232 HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
selves properly and did their. work well. But when Jackson
came into power he dismissed great numbers of these office-
holders in order to make room for his own faithful followers
who clamored loudly for office. He could do this with a good
sonscience, for he believed that in most cases no special fitness
was required for public service. One man, he said, could per-
form the duties of an office about as well as another. Moreover,
Jackson looked upon the offices as the spoils of political warfare,
and he believed in the maxim, “To the victor belong the spoils.”
So he used the offices in his gift to reward his political friends,
and the Presidents who came after him usually followed his ex-
ample.
177. South Carolina and Nullification.— The tariff question,
which began to give trouble under Adams, grew far more
troublesome under Jackson. We have seen that the people of
South Carolina, in their resentment against the tariff of 1828,
resolved not to buy the goods of Northern manufacturers, Soon
their resentment grew still stronger, and it was not long before
they began to talk of destroying the effect of the law entirely by
refusing to pay the duties on goods brought into their harbors.
Could they rightfully do this? Could a State thus disobey a law
of Congress? This was the old ques-
tion of nullification, which came up
first in 1799 (p. 166) and later in
1814 (p. 203). In 1830 the question
came up in the Senate of the United
States and gave rise to one of the
most famous debates in our history-
In this debate Senator Hayne of
South. Carolina spoke on the side of
nullification. He contended that when
the national government passed a law
| that was contrary to the Constitution
Borat ‚Daniel Webster: aiea Of the United States, the State gov-
at Marshfield, Massachusetts m 1832. ernment had a right to step in and
prevent the law from going into effect. He also contended that
each Statu w&s to decide for itself whether a law was contrary