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scars bear attestation to his violent prowess. As a legislator he had not distinguished himself, unless it may be in the characteristic threat to cut off the ears of an unlucky member of Congress, who had ventured to inquire somewhat too closely into the legality of his acts. He made no pretensions to learning or scholarship of any kind; indeed his education was superficial, and but barely sufficient to conduct him decently through life. Such was the history and character of the man who was chosen to preside over a government of seventeen millions of people, as enlightened, at least, as any other portion of the world.

The history of his administration forms a counterpart to his military career and his private life. He entered upon the discharge of the duties of his high office, doubtless, with an honest desire to serve his country faithfully, and with the intention of observing strict justice and equity in regard to men and measures. But the affairs of a great nation, and the diversified interests of a widely-extended country, could not be managed without many differences of opinion arising between the two great parties, nor indeed without creating serious dissensions in the dominant party itself. The plans and policy of the President did not by any means meet with universal favor; and at the first serious opposition his wrath was kindled. He could never forget or forgive any one who had placed an obstacle in his path from the conception to the accomplishment of a design. Establishing his own opinion as the law of the land, he regarded every man as a villain who withstood his will. Bold measures, hastily conceived, and entered upon with little apparent deliberation, were pertinaciously adhered to, and crammed down the throats of his partisans-not without some grimaces and contortions of countenance. Obedience to the commands of the party had become a settled law; and as the party derived its vitality and strength from the character and energy of its chief, his simple word was in all controverted cases held paramount to the Constitution. In the matter of infallibility, he was allowed precedence of the Pope. The voice of the people, expressed through their legally chosen representatives, was to him and his adherents as an idle wind the behests of sovereign States, conveyed through their senatorial guardians, were equally ineffectual.

At one time the Constitution-the organic law of the land-is not broad enough to meet his purposes. He gives to its provisions an interpretation of such latitudinarian scope as to astonish a section even of his allies, and their anathemas, neither few nor indistinctly uttered, are brought down upon him. At another time he is found to be so far a strict constructionist as to refuse the exercise of those discretionary powers which for great ends have been wisely deposited in the government. It was expected, of course, that he would fill all the chief posts of executive trust with occupants friendly to his interests, and holding similarity of views. Harmony in the government would require this, to say nothing of the policy and propriety of the course on other grounds. But the Dictator went far beyond this point. Acting upon the principle that the honors and emoluments of office were spoils to be awarded to the victors in the political arena, and treating all who were of another party as enemies to their country, he thrust out the thousands of incumbents from the petty posts scattered from Maine to Georgia, and from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. This was done irrespective of their character, services, and situation, till there was hardly a postmaster or petty tide-waiter in office who had not blown his penny trumpet in honor of the victorious chief, or lisped with becoming reverence and precision the shibboleth of "the party." It is conceded that there was no violation of the Constitution or of express law in this course; but it was a breach of propriety and a stretch of authority altogether beyond precedent. The effects of this system of rewards and punishment are yet subsisting and apparent: we even fear the practice has become a settled principle in the political code. Its effects are clearly disastrous. It has rendered all our political contests more bitter and acrimonious, corrupted the hearts of thousands with the hopes of gain, and driven the dictates of patriotism and the love of justice into a place of secondary importance in the view of multitudes. Patriotism and the love of place do not go hand in hand. If office be the sure reward of partisan fealty and devotion, hypocrisy and a contempt of the well-being of society will most surely follow. For this innovation in our political system the country must render due thanks to Gen. Jackson. That he was besieged

by a host of applicants clamorous for benefactions, and often violated his own views of propriety to favor a friend, is no doubt true; but this does not lessen the evil nor diminish the responsibility resting with him. He was the President of the nation, but he had not virtue enough to forget that he was the chief of a party. The Whigs contended against the introduction of this system, sternly and consistently; but the power of a longdominant, corrupt party in a commonwealth to establish-it may be forevera custom or a tendency unprincipled in its nature, and demoralizing to the people, has not thus for the first time been signally displayed.

