Southern states, especially South Carolina, thought that high tariffs, passed to stimulate industry, were bad for them because they raised prices of manufactured goods and possibly hurt foreign exports. The political issues involved in the Nullification Crisis were whether states had the right to "nullify" a law that they deemed unconstitutional, or even leave the Union over it. When they threatened to nullify the Tariff of 1832, President Andrew Jackson denied that they had this right, and the nation faced a severe crisis that was defused by a compromise between John C. Calhoun, the author of the nullification doctrine, and Henry Clay.

The Bank War stemmed from Andrew Jackson's veto of an act of Congress that rechartered the Bank of the United States. Jackson argued that the bank, which was owned in part by the federal government and was thus taxpayer supported, privileged the wealthy and even foreign investors at the expense of common people. In short, it was a government-owned monopoly. Jackson vetoed the bank, and directed that government deposits be withdrawn and placed in state-chartered "pet banks." Bank head Nicholas Biddle responded by curtailing loans, which had a drastic effect on the economy.

Abolition revolved around a central issue that was not really political or economic, but moral. Abolitionists, who began to gain prominence in the 1830s after the publication of William Lloyd Garrison's Liberator, claimed that slavery was a moral evil. They called for its immediate destruction, and characterized the US Constitution, with its tacit support of slavery, as a pact with the devil. Southern alarm at their spread in North was one reason they so aggressively resisted any attempt to halt the spread of slavery in the West.