Butall the while the consummate politicians of the Jackson party were reaching and arousing the masses. Long before the opening of the campaign, Amos Kendall, Lewis, Hill, and Blair were cunningly appealing to the interests, the prejudices, and the hero worship of the voters of the cornfield and the village. These forerunners of the modern politician were keenly appreciative of the fact that between 1824 and 1832 a great body of voters, previously proscribed because of their poverty and lack of property, had been newly enfranchised. With the Whigs these were non-existent. The journalistic training of Kendall, Hill, and Blair pointed to the press as the surest way to reach the masses with their propaganda. The old-fashioned politician still affected a contempt for the press, and particularly for the little struggling papers of the country. The genius of Kendall immediately seized upon these, and, long before the campaign began, the sallow, prematurely gray young man of mystery, shut up in his petty office in the Treasury, was busy night and day, and especially at night, preparing articles and editorials laudatory of the Jackson policies, denunciatory of the Opposition, and these, sent to editors all over the country, were printed as their own. Thus the followers of Jackson in every nook and corner of the country were constantly supplied with ammunition in the shape of arguments they could comprehend and assimilate.
The center and soul of the Democratic organization was the office of the “Globe.” Among the papers of national reputation, but two others were supporting Jackson, the “New Hampshire Patriot” of “Ike” Hill, and Van Buren’s organ, the “Albany Argus.” But the “Globe” was equal to the demand upon it. Doubling the number of issues, the ferociously partisan Blair sat in the office writing feverishly, with Kendall gliding in and out with copy. Both possessed a genius for controversy. Both had mastered a style combining literary qualities, attractive to the educated, with the “pep” and “punch” that impressed, interested, delighted, the multitude. Blair dipped his pen in vitriol. In satire and sarcasm he had few equals. He was no parlor warrior, and he struck resounding blows like a boiler-maker. And he wrote in a flowing style that, at times, approached real eloquence. Having the average man in mind, his editorials, filling the greater part of the paper, were concise and brief. When language seemed weak, he resorted to italics. The longer and more sustained argumentative articles were written by the more brilliant Kendall. Through July, August, September, and October he wrote a series of articles on “The Bank and the Veto,” beginning in an argumentative vein, and gradually growing personal until he was devoting one issue to the financial connections between the Bank and Duff Green, another to similar connections of Webb, of the “Courier and Enquirer,” and another to Gales, of the “Intelligencer.”
Infuriated by the gibes, taunts, and attacks, the Whigs charged that the “Globe” was being distributed gratuitously—the business manager replied with an affidavit as to the legitimacy of its circulation.[516]News of the deepest import was crowded out by the exigencies of the campaign, and with the cholera scourge taking a heavy toll of lives in Washington, the only mention of it in the “Globe” was in the official reports of the Board of Health. But there was room for columns of quotations from Democratic papers on the Veto, all striking the exultant key—“The Monster is Destroyed.”
Only the persistent hammering of the Whigs on the unfortunate sentence of the Veto Message caused acute distress in Democratic circles. Webster’s Worcester speech was annoying. Here a sneer, there a gibe in the “Globe,” but sneers and gibes did not quite satisfy the editor, who finally made a laborious effort to explain,[517]and, finding the effort tame, Blair countercharged with the publication of Clay’s bitter anti-Bank speech of 1811 with appropriate comments upon it from the Jacksonian papers of the country.
As the campaign approached the end, Blair stressed the theory that the real fight was between Jackson and the Bank, with Clay a mere pawn in the game. “We see,” he wrote, “the most profligate apostasies invited and applauded—the grossest misrepresentations circulated—the worst forgeries committed—open briberies practiced, and all for what? Not avowedly to elect Henry Clay or William Wirt, but any ‘available candidate’[518]—in other words, any candidate with whom, in the end, the Bank directors can make the best bargain.”[519]And a week later, under the caption, “The Gold,” Blair announces that through private advices “we learn that certain heavy trunks, securely hooped with iron, have arrived at Lexington[520]from the East.”[521]Such was the character of the publicity with which the Jacksonians appealed to the masses of the people.
But the practical minds of the leaders of the Kitchen Cabinet were not content with creating public opinion—they systematically organized and directed it. In every community, no matter how obscure, some Jackson leader, with a genius for organization work, was busy welding the Jackson forces into a solid mass. Here Major Lewis took charge. He anticipated the card-index system of the modern politicians. There was scarcely a county in the country in which he did not know the precise man or men upon whom absolute reliance could be placed. And “Ike” Hill, now a United States Senator, made an extensive organizing tour through Ohio and Pennsylvania in early August.
In both publicity and organization, the greater part of the ability and all the genius was with Jackson.
TheJacksonians depended also to a greater extent than the Opposition on appeals to the people, face to face. A creature of another world, looking down from the skies upon the United States in the late summer and autumn of 1832, would have concluded that its people moved about in enormous processions on horseback, with waving flags, branches and banners. Great meetings were held in groves, addressed by fiery orators, furiously denouncing “The Monster” and the “Corporation” and calling upon the people to “stand by the Hero.” Men left their homes, bade farewell to their families as though enlisting for a war, and rode from one meeting to another for weeks at a time.[522]Nor was this hysterical enthusiasm confined to the more primitive sections of the country. A French traveler sojourning in New York City was profoundly impressed by a Jackson parade there. “It was nearly a mile long,” he wrote. “The Democrats marched in good order to the glare of torches; the banners were more numerous than I have ever seen in any religious festival; all were in transparency on account of the darkness. On some were inscribed the names of Democratic societies, or sections; others bore imprecations against the Bank of the United States. Nick Biddle and Old Nick here figured largely.... From farther than the eye could reach came marching on the Democrats. The procession stopped before the houses of the Jackson men to fill the air with cheers, and halted at the door of the leaders of the opposition to give three, six or nine groans. These scenesbelong to history and partake of the grand; they are the episodes of a wondrous epic which will bequeath a lasting memory to posterity.”[523]
And into these amazing demonstrations the campaign glee club, also new to American politics, entered, to play a conspicuous part, with pretty girls, and children gayly dressed, singing round the hickory poles that were raised wherever there were idolaters of Jackson. And so they sang:
“Here’s a health to the heroes who foughtAnd conquered in Liberty’s cause;Here’s health to Old Andy who could not be boughtTo favor aristocrat laws.Hurrah for the Roman-like Chief—He never missed fire at all;But ever when called to his country’s reliefHad a ready picked flint and a ball.
