Part 2 — CHAPTER IV. Concerning the infallible teaching of the Roman Pontiff: (continued 61)

Article IX. The United States of America engage to put an end, immediately after the ratification of the present treaty, to hostilities with all the tribes or nations of Indians with whom they may be at war at the time of such ratification; and forthwith to restore to such tribes or nations, respectively, all the possessions, rights and privileges which they may have enjoyed or been entitled to in one thousand eight hundred and eleven, previous to such hostilities: Provided always that such tribes or nations shall agree to desist from all hostilities against the United States of America, their citizens and subjects, upon the ratification of the present treaty being notified to such tribes or nations, and shall so desist accordingly. And His Britannic Majesty engages, on his part, to put an end immediately after the ratification of the present treaty, to hostilities with all the tribes or nations of Indians with whom he may be at war at the time of such ratification, and forthwith to restore to such tribes or nations respectively all the possessions, rights and privileges which they may have enjoyed or been entitled to in one thousand eight hundred and eleven, previous to such hostilities: Provided always that such tribes or nations shall agree to desist from all hostilities against His Britannic Majesty, and his subjects, upon the ratification of the present treaty being notified to such tribes or nations, and shall so desist accordingly.

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Article X. Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of humanity and justice, and whereas both His Majesty and the United States are desirous of continuing their efforts to promote its entire abolition, it is hereby agreed that both the contracting parties shall use their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object.

Article XI. This treaty, when the same shall have been ratified on both sides, without alteration by either of the contracting parties, and the ratifications mutually exchanged, shall be binding on both parties and the ratifications shall be exchanged at Washington, in the space of four months from this day, or sooner if practicable. In faith whereof we, the respective Plenipotentiaries, have signed this treaty, and have thereunto affixed our seals. Done, in triplicate, at Ghent, the twenty-fourth day of December, one thousand eight hundred and fourteen.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814. The last fighting at Sea. The exploits of "Old Ironsides."

"During the latter part of the war, as might have been foreseen, there was little opportunity for American frigates to show that they could keep up the fame they had so gloriously won. The British were determined that none of them that ventured out to sea should escape; and by stationing a squadron, which their great resources enabled them to do, before each port where a frigate lay, they succeeded in keeping it cooped up and inactive. … The 'Adams,' which had been a 28-gun frigate, but which was now a corvette, managed to slip out from Washington in January, 1814, under the command of Charles Morris. … Six months were passed in cruising, part of the time off the Irish coast, but with no great success." Returning home, the "Adams" went ashore at the mouth of the Penobscot, but was got off, much injured, and was taken up the river for repairs. An English expeditionary force pursued the crippled vessel, and her commander was forced to set her on fire. "At this time the 'Constitution' [Old Ironsides, as she was popularly called] was … lying at Boston, watched by a squadron of the enemy. She had proved a lucky ship, … and her present captain, Charles Stewart, who had been one of Preble's lieutenants at Tripoli, was certainly a man well fitted to make the most of any chance he had. The frigate had been in port since April, at first repairing, and later unable to get out owing to the presence of the enemy's squadron." In December, however, the " Constitution" contrived to give the blockaders the slip and made her way across the Atlantic to the neighborhood of Madeira, where she fought and captured, at one time, two British war vessels—the corvette "Cyana" of 22 guns, and the sloop "Levant," of 20 guns. A few days afterwards, as the "Constitution," with her two prizes, was lying at anchor in Port Praya, Cape de Verde Islands, Captain Stewart sighted, outside, no less than three ships of the very blockading squadron which he had slipped away from at Boston, and which had pursued him across the ocean. He made his escape from the port, with both his prizes, in time to avoid being hemmed in, and speedily outsailed his pursuers. The latter, giving up hope of the "Constitution," turned their attention to one of the prizes and succeeded in recovering her. "The only other frigate that left port in the last year of the war was less fortunate than the 'Constitution.' This was the 'President,' now under Commodore Decatur. She was at New York, and for some time had lain at anchor off Staten Island watching for an opportunity to pass the blockading squadron." On a stormy night in January, 1815 (after the treaty of peace had been actually signed at Ghent, but before news of it had reached America), he made the attempt, but was discovered and chased by four of the blockading ships. After a race which lasted from dawn until nearly midnight, and a running fight of two hours, Decatur found escape to be impossible and surrendered his ship.

J. R. Soley, The Boys of 1812, chapter 17.

ALSO IN: T. Roosevelt, The Naval War of 1812, chapters 7-9.

B. J. Lossing, Field Book of the War of 1812, chapter 41.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1815 (January). Jackson's victory at New Orleans.

In October of the last year "dispatches from the American envoys abroad announced that 12,000 to 15,000 British troops would leave Ireland early in September for New Orleans and Mobile. Intelligence reached Washington, December 9th, by way of Cuba, that the British Chesapeake force, under Admiral Cochrane, had united at Jamaica with these other troops, and all were ready to sail for the mouths of the Mississippi. 'Hasten your militia to New Orleans,' now urged Monroe upon the Executives of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia; 'do not wait for this government to arm them; put all the arms you can find into their hands; let every man bring his rifle or musket with him; we shall see you paid.' … Great results had been expected by Great Britain from the secret expedition fitted out against Louisiana. … Fifty British vessels, large and small, bore 7,000 British land troops—comprising the invading force from the Chesapeake and a veteran reinforcement from England—across the Gulf of Mexico from Jamaica to the ship channel near the entrance of Lake Borgne, thus approaching New Orleans midway between the Mississippi River and Mobile Bay. Here the fleet anchored; and, after dispersing a meagre flotilla of American gunboats, which opposed their progress in vain, the invaders took full possession of Lake Borgne, and, by means of lighter transports, landed troops upon a lonely island at the mouth of the Pearl River, which served as the military rendezvous. Crossing thence to the northwestern end of Lake Borgne, a sparsely-settled region, with plantations and sugar-works, half of this invading army, by the 23d [December], struck the Mississippi at a point within nine miles of New Orleans. Not a gun had been fired since the trifling engagement with the American flotilla. The British believed their near approach unknown, and even unsuspected, in the city; they meant to capture it by an assault both brilliant and sudden. … But Jackson had received his instructions in good season, and from the 2d of December New Orleans had been, under his vigilant direction, a camp in lively motion." Martial law was proclaimed; "free men of color were enrolled; convicts were released to become soldiers; the civic force was increased to its utmost. {3359} Jackson inspected and strengthened the defences in the vicinity, erect·ing new batteries. … With his newly arrived volunteers from neighboring States, quite expert, many of them, in the use of the rifle and eager for fight, Jackson found himself presently at the head of 5,000 effective men, less than 1,000 of whom were regulars." With a portion of these, supported by one of the two armed vessels on the river, he boldly attacked the enemy, on the evening of the 23d, but accomplished little more than to demonstrate the energy of the defence he was prepared to make. On the 28th the English (having previously destroyed one of the troublesome vessels in the river, the Carolina, with hot shot) returned the attack, but did not break the American lines. Then General Pakenham, the English commander, brought up heavy guns from the fleet, and soon convinced General Jackson that cotton bales, which the latter had piled up before his men, were too light and too combustible for breastworks against artillery; but the lesson proved more useful than otherwise, and the British batteries were answered with fully equal effect by an American cannonade. "Pakenham's last and boldest experiment was to carry Jackson's lines by storm on both sides of the river; and this enterprise, fatal, indeed, to those who conceived it, gives immortal date to the 8th of January,—the day on which the battle of New Orleans was fought. Four days before this momentous battle, over 2,000 Kentucky militia, under General Adair, arrived at New Orleans, ready soldiers, but miserably equipped. Of their number 700 were marched to the front. Pakenham's army, swelled by a body of reinforcements, commanded by General Lambert, another of Wellington's officers, now consisted in all of 10,000 troops, the flower of Brit·ish veterans. On the day of the battle Jackson had only half as many soldiers on the New Orleans side of the river, and of these the greater part were new recruits under inexperienced officers. On the opposite bank General Morgan, with about 1,500 men, among them detachments of Kentuckians and Louisiana militia, had intrenched himself in expectation of an assault. Jackson had penetrated the enemy's design, which was to make the main attack upon his lines, while a lesser force crossed the Mississippi to drive Morgan up the bank. Jackson's grand defences, extending for a mile and a half from the Mississippi, along his ditch or canal, to an impassable cypress swamp, consisted of earthworks, a redoubt next the river to enfilade the ditch, and eight batteries, all well mounted. The schooner Louisiana and Commander Patterson's marine battery across the river protected this line. Another intrenchment had been thrown up a mile and a half in the rear, as a rallying-point in case of need. There was a third line just below the city. … The morn·ing fog rolled away on the 8th of January. Pakenham, under the fire of a battery he had erected during the night, advanced with the main body of British troops to storm Jackson's position." The Americans, behind their breastworks, withheld their fire until the storming columns were 200 yards away, and then poured volley on volley into the approaching mass of men. "This, with the steady fire from the American batteries all along the line, as the foe advanced over a large bare plain, made hideous gaps in the British ranks, throwing them into utter confusion. It was a fearful slaughter. Dead bodies choked the ditch and strewed the plain. Gallant Highlanders flung themselves forward to scale the ramparts only to fall back lifeless. Soldiers who had served under Wellington in Spain broke, scattered, and ran. Of the four British generals commanding, Pakenham was killed, Gibbs mortally wounded, Keane disabled by a shot in the neck; only Lambert remained. Thornton, across the river, had driven Morgan from his lines meantime, and silenced Patterson's battery; but this enterprise might have cost him dearly, had he not in season received orders from Lambert to return instantly. In this battle the British lost not less than 2,600, all but 500 of whom were killed or wounded; while only 8 were killed and 13 wounded on the American side. Having buried his dead presently under a flag of truce, Lambert, whom this calamity had placed in command, retreated hastily under cover of the night, abandoning the expedition. Re-embarking at Lake Borgne, and rejoining the fleet, he next proceeded to invest Fort Bowyer, at the entrance of Mobile Bay, only to learn, after its little garrison had surrendered, that a treaty of peace [signed December 24, 1814, two weeks before the battle of New Orleans was fought] annulled the conquest. … Rude and illiterate as he was, Jackson showed at New Orleans the five prime attributes of military genius: decision, energy, forethought, dispatch, skill in employing resources."

