The Nullification Crisis was a protest from South Carolina in response to the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832. The Tariff of 1828 was enforced by President Andrew Jackson, who wanted to protect agricultural products from competition with foreign imports. However, the tariff caused outrage in the South because the tax on foreign goods hurt farmers by raising the cost of living. Additionally, cotton farmers found out that Britain was planning to look for other markets to obtain cotton due to the high costs of cotton.
In order to appeal to the South, Jackson issued the Tariff of 1832 to reduce the tariffs made in 1828. However, this was still unsatisfactory for some parts of the South and, in particular, South Carolina. South Carolina referenced the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, which gave states "the authority to determine when a federal government exceeded its powers, and they could declare the acts to be 'void and no force' in their jurisdictions." They believed that they could also declare a legislation as "void," since the federal government was exercising too much power.
As a result of the conflict in South Carolina, the state issued the Ordinance of Nullification, which nullified the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 and declared that they were unconstitutional. South Carolina also made attempts to convince other southern states to join in, but this did not work out. In response to the Ordinance of Nullification, Jackson issued the Force Bill, which gave him the ability to use military to collect tariff duties.
The Force Bill led South Carolina to rescind on the Ordinance of Nullification under the threat that the military would be involved. South Carolina ended up complying with the tariffs since there were also no other southern states that joined in on the opposition. While South Carolina was unable to successfully oppose the strong federal government, the Nullification Crisis drew awareness from the South as they became afraid that the government and the North would become too powerful.
It can be seen that the powerful federal government did play an important factor leading up to the Civil War. As the government often ignored the ideas of the South and mostly supported the North, southern states started to secede. The states could no longer tolerate the legislations enforced by the federal government. As one of the Review Essay parts has an option to choose to discuss the Nullification Crisis, this post might be helpful to understand the motives of South Carolina and the result of the crisis.
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/nullification-crisis
https://historyengine.richmond.edu/episodes/view/300
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h268.html
https://www.britannica.com/event/Virginia-and-Kentucky-Resolutions
I really enjoy how your post was very informative, and it gave both background info and analysis of the reasons and causes for the Nullification crisis. Although Jackson seemed as a whole to be against a strong federal government, for example his elimination of the federal bank. However, in this case he actually defended the power of the federal government by creating the force bill. In the end, south Carolina and Jackson actually seemed to have reached a compromise for the public, because there was a reduction in the tariffs at the same time that the Force Bill passed.
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