It was in this speech, also, that Mr. McDuffie, for the first time, pronounced the tariff unconstitutional. He did not yet declare any and every tariff unconstitutional, but only such a tariff as sacrificed one interest to another, or the interests of one section to those of another. This he claimed the existing tariff did do. The belief in the unconstitutionality of the tariff was, of course, another necessary element in the preparation for resistance to its execution. [Sidenote: McDuffie's threat of resistance to the execution of the Tariff laws.] Finally, Mr. McDuffie uttered, in this speech, the threat of resistance to the execution of the tariff laws, the threat of nullification. It was ill timed, as threats generally are, and it had the effect of producing the large majority by which Mr. McDuffie's amendment was voted down. The bill suffered some modification in the course of its passage, but its principle remained the same. It reduced the duty on no article whatever, but only provided for a stricter enforcement of the existing laws. [Sidenote: Growth of the protection idea.] By another bill, which received the President's approval on May 20th (1830), eight days before this administrative bill was signed, the duties on tea, coffee, and cocoa had been reduced. This meant that the protectionists were very {178} willing to free those articles from duty which did not come into competition with home productions, in order to preserve and increase the duties on those that did. This was the direction in which the tariff system was growing. It became, two years later, the pronounced principle of the "American system," as we shall see. [Sidenote: Jackson on the Tariff and the surplus revenue derived therefrom, in the message of December, 1830.] In the message of December 7th, 1830, President Jackson defended the constitutionality of the protective system, said that the existing tariff needed some corrections in details, and expressed the opinion that no law reducing duties could be made which would be satisfactory to the American people that would not leave a considerable surplus in the Treasury. He suggested the employment of such surplus upon internal improvements under the direction of the legislatures of the several Commonwealths. [Sidenote: Southern disappointment.] This was a stunning blow to the hopes of the Southerners. The extinction of the debt and the existence of an unemployed surplus were the conditions to which they had looked forward as necessitating in all conservative minds the reduction of the duties. But here was a plan, suggested by a Southern President, for relieving the Treasury of any amount of surplus for an indefinite period, without the reduction of a single penny of duty upon a single article. Thus encouraged the protectionists in both Houses of Congress refused, during the session of 1830-31, to consider any propositions looking toward a reduction of duties.