Unfortunately for John C. Calhoun
and the disgruntled inhabitants of South Carolina, Andrew Jackson was more a
devotee of Jefferson as President than as the radical, insurgent ideologue who
had authored the Kentucky Resolutions. He was perhaps less of a nationalist
than the last three of his predecessors, having strong negative feelings about
the 2nd Bank of the United States, the national debt, and concept of
internal improvements. But Jackson also remained a military man at heart, and
like Jefferson himself he showed a willingness to ignore certain of his own
professed convictions if the outcome was something that he particularly
desired. Bearing these traits in mind, the Tariff of 1828 was not something
Jackson felt that he needed to oppose. As the War of 1812 had shown, the United
States suffered from a lack of domestic manufacturing which could very easily
prove its downfall in the event of a sustained armed conflict. A protective
tariff which promoted manufacturing was an obvious preventative measure, and
one which the soldier in Jackson accordingly supported. The other aspect of the
tariff legislation – the federal revenue it would generate – also appealed to
the newly-minted Commander-in-Chief, though arguably for less practical
reasons. Unlike many prominent voices in the contemporary Democratic-Republican
party who had come to see the utility of the financial system originally
devised by Alexander Hamilton – former Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin, and
former Presidents James Madison and James Monroe, to name only a few – Jackson
was steadfastly of the opinion that a national debt could only ever be a source
of public corruption. A government which was perpetually in hock to bankers and
financiers, foreign governments, and speculators, he asserted, would never be
at liberty to act in the best interests of its constituents. Eliminating the
national debt, therefore, was absolutely essential if the American republic
were ever to fulfill the promise of its founding. Since the Tariff of 1828 would
serve to generate the revenues which would help to make this outcome possible,
Jackson was perfectly willing to let it remain in force.
The so-called “Nullifiers” in South
Carolina – so named for their belief in the right of the states to effectively
“nullify” federal laws which they found to be invalid – were understandably
displeased at Jackson’s opposition to their cause as his position became
clearer over the next several years. In April 1830, at a function honoring the
birthday of Thomas Jefferson hosted by what was now being called the Democratic
Party – as compared to the opposition National Republican Party – dueling
toasts from supporters and opponof the Tariff and South Carolina’s response
to the same led Jackson to declare his support for, “Our Federal Union: It must
be preserved.” Calhoun, also in attendance and evidently still holding out hope
for some manner of compromise, responded by raising his glass to, “The Union.
Next to our liberty, the most dear.” While this exchange, in itself, might not
have seemed like much cause for concern, Jackson escalated matters somewhat
precipitously a few days later during an exchange at the White House with a
visitor from South Carolina. Asked if there were any words which the President
would like his guest to convey to any of his friends or acquaintances living in
the Palmetto State, Jackson purportedly replied that there most certainly were.
“Please give my compliments to my friends in your State [,]” he declared,
And say to them, that if a single
drop of blood shall be shed there in opposition to the laws of the United
States, I will hang the first man I can lay my hand on engaged in such
treasonable conduct, upon the first tree I can reach.
Notwithstanding his
Vice-President’s own best intentions, it seemed, a confrontation between
President Jackson and the Nullifiers was evidently in the offing.
The last straw – the thing that
tipped the Nullifiers into formal insurrection – was ironically intended to be
an act of conciliation and compromise. Over the course of 1831 and into 1832,
various forces within the National Republican Party – led by former Secretary
of State Henry Clay (1777-1852) – and the Jacksoninan wing of the Democratic
Party sought after and proposed a number of solutions to the ongoing crisis
which each of them hoped would settle the matter amicably. Clay called for a
reduction in tariff revenues by ten million dollars to be offset by an
anticipated budget surplus, Jackson proposed reducing the existing tariffs –
set at 38% on imported manufactures and 45% on imported raw materials – to a
flat 28%, and former President John Quincy Adams – now a member of the House of
Representatives – advocated for a compromise bill that would lower some
tariffs, maintain others, and reduce overall revenues by five million dollars.
The end result, after a series of negotiations, was the Tariff of 1832.
