A School History of the United States Part 34

The story is told that a map of the Ess.e.x senatorial district was hanging on the office wall of the editor of the _Columbian Centinel_, when a famous artist named Stuart entered. Struck by the peculiar outline of the towns forming the district, he added a head, wings, and claws with his pencil, and turning to the editor, said: "There, that will do for a salamander." "Better say a Gerrymander," returned the editor, alluding to Elbridge Gerry, the Republican governor who had signed the districting act. However this may be, it is certain that the name "gerrymander" was applied to the odious law in the columns of the _Centinel_, that it came rapidly into use, and has remained in our political nomenclature ever since. Indeed, a huge cut of the monster was prepared, and the next year was scattered as a broadside over the commonwealth, and so aroused the people that in the spring of 1813, despite the gerrymander, the Federalists recovered control of the Senate, and repealed the law. But the example was set, and was quickly imitated in New Jersey, New York, and Maryland. This established the inst.i.tution, and it has been used over and over again to this day.

%327. The Third-term Tradition.%--Another political custom which had grown to have the force of law was that of never electing a President to three terms. There is nothing in the Const.i.tution to prevent a President serving any number of terms; but, as we have seen, when Was.h.i.+ngton finished his second he declined another, and when Jefferson (in 1807-1808) was asked by the legislatures of several states to accept a third term, he declined, and very seriously advised the people never to elect any man President more than twice.[1] The example so set was followed by Madison and Monroe and had thus by 1824 become an established usage.

[Footnote 1: McMaster's _With the Fathers,_ pp. 64-70.]

%328. New Political Issues.%--The most important change of all was the rise of new political issues. We have seen how the financial questions which divided the people in 1790-1792 and gave rise to the Federalist and Republican parties, were replaced during the wars between England and France by the question, "Shall the United States be neutral?" It was not until the end of our second war with Great Britain that we were again free to attend to our home affairs.

During the long embargo and the war, manufactures had arisen, and one question now became, "Shall home manufactures be encouraged?" With the rapid settlement of the Mississippi valley and the demand for roads, ca.n.a.ls, and river improvements by which trade might be carried on with the West, there arose a second political question: "Shall these internal improvements be made at government expense?"

Now the people of the different sections of the country were not of one mind on these questions. The Middle States and Kentucky and some parts of New England wanted manufactures encouraged. In the West and the Middle States people were in favor of internal improvements at the cost of the government. In the South Atlantic States, where tobacco and cotton and rice were raised and s.h.i.+pped (especially the cotton) to England, people cared nothing for manufactures, nothing for internal improvements.

%329. Presidential Candidates in 1824.%--This diversity of opinion on questions of vital importance had much to do with the breaking up of the Republican party into sectional factions after 1820. The ambition of leaders in these sections helped on the disruption, so that between 1821 and 1824 four men, John Quincy Adams of Ma.s.sachusetts, Henry Clay of Kentucky, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, were nominated for President by state legislatures or state nominating conventions, by ma.s.s meeting or by gatherings of men who had a.s.sembled for other purposes but seized the occasion to indorse or propose a candidate. A fifth, William H. Crawford, was nominated by the congressional caucus, which then acted for the last time in our history.

Before election day this list was reduced to four: Calhoun had become the candidate of all factions for the vice presidency.

[Ill.u.s.tration: John Quincy Adams]

%330. Adams elected by the House of Representatives.%--The Const.i.tution provides that no man is chosen President by the electors who does not receive a majority of their votes. In 1824 Jackson received ninety-nine; Adams, eighty-four; Crawford, forty-one; and Clay, thirty-seven. There was, therefore, no election, and it became the duty of the House of Representatives to make a choice. But according to the Const.i.tution only the three highest could come before the House. This left out Clay, who was Speaker and who had great influence. His friends would not vote for Jackson on any account, nor for Crawford, the caucus candidate. Adams they liked, because he believed in internal improvements at government expense and a protective tariff. Adams accordingly was elected President. Calhoun had been elected Vice President by the electoral college.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The United States July 4, 1826]

The election of John Quincy Adams was a matter of intense disappointment to the friends of Jackson. In the heat of party pa.s.sion and the bitterness of their disappointment they declared that it was the result of a bargain between Adams and Clay. Clay, they said, was to induce his friends in the House of Representatives to vote for Adams, in return for which Adams was to make Clay Secretary of State. No such bargain was ever made. But when Adams did appoint Clay Secretary of State, Jackson and his followers were fully convinced of the contrary[1].

