The conduct of the administration

Introduction

In less than two months from this time, the country will pass ^9«t through an important political crisis. A community of more than twelve million souls will be called on to elect, by a nearly universal suffrage, a chief Executive Magistrate, who is to exercise over them most of the powers that belong in other countries to the office of an hereditary sovereign. A proceeding of this kind is entirely without parallel in the previous history of the world, and were it to happen in some remote foreign nation, would be justly entitled to profound and anxious attention, as a mere experiment in the science of civil polity. When we recollect that this great and curious experiment is to be performed upon the living body politic of which we are ourselves members; that the fortunes of our country, and with them our own and those of our friends and families are involved to a considerable extent, in its results ; — we shall perhaps consider it not unnatural to suspend for a few moments the ordinary routine of private business, and inquire with some seriousness into the nature of the duties which the crisis in question will devolve upon us as electors and citizens.

We have said that there is nothing in the history of the world at all parallel to this singular and imposing scene. There have been, no doubt, and still are, other communities organized on the principle of an elective chief magistracy. Such was the case with the great Republics of Rome and Carthage, with most of the democracies of ancient Greece and modern Italy, with Switzerland and Holland, and at one period with the unfortunate Kingdom of Poland. But in all these countries the state of the community and the form under which the elective principle was aj)- plied, were so totally different that it is impossible for us to turn them to any practical account as precedents : the case is entirely

new.

No precise parallel to it can be found, even in the preceding elections of the same kind, that have taken place among ourselves. The state of the country changes so rapidly that in the short space of four years new forces are introduced into our political machinery of which it is impossible to calculate beforehand the operation or the effects. At the first election we had only thirteen States ; we have now four and twenty. — When Mr. Jefferson was chosen President we had less that six million inhabitants; I we, have now by the census more than twelve, and in reality more than thirteen. At all the earlier elections our largest cities did not contain more than twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants ; they now contain more than two hundred thousand, and have begun to assume in consequence a different physiognomy, and to exercise a different action on community. Before the year 1800, the West was a vast wilderness ; it now holds the balance of political power among the States, and expects at no distant day to sway the sceptre. Since the last election it has received from the new census a considerpble augmentation of strength. These changes and various others hardly less important, to which we cannot even allude, have materially varied the political aspect of the country from one election to another, and will continue to render them all, as they successfully occur, operations of a new impression, involving elements that have never been in action before, and of which the nature and effects can of course be foreseen with very little certainty.

This indisputable fact gives an additional and alarming interest to a crisis already in its very nature sufficiently important. — We are like mariners compelled to pass through a dangerous channel, where the sands are continually shifting, and where the charts that have been formed upon the experience of former voyages are necessarily more or less incorrect. Under these circumstances, it would be madness to indulge in a false security. We must be on the alert, and keep a bright look-out for breakers, or we shall certainly get into shoal water.

We are met, however, at the outset by tlie objection, that it is after all of little importance what individual fills the oflice of President. One person, it is said, will go through the routine of this place about as well as another; or if there be a difference, it will not be sufficiently important to affect in any way the great interests of the country. We are now so flourishing and prosperous that we can get along perfectly well under any chief magistrate, and it is not worth while for the citizens to leave their own concerns for the sake of interfering in an election, of which the result is necessarily a matter of indifference.

Such language, though employed in most cases as a cover for selfishness, indolence or disguised Jacksonism, is occasionally heard from the mouths of well-meaning men. No error can be more ruinous in a government like ours, the very existence of which depends upon the constant vigilance of the people. ^The administration of the government is in fact the great concern of the community and of all its members. Upon it depend the maintenance of the public peace — the security of the life, property and happiness of the individual citizen. No temporal interest can be named in comparison with it for importance and magnitude. Education, for example, which is often and justly represented as a most important concern, is nevertheless entirely secondary and subordinate to that of Government. Education provides for the improvement of a future generation : Government secures the existence and prosperous condition of the present, which involves of course those of all that are to follow. — Of what use is it to provide accomplished actors, to figure some thirty years hence on the great theatre of society, if in the mean time, by the effect of misgovernment, the edifice itself is shaken to its basis and tumbles in fragments about our ears 1 Government therefore is the great and paramount concern. Religion alone, which provides for the wants of man considered as an immortal being, is of more importance than any merely temporal interest : and it is the chief practical injunction of Religion that we are not to wrap ourselves up in a cold, heartless, exclusive attention to our personal affairs, but to discharge with zeal, industry, vigilance and effect, our social duties.

