The Virginia legislature (1825) protested against internal improvements at government expense and against the tariff.  But the North demanded more, and in 1827 another tariff bill was prevented from passing only by the casting vote of Vice President Calhoun.  And now the two sections joined issue.  The South, in memorials, resolutions, and protests, declared a tariff for protection to be unconstitutional, partial, and oppressive.  The wool growers and manufacturers of the North called a national convention of protectionists to meet at Harrisburg, and when Congress met, forced through the tariff of 1828.  The South answered with anti-tariff meetings, addresses, resolutions, with boycotts on the tariff states, and with protests from the legislatures.  Calhoun then came forward as the leader of the movement and put forth an argument, known as the South Carolina Exposition, in which he urged that a convention should meet in South Carolina and decide in what manner the tariff acts should “be declared null and void within the limits of the state.”

%334.  May a State nullify an Act of Congress?%—­The right of a state to nullify an act of Congress thus became the question of the hour, and was again set forth yet more fully by Calhoun in 1831.  That the South was deeply in earnest was apparent, and in 1832 Congress changed the tariff of 1828, and made it less objectionable.  But it was against tariff for protection, not against any particular tariff, that South Carolina contended, and finding that the North would not give up its principles, she put her threat into execution.  The legislature called a state convention, which declared that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were null and void and without force in South Carolina, and forbade anybody to pay the duties laid by these laws after February 1, 1833.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Houston’s A Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina; Parton’s Jackson, Vol.  III., Chaps. 32-34; Schurz’s Life of Clay, Vol.  II., Chap. 14; Von Holst’s Life of Calhoun, Chap. 4; Lodge’s Life of Webster, Chaps. 6, 7; Rhodes’s History of the United States, Vol.  I., pp. 40-50.]

Jackson, who had just been reelected, was not terrified.  He bade the collector at Charleston go on and collect the revenue duties, and use force if necessary, and he issued a long address to the Nullifiers.  On the one hand, he urged them to yield.  On the other, he told them that “the laws of the United States must be executed....  Those who told you that you might peacefully prevent their execution deceived you....  Their object is disunion, and disunion by armed force is treason.”

%335.  Webster’s Great Reply to Calhoun.%—­Calhoun, who since 1825 had been Vice President of the United States, now resigned, and was at once made senator from South Carolina.  When Congress met in December, 1832, the great question before it was what to do with South Carolina.  Jackson wanted a “Force Act,” that is, an act giving him power to collect the tariff duties by force of arms.  Hayne, who was now governor of South Carolina, declared that if this was done, his state would leave the Union.