by a host of applicants clamorous for benefactions, and often violated his own views of propriety to favor a friend, is no doubt true; but this does not lessen the evil nor diminish the responsibility resting with him. He was the President of the nation, but he had not virtue enough to forget that he was the chief of a party. The Whigs contended against the introduction of this system, sternly and consistently; but the power of a long-dominant, corrupt party in a commonwealth to establish—it may be forever—a custom or a tendency unprincipled in its nature, and demoralizing to the people, has not thus for the first time been signally displayed.
Personal pique undoubtedly added in some degree to the violence of General Jackson's course, and gave a determinating character to many of the measures of his administration. An enemy was at the head of one of the branches of the late United Stales Bank. The President failed to influence his removal, and procure the appointment of a friend. The friends and managers of the bank did not consult him in regard to the provisions of the new charter applied for, and he had not succeeded in bringing that institution under his control. Impetuous in all things, defying all things, whether of gods or men, this was an opposition to his sultanic will by no means to be endured. He commenced forthwith a war of words and measures against that ill-starred corporation, in which he was backed by all the powers of the government, and aided by all the arts of his shrewd advisers. They first destroyed its business and threw discredit and suspicion upon its solvency, never before suspected; then by crippling the resources and business interests of the country, they weakened its securities and impeded the collection of its vast and extended claims, till by a series of calamities and governmental hostilities beating upon it, the great fiscal institution of the country fell, irretrievably to the ground, and great was the fall of it. In its ruins were crushed the fortunes of hundreds of widows, and orphans, of innocent men, women, and children, whoso entire means of subsistence were embarked in its immense capital. This bank had been chartered by Mr. Madison, than whom a better man or a purer patriot never exercised power in the Republic; and it had been sustained and aided by nearly all the other Republicans of the day. And it must be remembered that Gen. Jackson himself did not then profess to be opposed in principle to a bank, but to the bank; for he expressly declared that if application had been made to him, he could have given Congress a plan for a national bank which would have accomplished the desired end. It was reserved to the patent Democrats of a later day to reach that sublimation of political wisdom which perceives certain ruin in a fiscal charter, federalism in a paper dollar, and rank treason in an innocent bill of exchange. Gen. Jackson was something of a Democrat in his day, but he had not attained this degree of acute discrimination. He was strongly in favor of the State banks, fostered them by all the appliances in his power, induced the creation of hundreds in the place of one, and left the currency of the country in a state of hopeless depreciation.
The destruction of the United States Bank was in reality the great measure of his administration. We may look in vain for any important principle settled by him, or any new theory brought forward, except in regard to the currency. In the management of our foreign interests, the honor of the country was protected, and our relations were generally maintained with dignity and caution. There was one notable instance of impropriety, but that was the error of Mr. Van Buren, his Secretary of State. We allude to the unwarrantable and uncalled-for introduction of our internal political divisions into his official correspondence with Great Britain. This was a proceeding without precedent, in every point of view indefensible, and a disgrace to its author. Whatever may be our internal dissensions, towards all other nations the American people should present an undivided front. National dignity and self-respect require the strict observance of this rule—the honor of the people demands it. In impugning the acts of his predecessors, aspersing their motives before the world, and calumniating a large section if not a great majority of his countrymen, Mr. Van Buren, from his high station, ventured to practise the petty arts which a village demagogue might emulate, but which no enlightened statesman of any party could ever countenance. For this unworthy act, the United States Senate rejected his nomination as Minister to England, and most justly; and this, we predict, will be the decision of every intelligent and impartial mind, when all personal
