Chapter CLXV (1)

RETIRING AND DEATH OF GENERAL JACKSON--ADMINISTRATION OF MARTIN VAN BUREN.

The second and last term of General Jackson's presidency expired on the 3d of March, 1837. The next day, at twelve, he appeared with his successor, Mr. Van Buren, on the elevated and spacious eastern portico of the capitol, as one of the citizens who came to witness the inauguration of the new President, and no way distinguished from them, except by his place on the left hand of the President elect. The day was beautiful--clear sky, balmy vernal sun, tranquil atmosphere;--and the assemblage immense. On foot, in the large area in front of the steps, orderly without troops, and closely wedged together, their faces turned to the portico--presenting to the beholders from all the eastern windows the appearance of a field paved with human faces. This vast crowd remained riveted to their places, and profoundly silent, until the ceremony of inauguration was over. It was the stillness and silence of reverence and affection; and there was no room for mistake as to whom this mute and impressive homage was rendered. For once, the rising was eclipsed by the setting sun. Though disrobed of power, and retiring to the shades of private life, it was evident that the great ex-President was the absorbing object of this intense regard. At the moment he began to descend the broad steps of the portico to take his seat in the open carriage which was to bear him away, the deep repressed feeling of the dense mass brook forth, acclamations and cheers bursting from the heart and filling the air--such as power never commanded, nor man in power received. It was the affection, gratitude, and admiration of the living age, saluting for the last time a great man. It was the acclaim of posterity, breaking from the bosoms of contemporaries. It was the anticipation of futurity--unpurchasable homage to the hero-patriot who, all his life, and in all circumstances of his life, in peace and in war, and glorious in each, had been the friend of his country, devoted to her, regardless of self. Uncovered, and bowing, with a look of unaffected humility and thankfulness, he acknowledged in mute signs his deep sensibility to this affecting overflow of popular feeling. I was looking down from a side window, and felt an emotion which had never passed through me before. I had seen the inauguration of many presidents, and their going away, and their days of state, vested with power, and surrounded by the splendors of the first magistracy of a great republic. But they all appeared to be as pageants, empty and soulless, brief to the view, unreal to the touch, and soon to vanish. But here there seemed to be a reality--a real scene--a man and the people--he, laying down power and withdrawing through the portals of everlasting fame;--they, sounding in his ears the everlasting plaudits of unborn generations. Two days after, I saw the patriot ex-President in the car which bore him off to his desired seclusion. I saw him depart with that look of quiet enjoyment which bespoke the inward satisfaction of the soul at exchanging the cares of office for the repose of home. History, poetry, oratory, marble and brass, will hand down the military exploits of Jackson: this work will commemorate the events of his civil administration, not less glorious than his military achievements, great as they were; and this brief notice of his last appearance at the American capital is intended to preserve some faint memory of a scene, the grandeur of which was so impressive to the beholder, and the solace of which must have been so grateful to the heart of the departing patriot.

Eight years afterwards he died at the Hermitage, in the full possession of all his faculties, and strong to the last in the ruling passion of his soul--love of country. Public history will do justice to his public life; but a further notice is wanted of him--a notice of the domestic man--of the man at home, with his wife, his friends, his neighbors, his slaves; and this I feel some qualification for giving, from my long and varied acquaintance with him. First, his intimate and early friend--then a rude rupture--afterwards friendship and intimacy for twenty years, and until his death: in all forty years of personal observation, in the double relation of friend and foe, and in all the walks of life, public and private, civil and military.

