MISTAKES OF PUBLIC MEN:—GREAT COMBINATION AGAINST GENERAL JACKSON:—COMMENCEMENT OF THE PANIC.
In the year 1783, Mr. Fox, the great parliamentary debater, was in the zenith of his power and popularity, and the victorious leader in the House of Commons. He gave offence to the King, and was dismissed from the ministry, and immediately formed a coalition with Lord North; and commenced a violent opposition to the acts of the government. Patriotism, love of liberty, hatred of misrule and oppression, were the avowed objects of his attacks; but every one saw (to adopt the language of history), that the real difficulty was his own exclusion from office; and that his coalition with his old enemy and all these violent assaults, were only to force himself back into power: and this being seen, his efforts became unavailing, and distasteful to the public; and he lost his power and influence with the people, and sunk his friends with him. More than one hundred and sixty of his supporters in the House of Commons, lost their places at the ensuing election, and were sportively called "Fox's Martyrs;" and when they had a procession in London, wearing the tails of foxes in their hats, and some one wondered where so many tails of that animal had come from, Mr. Pitt slyly said a great many foxes had been lately taken: one, upon an average, in every borough. Mr. Fox, young at that time, lived to recover from this prostration; but his mistake was one of those of which history is full and the lesson of which is in vain read to succeeding generations. Public men continue to attack their adversaries in power, and oppose their measures, while having private griefs of their own to redress, and personal ends of their own to accomplish; and the instinctive sagacity of the people always sees the sinister motive, and condemns the conduct founded upon it.
Mr. Clay, Mr. Calhoun, and Mr. Webster were now all united against General Jackson, with all their friends, and the Bank of the United States. The two former had their private griefs: Mr. Clay in the results of the election, and Mr. Calhoun in the quarrel growing out of the discovery of his conduct in Mr. Monroe's cabinet, and it would have been difficult so to have conducted their opposition, and attack, as to have avoided the imputation of a personal motive. But they so conducted it as to authorize and suggest that imputation. Their movements all took a personal and vindictive, instead of a legislative and remedial, nature. Mr. Taney's reasons for removing the deposits were declared to be "unsatisfactory and insufficient"—being words of reproach, and no remedy; nor was the remedy of restoration proposed until driven into it. The resolution, in relation to Gen. Jackson, was still more objectionable. The Senate had nothing to do with him personally, yet a resolve was proposed, against him entirely personal, charging him with violating the laws and the constitution; and proposing no remedy for this imputed violation, nor for the act of which it was the subject. It was purely and simply a personal censure—a personal condemnation that was proposed; and, to aggravate the proposition, it came from the suggestion of the bank directors' memorial to Congress.
The combination was formidable. The bank itself was a great power, and was able to carry distress into all the business departments of the country; the political array against the President was unprecedented in point of number, and great in point of ability. Besides the three eminent chiefs, there were, in the Senate: Messrs. Bibb of Kentucky; Ezekiel Chambers of Maryland; Clayton of Delaware; Ewing of Ohio; Frelinghuysen of New Jersey; Watkins Leigh of Virginia; Mangum of North Carolina; Poindexter of Mississippi; Alexander Porter of Louisiana; William C. Preston of South Carolina; Southard of New Jersey; Tyler of Virginia. In the House of Representatives, besides the ex-President, Mr. Adams, and the eminent jurist from Pennsylvania, Mr. Horace Binney, there was a long catalogue of able speakers: Messrs. Archer of Virginia; Bell of Tennessee; Burgess of Rhode Island; Rufus Choate of Massachusetts; Corwin of Ohio; Warren R. Davis of South Carolina; John Davis of Massachusetts; Edward Everett of Massachusetts; Millard Fillmore of New-York, afterwards President; Robert P. Letcher of Kentucky; Benjamin Hardin of Kentucky; McDuffie of South Carolina; Peyton of Tennessee; Vance of Ohio; Wilde of Georgia; Wise of Virginia: in all, above thirty able speakers, many of whom spoke many times; besides many others of good ability, but without extensive national reputations. The business of the combination was divided—distress and panic the object—and the parts distributed, and separately cast to produce the effect. The bank was to make the distress—a thing easy for it to do, from its own moneyed power, and its power over other moneyed institutions and money dealers; also to get up distress meetings and memorials, and to lead the public press: the politicians were to make the panic, by the alarms which they created for the safety of the laws, of the constitution, the public liberty, and the public money: and most zealously did each division of the combination perform its part, and for the long period of three full months. The decision of the resolution condemning General Jackson, on which all this machinery of distress and panic was hung, required no part of that time. There was the same majority to vote it the first day as the last; but the time was wanted to get up the alarm and the distress; and the vote, when taken, was not from any exhaustion of the means of terrifying and agonizing the country, but for the purpose of having the sentence of condemnation ready for the Virginia elections—ready for spreading over Virginia at the approach of the April elections. The end proposed to themselves by the combined parties, was, for the bank, a recharter and the restoration of the deposits; for the politicians, an ascent to power upon the overthrow of Jackson.
The friends of General Jackson saw the advantages which were presented to them in the unhallowed combination between the moneyed and a political power—in the personal and vindictive character which they gave to the proceedings—the private griefs of the leading assailants—the unworthy objects to be attained—and the cruel means to be used for their attainment. These friends were also numerous, zealous, able, determined; and animated by the consciousness that they were on the side of their country. They were, in the Senate:—Messrs. Forsyth of Georgia; Grundy of Tennessee; Hill of New Hampshire; Kane of Illinois; King of Alabama; Rives of Virginia; Nathaniel Tallmadge of New York; Hugh L. White of Tennessee; Wilkins of Pennsylvania; Silas Wright of New-York; and the author of this Thirty Years' View. In the House, were:—Messrs. Beardsley of New-York; Cambreleng of New-York; Clay of Alabama; Gillett of New-York; Hubbard of New Hampshire; McKay of North Carolina; Polk of Tennessee; Francis Thomas of Maryland; Vanderpoel of New-York; and Wayne of Georgia.
Mr. Clay opened the debate in a prepared speech, commencing in the style which the rhetoricians call ex abruptu—being the style of opening which the occasion required—that of rousing and alarming the passions. It will be found (its essential parts) in the next chapter.