In his first message to Congress, after maintaining that a long tenure of office is corrupting, urging that the surplus revenue be apportioned among the several States for works of public utility, he took strong ground against rechartering the United States Bank. This caused much alarm, for the influence of the bank was very great. Its capital was thirty-five million dollars. The parent bank was at Philadelphia, with twenty-five branches in the large cities and towns. Since Alexander Hamilton's time, a government bank had been a matter of contention. When the second was started in 1816, after the war of 1812, business seemed to revive, but many persons believed, with Henry Clay, that such a bank was unconstitutional, and a vast political power that might be, and was, corruptly used. Complaints were constantly heard that officials were favored.
When the bill to recharter the bank passed Congress, Jackson promptly vetoed the bill. He said, "We can, at least, take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many." A few years later he determined to put an end to the bank by removing all the surplus funds, amounting to ten millions, and placing them in certain State banks. When Mr. Duane, the Secretary of the Treasury, would not remove the deposits, General Jackson immediately removed him, putting Roger B. Taney in his place. Congress passed a vote of censure on the President, but it was afterward expunged from the records. Speculation resulted from the distribution of the money; the panic of 1836-37 followed, which the Whigs said was caused by the destruction of the bank, and the Democrats by the bank itself.
The United States Bank was not the only disturbing question in these times. The tariff, which was advantageous to the manufacturers of the North, was considered disadvantageous to the agricultural interests of the South. Bitter feeling was engendered by the discussion, till South Carolina, under the leadership of John C. Calhoun, declared that the acts of Congress on the tariff were null and void; therefore, nullification or disunion became the absorbing topic. Then came the great dispute between Robert Y. Hayne and Daniel Webster.
If the nullifiers or believers in extreme States' rights supposed Jackson to be on their side, they were quickly undeceived. When Jefferson's birthday, April 13, was observed in Washington, as it had been for twenty years, Jackson sent the following toast: "Our Federal Union: it must be preserved." He wrote to the citizens of Charleston, "Every enlightened citizen must know that a separation, could it be effected, would begin with civil discord, and end in colonial dependence on a foreign power, and obliteration from the list of nations." He said, "If this thing goes on, our country will be like a bag of meal with both ends open. Pick it up in the middle or endwise, it will run out."
Still, South Carolina was not to be deterred, with the eloquent Calhoun as her leader, and the Nullification Ordinance was passed November 24, 1832. At once the governor was authorized to accept the service of volunteers. Medals were struck bearing the words, "John C. Calhoun, First President of the Southern Confederacy."
By the time South Carolina was ready to break the laws, another person was ready to enforce them. Jackson at once sent General Scott to take command at Charleston, with gun-boats close by, and sent also an earnest and eloquent protest to the seceding State. Public meetings were held in the large cities of the North. The tariff was modified at the next session of Congress, but the disunion doctrines were allowed to grow till thirty years later, when they bore the bitter fruit of civil war.
When Jackson was asked, years afterward, what he would have done with Calhoun and the nullifiers if they had continued, he replied, "Hung them as high as Haman. They should have been a terror to traitors to all time, and posterity would have pronounced it the best act of my life." When difficulties arose about the Cherokees of Georgia, he removed them to the Indian Territory; a harsh measure it seemed, but perhaps not harder for the tribes than to have attempted to live among hostile whites. When the French king neglected to pay the five million dollars agreed upon for injuries done to our shipping, Jackson recommended to make reprisals on French merchantmen, and the money was paid. The national debt was paid under Jackson, who believed rightly that this, as well as every other kind of debt, is a curse. The Eaton affair showed his loyalty to friends. John H. Eaton, Secretary of War, had married the widow of a purser in the Navy, formerly the daughter of a tavern-keeper in Washington. Her conduct had caused criticism, and the ladies of the Cabinet would not associate with her—even though President Jackson tried every means in his power to compel it, as Eaton was his warm friend.
When the eight years of presidential life were over, Jackson sent his farewell address to the people of the country, who had idolized him, and whom he had loved, he said, "with the affection of a son," and retired to the Hermitage. The people of Nashville met him with outstretched arms and tearful faces. He was seventy years old, their President, and he had come home to live and die with them.
He was now through with politics, and wanted to carry out her wishes, to join the little Hermitage church. The night of decision was full of meditation and prayer. One morning in 1843, the church was crowded to see the ex-President make a public confession of the Christian religion. He went home to read his Bible more carefully than ever—he had never read less than three chapters daily for thirty-five years, such is the influence of early education received at a mother's knee.
The following year, 1844, Commodore Elliot offered the sarcophagus which he brought from Palestine, believed to have contained the remains of the Roman Emperor, Alexander Severus, to President Jackson for his final resting-place.