Produced by Anthony J. Adam
John C. Calhoun,
"On Nullification and the Force Bill."
U.S. Senate,
15 February 1833
Mr. President:
At the last session of Congress, it was avowed on all sides that thepublic debt, as to all practical purposes, was in fact paid, the smallsurplus remaining being nearly covered by the money in the Treasury andthe bonds for duties which had already accrued; but with the arrival ofthis event our last hope was doomed to be disappointed. After a longsession of many months, and the most earnest effort on the part ofSouth Carolina and the other Southern States to obtain relief, all thatcould be effected was a small reduction of such a character that, whileit diminished the amount of burden, it distributed that burden moreunequally than even the obnoxious Act of 1828; reversing the principleadopted by the Bill of 1816, of laying higher duties on the unprotectedthan the protected articles, by repealing almost entirely the dutieslaid upon the former, and imposing the burden almost entirely on thelatter. It was thus that, instead of relief—instead of an equaldistribution of burdens and benefits of the government, on the paymentof the debt, as had been fondly anticipated—the duties were soarranged as to be, in fact, bounties on one side and taxation on theother; thus placing the two great sections of the country in directconflict in reference to its fiscal action, and thereby letting in thatflood of political corruption which threatens to sweep away ourConstitution and our liberty.
This unequal and unjust arrangement was pronounced, both by theadministration, through its proper organ, the Secretary of theTreasury, and by the opposition, to be a *permanent* adjustment; and itwas thus that all hope of relief through the action of the generalgovernment terminated; and the crisis so long apprehended at lengtharrived, at which the State was compelled to choose between absoluteacquiescence in a ruinous system of oppression, or a resort to herreserved powers—powers of which she alone was the rightful judge, andwhich only, in this momentous juncture, could save her. She determinedon the latter.
The consent of two-thirds of her Legislature was necessary for the callof a convention, which was considered the only legitimate organ throughwhich the people, in their sovereignty, could speak. After an arduousstruggle the States-rights party succeeded; more than two-thirds ofboth branches of the Legislature favorable to a convention wereelected; a convention was called—the ordinance adopted. Theconvention was succeeded by a meeting of the Legislature, when the lawsto carry the ordinance into execution were enacted—all of which havebeen communicated by the President, have been referred to the Committeeon the Judiciary, and this bill is the result of their labor.
Having now corrected some of the prominent misrepresentations as to thenature of this controversy, and given a rapid sketch of the movement ofthe State in reference to it, I will next proceed to notice someobjections connected with the ordinance and the proceedings under it.
The first and most prominent of these is directed against what iscalled the test oath, which an effort has been made to render odious.So far from deserving the denunciation that has been levelled againstit, I view this provision of the ordinance as but the natural result ofthe doctrines entertained by the State, and the position which sheoccupies. The people of Carolina believe that the Union is a union ofStates, and not of individuals; that it was formed by the States, andthat the citizens of the several States were bound to it through thea