Personal pique undoubtedly added in some degree to the violence of General Jackson's course, and gave a determinating character to many of the measures of his administration. An enemy was at the head of one of the branches of the late United States Bank. The President failed to influence his removal, and procure the appointment of a friend. The friends and managers of the bank did not consult him in regard to the provisions of the new charter applied for, and he had not succeeded in bringing that institution under his control. Impetuous in all things, defying all things, whether of gods or men, this was an opposition to his sultanic will by no means to be endured. He commenced forthwith a war of words and measures against that illstarred corporation, in which he was backed by all the powers of the government, and aided by all the arts of his shrewd advisers. They first destroyed its business and threw discredit and suspicion upon its solvency, never before suspected; then by crippling the resources and business interests of the country, they weakened its securities and impeded the collection of its vast and extended claims, till by a series of calamities and governmental hostilities beating upon it, the great fiscal institution of the country fell, irretrievably to the ground, and great was the fall of it. In its ruins were crushed the fortunes of hundreds of widows, and orphans, of innocent men, women, and children, whose entire means of subsistence were embarked in its immense capital. This bank had been chartered by Mr. Madison, than whom a better man or a purer patriot never exercised power in the Republic; and it had been sustained and aided by nearly all the other Republicans of the day. And it must be

remembered that Gen. Jackson himself did not then profess to be opposed in principle to a bank, but to the bank; for he expressly declared that if application had been made to him, he could have given Congress a plan for a national bank which would have accomplished the desired end. It was reserved to the patent Democrats of a later day to reach that sublimation of political wisdom which perceives certain ruin in a fiscal charter, federalism in a paper dollar, and rank treason in an innocent bill of exchange. Gen. Jackson was something of a Democrat in his day, but he had not attained this degree of acute discrimination. He was strongly in favor of the State banks, fostered them by all the appliances in his power, induced the creation of hundreds in the place of one, and left the currency of the country in a state of hopeless depreciation.

The destruction of the United States Bank was in reality the great measure of his administration. We may look in vain for any important principle settled by him, or any new theory brought forward, except in regard to the currency. In the management of our foreign interests, the honor of the country was protected, and our relations were generally maintained with dignity and caution. There was one notable instance of impropriety, but that was the error of Mr. Van Buren, his Secretary of State. We allude to the unwarrantable and uncalled-for introduction of our internal political divisions into his official correspondence with Great Britain. This was a proceeding without precedent, in every point of view indefensible, and a disgrace to its author. Whatever may be our internal dissensions, towards all other nations the American people should present an undivided front. National dignity and self-respect require the strict observance of this rule-the honor of the people demands it. In impugning the acts of his predecessors, aspersing their motives before the world, and calumniating a large section if not a great majority of his countrymen, Mr. Van Buren, from his high station, ventured to practise the petty arts which a village demagogue might emulate, but which no enlightened statesman of any party could ever countenance. For this unworthy act, the United States Senate rejected his nomination as Minister to England, and most justly; and this, we predict, will be the decision of every intelligent and impartial mind, when all personal

considerations connected with the question and the times shall be forgotten. Gen. Jackson deemed the castigation which his secretary received as reflecting an indignity upon himself. What could he do but enter the lists in support of his favorite, with his usual vigor?

While the followers of Gen. Jackson were vociferating their attachment to democracy, and the "largest liberty," the old chieftain was gradually seizing into his own hands all the powers of the government. He needed only a control over the Senate to have established an absolute despotism. As far as its constitutional rights would allow, that dignified body interposed its authority to check the experiments and violent acts of the executive. His denunciations of its members rung through the length and breadth of the land, were echoed with avidity by the partisan press, and formed the theme of factious declamation at Tammany Hall, and from the rostrums of the club-rooms. The U. S. Senate is a constitutional and competent part of the government, with rights and privileges as well defined as those of the executive; and we have yet to learn what rule of law, or of propriety even, was violated by it during that period. Yet a stranger in the country, from the frequency and violence of those denunciations, might well have supposed that the Senate was a tyrannical body, established and supported by foreign enemies, and bent upon the destruction of the government. Not content with the immense patronage in the hands of the executive, the influence of which reaches to the extremest limits of the confederacy; not satisfied with the control of the army and navy, nor with a majority in the House of Representatives, which generally registered his decrees with punctilious servility; Gen. Jackson exercised an absolute mastery over the Treasury, and through that sought to reach the interests and business of the whole people. He wished to regulate the laws of trade, to fix the limits of individual credit and enterprise, and to keep all conditions and classes of people subservient to executive control. This is no fanciful picture; the tendency of his measures to centralize the whole force of the government in his own person was marked and apparent. It is needless to say, that the Whig party opposed the dangerous innovations, and sought to protect the people from the injurious effects of violent changes.

