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A short time previously to this, Mr. Isaac Hill, of New llampshire, then second controller of the treasury at Washington, wrote to two of his friends at Philadelphia, and agreeably to the suggestions he had made to them when he saw them there, sent them two petitions to the president and directors of the bank, asking for a change in the board of directors at Portsmouth; one of which was signed by about sixty members of the New Hampshire legislature. Mr. Hill remarked in this letter, that “the friends of Gen. Jackson in New Hampshire have had but too much reason to complain of the management of the branch at Portsmouth.” Of the ten persons named in the petition for directors, four were friends of the administration.

About the same time, an effort was made, the object of which will be seen from the following extract of a letter from Mr. Mason to Mr. Bid. dle, dated July 21, 1829: “An attempt is making to remove the pension agency from this office to Concord, in this state. During the session of our legislature, in June, a memorial was gotten up by Mr. Isaac Hill, second controller of the treasury of the United States, and signed by divers of his warm political partisans, and others particularly interested in the matter, addressed to the secretary of the treasury, urging the central situation of Concord as a reason for the removal. Mr. Hill's object, doubtless, is to benefit a small bank at Concord, of which, till his removal to Washington, he was the president."

Then follows a letter from the secretary of war to Mr. Mason, directing the books, papers, and funds of the New Hampshire pension agency to be transferred to Wm. Pickering, of Concord. Mr. Mason objected to this order, as being contrary to law; and it was eventually withdrawn. It may be known to every reader, that, by the charter of the bank, it was made the duty of the bank to make the disbursements of the public moneys for the government; hence the funds for paying pension claims, were placed for this purpose in the branches of the bank in the several localities; and Mr. Mason denied the legality both of the order of the secretary, and of his own right to surrender the pension funds, papers and books, as required. This opinion of Mr. Mason was sustained, in 1832, by secretary Cass, Mr. Eaton's successor in the department of

On account of the greater convenience to pensioners beyond the southern counties of the state of New York in the vicinity of New York city, the Mechanics' and Farmers' Bank in the city of Albany, had been selected as the medium through which pensions were to be paid. Against this Mr. Biddle had remonstrated as being illegal. But the agency was continued until after Mr. Cass's appointment; who wrote officially to Mr. Biddle, March 1, 1832: "I am satisfied, from a careful examination of the laws of congress, that this department is not war

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ranted in appointing a pension agent in any state or territory where the United States bank has established one of its branches."

Mr. Biddle, after his return from New Hampshire, in one of his letters to Mr. Ingham, notices the singular fact, that “on the eve of an election for an officer of this bank in New Hampshire, the senator from New Hampshire, the second controller from New Hampshire, the legislature of New Hampshire, the merchants of all parties in New Hampshire, were all arrayed to complain of his abuses, and to show how loudly public opinion demanded his removal, just at the moment when the administration had declared to the bank, that public opinion was the only safe test of such accusations.

After a calm and thorough investigation, they (the board) found that all these accusations were entirely groundless; that the most zealous of his enemies did not venture to assert that he had ever, on any occasion, been influenced by political feelings, and that this public opinion, so imposing in the mist of distance, degenerated into the personal hostility of a very limited, and, for the most part, very prejudiced circle. Mr. Mason was therefore immediately reëlected."

Mr. Ingham, in reply, disclaimed any knowledge of Mr. Hill's movement against Mr. Mason. He claimed for the government a supervising power over the bank, and a right to coerce it by withdrawing public deposits, and otherwise. “The bank,” he said, “can not, if it would, avoid the action of the government in all its legitimate operations and policy, however disposed it might be after calculating the immensity of its coffers, and the expansion of its power, to assert a superiority or insensibility to such action. The pretension could only excite a smile. Compared to the government, the bank is essentially insignificant." He said, however, “No one can more fervently desire than I do, that the bank shall, in all its ramifications, be absolutely independent of party.”

Another letter from Mr. Biddle to Mr. Ingham, closes the correspondence; but any extracts from it are considered unnecessary. This correspondence terminated in October, about two months before the appearance of president Jackson's first annual message, disclosing his opposition to the bank.

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CHAPTER XLVII.

SOUTH CAROLINA NULLIFICATION. JACKSON'S PROCLAMATION. — FORCE

BILL.-COMPROMISE TARIFF.-PEACE.--LAND BILL.-CLOSE OF JACKSON'S FIRST TERM.

The anti-tariff excitement at the south continued without abatement. Public meetings, especially in the state of South Carolina, the addresses of M'Duffie, Hayne, Hamilton, and other high officials, and the acts and proceedings of the state legislature, kept the public mind in a state of effervescence. Forcible resistance, so long threatened, was at length resolved on, as

“the last resort”—as the only remedy for the evils inflicted upon them by the general government. It is not improbable that the countenance given in several states to the doctrines of Hayne and others in the senate had encouraged the Carolinians in their purposes of practical nullification. The legislatures of Virginia and Georgia had also asserted the principles of nullification; but these states were unwilling to carry out those principles by a forcible opposition to the tariff laws. Georgia, however, had denied the authority of the supreme court to decide questions involving the validity of treaties, and of the laws of congress; and the executive bad sanctioned her construction of the constitution.

