eavily on the South, producing great irritation, and very
naturally "the planters complained that they had to bear all the burdens
of protection without enjoying its benefits,--that the things they had
to buy had become dearer, while the things produced and exported found a
less market." Financial ruin stared them in the face. It seemed to them
a great injustice that the interests of the planters should be
sacrificed to the monopolists of the North.

In the defence of Southern interests Mr. Calhoun in the Senate at first
appealed to reason and patriotism. It is true that he now became a
partisan, but he had been sent to Congress as the champion of the cotton
lords. He was no more unpatriotic than Webster, who at first, as the
representative of the merchants of Boston, advocated freer trade in the
interests of commerce, and afterwards, as the representative of
Massachusetts at large, turned round and advocated protective duties for
the benefit of the manufacturer. It is a nice question, as to where a
Congressman should draw the line of advocacy between local and general
interests. What are men sent to Congress for, except to advance the
interests intrusted to them by their constituents? When are these to be
merged in national considerations? Calhoun's mission was to protect
Southern interests, and he defended them with admirable logical power.
He was one of three great masters of debate in the Senate. No one could
reasonably blame him for the opinions he advanced, for he had a right to
them; and if he took sectional ground he did as most party leaders do.
It was merely a congressional fight.

But when, after the tariff of 1828, it appeared to Calhoun that there
was no remedy; that protection had become the avowed and permanent
policy of the government; that the tobacco and cotton of the South,
being the chief bulk of our exports, were paying tribute to Northern
manufactures, which were growing strong under protection of Federal
taxes on competing imports; and that the South was menaced with
financial ruin,--he took a new departure, the first serious political
error of his life, and became disloyal to the Union.

In July, 1831, he made an elaborate address to the people of South
Carolina, in which, discussing the theoretical relations of the States
to the Union, he put forth the doctrine that any State could nullify the
laws of Congress when it deemed them unconstitutional, as he regarded
the existing tariff to be. He l