The first time that I saw General Jackson was at Nashville, Tennessee, in 1799--he on the bench, a judge of the then Superior Court, and I a youth of seventeen, back in the crowd. He was then a remarkable man, and had his ascendant over all who approached him, not the effect of his high judicial station, nor of the senatorial rank which he had held and resigned; nor of military exploits, for he had not then been to war; but the effect of personal qualities; cordial and graceful manners, hospitable temper, elevation of mind, undaunted spirit, generosity, and perfect integrity. In charging the jury in the impending case, he committed a slight solecism in language which grated on my ear, and lodged on my memory, without derogating in the least from the respect which he inspired; and without awakening the slightest suspicion that I was ever to be engaged in smoothing his diction. The first time I spoke with him was some years after, at a (then) frontier town in Tennessee, when he was returning from a Southern visit, which brought him through the towns and camps of some of the Indian tribes. In pulling off his overcoat, I perceived on the white lining of the turning down sleeve, a dark speck, which had life and motion. I brushed it off, and put the heel of my shoe upon it--little thinking that I was ever to brush away from him game of a very different kind. He smiled; and we began a conversation, in which he very quickly revealed a leading trait of his character,--that of encouraging young men in their laudable pursuits. Getting my name and parentage, and learning my intended profession, he manifested a regard for me, said he had received hospitality at my father's house in North Carolina, gave me kind invitations to visit him; and expressed a belief that I would do well at the bar--generous words which had the effect of promoting what they undertook to foretell. Soon after, he had further opportunity to show his generous feelings. I was employed in a criminal case of great magnitude, where the oldest and ablest counsel appeared--Haywood, Grundy, Whiteside,--and the trial of which General Jackson attended through concern for the fate of a friend. As junior counsel I had to precede my elders, and did my best; and, it being on the side of his feelings, he found my effort to be better than it was. He complimented me greatly, and from that time our intimacy began.

I soon after became his aid, he being a Major General in the Tennessee militia--made so by a majority of one vote. How much often depends upon one vote!--New Orleans, the Creek campaign, and all their consequences, date from that one vote!--and after that, I was habitually at his house; and, as an inmate, had opportunities to know his domestic life, and at the period when it was least understood and most misrepresented. He had resigned his place on the bench of the Superior Court, as he had previously resigned his place in the Senate of the United States, and lived on a superb estate of some thousand acres, twelve miles from Nashville, then hardly known by its subsequent famous name of the Hermitage--name chosen for its perfect accord with his feelings; for he had then actually withdrawn from the stage of public life, and from a state of feeling well known to belong to great talent when finding no theatre for its congenial employment. He was a careful farmer, overlooking every thing himself, seeing that the fields and fences were in good order, the stock well attended, and the slaves comfortably provided for. His house was the seat of hospitality, the resort of friends and acquaintances, and of all strangers visiting the State--and the more agreeable to all from the perfect conformity of Mrs. Jackson's character to his own. But he needed some excitement beyond that which a farming life can afford, and found it, for some years, in the animating sports of the turf. He loved fine horses--racers of speed and bottom--owned several, and contested the four mile heats with the best that could be bred, or brought to the State, and for large sums. That is the nearest to gaming that I ever knew him to come. Cards and the cockpit have been imputed to him, but most erroneously. I never saw him engaged in either. Duels were usual in that time, and he had his share of them, with their unpleasant concomitants; but they passed away with all their animosities, and he has often been seen zealously pressing the advancement of those against whom he had but lately been arrayed in deadly hostility.

His temper was placable as well as irascible, and his reconciliations were cordial and sincere. Of that, my own case was a signal instance. After a deadly feud, I became his confidential adviser; was offered the highest marks of his favor, and received from his dying bed a message of friendship, dictated when life was departing, and when he would have to pause for breath. There was a deep-seated vein of piety in him, unaffectedly showing itself in his reverence for divine worship, respect for the ministers of the gospel, their hospitable reception in his house, and constant encouragement of all the pious tendencies of Mrs. Jackson. And when they both afterwards became members of a church, it was the natural and regular result of their early and cherished feelings. He was gentle in his house, and alive to the tenderest emotions; and of this, I can give an instance, greatly in contrast with his supposed character, and worth more than a long discourse in showing what that character really was. I arrived at his house one wet chilly evening, in February, and came upon him in the twilight, sitting alone before the fire, a lamb and a child between his knees. He started a little, called a servant to remove the two innocents to another room, and explained to me how it was. The child had cried because the lamb was out in the cold, and begged him to bring it in--which he had done to please the child, his adopted son, then not two years old. The ferocious man does not do that! and though Jackson had his passions and his violence, they were for men and enemies--those who stood up against him--and not for women and children, or the weak and helpless: for all whom his feelings were those of protection and support. His hospitality was active as well as cordial, embracing the worthy in every walk of life, and seeking out deserving objects to receive it, no matter how obscure. Of this, I learned a characteristic instance in relation to the son of the famous Daniel Boone. The young man had come to Nashville on his father's business, to be detained some weeks, and had his lodgings at a small tavern, towards the lower part of the town. General Jackson heard of it; sought him out; found him; took him home to remain as long as his business detained him in the country, saying, "Your father's dog should not stay in a tavern, where I have a house." This was heart! and I had it from the young man himself, long after, when he was a State Senator of the General Assembly of Missouri, and, as such, nominated me for the United States Senate, at my first election, in 1820: an act of hereditary friendship, as our fathers had been early friends.

