Secession off the Coast of Massachusetts
On the island of Nantucket off the coast of Massachusetts, a British gunboat patrolled the shore, cutting off supplies from the mainland. Some islanders begged for food in town. The sea-going islanders, whalers by trade, were fiercely independent. Many Nantucket sailors suffered impressment by the British and languished in jail.[1]
At a town meeting, the battle between the Federalists and Republicans on island was tumultuous. The sheriff ordered an end to the meeting. Later the Federalists persuaded a bipartisan committee to negotiate a peace treaty with the British. Nantucket seceded from the Union. Islanders agreed to stop paying taxes to the United States in exchange for the removal of the British blockade of their food and supplies. In 1815, two British admirals arrived at England’s Dartmoor prison to assure Nantucket sailors imprisoned there, that they would be released because they were citizens of a neutral country.[2]
How John C. Calhoun’s Nullification differed from the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions
Jefferson, Madison, and Calhoun all based their arguments on state sovereignty. Calhoun wanted South Carolina to have all the benefits of remaining in the Union, while disobeying one of its laws. As an elder statesman, Madison claimed “…for this preposterous and anarchical pretension there is not a shadow of a countenance in the Constitution.”[3]
In 1798, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were written in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. Aliens were the Irish and French suspected of fomenting a second revolution in America. The seditious were newspaper editors who opposed the Federalist administration of John Adams. Calhoun wrote his arguments in response to the Tariff of 1828.
The legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky called for other states to find the Alien and Sedition Acts unconstitutional. Southern state legislatures did not agree. Northern state legislatures refused the offer. They asserted the Supreme Court had the authority to decide the constitutionality of laws. [4]
Article V of the Constitution sets forth procedures for revising the Constitution by passing amendments to it. A new amendment can be enacted through the Senate and House of Representatives, or by two-thirds of the states. Article V states, “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing Amendments, which in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress…”
In August 1799, Jefferson wrote to Madison “[Virginia and Kentucky ought ] to sever our selves from that union we so much value, rather than give up the rights of self government which we have reserved, and in which alone we see liberty.” Secession was debated, but Jefferson and Madison did not act on it.[5]
Next: How Mathew Carey Suggested Madison Deal with Secessionists; How John Quincy Adams Responded to South Carolina’s Nullification Threats
Look for it Monday, February 18
[1] Nathaniel Philbrick, Away Off Shore: Nantucket Island and Its People, 1602-1890, (New York, Penguin Books in association with Mill Hill Press of Nantucket, 1994) 179-80.
[2] Philbrick, Away Off Shore, 180.
[3] Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager, The Growth of the American Republic, Vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962) 476-7.
[4] Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) 270.
[5] Wood, Empire of Liberty, 270.
