VIII. INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AND SECTIONAL DIVERGENCE: 1829-50.
New political methods.202. The eight years after 1829 have been called “the reign of Andrew Jackson”; his popularity, his long struggle for the presidency, and his feeling of his official ownership of the subordinate offices gave to his administration at least an appearance of Cæsarism. But it was a strictly constitutional Cæsarism; the restraints of written law were never violated, though the methods adopted within the law were new to national politics. Since about 1800 State politics in New York and Pennsylvania had been noted for the systematic use of the offices and for the merciless manner in which the office-holder was compelled to work for the party which kept him in place. The presence of New York and Pennsylvania politicians in Jackson's cabinet taught him to use the same system. Removals, except for cause, had been almost unknown before; but under Jackson men were removed almost exclusively for the purpose of installing some more serviceable party tool; and a clean sweep was made in the civil service. Other parties adopted the system, and it has remained the rule at a change of administration until comparatively recent years (§ 323).
The new organization of parties.203. The system brought with it a semi-military reorganization of parties. Hitherto nominations for the more important offices had been made mainly by legislative caucuses; candidates for president and vice-president were nominated by caucuses of Congressmen, and candidates for the higher State offices by caucuses of the State legislatures. Late in the preceding period “conventions” of delegates from the members of the party in the State occur in New York and Pennsylvania; and in 1831-32 this became the rule for presidential nominations. It rapidly developed into systematic State, county, and city “conventions”; and the result was the appearance of that complete political machinery, the American political party, with its local organizations, and its delegates to county, State, and national conventions. The Democratic machinery was the first to appear, in Jackson's second term (1833-37). Its workers were paid in offices, or hopes of office, so that it was said to be built on the “cohesive power of public plunder”; but its success was immediate and brilliant. The opposing party, the Whig party, had no chance of victory in 1836; and its complete overthrow drove its leaders into the organization of a similar machinery of their own, which scored its first success in 1840. Since that time these strange bodies, unknown to the law, have governed the country by turns; and their enormous growth has steadily made the organization of a third piece of such machinery more difficult or hopeless.
Bank of the United States.204. The Bank of the United States had hardly been heard of in politics until the new Democratic organization came into hostile contact with it. A semi-official demand upon it for a political appointment was met by a refusal; and the party managers called Jackson's attention to an institution which he could not but dislike the more he considered it. His first message spoke of it in unfriendly terms, and every succeeding message brought a more open The Whig party. attack. The old party of Adams and Clay had by this time taken the name of Whigs, probably from the notion that they were struggling against “the reign of Andrew Jackson,” and they adopted the cause of the bank with eagerness. The bank charter did not expire until 1836, but in 1832 Clay brought up a bill for a new charter. It was passed and vetoed (§ 113); and the Whigs went into the presidential election of that year on the veto. They were beaten; Jackson was re-elected; and the bank party could never again get a majority in the house of representatives for the charter. The insistence of the president on the point that the charter was a “monopoly” bore weight with the people. But the president could not obtain a majority in the senate. He determined to take a step which would give him an initiative, and which his opponents could not induce both houses to unite in Removal of the deposits. overriding or punishing. Taking advantage of the provision that the secretary of the treasury might order the public funds to be deposited elsewhere than in the bank or its branches (§ 184), he directed the secretary to deposit all the public funds elsewhere. Thus deprived of its great source of dividends, the bank fell into difficulties, became a State bank after 1836, and then went into bankruptcy.
205. All the political conflicts of Jackson's terms of office were close and bitter. Loose in his ideas before 1829, Jackson shows a steady tendency to adopt the strictest construction of the powers of the Federal Government, except in such official perquisites as the offices. He Opposition to the “American system.” grew into strong opposition to all traces of the “American system,” and vetoed bills for internal improvements unsparingly; and his feeling of dislike to all forms of protection is as evident, though he took more care not to make it too public. There are many reasons for believing that his drift was the work of a strong school of leaders—Van Buren, Benton (p. 788), Livingston, Taney (p. 790), Woodbury (p. 790), Cass, Marcy (p. 789), and others who developed the policy of the party, and controlled it until the great changes of parties about 1850 took their power from them. At all events, some persistent influence made the Democratic party of 1830-50 the most consistent and successful party which had thus far appeared in the United States.
Calhoun and Jackson.206. Calhoun and Jackson were of the same stock—Scottish-Irish,—much alike in appearance and characteristics, the former representing the trained and educated logic of the race, the latter its instincts and passions. Jackson was led to break off his friendly relations with Calhoun in 1830, and he had been led to do so more easily because of the appearance of the doctrine of nullification, which was generally attributed, correctly enough, to the authorship of Calhoun. Asserting, as the Republican party of 1798 had done, the sovereign powers of each State, Calhoun held that, as a means of avoiding secession and violent struggle upon every occasion of the passage of an Act of Congress which should seem unconstitutional to any State, Nullification. the State might properly suspend or “nullify” the operation of the law within its jurisdiction, in order to protect its citizens against oppression. Webster, of Massachusetts, and Hayne, of South Carolina, debated the question in the senate in 1830, and the supporters of each claimed a virtual victory for their leader. The passage of the Tariff Act of 1832, which organized and systematized the protective system, forced the Calhoun party into action. A State convention in South Carolina declared the Tariff Act null and not law or binding on the people of the State, and made ready to enforce the declaration.
207. But the time was past when the power of a single State could withdraw it from the Union. The president issued a proclamation, warning the people of South Carolina against any attempt to carry out the ordinance of nullification; he ordered a naval force to take possession of Charleston harbour to collect the duties under the Act; he called upon Congress for additional executive powers, and Congress passed what nullifiers called the “bloody bill,” putting the land and naval forces at the disposal of the president for the collection of duties against “unlawful combinations;” and he is said to have announced, privately and profanely, his intention of making Calhoun the first victim of any open conflict. Affairs looked so threatening that an unofficial meeting of “leading nullifiers” agreed to suspend the operation of the ordinance until Congress should adjourn; whence it derived the right to suspend has never been stated.
