The ch lera and its ravages Indian war in the north-west ern tour Black Hawk - Movements in South Carolina against the tariff law Congress in session- Abstract of the president's message-Action in Congress on the tariff question The enforcing bill-Calhoun's speech - Clayton's resolution-Henry Clay's "compromise tariff" bill -- The land bill - Question on the deposits of the public money - Jackson's second inauguration - His north- The president determines to remove the deposits Duane refuses to give the necessary order — Taney appointed secretary of the treasury Deposits removed- Excitement in the community- Congress in session - Its proceedings-Resolution condemning the president for removing the deposits - Jackson's protest Stormy debate. Commercial distress and embarrassments Action of the House on re-chartering the bank, etc. Debate in the Senate-Taney's nomination rejected - The "whig" opposition - Congress in session. Not much accomplished- Claims on France - Jackson determines to have a settlement The result Other claims on European powers settled - Texas and its affairs - Democratic convention at Baltimore Van Buren nomi nated - The twenty-fourth Congress - The message - Proceedings of Congress in regard to the deposits in the state banks Distribution of the surplus revenue- Effect of this course Speculation, gambling, fraud, etc. Slavery discussion -The "specie circular" Effect upon the country- Van Buren elected president Johnson elected vice-president by the Senate Jackson's last message to Congress --The "expunging resolution". Attempt to rescind the specie circular unsuccessful Close of Andrew Jackson's administration. DURING the summer of 1832, the | more, about six hundred; in Washingwhole country was greatly alarmed and ton, nearly two hundred; and other excited by the appearance of that ter- towns and cities suffered in about the rible scourge, as it proved, the Asiatic same proportion. same proportion. But in New Orleans cholera. About the close of June, it the cholera proved very malignant; for began its ravages; and partly in con- between the 28th of October and the sequence of terror and fright, and partly 11th of November, sixteen hundred and from ignorance of the nature and mode sixty-eight deaths occurred. The naof the treatment of the disease, it was ture and peculiarities of this fearful extensively fatal in its effect. Over visitation excited universal attention, three thousand died in New York city, and gave rise to various contributions between the 4th of July and the to medical literature, by eminent mem1st of October. In Philadel-bers of the faculty. Among these, Dr. phia, nearly a thousand died; in Balti- | Francis's letter is especially worthy of 1932. note; a brief quotation will not be out of place in the present connection. "Whether the materies morbi of cholera claims a siderial or telluric origin, the atmosphere is the medium through | which it operates. It prevails in all climates, and at all seasons; it exists in every variety of soils; on mountains and in valleys, in marshes and on rocks, in dryness, and in humidity. Unlike influenza, and some other specific diseases, its ravages are independent of winds and currents; neither the analysis of the gases of the atmosphere, nor barometrical or thermometrical investigation, solve the difficulty of its birth, and we are baffled in reviewing its progress, to ascertain the peculiar influence of localities in producing it. When this formidable disease shall have disappeared from among us, and its history be recorded by the faithful historian, the skill and humane exertions of the medical profession, the munificence of the affluent, and the disinterested benevolence of all classes, will not be forgotten."* In the north-west fresh troubles broke out in the spring of the present year. The Sacs and Foxes, who, by treaty had agreed to remove, showed much reluctance in doing so, and the governor of Illinois was disposed to hasten their departure. He accordingly ordered the militia to use compulsion in carrying out the measure. Black Hawk was leader of the Indians at the time, and he at once resorted to the only practicable means of revenge-predatory and hostile ravages in the frontier settlements; whilst he prepared for a more formida ble retaliation. In March, 1832, he assembled his own tribes, the Sacs and Foxes, with Winnebagoes, to the num-* ber of about a thousand in all, and crossed the Mississippi into Illinois. All was dismay; the settlers nearest the point of invasion fled, and a brigade of militia, ordered out for their protection, by no means appeased the alarm. By June, however, the United States troops there, together with about three thousand mounted volunteers, took the field, and Black Hawk withdrew his warriors into the swamps, which were their fortresses, and trenches, and ambuscades, at the same time; and he extended his murderous incursions over the whole of the most advanced northwestern settlements. General Scott was thereupon ordered to lead