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Battle of the Press: the Nullification Crisis in South Carolina, 1828-1833

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Battle of the Press: the Nullification Crisis in South Carolina, 1828-1833 BATTLE OF THE PRESS: THE NULLIFICATION CRISIS IN SOUTH CAROLINA, 1828-1833 by Andrew Christopher Pack A thesis submitted to the faculty of The University of North Carolina at Charlotte in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Charlotte 2015 Approved by: ______________________________ Dr. Dan Dupre ______________________________ Dr. John David Smith ______________________________ Dr. Chris Cameron ii ©2015 Andrew Christopher Pack ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii ABSTRACT ANDREW CHRISTOPHER PACK. Battle of the press: the nullification crisis in south carolina, 1828-1833. (Under direction of DR. DAN DUPRE) This study focuses on the role of the press during the Nullification Crisis in South Carolina. It examines how the Charleston Mercury and the Charleston Courier used ideas centered around economics, states’ rights and honor to convince South Carolinians to support their side in the conflict over tariffs. South Carolina was divided between Nullifiers who favored declaring the Tariff of 1828 null and void within the borders of South Carolina and Unionists who opposed nullification and feared the potential for disunion that the radical doctrine possessed. The Unionists represented an older political tradition that sought the greater good of the nation as the best way to ensure a prosperous future, while the Nullifiers advanced strong states’ rights doctrines that advocated for South Carolinian interests above all. The strict states’ rights beliefs held by the Nullifiers came to be the dominant political view in South Carolina for the rest of the antebellum period. The editors of the Mercury and Courier played a major role in shaping the internal debate in South Carolina over the tariff and the Mercury’s victory firmly established states’ rights as the primary political doctrine of antebellum South Carolinians. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER II: ECONOMIC ARGUMENTS 14 CHAPTER III: STATES’ RIGHTS ARGUMENTS 40 CHAPTER IV: HONOR, OPPRESSION AND SLAVERY 73 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION 104 BIBLIOGRAPHY 109 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION The Nullification Crisis was a tense standoff between the federal government of the United States and the state of South Carolina. In 1828, Congress passed what its opponents called the “Tariff of Abominations,” which raised duties on imported manufactured products to the highest rates the country had ever seen. This outraged South Carolinians, who had little industry and worried their economy would not be able to sustain these exorbitant rates. South Carolinians protested for the next four years and the national government passed a new tariff in 1832 that reduced the duties on several articles, however, it was not nearly enough for the majority of South Carolinians. The state called a convention in response to this latest tariff in which they passed the Ordinance of Nullification, which declared the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void within the state. This outraged Jackson who in turn asked Congress to pass the Force Bill, which authorized him to use the military to enforce the tariffs in South Carolina. The crisis came to an end when Senators Henry Clay of Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina developed the Compromise Tariff in 1833 that satisfied enough in the North and South to pass Congress and end the Crisis. This new tariff promised a steady reduction in tariff rates over the next ten years, culminating in a rate of twenty percent that would never be exceeded. While the Compromise Tariff brought an end to the Crisis, tensions still remained over the power of the federal government and the rights reserved to the individual states to resist what they viewed as oppression. 2 South Carolinians tried to project a united image to the rest of the country throughout the Crisis, however, they were sharply divided internally over the legality and necessity of nullification. There was a significant divide among South Carolinians between Nullifiers and Unionists. Nullifiers advocated the radical doctrine of nullification and believed they had to take a stand immediately if they wanted to be able to prevent the federal government from becoming too powerful and trampling on their rights. On the other hand, the Unionists opposed unilaterally disobeying the federal government and feared if they did not stop the Nullifiers this radical group might destroy the Union their ancestors had fought so hard to create. This divide within South Carolina endured for the entirety of the Nullification Crisis as each side fought to win the hearts and minds of South Carolinians. The Nullification Crisis was a significant point in the history of the United States that brought up important questions surrounding the power of the federal government and the level of involvement it should have in directing the country’s economy. Ever since the Constitutional Convention of 1789 established a central government, Americans argued over how much power they delegated to it versus what had been reserved to the state and local governments. Nationalists advocated for a government with sweeping powers to regulate trade and foster economic development, while groups opposed to centralized power asserted that government should only exist to keep its citizens content and free and not interfere in their daily lives and activities. These opponents of federal power instead emphasized state power as a bulwark to federal tyranny. The divide between these two groups only increased as time went on and came to a major confrontation during the Nullification Crisis. 3 The competing views of federal power played an important role in the creation of sectionalism based on economic interests, as the North industrialized and grew in population while the South remained agricultural and less populated. Many in the South began to fear that the North would dominate the federal government and work for their own interests while neglecting the needs of the South. The central conflict of the crisis centered around the role of tariffs and how much they should be used to develop industry and regulate commerce. The tariff of 1828 was designed to protect the nation’s developing manufacturing industry by greatly increasing the import duties on manufactured products. While this benefitted manufacturers in the Mid-Atlantic and Northern states, it hurt many in the agricultural South that purchased their manufactured goods from England. Under the Tariff of 1828, Southerners would be forced to pay a much higher price for goods from the North compared with what they previously paid England.1 In addition, they feared that if the tariff made English goods prohibitively expensive, the English factories would stop buying their cotton. Therefore, Southern opponents of the tariff argued that it doubly harmed them by making them pay more for manufactured goods but also taking away the income they had received from selling their cotton in Europe. This conflict over protectionism and the differing economic interests of Northerners and Southerners would result in a showdown over tariff policy during the Nullification Crisis. While most Southerners opposed the tariff, South Carolinians came out the strongest against the tariff and a government that had the power to enact such openly protectionist policies. South Carolina had a large population of planters and a very small 1 Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 75. 4 number of yeoman farmers compared with most other Southern states. Therefore, the increase in tariff rates more greatly affected South Carolinians and they stood to lose the most. The state’s leaders asked South Carolinian John C. Calhoun to write an Exposition and Protest that detailed the state’s grievances against the tariff. In his Exposition, Calhoun argued that the tariff was unconstitutional because it favored manufacturing over agriculture, something he contended the Constitution forbid. Additionally, he wrote that individual states had the right to nullify a federal law that they believed was unconstitutional. If a state took that action, the law in question became null and void within the state’s borders and its citizens did not have to abide by it. Calhoun also argued against rule by the numerical majority, a concept he contended was an “oppressive tyranny” that allowed majority groups to trample on the rights of minorities and leave them with no say in the actions of the government.2 He asserted that the North’s population was growing at a rapid pace as it industrialized while the South’s agricultural character caused it to grow at a much slower rate that would permanently render it a minority in the federal government. In order to repair this inequality, Calhoun developed his own theory of government that he called the “concurrent majority.” In this form of government, every class or community was consulted on new laws and legislation and the concurrence of all constituted the “concurrent majority.” He argued that this would allow every region of the country to have an equal say in national matters and thus solve the problem of a government dominated by hostile Northerners.3 2 Lacy K. Ford, Jr. “Inventing the Concurrent Majority: Madison, Calhoun, and the Problem of Majoritarianism in American Political Thought,” The Journal of Southern History 60 (1994): 46. 3 Ibid., 47-48. 5 An important legacy of the Nullification Crisis is that it crystallized strong states’ rights ideals within South Carolina that endured for the rest of the
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