In
early November 1832, President Andrew Jackson dispatched a spy to
monitor nullification forces in South Carolina, and “transferred several
military companies to Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney” in preparation
of war against that State. Though using these aggressive measures to
elevate his power and prestige, Jackson also urged Congress to lower the
existing tariff and “attacked the protective system for the first
time.” He had come to the view that like the national bank he opposed
for making “the rich richer and the potent more powerful,” protective
tariffs for Northern industry accomplished the same.
--Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
To Stand or Fall With Carolina:
“[Robert
Y.] Hayne’s [inaugural] speech was nothing short of a full-blown
statement of State supremacy….”Fellow citizens, This is Our Own – Our
Native Land,” declared Hayne.
“It
is the soil of CAROLINA which has been enriched by the precious blood
of our ancestors, shed in defense of those rights and liberties, which
we are bound, by every tie divine and human, to transmit unimpaired to
our posterity. It is here that we have been cherished in youth and
sustained in manhood….here repose the honored bones of our
Fathers….here, when our earthly pilgrimage is over, we hope to sink to
rest, on the bosom of our common mother. Bound to our country by such
sacred, and endearing ties – let others desert her, if they can, let
them revile her, if they will – let them give aid and countenance to her
enemies, if they may – but for us, we will STAND OR FALL WITH
CAROLINA.”
The
[South Carolina] legislature gave Governor Hayne authority to accept
military volunteers, to draft any Carolinian between eighteen and
forty-five (including unionists), and to call out the State militia. The
legislators approved a $200,000 appropriation for purchasing arms and
authorized Hayne to draw and additional $200,000 from a contingent fund.
On
December 26 Hayne issued his proclamation asking for volunteers; by the
beginning of 1833 the governor and his district commanders were
raising, equipping and training an army. Soldiers constantly drilled in
the streets, and for a season Carolina uniforms and blue cockades were
standard fare in churches and at tea parties. Over 25,000 men – more
than had voted for nullification in the first place – volunteered to
defend South Carolina against Jackson’s armies.
[Former
Governor James Hamilton’s military preparations] had a chance to win an
immediate victory over the two badly exposed federal forts. Fort
Moultrie had been built on Sullivan’s Island, and since South Carolina
owned part of the island, Hamilton’s volunteers could lay siege to the
fort. Castle Pinckney, erected on an island only a mile out from Gadsden
Wharf, could be battered down by the nullifiers’ heavy cannon.
The
necessity for a strategy of defense, however, weakened the possibility
of quick victory. The governor, commanding his army with commendable
restraint and caution, also knew that a concentration of troops might
precipitate a needless war. Hayne insisted that volunteers train at
home….[but with] the entire army in the uplands, Charleston would be
vulnerable to a concentrated federal attack.
Hayne
attempted to solve the dilemma with his mounted-minutemen plan. The
governor asked each district to appoint a small cavalry unit which could
race to Charleston on a moment’s notice. “If in each district only one
hundred such men could be secured,” wrote Hayne, “we would have the
means of throwing 2,500 of the elite of the whole State upon a given
point in three or four days.”
(Prelude
to Civil War, The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina,
1816-1836, William W. Freehling, Oxford University Press, 1965, pp.
264-266; 275-277)
