would not be frightened by her sudden appear-¡ obey her behests is, to my conscience, trea

At the kindly word and manner, Elizabeth, bewildered and exhausted with the excitement she had gone through, and agitated by the feeling of having, for the first time in her life, to act on her own responsibility, gave way a little.gency had occurred-that the political supremShe did not actually cry, but she was very near it. Miss Balquidder called over the stair-head, in her quick, imperative voice

Letter to Governor Quitman, of Mississippi, SeptemLetter of Commodore Stewart to George W. Childs, ber 2, 1850. See Claiborne's "Life and Correspondence of May 4, 1861. John A. Quitman," vol. ii., page 62.

Hamilton's The bill for an increase of the tariff was finally passed by a small majority in each House-in the Senate, 25 to 21; in the Representatives, 107 to 102. The measure formed one of the elements of dispute in the canvass for the election of President of the United States during the ensuing autumn, when John Quincy Adams, known to be in favor of it, was elected. The cottongrowing States professed to be much dissatisfied, for they regarded the measure as injurious to their particular interests, because it would, as they said, curtail the foreign demand for their staple.

was Henry Clay, of Kentucky.
financial scheme, adopted in 1790, established a
tariff for revenue chiefly, and had worked admi-
rably for more than thirty years; the new scheme
(an amplification of one on similar principles
put in operation in 1816) ingrafted upon that
old system of duties on imports the policy of
protection in such a form that it was not obnox-
ious to the charge of unconstitutionality. It
was also thought to be desirable, for it would
increase the revenue and enhance the means for
liquidating the public debt, which at the period
in question (the closing year of Monroe's second
administration) was $90,000,000.

It was early in 1824 that a revision of the tariff and augmentation of duties were proposed; and on that subject Henry Clay made one of his ablest speeches on the last day of March, in which he drew a most dismal picture of the condition of the country. "It was indicated," he said, "by the diminished exports of native produce; by the depressed and reduced state of our foreign navigation; by our diminished commerce; by successive unthrashed crops of grain perishing in our barns and barn-yards for the want of a market; by the alarming diminution of the circulating medium; by the numerous bankruptcies, not limited to the trading classes but extending to all orders of society; by a universal complaint of the want of employment and a consequent reduction of the wages of labor; by the ravenous pursuit after public situations, not for the sake of their honors and the performance of their public duties, but as a means of private subsistence; by the reluctant resort to the perilous use of paper money; by the intervention of legislation in the delicate relation between debtor and creditor; and, above all, by the low and depressed state of the value of almost every description of the whole mass of the property of the nation, which has, on an average, sunk not less than about fifty per cent. within a few years." Such was the sad picture drawn by the eminent statesman of Kentucky. "I have exaggerated nothing," he said. "Perfect fidelity to the original would have authorized me to have thrown on deeper and darker hues."

Forgetting that, at the very outset of the Government (1790), a tariff for the protection of cotton-growers was laid; forgetting that, because a member of the Senate from South Carolina had declared in his place that cotton was "in contemplation" in his own and the neighboring State of Georgia, and that "if good seed could be procured he hoped it might succeed," a duty of three cents a pound was laid on imported cotton, to the injury of manufacturers, then in struggling competition with Arkwright's machines in the hands of English operatives exclusively; forgetting that, as Mr. Everett has said, "radicle and plumule, root and branch, blossom and boll, the culture of the cotton-plant in the United States was, in its infancy, the foster-child of the protective system," the ungenerous cry of "aggression" was raised. It had a deeper meaning than its sound indicated. The then undiscovered voice of old Virginia disloyalty was in the tones. The "Southern heart must be fired."

The census of 1820 had appeared like the dim, mysterious hand of fate writing prophetically upon the walls of the National Capitol the sentence, "Found wanting," against the political domination of Mr. Calhoun's "section." But he, the high-priest of the great heresy of State Supremacy, was sitting upon the throne of power next to the Chief Ruler, for he had been elected Vice-President of the Republic. From that eminence he surveyed the whole field of national politics, and with vigilant and comprehensive appreciation of every event, he watched the signs of the times for eight consecutive years, and moulded the minds of the leaders of the people of his section for unholy deeds.

