CHAPTER VIII.

HISTORY 'UNDER PRESIDENT

JACKSON, 1829-1837.

HE administration of Andrew Jackson deserves a fuller

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treatment in any history of the Democratic party than comes within the scope of this rapid sketch. It was full of movement; of exciting contests, political and personal; a time of collision between great parties, under the leadership of the most imperious party leaders that have ever appeared in American politics. From the great struggle between the administration and the bank to the Cabinet troubles over the social position of Peggy Eaton, it never lacks interest or lapses into dullness. Indeed, a man of such strong personality as Jackson never appears in the public arena without fastening the eyes of the people upon him. He came to the Presidency at the advanced age of sixty-two years, having previously held many offices, civil and military. He was the first Representative in Congress from the new State of Tennessee, and was one of the twelve members of the House who voted against the address to Washington at the close of his administration.

After a year's service in the House he was appointed to a vacancy in the Senate, which, however, he resigned

in a few months. Two years later he was made a Judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, which position he held for six years-from 1798 to 1804-having meantime been elected a major-general of militia. After several years' quiet life as a planter, he gained such distinction as an officer in the Creek war that he was made a majorgeneral in the United States army, and put in command of the Department of the South. The brilliant victory at New Orleans, coming at the close of a war in which there had been an almost uniform series of disasters to our land forces, at once gave him a position in the eyes and in the admiration of the people that promised political honor and influence, and some of his personal adherents seem very early to have taken upon themselves to prepare the way for his Presidential candidacy.

If he had any ambition it was entirely a military ambition, and he did not take kindly to the project, declaring that he did not consider himself the right sort of a man and that he felt old and ill. We have already referred to the election of 1824, and how gradually the idea seemed to gain possession of Jackson that in some way the people had been defrauded in his defeat, and that Adams had been elected by a corrupt intrigue with Clay. From that time forward he became the bitter enemy of Clay, and to that enmity alone we must ascribe the failure of this magnificent party leader to reach the goal of his ambition— the Presidency of the United States.

Passing over the spirited and successful diplomacy of his early administration, by which he secured payment from France and other European nations of long-standing

claims for spoliations and recovered our trade with the British West Indies, we will glance at the most important questions of internal policy that clearly touch the history and fortunes of the Democratic party during his administrations.

First, as to the question of internal improvemer s: Jackson took the position laid down by Mr. Monroe in his Cumberland Road veto. In his first message he expressed his hostility to the general policy of internal improvements; in 1830 he vetoed the bill authorizing subscription by the United States to the stock of the Maysville and Lexington Road, in Kentucky; and in 1832 he recommended the sale of all the stocks held by the United States in canals, turnpikes, etc. While not able at once

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curtailed it, and used

to put an end to the abuse he the exceptional strength of his political influence to do what no one else would have dared to do in meeting a strong and growing cause of corruption." * The sense of injustice and injury which was fast taking possession of the South because of the sectional character of the tariff legislation, was brought to a head by the "tariff of abominations" passed in 1828, and Southern statesmen began to look around for some defence against the further and continued spoliation of their section under the pretext of protection to American industry. They had purposely, when they found they could not defeat that tariff, made it as bad as they could, and driven from its support some who were its original promoters by the vicious amend

* Sumner's “Jackson," 194.