the political equality established by the compact to the condition of tributaries to the greedy monopolists of the North and East, the victims would deserve the oppression did they

* Executive Documents, Twentieth Congress, First Session, vol. iii, No. 65. + Ibid., vol. iii, No. 120.

not interpose the most unyielding and determined resistance. Let it be distinctly understood that Alabama, in common with the Southern and Southwestern States, regarded the power assumed by the General Government to lay a tariff for protection as a palpable usurpation of a power not given by the Constitution; that she saw in the proposed Woollens Bill a species of little less than legalized pillage of the property of her citizens, to which she could never submit until every constitutional means of resistance had been exhausted.*

Ohio expressed the belief that the rights of the original States to promote domestic industries by tonnage and import duties had been given to Congress, which by the Constitution had full power to protect manufactures.† New Jersey took the same view, and made a long answer to the remonstrances of South Carolina and Georgia.‡

To the protests and memorials of the State Legislatures were added upward of threescore petitions from societies, farmers, wool-growers, manufacturers, chambers of commerce, and citizens. Twenty-five asked for an increase of duties. Thirty-two opposed an increase. Thirty-eight came from States north of Maryland, nineteen came from States south of Pennsylvania, and of these thirteen were sent up by the citizens of South Carolina, where feeling against the tariff, the North, and the Union ran high. They were convinced, and justly, that duties laid for protection bore with especial weight on the slave-holding States, and they believed most firmly that imposing duties for such a purpose was a deliberate and palpable violation of what they called the compact.

Toward the close of January, 1828, the Committee on Manufactures having finished its examination and matured its plan, reported a bill | which it fully expected would never

* Executive Documents, Twentieth Congress, First Session, vol. iii, No. 113. + Ibid., vol. iv, No. 156. Ibid., vol. v, No. 198.

# These petitions may be found in Executive Documents, First Session, Twentieth Congress, vol. ii, Nos. 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 86, 42; vol. iii, Nos. 62, 63, 64, 65, 80-82, 84, 85, 91, 93-98, 111, 112, 114, 118, 123; vol. iv, Nos. 124, 132, 133, 142, 147, 155–157, 160; vol. v, Nos. 174-178, 181, 188, 191, 198, 202, 209, 213; vol. vi, Nos. 227-229, 239.

The bill is printed in Congressional Debates, vol. iv, p. 1727.

1828.

THE TARIFF OF 1828.

255

pass. Indeed, it had been most carefully prepared to invite defeat. In the first place, all duties were high in order to satisfy the demands of the protectionists of the Middle and Western States, and so keep as many as possible in the Jackson party. In the second place, the duties were excessively high on such raw material as New England manufacturers wished them to be low. Thus Smyrna wool was highly taxed in order to stop its importation and put an end to the manufacture of negro cloth; the tariff rates on iron, hemp, and cordage were advanced in order to check the business of ship-building, and a heavy duty was placed on molasses, which was nowhere consumed in such quantity as in New England. In the third place, it was agreed that the friends of Jackson, whether Southern men or Northern men, free-traders or protectionists, were to unite, put down every attempt at amendment, and force a vote on this bill and on no other. When the yeas and nays were taken, the Jackson men from Southern States were to turn about and vote nay, and, as it was supposed, the New England men would be forced to do likewise and the bill would be lost. The Jackson men of the North were to vote yea, which would cast the odium of defeat on the Adams men and leave the Northern supporters of the hero of New Orleans to pose as the friends of the American system. But the plan, shrewd as it was, failed. The Senate made some amendments, the House concurred, the New England men did not vote nay, and the bill, with all its odious provisions, passed House, Senate, and President, and became "the tariff of abominations.” *

As the news of the passage of this hated bill spread slowly over the country, the mutterings of discontent gave place to angry threats and open resistance. At Charleston the shipping in the harbor displayed their flags at half mast and the people of the North heard with indignation that many a British flag was seen in that position. At a great anti-tariff meeting at Walterborough, in the Colleton District of South

* The details of the plan for the defeat of the tariff are given by Calhoun in a speech in the Senate in 1837. See Calhoun's Works, vol. iii, pp. 46-51. See also the account given by Hammond in Political History of New York, vol. iii, p. 159.

Carolina, addresses to the people and to the Governor were adopted. That to the people of the State, after reminding them of the steady opposition of South Carolina to the tariff, and the utter disregard of her remonstrances in 1824 and 1827, summed up the argument against the right of Congress to protect American industries, and called on them "to show resistance" to the law. "If," said the appeal, "we have the common pride of men, we must resist the imposition of this tariff. We stand committed. To be stationary is impossible. We have done by words all that words can do. To talk more must be a dastard's refuge. Not from a desire of disunion, but that we may preserve the Union and bring back the Constitution to its original uncorrupted principles, do we now advise you to resist its violation. By all the great principles of liberty, by the glorious achievements of our fathers in defending them, by their noble blood poured forth like water in maintaining them, by their lives in suffering and their deaths in honor and glory, our countrymen, we must resist! Not secretly as timid thieves or skulking smugglers, not in companies and associations like money chafferers or stock jobbers, not separately and individually, as if this was ours and not our country's cause, but openly, fairly, fearlessly, and unitedly as becomes a free, sovereign, and independent people. Does timidity ask when? We answer now, even now while yet oppression is not old to us, and the free spirit looks abroad in pride over this land!"

The address to the Governor urged him "immediately to convene the Legislature of the State. We believe that the situation of the Republic from the passage of the late tariff bill, by the Congress of the United States, requires national consultation either in Legislature or convention." * A writer in the Charleston Journal declared that this call meant that the Legislature should take measures to prepare for a secession of South Carolina from the Union.t

Let the Legislatures of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, said the Columbia Tele

* The two addresses are printed in full in Niles's Weekly Register, June 28, 1828, pp. 288-290. + Ibid., p. 301.