Mr. Webster, the representative of New England feeling and policy-New England, where the class to be benefited by a high protective tariff most abounded-denied that the distress In 1828 another revision of the tariff laws spoken of was universal. He claimed exemp- took place. In July, 1827, a National Convention for his section. He denied the assumed tion was held at Harrisburg, in Pennsylvania, to cause for the distress where it did exist, and at- discuss the subject of protective tariffs. For reatributed it chiefly to the over-expansion and re-sons which the light of subsequent history recent collapse of the paper-money system, which vealed, only four slave States were represented had encouraged over-trading, excited specula- in that Convention. The result of the confertion, and communicated an artificial value to property. He denied the necessity for protection to domestic manufactures, and deprecated high and prohibitory duties for such a purpose, believing that the tendency of the enlightened age was toward free trade. "Society," he said, "is full of excitement; competition comes in place of monopoly; and intelligence and industry ask only for fair play and an open field."

ence was a memorial to Congress, asking an augmentation of duties on several articles then manufactured in the United States. The Secretary of the Treasury called the attention of Congress to it in his report in December following, and early in the session that ensued that body took up the matter. It had become a political and sectional measure; and as Mr. Clay had avowed the intention of the new tariff laws of

1824 to be for the protection of domestic inter- | Mr. Calhoun and his associates for justifying disests, a great variety of such interests were now loyal speech in Congress, and action in South clamorous for recognition. Carolina.

A presidential election was approaching. The tariff had been made an Administration measure, and was to be an issue in the canvass. Mr. Webster who, in 1824, had opposed the policy, now advocated it, chiefly on the ground that it having become a part of the Government policy, his constituency and their neighbors had adapted their industrial operations to it. Under the guardianship of protective duties New England manufactures had prospered, and they, too, notwithstanding they were warned not to wed their interests to politics, were mostly in favor of still higher protective duties. It was charged that this new tariff bill was brought forward exclusively for the benefit of New England, and by her agency, to gratify the cupidity of her wealthy manufacturers-a charge wholly untrue.

The tariff bill of 1828 became a law. It laid a heavy duty on woolen and cotton fabrics, making the former dearer for the Southern consumer and promising a decreased demand for raw cotton abroad. But this deficiency was more than made up by the increased demand of Northern looms. The Southern consumers felt the tariff on woolen goods, and disloyal politicians took advantage of the fact to declare it to be the result of "Northern exaction," and "a tribute to Northern capital." Bitter sectional feelings were excited for treasonable purposes; and public meetings were held in South Carolina at which resolutions were adopted indicative of a determination of the people to resist the act. The politicians had obtained possession of much of the common mind in that State, and large numbers were led by them in abject submission to the behests of mere demagogues, who, strutting in State pride, talked in a defiant manner of State supremacy and independence.

This extreme State Rights doctrine was at length, and for the first time, distinctly avowed in the National Congress. At the commence

Senator offered a resolution of inquiry into the expediency of limiting the sales of the public lands to those then in the market, to suspend the surveys of the public lands, and to abolish the office of Surveyor-General. This brought the Western Senators to their feet. It was regarded as a proposition to check emigration, and to surrender the great West to the dominion of wild beasts. It was regarded as a most injurious and insulting proposition, and one not fit to be considered by a committee, much less to be reported upon and adopted. "I take my stand," said a Western Senator, upon a great moral principle: that it is never right to inquire into the expediency of doing wrong."

