The nullification crisis,southern discontents,and the American political process

The Nullification crisis has frequently been misunderstood because too much emphasis has been placed on South Carolina and the dramatic events of 1832–33. The broader perspective presented here reveals that not just South Carolina but the whole South (except the border states) turned against federal authority in the 1820s, driven by economic discontents and anxieties about maintaining control of the South's racial minorities. In 1828, however, this rebellious outlook found political satisfaction when Andrew Jackson and his supporters took control in Washington and proceeded to redress most of the South's grievances, including, in 1832, the difficult issue of the protective tariff. As a result, the rest of the South stood aside when South Carolina obstructed federal revenue laws, and South Carolina escaped from the crisis only by accepting a settlement that gave it a nominal victory while, in reality, restoring to Northern protectionists some of the advantages they had lost in the settlement of 1832. The interests of the South were best protected not by obstructing federal law, but by participating in the nation's democratic process.