"minimum principle," which has played such a
figure in all our tariff history since 1816, its effect being always to
make the tariff much higher than it seems. Thus in the case before us,
most of the woollens then imported cost about ninety cents. If based on
this price, the tariff would be thirty-six per cent., but if based on
$2.50 as the price, it would mount up to one hundred and ten per cent.
To prevent this and to render the bill still more unpalatable to the
Whigs, the Democrats introduced a dollar "minimum," so that the tariff
on the bulk of our imported woollens, costing, as just stated, about
ninety cents, would come in at forty-four and four-tenths per cent.

But as this was after all more vigorous protection than woollens had
before received, amounting, through minima, in some cases to over one
hundred per cent., sixteen out of the thirty-nine New England members,
led by Webster, accepted this universally odious tariff bill--the Tariff
of Abominations, it was called--as the preferable evil, and, aided by a
few Democrats in each house, made it a law. The average duty on
dutiables was now about forty-three and a third per cent.

No one can question that this high tariff worked injustice to the South.
It forced from her an undue share of the national taxes, as well as
extensive tribute to northern manufacturers. But in resenting the evil
she exaggerated it, mistakenly referring all the relative decrease in
her prosperity to tariff legislation, when a great part of it was due
simply to slavery. The South complained that selfishness and political
ambition, not patriotism or reason, determined the dominant policy, and
there was of course some truth in this. Moreover, as New England now
favored it, this policy bade fair to become permanent, and since the
tariff bills did not announce protection as their purpose, the
constitutionality of them could not be gotten before the courts.

[1830]

Nearly all the southern Legislatures consequently denounced the tariff
as unjust and as hostile to our fundamental law. Most of them were,
however, prudent enough to suggest no illegal remedies. Not so with
fiery South Carolina, where a large party, inspired by Calhoun, proposed
a bold nullification of the tariff act, virtually amounting to
secession. At a dinner in this interest at Washington, April 13, 1830,
Calhoun offered the toast: "The Union; next to our liberty the most
dear; only to be preserved by respecting the rights