The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1376: The Road to Civil War Pt. 13 - Jackson and the Nullification Crisis - w/ George Bagby

Episode Date: May 31, 2026

59 MinutesSafe for WorkGeorge Bagby is a content creator and publisher of long-forgotten books. George joins Pete to continue a series detailing the long lead up to America's Civil War.George's "Buy Me a Coffee"George's Twitter AccountGeorge's Pinned Tweet w/ Links George's YouTube ChannelPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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If not, here's a show. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show. George Bagby is back. How are you doing tonight, George? I'm doing well. I've been talking a lot of history lately. I've really been enjoying my material. I've been talking a lot about the Tennessee Valley recently.

All sorts of wonderful personalities there. And we're here to talk about them yet again. Another lesson in our series concerning Andrew Jackson. We've been highlighting the upsides of Jackson and how he figures in the sectional conflict and some of the key decisions that he made, such as ending the bank and his jeffersonian kind of legacy. But today we're moving into his decisive move concerning the sticking point about state's rights in his own time. And that was the famous nullification crisis of 1832 and 1833.

So we've approached this issue a couple of times before. We had our show about the Webster Hain debate, which took place in 1830, and this was in relation to what the Constitution affected as far as the Union of the States. We remember Webster was pitching the Enlightenment notion of the nation state, that the union was, in fact, a union of individuals, not a union of states. However, key to this is that practically everybody at the time still referred to the Constitution as a compact or a contract. And you have to ask the key question there.

Well, who were the parties of that contract? They have standing in the meaning of the contract and all the rest. If they're designating a general agent, the federal government, to act on their behalf, then that is a legal definition. And we can understand something about the relationship through that. And of course, that was the Southern point of view of the time. We remember Robert Young-Hane, the senator from South Carolina, is heavily relying in that particular debate on historical arguments.

arguing about what is the nature of the union based on the history of the union. How did the union come to be? How did the states become members of the union through state conventions? Whereas Webster was arguing on a rhetorical point, arguing about theory, divorced from experience to some degree and even pitched the idea very memorably in his rhetoric, the liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable, was his great hereration, which everyone should remember in relation to Daniel Webster, one of the great giants of his time. That's his most memorable line. And so we see this idea of national union or consolidation is one that has a lot of cachet in this period.

And this is particularly important when we remember the political conflict between the sections in regards to the tariff. the nationalists led by the likes of the pragmatic Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. Webster wasn't always in favor of the protective tariff and Clay's proposed American system. He was much, he was in his early career more of a regionalist, more responsive to the concerns of his constituency, which is not surprising and justifiable. but the nationalists, as we might term them, say, well, the federal highway, the federal canal program, the port facilities and the internal improvements, that's going to eventually aid the whole. It may seem like a particular political interest, the needs of manufacturers to have protective duties on impasseh. courts, but this is going to be a national benefit. Webster, memorably, says back in 1830, I don't see differences between Ohio and South Carolina. For me, they are the same country,

and that is a very important distinctive remark showing the way that they saw the union, the way they visualized the union. So Andrew Jackson, he accomplishes much in his first term, he's retiring the national debt, he has confronted the issue of the bank and that constitutional question. It's coming to a head by the fall of 1832. So the bank recharter is there in Congress. Congress does approve the recharter of the bank, partly through the very public campaigning of Nicholas Biddle, the executive of the Bank of the United States. He becomes a political figure to save his institution at the time and kind of highlights Jackson's point that this is a corrupting influence. He says that private corporation should not be petitioning

the government for policy. And this is obviously a lobbying effort, and it certainly was, whatever else we might say, it might say it was justified or not, but it was a lobbying effort, and it was a very unusual one where he's palling around with congressmen and making public speeches on the bank matter. Well, this is all coming to a head in the fall of 32, which happens to be the election year. So Jackson is up for re-election. Jackson famously has a falling out with John C. Calhoun, who is his vice president back in 1828. He serves that whole first term with Jackson. And they start out as allies. They are both of a Jeffersonian frame of mind to some degree united in that.

