Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Calhoun played a central, though behind the scenes role in the Nullification Crisis, beginning with the drafting of the Tariff of 1828.
"The natural pressure of public opinion on public men had exercised its effect in previous years, and had had its share in bringing about the tariff act of 1824 and the woolens bill of 1827. But the gradual crystallization of two parties, the [John Quincy] Adams and [Andrew] Jackson parties,—Whigs and Democrats, as they soon came to be called—put a new face on the political situation, and had an unexpected effect on tariff legislation. The contest between them had begun in earnest before the Harrisburg convention met, and some of the Jackson men alleged that the convention was no more than a demonstration got up by the Adams men as a means of bringing the protective movement to bear in their aid; but this was denied, and such evidence as we have seems to support the denial. Yet the Adams men were undoubtedly helped by the protective movement. Although there was not then, nor for a number of years after, a clear-cut division on party lines between protectionists and so-called free traders, the Adams men were more firmly and unitedly in favor of protection than their opponents. Adams was a protectionist, though not an extreme one; Clay, the leader and spokesman of the party, was more than any other public man identified with the American system. They were at least willing that the protective question should be brought into the foreground of the political contest.
"The position of the Jackson men, on the other hand, was a very difficult one. Their party had at this time no settled policy in regard to the questions which were to be the subjects of the political struggles of the next twenty years. They were united on only one point, a determination to oust the other side. On the tariff, as well as on the bank and internal improvements, the various elements of the party held very different opinions. The Southern members, who were almost to a man supporters of Jackson, were opposed unconditionally not only to an increase of duties, but to the high range which the tariff had already reached. They were convinced, and in the main justly convinced, that the taxes levied by the tariff fell with peculiar weight on the slave States, and their opposition was already tinged with the bitterness which made possible, a few years later, the attempt at nullification of the tariff of 1832. On the other hand, the protective policy was popular throughout the North, more especially in the very States whose votes were essential to Jackson, in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The Jackson men needed the votes of these States, and were not so confident of getting them as they might reasonably have been. They failed, as completely as their opponents, to gauge the strength of the enthusiasm of the masses for their candidate, and they did not venture to give the Adams men a chance of posing as the only true friends of domestic industry.
"The twentieth Congress met for its first session in December, 1827. The elections of 1826, at which its members were chosen, had not been fortunate for the administration. When Congress met there was some doubt as to the political complexion of the House; but this was set at rest by the election to the speakership of the Democratic candidate, Stephenson of Virginia. The new Speaker, in the formation of the committees, assumed for his party the direction of the measures of the House. On the committee on manufactures, from which the tariff report and the tariff bill were to come, he appointed five supporters of Jackson and two supporters of Adams. The chairmanship, however, was given to one of the latter, Mallary, of Vermont, who, it will be remembered, had been a member of the Harrisburg convention.
"Much doubt was entertained as to the line of action the committee would follow. The Adams men feared at first that it would adopt a policy of simple delay and inaction. This fear was confirmed when, a few weeks after the beginning of the session, the committee asked for power to send for persons and papers in order to obtain more information on the tariff,—a request which was opposed by Mallary, their chairman, on the ground that it was made only as a pretext for delay. The Adams men, who formed the bulk of the ardent protectionists, voted with him against granting the desired power. But the Southern members united with the Jackson men from the North, and between them they secured the passage of the resolution asked by the committee. The debate and vote on the resolution sounded the key-note of the events of the session. They showed that the Jackson men from the South and the North, though opposed to each other on the tariff question, were yet united as against the Adams men.
"But the policy of delay, if such in fact had been entertained by the opposition, was abandoned. On January 31st, the committee presented a report and a draft of a tariff bill, which showed that they had determined on a new plan, and an ingenious one. What that plan was, Calhoun explained very frankly nine years later, in a speech reviewing the events of 1828 and defending the course taken by himself and his Southern fellow members. A high-tariff bill was to be laid before the House. It was to contain not only a high general range of duties, but duties especially high on those raw materials on which New England wanted the duties to be low. It was to satisfy the protective demands of the Western and Middle States, and at the same time to be obnoxious to the New England members. The Jackson men of all shades, the protectionists from the North and the free-traders from the South, were to unite in preventing any amendments; that bill, and no other, was to be voted on. When the final vote came, the Southern men were to turn around and vote against their own measure. The New England men, and the Adams men in general, would be unable to swallow it, and would also vote against it. Combined, they would prevent its passage, even though the Jackson men from the North voted for it. The result expected was that no tariff bill at all would be passed during the session, which was the object of the Southern wing of the opposition. On the other hand, the obloquy of defeating it would be cast on the Adams party, which was the object of the Jacksonians of the North. The tariff bill would be defeated, and yet the Jackson men would be able to parade as the true 'friends of domestic industry.'
