Chapter 7

Biddle was president of the Bank, a handsome, accomplished man, a graceful writer, and a clever, though not always a safe financier. His ready pen first brought him into disfavor. Isaac Hill and Levi Woodbury, the Democratic Senators from New Hampshire, made complaints of Jeremiah Mason, an old Federalist, who was president of the Branch Bank at Portsmouth. Their charges were various, but they and others gave Jackson the idea that the Branch Bank in New Hampshire had used its power to oppose his friends and to help the Adams men. Biddle was called on to investigate. He did so, and defended Mason against all the charges. A long correspondence ensued, and Biddle went from Philadelphia, where the head Bank was, and made a visit to Portsmouth. His letters to the Secretary of the Treasury were courteous, well written, but also defiant. It was the Jackson men, he said, who were trying to draw the Bank into politics, and the Bank had constantly refused to go into politics in any way. He made out a very good case indeed, but the longer the correspondence lasted the stronger grew Jackson's conviction that the Bank was in politics, that it was fighting him, that it was corrupt, that it was dangerous to the liberties of the plain people who had sent him to the White House. Congress took up the matter, and committees of both Houses reported in favor of the Bank. The Supreme Court had already decided that the act establishing it was constitutional.

Clay boldly determined to force the fighting both on the tariff and on the Bank. The great measures of the Congress of 1831-2 were a new tariff law and a new Bank charter. The public debt was now nearly extinguished, and it was clearly advisable to reduce the revenue; but Clay and his followers made the reductions almost entirely on articles not produced in America, and so, in defiance of the nullifiers, made the new tariff as protective as the old. Jackson had gradually given up most of his protection ideas, and so the tariff did not please him. Clay, in fact, declared that for his "American system," as he called it, "he would defy the South, the President, and the Devil." Jackson was further defied by the Senate when it refused to confirm the nomination of Van Buren to be minister to Great Britain. The struggle raged through the whole session. Benton sturdily defended the President; Clay, Webster, and Calhoun were all, in one way or another, against him. It was a great session for the orators, and so far as Congress was concerned Clay had his way. But Lewis and Kendall were not idle; they were working not on Congress but on the people. In May, the Democrats nominated Jackson for President and Van Buren for Vice-President. In July, Congress finished its work with the Bank charter, and Jackson promptly answered with a veto, and so the two parties went to the country.

Jackson went into the campaign with an advantage drawn from his successful conduct of two foreign negotiations. His administration had secured from England an agreement by which the trade with the West Indies, closed to Americans ever since the Revolution, was opened again, and from France a promise to pay large claims for spoliations on American commerce which had been presented many times before. He was also undoubtedly supported by the great majority of the people in the stand he took against the nullifiers. What the people would decide about the tariff was doubtful; but as between a system, even though it were called the American system, and an old hero, the Democrats were not afraid of the people's choice. The great fight was over the Bank, and on that question Jackson was supported by the prejudices of the poor, who thought of the Bank merely as a rich men's institution, by the fears of the ignorant, who believed the Bank to be a mysterious and monstrous affair, and by the instinct of liberty in many others, who, though they did not believe the charges against Biddle, did feel that there was danger in so powerful a financial agency so closely connected with the government.

Moreover, the opposition was divided. A party bitterly opposed to Free Masonry had sprung into existence, and Jackson was a Mason. But the Anti-Masons, instead of supporting Clay, nominated a third candidate. South Carolina threw her votes away on a fourth.

Jackson got 219 electoral votes to 49 for Clay, 11 for Floyd, the nullification candidate, and seven for Wirt, the Anti-Mason candidate. His popular vote was more than twice Clay's, and he actually carried the New England States of Maine and New Hampshire. If, during his first term, he exercised his great office like a general, he entered upon the second with even a firmer belief that he ought to have his way in all things. The people had given an answer to Clay and Biddle and Calhoun and Marshall; to the corrupters of the government and the enemies of the President; to the nullifiers of the law and the slanderers of Peggy Eaton. He understood his overwhelming victory as the people's warrant to go on with all he had begun.

But neither the nullifiers nor the Bank were willing to give up. In November, 1832, a South Carolina convention passed an ordinance, to go into effect February 1, 1833, nullifying the tariff law, and took measures to defend its action by force. Jackson promptly sent Winfield Scott to South Carolina to make ready for fighting, employed a confidential agent to organize the Union men in the State, and called on Edward Livingston to help him with an address to his misguided countrymen. The pen of Livingston and the spirit of Jackson, working together, made the Nullification Proclamation a great state paper. It was a high-minded appeal to the second thought and the better nature of the Carolinians; an able statement of the national character of the government; a firm defiance to all enemies of the Union. It was the most popular act of the administration, and brought to its support men who had never supported it before. Benton and Webster joined hands; even Clay, who, like Jackson, loved his country with his whole heart, supported the President. Calhoun, alone of all his famous contemporaries, stood out against him. He left the Vice-President's seat, came down upon the floor as a Senator, and defended nullification against all the famous orators who crowded to assail it.

