Introduction

The Nullification Crisis was a sectional crisis occurring during the presidency of Andrew Jackson that was created by South Carolina's 1832 Ordinance of Nullification. This ordinance declared, by the power of the state, that the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of South Carolina. The controversial and highly protective Tariff of 1828 (known to its detractors as the "Tariff of Abominations") was enacted into law during the previous presidency of John Quincy Adams. The South and parts of New England opposed the tariff and expected that the election of Andrew Jackson as president would result in the tariff being significantly reduced.

President Andrew Jackson

President Andrew Jackson, pictured above, was hailed as the founder of the Democratic Party.

Background

The nation had suffered an economic downturn throughout the 1820s, and South Carolina in particular had been affected. Many South Carolina politicians blamed the change in fortunes on the national tariff policy that developed after the War of 1812 to promote American manufacturing over its British competition. The major goal of the Tariff of 1828 was to protect industries in the northern United States, which were being driven out of business by low-priced imported goods, by putting a tax on such imports. The South, however, was harmed directly by having to pay higher prices on goods the region did not produce, and indirectly because reducing the exportation of British goods to the United States made it difficult for the British to pay for the cotton they imported from the South. As such, the tariff was labeled the "Tariff of Abominations" by its Southern detractors because of the effects it had on the antebellum economy in the South. Western agricultural states favored these tariffs, however, as did representatives of New England's industries.

The Call for Nullification

By 1828, South Carolina state politics increasingly organized around the tariff issue. When the Jackson administration failed to take any actions to address concerns, South Carolina's most radical faction began to advocate the state itself declaring the tariff null and void within South Carolina. In Washington, an open split on the issue occurred between Jackson and his vice president John C. Calhoun, the most effective proponent of the constitutional theory of state nullification.

On July 14, 1832, after Calhoun had resigned his office in order to run for the Senate where he could more effectively defend nullification, Jackson signed into law the Tariff of 1832. This compromise tariff received the support of most Northerners and half of the Southerners in Congress. However, the reductions were too little for South Carolina, and in November of 1832, a state convention declared that the tariffs of both 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and unenforceable in South Carolina as of February 1, 1833. Military preparations to resist anticipated federal enforcement were initiated by the state. 

Resolution

In late February, both a Force Bill (authorizing the president to use military forces against South Carolina) and a newly negotiated tariff satisfactory to South Carolina were passed by Congress. In response, the South Carolina convention reconvened and repealed its Nullification Ordinance on March 11, 1833.

The crisis was over, and both sides could find reasons to claim victory. The tariff rates were reduced and stayed low to the satisfaction of the South, and the states'-rights doctrine of nullification had been rejected by the nation. Historians consider the crisis to be one of the first direct causes of the Civil War. By the 1850s, the issues of the expansion of slavery into the western territories and the threat of power of slave states became central issues in the nation.