ly to protect industry. Up to that point, President Jackson's view was unknown. But that all changed at a Jefferson Birthday dinner. Most of the toasts had been printed up beforehand and were nullificationist. So Jackson rose, looked at Calhoun and stated, "Our Union. It must be preserved"(Coit 16). Calhoun knew he had to think of a retort so he stood and said, "The Union-next to our liberty most dear"(Coit 16). From this the public inferred that Jackson's view was that he was against nullification. A year later Jackson asked Congress to lower the tariffs, to make the South happy. Congress did so, but it was not enough for South Carolina. A month later a special convention met at the state capital and nullified the United States tariff acts of 1828 and 1832. Jackson ran for reelection that year without Calhoun and won. He declared, "The Constitution . . . forms a government, not a league"(Coit 17). He also stated that to annul a law was "incompatible with the existence of the Union," and "to say that any State may at pleasure secede . . . is to say that the United States is not a nation"(Coit 17). He meant that nullification or secession would be an act of war. He also stated in his famous proclamation to the South Carolinians, "The ordinance is founded . . . on the strange position that anyone State may not only declare an act of Congress void, but prohibit its execution; that they may do this consistently with the Constitution; that the true construction of that instrument permits a State to retain its place in the Union and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may choose to consider constitutional"(Commager 188). This clearly shows that Jackson thought that nullification was illegal according to the Constitution, and any attempt to enact it was a rebellious act of treason. The Constitution wasn't specific on either side of the issue, but Jackson manipulated the meaning of it well to sound like he was r...