"The bill by which this ingenious solution of the difficulties of the opposition was to be reached, was reported to the House on January 31st by the committee on manufactures.79 To the surprise of its authors, it was eventually passed both by House and Senate, and became, with a few unessential changes, the tariff act of 1828." [F. W. Taussig, The Tariff History of the United States, pp. 84-89]
"The Southern members openly said that they meant to make the tariff so bitter a pill that no New England member would be able to swallow it. When the final vote on the bill came, the groups of members split up in the way expected by the Democrats. The Southern members, practically without exception, voted against it. Those from the Middle and Western States voted almost unanimously for it. The Jackson men voted for their own measure for consistency’s sake; the Adams men from these States joined them, partly for political reasons, mainly because the bill, even with the obnoxious provisions, was acceptable to their constituents. Of the New England members, a majority, 23 out of 39, voted in the negative. The affirmative votes from New England, however, were sufficient, when added to those from the West and the Middle States, to ensure its passage. The bill accordingly passed the House.
"This result had not been entirely unexpected. The real struggle, it was felt, would come in the Senate, where the South and New England had a proportionately large representation. In previous years the Senate had maintained, in its action on the tariff bills of 1820 and 1824, a much more conservative position than the House. But in 1828 the course of events in the Senate was in the main similar to that in the House." [F. W. Taussig, The Tariff History of the United States, pp. 97-98]
"Again and again, southern representatives voted against amendments to lower rates on raw materials. But enough northern Jacksonians, including such Van Burenites as Silas Wright, voted to lower enough of the duties so that industrialists managed to swallow the entire unseemly concoction. The tariff of 1828 was the law of the land, and South Carolinians were the authors of its worst abominations.
"Calhounites later claimed that Van Buren was in on their conspiracy and had betrayed them. Van Buren always denied the accusation and Calhoun never proved it; the debacle was probably a southern plot which backfired rather than a sabotaged Jacksonian stratagem." [William W. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836, pp. 137-138]
"The protest against the so-called Tariff of Abominations grew particularly strong in South Carolina, and in response to a request from the state legislature, Calhoun secretly wrote an essay titled 'South Carolina Exposition and Protest.' In it, he asserted that states had a constitutional right to nullify any federal government actions they considered unconstitutional. Calhoun had become the chosen mouthpiece for Southern rights." [Ethan S. Rafuse, "He Started the Civil War," Civil War Times, Vol XLI, No. 5, October, 2002, pp. 26-27]
"If the majority could use 'the right of laying duties, not only to raise revenue, but to regulate the industry of the country,' warned Calhoun, taxes could be employed to further 'any purpose that the majority may think to be for the general welfare.' Encouragement could be offered 'to the Colonization Society, as well as to cotton and woolen manufacturers.' Indeed, the constitutional precedent set by the tariff of 1828 might lend authority to a direct assault on slavery itself." [William W. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836, p. 139]
As Calhoun himself clearly said, "I consider the Tariff, but as the occasion, rather than the real cause of the present unhappy state of things. The truth can no longer be disguised, that the peculiar domestick institutions of the Southern States, and the consequent direction which that and her soil and climate have given to her industry, has placed them in regard to taxation and appropriation in opposite relation to the majority of the Union; against the danger of which, if there be no protective power in the reserved rights of the states, they must in the end be forced to rebel, or submit to have ... their domestick institutions exhausted by Colonization and other schemes, and themselves & children reduced to wretchedness. Thus situated, the denial of the state to interfere constitutionally in the last resort, more alarms the thinking than all other causes." [John C. Calhoun to Virgil Maxcy, 11 Sep 1830]
The nullifiers, Calhoun included, then, had decided "to fight the abolitionists indirectly by contending against the tariff." William W. Freehling, Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836, p. 257]
"President Jackson also recognized slavery as the real issue. Following the settlement of the nullification controversy he wrote to a friend that 'the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and a southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro or slavery question.'" [Herman V. Ames, "John C. Calhoun and the Secession Movement of 1850," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, New Series, Vol 28, Part 1, April, 1918, p. 20]
Opposition to the tariff was only one change in Calhoun.
