Description:

Jackson Andrew

Broadside, newspaper sheet 15.25" x 19.75", with the headline in the top margin of The Lowell Mercury, Telegraph, and Compend(ium)---Extra. (MA). Dated "December 14, 1832". With bold caption headline that reads, Proclamation, By Andrew Jackson, President of the United States. The "Extra" features the entire Proclamation by Jackson to the people of South Carolina and is signed in type by the President, December 10, 1832. Printed in six columns of type on the front page and two columns of type on the back, with the remaining four columns blank. Damp stain through center of the page, slight edge wear to the left edge with small creases. Text comes to the bottom of the page, as such, it is unclear if the bottom edge may have been trimmed.

Written by Edward Livingston, the Proclamation to the People of South Carolina was issued by Jackson on December 10, 1832. It was penned at the height of the Nullification Crisis and is a direct response to the Ordinance of Nullification passed by the South Carolina legislature in November 1832. Its purpose was to subdue the Nullification Crisis created by South Carolina’s ordinance and to denounce the doctrine of nullification. The proclamation outlines the actions taken by the South Carolina legislature and rejects the insistence on state sovereignty, focusing on the preservation of the Union as the primary issue. It declares nullification to be "incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which It was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed." The proclamation also appeals to citizens to resist the violation of the Constitution.

The Nullification Crisis was a United States sectional political crisis in 1832-1837, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, which involved a confrontation between South Carolina and the federal government. It ensued after South Carolina declared that the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of the state.

The U.S. suffered an economic downturn throughout the 1820s, and South Carolina was particularly affected. Many South Carolina politicians blamed the change in fortunes on the national tariff policy that developed after the War of 1812 to promote American manufacturing over its European competition. The controversial and highly protective Tariff of 1828 (known to its detractors as the "Tariff of Abominations") was enacted into law during the presidency of John Quincy Adams. The tariff was opposed in the South and parts of New England. By 1828, South Carolina state politics increasingly organized around the tariff issue. Its opponents expected that the election of Jackson as President would result in the tariff being significantly reduced. When the Jackson administration failed to take any actions to address their concerns, the most radical faction in the state began to advocate that the state itself declare the tariff null and void within South Carolina. In Washington, an open split on the issue occurred between Jackson and Vice President John C. Calhoun, a native South Carolinian and the most effective proponent of the constitutional theory of state nullification.

On July 14, 1832, before Calhoun had resigned the Vice Presidency in order to run for the Senate where he could more effectively defend nullification, Jackson signed into law the Tariff of 1832. This compromise tariff received the support of most northerners and half of the southerners in Congress. The reductions were too little for South Carolina, and on November 24, 1832, a state convention adopted the Ordinance of Nullification, which declared that the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and unenforceable in South Carolina after February 1, 1833. Military preparations to resist anticipated federal enforcement were initiated by the state.

On March 1, 1833, Congress passed both the Force Bill - authorizing the President to use military forces against South Carolina - and a new negotiated tariff, the Compromise Tariff of 1833, which was satisfactory to South Carolina. The South Carolina convention reconvened and repealed its Nullification Ordinance on March 15, 1833, but three days later nullified the Force Bill as a symbolic gesture to maintain its principles.

The crisis was over, and both sides could find reasons to claim victory. This is a lovely example and an excellent representation of the period.

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