With all his obstinacy and independence, Gen. Jackson was easily controlled by a few designing men who had their own sinister ends in view. Mr. Van Buren, with his usual felicity, had gained a commanding influence over him. His ungovernable passions were played upon in such a way, that while he thought himself the most Roman of the Romans, he became the mere tool of one of the subtlest of demagogues; and it was soon apparent that a suggestion from that plausible gentleman was sufficient to gain for any new design a ready adoption in the breast of the Dictator. How skilfully that influence was exerted has now become matter of history. At the call of the magician, "spirits came from the vasty deep," that under better influences would never have seen the light. In the ranks of his own party Mr. Van Buren had many enemies of no mean character and standing. They were all driven from executive favor with as much seeming zeal and alacrity as if they had been open enemies of the republic. As no situation in life, no high degree of ability and attainments, is absolute proof against intrigue and cunning machination, Mr. Van Buren was soon left without a rival either in the cabinet, or in the ranks of the party. Mr. Calhoun was distanced in the race, and finally driven over to the opposition with a great show of indignation and obloquy. Senators White and Rives were disposed of in a manner equally summary; one cabinet was dismissed without ceremony, and on the most frivolous pretexts, and another was overawed and forced into submission. It may have been purely accidental, but it was a singular circumstance, that in all these commotions and difficulties, whilst other gentlemen were discarded, outcast, overwhelmed, Mr. Van Buren was strengthening his position, and gathering force to reach the station already long occupied in mind by his anticipative ambition. We will not insinuate that he flattered the vanity of the President, or pandered to his prejudices and passions, nor that he used unworthy means to displace his rivals: those who know the habits and character of both will draw their own conclusions. But be this as it may, the last three years of President Jackson's term were employed, it would seem, almost entirely in preparing the way for the succession of the favorite. He had time, however, to make a fierce war upon the State banks, which had sprung up

almost under his supervision, certainly under that of his party. The rays of his indignation were all the fiercer as they radiated from the remains of one dead "monster," and fell upon the sleek and well-fed corpora pingua of a thousand little ones, so recently the objects of his especial care. An exclusively metallic currency, and a return to the age of iron had now become the desire of his heart, and with this measure bequeathed to his successor his administration closed. He had come into power on a wave of popularity, whose reflux had buried many of his truest friends; the country had begun to groan under the weight of his measures; but the power of his name, and the unscrupulous use of executive appliances, were still sufficient to elevate Martin Van Buren to the Presidency.

The Whig party at that time confined its exertions principally to preserve the balance of power between the different branches of the government, as the Constitution had wisely left it. The concentration of all the powers of the government in the hands of one man, was an innovation too dangerous to the safety of our institutions to be sanctioned or permitted. They also endeavored to protect the business interests of the country from the ruin which it was too truthfully predicted would follow the sudden and violent changes recommended by the executive. Exercising a conservative influence then as now, they desired to see the resources of the country developed, and to place the agricultural, mechanic, and manufacturing interests on such a basis as to defy the competition of foreign pauper labor, and the hostility of foreign legislation. The great and distinguishing measures which then divided the two parties are not now in issue before the people. We may dismiss the administration of General Jackson with the remark, that when left to his own better judgment, he acted honestly and uprightly; but passion and deep prejudices intervened, he was illadvised and moved by insidious arts and practices, and we believe it not unjust to say, that no President has left so bad an example to posterity. The country owes him a debt of gratitude for his services in the field; and for these he will be remembered by the American people so long as the broad savannahs of the South shall extend their surface to the sun, or the waters of the Mississippi roll down to

the ocean. We would not detract to the smallest degree from his just claims to respect, but there are points in his civil career which cannot be passed over without the severest condemnation.

