The House was considering a bill to remit the fine imposed upon General Andrew Jackson at New Orleans for contempt of court. It was a hackneyed theme. No new, extenuating circumstances could be adduced to clear the old warrior of high-handed conduct; but a presidential election was approaching and there was political capital to be made by defending "Old Hickory." From boyhood Douglas had idolized Andrew Jackson. With much the same boyish indignation which led him to tear down the coffin handbills in old Brandon, he now sprang to the defense of his hero. The case had been well threshed already. Jackson had been defended eloquently, and sometimes truthfully. A man of less audacity would have hesitated to swell this tide of eloquence, and at first, it seemed as though Douglas had little but vehemence to add to the eulogies already pronounced. There was nothing novel in the assertion that Jackson had neither violated the Constitution by declaring martial law at New Orleans, nor assumed any authority which was not "fully authorized and legalized by his position, his duty, and the unavoidable necessity of the case." The House was used to these dogmatic reiterations. But Douglas struck into untrodden ways when he contended, that even if Jackson had violated the laws and the Constitution, his condemnation for contempt of court was "unjust, irregular and illegal." Every unlawful act is not necessarily a contempt of court, he argued. "The doctrine of contempts only applies to those acts which obstruct the proceedings of the court, and against which the general laws of the land do not afford adequate protection.... It is incumbent upon those who defend and applaud the conduct of the judge to point out the specific act done by General Jackson which constituted a contempt of court. The mere declaration of martial law is not of that character.... It was a matter over which the civil tribunals had no jurisdiction, and with which they had no concern, unless some specific crime had been committed or injury done; and not even then until it was brought before them according to the forms of law."[166]