John Quincy Adams is generally regarded as an excellent diplomat and an outstanding abolitionist but not a great president. That’s not an altogether fair assessment. Adams did not enjoy universal respect due to the manner in which he became president. (He finished second in the popular vote and electoral college, but since no candidate had a majority of electoral votes, the House of Representatives decided the outcome.) Adams was stymied by a Congress controlled by his political enemies. His lack of doling out patronage appointments didn’t win him any friends either. But as president, Adams made some strides in modernizing the American economy and promoting education. He also succeeded in paying off much of the national debt.
During his term in office, Adams’ goal was to transform the United States into a world power. He decided to set a high tariff on imported goods to obtain revenue to support internal improvements such as road-building. He promoted the need for a national bank to support industry and he saw the need for a national currency. In his first annual message to Congress, Adams presented an ambitious program for modernization that included roads, canals, a national university, an astronomical observatory, and other initiatives. His proposals met with opposition, mainly from the supporters of Andrew Jackson, who believed that Adams had stolen the presidency from Jackson by means of a “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay.
Some of Adams’ proposals were adopted. Cumberland Road was extended into Ohio with surveys for its continuation west to St. Louis. Construction of a number of canals was begin including the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and the Louisville and Portland Canal around the falls of the Ohio, as well as the connection of a canal from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River system in Ohio and Indiana and the enlargement and rebuilding of the Dismal Swamp Canal in North Carolina.
The imposition of protective tariffs was perhaps the most politically divisive issue that Adams had to confront. Henry Clay, Adams’ Secretary of State, was a leading advocate for high tariffs. In his last year in office, Adams signed into law the Tariff of 1828, known to its critics as the “Tariff of Abominations.” The major goal of the tariff was to protect industries in the north which were being driven out of business by low-priced imported goods. After the War of 1812 and the Napoleonic Wars, the blockade of Europe led British manufacturers to offer goods in America at low prices that American manufacturers often could not match.The South, however, was harmed directly by having to pay higher prices on goods which it did not produce. It was also hurt because a reduction in the number of British goods imported into the US made it difficult for the British to pay for the cotton they imported from the South. Southern states such as South Carolina, led by Vice-President John C. Calhoun, argued that the tariff was unconstitutional. Western agricultural states and New England favored them, and tariffs became a regionally divisive issue.
In order to prevent passage of still higher tariffs, while at the same time appealing to Andrew Jackson’s supporters in the North, Calhoun and other southerners proposed a tariff bill that would also weigh heavily on materials imported by the New England states. It was believed that President John Quincy Adams’s supporters in New England, the National Republicans, or as they would later be called, Whigs, would uniformly oppose the bill for this reason and that the southern legislators could then withdraw their support, killing the legislation. But the tariff passed, mostly with support from the large eastern states (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware) and the western states (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky) as well.
The tariff was signed into law by President Adams, even though he realized it would weaken him politically. In the Presidential election of 1828, Andrew Jackson defeated Adams with the popular votes of 647,286 voters (to 508,064 for Adams) and an electoral count of 178 (to 83). The tariff forced the South to buy manufactured goods from U.S. manufacturers, mainly in the North. Despite the economic suffering of the South, the US experienced net economic growth with US GDP increasing from $888 million in 1828 to $1.118 billion by 1832 largely due to growth of the Northern manufacturing base.
John C. Calhoun
In the next administration, John C. Calhoun (elected Vice-President once again, the first and only time the same VP served under two different presidents) strongly opposed the tariff. He anonymously authoring a pamphlet in December 1828 entitled “The South Carolina Exposition and Protest” in which he urged nullification of the tariff within South Carolina. The expectation of southerners was that, with the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828, the tariff would be significantly reduced. When Jackson failed to do so, the most radical faction in South Carolina began to advocate that the state itself declare the tariff null and void within South Carolina. In Washington, an open split on the issue occurred between Jackson and Vice-President Calhoun.
