y advocated high tariffs to protect America's young industries, while South Carolinian John C. Calhoun decried the tariff as unfair to the agrarian South, importers of finished goods. The "Tariff of Abominations" of 1828, passed largely due to a miscalculation by Andrew Jackson supporters in Congress, was answered by a Calhoun treatise which put forward the doctrine of state nullification of federal laws and helped set the stage for the Southern secession to come.
Also foreshadowing the conflict of mid century, of course, was the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The facile trade-off admission of Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state would not be possible in the aftermath of the Mexican War of the 1840s and would lead to virtual civil war in Kansas and a true Civil War that would rock the nation.
Even in Virginia, there were diverse opinions about slavery at this time. Opposition to slavery in the North began to make slave holders more defensive and intransigent. But segments of Alexandria society vigorously opposed slavery as a terrible blight upon society. Most, however, saw no solution but to return blacks to Africa and, in 1823, organized a local chapter of the American Colonization Society to raise funds to resettle African Americans in Liberia. Although this seems now to have been hopelessly unrealistic, many people worked tirelessly to ruin the institution of slavery-before the experiences of the next three decades destroyed all hopes.
In 1820 Alexandria, D.C. was a town of 8,218 inhabitants of whom 5,515 were white and 2,603 were African American, including 1,168 free blacks and 1,435 slaves. Visitors’ accounts vividly describe the town.
Females amongst them uncommonly intelligent, uncommonly courteous and polite in their behaviour with each other and especially with strangers. Polite and courteous conduct of the youth of Alexandria does much credit to parents, to the teachers, to the clergy and to human nature itself. Again the inhabitants of this town are uncommonly industrious, uncommonly moral; but above all their excellencies, the disposition of benevolence stands conspicuous.... The women dress too fine and also appear too often in the streets. [Alexandria Gazette 3/6/1823]
Even as many "uncommonly moral" Alexandrians were campaigning to resettle African Americans, the firm of Franklin and Armfield opened their slave market at 1315 Duke Street (now Freedom House Museum) for the purpose of selling surplus northern Virginia slaves in the deep South. Indeed, most observers probably saw no need even for reform. "The slaves of this place bear every mark of good treatment; they look happy and are comfortably clothed, though not half so fine or richly dressed. [Ann Royall, Sketches of History, Life, and Manners in the United States (1826), reprinted in Pen Portraits of Alexandria, Virginia, 1739 - 1900, courtesy Sarah Revis; edited by T. Michael Miller, Heritage Books, Inc. 1987]
An English visitor was complimentary about the inhabitants, but criticized the appearance of the town:
Alexandria is built precisely on the plan of Philadelphia and is indeed frequently called Philadelphia in miniature... The houses have a mean appearance. There is ...scarcely one handsome mansion in the place. A great many of the habitations are of wood and are called frame houses from their being built in a frame on a moveable foundation: They are capable of being moved from one part of the town to another, a transition which frequently takes place; and it is no uncommon thing for a man who does not like his situation. This is done by loosening the earth from the foundation and hoisting them by means of levers upon a strong and low machine, something like our brewers' drays but square instead of oblong; in this manner they are carried to any part of the town which the owner deems more eligible.... The trade was destroyed by pirates during Mr. Adams administration along with the yellow fever which raged there very virulently a few years... ["The Confessions of a Rambler," The Repository (London, 1824), vol. III, No. VIII, p. 278