1825. JACKSON REAFFIRMS THE CHARGE. 495 trated the will of the people I am entirely at a loss to comprehend. The illusions of the general's imagination deceive him. The people of the United States never decided the election in his favor. If the people had willed his election he would have been elected. It was because they did not will his election nor that of any other candidate that the duty of making a choice devolved on the House of Representatives." * Thus was the issue on the charge of corrupt bargain joined and made the platform for the election yet almost four years away. Jackson had received ninety-nine electoral votes. This was a plurality, therefore he was the choice of the people. As such the House was bound to elect him, and would have done so had it not been for the corrupt bargain between Adams and Clay. No such thing ever existed. But Jackson believed it did, and from this time forward lost no opportunity to give public expression to his opinion. The election over, he wound his way slowly back to Tennessee. Everywhere the people received him with demonstrations of delight. At Nashville a public reception awaited him, and there, in reply to the address of welcome, he reminded the crowd of listeners that it was without any agency on his part that the Legislature of Tennessee presented Andrew Jackson as a candidate for the presidency. He had always regarded that exalted place as a situation not to be sought by any man, however great his talents, however eminent his services. When brought before the people of the United States he had never in any way interfered in the canvass, nor did he, when the election passed to the House of Representatives, attempt in any way to influence its decision. At Franklin, Tennessee, on the Fourth of July, in reply to another address, he declared that ours is "a government of the people"; that it belongs to them; that it must be kept pure; that the chief magistracy was a post of high distinction, yet the distinction disappeared whenever it was * National Journal, March 28, 1825; Niles's Weekly Register, vol. xxviii, pp. 71-79. attained through any other channel and by any other means than the will of the people. Clay meanwhile had likewise been journeying westward, and he too was met in every important town along his route by public demonstrations and assurances of approval of his conduct. At Washington, in Pennsylvania, a public dinner was tendered him by his friends because of the spirit of calumny and detraction which was abroad; because they regarded him as exposed to the shafts of malevolence and falsehood; because they believed him incapable of any act unworthy of a gentleman, and knew of no proof to sustain any charge against him; and because they wished to declare to the nation and the world that they would never abandon to unmerited aspersion and unjust calumny a man who had done so much for his country, and had always been actuated by pure principles and disinterested public spirit. In reply he assured the people that their confidence was not misplaced; that in the late election he had exercised only the rights of an independent freeman; and that, with regard to the attack on his character, he did not doubt that the people would put down the conspiracy and the conspirators. At Wheeling, at Maysville, at Lexington, at Louisville, and at Cincinnati warm assurances of confidence brought out renewed denials of the Kremer charges. Early in October the Legislature of Tennessee met and at once recommended Jackson to the freemen of the United States as a citizen who deserved to be chosen President at the next election, invited him to appear before the two Houses, and commanded the two Speakers to express to him a hearty approval of his conduct during the late presidential election. The invitation was accepted, and the occasion seized as a fine opportunity for an ostentatious resignation of his seat in the United States Senate. Two considerations, he said in a speech to the Legislature, prompted this act. The annual journey to and from Washington was long and fatiguing, and there was pending before Congress a proposition to amend the Constitution and change the manner of electing a President. The hardships of travel he would cheerfully bear if public duty required. But now that his 1825. JACKSON RENOMINATED. 497 name had again been presented to his countrymen as that of a candidate for the highest office in the land, he could not return to the Senate and advocate an amendment from which it might be supposed he would derive much advantage. Nothing could induce him to take a course of action his judgment did not approve. But from recent events it might be inferred that he could not be elected unless the electors were chosen directly by the people, and this supposition, if he labored for the amendment, would afford ground for a strong suspicion that selfish interests guided his conduct. The proposed amendment met his hearty approval, yet he would go further still. Not only would he leave the choice of presidential electors with the people, but he would make members of Congress ineligible to any office under the Government during the term for which they had been elected and for two years thereafter, save only in the case of judicial appointments. Congress would then be rid of that connection with the Executive which was the cause of so much apprehension and jealousy on the part of the people. Members would be free to attend to their duties, intrigue and management would fail, and the morals of the country be much improved. Holding these views, and believing it a duty to "practise the maxims recommended to others, he felt that he must ask to be relieved from further attendance on the Senate.