THE STRUGGLE WITH THE NULLIFIERS.
During both Jackson's presidential terms he and his adherents were
engaged in two great struggles; that with the Nullifiers, and that with
the Bank. Although these struggles were in part synchronous, it will be
easier to discuss each by itself.
The nullification movement in South Carolina, during the latter part of
the third and early part of the fourth decades in the present century,
had nothing to do, except in the most distant way, with slavery. Its
immediate cause was the high tariff; remotely it sprang from the same
feelings which produced the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798.
Certain of the Slave States, including those which raised hemp, indigo,
and sugar, were high-tariff states; indeed, it was not till towards the
close of the presidency of Monroe that there had been much sectional
feeling over the policy of protection. Originally, while we were a
purely agricultural and mercantile people, free trade was the only
economic policy which occurred to us as possible to be followed, the
first tariff bill being passed in 1816. South Carolina then was inclined
to favor the system, Calhoun himself supporting the bill, and, his
subsequent denials to the contrary notwithstanding, distinctly
advocating the policy of protection to native industries; while
Massachusetts then and afterwards stoutly opposed its introduction, as
hostile to her interests. However, the bill was passed, and
Massachusetts had to submit to its operation. After 1816 new tariff laws
were enacted about every four years, and soon the coast Slave States,
except Louisiana, realized that their working was hurtful to the
interests of the planters. New England also changed her attitude; and
when the protective tariff bill of 1828 came up, its opponents and
supporters were sharply divided by sectional lines. But these lines were
not such as would have divided the states on the question of slavery.
The Northeast and Northwest alike favored the measure, as also did all
the Southern States west of the Alleghanies, and Louisiana. It was
therefore passed by an overwhelming vote, against the solid opposition
of the belt of Southern coast states stretching from Virginia to
Mississippi, and including these two.
The states that felt themselves harmed by the tariff did something more
than record their disapproval by the votes of their representatives in
Congress. They nearly all, through their legislatures, entered emphatic
protests against its adoption, as being most harmful to them and
dangerous to the Union; and some accompanied their protests with threats
as to what would be done if the obnoxious laws should be enforced. They
certainly had grounds for discontent. In 1828 the tariff, whether it
benefited the country as a whole or not, unquestionably harmed the
South; and in a federal Union it is most unwise to pass laws which shall
benefit one part of the community to the hurt of another part, when the
latter receives no compensation. The truculent and unyielding attitude
of the extreme protectionists was irritating in the extreme; for cooler
men than the South Carolinians might well have been exasperated at such
an utterance as that of Henry Clay, when he stated that for the sake of
the "American system"--by which title he was fond of styling a doctrine
already ancient in mediaeval times--he would "defy the South, the
president and the devil."
On the other hand, both the good and the evil effects of the tariff were
greatly exaggerated. Some harm to the planter states was doubtless
caused by it; but their falling back, as compared with the North, in
the race for prosperity, was doubtless caused much more by the presence
of slavery, as Dallas, of Pennsylvania, pointed out in the course of
some very temperate and moderate remarks in the Senate. Clay's
assertions as to what the tariff had done for the West were equally
ill-founded, as Benton showed in a good speech, wherein he described
picturesquely enough the industries and general condition of his portion
of the country, and asserted with truth that its revived prosperity was
due to its own resources, entirely independent of federal aid or
legislation. He said: "I do not think we are indebted to the high tariff
for our fertile lands and our navigable rivers; and I am certain we are
indebted to these blessings for the prosperity we enjoy." "In all that
comes from the soil the people of the West are rich. They have an
abundant supply of food for man and beast, and a large surplus to send
abroad. They have the comfortable living which industry creates for
itself in a rich soil, but beyond this they are poor.... They have no
roads paved or macadamized; no canals or aqueducts; no bridges of stone
across the innumerable streams; no edifices dedicated to eternity; no
schools for the fine arts; not a public library for which an ordinary
scholar would not apologize." Then he went on to speak of the commerce
of the West and its exports, "the marching myriads of living animals
annually taking their departure from the heart of the West, defiling
through the gorges of the Cumberland, the Alleghany, and the Appalachian
mountains, or traversing the plains of the South, diverging as they
march, ... and the flying steamboats and the fleets of floating arks,
loaded with the products of the forest, the farm, and the pasture,
following the courses of our noble rivers, and bearing their freights to
the great city" of New Orleans.
