authority seemed to be in favor of the constitutionality of the tariff acts; yet it was solely upon the ground of their being palpably unconstitutional that the right to nullify them was maintained in South Carolina. Surely the question of constitutionality must be admitted to be open to debate; then the State Rights party was wrong in asserting the right of nullification, since it based its contention on the construction of a doubtful clause. Such were the arguments of the Union party.
Meanwhile Jackson and Calhoun were changing from friends and allies to irreconcilable foes; the latter was watching his presidential chances fade away, and he was soon to be forced to take an open stand on the controversy between his state and the federal government.
several of the members had been delegates to the convention. It was so considered in South Carolina in 1816. The commercial and navigating states of New England were as hostile to it in 1816 and 1834 as was South Carolina now. Their representatives had opposed it zealously and pertinaciously at these dates, yet not one of them had denied its constitutionality. In the late free-trade convention in Philadelphia all concurred in admitting the impolicy and injuriousness of the protective system, yet was it deemed advisable not to discuss its constitutionality, as opinions were divided upon the subject.
