Extremes

( Originally Published 1898 )

THE Adams family has the unique distinction of having furnished a President from two consecutive generations. On the other hand, neither of them- was adapted to the peculiar requirements of that difficult office. Both had ability enough and to spare ; both were singularly patriotic and honest; but there their qualifications ended. The elder Adams was too headstrong, vain, and opinionated ; the younger was too cock-sure, too chilly, precise and unsympathetic. It might be said of him, paradoxically, that he understood men, but did not fathom human nature; there was no doubt about his familiarity with public affairs; he had been suckled on them. He had no tact, or intuitive insight; he did not know when to bend; he did not understand the feeling and desires of the people. A more correct man could not be found; but, as President, he was as often wrong as right in specific acts. He made enemies by inadvertently wounding men's vanity or prejudices; and his whole administration was a fight and a wrangle; and when he stood for reelection, he found no effective supporters. In the first place, he had been chosen by the House and not by the people; and this made it his duty ,to proceed with circumspection, and to study to reconcile opposition. He did neither; and the more conscientiously he labored, the more isolated did he become. Many thwarted him simply because they did not like him personally; many more, because he slighted their projects.

His very first act was crudely injudicious. He appointed Clay his Secretary of State. Clay might or might not have been competent to fill the office; the point was that Clay had, practically, made him President. Everybody knew that Clay coveted the State portfolio; and when he so promptly received it, it was inevitable that there should be accusations of a bargain. Both Clay and Adams denied it, Clay with a lofty air of virtue which was not consonant with his attitude and his letters just before the event; for Clay was really not scrupulous about such things. Adams probably acted from a feeling of gratitude, mingled with a conviction that Clay would make a good Secretary. But this was not enough; he should have avoided the appearance of evil ; and in spite of his long and unblemished record, he never recovered from the blow which this gave to his reputation; and in times of such scurrilous political abuse, it was only to be expected that so effective a weapon would be used against him by his enemies. To start wrong is half to lose the battle. The harm suffered by Clay in accepting the office was hardly less; though much more would be forgiven to him than to Adams, because he was so much more likable a person.

Adams's next move was almost equally clumsy; for he offered the Treasury and the War secretaryships to his defeated rivals, Crawford and Jackson respectively. Craw-ford, who continued to distil venom in his impotence, refused with a snarl. Jackson was the bitter enemy of both Adams and Clay; of the former, because he had obtained the office, through Clay's help, which the electoral votes had put within Jackson's grasp; and Clay, both for this reason, and also because of the part he had taken in the Seminole debate. To make him an offer of a place in the Cabinet was there-fore, from his point of view, to insult him; and Adams was warmed of this in time to save himself the snubbing which Jackson was prepared to give him. Rush and Barbour accepted the posts in question ; and the aged Rufus King, at seventy, consented to go to England as he had done before for Adams's father. But he soon resigned. Adams always meant right, but he blundered. One cannot but respect the firm stand he made, to his loss, against the policy of rotation in office. He would not turn men out except for cause; nor always then. "Change or rotation in office," said he, "would make the government a perpetual and unintermittent scramble for office. A more pernicious expedient could hardly have been devised. I determined to renominate every person against whom there was no complaint which would have warranted his removal ; and renominated every person nominated by Monroe and upon whose nomination the Senate had declined acting." This stand was right and brave, and was not receded from. But, as we know, it utterly failed, in our politics, to overcome the principle enunciated by Marcy, that "to the victors belong the spoils."

The coalition against Adams was formed without delay; it combined the forces of Crawford with those of Jackson; and Calhoun, the Vice-President, assisted them; though at the cost of having to eat his own avowed principles in the past. But as Calhoun's purpose was to mold affairs to bring him in as Adams's successor, the alliance between him and Jackson was of course insincere and temporary.

Adams had announced as a settled feature of his policy, disregarding the scruples of Constitutionalists, that internal improvements would be advocated and pushed during his administration; and it seemed likely to be a popular measure. In 1825, the Erie Canal, three hundred and sixty-three miles in length, and forty feet wide, was opened, and a way thus made from Buffalo to New York. Cannon, placed at intervals, signaled the completion of the work, traversing the distance in an hour and a half :—for the electric telegraph was still unthought of. A procession of boats and barges proceeded from Erie to Albany, and thence down the Hudson to Sandy Hook; at which point Clinton, the father of the Canal, in the sight of the multitude, poured the contents of a barrel of Erie water into the salt tide of the Atlantic. The Canal was received with immense interest and enthusiasm, and others were planned in all directions; so that had it not been for the invention of steam coaches, the country would soon have been intersected with waterways. But science, which has made the Nineteenth Century distinguished, was beginning to make its influence felt; and there were steamboats everywhere; the first steamboat explosion on the Mississippi had occurred in 1823. Roads extended over a great part of the country, and before the railroads were established, one could travel speedily enough for ordinary purposes by horse and wagon. But the people were already bitten with the mania for rapid transit; and that disease has by no means run its course yet. It is innate in our blood, and must have its way.

In 1825 took place the inauguration of the granite monument at Bunker Hill, with Webster to make the oration, and Lafayettte to lay the cornerstone. It was a beautiful day, on the 17th of June, and a vast crowd witnessed the ceremonies. Fifty years had passed since that hillside had been the theater of a far different scene; and this imposing function was good evidence that the farmers who fought there had not shed their honest blood in vain. The mighty voice of Webster was the fitting instrument of expression for the deep thoughts and glorious prospects which the occasion must needs call forth.

