CHAP. XVII..

PRESIDENT JACKSON.

1333

was denounced in some of the Southern States as oppressive and unconstitutional, and resistance to the law was suggested.

In the autumn of 1828, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson were rival candidates for the Presidency of the United States. Jackson was elected, with John C. Calhoun as Vice-President, by a very large majority, after a most exciting canvass, during which, a stranger to our institutions, looking on, would have believed the nation to be on the verge of civil war. Mr. Adams's administration closed on the 4th of March, 1829. It had been marked by great tranquillity and unexampled national prosperity. Peaceful relations with foreign nations existed, and the national debt had been diminished at the rate of more than $7,000,000 a year, it being at the time of his retirement about $58,000,000. This real prosperity he bequeathed to his successor, and he left the chair of state blessed with the grateful benedictions of the survivors of two wars and their families, to whom had been distributed in pensions, during the four years, more than $5,000,000.

ANDREW JACKSON.

Jackson, when a lad, had served as a soldier in the old war for independence; and when he proceeded from his lodgings, in Washington city, to the Capitol, to be inaugurated on the 4th of March, 1829, he was escorted by surviving officers and soldiers of that war. His valorous deeds in the second war for independence (1812-'15) were remembered by the soldiers of the latter war, and they thronged the national capital on that day to witness the exaltation of the chief.

President Jackson was honest, brave, and true to his moral convictions. He began his administration with an audacity of conduct that amazed his political friends, and alarmed his enemies. He swept his political opponents out of the various offices; but in making new appointments, he aimed to

have the incumbent answer the searching queries in the affirmative-" Is he capable? Is he honest?" His foreign policy was indicated in his instructions to Louis McLane, his first minister to England, in which he said: "Ask nothing but what is right, and submit to nothing that is wrong." Jackson was so decided in his opinions and actions-so positive in character -that he was thoroughly loved or thoroughly hated; and for eight years he braved the fierce tempests that arose out of partisan strifes, domestic perplexities and foreign arrogance, with a skill and courage that challenge our profound admiration.

At the beginning of Jackson's administration, the government of Georgia renewed its demand for the removal of the powerful Cherokee nation from that State. The President favored the demand, and white people proceeded to take possession of Cherokee estates which had been assigned to them. These Indians were then advanced in civilization, many of them being successful agriculturists. They had churches and schools, and a printing-press; and as they were disposed to defend their rights, civil war appeared inevitable for awhile. In 1832, the Supreme Court of the United States decided against the claim of Georgia, when that State, supported by the President, resisted the decision. An amicable settlement was finally reached; and under the mild coercion of General Winfield Scott and several thousand troops, the Cherokees left Georgia in 1838, and went to lands assigned them well toward the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, where they still remain, with Creeks, Choctaws and others as their neighbors.

In his first annual message, President Jackson took strong ground against a renewal of the charter of the United States Bank, which would expire in 1836. As we have observed, that charter was never renewed by Congress. The discussions on the subject, for several years, kept the commercial community in a state of feverish excitement. It was occasionally varied by some contra-excitement, like that of the "Black Hawk War" in 1832. At that time the region now known as the State of Wisconsin was an almost unbroken wilderness. Several Indian tribes inhabited it; and these, led by Black Hawk, a fierce Sac chief, made war upon the frontier settlers of Illinois in April, 1832. After some skirmishes with United States troops and the militia of Illinois, the Indians were driven beyond the Mississippi, and their leader, made captive, was taken to eastern cities, that he might be impressed with the folly of contending with a nation so numerous and strong.

Now began a conflict which shook the republic to its very centre. The doctrine of State sovereignty, or State supremacy, formulated in the first constitution of the republic known as the Articles of Confederation, and

CHAP. XVII.

PROCLAMATION AGAINST NULLIFICATION.

1335

discarded in the second constitution, yet prevailed, especially in South Carolina, where John C. Calhoun was its most earnest exponent. The discontents alluded to growing out of the tariff acts, and crystallized by the alchemy of this doctrine, assumed the concrete form of incipient rebellion against the national government when, in the spring of 1832, an act of Congress was passed imposing additional duties on imported textile fabrics. A State convention of delegates was held in South Carolina in November following, at which it was declared that the tariff acts were unconstitutional and therefore null and void; and it was resolved that no duties should be collected in the port of Charleston by the national government. It was also proclaimed that any attempt to enforce the law would be resisted by the people in arms, and would cause the secession of South Carolina from the Union. The State Legislature that met soon afterward passed laws in support of this declaration, and military preparations were made for that purpose. Civil war seemed to be inevitable, but the President met the exigency with his usual promptness and vigor. On the 10th of December he issued a proclamation (written by Louis McLane, Seeretary of the Treasury), in which he denied the right of any State to nullify an act of the national government, and warned those engaged in the movement in South Carolina that the laws of the United States would be enforced by military power, if necessary. The "nullifiers" yielded to necessity for the moment, but their zeal and determination were not abated. Great anxiety filled the public mind for a time, until Henry Clay, one of the most earnest promoters of the American System, appeared as a pacificator, by offering a bill (February 12, 1833) which provided for a gradual reduction of the obnoxious duties during the next ten years. This compromise was accepted by both parties, and the bill became a law in March. Discord ceased, and the dark cloud gave way to sunshine. President Jackson had been re-elected to the Chief Magistracy in the autumn of 1832, with Martin Van Buren as Vice-President. The latter had been Secretary of State, and was appointed by the President, during the recess of Congress, to succeed Mr. McLane as minister to England. The Senate afterward refused to ratify the appointment, and Van Buren was recalled. This act was regarded as a gratuitous indignity offered to the administration. Its friends made use of it to create sympathy for the rejected minister, and he was elected to preside over the body which had declared him to be unfit to represent the republic at the British court. The result completely alienated Calhoun from the administration.