The President called on Congress to provide the means to enforce the law, and a so-called force bill was introduced. The Carolinians were defiant, and the country seemed on the verge of civil war; but Clay, by the second of his famous compromises, avoided the struggle. A new tariff law, providing for a gradual reduction of duties, was passed along with the force bill. The Carolinians chose the olive branch instead of the sword. The nullifiers first postponed and then repealed their ordinance.

Jackson was a national hero as he had never been before. In the summer of 1833, he made a journey to the Northeast, and even New England made him welcome. Harvard College made him a Doctor of Laws. As he rode through the streets of Boston, a merchant of Federalist traditions, who had closed his windows to show his principles, peeped through, and Jackson's bearing so touched him that he sent a child to wave the old gentleman a handkerchief. Andy of the Waxhaws was at the summit of his career. No other American could rival him in popularity; no other American had ever had such power over his countrymen since Washington frowned at the whisper that he might be a king.

But the great man was only a man, after all. He was in wretched health throughout his first term, and at times it did not seem that he could possibly live through it. His old wounds troubled him, and one day he laid bare his shoulder, gripped his cane with his free hand, and a surgeon cut out the ball from Jesse Benton's pistol. He was too ill to finish his New England tour, and hastened back to Washington.

But his opponents had little reason to rejoice in his illness. The summer was not spent before he had made up his mind to do the most daring act of his public life. He had vetoed the Bank's new charter, but the Bank itself was not destroyed. The public funds were still in its keeping; its power in the business world was as great as ever. He believed, moreover, that Biddle was using money freely to fight him, and would sooner or later get what he wanted from Congress. He prepared, therefore, to crush the Bank by withdrawing the deposits of public money and giving them into the keeping of other banks throughout the country. Blair, in "The Globe," set to work to convince the people that the Bank was not sound, and that the public funds were unsafe. Kendall was sent about the country to examine other banks. Congress voted against removing the deposits, but the old charter authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to do it, and the Secretary of the Treasury was now William Duane, of Philadelphia, a son of Jackson's early friend. There had been some changes in the cabinet after the second inauguration, Livingston had been appointed minister to France, the Secretary of the Treasury transferred to the State Department, and Duane called to the Treasury.

But Duane would not fall in with the President's plan. He did not believe the deposits were in danger, and refused to sign an order for removal. Jackson argued, then grew angry, and finally dismissed him. Duane defended his course ably. Lewis also advised against removal. Benton favored it, but in this he was almost alone among the leading public men. Jackson, however, was started, and he could not be stopped. Roger B. Taney, of Maryland, the Attorney-General, was made Secretary of the Treasury, and on September 26, 1833, three days after Duane's dismissal, the order was signed and a series of changes began that did not end until the whole financial system of the country was changed.

When Congress met, it proved to be, everything considered, probably the ablest legislature ever assembled in America. There were brilliant men of a new generation in the lower House, and Adams also was there. In the Senate, the great three were still supreme, and were now united against the President. The debates were long and furious. A panic throughout the country added to the excitement. Clay led the attack, Calhoun and Webster supported it; Benton bore the brunt of it. In the House, the Jackson men had a majority; in the Senate, the opposition. The Senate refused to confirm the nomination of Taney to be Secretary of the Treasury, and voted that the President had taken upon himself powers not given by the Constitution. The President sent in a fiery remonstrance, and the Senate voted not to receive it. Benton at once moved that the resolution of censure be expunged from the record, and declared he would keep that motion before the Senate until the people, by choosing a Jackson majority of Senators, should force it through.

The session closed with nothing done for the Bank, and nothing ever was done for it. When its charter expired in 1836, it got another from Pennsylvania, and kept going for some years. But Jackson had given it a deathblow. It fell into dangerous financial practices, failed, started again, failed a second time, staggered to its feet once more, and then went down in utter ruin and disgrace.

Its ruin was not accomplished without great disturbance to financial conditions. The country had been prosperous a long time. Money had been plentiful. Speculation had been the order of the day. The "pet banks," chosen to be the depositories of the government money, were badly managed. The surplus, distributed among the States, strengthened the impulse to wild speculation. Paper money was too plentiful. A dangerous financial condition prevailed, into whose causes and consequences we cannot here inquire. That and many other aspects of Jackson's administration can be satisfactorily treated only at considerable length. Jackson himself attributed all the trouble to Biddle and Clay; Biddle, he declared, was trying to ruin the country for revenge. The President even suspected Clay of setting on an insane person who attempted his life. He took no measures of a nature to restore health to business until near the end of his term. Then, acting as usual on his own responsibility, he issued a circular commonly called the "Specie Circular," requiring payments for public lands, which had formerly been made in bank paper, to be made in coin. That was like the thunderclap which precedes the storm: but the storm broke on his successor, not on him.