Unfortunately Benton would interlard even his best speeches with
theories of economics often more or less crude, and, still worse, with a
series of classic quotations and allusions; for he was grievously
afflicted with the rage for cheap pseudo-classicism that Jefferson and
his school had borrowed from the French revolutionists. Nor could he
resist the temptation to drag in allusions to some favorite hobby. The
repeal of the salt-tax was an especial favorite of his. He was perfectly
right in attacking the tax, and deserves the greatest credit for the
persistency which finally won him the victory. But his associates,
unless of a humorous turn of mind, must have found his allusions to it
rather tiresome, as when, apropos of the commerce of the Mississippi,
and without any possible excuse for speaking of the iniquity of taxing
salt, he suddenly alluded to New Orleans as "that great city which
revives upon the banks of the Mississippi the name of the greatest of
the emperors[2] that ever reigned upon the banks of the Tiber, and who
eclipsed the glory of his own heroic exploits by giving an order to his
legions never to levy a contribution of salt upon a Roman citizen!"
[2: Aurelian.]
It must be admitted that the tariff did some harm to the South, and that
it was natural for the latter to feel resentment at the way in which it
worked. But it must also be remembered that no law can be passed which
does not distribute its benefits more or less unequally, and which does
not, in all probability, work harm in some cases. Moreover, the South
was estopped from complaining of one section being harmed by a law that
benefited, or was supposed to benefit, the country at large, by her
position in regard to the famous embargo and non-intervention acts.
These inflicted infinitely more damage and loss in New England than any
tariff law could inflict on South Carolina, and, moreover, were put into
execution on account of a quarrel with England forced on by the West and
South contrary to the desire of the East. Yet the Southerners were
fierce in their denunciations of such of the Federalists as went to the
extreme in opposition to them. Even in 1816 Massachusetts had been
obliged to submit with good grace to the workings of a tariff which she
deemed hostile to her interests, and which many Southerners then
advocated. Certainly, even if the new tariff laws were ill-advised,
unjust, and unequal in their working, yet they did not, in the most
remote degree, justify any effort to break up the Union; especially the
South had no business to complain when she herself had joined in laying
heavier burdens on the shoulders of New England.
Complain she did, however; and soon added threats to complaints, and was
evidently ready to add acts to threats. Georgia, at first, took the lead
in denunciation; but South Carolina soon surpassed her, and finally went
to the length of advocating and preparing for separation from the Union;
a step that produced a revulsion of feeling even among her fellow
anti-tariff states. The South Carolinian statesmen now proclaimed the
doctrine of nullification,--that is, proclaimed that if any state deemed
a federal law improper, it could proceed to declare that law null and
void so far as its own territory was concerned,--and, as a corollary,
that it had the right forcibly to prevent execution of this void law
within its borders. This was proclaimed, not as an exercise of the right
of revolution, which, in the last resort, belongs, of course, to every
community and class, but as a constitutional privilege. Jefferson was
quoted as the father of the idea, and the Kentucky resolutions of
1798-99, which he drew, were cited as the precedent for the South
Carolinian action. In both these last assertions the Nullifiers were
correct. Jefferson was the father of nullification, and therefore of
secession. He used the word "nullify" in the original draft which he
supplied to the Kentucky legislature, and though that body struck it out
of the resolutions which they passed in 1798, they inserted it in those
of the following year. This was done mainly as an unscrupulous party
move on Jefferson's part, and when his side came into power he became a
firm upholder of the Union; and, being constitutionally unable to put a
proper value on truthfulness, he even denied that his resolutions could
be construed to favor nullification--though they could by no possibility
be construed to mean anything else.
At this time it is not necessary to discuss nullification as a
constitutional dogma; it is an absurdity too great to demand serious
refutation. The United States has the same right to protect itself from
death by nullification, secession, or rebellion, that a man has to
protect himself from death by assassination. Calhoun's hair-splitting
and metaphysical disquisitions on the constitutionality of nullification
have now little more practical interest than have the extraordinary
arguments and discussions of the school-men of the Middle Ages.
But at the time they were of vital interest, for they were words which
it was known South Carolina was prepared to back up by deeds. Calhoun
was vice-president, the second officer in the federal government, and
yet also the avowed leader of the most bitter disunionists. His state
supported him by an overwhelming majority, although even within its own
borders there was an able opposition, headed by the gallant and loyal
family of the Draytons,--the same family that afterwards furnished the
captain of Farragut's flag-ship, the glorious old Hartford. There was a
strong sentiment in the other Southern States in his favor; the public
men of South Carolina made speech after speech goading him on to take
even more advanced ground.
