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Copyright © 2017 by Edwin O. Wilson
All rights reserved
First edition, 2017

Published by
TSSI Publishing
6416 North Lamar Blvd
Austin, Texas 78752
Telephone: 512-574-2544
Fax: 512-451-3256
geninfo@threadgills.com
www.threadgills.com

Distributed by
University of Texas Press
P.O. Box 7819
Austin, TX 78713-7819
Telephone: 800-252-3206
Fax: 512-232-7178
info@utpress.utexas.edu
www.utexaspress.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without permission

from the publisher.

All images are courtesy of the author’s personal collection, unless otherwise noted.

All poster artwork is copyright © of the respective artist.

All photographs are copyright © of the respective photographer.

ISBN 978-1-4773-1382-4 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4773-1415-9 (library e-book)
ISBN 978-1-4773-1416-6 (non-library e-book)

DEVELOPMENT, DESIGN, AND PRODUCTION

Lindsay Starr Communication & Book Design

COPYEDITING AND INDEX

Abby Webber

PROOFREADING
Lynne Chapman

PRINTER AND BINDER

Four Colour Print Group

Printed on acid-free paper

Facing: Burton Wilson and Sandra Wilson, October 18, 2000. Family snapshot.
FOR BURTON & SANDRA
“IT REMINDS ME OF WHAT THE BEAVER TOLD THE RABBIT AS
THEY STOOD AT THE BASE OF HOOVER DAM: ‘NO, I DIDN’T
BUILD IT MYSELF, BUT IT’S BASED ON AN IDEA OF MINE.’”
CHARLES TOWNES
“IT IS THE JOB OF ARTISTS TO PUT FEAR IN THE HEARTS OF
ADULTS.”
JIM FRANKLIN
“FAILURE IS THE ARCHITECT OF SUCCESS.”
M. K. HAGE JR.
CONTENTS

FOREWORD
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Introduction
Earning My Hippie Card
Now Dig This
Cosmic Justice
Head Honcho
The Armadillo Art Squad
A King, a Domino, a Captain, and a Leo
Digging for Progress
Living the Dream
A Cultural Refinery
Things Were Looking Up
The Great Redneck-Hippie Merger
A Breed Apart
Being Thankful for What We’ve Got
Not Your Daddy’s Beer Joint
The First Willie Nelson Picnic
Armadillo TV, or What Might Have Been
Then the Rains Came
Home with the Armadillo
Long Live Longnecks
Pot, Big Red, Acid, Coke, and Pumpkins
Feeding the Legend
Crosstown Competition
Traveling Armadillo Blues
Dear Lone Star
The First and Final Annual AWHQ Newsletter
Rough Waters
One Last Swing for the Fences
Eddie Has Left the Building
The Raw Deal and a White Rabbit
The Armadillo Emerges
Last Call
Full Circle
APPENDIX: A SELECTION OF GIG POSTERS FROM AWHQ
A NOTE ON SOURCES
NOTES
INDEX
FOREWORD

Like all the greatest stories told about the ’60s, Eddie Wilson’s starts
in the ’70s It stars a batch of redneck hippies, plus a slew of
politicians, an occasional jock, and many others, often involved in
nefarious activities, sometimes in alleyways, more often in the
statehouse Eddie and his crew set out to change the world, and at
the very least, they turned Austin into what it is today, God help us
all Eddie’s story is by turns hilarious, informative, and the living spirit
of its age, illuminating a previously under-detected transition point
between the psychedelic peace-and-love crowd and a world where
Shiner Bock—warm Shiner Bock—is the ideal social lubricant
Technically, it’s the story of the joint where Bruce Springsteen found
an audience about as far from New Jersey as you can get, and
where Don Meredith discovered his true home field But Eddie Wilson
serves up even better than that Eddie piles the most unlikely
anecdotes on top of one another, creating a land of enchantment
and an order of chemically altered consciousness that rescues an era
I’d thought not so much lost as forgotten Not only am I thrilled I’ve
read this story and wish I was in it, I wish I’d written it
Dave Marsh
April 2016
Ann Richards, AWHQ reunion, 1994. Photograph by Burton Wilson.
PREFACE
I SHARE MY BIG DREAM WITH THE
RICHARDS FAMILY

Ann Richards, governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995, made the

following remarks when she delivered the keynote address at the
South by Southwest festival in 1993
I’m delighted to welcome you to Texas in Austin, Live Music Capital of the
World. You know, the natives believe that we are the center of the musical
universe, and this week, that is literally the truth. We are proud to have all of
you and glad that you can experience firsthand what Texans take for granted,
and that is that the amount and the quantity and quality of live music that you
hear in Austin, Texas, on nearly any night is the best that the country has to
offer. Texas music has become much more than what you hear in a bar with the
chicken wire stretched between the band and the patrons.
Over twenty years ago, a friend of mine named Eddie Wilson called me and
my husband and said that he wanted us to go see a building because he was
about to make a dream come true. And so we went with him out to South
Austin to this great, big, old, barny place, and it had all the windows broken out
of it and it looked like it was about to be demolished in the interest of the health
and safety of Austin, Texas. You must understand that these were in the days,
as Ray Wylie Hubbard said the other night, before Willie Nelson brought the
rednecks and the cowboys together.
So my husband and I walked in with Eddie to this big, old barn, and it was
dirty, and Eddie said, “We’re going to make a music center of the universe right
here.” And as usual, we thought something was wrong with Eddie, that for one
reason or another, his vision had become blurred, but of course that was the
beginning of the Armadillo World Headquarters, which indeed was one of the
most exciting, and remained one of the most exciting, places in the United
States for the years that it was in operation. I saw a little of everything at the
Armadillo, and it was one of the great experiences of my life.
I met Ann and Dave Richards in the 1960s when I was a college
student in Denton. David, an attorney, was involved in politics, and
Ann was known for, among other things, Democratic fundraisers in
which she and other women performed their scathing “Political
Paranoia” parodies of Texas politicians.
The Richardses divorced in 1976. Ann died in 2006. Dave is still a
good friend. The following was originally published in his memoir
Once Upon a Time in Texas: A Liberal in the Lone Star State:1
Eddie, who is a true genius and especially adroit at spewing and spinning ideas,
came and grabbed us one day to show us his dream project. He had located an
abandoned National Guard armory just across the Colorado River in South
Austin. He was going to turn it into a music hall and capture the emerging
Austin music scene. The place was vast, full of junk, and looked impossible to
resurrect. We underestimated Eddie’s determination and energy. Shortly, the
Armadillo World Headquarters burst on the scene and became the embodiment
of Austin funk of the 1970s. With Jim Franklin as resident artist and sometime
master of ceremonies, the ’Dillo radiated a deranged quality that defied
normalcy and attracted all sorts of people.
The astonishing thing was the wide acceptance of the Armadillo message.
Here was a rock-and-roll joint peopled by stoned freaks and hippies that
managed to achieve mainstream acceptance. The city of Austin ended up
naming its shuttle bus service “the ’Dillo.” The Lone Star beer company began a
major promotion featuring Jim Franklin’s armadillo art. Armadillo was the kind of
place that would have been regularly raided by the cops in an earlier era, and
yet it became a chamber of commerce icon, one of the things you brag about in
promotional materials.
All kinds of music came through the place. I saw such diverse performers as
Bette Midler, Bill Malone, Ray Charles, and Commander Cody. The rise of
redneck rock and the outlaw image was intimately associated with the
Armadillo. Its opening somewhat coincided with Willie Nelson’s return to Texas
and the emergence of an anti-Nashville movement led by Nelson, Waylon
Jennings, and Jerry Jeff Walker, among others. Although the state abhorred the
lifestyles presented by the Armadillo and these musicians, the “don’t give a shit”
attitude they personified hit a responsive chord in the Texas psyche. Everyone
seemed to share the sentiment from “London Homesick Blues” of wanting to
“come home to the Armadillo.” So a strange little snuffling nocturnal creature
came to replace the longhorn as the state’s favorite beast.
The Richardses had four children, Cecile, Daniel, Clark, and Ellen.
Cecile is well-known today as an articulate figure in progressive
politics and the longtime president of Planned Parenthood. She
remembers that visit to the “old, barny place,” too.
When we moved to Austin, I remember Eddie Wilson taking us all to this
abandoned armory over there off Barton Springs. It was completely empty, and
Eddie explained that he had this idea that he was going to make it into this
important music venue, and it sounded completely cracked at the time, but of
course then it became the Armadillo. And it became such a center of not only
great music and people who probably never would have performed in Austin,
but it was a cultural cornerstone. It was amazing. And I think that was a time
when progressive politics really took hold in Texas.
Other people, like Esther’s Follies and the people involved in that, were part of
that community, too. And then, of course, after the Armadillo kind of folded,
Eddie opened the Raw Deal and then Threadgill’s. Those were important cultural
places for a group of freethinkers, if you will, and political liberals, and it led to a
lot of people running for office and getting elected.
The Armadillo is really where we as kids grew up, because, to my parents, the
Armadillo was the place, and it was better than a babysitter. It was a huge part
of our upbringing, and an entire decade, if not more, of my parents’ lives.2
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am deeply indebted to the many people who have contributed to

