Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/350

292 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS country, and refused to enforce the rights that had been guaranteed to the Indians by the United States. His feelings toward Indians were those of a frontier fighter, and he asked, with telling force, whether an eastern state, such as New York, would endure the nuisance of an independent In dian state within her own boundaries. In his sympathy with the people of Georgia on the particular question at issue, he seemed to be conniving at the dangerous principle of nullifica tion. These events were carefully noted by the politicians of South Carolina. The protectionist policy, which since the peace of 1815 had been growing in favor at the north, had culminated in 1828 in the so-called "tariff of abominations." This tariff, the result of a wild helter-skelter scramble of rival interests, deserved its name on many accounts. It discriminated, with especial un fairness, against the southern people, who were very naturally and properly enraged by it. A new tariff, passed in 1832, modified some of the most objectionable features of the old one, but still failed of justice to the southerners. Jackson was op posed to the principle of protective tariffs, and from his course with Georgia it might be argued that he would not interfere with extreme measures on the part of the south. During the whole of Jackson s first term there was more or less vague talk about nullification. The subject had a way