In Washington the current at first seemed to be all setting in favor of
the Nullifiers; they even counted on Jackson's support, as he was a
Southerner and a states'-rights man. But he was also a strong Unionist,
and, moreover, at this time, felt very bitterly towards Calhoun, with
whom he had just had a split, and had in consequence remodeled his
cabinet, thrusting out all Calhoun's supporters, and adopting Van Buren
as his political heir,--the position which it was hitherto supposed the
great Carolina separatist occupied.
The first man to take up the gauntlet the Nullifiers had thrown down was
Webster, in his famous reply to Hayne. He, of course, voiced the
sentiment of the Whigs, and especially of the Northeast, where the high
tariff was regarded with peculiar favor, where the Union feeling was
strong, and where there was a certain antagonism felt towards the South.
The Jacksonian Democrats, whose strength lay in the West, had not yet
spoken. They were, for the most part, neither ultra protectionists nor
absolute free-traders; Jackson's early presidential utterances had given
offense to the South by not condemning all high-tariff legislation, but
at the same time had declared in favor of a much more moderate degree of
protection than suited the Whigs. Only a few weeks after Webster's
speech Jackson's chance came, and he declared himself in unmistakable
terms. It was on the occasion of the Jefferson birthday banquet, April
13, 1830. An effort was then being made to have Jefferson's birthday
celebrated annually; and the Nullifiers, rightly claiming him as their
first and chief apostle, attempted to turn this particular feast into a
demonstration in favor of nullification. Most of the speakers present
were actively or passively in favor of the movement, and the toasts
proposed strongly savored of the new doctrine. But Jackson, Benton, and
a number of other Union men were in attendance also, and when it came to
Jackson's turn he electrified the audience by proposing: "Our federal
Union; it must be preserved." Calhoun at once answered with: "The Union;
next to our liberty the most dear; may we all remember that it can only
be preserved by respecting the rights of the states and distributing
equally the benefit and burden of the Union." The issue between the
president and the vice-president was now complete, and the Jacksonian
Democracy was squarely committed against nullification. Jackson had
risen to the occasion as only a strong and a great man could rise, and
his few, telling words, finely contrasting at every point with Calhoun's
utterances, rang throughout the whole country, and will last as long as
our government. One result, at least, the Nullifiers accomplished,--they
completely put an end to the Jefferson birthday celebrations.
The South Carolinians had no intention of flinching from the contest
which they had provoked, even when they saw that the North and West were
united against them, and though the tide began to set the same way in
their sister states of the South; North Carolina, among the latter,
being the first and most pronounced in her support of the president and
denunciation of the Nullifiers. The men of the Palmetto State have
always ranked high for hotheaded courage, and they soon showed that they
had wills as fiery as that of Jackson himself. Yet in the latter they
had met an antagonist well worthy of any foeman's steel. In declining an
invitation to be present at Charleston, on July 4, 1831, the president
again defined most clearly his position in favor of the Union, and his
words had an especial significance because he let it be seen that he was
fully determined to back them up by force if necessary. But his letter
only had the effect of inflaming still more the minds of the South
Carolinians. The prime cause of irritation, the tariff, still remained;
and in 1832, Clay, having entered the Senate after a long retirement
from politics, put the finishing stroke to their anger by procuring the
passage of a new tariff bill, which left the planter states almost as
badly off as did the law of 1828. Jackson signed this, although not
believing that it went far enough in the reduction of duties.
In the presidential election of 1832, Jackson defeated Clay by an
enormous majority; Van Buren was elected vice-president, there being
thus a Northern man on the ticket. South Carolina declined to take part
in the election, throwing away her vote. Again, it must be kept in mind
that the slave question did not shape, or, indeed, enter into this
contest at all, directly, although beginning to be present in the
background as a source of irritation. In 1832 there was ten-fold more
feeling in the North against Masonry, and secret societies generally,
than there was against slavery.
Benton threw himself in, heart and soul, with the Union party, acting as
Jackson's right-hand man throughout the contest with South Carolina, and
showing an even more resolute and unflinching front than Old Hickory
himself. No better or trustier ally than the Missouri statesman, in a
hard fight for a principle, could be desired. He was intensely national
in all his habits of thought; he took a deep, personal pride in all his
country,--North, South, East, and West. He had been very loath to
believe that any movement hostile to the Union was really on foot; but
once thoroughly convinced of it he chose his own line of action without
an instant's hesitation.
