Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States

by Martin Van Buren

The plain and well-understood substance of what he said was that in giving or withholding his assent to the bill for the re-charter of the bank it was his right and duty to decide the question of its constitutionality for himself, uninfluenced by any opinion or judgment which the Supreme Court had pronounced upon that point, farther than his judgment was satisfied by the reason which it had given for its decision. This covered the whole ground. It explained fully his views of the Constitution in respect to what he was doing. All beyond was both uncalled for and unnecessary. To this view of the President's power and duty under the Constitution Mr. Webster assented in the fullest manner. He said,—"It is true that each branch of the legislature has an undoubted right, in the exercise of its functions, to consider the constitutionality of a law proposed to be passed. This is naturally a part of its duty, and neither branch can be compelled to pass any law, or do any other act, which it deems to be beyond the reach of its constitutional power. The President has the same right when a bill is presented for his approval; for he is doubtless bound to consider, in all cases, whether such bill be compatible with the Constitution, and whether he can approve it consistently with his oath of office."

If the supporters of the bank had been willing to judge the President by the claim of power under the Constitution which he intended to advance in his veto message, there would have been a perfect accord of opinion between him and their great leader in the debate upon that document, and one disturbing element would have been withdrawn from the severe agitation to which the public mind was exposed. But this course neither suited the interest of the bank, nor would it have comported with the excited feelings of the implacable enemies of the President. Matters had worked to their liking. By forcing the bill through the two Houses at the eve of the struggle for the President's reëlection, and thus compelling him either to sign or to encounter the responsibility of defeating it, they felt that they had involved the great opponent of the bank,—the only man whose power with the people they really dreaded—in toils from which his escape would be impossible. They were engaged in framing an issue with President Jackson and the Democratic party, looking at that time only to the defeat of his reëlection but which was in 1834 so extended as to involve consequences second only in their importance to those of our struggle for independence from the mother country,—an issue, which was to decide whether the control by the people in affairs of government, the fruit of that great contest, should be continued, or be made to give place to a government controlled by the money power of the country, the trial of which continued much longer than that of the Revolution, and the ultimate results of which were the extinguishment of the bank and the first direct overthrow of the Democratic party since its accession to power in 1800. Able to count their votes in both Houses, and certain of a majority in each, the leading friends of the bank reserved their greatest efforts for the discussion of the veto, the interposition of which they understood the man they had to contend with too well to doubt.

Mr. Webster was designated by the supporters of the bank to open the discussion, and a more competent man, or one better suited for the purpose, could not have been selected. Among our public men there have doubtless been several whose mental endowments were in some particulars superior to his. Hamilton possessed more genius and eloquence. Between Clay and Webster the same disparity existed, though not in the same degree. But as a close and powerful reasoner, an adroit and wary debater,—one capable of taking comprehensive, and at the same time close views of his subject; who surveyed all the points in his case, the weak as well as the strong, and dealt with each in the way best calculated to serve his purpose, and to reduce the advantage of his antagonist to the lowest allowable point, and who was withal unscrupulous in the employment of his great powers,—he was in his day unsurpassed. Backed by a powerful moneyed institution—prepared to use its overflowing resources to any necessary extent; having Mr. Clay on his side; and knowing that what he said would, by means of the money of the bank, be brought to every mansion, and forced into every cabin, and made the subject of eulogy by a vast preponderance of the public press; it is not possible to conceive of circumstances better calculated to bring out Mr. Webster's capacities to the utmost. Those who have the curiosity to turn to the record of his vigorous effort on that occasion will see a favorable specimen of the art in which he was so great a master. His opening speech was designed to give the cue to his party, its orators and presses, in respect to the grounds upon which the election was to be contested. It contained an official programme of the campaign, showing that denunciation and intimidation were the principal weapons to be employed, and was itself the first gun fired in that direction—the signal that was to summon their political friends to the field, and to begin the attempt to fright the country from its propriety.

Mr. Webster opened his speech with statements from which the following are extracts: "Let us look at known facts. Thirty millions of the capital of the bank are now out, on loans and discounts, in the States on the Mississippi and its waters; ten of these millions on the discount of bills of exchange, foreign and domestic, and twenty millions loaned on promissory notes. The whole debt is to be paid, and within the same time the circulation withdrawn.

"The local banks, where there are such, will be able to afford little assistance, because they themselves will feel a full share of the pressure. They will not be in a condition to extend their discounts; but in all probability, obliged to curtail them.... I hesitate not to say that, as this veto travels to the West, it will depreciate the value of every man's property from the Atlantic States to the capital of Missouri. Its effects will be felt in the price of lands—the great and leading article of Western property; in the price of crops; in the products of labor; in the repression of enterprise; and in embarrassment to every kind of business and occupation. I state this opinion strongly, because I have no doubt of its truth, and am willing its correctness should be judged by the event.... To call in this loan at the rate of eight millions a year, in addition to the interest on the whole, and to take away, at the same time, that circulation which constitutes so great a portion of the medium of payment throughout that whole region, is an operation which, however wisely conducted, cannot but inflict a blow on the community of tremendous force and frightful consequences. The thing cannot be done without distress, bankruptcy, and ruin to many....

