every barrier to the rapacity or tyranny of factions or parties which might gain control of the Federal machinery.

But it was the only ground possible to be taken against Mr. Calhoun's views, and General Jackson's zeal got the better of his judgment, as is evident from the following extract from his farewell address published six years afterwards (March 3, 1837): "Its (the Government's) legitimate authority is abundantly sufficient for all the purposes for which it was created; and its powers being expressly enumerated, there can be no justification for claiming anything beyond them. Every attempt to exercise power beyond these limits should be promptly and firmly opposed. For one evil example will lead to other measures still more mischievous; and if the principle of constructive powers, or supposed advantages, or temporary circumstances, shall ever be permitted to justify a power not given by the Constitution, the General Government will before long absorb all the powers of legislation, and you will have, in effect, but one consolidated government." And, again, "every friend of our free institutions should be always prepared to maintain unimpaired and in full vigor the rights and sovereignty of the States." And, again, "Congress has no right under the Constitution to take money from the people unless it is required to execute some of the specific powers intrusted to the Government."

At that session of Congress nothing was done with the tariff; and during that year (1831) public attention was kept directed to the personal differences between the President and his cabinet, the schemes of Martin Van Buren to promote his own candidacy, and to the measures of the "kitchen cabinet," though the tariff was sufficiently absorbing in some quarters to induce the assembling of a free-trade convention in Philadelphia on

the 1st of October, and a tariff convention in New York on the 26th of the same month. That year also General Jackson changed the purpose announced in 1828 to decline a reelection to the Presidency, and made active efforts to insure his renomination.

On the 5th of December Congress met in regular session, and the people were anxious to know what view of the tariff he would now present in his message. The necessity for high taxes, it was known, would cease in a few years, since the public debt was rapidly approaching extinction; he said, in the message, that it would all be paid during his Administration, or by March 4, 1833. Hence, since the ordinary expenses of the Government did not reach $15,000,000, while the receipts of the treasury were more than $27,000,000, it was clearly the duty of the Congress to provide for a gradual reduction of tariff rates down to about half of the existing rates.

Accordingly the President, after reciting the above facts as to the public debt and the treasury receipts, advised a reduction as follows:

"A modification of the tariff, which shall produce a reduction of our revenue to the wants of the Government, and an adjustment of the duties on imports with a view to equal justice in relation to all our national interests, and to the counteraction of foreign policy, so far as it may be injurious to those interests, is deemed to be one of the principal objects which demand the consideration of the present Congress. Justice to the interests of the merchant, as well as the manufacturer, requires that material reductions in the import duties be prospective; and unless the present Congress shall dispose of the subject, the proposed reductions can not properly be made to take effect at the period when the necessity for the revenue arising from present rates

shall cease. It is, therefore, desirable that arrangements be adopted at your present session to relieve the people from unnecessary taxation, after the extinguishment of the public debt."

This recommendation, barring its assumption of power to adjust rates for fostering some interest against "foreign policy," was gratifying to the agricultural class, and tended to check excitement in the country.

But the Congress disregarded the recommendation; and unfortunately for the President and his good intentions, he had at the previous session of Congress assisted the protectionists in keeping up the necessity for high taxes by repudiating his previous construction of the Constitutional powers of Congress (in his Maysville Road veto) and approving a scheme of internal improvements which could ever after be repeated whenever there was a surplus in the treasury. Instead, therefore, of reducing the tariff rates as the President had recommended, the protectionists introduced and urged the passage of various internal improvement measures; and devised a plan for distributing among the States the proceeds of the sales of the public lands. 2

The first bill they passed-the result of much "logrolling”—carried an "amount exceeding $1,200,000," and was approved by the President. The second was for improving certain rivers and harbors, but it was vetoed. 3

3

1 In late years pension appropriations have furnished an additional outlet for any surpluses in the treasury; at the close of the Presidential term, March 4, 1889, a surplus of over one hundred million dollars was neatly disposed of by the "dependent pension" bill.

2 To get this money permanently out of their way, they passed a bill in the winter session of 1832-33 to distribute it among the States; but a "pocket" veto prevented it from becoming a law. (See Statesman's Manual, Vol. II, p. 1,012).

3 Statesman's Manual, Volume II, pages 994-95.

Having thus freed themselves from any necessity for serious reductions, they passed a bill lowering the rates on such articles as did not come in competition with like articles produced in the Northern States. Except a slight reduction on bagging, there was no lowering of the rates on cotton manufactures; on woolen yarn 4 cents per pound was added to the existing rate; on manufactures of wool not otherwise provided for the rate was advanced from 45 to 50 per cent; on wool hats there was no reduction from 30 per cent; on leather shoes there was no reduction from 25 cents per pair; on ready-made clothing there was no reduction from 50 per cent; on cut nails there was no reduction from 5 cents per pound; on earthenware there was no reduction from 20 per cent; on window glass there was no reduction from $3 for the cheapest and $5 for the dearest per 100 square feet, etc., etc. Having been approved by President Jackson, this bill became a law on the 14th of July, 1832.

Thereupon the members from South Carolina issued an address to their constituents in which they said with much truth that under such a system "the burden of supporting the Government was thrown exclusively on the Southern States, and the other States gained more than they lost by the operations of the revenue system. The address concluded thus: "They will not pretend to suggest the appropriate remedy, but after expressing their solemn and deliberate conviction that the protecting system must now be regarded as the settled policy of the country, and that all hope of relief from Congress is irrevocably gone, they leave it with you, the sovereign power of the State, to determine whether the rights and liberties you received as a precious inheritance from an illustrious ancestry, shall be tamely surrendered without a struggle, or transmitted undimined to your posterity.”

Meetings were accordingly held in South Carolina, the tariff was denounced, and pledges entered into to support any measures the Legislature might adopt and in the elections that year the anti-protectionists elected about three-fourths of the members of each House of the Legislature.

As soon as this was ascertained. Governor Hamilton convened the Legislature on the 22d of October, 1832. Early action was necessary, because it was expected that whatever was done would have an influence on the Congress which was to meet on the first Monday in December; and it was hoped that a bold stand for the rights of the State would have the same result as Georgia's stand had had in the contest over the lands ceded by the Creek Indians.

Immediately upon the assembling of the Legislature the tariff question was taken up, and a bill was passed on the 25th authorizing a State Convention to meet on November the 19th. It passed the Senate by 31 to 13, and the House by 96 to 25.

Delegates to the convention were promptly elected, and that body met on the appointed day, and, as hasty action was necessary in view of the early meeting of Congress, a committee was appointed at once to propose a plan of escape from the burden of the tariff. An appeal to the courts was clearly useless; for, although the purpose of many of the provisions of the law were grossly violative of the spirit of the Constitution and of the rights of the States, it was Constitutional in form and avowed purpose. There being no court, therefore, to which the State could appeal, the committee reported an ordinance, which was passed on the 24th, declaring that the tariff act of May 29, 1828, and that of July 14, 1832, were unauthorized by the Constitution; that they violated the true meaning and intent of it; that they