They were both Scotch Irish. But some things come to light in that first term. Firstly, Calhoun was Secretary of War when Jackson impudently invaded Spanish Florida back in 1817. So a couple years after the war of 1812, the Red Stick Creeks who did not surrender to Jackson in 1814, they've migrated down into Spanish Florida and they've vowed eternal enmity with Anglo-America. And so they're constantly raiding over the borders down there. Jackson is sent by President James Monroe to pursue these raiders. and Jackson instead, he rather loosely interprets the president's instructions, he goes into Florida and he executes the British agents who are selling the Creek's weapons and encouraging them politically.

So he hangs one, he sentences the other to death by firing squad, Arbuthnot and Ambrister are the names of those British agents, one of them a Scot. I believe are both not. And John C. Calhoun privately with the president is actually against Andrew Jackson's actions there. The whole cabinet of President Monroe are appalled by Jackson's actions. This causes an international crisis. The one person to stand up for Jackson in that circumstance is ironically John Quincy Adams. who succeeds Monroe in the White House and is then Jackson's great foe in the election in 28. And he's very much against Adams' policies and statements of a Hamiltonian sort of figure.

But nevertheless, Adams defends Andrew Jackson and forces a confrontation with Spain, which results in the sale of Florida. So there were reasons for Adams and Jackson to be friendly with one another, given this very risky gambit of Adams to stand up for Jackson, even when the whole cabinet was against him. Adams and Calhoun were in conflict over that. Calhoun was wanting to disavow the general's actions. Well, that all comes to light while they are in the White House. So the private correspondence gets sent to Jackson by a third party. Jackson confronts Calhoun about it.

Calhoun defends his actions, doesn't make any retractions. Calhoun could be undiplomatic at times. And so Jackson is very suspicious of his vice president, and especially Calhoun's known desire to run for president himself. And he had a kind of coalition, oddly enough, even in the north, there were supporters of Calhoun for the White House. But things come to a more critical juncture with a curious affair. Andrew Jackson's young secretary of war, a man by the name of Eaton, has, he falls in love with a tavern keeper's daughter in Washington, D.C. So when he comes to take the office of Secretary of War, he marries this widow of a tavernkeeper's daughter who is much maligned in Washington's society. There are lots of rumors that she was offering other services in her father's saloon rather than just serving drinks.

and that when that news reached her first husband, who happened to be a naval officer, a purser, I believe he was, the story was that he had killed himself when he learned of his wife's misbehavior. So that's not totally substantiated. We don't know that for sure, but that was the story in Washington. And at any rate, the officer's death was suspicious and may have been a suicide, whether or not that was concerning his wife is another matter. But Andrew Jackson was insistent that the Eatons be admitted into Washington society and related Mr. Eaton's ostracization in Washington that he was rejected from admission into the establishments there, you know, the, when people would have people over for dinner, they would not invite Peggy Eaton, and they would divide the couple. And it was because of his wife's reputation. Well, Jackson related that entirely to his own experience with his wife. She had also been formally married. She had also separated from her first husband under mysterious circumstances. And Jackson famously insisted,

She's as pure as a virgin related to Peggy Eaton. So he would not countenance any maligning of Mrs. Eaton. And he demanded that John C. Calhoun set the example by inviting the Eatans for dinner and receiving them in Washington society, kind of setting the precedent. If he was willing to do that, others would do it as well. Well, Calhoun responds to Jackson and he says, my wife makes the decisions about who we invite for dinner. and I will not prevail on her with this. And he says, women maintain the society. Women have this special role of hospitality.

And he said, women police the virtue of their own sex. And men should not interfere with that, which I always thought was a very striking statement. I thought that was very interesting. I used to tell my students that. So Calhoun and Jackson have a relationship. that's breaking down here. In 1832, we see the bill to recharter the bank and a new tariff bill. And this is Henry Clay's baby. Henry Clay sends another tariff, a protective tariff, as part of a bunch of bills for his proposed American system to harvest special duties off of certain manufactured goods and certain commodities like wool and to use the proceeds to build internal improvements.

