NAME: _______________________________________ PER#: __________ DATE: __________________
The Nullification Crisis Student Worksheet
Introduction:
During the 1820s and 1830s, tensions arose between the North and South that centered largely around the
issue of how much power the federal government had to enforce laws, and how much power the states
retained for themselves. Southerners during this time felt that measures being passed in Congress tended
to favor the North at the expense of the South. Many Southern leaders started to espouse the doctrine of
“nullification”—the idea that a state could refuse to enforce or obey a federal law if they felt that law was
unfair or unconstitutional. Philosophical battles over nullification occurred in the Senate, and then in 1832
South Carolina actually used the doctrine when it proclaimed an ordinance nullifying the tariffs of 1828
and 1832. Jackson responded to the ordinance with a proclamation to the people of South Carolina and
with the so-called “Force Bill.”
Directions:
Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable: Daniel Webster’s
Reply to South Carolina Senator Robert Hayne, 1830
http://www.socialstudies.com/article.html?article@webster1830
Use the information in this document to answer the following questions:
1. Webster summarizes the pro-nullification arguments of Senator Hayne (“the honorable gentleman from
South Carolina”). In your own words, briefly restate Webster’s assessment of Hayne’s position.
2. What does Webster say the “great question” is on which “the main debate hinges”?
3. What does Webster say is the only “ground” for which a state can annul a law of Congress? What does
he say this “ground” amounts to?
4. Webster later poses a rhetorical question about government: “Is it the creature of the state legislatures,
or the creature of the people?” In other words who created the U.S. government: the state legislatures or
the people? How does he answer this question?
5. What does Webster claim the problem is with state sovereignty being controlled only by its own
“feeling of justice”? In other words, what’s wrong with states deciding whether an act of Congress is fair
or unfair, constitutional or unconstitutional?
6. According to Webster, what is the evidence that the “people of the United States have chosen to impose
control on state sovereignties”?
NAME: _______________________________________ PER#: __________ DATE: __________________
South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, November 24, 1832.
This ordinance nullified the tariffs of 1828 and 1832. Go to
http://www.socialstudies.com/article.html?article@southcarolina_null1832 and answer the following
questions:
7. Read the first paragraph. The ordinance says that the tariffs were “in reality intended for the protection
of domestic manufactures and the giving of bounties to classes and individuals engaged in particular
employments, at the expense and to the injury and oppression of other classes and individuals…” Who
were these “classes and individuals engaged in particular employments”? Who were the “other classes
and individuals” the ordinance claims were hurt by the tariffs?
8. Read the second-to-last paragraph (“And we, the people of South Carolina…”). What did South
Carolina threaten to do if the federal government used “military or naval force” to enforce the tariffs?
President Jackson’s Proclamation Regarding Nullification, December 10, 1832
http://www.socialstudies.com/article.html?article@jackson_nullification
Jackson responded to South Carolina’s nullification ordinance by submitting a “Force Bill” to Congress
which would allow him to send federal troops to South Carolina to enforce federal laws—namely, the
tariffs. Jackson also delivered this public proclamation. Read the excerpts from the proclamation, then
answer the following questions:
9. Read the first and second paragraphs. What is Jackson referring to when he mentions the “two appeals
from an unconstitutional act passed by Congress”? Why does he say these make “the assumed power of a
state [i.e., nullification] more indefensible”?
10. Read the third and fourth paragraphs (the third paragraph begins “Look for a moment to their
consequence”). According to Jackson, what would happen if South Carolina were allowed to nullify the
tariffs? What does he claim would have happened had nullification “been established at an earlier day”?
11. Jackson says that “the ordinance grounds not only an assertion of the right to annul the laws of which
it complains, but to enforce it by a threat of seceding from the Union if any attempt is made to execute
them.” Why does Jackson claim that states do not have a constitutional right to secede? In a few
sentences—and in your own words—briefly summarize his argument.
12. What does Jackson say that “disunion”—secession—essentially amounts to?