The advent of Mr. Van Buren did not at first materially change the situation of parties. He commenced his administration with a formal declaration of his principles at his inauguration. It was really void of meaning except as to one point, and in regard to that he was peculiarly unfortunate. He undertook in advance to veto any law that the National Legislature in its wisdom might enact in reference to a particular subject. The design of this was obvious, and its impropriety equally so. We speak of this without any reference to the merits of that question, in itself considered, and merely as to the promise of the President in advance of legislative action. It conciliated no interests, and displeased if it did not disgust all right-thinking men. All that any party could require of the President was to see that the laws were faithfully administered, and the Constitution of the country observed in all the departments under his control. The caution which he had displayed through life seemed to have deserted him at the very moment when it was most needed. Sagacity and shrewdness were the great characteristics of the man. Never to commit himself upon any great measure so far as to preclude the possibility of advocating either side of the question, unless the popularity of the measure was certain, appears to have been his settled rule. Always plausible, always circumspect and wary, feeling his way by inches, and appearing to follow rather than to lead in the track of popular sentiment, Mr. Van Buren had become the first political tactician of the day. There were no commanding traits in his character at all calculated to enlist the popular enthusiasm in his support; but possessing decided abilities, great experience, and an intuitive appreciation of character, he was always looked up to as a safe pilot by those who were ambitious of distinction and power in political life. No man could foil an enemy or deceive a friend with a better grace; and he had the art to do this in such a manner as to be himself, not unsuspected, but unconvicted. The blow fell, but the hand was invisible. Mr. Van Buren was a lawyer by profession, and attained a high standing at the bar.

He was a politician from choice, and the whole energies of his mind were from the first devoted to political strategy. Combining the carefulness of a special pleader with the tact of an advocate, he effected and controlled a more perfect political organization in his native State than has ever existed in this country. By the force of this organization he derived his power. Through it he could, and did, exclude every man from office who stood in his way, manufactured "public opinion" to meet any possible emergency, give to his suggestions the imperiousness of law, and yet completely cover up the while both from the general public and from the common ranks of his own soldiery, at once the movers and the designs. His chief officers were carefully posted with speaking trumpets in various sections of the State. His drillsergeants were at every corner of the streets, presided over his primary meetings, and packed his conventions with accommodating delegates. By these means perfect uniformity of action was attained; and the future occupant of the Curule chair succeeded for a series of years in controlling the destinies of the first State in the Republic. It may not be uninstructive to exhibit this precious system in detail; we will give an outline of it, though we have not space to do justice to the subject.

We may remark, in the first place, that all individual opinions, all personal considerations were to be abandoned, and the "good of the party" made the prominent point of observance. Individual will, and the liberty of speech and action, were as completely subjugated under this system as they were under the religious system of Ignatius Loyola. To speak or to write in advance of the action of the central junto, was a capital sin; and when the central power had fulminated its decrees, political death was the punishment unhesitatingly inflicted on the disobedient. A State committee was organized at the Capital, whose functions were to mark out the ground for action, select the officers of the day, and define their duties. Subsidiary to this was a central committee in every county in the State, and under the supervision of the county committee were sub-committees in every ward, parish,and town. When the word of command was given, the order reached the various outposts at once, and action was commenced through the whole country long before

the public at the Capital had any intimation of a movement. If a Governor or other high officer of State was to be elected and the particular individual designated for the station, the first indication of action would appear in the shape of a recommendatory article in the columns of a newspaper at some remote point, soon followed by others of a like character in an opposite quarter. These would thicken, until at last the central organ at the Capital, with a prodigious show of candor and disinterestedness, would re-echo this spontaneous burst of "public sentiment," and with a vast deal of coyness and simple-hearted honesty, venture to give its laudatory opinion. If there was any danger apprehended from independent men, preparation was made for a nominating convention; and in the construction of such a convention, the machinery of the party was admirably arranged. Each town, ward, and parish sent delegates to a county convention, each county convention elected a prescribed number of representatives to a State convention, and this body made nominations for all State offices. At the primary meetings in the towns the faithful servants of the junto were always in attendance, and took a controlling interest in the proceedings; and the character of all the conventions was thus easily determined, till at last the State convention found the labor completed to its hands, having merely to sanction what appeared to be the general choice; and the nominations thus effected were supported at the elections by all the force and power of the united body. The lesser offices in the State were distributed in proportion to party services rendered; the important stations were always filled by those who moved the wires of the great machine. If there was danger of opposition from any of the lesser lights, some soft appliance, in the shape of office, was employed, and the rebellious spirit quieted. But if a man of character and standing, who was beyond the reach of a bribe, ventured to act independent of this insidious power, to abide by what he felt, to express an opinion of his own, he suddenly found himself branded along the whole line, from Lake Erie to the Hudson, with new and choice epithets, and compelled to flee to the opposition in self-defence.

This was the system of Martin Van Buren-the admired organization-the boasted "union of the democracy." By

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