Famously, Clay says about the recharter of the bank and the tariff bill, which are both sent out of the same session of Congress, should Jackson veto them? I will veto him. Clay is very keyed up about this. The 32 tariff involved a reduction of duties, but a permanent protection. So it actually scales back the 1828 tariff, the famous tariff of abominations, that Calhoun had written the South Carolina exposition and protest concerning. So the 32 tariff really is less objectionable than the 28 tariff. It is a result of compromise.

There are actually a lot of manufacturers in New England who are very upset about the 32 tariff and say this is going to ruin them. They've become so accustomed and so modeled after the federal tax policy on the matter. They aren't prepared for the reduction of duties. There are people in the middle who say, well, this is actually a compromise tariff. the South objects to these high protective duties for these special manufacturers and such that have this patronage. We're reducing those duties, so that ought to leave them more satisfied than they were before. Jackson famously signs the tariff. He takes the matter into account.

He decides that the protective tariff is better understood as a compromise rather than a concession on principle. But plenty of Southerners see it as a betrayal. They had elected Jackson back in 28 with lots of hopes that he would prevail to abolish the 28 tariff that they so strongly objected to. They say that the principle is the concern here, that this is a protective tariff, the matter of the government protecting manufacturers through tax, policy and disadvantaging the agrarian areas of the country is their most serious concern. They say this is a matter of constitutional principle, and they object to the 1832 tariff on the same grounds that they object to the 1828 tariff.

Curiously, in the midst of the debate about the 32 tariff, an organization devoted to protection a political organization in Massachusetts holds a meeting. They are very much antagonized by the 32 tariff because it involves the reduction of duties. They say in a public meeting, and I quote, secession is preferable to compromise on protection. So we see the regional interests here and even the specter of secession arise again in Massachusetts. So Haynes' earlier argument that this is an American tradition, the jealousy of the states concerning the meaning of the Constitution, their prerogative to determine their own political destinies inside the constitutional union or outside of it is a key here. This is still

something that's being talked about in New England even at this late date. Now in 1832, we see the renewal of conflict about the tariff just as we saw in 28. 28 was also an election year. And this comes to the four in curious ways. So Clay is running in the new Whig Party for the presidency. Jackson is running for re-election. And then we see the outbreak of a couple of third party candidates. We see one William Wirt, who is a member of the

anti-Masonic party, which springs out of upstate New York. That itself has an interesting backstory. There was one William Morgan of New York, a former Freemason, who published a book called Illustrations of Masonry, which was a expose of secret things that masons believe and do. This was a very explosive issue at the time. Morgan was warned privately by his former Masonic friends that he must not publish this expose. A printer that had agreed to publish the book got ransacked and burned. And then William Morgan himself disappears in 1826. he is last seen being abducted out of his home.

And there's later on a drowned corpse that is said to be him, though there still seems to be some question about that. So he disappears and his expose becomes a very popular book, and it starts a new party. So they are interested in exposing the mechanations of Freemasons, and they're particularly strong in upstate New York. This William Wirt runs on this third party platform and wins one state in 1832. He wins Vermont.

But his party is an influential new force in New England. Incidentally, he is very much in favor of the American system and high protective tariffs. We also see another curious character, a Virginian, who is very outspoken on the matter of nullification of these objectionable tariffs. His name is John Floyd. He is, he's given the electoral votes by the legislature of South Carolina. At this point, South Carolina does not have any popular election in a presidential runoff. The electoral votes are still allocated entirely by the legislature. And South Carolina, incidentally, is one of the last states to do that. That's a long tradition for them. they didn't have a popular election past the Civil War, in fact.

They were still nominating, well, still allocating, I should say, the electoral votes in an election year through the state legislature, as was originally intended, by the way. But they were an outlier then, and they awarded their 11 electoral votes to Floyd. Clay has a poorer showing than did Adams back in 28. He does win New England minus Vermont. He wins his native Kentucky. He wins Maryland and New Jersey. But Jackson prevails everywhere else. So it's a very resounding reelection for Jackson.