"A great majority of the people are satisfied with the bank as it is, and desirous that it should be continued. They wished no change. The strength of this public sentiment has carried the bill through Congress, against all the influence of the administration, and all the power of organized party. But the President has undertaken, on his own responsibility, to arrest the measure, by refusing his assent to the bill. He is answerable for the consequences, therefore, which necessarily follow the change which the expiration of the bank charter may produce; and if these consequences shall prove disastrous, they can fairly be ascribed to his policy only, and to the policy of his administration."

These alarming consequences were portrayed as the unavoidable result of a failure on the part of the people to effect a change in our public councils, before the expiration of the charter of the bank, which could only be done at the then next election.

No old school Federalist, who had grown to man's estate with views and opinions in regard to the character of the people which that faith seldom failed to inspire, could doubt the efficacy of such an exposition in turning the minds of all classes of the community in the desired direction. The idea of producing the catastrophe, thus held up to public view, through the direct action of the bank—a proceeding justly stigmatized as "flagitious," in his recent letter to the New York bankers, by Mr. Appleton of Boston, a distinguished and highly trusted Whig, who was in those days admitted behind the curtain and had a view of the whole ground,—had not at that time, I am satisfied, entered into the mind of Mr. Biddle, or perhaps into that of the most reckless advocate of the bank. But the sagacious leader of the Whig party understood too well the extent of General Jackson's popularity and the strength of the Democratic party to think for a moment that an attempt to carry a Presidential election against the power of both could safely be treated as a holiday affair. He knew that by far the largest portion of the classes most likely to be affected by appeals to their pecuniary interests were already on the side of the bank, and that the only chance of success in the election depended upon their ability to make impressions favorable to their views upon classes differently situated, and who in general politics were on the same side with the President. He was also well aware that among the admirers and sincere friends of General Jackson, there were in every State not a few who, confiding fully in his integrity, believing him engaged in continual struggles for the public good with a reckless opposition and sincerely wishing him success, yet distrusted his prudence, listened readily to the reports of his enemies prejudicial to his character, and were kept in constant apprehension that he would, through passion or ill advisement, commit some rash act. Virginia abounded in that class of politicians. My quondam friend Ritchie scarcely ever went to bed in those exciting times without apprehension that he would wake up to hear of some coup d'etat by the General, which he would be called on to explain or defend, and his letters to me were filled with remonstrances and cautions upon the subject. A vacancy occurring in the office of Attorney-General of the United States, I recommended the appointment of Mr. Daniel, now one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, for the place. He came to Washington, was pleased with the invitation to take a seat in the Cabinet, which the General authorized me to give him, was pleased also with the office and would have been glad to accept it under other circumstances, but was, notwithstanding, induced to decline it, after a day's consultation with me, by considerations of that character exclusively. The General was not a little amused, after our friend left us, to hear me attribute his refusal to an apprehension that he might, in the discharge of his official duties be reduced to the necessity of acting against the principles of '98, or against his, the General's wishes—an alternative that he preferred not to encounter. I am free to confess that before I came to understand General Jackson as well as I subsequently did I had not a little of the same feeling. I had seen enough of him in the Senate, whilst occupying different sides in mere party politics, to satisfy me that he was incapable of acting knowingly against the public interest, but it was some time before I became thoroughly satisfied that I did not do full justice to his prudence. I will allude to a single occurrence bearing upon this point. His successful effort to remove the Indians to their Western home is well known and ought never to be forgotten, for there has scarcely been a single act of his life which has proved more beneficial to all parties than that. When the act conferring upon him the necessary powers was before Congress, which was at an early period of his administration, it was found difficult to prevail on the Pennsylvanian members of the House to support it. They were believed to be influenced by an apprehension that by supporting it they would give offense to the Quakers who, as is known, are very numerous in their State. He invited them to an interview which he asked me to attend. He remonstrated with those who came in an earnest and really eloquent manner; placed before them very forcibly the importance of the movement as well to the Indians as to the country; refuted the reasons which were given for their doubts, and as they rose to leave him, under indications not favorable to his wishes, he told them, with much emphasis, that he could not believe that the reasons they had assigned were the true motives by which they were actuated; that they were men of too much sense not to see that the measure was a proper one, but that they were afraid of their popularity; that they stood more in dread of displeasing the Quakers than they did of doing wrong; conjured them to rise superior to such motives, and to do what was right, regardless of personal consequences; told them they would find that to be the best way to make themselves popular, and concluded by saying that he should do his duty in this respect, and if the bill failed for the want of their vote it would not be his fault if their constituents were not supplied with means for forming a correct judgment between them and him. This was the substance of what was said, and said with considerable animation, I observed his eye directed toward me whilst he was speaking, and the moment the door closed on the retiring delegation he turned to me with a smile upon his countenance and said with the blandest manner, "I saw that my remarks disturbed you." I admitted the fact, and said that although they were his friends, personal as well as political, I was apprehensive that his observations, if they were made public, however true and just, might in the then feverish state of the public mind give countenance to the representations of his enemies. His reply was: "No, my friend, I have great respect for your judgment, but you do not understand these gentlemen as well as I do. They are quite honest, and wish to do what is right, but are prevented from doing it by precisely the considerations to which I alluded. They will not be offended, because they know I am their friend, and act only for the public good, and you will see that they will show a different disposition upon the subject"—and they did so. My apprehensions were more on account of what I feared he might say, from the excited manner in which he spoke, than on account of what he did actually say; and this was but one of numerous instances in which I observed a similar contradiction between his apparent undue excitement and his real coolness and self-possession in which, I may say with truth, he was seldom if ever wanting. It was to the class of Jackson's supporters which I have described, men of Mr. Daniel's school, that Webster made his most powerful appeal; to alarm and influence them his powers were exerted to their utmost point. To do this with any chance of success a perversion of the Veto Message was indispensable. We have seen that he was obliged to admit that the President had a right, under the Constitution, to do all that he proposed by the veto. He had sworn to protect the Constitution as the chief executive officer of the government; and when an act was offered for his approval which he honestly believed was contrary to that instrument, he had the right—not the power only but the right also—to withhold his assent. This Mr. Webster admitted in so many words, and President Jackson did not by the message propose to do any thing more. And yet Webster denounced him as a ruthless tyrant, who was violating the Constitution, and uprooting the foundations of society. Look at some of his fierce denunciations: "He asserts a right of individual judgment on constitutional questions, which is totally inconsistent with any proper administration of the Government, or any regular execution of the laws. Social disorder, entire uncertainty in regard to individual rights and individual duties, the cessation of legal authority, confusion, the dissolution of free government,—all these are inevitable consequences of the principles adopted by the message, whenever they shall be carried to their full extent.... That which is now claimed for the President is, in truth, nothing less, and nothing else than the old dispensing power asserted by the Kings of England in the worst of times—the very climax, indeed, of all the preposterous pretensions of the Tudor and the Stuart races.