Meanwhile, there was opposition between the House and the Senate, the latter being hostile to the President. His plans for internal improvements were delayed, defeated, or pronounced fanciful and impracticable. He was also subjected to criticism for advocating our acceptance of an invitation to attend a congress of the Spanish-American republics, to be held on the Isthmus of Panama. Clay had joined with Adams in urging this project; its somewhat sensational and spectacular character seemed in accord with his temperament rather than with the Executive's. Adams proposed to recommend to the members of the Congress liberal maritime laws, religious liberty, an enlargement of the Monroe doctrine, and other things of less moment. He named commissioners to attend in our behalf, asserting his right to do so independently of Congress ; but submitted the proposal to them as a matter of courtesy. The Senate hummed and hawed over it, and stated a number of objections, but finally yielded rather than bring on a fight with the House. But the whole scheme collapsed, from the simple fact that its management was in Spanish-American hands. Even Bolivar, the South American popular hero, seen at close quarters, turned out not to be so great as rumor made him. The incident was useful only as indicating the incapacity of the Spanish-Americans to accomplish anything of value, from governing themselves down; but the lesson is one which we seem as yet to have mastered but imperfectly. The connection of the United States with this affair gave the opposition an opportunity of saying that Clay and Adams had taken it up in order to distract public attention from their corrupt bargain with each other. John Randolph, with his squeaky voice, in his stage attire of a dissolute groom, his eyes leering with intoxication, hiccoughed his rambling but occasionally pungent accusations and revilings; in the course of which he happened to remark that the political bond between the President and the Secretary of State was an alliance between a "Puritan and a blackleg." For this Clay challenged him to a duel with pistols; and Clay meant to kill him. Randolph, who had long been accustomed to regard himself as a licensed buffoon, was startled at this check; but had not the moral courage to get out of the scrape, and the men met. Randolph seems to have been badly rattled; his pistol went off before the word was given; he was undecided whether he would fire in the air or at Clay; in the first exchange neither was hit; in the second, after seeing Clay's bullet strike the ground beside him, he let off his own weapon in the air, and then shambled hurriedly forward with outstretched hand and an ingratiating smile. Clay accepted the overture, and the Republic was safe. But Randolph's conduct had become so indecorous and incorrigible, that he could not be re-elected to the Senate; though he was returned to the House some time later. He has been called "the image of a great man stamped on base metal." But there was really nothing incongruous in the man. He was a low-comedy actor of genius, with a native wit and readiness which could sting and amuse. By ill luck, he shambled into politics, instead of on to the stage; his impudence, his irreverence, and his fondness for slashing right and left without regard to principle or person, aided his grotesque personal appearance in making him conspicuous; and his sallies and his faculty of calling names relieved the dullness or the solemnity of debates. His influence, so far as he was able to exercise any, was first in the direction of general criticism; and then in laying the foundation of that defense of slavery which consisted in affirming it to be a private domestic concern of the Southerners, with which the North must not meddle but at its peril. This line was taken up later by the far more able Calhoun ; and the two together, with Hayne and some others, supplied the phrases and watchwords which were so often heard afterward in the field days of later times. The doctrine of State rights was made to mean among other things the right of the individual to manage the affairs of his own household. "The moment the United States shall make the unhallowed attempt to interfere with the domestic concerns of Southern States," said Hayne, "those States will consider themselves driven out of the Union." Such adjectives as "unhallowed" and "domestic," used in this connection, were well calculated to stimulate the sensibilities of a race trained to regard themselves as subject to no rule higher than their own will.

Georgia had an opportunity to show her temper in the dispute about the Creek lands in her territory. The government policy was to buy the Indians out, whenever they could be induced to sell ; but the Georgians wished to adopt the simpler method of compelling them to vacate. A treaty was negotiated to this end; but it was so corruptly managed that Adams was compelled to interfere. This made the Georgians angry; and in the subsequent rectification of the boundary between Georgia and Alabama, they unconstitutionally insisted upon running the line themselves, and threatened the United States with armed resistance if interfered with. A man named Troup was the leader in this illegality, and he conducted himself with unrestrained insolence, until the news came that United States troops were actually on the march. He then assured the government that he had never contemplated armed resistance; and the affair was suffered to blow over; Adams behaving with much lenience. As for the Indians, they were kept moving toward the west; and it must be admitted that they were fit occupants of no civilized community. Contact with white men's whisky had deprived them of what small claim to tolerance they had ever possessed.

Randolph's successor in the Senate may be mentioned, inasmuch as he accidentally became a national figure after-ward; it was John Tyler, a Virginian, who had the misfortune to be always placed in the position of having to explain some past action which seemed inconsistent with his present profession; or of vindicating himself from charges of bad faith.—The year 1826 was signalized by the death, on the Fourth of July, of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson; who had lived, since their retirement, accompanied by honor, love, obedience, troops of friends; who had been cordial personal friends, and who deserved to be associated, in death as they had been in life, with that great act of freedom to which their names are subscribed. Monroe, five years later, had the same distinction. Both he and Jefferson died so poor that they barely fell short of pauperdom; and a subscription was started for Jefferson on the very day of his death. He remained a cheerful philosopher to the end; but Monroe was distressed in mind, and his health suffered from the fact.

In the same year Gallatin, who had exchanged Paris for the dismal quiet of a Pennsylvania village, was sent to England to discuss American relations with Canning. The latter had by this time laid aside his momentary semblance of friendliness toward this country, and now shut us out from commerce with the West Indies, on frivolous grounds. There was also a dispute pending regarding the Canada boundary at Maine and Oregon. Canning's death, unlamented both in England and in America, came opportunely to heal dissension; and did more than Gallatin's efforts to afford prospects of an amicable settlement. But Congress, from a wanton desire to embarrass the President, refused to give him proper assistance in his negotiations. Adams's tendency to centralize power subjected him to suspicion and jealousy, and was of ill augury for the remaiinng two years of his term.

