a maximum of twenty per cent, all the while feeling himself to be a thorough American “at heart.”
After a long debate Clay's tariff resolution was adopted, and in June, 1832, a bill substantially in accord with it passed both houses, known as the tariff act of 1832. It reduced or abolished the duties on many of the unprotected articles, but left the protective system without material change. As a reduction of the revenue it effected very little. The income of the government for the year was about thirty millions; its expenditures, exclusive of the public debt, somewhat over thirteen millions; the prospective surplus, after the payment of the debt, more than sixteen millions. The reduction proposed by Clay, according to his own estimate, was not over seven millions; the reduction really effected by the new tariff law scarcely exceeded three millions. Clay had saved the American system at the expense of the very object contemplated by the measure. It was extremely short-sighted statesmanship. The surplus was as threatening as ever, and the dissatisfaction in the South grew from day to day.
One of the important incidents of the session was the rejection by the Senate of the nomination of Martin Van Buren as Minister to England. Van Buren was one of Jackson's favorites. He had stood by Jackson when other members of the cabinet refused to take the presidential view of Mrs. Eaton's virtue. He had greatly facilitated that dissolution of the Cabinet which Jackson had
