by public opinion throughout the country. By the Southern people generally the action of South Carolina was regarded as precipitate and unconstitutional. Even in that state a Union convention met at Columbia and announced its intention of supporting the President. In January Calhoun declared in the Senate that his state was not hostile to the Union and had not meditated an armed resistance; a "peaceable secession," to be accomplished by threats, was probably the ultimatum really contemplated. In spite of Jackson's warning, the nullifiers were surprised by his unflinching attitude, and complained of it as inconsistent with his treatment of Georgia. When the first of February came the nullifiers deferred action. In the course of that month a bill for enforcing the tariff passed both houses of Congress, and at the same time Clay's compromise tariff was adopted, providing for the gradual reduction of the duties until 1842, after which all duties were to be kept at twenty per cent. This compromise was well-meant but pernicious, for it enabled the nullifiers to claim a victory and retreat from their position with colours flying. Calhoun, indeed, afterward pointed to the issue of the contest as conclusively proving the beneficent character of his theory of nullification. Here, he said, by merely threatening to nullify an obnoxious, and as he maintained unconstitutional, act of federal legislation, South Carolina had secured its repeal, and all was pleasant and peaceful! It was not Jackson, however, but Clay, that Calhoun had to thank for the compromise, nor were the nullifiers by any means as well satisfied as he tried to believe.

The nullifiers, indeed, had made a great mistake

when they inferred from Jackson's attitude toward Georgia that they could count upon his aid or connivance in the case of South Carolina. The insubordination of Georgia was shown in refusing to obey a decree of the Supreme Court, and Jackson had no fondness for the Supreme Court. He is said to have exclaimed, somewhat maliciously, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!" But the nullification act of South Carolina was a direct challenge to the executive head of the United States government. He could see its bearings in an instant, and it aroused all the combativeness that was in his nature.

During this nullification controversy Jackson kept up the attacks upon the United States Bank which he had begun in his first annual message to Congress in 1829. His antipathy to such a bank, in which the federal government was a shareholder and virtually to some extent a director, had been shown as long ago as Washington's administration, when the bank was first established. For two reasons it was For two reasons it was especially obnoxious to the people of the South and the Southwest, and to the Democratic party generally. In the first place, the question as to the constitutional authority of Congress to establish such an institution was preeminently the test question between strict constructionists and loose constructionists. In the great fight between them it played the same part that Little Round Top played in the battle of Gettysburg. Once let the enemy carry that point and the whole field was lost. The contest over the assumption of state debts had faded out of sight before Jackson's presidency; it had become what the Germans call an "überwundene

standpunkt." The contest over protective tariffs, on the other hand, had only lately become severe. But there the bank had been standing for nearly forty years, a perpetual menace to the theory of strict construction. President Madison had reluctantly signed the bill for its recharter in 1816, apparently because he could think of no practical alternative. The new charter was to expire in 1836, and President Jackson, in his determination that it should not again be renewed, was restrained by no such practical considerations.

In the second place, the bank was hated as the most prominent visible symbol of Hamilton's plan for an alliance between the federal government and the moneyed classes of society. In this feeling there was no doubt something of the sheer prejudice which ignorant people are apt to entertain against capitalists and corporations. But the feeling was in the main wholesome. There was really very good reason for fearing that a great financial institution, so intimately related to the government, might be made a most formidable engine of political corruption. The final result of the struggle, in Tyler's presidency, showed that Jackson was supported by the sound common sense of the American people.

Jackson's suggestions with reference to the bank in his first message met with little favour, especially as he coupled them with suggestions for the distribution of the surplus revenue among the states. He returned to the attack in his two following messages, until, in 1832, the bank felt obliged in self-defence to apply, somewhat prematurely, for a renewal of its charter on the expiration of its term. Charges brought against

the bank by Democratic representatives were investigated by a committee, which returned a majority report in favour of the bank. A minority report sustained the charges. After prolonged discussion the bill to renew the charter passed both houses and July 10, 1832, was vetoed by the President. An attempt to pass the bill over the veto failed of the requisite twothirds majority.

Circumstances had already given a flavour of personal contest to Jackson's assaults upon the bank. There was no man whom he hated so fiercely as Clay, who was at the same time his chief political rival. Clay made the mistake of forcing the bank question into the foreground, in the belief that it was an issue upon which he was likely to win in the coming presidential campaign. Clay's movement was an invitation to the people to defeat Jackson in order to save the bank; and this naturally aroused all the combativeness in Jackson's nature. His determined stand impressed upon the popular imagination the picture of a dauntless" tribune of the people" fighting against the "monster monopoly." Clay unwisely attacked the veto power of the President, and thus gave Benton an opportunity to defend it by analogies drawn from the veto power of the ancient Roman tribune, which in point of fact it does not at all resemble. The discussion helped Jackson more than Clay. It was also a mistake on the part of the Whig leader to risk the permanence of such an institution as the United States Bank upon the fortunes of a presidential campaign. It dragged the bank into politics in spite of itself, and by thus affording justification for the fears to which Jackson had appealed, played directly into

his hands. In this campaign all the candidates were for the first time nominated in national conventions. There were three conventions, all held at Baltimore. In September, 1831, the anti-masons nominated William Wirt of Virginia, in the hope of getting the National Republicans or Whigs to unite with them, but the latter, in December, nominated Clay. In the following March the Democrats nominated Jackson, with Van Buren for Vice-president. During the year 1832 the action of Congress and President, with regard to the bank charter, was virtually a part of the campaign. In the election South Carolina voted for candidates of her own, John Floyd of Virginia and Henry Lee of Massachusetts. There were 219 electoral votes for Jackson, 49 for Clay, 11 for Floyd, and 7 for Wirt. Besides his own state, Clay carried Maryland and Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. All the rest of the country, including half of New England, went for Jackson. He interpreted this overwhelming victory as a popular condemnation of the bank and approval of all his actions as President. The enthusiastic applause from all quarters which now greeted his rebuke of the nullifiers served still further to strengthen his belief in himself as a "saviour of society" and champion of "the people." Men were getting into a state of mind. in which questions of public policy were no longer argued upon their merits, but all discussion was drowned in cheers for Jackson. Such a state of things was not calculated to check his natural vehemence and disposition to override all obstacles in carrying his point. He now felt it to be his sacred duty to demolish the bank. In his next message to