But the most obvious activity of these two years was the effort of the friends of Jackson to secure his election as the next President. Hitherto, every President, with the exception of Adams's own father, had received the compliment of a second term; but Jackson's energy and Adams's unpopularity were to break the spell once more. He counted upon the support, not of Crawford—for Crawford was incapable of any but selfish thoughts, and though his mind was affected by his disease, he still clung with ludicrous obstinacy to his former hopes—but of Crawford's quondam supporters; and they finally ranged themselves on his side the first to come over being the arch political strategist, Martin Van Buren, who was of great use in importing into the canvass all the tact, suavity, sagacity, and knowledge of ways and means that his principal lacked. Jackson himself could think of no better campaign argument than that of repeating the old cry of Bargain and Corruption against Adams and Clay; and though the proof on which he relied failed him upon trial, he never retracted the charge, and the people accepted it with the heedlessness of democracies. On the other side, Clay rather than Adams appeared as the defender of the administration and Jackson's antagonist. But Clay was ' rowing against the popular tide, while Jackson was coming with it. Adams refused the most necessary expedients to better his chances, and he early gave up all hope of succeeding himself. Calhoun's defection gave Jackson additional strength in the South, Pennsylvania was for him, and the New York democracy, under the control of Van Buren and Clinton, carried New York. In New England the issue was in some doubt, but, the Jackson forces were better disciplined than those of Adams. When the Congressional elections of 1827 were over, the House as well as the Senate was Jacksonian—the first time such a conjunction had occurred. The consequence was, that the national legislature, instead of paying attention to the President's recommendation of measures tending to the public weal, occupied itself almost exclusively with electioneering tactics, and attempts to discredit the Executive for past acts or omissions.

The only measure of public concern at this session was what was known as "the Woolen Bill" ; or, otherwise, a bill to reform the tariff. The increased duty on imported woolen goods was from seven to twelve per cent; and iron, hemp and lead were also penalized. Adams signed the bill, though it was not an administration measure; he had always abstained from the question, out of consideration for the prejudices of the South. Neither would Jackson admit supporting it, though it could not have been passed but by the votes of his friends. But it met with great opposition; and Hayne of South Carolina declared it to be partial, unjust and unconstitutional. For the produce of the South had hitherto found its chief market in Europe, and a high duty would diminish this market, by preventing the manufactured product from finding its market here. The question split South and North into two hostile camps at once. The South, except sugar-planting Louisiana, was solid for free trade. She asked to be let alone to form her own policy; she believed she could prosper by making her own terms with Europe; she did not need the North; and the suggestion of secession was scarcely veiled. The North meanwhile from free-trade had become protectionist, being the seat of the manufacturing interest.

Clay resigned his secretaryship on the plea of ill-health. The candidates were named—Adams and Rush on one side, Jackson and Calhoun on the other. The campaign was the most scurrilous thus far in our history; nothing was spared in the way of scandal and abuse. Adams men took the title of National Republicans; Jacksonites, that of Democrats. The former jeered at the illiterate, grog-shop affiliations of the latter; but the latter had the majority in the country. New England alone was true to Adams; and from the first, he never had any real chance against his foes. He gained nothing from the Clay interest. He met defeat coldly and unflinchingly, and the last months of his thoroughly conscientious and patriotic admiinstration were dignified and quiet. He had not succeeded in being a congenial President; but had his recommendations been followed the country would have been the better. He wished to make the United States expand and become richer and more powerful by availing itself of the resources of science and of broadly conceived internal improvements; but he had not sufficiently combined general views with particular applications to carry the people with him. The Tariff Bill alienated the South, under the secret stimulus applied by Calhoun, and the open attacks of Rayne. From being warm in recommending internal improvements and a thorough-going protectioinst, Calhoun, for reasons best known to himself, faced square about and supported the opposite principles. Nothing in history is more mysterious than the willingness of men of great parts, in public life, to destroy their reputations before posterity for the sake of gaining a temporary advantage over their immediate opponents. "Honesty is the best policy," said Poor Richard. "It is better to be right than to be President," said another clear-eyed man. But the men who pledge honor for high stakes seem to believe that they can hoodwink history as easily as they can outmaneuver their antagoinsts on the field.

With feelings somewhat like those with which the patricians of ancient Rome witnessed the irruption of the Goths and Vandals, did the conservative element in the country behold the rough-handed mob swarming into power, with their "Hurrah for Jackson!" Were law and order doomed? —could our institutions survive ?—was this America?—The Republic was stancher, and the Union stronger, than any-body suspected; and it was well that they should be tested at every point.

It is easy to be impartial to Jackson now, more than sixty years after he strutted his hour upon the public stage; but during that hour, it must have been well-nigh impossible to be neither his partisan nor his foe. So violent a partisan as he himself was must create, while he occupied the highest place, a like sentiment in all who came in contact with him. There is no defending Jackson's policy as it related to dismissal from office in the internal affairs of the country. He did not care to disguise the fact that he meant to have his friends in, and his opponents out. In order to be his friend, a man did not have to be decent or honorable; all that was required was that he should be an uncompromising Jacksonite. Many of the men whom he appointed to fill places against whose incumbents no charge would stand, were persons more fitted for a cell in a jail than for public trusts. The principle was almost as bad as the practice; it made the conduct of affairs a matter of sale or plunder. A more serious charge against Jackson is, that he constantly and seemingly wantonly lied to men as to his intentions; he would assure them that they would not be disturbed, invite them to take a glass of wine with him in token of cordial friendship, and then, the moment their backs were turned, would chop off their heads. There is much to be said, no doubt, on the plea that an administration is hampered by hostile incumbents of office; but that, or anything, is better than that the civil service should be thrown to the dogs, because the dogs snap and snarl on the side of the Executive.