J. Schouler, History of the United States of America, chapter 9, section 1 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: A. Walker, Jackson and New Orleans.

J. Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, volume 2, chapters 1-23.

G. R. Gleig, Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans, chapters 18-23.

M. Thompson, The Story of Louisiana, chapter 9.

G. W. Cable, The Creoles of Louisiana, chapters 26-27.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1815. Final war with the Algerines and suppression of their piracies.

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1815.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816. Incorporation of the second Bank of the United States.

See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1791-1816; and 1817-1833.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816. Admission of Indiana into the Union.

See INDIANA: A. D. 1800-1818.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816. The increased Tariff.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1816-1824.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816. Organization of the American Colonization Society.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1816-1849.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816. Eighth Presidential Election.

James Monroe, Democratic Republican, was elected over Rufus King, Federalist, receiving 183 out of 217 votes cast in the electoral college. Daniel D. Tompkins was chosen Vice President. "Opposition to the War of 1812 proved fatal to the Federal party, which ceased to exist as a national party with the close of Mr. Madison's administration. Not only did the odium of opposing the war tend to annihilate that party, but the questions upon which the two parties differed were, in a great measure, settled or disposed of by the war; others, relating to the general interests of the country, such as a tariff, internal improvements, the chartering of a national bank, erecting fortifications, etc., taking their place, and finding advocates and opponents in both the old parties. Candidates for President and Vice-President were then selected by the respective parties by what was termed a Congressional caucus. {3360} Mr. Monroe was placed in nomination for President by a caucus of the Republican members of Congress, Daniel D. Tompkins, of New York, being nominated by the same caucus for Vice-President. Mr. Crawford, of Georgia, was Mr. Monroe's competitor, and fell but few votes behind him in the caucus. Rufus King was the candidate of the Federal party, or what there was left of it, against Mr. Monroe. The latter received 183 electoral votes, the former 34. No President ever encountered less opposition during his four or eight years' service than Mr. Monroe. Parties and the country seemed to be tired of contention, and desirous to enjoy repose. A most able cabinet was selected, consisting of Mr. J. Q. Adams as Secretary of State; William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury; John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War; Smith Thompson, Secretary of the Navy; and William Wirt, Attorney-General."

N. Sargent, Public Men and Events, 1817-1853, volume 1, chapter 1.

"Remembering only the almost unopposed election and second election of Mr. Monroe, we are apt to think of him as the natural and easy choice of the people. As a matter of fact he was not a great favorite with Republican politicians. He was first nominated by a narrow majority. … Numerous meetings were held in various parts of the country to protest against the caucus system, the most noteworthy of which, perhaps, was held in Baltimore, in which meeting Roger B. Taney, afterward Chief Justice, took a most prominent part. The nomination being made, the presidential election was practically decided. There was no canvass, worthy of the name."

E. Stanwood, History of Presidential Elections, chapter 9.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816-1817. The opening of the question of "Internal Improvements."

"The passage of the bank bill in 1816 was to give the United States a million and a half of dollars. Calhoun, therefore, came forward, December 23, 1816, with a bill proposing that this sum be employed as a fund 'for constructing roads and canals and improving the navigation of watercourses.' 'We are,' said he, 'a rapidly—I was about to say a fearfully—growing country. … This is our pride and danger, our weakness and our strength.' The constitutional question he settled with a phrase: 'If we are restricted in the use of our money to the enumerated powers, on what principle can the purchase of Louisiana be justified?' The bill passed the House by 86 to 84; it was strongly supported by New York members, because it was expected that the general government would begin the construction of a canal from Albany to the Lakes; it had also large support in the South, especially in South Carolina. In the last hours of his administration Madison vetoed it. His message shows that he had selected this occasion to leave to the people a political testament; he was at last alarmed by the progress of his own party, and, like Jefferson, he insisted that internal improvements were desirable, but needed a constitutional amendment. The immediate effect of the veto was that New York, seeing no prospect of federal aid, at once herself began the construction of the Erie Canal, which was opened eight years later."

A. B. Hart, Formation of the Union (Epochs of American History), section 121.

"Mr. Monroe came out, in his first message to Congress, coinciding, on this point, with Mr. Madison's veto. It is due to both of them, however, to say that they were the advocates of internal improvement, and recommended an amendment of the constitution with that view. Nevertheless, Mr. Madison, by his veto, had dashed the cup from the lips to the ground, as he went out of office; and Mr. Monroe coming in, at least for four years, probably for eight—it proved to be eight—broke the cup in advance, so that it could not be used during his term of office, without an amendment of the constitution. … Three presidents successively, Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe, had officially expressed their opinion adverse to a power vested in Congress by the constitution for projects of internal improvement, as contemplated by the measures proposed. Not satisfied with these decisions, Mr. Clay and his friends were instrumental in having a resolution brought forward, in the fifteenth Congress, declaring that Congress had power, under the constitution, to make appropriations for the construction of military roads, post-roads, and canals. … The resolution declaring the power to be vested in Congress by the constitution, to make appropriations for the construction of military roads, post-roads, and canals, was adopted by a vote of 90 to 75; and the principle involved has been practically applied by acts of Congress, from that time to the present."

C. Colton, Life, Correspondence, and Speeches of Henry Clay, volume 1, chapter 19.

ALSO IN: H. G. Wheeler, History of Congress, comprising a History of Internal Improvements, volume 2, page 109, and after.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816-1818. The First Seminole War. Jackson's arbitrary conquest of Florida.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1817. Admission of Mississippi into the Union.

See MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1817.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818. Treaty with Great Britain relating to Fisheries.

See FISHERIES: A. D. 1814-1818.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818. Admission of Illinois into the Union.

See INDIANA: A. D. 1800-1818.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1819. The Dartmouth College Case.

See SUPPLEMENT: DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821. The first bitter Conflict concerning Slavery. The Missouri Compromise, on the admission of Missouri to the Union.

"On March 6, 1818, a petition was presented in the House of Representatives praying that Missouri be admitted as a state. A bill authorizing the people of Missouri to form a state government was taken up in the House on February 13, 1819, and Tallmadge of New York moved, as an amendment, that the further introduction of slavery should be prohibited, and that all children born within the said state should be free at the age of twenty-five years. Thus began the struggle on the slavery question in connection with the admission of Missouri, which lasted, intermittently, until March, 1821. No sooner had the debate on Tallmadge's proposition begun than it became clear that the philosophical anti-slavery sentiment of the revolutionary period had entirely ceased to have any influence upon current thought in the South.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1776-1808.

The abolition of the foreign slave-trade had not, as had been hoped, prepared the way for the abolition of slavery or weakened the slave interest in any sense. On the contrary, slavery had been immensely strengthened by an economic development making it more profitable than it ever had been before. The invention of the cotton-gin by Eli Whitney, in 1793, had made the culture of cotton a very productive source of wealth.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1793.

