Andrew Jackson

K

Nullification

Before Jackson’s second term in office began, nullification became an issue again. In 1832 Congress passed a tariff that South Carolina deemed as oppressive to its interests as was the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. When the nullification forces, or nullies, gained control of the state in the election of 1832, they called a convention to deal with the tariff. The convention declared that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were “null, void, and no law.” Nor were they “binding upon this state, its officers or citizens.” South Carolina also threatened to secede from the Union if the federal government tried to collect the tariff duties in the state.

Jackson was a champion of states’ rights. However, in a struggle that placed the interests of a state above those of the Union, he always stood firm behind the supreme powers of the federal government. Speaking out against nullification, Jackson stated:

Jackson also pushed through Congress a force bill that authorized the use of federal troops to collect the tariff. The crisis was eased when, through the efforts of Henry Clay, Congress passed a compromise tariff in 1833 along with the force bill. As a last defiant gesture, South Carolina accepted the tariff but nullified the force bill. Jackson had preserved the Union, but nullification remained a great question.

V

Second Term as President

A

Second Battle Over the Bank

Jackson believed that his reelection was a mandate from the people to break the power of what he called “this hydra of corruption,” the Second Bank of the United States. To accomplish this, Jackson decided to withdraw government money from the bank to pay current expenses and to deposit future government revenues in selected state banks. These banks were called pet banks. Jackson appointed Roger B. Taney of Maryland as secretary of the treasury to carry out this policy after his two previous secretaries refused.

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Bank President Biddle and his congressional supporters, led by Clay and Webster, were determined to save the bank. Biddle used the bank’s money to buy political favors. In 1834 the Senate passed a resolution of censure against Jackson and refused to confirm Taney’s appointment to the Cabinet. Biddle said, “This worthy President thinks that because he has scalped Indians and imprisoned Judges he is to have his way with the bank. He is mistaken.”

Biddle began to restrict credit and call in loans from state banks. Business leaders pleaded with Jackson to approve the bank and end the crisis. However, Jackson placed the blame for the panic on the doorsteps of Biddle’s bank and advised all callers to “Go to Nicholas Biddle.” Biddle’s reply was: “All the other banks and all the other merchants may break, but the Bank of the United States shall never break.”

In this struggle for power, Biddle was doomed to defeat. Jackson rallied public opinion behind him, and Biddle was pressured into restoring credit and loans. All he had proved was that Jackson was correct in his contention that a private monopolistic bank, independent of government regulation, should not be entrusted with public finances. Jackson won his greatest political victory, and the Second Bank of the United States passed out of existence when its charter expired in 1836.

B

Specie Circular

Jackson was the only president who ever paid off the national debt. Income to the federal government from tariffs and the sale of public land in the West soon created a surplus in the U.S. Treasury. This led to a wave of speculation and overinvestment. Jackson had less control over the pet banks than he had had over the Bank of the United States. These banks began to overextend credit by issuing notes far in excess of the gold and silver, or specie, that they actually had in their vaults.

Following the lead of the pet banks, so-called wildcat (financially unsound) banks, especially in the West, issued notes of their own that were backed by insufficient specie reserves. Soon the ratio of paper notes to gold or silver was 12 to 1: $12 of paper money was in circulation for every $1 of gold or silver in the nation’s banks. The result was runaway inflation: people had little confidence in the money, so they spent it faster and prices went higher (see Inflation and Deflation). Since the federal government accepted paper money for the Western land it was selling, the Treasury was filled with bank notes of doubtful value.

On July 11, 1836, Jackson issued his Specie Circular. It directed government agents to accept only gold and silver coin for the sale of land. Jackson hoped that this would stop speculation, especially in public lands. Speculators had been using paper money to buy up huge tracts of land from the government. They would then sell small parcels to the actual settlers at a huge profit. Jackson wanted to enable the settlers to buy land directly from the government rather than from profiteering speculators.

C

Texas Question

During Jackson’s presidency, large numbers of slaveholding Southerners settled in Texas, a part of Mexico that was only sparsely colonized by the Spanish and Mexicans. Most of these new settlers favored annexing Texas to the United States, as did Jackson himself. In his first term, he offered to buy Texas from Mexico, but Mexico refused. In his second term, the Texans fought for and won their independence from Mexico, and requested annexation. Texan leader Sam Houston was an old friend of Jackson’s. Nevertheless Jackson refused to press for annexation because feeling in the Northern states ran high against the creation of a new slave state. On his last day in office, however, he took a first step by recognizing the independent republic of Texas and appointing a diplomat to represent the United States there.

D

Supreme Court

One of the most significant and lasting effects of the Jackson administration was felt in the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall died in 1835. Jackson named Secretary of the Treasury Taney to succeed him. While president, Jackson also named five associate justices to the Court. The Court under Taney’s direction perpetuated the political principles of Jacksonian democracy for many years thereafter. Ironically, Taney’s most famous decision was to be in the Dred Scott Case in 1857, where he denied the right of a slave to sue for freedom, although he himself had freed his slaves.

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