Exercise: Andrew Jackson and Nullification

Instructions: Navigate your browser to the text of Andrew Jackson's Nullification Proclamation available at the Library of Congress's “Primary Documents in American History” site at the URL below.
Click on the link to the Proclamation and read the document (note that clicking the “Next Image” link at the bottom of each page will allow you to “virtually” turn the pages. After reading the proclamation, answer the following questions.

Visit URL:  http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Nullification.html

Question 1:  What are the reasons Jackson gives for his refusal to recognize the right of nullification?

Question 2:  From your reading of the document, how would you describe Jackson's perception of the Constitution and the American Union? Can this be reconciled with Jackson's declaration that he was an adherent to Jeffersonian states' rights ideals? If so, how?

Question 3:  In what specific ways does Jackson use historical precedent to rebut the claims of the nullifiers? Is this an effective strategy, in your assessment?

Question 4:  What does Jackson propose as ways for the nullifiers to legitimately air their grievances? Why does he equate nullification with lawlessness and treason?

Question 5:  What does Jackson threaten to do if South Carolina persists in the assertion of its right to nullify federal legislation? What other options, not mentioned by Jackson, might have been available? Why do you think Jackson chose the line of action that he articulates at the end of the proclamation?

Question 6:  In what specific ways does this document inform our larger understanding of the ways in which Americans thought about their Union and its purposes?