South Carolina Nullifies the Tariff.—­The legislature of that state, on October 26, 1832, passed a bill calling for a state convention which duly assembled in the following month.  In no mood for compromise, it adopted the famous Ordinance of Nullification after a few days’ debate.  Every line of this document was clear and firm.  The tariff, it opened, gives “bounties to classes and individuals ... at the expense and to the injury and oppression of other classes and individuals”; it is a violation of the Constitution of the United States and therefore null and void; its enforcement in South Carolina is unlawful; if the federal government attempts to coerce the state into obeying the law, “the people of this state will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligations to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the other states and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent states may of right do.”

Southern States Condemn Nullification.—­The answer of the country to this note of defiance, couched in the language used in the Kentucky resolutions and by the New England Federalists during the war of 1812, was quick and positive.  The legislatures of the Southern states, while condemning the tariff, repudiated the step which South Carolina had taken.  Georgia responded:  “We abhor the doctrine of nullification as neither a peaceful nor a constitutional remedy.”  Alabama found it “unsound in theory and dangerous in practice.”  North Carolina replied that it was “revolutionary in character, subversive of the Constitution of the United States.”  Mississippi answered:  “It is disunion by force—­it is civil war.”  Virginia spoke more softly, condemning the tariff and sustaining the principle of the Virginia resolutions but denying that South Carolina could find in them any sanction for her proceedings.

Jackson Firmly Upholds the Union.—­The eyes of the country were turned upon Andrew Jackson.  It was known that he looked with no friendly feelings upon nullification, for, at a Jefferson dinner in the spring of 1830 while the subject was in the air, he had with laconic firmness announced a toast:  “Our federal union; it must be preserved.”  When two years later the open challenge came from South Carolina, he replied that he would enforce the law, saying with his frontier directness:  “If a single drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hands on engaged in such conduct upon the first tree that I can reach.”  He made ready to keep his word by preparing for the use of military and naval forces in sustaining the authority of the federal government.  Then in a long and impassioned proclamation to the people of South Carolina he pointed out the national character of the union, and announced his solemn resolve to preserve it by all constitutional means.  Nullification he branded as “incompatible with the existence of the union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great objects for which it was formed.”