CHAPTER IX.
1832–1833.

GENERAL JACKSON’S SECOND ELECTION—GRAVE PUBLIC EVENTS AT HOME REFLECTED IN MR. BUCHANAN’S LETTERS FROM HIS FRIENDS—FEELINGS OF GENERAL JACKSON TOWARDS THE “NULLIFIERS”—MOVEMENTS IN PENNSYLVANIA FOR ELECTING MR. BUCHANAN TO THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES—HE MAKES A JOURNEY TO MOSCOW—RETURN TO ST. PETERSBURG—DEATH OF HIS MOTHER—SINGULAR INTERVIEW WITH THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS AT HIS AUDIENCE OF LEAVE.

Mr. Buchanan, as the reader has seen, went abroad in the spring of 1832. Events of great consequence occurred at home during his absence. The great debate in the Senate on nullification, between Mr. Webster and Col. Hayne, which took place in 1830, had not been followed in South Carolina by any surrender of the doctrine maintained by the Nullifiers. In November, 1832, the people of South Carolina, assembled in convention, adopted their celebrated ordinance which declared the existing tariff law of the United States null and void within her limits, as an unconstitutional exercise of power. General Jackson who had been re-elected President in the same month, defeating Mr. Clay and all the other candidates by a very large majority of the electoral votes, issued his proclamation against the Nullifiers on the 10th of December.[[34]] Then followed the introduction of the “Force Bill” into the Senate in January, 1833; a measure designed to secure the collection of the revenue against the obstruction of the State laws of South Carolina; Mr. Webster’s support of this measure of the administration; and the consequent expectation of a political union between him and General Jackson. This union, however, was prevented by an irreconcilable difference between Mr. Webster and General Jackson and his friends on the subject of the currency and the Bank of the United States. In 1832 the President had vetoed a bill to continue the Bank in existence. Early in June the President left Washington on a tour to the Eastern States, and while in Boston, during the month of June, he determined to remove the public deposits from the Bank of the United States, and to place them in certain selected State banks. These events and the excitements attending them are touched upon in the private letters which Mr. Buchanan received from his friends, not the least interesting of which was one from General Jackson, expressing his feelings in regard to his proclamation in a very characteristic manner. From one of these letters, too, we may gather that steps were already taking to elect Mr. Buchanan to the Senate of the United States.

[FROM A FRIEND IN WASHINGTON.]

Washington City, August 1, 1832.

Dear Sir:—

Of course you receive regular files of American papers, and I shall therefore not be able to give you much news of a public or political nature.

Thinking, however, you may overlook some things of importance, I shall confine myself to them. The tariff bill, having passed in a modified form (reducing the duties on protected, and taking them off nearly altogether on unprotected articles, to the wants of the Government), it was supposed the excitement in the South would be allayed, if not entirely subdued; but this, I am sorry to say, has not been the case in South Carolina. Messrs. Hayne, Miller, McDuffie, etc., have published an address to the people of South Carolina, in which they state, that the protective system has now become the settled policy of the country, and advise an open resistance to the act. Their legislature will, I have no doubt, recommend the same course, and before another year, I am firmly of the opinion, rebellion will be the order of the day, accompanied with all its horrors. The moment that a drop of blood is shed by the South, in resisting the laws, there will be a general rising of the people, and where is the hand that will be able to stop the fearful wrath of the sovereign people? Duff Green, in his paper of yesterday, said: “That he will write as long as writing will be of any effect; when that ceases, he will adopt the sword. If South Carolina is to be sacrificed, the tyrant will be met on the banks of the Potomac, and many, very many, are the sons of her sister States who will rally beneath her standard. We say to her gallant sons, go on! Yours is the cause of liberty, and the eyes of all her votaries are upon you!”

When language like this is held by the leader of the party, at the seat of Government of the Union, under the immediate eyes of the heads of the nation, and suffered to pass unpunished, it is indeed time for the people seriously to think of a civil war. The leaders in this affair will have much to answer for, and be assured they will be held accountable.

The bank bill has passed, by a small majority, in both Houses of Congress, and the President (true to his principles) has returned it (without his signature) with his objections. There appeared to be great excitement at the time, but it was only occasioned by the brawling of the opposition. A large meeting was got up in Philadelphia, at which a few Jackson men of no note attended, but all would not do. The next week, the Jackson men met to express their opinions, and they resolved unanimously to support “Andrew Jackson, bank or no bank, veto or no veto.” At this meeting there were between ten and fifteen thousand people, citizens of the city and county, the largest meeting, I am told, that ever assembled in Philadelphia within the recollection of the oldest inhabitants.