Nullification

10 Pages 2529 Words

s the balance of strength, and the free-traders, finding themselves powerless to gain their ends in Congress, began to indulge in treasonable language, claiming that individual States had the right to refuse to submit to laws which worked adversely to their interests.

It was particularly in South Carolina that this doctrine was advocated, and the power of a State to nullify, or to render null and void the operation of a Federal law, was openly advocated by hot-headed Congressmen of that State, who wished to apply this dangerous principle, which was but a step short of secession from the Union, to the tariff bill of 1828. Mr. Hayne of South Carolina, the opponent of Daniel Webster in the most famous oration of the latter, was an ardent advocate of this doctrine, and, while bitterly denouncing New England in that famous controversy, he openly urged on the floor of Congress the doctrine of "Nullification," claiming that any State when deeming itself oppressed by a law of Congress considered unconstitutional by the State legislature, had the right to declare this law null and void and to release its citizens from the duty of obedience.

It may be stated, as the general characteristic of the political tendencies of this period that there was a decided weakening of respect for constitutional restraint. Vague ideas of executive discretion prevailed on the one hand in the interpretation of the Constitution, and of popular sovereignty on the other, as represented by a President elevated to office by overwhelming majorities of the people. The expulsion of the Indian tribes from the Southern States, in violation of the faith of treaties and in open disregard of the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States as to their obligation; the claim of a right on the part of a State to nullify an act of the general government; the violation of the charter of the bank, and the Presidential veto of the act of Congress rechartering...