Part 35 (2/2)
300. Progress in Letters.--There was also great progress in learning. The school system was constantly improved. Especially was this the case in the West, where the government devoted one thirty-sixth part of the public lands to education. High schools were founded, and soon normal schools were added to them. Even the colleges awoke from their long sleep. More students went to them, and the methods of teaching were improved. Some slight attention, too, was given to teaching the sciences. In 1828 Noah Webster published the first edition of his great dictionary. Unfortunately he tried to change the spelling of many words.
But in other ways his dictionary was a great improvement. He defined words so that they could be understood, and he gave the American meaning of many words, as ”congress.” American writers now began to make great reputations. Cooper, Irving, and Bryant were already well known. They were soon joined by a wonderful set of men, who speedily made America famous. These were Emerson, Lowell, Longfellow, Holmes, Hawthorne, Prescott, Motley, Bancroft, and Sparks. In science, also, men of mark were beginning their labors, as Pierce, Gray, Silliman, and Dana. Louis Aga.s.siz before long began his wonderful lectures, which did much to make science popular. In short, Jackson's administration marks the time when American life began to take on its modern form.
[Ill.u.s.tration: NOAH WEBSTER.]
CHAPTER 29
THE REIGN OF ANDREW JACKSON, 1829-1837
[Sidenote: Jackson's early career.]
[Sidenote: His ”kitchen cabinet”.]
301. General Jackson.--Born in the backwoods of Carolina, Jackson had early crossed the Alleghanies and settled in Tennessee. Whenever trouble came to the Western people, whenever there was need of a stout heart and an iron will, Jackson was at the front. He always did his duty. He always did his duty well. Honest and sincere, he believed in himself and he believed in the American people. As President he led the people in one of the stormiest periods in our history. Able men gathered about him. But he relied chiefly on the advice of a few friends who smoked their pipes with him and formed his ”kitchen cabinet.” He seldom called a regular cabinet meeting. When he did call one, it was often merely to tell the members what he had decided to do.
[Sidenote: Party machines.]
[Sidenote: The Spoils System.]
302. The Spoils System.--Among the able men who had fought the election for Jackson were Van Buren and Marcy of New York and Buchanan of Pennsylvania. They had built up strong party machines in their states. For they ”saw nothing wrong in the principle that to the victors belong the spoils of victory.” So they rewarded their party workers with offices--when they won. The Spoils System was now begun in the national government. Those who had worked for Jackson rushed to Was.h.i.+ngton. The hotels and boarding-houses could not hold them. Some of them camped out in the parks and public squares of the capital. Removals now went merrily on. Rotation in office was the cry. Before long Jackson removed nearly one thousand officeholders and appointed political partisans in their places.
[Sidenote: The North and the South. _McMaster_, 301-304.]
303. The North and the South.--The South was now a great cotton-producing region. This cotton was grown by negro slaves. The North was now a great manufacturing and commercial region. It was also a great agricultural region. But the labor in the mills, fields, and s.h.i.+ps of the North was all free white labor. So the United States was really split into two sections: one devoted to slavery and to a few great staples, as cotton; the other devoted to free white labor and to industries of many kinds.
[Sidenote: The South and the tariff, 1829.]
[Sidenote: Calhoun's ”Exposition.”]
304. The Political Situation, 1829.--The South was growing richer all the time; but the North was growing richer a great deal faster than was the South. Calhoun and other Southern men thought that this difference in the rate of progress was due to the protective system. In 1828 Congress had pa.s.sed a tariff that was so bad that it was called the Tariff of Abominations (p. 231). The Southerners could not prevent its pa.s.sage. But Calhoun wrote an ”Exposition” of the const.i.tutional doctrines in the case. This paper was adopted by the legislature of South Carolina as giving its ideas. In this paper Calhoun declared that the Const.i.tution of the United States was a compact. Each state was a sovereign state and could annul any law pa.s.sed by Congress. The protective system was unjust and unequal in operation. It would bring ”poverty and utter desolation to the South.” The tariff act should be annulled by South Carolina and by other Southern states.
[Ill.u.s.tration: DANIEL WEBSTER, 1833.]
[Sidenote: Hayne's speech, 1830.]
[Sidenote: Webster's reply to Hayne.]
305. Webster and Hayne, 1830.--Calhoun was Vice-President and presided over the debates of the Senate. So it fell to Senator Hayne of South Carolina to state Calhoun's ideas. This he did in a very able speech. To him Daniel Webster of Ma.s.sachusetts replied in the most brilliant speeches ever delivered in Congress. The Const.i.tution, Webster declared, was ”the people's const.i.tution, the people's government; made by the people and answerable to the people. The people have declared that this const.i.tution ... shall be the supreme law.” The Supreme Court of the United States alone could declare a national law to be unconst.i.tutional; no state could do that. He ended this great speech with the memorable words, ”Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.”
[Sidenote: Tariff of 1832.]
[Sidenote: ”Nullified” by South Carolina, 1833.]
[Sidenote: Jackson's warning.]
[Sidenote: He prepares to enforce the law.]
[Sidenote: The Force Bill, 1833.]
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