Many people expected Jackson, a major states’ rights advocate, to side with Calhoun. But when South Carolinians began to talk about secession and nullification, this made Jackson quite irate. On April 13, 1830 at the traditional Democratic Party celebration honoring Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, Jackson chose to make his position clear. In a battle of toasts, South Carolina Senator Robert Hayne proposed, “The Union of the States, and the Sovereignty of the States.” Jackson responded with a toast to “Our Federal Union: It must be preserved.” Calhoun then responded with his own toast, “The Union. Next to our liberty, the most dear.” Finally Martin Van Buren would offer, “Mutual forbearance and reciprocal concession. Through their agency the Union was established. The patriotic spirit from which they emanated will forever sustain it.”
On July 14, 1832, Jackson signed into law the Tariff of 1832 which made some reductions in tariff rates. The reductions were too little for Calhoun and his supporters. Earlier in the year Jackson became aware of rumors of efforts to impede the army and navy in Charleston. He ordered the secretaries of the army and navy to begin rotating troops and officers based on their loyalty to the Union. He also ordered General Winfield Scott to prepare for military operations and ordered a naval squadron in Norfolk to prepare to go to Charleston. On October 19, 1832 Jackson wrote to his Secretary of War:
“The attempt will be made to surprise the Forts and garrisons by the militia, and must be guarded against with vestal vigilance and any attempt by force repelled with prompt and exemplary punishment.”“
By mid-November Jackson’s reelection was assure, and was followed by the nullification ordinance. on November 1832 South Carolina held a convention which overwhelmingly adopted an ordinance of nullification, calling for the state to refuse to recognize the new tariff law. The ordinance declared that the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 to be unconstitutional and unenforceable in South Carolina after February 1, 1833. Calhoun resigned on December 10. South Carolina Senator Robert Y. Hayne resigned to become governor of the state and on December 28, Calhoun resigned as vice president to become a senator, and lead his state’s charge against the tariff. Martin Van Buren had already been elected as Jackson’s new vice president,so Calhoun had less than three months left on his term anyway.
On December 10 Jackson issued the Proclamation to the People of South Carolina. In it he described the positions of the nullifiers as “impractical absurdity” and “a metaphysical subtlety, in pursuit of an impractical theory.” He went on to state:
“I consider, then, the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which It was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.”
Fearing military confrontation, a group of Democrats, led by Van Buren and Thomas Hart Benton sought a solution to the crisis as being a substantial reduction of the tariff. At a meeting in Charleston on January 21, 1833 it was decided to postpone the February 1 deadline for implementing nullification while Congress worked on a compromise tariff. Henry Clay had mixed feelings, wanting the issue resolved, but still bitter over his defeat in the presidential election, but ultimately Clay too worked on a compromise. Clay worked with Calhoun in negotiations that took place at Clay’s boardinghouse. Clay introduced the negotiated tariff bill on February 12, and it was immediately referred to a select committee composed of Clay as chairman, Felix Grundy of Tennessee, George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania, William Cabell Rives of Virginia, Webster, John M. Clayton of Delaware, and Calhoun. On February 21 the committee reported a bill to the floor of the Senate which was largely the bill proposed by Clay. The Tariff of 1832 would continue except that reduction of all rates above 20% would be reduced by one tenth every two years with the final reductions back to 20% coming in 1842.
In his February 25 speech ending the debate on the tariff, Clay condemned Jackson’s Proclamation to South Carolina as inflammatory, something that pleased Calhoun. The House passed the Compromise Tariff by 119-85. In the Senate the tariff passed 29-16. The Nullification Convention met again on March 11. It repealed the November Nullification Ordinance.
On May 1, 1833 Jackson wrote, “the tariff was only a pretext, and disunion and southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery question.”
On the last day of his presidency, Jackson reflected that he had only two regrets, that he “had been unable to shoot Henry Clay or to hang John C. Calhoun.”
Written for and published by the Presidential History Geeks ~ September 8, 2018
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