Authored principally by the aforementioned Congressman Adams in his role as
Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, this bill proposed to lower federal
tariffs across the board to 35%. The Nullifiers in South Carolina remained
strongly opposed – and even attempted to forge an alliance with Democrats in
certain Western states in exchange for Southern support for free land grants –
but the resulting House vote made clear the increasing tenuousness of their
position. New England voted overwhelmingly in favor, seeing the compromise as
an eminently reasonable one. The Middle Atlantic and the West followed suit.
Only the South came out against the measure, and even then, only by four votes
(36-32). With a final tally of 132 to 60 – as compared to the Tariff of 1828’s
margin of 105 to 94 – the House approved the Tariff of 1832 in the summer of
that year. The Senate added their endorsement shortly thereafter and Jackson
added his signature on July 14th.
Despite his evident hope that
matters with South Carolina would thereafter be settled – alongside those of
his supporters in Congress and the National Republicans under Clay and Quincy
Adams – Jackson’s behavior over the course of the next several months belied a
sustained suspicion on his part that some hazard yet remained. Acting on rumors
that the Nullifiers were working to convert officers of the Army and Navy
stationed in Charleston to their cause, he ordered a rotation of personnel
based on avowed loyalty to the federal government. Troops were also prepared,
and a naval squadron readied, in case federal forces needed to be rushed to the
Palmetto State’s capital. And by October of 1832, writing to Secretary of War
Lewis Cass (1782-1866), Jackson’s level of concern had risen to the point that
he appeared to expect a resort to arms. “The attempt will be made to surprise
the Forts and garrisons by the militia,” he cautioned accordingly, “And must be
guarded against with vestal vigilance and any attempt by force repelled with
prompt and exemplary punishment.” In seeming answer to these actions – and just
in time to coincide with Jackson’s landslide reelection – the South Carolina
legislature released an ordinance formally nullifying both the Tariff of 1828
and the Tariff of 1832 on the 24th of November. The President, one
can well imagine, did not respond with equanimity.
The actual wording of the nullification
ordinance, it should come as no surprise, was both blunt in its tone and
inflammatory in its effect. Congress, it asserted, in laying tariffs upon certain
imported commodities for the supposed purpose of protecting and promoting
domestic manufactures, had done so, “At the expense and to the injury and
oppression of other classes and individuals [.]” In so doing, the federal
legislature,
Exceeded its just powers under the
constitution, which confers on it no authority to afford such protection [and]
which provides for equality in imposing the burdens of taxation upon the
several States and portions of the confederacy [.]
Bearing this
purported fact in mind, it accordingly stood to reason that the tariffs in
question, approved by Congress in the years 1828 and 1832 were,
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, its officers or citizens;
and all promises, contracts, and obligations, made or entered into, or to be
made or entered into, with purpose to secure the duties imposed by said acts,
and all judicial proceedings which shall be hereafter had in affirmance
thereof, are and shall be held utterly null and void.
Practically speaking,
these few lines of text represented a massive assumption of authority on the
part of the government of South Carolina. Not only was the Palmetto State
claiming the right to declare such federal law invalid as it determined to have
violated the terms of the Constitution, but to likewise nullify all contracts
and judicial proceedings which appeared either to proceed from or to affirm the
same. Against such claimed prerogatives, by what means could the federal
government ever hope to assert itself? What law could Congress pass that South
Carolina couldn’t nullify? What ruling could the federal courts hand down that
the Palmetto State couldn’t claim the right to invalidate?
The Nullifiers
doubtless felt that their actions were entirely justified; nay, that the
principle of state sovereignty demanded such a defense. But the implication of
what they were attempting was potentially disastrous. The balance of state and
federal responsibilities that had been established upon the ratification of the
Constitution in 1789 – a balance which had thereafter sustained the American
republic through two disputed elections and a years-long war with one of the
Great Powers of the day – was likely to be thrown into chaos. As more states
followed the path set out by South Carolina and began nullifying such
legislation as their governments found disagreeable, federal authority would
practically cease to exist. Each state would claim sole authority to interpret
the Constitution for itself and its citizens, leading inevitably to conflicts
between states over the “true” meaning of significant articles and clauses.