my wonderful life and to this modest rendering of it. If I paid just
the interest on that debt this page would be far longer than the
book. That is reason enough to use the cover of the Threadgill’s
menu here with Kenneth’s name and Mother’s picture, and a very
sincere thank you to all the rest.
Eddie Wilson
Jim’s genius was at work when he did his “Heads and Necks” handbill. In addition
to predicting what was to come of the local social scene he managed to advertise
more than one location and multiple residencies in one effort. Ironically, both
venues on the handbill burned down within quick succession. The next night I got
the key to the future AWHQ. Jim was understandably paranoid. Poster for the Hub
City Movers residency at the Cactus Club and Bonnie’s. Artwork by Jim Franklin.
INTRODUCTION

If not for the coincidence of a swollen bladder and a flimsy lock on a

derelict building, there might never have been a place called
Armadillo World Headquarters. What followed is such a strange and
unlikely story that, forty-five years later, I sometimes wonder if it
really happened at all.
But it did happen, starting on a night in July 1970 after I had
consumed several warm beers watching a band called the Hub City
Movers at a South Austin bar called the Cactus Club. I needed to
take a leak, but a long line of guys waiting to use an overflowing
urinal stirred a primal instinct to venture outdoors.
Joining me on this quest were band members Jimmie Dale Gilmore
and. We crossed the parking lot and found a wall that suited our
purpose. Normally, I might have told them how much I’d enjoyed
their set, but as I stood there relieving myself in the dim light, I was
having a fantastic vision, one that compared with the best chemically
enhanced hallucinations I’ve ever experienced—and I’ve had some
doozies, skull epics that would compete with the best of Steven
Spielberg and Cecil B. DeMille.
My epiphany was prompted by the sight of a cinderblock wall,
maybe two hundred feet long and more than twenty feet tall. High
up were rows of metal-framed windows, some of them broken.
There had to be a huge room on the other side.
If I said a word to Jimmie Dale or John, I don’t remember it. After
zipping up, I left them and walked around the building in the dark
until I found a loading dock door on the west side. It was even
darker there, because of a giant oak tree looming overhead, but I
was still able to jimmy the lock and slip inside. The only light came
through the overhead windows, but what I could see was enough to
make my heartbeat shift into jackrabbit gear. The blend of fear and
excitement was just as strong as when, four years earlier, after being
tricked into joining the marine corps, I had gotten lost and stoned in
the wilds of Mexico and gone bull riding.
I went back to get “Big Blue,” my ’66 Dodge Charger, and drove
around to the building. I raised the garage door, pulled in, got out,
and held my breath. It was an auditorium, enormous and scary.
Scary, because I knew that I was looking at my future.
There were doors in every direction. I walked along a wall, opened
a couple, and saw nothing but pitch black. Not until I opened a door
along the giant south wall did I find enough light to see even further
into the future. The floor rose abruptly about three feet. It was a
ready-made stage.
I stumbled into another room and flicked my cigarette lighter.
Before me was a Texas-sized restroom with enough urinals to empty
the bladders of an army—which made sense, because in one of the
building’s past lives, it had been a National Guard armory. I tested a
sink; the water worked. Though I had pissed only a few minutes
earlier, I tested one of the urinals, just for luck.
Apparently, the building was available. It was crying out to be
used, and I wanted it. Although I didn’t have the faintest idea how
to go about making it mine, somehow I knew that I would.
It seems incredible now, but with the help of a few friends and
like-minded misfits, Armadillo World Headquarters (AWHQ) opened
its doors for business just three and a half weeks later. We started
out with 16,000 square feet of space and ridiculously cheap rent—
$500 a month—free parking in every direction, and a passionate
staff willing to work for next to nothing. Those three things were
absolutely essential to the success of our strange enterprise.
I take credit for being the “founder,” the one who saw the empty,
huge, ugly building, immediately “flashed” (as we used to say) on its
potential, and started the legwork for making it happen. The small,
tight cadre of individuals who ended up being partners in the new
enterprise were for the most part people who showed up and
pitched in during the hectic couple of weeks before we opened.
These were people whose arms didn’t have to be twisted before
they joined the parade. Mike Tolleson was a good example. He came
in when the sawdust was flying and the paint drying. As it turned
out, Mike had come down from Dallas with the idea of starting a
music and cultural incubator himself. “I saw it and I got it
immediately,” says Mike. “The thing I was looking for was already
coming together, so I talked to Eddie, moved down from Dallas a
couple days later, and started doing Armadillo stuff twenty-four
hours a day.”1
Jim Franklin was already at the Dillo making murals and signs and,
in general, helping build out the place in his own inimitable image.
He was one of the first people I called after that night at the Cactus.
Jim recruited Bobby Hedderman, a fellow veteran of the Vulcan Gas
Company, Austin’s short-lived, premiere psychedelic music
emporium.
There were others, particularly Genie Wilson, whom I was married
to at the time. Genie had a good job, and we were all essentially
unemployed but too busy to get jobs. Without her, we probably
would’ve starved to death. Carlotta Pankratz kept our books. Mike
Harr climbed aboard our leaky ark on the bleary-eyed, litter-strewn
morning after our first night. Hank Alrich showed up a little later.
Just in time to save our asses.
And, not to make this sound like an acknowledgments page, it
would be a crime not to mention the bar and kitchen staff, the gang
of hippie carpenters, and the army of general volunteers. But as
things shook out over the first two years, these were the seven
people, along with me, who constituted the core team. We eight
were the ones who would become the official shareholders two
years later, but from the beginning, Armadillo World Headquarters
was a d.b.a. of Armadillo Productions Incorporated. I’ll go into more
detail later, but trust me, during the first two years, the casual
business structure suited everyone just fine, because other than
expenses and debts, there really wasn’t much for any of us to claim
ownership of. We were in it for the music and the lifestyle, not the
money. Nowadays, that might sound like a bunch of hippie-dippy
hyperbole, but it’s the damn truth.
Armadillo World Headquarters opened on August 7, 1970, and
closed its doors for good on January 1, 1981. At the midpoint of the
decade, we were enjoying creative and financial success. We had
gained a worldwide reputation as a great music hall, and bands went
out of their way to play the Dillo because of our high standards of
production, professionalism, and hospitality. It was a happening
place where audiences knew how to make a band feel welcome. One
way to measure the good times at the Armadillo is in gallons of
beer: only the Astrodome sold more draft Lone Star Beer than we
did. That’s right, the famed 44,500-seat domed stadium, often
referred to in those days as the “Eighth Wonder of the World,” was
the only joint in the Lone Star State that moved more kegs of LSB
than our 1,500-capacity hippie music emporium.
Jim Franklin and Eddie Wilson onstage at AWHQ, 1972. Photograph by Van
Brooks.

