Fries applied for a pardon from president Adams, who granted such quite against his cabinet members desires. Adams explained that his decision not to hang Fries for treason was that since no military act was organized against the Federal government by the rioters the crime of treason would be ill fitting to this case. He explained the rebellion was no more than" a riot, highhanded, aggravated, daring and dangerous indeed"(6), but not one that was an example of treason. All these tax revolts added to the demise of the Federalist party and strengthened the theory that all people needed to do to eliminate a tax was to revolt against it. A pattern was certainly emerging that would validate such a conclusion.

So, as the Founding Fathers faded from view and a newer generation of leaders began to replace them, a chief aspect of contention between what was becoming a very bifurcated country was the monetary policy and tariffs (taxes on goods). Leaders such as South Carolinian John C. Calhoun began to become convinced that the Northern manufacturing interests were increasingly putting themselves in the role of master over the more agrarian Southern states. The South became afraid that they were fading into a sort of colonial dependency upon the more industrialized North.(7)

As early as 1816, Virginian John Randolph recognized that the North was increasingly beginning to see that industrialization was the key to an enriched and progressive future whereas the South was basing it's grasp on power upon the concept that government was to be run by the landed classes. Randolph said that the "South... had accepted the Union on the assumption that the power of government would remain in the hands of the landed classes, who alone have that understanding of tradition, without which no society can be healthy."(8) An accepted theory was that the South's dependency upon the North would destroy the Union, eliminate State sovereignty and that higher tariffs would devastate Southern agricultural interests.

In 1827 John C. Calhoun was the tie breaking vote to stop a wool tariff bill That would deal a crushing blow to Southern agriculture. It was widely believed in the exultant South that Calhoun loyally dashed his chances for becoming president in his own right by voting down the Northern interests and supporting the South. While this may have been an overstatement, the enmity that Calhoun was building over such issues in the North lends some credence to the idea.Yet, Calhoun stayed on the 1828 Andrew Jackson ticket as a candidate for vice president, none-the-less. Since 1824, when congress passed duties on hemp, cotton bagging and cheap wool thousands of petitions flooded Washington from the Southern states. The South was ever more isolated from the North over the tariff issue.

In 1828, Calhoun published a report to the South Carolina legislature titled The Exposition and Protest which signaled a beginning to the nullification crisis of 1828. The root evil of Northern oppression of southern interests was, the report expounded, the tariff bill of 1828 oft times derisively called the tariff of abominations by southerners. Calhoun warned that the North would grow ever richer while the south labored unceasingly and without recompense to assure the outcome that the south would loose their foreign markets when other nations answered the stiff tariff imposed by the U.S. government with prohibitions of their own and that the south would never be allowed to transform itself into a manufacturing power by northern interests which would endeavor to keep the south out of the game "by superior capital and skill".(9)

At this time in American history the Supreme Court had yet to attain it's preeminence as the final arbiter of the constitutionality of Federal law, so to thwart the tariff Calhoun came upon the novel idea of nullification. In short, he theorized, a state could declare a federal law nullified with an act by its own legislature. This act, in turn, would force the rest of the states to call a constitutional convention to determine the constitutionality of the matter and amend the constitution if agreed. As Calhoun explained to his friend Duff Green, "The ground we have taken is that the tariff is unconstitutional and must be repealed, the rights of the south have been destroyed, and must be restored, that the union is in danger, and must be saved."(10)

Many saw the nullification crisis as a call to secession, but not necessarily Calhoun. He envisioned the call to nullification as a means to address an unfair tax, one that would force the rest of the country to also address the issue despite their desire to do so. The logic of the idea, however, does not hold up and one might assume Calhoun knew it. If enough states got together and could nullify any particular law then even strictly constitutional laws could be struck down. The fevered pitch that the South Carolina legislature and populace reached during the crisis is proof of just how much they were against the tariff, though. South Carolina's senator, Robert Hayne, said during the nullification convention held November 24th, 1832 that the state would "maintain its sovereignty, or be buried beneath its ruins."(11) This sentiment sat well with the many South Carolinians who attended the meeting that day and also saw modest agreement with much of the southern populace outside the state.

They had reached such a pitch that President Andrew Jackson warned he would call out the militia to put down this South Carolinian rebellion created by his own vice president. Consequently, on December 24th he ordered General Winfield Scott to place Federal troops around Fort Sumter to guard the installation from South Carolina's hot headed state militia troops. Calhoun had formally broken with his president and was soon to resign his position as vice president.

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