{3361}

In 1800 the exportation of cotton from the United States was 19,000,000 pounds, valued at $5,700,000. In 1820 the value of the cotton export was nearly $20,000,000, almost all of it the product of slave labor. The value of slaves may be said to have at least trebled in twenty years. The breeding of slaves became a profitable industry. Under such circumstances the slave-holders arrived at the conclusion that slavery was by no means so wicked and hurtful an institution as their revolutionary fathers had thought it to be. … On the other hand, in the Northern States there was no such change of feeling. Slavery was still, in the nature of things, believed to be a wrong and a sore. … The amendment to the Missouri bill, providing for a restriction with regard to slavery, came therefore in a perfectly natural way from that Northern sentiment which remained still faithful to the traditions of the revolutionary period. And it was a great surprise to most Northern people that so natural a proposition should be so fiercely resisted on the part of the South. It was the sudden revelation of a change of feeling in the South which the North had not observed in its progress. 'The discussion of this Missouri question has betrayed the secret of their souls,' wrote John Quincy Adams. The slave-holders watched with apprehension the steady growth of the Free States in population, wealth, and power. In 1790 the population of the two sections had been nearly even. In 1820 there was a difference of over 600,000 in favor of the North in a total of less than ten millions. In 1790 the representation of the two sections in Congress had been about evenly balanced. In 1820 the census promised to give the North a preponderance of more than 30 votes in the House of Representatives. As the slave-holders had no longer the ultimate extinction, but now the perpetuation, of slavery in view, the question of sectional power became one of first importance to them, and with it the necessity of having more Slave States for the purpose of maintaining the political equilibrium at least in the Senate. A struggle for more Slave States was to them a struggle for life. This was the true significance of the Missouri question. The debate was the prototype of all the slavery debates which followed in the forty years to the breaking out of the civil war. … The dissolution of the Union, civil war, and streams of blood were freely threatened by Southern men, while some anti-slavery men declared themselves ready to accept all these calamities rather than the spread of slavery over the territories yet free from it. … On February 16, 1819, the House of Representatives adopted the amendment restricting slavery, and thus passed the Missouri bill. But the Senate, eleven days afterwards, struck out the anti-slavery provision and sent the bill back to the House. A bill was then passed organizing the Territory of Arkansas, an amendment moved by Taylor of New York prohibiting the further introduction of slavery there having been voted down. … Thus slavery was virtually fastened on Arkansas. But the Missouri bill failed in the fifteenth Congress. The popular excitement steadily increased. The sixteenth Congress met in December, 1819. In the Senate the admission of Missouri with slavery was coupled with the admission of Maine, on the balance-of-power principle that one free state and one slave state should always be admitted at the same time. An amendment was moved absolutely prohibiting slavery in Missouri, but it was voted down. Then Mr. Thomas, a Senator from Illinois, on January 18, 1820, proposed that no restriction as to slavery be imposed upon Missouri in framing a state constitution, but that in all the rest of the country ceded by France to the United States north of 30° 30', this being the southern boundary line of Missouri, there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude. This was the essence of the famous Missouri Compromise, and, after long and acrimonious debates and several more votes in the House for restriction and in the Senate against it, this compromise was adopted. By it the slave power obtained the present tangible object it contended for; free labor won a contingent advantage in the future. … Clay has been widely credited with being the 'father' of the Missouri Compromise. As to the main features of the measure this credit he did not deserve. So far he had taken a prominent but not an originating part in the transaction." But, at the next session of Congress, when the Missouri question was unexpectedly reopened, and as threateningly as ever, Clay assumed a more important part in connection with the final settlement of it. "The bill passed at the last session had authorized the people of Missouri to make a state constitution without any restriction as to slavery. The formal admission of the state was now to follow. But the Constitution with which Missouri presented herself to Congress not only recognized slavery as existing there; it provided also that it should be the duty of the legislature to pass such laws as would be necessary to prevent free negroes or mulattoes from coming into or settling in the state." This provoked a new revolt on the part of the Northern opponents of slavery, and it was only through Clay's exertions as a pacificator that Missouri was conditionally admitted to the Union at length [March 3, 1820], the condition being that "the said state shall never pass any law preventing any description of persons from coming to or settling in the said state who now are, or hereafter may become, citizens of any of the states of this Union." The legislature of Missouri gave its assent, as required, to this "fundamental condition," and the "compromise" became complete. "The public mind turned at once to things of more hopeful interest, and the Union seemed safer than ever. The American people have since become painfully aware that this was a delusion."

C. Schurz, Life of Henry Clay, chapter 8 (volume 1).

"The immediate contest was not over the question of the prohibition of slavery in the Territories. The great struggle lasted for nearly three years, but the final proposition which closed the controversy and which prohibited slavery in almost all the then Federal territory was probably not debated more than three hours. It was accepted without discussion by the great bulk of the advocates of Missouri's free admission. Very few slavery extensionists questioned the right and power of Congress to prevent the spread of slavery to the Territories. {3362} That question, in the minds of those who opposed restriction in Missouri, was incidental to the question of the right of Congress to impose conditions upon a State. Incidentally the question of slavery in the Territories came up in the case of Arkansas, a country south of Missouri, in which slavery was already a fact. The restrictionists themselves recognized the fact that the plain, simple issue 'of limiting the area of human slavery would be strengthened by bringing it before the country unincumbered with the question of imposing conditions on a State, though most of them never wavered in their belief that conditions might be imposed. On the one hand it was only Southern zealots who denied to Congress the power to prohibit slavery in the Territories; on the other hand many in the North who opposed slavery believed that Congress might not impose conditions upon a State. In the cabinet of Monroe, in which sat Wirt, Crawford, and Calhoun, it was unanimously agreed that Congress had power to prohibit slavery in the Territories. But John Quincy Adams, also a member of that cabinet, who hated slavery with all the strength of his soul, thought it was unconstitutional to bind a State by conditions. … The struggle indicated a notable change in the southern mind on the slavery question, and that a slave power was forming which would attempt to control all legislation of the federal Union affecting slavery. … The struggle and the compromise afford the first clear demarcation between the sections. From this time the equilibrium of political power was a matter of first concern to a section of States and to a powerful political interest. Mason and Dixon's line is extended toward the west, and now marks a political division. The slave States were now, and for the first time, clearly separated from the free. A geographical line dividing the sections was established."

J. A. Woodburn, Historical Significance of the Missouri Compromise (Report of American Historical Association, 1893), pages 289-294.

ALSO IN: H. von Holst, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, volume 2, chapter 9.

J. Quincy, Life of John Quincy Adams, chapter 5.

H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 1, chapter 7.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1819. Admission of Alabama into the Union.

See ALABAMA: A. D. 1817-1819.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1819-1821. Acquisition of Florida from Spain. Definition of the boundary of the Louisiana Purchase.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1819-1821.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1820. Admission of Maine into the Union as a State.

See MAINE: A. D. 1820; also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1820. Ninth Presidential Election.

"Monroe like Washington was re-chosen President by a vote practically unanimous. One, however, of the 232 electoral votes cast was wanting to consummate this exceptional honor; for a New Hampshire elector, with a boldness of discretion which, in our days and especially upon a close canvass, would have condemned him to infamy, threw away upon John Quincy Adams the vote which belonged like those of his colleagues to Monroe, determined, so it is said, that no later mortal should stand in Washington's shoes. Of America's Presidents elected by virtual acclamation history furnishes but these two examples; and as between the men honored by so unapproachable a tribute of confidence, Monroe entered upon his second term of office with less of real political opposition than Washington."

J. Schouler, History of the United States, chapter 10, section. 2 (volume 3).

Daniel D. Tompkins was re-elected Vice President.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1820. The Fourth Census.

Total population, 9,638,191 (an increase exceeding 33 per cent. over the enumeration of 1810), classed and distributed as follows:

North.

White. Free black. Slave. Connecticut. 267,161 7,844 97 Illinois. 53,788 457 917 Indiana. 145,758 1,230 190 Maine. 297,340 929 0 Massachusetts. 516,419 6,740 0 Michigan. 8,591 174 0 New Hampshire. 243,236 786 0 New Jersey. 257,409 12,460 7,557 New York. 1,332,744 29,279 10,088 Ohio. 576,572 4,723 0 Pennsylvania. 1,017,094 30,202 211 Rhode Island. 79,413 3,554 48 Vermont. 234,846 903 0 —- —- —- Total 5,030,371 99,281 19,108

South.

White. Free black. Slave. Alabama. 85,451 571 41,879 Arkansas 12,579 59 1,617 Delaware. 55,282 12,958 4,509 District of Columbia. 22,614 4,048 6,377 Georgia. 189,566 1,763 149,654 Kentucky. 434,644 2,759 126,732 Louisiana. 73,383 10,476 69,064 Maryland. 260,223 39,730 107,397 Mississippi. 42,176 458 32,814 Missouri. 55,988 347 10,222 North Carolina. 419,200 14,612 205,017 South Carolina. 237,440 6,826 258,475 Tennessee. 339,927 2,727 80,107 Virginia. 603,087 36,889 425,153 —- —- —- Total 2,831,560 134,223 1,519,017

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1821. Beginning of emigration to Texas.

See TEXAS: A. D. 1819-1835.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1824. The Era of Good Feeling.

With the closing of the war of 1812-14, and the disappearance of the party of the Federalists, there came a period of remarkable quietude in the political world. "Then followed the second administration of Monroe, to which was given, perhaps by the President himself, a name which has secured for the whole period a kind of peaceful eminence. It was probably fixed and made permanent by two lines in Halleck's once famous poem of 'Alnwick Castle,' evidently written during the poet's residence in England in 1822-23. Speaking of the change from the feudal to the commercial spirit, he says: "'Tis what our President Monroe, Has called "the era of good feeling."' … It would seem from this verse that Monroe himself was credited with the authorship of the phrase; but I have been unable to find it in his published speeches or messages, and it is possible that it may be of newspaper origin, and that Halleck, writing in England, may have fathered it on the President himself."

T. W. Higginson, Larger History of the United States, page 394.

{3363}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1823. The enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine.

One lasting mark of distinction was given to the administration of President Monroe by the importance which came to be attached to his enunciation of the principle of policy since known as the "Monroe Doctrine." This was simply a formal and official statement of the national demand that foreign nations shall not interfere with the affairs of the two American continents. "There has been a good deal of dispute as to the real authorship of this announcement, Charles Francis Adams claiming it for his father, and Charles Sumner for the English statesman Canning. Mr. Gilman, however, in his late memoir of President Monroe, has shown with exhaustive research that this doctrine had grown up gradually into a national tradition before Monroe's time, and that he merely formulated it, and made it a matter of distinct record. The whole statement is contained in a few detached passages of his message of December 2, 1823. In this he announces that 'the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are not to be considered as subjects for colonization by European powers.' Further on he points out that the people of the United States have kept aloof from European dissensions, and ask only in return that North and South America should be equally let alone. 'We should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety;' and while no objection is made to any existing colony or dependency of theirs, yet any further intrusion or interference would be regarded as 'the manifestation of an unfriendly spirit towards the United States.' This in brief, is the 'Monroe doctrine' as originally stated; and it will always remain a singular fact that this President—the least original or commanding of those who early held that office—should yet be the only one whose name is identified with what amounts to a wholly new axiom of international law."