In periods of general political prosperity, we are apt to undervalue the importance of Government, and to neglect the cares and duties that belong to it, just as in a healthy and vigorous state of the body we are apt to underrate the importance of temperance and exercise. " Why," says the vigorous and athletic youth, " should I trouble myself with any of these idle restrictions ? I have an excellent constitution: no matter what I do: I can bear any thing." Let him try this system for two or three years — give way without restraint or reflection to his vicious appetites, and what will be the consequence ? His animal functions are all disordered. Disease visits him in twenty loathsome shapes. He must now withdraw his attention from every other occupation, and direct it entirely to the vain and hopeless labor of attempting to recover the blessing, which he undervalued before, and which he has now lost forever.

Just so it is with the body politic. Every thing flourishes: — we have an excellent constitution : — we can bear any thing : — no matter who is President. Thus says the optimist; and, without even taking the trouble to vote, he goes on quietly increasing the number of his dollars. In the mean time, the agents of evil never slumber, and the helm which the well-meaning citizen is too indolent to grasp, falls into the hands of the Hills, the Kendalls and the Lewises, who make a President to their minds, and then make themselves Vice Presidents over him, under the style and title of the Kitchen Cabinet. Let this go on for a few years and what follows? — Proscription — Confiscation — internal dissension, foreign and domestic war. The optimist, who could not afford an hour or a dollar for the public affairs, must shell out his dollars by thousands, and pour out his heart's blood to the last drop — for what ? In the hopeless attempt to recover the political well-being which, once lost, can no more be restored than the health of the natural body.

Look at France. When was there ever a country to all outward appearance more flourishing and prosperous, than the kingdom of France on the 1st of June, 1830 ? The King, Charles X., who was then sovereign there as the people are now sovereign in this country, thought that he could do any thing, and wisely turned out a very competent set of Ministers, in order to introduce another under his natural son, Prince Polignac. Polignac, conceiving in his turn that in so prosperous a condition of affairs he could do any thing without danger, amused himself and his royal master by repealing the liberty of the press, and the right of suffrage. What followed ? Less than three years have since elapsed. Charles X. and his family are scattered to the four winds — Polignac and his associates are locked up in dungeons. In all these cases, the worthless tools by whom the mischief has been done are the first victims; and if the matter stopped here there would be no great cause for regret. But this is not all. France — Europe, are plunged into almost hopeless confusion. The streets of Paris have been repeatedly the theatre of carnage, and are now, with several of the Departments, under martial law. The peaceful pursuits of industry are all suspended. War has broken trnfin various quarters ; and every sign portends the occurrence of another of those general convulsions which destroy in a great measure the peace and happiness of the civilized world, for at least one generation.

Are the people of the United States exempt from the operation of the causes which determine the fortunes of men and nations in other parts of the world ? No. If we permit our most important artairs to be managed for any length of time by corrupt and incompetent persons, we shall certainly suffer for it. This is the law of nature; and nothing but a miraculous intervention of T?rovidence, which is never vouchsafed to the indolent and careless, can save us from its operation. If we madly entrust the command of our grand and admirable political Steam-Boat, with all its complicated machinery, to a set of ignorant, passionate, reckless officers, whose chief recommendation is a talent for railing and swearing, we may possibly make one or two trips without accident, but at no distant time the EXPLOSION MUST COME. The wretches whose presumption and folly will have occasioned it, if it do happen, will be first blown to atoms; but with them will also perish the splendid bark, the troops of passengers, and the high hopes of political improvement throughout the world, that have so long been connected with the fortunes of the star-spangled banner of Western Liberty.

Far from being powerless, the President of the United States is the most effective and important, as he is the highest in dignity of our political functionaries. It is he who gives in the last resort, the impulse to almost every movement of the political machine. The mischiefs which have already resulted from the mal-administration of the present incumbent in that office, are but too apparent; and he must be a bold man, who, after a careful and dispassionate survey of our present political condition, will undertake to say with any assurance, that the constitution of the country would hold out four years longer under the same management. For ourselves, though not habitually of a desponding disposition, though generally rather apt to indulge in favorable views of the future, we are compelled to express our decided conviction, that the re-election of Jackson for another term, would be fatal to the Union.