“Here’s a health to the heroes who foughtAnd conquered in Liberty’s cause;Here’s health to Old Andy who could not be boughtTo favor aristocrat laws.Hurrah for the Roman-like Chief—He never missed fire at all;But ever when called to his country’s reliefHad a ready picked flint and a ball.
“Here’s a health to the heroes who foughtAnd conquered in Liberty’s cause;Here’s health to Old Andy who could not be boughtTo favor aristocrat laws.Hurrah for the Roman-like Chief—He never missed fire at all;But ever when called to his country’s reliefHad a ready picked flint and a ball.
“Hurrah for the Hickory treeFrom the mountain tops down to the sea.It shall wave o’er the grave of the Tory and knave,And shelter the honest and free.”[524]
“Hurrah for the Hickory treeFrom the mountain tops down to the sea.It shall wave o’er the grave of the Tory and knave,And shelter the honest and free.”[524]
“Hurrah for the Hickory treeFrom the mountain tops down to the sea.It shall wave o’er the grave of the Tory and knave,And shelter the honest and free.”[524]
Even where the Whigs were strongest, the militant Democrats poured forth in defiant demonstrations. When Jackson, returning to Washington from the Hermitage in the closing days of the campaign, approached Lexington, the home of his rival, a multitude streamed down the road five miles to meet him, with over a thousand on horseback and in carriages, and before he reached his lodging the throng extended back two miles along the road “with green hickory bushes waving like bright banners in a breeze.”[525]
It was inevitable that in such a campaign personalities should intrude. In the winter of 1831-32, while Congress was in session, Jackson took advantage of the presence of Dr. Harris, an eminent Philadelphia surgeon, to have the bullet from Benton’s pistol, long lodged in his shoulder, removed.When the surgeon appeared at the White House, he was engaged with company, but excused himself with the explanation that he would have to submit to an operation; and a few hours later he reappeared among his friends with his arm in a sling. “Precisely,” wrote Blair, “as he had appeared with it in battle among the enemies of his country.”[526]This gave the Whigs their cue, and their press teemed with references to the “disgusting affair” in which the shot had been fired. And Blair himself was able to retaliate in kind with the story of a wound received by Clay in a personal conflict. “He was taken to a kind friend’s house,” he wrote, “he was treated with the utmost tenderness and courtesy by that friend’s wife and family, and while enjoying their hospitality, he amused himself ... by winning the money of his kind host at Brag.”
If Jackson was a brawler, it was given out thus that Clay was not only a brawler, but a gambler and an ingrate. Both stories made their way through the country.[527]
If the cholera was not of sufficient importance for the news columns of the party press, it was rich in suggestion to the politicians. The Dutch Synod requested Jackson to set a day aside for prayer. He replied that he had faith in the efficacy of prayer, but that the special day to be set aside should be designated by the State authorities. Whereupon Clay arose to offer a resolution in the Senate setting a day aside and fixing the day. Aha, cried Blair, he wants a veto on a religious subject. “It is not the cholera that makes them so pious; it is the hope to steal a march on the old Hero.... What whited sepulchers some of these partisan leaders are!” he wrote.[528]
And when, a little later, the “Pittsburgh Statesman,” a Clay paper, suggested that “the only effectual cure, under existing circumstances, for genuine Jacksonism is the equally genuine Asiatic Spasmodic Cholera,” the “Troy Budget,” supporting Jackson, was not surprised at “such political depravity,” coming from the “editorial slanderers and ruthless murderers of Mrs. Jackson.” And “Ike” Hill, in the “New Hampshire Patriot,” was reminded that Clay himself had prayed “for war, pestilence and famine” in preference to the reëlection of Jackson. When the President left the capital for the Hermitage, the “Troy Sentinel,” Whig, with its eye on the church vote, announced with emphasis that he had left Washington “at eight o’clock on Sunday morning.” Blair, denouncing the story as “a lie,” declared that “he did not leave the city until Monday morning and spent the Sabbath in religious duties as usual.” When “Ike” Hill, speaking at a complimentary dinner at the Eagle Coffee House, in Concord, assailed Clay and Senator John Holmes, and referred to some Senators as “low and blackguard,” the “National Intelligencer” protested, and Blair replied with a description of Holmes as a “besotted Senator who had indulged in indecent and ribald slang throughout the session,” and as one given to “low buffoonery”—the “mere Thersites of the Senate.”[529]Charges of impropriety touching on the personal integrity of political leaders were commonplace. The “Globe,” centering its fire upon the activities of the Bank, charged it with subsidizing and seducing the press by paying for the publication of political speeches at advertising rates.[530]“Every press in Philadelphia,” it said, “is closed by its influence, against the admission of anything unfavorable to its pretensions. The ‘Mechanics’ Free Press’ broke ground against it in conformity with the principles of its party, when lo! a shower of gold, amounting to $1700 for publishing Mr. McDuffie’s report, silenced it, and for good reasons, doubtless, it has ever since held its peace about the Bank.” And the Whig press was equally shocked to find that officershigh in the Government were sending the “Globe” all over the country under their official frank. “A lie!” screamed Blair. And so the battle of personalities went on. From Hill’s “New Hampshire Patriot” came the resurrection of the long-discredited “bargain” story against Clay.
Meanwhile, what had become of the candidates and what were their feelings as to the prospects? While scarcely due to the strain of the campaign, all three, Jackson, Clay, and Wirt, were threatened with serious illness. As we have seen, Clay was threatened with paralysis about the time of his retirement from the Cabinet. During the summer and autumn of 1832 the old trouble returned. His friend, Brooke, who became concerned over his health, urged him to caution, and Clay, much moved by his friend’s solicitude, promised to be more careful of his diet, to abstain from wine, and to reduce his consumption of tobacco to “one form.”[531]At times, during the summer session, he had been forced to leave Washington for a brief period of rest at his friend’s home at St. Julien, Virginia; and as soon as Congress adjourned, he hastened to White Sulphur Springs for two weeks in hope of relief from the waters. Skeptical at first of his election, his confidence increased until he and Webster were exchanging letters of congratulation on its certainty.
