The party battles of the Jackson period

by Claude G. Bowers

Without a word more, Jackson lifted his glass as a sign that the toast was to be drunk standing. Calhoun rose with the rest. “His glass trembled in his hand and a little of the amber fluid trickled down the side.”[263] There was no response. Jackson stood there, silent and impassive—clearly the master of the situation. All hilarity had gone. Jackson left his place, and, going to the far end of the room, engaged Benton in conversation, but not upon the subject of the dinner.

When all were seated, Calhoun, who had remained standing, slowly and hesitatingly proposed:

“The Union: next to our liberty, the most dear.”

Then, after a pause of half a minute, he proceeded in such a fashion as to leave doubt as to whether the concluding sentence was a part of the toast, or a brief speech:

“May we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States, and by distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the Union.”

Within five minutes after Calhoun had resumed his seat, the company of more than a hundred had dwindled to thirty—men fled from the room as from the scene of a battle.

The story of that Jacksonian toast spread over the country, justifying, as Benton admits he then realized, the peroration of Webster’s speech, and proclaiming to the people the existence of a conspiracy against the Union, and the determination of Jackson to preserve it at all cost. That toast made history. It marked the definite beginning of the history-making quarrel of Jackson and Calhoun, and the beginning of the exodus from the Democratic or Jacksonian party of the Nullifiers and Disunionists, who were to be warmly welcomed by Clay into the party he was about to create to wage war on the Jackson Administration.

V

Another dinner was to complete the break of Calhoun and Jackson.

In the spring of 1830, President Jackson gave a dinner at the White House in honor of former President Monroe. During the evening, while the President and his predecessor were engaged in animated conversation concerning the days when the latter was in the White House and the former in the field in Florida, Tench Ringgold, marshal of the District, turned to Major Lewis with the observation that Calhoun had been an enemy of the President in relation to his Florida campaign. It was not, however, a revelation to Lewis at the time.