The Tariff of Abominations
The Tariff of Abominations was also known as the "Black Tariff" or the The Tariff of 1828. The tariff protected New England's manufacturing interests and the western agricultural products from competition with foreign imports. This tax on foreign goods had devalued the southern cotton exports. The South had strongly disliked this tariff because it helped the northern states but severely hurt the economy of the the southern states. This tariff lead to the the nullification crisis.
The Nullification Crisis
John C. Calhoun was an opponent to the Tariff of 1828 and he drafted his Exposition and Protest to this tax for the South Carolina legislature. In this essay he claimed that the United States wasn't a nation, instead it was a "Union" with equal and sovereign states. This also presented the doctrine of nullification, saying that southern states are able to protect themselves from harmful actions taken by the federal government. In 1830, Calhoun's doctrine reached the United States Senate in a debate over public land policy. Robert Hayne defined nullification and urged western states to also adopt this doctrine. Originally John C. Calhoun had believed that President Jackson would support that the tariff was extremely high instead Jackson had pushed a Force Bill through Congress, which had authorized military force against South Carolina for committing treason. South Carolina had called for the Columbia Convention, and the delegates at his convention had called for the tariff to be nullified within the state of South Carolina. This convention had also threatened to take South Carolina out of the Union if the government chose to enforce this law by using force. In the Tariff of 1833 introduced by Henry Clay called for the gradual reduction of the Tariff of 1828 to be back to the level of tariffs in the year of 1816. The compromise Tariff of 1833 ended the dispute over the tariff between the White House and the South.