30 Southern Historical Society Papers.
This was in 1859, and it is only two years later that these people, who said that "the Union was not worth supporting," were hiring substitutes to force the South back into the Union.
The great disruptive force which, in addition to the slavery ques- tion, operated to antagonize the Northern and Southern sections of the Union was the tariff.
As this is still a current issue, and universally discussed in all its bearings, it needs no great explanation here.
Beginning about 1816, the protective policy gradually grew and widened against the most strenuous opposition from the Southern States. At first protection was opposed by New England, as they considered their interests better advanced by promoting foreign commerce, and consequently their own carrying trade, than by pro- tection; Daniel Webster was, in fact, one of the most earnest oppo- nents of protection in its early stages. But soon New England found it more profitable to foster manufactories under protection than to nurse the carrying trade hence she has ever since advo- cated protection as a patriotic measure.
Each successive tariff bill increased the bitter discontent and sense of injustice under which the South labored. The States of Georgia and South Carolina entered formal protests in their sovereign ca- pacity.
NULLIFICATION.
At length the irritation became so intense that in 1832 South Carolina passed the famous Ordinance of Nullification, whereby the revenue laws of the United States were suspended. The militia of the South were put in readiness for immediate service. On the other hand President Jackson sent United States troops and men- of-war to Charleston, and an armed conflict was imminent.
But at this critical junction Mr. Clay introduced his compromise resolution, whereby certain articles used in the South were put upon the free list. South Carolina was so far satisfied that her Conven- tion repealed the Nullification laws, and the great struggle was delayed for a time.
From the cessation of the Nullification struggle until the breaking out of the great war the same tendency is always manifest. The Northern members of Congress were perpetually agitating to increase the tariff burdens borne by the South, and to decrease the political importance of the South by abolishing her slave represen-
