law, and a so-called force bill was introduced. The Carolinians were
defiant, and the country seemed on the verge of civil war; but Clay, by
the second of his famous compromises, avoided the struggle. A new tariff
law, providing for a gradual reduction of duties, was passed along with
the force bill. The Carolinians chose the olive branch instead of the
sword. The nullifiers first postponed and then repealed their ordinance.
Jackson was a national hero as he had never been before. In the summer
of 1833, he made a journey to the Northeast, and even New England made
him welcome. Harvard College made him a Doctor of Laws. As he rode
through the streets of Boston, a merchant of Federalist traditions, who
had closed his windows to show his principles, peeped through, and
Jackson's bearing so touched him that he sent a child to wave the old
gentleman a handkerchief. Andy of the Waxhaws was at the summit of his
career. No other American could rival him in popularity; no other
American had ever had such power over his countrymen since Washington
frowned at the whisper that he might be a king.
But the great man was only a man, after all. He was in wretched health
throughout his first term, and at times it did not seem that he could
possibly live through it. His old wounds troubled him, and one day he
laid bare his shoulder, gripped his cane with his free hand, and a
surgeon cut out the ball from Jesse Benton's pistol. He was too ill to
finish his New England tour, and hastened back to Washington.
But his opponents had little reason to rejoice in his illness. The
summer was not spent before he had made up his mind to do the most
daring act of his public life. He had vetoed the Bank's new charter, but
the Bank itself was not destroyed. The public funds were still in its
keeping; its power in the business world was as great as ever. He
believed, moreover, that Biddle was using money freely to fight him, and
would sooner or later get what he wanted from Congress. He prepared,
therefore, to crush the Bank by withdrawing the deposits of public money
and giving them into the keeping of other banks throughout the country.
Blair, in "The Globe," set to work to convince the people that the Bank
was not sound, and that the public funds were unsafe. Kendall was sent
about the country to examine other banks. Congress voted against
removing the deposits, but the old charter authorized the Secretary of
the Treasury to do it, and the Secretary of the Treasury was now William
Duane, of Philadelphia, a son of Jackson's early friend. There had been
some changes in the cabinet after the second inauguration, Livingston
had been appointed minister to France, the Secretary of the Treasury
transferred to the State Department, and Duane called to the Treasury.
But Duane would not fall in with the President's plan. He did not
believe the deposits were in danger, and refused to sign an order for
removal. Jackson argued, then grew angry, and finally dismissed him.
Duane defended his course ably. Lewis also advised against removal.
Benton favored it, but in this he was almost alone among the leading
public men. Jackson, however, was started, and he could not be stopped.
Roger B. Taney, of Maryland, the Attorney-General, was made Secretary
of the Treasury, and on September 26, 1833, three days after Duane's
dismissal, the order was signed and a series of changes began that did
not end until the whole financial system of the country was changed.
When Congress met, it proved to be, everything considered, probably the
ablest legislature ever assembled in America. There were brilliant men
of a new generation in the lower House, and Adams also was there. In the
Senate, the great three were still supreme, and were now united against
the President. The debates were long and furious. A panic throughout the
country added to the excitement. Clay led the attack, Calhoun and
Webster supported it; Benton bore the brunt of it. In the House, the
Jackson men had a majority; in the Senate, the opposition. The Senate
refused to confirm the nomination of Taney to be Secretary of the
Treasury, and voted that the President had taken upon himself powers not
given by the Constitution. The President sent in a fiery remonstrance,
and the Senate voted not to receive it. Benton at once moved that the
resolution of censure be expunged from the record, and declared he would
keep that motion before the Senate until the people, by choosing a
Jackson majority of Senators, should force it through.
The session closed with nothing done for the Bank, and nothing ever was
done for it. When its charter expired in 1836, it got another from
Pennsylvania, and kept going for some years. But Jackson had given it a
deathblow. It fell into dangerous financial practices, failed, started
again, failed a second time, staggered to its feet once more, and then
went down in utter ruin and disgrace.
Its ruin was not accomplished without great disturbance to financial
conditions. The country had been prosperous a long time. Money had been
plentiful. Speculation had been the order of the day. The "pet banks,"
chosen to be the depositories of the government money, were badly
managed. The surplus, distributed among the States, strengthened the
impulse to wild speculation. Paper money was too plentiful. A dangerous
financial condition prevailed, into whose causes and consequences we
cannot here inquire. That and many other aspects of Jackson's
administration can be satisfactorily treated only at considerable
length. Jackson himself attributed all the trouble to Biddle and Clay;
Biddle, he declared, was trying to ruin the country for revenge. The
President even suspected Clay of setting on an insane person who
attempted his life. He took no measures of a nature to restore health to
business until near the end of his term. Then, acting as usual on his
own responsibility, he issued a circular commonly called the "Specie
Circular," requiring payments for public lands, which had formerly been
made in bank paper, to be made in coin. That was like the thunderclap
which precedes the storm: but the storm broke on his successor, not on
him.