The crisis we are approaching, is, therefore, deeply interesting. It brings with it high responsibilities, and solemn duties. — It becomes us to reflect maturely beforehand upon the course we shall take, and not lightly, or from any merely party or personal prejudice, cast a vote, which may have so material an influence on the public welfare.

The partisans of Gen. Jackson have proposed him as a candidate for re-election. That he should have given his consent to this — that he should even have almost publicly solicited a nomination after all his previous protestations of a contrary character, is one among a great number of gross inconsistencies, which prove but too plainly his want of any fixed principles of conduct. Since, however, he has consented to come before the public a second time, and is seriously held up by a large, if not respectable, party, it becomes necessary to examine his preten-

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sions, and to survey the course of his administration, which, for the honor of the country, it would be much more agreeable to consign at once to oblivion. We propose, accordingly, in several following papers, to consider successively,

1. The qualifications of Gen. Jackson for the Chief Magistracy of the Union.

2. The means by which he rose to that high dignity at the last election — and

3. The manner in which he has discharged his duties as President, during the current term.

It will appear, from the result of our inquiries, that he is utterly disqualified for the place, and that it is the bounden duty of every patriotic citizen to lay aside all minor considerations, and join heart and hand in the great and generous effort which is now making in all quarters to defeat his re-election.

Chapter II. Character Of Jackson.— Means By Which He Was

ELECTED.

We propose, in the present chapter, to consider the qualifications of General Jackson for the Presidency of the United States, and the means by which he was elevated to that office at the last election.

General Jackson — before his nomination as a candidate for the Presidency — was known to the public as a daring, reckless and successful military commander. In his campaigns against the British and the Indians, he had repeatedly set at defiance the letter and spirit of the Constitution, the received maxims of public law, and the common feelings of humanity. The people had been rather disposed, in consideration of the substantial benefits which had accrued to the country from his military operations, to attribute these excesses to impulse and ignorance, rather than to a deliberate design to do wrong; but, taken in connexion with the known violence and rudeness of his private life, they served distinctly to characterize the man. In civil and political affairs, he had shown — though often placed in conspicuous positions — an absolute nullity. We allude to his private qualities no farther, than to say, that he was entirely destitute of the ordinary accomplishments of a well-bred gentleman, and incapable of writing a common English letter with tolerable correctness.

That such a person was wholly unfit for the office of President of the United States, is a proposition too plain to admit of argument. But this is not enough. We may safely go much farther, and say with perfect truth, that of all the citizens in any way known to the public, General Jackson was the only one, whose election might fairly be regarded as dangerous, and whom ^

it was particularly expedient not to place in the President's V^

chair. There was undoubtedly a choice among the prominent men of the country, some of whom would probably have transacted the business jriore acceptably than others^ but no other candidate could have been mentioned, of whom it would not have been said at once that his election — whether expedient or not — ■ was at least not dangerous. Of General Jackson this could not be said. The elevation to power of a bold, able, and unprincipled " Military Chieftain" has been uniformly fatal to the con- y stitution of every free State in which it has occurred. If we have ^^ not already found our Cromwell, we owe it to the winter on General Jackson's head, and not to his moderation or our own prudence. At the preceding election by the House of Representatives, Mr. Clay, with his usual clear and strong sense, had perfectly apprehended the nature of the case, and stated it distinctly in his letter to Judge Brooke. He did not choose to commit the guardianship of our civil institutions to a daring and reckless soldier. For this exercise — we will not say of patriotism or sagacity — but of ordinary common sense, he was branded by the partisans of Jackson with corruption. It was apparent at the time to every one, not absolutely blinded by party prejudice, that any other course than the one he took would indeed have argued corruption, and that of the grossest character.

General Jackson was therefore not only destitute of all the qualifications and accomplishments necessary for the place, but , was, by particular circumstances, positively disqualified for it ; — / was in fact, as we have said, the only man in the country whose elevation would be actually dangerous, and whom it was therefore particularly expedient not to place in the Presidency. By what fatality then did it happen, that this most enlightened and (^

thinking people should have fixed precisely upon him as the y most proper person for the office ? The fact must undoubtedly %r be attributed in part to the sort of caprice which sometimes prevails in popular, as well as in arbitrary governments. King Demus, like other sovereigns, has his moments of wantonness, in which he plays tricks as fantastic and as mischievous as any of theirs. The result in question was however mainly owing to the intrigues of artful men, who found it convenient to employ 2

General Jackson's military reputation as a machine for advancing their own selfish projects.

