By John C. Calhoun (Anonymously)
Protective tariffs, as discussed in the text, are designed to protect American economic interests against foreign competition. In the early decades of the country it was manufacturing that needed protection, but duties on imported manufactured goods affected areas of the country that relied on manufactured goods from other regions. Since the Southern economy was centered around the export of cotton, protective tariffs affected that region disproportionately. The high tariff passed in 1828 was called the "tariff of abominations" by South Carolina. Although they took no action, they did issue a formal protest written anonymously by Vice President Calhoun. When the tariff was lowered in 1832, it did not satisfy South Carolina, and they then issued an ordinance of nullification declaring that the tariff would not be valid within their state. The three documents excerpted in this portion include South Carolina's Exposition and Protest of 1828, the South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification of 1832, and President Jackson's Proclamation to the People of South Carolina.
_ [T]hose who claim to exercise power under the Constitution, are bound to show that it is expressly granted, or that it is necessary and proper as a means of the granted powers. The advocates of the Tariff have offered no such proof. It is true that the third section of the first article of the Constitution authorizes Congress to lay and collect an impost duty, but it is granted as a tax power for the sole purpose of revenue, a power in its nature essentially different from that of imposing protective or prohibitory duties.
_.The Constitution grants to Congress the power of imposing a duty on imports for revenue, which power is abused by being converted into an instrument of rearing up the industry of one section of the country on the ruins of another. The violation, then, consists in using a power granted for one object to advance another, and that by the sacrifice of the original object.
_ So partial are the effects of the system, that its burdens are exclusively on one side and its benefits on the other. It imposes on the agricultural interest of the South, including the Southwest, and that portion of the country particularly engaged in commerce and navigation, the burden not only of sustaining the system itself, but that also of the Government. . .
_.The assertion, that the encouragement of the industry of the manufacturing States is, in fact, discouragement to ours, was not made without due deliberation. It is susceptible of the clearest proof. _
Our system, then, consists of two distinct and independent Governments. The general powers, expressly delegated to the General Government, are subject to its sole and separate control; and the States cannot, without violating the constitutional compact, interpose their authority to check, or in any manner to counteract its movements, so long as they are confined to the proper sphere. So, also, the peculiar and local powers reserved to the States are subject to their exclusive control; nor can the General Government interfere, in any manner, with them, without violating the Constitution.
With these views the committee are solemnly of the impression, if the present usurpations and the professed doctrines of the existing system be persevered in, after due forebearance on the part of the State, that it will be her sacred duty to interpose duty to herself, to the Union, to the present, and to future generations, and to the cause of liberty over the world, to arrest the progress of a usurpation which, if not arrested, must, in its consequences, corrupt the public morals and destroy the liberty of the country.
World History
