Of the 53 votes cast by the
south and southwest, outside of the border states of Maryland and
Kentucky, there were but 5 affirmative votes. It is seen, therefore,
that in the House of Representatives, on the tariff issue, the
middle states and the Ohio Valley were combined against the south
and southwest, while New England's influence was nullified by her
division of interests. By a single vote, on a motion to postpone,
the measure failed in the Senate; but the struggle was only
deferred.
The most important aspect of the panic of 1819 was its relation to
the forces of unrest and democratic change that were developing in
the United States. Calhoun and John Quincy Adams, conversing in the
spring of 1820 upon politics, had the gloomiest apprehensions. There
had been, within two years, Calhoun said, "an immense revolution of
fortunes in every part of the Union; enormous numbers of persons
utterly ruined; multitudes in deep distress; and a general mass of
disaffection to the Government not concentrated in any particular
direction, but ready to seize upon any event and looking out
anywhere for a leader.
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