In 1830, a tariff was placed on imported goods to America. This additional tax increased the price of products coming to the United States from Europe. Lawmakers who wrote and approved of the tax were hoping to protect Northern factories and businesses. Companies from places like Lowell were competing against companies from England in the textile market.
For a plantation owner or a yeoman farmer in the South the tariff was an economic burden. Goods from Great Britain were typically cheaper then American made products. A farmer could enter a store and purchase a pair of shoes from England that would cost them (i'm making this number up) $1.00 while shoes from Lynn would cost him $2.00. Once the tariff was in place, the shoes from Britain would end up costing more money then the shoes that were made in the U.S. These protective tariffs would force people from the South to buy goods that were made in the North. Many Southerners objected to the tax because it was costing them to pay more.
Britain is going to respond to the American tariff with a tariff of their own. They place a tax on American goods that were being imported to Great Britain. These goods included: rice, tobacco, flour, cotton, sugar, and indigo. All goods that were being grown in the American South. Once that tax was put in place many British companies started to not purchase goods from America, choosing to buy products from China, Egypt, and India. American farmers of the South were now hurt by falling prices in their exports in addition to high prices for manufactured goods.
Vice-President John C. Calhoun was against the tariff and called for the federal government to remove the tariff. Jackson and Calhoun had some heated exchanges regarding the tax. Calhoun would resign the following year and travel back to South Carolina to help lawmakers there plan on handling the issue. Calhoun would find his answer to the crisis by seeing how other states had responded to unpopular federal law.
His answer was the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. During the Presidency of John Adams, the Alien and Sedition Act were passed. Both of these laws were criticized for being unfair and unconstitutional. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison drafted a resolution for Virginia and Kentucky which said that a state had the right to cancel a federal law that was unfair. Since the Alien and Sedition Act were never brought to the Supreme Court, nobody really knew what the answer was. Calhoun felt that the V and K Resolutions were a precedent for other states to follow.
Lawmakers met in Colombia South Carolina and voted to not pay the tariff. Soon other state representatives were being asked by people from South Carolina if they would consider joining South Carolina in breaking away from the Union.
Washington D.C. was filled with talk of Civil War. Jackson began to meet with military advisors to see what would be the best way to defeat South Carolina if they withdrew from the Union. Jackson let in be known publicly that he would not let South Carolina leave the Union. To Jackson the country was not a league, with each state a member that can choose to leave whenever it wanted to. "The Constitution forms a government, not a league."
Ultimately Jackson would win over Calhoun on the issue of Nullification. South Carolina eventually backed down, and Congress voted to lower the tariff shortly after. Calhoun would serve in the Senate until the 1850s becoming a symbol of state's rights. For Jackson the victory would increase his popularity and have him earn high marks with historians decades after his death. The issue over state's rights would not go away however.
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