History of the United States, Volume 3

by Elisha Benjamin Andrews

John C. Calhoun
From a picture by King at the Corcoran Art Gallery.
On this doctrine South Carolina presently proceeded to act. November 24,
1832, the convention of that State passed its nullification ordinance,
declaring the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 "null, void, and no law,"
defying Congress to execute them there, and agreeing, upon the first use
of force for this purpose, to form a separate government.
This was the quintessence of folly even had good theory been behind it.
The tone of the proceeding was too hasty and peremptory. The decided
turn of public opinion and of congressional action in favor of large
reduction in duties was ignored. But the theory appealed to was clearly
wrong, and along with its advocates was sure to be reprobated by the
nation. A precious opportunity effectively to redress the evil
complained of was wantonly thrown away. Worst of all, from a tactical
point of view, South Carolina had miscalculated the spirit of President
Jackson. At the dinner referred to, his toast had been the memorable
words: "Our Federal Union; it must be preserved." Men now saw that Old
Hickory was in earnest. General Scott, with troops and warships, was
ordered to Charleston.
The nullifiers receded, a course made easier by Clay's "compromise
tariff" of 1833, gradually reducing duties for the next ten years, and
enlarging the free list. From all duties of over twenty per cent. by the
act of 1832, one-tenth of the excess was to be stricken off on September
30, 1835, and another tenth every other year till 1841. Then one-half
the excess remaining was to fall, and in 1842 the rest, so that the end
of the last named year should find no duty over twenty per cent.
This episode, threatening as it was for a time, drew in its train
results the most happy, revealing with unprecedented vividness to most,
both the original nature of the Constitution as not a compact, and also
the might which national sentiment had attained since the War of 1812.
The doctrine of state rights was seen to have gradually lost, over the
greater part of the country, all its old vitality. Nearly every State
Legislature condemned the South Carolina pretensions, Democrats as
hearty in this as Whigs. Jackson's proclamation against them--impressive
and unanswerable--ran thus: "The Constitution of the United States
forms a government, not a league; and whether it be formed by compact
between the States, or in any other manner, its character is the same
. . . . I consider the power to annul a law of the United States
incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by
the letter of the Constitution, and destructive of the great object for
which it was formed. . . . Our Constitution does not contain the
absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist
them. To say that any State may at pleasure secede from the Union is to
say that the United States are not a nation."

Calhoun's Library and Office.
The congressional debates which the nullification question evoked, among
the ablest in our parliamentary history, held the like high national
tenor. Calhoun's idea, though advocated by him with consummate skill,
was shown to be wholly chimerical. The doughty South Carolinian, from
this moment a waning force in American politics, was supported by Hayne
almost alone, the arguments of both melting into air before Webster's
masterful handling of constitutional history and law. Not questioning
the right of revolution, admitting the general government to be one of
"strictly limited," even of "enumerated, specified, and particularized
powers," the Massachusetts orator made it convincingly apparent that the
Calhoun programme could lead to nothing but anarchy. It was seen that
general and state governments emanate from the people with equal
immediacy, and that the language of the clause, "the Constitution and
the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof" are "the
supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any
State to the contrary notwithstanding," means precisely what it says. To
this language little attention had apparently been paid till this time.
CHAPTER V.
MINOR PUBLIC QUESTIONS OF JACKSON'S "REIGN"
[1828]
Andrew Jackson was born March 15, 1767. His parents had come from
Carrick-fergus, Ireland, two years before. He was without any education
worthy the name. As a boy, he went into the War for Independence, and
was for a time a British prisoner. He studied law in North Carolina,
moved west, and began legal practice at Nashville. He was one of the
framers of the Tennessee constitution in 1796. In 1797 he was a senator
from that State, and subsequently he was a judge on its supreme bench.
His exploits in the Creek War, the War of 1812, and the Seminole War are
already familiar. They had brought him so prominently and favorably
before the country that in 1824 his vote, both popular and electoral,
was larger than that of any other candidate. As we have seen, he himself
and multitudes throughout the country thought him wronged by the
election over him of John Quincy Adams. This contributed largely to his
popularity later, and in 1828 he was elected by a popular vote of
647,231, against 509,097 for Adams. Four years later he was reelected
against Clay by a still larger majority. Nor did his popularity to any
extent wane during his double administration, notwithstanding his many
violent and indiscreet acts as President.

