In reviewing the administration of General Jackson, it is not to be denied that he was a remarkable man. He doubtless possessed many of those great qualities which give to one the indisputable command over the many. He was early inured to hardship and danger, and early acquired great independence of thought and action, and a contempt of opposition, which followed him through all the vicissitudes of his career. He made no pretensions to learning, or scholarship of any kind; indeed, his education was superficial and but barely sufficient to conduct him decently through life. In an accurate knowledge of the theory and science of government, and the details of legislation, many of his contemporaries were immeasurably his superior; but what he lacked in knowledge, he made up in boldness and decision. His measures were often hastily conceived, but pertinaciously adhered to. Obedience to his commands were as much required, while President of the United States, as while a general at the head of our armies. It is not to be denied, that he entered upon the discharge of his duties as president with an honest desire to serve his country faithfully, but such was the natural pertinacity of his character, that in the opinion of his political opponents, he was led to insist upon measures, the wisdom of which, under other circumstances, he himself would have questioned. The destruction of the United States Bank was in reality the great measure of his administration, he early conceived a prejudice against the officers of that institution, and was probably honest in the belief that its management was wrong. Hence, he was led with characteristic ardor to commence measures of hostility against it, which, it is well known, ended in the ruin of that great fiscal institution of the country. Its fall involved the fortunes of hundreds and thousands, whose entire means of subsistence were embarked in its immense capital. The ruin of this institution, in the belief of many, was conducive to the interests of the country, notwithstanding the sufferings it entailed upon thousands. Another portion of the community believe its downfall to have been the precursor of that wide spread commercial embarrassment—that derangement of the currency—that blight and bankruptcy of thousands, which for years distressed and harrassed the country.General Jackson, as a military commander, had doubtless his defects. He was stern, imperious, and determined. Yet, for his bravery, his patriotism, his success, he deserves a grateful remembrance; and due respect will doubtless be paid to his memory by the generations that follow. His reputation as a statesman will not be so unequivocal. Different estimates will be made—different views will be entertained. All will accord to him energy, independence, promptness, and determination; while some will not give him credit for having pursued that line of policy which resulted in the greatest prosperity to his country.
ADMINISTRATION OF MARTIN VAN BUREN.
On the 4th of March, 1837, the inauguration of Mr. Van Buren took place in accordance with the form prescribed by the constitution, in the presence of a large assemblage from all quarters of the country. The ex-president, the President elect, and the chief justice of the United States, arrived at the scene about twelve o’clock; the two former in a beautiful carriage, made from the timber of the frigate Constitution, escorted by the Potomac Dragoons, and a corps of infantry.
The address of Mr. Van Buren, on the occasion of his inauguration, may be said to have disappointed both political parties throughout the country. The temper of it was conceded even by his opposers to be good, and its entire exemption from invidious comparisons and allusions was worthy of all commendation. It was even less partisan, perhaps, than the political friends of the new President expected or desired; but to his opponents it induced the hope, that the vindictive strife which had long harassed the country, would be followed by a more tolerant policy. “If any exception be taken to the address,” said a distinguished journal, soon after its delivery, “it certainly will not be from the south, whose good-will its language is particularly adapted to conciliate.” By way of conciliating the south, he repeated an expression of opinion made before his election, that no bill which had for its object the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia against the wishes of the slave-holding states, would receive his sanction during his presidential career. To this he added: “For myself I desire to declare, that the principle that will govern me in the high duty to which my country calls me, is a strict adherance to the letter and spirit of the constitution, as it was designed by those who framed it. Looking back to it as a sacred instrument carefully and not easily framed; remembering that it was throughout a work of concession and compromise; viewing it as limited to national objects; regarding it as leaving to the people and to the states all power not explicitly parted with, I shall endeavor to preserve, protect, and defend it, by anxiously referring to its provisions for direction in every action. To matters of domestic concernment, which it has intrusted to the federal government, and to such as relate to our intercourse with foreign nations, I shall zealously devote myself; beyond those limits I shall never pass.”
On retiring from the presidential chair, General Jackson published a farewell address to his fellow-citizens, after the example of Washington. By his political friends this address was highly extolled, both for the wisdom and importance of its political maxims, and the warm regard expressed for the country and its institutions.
Others regarded it with less favor. They could admit that it expressed sound constitutional opinions on some important points, and developed the true policy of the federal government in relation to its intercourse with foreign nations—in relation to the several state sovereignties, and to the meansof defence by an increase of the navy, and the establishment of more and better constructed fortifications. But they were not prepared to unite with this “second father of his country”—as his warm admirers denominated him—in his views of the currency of the country, nor in the wisdom of the measures which he had pursued, and which he still recommended in relation to it. They also dissented from some of his statements respecting the success of his administration, and particularly from the declaration, that he had left the “people prosperous and happy.”
Immediately after the termination of the twenty-fourth congress, the senate, in conformity with a previous summons issued by the President of the United States, held an extra session, for the purpose of transacting executive business. The following gentlemen having been nominated by the President, were confirmed by the senate, for the offices which they respectively filled, and composed the new cabinet, viz.: John Forsyth, secretary of state; Levi Woodbury, secretary of the treasury; Joel R. Poinsett, secretary of war; Mahlon Dickerson, secretary of the navy; Benjamin F. Butler, attorney-general. These gentlemen, with the exception of Mr. Poinsett, were members of the cabinet of General Jackson.
From whatever source it originated, there was no doubt of the fact, that a most extraordinary pressure in pecuniary affairs was now experienced throughout the country. From New York city a committee of merchants proceeded to Washington to confer with the President, upon the present and the threatening difficulties, and to obtain, if possible, the repeal of the treasury circular. The answer they received was, that it would neither be repealed nor modified. In the month of May, the financial affairs of the country reached a crisis towards which they had for some months past been rapidly hastening. The banks of New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore having suffered a heavy run for specie, which they could now no longer endure, resolved to suspend specie payments; which suspension was soon generally followed by a like suspension on the part of the banks throughout the whole country. Numerous failures of the merchants in all the principal cities were, about the same time, matters of almost daily occurrence. In New York they became at length so much a matter of course that they ceased to excite notice.
The banks in which the United States government deposited the national revenue were involved in the greatest calamity; and of course the law of congress which required these revenues to be deposited in specie-paying banks could not be complied with. The consequent embarrassment experienced by the government, induced the President on the fifteenth day of May, to issue his proclamation for an extra session of congress, to be convened on the first Monday of September following.
The extraordinary condition in which the country now found itself, led to a variety of measures for the purpose of affording temporary relief. Several of the state legislatures passed acts legalizing the suspension of specie payments on the part of the banks, and declaring that it should work no forfeiture of their charters. Some of the city governments passed by-laws, directing the issue of certificates for small sums, from five cents to two dollars, which should be receivable for taxes and debts due to the city government. Baltimore, for example, passed an ordinance for the issue of such certificates for an amount not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars, and Philadelphia a like ordinance for certificates to the amount of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars. The banks themselves were obliged to adopt new rules ofbusiness, and the entire pecuniary condition of the country seemed suddenly changed.