Life of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States. v. 1 (of 2)Curtis, George Ticknor
History
Life of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States. v. 1 (of 2)
Curtis, George Ticknor
Buchanan, James, 1791-1868
Mr. Buchanan, as the reader has seen, went abroad in the spring of 1832.
Events of great consequence occurred at home during his absence. The
great debate in the Senate on nullification, between Mr. Webster and
Col. Hayne, which took place in 1830, had not been followed in South
Carolina by any surrender of the doctrine maintained by the Nullifiers.
In November, 1832, the people of South Carolina, assembled in
convention, adopted their celebrated ordinance which declared the
existing tariff law of the United States null and void within her
limits, as an unconstitutional exercise of power. General Jackson who
had been re-elected President in the same month, defeating Mr. Clay and
all the other candidates by a very large majority of the electoral
votes, issued his proclamation against the Nullifiers on the 10th of
December.[34] Then followed the introduction of the “Force Bill” into
the Senate in January, 1833; a measure designed to secure the collection
of the revenue against the obstruction of the State laws of South
Carolina; Mr. Webster’s support of this measure of the administration;
and the consequent expectation of a political union between him and
General Jackson. This union, however, was prevented by an irreconcilable
difference between Mr. Webster and General Jackson and his friends on
the subject of the currency and the Bank of the United States. In 1832
the President had vetoed a bill to continue the Bank in existence. Early
in June the President left Washington on a tour to the Eastern States,
and while in Boston, during the month of June, he determined to remove
the public deposits from the Bank of the United States, and to place
them in certain selected State banks. These events and the excitements
attending them are touched upon in the private letters which Mr.
Buchanan received from his friends, not the least interesting of which
was one from General Jackson, expressing his feelings in regard to his
proclamation in a very characteristic manner. From one of these letters,
too, we may gather that steps were already taking to elect Mr. Buchanan
to the Senate of the United States.
[FROM A FRIEND IN WASHINGTON.]
WASHINGTON CITY, August 1, 1832.
DEAR SIR:—
Of course you receive regular files of American papers, and I shall
therefore not be able to give you much news of a public or political
nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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