A fortnight after the presidential election South Carolina passed her
ordinance of nullification, directed against the tariff laws generally,
and against those of 1828 and 1832 in particular. The ordinance was to
take effect on February 1st; and if meantime the federal government
should make any attempt to enforce the laws, the fact of such attempt
was to end the continuance of South Carolina in the Union.
Jackson promptly issued a proclamation against nullification, composed
jointly by himself and the great Louisiana jurist and statesman,
Livingston. It is one of the ablest, as well as one of the most
important, of all American state papers. It is hard to see how any
American can read it now without feeling his veins thrill. Some claim it
as being mainly the work of Jackson, others as that of Livingston; it is
great honor for either to have had a hand in its production.
In his annual message the president merely referred, in passing, to the
Nullifiers, expressing his opinion that the action in reducing the
duties, which the extinction of the public debt would permit and
require, would put an end to the proceedings. As matters grew more
threatening, however, South Carolina making every preparation for war
and apparently not being conciliated in the least by the evident desire
in Congress to meet her more than half-way on the tariff question,
Jackson sent a special message to both houses. He had already sent
General Scott to Charleston, and had begun the concentration of certain
military and naval forces in or near the state boundaries. He now asked
Congress to pass a measure to enable him to deal better with possible
resistance to the laws. South Carolina having complained of the
oppressed condition in which she found herself, owing to the working of
the tariff, Jackson, in his message, with some humor, quoted in reply
the last Thanksgiving proclamation of her governor, wherein he dilated
upon the state's unexampled prosperity and happiness.
It must always be kept in mind in describing the attitude of the
Jacksonian Democrats towards the Nullifiers that they were all along,
especially in the West, hostile to a very high tariff. Jackson and
Benton had always favored a much lower tariff than that established in
1828 and hardly changed in 1832. It was no change of front on their part
now to advocate a reduction of duties. Jackson and Benton both felt that
there was much ground for South Carolina's original complaint, although
as strongly opposed to her nullification attitude as any Northerner.
Most of the Southern senators and representatives, though opposed to
nullification, were almost equally hostile to the high tariff; and very
many others were at heart in sympathy with nullification itself. The
intensely national and anti-separatist tone of Jackson's declaration,--a
document that might well have come from Washington or Lincoln, and that
would have reflected high honor on either,--though warmly approved by
Benton, was very repugnant to many of the Southern Democrats, and was
too much even for certain of the Whigs. In fact, it reads like the
utterance of some great Federalist or Republican leader. The feeling in
Congress, as a whole, was as strong against the tariff as it was against
nullification; and Jackson had to take this into account, all the more
because not only was he in some degree of the same way of thinking, but
also many of his followers entertained the sentiment even more
earnestly.
Calhoun introduced a series of nullification resolutions into the
Senate, and defended them strongly in the prolonged constitutional
debate that followed. South Carolina meanwhile put off the date at which
her decrees were to take effect, so that she might see what Congress
would do. Beyond question, Jackson's firmness, and the way in which he
was backed up by Benton, Webster, and their followers, was having some
effect. He had openly avowed his intention, if matters went too far, of
hanging Calhoun "higher than Haman." He unquestionably meant to
imprison him, as well as the other South Carolina leaders, the instant
that state came into actual collision with the Union; and to the end of
his life regretted, and with reason, that he had not done so without
waiting for an overt act of resistance. Some historians have treated
this as if it were an idle threat; but such it certainly was not.
Jackson undoubtedly fully meant what he said, and would have acted
promptly had the provocation occurred, and, moreover, he would have been
sustained by the country. He was not the man to weigh minutely what
would and what would not fall just on one side or the other of the line
defining treason; nor was it the time for too scrupulous adherence to
precise wording. Had a collision occurred, neither Calhoun nor his
colleague would ever have been permitted to leave Washington; and brave
though they were, the fact unquestionably had much influence with them.
Webster was now acting heartily with Benton. He introduced a set of
resolutions which showed that in the matters both of the tariff and of
nullification his position was much the same as was that of the
Missourian. Unfortunately Congress, as a whole, was by no means so
stiff-kneed. A certain number of Whigs followed Webster, and a certain
number of Democrats clung to Benton; but most Southerners were very
reluctant to allow pressure to be brought to bear on South Carolina, and
many Northerners were as willing to compromise as Henry Clay himself. In
accordance with Jackson's recommendations two bills were introduced: one
the so-called "Force bill," to allow the president to take steps to
defend the federal authority in the event of actual collision; and the
other a moderate, and, on the whole, proper tariff bill, to reduce
protective duties. Both were introduced by administration supporters.