Andrew Jackson. From a photograph by Brady.
Much of Jackson's arbitrariness sprung from a foolish whim of his,
taking his election as equivalent to the enactment of all his peculiar
ideas into law. Ours is a government of the people, he said; the people
had spoken in his election, and had willed so and so. Woe to any senator
or representative who opposed! This was, of course, to mistake entirely
the nature of constitutional government.
After all, Jackson was by no means the ignorant and passionate old man,
controlled in everything by Van Buren, that many people, especially in
New England, have been accustomed to think him. Illiterate he certainly
was, though Adams exaggerated in calling him "a barbarian who could not
write a sentence of grammar and could hardly spell his own name." He was
never popular in the federalist section of the Union. Yet with all his
mistakes and self-will, often inexcusable, he was one of the most
patriotic and clear-headed men who ever administered a government. If he
resorted to unheard-of methods within the law, very careful was he never
to transgress the law.
The most just criticism of Jackson in his time and later related to the
civil service. It was during his administration that the cry, "turn the
rascals out," first arose, and it is well known that, adopting the
policy of New York and Pennsylvania politicians in vogue since 1800, he
made nearly a clean sweep of his political opponents from the offices at
his disposal. This was the more shameful from being so in contrast with
the policy of preceding presidents. Washington removed but two men from
office, one of these a defaulter; Adams ten, one of these also a
defaulter; Jefferson but thirty-nine; Madison five, three of them
defaulters; and Monroe nine. The younger Adams removed but two, both of
them for cause.
[1830]
Yet of Jackson's procedure in this matter it can be said, in partial
excuse, so bitter had been the opposition to him by officeholders as
well as others, that many removals were undoubtedly indispensable in
order to the efficiency of the public service. It is not at all
necessary for the rank and file of the civil service to be of the same
party with the Chief Magistrate, but it is necessary that they should
not be so utterly opposed to him as to feel bound in conscience to be
working for his defeat.
The fine art of party organization, semi-military in form, has come to
us from Jackson and his workers. Before his time, candidates for high
state offices had usually been nominated by legislative caucuses, and
those for national posts by congressional caucuses. State party
conventions had been held in Pennsylvania and New York. Soon after 1830
such a device for national nominations began to be thought of, and the
history of national party conventions may be said to begin with the
campaign of 1832.
[1832]
Jackson's dearest foe while in office was the United States Bank.
Magnifying the dishonesty which had, as everyone knew, disgraced its
management, he attacked it as a monster, an engine of the moneyed
classes for grinding the face of the poor. Like Jefferson, like Madison
at first, he disbelieved in its constitutionality. In his first message
and continually in his official utterances he inveighed against it as a
public danger, using its funds and patronage for party ends. This made
him unpopular with many who had been his friends, so that in the
campaign of 1832 Clay forced the bank question to the front as one on
which Jackson's attitude would greatly advantage the whig cause. He
accepted Clay's challenge with pleasure, and from this moment gave the
bank no quarter. We may call the contest of this year a pitched battle
between Jackson and the bank.

Roger B. Taney.
[1833]
In 1832 he vetoed a bill for a renewal of its charter, which was to
expire in 1836, and in 1833 he proceeded to break it by removing the
United States deposits which it held. Such removal was by law within the
power of the Secretary of the Treasury. Secretary McLane refused to
execute Jackson's will. He was removed and Duane appointed. Then Duane
was removed and Roger B. Taney appointed, who obeyed the President's
behest. The bank was emptied by checking out the public money as wanted,
at the same time depositing no more, the funds being instead placed in
"pet" state banks, as they were called because of the government favor
thus shown them.
The financial distress rightly or wrongly ascribed to this measure
throughout the country, instead of injuring Jackson, probably, on the
whole, made him still more popular, as showing the power of the bank.
When Congress met in 1833, the Senate passed a vote of censure upon him
for what he had done. Rancorous wranglings and debates pervaded Congress
and the whole land. After persistent effort by Jackson's bosom friend,
Senator Benton, of Missouri, this censure-vote was expunged by the
XXIVth Congress, second session, January 16, 1837. This was before
Jackson left office, and he accounted it the greatest triumph of his
public life.
[1830]
Jackson was somehow fortunate in dealing with foreign nations. It was he
who recovered for American ships that British West Indian trade which
had been so long denied. Negotiations were opened with Great Britain,
which, in 1830, had the result of placing American vessels in the
British West Indian ports at an equal advantage with British vessels
sailing thither from the United States--terms which, through the
contiguity of those islands to us, gave us a trade there better than
that of any other nation. This diplomacy brought the administration much
applause.