Wirt, who had a serious attack, and was in a weakened condition, was forced by his physician to leave Baltimore, rather than take a chance with the cholera. After a brief sojourn at Bedford Springs, he went with his family to Berkley Springs where he remained through September. Here, with no thought of his own election, but with ardent hopes for Clay, he ignored the clamor of the campaign. Riding and lounging about the grounds during the day, regaling company with ghost stories in the evening, he bore no resemblance to a presidential candidate.[532]
Soon after Congress adjourned, the scourge reached Washington, taking heavy toll of the Irish and Swedish laborers engaged in the first macadamizing of Pennsylvania Avenue, and spreading rapidly from the poorer parts to the White House section. Because of Jackson’s weakened condition, his physicians insisted that he spend three months at the Hermitage, and near the middle of August, accompanied part of the way by Amos Kendall, Frank Blair, “Ike” Hill, Major Lewis, Lewis Cass, and Benton, he left the sweltering and infected capital and went down the Ohio. He was in high glee. Never for a moment had he doubted the result of the election. During the congressional fight over the recharter bill he had not punished those who had withheld their support by denying them patronage, except in the case of his most bitter foes. Just before the vote in the House, an Ohio Representative solicited an appointment for a constituent, and, upon being granted the favor, he explained that he thought it due Jackson for him to know that the favor was being granted a member who would vote for the Bank.
“I can’t help that, sir, but I already knew it. See here—I can take a roll of the House and check off every Democrat who will vote for the Bank. In fact I have one here.”
Turning briskly, he produced it, and the Representative, running over the list, indicated one name as that of a man who would vote with Jackson.
“How do you know?” demanded Jackson.
When told that this Congressman had been so unmercifully berated by his constituents that he had felt compelled to change his tack, the old warrior smiled grimly.
“He is a lucky fellow,” he said, “to get the views of his constituents beforehand. There are several other Democrats in the House who will not get similar notice until next fall, sir.”[533]
Nothing occurred after that incident to alter his opinion of the sentiment of the people. As Hill left the boat bearingthe presidential party down the Ohio, at Wheeling, Jackson said, as he clasped his hand: “Isaac, it’ll be a walk. If our fellows didn’t raise a finger from now on the thing would be just as well as done. In fact, Isaac, it’s done now.”
That his friends shared his confidence we have ample evidence. Hill, writing to a friend, advised him to bet all he could on Pennsylvania and Ohio for Jackson—“not on stated majorities, but hang on to the general result.” And he added frankly, “I am on the turf myself. Benton and his friends out West are picking up all they can get.” John Van Buren, the son of Martin, and popularly known as “Prince John,” made a small fortune with his ventures on the election, and Hone, commenting on the manner and appearance of Martin Van Buren, the nominee for Vice-President, thought it indicated a feeling of absolute security.
The result was a notable victory for Jackson and his policies—an unmistakable rebuke to Clay. In electoral votes Jackson received 219, Clay 49, and Wirt 7, and the popular vote gave Jackson 124,392 over the combined strength of Clay and Wirt, thus proving the absurdity of Thurlow Weed’s theory that if Clay had acquiesced in the wishes of the Anti-Masons he could have been elected. The only State carried by Wirt was Vermont—as he had predicted. Clay carried Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, and Kentucky, and five out of the eight electoral votes of Maryland. All the other States went to Jackson but one—South Carolina, with childish petulance, threw its vote away at the behest of Calhoun.
Nothing could have been more ominous than this action. Going entirely outside the regularly nominated candidates, and acting in conformity with the views of the Nullifying party, which insisted on placing the State outside the Union, she gave her vote to Governor Floyd of Virginia. And Jackson, getting the returns, instantly caught the significance of the act, and girded his loins for a life-and-death struggle with Calhoun and Nullification.
Callersat the Hermitage about the first of October were surprised to find Jackson’s thoughts remote from the election. Instead of a jubilant politician, they found an old man frothing with fury over the news from South Carolina that the Nullifiers had won a majority of seats in the Legislature and were arranging for an early summoning of a Nullification Convention. His indignation was so intense that his friends were shocked at the ferocity of his mood. The crisis had not crept upon him unaware. With keen, far-seeing eyes he had watched its advance, hoping that something would intervene to divert his native State from its mad course, but determined, if the issue came, to crush it with an iron hand. His hatred of Calhoun had, by this time, become an obsession, and when he threatened to “hang every leader ... of that infatuated people, sir, by martial law, irrespective of his name, or political or social position,” there was no doubt as to whom he referred.[534]Taking no further interest in the election, he put the campaign behind him and hastened to the capital. Blair, the politician always, hurried to the White House with some papers relating to the election. After a hasty and perfunctory glance, Jackson returned them to the editor, with a “Thank you, sir,” and launched into a denunciation of the Nullifiers. The date set for the Nullification Convention had just reached him. Even Blair, accustomed to his fits of temper, was startled. He was in the presence of a Jackson he had never seen or known before. “The lines in his face were hard drawn, his tones were full ofwrath and resentment.... Any one would have thought he was planning another great battle.”[535]Even the announcement of victory at the polls scarcely interested him. Blair and Kendall called with a table showing the electoral vote. Glancing at it indifferently for a moment, his face brightened. “The best thing about this, gentlemen, is that it strengthens my hands in this trouble.” Such was the spirit with which Andrew Jackson faced the gravest crisis the Nation had yet known.
Beginning with an intensely nationalistic spirit,[536]South Carolina commenced to veer about with the tariff of 1816, and every succeeding tariff measure had been a provocation. Two years before Jackson’s inauguration, the “Brutus” articles on the “Usurpations of the Federal Government,” eloquent, fiery, defiant of the “Monster of the North,” had created a profound impression, commanding the adherence of McDuffie, the Mirabeau of the disaffected, Hamilton, Preston, and Chancellor William Harper, described by Houston as “scarcely inferior to Calhoun as an exponent of meta-physical doctrines.”[537]The principles of “Brutus” only awaited the authoritative sanction of Calhoun to place upon them the stamp of the State’s approval.
The tariff of 1828 was the last straw, and sedition was openly talked by the greater part of the South Carolina congressional delegation at the home of Senator Hayne. One week later, Calhoun, at his home at Fort Hill, finished his “Exposition,” enunciating the principles of Nullification, which the committee of seven of the State Legislature presented as its own. During the summer, politicians made numerous pilgrimages to Fort Hill for conferences, but not the scratch of a pen remains to indicate the character of the discussions. Calhoun was still “under cover.” He was about to enter upon his second term in the Vice-Presidency, and his friends werelooking forward to the Presidency in 1832. The world was to wait awhile for the openly avowed views of the Master.
