Later called the Tariff of Abominations, the Tariff of 1828 increased the tax on imported manufactured goods. The law economically benefitted the North—New England in particular favored high tariffs—and injured the South, which believed that the tariff was unconstitutional.
John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) was a congressman and senator from South Carolina and a vice president of the United States under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Calhoun played an influential role in the Nullification Crisis during Jackson’s presidency. After the passage of the Tariff of Abominations in 1828, Calhoun proposed state nullification of the law in South Carolina, arguing that states could block the enforcement of federal laws not adopted as Constitutional amendments. Though South Carolina eventually followed Calhoun’s...
The relationship between the North and the South was tenuous when Andrew Jackson came to office in 1828. Ever since the Constitutional Convention of 1787, northerners and southerners had fought over slavery and tariffs. Each region wanted to make sure their economies were protected in the new Union. Several times states threatened to leave the Constitutional Convention and abandon the writing of the Constitution. By the end of the Convention, both sides had made significant compromises to the Constitution such as the...