* The meaning of these proceedings was plain to every one. Andrew Jackson had been formally nominated for the presi dency, had accepted, and had given to his friends a campaign cry and a platform. That he really wished to have the Constitution amended is hard to believe, for in after years, when President of the United States, he placed more congressmen in office than did any of his predecessors, and never gave himself the least concern as to the manner of electing a President. As a platform the letter was of great importance, for it was a formal announcement to the people by Jackson that he had been defrauded of the presidency by Clay, who had entered into a corrupt bargain with Adams * Niles's Weekly Register, November 5, 1825, vol. xxix, pp. 156, 157. and had received as reward the office of Secretary of State. As such it opened the campaign of 1828, and gave currency and authority to the bargain and corruption cry which followed Clay to the end of his career. A leader, a platform, and a popular idea once provided, a newspaper was started at Washington, local committees of correspondence were organized all over the Union, a central committee was appointed in each State, able managers were found, office holders were set to work, and a party of opposition to the Administration came rapidly into existence, and grew in numbers and in violence with every act of the President or his advisers. No party name was yet assumed, but under the general designation of "Friends of General Jackson" were gathered all those who for any reason disliked Adams or hated Clay; all who opposed internal improvements at Federal expense; all who believed the tariff laws were exercises of a power not delegated to Congress, and were deliberate, palpable, and dangerous violations of the Constitution; all who believed the story of the bargain; and the great body of office holders the country over. No high principles of national policy as yet bound these elements together, but the lack of these was more than supplied by a savage personal opposition, by a determination to thwart the President at every turn, break down his Administration, and discredit him before the people. Scarcely had the nineteenth Congress been organized when this work of malevolent resistance began. Now it took the form of an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the appointment of a member of Congress to office during the term for which he was elected; now of a call on Adams for a list of the names of the members of Congress appointed to offices of trust or profit under the authority of the United States by all Presidents since the adoption of the Constitution; now of a report and six bills to reduce the Executive patronage; and now of an amendment to the Constitution declaring the President ineligible to a second term. Adams, in his message, had dwelt at great length on the importance of internal improvements, and sketched with much fulness the course they should take. A call was therefore made 1826. THE CHARGE IN THE SENATE. * 499 for a committee to frame such an amendment to the Constitution as should define the powers of Congress over internal improvements, and so restrict them as to protect State sovereignty. Adams, in his message on the Panama Congress, had stated that Ministers "will be commissioned." Thereupon a resolution was promptly brought before the Senate setting forth that the Executive had no authority to appoint Ministers till he had first consulted the Senate, and that the Senate solemnly protested against such a usurpation of power. The mover assured the Senate that such a usurpation, such a palpable infraction of the spirit and the letter of the Constitution, isolated, unconnected with anything else, was enough to appall the friends of liberty. But when "connected with the covert and insidious innovations which gave existence to and characterizes the conduct of the present Chief Magistrate," he was of the opinion that every friend of his country should be at his post. "I will not say that he came into office in violation of the letter of the Constitution. He came in under it. He is our President. And yet (it is unnecessary to disguise the fact) he came into office in opposition to three fourths of the American people, in opposition to seventeen or eighteen States out of twentyfour. He came in by the prostration of our dearest principles. He came in by a total disregard of the right of instruction, the basis of a republic. He came in, sir, in opposition not only to the sovereign will of the people, but he overcame the most formidable of all difficulties. He came in in opposition to the will of the representatives, too. And what, Mr. President, is the policy of the present Administration? The original debt of gratitude is to be paid at all hazards; the one fourth is to become the majority, if the creation of offices and the patronage of the Government can effect it. Yes, sir, the first appointment made by the present Administration is conclusive on this point, and its subsequent course is in entire accord." + * Senator Branch, of South Carolina, Register of Debates in Congress, March 30, 1826, vol. ii, part i, 1825-1826, p. 386. + Senator Branch, Register of Debates in Congress, vol. ii, part i, 1825-1826, p. 388. |