Expansion and Conflict

S AND R

ckson had been responsible for his elevation. His position was very much like that of John Quincy Adams in 1825. If the East had preferred him to his predecessor, it was not beca

on's collector of the customs in New York defaulted in the sum of $1,250,000 during the first year of Van Buren's term; and to make matters worse the new appointee behaved quite as scandalously the next year. Out of sixty-seven land officers in the West and South, sixty-four were reported in 1837 as de

ring 1837 and 1838 by more than $21,000,000. A deficit of $300,000,000 for two successive years in our time would not be worse than the deficit of the unpopular successor of Andrew Jackson. From 1833 to 1836 there had been an annual surplus equal sometimes to the total expense of the Government. The n

e. Railroads were beginning to create markets for Eastern farmers. The Westerners, therefore, sunk millions of their hard earnings in railways which paralleled their canals or projected into wildernesses. Between 1830 and 1840 these ventures of the West, from Michigan to Louisiana, absorbed hundreds of millions of capital. Illinois borrowed $14,000,000 when her total annual income was hardly more than $250,000; Mississippi borrowed $12,000,000 on a

sed from $95,000,000 to $140,000,000; loans and discounts rose from $324,000,000 to $457,000,000. The National Bank, which had curtailed business in order to embarrass the country and particularly President Jackson, quickly changed its tactics, and, sailing under a charter from the State of Pennsylvania, kept pace with its five hundred ri

the personal credit of men otherwise deeply in debt. The flood of money was thus, before 1837, invested in lands and houses or railroads and canals which could neither pay dividends nor return

s, had placed $25,000,000 of its stock in Europe, and the holders had received most liberal returns. American investments were quoted as "excellent" by the Baring Brothers of London to their thousands of customers. And why not? The Federal Government had recently paid the last dollar of its tw

hopkeepers of the villages and hamlets, and these in turn sold on credit to their customers. Not less than $100,000,000 was thus distributed over the country. It was due any day in London or Liverpool. The world seemed to "take stock" in the new Republic, particularly when the returns were large and prompt in appearing. And now that the Federal

to compel Western bankers to call on their Eastern correspondents for metallic money. All the specie in the Eastern vaults amounted to only $19,000,000, a sum not in excess of what it had been twenty years before, when the paper money in circulation was not h

seeding. The cotton output was large, but the price fell from twenty to ten cents a pound. Corn and meat were plentiful in the West; the means of transportation were, ho

ve men, declared themselves bankrupt and closed their doors. Men who had clamored against Jackson or Biddle in the time of distress three years before now looked upon that crisis as only a flurry. Everything seemed out of joint and the future gave no assurance of speedy recovery. The East, which had condemned the West for their stay laws against the panic of 1819, now clamored for a federal stay law and urged Van Buren to suspend the specie circular. The President refused to offer any relief, and other fai

on the preceding Administration, as his opponents delighted to do; he only said it was all because of "over-action in all departments of business." Congress suspended the distribution of the surplus revenue among the States, issued notes to the amount of ten million dollars to meet the obligations of the Government, and took measures for the safety of the public funds in banks which could not pay their debts. Gradually during the next year the signs of recovery appeared. Rise of prices in Europe, a good cotto

of the public moneys. The purpose was to avoid concentration and monopoly such as the National Bank had maintained, and to keep the control of the finances in the hands of the Government. It was called the Independent Treasury system. The President pressed the measure before a divided Congress an

way from his leadership in 1838 and deprived him of a majority; in the next Congress he was no stronger, and the one measure of reform which he urged failed to pass before June, 1840. Another legacy of Jackson, his "illustrious predecessor," was a war with the Seminole

ak away from the Union, and that if it did succeed, the North would withdraw from the federal compact. So that while Calhoun and his friends aided the President in his financial measures, they at the same time importuned him to help the South by adding another pro-slavery State to the Union. This was not the first time this question had embarrassed a president. As already seen, Clay had denounced Monroe for giving

ong the border, from Maine to Wisconsin, lent open assistance to their "oppressed" neighbors. Van Buren remained strictly neutral. With much difficulty was the pea

age of its income to a common safety fund. The disasters of 1837 showed these reserves to be too small, and in 1839 every bank in the State was required to deposit with the Treasury securities enough to protect all notes to be put into circulation. At the same time any group of capitalists who would conform to the law might open a bank without let or hindr

e legislatures simply declined to pay and claimed immunity from federal pressure under the Eleventh Amendment to the National Constitution. Nor were the resources of the Western communities equal to the discharge of their onerous burdens. To have attempted to force upon the people the payment of the debts their leaders had fixed upon them wou

sages to Congress. He was likened to a sea captain who seizes the lifeboats on a distressed ship in midocean and, saving himself and crew, leaves the passengers to the mercies of the angry waves. Clay said the panic had been due entirely to the ungodly Jackson and his foolish successor; Webster saw the sole cause of the ills of the time in the foolhardy

eproach applied generally to the party in power; Henry Clay made a tour of the Eastern States thanking God that he had been spared to help in undoing the work of Jackson; Webster canvassed the West in the hope of restoring the minds of the people to their wonted sanity and a renewal of the alliance of West and East, on which alone depended the prospect of good government in the United States. The Whig party was now a powerf

almost unanimous support in the West, and at last secured the passage of all three in June, 1840. Though Clay and his party waged a powerful opposition through four full years, they had no definite program to offer. The groups of their organization were as yet poorly knit together. Their popular appeal was "to drive the Goths and Vandals" from the capital. The "new Napoleon and his minions," according to another historical comparison, mu

ves Democrats and insisted that they were the disciples of Thomas Jefferson; the organizers of the opposition to Jackson in his war on the Bank had claimed to be National Republicans, though they accepted

improvements, a protective tariff, and the assumption of the debts of bankrupt States. In all these the West was much interested. But on the subject of slavery it was definitely declared that the Federal Government had no power of interference. For the last time in the histo

hool, was made the candidate for the Vice-Presidency. On the matter of a program it was impossible for the Whig groups to agree, and consequently they offered no platform at all. But the West received notice from the leaders that in the event of success, the debts of their States would be laid upon the broad shoulders of the Union and that in

wledged their defeat when it was seen that the West rallied to Harrison. The plain citizen was carried off his feet, and he voted against the man in the White House who was said to use gold and silver on his table and dress himself before costly French mirrors. Nor was he certain in his more serious vein whether after all Jackson had not made a sad blunder in c

nd humiliated. The West had returned the enemies of Jackson to power and, perhaps unintentionally, had written failure across the work of their "hero." Thus Clay had turned the backwoodsmen and their methods against the original backwoods statesman, and brought about a restoration of the old régime. Nicholas Biddle and all his financial friends rejoiced. Webster and New England looked once again to a new era of protection; and the internal impro

GRAPHI

S. Callender's Selections from the Economic History of the United States (1909); G. S. Callender's Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises, in Quarterly Journal of Economics,

n and manners. For railroad, canal, and banking ventures, J. L. Ringwalt, Development of Transportation Systems; W. F. Gephart, Transportation and Industrial Development in the Middle West; J. P. Dunn, Indiana, Rufus King, Ohio, T. M. Cooley, Michigan,