nor less than the commencement of a system by which the peculiar policy of South Carolina, upon which is predicated her resources and her prosperity, will be shaken to its very foundation. In the opinion of your committee, there is nothing in the catalogue of human ills which may not be preferred to that state of affairs in which the slaves of our state shall be encouraged to look for any melioration in their condition to any other body than the Legislature of South Carolina. Your Committee forbear to dwell on this subject. It is a subject on which no citizen of South Carolina needs instruction. One common feeling inspires us all with a firm determination not to submit to a species of legislation which would light up such fires of intestine commotion in our borders as ultimately to consume our country.”

"1

1 Resolutions, in South Carolina Laws, 1828. The Italics are those of the author of this monograph.

CHAPTER IV.

SOUTH CAROLINA'S CHANGE OF ATTITUDE.

1823-1828.

THE political attitude of South Carolina up to about Change 1823 had been based partly on old Federalist tradi- of policy. tions, partly on the leadership of the remarkable body of young men who came into public life about 1812, but principally on a belief among very influential men that the interests of the State were best served by a broad and national policy. As we have just seen, however, soon after 1820 both the economic and the political condition of the country began to alter; on one side the North was calling for an extension of freedom; on the other side, the South began to be conscious of the danger to slavery. The inevitable result was a revulsion in the policy of the State: notwithstanding a stubborn resistance by a considerable minority, the ten years from 1823 brought the State to the issue of Nullification.

The first warning that South Carolina was to break away from the liberal leadership of Calhoun, McDuffie, and others was given by Thomas R. Mitchell in the House of Representatives in 1823. His speech sounded a new note from South Carolina.1 For the first time, so far as appears, was the constitutional ob

1 The Mitchell to whom Mr. Adams refers in his Memoirs as "a good-humored man, and of very good talents." J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, VIII. 449.

Mitchell leads the way in Congress.

Hamilton follows.

jection to a tariff measure raised by one of her representatives. His words, therefore, have a significance not measured by Mitchell's lack of eminence. "He was opposed to the measure," he said, "because it would. graft into our government the restrictive system, the pernicious effects of which had been experienced by every nation which had adopted it to any extent; and because there were constitutional difficulties to its passage, in his mind. . . . The gentleman may baptize the bill as he pleases, and it will still be a bill to enrich one branch of industry at the expense of another; to tax agriculture and commerce for the benefit of manufactures." 1

Hamilton "The encourage

This year Mitchell stood alone, but the following year, in the session of 1823-24, he was joined by James Hamilton, Jr. and Robert Y. Hayne. These two, the former a Representative, the latter a Senator, at once began to organize a systematic opposition to the centralizing policy of the government. Their speeches on the tariff bill of 1824 are worthy of notice, because for the first time we get a glimpse of the principles which they endeavored to apply in 1833. was the more emphatic of the two. ment of manufactures," he said, "is destructive of that uniformity of taxation which is the imperative precept of the Constitution. The cunning implication by which you get at this power only adds a mockery to an unjustifiable wrong. . . . But the objects of this Confederacy furnish the principles for the interpretation of the instrument. We are independent States, and our league merely looks to common defence, external and internal commerce, an army, navy, judiciary, and the powers necessary to carry these objects into effect. No one member of this Confederacy could have contem

1 Annals of Cong., 17 Cong., 2 sess., 1002 (1822-23).

1823-24.]

CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION RAISED.

55

plated joining a union in which 'the common defence
and general welfare' meant a sacrifice of any part of it
under fanciful and arbitrary considerations of 'good of
the whole.' We are not a consolidated empire, and
consequently we have no right partially to oppress any
portion of the state, however trifling may be the inter-
est violated. . . . But on the ground of expediency, is
it nothing to weaken the attachment of one section of
this country to the bond of union? . . . Let no man,
however, tax me with holding incendiary doctrines;
I know that South Carolina will cling to this Union as
long as a plank of it floats on the troubled ocean of
events. I know her lofty nationality and generous
patriotism."1 Rarely has a great prophet worked
harder than did Hamilton to blast his own reputation.
Hayne's remarks were in the same strain, and furnish Hayne
a fitting prelude to his constitutional exposition on the
floor of the Senate six years later. Where, he asked,
did the government get the power to adopt a system
to encourage a particular branch of industry? To say
that government had the right to encourage certain
pursuits and to prohibit others, was to make it, not
merely a consolidated, but an unlimited government.
"Gentlemen surely forget that the supreme power is
not in the government of the United States. They
do not remember that the several States are free and
independent sovereigns, and that all power not ex-
pressly granted to the federal government is reserved
to the people of those sovereigns."

"2

follows.

When we compare these utterances of Mitchell, A remarkable Hamilton, and Hayne in 1823 and 1824 with those of change.

Simkins, McDuffie, and Calhoun in 1817, we observe a

remarkable change. And these speeches, as we shall

1 Annals of Cong., 18 Cong., I sess., 2208 (1823-24).

2 Ibid., 648.

William
Smith
opposes
Calhoun.

Thomas Cooper.

see, only reflected the sentiments which had begun to spread among the people of South Carolina eight years earlier, and which by this time were probably entertained by the majority. Let us turn now to trace this change within the State.

To Judge William Smith must be assigned the principal place in organizing the movement, and directing it, up to 1826. With his first political breath he commenced his opposition to the policy advocated by Calhoun. In his maiden speech in the United States Senate in 1817, he opposed the "Bonus Bill," and in the following year made a vigorous fight against the tariff. In 1823, probably because he had antagonized Calhoun too strongly, he was compelled to make room for Robert Y. Hayne. Thereupon he returned to the State, and organized his forces for an attack all along the line.1

Judge Smith had a valuable ally in the President of the South Carolina College, Dr. Thomas Cooper, of whom Jefferson wrote to Cabell: "He is acknowledged, by every enlightened man who knows him, to be the greatest man in America in the powers of his mind and in acquired information, and that without a single exception." Perhaps we get a more correct estimate of the same man from President John Quincy Adams: "A learned, ingenious, scientific, and talented mad-cap is Dr. Cooper."2 Cooper was born in England in 1759, and was educated at Oxford. Threatened with prosecution at home for a political tract which he published, he left England, and, after a short stay in France, where he associated on intimate terms with the Republican leaders, came to America in 1792. A few years later he took an active part in the agitation against the Sedi

1 O'Neall, Bench and Bar of South Carolina, I. 109; Benjamin F. Perry, Reminiscences, 81.

2 La Borde, History of the South Carolina College, 163 et seq.