The South, as the cotton-planting States were now called, had become excessively jealous of the North, as the region including Pennsylvania and all east of it was called. "The South," says Mr. Benton, "believed itself impoverished to enrich the North by this system; and certainly a singular and unexpected result had been seen in these two sections. In the colonial statement of the session of 1829-'30, a Connecticut the Southern were the rich part of the colonies, and expected to do well in a state of independence. They had the exports, and felt sure of their prosperity. Not so of the North, whose agricultural resources were few, and who expected privations from the loss of British favor. But in the first half century after independence this expectation was reversed. The wealth of the North was enormously aggrandized; that of the South had declined. Northern towns had become great cities; Southern cities had decayed, or become stationary; and Charleston, the principal port of the South, was less considerable than before the Revolution. The North became a money-lender to the South, and Southern citizens made pilgrimages to Northern cities The debate took wide latitude, and became at to raise money upon the hypothetication of their times very acrimonious. It also assumed strong patrimonial estates. And this in the face of sectional features. The Western members reSouthern exports since the Revolution to the iterated the old charges against the people of value of eight hundred millions of dollars-a New England, that it was their early and persum equal to the product of the Mexican mines sistent policy to check the growth of the West, since the days of Cortez. The Southern States so as to maintain political power in the Eastern attributed this result to the action of the Federal and Middle States. Crimination and recriminaGovernment-its alleged double action of levy-tion followed, until Mr. Webster endeavored to ing revenue upon the industry of one section of get rid of the unprofitable proceedings by movthe Union and expending it on another-and ing an indefinite postponement of the whole subespecially to its protective tariffs. But the project. In arguing in defense of his motion he tective system, in any degree, except in favor was led into remarks that kindled other fires, of cotton-planting, had been in existence only and instead of ending the discussion he enlarged twelve years, and this reversed condition of the the scope of debate and extended it. The orditwo sections had commenced long before that nance of 1787 and the Missouri Compromise time. Philosophy and observation have long were brought in as topics, and these opened since discovered the cause to be found, not in the anew the slavery question. In the course of his operations of the National Government, which remarks Mr. Webster spoke of the depressing has always been beneficent, but in the social effects of slavery upon the progress and prospercharacter and the industrial systems of the two ity of a State; and, in illustration of his posisections. But such was the pretense-a mere tion, he pointed to Ohio and Kentucky, lying pretense, as President Jackson alleged-used by opposite each other, in contrasting which the

latter appeared very unfavorably. This was a peroration, then misunderstood and unapprecimost tender point for the Southerners; and the ated, but now fearfully significant in every line: impetuous Robert Y. Hayne, of South Carolina, "When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for resented as an insult the disadvantageous com- the last time, the sun in the heavens," he said, parison which Mr. Webster had made. He as-"may I not see him shining on the broken and sailed New England, and inveighed sharply dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; against the Free States for expressing any opin- on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on ion concerning a subject which, he alleged, was a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may none of their business. At length the relations be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble of the State and National Governments formed and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous a topic in the debate, when Mr. Hayne-speak- ensign of the republic, now known and honored ing, it was understood, the sentiments of Mr. throughout the earth, still full high advanced, Calhoun-boldly asserted the right and duty of its arms and trophies streaming in their original a State to decide upon the constitutionality of lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a sina National law, and to refuse to obey it if thus gle star obscured, bearing for its motto no such decided to be unconstitutional-in other words, miserable interrogative as What is all this worth? to pronounce it null and void. He had made nor those other words of delusion and folly, Libsome pointed remarks about the disloyalty of the erty first, and Union afterward; but every where New England people during the war of 1812, spread all over in characters of living light, blazand pointed to the Hartford Convention as an ing on all its ample folds, as they float over the assemblage of traitors; when Mr. Webster retort- sea and over the land, that other sentiment, dear ed by calling attention to the public meetings re- to every American heart: LIBERTY AND UNION, cently held in South Carolina, in which contem- NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE!"* plated resistance to the tariff laws was plainly On the 13th of April, 1830, there was a remanifested. In a warm reply Mr. Hayne avow-markable dinner-party in the National metropoed nullification sentiments freely-sentiments lis. It was the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, which, if correct in theory and feasible in prac- and those who attended the party did so avowedtice, might not only produce but justify a disso- ly for the purpose of honoring the memory of lution of the Union if a single State should so the author of the Declaration of Independence. elect. State authority was magnified, and placed Such was the tenor of the invitation. higher than that of the National Government. Jackson, the President of the United States, was Allegiance was due to the State, and only obe- there. So was John C. Calhoun, the Vicedience to the National Government by the per- President. Three of the cabinet ministers, mission or command of the State, was the lead- namely, Van Buren, Eaton, and Branch were ing idea. also present; and members of Congress and citizens not a few. The guests assembled early, and soon there were clusters of them in the anterooms warmly discussing some of the regular toasts for the occasion. It soon became manifest to the more sagacious ones that this dinnerparty and the day were to be made the occasion for inaugurating the new doctrine of nullification, and to fix the paternity of it on Mr. Jefferson, the great apostle of Democracy in America, and author of the nullifying resolutions offered to the Kentucky Legislature in 1798. With