The next five years were a reminder that what goes up must come
down, and one of the casualties of that period was my own position
as head cheerleader, ringleader, and buck-stopper. In November
1976, I turned the reins over to Hank Alrich, who had already done
more than anyone could humanly expect to help keep the place
running.
 During its remarkable and unlikely ten-year run, the Armadillo
helped nurture and grow an Austin music scene, spreading its gospel
around the world. In the thirty-five years since, the reputation of
Austin as a music city has experienced exponential growth, and no
small part of that is due to the work we did at AWHQ. Today, Austin
is renowned for having an astounding abundance of resident
musicians, venues, studios, and other essential organs for a thriving
music scene infrastructure, along with music festivals that are the
envy of the world. The biggest of them all, South by Southwest,
began in 1987, six years after the Armadillo run came to an end.
One of the other big Austin festivals is Austin City Limits (ACL),
where you’ll find even more Armadillo DNA and connective tissue.
The ACL music festival originated as a spinoff of the PBS series of
the same name, the longest-running live music program in television
history, which is produced by KLRU and first aired as a series in
1976. At the Armadillo, we were heavily involved in video production
and had been putting performances on cablevision ever since the
place opened. In fact, we produced a show called the Armadillo
Country Music Review in partnership with KLRU, then KLRN, in July
1973 and were involved in various aspects of developing a music
series when the TV station decided to produce its own show. Some
of my cohort remained involved for a time, even after that show was
produced and picked up in 1975 as a series under the name Austin
City Limits. Even after our involvement in the production ended, the
Armadillo got a shout-out every week—“I wanna go home with the
Armadillo / Good country music from Amarillo and Abilene”—in the
chorus of the theme song, Gary P. Nunn’s “London Homesick Blues.”
AWHQ staff, 1974. Photograph by Coke Dillworth.

In my opinion, AWHQ was quite simply the best music hall in the
country—maybe even the whole world. Thousands of musicians
played there: Willie Nelson, Frank Zappa, Bruce Springsteen, Taj
Mahal, AC/DC, Charlie Daniels, the Ramones, Roy Buchanan, and
Bette Midler, to name a random few. The interesting thing is that so
many of them kept coming back. They loved the place: the
acoustics, the people who worked there, the huge nachos and other
scrumptious food we served them, and the way the Armadillo made
them feel a part of something bigger.
Another secret to our tenacity might have been our affinity for the
lowly nine-banded armadillo. We named the place Armadillo World
Headquarters primarily because the anachronistic armored mammal
had already been established by Jim Franklin as the icon of Texas
hippies and, as such, we identified with the armadillo for spiritual as
well as artistic reasons.
 Artists at the University of Texas humor magazine the Ranger first
began incorporating armadillo images in satirical pieces in the early
sixties. Frank Erwin—the head of the UT Board of Regents who was
held in special disdain by our community for his overarching,
fascistic, redneck influence—reacted as if the snide references to the
mammal were evidence of some sort of leftist plot or cult, a reaction
that naturally inspired even greater demand for armadillo imagery
and Dasypus novemcinctus itself.
In the late sixties, artists Gilbert Shelton and Jim Franklin
pioneered a new visual style and vocabulary for the underground
scene. Franklin had taken over from Gilbert at the Vulcan Gas
Company. Armadillo images figured prominently in their handbills
and other work created to promote the venue. Gilbert departed for
San Francisco, and the Vulcan folded in 1970, but Franklin dug in his
heels in Austin and brought the emerging visual vocabulary and
attitude to the Armadillo on day one.
Music historians have also credited the Armadillo with being the
place where two previously clashing groups of people—rednecks and
hippies—found themselves under the same roof, enjoying a new
blend of country music and rock, along with cold beer and cheap
pot. The movement was already under way before Willie Nelson
played AWHQ, but once he did, he joined our armored mammalian
mascot as another icon of the cultural melting pot.
Jim’s first armadillo, the rest is history. Poster for a concert at Wooldridge Park,
September 29, 1968. Artwork by Jim Franklin.

On the outs with Nashville, Willie had recently moved to Austin

and started to grow his hair long. We met, shook hands, and booked
a show. Rednecks and hippies met under the arched roof of the
Armadillo at his first gig on August 12, 1972, and struck up a lifelong
relationship. The convergence was a boost to our business and
spawned a many-named movement: cosmic cowboy, progressive
country, and redneck rock, among others. That music and the
Armadillo were practically joined at the hip, and in a larger sense, so
were the music and Austin. The Armadillo nurtured the fan base of
other long-haired country rock artists who followed in Willie’s wake,
a handful of the best-known names being Waylon Jennings, Michael
Murphey (later on he started calling himself Michael Martin Murphey,
but we all knew him as Michael Murphey during the Dillo days), Billy
Joe Shaver, and Steve Fromholz. But less than two years after
Willie’s debut on our stage, he bought his own concert venue, the
Austin Opry House, and became our chief competition.
We were always struggling behind the scenes, sometimes in
public, just to keep the place going. The size of the venue, one of its
big assets, also made it almost impossible to manage. The place had
no air-conditioning, no heat. So we were constantly forced to
innovate, adapt, and experiment. No wonder it often resembled a
bunch of adolescents’ Mad Scientists Club. Some of those
experiments, like the beer garden (an attempt to get people to come
out during the summer months), were great successes.
Drawing on my background in the beer business, I worked on
countless pitches to beer companies for cross-promotions. One of
those campaigns was the “Long Live Longnecks” slogan that was
vividly brought to life with Jim Franklin’s brilliant posters combining
images of longnecks and armadillos. Decades later, those posters are
collectible works of art. Some of them are worth a lot of money, but
more important, collectively, they are significant links to an amazing
period in history, links that trigger heavy emotional responses in the
people who experienced that period.
During the lifespan of the Armadillo, it helped define the Austin
lifestyle, culture, and identity. Word spread that AWHQ was not only
a great, unique music hall, but a place where having a few cool ones
in the beer garden could be a life-affirming or even life-changing
experience. For many visitors, a trip to the Armadillo was first on
their list of important things to do.
Seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it? Well, it was a lifetime ago. In
1970, Austin was a city of 252,000 people, known primarily as the
home of the state university and the state capital, not as a place
where people traveled from far-flung locations to indulge themselves
in an orgy of live music, planning spring breaks and vacations
around it. Today, Austin is the eleventh most populous city in the
United States and the third-fastest-growing large city. For the entire
lifespan of the Armadillo, the property was for sale at a price of $1
million to $1.5 million. Today, that’s the price of a nice condominium
or family residence in the neighborhood.
Never again will local economics allow for such a curious
enterprise as ours.
After the Armadillo closed its doors on January 1, 1981, I was sad,
I was relieved, and for the longest time, I was haunted. I’m writing
the story of the Armadillo as I knew it, which means there may be
some mistakes, and there will surely be parts that annoy the hell out
of some people. But I don’t know any other way to do it.
I am doing this not just for myself, but for all those people who
pitched in and hung on during the ten-year tug-of-war to keep the
joint alive and kicking, the people who risked all to try to keep the
doors open and the music playing. With volunteer help, chewing
gum, duct tape, gumption, bits of string, and a heaping helping of
want-to, we worked miracles on a daily basis.
When I was growing up, my mother, Beulah, constantly impressed
upon me the idea that if I put my mind to something, there was
nothing I couldn’t do. All that we achieved at the Armadillo makes
me cherish her words and her guidance, even though, as a stern
Baptist, she did object to certain things that went on under the roof
of our music emporium.
EARNING MY HIPPIE CARD