The fact is that Jackson was one man when his temper was roused, his pride or vanity touched, or his personal feelings in any way engaged, and quite a different man under other circumstances. He was honest except when he was angry; when he was angry it was all chance whether he were honest or not; he did not care. His administration was generally good and sometimes admirable, apart from his private animosities and grudges. His foreign policy was brisk and stiff, and yet not offensive;—"ask nothing that is not right, and submit to nothing that is wrong," was his maxim there. After the reign of terror among office-holders, and the saturnalia among office-seekers, had begun to abate a little, and the main features of his ideas of government were revealed, there turned out to be little to which a well-wisher of his country could not subscribe. He would not tax the people for internal improvements; he wanted the people to have their say and their way in all matters; but on the other hand he, as the representative of the people, insisted upon absolute power in the executive department; so that he was a despot in effect, and a democrat in idea; and the people seemed perfectly satisfied. Get the proletariat to believe that the man on the throne is one of themselves, thinks their thoughts, and shares their aims, and they will back him in any exercise of absolutism. It is not he that is the tyrant, but they; therefore it is not tyranny but freedom. Jackson had a certain luck, or it may have been intuition about the people, which constantly gave him the upper hand in his dealings with opponents in and out of Congress. He relied on the people to back him against Congress, and the success of his vetoes shows he guessed right. His prestige became so formidable that Congress feared him, as schoolboys fear the master. He was much more a man, much franker and more fearless, and much more often right and unselfish in purpose, than the majority of the Senate or House; and therefore they dreaded a contest with him, in which the motives actuating them might be revealed. Besides, Jackson so easily got angry, and when angry, he hit so hard, and was so unrelenting! The man that would openly antagoinze him must be desperately in earnest, and unusually strong; and even then, the odds were all with Jackson.

His refusal to advocate improvements did not surprise any one; and what was really needed in that line could be otherwise provided for. But he startled every one when he showed fight to the United States Bank. This institution had become strong and prosperous under Biddle's management, and was a great power : too great, Jackson may have believed; but that was not the reason why he fought it; the reason was personal ; Biddle had questioned his authority. A hectoring person named Mason was manager of the Ply-mouth, New Hampshire, branch of the bank, and complaints were made of him ; Biddle investigated, found nothing wrong, and indorsed the man in the face of the suspicions of Ingham, the Secretary of the Treasury; at the same time, in his overweening confidence, writing the following foolish defiance: "I deem it my duty to state to you, in a manner perfectly respectful to your official and personal character, yet so clear as to leave no possibility of misconception, that the board of directors of the Bank of the United States, and the boards of directors of the branches of the Bank of the United States, acknowledge not the slightest responsibility of any description whatsoever to the Secretary of the Treasury touching the political opinions and conduct of their officers." Of course not : but the letter is very amusing, in showing of what abject imbecility a clever financier, who thinks that money is everything, and pulls down his waistcoat with an air, is capable. Biddle wrote as he might have written to a clerk who wanted his salary raised. The idea of a conflict between a Biddle and a Jackson—and that Jackson a President—is almost pathetic. "By the Eternal, I'll take the strut out of this Biddle!" Jackson remarked : and it was not long before floods of light broke upon the unhappy man of money, too late to do him any good. His disgraceful end, many years afterward, doubtless brought a grim smile to Jackson's face, as he reflected that, in striking him, he had not struck amiss.

But before the Bank quarrel could be settled, several other things were to happen. The general aspect of affairs was smiling. Washington Irving was sent as Minister to England ; and by way of balancing this excellent appointment, John Randolph was given the mission to Russia. Randolph was a man whose ideas of conduct suited to a gentleman, and to a representative of his country, were peculiar, like all else about him. He had a number of debts, which he had contracted without much hope of paying them; this office would give him the means of doing so. On the other hand, he was averse from the labor which that or any office might entail ; so after accepting the appointment, and spending a week or so at his post, he set out for London, where he amused himself for several years, and then drew his salary, amounting to over twenty thousand dollars. It belonged to him no more than it did to the slave overseer on his farm; but he drew it without compunction, liquidated some of his personal liabilities with it, and returned gayly home. It was one of this statesman's practical jokes; and like other jokes, has been often repeated in our politics.-Clay went home and took to farming again, but he was not to remain there long; Webster returned to Congress. Hayne was also there; and Calhoun sat, as before, pale and impenetrable in the chair of the Senate Chamber. The champions of the great debates that were to be were assembled; but as yet unconscious of what they were to do. The country was free and easy, and looked forward to good times. There was some uneasiness regarding the tariff, to be sure; and Jack-son's message was slightly ambiguous in respect of it; but it seemed probable that a reasonable course would be pursued. South Carolina, at all events, was quite sure that she knew what she needed better than the official tariff-mongers. A convention, of which much was hoped, met in Virginia under distinguished auspices, and presented an amended constitution; but the result was not considered entirely satisfactory. The opportunity to pass a resolution for the gradual abolition of slavery in the state was not improved; and thus an example which might have been followed by other states was lost. The improved facilities of transport and commuincation had made it possible for free labor to take the place of slavery, or at least to compete favorably with it; but the Southerners were wedded to their idols. The public debt would soon be paid off, and when that was done, the surplus might be applied in ways that would increase the welfare of the country. In the southwest, there was again trouble with the Indians, this time the Cherokees, who, to the number of fifteen thousand, had a settlement in Georgia, and had made some advances in civilization. They wished to have their settlement made a separate state; the Georgians naturally objected; a test case was made, and appealed to the Supreme Court, which decided favorably to the Indians, but were powerless, without the aid of the President, to en-force their ruling, which Georgia disregarded. The President declined to use the army to secure red men in the rights they claimed, however legally; it was impossible they could live under such conditions. He advised them to cross the Mississippi and avoid trouble; but the dispute was the old original one between white and red men, never to be settled in strict equity. Indians have some rights which white men are bound to respect; but they claim some others which can never be accorded, unless we give up the continent to them.