Abhorrence of debt, public and private, dislike of banks, and love of hard money--love of justice and love of country, were ruling passions with Jackson; and of these he gave constant evidence in all the situations of his life. Of private debts he contracted none of his own, and made any sacrifices to get out of those incurred for others. Of this he gave a signal instance, not long before the war of 1812--selling the improved part of his estate, with the best buildings of the country upon it, to pay a debt incurred in a mercantile adventure to assist a young relative; and going into log-houses in the forest to begin a new home and farm. He was living in these rude tenements when he vanquished the British at New Orleans; and, probably, a view of their conqueror's domicile would have astonished the British officers as much as their defeat had done. He was attached to his friends, and to his country, and never believed any report to the discredit of either, until compelled by proof. He would not believe in the first reports of the surrender of General Hull, and became sad and oppressed when forced to believe it. He never gave up a friend in a doubtful case, or from policy, or calculation. He was a firm believer in the goodness of a superintending Providence, and in the eventual right judgment and justice of the people. I have seen him at the most desperate part of his fortunes, and never saw him waver in the belief that all would come right in the end. In the time of Cromwell he would have been a puritan.

The character of his mind was that of judgment, with a rapid and almost intuitive perception, followed by an instant and decisive action. It was that which made him a General, and a President for the time in which he served. He had vigorous thoughts, but not the faculty of arranging them in a regular composition, either written or spoken; and in formal papers he usually gave his draft to an aid, a friend, or a secretary, to be written over--often to the loss of vigor. But the thoughts were his own vigorously expressed; and without effort, writing with a rapid pen, and never blotting or altering; but, as Carlyle says of Cromwell, hitting the nail upon the head as he went. I have a great deal of his writing now, some on public affairs and covering several sheets of paper; and no erasures or interlineations anywhere. His conversation was like his writing, a vigorous flowing current, apparently without the trouble of thinking, and always impressive. His conclusions were rapid, and immovable, when he was under strong convictions; though often yielding, on minor points, to his friends. And no man yielded quicker when he was convinced; perfectly illustrating the difference between firmness and obstinacy. Of all the Presidents who have done me the honor to listen to my opinions, there was no one to whom I spoke with more confidence when I felt myself strongly to be in the right.

He had a load to carry all his life; resulting from a temper which refused compromises and bargaining, and went for a clean victory or a clean defeat, in every case. Hence, every step he took was a contest: and, it may be added, every contest was a victory. I have already said that he was elected a Major General in Tennessee--an election on which so much afterwards depended--by one vote. His appointment in the United States regular army was a conquest from the administration, which had twice refused to appoint him a Brigadier, and once disbanded him as a volunteer general, and only yielded to his militia victories. His election as President was a victory over politicians--as was every leading event of his administration.

