The Nullification War

Here's a rough idea of how a War of Nullification (1833 Civil war) could go.


South Carolina previously proclaimed that the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional, declared them null and void, and threatened to secede over the issue.

In March of 1832, the Supreme Court asked Federal Marshals to enforce the ruling in Worcester v Georgia. Jackson, despite disliking the ruling, obliged with the court's request - much to the chagrin of Georgia and to the frustration of other states and territories that sought Indian Removal: Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

Deep Southern States decide to take up the idea of Nullification and apply it to the Indian Removal Act, which dictates that only the President can negotiate Indian Removal. Nullification is the big political issue in the 1832 election.

Upon Jackson's reelection in 1832, four states and one territory secede: South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. And Jackson is the President staring them down.

Thoughts?
 
Here's a rough idea of how a War of Nullification (1833 Civil war) could go.


South Carolina previously proclaimed that the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional, declared them null and void, and threatened to secede over the issue.

In March of 1832, the Supreme Court asked Federal Marshals to enforce the ruling in Worcester v Georgia. Jackson, despite disliking the ruling, obliged with the court's request - much to the chagrin of Georgia and to the frustration of other states and territories that sought Indian Removal: Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

Deep Southern States decide to take up the idea of Nullification and apply it to the Indian Removal Act, which dictates that only the President can negotiate Indian Removal. Nullification is the big political issue in the 1832 election.

Upon Jackson's reelection in 1832, four states and one territory secede: South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. And Jackson is the President staring them down.

Thoughts?
South Carolina is going at it alone.

The only thing Worcester decided is that Mr. Worcester should be freed. Which he was after several months. To quote:

Worcester v. Georgia

"The Court did not ask federal marshals to carry out the decision, as had become standard. Worcester thus imposed no obligations on Jackson; there was nothing for him to enforce.This may be seen as a prudential decision, for avoiding the possibility of political conflict between the Court and the Executive, while still delivering what appeared to be a pro-Indian decision."

The famous passages of the case was simply obiter dictum.

So there was nothing for Jackson to enforce, actually.

And you underestimate how popular Jackson is. Especially in the deep south. In the 1832 Election, he got about or nearly 100% of the popular vote in those states. And those states will not defy Jackson by applying nullification on anything. Including Indian Removal.

Remember, Andrew Jackson is a Southern slaveholder and "one of them" unlike Lincoln.

Plus, South Carolina is divided. Governor Hayne had 7,000 troops. Unionists under Joel Poinsett in that state has 11,000 mobilized. So the South Carolina would face its own civil war in its own state and outnumbered too.

In short, Jackson would simply face South Carolina, and no other state. And a divided South Carolina.

Curbstomp for Jackson and Union.
 
Here's a rough idea of how a War of Nullification (1833 Civil war) could go.


South Carolina previously proclaimed that the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional, declared them null and void, and threatened to secede over the issue.

In March of 1832, the Supreme Court asked Federal Marshals to enforce the ruling in Worcester v Georgia. Jackson, despite disliking the ruling, obliged with the court's request - much to the chagrin of Georgia and to the frustration of other states and territories that sought Indian Removal: Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.

Deep Southern States decide to take up the idea of Nullification and apply it to the Indian Removal Act, which dictates that only the President can negotiate Indian Removal. Nullification is the big political issue in the 1832 election.

Upon Jackson's reelection in 1832, four states and one territory secede: South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. And Jackson is the President staring them down.

Thoughts?

I know of two main texts on the nullification crisis; William Freehling's Prelude to Civil War and Richard Ellis's The Union at Risk and they have quite different perspectives on what actually happened in OTL.

I think you're correct in assuming that if John Marshall had called on Jackson to enforce Worcester, and Jackson had done so, Georgia might well have sided with South Carolina over nullification. There was certainly sympathy in Georgia for the nullifiers; an ally of former governor George Troup remarked that "[Jackson] denies the sovereignty of the states-he asserts the power of enforcing, at the point of the bayonett, an unconstitutional law upon a sovereign state, whose people in solemn convention, have declared that they never granted to Congress the power to enact such a law." In Virginia too, there was a feeling that whilst nullification - by a single state - was an extreme and potentially unconstitutional remedy, Jackson erred too far in the other direction, all but denying conventional states' rights. An unnamed leading Virginian, apparently opposed to nullification, is quoted in Ellis as warning that: "the executive can never march troops against South Carolina... but over our dead bodies... if coercion if attempted against South Carolina, she will not be alone in her opposition to the 'standing army'".

It's worth pointing that whilst nullification is generally presumed to be the extreme form of states' rights, they're actually sharply opposed doctrines; states' rights insists sovereignty is shared between the states and the federal government, that some rights belong to the states but that others are the rightful province of the federal government. In short, it presumes that federalism can be made to work. Nullification presumes that sovereignty cannot be shared and that federalism can never be made to work. This explains why most of OTL's nullifiers where actually former nationalists like Calhoun and Haynes, and why they were opposed by traditional states' rights men like William Smith and Nathaniel Macon.

