326 HARRISON, TYLER 



Our survey of the political situation in 1832 is, 

 however, not yet complete. We have not yet taken 

 into the account the peculiar relations of the people 

 of the Southern states toward the two new parties, as 

 it was affected, whether directly or indirectly, whether 

 avowedly or tacitly, by the existence of their peculiar 

 institution, negro slavery. From the outset Southern 

 politicians were quick in perceiving that the security 

 of their system of slavery depended upon that inter- 

 pretation of the Constitution which should restrict as 

 far as possible the implied powers to be exercised by 

 the federal government. Herein, as strict construc- 

 tionists, they might seem to have been in harmony 

 with the Jackson Democrats as against the National 

 Republicans. But there was no such harmony. When 

 South Carolina in 1832 flung into the political arena 

 the gauntlet of nullification, she found Jackson and 

 his Democrats even more stanch in defence of the 

 Union than Clay and his National Republicans. At 

 that supreme moment Daniel Webster, whose political 

 existence was identified with defence of the Union, 

 was in alliance with Jackson, while Clay was dally- 

 ing and temporizing with Calhoun. In order to 

 explain this we must take our start from the South, 

 and see how the political situation in 1832 presented 

 itself to the Southern people. We know w r hat was the 

 attitude of Calhoun and of South Carolina. They 

 represented the impulse which thirty years later drove 

 the Southern people into rebellion. But there was 

 also in the Southern states a mass of political beliefs 

 and sentiments which, without agreeing with Calhoun 

 and with South Carolina, agreed still less with Jack- 

 son and Webster and the North. If we would under- 