T. W. Higginson, Larger History of the United States, chapter 16.

"At a cabinet meeting May 13, 1818, President Monroe propounded several questions on the subject of foreign affairs, of which the fifth, as recorded by J. Q. Adams, was this: 'Whether the ministers of the United States in Europe shall be instructed that the United States will not join in any project of interposition between Spain and the South Americans, which should not be to promote the complete independence of those provinces; and whether measures shall be taken to ascertain if this be the policy of the British government, and if so to establish a concert with them for the support of this policy.' He adds that all these points were discussed, without much difference of opinion. On July 31, 1818, Rush had an important interview with Castelreagh in respect to a proposed mediation of Great Britain between Spain and her colonies. The coöperation of the United States was desired. Mr. Rush informed the British minister that 'the United States would decline taking part, if they took part at all, in any plan of pacification, except on the basis of the independence of the colonies.' 'This,' he added, 'was the determination to which his government had come on much deliberation.' … Gallatin writes to J. Q. Adams, June 24, 1823, that before leaving Paris he had said to M. Chateaubriand on May 13, 'The United States would undoubtedly preserve their neutrality provided it were respected, and avoid every interference with the politics of Europe. … On the other hand, they would not suffer others to interfere against the emancipation of America.' … After Canning had proposed to Rush (September 19, 1823) that the United States should coöperate with England in preventing European interference with the Spanish-American colonies, Monroe consulted Jefferson as well as the cabinet, on the course which it was advisable to take, and with their approbation prepared his message. … Enough has been quoted to show that Mr. Sumner is not justified in saying that the 'Monroe doctrine proceeded from Canning,' and that he was 'its inventor, promoter, and champion, at least so far as it bears against European intervention in American affairs.' Nevertheless, Canning is entitled to high praise for the part which he took in the recognition of the Spanish republics, a part which almost justified his proud utterance, 'I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old.'"

D. C. Gilman, James Monroe, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: C. Sumner, Prophetic Voices concerning America, page 157.

G. F. Tucker, The Monroe Doctrine.

F. Wharton, Digest of the International Law of the United States, section 57 (volume 1).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1824. The Protective Tariff.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1816-1824.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1824. Tenth Presidential Election. No choice by the People. Election of John Quincy Adams by the House of Representatives.

"In 1823, as the Presidential election approached, the influences to control and secure the interests predominating in the different sections of the country became more active. Crawford of Georgia, Calhoun of South Carolina, Adams of Massachusetts, and Clay of Kentucky, were the most prominent candidates. In December, Barbour of Virginia was superseded, as Speaker of the House of Representatives, by Clay of Kentucky; an event ominous to the hopes of Crawford, and to that resistance to the tariff and to internal improvements which was regarded as dependent on his success. The question whether a Congressional caucus, by the instrumentality of which Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe had obtained the Presidency, should be again held to nominate a candidate for that office, was the next cause of political excitement. The Southern party, whose hopes rested on the success of Crawford, were clamorous for a caucus. The friends of the other candidates were either lukewarm or hostile to that expedient. Pennsylvania, whose general policy favored a protective tariff and public improvements, hesitated. … But the Democracy of that state … held meetings at Philadelphia, and elsewhere, recommending a Congressional caucus. This motion would have been probably adopted, had not the Legislature of Alabama, about this time, nominated Andrew Jackson for the Presidency, and accompanied their resolutions in his favor with a recommendation to their representatives to use their best exertions to prevent a Congressional nomination of a President. The popularity of Jackson, and the obvious importance to his success of the policy recommended by Alabama, fixed the wavering counsels of Pennsylvania, so that only three representatives from that state attended the Congressional caucus, which was soon after called, and which consisted of only 60 members, out of 261, the whole number of the House of Representatives; of which Virginia and New York, under the lead of Mr. Van Buren, constituted nearly one half. {3364} Notwithstanding this meagre assemblage, Mr. Crawford was nominated for the Presidency. … But the days of Congressional caucuses were now numbered. The people took the nomination of President into their own hands [and John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay were brought into the field]. … The result of this electioneering conflict was that, by the returns of the electoral colleges of the several states, it appeared that none of the candidates had the requisite constitutional majority; the whole number of votes being 261—of which Andrew Jackson had 99, John Quincy Adams 84, William H. Crawford 41, and Henry Clay 37. [The popular vote cast as nearly as can be determined, was: Jackson, 153,544; Adams, 108,740; Crawford, 46,618; Clay, 47,136.] For the office of Vice-President, John C. Calhoun had 180 votes, and was elected. … Of the 84 votes cast for Mr. Adams, not one was given by either of the three great Southern slaveholding states. Seventy-seven were given to him by New England and New York. The other seven were cast by the Middle or recently admitted states. The selection of President from the candidates now devolved on the House of Representatives, under the provisions of the constitution. But, again, Mr. Adams had the support of none of those slaveholding states, with the exception of Kentucky, and her delegates were equally divided between him and General Jackson. The decisive vote was, in effect, in the hands of Mr. Clay, then Speaker of the House, who cast it for Mr. Adams; a responsibility he did not hesitate to assume, notwithstanding the equal division of the Kentucky delegation, and in defiance of a resolution passed by the Legislature of that state, declaring their preference for General Jackson. On the final vote Andrew Jackson had 7 votes, William H. Crawford 4, and John Quincy Adams 13; who was, therefore, forthwith declared President of the United States for four years ensuing the 4th of March, 1825. … Immediately after his inauguration, Mr. Adams appointed Henry Clay, of Kentucky, Secretary of State. … General Jackson was deeply mortified and irritated by Mr. Clay's preference of Mr. Adams. … He immediately put into circulation among his friends and partisans an unqualified statement to the effect that Mr. Adams had obtained the Presidency by means of a corrupt bargain with Henry Clay, on the condition that he should be elevated to the office of Secretary of State. To this calumny Jackson gave his name and authority, asserting that he possessed evidence of its truth; and, although Mr. Clay and his friends publicly denied the charge, and challenged proof of it, two years elapsed before they could compel him to produce his evidence. This, when adduced, proved utterly groundless, and the charge false; the whole being but the creation of an irritated and disappointed mind. Though detected and exposed, the calumny had the effect for which it was calculated. Jackson's numerous partisans and friends made it the source of an uninterrupted stream of abuse upon Mr. Adams, through his whole administration."

J. Quincy, Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams, chapters 6-7.

The new administration "stood upon the same political basis as that of Mr. Monroe. It was but a continuance of the same party ascendency. It looked to no change of measures, and to no other change of men than became inevitably necessary to supply the vacancies which the accidents of political life had created. Mr. Clay was called to the State Department [and was maliciously accused of having bargained for it when he threw his influence at last in Mr. Adams' favor]. … The country … indulged the hope of a prosperous career in the track which had been opened by Mr. Madison, and so successfully pursued by Mr. Monroe. Less confidently, however, it indulged the hope of a continuance of that immunity from party contention and exasperation which had characterized the last eight years. The rising of an opposition was seen, at the very commencement of this administration, like a dark cloud upon the horizon, which gradually spread towards the zenith, not without much rumbling of distant thunder and angry flashes of fire. It was quite obvious to shrewd observers that the late election had disappointed many eager spirits, whose discontent was likely to make head against the predominant party, and, by uniting the scattered fragments of an opposition which had heretofore only slept, whilst the country had supposed it extinct, would present a very formidable antagonist to the new administration. The extraordinary popularity of General Jackson, the defeat of his friends by the vote of the House of Representatives, the neutrality of his political position, his avowed toleration towards political opponents, and what was thought to be his liberal views in regard to prominent political measures—for as yet nothing was developed in his opinions to set him in direct opposition to the policy or principles which governed the administration either of Madison or Monroe—all these considerations gave great strength to the position which he now occupied, and, in the same degree, emboldened the hopes of those who looked to him as the proper person to dispute the next election against the present incumbent. Many of those who had hoped to see the reign of good feeling and of abstinence from party strife prolonged, will remember with what surprise they saw this gathering of hostile elements, and heard it proclaimed by an authoritative political leader [Colonel Richard M. Johnson], in the first days of the new administration, that it should be and ought to be opposed, 'even if it were as pure as the angels at the right hand of the throne of God.' Such a declaration was not less ominous of what was to come than it was startling for its boldness and its novelty in the history of the government. … The opposition … took an organized form—became compact, eager, intolerant and even vindictive."

J. P. Kennedy, Memoirs of the Life of William Wirt, volume 2, chapter 10.

"Monroe was the last President of the Virginian line, John Quincy Adams the last from New England. The centre of power was passing from the east to the west. Adams was a genuine New Englander of the Puritan stock, austerely moral, from his boyhood laboriously self-trained, not only staid but solemn in his teens, intensely self-conscious, ever engaged in self-examination, the punctual keeper of a voluminous diary, an invariably early riser, a daily reader of the Bible even in the White House, scrupulously methodical and strictly upright in all his ways; but testy, unconciliatory, unsympathetic, absolutely destitute of all the arts by which popularity is won. {3365} His election does the highest credit to the respect of the electors for public virtue unadorned. The peculiar features of his father's character were so intensified in him that he may be deemed the typical figure rather than his father. In opinions he was a Federalist who having broken with his party on the question of foreign relations and the embargo had been put out of its pale but had retained its general mould. As he was about the last President chosen for merit not for availability, so he was about the last whose only rule was not party but the public service. So strictly did he observe the principle of permanency and purity in the Civil Service, that he refused to dismiss from office a Postmaster-General whom he knew to be intriguing against him. The demagogic era had come but he would not recognize its coming. He absolutely refused to go on the stump, to conciliate the press, to do anything for the purpose of courting popularity and making himself a party. His obstinacy was fatal to his ambition but is not dishonourable to his memory."

