Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/318

262 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS unreasonable feeling of distrust which he had already begun to harbor against a national bank. The year 1797 was a season of financial depression, and the general paralysis of business was ascribed no doubt too exclusively to the over-issue of notes by the national bank. Jackson s antipathy to such an institution would seem to have begun thus early to show itself. Of his other votes in this congress, one was for an appropriation to defray the expenses of Sevier s expedition against the Cherokees, which was carried; three others were eminently wise and characteristic of the man: 1. For finishing the three frigates then building and destined to such renown -the "Constitution," "Constellation," and "United States." 2. Against the further payment of black mail to Algiers. 3. Against removing "the restric tion which confined the expenditure of public money to the specific objects for which each sum was ap propriated." Another vote, silly in itself, was characteristic of the representative from a rough frontier community; it was against the presumed extravagance of appropriating $14,000 to buy furniture for the newly built White House. Jackson s course was warmly approved by his constituents, and in the following summer he was chosen to fill a vacancy in the Federal senate. Of his conduct as senator nothing is known beyond the remark, made by Jefferson in 1824 to Daniel Webster, that he had often, when presiding in the