other. In the West and the Middle States
these questions were all-important, and by a union of the two sections
under the leadership of Clay a new tariff was passed in 1824, and in the
course of the next four years $2,300,000 were voted for internal
improvements.

The Virginia legislature (1825) protested against internal improvements
at government expense and against the tariff. But the North demanded
more, and in 1827 another tariff bill was prevented from passing only by
the casting vote of Vice President Calhoun. And now the two sections
joined issue. The South, in memorials, resolutions, and protests,
declared a tariff for protection to be unconstitutional, partial, and
oppressive. The wool growers and manufacturers of the North called a
national convention of protectionists to meet at Harrisburg, and when
Congress met, forced through the tariff of 1828. The South answered with
anti-tariff meetings, addresses, resolutions, with boycotts on the
tariff states, and with protests from the legislatures. Calhoun then
came forward as the leader of the movement and put forth an argument,
known as the South Carolina Exposition, in which he urged that a
convention should meet in South Carolina and decide in what manner the
tariff acts should "be declared null and void within the limits of
the state."

%334. May a State nullify an Act of Congress?%--The right of a state
to nullify an act of Congress thus became the question of the hour, and
was again set forth yet more fully by Calhoun in 1831. That the South
was deeply in earnest was apparent, and in 1832 Congress changed the
tariff of 1828, and made it less objectionable. But it was against
tariff for protection, not against any particular tariff, that South
Carolina contended, and finding that the North would not give up its
principles, she put her threat into execution. The legislature called a
state convention, which declared that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were
null and void and without force in South Carolina, and forbade anybody
to pay the duties laid by these laws after February 1, 1833.[1]

[Footnote 1: Houston's _A Critical Study of Nullification in South
Carolina_; Parton's _Jackson_, Vol. III., Chaps. 32-34; Schurz's _Life
of Clay_, Vol. II., Chap. 14; Von Holst's _Life of Calhoun_, Chap. 4;
Lodge's _Life of Webster_, Chaps. 6, 7; Rhodes's _History of the United
States_, Vol. I., pp. 40-50.]

Jackson, who had just been reelected, was not terrified. He bade