PAGE.
Preliminary View from 1815 to 1820[1]
CHAP.
I.Personal Aspect of the Government[7]
II.Admission of the State of Missouri[8]
III.Finances—Reduction of the Army[11]
IV.Relief of Public Land Debtors[11]
V.Oregon Territory[13]
VI.Florida Treaty and Cession of Texas[14]
VII.Death of Mr. Lowndes[18]
VIII.Death of William Pinkney[19]
IX.Abolition of the Indian Factory System[20]
X.Internal Improvement[21]
XI.General Removal of Indians[27]
XII.Visit of Lafayette to the United States[29]
XIII.The Tariff, and American System[32]
XIV.The A. B. Plot[34]
XV.Amendment of the Constitution, in relation to the Election of President and Vice-President[37]
XVI.Internal Trade with New Mexico[41]
XVII.Presidential and Vice-Presidential Elections in the Electoral Colleges[44]
XVIII.Death of John Taylor, of Caroline[45]
XIX.Presidential Election in the House of Representatives[46]
XX.The Occupation of the Columbia[50]
XXI.Commencement of Mr. Adams's Administration[54]
XXII.Case of Mr. Lanman—Temporary Senatorial Appointment from Connecticut[56]
XXIII.Retiring of Mr. Rufus King[57]
XXIV.Removal of the Creek Indians from Georgia[58]
XXV.The Panama Mission[65]
XXVI.Duel Between Mr. Clay and Mr. Randolph[70]
XXVII.Death of Mr. Gaillard[77]
XXVIII.Amendment of the Constitution, in relation to the Election of President and Vice-President[78]
XXIX.Reduction of Executive Patronage[80]
XXX.Exclusion of Members of Congress from Civil Office Appointments[82]
XXXI.Death of the ex-Presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson[87]
XXXII.British Indemnity for Deported Slaves[88]
XXXIII.Meeting of the first Congress Elected under the Administration of Mr. Adams[91]
XXXIV.Revision of the Tariff[95]
XXXV.The Public Lands—Their Proper Disposition—Graduated Prices—Pre-emption Rights—Donations to Settlers[102]
XXXVI.Cession of a Part of the Territory of Arkansas to the Cherokee Indians[107]
XXXVII.Renewal of the Oregon Joint Occupation Convention[109]
XXXVIII.Presidential Election of 1828, and Further Errors of Mons. de Tocqueville[111]
XXXIX.Retiring and Death of Mr. Macon[114]
XL.Commencement of General Jackson's Administration[119]
XLI.First Message of General Jackson to the two Houses of Congress[121]
XLII.The recovery of the Direct Trade with the British West India Islands[124]
XLIII.Establishment of the Globe Newspaper[128]
XLIV.Limitation of Public Land Sales—Suspension of Surveys—Abolition of the Office of Surveyor General—Origin of the United States Land System—Authorship of the Anti-slavery Ordinance of 1778—Slavery Controversy—Protective Tariff—Inception of the Doctrine of Nullification[130]
XLV.Repeal of the Salt Tax[143]
XLVI.Birthday of Mr. Jefferson, and the Doctrine of Nullification[148]
XLVII.Regulation of Commerce[149]
XLVIII.Alum Salt—The Abolition of the Duty upon it, and Repeal of the Fishing Bounty and Allowances Founded on It[154]
XLIX.Bank of the United States[158]
L.Removals from Office[159]
LI.Indian Sovereignties within the States[163]
LII.Veto on the Maysville Road Bill[167]
LIII.Rupture between President Jackson and Vice-President Calhoun[167]
LIV.Breaking up of the Cabinet, and Appointment of another[180]
LV.Military Academy[182]
LVI.Bank of the United States—Non-renewal of Charter[187]
LVII.Error of De Tocqueville, in relation to the House of Representatives[205]
LVIII.The Twenty-second Congress[208]
LIX.Rejection of Mr. Van Buren, Minister to England[214]
LX.Bank of the United States—Illegal, and Vicious Currency[220]
