Hayne's doctrine was "not
maintainable, because, first, the General Government is not a party to
the compact, but a Government established by it, and vested by it with
the powers of trying and deciding doubtful questions; and secondly,
because, if the Constitution be regarded as a compact, not one State
only, but all the States are parties to that compact, and one can have
no right to fix upon it her own peculiar construction."
While the comparatively miserable condition of the cotton-growing States
of the South was attributed by most of the Southern Free Traders solely
to the Protective Tariff of 1828, yet there were some Southerners
willing to concede--as did Mr. Hayne, in the Senate (1832)--that there
were "other causes besides the Tariff" underlying that condition, and to
admit that "Slaves are too improvident, too incapable of that minute,
constant, delicate attention, and that persevering industry which are
essential to manufacturing establishments," the existence of which would
have made those States prosperous. But such admissions were unwilling
ones, and the Cotton-lords held only with the more tenacity to the view
that the Tariff was the chief cause of their condition.
The Tariff Act of 1832, essentially modifying that of 1828, was passed
with a view, in part, to quiet Southern clamor.
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