Goldwin Smith, The United States, chapter 4.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1824-1825. The visit of Lafayette.

One of the most deeply interesting events of the year 1824 was the arrival in the country of the honored Lafayette, companion of Washington and friend of the American Republic in its struggle for independence. He came on the invitation of the national Government and was entertained as its guest. "He arrived at Staten Island on Sunday, 15th of August, 1824, accompanied by his son, George Washington Lafayette, and his son-in-]aw, M. Le Vasseur. Here he remained until Monday, and was then met and welcomed by a distinguished committee from New York, who escorted him to that city. … The arrival of Lafayette was an event which stirred the whole country; everybody was anxious to see him, and every State and city in the Union extended an invitation to him to visit such State or city; and he did so, being everywhere received with the most enthusiastic manifestations of love and respect. … He spent a little over a year in the United States, traveling most of the time. … Having visited every portion of the United States and received the affectionate homage of the people, General Lafayette returned to Washington, where he became in fact 'the Nation's Guest' at the Presidential mansion. Soon after the meeting of Congress, in December, 1824, a bill was reported by a joint committee of the two Houses granting to him a township of land and the sum of $200,000, which became a law."

N. Sargent, Public Men and Events, 1817-1853, volume 1, page 89-91.

ALSO IN: A. Levasseur, Lafayette in America, in 1824-1825.

B. Tuckerman, Life of General Lafayette, volume 2, chapter 7.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1824-1836. Schemes of the Slave Power for acquiring Texas.

See TEXAS: A. D. 1824-1836.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1825-1828. Opposition to the Administration. The question of Internal Improvements. Reconstruction of Parties. Democrats and National Republicans.

The inaugural address of President Adams "furnished a topic" against him, and "went to the reconstruction of parties on the old line of strict, or latitudinous, construction of the constitution. It was the topic of internal national improvement by the federal government. The address extolled the value of such works, considered the constitutional objections as yielding to the force of argument, expressed the hope that every speculative (constitutional) scruple would be solved in a practical blessing; and declared the belief that, in the execution of such works, posterity would derive a fervent gratitude to the founders of our Union and most deeply feel and acknowledge the beneficent action of our government. The declaration of principles which would give so much power to the government … alarmed the old republicans, and gave a new ground of opposition to Mr. Adams's administration, in addition to the strong one growing out of the election in the House of Representatives. … This new ground of opposition was greatly strengthened at the delivery of the first annual message, in which the topic of internal improvement was again largely enforced, other subjects recommended which would require a liberal use of constructive powers, and Congress informed that the President had accepted an invitation from the American States of Spanish origin, to send ministers to their proposed Congress on the Isthmus of Panama.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1826.

It was, therefore, clear from the beginning that the new administration was to have a settled and strong opposition. … There was opposition in the Senate to the confirmation of Mr. Clay's nomination to the State department, growing out of his support of Mr. Adams in the election of the House of Representatives, and acceptance of office from him; but overruled by a majority of two to one."

T. H. Benton, Thirty Years' View, volume 1, chapter 21.

"From the very beginning of this Administration both factions of the Strict Constructionists united in an opposition to the President which became stronger through his whole term of office, until it overcame him. His ill-advised nomination of Clay to a post in his Cabinet gave color to the charge of a corrupt bargain between him and Clay, by which Adams was to receive the Clay vote in the House, and Clay was to be rewarded by the position of Secretary of State, which was then usually considered a stepping stone to the Presidency. Clay angrily denied any such bargain, and the renewal of charges and denials, each with its appropriate arguments, gave abundant material for debate. The Clay and Adams factions soon united and took the distinctive party name of National Republicans. Some years afterward this name was changed to that of Whigs. They maintained the loose constructionist principles of the Federalists, and, in addition, desired a Protective Tariff and a system of public improvements at national expense. … In October, 1825, the Tennessee Legislature nominated Jackson for the Presidency in 1828, and Jackson accepted the nomination. Crawford's continued ill-health compelled his adherents to look elsewhere for a candidate, and they gradually united upon Jackson. At first the resulting coalition was known as 'Jackson Men,' but, as they began to take the character of a national party, they assumed the name of Democrats, by which they have since been known. They maintained the strict constructionist principles of the Republican party, though the Crawford faction in the South went further, and held the extreme ground of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1799."

A. Johnston, History of American Politics, 2d edition, chapter 11.

ALSO IN: C. Schurz, Life of Henry Clay, volume 1, chapters 10-12.

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1828. The Tariff "Bill of Abominations." Change of front in New England.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES: A. D. 1828).

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1828. Eleventh Presidential Election. Triumph of Jackson and the new Democracy.

Andrew Jackson was again put in nomination for the Presidency, while President Adams was supported for re-election by the National Republicans. "The campaign was conducted, on both sides, on very ruthless methods. Niles said it was worse than the campaign of 1798. Campaign extras of the 'Telegraph' were issued weekly, containing partisan material, refutations of charges against Jackson, and slanders on Adams and Clay. The Adams party also published a monthly of a similar character. The country was deluged with pamphlets on both sides. These pamphlets were very poor stuff, and contain nothing important on any of the issues. They all appeal to low tastes and motives, prejudices and jealousies. … In September, 1827, the Tammany General Committee and the Albany 'Argus' came out for Jackson, as it had been determined, in the programme, that they should do. A law was passed for casting the vote of New York in 1828 by districts. The days of voting throughout the country ranged from October 31st to November 19th. The votes were cast by the Legislature in Delaware and South Carolina; by districts in Maine, New York, Maryland, Tennessee; elsewhere, by general ticket. Jackson got 178 votes to 83 for Adams. The popular vote was 648,273 for Jackson; 508,064 for Adams. Jackson got only one vote in New England. … For Vice-President, Richard Rush got all the Adams votes; Calhoun [who was elected] got all the Jackson votes except 7 of Georgia, which were given to William Smith, of South Carolina. General Jackson was therefore triumphantly elected President of the United States, in the name of reform, and as the standard-bearer of the people, rising in their might to overthrow an extravagant, corrupt, aristocratic, federalist administration, which had encroached on the liberties of the people, and had aimed to corrupt elections by an abuse of federal patronage. Many people believed this picture of Adams's administration to be true. Andrew Jackson no doubt believed it. Many people believe it yet. Perhaps no administration, except that of the elder Adams, is under such odium. There is not, however, in our history any administration which, upon a severe and impartial scrutiny, appears more worthy of respectful and honorable memory. Its chief fault was that it was too good for the wicked world in which it found itself. In 1836 Adams said, in the House, that he had never removed one person from office for political causes, and that he thought that was one of the principal reasons why he was not reëlected."

W. G. Sumner, Andrew Jackson as a Public Man, chapter 5.

"In this election there was a circumstance to be known and remembered. Mr. Adams and Mr. Rush were both from the non-slaveholding, General Jackson and Mr. Calhoun from the slaveholding States, and both large slave owners themselves, and both received a large vote (73 each) in the free States—and of which at least 40 were indispensable to their election. There was no jealousy, or hostile or aggressive spirit in the North at that time against the South!"

T. H. Benton, Thirty Years' View, volume 1, chapter 38.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1828-1833. The Nullification doctrine and ordinance of South Carolina. The Hayne and Webster debate. President Jackson's proclamation. The Compromise Tariff.

"In May, 1828, a meeting of the South Carolina delegation in Congress was held in Washington, at the rooms of General Hayne, one of the Senators of that State, to concert measures against the tariff and the protective policy which it embodied. From the history of the times, and the disclosures subsequently made, it is apparent that some violent things were said at this meeting, but it broke up without any definite plan. In the course of the following summer, there were many popular meetings in South Carolina, largely attended, at which the tariff of 1824 was treated as an act of despotism and usurpation, which ought to be openly resisted. … They occasioned anxiety and regret among the friends of the Union throughout the country, though nothing more. But, in the autumn, the Legislature of South Carolina adopted an 'Exposition and Protest,' which gave form and substance to the doctrines which thenceforward became known as 'Nullification.' In order to understand them, however, as a theory of the Federal Constitution, it is necessary to state the theory to which they are opposed, and to overthrow which they were brought forward. The Government of the United States, under the Constitution, had hitherto been administered upon the principle that the extent of its powers is to be finally determined by its supreme judicial tribunal, not only when there is any conflict of authority between its several departments, but also when the authority of the whole Government is denied by one or more of the States. … Aside from the authority of [the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798]—an authority that was doubtful, because their interpretation was not clear—there had been no important assertion of the principle that a State can determine for its citizens whether they are to obey an act of Congress, by asserting its unconstitutional character, and that the right to do this is implied as a right inherent in a State, under the Constitution, and results from the nature of the Government. This, however, was what the advocates of nullification now undertook to establish. The remedy which they sought, against acts which they regarded as usurpations, was not revolution, and not the breaking up the Union, as they claimed; but it was a remedy which they held to exist within the Union, and to have been contemplated by the people of the States when they established the Constitution. How far they considered such a theory compatible with the continued existence of the Union, I am not aware that they undertook to explain. … Although the Legislature of South Carolina had thus propounded a theory of resistance, and held that there was then a case in the tariff which would justify a resort to it, no steps were yet taken toward the immediate exercise of the asserted power." In the great debate between General Hayne of South Carolina and Daniel Webster, which occurred in the Senate, in January, 1830, the doctrine of nullification received for the first time a discussion which sank deep into the mind of the nation. {3367} The original subject-matter of the debate was a resolution relating to Western land sales; but Hayne in his first speech made an attack on New England which drew out Webster in vindication, and then, when the South Carolinian replied, he boldly and broadly set forth the nullifying theory which his State had accepted from the sophistical brain of John C. Calhoun. It received its refutation then and there, in Webster's final speech. "The effect of this speech upon the country, that immediately followed its delivery, it is not easy for us at the present day to measure. … Vast numbers of Mr. Webster's speech were … published and circulated in pamphlet editions, after all the principal newspapers of the country had given it entire to their readers. The popular verdict, throughout the Northern and Western and many of the Southern States was decisive. A great majority of the people of the United States, of all parties, understood, appreciated, and accepted the view maintained by Mr. Webster of the nature of the Constitution, and the character of the government which it establishes."