With the publication of the “Exposition,” the battle royal began, Cavalier against Cavalier, the Union cause brilliantly led by the elegant Joel R. Poinsett. In the early stages of the fight the Nullifiers did not scruple to represent Jackson as friendly to their cause. “I had supposed,” wrote Jackson, in reply to a letter from Poinsett, “that every one acquainted with me knew that I was opposed to the Nullifying doctrine, and my toast at the Jefferson dinner was sufficient evidence of that fact.”[538]Having no reason, after that, to doubt Jackson’s position, the Unionists invited Jackson to attend one of their public dinners, and he sent a letter settling beyond all possibility of dispute his position on Nullification. The Nullifiers, dining at a rival banquet, and learning of the reading of the Jackson letter, reminded the writer that “old Waxhaw still stands where Jackson left it, and the old stock of ’76 has not run out.” After that the drama hurried to a climax. The tariff of 1832 was but oil on the flames. The fight was carried to the polls and Nullification won by a majority of 6000 out of 40,000 votes cast.
The most portentous feature of the campaign was the appearance in August of Calhoun’s famous letter to Hamilton, decisively accepting as his own, and urging upon his people, the doctrine of Nullification. It was intended and timed to serve the purposes of the campaign. Unhappily Calhoun must ever remain more or less a steel engraving. His private life was carefully screened. Jefferson prowling among the brickmasons at the University, Jackson with his clay pipe on the veranda of the Hermitage, Webster among his cattle at Marshfield, Clay meditating speeches under the trees at Ashland, are possible of contact by future generations, but Calhoun at Fort Hill seems hopelessly remote and cannot bevisualized. He stalks upon the stage, a dramatic and impressive figure, and plays his public part, but no one is admitted to the dressing-room. Thus all we know of the occasion of the preparation of the famous letter, which became the Magna Carta of the Nullifiers, is told in the letter itself.[539]The events of that summer and early autumn were intimately known to Jackson as he walked the grounds of the Hermitage, and lingered mournfully about the tomb of his beloved Rachel. In the spring of 1830 the brilliant Poinsett, fresh from his mission to Mexico, had been shocked, on his return to the drawing-rooms of Charleston, to find sedition poured with the tea, and had hurried to Washington to be closeted with Jackson at the White House. Before he emerged, he had been designated by the President as his personal ambassador in South Carolina,[540]and after calling upon Adams, in retirement, to tell him of his hopes and fears,[541]he made all haste home to combat, inch by inch, the growing madness, and prepared, if need be, to die with a musket in his hands. During the intervening three years his confidential reports had kept Jackson in close touch with all the movements of the enemy, and the grim old warrior, reëntering the White House on his return from Tennessee, entertained no illusions as to what he faced.
Three days after Jackson reached Washington, the South Carolina Legislature fixed November 3d as the date for the Nullification Convention. Silently, but sternly, soldier-wise, the President was clearing the decks for action. The day he left the Hermitage the Collector of Customs in Charleston received instructions as to his course; on reaching the capital, the commander in charge of troops there was warned of possible attempts to seize the forts; to his apprehensive friends he was sending reassuring messages. “I am well advised asto the views and proceedings of the leading Nullifiers,” he wrote Hamilton on November 2d. “We are wide awake here.The Union will be preserved; rest assured of that.”[542]Five days later, Cass was ordering additional troops to Fort Moultrie, and Jackson was dispatching a secret emissary to Charleston, with instructions to communicate with Poinsett, and to report upon the conditions of the forts and the lengths to which the Nullifiers might go.[543]The day preceding the meeting of the Nullification Convention, Cass ordered General Scott to Charleston, with minute instructions.[544]With Scott hurrying to South Carolina, the convention met, the Nullification Ordinance was passed, and February 1st was set as the day for it to go into operation. Three days after the convention adjourned, the Legislature met and passed laws to put the ordinance into effect. The Unionist Convention immediately met, denounced Nullification, and began to organize their forces for a possible armed conflict.
Meanwhile Scott had performed his mission with a discretion and sound judgment which called forth the commendation of Jackson.[545]Five days before Congress met, five thousand stand of muskets with equipment had been ordered to Castle Pinckney, and a sloop of war with smaller vessels were on their way to Charleston Harbor.[546]“The Union must be preserved, and its laws duly executed, butBY PROPER MEANS,” wrote the President to Poinsett.
Thus, in this real crisis, the “law,” the “Constitution,” and “public opinion” were uppermost in the mind of the man generally described as reckless in the use of power. Long after the event, but while the contest was still on, he wrote to Poinsett of his regret at the failure of the Unionist Convention to memorialize Congress “to extend to you the guarantees of the Constitution, of a republican form of government, stating the actual despotism which now controls the State.” This, he explained, “would have placed your situation before the whole nation, and filled the heart of every true lover of his country and its liberties with indignation.”[547]While at work on his Proclamation, he wrote Hamilton in New York, urging that public opinion assert itself in an unmistakable manner. “The crisis must be, andAS FAR AS MY CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL POWERS AUTHORIZE, will be, met with energy and firmness.Hence the propriety of the public voice being heard;—and it ought now to be spoken in a voice of thunder.”[548]Thus, when the gavel fell on the opening of the Congress, Jackson had the situation well in hand, had perfected his plans for vigorous action within the limits of the Constitution and the laws, but still hoped, through the pressure of public opinion and the returning good sense of the Carolinians, it would be unnecessary to resort to force.
Onthe opening day of the Congress the great Carolinian was not in his Senate seat, to which he had been immediately elected on his resignation from the Vice-Presidency, but public interest centered in it, nevertheless. The Jackson Message was awaited with keen anxiety. In its recommendation of a reduction of the tariff was easily recognized a conciliatory gesture toward the South Carolinians. Even his discussion of the crisis was temperate and unprovocative. No one listening to the Message could have had the slightest notion of what was taking place at that very hour in Jackson’s workroom in the White House.
Even before the Congress met, Edward Livingston was at work preparing the Proclamation which was to thrill the country like a bugle blast, perpetuate the memory of Jackson, and reflect glory on himself. It was no mere accident which led to the selection of the Secretary of State for this task. His views on the integrity and perpetuity of the Union were intimately known to his chief; and it was a duty upon which Livingston could enter with all his heart. But the first draft of the Proclamation was written by Jackson in a frenzy of composition, so hurriedly that he scattered the pages over the table to let them dry. The general tenor of the document was therefore his. If the wording was Livingston’s, the document breathed the soul of Andrew Jackson. During the period of its preparation, Jackson was in constant touch. He was thinking of nothing else. Thus, on the day his Message was read to Congress, the iron man was meditating his appeal to public opinion. It was almost midnight. In his room in the southeast corner of the mansion, he sat before the fireplace smoking his pipe—thinking. Bitter as he was against Calhoun and the leaders whom he felt had seduced the people of his native State, he felt an affection for the confused masses who had been deluded; and, while prepared, if need be, to strike with the military arm of the Government, he passionately hoped that this would not become necessary. Going over to the table on which always stood the picture of his Rachel, and the Bible to which she had been devoted, he wrote a conclusion to the Proclamation in the nature of a touching appeal to the patriotic memories of the South Carolinians. Then he wrote to Livingston: “I submit the above as the conclusion of the Proclamation for your amendment and revision. Let it receive your best flight of eloquence, to strike to the heart, and speak to the feelings of my deluded countrymen of South Carolina.”