I have said that his appointment in the regular army was a victory over the administration, and it belongs to the inside view of history, and to the illustration of government mistakes, and the elucidation of individual merit surmounting obstacles, to tell how it was. Twice passed by to give preference to two others in the West (General Harrison and General Winchester), once disbanded, and omitted in all the lists of military nominations, how did he get at last to be appointed Major General? It was thus. Congress had passed an act authorizing the President to accept organized corps of volunteers. I proposed to General Jackson to raise a corps under that act, and hold it ready for service. He did so; and with this corps and some militia, he defeated the Creek Indians, and gained the reputation which forced his appointment in the regular army. I drew up the address which he made to his division at the time, and when I carried it to him in the evening, I found the child and the lamb between his knees. He had not thought of this resource, but caught at it instantly, adopted the address, with two slight alterations, and published it to his division. I raised a regiment myself, and made the speeches at the general musters, which helped to raise two others, assisted by a small band of friends--all feeling confident that if we could conquer the difficulty--master the first step--and get him upon the theatre of action, he would do the rest himself. This is the way he got into the regular army, not only unselected by the wisdom of government, but rejected by it--a stone rejected by the master builders--and worked in by an unseen hand, to become the corner stone of the temple. The aged men of Tennessee will remember all this, and it is time that history should learn it. But to return to the private life and personal characteristics of this extraordinary man.

There was an innate, unvarying, self-acting delicacy in his intercourse with the female sex, including all womankind; and on that point my personal observation (and my opportunities for observation were both large and various), enables me to join in the declaration of the belief expressed by his earliest friend and most intimate associate, the late Judge Overton, of Tennessee. The Roman general won an immortality of honor by one act of continence; what praise is due to Jackson, whose whole life was continent? I repeat: if he had been born in the time of Cromwell, he would have been a puritan. Nothing could exceed his kindness and affection to Mrs. Jackson, always increasing in proportion as his elevation, and culminating fortunes, drew cruel attacks upon her. I knew her well, and that a more exemplary woman in all the relations of life, wife, friend, neighbor, relative, mistress of slaves--never lived, and never presented a more quiet, cheerful and admirable management of her household. She had not education, but she had a heart, and a good one; and that was always leading her to do kind things in the kindest manner. She had the General's own warm heart, frank manners and hospitable temper; and no two persons could have been better suited to each other, lived more happily together, or made a house more attractive to visitors. She had the faculty--a rare one--of retaining names and titles in a throng of visitors, addressing each one appropriately, and dispensing hospitality to all with a cordiality which enhanced its value. No bashful youth, or plain old man, whose modesty sat them down at the lower end of the table, could escape her cordial attention, any more than the titled gentlemen on her right and left. Young persons were her delight, and she always had her house filled with them--clever young women and clever young men--all calling her affectionately, "Aunt Rachel." I was young then, and was one of that number. I owe it to early recollections, and to cherished convictions--in this last notice of the Hermitage--to bear this faithful testimony to the memory of its long mistress--the loved and honored wife of a great man. Her greatest eulogy is in the affection which he bore her living, and in the sorrow with which he mourned her dead. She died at the moment of the General's first election to the Presidency; and every one that had a just petition to present, or charitable request to make, lost in her death, the surest channel to the ear and to the heart of the President. His regard for her survived, and lived in the persons of her nearest relatives. A nephew of hers was his adopted son and heir, taking his own name, and now the respectable master of the Hermitage. Another nephew, Andrew Jackson Donelson, Esq., was his private secretary when President. The Presidential mansion was presided over during his term by her niece, the most amiable Mrs. Donelson; and all his conduct bespoke affectionate and lasting remembrance of one he had held so dear.

END OF VOLUME I.

INDEX TO VOL. I.

A

_A. B. Plot_, The.--
Charges against Wm. H. Crawford, 35;
the A. B. papers, a series of articles which appeared in the
newspapers, 35;
expectation of the accuser that matter would lie over until after
the Presidential election, 35;
immediate action, 35;
committee appointed, 35;
answer of Crawford, 35;
its character, 35;
who written by, 35;
proceeding in the case, 35;
testimony of Edwards, 36;
his proceedings, 36;
report of committee, 36.

ADAMS, JOHN, decease of, 87;
sketch of his character, 87.

ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY, Secretary of State, 7;
his diary relative to the unanimity of the cabinet on the Missouri
question, 8;
connection with the treaty of 1818, 15;
on internal improvements, 22;
candidate for the Presidency in 1824, 44;
commencement of his administration, 54;
his inaugural address, 54;
grounds of opposition, 54;
the majority of the Senate opposed, 55;
strong minority of the House opposed, 55;
position of the two Houses with regard to the President, 91;
contest for Speaker, 92;
organization of the committees, 92;
contents of the President's message, 92;
its notice of the Panama Congress, 92;
the finances, 93;
uselessness of retaining a balance in the treasury, 93;
members of the two Houses, 93;
array of business talent, 94;
three classes of men: men of speech and judgment, men of judgment
and no speech, men of speech and no judgment, 94;
on the Committee of Bank Investigation, 241;
his position on the slavery question, 686.

_Affairs, how changed by the War of 1812, and their subsequent
aspect._--War of 1812, 1;
necessity and importance, 1;
changes it produced in American policy, 1;
state of the finances and currency under which it struggled, 1;
its termination with respect to its causes, 1;
gold ceased to be a currency, 1;
silver banished, 1;
local banks, 1;
suspension of specie payments, 1;
Treasury notes resorted to, 1;
depreciation, 1;
their use, 1;
the Government, paralyzed by the state of the finances,
forced to seek peace, 1;
impressment the cause of the declaration of the war, 1;
first time in modern history that a war terminated by a treaty
without a stipulation as to its cause, 1;
treaty of 1807, why rejected by the President, 1;
its importance, 1;
the war showed the British Government that the people of the
United States would fight on the point of impressment,
2;
no impressment since, 2;
causes of the success of the war, in spite of the empty
treasury, 2;
exemption held by right and by might, 2;
the financial lesson taught by the war, 2;
the lesson when availed of, 2;
its effects, 2.
The second Bank grew out of the war, 2;
currency of the constitution not thought of, 2;
national bank regarded as the only remedy, 2;
its constitutionality, 2;
the word "_necessary_," 2;
Hamilton's grounds for a bank, 2;
difficulties of the finances during the second war ascribed to
the want of a bank, 3;
concessions of its old opponents, 3;
many subsequently convinced the constitutional currency had not
had a fair trial, 3;
national bank shown to be unnecessary by the Mexican war, 3;
constitutional question decided, 3.
Protection of American industry as a substantive object grew out
of the war, 3;
incidental protection always acknowledged and granted, 3;
domestic manufactures wanted, during the non-importation period
of the embargo and hostilities, 3;
want of articles of defence felt during the war, 3;
protection for the sake of protection carried in 1816, 3;
course of legislation reversed, 3.
Question of internal improvements developed by the war, 3;
want of facilities for transportation felt in military
operations, 3;
the power claimed as an incident to the greatest powers, 3;
found in the word "necessary," 3;
complicated the national legislation from 1820 to 1850, 3;
the question does not extend to territories, 4;
no political rights under the constitution, 4;
rivers and harbors--internal improvement of based on the
commercial and revenue clause, 4;
the restriction contended for, 4.
Boundaries between the treaty-making power and the legislative
departments a subject of examination, 4;
the broad proposition, 4;
the qualification, 4;
a vital one, 4;
which department to judge of encroachments by the other? 4;
discussions in Congress, between 1815 and 1820, on this
point, 4.
The doctrine of secession was born of the war of 1812, 4;
the design imputed to the Hartford Convention, 4;
its existence raised the question, 4;
the right then repudiated by the democracy, 4;
language respecting it then south of the Potomac, 4;
the question thus far compromised, not settled, 5.
Slavery agitation took its rise about 1819, 5;
manner in which it was then quieted, 5;
the compromise a clear gain to the anti-slavery side, 5;
a southern measure, 5;
its features, 5.
Debt created by the war, 5;
amount of the public debt at its close, 5;
the problem to be solved was whether a public debt could be paid
in time of peace, 5.
Public distress becomes a prominent feature of subsequent
years, 5;
expansion and collapse of the bank, 5;
gloom of 1819 and 1820, 5;
commercial proceedings, 5;
legislative proceedings, 5;
distress the cry--relief the demand, 6;
good results of the war, 6.

