Mr. Adams, regarding "the ground assumed by the South Carolina convention for usurping the sovereign and limitless power of the people of that state to dictate the laws of the Union, and prostrate the legislative, executive, and judicial authority of the United States, as destitute of foundation as the forms and substance of their proceedings are arrogant, overbearing, tyrannical, and oppressive," declared his belief "that one particle of compromise with that usurped power, or of concession to its pretensions, would be a heavy calamity to the people of the whole Union, and to none more than to the people of South Carolina themselves; that such concession would be a dereliction by Congress of their highest duties to their country, and directly lead to the final and irretrievable dissolution of the Union." CHAPTER IX. INFLUENCE OF MILITARY SUCCESS.--POLICY OF THE ADMINISTRATION.--MR. ADAMS' SPEECH ON THE REMOVAL OF THE DEPOSITS FROM THE BANK OF THE UNITED STATES.--HIS OPINIONS ON FREEMASONRY AND TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES.--EULOGY ON WILLIAM WIRT.--ORATION ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF LAFAYETTE.--HIS COURSE ON ABOLITION PETITIONS.--ON INTERFERENCE WITH THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY.--ON THE POLICY RELATIVE TO THE PUBLIC LANDS.--SPEECH ON DISTRIBUTING RATIONS TO FUGITIVES FROM INDIAN HOSTILITIES.--ON WAR WITH MEXICO.--EULOGY ON JAMES MADISON.--HIS COURSE ON A PETITION PURPORTING TO BE FROM SLAVES.--FIRST REPORT ON JAMES SMITHSON'S BEQUEST. On the 4th of March, 1833, Andrew Jackson was inaugurated President of the United States a second time. Of two hundred and eighty-eight votes, the whole number cast by the electors, he had received two hundred and nineteen, Henry Clay being the chief opposing candidate. Martin Van Buren, having been elected Vice-President by one hundred and eighty-nine votes, was inaugurated on the same day. The coalition formed in 1827 by Jackson with Van Buren had thus fulfilled its purpose. Jackson's triumph was complete; he had superseded Adams, defeated Clay, crushed Calhoun, and placed Van Buren in the most auspicious position to be his successor in the President's chair. The infatuating influence of military success over the human mind, and the readiness with which intelligent and well-disposed men, living under a constitution of limited powers, while dazzled by its splendor, endure and encourage acts of despotic power, is at once instructive and suggestive. Violations of constitutional duty, known and voluntarily acquiesced in by a whole people, subservient to the will of a popular chieftain, may, and probably will, in time, change their constitution, and destroy their liberties.