Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/322

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The Compromise Tariff and the Force Bill
303

to the South than any that had been offered for years, and that its passage before the act of 1832 had gone into operation proved beyond doubt that it was brought about by some unusual cause. That cause, they declared, was nullification.[1] The tariff and administration press of the North, and the Union and administration or "collar" press of the South, however, attacked the bill in vigorous terms; some of the Union men even protested that it was worse than the bill of 1832, and announced that they would proceed to get a better one some day in their own way.[2]

Jackson took a view of the entire affair radically different from that of the South Carolina Nullifiers. On March 21, 1833, he wrote as follows:

Nullification, supported by the corrupting influence of the Bank, with the union of Calhoun and Clay, which collected around them the corrupt and wicked of all parties, engaged all my attention to counteract their combinations, and defeat their wicked projects. I met nullification at its threshold. My proclamation was well timed; it opened the eyes of the people to the wicked designs of the Nullifiers, whose actings (?) had been carried on in silence, whilst its ostensible object, which deluded

  1. Messenger, March 20, 27, June 26, 1833. Hammond Papers: Hammond to M. C. M. Hammond, March 27.
  2. Journal, July 20, 1833; Messenger, April 17, May 8.