eleven companies of infantry and nine companies of artillery against the savages; and with the utmost promptitude, undeterred by distance, and although his force suffered severely from cholera, he marched to Chicago. The same spirit actuated the army already in the field; for, finding that they could not be reinforced by Scott's troops, they penetrated into the lurking-places of the Indians, on the 21st of July, inflicted a decisive defeat on them on the banks of the Wisconsin, followed them up, and once more, and yet more disastrously, routed them, near the mouth of the Iowa, on the left bank of the Mississippi, on the 2d of August; and Black Hawk and his small band 1832. CH. II.] JACKSON AND NULLIFICATION. of survivors having surrendered, on the 15th and 21st of September, treaties were concluded with the Winnebagoes, and the Sacs and Foxes, by which they agreed to the cession of the remainder of their territory, and the federal government to pay $10,000 annually, for twenty-seven years to the Winnebagoes, and $20,000 for thirty years, to the Sacs and Foxes, and to provide them with the means of improvement and civilization. And thus was peace restored again in the north-west. Directly after the passage of the tariff act, mentioned on a previous page, (p. 386,) the representatives of South Carolina addressed their constituents on the subject, and urged upon them to sustain the sovereign rights of that state, which, they said, were invaded by the recent action of Congress. Meetings were accordingly held in South Carolina, and much excitement was manifested against the general government. The legislature was convened by Governor Hamilton, at Columbia, on the 22d of October, and the tariff question was warmly discussed. | The result was, the calling of a state convention, which met on the 19th of November, at the same place. This convention proceeded to the length of recommending nullification, in the completest sense of the term. The legislature, which met on the 27th, passed ordinances to carry into effect the recommendations of the state convention, and South Carolina became thus arrayed in opposition to the laws of the United States, refusing to allow the revenue. to be collected, and determining to resist by force every attempt to compel 389 obedience. This, of course, brought the question to an issue, and it remained. to be seen, whether the executive would take care to have the laws of the United States enforced, and whether South Carolina would be reduced to her proper place as one of the members of the Union. The twenty-second Congress commenced its second session on the 4th of December, 1832. Hugh L. White, Senator from Tennessee, was elected president pro tempore; on the 28th, Mr. Calhoun resigned his post as vice-president of the United States, and was immediately elected a Senator from South Carolina, in place of Mr. Hayne, who had been chosen governor of the state. 1832. In the message of the president, among other things, he pressed upon Congress the necessity for revising the tariff; both for the purpose of adapting the revenue to the expenditure, and to limit the protection afforded by the im posts to the counteraction of the protective laws of other nations, and the securing of "a supply of those articles. of manufacture essential to the national independence and safety in time of war." He insisted, that perpetual protection, secured by a tariff of high duties imposed for that object specially, had entered into the minds of but few American statesmen. "The most they have anticipated is a temporary and generally incidental protection, which they maintain has the effect to reduce the price, by domestic competition, below that of the foreign article. Experience, however, our best guide on this as on other subjects, makes it doubtful whether the advantages of this system are not counterbalanced by many evils, and whether it does not tend to beget, in the minds of a large portion of our countrymen, a spirit of discontent and jealousy dangerous to the stability of the Union." While speaking of the tariff, "nullification" came under the president's notice; and he quietly but resolutely intimated his belief "that the laws themselves were fully adequate to the suppression of such attempts as might immediately be made" to carry out the views of those who favored absolute state sovereignty. "Should the exigency arise," he continued, "rendering the execution of the existing laws impracticable from any cause whatever, prompt notice of it will be given to Congress, with the suggestion of such views and measures as may be deemed necessary to meet it.” In regard to the United States Bank, Jackson showed himself equally uncompromising. He now recommended that "provision should be made to dispose of all stocks then held (by the general government,) in corporations, whether created by the general or state governments, and to place the proceeds in the treasury." He also brought against the bank the definitive charge of effecting "an arrangement