Expansion and Conflict

UMPH OF

sted. The annual message of 1832 indicated his intention to close up the business in accordance with what seemed to him to be the decree of the people. But while the President regarded an election as settling the matter, it soon became clear that Nicholas Biddle and the l

amount of money in circulation by about one third at any time. Nicholas Biddle, a trained financier and strong-willed aristocrat, who put little faith in popular elections and plebiscites, was the head of the Bank, and all the presidents and directorates of the subordinate banks were his appointees; he controlled absolut

d the President in his plan of overthrowing the Bank, and this shift was made to avoid another break-up of the Cabinet and to enable Jackson to get a Secretary of the Treasury who would support him. William J. Duane, of Pennsylvania, accepted the vacant portfolio in January, 1833, knowi

wspaper editors of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond were either opposed to the President or on Biddle's list of beneficiaries; while scores of hack writers all over the country received their stipends from the "Monster," as Jackson designated the Bank. It might have been an easy matter for Biddle and Clay to secure their charter from the Congress which sat in its closing session in the

33, the income of the Treasury was placed as it accrued in the custody of the state banks which had been made ready for the new policy. Jackson declared that the National Bank had become unsafe and therefore an unfit place for the keeping of $10,000,000 of the people's money, the amount

at moment to move the cotton and grain crops, the curtailment was double that of the East. This led to immediate financial stringency; National Bank notes, the standard money of the time, became scarce; and gold or silver was absolutely wanting. The state banks were naturally forced to withhold their accustomed loans

s anything but bright when the next annual message of the President called upon the national legislature to aid him in his struggle. Petitions were pouring into Washington by the thousand, and delegations of b

parties to this fierce and unrelenting struggle. In the East business failures, the closing of the doors of manufacturing establishments, and the discharge of small armies of employees furnished all the proof necessary that the distress was real. From all sections of the country cries of distress, memorials, and petitions came up to Washington. Biddle and his friends had no though

f public opinion inclined visibly to the side of Jackson at the end of spring, Clay, who had for some time doubted the loyalty of Biddle, and who was especially anxious to regain his former popularity in the West, refused to continue the fight; Webster, too, lost interest and advised the directors of the Bank that the cause was lost. Calhoun, who had supported Clay and Webster to humiliate Jackson, could not retreat; he was again isolated, and he felt his position bitterly. McDuffie resigned his seat and his chairmanship in the House in utter disgust. To all but the president of the United States Bank the case seemed hopeless when Congress adjourned in early summer without passing any act bearing on the situation. Biddle's remark in a letter to a friend in Baltimore, "If the Bank charter were renewed or prolonged, I believe the pecuniary difficul

and on election day sent his family out of town and barricaded his house and office. The legislatures of Pennsylvania and New York, where his flag had flown triumphantly for years, denounced him and planned to issue bonds for the relief of the people. The autumn saw a complete reversal of policy on the part of t

his sense of triumph on the reassembling of Congress at the end of the momentous year. The Monst

rtant. From New England and the Middle States fish, lumber, grain, and other plantation supplies had been sold to the West India planters in great quantities. The war of the Revolution curtailed this trade

able to collect. In 1831 the Government of Louis Philippe agreed to pay these damages to the amount of 25,000,000 francs. But the French legislature delayed to vote the necessary appropriations. Jackson, assuming that the obligations would be met promptly, drew upon the French treasury for the first installment and asked the National Bank to collect the bills-somewhat over $900,000. The papers were du

o pay the overdue claims or to execute certain reciprocity clauses of the treaty. In December, 1834, when the Bank crisis had passed, the President sent to Congress a message which asked for the passage of an act authorizing reprisals on Fren

France had taken the same course with other countries. It soon became so clear that Jackson was within his rights and that the country was behind him, that resolutions were suffered to pass the Senate virtually approving

ies should be curtailed and whose gaudy wares and vulgar rocking-chairs should be tabooed everywhere. "Let the French navy sweep the Atlantic Ocean of their ships and again take possession of Louisiana" was the unfriendly advice of certain English journals. Before the summer of 1835 closed, all relations between France and the United States had ceased, though actual war

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aws and Chickasaws of Mississippi were defrauded of their best lands and carried forcibly to the new Indian country; but the most arbitrary part of the governmental policy was the expulsion of the Cherokees from their beautiful hills in northern Georgia. Thirteen thousand in number, civilized and devotedly attached to their homes, these people insisted on remaining and becoming a State to themselves. Under the leadership of John Ross, they presented the case to the United States Supreme Court, which decided in 1830 that they composed a nation and that they could not lawfully be compelled to submit to Georgia. The people of Georgia would not for a moment consider such a proposition, and moreover they had made up their minds that the Cherokees must likewise give up their lands and migrate to the Far West. Jackson took this view, and in December, 1835, he made a treaty with som

its population had increased sixfold. The same story was told by the statistics of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa. There was life, vigor, and rapid growth in all the accessible parts of the region which worshiped the President. Jackson's election was an advertisement of the West; the long debates in Congress about checking emigration to the Mississippi Valley increased the desire to go to the new and happy country; and the hard times of 1833-34 set thousands of men upon the highways leading to the promised land. And in the Western States every effort was made to attract people. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois built waterways which should feed the Mississippi or Erie Canal commerce, and thus make Western life profitable as well as free and unconventional. Where canals c

new homes and substantial encouragement. They sent glowing accounts of the new world to their friends at home, and the tide of immigration which was destined to enrich American life steadily increased. All this stimulated speculation in Western lands, in canal and banking ventures. The

e receipts of the Treasury had steadily outrun the expenses, and in 1834 the last of the national debt was paid. Since the income was almost certain to continue great, Jackson was at a loss what to do. Henry Clay urged a simple distribution among the States. The President feared the effect of this, and vetoed a bill to that effect; he even proposed that the Federal Government should buy stock in al

ter would ensue. Jackson, therefore, issued an executive order in July, 1836, requiring the land offices to accept only specie in payment for lands; but it was not thought that this would occasion any great distres

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ere not as yet necessary for election, nor was it thought best to nominate a single pair of candidates and submit their case to the country. The Whigs, as the opposition now came to be called, arranged a ticket which Daniel Webster led in the East, which William Henry Harrison, a popular military hero of the Northwest, headed in that section, and which Hugh Lawson White, a Jackson man till 1834, championed in the Southwest. There followed a four-cornered contest which resulted in the choice of Van Buren by a popular majority of less than 30,000. Van Buren carried more of the New England States than did Webster and more of the South than did White, but he lost most of the West, even Tennessee, which had been the stronghold of his party. The counties of the ol

e would gladly follow in "the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor." The country was still prosperous and the wheels of industry were run

GRAPHI

Q. Adams's Memoirs are ever ready with the spice of personality to make its pages readable. The Register of Debates, the official publication of Congress which succeeded the former Annals of Congress and Niles's Weekly Register, published in Baltimore from 1811 to 1849, give the various phases of public opinion as it was expressed in Congress and in the newspapers of the time. House Reports, 22d Cong., 1st Sess., no. 460, and House Executive Docum