Jackson began his career as a vetoer with some bills for appropriations for roads. He saw jobbery in them, and that the pickings and stealings of the promoters would exceed the expenditures for the public good. If the states were once encouraged to lay the cost of their internal improvements on the national government, there would ensue a carnival of political thimble-rigging all over the land. Jackson did good work in scotching this boa-constrictor promptly and resolutely.

But though the morning of the administration thus flattered the mountain tops with sovereign eye, there were clouds on the horizon, gathering in an unexpected quarter. Jack-son had been indebted to South Carolina for her vote; she had supposed that he would favor her tariff views. Other states had voted for him as a protectionist. Here was a discrepancy which would come to judgment sooner or later. He could not be on both sides of the fence; which would he choose? Calhoun thought the time good to test the mat-ter; and he also thought that Jackson would easily be induced to take South Carolina's view. Being kept from the floor himself, he used Hayne as his mouthpiece. Hayne however was anything but a puppet, moving only when another pulled his strings; he was an able, versatile and charming man, eloquent, winning, graceful, harmonious, nimble in the dance, entertaining at the table, and persuasive and impressive in the Senate. Ordinarily he might have had everything his way; but there was Webster in the field, and one Webster was more than a match for six other champions, be they who they might. The debate was one of the historic ones of Congress. Hayne was the most refined type of the Southern gentleman and man of honor ; Webster was Webster.

The discussion began with a suggestion from an Eastern Senator to limit the sale of public lands. This was taken by Southerners as a check to their development; and Hayne attacked New England on that ground. Webster, replying, so demolished his argument as to mortify his self-esteem, and he prepared an elaborate speech, in the course of which he arraigned New England for her disloyalty in the late war with England, denouncing her for the very insistence upon state rights which were the basis of the Southern doctrine of nullification, to which what might be called official expression was now for the first time given. It involved the right of a state to nullify a law which should appear to be clearly unconstitutional, within that state's own borders and for her own protection; the present application being to the tariff. Hayne's speech lasted two days, for he was a verbose as well as a graceful speaker; and it was held by his friends and feared by his opponents to be unmatchable. But it suited Webster well; for he had given thought to the subject long before, and knew what course to take. He needed but an evening to prepare himself for what turned out to be one of the greatest speeches ever made, and perhaps the greatest of his career. "There is Hayne's whole speech," he answered an anxious inquirer, who wished to know whether he had taken full notes ; and he showed him a bit of paper as big as an envelope with a few pencil marks on it. A large and excited audience had assembled to hear him. He entered the Chamber with the port of Jove, majestic and composed; obviously able not to conquer only, but to conquer easily. What should graceful panthers like Hayne do when this royal lion came on the arena? Hayne had spoken well, but from a narrow standpoint—the special pleader for local interests, the sophist and skilled manipulator. Webster stood majestic and broad-shouldered, the human embodiment of the nation, the Union and the Constitution. He shaped his ideas in imposing masses, towering with pinnacles of golden eloquence, but based on immutable foundations of granite truth. When he had spoken, there was no voice to answer him; there was nothing to answer. His words went forth to the nation, north and south, and were convincing and final. Even the stout and ambiguous Benton, who had been a Nullifier, was converted thenceforth to Unionism. Hayne had his quietus; his mentor, Calhoun, could find no other shield or sword for him, to replace those which had been that day destroyed. There is no other instance of a single speech having so completely annihilated a political doctrine, and at the same time furnished every requisite defense of a sublime principle against attack. The South, indeed, might nullify, it might declare state rights, it might secede; but it could never refute Webster's arguments, or claim any constitutional sanction for its acts.

As regarded the attack on New England, Webster refused to restrict her defense to the vindication of the knot of malcontents who dallied with England and attended the Hartford Convention. He went beyond and above them to New England herself, who had remonstrated with James, and had resisted George; to the free and unconquerable people who had passed equal laws, stood firm for human rights, and fought at Bunker Hill. The cause of liberty would always be safe with this people, and they were loyal to the Union which they had sacrificed and suffered so much to attain. The Union was a decree of no State legislature, district or clique, but was the realized will of the people at large, who thereby became a nation. Only by means of it could liberty be assured to posterity ; it could not be riven asunder by the whim or petulance of selfish minorities, by any state or combination of states; no partial considerations could avail to disrupt it; no plea for liberty without Union could avail; but there must be "liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." The words will never be forgotten; they were the rallying cry that brought the loyal states together under the flag when rebellion was declared; they are the expression of the true America. And the principle which they assert ruled Webster's whole career.

