Charleston, South Carolina, Unitarian minister John Gilman received this vase as a tribute in recognition of his National Ode written in praise of the Union for the Independence Day celebration of 1831 as tensions between South Carolina and the United States government were growing. The vase is a rare example of early Southern silver and a reflection of contemporary political dynamics that foreshadowed those that later surrounded the Civil War.

South Carolina suffered greatly after the Panic of 1819, a national financial crisis marked by the effects of excessive speculation in public lands. The United States enacted tariffs in 1828 intended primarily to protect northern industries against inexpensive, imported manufactured goods. Southern interests viewed the tariffs, which they called the “Tariff of Abominations,” as causing further harm to the region’s economy, which was based largely on enslaved labor for the production of agricultural commodities, especially cotton. Amended tariffs in 1832 remained unacceptable to South Carolina, resulting in the state’s nullification of the tariffs and preparations to resist military action from the federal government to enforce them. Although a compromise in 1833 ended the Nullification Crisis, South Carolina’s assertion of state’s rights against federal authority in matters related to the South’s slave-based economy foretold the central conflict leading to the Civil War.