CHAPTER VIII.

Accession of General Jackson to the Presidency-Mr. Van Buren Rejected as Minister to England-Mr. Webster supports the Renewal of the Charter of the U.S. Bank-Removal of the Deposits-Disastrous Consequences-Mr. Webster's Speeches on the Subject-Nullification in South Carolina-Mr. Webster's Celebrated Speech thereon-The Action of the President and of Congress-Accession of Van Buren to the Presidency-The Sub-Treasury Scheme-Mr. Webster's Opposition to it-Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia.

THE election of Andrew Jackson to the Presidency in 1828 opened a more turbulent era in the history of the politics and government of the country. Upon the peculiar qualities of the inflexible hero of New Orleans it is not necessary for us here to dwell. Even Mr. Calhoun, who had been conciliated by the important office of VicePresident, soon found the yoke of the Presidential tyrant too heavy, and became restive under it. At the commencement of his administration, General Jackson endeavored also to conciliate Mr. Webster, being well aware of the vast power which he possessed as the ablest member of the Senate; and he treated him with the most marked and significant courtesy. But Mr. Webster was not to be bought by the utmost blandishments of those who might be in the possession of power; and accordingly, when Mr. Van Buren, the special favorite of the President, was by him appointed Minister to England, Mr. Webster opposed his confirmation in the most emphatic and energetic terms. The wrath of the incensed President was poured out upon the head of the offending

statesman in overwhelming torrents, but it availed not. Mr. Webster's reasons for the policy which he pursued were quite satisfactory; the chief of which was, that Mr. Van Buren, when Secretary of State, had instructed Mr. McClean, his predecessor, to make a distinction between his country and his party; to give the latter the preeminence in his relations with foreign powers; to convince the English Government that their own interests required that they should aid in maintaining the ascendency of that party; and thus to make ignoble and despicable concessions to Great Britain. These reasons for opposing the confirmation of Mr. Van Buren Mr. Webster openly and fearlessly avowed in the Senate. Even Mr. Calhoun coincided with him; and the supple nominee of the President was successfully resisted, and eventually recalled.

In May, 1832, Mr. Webster made an important speech. in the Senate in favor of the bill which had been introduced by Mr. Dallas for the renewal of the charter of the United States Bank; and he stated clearly and conclusively the reasons why he supported an institution in this case which he had formerly so bitterly opposed. It was because the principles upon which the two institutions were to be founded were totally different and antagonistic. The bank which he defended Jackson and Calhoun had themselves formerly opposed; and the reason for their change of policy was the same,-a fundamental difference in the nature of the several institutions. The charter of the bank was renewed in spite of the veto of the President; and its operation was found to be in the highest degree beneficial. But the foiled Executive had in reserve an expedient by which he still determined to crush "the monster," and thus indirectly attain the result in which he had been ignominiously defeated. This expedient was the removal of the deposits of the moneys of the Govern

ment from the vaults of the general bank and their distribution among certain favorite State banks. The charter of the bank itself provided that the public moneys should be deposited therein, subject to removal by the Secretary of the Treasury, on grounds which were to be submitted to Congress. In 1832, Congress had adopted a resolution to the effect that, in their judgment, the deposits were secure while in the custody of the bank. But this recommendation availed nothing with the President; and he proceeded to execute his purpose. The Secretary of the Treasury then in office, Mr. McClean, declined to make the order necessary for the legal transfer. He was at once removed, and Mr. Duane, of Philadelphia, was appointed to fill his place and perform his functions. That enlightened statesman readily perceived the appalling consequences which would ensue from the execution of the measure, and declined to accede to the demand of the President. He was also unceremoniously dismissed, and Mr. Taney, subsequently the Chief-Justice of the United. States, became his substitute. This gentleman had no scruples in reference to the measure. The deposits of the Government funds were then withdrawn from the capacious maw of the monster. Immediately those terrible results ensued which every intelligent and impartial observer had anticipated. So vast and sudden a demand being made upon the bank, it was compelled to collect all its claims and resources from the smaller banks throughout the country with equal precipitancy; the latter were constrained to be equally peremptory and stringent with their numerous customers and debtors; and thus the fatal blow was felt throughout every rank and class in the nation; for it was impossible to meet so many requisitions upon so slight a notice. Repudiation ensued, from the highest to the lowest, and universal bankruptcy threatened the

nation. Great as were the social and commercial disasters which then threw so dark a pall of gloom over the whole Confederacy, it may be a matter of reasonable and just surprise that the entire fabric of the Government was not shattered in ruins to the earth.

Mr. Webster delivered several very able speeches in the Senate in regard to the removal of the deposits, and in reprobation of that rash and pernicious act. Favorable opportunities for so doing constantly occurred, in consequence of the great number of petitions and memorials condemning the act, which poured in upon Congress from all parts of the country. In one of the most conclusive and unanswerable of these speeches, he uses the following language:

"The Senate regarded this interposition as an encroachment by the Executive on other branches of the Government, as an interference with the legislative disposition of the public treasure. It was strongly and forcibly urged, yesterday, by the honorable member from South Carolina, that the true and only mode of preserving any balance of power, in mixed governments, is to keep an exact balance. This is very true; and to this end encroachment must be resisted at the first step. The question is, therefore, whether, upon the true principles of the Constitution, this exercise of power by the President can be justified. Whether the consequences be prejudicial or not, if there be an illegal exercise of power, it is to be resisted in the proper manner. Even if no harm or inconvenience result from transgressing the boundary, the intrusion is not to be suffered to pass unnoticed. Every encroachment, great or small, is important enough to awaken the attention of those who are intrusted with the preservation of a constitutional government. We are not to wait till great public mischiefs come, till the government is overthrown, or liberty itself put into extreme jeopardy. We should

not be worthy sons of our fathers were we so to regard great questions affecting the general freedom. Those fathers accomplished the Revolution on a strict question of principle. The Parliament of Great Britain asserted a right to tax the colonies in all cases whatsoever; and it was precisely on this question that they made the Revolution turn. The amount of taxation was trifling, but the claim itself was inconsistent with liberty; and that was, in their eyes, enough. It was against the recital of an act of Parliament, rather than against any suffering under its enactments, that they took up arms. They went to war against a preamble. They fought seven years against a declaration. They poured out their treasures and their blood like water, in a contest against an assertion which those less sagacious and not so well schooled in the principles of civil liberty would have regarded as barren phraseology, or mere parade of words. They saw in the claim of the British Parliament a seminal principle of mischief, the germ of unjust power: they detected it, dragged it forth from underneath its plausible disguises, struck at it; nor did it elude either their steady eye or their well-directed blow till they had extirpated and destroyed it, to the smallest fibre. On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome, in the height of her glory, is not to be compared; a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her pos sessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England."

Another subject of general interest which occupied the attention of the nation and of her leading statesmen during