"In his later years he incessantly attacked the protective tariff, the bank, and federal internal improvements [all of which he had supported] as unconstitutional and detrimental to the national welfare. Never did a logician exercise his ingenuity more upon the Constitution. It became his dominant theme that only the sovereign states, and not the Supreme Court, could determine which powers had been delegated by that compact to their creature, the Federal Government. The major effort of his long career in politics after the nullification crisis was his unsuccessful attempt to unite the South in a separate political party [all changes in his previously held positions]. [Gerald M. Capers, "A Reconsideration of John C. Calhoun's Transition from Nationalism to Nullification," The Journal of Southern History, Vol XIV, No. 1, February, 1948, p. 41]
"Several years since, in a discussion with one of the Senators from Massachusetts (Mr. Webster), before this fell spirit had showed itself, I then predicted that the doctrine of the proclamation and the Force Bill — that this Government had a right, in the last resort, to determine the extent of its own powers, and enforce its decision at the point of the bayonet, which was so warmly maintained by that Senator, would at no distant day arouse the dormant spirit of abolitionism. I told him that the doctrine was tantamount to the assumption of unlimited power on the part of the Government, and that such would be the impression on the public mind in a large portion of the Union. The consequence would be inevitable. A large portion of the Northern States believed slavery to be a sin, and would consider it as an obligation of conscience to abolish it if they should feel themselves in any degree responsible for its continuance, and that this doctrine would necessarily lead to the belief of such responsibility. I then predicted that it would commence as it has with this fanatical portion of society, and that they would begin their operations on the ignorant, the weak, the young, and the thoughtless, — and gradually extend upwards till they would become strong enough to obtain political control, when he and others holding the highest stations in society, would, however reluctant, be compelled to yield to their doctrines, or be driven into obscurity. But four years have since elapsed, and all this is already in a course of regular fulfilment. ...
"Abolition and the Union cannot coexist. As the friend of the Union I openly proclaim it, — and the sooner it is known the better. The former may now be controlled, but in a short time it will be beyond the power of man to arrest the course of events. We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions. To maintain the existing relations between the two races, inhabiting that section of the Union, is indispensable to the peace and happiness of both. It cannot be subverted without drenching the country or the other of the races. . . . But let me not be understood as admitting, even by implication, that the existing relations between the two races in the slaveholding States is an evil: — far otherwise; I hold it to be a good, as it has thus far proved itself to be to both, and will continue to prove so if not disturbed by the fell spirit of abolition. I appeal to facts. Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually.
"In the meantime, the white or European race, has not degenerated. It has kept pace with its brethren in other sections of the Union where slavery does not exist. It is odious to make comparison; but I appeal to all sides whether the South is not equal in virtue, intelligence, patriotism, courage, disinterestedness, and all the high qualities which adorn our nature.
"But I take higher ground. I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good — a positive good. I feel myself called upon to speak freely upon the subject where the honor and interests of those I represent are involved. I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other. Broad and general as is this assertion, it is fully borne out by history. This is not the proper occasion, but, if it were, it would not be difficult to trace the various devices by which the wealth of all civilized communities has been so unequally divided, and to show by what means so small a share has been allotted to those by whose labor it was produced, and so large a share given to the non-producing classes. The devices are almost innumerable, from the brute force and gross superstition of ancient times, to the subtle and artful fiscal contrivances of modern. I might well challenge a comparison between them and the more direct, simple, and patriarchal mode by which the labor of the African race is, among us, commanded by the European. I may say with truth, that in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid to him in sickness or infirmities of age. Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor houses in the more civilized portions of Europe — look at the sick, and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse. But I will not dwell on this aspect of the question; I turn to the political; and here I fearlessly assert that the existing relation between the two races in the South, against which these blind fanatics are waging war, forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political institutions. It is useless to disguise the fact. There is and always has been in an advanced stage of wealth and civilization, a conflict between labor and capital. The condition of society in the South exempts us from the disorders and dangers resulting from this conflict; and which explains why it is that the political condition of the slaveholding States has been so much more stable and quiet than that of the North. . . . Surrounded as the slaveholding States are with such imminent perils, I rejoice to think that our means of defense are ample, if we shall prove to have the intelligence and spirit to see and apply them before it is too late. All we want is concert, to lay aside all party differences and unite with zeal and energy in repelling approaching dangers. Let there be concert of action, and we shall find ample means of security without resorting to secession or disunion. I speak with full knowledge and a thorough examination of the subject, and for one see my way clearly. . . . I dare not hope that anything I can say will arouse the South to a due sense of danger; I fear it is beyond the power of mortal voice to awaken it in time from the fatal security into which it has fallen." [John C. Calhoun, US Senate, 6 Feb 1837, speech taken from Andrew C. McLaughlin, Readings in the History of the American Nation, pp. 206-212.