And just following that election, Calhoun chooses to resign. He resigns the vice presidency and returns to South Carolina in December of 1832. memorably in the fallout from the tariffs and the rest, there is a formal dinner at the White House. Calhoun is still vice president at this time. Jackson raises a toast and says, to our federal union, it must be preserved. Calhoun offers a rejoinder to Jackson's toast and says, to our federal union next to our liberties most dear. And he is seen to embarrass the president on this occasion. And it's just another sign of their personal falling out. So Calhoun,

when he resigns, he's quite aware of the division between the nationals, as they're called, the advocates of the American system, and the nullifiers who predominate in the South. especially in South Carolina. South Carolina is the state that really makes a stand on this issue, though they have a lot of sympathizers with their neighboring southern states. The other southern states kind of watched to see what would happen with South Carolina. Hain, who is still in Congress at this time, he said, it is neither more or less than the resolution from the Senator of Kentucky reduced to the form of law. This is his remark about the 32 tariff. He says this is going to codify the American system as constitutional. And he's very very discouraged about this and

resolves that the Jeffersonians, those that contest the constitutional nature of this American system must resort to the states making a stand rather than federal law. Calhoun remarks about it just before his resignation in a private letter. He says, it is, in truth, hard to find a middle position where the principle of protection is asserted to be essential in one side and fatal to the other. It involves the question not of concession, but of surrender. And so, This is the reason ultimately why Calhoun returns to Carolina. He says the hope of the country now rests on our gallant little state. Let every Carolinian do his duty.

Now, in 32, there is a conflict in South Carolina herself. There is a faction in the state. They call themselves the unionist faction. They say that the real risk is secession. that that is what the nullifiers are really after. They're going to force this issue, and they will divide the union over it. They say that it may not be their stated object, and the nullifiers were always very careful to say,

was not what they wanted. They did not want to divide the union. They wanted to force a compromise. But they said, secession is the real risk, and we can hardly save the union by threatening it. The nullifiers are taking the position of Calhoun's anonymous tract, the exposition and protest, which has circulated in pamphlet form in South Carolina, and has really taken on, made itself into a political force in South Carolina since it was first published in 28. Their argument is that the federal government is the agent set up by principles to the contrary.

and those are the states. And that no coercion inside the union is possible. And that if any coercion is offered by the federal government, then obviously the states should not remain in the union. Now, that turns out to be a really interesting point when we see how this works out. They are risking that possibility. But what do they do when it's actually offered? That's another interesting point.

They say they're there to prevent the destruction of the union and the establishment of a colonial relation between the sections. And this is the American system policy. The agrarian areas are going to be paying more for their manufactured goods. That money will be spent mostly in those northern manufacturing districts. They want to force a vote on an amendment to the Constitution. They do not propose to bring the amendment out of Congress. Instead, they are opting for a convention of the states to resolve the matter whether or not the Constitution has granted those particular economic powers to the federal government. So they want a state convention.

In 32, the nullifiers win big in South Carolina. Over two-thirds of the legislature are open advocates for nullification. The governor calls for a state convention on the strength of that election. The nullifiers dominate the state convention, and they issue a series of declarations, which have a binding force of law. They nullify the 1828 and the newly signed 1832 tariffs to take effect February 1, 1833. They say that South Carolina will not. collect the new federal taxes, the protective tariff. They also declare that coercion will affect

secession in South Carolina. So this is a warning. Do not coerce us on this matter. We will leave the union. They also call for a convention of the member states of the union to resolve the constitutional question. Robert Hayne then goes into the governor's house in South Carolina. He is elected governor. And the legislature makes Calhoun, the senator, one of two, obviously, but Calhoun takes Haynes seat in Congress out of the vice presidency and into the Senate. Curiously here, there is an outcry in the north about Jackson's policies, his veto of the bank and the reduction of the protective tariff in 32. A newspaper correspondent from New England makes a startling statement.