This bold utterance of not only heretical but disloyal doctrines-this plain defiance of the clause of the National Charter which says, "The Constitution, and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, shall be the SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND, any thing in the Constitution and laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding”—that disorganizing claim of State authority to the right of deciding whether laws passed by Congress are constitutional or not, in plain rebellion to that other article of the National Charter which declares "that the judicial power shall extend to all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States"aroused Mr. Webster, and evoked that "Reply to Hayne" which stands peerless among the productions of mind upon the records of our Nation al Legislature. He answered sophistry with reason, and assertion with argument. With prophetic sagacity he delineated in vivid colors a programme of performances in South Carolina, should an attempt be made there to put Hayne's nullification doctrines into practice, which was about literally followed in that State two years

later.

Andrew

* The late Thomas H. Benton, who took part in this debate, utterly unable to comprehend its significance then, ridiculed this peroration. "Among the novelties of this debate," he said, "is that part of the speech of the Senator from Massachusetts which dwells with such elaborature of union the hatred and horror of disunion." He then of declamation and ornament upon the love and blessings ridiculed it as entirely uncalled-for and out of place. It might have been appropriate, he said, "when the fivestriped banner was waving over the North-when the Hartford Convention was in session! But here, in this loyal and quiet assemblage, in this season of general tranquillity and universal allegiance, the whole performance has lost its effect for want of affinity, connection, or relation to any subject depending or sentiment expressed in the Senate; for want of any application, or reference to any event impending in this country."

Twenty-five years later Mr. Benton acknowledged his own blindness and Webster's wonderful sagacity at that time. He saw no sign of the calamity hinted at, he said. "I was slow to believe in any design to subvert this Union.

In this speech Webster demolished every battery and intrenchment and bulwark of the great acting leader of nullification in South Carolinathe chief instrument in the hands of the high-positively discredited it, and publicly proclaimed my priest of disunion in the Vice-President's chair incredulity. I did not want to believe it."—BENTON'S -and closed it with the following magnificent Thirty Years' View, etc., i., 142.

such noble parentage as the father of the Democratic party, it was believed that that party would accept the new doctrine and become the instruments of the South Carolina conspirators in their attempts to destroy the Union. They believed that it would produce a "divided North," and that secession would be made easy. Many gentlemen present, perceiving the drift of the whole performance, withdrew in disgust before summoned to the table; but the sturdy old President, perfectly informed, remained.

