I can get it

Andrew Jackson was elected president in eighteen twenty-eight. He was popular with voters. But he was not sure he wanted to run for re-election in eighteen thirty-two. He was getting old. He suffered from health problems. Yet he wanted to give voters a chance to show their approval of his programs.

So Jackson made a decision. He would run again. If he won, however, he would resign after the first or second year. He would leave the job to his vice president.

President Jackson spoke of this plan to the man he wanted as his vice president, Martin Van Buren. He made the offer in eighteen thirty, when Van Buren was still his secretary of state. Van Buren thanked Jackson for the offer. However, he rejected it. Van Buren said it would be politically dangerous. He did not want anyone to say that he had been brought into the presidency in secret.

Jackson did not give up his idea. For more than a year, he continued to urge Van Buren to accept the offer. Van Buren continued to say no. He agreed to be Jackson's vice presidential candidate in eighteen thirty-two. But he said he did not want to become president without being elected by the people.

As the election got closer, Jackson's health began to improve. He began to think about serving a second full term.

One thing that helped was an operation to remove a bullet from his arm. He had received the wound during a gun fight with another man about twenty years earlier. It troubled him so badly that sometimes he could not use the arm. Doctors were afraid to remove the bullet. They thought it might cause a terrible shock to his heart.

Early in the election year, a doctor said he believed the bullet could be removed easily. He told the president that it was poisoning his whole body. Jackson asked the doctor to cut out the bullet at once. The operation was over in a few minutes. Jackson's health quickly became much better.

A funny little story was told about that bullet. Someone reportedly said Jackson should give it to the family of the man who shot him. One family member rejected the offer. He said Jackson had possessed the bullet for twenty years. So, he said, under the law, Jackson had clear ownership to it. "Only nineteen years," someone noted. "Oh," the man said, "that is all right. Since Jackson took good care of it, I will forget the extra year."

The presidential election campaign of eighteen thirty-two was bitter. President Jackson was, once again, the candidate of the Democratic Party. Henry Clay was the candidate of the National Republican Party.

Clay had the support of Nicholas Biddle, who was head of the Bank of the United States. He also had the support of about two-thirds of the nation's newspapers. This was because most of them owed money to the bank. Most wealthy people supported Clay, too.

Farmers and laborers supported Jackson. They showed their support by marching in parades and holding big, noisy public meetings.

On election day, the people showed that Jackson was still their president. There was a much bigger difference in popular votes between Jackson and Clay than between Jackson and John Quincy Adams four years earlier. As the votes were counted, one of Clay's supporters said: "The news blows over us like a great cold storm."

Jackson received about six hundred eighty-eight thousand popular votes. Clay received about four hundred seventy-three thousand votes. In the electoral college, Jackson got more than four times the number of votes than Clay got. Jackson's vice president would be Martin Van Buren.

Andrew Jackson saw his re-election as proof that the American people approved of his policies. This included his policy to close the Bank of the United States when its charter ended in eighteen thirty-six.

During his second term, Jackson decided on a plan to reduce the bank's economic power. He would stop putting federal money into the bank. Instead, he would put it into state banks. This would greatly reduce the amount of money the Bank of the United States could use.

The plan was not as easy as it seemed. The charter for the bank said federal money had to be kept there unless the secretary of the treasury ordered it put someplace else. President Jackson's treasury secretary was friendly to the bank. He would not give the order.

Jackson would have to dismiss the man and appoint someone who supported his plan. But the treasury secretary was a powerful politician. Jackson could not push him out of the job. He had to find another way. So he decided to reorganize his whole cabinet.

Jackson named his secretary of state to be minister to France. He named his treasury secretary to be secretary of state. Then he brought in someone new as secretary of the treasury. That turned out to be a mistake.

The new treasury secretary refused to put federal money anywhere but in the Bank of the United States. He also refused to resign when Jackson asked him to resign. So Jackson dismissed him and named yet another new treasury secretary.

This man immediately ordered that after October first, eighteen thirty-three, all federal money was to be put into twenty-three state banks. He did not withdraw the government money already in the Bank of the United States. He said this money could be used to make payments until it was all gone.

Nicholas Biddle, the head of the bank, fought back. He ordered the immediate repayment of all bank loans. He also withdrew from public use large numbers of bank notes. People had been using the notes as money.

These actions caused serious economic difficulties throughout the country. Many businesses failed. They could not pay back their loans or borrow the money they needed. As businesses failed, workers lost their jobs.

Nicholas Biddle said the Jackson administration was responsible for all the trouble. He said the bank was forced to take firm measures, because it was losing government money. He told people to protest to the administration. Critics of President Jackson's bank policy called him "King Andrew the First."