Before the Armadillo, I had zero experience running a music club. I

was twenty-six years old, and my post-college experience included
serving a stint in the marine corps, teaching school, coaching
football, lobbying for the Brewers Association, and spending a couple
of extended sojourns in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, looking for Timothy
Leary. In the months leading up to July 1970, I had assumed the job
of band manager for a country folkie hippie group, Shiva’s
Headband. Their sound was rooted in folk and country music but
featured extended, trancelike jams powered by the bandleader’s
untamed electric violin. I got the job mostly because I was the only
person bandleader Spencer Perskin knew who owned a suit and tie.
Shiva’s Headband was the only band in Austin that had a
recording contract with a major label. Capitol Records had made a
deal with Perskin in which he was advanced funds not only to create
a debut album but to seek out and develop other similar bands in
the Austin area. Despite sounding like big business, my initial task
for the band was a humble yet difficult mission: find a place in town
where they could gig for a few hundred dollars a night, ASAP.
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its own means, within its own borders, for its own exemption from
European colonial intrusion.
No question in its day excited more intemperate discussion,
excitement, and feeling between the Executive and the Senate, and
none died out so quickly, than this, relative to the proposed congress
of American nations. The chief advantage to be derived from its
retrospect—and it is a real one—is a view of the firmness with which
the minority maintained the old policy of the United States, to avoid
entangling alliances and interference with the affairs of other
nations; and the exposition, by one so competent as Mr. Adams, of
the true scope and meaning of the Monroe doctrine.
At the session of 1825–26 attempt was again made to procure an
amendment to the Constitution, in relation to the mode of election of
President and Vice-President, so as to do away with all intermediate
agencies, and give the election to the direct vote of the people. In the
Senate the matter was referred to a committee who reported
amendments dispensing with electors, providing for districts equal
in number to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to
which the State was entitled in Congress, and obviating all excuses
for caucuses and conventions to concentrate public opinion by
providing that in the event of no one receiving a majority of the
whole number of district votes cast, that a second election should be
held limited to the two persons receiving the highest number of
votes; and in case of an equal division of votes on the second election
then the House of Representatives shall choose one of them for
President, as is prescribed by the Constitution. The idea being that
the first election, if not resulting in any candidate receiving a
majority, should stand for a popular nomination—a nomination by
the people themselves, out of which the election is almost sure to be
made on the second trial. The same plan was suggested for choosing
a Vice-President, except that the Senate was to finally elect, in case of
failure to choose at first and second elections. The amendments did
not receive the requisite support of two-thirds of either the Senate or
the House. This movement was not of a partisan character; it was
equally supported and opposed respectively by Senators and
Representatives of both parties. Substantially the same plan was
recommended by President Jackson in his first annual message to
Congress, December 8, 1829.
 It is interesting to note that at this Session of 1825 and ’26,
attempt was made by the Democrats to pass a tenure of office bill, as
applicable to government employees and office-holders; it provided
“that in all nominations made by the President to the Senate, to fill
vacancies occasioned by an exercise of the President’s power to
remove from office, the fact of the removal shall be stated to the
Senate at the same time that the nomination is made, with a
statement of the reasons for which such officer may have been
removed.” It was also sought at the same time to amend the
Constitution to prohibit the appointment of any member of Congress
to any federal office of trust or profit, during the period for which he
was elected; the design being to make the members wholly
independent of the Executive, and not subservient to the latter, and
incapable of receiving favors in the form of bestowals of official
patronage.
The tariff of 1828 is an era in our political legislation; from it the
doctrine of “nullification” originated, and from that date began a
serious division between the North and the South. This tariff law was
projected in the interest of the woolen manufacturers, but ended by
including all manufacturing interests. The passage of this measure
was brought about not because it was favored by a majority, but
because of political exigencies. In the then approaching presidential
election, Mr. Adams, who was in favor of the “American System,”
supported by Mr. Clay (his Secretary of State) was opposed by
General Jackson. This tariff was made an administration measure,
and became an issue in the canvass. The New England States, which
had formerly favored free trade, on account of their commercial
interests, changed their policy, and, led by Mr. Webster, became
advocates of the protective system. The question of protective tariff
had now not only become political, but sectional. The Southern
States as a section, were arrayed against the system, though prior to
1816 had favored it, not merely as an incident to revenue, but as a
substantive object. In fact these tariff bills, each exceeding the other
in its degree of protection, had become a regular appendage of our
presidential elections—carrying round in every cycle of four years,
with that returning event; starting in 1816 and followed up in 1820–
24, and now in 1828; with successive augmentations of duties; the
last being often pushed as a party measure, and with the visible
purpose of influencing the presidential election. General Jackson was
elected, having received 178 electoral votes to 83 received by John
Quincy Adams. Mr. Richard Rush, of Pennsylvania, who was on the
ticket with Mr. Adams, was defeated for the office of Vice-President,
and John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, was elected to that office.
The election of General Jackson was a triumph of democratic
principle, and an assertion of the people’s right to govern themselves.
That principle had been violated in the presidential election in the
House of Representatives in the session of 1824–25; and the
sanction, or rebuke, of that violation was a leading question in the
whole canvass. It was also a triumph over the high protective policy,
and the federal internal improvement policy, and the latitudinous
construction of the Constitution; and of the democracy over the
federalists, then called national republicans; and was the re-
establishment of parties on principle, according to the landmarks of
the early years of the government. For although Mr. Adams had
received confidence and office from Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe,
and had classed with the democratic party during the “era of good
feeling,” yet he had previously been federal; and on the re-
establishment of old party lines which began to take place after the
election of Mr. Adams in the House of Representatives, his affinities
and policy became those of his former party; and as a party, with
many individual exceptions, they became his supporters and his
strength. General Jackson, on the contrary, had always been
democratic, so classing when he was a Senator in Congress under the
administration of the first Mr. Adams; and when party lines were
most straightly drawn, and upon principle, and as such now
receiving the support of men and States which took this political
position at that time, and maintained it for years afterwards; among
the latter, notably the States of Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The short session of 1829–30 was rendered famous by the long
and earnest debates in the Senate on the doctrine of nullification, as
it was then called. It started by a resolution of inquiry introduced by
Mr. Foot of Connecticut; it was united with a proposition to limit the
sales of the public lands to those then in the market—to suspend the
surveys of the public lands—and to abolish the office of Surveyor-
General. The effect of such a resolution, if sanctioned upon inquiry
and carried into legislative effect, would have been to check
emigration to the new States in the West, and to check the growth
and settlement of these States and Territories. It was warmly
opposed by Western members. The debate spread and took an
acrimonious turn, and sectional, imputing to the quarter of the
Union from which it came an old and early policy to check the
growth of the West at the outset by proposing to limit the sale of the
Western lands, by selling no tract in advance until all in the rear was
sold out; and during the debate Mr. Webster referred to the famous
ordinance of 1787 for the government of the northwestern territory,
and especially the anti-slavery clause which it contained.
Closely connected with this subject to which Mr. Webster’s
remarks, during the debate, related, was another which excited some
warm discussion—the topic of slavery—and the effect of its existence
or non-existence in different States. Kentucky and Ohio were taken
for examples, and the superior improvement and population of Ohio
were attributed to its exemption from the evils of slavery. This was
