CHAPTER XXVII "THE REIGN" OF ANDREW JACKSON, 1829-1841 JACKSON had two thirds of the electoral votes, every one south of the Potomac and west of the Appalachians, together The political with those of Pennsylvania and New York. The situation question for his opponents was whether the alliance of West and South could be broken. Those two sections were still united against the capitalistic East by their bitterness toward the Bank and the Supreme Court; but neither Bank nor Court at this time was in "practical politics." The pressing problems concerned protection, nullification, and the public lands. The North Atlantic section insisted on a continuance of high protection, and (under the old apportionment of 1820) it still had a powerful vote in Congress. But in the South, college boys formed associations to wear homespun, as a protest against the Northern manufactures; and during 1828-1829 every legislature from Virginia to Mississippi had declared for secession or nullification if the tariff policy were not radically changed. The West, not very insistent either way on the tariff, was devoted to the Union, which the South threatened; but, in opposition to the East, it was even more devoted to securing a freer public land policy, to attract new settlers and to protect old settlers against tribute to Eastern speculators. This land reform was championed in Congress especially by Thomas H. Benton, Senator from Missouri (page 407), and the devoted follower of Jackson. Benton, The other great leaders of the time were the trio Calhoun, Webster, and Clay, who had filled the public eye since 1816. 1 These two manufacturing States the labor vote carried for Jackson. POLITICS" AND LEADERS 463 Calhoun, of strict Calvinistic training, keen in logic, austere in morals, was no longer the ardent young enthusiast for nationality that he had been just before and after the War of 1812. He had reversed his stand on the tariff, to go with his section. He was the chief spokesman of the planters, and the most powerful advocate of the right of nullification. He still loved the Union, but he believed it could be preserved only by making it elastic enough so that the States might nullify Federal laws. Webster was a majestic intellect and a master in oratory. He, too, had reversed his stand both on the tariff and the Bank, to go with his section. He was the leading champion in Congress of the manufacturing capitalists; and, from an advocate of States Rights in the War of 1812, he had become the great defender of the Union. Clay, impetuous, versatile, winning, was the only one of the three who still held his old positions on leading questions. Until 1820 he had been absolutely supreme in the West. After that time he had lost influence because of his support of the Bank; and his alliance with Adams in 1824 had still further undermined his popularity. However, he remained the only leader who could at all withstand Jackson in his own section; and not even Jackson won such devoted personal enthusiasm. Jackson and the Bank The National Bank, like its predecessor of 1791, was a huge monopoly one of the two or three greatest money monopolies in the world at that time. It had special privileges not open to other individuals or corporations. It had vast power, too, over State Banks and over the business of the country: at a word it could contract the currency in circulation by a third. The Bank had used its tremendous power for the advantage of the country in ways that Jackson could not appreciate; but at any time it might use its power in politics, and Jackson felt this danger vividly. The Bank's charter was not to expire until 1836, and Jackson's term ended in 1833; but in his first message to Congress (December, 1829) he called attention to the fact that within a few years the Bank must ask for a new charter, and asserted that "both the constitutionality and the expediency" of the institution were "questioned by a large part of our fellow citizens." Clay seized the chance to array the Bank against Jackson, and persuaded Biddle (the Bank's president) to ask Congress at once for a new charter. The bill passed, and Jackson vetoed it (July, 1831), declaring the Bank's control of the country's money a menace to business and to democratic government. Again, too, despite the decision of the Supreme Court in 1819 (page 415), he called the Bank charter unconstitutional. NULLIFICATION of 1832 465 Jackson's foes were jubilant. Webster and Adams both declared that the "old Indian fighter" was in his dotage; and Clay and Biddle printed and circulated 30,000 And the copies of the veto as a campaign document to de- campaign feat his reëlection. It proved an admirable campaign document-for Jackson. In the election of 1832 the foremost question was Jackson or the Bank. The President was a novice in politics, but he had outplayed the politicians and selected the one issue that could keep his old following united. The West and Southwest hated the Bank and loved Jackson; the old South at least hated the Bank; and once more the workingmen of the Eastern cities declared vehemently against all monopolies. The Bank went into politics with all its resources, open and secret. In particular it made loans on easy terms to fifty members of Congress; it secured the support of the leading papers; and it paid lavish sums to political writers all over the country to attack Jackson. Jackson was reëlected by 219 electoral votes, to 49 for Clay, and he received a larger part of the popular vote than any President had had since Washington. For the Jackson's first time, a President had appealed to the Nation reëlection over the head of Congress; and the Nation sustained him. In this campaign of 1832 the National Republicans (page 419), complaining of Jackson's attempts to dominate Congress, took the name Whig — which in England had long indicated opposition to royal control over parliament. Meantime the question of protection or nullification was pressing to the front. In the summer of 1828, while the South was seething with talk of secession, Calhoun Calhoun's had brought forward what he thought a milder "Exposiremedy for the injustice of the tariff. This was his theory of nullification, presented in his famous Exposition. tion That paper argued (1) that the tariff was ruinous to the South; (2) that "protection" was unconstitutional; (3) that, in the case of an Act so injurious and unconstitutional, any State had a constitutional right peacefully to nullify the law within her borders, until Congress should appeal to the States and be sustained by three fourths of them the number necessary to amend the Constitution and therefore competent to say what was and was not constitutional. Jackson's election in 1829 relieved this tension for a time. His first inaugural declared his wish to show "a proper respect for the sovereign members of our Union"; and he was supposed to dislike the existing tariff. Under these conditions, the South hoped that relief might come without its taking extreme measures. During 1828-1829, Southern leaders pressed upon Jackson unceasingly the need of securing new tariff legislation. Then, unexpectedly, the question of nullification was argued in "the great debate' on the floor of the Senate (January 19-29, 1830). The Foote And the Senator Foote of Connecticut voiced the Eastern jealousy of Western growth by a resolution to stop the sale of public lands. The Westerners resented this attack on Resolution their development vigorously. Benton gladly seized the chance once more to set forth his plans for preëmption laws and other schemes to make easier the way for the pioneer. But soon the debate ranged far from the original matter. Senator Hayne of South Carolina denounced warmly the East's selfishness, pledged to the West the continued support of the South, and at the same time sought to draw the West to the doctrine debate of Calhoun's Exposition. Webster replied to Hayne's argument for nullification in two magnificent orations, stripping bare the practical absurdity of the doctrine, and portraying in vivid colors the glory of American nationalism. Webster argued that the Constitution made us a Nation. To strengthen this position, he maintained that as one nation "we the people of the United States" had made the Constitution. Here facts were against him; but this historical part of his plea was really immaterial. The vital thing was not the theory of union held by a departed generation, but the will and needs of the throbbing present. And when he argued that the United |