Calhoun made one attempt to draw Jackson over to his side in the controversy; he caused a dinner to be given at Washington by the anti-tariff party, to which he and the President should be invited. Jackson came; but those reckoned ill who fancied that the old soldier was to be entrapped into any indiscretion; more than that, he utterly turned the tables on them. For when he was asked for a toast, he arose and said with emphasis, "Our Federal Union—it must be preserved!" It was vain, after that, for Calhoun to get up and suavely talk about Union being the next most dear to liberty; the game was up, and it was so understood. Nor did it answer to try to make out Jefferson as having been the father of the nullification idea; he had devised the thing to meet the special occasion of the Alien and Sedition laws, but had never attempted or desired to push it further. It was Calhoun who was responsible for erecting it into a political principle, and making it the cover for designs which Jefferson had during his presidency explicitly and constantly opposed. And Calhoun must bear the credit or the blame of his achievement.

But though Jackson could defeat British regulars at New Orleans, dominate his Cabinet and overpower Congress, there was one thing he was not strong enough to do, and that was, to make fine ladies behave with human charity toward a woman. Their malice is as impalpable as a mephitic vapor, which is nevertheless fatal. There was in Washington an inn-keeper by the name of O'Neil, who had a pretty and lively daughter, Peggy. She was a clever, alert, jolly little personage, who drew company to her father's resort by her wit and lively manners. She would laugh and toss jests back and forth with the gentlemen who came there to drink and smoke their pipes, and who, in the enthusiasm of the moment, would occasionally, perhaps, catch her and give her a kiss, and get a buffet on the ear in return. This was the extent of the indictment against her; all the rest was inference and surmise; and who shall escape calumny? She married a purser in the navy, who died, and afterward became the wife of Major Eaton, who was Jackson's Secretary of War, and had long been an admirer of Peggy's. That he should have made her the guardian of his honor should have been enough to silence scandal ; but the white doves of rank and fashion are more bloodthirsty and merciless than harpies when a chance offers to destroy one of their own sex. The manners of the age were free, and its morals none too strict; but it is at least as probable that Peggy was chaste as that her accusers were so. The latter, however, clubbed together to insult and trample on her; they would not attend receptions to which she was invited, or sit at dinner with her, or in any way admit that she was of the same flesh and blood as they. Jackson, who had felt that wrong which rumor does to women, when the good name of his own blameless wife had been assailed in the campaign, was highly indignant, and undertook to be Mrs. Eaton's champion. He is-sued invitations, he singled out Mrs. Eaton for attentions, he brought the whole pressure that the ruler of the nation and the head of Washington society could exercise, to bear upon recalcitrants : but how are you to compel a woman to attend a given reception, or to forbear to switch her skirt aside when a certain person passes, or to return a salute, or to stay in a room when she chooses to march out? You may manage a man easily enough; you can call him out and shoot him if he is unreasonable; but woman is unassailable, and profits by that fact. Jackson went so far as to threaten to dismiss his whole Cabinet if their wives did not behave themselves; the unhappy gentlemen feared their wives more than they did Jackson, or the destruction of their public careers, and were obliged to tell him that much as they personally liked and believed in Peggy—Bellona, she came to be called, for she was a plucky woman herself, as well as the stirrer-up of war—they dared not encounter curtain-lectures, and were absolutely impotent to convert or constrain the deliverers of them. Well, an impenetrable body had encountered an irresistible impact; and what was to happen? For a time it seemed likely that Washington society would cease to exist; but the futility of the struggle finally became apparent to the old soldier. Nothing was to be gained, even for Mrs. Eaton, by prolonging it. He gradually dropped the matter; but it had the singular effect of bringing his Cabinet councils to an end, and for the present he took counsel only with Martin Van Buren, with whom it was impossible for any one to quarrel, and with certain other henchmen of his own, who identified them-selves with him, and were ready to indorse anything he did, or perform any order he might issue. Van Buren was the greatest political manager ever known in American public life up to that time; and under his training, New York was so thoroughly organized as to be a model. Indeed, Van Buren was so busy being a politician that he had no leisure left to be a statesman, though in the fullness of time he did become a President. But he knew how to wait and calculate chances, and was satisfied that Jackson was good for a second term. His own real rival, as he foresaw, was likely to be Calhoun; but by accepting the second place on Jackson's ticket, Van Buren was able to postpone the issue, and avail himself of the aid of time. Meanwhile, Calhoun was fatally injured with Jackson for two reasons : first, because he had been prominent in putting down Bellona; and secondly, because Crawford, languishing in retirement, and wishing to do all the harm he could, communicated the information that Calhoun had recommended the punishment of Jackson for the Seminole affair of 1818. Jackson demanded an explanation from Calhoun, who answered in a long, argumentative, but not conclusive letter; upon which Jackson told him that their friendship was at an end. It had been Calhoun's ambition to succeed Jack-son as an ostensible friend of his administration; he had not realized that it was impossible to carry the country on the nullification, or state's rights issue; he knew nothing of the North, and fancied that there was a strong feeling against centralization. In this impression he was encouraged by his Southern supporters. But his quarrel with Jackson was, in truth, the end of his hopes. Meanwhile it was used by Jackson as a pretext for dissolving his Cabinet and selecting a new one—an unprecedented act in Executive annals. By a shrewd bit of strategy he began the substitution not with Calhoun's friends, but with his own; Eaton being more than ready to leave on account of the embarrassment which the fight for Bellona had brought him; Van Buren from a clear comprehension of the situation and foresight of the future. These two having gone, Jackson intimated to the others that it would be necessary to make a complete change; and they were relieved of their positions without unnecessary violence, as the hotel-bouncers say. Jackson thus prepared to fight Calhoun to a finish, with the advantage on his side; and to fortify himself with the country by dint of his new Cabinet; for his new appointments were popular, and the ensemble was abler than the previous one; while at the same time the President was easily able to control them all. Throughout his whole ad-ministration, Jackson profited greatly by his policy of addressing the people through newspapers run in his interests; and the American press thus gained a prominence in politics which led, soon after, to the establishment of journals like the "Sun," "Herald," and "Tribune," which were the foundation of the independent journalism of our day. While thus intrenching himself at home, the old general won victories abroad; obtaining from England, by some harmless concessions of form, the trade with the West In-dies which Adams had lost, and securing the payment of the French claims, which had been owing since Napoleon's day. Such a President could not be beaten; and he had the fight with the United States Bank, which was made to appear as a conflict with the moneyed aristocracy and with political jobbery, in reserve. What had Calhoun to bring into action against all this? So far as he personally was concerned, the only thing that was done was to take an opportunity, at a banquet tendered to him in the South, to deliver a philosophic argument in favor of the right of nullification. Should it be denied, he asserted that the federal government would become consolidated, and our liberties would be forfeit. He was put in nomination for the Presidency on this platform; but the country at large perceived dangers from an adoption of his theories greater than those against which he warned; and with Jackson and Webster to vindicate Union, the outlook for the South Carolinian was not bright.

