1826-8] Presidential election. The Anti-Masons 379 the Anti-Masons. In 1826 William Morgan, a poor bricklayer in the village of Batavia, New York, announced his intention to publish a book revealing the secrets of Freemasonry. Batavia was then a frontier village inhabited by men of scanty education, little accustomed to think before they acted. To the local Masonic lodge Morgan's purpose seemed abominable; and attempts were at once made to get possession of the manuscript. When these failed, Morgan was imprisoned for a small debt. He was however released, but as he came out of the gaol about midnight he was seized, forced into a carriage, and carried across the State to a ruined fort on the Niagara river. There all trace of him. disappeared; and to this day his fate is unknown. The man had been kidnapped; and his captors were punishable by law. But the people, in their excitement, instead of demanding the arrest and punishment of the individual offenders, turned their wrath against the whole Masonic body; and for this the Masons were largely to blame. Attempts to investigate the affair were obstructed by Masons in public office. When indictments. were procured against four Masons, they pleaded guilty and so defeated all attempts to discover the fate of Morgan. Then the anger of the people rose high. Public meetings were held in all the western counties of New York; and resolutions were passed declaring Masons unfit for public office and charging them with putting allegiance to their society above allegiance to the State. At the spring elections of 1827 AntiMasonic candidates were nominated in many places; and the people divided, politically, into Masons and Anti-Masons. To break off connexion with the Masonic fraternity now became the most popular act that a politician, a physician, a clergyman, or a small tradesman could perform. Anti-Masonic newspapers appeared in great numbers; and in the summer of 1828 a convention of Anti-Masons nominated candidates for the posts of governor and lieutenant-governor of New York. In the congressional districts Anti-Masons had already been named for Congress and the State legislature. In short, a new political party had arisen and seriously complicated political affairs in New York, which cast the largest electoral vote of any State in the Union. The choice of presidential electors in the States did not then, as now, take place everywhere on the same day. Each State fixed for itself the date of election; and December came before the returns were all received. But before that time it was well known that Adams was defeated and Jackson elected. As was truly said, the election marked a great uprising of the people. It was not the mere expulsion from office of a man and a party, but a triumph of democracy, another political revolution, the like of which the country had not seen since 1800. Hundreds of thousands of voters sincerely believed that the country had been rescued from a real peril; that a corrupt and aristocratic administration, which encroached on the rights of the States, had been overthrown; and that the liberties of the people had been saved almost at the last gasp. In all the States 380 The "South Carolina Exposition" [1828 south of the Potomac river and west of Pennsylvania Adams failed to receive a single electoral vote. In all New England Jackson received but one. Politically the South and West were now arrayed against the East. The Middle States were, however, divided; for New York and Pennsylvania were carried by Jackson; and New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland by Adams. In South Carolina, meantime, resistance to the tariff of 1828 had come to a head. The political leaders, turning with one accord to the Vice-president, John C. Calhoun, urged him to prepare a memorandum on the subject to be considered by the State legislature in its winter session. Calhoun complied, and wrote for them what has ever since been known as the "South Carolina Exposition" of 1828. This famous document opens with the assertion that the Tariff Act of 1828 is unconstitutional, oppressive, and unequal; it states the reasons on which each of these charges is based, and then proceeds to discuss the right of the State to declare the Act null and void within her boundaries. The government of the United States, Calhoun declared, was formed by the States and not by the people. The Constitution is a compact or contract, to which each State is a party. Each State, therefore, has a right to judge for itself of any infraction of the Constitution by Congress; and, in case of a deliberate, dangerous, and palpable exercise of power not granted, has a right to interpose to stop the progress of the evil. How to use this power of interposition a State alone can decide. Interposition is, indeed, a last resort; but if, in the opinion of a State, it becomes necessary, the proper course for a State to follow is to call a convention in order to declare the Acts in question null and void and not binding on her citizens. This would force the Federal government to pause, and either to compromise or to submit the question in dispute to a convention of all the States. Should three-fourths of the