of the Governor. The officers were banished, being compelled to leave Florida in four days. Throughout the whole of this transaction the deportment of the Governor was fierce, and his language and actions grossly rude and intemperate.

129. Admitting, that, the conduct of the Spanish Intendant was wholly in the wrong; in declining the delivery of the papers, he was acting as a public officer or as a private individual; if as a public officer, he was accountable to his own Government; if as a private individual, he was entitled to the privileges of an inhabitant, or citizen of the United States. Who then amongst us is prepared to say, that if the Government of the United States had a claim upon any individual, and to make the case stronger, upon a foreigner, for valuable papers belonging to the public archives or to private estates, that the President might, with justice and propriety, send an armed force to break open his dwelling, seize his papers and effects, and drag him from his bed to prison? Would not any man regardful of the most precious of natural rights, personal liberty and security, have proceeded by means of the civil authority, where he possessed the choice, even though he might have vested in himself, the Turkish, the despotic power, of simultaneously making the law, and trying and punishing the offender. But when General Jackson entered the field, in whatever character, whether as General or Governor, all power centered in his person; the law of nations, the civil law, nay, the law of nature, were at once annihilated, and the bayonet, the prison or exile, rendered the legislator, the judge and the citizen, obedient to his will, or removed them from his path. His conduct in this case could not be supported by the administration that appointed him; and having brought it to the notice of Congress, the President left it with them. The subject was lost sight of and forgotten, when, a few months afterwards the oppressive Governor was removed, by the establishment of a permanent system of government for the territory. His conduct in this station, in the opinion of the venerable Jefferson, showed him incompetent to an executive trust.

130. The ordinances of Governor Jackson, in Florida, having been made with due deliberation, are, perhaps, the best reflection of his character which has been given. Before the surrender of the province, the councils of its cities were elective, and the inhabitants were free from taxation. When he assumed the government, he appointed those councils by his own will, and filled them with strangers, ignorant of the inter

ests of the people: He constituted Courts, whose judges were nominated by himself, and dependent upon his pleasure, in whom was vested the highest judicial power: He established new rules of naturalization, and though prohibited by his commission to exercise the taxing power, imposed onerous excises, and empowered the councils, he had created, to levy fines, penalties and forfeitures, by ordinance or otherwise, subjecting the property of the citizen to their invasion, without limit and without rule: He exiled many respectable individuals, and caused, some of them, who returned in a private character to protect their properties and their families, to be imprisoned. In a word, no Roman Proconsul ever exercised more absolute sway. And so full was the understanding, among the inhabitants, of his character, that, the players flattered him, by heading their play bills "Jacksonian Commonwealth."

131. So oppressive were his ordinances; that the inhabitants, instead of blessing the act which made them citizens of the United States, deeply deplored their fate. More than seven hundred, of the most respectable, preferred to abandon their homes, rather than submit to his tyranny; and an equal number, who were about to remove from: Cuba to Florida, abandoned their purpose. . The Congress of the United States, when apprized of these measures, so injurious to the honour of the country, not only, indignantly, abolished the ordinances, but made their enforcement highly penal, and directed the President to cause to be refunded all sums of money which had been levied under them. The repealing act was most appropriately entitled, " An Act to relieve the people of Florida from the operation of certain ordinances." The bill received, in Senate, two readings in a single day,` by unanimous consent, and was passed through Congress with almost unexampled rapidity.

132. We have, now, seen General Jackson in all the stations of his life, anterior to his election to the Presidency; and, we have the means of judging, with confidence, of his ability. That he possessed the military virtues of promptitude and firmness, and in excess too, may be admitted. But, extremes meet; and excess converts virtue into vice. Thus excessive promptness becomes precipitation, and excessive firmness, obstinacy. We have seen this metamorphosis most fully completed in his relations with the offices and officers, in civil life. But, let us examine this question of ability more closely. Andrew Jackson was 47 years of age when he entered the military service of the United States, in .1814. Pre

vious to this period, we have not the slightest evidence of his capacity for civil duties. There has not been, there cannot be, traced to him a single civil or political measure of any character; no speech, no written essay, no report, shows that he had ever considered any subject of civil polity. The painful sense of inferiority had driven him from every civil post, and so wholly did he contemn the civil authority, that his life, if his own report of his reputation be true, must have been in almost perpetual conflict, with it; for such a cause, only, could he have been deemed "a most ferocious animal, insensible to moral duty, and regardless of the laws both of God and man.”