South Carolina had two possible routes to success in 1832. The first is that the federal government simply accepts the unilateral nullification. Something similar had been done before by Georgia in 1826 over the Treaty of Washington. John Quincy Adams declared that Georgia must abide by the treaty, and Governor Troup replied that "[The president's message] asserts the broad power of the Executive of the General Government in any controversy between a State and the United States to decide the right and wrong of that controversy promptly, absolutely, and finally, without appeal, and to enforce such decisions by the sword, a power most awful, tremendous, and unnatural, and not given by the Constitution even to Congress." Adams blinked first, and Georgia effectively nullified a federal treaty. The hope of this happening in 1832 is slim however, because the stakes were so much higher; an optional tariff is an absurdity, and to accept that South Carolina (and hence any other state) could nullify the tariff would render in pointless. The federal government would have to intervene this time.

South Carolina's second hope was to unite enough of the southern states in their support. John Marshall recognised that this was their intention, writing that "Insane as South Carolina unquestionably is, I do not think her so absolutely mad as to have made her declaration of war against the United States had she not counted on uniting the South - beginning with Virginia." To resolve the crisis therefore, Jackson had to isolate South Carolina from the other southern states, and to isolate the out-and-out nullifiers from the traditional states' rights men. There's some debate as to how successfully he was in this; in Prelude to Civil War Freehling argues that he did so very effectively, whilst Ellis argues that Jackson blundered with his fiercely nationalist proclamation, alienating traditional states' rights men with his bellicosity and ended up having to accept the tariff of 1833 drafted by his opponents. From Ellis's perspective, South Carolina gambled - and arguably won by forcing the federal government to modify the tariff without conceding that nullification was illegal.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying Jackson was trying to avoid doing exactly what you've outlined; forcing the states' rights men in Georgia (and Virginia) into common cause with the South Carolinian nullifiers. Except sometimes, it seems, he blundered, as on the proclamation. Vice president-elect Van Buren was one of the strongest voices for conciliation over nullification and Worcester, but he wasn't the only counsel the president was receiving; over nullification, Jackson found himself in a surprising alliance with former Federalist Daniel Webster. After OTL's compromise, Webster tried quite hard to make their short-lived alliance into a permanent 'Constitution and Union Party', but to no avail.

If you want a POD that would make Jackson push more in a nationalist direction, I suggest avoid the contrived tie in the senate that allowed John Calhoun to defeat the nomination of Van Buren to be minister to the United Kingdom back in 1831. That vote both brought Van Buren home and endeared him to Jackson by making him appear to be a victim of a political stitch-up, and hence won Van Buren the vice presidential nomination in 1832. Get rid of that vote and keep Van Buren in London and Jackson loses a trusted pro-compromise advisor and will lean more heavily on men like anti-compromise men like Webster. The result is that the peaceful solution of OTL may not be possible, and Jackson may have to use force, either Poinsett's South Carolinian militia or (most likely and) militia drawn from other states.

South Carolina is going at it alone.

[...]

Plus, South Carolina is divided. Governor Hayne had 7,000 troops. Unionists under Joel Poinsett in that state has 11,000 mobilized. So the South Carolina would face its own civil war in its own state and outnumbered too.

In short, Jackson would simply face South Carolina, and no other state. And a divided South Carolina.

Curbstomp for Jackson and Union.

Whilst you're correct that South Carolina was isolated in OTL, that wasn't a sure thing, as I hope the discussion above indicates. Poinsett's men wanted Jackson to call them out as a militia, which the president was reluctant to do unless there was a violence on the part of the nullifiers first. If there is no compromise tariff, and the situation in Charleston deteriorates to the point of bloodshed, that may well happen. If Jackson does try to use force against South Carolina, I'd expect Georgia and Virginia to back it, potentially along with North Carolina, Mississippi and Alabama. Tennessee and Louisiana probably support the federal government, although neutrality along the lines of Kentucky in OTL's civil war wouldn't be out of the question; have a read of this. The result is an earlier - and very different - civil war.
 
@Well

Perhaps it's VA, SC, GA, AL, MS, and FL who would secede. TN goes with it's man President Jackson. I'm not sure what Louisiana does. If NC tries for neutrality, the result likely is an invasion by the seceding states for the purpose of contiguity.

This seems like the sort of conflict that the national government would win. The north may not have the advantage that it did later OTL, but this isn't just the north: It's northern states plus a couple of western ones. There likely also would be more internal division in the seceding states than there was during the OTL Civil War - Poinsett's militia being one example.

Going with your theorized scenario of Van Buren being shipped off to the UK, I wonder what the ramifications would be of an earlier Civil War and the formation of a Constitution and Union Party.

Even in the 1830s there were folks in Western Virginia pitching the idea of separating from Virginia. I think there was a real push for it in the 1820s. The proposed colony of Vandalia and state of Westsylvania were both early grabs at the idea.

Then there's the additional issue of, when Jackson is marching around the deep south and Virginia setting stuff on fire and putting treasonous heads on pikes - who is watching the slaves?

Should a deal be struck with the Civilized Tribes? Touchy subject.



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A thought. The United States at the beginning stage of The War of Nullification.​
 
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