_Amendment of the Constitution._--
Mistakes of European writers on our system of Government, 37;
Thiers and De Tocqueville, 37;
the electors but an instrument to obey the will of the
people, 37;
electors useless, 37;
amendment proposed, 37;
views of the convention which framed the constitution, 37;
Benton's remarks on a direct vote of the people for
President, 37;
"evil of the want of uniformity in the choice of Presidential
electors endangers the rights of the people, 37;
the district system, 38;
origin of the general ticket system 10 States, 38;
objection to a direct vote of the people considered, 38;
whence it is taken, 39;
admit its truth, what then? 39;
better officers elected, 39;
ancient history, 39;
triumph of popular elections, 39;
other objections to intermediate electors, 40;
time and experience condemn the continuance of the electoral
system, 40;
even if the plan of the constitution had not failed, it is
better to get rid of the electors, 40;
historical examples, 41."
An attempt to give the election of President and Vice-President
to the direct vote of the people, 78;
various propositions offered, 78;
committee appointed to report, 78;
plan reported by the committee, 78;
its prominent features, 79;
abolition of the electors and direct vote of the people--a
second election between the two highest--uniformity in
the mode of election, 79;
advantages of the plan, 79.
_Exclusion of Members of Congress from Civil Office
appointments._--
Inquiry into the expediency of amending the Constitution so as
to exclude members from appointment to civil office
moved, 82;
motion only applied to the term for which they were elected, 82;
committee report that the exclusion should extend to the
Presidential term during which the member was elected, 83;
proceedings of the convention that framed the constitution, 83;
other conventions, 83;
extracts from the proceedings of Federal Convention, 83;
early jealousy on this point, 83;
provisions for the independence of the two Houses, 83;
instance of the observance of these provisions, 84;
instance of the contrary, 84;
the Constitutional limitation a small restraint, 84;
views of the "Federalist," 84;
what has been the working of the Government? 85;
the effects of legislation, 85;
other evils resulting from the appointment of members to
office, 85;
the independence of the departments ceases between the
Executive and Legislative, 86;
examples of early Presidents, 86.

ANDERSON, RICHARD C., Jun., Representative from Kentucky, 7;
nominated minister to Panama, 66.

_Appropriation for Defences and Fortification Bill._--
Preparation recommended in the message, 554;
referred and reported on, 554;
resolved unanimously that the treaty with France be maintained and
its execution insisted on, 554;
and that preparations ought to be made to meet any emergency, 554;
appropriation of three millions inserted in the Fortification
bill, 554;
rejected in the Senate, 554;
House insist, 554;
Senate adhere, 554;
remarks of Mr. King, of Alabama, 554;
this motion never resorted to until more gentle means have
failed, 554;
are gentlemen prepared to take upon themselves such a fearful
responsibility as the rejection of this bill? 554;
in what does it violate the constitution 555;
appropriations under Washington's administration, 555;
adherence carried, 555;
conference asked by the House, 555;
committees disagree, 555;
question as to the hour of the termination of the session, 555;
remark of Mr. Cambreleng, 556;
responsibility put on the Senate, 556.

ARCHER, WILLIAM S., Representative from Virginia, 7;
on reference of the bank memorial to a select committee, 234.

_Arkansas Territory, cession of a part of to the Cherokees_--
Reasons for making her a first-class State, 107;
a treaty negotiated altering the western boundary, 107;
can a law of Congress be abolished by an Indian treaty? 107;
is it expedient to weaken the future State? 107;
supremacy of the treaty-making power considered, 107;
power in Congress to dispose of territory, 108;
the treaty ratified, 108; a southern measure, 108;
twelve thousand square miles taken off of slave territory, 108;
object to assist in inducing the removal of the Cherokees, 108;
what became of the white inhabitants, 109;
bought by the government, 109.