States that chose to accept federal authority in most cases might maintain a
sense of national cohesion, but those who continually nullified federal law and
federal jurisprudence were bound to drift further and further from their more
obedient counterparts until such time as they might claim total independence.
Over a long enough period, if this assumption of power remained unchallenged,
it was conceivable that the United States of America might even cease to exist.
The Nullifiers,
it bears noting, likely didn’t have this particular aim in mind. Calhoun, for
his part, had spent most of his political career until at least the 1820s as an
ardent nationalist. In Congress he had worked to strengthen and centralize the
American military establishment after its middling performance during the War
of 1812. In 1816 he supported the chartering of the 2nd Bank of the
United States. And in 1817 he became James Monroe’s Secretary of War. The
impact of the Panic of 1819 and the Tariff of 1828 on the fortunes his home
state clearly changed his focus as a public servant away from national concerns
and towards those of South Carolina, but not to the point of desiring the
dissolution of the American republic. Nevertheless,
the position which he had adopted as to the very nature of the union of
American states – and which his fellow Nullifiers adopted in turn – undeniably tended
in that exact direction. Jackson appeared to perceive this more clearly than
his opponents and expressed himself accordingly to his constituents and fellow
countrymen.
Issued on
December 11th, 1832, Jackson’s proclamation denouncing South
Carolina’s ordinance of nullification made the stakes of the present crisis as
clear as anyone was likely to manage. “The power to annul a law of the United
States, assumed by one State,” he declared, was,
Incompatible with the existence of
the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized
by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which It was founded, and
destructive of the great object for which it was formed.
The President’s
rationale, as he went on to explain it, was as much moral as it was rigorously
legal or practical. On one hand, in light of South Carolina’s evident claim
that the unconstitutionality of the relevant tariffs derived in part from their
supposed purpose rather than the mechanism employed, he countered that it would
be virtually impossible to ascertain the intentions of every legislator
responsible for crafting and approving every piece of federal legislation. “Who
is to make the scrutiny? How often may bad purposes be falsely imputed? In how
many cases are they concealed by false professions? In how many is no
declaration of motive made?” There could be no sensible answers to these
questions, Jackson avowed; no satisfaction to be derived from inquiring into
the purposes harbored by the people’s representatives while engaged in their
lawful duties.
On the other
hand, evidently seeking to arouse the pride that his countrymen had come to
invest in their collective sense of nationhood, he asked them what sense it
would make for the states to be able to nullify laws that “operated unequally”
when no law ever conceived by man had ever, or would ever, meet that criteria.
Why would the Framers have constructed a plan of government so completely and
fatally flawed as to permit any and every law passed thereby to be rendered
null and void at the pleasure of the states? The Constitution was surely worth
more than that. Indeed, Jackson declared, it was worth more than that; American
had made it so, by their actions and their faith. “We have trusted to it,” he
rhapsodized,
As to the sheet-anchor of our safety
in the stormy times of conflict with a foreign or domestic foe. We have looked
on it with sacred awe as the paladium of our liberties, and with all the
solemnities of religion, have pledged to each other our lives and fortunes
here, and our hopes of happiness hereafter, in its defence and support […] Did
we pledge ourselves to the support of an airy nothing, a bubble that must be
blown away by the first breath of disaffection? […] Did the name of Washington
sanction, did the States deliberately ratify such an anomaly in the history of
fundamental legislation? No. We were not mistaken.
Jackson’s tactic –
and indeed it was a tactic, whether he believed what he was saying or not – was
an exceptionally canny one. Whereas Calhoun and his allies were asking their
countrymen to essentially forget all that had transpired between the
ratification of the Constitution in 1789 and the present moment in 1832 which
had served to strengthen the authority of the federal government – and further
to imagine that the states had always possessed the means of invalidating
federal legislation – the President grounded his position on no such flight of fancy.
On the contrary, all that he asked of his fellow Americans was that they
remember what had actually happened in the preceding forty years.
