176 ChApTEr 7 | reForM anD reaCtion | period Four 18 0 0 –1848ApplyINg Ap® historical Thinking Skills
n ew sKill Interpretation
In addition to reading primary documents, historians also read secondary documents that
are written by other historians. As you probably have guessed from the kinds of questions
that you have answered so far in this book, historians have different opinions about the same
historical events. Therefore, historians also have to know how to interpret other historians’
arguments. Historians practice interpretation to help them understand how other historians
understand events from the past.
Below are two historians’ interpretations of the origins of the nullification crisis of the
1830s. In addition to Documents 7.1 through 7.4 of this chapter, consult your textbook or
class notes for additional details.steP 1 Read David F. Ericson’s interpretation below.
Interpretation 1
On the surface, the nullification crisis revolved around the question of sovereignty:
Which level of government has the last say on such matters as the tariff rates?
Does the federal government, the state governments, or really neither (because
the governmental system was set up in such a way that there is no locus of “last
say”)? Here, of course, the participants in the crisis had recourse to the Consti-
tution, and their conflict was defined by opposing constitutional philosophies.
Another question, though, emerged beneath the sovereignty question during
the course of the crisis: What is the nature of the American republic? Is it a fed-
eration of smaller, state republics, a national republic, or both, in roughly equal
proportions? Answering this question seemed to be the only conclusive way of
answering the sovereignty question, and, since the Constitution did not provide
an answer, the participants had to appeal to some deeper political standard or
theory to try to do so.David F. Ericson, “The Nullification Crisis, American Republicanism, and the Force Bill Debate,”
Journal of Southern History 61, no. 2 (May 1995): 249–270, 251.What is Ericson’s main point in the first interpretation?steP 2 Read Jane H. Pease and William H. Pease’s interpretation below.
Interpretation 2
Intensifying Charleston’s nullification experience was anxiety over the city’s stagnant
economy in the 1820s. Between 1820 and 1830 her imports had diminished every
year but one. In 1825 the international cotton market collapsed, and the dramatic
growth in the city’s cotton exports earlier in the decade leveled off. In the wake of
that collapse, general economic depression followed. Unemployment and inflation
plagued Charleston’s inhabitants. Up-country legislators threatened to reduce the08_STA_2012_ch7_169-190.indd 176 19/03/15 4:33 PM