LXI.Error of Mons. de Tocqueville, in relation to the Bank of the United States, the President, and the People[224]
LXII.Expenses of the Government[229]
LXIII.Bank of the United States—Recharter—Commencement of the Proceedings[232]
LXIV.Bank of the United States—Committee of Investigation Ordered[235]
LXV.The Three per Cent. Debt, and Loss in not Paying it when the Rate was Low, and the Money in the Bank of the United States without Interest[242]
LXVI.Bank of the United States—Bill for the Recharter Reported in the Senate, and Passed that Body[243]
LXVII.Bank of the United States—Bill for the Renewed Charter Passed in the House of Representatives[250]
LXVIII.The Veto[251]
LXXIX.The Protective System[265]
LXX.Public Lands—Distribution to the States[275]
LXXI.Settlement of French and Spanish Land Claims[279]
LXXII."Effects of the Veto"[280]
LXXIII.Presidential Election of 1832[282]
LXXIV.First Annual Message of President Jackson, after his Second Election[283]
LXXV.Bank of The United States—Delay in Paying the Three per Cents.—Committee of Investigation[287]
LXXVI.Abolition of Imprisonment for Debt[291]
LXXVII.Sale of United States Stock in the National Bank[294]
LXXVIII.Nullification Ordinance in South Carolina[297]
LXXIX.Proclamation against Nullification[299]
LXXX.Message on the South Carolina Proceedings[303]
LXXXI.Reduction of Duties—Mr. Verplanck's Bill[308]
LXXXII.Reduction of Duties—Mr. Clay's Bill[313]
LXXXIII.Revenue Collection, or Force Bill[330]
LXXXIV.Mr. Calhoun's Nullification Resolutions[334]
LXXXV.Secret History of the "Compromise" of 1833[342]
LXXXVI.Compromise Legislation; and the Act, so called, of 1833[344]
LXXXVII.Virginia resolutions of '98-'99—Disabused of their South Carolina Interpretation—1. Upon their Own Words—2. Upon Contemporaneous Interpretation[347]
LXXXVIII.Virginia Resolutions of 1798—Disabused of Nullification by their Author[354]
LXXXIX.The Author's own View of the Nature of Our Government, as being a Union in Contradistinction to a League—Presented in a Subsequent Speech on Missouri Resolutions[360]
XC.Public Lands—Distribution of Proceeds[362]
XCI.Commencement of the Twenty-third Congress—The Members', and President's Message[369]
XCII.Removal of the Deposits from the Bank of the United States[373]
XCIII.Bank Proceedings, on Seeing the Decision of the President, in relation to the Removal of the Deposits[379]
XCIV.Report of the Secretary of the Treasury to Congress on the Removal of the Deposits[381]
XCV.Nomination of Government Directors, and their Rejection[385]
XCVI.Secretary's Report on the Removal of Deposits[393]
XCVII.Call on the President for a Copy of the "Paper Read to the Cabinet"[399]
XCVIII.Mistakes of Public Men—Great Combination against General Jackson—Commencement of the Panic[400]
XCIX.Mr. Clay's Speech against President Jackson on the Removal of the Deposits—Extracts[402]
C.Mr. Benton's Speech in Reply to Mr. Clay—Extracts[406]
CI.Condemnation of President Jackson—Mr. Calhoun's Speech—Extracts[411]
CII.Public Distress[415]
CIII.Senatorial Condemnation of President Jackson—his Protest—Notice of the Expunging Resolution[423]
CIV.Mr. Webster's Plan of Relief[433]
CV.Revival of the Gold Currency—Mr. Benton's Speech[436]
CVI.Attempted Investigation of the Bank of the United States[458]
CVII.Mr. Taney's Report on the Finances—Exposure of the Distress Alarms—End of the Panic[462]
CVIII.Revival of the Gold Currency[469]
CIX.Rejection of Mr. Taney—Nominated for Secretary of the Treasury[470]
CX.Senatorial Investigation of the Bank of the United States[470]