The Constitution
had been drafted and ratified at the end of the 1780s precisely because the
inability of Congress to make binding demands of the states had proven to be an
untenable and unmanageable arrangement. If the United States was to survive beyond
its infancy – if the unity of purpose which had sustained the American people
through the horrors and trials of war was to endure – then the national
authority would need to be raised in some areas above that of the states. The
Framers knew this to be true, the majority of the delegates to the various
ratifying conventions knew this to be true, and at no point did anyone assert
that the states in fact retained the right to upend the resulting balance of
power at the pleasure of their governments. As made explicit in the original
text of the Constitution, and pursuant to the terms of the supplementary Bill
of Rights, the Government of the United States possessed sole authority in a
number of foreign and domestic policy areas within which the states were
forbidden to intrude and whose validity the states had no means to question. Not
only had this been the case in the early 1790s upon the election of the first
President and the seating of the first Congress, but it had continued to be so
through all the years since. And in all that time, the American people had
largely come to embrace what the Framers had devised in their name. They
celebrated the Constitution, honored its authors, lionized the first holders of
the great offices of state, and pledged themselves, as Jackson observed, to
defend the legacy that their forebears had left them. By attempting to deny
this state of affairs – by effectively endeavoring to claim that all was not in
fact as it seemed – the Nullifiers were thus in essence pushing against the
substance of the history of the nation in which they lived. It was not an
enviable position, to be sure, and one which left them at a distinct
disadvantage.
Their opponent,
after all, was the President of the United States. Even if the individual in
question hadn’t been a belligerent egotist who famously detested having his
authority called into question, the office itself had come to be associated
with a great deal of power. As Jefferson had shown during the tortured life of
the Embargo Act (1807), the President’s role as Commander-in-Chief of the armed
forces of the United States placed a great deal of coercive power at his
disposal in the event that a piece of federal legislation was being actively
defied. Provided the requisite Congressional approval – and sometimes even in
the absence of the same – the Chief Executive could conceivably order the Army,
the Navy, and the Revenue-Marine to secure federal property and protect federal
personnel, detain and search suspected violators, and generally seek to
intimidate all those who might otherwise consider breaking the law. Washington
provided a similar example over a decade prior. Confronted with what appeared
to be a nascent insurrection in Western Pennsylvania – the result of local
refusals to adhere to a federal tax on whiskey – the former Commander-in-Chief
of the Continental Army asserted his authority to call the state militias into
national service for the purpose of enforcing the offending excise and arresting
those who had led the campaign of resistance. Backed by these precedents, and
with the aid of an increasingly cooperative Congress, Jackson was accordingly
well-equipped to confront the Nullifiers and not the slightest bit squeamish of
doing so. If Washington and Jefferson had behaved in such a manner, what reason
had Old Hickory to fear recrimination for doing the same?
Congress seemed
to agree with Jackson’s accordant sense of resolution. Certain of its members
still held out hope for a negotiated settlement, of course, and pursued the same
through the end of winter and the beginning of spring in 1833. But the
President’s request for an authorization of force was likewise given a full and
fair hearing. The text of the resulting “Force Bill” – formally titled “An
Act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports” – was
submitted by Jackson to Congress on January 16th, 1833. Broadly speaking, it
proposed to accomplish three essential objectives by way of expanding executive
authority. First, in order better to, “Execute the revenue laws, and collect
the duties on imports in the ordinary way,” authority was to be granted to the
President to transfer the custom-house of a given district to, “Any secure
place within some port or harbour of such district, either upon land or on
board any vessel [,]” and at the same time, “To employ such part of the land or
naval forces, or militia of the United States, as may be deemed necessary for
the purpose of preventing the removal of such vessel or cargo” as were due to
be inspected and upon which taxes were due to be paid. Second, in the event
that the laws or judicial proceedings of the United States were interfered with
or obstructed, “By the employment of military force, or by any other unlawful
means, too great to be overcome by the ordinary course of judicial proceeding,
or by the powers vested in the marshal by existing laws,” the President was
thereby authorized to issue a proclamation, “Requiring all such military and other
force forthwith to disperse,” and, should it furthermore become necessary, “To
employ such means to suppress the same, and to cause the said laws or process
to be duly executed [.]” And third, in the event that a state refused to allow
persons charged with federal offenses to be jailed therein, it was to be deemed
lawful, “For any marshal, under the direction of the judge of the United States
for the proper district, to use other convenient places, within the limits of
said state [.]”