When Jackson became President, France was still in our debt on account
of her spoliations upon American commerce after the settlement of 1803.
The matter had been in negotiation ever since 1815, but hitherto in
vain. Jackson took it up with zeal, but with his usual apparent
recklessness. A treaty had been concluded in 1831, as a final settlement
between the two countries, binding France to pay twenty-five million
francs and the United States to pay one and one-half million. The first
instalment from France became due February 2, 1833, but was not paid.
Jackson's message to Congress in 1834, not an instalment having yet been
received, contained a distinct threat of war should not payment begin
forthwith. He also bade Edward Livingston, minister at Paris, in the
same contingency to demand his passports and leave Paris for London.
[1835]
Most public men, even those in his cabinet, thought this action
foolhardy and useless; but Quincy Adams, neither expecting nor receiving
any thanks for it, just as in the Seminole War difficulty, nobly stood
up for the President. A telling speech by him in the House led to its
unanimous resolution, March 2, 1835, that the execution of the treaty
should be insisted on. The French ministry blustered, and for a time
diplomatic relations between the two countries were entirely ruptured.
But France, affecting to see in the message of 1835, though voiced in
precisely the same tone as its predecessor, some apology for the menace
contained in that, began its payments. This money, as also all due from
the other states included in Napoleon's continental system, was paid
during Jackson's administration, a result which brought him and his
party great praise, not more for the money than for the respect and
consideration secured to the United States by insistence upon its
rights. The President's message to Congress in 1835 announced the entire
extinguishment of the public debt--the first and the last time this has
occurred in all our national history.
An important measure touching the hard-money system of our country was
passed in large part through the influence of President Jackson. By the
Mint Law of 1792 our silver dollar was made to contain three hundred and
seventy-one and a quarter grains of fine silver, or four hundred and
sixteen of standard silver. The amount of pure silver in this venerable
coin has remained unchanged ever since; only, in 1837, by a reduction of
the alloy fraction to exactly one-tenth, the total weight of the coin
became what it now is, four hundred and twelve and a half grains,
nine-tenths fine. The same law of 1792 had given the gold dollar just
one-fifteenth the weight of the silver dollar. This proportion, which
Hamilton had arrived at after careful investigation characteristic of
the man, was exactly correct at the time, but within a year, as is now
known, on account of increase in the relative value of gold, the gold
dollar at fifteen to one became more valuable than its silver mate. The
consequence was that the gold brought to the United States mint for
coinage fell off year by year, until some of the years between 1820 and
1830 it had been almost zero. Gold money had nearly ceased to circulate.
[1834-1836]
Jackson resolved to restore the yellow metal to daily use. In this he
was opposed by many Whigs, who, so zealous were they for the United
States Bank, had become paper money men. The so-called Gold Bill was
carried through Congress in 1834, changing the proportion of silver to
gold in our currency from fifteen to one to sixteen to one. It should
have been fifteen and a half to one. Now gold in its turn was
over-valued, so that silver gradually ceased to circulate, as gold had
almost ceased before. This result was made worse after 1848, when there
was a still further appreciation of silver through the discovery of gold
in California and Australia. Silver dollars did not again circulate
freely in the country until 1878, though they were full legal tender
till 1873. Gold, on the other hand, was everywhere seen after 1834,
though not abundant in circulation, owing to the large amounts of paper
money then in use.
In 1836 the President ordered his Secretary of the Treasury to put forth
the famous Specie Circular, declaring that only gold, silver, or land
scrip should be received in payment for public lands. The occasion of
this was that while land sales were very rapidly increasing, the
receipts hitherto had consisted largely in the notes of insolvent banks.
Land speculators would organize a bank, procure for it, if they could,
the favor of being a "pet" bank, issue notes, borrow these as
individuals and buy land with them. The notes were deposited, when they
would borrow them again to buy land with, and so on. As there was little
specie in the West, the circular broke up many a fine plan, and evoked
much ill-feeling. Gold was drawn from the East, where, as many of the
banks had none too much, the drain caused not a few of them to collapse.