"According to the doctrines put forth by the President, although Congress may have passed a law, and although the Supreme Court may have pronounced it constitutional, yet it is, nevertheless, no law at all, if he in his good pleasure, sees fit to deny its effect; in other words, to repeal and annul it. Sir, no President, and no public man, ever before advanced such doctrines in the face of the nation. There never was before a moment in which any President would have been tolerated in asserting such claim to despotic power.... If these opinions of the President be maintained, there is an end of all law and all judicial authority. Statutes are but recommendations, judgments no more than opinions. Both are equally destitute of binding force. Such a universal power as is now claimed for him—a power of judging over the laws and over the decisions of the tribunal—is nothing else than pure despotism. If conceded to him, it makes him at once what Louis the Fourteenth proclaimed himself to be when he said 'I am the State.'"

Now where was his warrant for these scandalous denunciations? Was it to be found in the words "every officer," etc. to which I have referred? If so, common fairness required that he should have set them forth so that the readers of his speech might judge for themselves what the President intended by them. This he was too sagacious to do, for if he named them he was bound to give the whole paragraph. If he omitted this the President's friends would have pointed out the deception. If he gave the whole his readers would have seen that General Jackson could not have used the words in the sense attributed to them by Mr. Webster. In this dilemma he contented himself with substituting bold and reckless assumption for proof. Mr. Clay was less cautious, as it was his nature to be; he extracted the obnoxious words without the context, and founded upon them charges like these,—charges by which none who read his speech would have been misled if he had quoted the message fairly:—"There are some parts of his message that ought to excite deep alarm, and that especially in which the President announces that each public officer may interpret the Constitution as he pleases. His language is 'each public officer, who takes an oath to support the Constitution, swears that he will support it as he understands it and not as it is understood by others.' 'The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges; and on that point the President is independent of both.' Now, Mr. President, I conceive, with great deference, that the President has mistaken the purport of the oath to support the Constitution of the United States. No one swears to support it as he understands it, but to support it simply as it is in truth. All men are bound to obey the laws, of which the Constitution is the supreme; but must they obey them as they are, or as they understand them? If the obligation of obedience is limited and controlled by the measure of information, in other words if the party is bound to obey the Constitution only as he understands it, what would be the consequence?" No warrant for these broad and unfounded imputations, on the part of either of the senators, was to be found in the fact that the objections to the new Bank Bill applied equally to the old, nor for the ground thence assumed that it was the intention of President Jackson to treat that as a nullity and to embarrass its directors in winding up its concerns. There was not only nothing in the message to justify such a charge, but its whole character was directly opposite, and that too plainly to be controverted. His agency was not necessary to enable them to wind it up. The courts were sufficient for that, and they were on the side of the bank. Even if it were otherwise, there were legitimate considerations which would have justified him in allowing a charter which had received the sanction of a predecessor in office to proceed to its consummation, whatever he might think of its constitutionality. Nor had Mr. Webster or Mr. Clay a moment's doubt that it was his intention to do so. Their violent not to say savage tirades against the veteran had a different object—and that was the election. There, fortunately, they were unsuccessful, or we might yet have been in our Federal relations, as we unhappily are in those of the States, a bank-ridden people.