Benton and Webster warmly sustained the "Force bill," which was bitterly
attacked by the Nullifiers and by most of the Southerners, who really
hardly knew what stand to take, the leading opponent being Tyler of
Virginia, whose disunion attitude was almost as clearly marked as that
of Calhoun himself. The measure was eminently just, and was precisely
what the crisis demanded; and the Senate finally passed it and sent it
to the House.
All this time an obstinate struggle was going on over the tariff bill.
Calhoun and his sympathizers were beginning to see that there was real
danger ahead, alike to themselves, their constituents, and their
principles, if they followed unswervingly the course they had laid
down; and the weak-kneed brethren on the other side, headed by Clay,
were becoming even more uneasy. Calhoun wished to avert collision with
the federal government; Clay was quite as anxious to avoid an outbreak
in the South and to save what he could of the protective system, which
was evidently doomed. Calhoun was willing to sacrifice some of his
constitutional theories in regard to protection; Clay was ready greatly
to reduce protection itself. Each, of them, but especially Clay, was
prepared to shift his stand somewhat from that of abstract moral right
to that of expediency. Benton and Webster were too resolute and
determined in their hostility to any form of yielding to South
Carolina's insolent defiance to admit any hope of getting them to accept
a compromise; but the majority of the members were known to be only too
ready to jump at any half-way measure which would patch up the affair
for the present, no matter what the sacrifice of principle or how great
the risk incurred for the future. Accordingly, Clay and Calhoun met and
agreed on a curious bill, in reality recognizing the protective system,
but making a great although gradual reduction of duties; and Clay
introduced this as a "compromise measure." It was substituted in the
House for the administration tariff bill, was passed and sent to the
Senate. It gave South Carolina much, but not all, that she demanded.
Her representatives announced themselves satisfied, and supported it,
together with all their Southern sympathizers. Webster and Benton fought
it stoutly to the last, but it was passed by a great majority; a few
Northerners followed Webster, and Benton received fair support from his
Missouri colleagues and the Maryland senators; the other senators, Whigs
and Democrats alike, voted for the measure. Many of the Southerners were
imbued with separatist principles, although not yet to the extent that
Calhoun was; others, though Union men, did not possess the unflinching
will and stern strength of character that enabled Benton to stand out
against any section of the country, even his own, if it was wrong. Silas
Wright, of New York, a typical Northern "dough-face" politician, gave
exact expression to the "dough-face" sentiment, which induced Northern
members to vote for the compromise, when he stated that he was
unalterably opposed to the principle of the bill, but that on account of
the attitude of South Carolina, and of the extreme desire which he had
to remove all cause of discontent in that state, and in order to enable
her again to become an affectionate member of the Union, he would vote
for what was satisfactory to her, although repugnant to himself.
Wright, Marcy, and their successors in New York politics, almost up to
the present day, certainly carried cringing subserviency to the South to
a pitch that was fairly sublime.
The "Force bill" and the compromise tariff bill passed both houses
nearly simultaneously, and were sent up to the president, who signed
both on the same day. His signing the compromise bill was a piece of
weakness out of keeping with his whole character, and especially out of
keeping with his previous course towards the Nullifiers. The position
assumed by Benton and Webster, that South Carolina should be made to
submit first and should have the justice of her claims examined into
afterwards, was unquestionably the only proper attitude.
Benton wrote:--
My objections to this bill, and to its mode of being passed, were
deep and abiding, and went far beyond its own obnoxious provisions,
and all the transient and temporary considerations connected with
it.... A compromise made with a state in arms is a capitulation to
that state.... The injury was great then, and a permanent evil
example. It remitted the government to the condition of the old
confederation, acting upon sovereignties instead of individuals. It
violated the feature of our Union which discriminated it from all
confederacies that ever existed, and which was wisely and
patriotically put into the Constitution to save it from the fate
which had attended all confederacies, ancient and modern.... The
framers of our Constitution established a Union instead of a
League--to be sovereign and independent within its sphere, acting
upon persons through its own laws and courts, instead of acting on
communities through persuasion or force. The effect of this
compromise legislation was to destroy this great feature of our
Union--to bring the general and state governments into conflict--and
to substitute a sovereign state for an offending individual as often
as a state chose to make the cause of that individual her own.