States thus assembled in convention decide against the protesting State, a disputed power would be converted into an expressly granted power; and the aggrieved State would then have to submit or secede from the Union. Calhoun held that the Tariff Act undoubtedly presented a case calling for such interposition; but, considering that a great political revolution had taken place, and that Andrew Jackson would soon be in the presidential chair, he thought it would be well for South Carolina to withhold her veto till one more session of Congress had closed. So fully did the "Exposition" set forth the attitude of the leaders that the legislature promptly adopted it in the form of a report from the committee, and passed resolutions which were sent to the legislature of each State in the Union. Nor was South Carolina alone in her opposition. In 1828 (December 20) Georgia addressed a long memorial to the anti-tariff States, and bade her governor, in the event of the failure of the present Congress, repeal or modify the tariff, and appoint delegates to meet a convention of the Southern States in order "to deliberate upon and devise 1828-32] “Nullification” in the South 381 a suitable mode of resistance to that unjust, unconstitutional, and oppressive law." In 1829 Mississippi declared the tariff to be oppressive and impolitic, and advised resistance; while Virginia resolved that the tariff was partial oppression on the people of the South, and ought to be repealed. In 1830 Kentucky, Louisiana, Vermont, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Delaware answered these resolutions, affirmed the constitutionality and expediency of the tariff, denied that it was oppressive, and opposed a repeal. Jackson gave his famous toast at the dinner on Jefferson's birthday, "Our Federal Union! it must be preserved." A great debate took place in the Senate (1830) on Foot's resolution touching the sale of public lands, in which Hayne of South Carolina stated and defended the doctrine of nullification and secession; and Webster enforced the national view of the Constitution, maintaining that it was not a compact between States, but an instrument of government "made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people." In 1831 the South Carolina Nullifiers, abandoning all hope of relief from Congress or of aid from Jackson, began a campaign for the calling of a State convention to nullify the tariff. The people ranged themselves under the banners of two local parties "The State Rights and Free Trade Party" (or the "Nullifiers "), and "The State Rights and Union Party." The failure of the Nullifiers to secure a two-thirds majority of each branch of the legislature in the autumn of 1831 prevented the calling of the convention; and the issue went back to Congress to be thrashed out again on the floor of the House and the Senate. This time Congress gave way. In July, 1832, it amended the Tariff Act of 1828, removed the duties on a long list of imports that did not come into serious competition with American manufactures, reduced the revenue by many millions of dollars, and fixed March 3, 1833, as the day whereon the new tariff should come into effect. The concession was a great one; but the tariff was still protective, and to the minds of the people of South Carolina was a new defiance, a new act of oppression. Excitement now rose higher than ever; and in the autumn elections the Nullifiers carried all before them and elected two-thirds of both branches of the legislature, which the governor at once called in special session. A State convention to nullify the tariff was promptly ordered. When it met in November, 1832, the Tariff Acts of 1828 and 1832 were solemnly declared null and void; and February 1, 1833, was chosen as the day on and after which they should no longer be "binding on the State, its officers, or citizens." The President now defined his position and his duties in a long proclamation to the Nullifiers, which Hayne, who had just been inaugurated governor of South Carolina, answered in a counter-proclamation. Calhoun at once resigned the Vice-presidency, and was sent to the Senate in Hayne's place. 382 The Tariff reduced. Jackson re-elected [1829-33 Jackson now asked Congress for authority to collect the tariff duties in South Carolina by force, if necessary; and his wishes were embodied in the Revenue Collection Bill-the "Bloody Bill," the "Force Act," as the Nullifiers called it; while Clay, to the amazement of his followers, introduced a new tariff bill. All existing duties, he proposed, should be reduced to an ad valorem basis of twenty per cent. Such as exceeded that rate were to be diminished gradually, one-tenth of the excess coming off in each of the years 1833, 1835, 1837, and 1839. One-half the remainder was to be removed in 1841, and the rest in 1842, when there would be a uniform tariff of twenty per cent. ad valorem on all dutiable goods. The struggle over each bill was long and bitter; but they were both passed, the one to satisfy the North, the other to appease South Carolina. While the debate on the Force Bill was going on, the day when nullification was to come into effect drew near; but the ordinance was