Three days later, the night again found Jackson obsessed with the preparation of the Proclamation. Livingston, in his writing, was sending it as he proceeded to the White House, where Major Donelson, the private secretary, was engaged in copying it for the printer. At four o’clock in theafternoon the Secretary of State had sent a number of sheets, and Donelson had finished copying and was waiting for more. Jackson was impatient of the delay. The Message having gone forth, he thought it important that it should be followed immediately by the Proclamation for the effect on South Carolina. Again he wrote to Livingston explaining the reason for his anxiety. The Secretary would therefore please send over at once, “sealed, by the bearer,” such sheets as were completed, and the harassed Livingston complied. Under these conditions of pressure the immortal document was written.[549]
On the day Jackson gave this Proclamation to the Nation he made his last appeal. A letter written to Poinsett that day discloses a determination to move sternly and unhesitatingly to what he conceived to be his solemn duty. This letter breathed the spirit of the battle-field. The act of the Nullifiers was sheer treason. He had been assured that he would be sustained by Congress. “I will meet it [treason] at the threshold, and have the leaders arrested and arraigned for treason,” he wrote. He was only waiting for the Acts of the Legislature “to make a communication to Congress, ask the means necessary to carry my Proclamation into complete effect, and by an exemplary punishment of those leaders for treason so unprovoked, put down this rebellion, and strengthen our Government both at home and abroad.” The Unionists of South Carolina need not fear. In forty days he could have 50,000 men in the State, in forty more another 50,000. “How impotent,” he wrote, “the threats of resistance with only a population of 250,000 whites, and nearly double that in blacks, with our ships in the port to aid in the execution of the laws!”[550]
Thus hoping that necessity would not compel him to sendarmed forces, determined to meet the issue, however, as it might present itself, careful to observe all the constitutional and legal limitations of his power, enraged to fury against the leaders and eager to lay his hands on Calhoun, he gave the country the Proclamation which instantly wiped out party lines with most, and rallied the patriotic forces of the Union to his support.
Atthe time of the writing of the Proclamation, Andrew Jackson was sixty-six, and Edward Livingston sixty-nine years old, but it breathes the fire, the passion, the enthusiasm, and the eloquence of impetuous youth. As an oration, it was to be treasured as a masterpiece; as a public document, it has taken its place alongside the Emancipation Proclamation as one of the greatest pronouncements of American history. Its publication appealed to the Unionists of the country like a charge on the battle-field. To no one did it give keener pleasure than to Webster, who read it in New Jersey on his way to the capital. In Philadelphia he met Clay, and a friend of the latter explained Clay’s plan of concessions to the Nullifiers through a new tariff of gradual reductions. The martial call of Jackson aroused the fighting blood within Webster, and Clay’s game of politics repelled him. He hastened to Washington determined to give his best blows for Jackson and the Administration.[551]
John Marshall, in gloomy mood, found in the Proclamation the elixir for his pessimism.[552]Justice Story, despite his deep-seated prejudice, could not withhold his commendation, coupled with an expression of strange surprise. “The President’s Proclamation is excellent,” he wrote, “and contains the true principles of the Constitution; but will he stand to it? Will he not surrender all to the guidance of Virginia?”[553]
Adams described it as a “blister plaster.”[554]Among all his long-time political opponents, Clay alone withheld enthusiastic commendation, with the comment that, “although there are some good things in it, there are some entirely too ultra for me.” In truth, the man who would “rather be right than President” seized eagerly upon the President’s patriotic position to curry favor with the extreme State-Rights men of the South.
Thus we soon enter upon the party phase of the fight. The effect upon some of Jackson’s State-Rights supporters was one of painful embarrassment. While the average Virginian had no sympathy with Nullification, he subscribed to the State-Rights doctrine and to the right of secession. The very point on which Clay cunningly and unscrupulously pounced was therefore the one which caused the greatest consternation among the Administration Democrats of the Old Dominion. It was to them that Clay was making his appeal. The Virginia Assembly, which had just unanimously elected W. C. Rives, a Jacksonian, to the Senate, instantly reversed itself by electing John Tyler, an enemy, to that body, to succeed Tazewell, who had resigned. W. S. Archer, writing to Cambreleng in New York, declared that it would be ridiculous to expect Virginia to endorse the Proclamation,[555]and Governor Floyd, who had received South Carolina’s vote in the recent election, rejoiced to find “the poor unworthy dogs, Ritchie, Van Buren & Co. deserted.”[556]To the momentarily embarrassed Ritchie, his cleverness pointed a way out. Penning a mild objection to some of the doctrinal points, he accepted it as primarily a denunciation of Nullification, and, as such, gave it the support of his great prestige and pen.[557]
Such was the position of many others among the Southern leaders of the Jackson party, but Ritchie found himself in a minority. John Tyler, never friendly to Jackson, now seizedupon the Proclamation as a pretext for pushing to the head of the Opposition. Writing heatedly to Tazewell of the “servility” to party of many Southern statesmen supporting the President, he drew a gloomy picture of the future. The Proclamation, he thought, had “swept away all the barriers of the Constitution,” had established “a consolidated military despotism.” He “trembled” for South Carolina. “The war cry is up—rely upon it,” he wrote. “The boast is that the President by stamping like another Pompey on the earth can raise a hundred thousand men.”[558]
It is significant of Whig hopes, that, when Tyler wrote and Ritchie was supporting the President, John Hampden Pleasants, the editor of the “Richmond Whig,” and an intimate of Clay’s, was denouncing the principles enunciated by Jackson and Livingston.[559]Resolutions were adopted by the Legislature denouncing both Nullification and the Proclamation.
