The Pros And Cons Of Andrew Jackson

In December, Andrew Jackson easily defeated his opponent and political enemy Henry Clay in the Presidential Election and renewed his attempts to put an end to South Carolina’s plan for nullification. Although Jackson was a Southerner and proponent of State’s Rights, he was still a man that rejected compromise and resented any and all challenges of his authority. Jackson deemed South Carolina’s actions to be illegal and sent a proposed Force Bill to Congress asking for the authority to take military action to enforce Federal laws in South Carolina. Congress approved the Bill giving Jackson the authority to send U. S. Troops and Navy ships to Charleston.

Andrew Jackson was likely the first American President to openly declare that secession

Most of the other Southern States were fully convinced that Andrew Jackson was ready and capable of making good on his threats. Fortunately for the nation as a whole, the U. S. Congress was already working on a compromise bill in an attempt to settle the issue and soon passed the Compromise Tariff of 1833. On March 13, 1833, the South Carolina convention reconvened and repealed the original Ordinance of Nullification but as a symbolic gesture, nullified the Force Bill. The United States had seemingly avoided the crisis but over next few years, most would realize that the crisis had merely been delayed. There has been a popular contingency among American historians and authors that tariffs were only a pretense and that South Carolina’s true motive was the defense of slavery. In reality, there was no threat to slavery so there could be no motivation to defend it. Considering that there were still thousands of slaves in the North and Northern merchants were still amassing large fortunes from the Atlantic Slave Trade at appears obvious that the most citizens of New England and New York had little objection to slavery where it existed. The institution of slavery played a major economic roll in both the North and the South. Congress was so opposed to abolition that it imposed a “Gag Rule’ preventing any legislation concerning slavery from even being introduced. Money, power and particularly the right of sovereignty were clearly the driving forces in the Nullification