G. T. Curtis, Life of Daniel Webster, chapter 16 (volume 1).

If Webster's speech had solidified the majority opinion of the country in resistance to nullification, it had not paralyzed the nullifying movement. In the summer of 1831, and again in August, 1832, Calhoun published addresses to the people of South Carolina, elaborating his doctrine, and "urging an immediate issue on account of the oppressive tariff legislation under which the South was then suffering. The Legislature of South Carolina was convened by the governor to meet on October 22, for the purpose of calling a convention 'to consider the character and extent of the usurpations of the general government.' The convention met on November 19, and adopted without delay an 'ordinance' declaring that the tariff act of 1828, and the amendments thereto passed in 1832, were null and void; that it should be held unlawful to enforce the payment of duties thereunder within the State of South Carolina; that it should be the duty of the legislature to make laws giving effect to the ordinance; … and that, if the general government should attempt to use force to maintain the authority of the federal law, the State of South Carolina would secede from the Union,—the ordinance to go into full effect on February 1, 1833. The legislature, which met again on November 19, passed the 'appropriate' laws. But these enactments were not very fierce; as Webster said, they 'limped far behind the ordinance.' Some preparation, although little, was made for a conflict of arms;" nor was there any certain show of readiness in other Southern States to stand by South Carolina in the position she had taken. "President Jackson's annual message, which went to Congress on December 4, 1832, was remarkably quiet in tone," and neither alarmed the nullifiers nor gave confidence to the friends of the Union; but "six days later, on December 10, came out Jackson's famous proclamation against the nullifiers, which spoke thus: 'The Constitution of the United States forms a government, not a league. … Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them. To say that any state may at pleasure secede from the Union is to say that the United States are not a nation.' He appealed to the people of South Carolina, in the tone of a father, to desist from their ruinous enterprise; but he gave them also clearly to understand that, if they resisted by force, the whole power of the Union would be exerted to maintain its authority. All over the North, even where Jackson had been least popular, the proclamation was hailed with unbounded enthusiasm. … The nullifiers in South Carolina received the presidential manifesto apparently with defiance. The governor of the state issued a counter-proclamation. Calhoun resigned the vice-presidency, and was immediately sent to the Senate to fight the battle for nullification there." The president, now thoroughly roused, called on Congress for extraordinary powers to meet the emergency, and a bill embodying his wishes—called the "Force Bill"—was introduced. But, at the same time, while they showed this bold front to the nullifiers, Congress and the executive began to prepare a retreat from the ground they had held on the tariff. Henry Clay took the field again, in the exercise of his peculiar talents for compromise, and the result was the nearly simultaneous passage (February 26 and 27, 1833) through Congress of the "Force bill" and of a compromise tariff bill, which latter provided for a graduated reduction of the duties year by year, until 1842, when they should stand at 20 per cent., as a horizontal rate, with a large free-list. "The first object of the measure was attained: South Carolina repealed her nullification ordinance. … But before long it became clear that beyond the repeal of the nullification ordinance, the compromise had settled nothing. The nullifiers strenuously denied that they had in any sense given up their peculiar doctrine."

C. Schurz, Life of Henry Clay, chapter 14 (volume 2).

"The theory of nullification, as set forth by Calhoun, even now, after it has received the benefit of careful study and able expounding by historians, is not clear. He always avowed a loyalty to the Union, but the arguments by which he sought to demonstrate that nullification was compatible with the existence of the Union, and indeed a guarantee of its perpetuity, did not occasion much solicitude to the majority of his party. But no one at the North understood the fallacy of his reasoning or the real end and aim of his party more clearly than did the Union men of his state. They reasoned simply. Said the Camden, S. C. 'Gazette': 'We know of only two ways, under our government, to get rid of obnoxious legislation. We must convince a majority of the nation that a given enactment is wrong and have it repealed in the form prescribed by the constitution, or resist it extra-constitutionally by the sword. … But this everlasting cant of devotion to the Union, accompanied by a recommendation to do those acts that must necessarily destroy it, is beyond patient endurance from a people not absolutely confined in their own mad-houses.' … A fact … that historians have failed to lay any stress upon, and that nevertheless deserves some notice, is the holding of a state convention of the Union party of South Carolina immediately after the nullification convention had completed its work. It was the last important action of that party in the state. {3368} Randell Hunt, who presented the first resolutions, epitomized the views of the convention and the question it should consider in three sentences: 'That the Union party acknowledges no allegiance to any government except that of the United States. That in referring this resolution to the general committee they be instructed to inquire whether it is not expedient to give a military organization to the Union party throughout the state. Whether it will not be necessary to call in the assistance of the general government for maintaining the laws of the United States against the arbitrary violence which is threatened by the late convention.' The resolutions which were adopted declared that the ordinance of nullification violated the constitution of the United States and had virtually destroyed the Union, since by preventing the general government from enforcing its laws within the boundaries of the state, it made the state a sovereignty paramount to the United States. They denounced the provisions of the ordinance as tyrannical and oppressive, and the test oath as especially incompatible with civil liberty, in that it disfranchised nearly half the citizens of the state. They pointed scornfully to the project of a standing army in the state. … They concluded by declaring the continued opposition of the signers to the tariff, and their determination to protect themselves against intolerable oppression. The resolutions were signed by all the members of the convention, about 180 in number. In point of fact, the Unionists were not disposed to favor any compromise measures, and looked rather with disfavor upon Mr. Clay's bill, as a measure which was being forced upon the country. Congress, they thought, ought not to modify the tariff until the nullification ordinance had been repealed. But the greater force was with the nullifiers, and the number of their opponents was dwindling. Caught by the enthusiasm and fighting spirit of their neighbors, some of the Unionists joined the nullification military companies that were being organized, and others, seeing the hopelessness of the struggle against a superior force, in sorrow and disgust shook the dust of South Carolina from their feet, preferring to begin life over again in other parts of the South, less charged with sentiments that they believed to be treasonable. … The Unionist party, crushed and helpless, was only too anxious to bury all feuds. It never was an active force in the state again, but the bold spirit which had actuated its members was manifested later, when the struggle for state sovereignty was more widespread; and some of the most intrepid Union men of the South in the civil war were those who had fled from South Carolina years before, when the nullification party had triumphed."

G. Hunt, South Carolina during the Nullification Struggle (Political Science Quarterly, June, 1891).

ALSO IN: W. G. Sumner, Andrew Jackson as a Public Man, chapters 10 and 13.

H. von Holst, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, volume 1, chapter 12.

J. Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, volume 3, chapters 32-34.

T. H. Benton, Thirty Years' View, volume 1, chapters 78-89.

J. C. Calhoun, Works, volume 6 (Reports and Public Letters).

O. L. Elliott, The Tariff Controversy in the United States, chapter 5.

The following is the text of the "Ordinance to nullify certain acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws laying duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities," adopted by the State Convention of South Carolina on the 24th of November, 1832:

