Robert Smalls, a slave hired out to work aboard the Confederate steamship Planter, daringly commandeered the ship and delivered it to Union naval forces blockading Charleston harbor.
South Carolina, in protest of federal protective tariffs, adopted an Ordinance of Nullification declaring the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void in the state. President Jackson charged that the state was “on the brink of insurrection and treason.” He sent federal military forces to Charleston, but the crisis was resolved with the passage of Henry Clay’s compromise tariff bill in 1833.