Jackson

The popular campaign had succeeded. The
masses had been aroused for the first time to an
active interest in politics. At the inauguration
they stormed the White House and their lead-
ers busied themselves in demanding a share of
the spoils of victory. The new administration
satisfied this demand, removing many old em-
ployees of the government and putting new men
in their places. This process was facilitated by
the adoption of the principle of rotation in of-
fice, under which tenure was usually limited to
four years instead of during good behavior. All
this was in keeping with Jackson's personal
views, for he looked upon politics as a very per-
sonal matter, and he had always believed that his
friends should be rewarded by public prefer-
ment No abstract principle of equal rights actu-
ated him in this stand. Van Buren became sec-
retary of state and John H. Eaton became sec-
retary of war, but Calhoun's friends had to be
rewarded with several cabinet posts. It was clear
from the first that harmony could not prevail
between the factions thus represented. It was
Eaton who first introduced discord by marrying
the notorious Peggy O'Neill, daughter of a Wash-
ington tavern-keeper (see O'Neill, Margaret L.).
The ladies of the cabinet refused to receive her
and Mrs. Calhoun took a leading part in the
work of exclusion. Jackson, ever gallant, de-
fended Peggy; and Van Buren, being a widower,
aided his chief. The President took the matter
personally, and the Secretary of State was much
strengthened by the incident Thus a social issue
all but wrecked the Cabinet of the arch-Demo-
crat Van Buren's cause was also promoted by
the nullification controversy. Calhoun had been
a strong advocate of internal improvements
while a member of Monroe's cabinet, and was
known as a decided nationalist in 1824. The
tariff measure of that year, however, was op-
posed by South Carolina, and that of 1828 drove
her into strenuous resistance to the policy of
protection (C. S. Boucher, The Nullification
Controversy in South Carolina, 1916). State-
rights ideas were revived and strengthened, and
Calhoun joined the movement without openly
avowing the fact when he drew up his "Exposi-
tion" of 1828. There was much reason to look
upon Jackson at that time as a state-rights man,
and the difference of opinion was not revealed
until the famous Jefferson birthday dinner of
1830, when the President gave his toast, "Our
Union, it must be preserved!" (Bassett, Life, p.
555). The breach which thus developed was
widened and made irreparable by Crawford's
publication of the facts in regard to the cabinet
faceting of 1818, when Calhoun had wished to

Jackson

see Jackson censured for his conduct in the
Seminole campaign. Thus everything worked
into the hands of Van Buren, and he supplanted
the great Carolinian in the councils of the ad-
ministration. In 1831 the cabinet was reorgan-
ized so as to force the friends of Calhoun out,
and Van Buren, on being rejected by the Sen-
ate as minister to the Court of St. James's,
became Jackson's choice to replace Calhoun in
the vice-presidency.

While this struggle was in progress, the ad-
ministration faced an equally important issue in-
volving the Bank of the United States. The
charter was to expire in 1836, but so important
was the matter that it could not be ignored until
that time. Jackson failed to mention it in his
inaugural address, but in his first annual mes-
sage to Congress brought up the question. Here
he expressed himself as opposed to the existing
charter, but as favoring one which would estab-
lish a government-owned bank so limited in its
operations as to avoid all constitutional difficul-
ties (Richardson, post, II, 1896, p. 462). In
1820 Jackson had opposed a government-owned
bank in Tennessee, and time had justified his
opposition. He knew, or should have known,
that the notes issued by the Bank of the United
States were almost the only paper currency which
would circulate without depreciation in all parts
of the Union, and that there was not enough gold
and silver to serve the needs of trade (T. P.
Abernethy, "Early Development of Commerce
and Banking in Tennessee," Mississippi Valley
Historical Review, Dec. 1927, pp. 318-25). The
ideas expressed in his message therefore seem
unnecessarily crude, and are hard to account for.
There is much reason to suspect that they were
inspired by Van Buren and that they represent
New York's opposition to the Philadelphia bank.
It was his opponents, however, rather than Jack-
son, who forced the issue. Clay together with
Nicholas Biddle, president of the Bank, decided
that the recharter should be demanded before the
election of 1832 so that, if Jackson should veto
it, it would become the issue in the campaign.
As they anticipated, the measure was passed and
vetoed, and the bank question became the lead-
ing issue in the election which followed.

Van Buren's hand could be seen even more
clearly in another issue which confronted the
people at the time. The Western states were
greatly in need of improved transportation facil-
ities, and macadamized roads were just coming
into use. When Congress in 1830 passed an act
for the improvement of the road from Maysville
to Lexington, Ky., Jackson vetoed the measure.
His message explaining his act stated that works

532