Here we go talking about the "Adams men" again. :-)
I read your post wish great enthusiasm, by the way. Thanks! Apparently Jackson & company pulled some strategy on my ancestor J.Q. Adams perceived ideals, and won? lol!
The thing I remember about Calhoun was his exchange, while vice president, with Andrew Jackson. Calhoun and other nulllifers had hoped for a sympathetic ear with Jackson, himself a Southerner and a slaveowner.
At the Jefferson Day dinner. Jackson proposed a toast. As the guests included Calhoun raised their glasses, Jackson, genial up to this point, suddenlly glared at Calhoun. "The union," rasped Jackson, "it must be preserved." Calhoun turned pale and drank with the rest. But then he proposed his own toast, "The union, next to our liberties, most dear."
Rob,
John Quincy Adams was a mediocre president, but quite effective as a congressmen, I think the only ex president to be elected to Congress. I'm going to look up some stuff about him and the Gag rule and post it.
...Jackson proposed a toast. As the guests included Calhoun raised their glasses, Jackson, genial up to this point, suddenlly glared at Calhoun. "The union," rasped Jackson, "it must be preserved." Calhoun turned pale and drank with the rest. But then he proposed his own toast, "The union, next to our liberties, most dear."
Classic Calhoun.
Liberty should indeed trump union. All day, every day.
To this question there can be but one answer,--that the immediate cause is the almost universal discontent which pervades all the States composing the Southern section of the Union....
The next question, going one step further back, is: What has caused this widely diffused and almost universal discontent?
It is a great mistake to suppose, as is by some, that it originated with demagogs who excited the discontent with the intention of aiding their personal advancement, or with the disappointed ambition of certain politicians who resorted to it as the means of retrieving their fortunes....
No; some cause far deeper and more powerful than the one supposed must exist, to account for discontent so wide and deep.
The question then recurs: What is the cause of this discontent?
It will be found in the belief of the people of the Southern States, as prevalent as the discontent itself, that they can not remain, as things now are, consistently with honor and safety, in the Union.
The next question to be considered is: What has caused this belief?
One of the causes is, undoubtedly, to be traced to the long-continued agitation of the slave question on the part of the North, and the many aggressions which they have made on the rights of the South during the time. I will not enumerate them at present, as it will be done hereafter in its proper place.
There is another lying back of it--with which this is intimately connected--that may be regarded as the great and primary cause. This is to be found in the fact that the equilibrium between the two sections in the government as it stood when the Constitution was ratified and the government put in action has been destroyed. At that time there was nearly a perfect equilibrium between the two, which afforded ample means to each to protect itself against the aggression of the other; but, as it now stands, one section has the exclusive power of controlling the government, which leaves the other without any adequate means of protecting itself against its encroachment and oppression.
The result of the whole is to give the Northern section a predominance in every department of the government, and thereby concentrate in it the two elements which constitute the federal government: a majority of States, and a majority of their population, estimated in federal numbers. Whatever section concentrates the two in itself possesses the control of the entire government.
I have, Senators, believed from the first that the agitation of the subject of slavery would, if not prevented by some timely and effective measure, end in disunion.
I also notice the quotes you use from the speech are missing some important parts.
What is it that has endangered the Union?
To this question there can be but one answer,--that the immediate cause is the almost universal discontent which pervades all the States composing the Southern section of the Union. This widely-extended discontent is not of recent origin. It commenced with the agitation of the slavery question, and has been increasing ever since.
It is obvious what the man wants. A limit on freedom of speech, full access to the territories for the institution of slavery and wanting the South to have more power in government than the North, by way of making the House of Representatives, based on population, null and void.
Reading the entire speech really gives you a different flavor of what the man was really trying to say and what concerned him and what he thought the reason was for all the uproar, slavery.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Neil, I hope you will indeed follow your own counsel and read the whole speech. If you do that, you will see that what the old man is pleading is that the North should seek for ways to correct the great and primary cause of the endangered union -- before it is too late.
And you will note that, according to Calhoun, it was not slavery (as you would so wish it to be) that was the great and primary cause. And he goes into great detail to illustrate his point.
I'm sure you'll see that if you read the whole thing.
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Linear Mode
