History of the United States, Volume 3 — John Shaqi
History of the United States, Volume 3Andrews, Elisha Benjamin
History
History of the United States, Volume 3
Andrews, Elisha Benjamin
United States -- History
But to drive home fatally the wedge between "democratic" and "national"
Republicans, required Jackson's quarrel with Adams and Clay in 1825,
when, the election being thrown into the House, although Jackson had
ninety-nine electoral votes to Adams's eighty-four, Crawford's
forty-one, and Clay's thirty-seven, Clay's supporters, by a "corrupt
bargain," as Old Hickory alleged, voted for Adams and made him
President. Hickory's idea--an untenable one--was that the House was
bound to elect according to the tenor of the popular and the electoral
vote. After all this, however, so potent the charm of the old party, the
avowal of a purpose to build up a new one did not work well, Clay
polling in 1832 hardly half the electoral vote of Adams in 1828. This
democratic gain was partly owing, it is true, to Jackson's popularity,
to the belief that he had been wronged in 1825, and to the widening of
the franchise which had long been going on in the nation. Calhoun's
election as Vice-President in 1828, by a large majority, shows that
party crystallization was then far from complete. From about 1834, the
new political body thus gradually evolved was regularly called the
Whigs, though the name had been heard ever since 1825.
[1830-1833]
The doctrines characteristic of Whiggism were chiefly five:
I. Broad Construction of the Constitution.
This has been sufficiently explained in the chapter on Federalism and
Anti-Federalism, and need not be dwelt upon. The whig attitude upon it
appears in all that follows.
II. The Bank.
The First United States Bank had perished by the expiration of its
charter in 1811. It had been very useful, indeed almost indispensable,
in managing the national finances, and its decease, with the consequent
financial disorder, was a most terrible drawback in the war. Recharter
was, however, by a very small majority, refused. The evils flowing from
this perverse step manifesting themselves day by day, a new Bank of the
United States, modelled closely after the first, was chartered on April
10, 1816, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster being its chief champions.
Republican opponents, Madison among them, were brought around by the
plea that war had proved a national bank a necessary and hence a
constitutional helper of the Government in its appointed work.
In the management of this second bank there were disorder and
dishonesty, which greatly limited its usefulness. This, notwithstanding,
was considerable. The credit of the nation was restored and its treasury
resumed specie payments. But confidence in the institution was shaken.
We shall see how it met with President Jackson's opposition on every
possible occasion. In 1832 he vetoed a bill for the renewal of its
charter, to expire in 1836, and in 1833 caused all the Government's
deposits in it, amounting to ten million dollars, to be removed. These
blows were fatal to the bank, though it secured a charter from
Pennsylvania and existed, languishing, till 1839.
III. The Tariff.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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