In practice, it
bears noting, hardly any of the powers allocated by the terms of the Force Bill
to the office of President fell much outside of the authority already known to
be possessed by the same. Between the established constitutional role of the
Chief Executive to, “Take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” and the
cited examples by which certain of Jackson’s predecessors had sought to
accomplish the same, there couldn’t have been much doubt, circa 1833, that he
indeed possessed broad discretionary authority over the lawful application of
coercive force. The fact that he nevertheless sought out the approval of
Congress – as did Washington and Jefferson – was therefore likely a strategic
decision rather than one which the law explicitly required. Under the
circumstances, with Congress itself divided over the various issues at hand –
protectionism, unequal taxation, the very nature of federalism, etc. – it
doubtless seemed a more prudent approach on the part of the President to
request an authorization of force – thus allowing Congress to have its say –
than to assert the attendant powers unilaterally and risk widening the scope of
the present crisis. Jackson’s waning belief in the necessity of protectionism
and his simultaneous amenability to a peaceful settlement did much to help this
strategy along. So long as the President made clear his willingness to support
the passage of a new compromise tariff – which he did – then Congress was
evidently willing to approve his desired assertion of executive authority.
In the end,
thanks in large part to the efforts of Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun – the
latter now representing South Carolina in the Senate – the Nullification Crisis
did not devolve into an armed internecine conflict. Seeking, in large part, to
save the very concept of protectionist tariffs from being forever stained with
the iniquity of having rent the union asunder, Clay endeavored to reach a
compromise with the Nullifiers that would preserve the principle of using trade
regulations to promote domestic manufacturing while lessening the practical
impact in economically disadvantaged states. The resulting proposal, when he
finally presented it in the Senate in February of 1833, thus embodied a very
gradualist approach to alleviating the controversy at hand. Using an earlier plan
that had been introduced in the House but failed to gain traction as a starting
point, Clay’s bill recommended the reduction of all duties mandated by the
Tariff of 1832 above the rate of 20% by one-tenth every two years. At the end
of nine years – in 1842, that is to say – this would leave all of relevant duties
at a flat rate of 20% across the board, where they would remain unless altered
by Congress thereafter. On the whole, it must be said, this did not represent a
particularly generous offer. Though the impact of higher prices for imported
goods would be steadily lessened in states like South Carolina – to the point
of falling below even the rates mandated by the Tariff of 1816 – the principle
objections which the Nullifiers had raised did not look as though they were
going to be addressed. Protectionism, which they had decried as
unconstitutional, remained the principle objective of the adjusted tariff
proposal, and the lowered import duties were still going to affect South
Carolina differently then Massachusetts, New York, or Pennsylvania. All the
same, Calhoun was inclined to accept the terms. The reason, no doubt, lay with
Jackson and his Force Bill.
The fact that
the fates of the Tariff of 1833 and the Force Bill became so closely
intertwined in practice is arguably a testament to the strategic acumen of the
Hero of New Orleans. Jackson was certainly willing to compromise. His
disenchantment with protectionism had mounted as the Nullification Crisis came
to a head in the early 1830s, and he was not so foolish as to imagine that his
reputation would emerge unscathed should conflict between the federal
government and the state of South Carolina have proven unavoidable. That being
said, Old Hickory had never been – indeed would never be – the kind of person
who much cared to wait for approval when he believed it was his duty to act. He
did ask Congress for an authorization of force, it was true. And he did make it
clear that he would support a viable compromise bill in the event that it met
with the approval of all those concerned. But what if Congress had rejected the
Force Bill? Based on Jackson’s reputation, his prior actions, and the
subsequent events of presidency, does it seem likely that he would backed down?
He had not done so during the Seminole War (1816-1818) when his generous
interpretation of the orders he’d been given very nearly lead to his dismissal
from federal service. And what was the result? The annexation of Spanish
Florida by the United States of America. And what had the actions of men like
Washington and Jefferson made clear about the authority of the President in the
context of law enforcement? Washington had called up and commanded the state
militias. Jefferson had commanded and directed the arms forces of the American
republic. What reason would Jackson have had in 1833 to doubt his own right to
do the very same? And what reason did anyone else have to doubt that Jackson
wouldn’t inevitably proceed as he saw fit? None at all, on both counts.