[Footnote 1: Parton's _Life of Jackson_, Chap. 10; Schurz's _Life of Clay_, Vol. I., pp. 203-258]

As a consequence, the legislature of Tennessee at once renominated Jackson for the presidency, and he became the people's candidate and drew about him not only the men who voted for him in 1824, but those also who had voted for Crawford, who was paralyzed and no longer a candidate. They called themselves "Jackson men," or Democratic Republicans.

Adams, it was known, would be nominated to succeed himself, and about him gathered all who wanted a tariff for protection, roads and ca.n.a.ls at national expense, and a distribution among the states of the money obtained from the sale of public lands. These were the "Adams men," or National Republicans.

%331. Antimasons.%--But there was a third party which arose in a very curious way and soon became powerful. In 1826, at Batavia in New York, a freemason named William Morgan announced his intention to publish a book revealing the secrets of masonry; but about the time the book was to come out Morgan disappeared and was never seen again. This led to the belief that the masons had killed him, and stirred up great excitement all over the twelve western counties of New York. The "antimasons" said that a man who was a freemason considered his duty to his order superior to his duty to his country; and a determined effort was made to prevent the election of any freemason to office.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Andrew Jackson ]

At first the "antimasonic" movement was confined to western New York, but the moment it took a political turn it spread across northern Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, and Ma.s.sachusetts and Rhode Island, and was led by some of the most distinguished men and aspiring politicians of the time[1].

[Footnote 1: Stanwood's _Presidential Elections_, Chap. 18]

%332. The Election of Jackson.%--When the presidential election occurred in 1828, there were thus three parties,--the "Jackson men," the "Administration," and the Antimasonic. But politics had very little to do with the result. In the early days of the republic, the ma.s.s of men were ignorant and uneducated, and willingly submitted to be led by men of education and what was called breeding. From Was.h.i.+ngton down to John Quincy Adams, the presidents were from the aristocratic cla.s.s. They were not men of the people. But in course of time a great change had come over the ma.s.s of Americans. Their prosperity, their energy in developing the country, had made them self-reliant, and impatient of all claims of superiority. One man was now no better than another, and the cry arose all over the country for a President who was "a man of the people."

Jackson was just such a man, and it was because he was "a man of the people" that he was elected. Of 261 electoral votes he received 178, and Adams 83.

%333. The North and the South Two Different Peoples.%--Before entering on Jackson's administration, it is necessary to call attention to the effect produced on our country by the industrial revolution discussed in Chaps. 19 and 22. In the first place, it produced two distinct and utterly different peoples: the one in the North and the other in the South. In the North, where there were no great plantations, no great farms, and where the labor was free, the marvelous inventions, discoveries, and improvements mentioned were eagerly seized on and used. There cities grew up, manufactures nourished, ca.n.a.ls were dug, railroads were built, and industries of every sort established.

Some towns, as Lynn, Lowell, Lawrence, Fall River, Cohoes, Paterson, Newark, and Pittsburg, were almost entirely given up to mills and factories. No such towns existed in the South. In the South men lived on plantations, raised cotton, tobacco, and rice, owned slaves, built few large towns, cared nothing for internal improvements, and established no industries of any sort.

This difference of occupation led of course to difference of interests and opinions, so that on three matters--the extension of slavery, internal improvements, and tariff for protection--the North and the South were opposed to each other. In the West and the Middle States these questions were all-important, and by a union of the two sections under the leaders.h.i.+p of Clay a new tariff was pa.s.sed in 1824, and in the course of the next four years $2,300,000 were voted for internal improvements.