Timid men in Congress, alarmed by these demonstrations, hastened to modify the tariff laws so as to appease the dissatisfied people of the cotton-growing States. They did not go far enough to meet the demand of Calhoun and his friends, but sufficiently so to give them courage and make them more bold and exacting. Their attitude became more threatening and defiant, and to the uninformed their pretended grievances assumed the aspect of real ones. Then came the Presidential election in 1832. The When the dinner was over and the cloth re- American System bore a conspicuous part in the moved, a call was made for the regular toasts. canvass. South Carolina had virtually threatThese were twenty-four in number, eighteen of ened to secede from the Union unless the policy which, it is alleged, were written by Mr. Cal- of that system should be abandoned by the Govhoun. These, in multifarious forms, shadowed ernment. A nervous apprehension of some dire forth, now dimly, now clearly, the new doctrine. impending calamity appears to have taken posThey were all received and honored in various session of the public mind, and the Congressiondegrees, when Volunteer Toasts were announced al elections resulted unfavorably to the system. as in order. The President was, of course, first It was evident that its speedy extinction would called upon for a sentiment. His tall form rose ensue, and those who loved peace in the Nationmajestically, and with the sternness appropriate al household fondly expected to see the smile to the peculiar occasion, he cast that appalling of satisfaction on the face of South Carolina. bomb-shell of words into the camp of the con- They were disappointed. She was sulky, and her spirators, which will forever be a theme for the frowns were more ominous than ever. She recommendation of the patriot and the historian- fused to take an honest part in the Presidential THE FEDERAL UNION: IT MUST BE PRESERVED! election, and petulantly gave her votes to citizens He was followed by the Vice-President, who gave who were not candidates. She had resolved (or as his sentiment-" The Union: next to our Lib-rather the conspirators had resolved for her) not erty the most dear: may we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States, and distributing equally the benefit and burden of the Union!" Those who before doubted the intentions of Calhoun and his South Carolina friends, and were at a loss to understand the exact meaning of the dinner-party to which they were bidden, were no longer embarrassed by ignorance. In that toast was presented the issue -liberty before Union-supreme State sovereignty-false complaint of inequality of benefits and burdens our rights, as we choose to define them, or disunion. In that toast was seen the soul of Hayne's speech, and its light revealed the deep significance of Webster's peroration. From that moment the conviction took possession of the public mind that there was a party in the country intent upon the destruction of the American Government, and that the Vice-President of the United States was the animating soul and leader of that party. From that hour the vigilant old President watched the South Carolina conspirator, his lieutenant, with the searching eyes of unslumbering suspicion.

to be pacified; and she hastened to assert her disloyalty and disturb the integrity of the Union before the pretense for her disloyalty should become untenable by the removal of the ostensible cause.

Jackson, the chosen standard-bearer of the Democratic party, which the conspirators professed to pet as their darling so long as it was docile and subservient to their wishes, was reelected, and the way for the accomplishment of their schemes seemed unobstructed; yet they continued to defy the Government, and exhibited the falsity of their professions of attachment to that party by immediately, when the result of the election was known, calling a convention of the delegates of the people of South Carolina at Columbia, their State capital, for a rebellious purpose. In that convention, composed of politicians, the professed representatives of the people took into their own hands violent instrumentalities for the redress of alleged grievances, which the chief conspirators had prescribed. Just a fortnight after the election (November 24, 1832), which really decided the fate of the American System, they sent forth from that con

The Nullifiers intended, for all time, to cele-vention an Ordinance of Nullification against it, brate annually the birthday of Mr. Jefferson; but that was the first and the last time that the attempt was made. The Virginia Legislature soon afterward passed resolves intended to wipe from Mr. Jefferson's fair fame the stigma of nullification which Calhoun and his partisans had thus attempted to fasten upon it; and Mr. Madison, the author of the Virginia Resolutions of 1789, which Mr. Hayne declared contained his political creed, scornfully resented this attempt "of the nullifiers to make the name of Mr. Jefferson the pedestal of their colossal heresy."

its title being, "An ordinance to nullify certain acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws laying duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities." Mr. Hayne was the President of that convention, and chairman of the committee of twenty-one who reported the Ordinance of Nullification. A fortnight after this labor was performed the Legislature of his State, made up chiefly of Calhoun's disciples, evinced their sympathy with his political opinions by electing him Governor of that commonwealth.