ports of this State, or any of them, or otherwise obstructing the free ingress and egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act on the part of the federal government, to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her commerce, or to enforce the acts hereby declared to be null and void, otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union; and that the people of this State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do.

"Done in convention at Columbia, the twenty-fourth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirtytwo, and in the fifty-seventh year of the declaration of the independence of the United States of America."

This ordinance placed the State in the attitude of open, forcible resistance to the laws of the United States, to take effect on the first day of February next ensuing—a period within which it was hardly possible for the existing Congress, even if so disposed, to ameliorate obnoxious laws; and a period a month earlier than the commencement of the legal existence of the new Congress, on which all reliance was placed. And in the meantime, if any attempt should be made in any way to enforce the obnoxious laws except through her own tribunals sworn against them, the fact of such attempt was to terminate the continuance of South Carolina in the Union-to absolve her from all connection with the federal government-and to establish her as a separate government, not only unconnected with the United States, but unconnected with any one State. This ordinance, signed by more than a hundred citizens of the greatest respectability, was officially communicated to the President of the United States; and a case presented to him. to test his patriotism, his courage, and his fidelity to his inauguration oath an oath taken in the presence of God and man, of Heaven and earth, "to take care that the laws of the Union were faithfully executed." That President was Jackson; and the event soon proved, what in fact no one doubted, that he was not false to his duty, his country and his oath. Without calling on Congress for extraordinary powers, he merely adverted in his annual message to the attitude of the State, and proceeded to meet the exigency by the exercise of the powers he already possessed.-Benton, "Thirty Years' View."

VIII 18

ANDREW JACKSON

ANDREW JACKSON was born on the border between North and South Carolina, March 15, 1767. His education hardly included reading, writing and arithmetic. Although only a boy he was carried as a prisoner to Camden by the British and cut with an officer's sword because he would not turn bootblack. His father had died before his birth and his mother and two brothers died from hardship during the war. Thus left alone in the world he worked a while for a saddler, then tried to study law in Salisbury. He was said to have been "the most roaring, rollicking, game-cocking, horse-racing, card-playing, mischievous" youngster in town. He was admitted to the bar in 1786 and in 1788 removed to Nashville. Washington appointed him attorney for the new Territory of Tennessee in 1790. He was Representative from the new State in 1796 and Senator in 1797; from 1798 to 1804 he was one of the Chief Justices of the State. From 1804 to 1812 he lived on his farm, but his irascible temper involved him in several duels, in one of which he killed his opponent.

Since 1801 he had been at the head of the Tennessee militia and in 1812 volunteered for the war. In the Creek War Jackson in conjunction with Col. Coffee won a number of victories that gave him a national reputation. He was made a Major-General of the army, defended Mobile, seized Pensacola and immediately transferred his command to defend New Orleans (1814).

The British expedition against Louisiana was the most formidable of the war, and was intended to win the territory west of the Mississippi permanently.

Wellington's brother-in-law, General Packingham, with 12,000 of Wellington's veterans had been sent to do the work. Jackson had 6,000 Kentucky and Tennessee riflemen. On January 8th, the British made a direct assault, but were repulsed with the fearful loss of 2,600 killed and wounded while Jackson's loss was 8 killed and 13 wounded.

In 1817 Jackson followed the Seminoles into Florida and practically took possession of the country. His act aroused great criticism, but the

matter was settled by Spain selling the Floridas to the United States. In 1824 he was nominated by his state legislature for the Presidency, but although he had the greatest number of electoral votes, yet when the election devolved upon the House the adherents of Clay and Adams combined to elect Adams. Jackson by this time had become the representative of the new Western Democracy and was by far the most popular man in the country. His democratic ideas stopped the selection of electors by state legislatures and brought in the system of caucuses and conventions.

In 1828 he was elected President. One of his first acts was to discharge the office-holders under his control and appoint his own adherents. His main justification is that he believed there was growing up an office-holding class.

Jackson was no believer in protective tariffs, yet the friends of nullification found themselves rudely disillusioned when they imagined he would support them in defying the laws. Jackson's prompt measures in South Carolina ended the possibility of any one State annulling a National law or seceding from the Union.

