Andrew Jackson: Proclamation to the People of South Carolina Regarding Nullification

Context

The South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification emerged from a climate of economic and political strain that characterized the state following the War of 1812. Economically, cotton growers in the state suffered from a decline in cotton prices. While state politicians like John C. Calhoun approved of the tariffs passed in 1816, their nationalism was conditional, linked to issues of national defense. With an economy dependent on the export of rice and cotton, South Carolinians generally favored free trade. With the passage of the Tariff of 1824 and the collapse in cotton prices in 1825, public support for nationalism declined in the state, while political leaders criticized a tariff policy that benefited northeastern and western manufacturing and threatened South Carolina's export trade with the prospect of foreign retaliation. During the same period, many whites in the Carolina Low Country were anxious about the stability of slavery. In a state where African American slaves had long been in the majority, white residents were terrified to learn of a planned uprising led by Denmark Vesey, a free black from Charleston. The alleged conspirators were hanged, but elites organized to enforce laws against black residents, including the imprisonment of all black seamen arriving in state ports. When the law was successfully challenged in the federal circuit court, the state legislature defied the ruling.

Congressional debates over increased woolen duties and colonization kept the tariff and slavery at the forefront of politics in the state. Both issues were important in convincing South Carolina politicians that the state was threatened by the tyranny of the majority. When Congress passed a tariff increase in 1828, to many in South Carolina it seemed that the state was being taxed to benefit northeastern and western interests. Tariff opponents declared the legislation unconstitutional because it destroyed rather than regulated commerce and it illegally promoted industry rather than raising revenue. Calhoun expounded on these theories in an anonymously written pamphlet, arguing that states had the authority to determine the constitutionality of legislation because each state was sovereign before the individual states ratified the Constitution. The Union, therefore, was a compact of individual states.

Knowledge of Calhoun's authorship quickly spread, contributing to the vice president's growing breech with Jackson. Jackson, facing reelection in 1832, had come out in favor of the Tariff of 1832. At the same time, nullifiers in South Carolina had gained control of the state legislature and called for a convention on the tariff issue. The Ordinance of Nullification was passed on November 24. In Jackson's message to Congress weeks later, he seemed to reverse his course on the tariff, calling for its reduction to revenue levels. In the same address, he advocated policies that were staunchly states' rights. Just days later, however, he addressed the Ordinance of Nullification in his Proclamation regarding Nullification. The document, authored by his secretary of state, Edward Livingston, embodied Jackson's commitment to the idea of perpetual union and the rejection of the idea of undivided state sovereignty. Jackson suggested instead that the Constitution was formed by the people, rather than the states. He also threatened to use force to uphold federal policies in South Carolina, giving the nullifiers their needed ammunition. When Jackson sent what has been called his “Force Bill” message to Congress, he sought the means to collect the tariff and requested expedient measures for calling on the state militia and federal military to enforce the laws. Public opinion throughout the southern states, and in many northern states, focused on the threat of military force and what seemed like a dangerous expansion of executive power. Nullifiers used this issue to their advantage, shifting debate from the constitutionality of nullification to Jackson's threat of force, thereby gaining support for their political position.