Nor was Jackson indifferent to the attitude Virginia might assume. He planned to isolate South Carolina, and he feared an alliance with Virginia more than with any other State. Wishing to reach the Virginians as speedily as possible, he called upon Lewis Cass to prepare a letter in the form of an appeal to be published in Ritchie’s “Richmond Enquirer.” Within a few days after the appearance of the Proclamation, Virginians were reading a letter described by Ritchie as from “one of the ablest men in the country.” Making no defense of the tariff, but pointing out the impossibility of the radical changes demanded being made within the limited time allowed by the Carolina politicians, he suggested that “Virginia might interpose most efficaciously, and add another leaf to the wreath which adorns her civic chaplet,” if her Legislature would appoint a committee to proceed to South Carolina and “entreat her convention ... to recall its late steps, and at all events to delay her final action till another trial is madeto reduce the tariff.”[560]This was to lead, a little later, to the adoption of a similar plan.
Strange as it may now seem, the position of Virginia prevented New York from endorsing the Proclamation unqualifiedly, through her Legislature—and thereon hangs a tale of the political cunning of Martin Van Buren. In the Empire State the Proclamation had been received with enthusiasm. Even so bitter a partisan as Philip Hone poured forth his admiration and commendation on the pages of his diary. “As a composition, it is splendid,” he wrote, “and will take its place in the archives of our country, and dwell in the memory of our citizens alongside of the Farewell Address.... I think Jackson’s election may save the Union. If he is sincere in his Proclamation, he will put down this rebellion. Mr. Clay, pursuing the same measures, would not have been equally successful.”[561]We have seen, in Jackson’s letter to Hamilton, his desire that every agency of publicity should be employed to focus the sentiment against Nullification. The New York Legislature being then in session, Hamilton wrote leading men in Albany urging the passage of a commendatory resolution. In the absence of definite encouragement, he then wrote Van Buren, his political and personal friend, suggesting that he bring pressure to bear upon his friends in the Assembly. The letter was returned, opened, but unanswered, and Hamilton lost no time in writing of the incident to Jackson, with the comment that “this unfriendly, nay offensive course, resulted from Van Buren’s fear of offending the dominant political party in Virginia.”[562]
That Van Buren was deeply embarrassed by the doctrinal features of the Proclamation, if not by the possible effect upon his candidacy for the Presidency and his popularity among the Virginia politicians, has been admitted and explained by himself.[563]The document was delivered to him atthe home of a friend in Albany as the party was in the act of going in to dinner. Instantly his practiced eye caught the phrasing that would arouse the ire of the State-Rights element. The Whigs in Albany were just as keen, and proceeded, with celerity, to take advantage. William H. Seward immediately offered a resolution in the State Senate to the effect that “the President of the United States ... had advanced the true principles upon which only the Constitution can be maintained and defended.” With Van Buren on the ground, and with the Democrats in the majority, the Whigs hoped, not without reason, either to force the Jacksonians to accept the conclusions of the resolution, or to a rejection of the endorsement, which would be interpreted as a rupture of the relations of the President and Vice-President. The Democrats did neither—they postponed action. It was probably at this juncture that Van Buren received the letter from Hamilton and returned it unanswered. Realizing, however, the fatality of non-action, Van Buren prepared a resolution, together with an elaborate and laborious report, taking issue with “the history given by the President of the formation of our Government,” and calculated to satisfy the State-Rights men of Virginia. These were adopted, and sent to the White House with an explanation. Just what Jackson thought of it will never be known, for he filed the letter without a word of comment to his secretary, in whose presence it was read.[564]Nor was the subject ever mentioned in future conversations between the two leaders.[565]That a copy was also sent to Rives and Ritchie in Virginia we may be sure.
Such were the cross-currents of party politics at the time, with Jackson playing a bold and straight game, thinking solely of the Union, and Clay and Van Buren, rival candidates for the Presidency, pussyfooting and conciliating on a vital issue.
Meanwhile what was the effect in South Carolina? Senator Hayne, now Governor, met the challenge of the President in an able document, bitter in its defiance, which fired the fighting blood of the Nullifiers. Preston described it as “a document whose elegance of diction, elaborate and conclusive argument, just and clear constitutional exposition, confuted all the show of argument of the President’s Proclamation.”[566]Outside of Nullification circles, the bitterness of this counterblast made a deep impression. Adams found it “full of bitter words,” and, after reading it, sent it to James K. Polk, the Jackson leader in the House.[567]The Hayne defiance was echoed by the Nullifiers. The eloquent Preston, addressing a mass meeting in Charleston, declared that “there are 16,000 back countrymen with arms in their hands and cockades in their hats, ready to march to our city at a moment’s warning to defend us.... I will pour down a torrent of volunteers that will sweep the myrmidons of the tyrant from the soil of Carolina.”[568]But Calhoun was disappointed with the Proclamation. He had hoped for an intemperate, ranting denunciation of the Carolinians that would heat their blood and put them on the march. The sober dignity of the document and its impressive appeal to the better natures of the people interfered with his plans.
In the House of Representatives, the Carolinians were seething with wrath. The impassioned McDuffie, according to Adams, “could not contain himself,” and declared that “if Congress should approve the principles of that proclamation, the liberties of the country were gone forever.” Whereupon Archer rose to suggest that a communication “would very shortly be received upon which the gentleman would have an opportunity to express his opinion without restraint.”[569]
Theexcitement over the Proclamation found Calhoun remote from the turmoil and in the midst of his family at Fort Hill. There he lingered to enjoy the Christmas festivities, and the day following he started to Washington to take his place in the Senate. There was much drama in this winter journey to the capital. One of his biographers has compared it to “that of Luther to attend the diet of Worms.”[570]The public was convinced of the temper of Jackson and realized the possibilities when the lion in him was aroused. To some Calhoun’s journey suggested a death march. Looked upon as the prime mover, the instigator, the leader of the seditious movement, many thought that he would be arrested on the charge of treason before he crossed the Virginia border. Interest in his progress was intense, and even among those who abhorred the new doctrine there was no little sympathy for the grim, impeccably pure statesman who had the courage to beard the lion in his den. New Year’s Day found him at Raleigh, where he rested. Here crowds gathered to welcome, or merely to observe him, and a public dinner was offered him by his admirers. This he politely declined. There was something of grandeur in the dignity of his demeanor. As he proceeded from town to town, his approach was announced and elaborate preparations were made for his reception, for both North Carolina and Virginia were devoted to State Rights, and not a few of their citizens sympathized with the Carolina doctrine, and looked upon secession as an inevitable result of the crisis. Unlike the case of Burr, nothing personally sinister clung to him. His worst enemies conceded his honesty, and this was in his favor. Mrs. Bayard Smith, echoing the sentiment of the Washington drawing-rooms, found herself wondering, on Christmas Day, if all the “high soarings” of “one of the noblest and most generousspirits” were to end “in disappointment or humiliation or in blood.”[571]That this friendly atmosphere, through which he moved, was reassuring to Calhoun, we may assume from his letter to his son on reaching the capital. Here he found “things better than anticipated” and that it was beginning to be “felt that we must succeed.”