Not only was Benton's interpretation of the Constitution sound, and one
that by the course of events has now come to be universally accepted,
but his criticisms on the wisdom of the compromise bill were perfectly
just. Had the Anti-Nullifiers stood firm, the Nullifiers would probably
have given way, and if not, would certainly have been crushed. Against a
solid North and West, with a divided South, even her own people not
being unanimous, and with Jackson as chief executive, South Carolina
could not have made even a respectable resistance. A salutary lesson
then might very possibly have saved infinite trouble and bloodshed
thereafter. But in Jackson's case it must be remembered that, so far as
his acts depended purely upon his own will and judgment, no fault can be
found with him; he erred only in ratifying a compromise agreed to by the
vast majority of the representatives of the people in both houses of
Congress.
The battle did not result in a decisive victory for either side. This
was shown by the very fact that each party insisted that it had won a
signal triumph. Calhoun and Clay afterwards quarreled in the senate
chamber as to which had given up the more in the compromise. South
Carolina had declared, first, that the tariff was unconstitutional, and
therefore to be opposed upon principle; second, that it worked injustice
to her interests, and must be abolished forthwith; thirdly, that, if it
were not so abolished, she would assert her power to nullify a federal
law, and, if necessary, would secede from the Union. When her
representatives agreed to the compromise bill, they abandoned the first
point; the second was decided largely in her favor, though protection
was not by any means entirely given up; the third she was allowed to
insist upon with impunity, although the other side, by passing the
"Force bill," showed that in case matters did proceed to extremities
they were prepared to act upon the opposite conviction. Still, she
gained most of that for which she contended, and the victory, as a
whole, rested with her. Calhoun's purposes seem to have been, in the
main, pure; but few criminals have worked as much harm to their country
as he did. The plea of good intentions is not one that can be allowed to
have much weight in passing historical judgment upon a man whose
wrong-headedness and distorted way of looking at things produced, or
helped to produce, such incalculable evil; there is a wide political
applicability in the remark attributed to a famous Texan, to the effect
that he might, in the end, pardon a man who shot him on purpose, but
that he would surely never forgive one who did so accidentally.
Without doubt, the honors of the nullification dispute were borne off by
Benton and Webster. The latter's reply to Hayne is, perhaps, the
greatest single speech of the nineteenth century, and he deserves the
highest credit for the stubbornness with which he stood by his colors to
the last. There never was any question of Webster's courage; on the
occasions when he changed front he was actuated by self-interest and
ambition, not by timidity. Usually he appears as an advocate rather than
an earnest believer in the cause he represents; but when it came to be a
question of the Union, he felt what he said with the whole strength of
his nature.
An even greater meed of praise attaches to Benton for the unswerving
fidelity which he showed to the Union in this crisis. Webster was a
high-tariff man, and was backed up by all the sectional antipathies of
the Northeast in his opposition to the Nullifiers; Benton, on the
contrary, was a believer in a low tariff, or in one for revenue merely,
and his sectional antipathies were the other way. Yet, even when
deserted by his chief, and when he was opposed to every senator from
south of the Potomac and the Ohio, he did not flinch for a moment from
his attitude of aggressive loyalty to the national Union. He had a
singularly strong and upright character; this country has never had a
statesman more fearlessly true to his convictions, when great questions
were at stake, no matter what might be the cost to himself, or the
pressure from outside,--even when, as happened later, his own state was
against him. Intellectually he cannot for a moment be compared to the
great Massachusetts senator; but morally he towers much higher.
Yet, while praising Jackson and Benton for their behavior towards South
Carolina, we cannot forget that but a couple of years previously they
had not raised their voices even in the mildest rebuke of Georgia for
conduct which, though not nearly so bad in degree as that of South
Carolina, was of much the same kind. Towards the close of Adams's term,
Georgia had bid defiance to the mandates of the Supreme Court, and
proceeded to settle the Indian question within her borders without
regard to the authority of the United States, and these matters were
still unsettled when Jackson became president. Unfortunately he let his
personal feelings bias him; and, as he took the Western and Georgian
view of the Indian question, and, moreover, hated the Supreme Court
because it was largely Federalist in its composition, he declined to
interfere. David Crockett, himself a Union man and a nationalist to the
backbone, rated Jackson savagely, and with justice, for the
inconsistency of his conduct in the two cases, accusing him of having,
by his harmful leniency to Georgia, encouraged South Carolina to act as
she did, and ridiculing him because, while he smiled at the deeds of the
one state, when the like acts were done by the other, "he took up the
rod of correction and shook it over her".