_Arkansas and Michigan, admission of._--
Application for an enabling act, 627;
Congress refuse to pass it, 627;
people hold conventions on their own authority and form
constitutions, 627;
message communicating the constitution of Michigan, 627;
referred, also a memorial entitled from the "Legislature of
Michigan," 627;
objection to its title, 628;
bill reported, 628;
objections, 628;
remarks of Mr. Buchanan, 628;
bill passed and sent to the House, 628;
the practice of admitting a free and slave State together, 629.
Application of Arkansas taken up, 629;
remarks of Mr. Swift against the admission, on the ground of
slavery, 629;
do. of Mr. Buchanan in favor of her admission, 629;
Prentiss opposes the admission on the ground of the
revolutionary manner in which the State had held her
convention, 630;
remarks of Mr. Morris, 630;
bill passed and sent to the House, 631.
Moved in the House to postpone the Michigan to take up the
Arkansas bill, 631;
remarks of Mr. Thomas, 631;
the point of jealousy between some Southern and Northern
members revealed, 631;
remarks on the motion to refer both bills and combine them in
one, 631;
Lewis's remarks on giving the Arkansas bill the priority of
decision, 632;
further debate, 633;
bills referred to the Committee of the Whole, 634;
points of the debate--
First, the formation of constitutions without the previous
assent of Congress;
Second, the right of aliens to vote before naturalization;
Third, the right of Arkansas to be admitted with slavery by
virtue of the rights of a State--of the treaty of
Louisiana and of the Missouri Compromise, 634, 635, 636;
an account of the session of twenty-four hours, 636;
bill put to vote, 637;
struggle to bring the bills to a vote not to pass them, 637;
causes, 637;
one special one, 637.

ASTOR, JOHN JACOB.--His colony at Astoria, 13, 109.

AUSTIN, MOSES, founder of the Texas Colony, 674.

B

BALDWIN, HENRY, Representative from Pennsylvania, 7;
coadjutor with Clay on the Missouri question, 10;
appointed Justice of the Supreme Court, 120.

_Bank of the United States._--
When charter of first expired, 1;
origin of the second, 2;
its course in 1819, 5.
Constitutionality and expediency called in question in, General
Jackson's first message, 158;
suggestion of one founded on the credit and revenues of the
Government, 158;
a gold currency and an independent treasury suggested to General
Jackson, and approved at once, 158;
cause of a resort to the deposit system, 158;
the idea of a government fiscal agent stigmatized, 158;
reports of committees, 158;
war of the bank commenced, 158;
its alliance with the opposition, 158;
its power, 158;
statement of its president, 159;
its power to ruin and destroy local banks, 159.
Ceaseless activity in behalf of the bank, since the President's
message in 1829, 187;
little done on the other side, 187;
current all setting one way, 187;
failure of attempts to counteract it, 187;
permission asked to introduce a resolution against the
re-charter, 187;
speech on the occasion, showing that the institution had too
much power over the people and the government--over
business and politics; and disposed to exercise it against
freedom and equality, 187;
proposal to revive the currency of the constitution, 187;
"willing to see the currency of the government left to the hard
money intended by the constitution," 187;
every species of paper left to the State governments, 187;
experience of France and England, 187;
a hard money party against a paper party, 187;
justification for bringing forward the question of renewal, 188;
the reports on previous resolutions offered at the close of each
session and all in favor of renewal, 188;
then followed the message of President Jackson, 188;
its reference, 188;
report, etc., 188;
the conduct of the bank and its friends second ground for
justification, 188;
these proceedings, 189;
an example drawn from the British Parliament, 189;
remarks of Sir Henry Parnell, 189;
do. of Mr. Hume, 189;
do. of Mr. Edward Ellice, 189;
do. of Sir William Pulteney, 190;
it is said the debate will injure the stockholders, depreciate
the value of their property, and that it is wrong to sport
with vested rights, 190;
the stockholders know the facts and such assertions absurd, 190;
the institution has forfeited its charter and may be shut up any
hour, 190;
the case of the Bank vs. Owens, 190;
parliamentary rule requiring members to withdraw who have an
interest in the subject of discussion, 191.
The bank is an institution too great and powerful to be tolerated
in a government of free and equal laws, 191;
on renewal, its direct power must speedily become boundless and
uncontrollable, 191;
authorized to own and issue ninety millions, 191;
its indirect power, 191;
to whom is all this power granted? 191;
by whom is it to be exercised? 191;
it will become the absolute monopolist of American money, 191;
what happened in Great Britain in 1795, 192;
letter of the bank directors to Pitt, 192;
condition of Great Britain at that time, 192;
it subdued the minister to the purposes of the bank, 192;
for twenty years the bank was the dominant power in
England, 192;
cannot the Bank of the United States act in the same way? 192.
Its tendencies are dangerous and pernicious to the government and
the people, 192;
the heads of each mischief, 192, 193.
The exclusive privileges and anti-republican monopoly which it
gives the stockholders, 193;
the exclusive legal privileges it gives, 193;
twelve enumerated, 194;
their effect and bearing, 194;
compensation made by the Bank of England for undrawn balances,
194;
amount of undrawn balances, 194;
injury suffered by the people on account of the uncompensated
masses of public money in the hands of the bank, 195;
to discredit and disparage the notes of all other banks by
excluding them from the collection of the revenue, 196;
the power to hold real estate, receive rents, &c., 197;
effect of this vast capacity to acquire and legal power to
retain real estate, 197;
the power to deal in pawns, merchandise, and bills of
exchange, 198;
to establish branches in the different States without their
consent and in defiance of their resistance, 199;
exemption of the stockholders from individual liability, 199;
to have the United States for a partner, 200;
extract from the speech of Pulteney, 200;
amount of stock owned by foreigners, 201;
exemptions from due course of law for violations of its
charter, 201;
these privileges secured by a pledge of the public faith to
charter no other bank, 202;
the government from which we have made this copy has condemned
the original, 202;
correspondence between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the
Bank directors, 203;
how was this Babylon prostrated? 204;
effect of the speech, 204;
how it was received, 204;
leave refused, 205.