For a time it seemed as if he might also bequeath to his successor a
foreign war. France had agreed to pay the spoliation claims, but the
French Chambers failed to appropriate the money. Louis Philippe, the
king, suggested to Livingston, the American Minister, that a stronger
tone from the United States might stir the Chambers to action. Jackson
was the last man in the world to hurt a cause by taking too mild a tone.
In his message of 1834 to Congress, he took a tone so strong that it
made the French Chambers too angry to pay. Thereupon, he suggested
reprisals. The House, led by Adams, who never fell behind Jackson on a
question of foreign relations, sustained the President. The Senate took
no action. The French Chambers finally passed an appropriation, but with
a proviso that no money should be paid until satisfactory explanations
of the President's message were received. Jackson had no notion of
apologizing, and feeling was rising in both countries. Diplomatic
relations were broken off, and war was apparently very close, when, in
the winter of 1835-6, England offered to mediate. An expression in
Jackson's message of 1835, not meant as an apology, was somehow
construed as such by the French ministry, and France agreed to pay.
The final settlement came at the very end of Jackson's administration.
The presidential election of 1836 had fulfilled his wish that Van Buren
should be his successor. In January, 1837, the resolution of censure was
solemnly expunged from the records of the Senate. That body being now
controlled by his friends, and his enemy, John Marshall, being dead, he
named Taney Chief Justice, and the nomination was confirmed. He issued a
farewell address to the people, after the manner of Washington, and
stood, a white-haired, impressive figure, to watch the inauguration of
Van Buren; then he journeyed home to The Hermitage to receive his last
glorious welcome from his neighbors.
It was the most triumphant home-coming of them all. He had beaten all
his enemies. Clay, wearied out with politics, was again in retirement;
Adams, whom he found a President, was leading a minority of
representatives in a new sectional struggle, the fight against slavery;
Calhoun, whom he found but one step from the presidency, was a gloomy
and tragical figure, the Ishmael of American politics. As for his
friends, he left them in power everywhere,--in congress, on the bench,
in the White House. To friends and enemies he had been like fate.
There was left for him a peaceful old age, and a calm and happy
deathbed. Neighbors, political associates, old comrades, famous
foreigners, visited The Hermitage to see the man who had played so great
a part in history. Like Jefferson at Monticello, he guided with his
counsel the party he had led. The long struggle over slavery was now
begun, and soon the annexation of Texas took the first place among
public questions. The old man had encouraged Houston to go to Texas, and
had done all he could, and more than any other President would have
dared, to forward the movement for independence. Now that Texas was
ready to come into the Union, he heartily favored annexation. In 1844,
Clay and Polk were candidates for the presidency, and Jackson's
influence, still a power, was freely exerted for Polk and annexation. It
was as if Clay, now an old man also, were once more about to lift the
cup to his lips, and the relentless hand of Andrew Jackson dashed it to
the ground.
Yet Andrew Jackson declared before he died that he forgave all his
enemies. He had promised his wife, whose picture he wore in a great
locket next his heart, whose Bible he read every day at the White House,
that when he should be free of politics he would join himself to the
church; if, he said, he made a profession while he was still before the
people, his enemies would accuse him of hypocrisy. He kept his word.
Trembling and weeping, he stood before the altar in the tiny church he
had built for her and took the vows of a Christian. It had been hard for
him to say that he forgave his enemies; hardest of all, to say that he
forgave those who had attacked him while he was serving his country in
the field. But after a long pause he told the minister he thought he
could forgive even them.
June 8, 1845, in his seventy-ninth year, he died. His last words to
those about him bade them meet him in heaven.
* * * * *
What is the rightful place in history of the fiery horseman in front of
the White House? The reader must answer for himself when he has studied
for himself all the great questions Jackson dealt with. Such a study
will surely show that he made many mistakes, did much injustice to men,
espoused many causes without waiting to hear the other side, was often
bitter, violent, even cruel. It will show how ignorant he was on many
subjects, how prejudiced on others. It will show him in contact with men
who surpassed him in wisdom, in knowledge, in fairness of mind. It will
deny him a place among those calm, just great men who can see both sides
and yet strive ardently for the right side.
But the longest inquiry will not discover another American of his times
who had in such ample measure the gifts of courage and will. Many had
fewer faults, many superior talents, but none so great a spirit. He was
the man who had his way. He was the American whose simple virtues his
countrymen most clearly understood, whose trespasses they most readily
forgave; and until Americans are altogether changed, many, like the
Democrats of the 'Twenties and 'Thirties, will still "vote for
Jackson,"--for the poor boy who fought his way, step by step, to the
highest station; for the soldier who always went to meet the enemy at
the gate; for the President who never shirked a responsibility; for the
man who would not think evil of a woman or speak harshly to a child.
Education, and training in statecraft, would have saved him many errors;
culture might have softened the fierceness of his nature. But untrained,
uncultivated, imperfect as he was, not one of his great contemporaries
had so good a right to stand for American character.