would be. Large meetings of free-traders as well as of protectionists were held to influence legislation.
President Jackson had vetoed the “Marysville Road Bill,” and thereby declared his hostility to the policy of internal improvements. With regard to the proceedings of the State of Georgia against the Cherokees, President Jackson had submitted to the extreme state-sovereignty pretensions of the state, in disregard — it might be said, in defiance — of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States.
A great commotion had arisen in South Carolina against the tariff laws, leading to the promulgation of the doctrine that any single state had the power to declare a law of the United States unconstitutional, void, and not binding, — the so-called nullification theory. Webster had thrilled the country with his celebrated plea for Liberty and Union in his reply to Hayne, winning a “noble triumph,” as Clay called it in a letter. Jackson had, at a banquet on Jefferson's birthday, in April 1830, given an indication of the spirit aroused in him, by offering the famous toast, “Our Federal Union: it must be preserved.”
Jackson had declared hostilities against Vice-President Calhoun in consequence of the discovery that Calhoun, as a member of Monroe's Cabinet, had condemned Jackson's proceedings in the Seminole war of 1818. In June, 1831, the whole Cabinet had resigned, or rather been compelled to re-
