The Remedy by State Interposition, or Nullification: Explained and Advocated by Chancellor Harper, in His Speech at Columbia, (S. C.) on the 20th September, 1830 (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Remedy by State Interposition, or Nullif...)
Excerpt from The Remedy by State Interposition, or Nullification: Explained and Advocated by Chancellor Harper, in His Speech at Columbia, (S. C.) On the 20th September, 1830
I out among those who believe that the losses and dangers impo Sed and threatened by the American System, instead of being exag gerated have not been fully estimated. 1 a me with those who as timate at the highest our present pecuniary iiurdens; I believe that the south has been cheated out ofthe bounties ofnature, richer than ever were bestowed on any section of the earth. By the policy or the selfish instincts of man; I believe that the continuance of the system tends, not doubtfully. To the total destruction of our com merce, to the subversion of our domestic institutions, and in the words ot the authorl have quoted, to the depopulation and sham detriment of the whole lower region ofthe Southern States.
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William Harper was an American jurist, lawyer, and politician. He was a United States Senator from South Carolina in 1826.
Background
William Harper was born on January17, 1790, on the island of Antigua. His father, John Harper, a Scotch-Irish minister, was a Wesleyan missionary, but in 1795 he entered the South Carolina Conference and in 1799 he was a “stationed preacher” in Charleston.
Education
William was educated at the Mount Bethel Academy, in the Newberry District, and at the Jefferson Monticello Seminary.
He entered South Carolina College in 1805, the first student to matriculate. A year later he left, but after earning enough money to provide for his brother’s education, he returned and was graduated in 1808. In college he seemed a careless student, living apart in a world of his own, but he took a high stand in all his work. Leaving college, he began the study of medicine, but after a year he turned to law and was admitted to the bar, probably in 1813.
Career
When William Harper heard of the capture of Washington by the British he entered the army as a private and served until his discharge in 1815 as a sergeant. He practised law in Columbia until 1818 as a partner of William C. Preston. In that year he was induced by Edward Bates, later attorney-general under Lincoln, Hamilton R. Gamble, war governor of Missouri, and David Harper Means, to move to Missouri. In 1819 he was appointed chancellor of the Missouri territory and was elected to that office after statehood was secured.
In 1823 Harper returned to South Carolina and was at once made reporter of the supreme court, holding the place for two years. Then following a short term as United States senator, he moved to Charleston to practise law, but in 1828 he became a member and the speaker of the lower house of the legislature. In the same year he was elected chancellor of the state and held the position until 1830, when he was elected a judge of the court of appeals. Resigning in 1835, he again became chancellor and remained in that office until his death. In 1833, after the loss of two of his children from yellow fever, he moved to Fairfield where with little success he undertook to manage a plantation.
In 1826 Harper was a nationalist, but in 1828 he was the leader of the radical anti-tariff group in the legislature. Like most of his contemporaries in South Carolina, he had become convinced that protection was unconstitutional and too great a burden to be borne. By 1830 he was a convert to nullification. At the state-rights meeting at Columbia, in September 1830, he delivered a speech which was later published and circulated as The Remedy by Stale Interposition (1832). Criticized for political activity while on the bench, he defended and continued it, attending the anti-tariff convention at Philadelphia in 1831, and bearing its memorial, with one of his own, to Congress. He was a delegate to the convention of 1832 and wrote the nullification ordinance. At the adjourned session in 1833, he warned the convention that the compromise was only the beginning of the contest and expressed the belief that war would soon come. When the case involving the test oath came before the court of appeals, it was held unconstitutional. Harper dissented, delivering an opinion which has been generally regarded as one of the most powerful statements of the state-rights case. His political activity ended with nullification.
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Personality
Though Harper was given to excessive drinking in his younger days, he was a man of utter frankness and simplicity of character, a gentle spirit whose temper has been described as “soft and poetic. ” His mind was one of breadth and force and he had a genuine appreciation of learning.
Connections
On July 4, 1816, Harper married Catherine, the daughter of David Coalter of Columbia.