Nullification Crisis
Author: Candice Klipfel
Grade Level(s): 8
Overview/Purpose:
 Students will research several primary source documents relating to the
Nullification Crisis
 Students will compare and contrast the pro-nullification and antinullification viewpoints
 After gathering information, students will create an original political cartoon
expressing their point of view on the Nullification Crisis
Learning Objective:
 Students will be able to compare and contrast the pro-nullification and antinullification viewpoints
 After gathering information, students will be able to express their opinions
through an original political cartoon
Time Required for Lesson: 2 class periods (44 minutes in length)
Resources/References:
Print Sources:
 Merrill Peterson’s The Great Triumvirate (reference)
 The primary sources can be printed, I am including a copy and the URL for
your convenience
 Document Analysis Worksheet (attached)
 Political Cartoon Rubric (attached)
Websites:
 http://www.pbs.org/kcet/andrewjackson/edu/southcarolinaordinance.pdf
(excerpt from “South Carolina’s Ordinance of Nullification”)
 http://www.pbs.org/kcet/andrewjackson/edu/hayneonnullification.pdf
(excerpt from “Speech on Nullification by Robert Y. Hayne”)
 http://www.pbs.org/kcet/andrewjackson/edu/jacksonproclamation.pdf
(excerpt from “Jackson’s Proclamation on Nullification”)


http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/document.html
(Document Analysis Worksheet)
https://sites.google.com/site/apushnullificationcrisis/home/primarysources (Political Cartoons)
Suggested Activities and Procedures:
Day 1 Activities:
 Anticipatory Set: As students enter the classroom, project the two political
cartoons for students to look at. Have students silently analyze them for a
couple of minutes. Allow students to jot down any ideas, questions, or
comments they have. After a couple of minutes allow students to discuss
their reactions to the cartoons.
 Explain to students that the first cartoon portrays President Jackson’s point
of view regarding nullification and the second depicts the point of view of
South Carolina. Address questions or comments. (10 minutes)
 Explain to students that they will be reading and analyzing 3 primary sources
written during the Nullification Crisis. Tell them that they will be expected to
create a cartoon based on the information they learn from these documents.
 Partner students up in groups of 2. Hand out the primary source packet
which includes “South Carolina’s Ordinance of Nullification,” “Speech on
Nullification by Robert Y. Hayne,” and “Jackson’s Proclamation on
Nullification.”
 Hand out the “Document Analysis Worksheet.” Students will fill out a
worksheet for each primary source they read.
 Allow students the remainder of class to complete the assignment. Walk
around the classroom to monitor understanding and behavior.
Day 2 Activities:
 Before students are allowed to resume working with their partners, have
students create a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the two
viewpoints of nullification. (5-7 minutes)
 Invite students to share their ideas with the class. Ask students if they can
relate with one side more than the other. Allow students to express and even
debate their opinions. (time will vary- possibly 10 minutes)
 Now that students have had a chance to process their opinions, explain to the
class that they will be creating a political cartoon which expresses their
opinion on the Nullification Crisis. Students may create their political
cartoon with their partner from yesterday.
 Allow the rest of the class period to work on political cartoons.
Teacher Notes and Suggestions:
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
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Your students must be familiar with the Tariff of Abominations and the
Nullification Act.
Students must understand the purpose of political cartoons. (My students
view/analyze/create political cartoons throughout the year. This lesson
assumes that students have background knowledge in their purpose.) If your
students have not worked with political cartoons in the past, take the time to
show them examples of cartoons- historical or present day will work- before
you teach this lesson.
Depending on the ability level of your class, processing the primary sources
may take longer than one day.
Student Materials/Instructions:
 Primary source packet (or access to computers)
 Document analysis worksheets
 Drawing paper for original cartoon
Lesson Websites:
 http://www.pbs.org/kcet/andrewjackson/edu/southcarolinaordinance.pdf
(excerpt from “South Carolina’s Ordinance of Nullification”)
 http://www.pbs.org/kcet/andrewjackson/edu/hayneonnullification.pdf
(excerpt from “Speech on Nullification by Robert Y. Hayne”)
 http://www.pbs.org/kcet/andrewjackson/edu/jacksonproclamation.pdf
(excerpt from “Jackson’s Proclamation on Nullification”)
 http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/worksheets/document.html
(Document Analysis Worksheet)
Extending the Lesson:
 This lesson could easily be extended to a third day. On the third day,
students would present their cartoons to the class. Allow for questions and
comments.