an excitable subject, and the more so because the wounds of the
Missouri controversy in which the North was the undisputed
aggressor, were still tender. Mr. Hayne from South Carolina
answered with warmth and resented as a reflection upon the Slave
States this disadvantageous comparison. Mr. Benton of Missouri
followed on the same side, and in the course of his remarks said, “I
regard with admiration, that is to say, with wonder, the sublime
morality of those who cannot bear the abstract contemplation of
slavery, at the distance of five hundred or a thousand miles off.” This
allusion to the Missouri controversy, and invective against the free
States for their part in it, by Messrs. Hayne and Benton, brought a
reply from Mr. Webster, showing what their conduct had been at the
first introduction of the slavery topic in the Congress of the United
States, and that they totally refused to interfere between master and
slave in any way whatever. But the topic which became the leading
feature of the whole debate, and gave it an interest which cannot die,
was that of nullification—the assumed right of a State to annul an act
of Congress—then first broached in the Senate—and in the
discussion of which Mr. Webster and Mr. Hayne were the champion
speakers on opposite sides—the latter voicing the sentiments of the
Vice-President, Mr. Calhoun. This turn in the debate was brought
about, by Mr. Hayne having made allusion to the course of New
England during the war of 1812, and especially to the assemblage
known as the Hartford Convention, and to which designs unfriendly
to the Union had been attributed. This gave Mr. Webster an
opportunity to retaliate, and he referred to the public meetings which
had just then taken place in South Carolina on the subject of the
tariff, and at which resolves were passed, and propositions adopted
significant of resistance to the act; and consequently of disloyalty to
the Union. He drew Mr. Hayne into their defence and into an avowal
of what has since obtained the current name of “Nullification.” He
said, “I understand the honorable gentleman from South Carolina to
maintain, that it is a right of the State Legislature to interfere,
whenever, in their judgment, this government transcends its
constitutional limits, and to arrest the operation of its laws,*** that
the States may lawfully decide for themselves, and each State for
itself, whether, in a given case, the act of the general government
transcends its powers,*** that if the exigency of the case, in the
opinion of any State government require it, such State government
may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an act of the general
government, which it deems plainly and palpably unconstitutional.”
Mr. Hayne was evidently unprepared to admit, or fully deny, the
propositions as so laid down, but contented himself with stating the
words of the Virginia Resolution of 1798, as follows: “That this
assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the
powers of the federal government as resulting from the compact, to
which the States are parties, as limited by the plain sense and
intention of the instrument constituting that compact, as no farther
valid than they are authorized by the grants enumerated in that
compact, and that, in case of a deliberate, palpable and dangerous
exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the States
who are parties thereto have the right, and are in duty bound, to
interpose, for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining,
within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties
appertaining to them.”
This resolution came to be understood by Mr. Hayne and others on
that side of the debate, in the same sense that Mr. Webster stated, as
above, he understood the gentleman from the South to interpret it.
On the other side of the question, he argued that the doctrine had no
foundation either in the Constitution, or on the Virginia resolutions
—that the Constitution makes the federal government act upon
citizens within the States, and not upon the States themselves, as in
the old confederation: that within their Constitutional limits the laws
of Congress were supreme—and that it was treasonable to resist
them with force: and that the question of their constitutionality was
to be decided by the Supreme Court: with respect to the Virginia
resolutions, on which Mr. Hayne relied, Mr. Webster disputed the
interpretation put upon them—claimed for them an innocent and
justifiable meaning—and exempted Mr. Madison from the suspicion
of having framed a resolution asserting the right of a State legislature
to annul an Act of Congress, and thereby putting it in the power of
one State to destroy a form of government which he had just labored
so hard to establish.
Mr. Hayne on his part gave (as the practical part of his doctrine)
the pledge of forcible resistance to any attempt to enforce
unconstitutional laws. He said, “The gentleman has called upon us to
carry out our scheme practically. Now, sir, if I am correct in my view
of this matter, then it follows, of course, that the right of a State
being established, the federal government is bound to acquiesce in a
solemn decision of a State, acting in its sovereign capacity, at least so
far as to make an appeal to the people for an amendment to the
Constitution. This solemn decision of a State binds the federal
government, under the highest constitutional obligation, not to
resort to any means of coercion against the citizens of the dissenting
State.*** Suppose Congress should pass an agrarian law, or a law
emancipating our slaves, or should commit any other gross violation
of our constitutional rights, will any gentlemen contend that the
decision of every branch of the federal government, in favor of such
laws, could prevent the States from declaring them null and void,
and protecting their citizens from their operation?*** Let me assure
the gentlemen that, whenever any attempt shall be made from any
quarter, to enforce unconstitutional laws, clearly violating our
essential rights, our leaders (whoever they may be) will not be found
reading black letter from the musty pages of old law books. They will
look to the Constitution, and when called upon by the sovereign
authority of the State, to preserve and protect the rights secured to
them by the charter of their liberties, they will succeed in defending
them, or ‘perish in the last ditch.’”
These words of Mr. Hayne seem almost prophetic in view of the
events of thirty years later. No one then believed in anything serious
in the new interpretation given to the Virginia resolutions—nor in
anything practical from nullification—nor in forcible resistance to
the tariff laws from South Carolina—nor in any scheme of disunion.
Mr. Webster’s closing reply was a fine piece of rhetoric, delivered
in an elaborate and artistic style, and in an apparent spirit of deep
seriousness. He concluded thus—“When my eyes shall be turned to
behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him
shining on the broken and disfigured fragments of a once glorious
Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent
with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood. Let their
last feeble and lingering glance, rather, behold the gorgeous ensign of
the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full
high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original
lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured,
bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, What is all
this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first
and Union afterwards; but everywhere, spread all over in characters
of living light, blazing in all its ample folds, as they float over the sea
and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that
other sentiment, dear to every true American heart—Liberty and
Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!”
 President Jackson in his first annual message to Congress called
attention to the fact of expiration in 1836 of the charter of
incorporation granted by the Federal government to a moneyed
institution called The Bank of the United States, which was originally
designed to assist the government in establishing and maintaining a
uniform and sound currency. He seriously doubted the
constitutionality and expediency of the law creating the bank, and
was opposed to a renewal of the charter. His view of the matter was
that if such an institution was deemed a necessity it should be made
a national one, in the sense of being founded on the credit of the
government and its revenues, and not a corporation independent
from and not a part of the government. The House of
Representatives was strongly in favor of the renewal of the charter,
and several of its committees made elaborate, ample and
argumentative reports upon the subject. These reports were the
subject of newspaper and pamphlet publication; and lauded for their
power and excellence, and triumphant refutation of all the
President’s opinions. Thus was the “war of the Bank” commenced at
once in Congress, and in the public press; and openly at the instance
of the Bank itself, which, forgetting its position as an institution of
the government, for the convenience of the government, set itself up
as a power, and struggled for continued existence, by demand for
renewal of its charter. It allied itself at the same time to the political
power opposed to the President, joined in all their schemes of
protective tariff, and national internal improvement, and became the
head of the American system. Its moneyed and political power,
numerous interested affiliations, and control over other banks and
fiscal institutions, was truly great and extensive, and a power which
was exercised and made to be felt during the struggle to such a
