the true character of the Constitution and of the Union established
under it? Were the States sovereign? Who should determine the limits
of state and federal powers? What remedy had a State against
unconstitutional measures of the National Government? Who should say
when an act was unconstitutional?

The South, in particular, was in an irritable frame of mind.
Agriculture was in a state of depression; manufacturing was not
developing as had been expected; the steadily mounting tariffs were
working economic disadvantage; the triumph of members of Congress and
of the Supreme Court who favored a loose construction of the
Constitution indicated that there would be no end of acts and
decisions contrary to what the South regarded as her own interests.
Some apprehensive people looked to Jackson for reassurance. But his
first message to Congress assumed that the tariff would continue as it
was, and, indeed, gave no promise of relief in any direction.

It was at this juncture that the whole controversy flared up
unexpectedly in one of the greatest debates ever heard on the floor of
our Congress or in the legislative halls of any country. On December
29, 1829, Senator Samuel A. Foote of Connecticut offered an
innocent-looking resolution proposing a temporary restriction of the
sale of public lands to such lands as had already been placed on the
market. The suggestion was immediately resented by western members,
who professed to see in it a desire to check the drain of eastern
population to the West; and upon the reconvening of Congress following
the Christmas recess Senator Benton of Missouri voiced in no uncertain
terms the indignation of his State and section. The discussion might
easily have led to nothing more than the laying of the resolution on
the table; and in that event we should never have heard of it. But it