of the States."

[1832]

John C. Calhoun was now, except, perhaps, Clay, the ablest and most
influential politician in all the South. Born in South Carolina in 1782,
of Irish-Presbyterian parentage, though poor and in youth ill-educated
like Clay and Jackson, his energy carried him through Yale College, and
through a course of legal study at Litchfield, Conn., where stood the
only law school then in America. November, 1811, found him a member of
Congress, on fire for war with Britain. Monroe's Secretary of War for
seven years from 1817, he was in 1825 elected Vice-President, and
reelected in 1828. He had meantime turned an ardent free-trader, and
seeing the North's predominance in the Union steadily increasing, had
built up a nullification theory based upon that of the Virginia and
Kentucky resolutions and the Hartford Convention, and upon the history
of the formation of our Constitution. He had worked out to his own
satisfaction the untenable view that each State had the right, not in
the way of revolution but under the Constitution itself--as a contract
between parties that had no superior referee--to veto national laws upon
its own judgment of their unconstitutionality.

[Illustration: Portrait.]
John C. Calhoun
From a picture by King at the Corcoran Art Gallery.

On this doctrine South Carolina presently proceeded to act. November 24,
1832, the convention of that State passed its nullification ordinance,
declaring the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 "null, void, and no law,"
defying Congress to execute them there, and agreeing, upon the first use
of force for this purpose, to form a separate government.

This was the quintessence of folly even had good theory been behind it.
The tone of the proceeding was too hasty and peremptory. The decided
turn of public opinion and of congressional action in favor of large
reduction in duties was ignored. But the theory appealed to was clearly
wrong, and along with its advocates was sure to be reprobated by the
nation. A precious opportunity effectively to redress the evil
complained of was wantonly thrown away. Worst of all, from a tactical
point of view, South Carolina had miscalculated the spirit of President
Jackson. At the dinner referred to, his toast had been the memorable
words: "Our Federal Union; it must be preserved." Men now saw that Old
Hickory was in earnest. General Scott, with troops and warships, was
ordered to Charleston.

The nullifiers receded, a co