On the day he took the oath and his seat in the Senate, the little semi-circular chamber was crowded with friends and foes, drawn by the dramatic features of the situation. Tall, erect, his face sternly set, his iron-gray hair brushed back, he walked into the chamber over which he had presided, slowly and with a deliberation which seemed as studied as that of an actor upon the stage. When he took his seat, some Senators hastened to clasp his hand, but it was noticed that others, who had formerly been friendly, held back, deterred perhaps by the frown of the White House. At length the great scene—the taking of the oath. This he did in a reverential manner, and his voice was serious and solemn when he swore to support the Constitution which Jackson contended he had flagrantly violated.[572]The leader of Nullification was in his seat.
Theday after Calhoun started on his journey to the capital, the Verplanck Tariff Bill, sanctioned by the Administration, was introduced in the House. This measure, it was thought, might go a long way toward preventing any accession to the ranks of the Nullifiers in that it went far toward meeting the objections to the revenue laws. It was a rather radical measure, providing for the immediate reduction of numerous duties, with further reductions a year later. The protection forces rallied at once for its defeat. Through all the parliamentary devices of delay, Jackson, keenly watching developments through the reports of Lewis and Donelson, wasconvinced that the Nullifiers were as much interested in its defeat as the protectionists. An “insulting and irritating speech” of Wilde of Georgia he thought “instigated by the Nullies, who wish no accommodation of the tariff.”[573]Long before it could be brought to a vote, it had been hammered beyond recognition by amendments and Jackson had lost interest in the reduction of the tariff, rather preferring first to whip Nullification without any preliminary concessions.
Meanwhile Jackson was awaiting developments before submitting his Message to Congress asking additional powers to put down the heresy. Through the latter part of December and the early part of January, Hayne was making open preparations for an armed resistance. Poinsett, reporting constantly, had abandoned hope of “putting down Nullification by moral force,” and hoped that the “vain blustering of these mad-men” would not influence Congress on the tariff, as “such a concession would confirm the power and popularity of the Nullifiers.”[574]He was anxious for the contest. “Is not raising, embodying, and marching men to oppose the laws of the United States an overt act of treason?” he wrote the Unionist Congressman from Charleston, who still hoped that the crisis could be passed without recourse to the Federal army.[575]Thus, early in January, Poinsett was anxious to have Federal troops sent into the State, while other Unionists still held back. In this controversy Jackson agreed with the conservatives that the Unionists of the State should first have an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to handle the situation.
On January 16th, Archer’s promise to McDuffie was fulfilled, when Jackson laid all the facts relative to the crisis before Congress with a request for authority to abolish or alter certain ports of entry, and to use the army to protect the officers in the discharge of their duties. He also asked forthe revival of the sixth section of the Act of March 3, 1815, and for a provision for the removal to the United States Circuit Court, without copy of the record, of any suit brought in the State courts against any individual for an act performed under the laws of the United States. A grim touch was added in the request for authorization for marshals to make provision for keeping prisoners.
Very late on the night of the day the Message was submitted, Jackson, worn out and wretched from a bad cold, sat in his room writing to Poinsett. The Message had been read. Calhoun, “agitated and confused,” had “let off a little of his ire” against the President, and John Forsyth had replied “with great dignity and firmness.” That night it seemed to Jackson that Calhoun had been placed “between Scylla and Charybdis,” and was “reckless.” The uncertainty of negotiations had passed, and the hour for action—the happy hour for Jackson—had struck. The conferences with Drayton were over. Poinsett, at the front, was now the man of the hour. The moment the Nullifiers were “in hostile array,” this fact was to be certified to Jackson by the attorney for the district, or the judge, and he would “forthwith order the leaders arrested and prosecuted.” And he added in his note to Poinsett: “We will strike at the head and demolish the monster Nullification and secession at the threshold by the power of the law.”[576]
Thus, that night, the fingers of Andrew Jackson were itching for the throat of John C. Calhoun.
Five days later, Senator Wilkins, of the Judiciary Committee, presented the famous “Force Bill,” and one of the most violent debates in history began. On the following day, Calhoun submitted a set of resolutions setting forth his views of the constitutional question involved, in the hope of thereby directing the debate into that channel. But the Senate was in no temper for such a discussion and pushed forward to thedebate on the main and pressing question. The Calhoun resolutions were speedily tabled. Wilkins led off in the debate, and others followed, one on the heels of the other, until at length John Tyler took the floor to deliver the speech which, after that of Calhoun, was the most forceful attack to be made upon the measure. Reading his speech to-day one wonders how the Republic outlived the Jackson Administrations. Dire calamity was predicted as a result of his every action. He saw Carolinians again driven “into the morasses where Marion and Sumter found refuge,” with their cities and towns leveled to the dust, and their daughters clothed in mourning, with “helpless orphans” made of their “rising sons.” But, he continued, “I will not despair. Rome had her Curtius, Sparta her Leonidas, and Athens her band of devoted patriots; and shall it be said that the American Senate contains not one man who will step forward to rescue his country in this, her moment of peril? Although that man may never wear an earthly crown or sway an earthly scepter, eternal fame shall weave an evergreen around his brow, and his name shall rank with the proudest patriots of the proudest climes.”
With the closing sentence, Tyler turned significantly to Henry Clay, who sat an interested spectator. Throughout this memorable debate he was to remain mute. The great orator and party leader was making sympathetic gestures to the extreme State-Rights men of the South. Even at this time, and knowing Tyler’s views, he was writing to his friend, Francis Brooke: “Will he [Tyler] be reëlected? We feel here some solicitude on that point, being convinced that under all circumstances, he would be far preferable to any person that could be sent.”[577]And such was his partisan hate of Jackson that the second leader of the party Opposition, John M. Clayton, in speaking in support of the Force Bill, could not refrain from an exhibition of boorishness and bigotry incoupling his advocacy of the Jackson measure with a sneer at Jackson.
“My support of the measure,” he said, “is predicated on no servile submission to any Executive mandate, on no implicit and unlimited faith in any man.... I will not be deterred from the adoption of this measure by any consideration of the source from which it has emanated.”
