|
“Our free System of Government, however liable to local & acute maladies, has a chronic health & vigor….”
James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” lived to see the first major sectional crisis a generation before the Civil War. In 1828, Congress passed a new tariff intended to shield the developing Northern manufacturers from foreign competition. Distraught at the possibility of facing retaliatory tariffs against Southern cotton exports, Vice President John C. Calhoun and other leading South Carolina politicians began to formulate the doctrine of nullification, claiming that a state could declare a federal law null and void. Madison believed Calhoun’s theory was a grave threat to the Union. He expressed his views to Virginia neighbor and former Secretary of War James Barbour, who was now John Quincy Adams’s Ambassador to Great Britain.
JAMES MADISON. Autograph Letter Signed, to James Barbour, “Montpellier” [Orange, Virginia], December 18, 1828, 2 pp., 7 ⅞ x 9 ⅞ in. 2 pp. With integral address leaf.
Inventory# 12034 $70,000
Complete Transcript
Montpellier Decr. 18, 1828
Sir
I had the pleasure of duly receiving your interesting favor of Sept. 29. The agricultural scenery which charmed you so much has had the same effect on other strangers surveying it with an equal taste for such improvements. I wish you may have as much reason to be pleased with the countenance of the Cabinet when your objects are presented to it. We think here it is high time for a relinquishment of the theoretic fallacy, and practical folly of their [Britain’s] colonial doctrine; and for a discovery of the inconsistency of refusing our claim to the use of the St. Lawrence with theirs to that of the Mississippi; and what is more, with a reasonableness and a usage amounting to a Law of Nations in such cases.
The view you give of the harvest and market in G.B. [Great Britain] confirmed the accounts which had begun to raise the price of our flour; and those which followed soon after carried it up to $9 & even more. This how ever was very fugitive; and succeeded by a considerable depression. Latterly it has risen & fallen, according to arrivals from Liverpool & London, within the extremes of $8. & 6¼. At present it seems to be going up a little, under the influence of arrivals bringing information to the 2d. of Nov.r In the Fredericksburg Market flour is at present a fraction above $7: but the sellers hold back more than the buyers. The price of Tob[acco] is yet to be conjectured. The crop is short, & the character generally not good. Hopes are indulged that the market will be favorable especially for the best qualities. I take for granted that everything relating to your individual concern in these matters, reaches you from other & better sources.
I need not repeat to you the issue of the Presidential contest [The election of Andrew Jackson], which fame with ten thousand trumpets has already proclaimed, of the Cabinet in embrio [sic], and of the course that will be steered by the new Palinurus [Aeneas’ helmsman when he visited the Underworld], with respect to the stormy questions and baffling expectations, in the midst of which he will take the helm, I know as little as the least knowing, and must refer you for the various speculations afloat, to the metropolitan fountain from wch they flow.
I am sorry to say that the ferment produced in S. Carolina by the tariff subsides more slowly (if at all) than was to be expected. The Legislature is now in session, and the difference in opinions seems to be confined to the modes of effectuating its repeal or its nullification; all concurring in the unconstitutionality and intolerable oppression of the measure. As Georgia however does not back her neighbour in the extent that was probably expected, & N.C. will certainly not do so, whilst Virginia frowns on every symptom of violence and disunion; it may be confidently presumed that a favorable change is not very distant; such as will satisfy our Ill wishers abroad, that our free System of Government, however liable to local & acute maladies, has a chronic health & vigor that is sure to expel the cause of them. You will see that the Legislature of Virginia has re-elected Mr. Giles, and that he continues, tho with a lowered tone, to denounce the tariff. It is not probable that the subject will produce a reiteration of the language held at the last session. But I will not venture to be a prophet.
Your connections & neighbours as far as I have heard are all well. I have taken the liberty, since your departure, of writing you two letters: one relating to the University [of Virginia], the other requesting a favor for myself. I inclose copies of both; the risk of the sea, added to other risks, suggesting the precaution.
Health & all other blessings to yourself & those around you; a wish in which Mrs. Madison cordially unites with me.
James Madison
Historical Background
Efforts to foster economic growth by means of a protective tariff touched off widespread and vocal opposition in the South. Intended to shield the Northern manufacturing from foreign competition, the Tariff of 1828 effectively drove up prices of imported goods for Southern planters and invited retaliatory tariffs against Southern cotton. Many Southerners called it the “Tariff of Abominations.”
In his 1828 essay South Carolina Exposition and Protest, Vice President John C. Calhoun expanded earlier arguments favoring a doctrine of nullification. Calhoun argued that since the Constitution was a voluntary compact between sovereign states, a state legislature could declare acts of Congress “void and of no force” within its jurisdiction if a state believed such a law was an unconstitutional extension of federal power. Moreover, if a state then met with opposition from the other states, it could freely secede from the Union. Ironically, this position expanded upon a theory first proposed by Jefferson and Madison in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions opposing the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Unlike Calhoun, Madison, as chief architect and spokesman for the Constitution, viewed the document as a compact among the sovereign peoples of the several states, who were the only power capable of making a definitive decision on its meaning. Though he too was opposed to the high tariff, nullification represented a far more dangerous and disruptive innovation. A nationalist as well as a proponent of constitutionally-limited government, Madison put preservation of the Union first in his thinking.
The Presidential election of 1828, to which Madison refers, was the rematch between incumbent President John Quincy Adams and Democratic Party candidate Andrew Jackson. Only fifteen days before Madison’s letter, Jackson had defeated Adams in an electoral landslide, with Adams’ own Vice President, Calhoun, as his running mate. Calhoun had split with Adams over what he perceived as unfair favoritism towards Northern interests. Four years later, after Jackson threatened federal military action during the Nullification Crisis of 1832, Calhoun would again break with his President and become the first Vice President to resign from office. Calhoun instead ran successfully for Senate that same year in his native South Carolina.
Madison’s letter also touches on British-American diplomacy. James Barbour, who had been Secretary of War under John Quincy Adams, succeeded Albert Gallatin as Ambassador to Britain from August 1828 to August 1829. Adams, Secretary of State Henry Clay, and Gallatin suffered a number of setbacks in British relations. The Treaty of Ghent (1814, ending the War of 1812) had called for an international convention to decide the boundary between the United States and Canada. Clay and Gallatin made no progress and conflicts between lumbermen in the contested borderlands resulted. More seriously, in 1826, the British closed their West Indian ports to American shipping. Madison refers to this action when he writes of the “theoretical fallacy, and practical folly of their colonial doctrine.” While a Congressman in the 1780s, Madison had railed against Britain’s closing of West Indian ports, and had a firm and consistent record of opposition to British high-handedness. As President, he had fought to sustain American’s rights on the high seas, leading to the War of 1812.
Madison also agrees with Barbour on “the inconsistency of refusing our claim to the use of the St. Lawrence with theirs to that of the Mississippi…with a reasonableness and a usage amounting to a Law of Nations in such cases.” Quincy Adams and Clay had sought Britain’s concession for American ships to transit the St. Lawrence River, but failed. However, Madison was unaware that Britain, in 1824, relinquished its prior claim to the Mississippi, thus eliminating any possible quid pro quo. Soon it would little matter; as Barbour was recalled once Andrew Jackson took office and appointed Louis McLane Ambassador to Britain.
Condition
Very good. Previously folded, with remnants of red wax seal.
|