He writes, all is gone, the bank, the American system, the internal improvements, public lands, which Jackson will sell to retire the federal debt. all is gone which the general government was instituted to create and protect. And this is a fascinating statement that this is actually the purpose of the federal government to do these very things. These are the controversial sectional issues of the time. And yet this is what a certain group of New Englanders believe the government is actually for. So the state convention idea would lead to a very interesting division.

Like what would happen to the constitution there when people would. people have such radically different ideas about what the federal government was instituted to do. The state convention may affect the breakup of the union itself because everything is on the table when the states convened to modify the constitution. Everything is on the table. Jackson responds very quickly to the nullification convention in Carolina. He issues a presidential proclamation. This is one of the most shocking acts of Jackson's career. We see many reasons to see him as sympathetic to the Jeffersonian persuasion, to the old Republicans, even, especially in his war with the bank. But in Jackson's proclamation,

he formulates his view of the union very much along the lines of Webster and Justice Marshall. He says that it is a national union, that the authority of the union is established on the one united people of the United States. He says, disunion by armed force is treason and threatens to meet force in South Carolina with force. He is in effect threatening to collect the taxes by using military means. Now, the response from Jackson's own colleagues is dismay. Martin Van Buren, Jackson's new vice president and soon to be president himself, he is Jackson's successor. He has, he faces great embarrassment from this. He has been hard at work to unite the Southern Agrarian faction with the northern laborers, which is the main base of the Democratic Party.

And he sees Jackson as needlessly confrontational here and that this is also a great danger to the survival of the union itself. Van Buren conspires with Congressman Verplank of New York. They are old friends. Verplank is also a Jacksonian Democrat. And Verplank is the head of the Ways and Means Committee in Congress. Verplank is a free trader. We would relate him to the farmers in upstate New York. and also the shipping interests in New York City, he proposes a bill, the perplank bill is what it's called,

to withdraw all of the protective tariffs, to actually annul the 32 tariff that was just signed into law, but also the 28 tariff, reverting all the way back to the 1816 tariff, which had a time limit. the 1816 tariff limited the protective duties. It actually reduced them every year until they finally expired because the reading of the situation is the Southerners are most averse to the permanent nature of the protective duties, which we find in 28 and 32. There is a debate in Congress related to Verplank and there is great consternation in Washington given South Carolina's action to nullify. Party loyalty isn't holding at this point. And this is one of the very interesting features of this controversy that the votes on the various measures that result from

the nullification crisis are not isolated to any one organized political faction. With the exception of the South, which is very supportive of South Carolina through the whole thing elsewhere in the Union, in the West, in these newly developing Western areas, even as far out as Louisiana, which really is not part of the Jacksonian regime at this point. Lots of Wigs in Louisiana, lots of very wealthy planters who see major advantages for internal improvements. And they see the center of New Orleans, you know, a huge city, a big laboring class, a significant number of manufacturers. It's very unusual in the South. They are splitting on this issue. But the North is very divided on the issue as well. There are the protectionists who see this as a huge betrayal that their former allies who are in favor of the

internal improvements are now very concerned to compromise with the South. And so the votes are all over the place in this area of history. There is a man in Congress, we've mentioned many times before, the old Republican John Randolph of Roanoke, certainly no friend of Henry Clay. Randolph had accused Clay of conspiracy with John Quincy Adams to get his position as Secretary of State in the Adams administration. Clay had thrown his electoral college count in favor of Adams. And even though Adams had not won a majority of the electoral votes, Clay's support in Congress and the vote coming to Congress with that too close to call electoral count, he affected Adams' election by the electoral college. Well, Randolph, I called him out on that,

and they had actually fought a duel over it. Randolph had famously shot into the air and not aimed at Clay. Clay had shot at Randolph because he felt very embittered. But in the debate in Congress concerning the Verplank bill, Randolph makes a speech and says, there is one man and one man only who can save this union and that man is Henry Clay, which is quite remarkable given their bad relations. Randolph knew that Clay was the only man who could affect a compromise on the issue.