Assessment(s):
 Student questions and comments during class time
 Venn diagrams on day 2
 Political Cartoon Rubric
Content Standards:
8.US.1.3. Students are able to describe the sources of conflict, key individuals,
battles, and political documents of the Civil War period.
• Outline the major sources of conflict.
 Example: political, geographical, and economic differences
Resources
Political Cartoons:
Primary Source
South Carolina Ordinance of
Nullification
Following the passage of the protective Tariff of 1828, South Carolinians began arguing
that individual states possess the ability to void or “nullify” federal laws that they deem
to represent a blatant violation of the constitutional compact. In late 1832, South
Carolina acted on these threats. On November 24, 1832, a convention that had
assembled for the purpose formally nullified the Tariff laws of 1828 and 1832, and vowed
that they would not be enforced within South Carolina’s borders. The excerpt below is
taken from the nullification “Ordinance” issued by the convention.
Whereas the Congress of the United States, by various acts, purporting to be acts laying
duties and imposts on foreign imports, but in reality intended for the protection of
domestic manufactures, and the giving of bounties to classes and individuals engaged in
particular employments, at the expense and to the injury and oppression of other classes
and individuals, and by wholly exempting from taxation, certain foreign commodities,
such as are not produced or manufactured in the United States, to afford a pretext for
imposing higher and excessive duties on articles similar to those intended to be protected,
hath exceeded its just powers under the Constitution, which confers on it no authority to
afford such protection, and hath violated the true meaning and intent of the Constitution .
…We, therefore, the people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do
declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the several acts and parts
of acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws for the imposing of
duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities . . . are unauthorized by the
Constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof, and are
null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State, its officers or citizens; and all
promises, contracts, and obligations, made or entered into, or to be made or entered into
with purpose to secure the duties imposed by said acts, and all judicial proceedings which
shall be hereafter had in affirmance thereof, are and shall be held utterly null and void.
Source: State Papers on Nullification (Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1834), 28-29.
Primary Source
Speech on Nullification by
Robert Y. Hayne
In December 1832, Robert Y. Hayne, having resigned his seat in the U. S. Senate, was
inaugurated governor of South Carolina. Like his successor in the Senate, John C.
Calhoun, Hayne was a proponent of the theory of nullification, which privileged the
rights of individual states over the power of the federal government. Hayne had served
as a member of the Nullification Convention that in November had voided within South
Carolina federal laws taxing imports. In the excerpt below, taken from his December 13,
1832, inaugural address, Hayne seeks to justify South Carolina’s bold step.
In the great struggle in which we are engaged for the preservation of our rights and
liberties, it is my fixed determination to assert and uphold the sovereign authority of the
State, and to enforce, by all the means that may be entrusted to my hands, her sovereign
will. I recognize no allegiance as paramount to that which the citizens of South Carolina
owe to the State of their birth . . . .
. . . . South Carolina, after ten years of unavailing petitions and remonstrances against a
system of measures on the part of the Federal Government, which, in common with the
other Southern States, she has repeatedly declared to be founded in usurpation, utterly
subversive of the rights, and fatal to the prosperity of her people, has, in the face of the
world, put herself upon her sovereignty, and made the solemn declaration that this system
shall no longer be enforced within her limits. All hope of a redress of this grievance from
a returning sense of justice on the part of our oppressors, or from any probable change in
the policy of the Government, having fled, nothing was left for South Carolina but to
throw herself upon her reserved rights, or to remain for ever in a condition of “colonial
vassalage.” She has therefore resolved to stand upon her rights; and it is for her sister
States now to determine what is to be done in this emergency. She has announced to them
her anxious desire that this controversy shall be amicably adjusted, either by a
satisfactory modification of the tariff, or by a reference of the whole subject to a
convention of all the States. Should neither of these reasonable propositions be acceded
to, then she will feel herself justified before God and man, in firmly maintaining the
position she has assumed, until some other mode can be devised for the removal of the
difficulty. South Carolina is anxiously desirous of living at peace with her brethren; she
has not the remotest wish to dissolve the political bands which have connected her with
the great American family of confederated States. With Thomas Jefferson, “she would
regard the dissolution of our Union with them as one of the greatest of evils—but not the
greatest: there is one greater—submission to a Government without limitation of
powers;” and such a Government, she conscientiously believes, will be our portion,
should the system against which she is now struggling, be finally established as the
settled policy of the country.
