Concurrent Majority - Calhoun and Nullification

Calhoun and Nullification

During the first part of the 19th century, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina revived and expounded upon the concurrent majority doctrine. An ardent advocate of states' rights, Calhoun served as Vice President and Senator. He noted that the North, with its industrial economy, had become far more populous than the South. As the South's agricultural economy differed vastly from that of the North, the difference in power afforded by population threatened interests Calhoun considered essential to the South.

As national policy, driven by the North, became ever more hostile to the South, Calhoun argued more stridently for a requirement of concurrent majority by geographic region. Following the Tariff of 1828, referred to by Southerners as the "Tariff of Abominations", Calhoun wrote (anonymously at the time) the South Carolina Exposition and Protest. The document threatened secession of South Carolina if the tariff was not repealed. After another protective Tariff of 1832 was passed instead of a repeal of the 1828 tariff, Calhoun attempted to fight both with the doctrine of nullification.

The doctrine, which essentially said that any state might declare specific federal laws void within the borders of the state, required a concurrent majority of the legislatures of each state in addition to the federal legislature to assent to a law for it to have nation-wide effect. South Carolina passed the Ordinance of Nullification of the two tariffs and began preparations to defend the nullification against federal enforcement. A Compromise Tariff of 1833 was passed, avoiding armed conflict and ending the Nullification Crisis. Calhoun's philosophy of concurrent majority had found little support in the Southern states outside of South Carolina.