Groups of businessmen called on the president at the White House. They urged him to put government money back into the bank. Jackson told one group: "I will never restore the money. I will never renew the charter of the Bank of the United States. If you want help, go to Nicholas Biddle. "

The president's actions worried even some of his supporters. There could be serious long-term effects of closing the Bank of the United States. Some of his supporters in Congress went to see him. They warned him of reports that a mob was forming to march on Washington. They told him that the mob planned to seize the Capitol building until Congress returned government money to the bank.

"Gentlemen," Jackson said, "I will be glad to see this mob on Capitol Hill. I will hang its leaders high. That should stop forever all attempts to control Congress by force."

The question of continuing the Bank of the United States became a serious political issue in the national election of eighteen thirty-two. The head of the bank, Nicholas Biddle, had become very powerful. Biddle refused to recognize that the government had the right to interfere in any way with the bank's business. The bank was privately operated but could make loans with taxpayers' money.

President Andrew Jackson understood the power of the Bank of the United States. He opposed giving the bank a new charter.

Jackson said the Bank of the United States was dangerous to the liberty of Americans. The bank, he said, could build up or pull down political parties through loans to politicians. The bank, he said, would always support those who supported the bank. He proposed to form a new national bank, as part of the Treasury Department.

In the election year of eighteen thirty-two, the bank still had four years left to continue. Its charter would not end until eighteen thirty-six. Jackson had been urging Congress to act early, so that the bank could -- if its charter were rejected -- close its business slowly over several years. This would prevent serious economic problems for the country.

Many of Jackson's advisers believed he should say nothing about the bank until after the election. They feared he might lose the votes of some supporters of the bank. Biddle felt that this might be the best time to get a charter.

Henry Clay, the presidential candidate of the National Republicans, helped Biddle to make this decision. Senator Clay, however, was not thinking of the bank when he gave his advice. Clay needed an issue to campaign on. Most of the people of the country approved of Jackson's programs. Clay could not get votes by opposing successful programs. But, he was sure that the issue of the bank could get him some votes.

The campaign for a new charter was led by the most powerful men in each house of Congress. In the Senate, the bank's supporters included Senator Clay and Daniel Webster. Former President John Quincy Adams -- now a congressman -- led the bank's struggle in the house.

The chief opponent to the bank was Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri. "I object to the renewal of the charter," he told the Senate, "because the bank is too great and powerful to be permitted in a government of free and equal laws. I also object because the bank makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer."

In the House, Representative Augustin Clayton of Georgia proposed an investigation of the bank. In a speech written by Senator Benton, Clayton charged that the bank had violated its charter a number of times.

The bank's supporters were afraid to vote down the proposed investigation. It would be almost the same thing as saying that the charges were true. The investigation was approved. And a special committee was given six weeks to study the charges against the bank.
Four members of the seven-man committee were opponents of the bank. Three, including John Quincy Adams, were friendly. As expected, opponents of the bank found the charges to be true. And the bank's supporters found them all to be false.

The majority report told of easy loans made to congressmen and newspapermen. It said a New York newspaper that had opposed the bank began supporting it after receiving a secret fifteen-thousand-dollar loan.

The investigation did not really change the votes of any of the congressmen. Many votes had been bought by the bank.

Attorney General Roger Taney told of one example of this. Taney opposed the bank. And he rode to work one morning with a congressman who also opposed it. The congressman asked Taney for help on a speech he planned to make against the bank.

Taney was surprised later to find that this same congressman had voted to give the bank its new charter. The congressman told Taney that the bank had made him a loan of twenty-thousand dollars.

The Senate finally voted on the bank's new charter. The vote was twenty-eight for and twenty against. The House voted three weeks later. It approved the charter, one hundred seven to eighty-five.

The bill was sent to the White House. President Jackson called a cabinet meeting. Two cabinet members, McLane and Livingston, agreed that the bill should be vetoed. But they urged Jackson to reject the bank charter in such a way that a compromise might be worked out later.

Attorney General Taney, however, believed that the veto should be in the strongest possible language. He opposed any compromise that would continue the bank beyond eighteen thirty-six. Jackson agreed with Taney. He asked the attorney general and two White House advisers to help him write the veto message. They worked on the message for three days.

On July tenth, the veto was announced. And the message explaining it was sent to Congress. Jackson said he did not believe the bank's charter was constitutional. He said it was true that the Supreme Court had ruled that Congress had the right to charter a national bank. But he said he did not agree with the high court.