For a time it seemed as if he might also bequeath to his successor a foreign war. France had agreed to pay the spoliation claims, but the French Chambers failed to appropriate the money. Louis Philippe, the king, suggested to Livingston, the American Minister, that a stronger tone from the United States might stir the Chambers to action. Jackson was the last man in the world to hurt a cause by taking too mild a tone. In his message of 1834 to Congress, he took a tone so strong that it made the French Chambers too angry to pay. Thereupon, he suggested reprisals. The House, led by Adams, who never fell behind Jackson on a question of foreign relations, sustained the President. The Senate took no action. The French Chambers finally passed an appropriation, but with a proviso that no money should be paid until satisfactory explanations of the President's message were received. Jackson had no notion of apologizing, and feeling was rising in both countries. Diplomatic relations were broken off, and war was apparently very close, when, in the winter of 1835-6, England offered to mediate. An expression in Jackson's message of 1835, not meant as an apology, was somehow construed as such by the French ministry, and France agreed to pay.

The final settlement came at the very end of Jackson's administration. The presidential election of 1836 had fulfilled his wish that Van Buren should be his successor. In January, 1837, the resolution of censure was solemnly expunged from the records of the Senate. That body being now controlled by his friends, and his enemy, John Marshall, being dead, he named Taney Chief Justice, and the nomination was confirmed. He issued a farewell address to the people, after the manner of Washington, and stood, a white-haired, impressive figure, to watch the inauguration of Van Buren; then he journeyed home to The Hermitage to receive his last glorious welcome from his neighbors.

It was the most triumphant home-coming of them all. He had beaten all his enemies. Clay, wearied out with politics, was again in retirement; Adams, whom he found a President, was leading a minority of representatives in a new sectional struggle, the fight against slavery; Calhoun, whom he found but one step from the presidency, was a gloomy and tragical figure, the Ishmael of American politics. As for his friends, he left them in power everywhere,--in congress, on the bench, in the White House. To friends and enemies he had been like fate.

There was left for him a peaceful old age, and a calm and happy deathbed. Neighbors, political associates, old comrades, famous foreigners, visited The Hermitage to see the man who had played so great a part in history. Like Jefferson at Monticello, he guided with his counsel the party he had led. The long struggle over slavery was now begun, and soon the annexation of Texas took the first place among public questions. The old man had encouraged Houston to go to Texas, and had done all he could, and more than any other President would have dared, to forward the movement for independence. Now that Texas was ready to come into the Union, he heartily favored annexation. In 1844, Clay and Polk were candidates for the presidency, and Jackson's influence, still a power, was freely exerted for Polk and annexation. It was as if Clay, now an old man also, were once more about to lift the cup to his lips, and the relentless hand of Andrew Jackson dashed it to the ground.

Yet Andrew Jackson declared before he died that he forgave all his enemies. He had promised his wife, whose picture he wore in a great locket next his heart, whose Bible he read every day at the White House, that when he should be free of politics he would join himself to the church; if, he said, he made a profession while he was still before the people, his enemies would accuse him of hypocrisy. He kept his word. Trembling and weeping, he stood before the altar in the tiny church he had built for her and took the vows of a Christian. It had been hard for him to say that he forgave his enemies; hardest of all, to say that he forgave those who had attacked him while he was serving his country in the field. But after a long pause he told the minister he thought he could forgive even them.

June 8, 1845, in his seventy-ninth year, he died. His last words to those about him bade them meet him in heaven.

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What is the rightful place in history of the fiery horseman in front of the White House? The reader must answer for himself when he has studied for himself all the great questions Jackson dealt with. Such a study will surely show that he made many mistakes, did much injustice to men, espoused many causes without waiting to hear the other side, was often bitter, violent, even cruel. It will show how ignorant he was on many subjects, how prejudiced on others. It will show him in contact with men who surpassed him in wisdom, in knowledge, in fairness of mind. It will deny him a place among those calm, just great men who can see both sides and yet strive ardently for the right side.

But the longest inquiry will not discover another American of his times who had in such ample measure the gifts of courage and will. Many had fewer faults, many superior talents, but none so great a spirit. He was the man who had his way. He was the American whose simple virtues his countrymen most clearly understood, whose trespasses they most readily forgave; and until Americans are altogether changed, many, like the Democrats of the 'Twenties and 'Thirties, will still "vote for Jackson,"--for the poor boy who fought his way, step by step, to the highest station; for the soldier who always went to meet the enemy at the gate; for the President who never shirked a responsibility; for the man who would not think evil of a woman or speak harshly to a child. Education, and training in statecraft, would have saved him many errors; culture might have softened the fierceness of his nature. But untrained, uncultivated, imperfect as he was, not one of his great contemporaries had so good a right to stand for American character.