The note of preparation for collision with the general government was at length sounded. The legislature of South Carolina was convened by the governor the 22d of October, 1832, for the purpose of authorizing a convention “ to consider the character and extent of the usurpations of the general government." An act was accordingly passed for a convention to be held on the 3d Monday of November. The passage of the act was hailed at the seat of government by the firing of cannon, and music from a band stationed near the doors of the capitol. The members of the minority, belonging to the “union, state rights and Jackson party,” held a meeting, at which they declared their opposition to the nullification scheme, and appealed to the people of the state to discountenance it.

The convention assembled on the 19th of November, and on the 24th, adopted an ordinance declaring the tariff act null and void; making it unlawful for the authorities of either the general or state government to enforce the payment of duties within that state; and enjoining the legislature to pass laws giving effect to the ordinance. No sanction was to be given to any appeal to the supreme court of the United States, from the decisions of the state courts, involving the authority of the ordinance, or the validity of any acts of the legislature giving effect thereto, or the validity of the tariff act of congress. All public officers were required to take an oath to obey and execute the ordinance, and the acts of the state passed in pursuance thereof. Any act that congress should pass to authorize the employment of force against South Carolina, was declared to be null and void, and would not be submitted to; and from the time of its passage, the state would consider herself absolved from farther obligations to the union, and proceed to organize a separate government. The ordinance was to take effect the 1st of February, 1833. The president, in his message to congress, in December, briefly

, alluded to the opposition to the revenue laws which had arisen in that state. He expressed the belief that the laws themselves were adequate to the suppression of any attempt that might be made to thwart their execution; but said: “Should the exigency arise, rendering the execution of the existing laws impracticable, from any cause whatever, prompt notice of it will be given to congress, with a suggestion of such views and measures as may be deemed necessary to meet it.”

The message had scarcely been delivered, when intelligence of the passage of the ordinance by the South Carolina convention reached Washington. On the 11th of December was issued the celebrated proclamation of president Jackson, in which he stated his views of the constitution and laws applicable to the measures adopted by the convention, and declared the course which duty would require him to pursue.

A clearer, and, as is believed, a more correct exposition of the nature and powers of the general government is hardly to be found in any public document. The proclamation combatted the nullifying doctrine of the convention, that there is no appeal from the decision of a state. It regarded reasoning on the subject superfluous, as the constitution of the United States expressly declared, that the constitution and the treaties and laws made under it,

" the supreme

law of the land,” and that "the judges in every state were bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding." Said the president: “No federative government could exist without a similar provision. Look for a moment at the consequence. If South Carolina considers the revenue laws unconstitutional, and has a right to prevent their execution in the port of Charleston, there would be a clear constitutional objection to their collection in every other port, and no revenue could be collected anywhere ; for all imposts must be equal. It is no answer to repeat, that an unconstitutional law is no law, so long as the question of its legality is to be decided by the state itself

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for every law operating injuriously upon local interests will be perhaps thought, and certainly represented, as unconstitutional; and, as has been shown, there is no appeal.

“ If this doctrine had been established at an earlier day, the union would have been dissolved in its infancy. The excise law in Pennsyl. vania, the embargo and non-intercourse law in the eastern states, the carriage tax in Virginia, were all deemed unconstitutional, and were more unequal in their operation than any of the laws now complained of; but fortunately none of those states discovered that they had the right now claimed by South Carolina.

The discovery of this important feature in our constitution was reserved to the present day. To the statesmen of South Carolina belongs the invention, and upon the citizens of that state will unfortunately fall the evils of reducing it to practice.

“ If the doctrine of a state veto upon the laws of the union carries with it internal evidence of its impracticable absurdity, our constitutional history will also afford abundant proof that it would have been repudiated with indignation, had it been proposed to form a feature in our government.”

The president here adverts to the leagues formed during our colonial state; and to the confederation. Every state was to “abide by the determinations of congress, on all questions, which, by the confederation, should be submitted to them.” He said: “Under the confederation, then, no state could legally annul a decision of the congress, or refuse to submit to its execution ; but po provision was made to enforce these decisions. Congress made requisitions, but they were not complied with. The government could not operate on individuals. They had no judiciary, no means of collecting revenue.

. . This state of things could not be endured; and our present happy constitution was formed, but formed in vain, if this fatal doctrine prevail." A "more perfect union” was then formed by “the people of the United States;" and he asks: “Can it be conceived that an instrument made for the purpose of forming a more perfect union than the confederation, could be so con. structed by the assembled wisdom of our country, as to substitute for that confederation a form of government dependent for its existence on the local interest, the party spirit of a state, or of a prevailing faction of a state ?" He then says: “ The constitution declares that the judicial powers of the United States extend to cases arising under the laws of the United States, and that such laws, the constitution, and treaties shall be paramount to the state constitutions and laws.”'

In relation to the threat of seceding from the union, in case of an attempt to enforce the revenue laws, the president says : “This right to

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