Most ironic because the tariff is actually Clay's baby. So it's up to Clay to decide how to diffuse the tension here. Clay had just lost the presidential election to Jackson, and it was even an embarrassment to him. It was much more decisive than the 28 election. and Clay is in bad spirits, but Clay is also very alarmed by the president's proclamation. He says the president is entirely too ultra for me. It might say he's too extreme in his confrontation with Carolina.

Clay also looks at the Verplank bill and sees some means to affect a compromise. We'll return to Clay in just a moment. He gets busy on this behind the scenes. Webster, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, is enthused about the president's proclamation. He is convinced that South Carolina is bluffing, that they have far too many advantages from the union to risk leaving it, and is convinced that the president's proclamation will call South Carolina's bluff. He is encouraging the president behind the scenes, even though they had a major falling out concerning. the bank war. Now Webster is regularly invited to the White House and has a habit of flattering

Jackson for his firm stand against the traders in South Carolina. On February 15th, the president requests and receives a bill from Congress. It's going around in committee, but it's called the Enforcement Act. It's more popularly known as the force bill or the bloody bill, as the Southerners termed it. Webster claimed authorship of this bill. He was, however, ill in bedridden when it was proposed to Congress, but he insisted that it was his work. It was proposed by another Massachusetts congressman. The force bill provided for the military protection of customs houses, obviously aimed at Charleston, the impoundment of goods that are received into port without paying the tax, even the seizure of goods at military forts.

Obviously, here it would have been Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor that would make sure that the taxes were collected on their way into the harbor. Clay stays absent from Congress while this is being debated. He does not want to be forced to take a stand one way or the other on the issue, but is also disheartened by the force bill. Calhoun says, the force bill exhibits the impious spectacle of this government, the creature of the states, making war against the powers to which it owes its existence. So we see, again, Calhoun's argument hinging on the circumstances of the ratification of the Constitution. The states were the actors there. the states designate an agent for special purposes, as the Kentucky Resolution had said back in 98.

Calhoun says it is not one people in this union, but 24 separate peoples. And this is the famous Southern reaction to the growing nationalist rhetoric from their opponents in the north. again, focusing on the historical circumstances. This is the southern pension in these debates. Calhoun delivers that speech in Congress in the Senate, of course. Webster then rises to mock Calhoun. Now, in this instance, this was not so well considered as Webster's famous debate with Hain a couple years earlier. Webster is openly contemptuous of the arguments of his Southern colleague.

He argues once again restates his nationalist formulation of a consolidated government. He says the union is perpetual and the states may not depart it, but he also lets slip the famous term for the union in his speech, and that is that it is a compact of the states. He says this a few times. Kind of as a matter of fact, this is just the way that people talked, not necessarily considering the implications in the debate. Calhoun then replies. And this is where Calhoun really buries Webster.

Webster is embarrassed in the Senate when Calhoun rises to speak and actually does not offer a rebuttal. Calhoun says, if it is a compact, It means that the states have standing. He reiterates the historical argument, the same one that Hayne had done of just previously a couple years. Randolph remarks in his notes, I saw Webster dying muscle by muscle as Calhoun spoke because he was dismantling Webster's argument with a strong historical response. And remarkably, Webster does not. make a big debate out of it like he did with Hain. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Clay is approaching Calhoun.

There are a number of mediators, southern statesmen. They are trying to broker an agreement between the men. They meet a couple of times. They're rather cold to one another. Doesn't seem to the observers as if they're working something out. But in fact, something is emerging behind the scenes. Calhoun is quietly making it known to Clay some ways to diffuse the situation and to avoid a military confrontation in Charleston. Clay writes a bill to present to Congress. It's known as the compromise bill. He says he proposes a new tariff with a time limit. It's not going to be a permanent protective tariff. In fact, it will ensure that the protective duties fall year after year until 1842 when they will expire. So it's the principle of the 1816 tariff again.

