Editing Nullification crisis (section)

==South Carolina background (1819–1828)==
[[File:Sket-Calhoun.jpg|thumb|left|210px|John C. Calhoun]]

South Carolina had been adversely affected by the national economic decline of the 1820s. During this decade, the population decreased by 56,000 whites and 30,000 slaves, out of a total free and slave population of 580,000. The whites left for better places; they took slaves with them or sold them to traders moving slaves to the Deep South for sale.<ref>Freehling, ''The Road to Disunion'', p. 255. Historian [[Avery Craven]] wrote, "Historians have generally ignored the fact that the South Carolina statesmen, in the so-called Nullification controversy, were struggling against a practical situation. They have conjured up a great struggle between nationalism and States" rights and described these men as theorists reveling in constitutional refinements for the mere sake of logic. Yet here was a clear case of commercial and agricultural depression. Craven, p. 60.</ref>

Historian Richard E. Ellis describes the situation:

{{quote|Throughout the colonial and early national periods, South Carolina had sustained substantial economic growth and prosperity. This had created an extremely wealthy and extravagant low country aristocracy whose fortunes were based first on the cultivation of rice and indigo, and then on cotton. Then the state was devastated by the [[Panic of 1819]]. The depression that followed was more severe than in almost any other state of the Union. Moreover, competition from the newer cotton producing areas along the [[Gulf Coast of the United States|Gulf Coast]], blessed with fertile lands that produced a higher crop-yield per acre, made recovery painfully slow. To make matters worse, in large areas of South Carolina slaves vastly outnumbered whites, and there existed both considerable fear of slave rebellion and a growing sensitivity to even the smallest criticism of "the peculiar institution."<ref>Ellis, p. 7. Freehling notes that divisions over nullification in the state generally corresponded to the extent that the section suffered economically. The exception was the "Low country rice and luxury cotton planters" who supported nullification despite their ability to survive the economic depression. This section had the highest percentage of slave population. Freehling, ''Prelude to Civil War'', p. 25.</ref>}}

[[File:George-McDuffie.jpg|thumb|right|200px|George McDuffie]]

State leaders, led by states' rights advocates such as [[William Smith (South Carolina senator)|William Smith]] and [[Thomas Cooper (American politician, born 1759)|Thomas Cooper]], blamed most of the state's economic problems on the Tariff of 1816 and national internal improvement projects. [[Soil erosion]] and competition from the [[East South Central states|New Southwest]] were also very significant reasons for the state's declining fortunes.<ref>Cauthen p. 1.</ref> [[George McDuffie]] was a particularly effective speaker for the anti-tariff forces, and he popularized the Forty Bale theory. McDuffie argued that the 40% tariff on cotton finished goods meant that "the manufacturer actually invades your barns, and plunders you of 40 out of every 100 bales that you produce." Mathematically incorrect, this argument still struck a nerve with his constituency. Nationalists such as Calhoun were forced by the increasing power of such leaders to retreat from their previous positions and adopt, in the words of Ellis, "an even more extreme version of the states' rights doctrine" in order to maintain political significance within South Carolina.<ref>Ellis, p. 7. Freehling, ''Road to Disunion'', p. 256.</ref>

[[File:Thomas Bee's House.jpg|thumb|left|Thomas Bee's House, Charleston, ''circa'' 1730: The Nullification Movement that split the nation started here in 1832. John C. Calhoun, S.C. Governor Robert Hayne, General James Hamilton and other leaders drafted the Nullification Papers in the second-floor drawing room.]]

{{Anchor|Negro Seamen Act}}South Carolina's first effort at nullification occurred in 1822. Its [[planter class]] believed that free black sailors had assisted [[Denmark Vesey]] in his planned slave rebellion. South Carolina passed the Negro Seaman Act, which required all black foreign seamen to be imprisoned while their ships were docked in [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]]. If the captains did not pay the fees to cover the cost of jailing, South Carolina would sell the sailors into [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]]. Other Southern states also passed laws against free black sailors.<ref name="horne">Gerald Horne, ''Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation'', New York University (NYU) Press, 2012, [https://books.google.com/books?id=XTLFKrmJPgcC&pg=PA97 pp. 97–98] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230418184529/https://books.google.com/books?id=XTLFKrmJPgcC&pg=PA97 |date=April 18, 2023 }}</ref>

In August 1823, [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]] sheriff Francis G. Deliesseline boarded the British merchantman ''Homer'' and arrested Henry Elkison, a Jamaican sailor, under the Negro Seaman Act. Elkison, who was incarcerated in a Charleston jail for a period of time, sued South Carolina in the Supreme Court, arguing the act violated prior Anglo-American treaties. Supreme Court Justice [[William Johnson (judge)|William Johnson]], in his capacity as a circuit judge, declared the South Carolina law as unconstitutional since it violated the United States' treaties with the United Kingdom. The South Carolina Senate announced that the judge's ruling was invalid and that the act would be enforced. The federal government did not attempt to carry out Johnson's decision.<ref>Freehling, ''Road to Disunion'', p. 254.</ref>