Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

568 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
Congress in 1816 had imposed a tariff on certain articles imported from
foreign countries, making these articles much dearer in price than
articles of the same kind manufactured at home.* There was little op
position for a decade at least to this protective measure, the design of
which was to safeguard the nation's infant industries. But when the
manufacturing interests of New England made powerful by this system
of governmental favoritism began to acquire an increasing ascendency
over Congress and to dictate legislation, the South began at the same
time to assume a hostile attitude toward protection. Wholly an agricul
tural section, the South had received no benefit whatever from these
protective tariffs. On the contrary she had experienced resultant hard
ships therefrom.
In 1828, following the passage of a measure imposing a heavy pro
tective tariff upon the people, John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, be
gan to enunciate his famous doctrine of Nullification. He was at this
time vice president of the United States, an office to which he had been
elected in 1824, under President Adams; and he continued to hold this
same high office, under President Jackson. But all friendly relations
between Jackson and Calhoun were severed by the former's determina
tion to enforce submission to the obnoxious act of 1828.
Nullification, as defined by its great author, was the right of a state,,
when dissatisfied with an unjust law, to declare such law of no effect
within her borders. This doctrine was a natural outgrowth of Mr. Cal
houn's theory of the American Government, to wit, that it was not a
union of individuals but a league or compact between sovereign states,
any one of which had a right to judge when the compact was broken.
Meetings were held all over the cotton belt for the purpose of expressing
popular opposition to the Tariff Act of 1828.
Says Mr. Evans: " The people resolved to wear their own home
spun rather than buy Northern -goods and to raise their own hogs and
horses rather than buy from the west. In the Congress of 1828, many
representatives from Georgia and South Carolina appeared dressed in
homespun, which was woven on the looms of their own State." t Hon.
John MacPherson Berrien resigned from President Jackson's cabinet
because of his opposition to its protective policies. We are strongly
tempted in this connection to discuss the rupture of President Jack
son's cabinet, especially with reference to the somewhat dramatic role
played by the famous Peggy O'Neill who during the Jackson adminis
tration made a football of American politics and incidentally broke a
President's cabinet into splinters. But strictly speaking this does not
belong to the history of Georgia. J
In a resolution approved December 271, 1831, the Legislature of Geor
gia condemned the Tariff of 1828 as a violation of the Federal Constitu
tion, inexpedient, oppressive, unequal, and destructive to the great lead
ing interests of the South, pecuniary and political.** •
* "History of Georgia," E. P. Brooks, p. 173.
t "History of Georgia," Lawton B. Evans, p. 224.
t For an account of this affair, the reader is referred to "Vol. II, " Reminiscences
of Famous Georgians," by L. L. Knight, chapter on "Berrien, the American Cicero."
** Acts, 1831, p. 312.