Tiie General was first presented to the public as a candidate, by the local feeling of his own State. With this we find no fault, and are rather disposed to regret that there is not more of a similar spirit in some other quarters, where it would probably be applied with more judgment and better effect. The adhesion of Pennsylvania was the first event, that gave any importance to the nomination which, till then, had been looked upon as a sort of bad joke. Jiy what inf^nenr.pi Pennsylvania^previously pledged to Mr. Calhoun, was induced to take tins somerset, is, we believe, even now not very distinctly known. It was certainly not done at the instance of Mr, Calhoun, who was as much surprised as all the rest of the world, when he first learned the fact through the newspapers. Whatever may have led to it, it was certainly the first thing which gave to Jackson the least importance as a candidate. — For this timely declaration in his favor, and for her subsequent steady adhesion to his cause, the General is now showing his gratitude to Pennsylvania by striking a death-blow at her most valuable institutions, and her favorite schemes of policy.

The nomination having thus acquired a title to attention, was encouraged in some of the Southern States, more with a view of effecting a diversion of votes from other candidates than from a real wish for the General's success. In this way, however, he was brought into the House of Representatives as the candidate having the highest number of votes. To pretend that the House were for this reason bound to elect him President, is of course absurd. If the Constitution intended that the candidate having the highest number of votes should of course be President, why did not the Constitution say, that a plurality, and not a majority of votes, should decide the election? It is really wonderful, that a statesman so distinguished as Mr. Calhoun should publicly commit himself to an opinion so clearly and palpably untenable. The House were obviously at full liberty to select from the three candidates the one whom they preferred. — Mr. Crawford was disqualified by the state of his health, and the choice really lay between Mr. Adams and General Jackson : — that is, between ^the only man in the country, whom it was on every account particularly expedient not to make President, and one of those citizens, who were on every account best qualified, — were his private manners a little more gracious, perhaps we might say with justice, the one, who of all the citizens, was best qualified, — for this great office. It did not require all the lofty genius, farsighted sagacity, and wide expanse of views, that belong to Mr.

Clay, to decide such a question. Any man of common sense and common integrity would have settled it in ten minutes, as he did. The people were fully satisfied with the decisio^ The administration of Mr. Adams more than justified the expectations of his warmest friends ; and if the voice of inveterate local prejudice and personal ambition could have been stifled, and the real public opinion of the country been allowed to declare itself, he would have been re-elected President, four years after, without a dissenting vote.

This, however, was not to be expected. Poor human nature is the same at all times and in all countries, and on this occasion we saw an exhibition of some of her least attractive features. Before the new administration had commenced operations, it was openly declared, by the fanatical partisans of the Military Chieftain, that they should be put down were they as pure as the angels in heaven. Perceiving that a desperate struggle would be made for Jackson by this blind and reckless faction, the fpolitical leaders who aimed to succeed Mr. Adams in the presidency thought it safer to attach their fortunes to Jackson, whom they supposed to possess a great personal popularity, than to Mr. Adams, who as an Eastern man, and his father's son, was likely to encounter the strong and deeply-rooted prejudices of a large section of the country. — Under this persuasion, Mr. Van Buren, who had previously acted as the chief manager of the Crawford party, and Mr. Calhoun, then strong at the South in his high station and the great talents of himself and his partisans, if not in a wide reach of territorial influence, sunk for a time their conflicting personal pretensions, and formed a combination to defeat the re-election of Mr. Adams, and to bring in General Jackson as his successor.

When we compare the respective pretensions of these two persons, and recollect that their characters were perfectly well known to the men most active in forming this combination, we are compelled to say that we doubt whether the history of the world furnishes an example of a more unprincipled and corrupt intrigue. It is painful — it is mortifying — it degrades our view of human nature, to think that such men as Mr. Van Buren, and especially Mr. Calhoun, whom we look upon as personally in every respect a much superior man to the other, — should have engaged in it. Both will find to their cost that a plain, manly, upright policy would have served their purpose much better. Had Mr. Calhoun pursued such a course from the first, we have reason to believe that he would have been appointed secretary of state by Mr. Adams. In that case he would have followed Mr. Clay in the Presidency. — His prospects are now completely desperate, and he has nothing to depend upon for his future consequence but the " sad cure," such as it is, of Nullification. The loss of such a man is a public misfortune. Van Buren — but of this man, his character and his prospects, we shall speak hereafter.