The Twenty-second Congress, which met in December, 1831, was full of men of the first ability, and had an exciting career. Benton was the chief defender of the Executive; there were Webster and Clay, Rufus Choate and Everett, Thomas Corwin of Ohio, and many others of prowess. Clay was chosen to lead the struggle against Jackson. Jackson assumed a composed and peaceful demeanor in his message, waiting for the other side to attack; which, under Clay, they were not slow in doing. The opposition was divided among itself, but united against President Jackson. Clay was himself in nomination for the Presidency, and was now a stronger candidate than Calhoun.

Acting on Clay's advice, the first question brought up was that of the recharter of the Bank. Jackson would perhaps have preferred to have that matter go over until after the next election; but this was the more a reason for Clay to press it now; he hoped to destroy the Executive by a deadly alternative. There was a number of Democrats who favored the recharter; it was most likely that Congress, in both branches, would vote for it; and then it would lie with Jackson either to veto or to accept the measure. If he vetoed it, he would divide his party and be subject to dangerous criticism, even if the bill did not pass over the veto; and if he signed it, he would appear as timorous and weak. In either case, the issue would imperil his re-election. Webster, though siding with Jackson against Calhoun, was with Clay on this question; and McLane, the new Secretary of the Treasury, had already declared the Bank to be indispensable. Moreover, the Bank was apparently in a most prosperous position, and firmly rooted in the scheme of things. Nicholas Biddle did not believe he could be beaten.

The outlook for the Bank was certainly good, on the surface. Its weak points were, first, that Nicholas Biddle was a rascal and secretly guilty of all manner of dishonesty, and that the Bank itself, consequently, which was practically under his exclusive control, was rotten to the core : and secondly, that Jackson was a fighter, that he hated and dis-trusted the Bank, and would stick at nothing to destroy it. And neither Clay nor Biddle had any adequate conception of Jackson's strength with the country, or the trust it placed in his statements and acts. The battle was long and savagely fought on both sides; but the upshot was never really in doubt.

Biddle bribed right and left, concealed all sinister facts either by direct lying or by covering up traces; and Clay and his followers, many of whom sincerely believed that the Bank was as honest and valuable as Biddle declared it to be, deployed their eloquence in Congress. Benton and the rest of the Jackson men met them with a vast array of charges, some of which were guess-work, but none of which surpassed the facts when the latter came to be known; they hammered everything in sight indiscriminately, and spared nothing and no one; and though they did not prevent the re-charter from passing the Senate and House, the conviction aroused in the public mind was, that so much smoke must portend some fire. When, therefore, Jackson, upon receiving the amended bill, sent it back with his veto, the country was prepared for it; and Congress failed to pass it over the veto by the necessary two-thirds vote. The sympathy, after this first round of the fight, was with Jackson, and against the financial octopus which he affirmed and believed to be squeezing the independence and virtue out of the community. Jack-son believed this because he wanted to believe it : because he hated Biddle and had been offended by the Bank's defiance. It was his good luck that the facts happened to justify his suspicions ; but it can hardly be doubted that he would have hated the Bank and its manager just as much, had they been as pure as driven snow. To some extent he was fighting in the dark, and might, for aught he knew, have been trying to kill an angel of light instead of a demon of darkness.

The time for the present charter of the Bank to expire was still five years off, and the war was therefore far from being decided yet; but Jackson had the best of it so far. Meanwhile the tariff came up for discussion. This was a problem whose true solution still seems as far off as ever, and it is not to be expected that in the early age of which we are writing it could be handled in a conclusive manner. Too many things had to be considered, and instead of the conclusions of experience, there was little or nothing but theories to go upon. Free trade must always be the theoretical ideal, but protection is the practical necessity, unless all nations are united on the question. In America, at this juncture, various states wanted high duties on some articles and low ones or none at all on others. We had shown that we could be. prosperous under a high tariff; but it seemed evident that we must lose by a policy which would open our ports without causing those of Europe to open in return. Clay favored protection—the American system, as he called it—but with the reservation that it should be modified. South Carolina, through Hayne as its spokesman, adopted an independent attitude, defying all the other states, and answering every argument with a threat of secession. Hayne declared, and Calhoun supported him in saying, that protection was unconstitutional. Calhoun had marked the desertion of South Carolina by commerce, and chose to believe that the stagnation of his state was due not to the effects of slavery upon its white inhabitants, but to the tariff. It is probable, too, that South Carolina painted the evils of its plight blacker than they were, in order to urge the remedy of nullification, which had become the pet project of the leaders of the state. Clay was willing to lessen certain du-ties, but was firm for establishing the principle of protection; and the bill which was submitted to the President in July, 1832, reduced the revenue some eight million dollars, but maintained the right of the government to protect. It was a most moderate measure; yet it was the signal for South Carolina to take a step which was as unjustifiable as it was futile.