suspended by a mass-meeting of Nullifiers at Charleston. Now that South Carolina had triumphed, the convention reassembled in March, 1833; the ordinance of nullification was repealed, and the Force Act nullified; and the first phase of the great struggle for State Rights passed into history. Two days after the passage of the Compromise Tariff and the Force Act, Jackson was a second time inaugurated President of the United States. The election is memorable because the Anti-Masons for the first time placed a candidate in the field; because the candidates of each of the three parties were nominated by national conventions of delegates chosen by the people and not by the Congressional caucus or the State legislatures; and because the issue between the friends of Jackson and the friends of Clay was the re-charter of the Bank of the United States. The charter granted by Congress in 1816 was to continue for twenty years, and would not lapse till 1836. The Bank was the greatest financial institution of the country; it received and disbursed the revenues of the government, transacted the monetary affairs of the treasury abroad, had branches in the chief cities at home, provided the merchants with cheap exchange and the people with a uniform circulating medium, and did much to prevent an over-issue of paper money by the State banks which flooded the country with their notes. The political influence which such an institution might exert was apparent and no sooner was Jackson inaugurated in 1829 than his party leaders endeavoured to force the Bank into politics on the side of the new Administration. The Bank resisted, and by so doing brought down upon it the wrath of the Jacksonian leaders, who found no difficulty in pushing the President into a long and bitter struggle which inflicted on the country great and unnecessary distress. Year after year, in 1829, 1830, and 1831, the President in his annual message denounced the Bank as unconstitutional, charged it with failure to regulate the currency, and questioned the safety of the government deposits. Year after year 1833 Jackson and the United States Bank 383 committees of each House reported in favour of the Bank and against the President. But the renomination of Jackson in 1831 led Clay to believe that the question of re-charter should be decided at once. In the session of 1832 accordingly the Bank, much against its will, applied for a re-charter. A bill for that purpose was passed in each branch of Congress, and was promptly vetoed by the President. It could not be passed over the veto; and the issue thus raised went before the people in the presidential campaign. To Jackson his re-election appeared to be a definite instruction from the people to destroy "the monster"; and with this end in view, he informed his Cabinet, in September, 1833, of his determination to remove the government deposits from the Bank, and take all responsibility for the act. The official order for removal could, however, be issued by no one save the Secretary of the Treasury. The Secretary, William J. Duane, stoutly refused to obey Jackson's directions. He was instantly removed from office, and Roger B. Taney was appointed in his place. Then the order was issued; and collectors of the revenue were commanded on and after October 1, 1833, to make no more deposits in the Bank of the United States or any of its branches, but in such State Banks, and in such only, as the Secretary might designate. The effect of this arbitrary and unnecessary order on the business of the country was disastrous. The government money in the Bank and its branches was to be gradually withdrawn to meet current expenses till no more of it remained. In order to meet the drafts promptly, the Bank was forced to call in loans, and to refuse to discount paper. The State Banks, fearing that the central Bank might call on them for a settlement of accounts, followed suit; and in a few weeks the business world had to face a money famine. All building operations stopped in the great cities; manufacturing establishments shut down; thousands of workingmen were thrown out of employment; and the price of money and exchange rose to a ruinous height. When Congress met in December, 1833, the Senate placed on its journal a resolution censuring the President for ordering the deposits to be removed, and refused to confirm the appointment of Taney as Secretary of the Treasury; while the people beset both Houses with petitions praying for a restoration of the deposits and an Act to regulate the currency. These "distress petitions," as they were called, numbered more than 600, were signed in some instances by from 5000 to 10,000 names, and came from massmeetings, from members of various trades and occupations, from chambers of commerce, banks, the governing bodies of cities and towns, and the legislatures of many States. But the President stood firm; Congress took no action; and the deposits continued to be made in the "pet banks," this being the name given to the State institutions designated as government depositories. While the excitement aroused by the removal of the deposits was at its height, the spring elections came on in some of the States. The |