s were favored by American manufacturers (mainly in the North), who wanted time to develop a native industrial base. They were opposed by users (mainly in the South), who had to pay more for such goods. This meant that their own costs of (mainly agricultural) production were high and that they were essentially subsidizing Northern industrial development. In response, Southern congressional representatives proposed an extremely high tariff, the so-called Tariff of Abominations, in 1828. The South thought that the North would find the tariff so bad as not to vote for it when it was on the brink of becoming a law. But the North was already committed to the principle of high tariff, and it passed. The policy that South Carolina followed led to the Nullification Crisis.
The basic doctrine of nullification was of extreme states' rights, that if state citizens bestow sovereignty on states, and if states make a compact to form a political union, then a state could interpose its own authority and nullify national laws not good for it. South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun's characterization of this was that in such a case the national government would have exceeded its constitutional authority (McCardell 41). Nullification was seen as an alternative to secession, though the Nullifiers held that if three-fourths of the other states sanctioned the national law the nullifying state could secede at its sole option. This argues a consciousness in the South of the consequences of outright split from the national
...