The combination thus formed eftected its object by means not less corrupt and unprincipled, than the views in which it had its origin. The wisest measures were met in the halls of Congress by a bitterness and virulence of opposition which contrasts singularly enough with the easy acquiescence in the same quarter in the open violations of the Constitution and laws by the present Executive. But the great organ was the Press ; and the means employed through the Press to undermine the administration were chiefly of two kinds — FALSE PRE- TENCES and PERSONAL SLANDER.

1. FALSE PRETENCES.— The adherents of Jackson assumed for themselves the exclusive title of the Republican Party, and denounced the administration as Federalists and aristocrats. By continually harping upon this string, they probably did more to shake the confidence of the people than in any other way. They knew perfectly well that the assertion was false. The Federalists had ceased, since the war, to act as a party. The five gentlemen who had appeared as candidates at the preceding election, Messrs. Adams, Jackson, Crawford, Clay and Calhoun, were all connected with the Republican party, and had enjoyed its confidence for years. There was no Federal party nor Federal candidate in the country. The assertion was therefore grossly false : in the mouths of those who made it was not merely false but BASE and mean. When the Republican administration were struggling with almost insuperable difficulties, Mr. Adams had given them the weight of his name, talents, and influence. He had done more than any individual in the country to help them honorably out of the war. In taking this course, he had incurred a good deal of ill-will with former political friends whom he had been obliged to oppose. To those who retained the feelings and prejudices of the old Federal party there was not a man in the country so obnoxious as Mr, Adams. Such was the person whom Republican editors, after receiving the benefit of his co-operation and services in the most difficult times, did not scruple to denounce as an opponent. It would be vain to expect any great generosity of feeling from the common herd of partisan politicians ; but ingratitude for benefits received is after all one of the basest and blackest traits that can disgrace the human character. Ingratum si dixeris, omnia dicis.

False, base, and mean as it was, the pretence did more, as we have said, than any other single cause to shake the confidence of the people. When urged by the leading Republican papers, as it was in some of the states, particularly in New Hampshire and Maine, it had an appearance of plausibility, and produced effect. The other great instrument employed by the party, hardly less effectual and certainly not more honorable than the one that we have mentioned, was

2. PERSONAL SLANDER.— Slander is undoubtedly one of the crying sins of this nation. Next to intemperance in the use of liquor, it may be looked upon as our chief national vice. The toleration of it to the extent to which it is carried, is the darkest shade in the present state of civilization among us, although it is one that has escaped the attention of the wiseacres, male and female, who annually come from Europe to spy out the nakedness of our land. It will be absolutely necessary, before long, that well-meaning citizens should form a general combination throughout the country for the suppression of this odious vice — like that which has been formed with so much success for the suppression of intemperance ; if we mean to escape the severe judgments that Providence inflicts upon us, as a punishment for it, in the elevation of corrupt and wicked rulers. The extent to which it was carried by the Jackson party during the administration of Mr. Adams, is almost incredible. From the General himself, who did not scruple to join in the charge of corruption against his competitor — the man whom he had emphatically described as a friend in need — the man to whom he had been indebted, at the most critical periods of his career, for more than life — from General Jackson himself, down to the meanest village editor that barked in his train, the universal staple of attack was personal slander. To drav/ out the falsehoods that were then circulated from the oblivion to which they have long been consigned, would on every account be worse than useless. One, however, deserves to be remembered for its uncommon, atrocity, and stamped as a perpetual brand upon the forehead of its guilty and infamous author. The President of the United States, a man remarkable for the purity of his life and conversation, and his lady, a matron of spotless character, the father and mother of a virtuous family, were publicly charged ^y^ in print by a vile pamphleteer, with having made their home, while abroad, a scene of prostitution. Did the party disavow this disgusting calumny ? Did they expel the unmanly author of it from their ranks, fix a note of infamy upon him, and set him adrift, to wander about like Cain, a marked man upon the face of the earth ? Far from it. After the outrage had been fully exposed on the floor of the House of Representatives, General Jackson nominated the foul calumniator to a lucrative and honorable post in the executive department of the Government. When the Senate of the United States, to their everlasting honor, rejected, by an almost unanimous vote, the disgraceful nomination, the party at home took up the slanderer, and made him, as if in mockery, a member of the body that had just set upon him the seal of deserved reprobation. There he still remains — a monument of the utter political degradation of the state of New Hampshire.