The Virginia legislature (1825) protested against internal improvements at government expense and against the tariff. But the North demanded more, and in 1827 another tariff bill was prevented from pa.s.sing only by the casting vote of Vice President Calhoun. And now the two sections joined issue. The South, in memorials, resolutions, and protests, declared a tariff for protection to be unconst.i.tutional, partial, and oppressive. The wool growers and manufacturers of the North called a national convention of protectionists to meet at Harrisburg, and when Congress met, forced through the tariff of 1828. The South answered with anti-tariff meetings, addresses, resolutions, with boycotts on the tariff states, and with protests from the legislatures. Calhoun then came forward as the leader of the movement and put forth an argument, known as the South Carolina Exposition, in which he urged that a convention should meet in South Carolina and decide in what manner the tariff acts should "be declared null and void within the limits of the state."

%334. May a State nullify an Act of Congress?%--The right of a state to nullify an act of Congress thus became the question of the hour, and was again set forth yet more fully by Calhoun in 1831. That the South was deeply in earnest was apparent, and in 1832 Congress changed the tariff of 1828, and made it less objectionable. But it was against tariff for protection, not against any particular tariff, that South Carolina contended, and finding that the North would not give up its principles, she put her threat into execution. The legislature called a state convention, which declared that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were null and void and without force in South Carolina, and forbade anybody to pay the duties laid by these laws after February 1, 1833.[1]

[Footnote 1: Houston's _A Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina_; Parton's _Jackson_, Vol. III., Chaps. 32-34; Schurz's _Life of Clay_, Vol. II., Chap. 14; Von Holst's _Life of Calhoun_, Chap. 4; Lodge's _Life of Webster_, Chaps. 6, 7; Rhodes's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 40-50.]

Jackson, who had just been reelected, was not terrified. He bade the collector at Charleston go on and collect the revenue duties, and use force if necessary, and he issued a long address to the Nullifiers. On the one hand, he urged them to yield. On the other, he told them that "the laws of the United States must be executed.... Those who told you that you might peacefully prevent their execution deceived you.... Their object is disunion, and disunion by armed force is treason."

%335. Webster's Great Reply to Calhoun.%--Calhoun, who since 1825 had been Vice President of the United States, now resigned, and was at once made senator from South Carolina. When Congress met in December, 1832, the great question before it was what to do with South Carolina. Jackson wanted a "Force Act," that is, an act giving him power to collect the tariff duties by force of arms. Hayne, who was now governor of South Carolina, declared that if this was done, his state would leave the Union.

A great debate occurred on the Force Act, in which Calhoun, speaking for the South, a.s.serted the right of a state to nullify and secede from the Union, while Webster, speaking for the North, denied the right of nullification and secession, and upheld the Union and the Const.i.tution.[1]

[Footnote 1: Johnston's _American Orations_, Vol. I., pp. 196-212; Webster's _Works_, Vol. III., pp. 248-355, 448-505; Rhodes's _History of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 50-52.]

%336. The Compromise of 1833%.--Meantime, Henry Clay, seeing how determined each side was, and fearing civil war might follow, came forward with a compromise. He proposed that the tariff of 1832 should be reduced gradually till July, 1842, when on all articles imported there should be a duty equal to twenty per cent of their value. This was pa.s.sed, and the Compromise Tariff, as it is called, became a law in March, 1833. A new convention in South Carolina then repealed the ordinance of nullification.

%337. War on the Bank of the United States%.--While South Carolina was thus fighting internal improvements and the tariff, the whole Jackson party was fighting the Bank of the United States. You will remember that this inst.i.tution was chartered by Congress in 1816; and its charter was to run till 1836. Among the rights given it was that of having branches in as many cities in the country as it pleased, and, exercising this right, it speedily established branches in the chief cities of the South and West. The South and West were already full of state banks, and, knowing that the business of these would be injured if the branches of the United States Bank were allowed to come among them, the people of that region resented the reestablishment of a national bank. Jackson, as a Western man, shared in this hatred, and when he became President was easily persuaded by his friends (who wished to force the Bank to take sides in politics) to attack it. The charter had still nearly eight years to run; nevertheless, in his first message to Congress (December, 1829) he denounced the Bank as unconst.i.tutional, unnecessary, and as having failed to give the country a sound currency, and suggested that it should not be rechartered. Congress paid little attention to him. But he kept on, year after year, till, in 1832, the friends of the Bank made his attack a political issue[1].