In may fairly be
said, in consequence, that Congress approved of Jackson’s Force Bill in no small
part because Jackson approved of their compromise tariff. And it may likewise
be reasonably argued that Calhoun in turn approved of the compromise tariff
because on some level he feared what the Force Bill would unleash. Jackson, in
essence, had handed to his countrymen a reasonably simple set of alternatives.
Either they could find some means of compromise that would settle the tariff
issue once and for all, or they could make their peace with the fact that armed
force was necessary. For the members of Congress, the correct response was also
the most obvious. Compromise is what they wanted, and so much the better if
Jackson was willing to support it. And in the event that their efforts failed,
it was certainly preferable to have validated the President’s subsequent
actions than to have opposed them to no avail. John C. Calhoun, along with his
fellow Nullifiers, appeared to come to much the same conclusion in response to
Jackson’s tacit ultimatum, though perhaps for different reasons.
Notwithstanding the principles which the Nullifiers seemed to want to shine a
light on as their case against the federal tariff regime hardened into an
outright defiance of federal law, the options laid before them at the beginning
of 1833 were regrettably rather stark. Either they could take whatever
compromise Congress managed to devise or they could brace themselves for the
bloodshed that was sure to follow the deployment of federal troops. No one
particularly desired the latter outcome, be they Democrat, Nullifier, or National
Republican. And Congress would certainly have objected if the President chose
to exercise his authority over the armed forces in the absence of their express
authorization. In the end, however, the Nullifiers knew what the Democrats
knew, what the National Republicans knew, indeed what everyone knew. Jackson
was going to do what Jackson was going to do. Such had ever been the case, and
such would ever be the case.
This particular
aspect of Jackson’s character is a large part of what makes the Nullification
Crisis such an interesting example of the evolution of executive authority
across the early history of the American republic. Whereas Washington and
Jefferson both used their authority as Commander-in-Chief to summon troops and
enforce federal law, Jackson only had to indicate his inclination to do so in
order to achieve the same final result. To some extent, as aforementioned, this
was simply a matter of personality. Jackson had well proven over the course of
his career that he was not the sort of person who threatened things that he was
not ultimately willing to do. But the actions of these previous Presidents must
also have played their parts. George Washington, during the Whiskey Rebellion
(1794), and Thomas Jefferson, during the life of the Embargo Act (1807-1809),
had both demonstrated that the office of Chief Executive possessed a
significant reserve of coercive authority which it could legally deploy in the
name of executing the laws of the land. It was true that Congress had in both cases
provided its authorization, but what was it that was actually being
accomplished? Were the House and the Senate actually giving the President new
powers which he did not already possess? Was that something Congress could even
do under the Constitution? Or had the assembled representatives merely
acknowledged something that already existed?
Jackson, being doubtless personally inclined that way, certainly acted as though he would have
answered that last question in the affirmative. Having witnessed, in the course
of his own lifetime, more than one of his predecessors assume active command
during a moment of national crisis, he had likely internalized the resulting
image of the President as a figure possessed of significant resources and
substantial discretion. The members of Congress, as seated at the beginning of
1833, doubtless disagreed with this characterization of the office of Chief
Executive as a matter of principle, but their actions likewise spoke to the
influence that previous Presidents had wrought. If they had truly believed
Jackson lacked the authority to deploy the armed forces as mandated by the
terms of his Force Bill, they might have demonstrated as much quite easily by
rejecting it out of hand and insisting on a seeking a compromise without the
Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. They did not, of course. Instead,
likely convinced on some level that Jackson already had all the precedent he
needed to deploy as much force as he believed the situation required, the
assembled Senators and Congressmen signaled their approval. And why not? Why
fight a battle that they were more than likely to lose? If Jackson was willing
to give them one last chance to arrive at a workable compromise, why anger him
needlessly by denying his authority as President? There would have been no
sense in it. The President may not have possessed unlimited authority, but as
the preceding decades had clearly shown that he had more than enough to put
down a rebellion or enforce an unpopular law. Whether the law as written
strictly agreed with this arrangement or not, the American people had come to
know it for a fact.
No comments:
Post a Comment