Nullfication crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Nullfication crisis - Essay Example discussion, but more specifically, it will concern the Southern and South-western States, most notably South Carolina, who felt that the Tariff of 1828 was unjust. It is interesting to question precisely how this crisis came about and how it affected these Southern states, exploring the events lending up to 1832, and reflecting upon the results of the compromising measures that attempted to solve the crisis. Moreover, my purpose in what follows is to explore how South Carolina was involved in the Nullification Crisis more than her sister Southern states. Nullification was first introduced in 1789 by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, in which both states defied the Alien and Sedition Act, claiming they should have the right to nullify the law. However, regarding the issues surrounding South Carolina, it was John Calhoun who again brought up idea of nullification in 1832, as an alternative to the state’s threat to secede. The reason for South Carolina to call a state convention to nullify certain laws was due to the issue of a protection tariff, and the fact that the federal government ignored their protest and continued to collect these tariff duties. As maintained by John G. Van Deusen; ‘in 1832, the tariff question was most prominent in the minds of South Carolinians,’ but they also ‘complained of sectional discrimination in federal appropriations.’1 To understand how the tariff bill came to be a leading problem in the Nullification Crisis, what accounted f or the gradual build of opposition between the North and the South, and how it involved the former Vice-President, Calhoun, the events leading up 1832 must be explored. The protective tariff was a tax on imports, a high duty that was advocated on all goods that could be produced in sufficient quantity in the United States. In the tariff bill of 1816, protection was admitted as an incidental feature only, and the raising of revenue made the predominant