CXI.Downfall of the Bank of the United States[471]
CXII.Death of John Randolph, of Roanoake[73]
CXIII.Death of Mr. Wirt[475]
CXIV.Death of the last of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence[476]
CXV.Commencement of the Session, 1834-'35: President's Message[477]
CXVI.Report of the Bank Committee[481]
CXVII.French Spoliations before 1800[487]
CXVIII.French Spoliations—Speech of Mr. Wright, of New-York[489]
CXIX.French Spoliations—Mr. Webster's Speech[505]
CXX.French Spoliations—Mr. Benton's Speech[514]
CXXI.Attempted Assassination of President Jackson[521]
CXXII.Alabama Expunging Resolutions[524]
CXXIII.The Expunging Resolution[528]
CXXIV.Expunging Resolution: Rejected, and Renewed[549]
CXXV.Branch Mints at New Orleans, and in the Gold Regions of Georgia and North Carolina[550]
CXXVI.Regulation Deposit Bill[553]
CXXVII.Defeat of the Defence Appropriation, and loss of the Fortification Bill[554]
CXXVIII.Distribution of Revenue[556]
CXXIX.Commencement of Twenty-Fourth Congress—President's Message[568]
CXXX.Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia[576]
CXXXI.Mail Circulation of Incendiary Publications[580]
CXXXII.French Affairs—Approach at a French Squadron—Apology Required[588]
CXXXIII.French Indemnities—British Mediation—Indemnities Paid[600]
CXXXIV.President Jackson's Foreign Diplomacy[601]
CXXXV.Slavery Agitation[609]
CXXXVI.Removal of the Cherokees from Georgia[624]
CXXXVII.Extension of the Missouri Boundary[626]
CXXXVIII.Admission of the States of Arkansas and Michigan into the Union[627]
CXXXIX.Attempted Inquiry into the Military Academy[638]
CXL.Military Academy—Speech of Mr. Pierce[641]
CXLI.Expunging Resolution—Peroration of Senator Benton's Second Speech[645]
CXLII.Distribution of the Land Revenue[649]
CXLIII.Recharter of the District Banks—Speech of Mr. Benton—The Parts of Local and Temporary Interest Omitted[658]
CXLIV.Independence of Texas[665]
CXLV.Texas Independence—Mr. Benton's Speech[670]
CXLVI.The Specie Circular[676]
CXLVII.Death of Mr. Madison, Fourth President of the United States[678]
CXLVIII.Death of Mr. Monroe, Fifth President of the United States[679]
CXLIX.Death of Chief Justice Marshall[681]
CL.Death of Col. Burr, Third Vice-President of the United States[681]
CLI.Death of William B. Giles, of Virginia[682]
CLII.Presidential Election of 1836[683]
CLIII.Last Annual Message of President Jackson[684]
CLIV.Final Removal of the Indians[690]
CLV.Recision of the Treasury Circular[694]
CLVI.Distribution of Lands and Money—Various Propositions[707]
CLVII.Military Academy—Its Riding House[712]
CLVIII.Salt Tax—Mr. Benton's Fourth Speech[714]
CLIX.Expunging Resolution—Preparation for Decision[717]
CLX.Expunging Resolution—Mr. Benton's Third Speech[719]
CLXI.Expunging Resolution—Mr. Clay, Mr. Calhoun, Mr. Webster—Last Scene—Resolution Passed and Executed[727]
CLXII.The Supreme Court—Judges and Officers[731]
CLXIII.Farewell Address of President Jackson—Extract[732]
CLXIV.Conclusion of General Jackson's Administration[733]
CLXV.Retiring and Death of General Jackson—Administration of Martin Van Buren[735]

PRELIMINARY VIEW.

FROM 1815 TO 1820

The war with Great Britain commenced in 1812 and ended in 1815. It was a short war, but a necessary and important one, and introduced several changes, and made some new points of departure in American policy, which are necessary to be understood in order to understand the subsequent working of the government, and the VIEW of that working which is proposed to be given.

