Congress he created some alarm by expressing doubts as to the bank's solvency, and recommending an investigation to see if the deposits of public money were safe. In some parts of the country there were indications of a run upon the branches of the bank. The Committee on Ways and Means investigated the matter and reported the bank as safe and sound, but a minority report threw doubt upon these conclusions, so that the public uneasiness was not allayed. The conclusions of the members of the committee, indeed, bore little reference to the evidence before them, and were determined purely by political partisanship. Jackson made up his mind that the deposits must be removed from the bank. The act of 1816, which created that institution, provided that the public funds might be removed from it by order of the Secretary of the Treasury, who must, however, inform Congress of his reasons for the removal. As Congress resolved, by heavy majorities, that the deposits were safe in the bank, the spring of 1833 was hardly a time when a Secretary of the Treasury would feel himself warranted, in accordance with the provisions of the act, to order their removal. Secretary McLane was accordingly unwilling to issue such an order. In what followed, Jackson had the zealous coöperation of Kendall and Blair. In May McLane was transferred to the State Department, and was succeeded in the treasury by W. J. Duane of Pennsylvania. The new secretary, however, was convinced that the removal was neither necessary nor wise, and in spite of the President's utmost efforts refused either to issue the order or to resign his office. In September, accordingly, Duane was removed and R. B. Taney of Maryland appointed

in his place. Taney at once ordered that after the Ist of October the public revenues should no longer be deposited with the national bank, but with sundry state banks, which soon came to be known as the "pet banks." Jackson alleged, as one chief reason for this proceeding, that if the bank were to continue to receive public revenues on deposit, it would unscrupulously use them in buying up all the members of Congress, and thus securing an indefinite renewal of its charter. This, he thought, would be a death-blow to free government in America. His action caused intense excitement and some commercial distress, and prepared the way for further disturbance. In the next session of the Senate Clay introduced a resolution of censure, which was carried after a debate which lasted all winter. It contained a declaration that the President had assumed "authority and power not conferred by the Constitution and laws, but in derogation of both." Jackson protested against the resolution, but the Senate refused to receive his protest. Many of his appointments were rejected by the Senate, especially those of the directors of the bank and of Taney as Secretary of the Treasury. An attempt was made to curtail the President's appointing power. On the other hand, many of the President's friends declaimed against the Senate as an aristocratic institution which ought to be abolished. Benton was Jackson's most powerful and steadfast ally in the Senate. Benton was determined that the resolution of censure should be expunged from the records of that body, and his motion continued to be the subject of acrimonious debate for two years. The contest was carried into the state elections, and some senators

resigned in consequence of instructions received from their state legislatures. At length, January 16, 1837, a few weeks before Jackson's retirement from office, Benton's persistency triumphed and the resolution of censure was expunged. It has been customary with Whig writers to laugh at Benton for this, and to call his conduct spiteful, boyish, and silly. It would be more instructive, however, to observe that his conduct was the natural outgrowth of the extreme theory of popular government which he held. He looked upon Jackson as a disinterested tribune of the people, who for carrying out the popular will and ridding the country of an exceedingly dangerous institution, at the cost of some slight disregard of red tape, had incurred unmerited censure; and it seemed to him an important matter, and not a mere idle punctilio, that such a wrongful verdict should be reversed. There was a good deal of truth, as well as some error, in this view. If pushed to extremes it would result in unbridled democracy, which in the hands of a powerful and unscrupulous leader is liable to pass into Cæsarism. Webster and the Whigs, in opposing this extreme view of popular government, in contending for the necessity of constitutional checks in such a country as ours, and in blaming Jackson for his autocratic manner of overriding such checks, were quite right. At the same time there can be little doubt that Jackson was purely disinterested, and that in this particular case he did fully represent the will of the people in overthrowing a dangerous institution. The commercial panic which followed in 1837 was by most people attributed to his removal of the deposits. I shall endeavour to show, in my next lecture, on "Tip

pecanoe and Tyler too," that this notion was entirely incorrect, and the causes of the great panic lay much deeper than was supposed at the time. The belief that it was due to Jackson's policy was a chief cause of the Whig victory in 1840; but as soon as the immediate effects of the panic were over, there was a general acquiescence in the final death-blow dealt to the bank by President Tyler, and since then nobody has had the hardihood to ask that it should be restored.

In foreign affairs Jackson's administration won great credit through its enforcement of the French spoliation claims. European nations which had claims for damages against France, on account of spoliations committed by French cruisers during the Napoleonic wars, had found no difficulty after the peace of 1815 in obtaining payment; but the claims of the United States had been superciliously neglected. In 1831, after much fruitless negotiation, a treaty was made by which France agreed to pay the United States five million dollars in six annual instalments. The first payment was due Febuary 2, 1833. A draft for the amount was presented to the French minister of finance, and payment was refused on the ground that no appropriation for that purpose had been made by the Chambers. Louis Philippe brought the matter before the Chambers, but no appropriation was made. Jackson was not the man to be trifled with in this way. In his message of December, 1834, he gravely recommended to Congress that a law be passed authorizing the capture of French vessels enough to make up the amount due. The French government was enraged, and threatened war unless the President should apologize, --not a hopeful sort of demand to make of Andrew

Jackson. Here Great Britain interposed with good advice to France, which led to the payment of the claim without further delay. The effect of Jackson's attitude was not lost upon European governments, while at home the hurrahs for "Old Hickory" were louder than ever. The days when foreign powers could safely insult us were evidently gone by.

In the election of 1836 Jackson's wishes were fulfilled in the victory of Van Buren, with 170 electoral votes against 24 for all other candidates. The remainder of Jackson's life was spent in his Tennessee home, known as the Hermitage. About the time of his election to the presidency the ugly wound received in the duel with Dickinson in 1806, which had never properly healed, broke out afresh and became more and more troublesome, until his most intimate friends were inclined to attribute to it his death, which occurred on the 3d of June, 1845. Throughout his extraordinary career he had been devoutly religious, and one cannot fully comprehend him without taking into account the element of the Puritan person that was so strong in him. There probably never lived a man more strictly conscientious, according to his own somewhat narrow lights, than Andrew Jackson. Whether he ever felt moved to forgive his enemies may be doubted, for it never occurred to him that he was not in the right. A contrite spirit he can hardly have had, but after all his warfare he sank peacefully to rest. His remarkable influence over the common people had not ceased with his presidency, and it survived his death until it ended in a kind of Barbarossa legend quite rare among such a people as ours. To this day, we are told, there is some happy valley in western Pennsylvania, the precise