more than once distinguished him in political dangers, stepped forth, at the risk of present popularity, and, proposed, by a gradual reduction, within the period of nine and a half years, to abandon the policy of tariff protection. This proposition coincided with the interests of the North, as it gave time for the manufactures, which could be acclimated, to take root, and with the professed generosity of the South, which boasted that it did not seek prematurely to destroy-what it had forcibly aided to plant. The proposition was not a surrender, but a covenant of non user, of the right of protection, after a designated period of enjoyment. It was a compromise of interests; such a compromise, as we shall probably find, repeatedly, necessary, and as will, we trust, be as repeatedly made, for the UNION.

After momentary astonishment, the proposition was received, with enthusiastic pleasure by a large majority of both Houses, and of the people; the proposer was hailed as a general pacificator; and when the amending bill had passed, the country breathed with the freedom of a man who had been relieved from an agonizing burden.

359. The South Carolina Convention re-assembled, early in March, and during a short session passed two ordinances: the one repealing the nullifying ordinance of the preceding November, and all laws passed by the Legislature in pursuance thereof, excepting that relating to the militia; the other nullifying the act of Congress, passed upon the recommenda tion of the President, "further to provide for the collection of the duties on imports," which they denominated the force bill. The last was an offering to self-complacency. With the opposition of the State, that bill became a nullity, had nothing to operate upon, and the peaceful relations between the State and the Union were again restored. The crisis had been to the State one of great interest and injury. The dominant party had pursued their course with the usual intolerance of party; had prescribed unconstitutional oaths and pledges; had excited fearful alarm among the peaceful and better disposed population; had disturbed commercial confidence, and interrupted the usual course of business—and had driven from the confines of the State very many of her most useful and respectable inhabitants, among whom were Judge Smith, late a Senator of the United States, and Wm. Henry Drayton, late a distinguished representative in Congress; who, though unfriendly to the tariff, reprobated nullification as the

instrument of disunion.-She drew upon herself evils which may require years of prosperity to remedy.

360. But South Carolina was not without the show of triumph. Seven States of the Union, whose whole free population amounted only to 771,218 souls, by the last census, a majority of whom would be less than 400,000, scarce double the population of New York, had obtained from the nation, consisting of ten millions of freemen, a sacrifice which might cripple its energies, and stay or impede its march to power and happiness. But this is a triumph of demons blasting the happiness of the human race. Such, however, as it is, she owes it to the mercy, the forbearance, the philanthropy of the vanquished. In a conflict of force, which she desperately, madly sought, there was, scarcely, in the scope of human conception a mean of safety for her. She sleeps upon a volcano, which war would put into immediate and destructive action. Her whole military array, could it be brought to the field, might be 150,000 against millions! Verily she has had a triumphant escape, and, in her anthems of praise, let her not forget the magnanimity of her fancied foes.

361. She owes not her unscathed condition to Gen. Jackson. His sympathy and his countenance made her mad. The performance of his duty to the nation, unavoidably compelled, was preparing for her the prison, straight-jacket and stripes, when the champion of the American System, in the true spirit of patriotism, provided for her, perhaps, the only means, by which she could, reputably, recover from her intoxication.

2

CHAPTER XIV.

ELECTION OF 1832.

362. The election of 1832 demonstrated the efficiency of the presidential influence, when energetically employed, for the corruption of the elective franchise. The administration was highly popular; but was it justly entitled to the favour of the people? In all its leading measures it was opposed to the popular voice. It had sought to prostrate the system of protection of domestic industry, but had been defeated in Congress: It had sought, in some instances, successfully, to overthrow all efforts for internal improvement, but Congress refused to second the parricidal arm: It had forfeited the public faith with the feeble Indian tribes; dishonoring the nation before the world and posterity: It had striven to establish a national Bank, which might give to it an illimitable money influence in every section of the Union; but, the object had been detected, exposed and indignantly rebuked, by the House of Representatives: It had abased the country by supplicating, in the tone of a mendicant, favours from a foreign power, when it should have demanded the enjoyment of rights; and the adviser of the humiliation, had been branded by the Senate of the United States, as destitute of the first quality of the statesman, a due regard for the country he would govern: It had most audaciously calumniated the fiscal organ of the country, charging insolvency, where were the most abundant means of payment, and the highest commercial reputation; and the falsehood was cast into its teeth, by the House of Representatives, after deliberate consideration and thorough investigation: It had opposed the caprice and the veto of the President, against the deliberate judgment of the representatives of the people upon questions of sheer expediency; reducing the country, in repeated instances, to the condition of despotism, where the will of an individual mars the wishes and the weal of the nation.

