On this day in 1833,

The Nullification Crisis

Andrew Jackson Avoids Civil War After Southern States Resist Tariffs Imposed By Northern Manufacturers

Four minute video with charts explaining the "Nullification Crisis"

28 years before the start of the Civil War, South Carolina almost triggered a military conflict with Union when it claimed the right to nullify federal tariffs, including the Tariff of Abomination.  

Led by former Jackson Vice President, John Calhoun, the Nullifiers argued the compact theory of government (i.e. the states had created the federal government) allowed the states to secede from the Union and/or refuse to comply with offensive federal laws.  The South had long complained about tariffs backed mostly by northeastern merchants.  Although Congress lowered the tariffs as part of the Tariff Bill of 1832, South Carolinians remained outraged, said they would not pay the reduced tariffs, and threatened to leave the Union - by force if necessary.  Virginia and influential southerners suggested they would support South Carolina in a military conflict.  

Jackson countered that the compact theory of government was wrong, that the states had not created the federal government, and that the people themselves had created the federal government through state conventions.  (Jackson’s theory was later echoed by Abraham Lincoln years during his first inaugural address.)  Jackson countered South Carolina’s tariff nullification with a carrot and a stick: by further reducing the tariffs as part of the Compromise Tariff of 1833, and by threatening the use of federal military force to subdue the “traitors.”  

The congressional debate was led by such luminaries as Daniel Webster, who strongly supported the Union, Henry Clay, who supported the tariffs, and Calhoun. 

South Carolina ultimately relented and accepted the additional tariff reductions, but saved face by continuing to maintain it had the right to nullify federal laws.