And Jackson said the president -- in taking his oath of office -- swears to support the Constitution as he understands it, not as it is understood by others. He said the president and the Congress had the same duty as the court to decide if a bill was constitutional.

Jackson also spoke of the way the bank moved money from West to East. He said the bank was owned by a small group of rich men, mostly in the East. Some of the owners, he said, were foreigners. Much of the bank's business was done in the West. The money paid by westerners for loans went into the pockets of the eastern bankers. Jackson said this was wrong. Then the president spoke of his firm belief in the rights of the common man.

"It is to be regretted," he said, "that the rich and powerful bend the acts of the government to their own purposes. Differences among men will always exist under every just government.
"Equality of ability, or education, or of wealth cannot be produced by human institutions. Every man has the equal right of protection under the laws. But when these laws are used to make the rich richer, and the powerful more powerful, then the more humble members of our society have a right to complain of injustice."

Jackson said he could not understand how the present owners of the bank could have any claim of special treatment from the government. He said the government should shower its favors -- as heaven does its rain -- on the high and low alike, on the rich and the poor equally.

Henry Clay had made the bank bill the chief issue of the eighteen thirty-two presidential election campaign. Andrew Jackson chose the words of his veto message for the same purpose -- to win votes in the coming election. His veto of the bank bill cost him the votes of men of money. But it brought him the votes of the common man: the farmer, the laborer, and industrial worker.

After his first two years as president, Andrew Jackson was not sure he wished to serve a second term. Jackson was not sure his health would permit him to complete a full eight years in the White House. But he wished to be a candidate again in eighteen thirty-two to give the people a chance to show they approved of his programs.

Jackson decided that he would campaign again for president. But if he won, he would resign after the first or second year, and leave the job to his vice president.

Andrew Jackson served as president of the United States from eighteen twenty-nine to eighteen thirty-seven. His first term seemed to be mostly a political battle with Vice President John C. Calhoun.

Calhoun wanted to be the next president. Jackson believed his secretary of state, Martin Van Buren, would be a better president. And Van Buren wanted the job. He won the president's support partly because of his help in settling a serious political dispute.

President Jackson's cabinet was in great disorder. Vice President Calhoun was trying to force out Secretary of War John Eaton. Eaton would not resign, and the president would not dismiss him.

Van Buren designed a plan to gain Eaton's resignation. One morning, as Jackson discussed his cabinet problems, Van Buren said: "There is only one thing, general, that will bring you peace -- my resignation."

"Never," said Jackson.

Van Buren explained how his resignation would solve a number of Jackson's political problems. Jackson did not want to let Van Buren go. But the next day, he told Van Buren that he would never stop any man who wished to leave.

The president wanted to discuss the resignation with his other advisers. Van Buren agreed. He also said it might be best if Secretary of War Eaton were at the meeting.

The advisers accepted Van Buren's resignation. Then they went to Van Buren's house for dinner. On the way, Eaton said: "Gentlemen, this is all wrong. I am the one who should resign!" Van Buren said Eaton must be sure of such a move. Eaton was sure.

President Jackson accepted Eaton's decision as he had accepted Van Buren's. But he was unwilling to give up completely the services of his two friends. He named Van Buren to be minister to Britain. And he told Eaton that he would help him get elected again to the Senate.

Jackson then dismissed the remaining members of his cabinet. He was free to organize a new cabinet that would be loyal to him and not to Vice President Calhoun.

Even with a new cabinet, Jackson still faced the problem of nullification. South Carolina politicians, led by Calhoun, continued to claim that states had the right to reject -- nullify -- a federal law which they believed was bad.

Jackson asked a congressman from South Carolina to give a message to the nullifiers in his state. "Tell them," Jackson said, "that they can talk and write resolutions and print threats to their hearts' content. But if one drop of blood is shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I can get my hands on to the first tree I can find."

Someone questioned if Jackson would go so far as to hang someone. A man answered: "When Jackson begins to talk about hanging, they can begin to look for the ropes."

The nullifiers held a majority of seats in South Carolina's legislature at that time. They called a special convention. Within five days, convention delegates approved a declaration of nullification.

They declared that the federal import tax laws of eighteen twenty-eight and eighteen thirty-two were unconstitutional, and therefore, cancelled. They said citizens of South Carolina need not pay the tax.

The nullifiers also declared that if the federal government tried to use force against South Carolina, then the state would withdraw from the union and form its own independent government.

President Jackson answered with a declaration of his own. Jackson said America's constitution formed a government, not just an association of sovereign states. South Carolina had no right to cancel a federal law or to withdraw from the union. Disunion by force was treason. Jackson said: "The laws of the United States must be enforced. This is my duty under the Constitution. I have no other choice."