"Whereas the Congress of the United States by various acts, purporting to be acts laying duties and imposts on foreign imports, but in reality intended for the protection of domestic manufactures, and the giving of bounties to classes and individuals engaged in particular employments, at the expense and to the injury and oppression of other classes and individuals, and by wholly exempting from taxation certain foreign commodities, such as are not produced or manufactured in the United States, to afford a pretext for imposing higher and excessive duties on articles similar to those intended to be protected, hath exceeded its just powers under the constitution, which confers on it no authority to afford such protection, and hath violated the true meaning and intent of the constitution, which provides for equality in imposing the burdens of taxation upon the several States and portions of the confederacy: And whereas the said Congress, exceeding its just power to impose taxes and collect revenue for the purpose of effecting and accomplishing the specific objects and purposes which the constitution of the United States authorizes it to effect and accomplish, hath raised and collected unnecessary revenue for objects unauthorized by the constitution. We, therefore, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the several acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities, and now having actual operation and effect within the United States, and, more especially, an act entitled 'An act in alteration of the several acts imposing duties on imports,' approved on the nineteenth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-eight, and also an act entitled 'An act to alter and amend the several acts imposing duties on imports,' approved on the fourteenth day of July, one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, are unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State, its officers or citizens; and all promises, contracts, and obligations, made or entered into, or to be made or entered into, with purpose to secure the duties imposed by said acts, and all judicial proceedings which shall be hereafter had in affirmance thereof, are and shall be held utterly null and void. And it is further ordained, that it shall not be lawful for any of the constituted authorities, whether of this State or of the United States, to enforce the payment of duties imposed by the said acts within the limits of this State; but it shall be the duty of the legislature to adopt such measures and pass such acts as may be necessary to give full effect to this ordinance, and to prevent the enforcement and arrest the operation of the said acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States within the limits of this State, from and after the 1st day of February next, and the duty of all other constituted authorities, and of all persons residing or being within the limits of this State, and they are hereby required and enjoined to obey and give effect to this ordinance, and such acts and measures of the legislature as may be passed or adopted in obedience thereto. {3369} And it is further ordained, that in no case of law or equity, decided in the courts of this State, wherein shall be drawn in question the authority of this ordinance, or the validity of such act or acts of the legislature as may be passed for the purpose of giving effect thereto, or the validity of the aforesaid acts of Congress, imposing duties, shall any appeal be taken or allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, nor shall any copy of the record be permitted or allowed for that purpose; and if any such appeal shall be attempted to be taken, the courts of this State shall proceed to execute and enforce their judgments according to the laws and usages of the State, without reference to such attempted appeal, and the person or persons attempting to take such appeal may be dealt with as for a contempt of the court. And it is further ordained, that all persons now holding any office of honor, profit, or trust, civil or military, under this State (members of the legislature excepted), shall, within such time, and in such manner as the legislature shall prescribe, take an oath well and truly to obey, execute, and enforce this ordinance, and such act or acts of the legislature as may be passed in pursuance thereof, according to the true intent and meaning of the same; and on the neglect or omission of any such person or persons so to do, his or their office or offices shall be forthwith vacated, and shall be filled up as if such person or persons were dead or had resigned; and no person hereafter elected to any office of honor, profit, or trust, civil or military (members of the legislature excepted), shall, until the legislature shall otherwise provide and direct, enter on the execution of his office, or be in any respect competent to discharge the duties thereof until he shall, in like manner, have taken a similar oath; and no juror shall be empanelled in any of the courts of this State, in any cause in which shall be in question this ordinance, or any act of the legislature passed in pursuance thereof, unless he shall first, in addition to the usual oath, have taken an oath that he will well and truly obey, execute, and enforce this ordinance, and such act or acts of the legislature as may be passed to carry the same into operation and effect, according to the true intent and meaning thereof. And we, the people of South Carolina, to the end that it may be fully understood by the government of the United States, and the people of the co-States, that we are determined to maintain this our ordinance and declaration, at every hazard, do further declare that we will not submit to the application of force on the part of the federal government, to reduce this State to obedience; but that we will consider the passage, by Congress, of any act authorizing the employment of a military or naval force against the State of South Carolina, her constitutional authorities or citizens; or any act abolishing or closing the ports of this State, or any of them, or otherwise obstructing the free ingress and egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act on the part of the federal government, to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her commerce, or to enforce the acts hereby declared to be null and void, otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union; and that the people of this State will henceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the other States; and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do. Done in convention at Columbia, the twenty-fourth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-two, and in the fifty-seventh year of the declaration of the independence of the United States of America."

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1829. Introduction of the "Spoils System."

See CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM IN THE UNITED STATES.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1829. The Kitchen Cabinet of President Jackson.

Major Lewis, one of the Tennessee friends of General Jackson, who accompanied him to Washington and was persuaded to remain, with his residence at the White House; General Duff Green, editor of the "United States Telegraph"; Isaac Hill, editor of the "New Hampshire Patriot," and Amos Kendall, late the editor of a Jackson paper in Kentucky, but a native of Massachusetts:—"these were the gentlemen … who, at the beginning of the new administration, were supposed to have most of the President's ear and confidence, and were stigmatized by the opposition as the Kitchen Cabinet."

J. Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, volume 3, chapter 16.

After the breach between Jackson and Calhoun, Duff Green adhered to the latter. The "Globe" newspaper was then founded, to be the organ of the administration, and Francis P. Blair, called from Kentucky to undertake the editorship, acquired at the same time Duff Green's vacated seat in the Kitchen Cabinet.

J. Schouler, History of the United States, volume 3, page 501.

"The establishment of the 'Globe,' the rupture with Calhoun, and the breaking up of the first cabinet had inaugurated a bitter war between the two rival papers, though really between the President and Mr. Calhoun, in consequence of which there were rich revelations made to the public."

N. Sargent, Public Men and Events, 1817-1853, volume 1, page 186.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1829-1832. Rise of the Abolitionists.

"Between the years 1829 and 1832 took place a remarkable series of debates in Virginia on the subject of slavery, brought about by dissatisfaction with the State constitution and by the Nat Turner massacre, in which a number of slaves had risen against their masters. In these debates the evils of slavery were exposed as clearly as they were afterwards by the Abolitionists, and with an outspoken freedom which, when indulged in by Northern men, was soon to be denounced as treasonable and incendiary. These Southern speakers were silenced by the Slave Power. But there were men in the North who thought the same and who would not be silenced. Chief among these was William Lloyd Garrison. He had begun his memorable career by circulating petitions in Vermont in 1828 in favor of emancipation in the District of Columbia. Having joined Lundy in Baltimore in editing the 'Genius of Universal Emancipation,' he had suffered ignominy in the cause, in a Southern jail; drawing from persecution and hardship only new inspiration, he began the publication of the 'Liberator', at Boston in January, 1831. {3370} In the following year, under his leadership, was formed the New England Anti-Slavery Society, which placed itself on the new ground that immediate, unconditional emancipation, without expatriation, was the right of every slave and could not be withheld by his master an hour without sin. In March, 1833, the 'Weekly Emancipator' was established in New York, with the assistance of Arthur and Lewis Tappan, and under the editorship of William Goodell. In the same year appeared at Haverhill, Massachusetts, a vigorous pamphlet by John G. Whittier, entitled 'Justice and Expediency, or Slavery considered with a View to its Rightful and Effectual Remedy, Abolition.' Nearly simultaneously were published Mrs. Lydia Maria Child's 'Appeal in Behalf of that Class of Americans called Africans,' and a pamphlet by Elizur Wright, Jr., a professor in the Western Reserve College, on 'The Sin of Slavery and its Remedy.' These publications and the doctrines of the 'Liberator' produced great excitement throughout the country."

B. Tuckerman, William Jay and the Constitutional Movement for the Abolition of Slavery, chapter 3.

The "Liberator" "was a weekly journal, bearing the names of William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp as publishers. Its motto was, 'Our Country is the World, Our Countrymen are Mankind,' a direct challenge to those whose motto was the Jingo cry of those days, 'Our Country, right or wrong!' It was a modest folio, with a page of four columns, measuring fourteen inches by nine and a quarter. … The paper had not a dollar of capital. It was printed at first with borrowed type. Garrison and Knapp did all the work of every kind between them, Garrison of course doing the editorials. That he wrote them can hardly be said: his habit was often to set up without manuscript. … The publishers announced in their first issue their determination to go on as long as they had bread and water to live on. In fact, they lived on bread and milk, with a little fruit and a few cakes, which they bought in small shops below. Garrison apologizes for the meagreness of the editorials, which, he says, he has but six hours, and those at midnight, to compose, all the rest of his time and the whole of that of his companion being taken up by the mechanical work. … It was against nothing less than the world, or at least the world in which he lived, that this youth of twenty-six, with his humble partner, took up arms. Slavery was at the height of its power. … The salutatory of the 'Liberator' avowed that its editor meant to speak out without restraint. 'I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think or speak or write with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I will be heard.' This promise was amply kept. … In private and in his family he was all gentleness and affection. Let it be said, too, that he set a noble example to controversial editors in his fair treatment of his opponents. Not only did he always give insertion to their replies, but he copied their criticisms from other journals into his own. Fighting for freedom of discussion, he was ever loyal to his own principle. What is certain is that the 'Liberator,' in spite of the smallness of its circulation, which was hardly enough to keep it alive, soon told. The South was moved to its centre. The editorials probably would not have caused much alarm, as the slaves could not read. What was likely to cause more alarm was the frontispiece, which spoke plainly enough to the slave's eye. It represented an auction at which 'slaves, horses and other cattle' were being offered for sale, and a whipping-post at which a slave was being flogged. In the background was the Capitol at Washington, with a flag inscribed 'Liberty' floating over the dome. … On seeing the 'Liberator' the realm of slavery bestirred itself. A Vigilance Association took the matter in hand. First came fiery and bloodthirsty editorials; then anonymous threats; then attempts by legal enactment to prevent the circulation of the 'Liberator' at the South. The Grand Jury of North Carolina found a true bill against Garrison for the circulation of a paper of seditious tendency, the penalty for which was whipping and imprisonment for the first offence, and death without benefit of clergy for the second. The General Assembly of Georgia offered a reward of five thousand dollars to anyone who, under the laws of that State, should arrest the editor of the 'Liberator', bring him to trial, and prosecute him to conviction. The South reproached Boston with allowing a battery to be planted on her soil against the ramparts of Southern institutions. Boston felt the reproach, and showed that she would gladly have suppressed the incendiary print and perhaps have delivered up its editor; but the law was against her, and the mass of the people, though wavering in their allegiance to morality on the question of slavery, were still loyal to freedom of opinion. … It was just at this time that the South and its clientage at the North were thrown into a paroxysm of excitement by the Bloody Monday, as Nat Turner's rising at Southampton was called. The rising was easily suppressed, and Virginia saw, as Jamaica has since seen, how cruel is the panic of a dominant race. Not the slightest connection of the outbreak with Northern abolitionism was traced. That Garrison or anyone connected with him ever incited the slaves to revolt, or said a word intentionally which could lead to servile war, seems to be utterly untrue. His preaching to the slaves, on the contrary, was always patience, submission, abstinence from violence, while in his own moral code he carried non-resistance to an extreme. Moreover, his championship held out hope, and what goads to insurrection is despair."

