In Clyde Wilson’s brilliant commentary on the history of nullification today he points out that “Civil War” historians have behaved in their typically dishonest way by claiming that there was something peculiar — even crazy — about South Carolinians who nullified the 1828 Tariff of Abominations.  They (the distorians) insinuate that protectionism is so self-evidently virtuous that South Carolina’s early nineteenth century free traders either were too stupid to recognize their own self interest or were simply nuts. This of course is par-for-the-course nonsense coming from our “Lincoln scholars” and the like.  As Clyde points out, South Carolina wasn’t the … Continue reading Nullification, Secession, and South Carolina