Jackson did more. He asked Congress to give him the power to use the Army and Navy to enforce the laws of the land. Congress did so. Jackson sent eight warships to the port of Charleston, South Carolina, and soldiers to federal military bases in the state.

While preparing to use force, Jackson offered hope for a peaceful settlement. In his yearly message to Congress, he spoke of reducing the federal import tax which hurt the sale of southern cotton overseas. He said the import tax could be reduced, because the national debt would soon be paid.

Congress passed a compromise bill to end the import tax by eighteen forty-two. South Carolina's congressmen accepted the compromise. And the state's legislature called another convention. This time, the delegates voted to end the nullification act they had approved earlier.

They did not, however, give up their belief in the idea of nullification. The idea continued to be a threat to the American union until the issue was settled in the Civil War which began in eighteen sixty-one.

While President Jackson battled the nullifiers, another struggle began. This time, it was Jackson against the Bank of the United States. Congress provided money to establish the Bank of the United States in eighteen sixteen. It gave the bank a charter to do business for twenty years. The bank was permitted to use the government's money to make loans. For this, the bank paid the government one and one-half million dollars a year. The bank was run by private citizens.

The Bank of the United States was strong, because of the great amount of government money invested in it. The bank's paper notes were almost as good as gold. They came close to being a national money system.

The bank opened offices in many parts of the country. As it grew, it became more powerful. By making it easy or difficult for businesses to borrow money, the bank could control the economy of almost any part of the United States.

During Jackson's presidency, the Bank of the United States was headed by Nicholas Biddle. Biddle was an extremely intelligent man. He had completed studies at the University of Pennsylvania when he was only thirteen years old. When he was eighteen, he was sent to Paris as secretary to the American minister.

Biddle worked on financial details of the purchase of the Louisiana territory from France. After America's war against Britain in eighteen twelve, Biddle helped establish the Bank of the United States. He became its president when he was only thirty-seven years old.

Biddle clearly understood his power as president of the Bank of the United States. In his mind, the government had no right to interfere in any way with the bank's business. President Jackson did not agree. Nor was he very friendly toward the bank. Not many westerners were. They did not trust the bank's paper money. They wanted to deal in gold and silver.

Jackson criticized the bank in each of his yearly messages to Congress. He said the Bank of the United States was dangerous to the liberty of the people. He said the bank could build up or pull down political parties through loans to politicians. Jackson opposed giving the bank a new charter. He proposed that a new bank be formed as part of the Treasury Department.

The president urged Congress to consider the future of the bank long before the bank's charter was to end. Then, if the charter was rejected, the bank could close its business slowly over several years. This would prevent serious economic problems for the country.

Many of President Jackson's advisers believed he should say nothing about the bank until after the presidential election of eighteen thirty-two. They feared he might lose the votes of those who supported the bank. Jackson accepted their advice. He agreed not to act on the issue, if bank president Biddle would not request renewal of the charter before the election.

Biddle agreed. Then he changed his mind. He asked Congress for a new charter in January eighteen thirty-two. The request became a hot political issue in the presidential campaign.

In our last few programs, we described the presidential election campaign of eighteen-twenty-eight. It split the old Republican Party of Thomas Jefferson into two hostile groups: the National Republicans of John Quincy Adams and the Democrats of Andrew Jackson. The election of Jackson deepened the split. It became more serious as a new dispute arose over import taxes.

Congress passed a bill in eighteen twenty-eight that put high taxes on a number of imported products. The purpose of the import tax was to protect American industries from foreign competition. The South opposed the tax, because it had no industry to protect. Its chief product was cotton, which was exported to Europe.

The American import taxes forced European nations to put taxes on American cotton. This meant a drop in the sale of cotton and less money for the planters of the South. It also meant higher prices in the American market for manufactured goods.

South Carolina refused to pay the import tax. It said the tax was not constitutional, that the constitution did not give the federal government the power to order a protective tax.

At one time, the vice president of the United States -- John C. Calhoun of South Carolina -- had believed in a strong central government. But he had become a strong supporter of states' rights.

Calhoun wrote a long statement against the import tax for the South Carolina legislature. In it, he developed the idea of nullification -- cancelling federal powers. He said the states had created the federal government and, therefore, the states had the greater power. He argued that the states could reject, or nullify, any act of the central government which was not constitutional. And, Calhoun said, the states should be the judge of whether an act was constitutional or not.

Calhoun's idea was debated in the Senate by Robert Hayne of South Carolina and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts. Hayne supported nullification, and Webster opposed it. Webster said Hayne was wrong in using the words "liberty first, and union afterwards." He said they could not be separated. Said Webster: "Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable."