1. It struggled and labored under the state of the finances and the currency, and terminated without any professed settlement of the cause for which it began. There was no national currency—no money, or its equivalent, which represented the same value in all places. The first Bank of the United States had ceased to exist in 1811. Gold, from being undervalued, had ceased to be a currency—had become an article of merchandise, and of export—and was carried to foreign countries. Silver had been banished by the general use of bank notes, had been reduced to a small quantity, insufficient for a public demand; and, besides, would have been too cumbrous for a national currency. Local banks overspread the land; and upon these the federal government, having lost the currency of the constitution, was thrown for a currency and for loans. They, unequal to the task, and having removed their own foundations by banishing specie with profuse paper issues, sunk under the double load of national and local wants, and stopped specie payments—all except those of New England, which section of the Union was unfavorable to the war. Treasury notes were then the resort of the federal government. They were issued in great quantities; and not being convertible into coin at the will of the holder, soon began to depreciate. In the second year of the war the depreciation had already become enormous, especially towards the Canada frontier, where the war raged, and where money was most wanted. An officer setting out from Washington with a supply of these notes found them sunk one-third by the time he arrived at the northern frontier—his every three dollars counting but two. After all, the treasury notes could not be used as a currency, neither legally, nor in fact: they could only be used to obtain local bank paper—itself greatly depreciated. All government securities were under par, even for depreciated bank notes. Loans were obtained with great difficulty—at large discount—almost on the lender's own terms; and still attainable only in depreciated local bank notes. In less than three years the government, paralyzed by the state of the finances, was forced to seek peace, and to make it, without securing, by any treaty stipulation, the object for which war had been declared. Impressment was the object—the main one, with the insults and the outrages connected with it—and without which there would have been no declaration of war. The treaty of peace did not mention or allude to the subject—the first time, perhaps, in modern history, in which a war was terminated by treaty without any stipulation derived from its cause. Mr. Jefferson, in 1807, rejected upon his own responsibility, without even its communication to the Senate, the treaty of that year negotiated by Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney, because it did not contain an express renunciation of the practice of impressment—because it was silent on that point. It was a treaty of great moment, settled many troublesome questions, was very desirable for what it contained; but as it was silent on the main point, it was rejected, without even a reference to the Senate. Now we were in a like condition after a war. The war was struggling for its own existence under the state of the finances, and had to be stopped without securing by treaty the object for which it was declared. The object was obtained, however, by the war itself. It showed the British government that the people of the United States would fight upon that point—that she would have war again if she impressed again: and there has been no impressment since. Near forty years without a case! when we were not as many days, oftentimes, without cases before, and of the most insulting and outrageous nature. The spirit and patriotism of the people in furnishing the supplies, volunteering for the service, and standing to the contest in the general wreck of the finances and the currency, without regard to their own losses—and the heroic courage of the army and navy, and of the militia and volunteers, made the war successful and glorious in spite of empty treasuries; and extorted from a proud empire that security in point of fact which diplomacy could not obtain as a treaty stipulation. And it was well. Since, and now, and henceforth, we hold exemption from impressment as we hold our independence—by right, and by might—and now want the treaty acknowledgment of no nation on either point. But the glorious termination of the war did not cure the evil of a ruined currency and defective finances, nor render less impressive the financial lesson which it taught. A return to the currency of the constitution—to the hard-money government which our fathers gave us—no connection with banks—no bank paper for federal uses—the establishment of an independent treasury for the federal government; this was the financial lesson which the war taught. The new generation into whose hands the working of the government fell during the Thirty Years, eventually availed themselves of that lesson:—with what effect, the state of the country since, unprecedentedly prosperous; the state of the currency, never deranged; of the federal treasury, never polluted with "unavailable funds," and constantly crammed to repletion with solid gold; the issue of the Mexican war, carried on triumphantly without a national bank, and with the public securities constantly above par—sufficiently proclaim. No other tongue but these results is necessary to show the value of that financial lesson, taught us by the war of 1812.