degree that it threatened a danger to the country and the government
almost amounting to a national calamity.
The subject of renewal of the charter was agitated at every
succeeding session of Congress down to 1836, and many able
speeches made for and against it.
In the month of December, 1831, the National Republicans, as the
party was then called which afterward took the name of “whig,” held
its convention in Baltimore, and nominated candidates for President
and Vice-President, to be voted for at the election in the autumn of
the ensuing year. Henry Clay was the candidate for the office of
President, and John Sergeant for that of Vice-President. The
platform or address to the people presented the party issues which
were to be settled at the ensuing election, the chief subjects being the
tariff, internal improvement, removal of the Cherokee Indians, and
the renewal of the United States Bank charter. Thus the bank
question was fully presented as an issue in the election by that part of
its friends who classed politically against President Jackson. But it
had also Democratic friends without whose aid the re-charter could
not be got through Congress, and they labored assiduously for it. The
first Bank of the United States, chartered in 1791, was a federal
measure, favored by General Hamilton, opposed by Mr. Jefferson,
Mr. Madison, and the Republican party; and became a great
landmark of party, not merely for the bank itself, but for the
latitudinarian construction of the constitution in which it was
founded, and the precedent it established that Congress might in its
discretion do what it pleased, under the plea of being “necessary” to
carry into effect some granted power. The non-renewal of the charter
in 1811, was the act of the Republican party, then in possession of the
government, and taking the opportunity to terminate, upon its own
limitation, the existence of an institution whose creation they had
not been able to prevent. The charter of the second bank, in 1816,
was the act of the Republican party, and to aid them in the
administration of the government, and, as such, was opposed by the
Federal party—not seeming then to understand that, by its instincts,
a great moneyed corporation was in sympathy with their own party,
and would soon be with it in action—which the bank soon was—and
now struggled for a continuation of its existence under the lead of
those who had opposed its creation and against the party which
effected it. Mr. Webster was a Federal leader on both occasions—
against the charter in 1816; for the re-charter in 1832. The bill passed
the Senate after a long and arduous contest; and afterwards passed
the House, quickly and with little or no contest at all.
It was sent to the President, and vetoed by him July 10, 1832; the
message stating his objections being an elaborate review of the
subject; the veto being based mainly on the unconstitutionality of the
measure. The veto was sustained. Following this the President after
the adjournment removed from the bank the government deposits,
and referred to that fact in his next annual message on the second
day of December, 1833, at the opening of the first session of the
twenty-third Congress. Accompanying it was the report of the
Secretary of the Treasury, Hon. Roger B. Taney, afterwards Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, giving the reasons
of the government for the withdrawal of the public funds. Long and
bitter was the contest between the President on the one side and the
Bank and its supporters in the Senate on the other side. The conduct
of the Bank produced distress throughout the country, and was so
intended to coerce the President. Distress petitions flooded
Congress, and the Senate even passed resolutions of censure of the
President. The latter, however, held firm in his position. A committee
of investigation was appointed by the House of Representatives to
inquire into the causes of the commercial embarrassment and the
public distress complained of in the numerous distress memorials
presented to the two Houses during the session; and whether the
Bank had been instrumental, through its management of money, in
producing the distress and embarrassment of which so much
complaint was made; to inquire whether the charter of the Bank had
been violated, and what corruptions and abuses, if any, existed in its
management; and to inquire whether the Bank had used its
corporate power or money to control the press, to interpose in
politics, or to influence elections. The committee were granted ample
powers for the execution of these inquiries. It was treated with
disdain and contempt by the Bank management; refused access to
the books and papers, and the directors and president refused to be
sworn and testify. The committee at the next session made report of
their proceedings, and asked for warrants to be issued against the
managers to bring them before the Bar of the House to answer for
contempt; but the friends of the Bank in the House were able to
check the proceedings and prevent action being taken. In the Senate,
the President was sought to be punished by a declination by that
body to confirm the President’s nomination of the four government
directors of the Bank, who had served the previous year; and their re-
nomination after that rejection again met with a similar fate. In like
manner his re-nomination of Roger B. Taney to be Secretary of the
Treasury was rejected, for the action of the latter in his support of the
President and the removal of the public deposits. The Bank had lost
much ground in the public estimation by resisting the investigation
ordered and attempted by the House of Representatives, and in
consequence the Finance Committee of the Senate made an
investigation, with so weak an attempt to varnish over the affairs and
acts of the corporation that the odious appellation of “white-washing
committee” was fastened upon it. The downfall of the Bank speedily
followed; it soon afterwards became a total financial wreck, and its
assets and property were seized on executions. With its financial
failure it vanished from public view, and public interest in it and
concern with it died out.
About the beginning of March, 1831, a pamphlet was issued in
Washington, by Mr. John C. Calhoun, the Vice-President, and
addressed to the people of the United States, explaining the cause of
a difference which had taken place between himself and the
President, General Jackson, instigated as the pamphlet alleged, by
Mr. Van Buren, and intended to make trouble between the first and
second officers of the government, and to effect the political
destruction of himself (Mr. Calhoun) for the benefit of the contriver
of the quarrel, the then Secretary of State, and indicated as a
candidate for the presidential succession upon the termination of
Jackson’s term. The differences grew out of certain charges against
General Jackson respecting his conduct during the Seminole war
which occurred in the administration of President Monroe. The
President justified himself in published correspondence, but the
inevitable result followed—a rupture between the President and
Vice-President—which was quickly followed by a breaking up and
reconstructing the Cabinet. Some of its members classed as the
political friends of Mr. Calhoun, and could hardly be expected to
remain as ministers to the President. Mr. Van Buren resigned; a new
Cabinet was appointed and confirmed. This change in the Cabinet
made a great figure in the party politics of the day, and filled all the
opposition newspapers, and had many sinister reasons assigned to it
—all to the prejudice of General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren.
It is interesting to note here that during the administration of
President Jackson,—in the year 1833,—the Congress of the United
States, as the consequence of the earnest efforts in that behalf, of Col.
R. M. Johnson, of Kentucky, aided by the recommendation and
support of the President, passed the first laws, abolishing
imprisonment for debt, under process from the Courts of the United
States: the only extent to which an act of Congress could go, by force
of its enactments; but by force of example and influence, has led to
the cessation of the practice of imprisoning debtors, in all, or nearly
all, of the States and Territories of the Union; and without the evil
consequences which had been dreaded from the loss of this remedy
over the person. The act was a total abolition of the practice, leaving
in full force all the remedies against fraudulent evasions of debt.
The American system, and especially its prominent feature of a
high protective tariff was put in issue, in the Presidential canvass of
1832; and the friends of that system labored diligently in Congress in
presenting its best points to the greatest advantage; and staking its
fate upon the issue of the election. It was lost; not only by the result
of the main contest, but by that of the congressional election which
took place simultaneously with it. All the States dissatisfied with that
system, were satisfied with the view of its speedy and regular
extinction, under the legislation of the approaching session of
Congress, excepting only South Carolina. She has held aloof from the
Presidential contest, and cast her electoral votes for persons who
were not candidates—doing nothing to aid the election of General
Jackson, with whom her interests were apparently identified. On the
24th November, 1832, two weeks after the election which decided the
fate of the tariff, that State issued an “Ordinance to nullify certain
acts of the Congress of the United States, purporting to be laws
laying duties and imposts on the importation of foreign
commodities.” It declared that the Congress had exceeded its
constitutional powers in imposing high and excessive duties on the