No one really knew how President Andrew Jackson felt about nullification. He made no public statement during the debate. Leaders in South Carolina developed a plan to get the president's support. They decided to hold a big dinner honoring the memory of Thomas Jefferson. Jackson agreed to be at the dinner.

The speeches were carefully planned. They began by praising the democratic ideas of Jefferson. Then speakers discussed Virginia's opposition to the alien and sedition laws passed by the federal government in seventeen-ninety-eight.

Next they discussed South Carolina's opposition to the import tax. Finally, the speeches were finished. It was time for toasts. President Jackson made the first one. He stood up, raised his glass, and looked straight at John C. Calhoun. He waited for the cheering to stop. "Our union," he said, "it must be preserved."

Calhoun rose with the others to drink the toast. He had not expected Jackson's opposition to nullification. His hand shook, and he spilled some of the wine from his glass.

Calhoun was called on to make the next toast. The vice president rose slowly. "The union," he said, "next to our liberty, most dear." He waited a moment, then, continued. "May we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the states and by giving equally the benefits and burdens of the union."

President Jackson left a few minutes later. Most of those at dinner left with him.

The nation now knew how the president felt. And the people were with him -- opposed to nullification. But the idea was not dead among the extremists of South Carolina. They were to start more trouble two years later.

Calhoun's nullification doctrine was not the only thing that divided Jackson and the vice president. Calhoun had led a campaign against the wife of Jackson's friend and secretary of war, John Eaton.

Three members of Jackson's cabinet supported Calhoun. Mister Calhoun and the three cabinet wives would have nothing to do with Mister Eaton. Jackson saw this as a political trick to try to force Eaton from the cabinet, and make Jackson look foolish at the same time.

The hostility between Jackson and his vice president was sharpened by a letter that was written by a member of President Monroe's cabinet. It told how Calhoun wanted Jackson arrested in eighteen-eighteen.

The letter writer, William Crawford, was in the cabinet with Calhoun. Jackson had led a military campaign into Spanish Florida and had hanged two British citizens. Calhoun proposed during a cabinet meeting that Jackson be punished. Jackson did not learn of this until eighteen-twenty-nine. Jackson wanted no further communications with Calhoun.

Several attempts were made to soften relations between Calhoun and Jackson. One of them seemed to succeed. Jackson told Secretary of State Martin van Buren that the dispute had been settled. He said the unfriendly letters that he and Calhoun sent each other would be destroyed. And he said he would invite the vice president to have dinner with him at the White House.

With the dispute ended, Calhoun thought he saw a way to destroy his rival for the presidency -- Secretary of State Martin van Buren. He decided not to destroy the letters he and Jackson sent to each other. Instead, he had a pamphlet written, using the letters. The pamphlet also contained the statement of several persons denying the Crawford charges. And, it accused Mister van Buren of using Crawford to try to split Jackson and Calhoun.

One of Calhoun's men took a copy of the pamphlet to Secretary Eaton and asked him to show it to President Jackson. He told Eaton that the pamphlet would not be published without Jackson's approval. Eaton did not show the pamphlet to Jackson and said nothing to Calhoun's men. Calhoun understood this silence to mean that Jackson did not object to the pamphlet. So he had it published and given to the public.

Jackson exploded when he read it. Not only had Calhoun failed to destroy the letters, he had published them. Jackson's newspaper, the Washington Globe, accused Calhoun of throwing a firebomb into the party.

Jackson declared that Calhoun and his supporters had cut their own throats. Only later did Calhoun discover what had gone wrong. Eaton had not shown the pamphlet to Jackson. He had not even spoken to the president about it. This was Eaton's way of punishing those who treated his wife so badly.

Jackson continued to defend Margaret Eaton's honor. He even held a cabinet meeting on the subject. All the secretaries but John Eaton were there.

Jackson told them that he did not want to interfere in their private lives. But, he said it seemed that their families were trying to get others to have nothing to do with Mister Eaton. "I will not part with John Eaton," Jackson said. "And those of my cabinet who cannot harmonize with him had better withdraw. I must and I will have harmony." Jackson said any insult to Eaton would be an insult to himself. Either work with Eaton or resign. There were no resignations.

But the problem got no better. Many people just would not accept Margaret Eaton as their social equal. Mister van Buren saw that the problem was hurting Jackson deeply. But he knew better than to propose to Jackson that he ask for Secretary Eaton's resignation. He already had heard Jackson say that he would resign as president before he would desert his friend Eaton.