Clay in his bill writes, it is solely for the purpose and with the intent of providing such revenue as may be necessary to an economical expenditure of the government without regard to the protection and encouragement of any branch of industry. So while Webster and Calhoun have their famous interaction in the Senate, Clay is writing this into the compromise bill, the new tariff regime, which effectually repeals the 32 tariff and the 28 tariff without removing immediately the protective duties. So they have a time limit on them. This is better. This is more palatable than Verplank's proposed sudden repeal of the protective duties, which is very alarming to the manufacturing interests and would certainly have caused them a great deal of stress. Lots of bankruptcies would have resulted from that with the sudden cessation of protective duties. So this is a more palatable kind of compromise for the manufacturing districts. Clay and also include, in his bill a remark about the manufacturers. Now, remember, Clay is the American system guy.

He wants the permanent protective duties. He did not think that the South Carolinians were going to force the issue with nullification as they did. And he is quite alarmed at the prospect of military confrontation or a division of the union. He does not want to alienate his southern colleagues to that degree. So he says in his bill, after the accumulation of capital, the manufacturer will stand alone, unaided by the government and in competition. So in his compromise bill, he removes the idea of the permanent protection of the manufacturers. He calls it in the Senate, a treaty of peace and amity between the sections. So Clay, oddly, or correspondent with his character, he's a very pragmatic man. He's not a dogmatic sort of statesman. He adjusts to

circumstances. He's malleable. He says that this legislation is founded on the great principle of compromise and concession which lies at the bottom of our institutions. Now, at this point, it is mid-February and the situation is critical. Jackson is proposing heading an army and going to South Carolina in person. Jackson is always very direct, and this has reached a key moment. the force bill has been amended, gone through committee, and is now before Congress. Clay makes sure that his compromise bill coincides with the vote on the force bill. So they're actually voted on the same day.

Webster then gets up in the Senate to challenge Clay. Webster is also a great proponent at this point in his career of the protective tariff and the American system. He's going to New England regularly to pitch his advocacy for both. Webster challenges Clay and says, who are you really? You're for the protective tariff? You're against the protective tariff? Where do you stand exactly on this issue?

You are too malleable to be a great statesman. Clay responds to Webster and says, would the senator of Massachusetts send forth the force bill without this measure of conciliation? So he challenges Webster. Are you really risking, are you really willing to risk bloodshed over attacks? Are you really willing to risk the union over this? And as the force bill comes up in Congress, a great many southern statesmen are watching this with bated breath, many of them, including Randolph, suggesting that the other states should join South Carolina if it comes to a military confrontation over the

tax, not in a convention for the constitutional amendment, but actually calling up their militias and affecting secession from the union. So there's a lot of talk about this at this time among the congressmen from the southern states. And North Carolina and Virginia standing out on that, curiously, the north part of the south, the middle states who are seeing that if compromise is not affected here, perhaps the union really is broken. Clay then gives maybe his greatest speech, I'm certainly drawn to it, in favor of his compromise bill to make the protective tariffs time limited and hopefully to ensure a compromise with Carolina. though Carolina has gone on the record that all of these protective duties are unconstitutional,

they had previously assented to the time-limited ones in 1816. Even Calhoun was in favor of that. And that was in the wake of the War of 1812, obviously, and there were major war debts to consider. Clay gets up in front of Congress and says, the difference between the friends and foes of the compromise is that they, would, in the Enforcement Act, send forth alone a flaming sword. We are in favor of the law executed in mildness and power tempered with mercy. They would hazard civil commotion beginning in South Carolina and extending God knows where. We are for peace, union, and liberty. We want no

war? Above all, no civil war, no family strife. We want no sacked cities, no desolated fields, no smoking ruins, no streams of American blood shed by American arms. And Clay, bringing this out in the open, in this very visual way, brings over enough of a coalition to pass the compromise tariff, which frankly declares that protective duties are not a permanent feature of federal policy, instead suggesting that they serve better to retire the national debt, as was the goal of the Jacksonians. So March 1st, 1833, Congress passes both the compromise bill and the force bill. South Carolina responds by nullifying the force bill, not backing down on the principle of nullification, but also reconciled to collecting the protective duties of the compromise bill, the time-limited ones. They see themselves victorious on the principle.