Before that could happen, however, Congress adjourned, and the election contest was begun in earnest. Clay and Jackson were the only antagoinsts to be considered. Clay led the banking people and the aristocracy ; Jackson had the rest of the nation. The Bank was the main issue. But Clay obscured this by various charges against Jackson. His corrupt changes in the civil service were denounced, his expensive foreign embassies, his undermining of the authority of the Supreme Bench, and his Indian policy. Clay demanded a firmer bond of union, an extension of internal improvements, and the supremacy of law. His followers were, in turn, accused of being beneficiaries of the Bank. The two armies joined issue as National Republicans, and as Jackson Democrats. It was, in fact, the classes against the masses. A side issue was introduced by a crusade against the Freemasons, brought on by the alleged killing of William Morgan by members of the order, for having revealed Masonic secrets. There was great excitement over this, and the whole principle of secret societies was denounced as un-American; but the charges were never proved, and were probably untrue; though Morgan certainly disappeared, and has never been heard of since. Anti-Masonic candidates took the field, but were overwhelmingly defeated by both the regular tickets.

John Sergeant was Clay's compainon on the Republican ticket; Martin Van Buren was the Democratic Vice-President. Van Buren had been sent as. minister to London; but Clay and Calhoun thought it a good diplomatic stroke to get him recalled as if in disgrace, and thus cut short his public career. "It will kill him, sir, kill him dead," Calhoun remarked in Benton's hearing: "He will never kick, sir, never kick." But this was a mistake. The country sympathized with Van Buren, and penetrated the selfish motives which had put this slight upon him; his own behavior in meeting the situation was of course irreproachable; and when Jackson, as a vindication, invited him to stand with him, the people showed their appreciation by giving him a rousing vote. "You have broken a minister and elected a vice-president," remarked Benton to Clay.

Nearly one and a quarter million votes were cast in this election; Jackson's majority over Clay was over one hundred and fifty thousand, a gain of nineteen thousand over the vote for his first term. He had two hundred and nine-teen electoral votes; Clay only forty-nine. Van Buren was scarcely less triumphant, though he lost the Pennsylvania vote for special reasons.

South Carolina took no part in this campaign, further than to cast her votes for John Floyd of Virginia for President, and for Henry Lee of Massachusetts for Vice-President, they being the one a states-rights man, the other a free-trader. Calhoun wrote that he believed "that the cause of South Carolina is the cause of the Constitution, of liberty, and of the Union. Our government is tending toward consolidation; and on consolidation corruption, oppression and finally monarchy must closely press." And he announced that "the reserved rights of the states" was the only remedy. This was all the result of pique; the country had modified the grounds of South Carolina's complaints; and she was threatening rebellion, not because of any new grievance, but because an old one, which she had already acquiesced in, was not reduced quite so much as she had desired.

Be that as it way, Nullification dominated in her legislature; a state convention was summoned, which declared the tariff acts of 1828 and 1832 null and void; the legislature called out the militia; and appeal to the Supreme Court was forbidden. To the United States was given the option of withdrawing its own law, or losing South Carolina.

Jackson was ready for the emergency. He ordered Winfield Scott to Charleston, and held troops in readiness; a war vessel was stationed in the harbor, and a proclamation called upon the people of South Carolina to mind what they were about. The country at large warmly approved these steps, and though South Carolina fiercely defied the nation, there was a strong party of her own citizens who declared their national loyalty.

While this matter was still seething in the caldron, the President issued his regular message, in which he recommended still further reduction of duties, the public debt being now nearly paid off. He considered that the election had showed that the people had had enough of protection. This took more ground from under the feet of the Nullifiers ; but they were apparently bound to rebel in any case. Hayne, who had been made governor of the state, prepared to resist the Union government by force. Calhoun, elected Senator, took his place in the Chamber. He privately stated that South Carolina merely intended to resist civil process, without bloodshed. But when Jackson asked Congress for enlarged powers to deal with the situation, Calhoun began to feel frightened for his personal safety; it looked as if he might end his career on the gallows. He sent word to his constituents to be more cautious in their treasonable demonstrations, and meanwhile he started a debate on the abstract right of nullification. But here he was met, as Hayne had been, by Webster, and with a similar result. The poison with which he had meant to inoculate the veins of the country was antidoted by the expositions of the great New Englander. South Carolina stood alone among the states as a Nullifier; only Virginia tried to mediate between her and Jackson, with the result of humiliating herself.

The "Force bill," as it was termed, supported by Webster, passed the Senate, only John Tyler opposing it, while Clay, Benton and Calhoun did not vote. Before it could be decided on by the House, Clay, who being of Southern birth with Northern affiliations, commanded confidence, proposed in the general interest a compromise measure. His plan was to scale down the duties periodically for ten years. Calhoun eagerly welcomed this way out of the serious scrape he had got into. A bill was before the House recommending a reduction of duties; a Congressman rose and moved that Clay's bill be substituted for it. The House agreed, the bill thus doctored was referred back to the Senate, which passed it, together with the Force bill; all being done by a sort of surprise. South Carolina showed her "spirit" by passing an act repealing Nullification, and then another, nullifying the Force bill (which, of course, had been enacted only in order to put down Nullification); as a man might stick his tongue in his cheek after he had been thrashed.