Flight of the Eagle. Conrad Black
Carolinian and president of the Senate, Vice President Calhoun, replied to this with the familiar “compact” theory, that the states formed the federal government and had the legal capacity to judge when their rights were being infringed, and that the right of the states to reject federal laws was undiminished from before the Constitution was adopted. Webster had the better of the constitutional argument, as the adoption of and more than 40 years of adherence to the Constitution clearly conferred legitimacy on it, subject to interpretation, as the governmental law established by “We the people . . . for the United States of America.” Calhoun and his fellow alarmed slaveholders were not going to render inoperative a document so thoroughly debated and ratified and enforced with specious arguments about a compact and with the miraculous revenance, after decades of invisibility and silence, of a selective right of nullification. These arguments were a goad, and a warning to the North, and the first stab at developing a plausible argument to justify secession, by force of arms if necessary.
Subtle differences became the subject of intense scrutiny in the divination of the nuances of federal or state attachments. This became quite commonplace in matters of toasts at official occasions. One early example was the Jefferson Day dinner in Washington on April 13, 1830, where Jackson proposed a toast to “Our Union; it must be preserved.” And Calhoun responded: “The Union, next to our liberty most dear. May we always remember that it can only be preserved by distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the Union.”
12. THE UNION AND SLAVERY
Battle lines were being drawn, but Jackson was playing a subtle and discreet game. He was a large slaveholder, and for his defense of New Orleans and seizure of Florida, his heavy-handed policy toward the Indians, and his respect for states’ rights in public works matters, he had great popularity in the South. He was the incarnation of the frontiersman and had followed the settler’s path and extended the country westward. And yet, as a nationalist who had finessed the tariff issue and emerged as a fierce defender of the Union, he was not necessarily unpopular in the North. He devised a policy that would serve the Union well and vitally. Jackson would guarantee slavery in the South and Southwest and resist any impeachment of it, and promote its westward expansion; and he would enforce the primacy and inviolability of the Union.
In the South, he would be the man who would make the Union work for the South and would be that region’s unconquerable champion of the institution of slavery. In other regions, he was the guarantor of the Union; he would maintain the integrity of the United States at any cost. The North would tolerate slavery where it existed and in adjacent places to be settled, but not in the North, and the Union would survive. The South would accept the assurance of slavery where it existed and to the west of that, and would accept the Union. Jackson laid down this policy and enforced and bequeathed it. It was not a permanent arrangement, but it bought a vital 30 years, in which the Unionists became very much stronger than the slaveholders. This was a strategy of national self-preservation, geared to the inexorable economic and demographic rise and preeminence of the free states. It is not clear that Jackson thought beyond the co-preservation of the Union and of slavery, but tempered by the talents at compromise of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, his rejection of nullification and of abolitionism was used by a generation of American public life as a shield behind which the numerical, economic, and moral strength of the free states came vastly to exceed those of the slave states.
The subject of internal improvements (public works) was a vexatious aspect of the same debate. Jackson’s position that such interstate projects, or internationally significant versions such as the improvement of ports and harbors, were legitimate. But with the veto of the Maysville project, a highway entirely within the state of Kentucky, on May 27, 1830, Jackson sent a message to all sides: he was in favor of such projects where they really were matters involving more than one state, but not otherwise, and was for the division of available funds for redistribution to the states for selection of their own preferred objectives. This too, was a clever policy, as the North was concerned about federal aid to large projects, which Jackson supported; and the South was concerned with incursions from the federal government in local matters, which Jackson opposed.
The break between the president and the vice president would ramify into many fields. One of the sparks that set the long-accumulating tinder alight was the revelation to Jackson that Calhoun, as secretary of war in 1818, had favored censuring and punishing Jackson for his conduct in Florida. There was an acerbic exchange of correspondence between the two men, and all communication ended, with Jackson determined to be rid of Calhoun. The sly Van Buren (known as “The Red Fox of Kinderhook,” referring to his hair-color, cunning, and place of residence), who had ingratiated himself quite profoundly with Jackson by oiling his New York political machine for the president, though formerly an ally of Calhoun’s in presenting the Tariff of Abominations in an unsuccessful effort to embarrass President Adams, was now President Jackson’s chief henchman in the purge of Calhoun. The ancient Florida quarrel just exacerbated the crisis caused by Calhoun’s effort to reduce the Union to a periodic consultation with half of the states to see if they would accept the application of laws passed by what had been for 40 years the legislature of America.
A third ingredient in the boiling atmosphere was the attempted boycott of Secretary of War John Eaton’s wife, Peggy O’Neal, a former barmaid. Mrs. Calhoun and other cabinet secretaries’ wives refused contact with Mrs. Eaton, and when this absurd matter was raised at a cabinet meeting by Jackson, the only person who supported him was Van Buren, an egalitarian and a bachelor. To facilitate the house-cleaning, Van Buren and Eaton tendered their resignations, and Jackson sent Van Buren to London, eliminated the social problem with Eaton’s wife by naming Eaton governor of Florida, sacked the rest to purge any influence of Calhoun, partly merged the kitchen and real cabinets, and added some stronger members. Calhoun blocked the confirmation of Van Buren to the London post, casting the deciding vote himself, in a brazenly provoking desertion of the administration, and Van Buren soon returned. The distinguished jurist and barrister and mayor of New York and codifier of the laws of Louisiana, Edward Livingston, went to State; the former minister to London, Louis McLane, took the Treasury; General Lewis Cass took over the War Department; Senator Levi Woodbury became secretary of the navy Amos Kendall soon became postmaster general; and the most durable and powerful of all except Jackson himself, Roger B. Taney, became attorney general. This swept the Calhoun elements out, and Calhoun’s days as vice president were also numbered. Jackson strengthened his government and gave notice that he was not only fierce and belligerent, as had been well-known for 25 years, but also a skillful political infighter, such as had not been seen in the White House since the reign of the last general-in-residence. There was none of the philosophical stoicism of Jefferson or John Quincy Adams, the ambivalence of Madison or Monroe, or the rather self-defeating querulousness of John Adams. Jackson was a crafty, fanatical, and deadly opponent.
The firmness of Jackson’s policy was its own reward; exalted though Britain was in the world, even its most powerful statesmen did not wish to cross swords with Old Hickory, as Jackson’s followers called him. Lord Palmerston, who virtually invented gunboat diplomacy, and was not above threatening war on any state, and conducted several in a very long career that included 19 years in the junior but influential post of secretary at war, three years as home secretary, 16 years as foreign secretary, and nine years as prime minister, actively wished to avoid a tangle with Jackson, whom he knew would be like a porcupine and would make any test of strength not worth the trouble. Palmerston “always respected a powerful opponent and the references in his correspondence to General Jackson . . . show that here was a man not to be trifled with.”8
The administration negotiated a very satisfactory reopening of complete trading access through the West Indian ports, a long-running grievance resolved. Jackson also resolved claims for damage to American shipping against France, going back to 1815. In 1834, the French being in arrears, Jackson asked the Congress for reprisals against France, which then approved an installment under the reparation agreement, conditional on Jackson’s apology for slights against France. This was an inexplicable French reversion to the insolence of the Genêt and XYZ affairs. Jackson replied that “The honor of my country shall never be stained by an apology from me for the statement of truth and the performance of duty.” Jackson fired off ukases all day and sat on the terrace on temperate evenings, as he had for decades with his beloved but now deceased wife Rachel,