2. The establishment of the second national bank grew out of this war. The failure of the local banks was enough to prove the necessity of a national currency, and the re-establishment of a national bank was the accepted remedy. No one seemed to think of the currency of the constitution—especially of that gold currency upon which the business of the world had been carried on from the beginning of the world, and by empires whose expenses for a week were equal to those of the United States for a year, and which the framers of the constitution had so carefully secured and guarded for their country. A national bank was the only remedy thought of. Its constitutionality was believed by some to have been vindicated by the events of the war. Its expediency was generally admitted. The whole argument turned upon the word "necessary," as used in the grant of implied powers at the end of the enumeration of powers expressly granted to Congress; and this necessity was affirmed and denied on each side at the time of the establishment of the first national bank, with a firmness and steadiness which showed that these fathers of the constitution knew that the whole field of argument lay there. Washington's queries to his cabinet went to that point; the close reasoning of Hamilton and Jefferson turned upon it. And it is worthy of note, in order to show how much war has to do with the working of government, and the trying of its powers, that the strongest illustration used by General Hamilton, and the one, perhaps, which turned the question in Washington's mind, was the state of the Indian war in the Northwest, then just become a charge upon the new federal government, and beginning to assume the serious character which it afterward attained. To carry on war at that time, with such Indians as were then, supported by the British traders, themselves countenanced by their government, at such a distance in the wilderness, and by the young federal government, was a severe trial upon the finances of the federal treasury, as well as upon the courage and discipline of the troops; and General Hamilton, the head of the treasury, argued that with the aid of a national bank, the war would be better and more successfully conducted: and, therefore, that it was "necessary," and might be established as a means of executing a granted power, to wit, the power of making war. That war terminated well; and the bank having been established in the mean time, got the credit of having furnished its "sinews." The war of 1812 languished under the state of the finances and the currency, no national bank existing; and this want seemed to all to be the cause of its difficulties, and to show the necessity for a bank. The second national bank was then established—many of its old, most able, and conscientious opponents giving in to it, Mr. Madison at their head. Thus the question of a national bank again grew up—grew up out of the events of the war—and was decided against the strict construction of the constitution—to the weakening of a principle which was fundamental in the working of the government, and to the damage of the party which stood upon the doctrine of a strict construction of the constitution. But in the course of the "Thirty Years" of which it is proposed to take a "View," some of the younger generation became impressed with the belief that the constitutional currency had not had a fair trial in that war of 1812! that, in fact, it had had no trial at all! that it was not even in the field! not even present at the time when it was supposed to have failed! and that it was entitled to a trial before it was condemned. That trial has been obtained. The second national bank was left to expire upon its own limitation. The gold currency and the independent treasury were established. The Mexican war tried them. They triumphed. And thus a national bank was shown to be "unnecessary," and therefore unconstitutional. And thus a great question of constitutional construction, and of party division, three times decided by the events of war, and twice against the constitution and the strict constructionists, was decided the last time in their favor; and is entitled to stand, being the last, and the only one in which the constitutional currency had a trial.

3. The protection of American industry, as a substantive object, independent of the object of revenue, was a third question growing out of the war. Its incidental protection, under the revenue clause in the constitution, had been always acknowledged, and granted; but protection as a substantive object was a new question growing out of the state of things produced by the war. Domestic manufactures had taken root and grown up during the non-importation periods of the embargo, and of hostilities with Great Britain, and under the temporary double duties which ensued the war, and which were laid for revenue. They had grown up to be a large interest, and a new one, classing in importance after agriculture and commerce. The want of articles necessary to national defence, and of others essential to individual comfort—then neither imported nor made at home—had been felt during the interruption of commerce occasioned by the war; and the advantage of a domestic supply was brought home to the conviction of the public mind. The question of protection for the sake of protection was brought forward, and carried (in the year 1816); and very unequivocally in the minimum provision in relation to duties on cotton goods. This reversed the old course of legislation—made protection the object instead of the incident, and revenue the incident instead of the object; and was another instance of constitutional construction being made dependent, not upon its own words but upon extrinsic, accidental and transient circumstances. It introduced a new and a large question of constitutional law, and of national expediency, fraught with many and great consequences, which fell upon the period of the Thirty Years' View to settle, or to grapple with.