Nullification Proclamation
On December 10, 1832, President Andrew
Jackson issued a proclamation to the people of South
Carolina that disputed a states' right to nullify a federal
law. Jackson's proclamation was written in response to
an ordinance issued by a South Carolina convention that
declared that the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 "are
unauthorized by the constitution of the United States,
and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are
null, void, and no law, nor binding
upon this State." Led by John C. Calhoun, Jackson's vice president at the
time, the nullifiers felt that the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 favored Northern-manufacturing
interests at the expense of Southern farmers. After Jackson issued his proclamation,
Congress passed the Force
Act that authorized the use of military force against any state that resisted
the tariff acts. In 1833, Henry Clay helped broker a compromise bill with Calhoun
that slowly lowered tariffs over the next decade. The
Compromise Tariff of 1833 was eventually accepted by South Carolina and ended
the nullification crisis.
Library of
Congress Web Site | External Web
Sites | Selected
Bibliography
An
American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides
and Other Printed Ephemera
Contains a broadside providing the names of the State
Rights and Nullification ticket for the South Carolina
state convention in 1832.
Search
this collection using the word nullification to find additional printed ephemera on this subject.
A
Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation
Negative reaction to the Tariff
Act of 1828 and the Tariff
Act of 1832 led to the South Carolina Ordinance of
Nullification.
Search
this collection in the 22nd Congress using terms like
nullification, tariff,
and the force
bill to find additional congressional
documents on this topic, including Sen.
John C. Calhoun's speech
on January 16, 1833.
James Madison Papers, 1723-1836
James Madison expressed his
opposition to nullification in a number of
documents during the nullification crisis with South
Carolina, including the following:
Search on the term nullification to
find additional documents on this topic.
Nineteenth
Century in Print: Periodicals
In 1833, The
North American Review published an article on the
nullification crisis. Thirty years later, Harper's
New Monthly Magazine and The
Old Guard also examined the nullification crisis
in the context of the ongoing Civil War.
The
Thomas Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress
The issue of whether or not a state had the right to
nullify a federal law was not a new issue in 1832. Over
thirty years earlier, the Kentucky
Resolution was secretly authored by Thomas Jefferson
in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. Along with
the Virginia Resolution, which was written by James Madison,
the Kentucky Resolution argued that state legislatures
had the right to nullify Federal statutes. This version
of the Kentucky Resolution is from the Thomas Jefferson
Papers at the Library of Congress. The text in the first
column is from the rough draft, and that in the second
from a fair copy. The facsimile is the text actually
adopted by the Kentucky legislature and sent to the other
state legislatures.
Words
and Deeds in American History
On January 13, 1833, President
Andrew Jackson wrote a letter to his newly elected
vice-president Martin Van Buren discussing South Carolina
and the nullification crisis. Jackson closes with the
assertion, "nothing must be permitted to weaken
our government at home or abroad."
January
13, 1832
President Andrew Jackson wrote Vice President Martin
Van Buren expressing his opposition to South Carolina's
defiance of federal authority during the Nullification
Crisis.
Nullification
Issues, The James Madison Center at James Madison
University
South
Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, November 24, 1832,
Avalon Project at Yale Law School
Ellis, Richard E. The Union at Risk:
Jacksonian Democracy, States' Rights, and the Nullification
Crisis. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1987. [Catalog
Record]
Freehling, William W. Prelude to
Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina,
1816-1836. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1992. [Catalog
Record]
Peterson, Merrill D. Olive Branch
and Sword: The Compromise of 1833. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1982. [Catalog
Record]
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