longer a question of reasonable
concession to the general national good. A vast artificial economic
system had been set up, whose benefits accrued to the North and whose
burdens fell disproportionately upon the South. The tone and temper of
the manufacturing sections and of the agricultural West gave no
promise of a change of policy. The obvious conclusion was that the
planting interests must find some means of bringing pressure to bear
for their own relief.

The means which they found was nullification; and it fell to South
Carolina, whose people were most ardent in their resentment of
anything that looked like discrimination, to put the remedy to the
test. The Legislature of this State had made an early beginning by
denouncing the tariff of 1824 as unconstitutional. In 1827 Robert J.
Turnbull, one of the abler political leaders, published under the
title of _The Crisis_ a series of essays in which he boldly proclaimed
nullification as the remedy. In the following summer Calhoun put the
nullification doctrine into its first systematic form in a paper--the
so-called _Exposition_--which for some time was known to the public
only as the report of a committee of the Legislature.

By 1829 the State was sharply divided into two parties, the
nationalists and the nullifiers. All were agreed that the protective
system was iniquitous and that it must be broken down. The difference
was merely as to method. The nationalists favored working through the
customary channels of legislative reform; the nullifiers urged that
the State interpose its authority to prevent the enforcement of the
objectionable laws. For a time the leaders wavered. But the swing of
public sentiment in the direction of nullification was rapid and
overwhelming, and one by one the representatives in Congress and other
men of prominence fell into line. Hayne and McDuffie were among the
first to give it their support; and Calhoun, while he was for a time
held back by his political aspirations and by his obligations as Vice
President, came gradually to feel that his political future would be
worth little unless he had the support of his own State.

As the election of 1828 approached, the hope of the discontented
forces centered in Jackson. They did not overlook the fact that his
record was that of a moderate protectionist. But the same was true of
many South Carolinians and Georgians, and it seemed not at all
impossible that, as a Southern man and a cotton plante