determined
union of the people and the States of the South" against interference
with the institutions of that section of the country. Already Georgia
had placed herself in an attitude of resistance to the Federal
Government upon the rights of the Indians within her borders, and
within the next decade she repeatedly nullified decisions of the
federal courts on this subject. In 1828 the South Carolina Legislature
adopted a series of eight resolutions denouncing the lately enacted
"tariff of abominations," and a report, originally drafted by Calhoun
and commonly known as _The South Carolina Exposition_, in which were
to be found all of the essentials of the constitutional argument
underlying the nullification movement of 1832.

When Jackson went into the White House, the country was therefore
fairly buzzing with discussions of constitutional questions. What was
the true character of the Constitution and of the Union established
under it? Were the States sovereign? Who should determine the limits
of state and federal powers? What remedy had a State against
unconstitutional measures of the National Government? Who should say
when an act was unconstitutional?

The South, in particular, was in an irritable frame of mind.
Agriculture was in a state of depression; manufacturing was not
developing as had been expected; the steadily mounting tariffs were
working economic disadvantage; the triumph of members of Congress and
of the Supreme Court who favored a loose construction of the
Constitution indicated that there would be no end of acts and
decisions contrary to what the South regarded as her own interests.
Some apprehensive people looked to Jackson for reassurance. But his
first message to Congress assumed that the tariff would continue as it
was, and, indeed, gave no promise of relief in any direction.

It was at this juncture that the whole controversy flared up
unexpectedly in one of the greatest debates ever heard on the floor of
our Congress or in the legislative halls of any country. On December
29, 1829, Senator Samuel A. Foote of Connecticut offered an
innocent-looking resolution proposing a temporary restriction of the
sale of public lands to such lands as had already been placed on the
market. The suggestion was immediately resented by western members,
who professed to see in it a desire to check the drain of eastern
population to the West; and upon the reconvening of Congress following
the Christmas recess Sena