theory of “protection,” had unjustly discriminated in favor of one
class or employment, at the expense and to the injury and oppression
of other classes and individuals; that said laws were in consequence
not binding on the State and its citizens; and declaring its right and
purpose to enact laws to prevent the enforcement and arrest the
operation of said acts and parts of the acts of the Congress of the
United States within the limits of that State after the first day of
February following. This ordinance placed the State in the attitude of
forcible resistance to the laws of the United States, to take effect on
the first day of February next ensuing—a date prior to the meeting of
the next Congress, which the country naturally expected would take
some action in reference to the tariff laws complained of. The
ordinance further provided that if, in the meantime, any attempt was
made by the federal government to enforce the obnoxious laws,
except through the tribunals, all the officers of which were sworn
against them, the fact of such attempt was to terminate the
continuance of South Carolina in the Union—to absolve her from all
connection with the federal government—and to establish her as a
separate government, wholly unconnected with the United States or
any State. The ordinance of nullification was certified by the
Governor of South Carolina to the President of the United States, and
reached him in December of the same year; in consequence of which
he immediately issued a proclamation, exhorting the people of South
Carolina to obey the laws of Congress; pointing out and explaining
the illegality of the procedure; stating clearly and distinctly his firm
determination to enforce the laws as became him as Executive, even
by resort to force if necessary. As a state paper, it is important as it
contains the views of General Jackson regarding the nature and
character of our federal government, expressed in the following
language: “The people of the United States formed the constitution,
acting through the State Legislatures in making the compact, to meet
and discuss its provisions, and acting in separate conventions when
they ratified those provisions; but, the terms used in the constitution
show it to be a government in which the people of all the States
collectively are represented. We are one people in the choice of
President and Vice-President. Here the States have no other agency
than to direct the mode in which the votes shall be given. * * * The
people, then, and not the States, are represented in the executive
branch. * * * In the House of Representatives the members are all
representatives of the United States, not representatives of the
particular States from which they come. They are paid by the United
States, not by the State, nor are they accountable to it for any act
done in the performance of their legislative functions. * * *
“The constitution of the United States, then, forms a government,
not a league; and whether it be formed by a compact between the
States, or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a
government in which all the people are represented, which operates
directly on the people individually, not upon the States—they
retained all the power they did not grant. But each State, having
expressly parted with so many powers as to constitute, jointly with
the other States, a single nation, cannot, from that period, possess
any right to secede, because such secession does not break a league,
but destroys the unity of the nation, and any injury to that unity, is
not only a breach which could result from the contravention of a
compact, but it is an offence against the whole Union. To say that any
State may at pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the
United States are not a nation; because it would be a solecism to
contend that any part of a nation might dissolve its connection with
the other parts, to their injury or ruin, without committing any
offence.”
Without calling on Congress for extraordinary powers, the
President in his annual message, merely adverted to the attitude of
the State, and proceeded to meet the exigency by the exercise of the
powers he already possessed. The proceedings in South Carolina not
ceasing, and taking daily a more aggravated form in the organization
of troops, the collection of arms and of munitions of war, and in
declarations hostile to the Union, he found it necessary early in
January to report the facts to Congress in a special message, and ask
for extraordinary powers. Bills for the reduction of the tariff were
early in the Session introduced into both houses, while at the same
time the President, though not relaxing his efforts towards a peaceful
settlement of the difficulty, made steady preparations for enforcing
the law. The result of the bills offered in the two Houses of Congress,
was the passage of Mr. Clay’s “compromise” bill on the 12th of
February 1833, which radically changed the whole tariff system.
The President in his message on the South Carolina proceedings
had recommended to Congress the revival of some acts, heretofore in
force, to enable him to execute the laws in that State; and the
Senate’s committee on the judiciary had reported a bill accordingly
early in the session. It was immediately assailed by several members
as violent and unconstitutional, tending to civil war, and denounced
as “the bloody bill”—the “force bill,” &c. The bill was vindicated in
the Senate, by its author, who showed that it contained no novel
principle; was substantially a revival of laws previously in force; with
the authority superadded to remove the office of customs from one
building or place to another in case of need. The bill was vehemently
opposed, and every effort made to render it odious to the people, and
even extend the odium to the President, and to every person urging
or aiding in its passage. Mr. Webster justly rebuked all this
vituperation, and justified the bill, both for the equity of its
provisions, and the necessity for enacting them. He said, that an
unlawful combination threatened the integrity of the Union; that the
crisis called for a mild, temperate, forbearing but inflexibly firm
execution of the laws; and finally, that public opinion sets with an
irresistible force in favor of the Union, in favor of the measures
recommended by the President, and against the new doctrines which
threatened the dissolution of the Union. The support which Mr.
Webster gave to these measures was the regular result of the
principles which he laid down in his first speeches against
nullification in the debate with Mr. Hayne, and he could not have
done less without being derelict to his own principles then avowed.
He supported with transcendent ability, the cause of the constitution
and of the country, in the person of a President to whom he was
politically opposed, whose gratitude and admiration he earned for
his patriotic endeavors. The country, without distinction of party, felt
the same; and the universality of the feeling was one of the grateful
instances of popular applause and justice when great talents are seen
exerting themselves for the good of the country. He was the colossal
figure on the political stage during that eventful time; and his labors,
splendid in their day, survive for the benefit of distant posterity.
During the discussion over the re-charter of the Bank of the United
States, which as before mentioned, occupied the attention of
Congress for several years, the country suffered from a money panic,
and a general financial depression and distress was generally
prevalent. In 1834 a measure was introduced into the House, for
equalizing the value of gold and silver, and legalizing the tender of
foreign coin, of both metals. The good effects of the bill were
immediately seen. Gold began to flow into the country through all
the channels of commerce, foreign and domestic; the mint was busy;
and specie payment, which had been suspended in the country for
thirty years, was resumed, and gold and silver became the currency
of the land; inspiring confidence in all the pursuits of industry.
As indicative of the position of the democratic party at that date,
on the subject of the kind of money authorized by the Constitution,
Mr. Benton’s speech in the Senate is of interest. He said: “In the first
place, he was one of those who believed that the government of the
United States was intended to be a hard-money government; that it
was the intention and the declaration of the Constitution of the
United States, that the federal currency should consist of gold and
silver, and that there is no power in Congress to issue, or to authorize
any company of individuals to issue, any species of federal paper
currency whatsoever. Every clause in the Constitution (said Mr. B.)
which bears upon the subject of money—every early statute of
Congress which interprets the meaning of these clauses—and every
historic recollection which refers to them, go hand in hand in giving
to that instrument the meaning which this proposition ascribes to it.
The power granted to Congress to coin money is an authority to
stamp metallic money, and is not an authority for emitting slips of
paper containing promises to pay money. The authority granted to
Congress to regulate the value of coin, is an authority to regulate the
value of the metallic money, not of paper. The prohibition upon the
States against making anything but gold and silver a legal tender, is a
moral prohibition, founded in virtue and honesty, and is just as
binding upon the Federal Government as upon the State
Governments; and that without a written prohibition; for the
difference in the nature of the two governments is such, that the
States may do all things which they are not forbid to do; and the
