Editing Nullification crisis (section)

==Tariffs (1816–1828)==
The [[Tariff of 1816]] had some protective features, and it received support throughout the nation, including that of John C. Calhoun and fellow South Carolinian [[William Lowndes (congressman)|William Lowndes]].<ref>Freehling, ''Prelude to Civil War'', pp. 92–93.</ref> The first explicitly protective tariff linked to a specific program of internal improvements was the [[Tariff of 1824]].<ref>Wilentz p. 243. Economic historian [[Frank Taussig]] notes "The act of 1816, which is generally said to mark the beginning of a distinctly protective policy in this country, belongs rather to the earlier series of acts, beginning with that of 1789, than to the group of acts of 1824, 1828, and 1832. Its highest permanent rate of duty was twenty per cent., an increase over the previous rates, which is chiefly accounted for by the heavy interest charge on the debt incurred during the war. But after the crash of 1819, a movement in favor of protection set in, which was backed by a strong popular feeling such as had been absent in the earlier years." [http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1136 The Tariff History of the United States (Part I)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071021182532/http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=1136 |date=October 21, 2007 }} ''Teaching American History''</ref> Sponsored by [[Henry Clay]], this tariff provided a general level of protection at 35% [[ad valorem tax|ad valorem]] (compared to 25% with the 1816 act) and hiked duties on iron, woolens, cotton, hemp, and wool and cotton bagging. The bill barely passed the federal [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]] by a vote of 107 to 102. The Middle states and Northwest supported the bill, the South and Southwest opposed it, and New England split its vote with a majority opposing it. In the Senate, the bill, with the support of [[Tennessee]] Senator [[Andrew Jackson]], passed by four votes, and President [[James Monroe]], the Virginia heir to the Jefferson-Madison control of the [[White House]], signed the bill on March 25, 1824.<ref>Remini, ''Henry Clay'', p. 232. Freehling, ''The Road to Disunion'', p. 257.</ref> [[Daniel Webster]] of [[Massachusetts]] led the New England opposition to this tariff.<ref>McDonald, p. 95.</ref>

Protest against the prospect and the constitutionality of higher tariffs began in 1826 and 1827 with [[William Branch Giles]], who had the Virginia legislature pass resolutions denying the power of Congress to pass protective tariffs, citing the Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and James Madison's 1800 defense of them. Madison denied both the appeal to nullification and the unconstitutionality; he had always held that the power to regulate commerce included protection. Jefferson had, at the end of his life, written against protective tariffs.<ref>Brant, p. 622.</ref>
[[File:MVan Buren-portrait.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Portrait of Martin Van Buren]]

The Tariff of 1828 was largely the work of [[Martin Van Buren]] (although [[Silas Wright Jr.]] of New York prepared the main provisions) and was partly a political ploy to elect Andrew Jackson President. Van Buren calculated that the South would vote for Jackson regardless of the issues, so he ignored their interests in drafting the bill. New England, he thought, was just as likely to support the incumbent John Quincy Adams, so the bill levied heavy taxes on raw materials consumed by New England such as hemp, flax, molasses, iron, and sail duck. With an additional tariff on iron to satisfy Pennsylvania interests, Van Buren expected the tariff to help deliver [[Pennsylvania]], [[New York (state)|New York]], [[Missouri]], [[Ohio]], and Kentucky to Jackson. Over opposition from the South and some from New England, the tariff was passed with the full support of many Jackson supporters in Congress and signed by President Adams in early 1828.<ref>Remini, ''Andrew Jackson'', v2, pp. 136–137. McDonald presents a slightly different rationale. He stated that the bill would "adversely affect New England woolen manufacturers, ship builders, and shipowners" and Van Buren calculated that New England and the South would unite to defeat the bill, allowing Jacksonians to have it both ways—in the North they could claim they tried but failed to pass a needed tariff and in the South they could claim that they had thwarted an effort to increase import duties. McDonald, pp. 94–95.</ref>

As expected, Jackson and his running mate John Calhoun carried the entire South with overwhelming numbers in every state but Louisiana, where Adams drew 47% of the vote in a losing effort. But many Southerners became dissatisfied as Jackson, in his first two annual messages to Congress, failed to launch a strong attack on the tariff. Historian [[William J. Cooper Jr.]] writes:

{{quote|The most doctrinaire ideologues of the Old Republican group [supporters of the Jefferson and Madison position in the late 1790s] first found Jackson wanting. These purists identified the tariff of 1828, the hated Tariff of Abominations, as the most heinous manifestation of the nationalist policy they abhorred. That protective tariff violated their constitutional theory, for, as they interpreted the document, it gave no permission for a protective tariff. Moreover, they saw protection as benefiting the North and hurting the South.<ref>Cooper, pp. 11–12.</ref>}}