Statement that the bank has failed in furnishing a uniform
currency, 220;
it vicious and illegal currency, 220;
origin of the practice, 220;
leave to bring in a resolution declaring it illegal asked
for, 220;
reasons, 220;
"the resolution expresses its own object, 221;
the currency arraigned, 221;
the points of incompatibility between this currency and the
requisites of the charter, 221;
fourteen points stated, 221;
the currency fails at every test, 221;
these orders cannot serve as currency because they are subject
to the law of endorsed paper, 222;
being once paid they are done with, 222;
operations of the bank in 1817, 222;
origin of the branch bank orders, 223;
this currency ought to be suppressed, 223;
the fact of illegality sufficient to require it, 223;
pernicious consequences result from it, 223;
the branch bank orders are not payable in the States in which
they are issued, 223;
practice of the Bank of Ireland, 224;
leave refused, 224.

Message of the President in 1829-30, 224;
its remarks relative to the bank, 224;
the position of the constitutional question, 224;
the democracy opposed not only the bank but the latitudinarian
construction which would authorize it, 225;
it was the turning point between a strong and splendid
government on one side and a plain economical government
on the other, limited by a written constitution, 225;
the construction was the main point, 225;
effect of the message on the democracy of the country, 225;
the contest at hand, 225;
violent attacks upon the President, 226;
remark of M. Tocqueville on President Jackson and the bank, 226;
every word an error, 226;
examined, 226;
application for a renewal of the charter when and why made, 226;
action of friends of Jackson and the bank, 227;
memorial for renewal presented, 227;
course of events, 227;
error of De Tocqueville exposed, 228;
another extract, 228;
its errors exposed, 229;
consequences of refusing the re-charter, 229.

_Re-charter._--Convention of the National Republicans to
nominate a President, 232;
the nominations, 232;
addresses of the convention, 232;
remarks relative to the-bank, 232;
"its beneficial character, 232;
no pretext of any adequate motive is assigned for the
President's denunciation, 233;
are the people ready to destroy one of their most valuable
institutions to gratify the caprice of the
President? 233."