Jackson was re-elected in 1832. In 1833 he removed the deposits from the National bank; thus forcing it finally to take refuge under the Pennsylvania law. It is but fair to Jackson to say that the bank afterward suspended payment during the panic in 1837, again in 1839, and finally in 1840, when it was found that there was nothing left for the stockholders.

Jackson died June 8, 1845. His last years were as tranquil as the first were strenuous. He has been fiercely assailed, and it is unquestionable that he was a man of violent temper and obstinate independence, but he was certainly a great general and his public acts, although many of them were done with a sort of rash promptness, have had an enormous influence in strengthening and enlarging the Union and the power of the people.

PROCLAMATION AGAINST NULLIFICATION

The ordinance of nullification reached President Jackson in the first days of December, and on the tenth of that month the proclamation was issued, of which the following are the essential and leading parts:

"Whereas a convention assembled in the State of South Carolina

have passed an ordinance, by which they declare 'that the several acts and parts of acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws for the imposing of duties and imposts on the importation of foreign commodities, and now having actual operation and effect within the United States, and more especially' two acts for the same purposes, passed on the 29th of May, 1828, and on the 14th of July, 1832, ‘are unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof, and are null and void, and no law,' nor binding on the citizens of that State, or its officers: and by the said ordinance it is further declared to be unlawful for any of the constituted authorities of the State or of the United States to enforce the payment of the duties imposed by the said acts within the same State, and that it is the duty of the legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary to give full effect to the said ordinance:

"And whereas, by the said ordinance, it is further ordained, that in no case of law or equity decided in the courts of said State, wherein shall be drawn in question the validity of the said ordinance, or of the acts of the legislature that may be passed to give it effect, or of the said laws of the United States, no appeal shall be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States, nor shall any copy of the record be permitted or allowed for that purpose, and that any person attempting to take such appeal shall be punished as for a contempt of court:

“And, finally, the said ordinance declares that the people of South Carolina will maintain the said ordinance at every hazard; and that they will consider the passage of any act by Congress, abolishing or closing the ports of the said State, or otherwise obstructing the free ingress or egress of vessels to and from the said ports, or any other act of the federal government to coerce the State, to shut up her ports, destroy or harass her commerce, or to enforce the said acts otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union; and that the people of the said State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connection with the people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right do:

"And whereas the said ordinance prescribes to the people of South Carolina a course of conduct in direct violation of their duty as citizens of the United States, contrary to the laws of their country, sub

versive of its Constitution, and having for its object the destruction of the Union-that Union which, coeval with our political existence, led our fathers, without any other ties to unite them than those of patriotism and a common cause, through a sanguinary struggle to a glorious independence that sacred Union, hitherto inviolate, which, perfected by our happy Constitution, has brought us, by the favor of Heaven, to a state of prosperity at home, and high consideration abroad, rarely, if ever, equaled in the history of nations: To preserve this bond of our political existence from destruction, to maintain inviolate this state of national honor and prosperity, and to justify the confidence my fellowcitizens have reposed in me, I, Andrew Jackson, President of the United States, have thought proper to issue this my proclamation, stating my views of the Constitution and laws applicable to the measures adopted by the convention of South Carolina, and to the reasons they have put forth to sustain them, declaring the course which duty will require me to pursue, and, appealing to the understanding and patriotism of the people, warn them of the consequences that must inevitably result from an observance of the dictates of the convention.

"Strict duty would require of me nothing more than the exercise of those powers with which I am now, or may hereafter be, invested, for preserving the peace of the Union, and for the execution of the laws. But the imposing aspect which opposition has assumed in this case, by clothing itself with State authority, and the deep interest which the people of the United States must feel in preventing a resort to stronger measures, while there is a hope that anything will be yielded to reasoning and remonstrance, perhaps demanded, and will certainly justify a full exposition to South Carolina and the nation of the views I entertain of this important question, as well as a distinct enunciation of the course which my sense of duty will require me to pursue.

"The ordinance is founded, not on the indefeasible right of resisting acts which are plainly unconstitutional and too oppressive to be endured, but on the strange position that any one State may not only declare an act of Congress void, but prohibit its execution; that they may do this consistently with the Constitution; that the true construction of that instrument permits a State to retain its place in the Union, and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may choose to consider as constitutional. It is true, they add, that to justify this abrogation of a law, it must be palpably contrary to the Constitution; but it is evident, that to give the right of resisting laws of that description,