Editing John C. Calhoun (section)

===Nullification===
{{See also|Nullification (U.S. Constitution)|Nullification Crisis}}
Calhoun had begun to oppose increases in protective tariffs, as they generally benefited Northerners more than Southerners. While he was vice president in the Adams administration, Jackson's supporters devised a high tariff legislation that placed duties on imports that were also made in New England. Calhoun had been assured that the northeastern interests would reject the [[Tariff of Abominations|Tariff of 1828]], exposing pro-Adams New England congressmen to charges that they selfishly opposed legislation popular among [[Jacksonian democracy|Jacksonian Democrats]] in the west and mid-Atlantic States. The Southern legislators miscalculated and the so-called "Tariff of Abominations" passed and was signed into law by President Adams. Frustrated, Calhoun returned to his South Carolina plantation, where he anonymously composed ''[[South Carolina Exposition and Protest]]'', an essay rejecting the centralization philosophy and supporting the principle of nullification as a means to prevent a tyranny of a central government.{{sfn|Niven|1988|pp=158–161}}

Calhoun supported the idea of nullification through a [[concurrent majority]]. Nullification is a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law it deems unconstitutional. In Calhoun's words, it is "the right of a State to interpose, in the last resort, in order to arrest an unconstitutional act of the General Government, within its limits".{{sfn|Crallé|1888|p=96}} Nullification can be traced back to arguments by Jefferson and Madison in writing the [[Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions]] of 1798 against the [[Alien and Sedition Acts]]. Madison expressed the hope that the states would declare the acts unconstitutional, while Jefferson explicitly endorsed nullification.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://billofrightsinstitute.org/founding-documents/primary-source-documents/virginia-and-kentucky-resolutions/ |title = Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (1798) |publisher = Bill of Rights Institute |access-date = January 6, 2016 }}</ref> Calhoun openly argued for a state's right to secede from the Union, as a last resort to protect its liberty and sovereignty. In his later years, Madison rebuked supporters of nullification, stating that no state had the right to nullify federal law.{{sfn|Rutland|1997|pp=248–249}}

In "South Carolina Exposition and Protest", Calhoun argued that a state could veto any federal law that went beyond the enumerated powers and encroached upon the residual powers of the State.{{sfn|Calhoun|1992|pp=348–349}} President Jackson, meanwhile, generally supported states' rights, but opposed nullification and secession. At the 1830 [[Jefferson–Jackson Day|Jefferson Day]] dinner at Jesse Brown's Indian Queen Hotel, Jackson proposed a toast and proclaimed, "Our federal Union, it must be preserved."{{sfn|Niven|1988|p=173}} Calhoun replied, "The Union, next to our liberty, the most dear. May we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the states, and distributing equally the benefit and burden of the Union."{{sfn|Brands|2005|p=446}} Calhoun's publication of letters from the Seminole War in the ''Telegraph'' caused his relationship with Jackson to deteriorate further, thus contributing to the nullification crisis. Jackson and Calhoun began an angry correspondence that lasted until Jackson stopped it in July.<ref name="John C. Calhoun, 7th Vice President (1825–1832)" />

Jackson supported a revision to tariff rates known as the [[Tariff of 1832]]. It was designed to placate the nullifiers by lowering tariff rates. Written by Treasury Secretary [[Louis McLane]], the bill lowered duties from 45% to 27%. In May, Representative John Quincy Adams introduced a slightly revised version of the bill, which Jackson accepted. It passed Congress on July 9 and was signed by the president on July 14. The bill failed to satisfy extremists on either side.{{sfn|Remini|1981|pp=358–360}} In October, the South Carolina legislature voted to call a convention to nullify the tariffs.{{sfn|Howe|2007|p=402}} On November 24, the South Carolina Nullification Convention passed an ordinance nullifying both the Tariff of 1832 and the Tariff of 1828 and threatening to secede if the federal government attempted to enforce the tariffs.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ordnull.asp |title=South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, November 24, 1832 |publisher=The Avalon Project |access-date=August 22, 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819073235/http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ordnull.asp |archive-date=August 19, 2016 }}</ref>{{sfn|Howe|2007|p=405}} In response, Jackson sent [[United States Navy|U.S. Navy]] warships to [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]] harbor, and threatened to hang Calhoun or any man who worked to support nullification or secession.{{sfn|Howe|2007|pp=404–406}} After joining the Senate, Calhoun began to work with Clay on a new [[Tariff of 1833|compromise tariff]]. A bill sponsored by the administration had been introduced by Representative [[Gulian C. Verplanck]] of New York, but it lowered rates more sharply than Clay and other protectionists desired. Clay managed to get Calhoun to agree to a bill with higher rates in exchange for Clay's opposition to Jackson's military threats and, perhaps, with the hope that he could win some Southern votes in his next bid for the presidency.{{sfn|Remini|1981|p=38}} On the same day, Congress passed the [[Force Bill]], which empowered the President of the United States to use military force to ensure state compliance with federal law. South Carolina accepted the tariff, but in a final show of defiance, nullified the Force Bill.{{sfn|Howe|2007|pp=406–410}} In Calhoun's speech against the Force Bill, delivered on February 5, 1833, no longer as vice president, he strongly endorsed nullification, at one point saying:
{{blockquote|Why, then, confer on the President the extensive and unlimited powers provided in this bill? Why authorize him to use military force to arrest the civil process of the State? But one answer can be given: That, in a contest between the State and the General Government, if the resistance be limited on both sides to the civil process, the State, by its inherent sovereignty, standing upon its reserved powers, will prove too powerful in such a controversy, and must triumph over the Federal Government, sustained by its delegated and limited authority; and in this answer we have an acknowledgment of the truth of those great principles for which the State has so firmly and nobly contended.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.umsl.edu/virtualstl/phase2/1850/events/perspectives/documents/calhoun01.html |title=John C Calhoun: Against the Force Bill |last=Calhoun |first=John C. |publisher=University of Missouri |access-date=May 17, 2016 |archive-date=June 24, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624084451/http://www.umsl.edu/virtualstl/phase2/1850/events/perspectives/documents/calhoun01.html }}</ref>}}

In his three-volume biography of Jackson, [[James Parton]] summed up Calhoun's role in the Nullification crisis: "Calhoun began it. Calhoun continued it. Calhoun stopped it."{{sfn|Parton|1860|p=447}}