prominent part in the attitude assumed by South Carolina against the protective system, which had reached its climax in the tariff law of 1828. In December, 1828, he drew up the “Exposition,” which, with amendments, was adopted by the legislature of South Carolina; also an address, 26 July, 1831, on the relations of the states to the general government; also a report for the legislature in November, 1831; also an address to the people of the state at the close of that session; also a letter to Gov. Hamilton on state interposition, 28 Aug., 1832; also an address to the people of the United States by the convention of South Carolina in November, 1832. In these papers he maintained the doctrine of state interposition, or “nullification.” During Jackson's first term, the influence of Mr. Van Buren became paramount with the president, and the alienation between the latter and Mr. Calhoun became irreconcilable. Mr. Van Buren was elected vice-president in 1832. The South Carolina convention in November, 1832, passed the ordinance nullifying the tariff laws of 1828 and 1832, and Mr. Calhoun was elected to the senate and took his seat in December, having resigned the vice-presidency. He appeared as the champion of his state, and defender of its ordinance of nullification, standing alone, but firm and undaunted. Both parties were opposed to him, and the administration menacingly so. A man of less intellect or less courage would have shrunk from the conflict. But he was courageous in conviction, and fearless of personal consequences. He gave up the second and surrendered all hope of the first, office in the country, to defend his state in her solitary attitude of opposition to the protective policy. The president's proclamation of November, 1802, was followed by the proposed “force bill.” Mr. Calhoun, in February, 1833, made an elaborate speech against it. To this Mr. Webster replied with great fulness upon certain resolutions proposed by Mr. Calhoun on the general question, whereupon Mr. Calhoun called up his resolutions, and made, 26 Feb., 1833, a speech of extraordinary force, to which Mr. Webster never replied. The issue in this debate of the giants was on the first resolution, as follows:
“That the people of the several states comprising these United States are united as parties to a constitutional compact, to which the people of each state acceded, as a separate and sovereign community, each binding itself by its own particular ratification; and that the union, of which the said compact is the bond, is a union between the states ratifying the same.” Mr. Webster denied the “compact” theory, and is said to have made use of much of the materials gathered by Judge Story in the preparation of the first volume of his commentaries on the constitution, published in 1833. Almost all of the democratic party, and many of the whigs, held that the constitution was a compact, but denied the right of nullification by a state; and some of these denied the right of secession to a state, holding the indissolubility of the union of these states because bound by a perpetual compact. They admitted Mr. Calhoun's premise of “compact,” but denied his conclusions. Mr. Webster denied his premise, and therefore his conclusion. Many, also, who believed in the right of secession, denied the right of nullification. Mr. Calhoun stood, therefore, alone in the senate, maintaining the premise of a “constitutional compact,” and his conclusion of the right of a state to nullify a law while remaining in the union, or to secede from the union entirely. The true nature of the doctrine of nullification was this: 1. It was claimed as a remedy within the union, reserved to the state according to the constitution; a remedy for evils in the union; and to save, but not to dissolve, it. 2. It was claimed for the state, as a party to the compact, to declare when it was violated, and to pronounce void an unconstitutional law; not to annul a valid law, but to declare void an unconstitutional law. 3. Its effect was (as claimed) to make wholly inoperative the law so declared void, because unconstitutional, within the state, and it seems that the United States should, according to the doctrine, thereupon suspend its operation elsewhere, and appeal to the states to amend the constitution by a new grant of power to make valid the law so declared void by the state. 4. This declaration of nullity of a law could not be made by the government of a state, but only by a convention of its people; that is, that the people of a state in convention, which had ratified in convention the constitution originally, should have power to declare unconstitutional an act done by the government created by that constitution. The genius of Mr. Calhoun was equal to the plausible and powerful support of this theory, which, however inconclusive from his premise of the constitutional compact, can not impair the truth of that premise, which, with transcendent ability and accurate historic research, he established on an impregnable foundation. The discussion had valuable results. Mr. Clay introduced his “compromise tariff” of 1833, which was passed before the session closed, with the support of Mr. Calhoun. It provided for a gradual reduction of duties during ten years, after which duties should be laid on a revenue basis. This issue ended, the re-charter of the bank of the United States, and the removal of the deposits therefrom by President Jackson, and the general question of currency, became prominent. Executive patronage also came into the debates of the last term of President Jackson. On all these questions Mr. Calhoun acted with the whig party. He preferred the bank of the United States to what was called the “pet bank system” of the executive. He condemned what he deemed executive usurpation, and denounced the influence of patronage as tending to the organization of parties upon the principle “of the cohesive power of public plunder.” He claimed to belong to neither party, but to lead the band of “state-rights” men, whose course was directed by principle, and not by the motives of party triumph or personal ambition. He took no part in the presidential election of 1836; but on the accession of Mr. Van Buren to the presidency, and in the extra session called by him in 1837, to consider the financial panic cf that year, he took ground for a total separation of the government from a bank or banks, favored the constitutional treasury plan, and acted generally with the democratic party, Gen. Harrison was