Federal Government can do nothing which it is not authorized by the
Constitution to do. The framers of the Constitution (said Mr. B.)
created a hard-money government. They intended the new
government to recognize nothing for money but gold and silver; and
every word admitted into the Constitution, upon the subject of
money, defines and establishes that sacred intention.
Legislative enactment came quickly to the aid of constitutional
intention and historic recollection. The fifth statute passed at the
first session of the first Congress that ever sat under the present
Constitution was full and explicit on this head. It declared, “that the
fees and duties payable to the federal government shall be received in
gold and silver coin only.” It was under General Hamilton, as
Secretary of the Treasury, in 1791, that the policy of the government
underwent a change. In the act constituting the Bank of the United
States, he brought forward his celebrated plan for the support of the
public credit—that plan which unfolded the entire scheme of the
paper system and immediately developed the great political line
between the federalists and the republicans. The establishment of a
national bank was the leading and predominant feature of that plan;
and the original report of the secretary, in favor of establishing the
bank, contained this fatal and deplorable recommendation: “The
bills and notes of the bank, originally made payable, or which shall
have become payable, on demand, in gold and silver coin, shall be
receivable in all payments to the United States.” From the moment of
the adoption of this policy, the moneyed character of the government
stood changed and reversed. Federal bank notes took the place of
hard-money; and the whole edifice of the government slid, at once,
from the solid rock of gold and silver money, on which its framers
had placed it, into the troubled and tempestuous ocean of paper
currency.
The first session of the 35th Congress opened December 1835. Mr.
James K. Polk was elected Speaker of the House by a large majority
over Mr. John Bell, the previous Speaker; the former being
supported by the administration party, and the latter having become
identified with those who, on siding with Mr. Hugh L. White as a
candidate for the presidency, were considered as having divided from
the democratic party. The chief subject of the President’s message
was the relations of our country with France relative to the continued
non-payment of the stipulated indemnity provided for in the treaty
of 1831 for French spoliations of American shipping. The obligation
to pay was admitted, and the money even voted for that purpose; but
offense was taken at the President’s message, and payment refused
until an apology should be made. The President commented on this
in his message, and the Senate had under consideration measures
authorizing reprisals on French shipping. At this point Great Britain
offered her services as mediator between the nations, and as a result
the indemnity was shortly afterwards paid.
Agitation of the slavery question in the United States really began
about this time. Evil-disposed persons had largely circulated through
the Southern states, pamphlets and circulars tending to stir up strife
and insurrection; and this had become so intolerable that it was
referred to by the President in his message. Congress at the session
of 1836 was flooded with petitions and memorials urging federal
interference to abolish slavery in the States; beginning with the
petition of the Society of Friends of Philadelphia, urging the abolition
of slavery in the District of Columbia. These petitions were referred
to Committees after an acrimonious debate as to whether they
should be received or not. The position of the government at that
time is embodied in the following resolution which was adopted in
the House of Representatives as early as 1790, and substantially
reaffirmed in 1836, as follows: “That Congress have no authority to
interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of them
within any of the States; it remaining with the several States to
provide any regulations therein which humanity and true policy may
require.”
In the Summer preceding the Presidential election of 1836, a
measure was introduced into Congress, which became very nearly a
party measure, and which in its results proved disastrous to the
Democratic party in after years. It was a plan for distributing the
public land money among the States either in the shape of credit
distribution, or in the disguise of a deposit of surplus revenue; and
this for the purpose of enhancing the value of the State stocks held by
the United States Bank, which institution, aided by the party which it
favored, led by Mr. Clay, was the prime mover in the plan. That
gentleman was the author of the scheme, and great calculations were
made by the party which favored the distribution upon its effect in
adding to their popularity. The Bill passed the Senate in its original
form, but met with less favor in the House where it was found
necessary. To effectuate substantially the same end, a Senate Bill was
introduced to regulate the keeping of the public money in the deposit
banks, and this was turned into distribution of the surplus public
moneys with the States, in proportion to their representation in
Congress, to be returned when Congress should call for it; and this
was called a deposit with the States, and the faith of the States
pledged for a return of the money. It was stigmatized by its
opponents in Congress, as a distribution in disguise—as a deposit
never to be reclaimed; as a miserable evasion of the Constitution; as
an attempt to debauch the people with their own money; as
plundering instead of defending the country. The Bill passed both
houses, mainly by the efforts of a half dozen aspirants to the
Presidency, who sought to thus increase their popularity. They were
doomed to disappointment in this respect. Politically, it was no
advantage to its numerous and emulous supporters, and of no
disservice to its few determined opponents. It was a most
unfortunate act, a plain evasion of the Constitution for a bad
purpose; and it soon gave a sad overthrow to the democracy and
disappointed every calculation made upon it. To the States it was no
advantage, raising expectations which were not fulfilled, and upon
which many of them acted as realities. The Bill was signed by the
President, but it is simple justice to him to say that he did it with a
repugnance of feeling, and a recoil of judgment, which it required
great efforts of his friends to overcome, and with a regret for it
afterwards which he often and publicly expressed. In a party point of
view, the passage of this measure was the commencement of
calamities, being an efficient cause in that general suspension of
specie payments, which quickly occurred, and brought so much
embarrassment on the Van Buren administration, ending in the
great democratic defeat of 1840.
The presidential election of 1836 resulted in the choice of the
democratic candidate, Mr. Van Buren, who was elected by 170
electoral votes; his opponent, General Harrison, receiving seventy-
three electoral votes. Scattering votes were given for Mr. Webster,
Mr. Mangum, and Mr. Hugh L. White, the last named representing a
fragment of the democracy who, in a spirit of disaffection, attempted
to divide the democratic party and defeat Mr. Van Buren. At the
opening of the second session of the twenty-fourth Congress,
December, 1836, President Jackson delivered his last annual
message, under circumstances exceedingly gratifying to him. The
powerful opposition in Congress had been broken down, and he had
the satisfaction of seeing full majorities of ardent and tried friends in
each House. The country was in peace and friendship with all the
world; all exciting questions quieted at home; industry in all its
branches prosperous, and the revenue abundant. And as a happy
sequence of this state of affairs, the Senate on the 16th of March,
1837, expunged from the Journal the resolution, adopted three years
previously, censuring the President for ordering the removal of the
deposits of public money in the United States Bank. He retired from
the presidency with high honors, and died eight years afterwards at
his home, the celebrated “Hermitage,” in Tennessee, in full
possession of all his faculties, and strong to the last in the ruling
passion of his soul—love of country.
The 4th of March, 1837, ushered in another Democratic
administration—the beginning of the term of Martin Van Buren as
President of the United States. In his inaugural address he
commented on the prosperous condition of the country, and declared
it to be his policy to strictly abide by the Constitution as written—no
latitudinarian constructions permitted, or doubtful powers assumed;
that his political chart should be the doctrines of the democratic
school, as understood at the original formation of parties.
The President, however, was scarcely settled in his new office
when a financial panic struck the country with irresistible force. A
general suspension of the banks, a depreciated currency, and
insolvency of the federal treasury were at hand. The public money
had been placed in the custody of the local banks, and the notes of all
these banks, and of all others in the country, were received in
payment of public dues. On the 10th of May, 1837, the banks
throughout the country suspended specie payments. The stoppage of
the deposit banks was the stoppage of the Treasury. Non-payment by
the government was an excuse for non-payment by others. The
suspension was now complete; and it was evident, and as good as
admitted by those who had made it, that it was the effect of
contrivance on the part of politicians and the so-called Bank of the