Goldwin Smith, William Lloyd Garrison, pages 60-65.

"Mr. Emerson once said, 'Eloquence is dog-cheap in anti-slavery meetings.' … On the platform you would always see Garrison; with him was … Sam May. Stephen S. Foster was always there. … Parker Pilsbury, James Buffum, Arnold Buffum, Elizur Wright, Henry C. Wright, Abigail Kelley, Lucy Stone, Theo. D. Weld, the sisters Grimké, from South Carolina; John T. Sargent, Mrs. Chapman, Mrs. Lydia M. Child, Fred Douglas, Wm. W. Brown and Francis Jackson. The last was a stern Puritan, conscientious, upright, clear-minded, universally respected. Edmund Quincy also was there, and he never spoke without saying something that had a touch of wit as well as of logic. Oliver Johnson … was one of the very first members of the Society. Theodore Parker, Samuel J. May, John Pierpont, Charles L. Stearns, Charles L. Redwood, George Thompson (another wonderfully eloquent man), and, above all, Wendell Phillips."

J. F. Clarke, Anti-Slavery Days, chapter 3.

See, also, SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1828-1832.

{3371}

A. D. 1830. The Fifth Census.

Total population, 12,866,020 (being about 33½ per cent. more than in 1820), classed and distributed as follows:

North.

White. Free black. Slave. Connecticut. 289,603 8,047 25 Illinois. 155,061 1,637 747 Indiana. 339,399 3,629 3 Maine 398,263 1,190 2 Massachusetts. 603,359 7,048 1 Michigan. 31,346 261 32 New Hampshire. 268,721 604 3 New Jersey. 300,266 18,303 2,254 New york. 1,873,663 44,870 75 Ohio. 928,329 9,568 6 Pennsylvania. 1,309,900 37,930 403 Rhode Island. 93,621 3,561 17 Vermont. 279,771 881 0

Total 6,871,302 137,529 3,568

South. White. Free black. Slave. Alabama. 190,406 1,572 117,549 Arkansas. 25,671 141 4,576 Delaware. 57,601 15,855 3,292 District of Columbia. 27,563 6,152 6,119 Florida. 18,385 844 15,501 Georgia. 296,806 2,486 217,531 Kentucky. 517,787 4,917 165,213 Louisiana. 89,441 16,710 109,588 Maryland. 291,108 52,938 102,994 Mississippi 70,443 519 65,659 Missouri. 114,795 569 25,091 North Carolina. 472,843 19,543 245,601 South Carolina. 257,863 7,921 315,401 Tennessee. 535,746 4,555 141,603 Virginia. 694,300 47,348 469,757

Total 3,660,758 182,070 2,005,475

In the decade between 1820 and 1830 the immigrant arrivals in the United States, as officially recorded, numbered 143,439, of which 75,803 were from the British Islands. Prior to 1821, there is no official record of immigration.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1830-1831. The first railroads.

See STEAM LOCOMOTION ON LAND.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1832. The Black Hawk War.

See ILLINOIS: A. D. 1832.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1832. The prospective surplus and necessary tariff reduction. Clay's delusive measure.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1832.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1832. Twelfth Presidential Election. Re-election of General Jackson.

General Jackson, renominated by his party almost without question, was re-elected over three competitors, the popular vote being as follows: Andrew Jackson, Democrat, 687,502; Henry Clay, National Republican, 530,189; William Wirt, Anti-Masonic, 33,108; John Floyd (voted for only in South Carolina, where electors were chosen by the legislature). The vote in the electoral college stood: Jackson 219, Clay 49, Floyd 11, Wirt 7. Martin Van Buren was elected Vice President.

"This election is notable for several reasons. It marks the beginning of the system of national nominating conventions; it gave Jackson a second term of office, in which he was to display his peculiar qualities more conspicuously than ever; it compacted and gave distinct character to the new Democratic party; and it practically settled directly the fate of the Bank of the United States, and indirectly the question of nullification. Jackson was easily re-elected, for he had established a great popularity, and the opposition was divided. A new party came into the field, and marked its advent by originating the national nominating convention. This was the Anti-Masonic party".

See NEW YORK: A. D.1826-1832.

Both the Democratic and the National Republican parties adopted the invention of the Anti-Masons, and made their nominations for the first time by the agency of great national conventions.

W. Wilson, Division and Reunion, 1829-1889, page 62.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1833-1836. President Jackson's overthrow of the United States Bank. The removal of the Deposits.

"The torrents of paper-money issued during the revolutionary war, which sunk in value to nothing, converted the old prejudice against paper promises-to-pay into an aversion that had the force of an instinct. To this instinctive aversion, as much as to the constitutional objections urged by Mr. Jefferson and his disciples, was owing the difficulty experienced by Alexander Hamilton in getting his first United States bank chartered. Hence, also, the refusal of Congress to recharter that bank in 1811. Hence the unwillingness of Mr. Madison to sanction the charter of the second bank of the United States in 1816. But the bank was chartered in 1816, and went into existence with the approval of all the great republican leaders, opposed only by the extreme Jeffersonians and by the few federalists who were in public life. … But, long before General Jackson came into power, the bank appeared to have lived down all opposition. In the presidential campaign of 1824 it was not so much as mentioned, nor was it mentioned in that of 1828. … At the beginning of the administration of General Jackson, the Bank of the United States was a truly imposing institution. Its capital was thirty-five millions. The public money deposited in its vaults averaged six or seven millions; its private deposits, six millions more; its circulation, twelve millions; its discounts, more than forty millions a year; its annual profits, more than three millions. Besides the parent bank at Philadelphia, with its marble palace and hundred clerks, there were 25 branches in the towns and cities of the Union. … Its bank-notes were as good as gold in every part of the country. … The bank and its branches received and disbursed the entire revenue of the nation. … There is a tradition in Washington to this day, that General Jackson came up from Tennessee to Washington, in 1829, resolved on the destruction of the Bank of the United States, and that he was only dissuaded from aiming a paragraph at it in his inaugural address by the prudence of Mr. Van Buren. … General Jackson had no thought of the bank until he had been President two months. He came to Washington expecting to serve but a single term, during which the question of re-chartering the bank was not expected to come up. {3372} The bank was chartered in 1816 for twenty years, which would not expire until 1836." But, in 1829, the influence of Isaac Hill, one of the so-called "Kitchen Cabinet" at Washington, involved the irascible President in an endeavor to bring about the removal of Jeremiah Mason, a political opponent, who had been appointed to the presidency of the branch of the United States Bank at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. "The correspondence began in June and ended in October. I believe myself warranted in the positive assertion, that this correspondence relating to the desired removal of Jeremiah Mason was the direct and real cause of the destruction of the bank."

J. Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, volume 3, chapter 20.

"As soon as the issue between him and the Bank of the United States was declared, Jackson resolved that the bank must be utterly destroyed. The method was suggested by Kendall and Blair, of the Kitchen Cabinet. It was to cripple the available means of the bank by withdrawing from it and its branches the deposits of public funds. In the message of December, 1832, Jackson had expressed his doubt as to the safety of the government deposits in the bank, and recommended an investigation. The House, after inquiry, resolved on March 2, by 109 to 46 votes, that the deposits were safe. The bank was at that period undoubtedly solvent, and there seemed to be no reason to fear for the safety of the public money in its custody. But Jackson had made up his mind that the bank was financially rotten; that it had been employing its means to defeat his reëlection; that it was using the public funds in buying up members of Congress for the purposes of securing a renewal of its charter, and of breaking down the administration; and that thus it had become a dangerous agency of corruption and a public enemy. Therefore the public funds must be withdrawn, without regard to consequences. But the law provided that the public funds should be deposited in the Bank of the United States or its branches, unless the Secretary of the Treasury should otherwise 'order and direct,' and in that case the Secretary should report his reasons for such direction to Congress. A willing Secretary of the Treasury was therefore needed. In May, 1833, Jackson reconstructed his Cabinet for the second time. … For the Treasury Department Jackson selected William J. Duane of Philadelphia, who was known as an opponent of the bank. Jackson, no doubt, expected him to be ready for any measure necessary to destroy it. In this he was mistaken. Duane earnestly disapproved of the removal of the deposits as unnecessary, and highly dangerous to the business interests of the country. … A majority of the members of the Cabinet thought the removal of the deposits unwise. … In the business community there seemed to be but one voice about it. The mere rumor that the removal of the deposits was in contemplation greatly disturbed the money market. But all this failed to stagger Jackson's resolution. … The Cabinet, with the exception of the Secretary of the Treasury, bowed to Jackson's will. But Duane would not shelter himself behind the President's assumed responsibility to do an act which, under the law, was to be his act. He also refused to resign. If he had to obey or go, he insisted upon being removed. Jackson then formally dismissed him, and transferred Roger B. Taney from the attorney generalship to the treasury. Benjamin F. Butler of New York, a friend of Van Buren, was made Attorney General. Taney forthwith ordered the removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States; that is to say, the public funds then in the bank were to be drawn out as the government required them, and no new deposits to be made in that institution. The new deposits were to be distributed among a certain number of selected state banks, which became known as the 'pet banks.' … The money market became stringent. Many failures occurred. The general feeling in business circles approached a panic." But the very disturbance was charged upon the Bank, itself; the people rallied to the support of their favorite, "Old Hickory," and when the national charter of the Bank expired, in March, 1836, there was no hope of its renewal. It obtained a charter from the State of Pennsylvania, and continued business as a State institution until it went to pieces in the general commercial shipwreck of 1837-41.