They didn't get it the way they intended. They expected to have a state convention to modify the Constitution and resolve the question. in black and white, but they still see it as a victory. It didn't come to them the way they expected to have it. It came from Henry Clay, who they saw as their main foe in the matter, the origin of these schemes. March 1st, Henry Clay writes in his diary, it was the most proud and triumphant day of my life, and Clay is applauded from many sides. A great many of his political opponents come together here to commemorate his heroic action, much of it behind the scenes and unknown to historians, to affect this compromise and to divert

this potential calamity. This is why, among other famous deals that he made, importantly, the Missouri compromise and also the great compromise of 1850, which we will get to later, Clay earns his honorific the great compromiser, the man who can bring everyone together and find common ground, and also a man who can make huge concessions on his own side. Of course, he doesn't rid the country of protective duties, but he compromises on the principle, even sacrificing his much-cherished American system, he saw the demise of the Bank of the United States only a few months previous, and he's taking a more sober view of his ambitions, but, above all, Clay did not want the union rent over this matter. Clay did not believe

that any political program was to risk the division of the union, and for that he deserves to be in the annals of heroic statesmanship. Meanwhile, down in South Carolina, they are claiming victory. They forced a compromise by the means of nullification and they feel vindicated. They do not feel discredited. Many in the North see this in terms of the force bill. Oh, South Carolina was intimidated into concession. They saw that they could not withstand the might of the United States Army, therefore they backed down. That was not the way that. that Carolinians interpreted the situation. They saw it as a victory, a forced compromise

through the means of nullification, and it got the response they wanted. Maybe not everything that they wanted. There are still protective duties, but they're time limited like the 16 tariff was. So that is my brief on the nullification drama and how this figures in the sectional conflict, more broadly.

Just more evidence piling up that just didn't all happen at once and that the divisions were there right from the start. And most curiously for the students of the era, the fact that the federal troops occupied Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, it was in some ways a replay of the drama in 33. Abraham Lincoln in his inaugural address said, the states have not left the union, and he also says he will collect the duties at the ports. The only place where that threat was valid, or the only places, I should say, were Pensacola, where the Federals maintained their possession of Fort Pickens in the harbor, and at Charleston, where Major Anderson, had gone over to Fort Sumter and occupied the Ford. He had abandoned his post at Fort Moultrie and spiked the guns and then crossed under

cover of darkness to occupy Fort Sumter. He had no supplies and had to be provisioned somehow. But Lincoln was determined on holding Fort Sumter and collecting the duties there, along with his big new protective tariff. which he presided over his first year in office. Curiously, back in 32, Lincoln is starting his political career. The same year that Calhoun resigns the vice presidency and then goes to contend with Webster in the Senate, Abraham Lincoln is a state legislator elected to office, and he gives his first political speech.

Lincoln says in his homey way, my politics are short and sweet like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank, internal improvements, and a high protective tariff. And that's where Lincoln got his start in politics back in 1832. It's interesting that he figures so prominently in the renewal of that very issue in 1860. Seems like American history is just, are you going over the same issues over and over and over again. You would think that a written constitution would be better for such things. That was the optimism of the founding generation, that this was better than tradition. But of course, the memory of the events, it has everything to do with how they're interpreted.

The historical memory of what people believed the union was for. We remember that remark by the journalist from New England that the union was established to have a national bank, to have protective tariffs. They believe that Hamilton's vision was the point all along, but that was the world they lived in. The Southerners had to rely on the historical argument, which I think is a much stronger argument about the nature of the union. But it is the same issues again and again. Yeah.

Well, tell everybody where they can find your books. Absolutely. You can find me at www. tallmenbooks.com. That's M-E-N-Talmen, plural. I also have an account on Buy Me a Coffee. If you'd like to leave me a tip for these lectures, I would much appreciate it.

You can find me at George Bagby on Buy Me a Coffee. I'll find that link and I'll include it in the show notes. Thank you very much. Of course. Until the next time. Thank you very much.