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Lot 106
Proclamation by Andrew Jackson shown in a fantastic newspaper broadside, 1833
Description:

Jackson Andrew

Broadside, newspaper "Extra" 22" x 25.25". Dated " January 17, 1833", with the headline of Lowell Mercury-Extra (MA), along the top margin. The broadside contains the full text of President Andrew Jackson’s Message to the US Congress on the Nullification Crisis, which is printed in full in eight columns of type and signed in type by Andrew Jackson / Washington, DC / Jan. 16, 1833. Verso of page blank. Sheet has light softened folds. Scattered staining with light chipping.

President Jackson’s Message of January 1833 was his response to South Carolina passing the Ordinance of Nullification. Jackson called upon the Federal Government to pass a “force bill” to require South Carolina to collect Federal tariffs or else.

The severity of the situation is perhaps best expressed by noting the first few sentences of President Jackson's message:

"Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives,in my annual message at the commencement of your present session I adverted to the opposition to the revenue laws in a particular quarter of the United States, which threatened, not merely to thwart their execution, but endanger the integrity of the Union."

President Jackson’s Message was his response to South Carolina passing the Ordinance of Nullification. Jackson called upon the Federal Government to pass a “force bill” to require South Carolina to collect Federal tariffs or else.

The “Force Bill” was passed by Congress and consisted of eight sections expanding presidential power. It was designed to compel the state of South Carolina's compliance with a series of federal tariffs. The bill was opposed by John Calhoun and other leading South Carolinians. Among other things, the legislation stipulated that the president could, if he deemed it necessary, deploy the US Army to force South Carolina to comply with the law. It authorized the president to use whatever force he deemed necessary to enforce federal tariffs. South Carolina purported to nullify the Force Bill as well, but simultaneously, a Compromise Tariff was passed by Congress, defusing the crisis.

While the Force Bill rejected the concept of individual states' rights to nullify federal law or to secede from the Union, this was not universally accepted. It would arise again during the build-up to the Civil War.

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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