with a portion of the holders 1832. of the three per cent stock;" by which, said he, "a surrender of the certificates of this stock may be postponed until October, 1833; and thus the liability of the government, after its ability to discharge the debts, may be continued by the failure of the bank to perform its duties." perform its duties." And then it was recommended, that Congress should seriously investigate this question,-"whether the public deposits in that institution may be regarded as entirely safe." The president also recommended a reduction of the price of the public lands, so as to prevent their becom ing a source of revenue, and an amendment of the Constitution, so as to limit and define the power of the general government over internal improvement. The policy of the government in relation to the Indians was applauded; and an extension of the judiciary system to the new western states was again recommended. South Carolina having proceeded to the lengths mentioned above, General Jackson manifested his usual decision in meeting the emergency. He gave orders to the military force at his disposal, to be ready to sustain and protect the federal officers at Charleston; and on the 10th of December, a long and energetic proclamation was issued, denouncing the movements of the nullifiers as palpable treason, and calling upon the South Carolinians to return to their loyalty to the Union. The House of Representatives, at an early day, applied itself to the subject of the tariff, referring to the committee of ways and means the consideration of the president's suggestion concerning it. In the Senate a resolution was carried, calling upon the secretary of the treasury, who had in his annual report urged the reduction of duties to the revenue standard, for a draught of a bill embodying his views, or rather those of the administration. On the 27th of December, the committee of ways and means reported, by Mr. Verplanck, of New York; and a bill proposing a diminution of the duties on all protected articles, but leaving from fifteen to twenty per cent. for protective purposes, and to take effect immediately, with a further reduction to follow, was laid before the House; and this seems to have been in effect the reply to the resolution of the Senate. At the commencement of the new year, 1833, the discussion of this scheme was entered upon; but it had gone on only a week, when the president, on January the 16th, by a message, communicated information respecting the ordinance and nullifying laws of South Carolina, and his own proclamation thereupon, accompanied by his views of what Congress should do; and on the 21st of the month, a bill to enforce the collection of the revenue accord 1833. ing to the law was reported by the judiciary committee of the Senate. Thus there were two bills of primary importance on the same subject, but looking in precisely opposite directions, under discussion in the Houses of Congress at the same time, this enforcing or force bill in the Senate, to compel South Carolina to submit to the tariff of 1828, and the new tariff bill in the House of Representatives, to abolish that very tariff which the enforcing bill was to uphold. The enforcing bill, which had, with great judgment, been drawn in a general form, so as not to wear an invidiously hostile aspect towards the nullifying state, made slow progress in the Senate. But the tariff bill in the House 391 seemed like to perish in a perfect flood of amendments and debates. The excitement in the country was intense, for the state legislatures were almost all in session, and each felt bound to deliver itself upon the question of the day. New England called to mind the Hartford Convention, and what was said then; whilst the south was anxious to see the tariff lowered to the revenue scale, anxious to see the supremacy state sovereignty demonstrated, yet anxious for the maintenance of the Union; for, however much talk may have been indulged in on this subject, neither at the south nor anywhere else has there ever been wanting a conviction, that the dissolution of the Union would prove fatal to the state which should bring about such a result. of Mr. Calhoun, for the purpose (as he observed) of testing the principles of the "force" bill, proposed a series of resolutions to the Senate, which were no more than expansions of the old view of the state-sovereignty principle, and yet they involved the whole principle of "nullification." Starting from the definition of the Constitution, as a "compact" uniting "the people of the several states;" and of the Union, as "a union between the states" which ratified "the constitutional compact;" he proceeded to the assertions, that whilst "certain definite powers" were delegated to the general government, "to be executed jointly," each state reserved to itself "the residuary mass of powers to be exercised by its own separate gov ernment;" and that in the assumption by the general government of powers not delegated to it, its acts are "unau |