Still, the administration was popular, very popular. It had entered upon power with a decisive majority in both Houses of Congress; the first term of service ended with a decisive majority in both Houses against it. Still, with all its principal measures rejected and condemned, by the representatives of the peo

ple, with its war against the wishes and the interests of the na tion, openly made, by rejection of the most popular laws, the administration was popular. This is a new problem in politics, that calls for solution.

363. This solution is to be found in the new relation which had been created between the President and the people, upon which we have already had occasion to comment. The legis lative power of the President, is confined by the Constitution to the exercise of the veto, in which it was never contemplated that the President should seek or employ the expres sion of popular favour, to support himself against the legiti mate expression of the national will, through its constitutional organ, the Congress of the United States. A new power was erected, in the assemblages of party, which, directed by presidential influence, was to have a controlling influence over the action of Congress, and justify all the measures of the administration, however hostile to the measures of the legislative body, to which the President held himself at liberty at all times to appeal. Did Congress endeavour to improve the condition of the country by wise and liberal appropriation of the public funds, the President nullified its intentions by refusing his assent to its acts, reproached it with corruption and extravagance, and appealed to his party, as to the people, for the justification of his power, and his indecorum. Did Congress pass an act for preserving and regulating the currency of the country, for the collection and disbursement of the public funds, by the reorganization of an approved and faithful fiscal agent, the President thwarted its will, by the rejection of the law, and appealed to the people, whose voice he found in the clamours of instructed and pensioned official subordinates, and in the echoes of hireling presses. Did Congress pass a law for internal improvement, with the sanction of the Presidente, claimed the right to suspend its operation whenever he should discover that it was not compatible with his views of expediency, relying upon the support of the same surreptitious, self-created organs of the people. Did long established treaties and laws require the interposition of the executive arm, to protect the Indian nations against encroachment and violence, the President refused to perform the duty, claimed the right to declare the treaties, and the laws enacted by his predecessors, unconstitutional, and to suspend their obligation; averring that, his sense of their constitutionality must overpower that of the Legislature and the Judiciary;

and that, he was bound to consider no laws as constitutional, but as he should understand them. Does the Senate reject nominations to office, on account of the insufficiency of the nominees, or the impropriety of the selections, the President appoints them to the same or other stations, by his own bare will, does he recommend a rejected nominee to the second office in the gift of the people, and thus bring the power of his own high station to the control of the polls, he finds justification for all these acts of lawless power, in what he ventures to call the voice of the people.

364. With equal indecorum and injustice, President Jackson reproached his immediate predecessor with having brought "the patronage of the Federal Government into conflict with the freedom of elections;" but, supposing an impossibility, that the gross interference of the federal officers in the elec tions of every part of the country, not to have his sanction, what shall be said of his effort to influence the public voice in the election of Vice President, whom the Constitution has provided, in certain contingency, to succeed him? This glaring perversion of the duties of his office, is thus, shamelessly, blazened to the world in the columns of the Globe.

After enumerating the political offences charged upon Mr. Van Buren, in which the participation of the President is avowed, the Editor proceeds: "Could charges more dishonourable to the President, or more wounding to his feelings, be invented or promulgated? How must the Conqueror of Napoleon's Conquerors' feel, when charged with humbling his country at the foot of the British throne? How must one who is born to command, whose own energetic mind, now, gives impulse to all around him, as it has ever done, feel, when charged with subserviency to those whom he directs? The point of the shaft which has been aimed at his patriotism and honour, is certainly blunted, by the consideration, that it was sped by a coalition of political aspirants who are unable to conceal their selfish objects under the simulated veil of American feeling,' and mock morality. But the blow would be felt by him in all the force with which it was aimed, if his friends and countrymen did not step forward to ward it off-if, when assailed by open enemies and traitorous friends, the American people, and those whom he has ably defended in war, and faithfully served in peace, do not rally around and sustain him, he must feel, that honest exertions in the public service, are no shield against heart