[Footnote 1: Roosevelt's _Life of Benton_, Chap. 6; Parton's _Life of Jackson_, Vol. III., Chaps. 29-31; Tyler's _Memoir of Roger B. Taney_, Vol. I., Chap. 3; Von Hoist's _Const.i.tutional History_, Vol. II., pp.

31-52; Schurz's _Clay_, Vol. L, Chap. 13; _American History Leaflets_, No. 24]

%338. The First National Nominating Convention; the First Party Platform.%--To do this was easy, because in 1832 it was well known that Jackson would again be a candidate for the presidency. Now the presidential contest of that year is remarkable for two reasons:

1. Because each of the three parties held a national convention for the nomination of candidates.

2. Because a party platform was then used for the first time.

The originators of the national convention were the Antimasons. State conventions of delegates to nominate state officers, such as governors and congressmen and presidential electors, had long been in use. But never, till September, 1831, had there been a convention of delegates from all parts of the country for the purpose of nominating the President and Vice President. In that year Antimasonic delegates from twenty-two states met at Baltimore and nominated William Wirt and Amos Ellmaker.

The example thus set was quickly followed, for in December, 1831, a convention of National Republicans nominated Henry Clay. In May, 1832, a national convention of Democrats nominated Martin Van Buren for Vice President[1]; and in that same month, a "national a.s.sembly of young men," or, as the Democrats called it, "Clay's Infant School," met at Was.h.i.+ngton and framed the first party platform. They were friends of Clay, and in their platform they demanded protection to American industries, and internal improvements at government expense, and denounced Jackson for his many removals from office. They next issued an address to the people, in which they declared that if Jackson were reelected, the Bank would "be abolished." [2]

[Footnote 1: It was not necessary to nominate Jackson. That he should be re-elected was the wish of the great body of voters. The convention, therefore, merely nominated a Vice President]

[Footnote 2: For party platform see McKee's _National Platforms of all Parties._]

%339. Jackson destroys the Bank.%--The friends of the Bank meantime appealed to Congress for a new charter and found little difficulty in getting it. But when the bill went to Jackson for his signature, he vetoed it, and, as its friends had not enough votes to pa.s.s the bill over the veto, the Bank was not rechartered.

The only hope left was to defeat Jackson at the polls. But this too was a failure, for he was reelected by greater majorities than he had received in 1828.[1]

[Footnote 1: Of the 288 electoral votes, Jackson received 219, and Clay 49. Wirt, the Antimason, secured 7.]

%340. Jackson withdraws the Government Money from the Bank.%--This signal triumph was understood by Jackson to mean that the people approved of his treatment of the Bank. So he continued to hurt it all he could, and in 1833 ordered his Secretary of the Treasury to remove the money of the United States from the Bank and its branches. This the Secretary[1] refused to do; whereupon Jackson removed him and put another,[2] who would, in his place. After 1833, therefore, the collectors of United States revenue ceased to deposit it in the Bank of the United States, and put it in state banks ("pet banks") named by the Secretary of the Treasury. The money already on deposit was gradually drawn out, till none remained.[3]

[Footnote 1: William J. Duane. ]

[Footnote 2: Roger B. Taney. ]

[Footnote 3: Parton's _Jackson,_ Vol. III., Chaps. 36-39; _American History Leaflets,_ No. 24; Sumner's _Jackson_, Chaps. 13, 14; Von Hoist's _Const.i.tutional History,_ Vol. II., pp. 52-79; Roosevelt's _Benton_, Chap. 6. ]

For this act the Senate, when it met in December, 1833, pa.s.sed a vote of censure on Jackson and entered the censure on its journal. Jackson protested, and asked to have his protest entered, but the Senate refused. Whereupon Benton of Missouri declared that he would not rest till the censure was removed or "expunged" from the journal. At first this did not seem likely to occur. But Benton kept at it, and at last, in 1837, the Senate having become Democratic, he succeeded[1].

[Footnote 1: When the resolution had pa.s.sed, the Clerk of the Senate was ordered to bring in the journal, draw a thick black line around the censure, and write across it "Expunged by order of the Senate, January 16, 1837."]