Thus did Clayton contribute to the pleasure of the Nullifiers by the denunciation of the man who stood in their way, and in sneering at those Southern Democrats who stood squarely behind Jackson despite the gibes of the Calhoun followers that they were yielding a servile submission.
Meanwhile Jackson’s supporters were giving the measure their undivided support, and none of them more heartily, and none so ably, as Senators from the South. Senator Felix Grundy of Tennessee, able lawyer, seasoned statesman, resourceful parliamentarian, took charge of the fight on the floor. Rives of Virginia, learned constitutional lawyer, scholarly, polished, heroically sacrificed a seat in the Senate to stand by the Union. And Forsyth of Georgia, “the greatest debater of his time,” affected to look upon the Nullification doctrine as “the double distilled essence of nonsense.”
As the fight developed and the certainty of defeat grew upon the Nullifiers, efforts were made to gain time, with the Administration forces pressing for action. Senator Willie Mangum of North Carolina, brilliant, and sacrificing a great career to drink, on securing the floor asked for an adjournment on the ground of indisposition. Ordinarily the request would have been granted. But Forsyth, Grundy, and Wilkins were instantly on their feet with objections. Calhoun, pointing out that Mangum was the only member of the Judiciary Committee opposed to the bill, begged that he be given an opportunity to explain his position, only to be told, none too graciously, by Wilkins, that he had no doubt of Mangum’s capacity to speak then. When Calhoun reminded him ofMangum’s plea of indisposition, he was ignored. At this juncture, Webster, who had been silent, suggested that Mangum could easily speak on another day and the debate proceed. Whereupon Senator King of Alabama made a transparent effort to draw Webster’s speech at once. The New England orator significantly replied that “the gentleman from Massachusetts fully understands the gentleman from Alabama; but he has no disposition to address the Senate at present, nor, under existing circumstances, at any other time, on the subject of this bill.” This was taken as indicating Webster’s conviction that up to that time the advocates of the bill needed no reënforcements, and that he would reserve himself for Calhoun.
It was during these proceedings that an exchange occurred between Poindexter and Grundy which illustrates the hair-trigger conditions in Carolina. A rumor had just spread through the chamber that Jackson had ordered a portion of the fleet to occupy Charleston Harbor, and had sent instructions to the military commander in Charleston, and Poindexter immediately offered a resolution calling upon the President for information as to his actions and intentions. Grundy calmly, if provokingly, suggested that perhaps some very respectable gentlemen of Charleston had furnished the President with information on which the secret orders had been issued, and that Poindexter would surely not ask the names of the gentlemen and all the circumstances of the disclosure.
“All—all—the whole of them!” cried Poindexter.
“But would not such disclosures lead to the immediate shedding of blood?” Grundy inquired.
“I care not if it does!” shouted the excited Mississippian. “Let us have the information no matter what the circumstances!”
Grundy smilingly took his seat.
Thus the debate dragged on—the two greatest figures still silent.
Meanwhile, as the debate proceeded, Jackson was watching South Carolina and making all his preparations. On January 24th, he wrote Poinsett that the Force Bill debate was about to begin, that he had done his duty, and if Congress failed to act, and he should be informed of the assemblage of an armed force, he stood ready for drastic measures.[578]There is something of the heroic mingled with pathos in the picture this letter presents of Jackson at this time. It was late at night. The House sat late. He had not heard since seven o’clock. “My eyes grow dim.”
Two hours later he ordered General Scott to Charleston to repel by force any attempt to seize the forts.[579]Holding his rage in check, measuring every step by his constitutional and legal powers, determined to do nothing rashly to precipitate bloodshed, Jackson held himself in readiness, as the debate on the Force Bill proceeded, to meet any eventuality that might arise.[580]But Jackson and the Administration were not at all satisfied with the progress of the debate. None of the trio of genius, Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, had yet participated. It would be too much to expect that Clay would speak on behalf of any Jackson measure, and it was certain that Calhoun would deliver one of his characteristically powerful arguments against the bill. There was just one man strong enough to meet the impact of that argument, and that was Webster. It was a reasonable hope that he would prominently support the measure involving the principles he had made his own. Among his intimates, such as Story, it was expected that he would enter at the psychological moment, but the great orator kept his own counsels, and during the early part of the debate was absent from the Senate Chamber on other engagements. As Calhoun prepared his heavy artillery for action, the apprehension of Jackson and his supporters increased, and every effort was made, at first through Webster’s friends, to learn his intentions.[581]Then, one day, a carriage halted before the lodgings of Webster, and the tall figure of Livingston emerged and entered the house. It was not a half-hearted welcome to the Administration camp that the Secretary of State offered. On the contrary, Webster was earnestly importuned to take the lead on the floor, and to frame any amendments he thought necessary.[582]If such importunity was unnecessary, it was none the less pleasing to the vanity of the orator, and Livingston was able to carry back to the White House the assurance that when Calhoun spoke he would be answered by Webster. On the 11th of February, Webster was ready and waiting.[583]Four days later, abandoning the hope that Webster might speak first, Calhoun began one of the most powerful speeches of his career. The Senate Chamber and the galleries were packed.
As the tall, gaunt figure, with slightly stooped shoulders, rose, the solemnity of his mien and manner, the fire in the wonderful eyes that “watched everything and revealed nothing,” suggested, to some, the conspirator with his back against the wall, to others the austere patriot battling for the liberties of his country.[584]We need not concern ourselves with the general tenor of his remarkable argument—a reiteration and reënforcement of his constitutional views. But the general spirit of resentment, the passionate hate of Jackson, the defiance, constitute dramatic features that assist in the sensing of the atmosphere in which the mighty battle was waged. Almost in the beginning, in defending his support of the tariff of 1816, and explaining that he had spoken at the instance of Ingham, the late Secretary of the Treasury, this spirit flared in an amazing tribute to that mediocre and unscrupulous politician, and an indirect attack upon Jackson for dismissing him. As he proceeded, he startled the Senate now and then by the injection of personalities. Here a contemptuous fling at Van Buren, there a hint at Mrs. Eaton, and everywhere references to contemplated “war” and “massacres” and “savages.” “I proclaim it,” he solemnly declared, “that should this bill pass, and attempt be made to enforce it, it will be resisted at every hazard—even that of death itself.” It was two o’clock on the second day of the speech that Calhoun concluded, with a warning to Southern Senators that should the bill be enacted all of them would be excluded from the emoluments of the Government, “which will be reserved for those only who have qualified themselves, by political prostitution, for admission into the Magdalen Asylum.”