South Carolina is solicitous to preserve the Constitution as our fathers framed it—
according to its true spirit, intent, and meaning; but she is inflexibly determined never to
surrender her reserved rights, nor to suffer the constitutional compact to be converted into
an instrument for the oppression of her citizens.
Source: Register of Debates in Congress . . . Second Session of the Twenty-Second Congress (Washington:
Gales and Seaton, 1833), Appendix, 176.
Primary Source
Jackson’s Proclamation on
Nullification
In November 1832 South Carolinians meeting in Convention formally “nullified” federal
laws taxing imports, on the grounds that they were unconstitutional and therefore not
binding. South Carolina threatened to withdraw from the Union if the federal
government attempted to coerce it into submission. Civil war seemed imminent: the state
militia was called up, Charleston harbor was fortified, and the federal army was
prepared to march on South Carolina. It was up to Jackson to resolve the crisis. Instead
of reacting in anger, as he had so many times before, he wrote a “Proclamation,” a
personal appeal directed to the people of South Carolina. He reminded them that the
union was composed not of states, but of “the people.” The following excerpt is taken
from the conclusion of the “Proclamation.”
Fellow-citizens of the United States, the threat of unhallowed disunion, the names of
those once respected by whom it is uttered, the array of military force to support it,
denote the approach of a crisis in our affairs on which the continuance of our unexampled
prosperity, our political existence, and perhaps that of all free governments may depend.
The conjuncture demanded a free, a full, and explicit enunciation, not only of my
intentions, but of my principles of action; and as the claim was asserted of a right by a
State to annul the laws of the Union, and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank
exposition of my opinions in relation to the origin and form of our Government and the
construction I give to the instrument by which it was created seemed to be proper. Having
the fullest confidence in the justness of the legal and constitutional opinion of my duties
which has been expressed, I rely with equal confidence on your undivided support in my
determination to execute the laws, to preserve the Union by all constitutional means, to
arrest, if possible, by moderate and firm measures the necessity of a recourse to force;
and if it be the will of Heaven that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the
shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that it be not called down by any
offensive act on the part of the United States.
Source: James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents
(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1896), vol. 2, pp. 655-656.
Written Document Analysis Worksheet
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TYPE OF DOCUMENT (Check one):
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UNIQUE PHYSICAL QUALITIES OF THE DOCUMENT (Check one or more):
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Newspaper
Letter
Patent
Memorandum
Interesting letterhead
Handwritten
Typed
Seals
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Map
Telegram
Press release
Report
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Advertisement
Congressional record
Census report
Other
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___ "RECEIVED" stamp
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DATE(S) OF DOCUMENT:
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AUTHOR (OR CREATOR) OF THE DOCUMENT:
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POSITION (TITLE):
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FOR WHAT AUDIENCE WAS THE DOCUMENT WRITTEN?
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DOCUMENT INFORMATION (There are many possible ways to answer A-E.)
A. List three things the author said that you think are important:
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B. Why do you think this document was written?
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C. What evidence in the document helps you know why it was written? Quote from the
document.
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D. List two things the document tells you about life in the United States at the time it was
written:
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E. Write a question to the author that is left unanswered by the document:
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Designed and developed by the
Education Staff, National Archives and Records Administration,
Washington, DC20408.
Student Created Political Cartoons
Class Section: ___________________
Student Name: ___________________
CATEGORY 4
3
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1
Subject
Matter
Student clearly
shows
understanding
of political
concept.
Student mostly
shows
understanding
of political
concept.
Student shows
some
understanding
of political
concept.
Student shows
no
understanding
of political
concept.
Way Topic
Student's point
is Conveyed of view is
clearly
conveyed.
Student's point
of view is
mostly well
conveyed.
Student's point
of view is
marginally
conveyed.
Student's point
of view is
poorly
conveyed.
Visual
Text and
Presentation graphics are
of Political clearly legible.
Cartoon
Text and
graphics are
mostly legible.
Text and
graphics are
somewhat
legible.
Text and
graphics are
not legible.