The development of the organ of combativeness, no doubt, promoted him to the military command which he had long retained, and was the cause of arraying him against the constituted authorities of his country, in the volunteer expedition to the South, in 1814. No distinguished ability can be claimed for him in this campaign; nor, certainly, in the miserable wars against the Creeks, and Seminoles. We grant, that these afforded no opportunity for acquiring fame of any sort, save for moderation and humanity, which he disdained. These campaigns are remarkable for the feuds between the General and his troops, in the first; and in the second, for the violation of national law, and the involvement of the Government in a delicate controversy with Spain, from which it was extricated, more by the talents of our statesmen and the weakness of their opponents, than by the goodness of their cause. The administration of the General in Florida, is stamped with the same inability for civil affairs, and disregard of civil power, and the same imperious will, which had every where attended him.

133. In 1824, he was again returned to the Senate of the United States; but again that withering sense of inferiority which had driven him from every situation requiring intellectual power, sent him from the Capitol, and, in less than two years, he resigned his seat. His prudence upon this occasion, does not admit of doubt. He was a candidate for the Presidency, and had he been kept, conspicuously, before the nation, the discovery of his inefficiency would have effectually destroyed the hopes of himself and his friends. At the Hermitage, those who had him in keeping could furnish for him appropriate sentiments and language for all occasions.

134. We have, then, no period of the General's public service, in which ability of any kind can be claimed for him, save, the campaign of New Orleans. But we have abundant

evidence, that military glories are often obtained without extraordinary talents, in commanders; and the history of our own country supplies a remarkable instance, in the ever memorable victory of Saratoga; a far more influential event upon our fate, than the battle of New Orleans. The fortunate Gates was elevated, as the fortunate Jackson, in public esteem. Before the lustre of his reputation, that of Washington faded, and plans were formed, for putting into the hands of the former, the destinies of the United States. But, heaven, in mercy, had otherwise decreed. The exigencies of the southern war developed the inability of General Gates, and extinguished the unfounded attachment of his countrymen.

135. How, then, it will be asked, if General Jackson be destitute of ability, has he become a favourite with the people? How obtained a nomination for, how elected to, the Presidency? Because, we reply, as in the case of General Gates, his name was fortunately connected with a great, useful and popular event. But, there is yet another answer. It is incident to power to produce awe and veneration in the observer, and when exerted for his benefit, to become the parent of affection. There is that in the countenance of authority which most of us are disposed to call master; and military fame has irresistible attraction for the mass of mankind. The fame of success is always to the General. The counsellor who plans, the soldier who toils and dies for victory, are buried and forgotten. But the commander in chief, though his foes have madly offered themselves, in hecatombs, as food for his powder, though his merit be, simply, to order the match to the guns, lives in story, and in enduring marble; his name is blessed in the hour of national festivity, and made familiar to the lisping lips of our infants. In a word, the chief becomes popular, and obtains an awful power, for good or for evil.

136. Thus we have shown, that however disqualified the General may have been for the office of President, when considered in relation to the public welfare, he possessed all the requisites for a party leader, whose motions were to be directed by others. Popular, whatever might be his acts, they would have an immediate favourable acceptance; uninformed, the opinions of others would readily be poured into his mind; rash and confident, he would promptly make them his own; ambitious, he would be flattered by the extension of his power; energetic and obstinate, he would resolutely and perseveringly enforce all measures which he should adopt.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ELECTION OF GENERAL JACKSON AND THE COMMENCEMENT OF REFORM.

137. General Jackson was chosen President in 1828, by one hundred and twenty-eight votes in the primary electoral colleges, given by sixteen States, including Virginia and Géorgia, which, in the previous election, had cast their votes for Mr. Crawford. Mr. Adams was supported by the six New England States, by New Jersey, which had previously voted against him, by Delaware, and by sixteen votes from New York, and six from Maryland.

138. The change was effected, partly, by the personal and selfish considerations upon which we have descanted; partly, from the hope that his administration would countenance the southern heresies, on the constitutional powers, relative to the tariff and internal improvements; partly from an assurance that it would maintain the new and selfish system of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, relative to the Indian tribes; and partly by the sectional, clannish spirit, which, in this case, moved the West, to support a western man. From Mr. Adams, the aspiring men of these States expected nothing, but the improvement of the general condition of the country; from General Jackson they hoped the improvement of their particular fortunes.

139. But shadows, clouds and darkness, rested upon the political opinions of the General. So little had he been connected with the political affairs of the nation, that his opinion 3 on the most important points of its policy were unknown. This had been advantageous to him, in one respect. It had enabled his friends to give them any phase which the wishes of the people, in their respective districts, might require. He professed to be a disciple of the Jefferson school; and in relation to the appointing power, now the most important, because the most dangerous, under the Constitution, he bettered the instruction of his master. We seek no sounder views, on this subject, than are found, in one of his letters, of 1816, to Mr. Monroe, which, though widely spread, have never been seen by three out of ten who voted for him. We copy them, that they may be contrasted with the practice he has since pursued.

67