The condition of business at this time was generally unsound, and this
westward movement of gold was all that was needed to precipitate a
crisis. A crisis accordingly came on soon after, painfully severe. It is
unfair, however, to arraign Jackson's order as wholly responsible for
the evils which accompanied this monetary cataclysm. It was rather an
occasion than the cause.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FIRST WHIG TRIUMPH
[1837]
Partly Jackson's personal influence, partly his able aides, partly
favoring circumstances had, during his administrations, brought the
Democracy into excellent condition, patriotic, national in general
spirit, with a creed that, however imperfect--close construction being
its integrating idea--was, after all, definite, consistent, and
thoughtful. Yet in 1840 the Democrats, who four years before had chosen
Van Buren by an electoral vote of 170 to 73, had to surrender, with the
same Van Buren for candidate, to the Whigs by a majority of 234
electoral votes to 60; only five States, and but two of them northern,
going for the democratic candidate.
There were several causes for this defeat. Jackson had made many enemies
as well as many friends, some of these within his own party, while the
entire opposition to him was indescribably bitter on account of the
personal element entering into the struggle. The commendably national
spirit of the Whig Party told well in its favor. Upon this point its
attitude proved far more in accord with the best sentiment of the nation
than that of the Democracy, sound as the latter was at the core and
nobly as its chief had behaved in the nullification crisis.
More influential still was the financial predicament into which on
Jackson's retirement his successor and the country were plunged. The
commercial distress which seemed to spring from Jackson's measures was
now first fully realized. Anger and pain from the death of the bank had
not abated. Ardent hatred prevailed toward the "pet" banks, extending to
the party whose darlings they were, while the Specie Circular was held
to have ruined most of the others. The subsequent legislation for
distributing the treasury surplus among the States, by removing the
deposits from the pet banks, destroyed many of these as well. They had
been using this government money for the discount of loans to business
men, and were not in condition instantly to pay it back. Hence the panic
of 1837. First the New York City banks suspended, soon followed by the
others throughout that State, all sustained in their course by an act of
the Legislature. Suspension presently occurred everywhere else. The
financial pressure continued through the entire summer of 1837, banks,
corporations, and business men going to the wall, and all values greatly
sinking. Boston suffered one hundred and sixty-eight business failures
in six months.

Martin Van Buren.
From a photograph by Brady.
One of Van Buren's earliest acts after assuming office was to call an
extra session of Congress for September 4, 1837, to consider the
financial condition of the country. When it convened, an increase of the
whig vote was apparent, though the Democrats were still in the majority.
On the President's recommendation, agitation now began in favor of the
sub-treasury or independent treasury plan, still in use to-day, of
keeping the government moneys. This had been first broached in 1834-35
by Whigs. The Democrats then opposed it; but now they took it up as a
means of counteracting the whig purpose to revive a national bank.
There was soon less need of any such special arrangement, as the
treasury was swiftly running dry. In June of the preceding year, 1836,
both parties concurring, an act had passed providing that after January
1, 1837, all surplus revenue should be distributed to the States in
proportion to their electoral votes. It was meant to be a loan, to be
recalled, however, only by vote of Congress, but it proved a donation.
Twenty-eight millions were thus paid in all, never to return. Such a
disposition of the revenue had now to be stopped and reverse action
instituted. Importers called for time on their revenue bonds, which had
to be allowed, and this checked income. This special session was needed
to authorize an issue of ten millions in treasury notes to tide the
Government over the crisis.
[1840]
Another influence which now worked powerfully against the Democracy was
hostility to slavery. This campaign--it was the first--saw a "Liberty
Party" in the field, with its own candidates, Birney and Earle. The
abolition sentiment, of which more will be said in a subsequent chapter,
was growing day by day, and little as the Whigs could be called an
antislavery party on the whole, their rank and file were very much more
of that mind than those of the opposition. Jackson had ranted wildly
against the despatch of abolition literature through the mails. The
second Seminole War, 1835-42, was waged mainly in deference to
slave-holders, to recover for them their Florida runaways, and, by
removal of the Seminoles beyond the Mississippi, to break up a popular
resort for escaped negroes. The Indians, under Osceola, whose wife, as
daughter to a slave-mother, had been treacherously carried back into
bondage, fought like tigers. After their massacre of Major Dade and his
detachment, Generals Gaines, Jesup, Taylor, Armistead, and Worth
successively marched against them, none but the last-named successful in
subduing them. Over 500 persons had been restored to slavery, each one
costing the Government, as was estimated, at least $80,000 and the lives
of three white soldiers.