While the country was agitated by the movements of the nullifiers, the President himself produced equal excitement by beginning a series of acts

in his warfare upon the United States Bank which were denounced as highhanded and tyrannical. In his annual message in December, 1832, the President recommended Congress to authorize the removal from that institution of the government moneys deposited in it, and to sell the stock of the bank owned by the United States. Congress refused to do so. After the adjournment of that body, the President took the responsibility of ordering Mr. Duane, the Secretary of the Treasury, to withdraw the public funds (amounting to about $10,000,000) from the bank, and deposit them in certain State banks. The Secretary refused, when the President removed him from office, and put in his place R. B. Taney, then the Attorney-General and afterward Chief-Justice, who obeyed his superior. The removal of the funds began in October, 1833, and a large portion of them were drawn out in the course of four months; the remainder, by the end of nine months. This transaction produced great public excitement and much commercial distress. The amount of loans of the bank was over $60,000,000 on the first of October, when the removal was begun; and so intricate were the relations of that institution with the business of the country, that when the functions of the bank were paralyzed, all commercial operations felt a deadening shock. This fact confirmed the opinion of the President that it was a dangerous institution, and he refused to listen favorably to all prayers for a modification of his measures, or for action for relief made by numerous committees of merchants, manufacturers and mechanics, who waited upon him. To all of them he said, in substance: "The government can give no relief nor provide a remedy; the banks are the occasion of the evils which exist, and those who have suffered by trading largely on borrowed capital ought to break; you have no one to blame but yourselves." The State banks received the government funds on deposit, and loaned them freely. The panic subsided; confidence was gradually restored, and apparent general prosperity returned.

The appearance was deceptive. Speculation was stimulated by the freedom with which the banks loaned the public funds, and the credit system was enormously expanded. Trade was brisk; the shipping interest was prosperous; prices ruled high; luxury abounded, and nobody seemed to perceive the under-current of disaster that was surely wasting the foundations of the absurd credit system and the real prosperity of the nation. It collapsed at the touch of the Ithurial spear of Necessity. A failure of the grain crop of England caused a large demand for corn to pay for food products abroad. The Bank of England, seeing exchanges running high and higher against that country, contracted its loans and admonished houses who were giving long and extensive credits to the Americans, by the use of

CHAP. XVII.

FINANCIAL TROUBLES.

1337

money borrowed from the bank, to curtail that hazardous business. At about the same time the famous "Specie Circular" went out from our Treasury Department (July, 1836), directing all collectors of the public revenue to receive nothing but coin. From the parlor of the Bank of England and from the Treasury of the United States went forth the unwelcome fiat, Pay up! American houses in London failed for many millions; and every bank in the United States suspended specie payments in 1837, but resumed in 1839. Then the United States Bank, chartered by the legislature of Pennsylvania, fell into hopeless ruin, and with it went down a very large number of the State banks of the country. A general bankrupt law, passed in 1841, relieved of debt almost forty thousand persons, whose liabilities amounted in the aggregate to about $441,000,000.

These financial troubles were preceded by the breaking out of war with the Seminole Indians in East Florida, a consequence of an attempt to remove them, by force, to the wilderness west of the Mississippi River. Led by Micanopy, their principal sachem and chief, they began a most distressing warfare upon the frontier settlements of Florida, in which Osceola, a chief superior in ability to Micanopy (for he possessed the cunning of Tecumtha and the heroism of a Metacomet), was an active leader for awhile, for he had private wrongs to revenge.

In the spring of 1832, some of the Seminole chiefs, in council, agreed to leave Florida, and made a treaty to that effect. Other chiefs (among whom was Osceola) and the great body of the nation resolved to stay, declaring that the treaty was not binding upon them. At length, in 1834, General Wiley Thompson was sent to Florida with troops to prepare for a forcible removal of the Indians. Osceola stirred up the nation to resistance. One day his insolent bearing and offensive words in the presence of Thompson caused that general to put the chief in irons and in a prison for a day. Osceola's wounded pride called for vengeance, and it was fearfully wrought during a war that lasted about seven years. By bravery, skill, strategies and treachery, he over-matched the United States troops sent against him and commanded by some of the best officers in the service.

The first blow was struck in December, 1835. Osceola had agreed to send some horses and cattle to General Thompson; but at the very time he was to do so, the savage was, with a small war party, murdering the unsuspecting inhabitants on the borders of the everglades a region mostly covered with water and grass, and affording a secure hiding-place for the Indians. At that time General Clinch was occupying Fort Drane with a small body of troops. That post was in the interior of Florida, forty miles eastward of the mouth of the Withlacoochee River, and the garrison was