Volume IV Part 60 (2/2)
Ah, me! ah, me! my Mary's urn!'”[1404]
After his wife's death, Marshall arranged to live at ”Leeds Manor,”
Fauquier County, a large house on part of the Fairfax estate which he had given to his son, James Keith Marshall. A room, with very thick walls to keep out the noise of his son's many children, was built for him, adjoining the main dwelling. Here he brought his library, papers, and many personal belongings. His other sons and their families lived not far away; ”Leeds Manor” was in the heart of the country where he had grown to early manhood; and there he expected to spend his few remaining years.[1405] He could not, however, tear himself from his Richmond home, where he continued to live most of the time until his death.[1406]
When fully recovered from his operation, Marshall seemed to acquire fresh strength. He ”is in excellent health, never better, and as firm and robust in mind as in body,” Story informs Charles Sumner.[1407]
The Chief Justice was, however, profoundly depressed. The course that President Jackson was then pursuing--his att.i.tude toward the Supreme Court in the Georgia controversy,[1408] his arbitrary and violent rule, his hostility to the second Bank of the United States--alarmed and distressed Marshall.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”_Leeds Manor_”
_The princ.i.p.al house in the Fairfax purchase and the home of Marshall's son, James Keith Marshall, where he expected to spend his declining years._]
The Bank had finally justified the brightest predictions of its friends.
Everywhere in the country its notes were as good as gold, while abroad they were often above par.[1409] Its stock was owned in every nation and widely distributed in America.[1410] Up to the time when Jackson began his warfare upon the Bank, the financial management of Nicholas Biddle had been as brilliant as it was sound.[1411]
But popular hostility to the Bank had never ceased. In addition to the old animosity toward any central inst.i.tution of finance, charges were made that directors of certain branches of the Bank had used their power to interfere in politics. As implacable as they were unjust were the a.s.saults made by Democratic politicians upon Jeremiah Mason, director of the branch at Portsmouth, New Hamps.h.i.+re. Had the Bank consented to Mason's removal, it is possible that Jackson's warfare on it would not have been prosecuted.[1412]
The Bank's charter was to expire in 1836. In his first annual Message to Congress the President briefly called attention to the question of rechartering the inst.i.tution. The const.i.tutionality of the Bank Act was doubtful at best, he intimated, and the Bank certainly had not established a sound and uniform currency.[1413] In his next Message, a year later, Jackson repeated more strongly his attack upon the Bank.[1414]
Two years afterwards, on the eve of the Presidential campaign of 1832, the friends of the Bank in Congress pa.s.sed, by heavy majorities, a bill extending the charter for fifteen years after March 3, 1836, the date of its expiration.[1415] The princ.i.p.al supporters of this measure were Clay and Webster and, indeed, most of the weighty men in the National Legislature. But they were enemies of Jackson, and he looked upon the rechartering of the Bank as a personal affront.
On July 4, 1832, the bill was sent to the President. Six days later he returned it with his veto. Jackson's veto message was as able as it was cunning. Parts of it were demagogic appeals to popular pa.s.sion; but the heart of it was an attack upon Marshall's opinions in M'Culloch _vs._ Maryland and Osborn _vs._ The Bank.
The Bank is a monopoly, its stockholders and directors a ”privileged order”; worse still, the inst.i.tution is rapidly pa.s.sing into the hands of aliens--”already is almost a third of the stock in foreign hands.” If we must have a bank, let it be ”_purely American_.” This aristocratic, monopolistic, un-American concern exists by the authority of an unconst.i.tutional act of Congress. Even worse is the rechartering act which he now vetoed.
The decision of the Supreme Court in the Bank cases, settled nothing, said Jackson. Marshall's opinions were, for the most part, erroneous and ”ought not to control the co-ordinate authorities of this Government.
The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Const.i.tution.... It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President to decide upon the const.i.tutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for pa.s.sage or approval as it is of the supreme judges when it may be brought before them for judicial decision.
”The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both. The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve.”[1416]
But, says Jackson, the court did not decide that ”all features of this corporation are compatible with the Const.i.tution.” He quotes--and puts in italics--Marshall's statement that ”_where the law is not prohibited and is really calculated to effect any of the objects intrusted to the Government, to undertake here to inquire into the degree of its necessity would be to pa.s.s the line which circ.u.mscribes the judicial department and to tread on legislative ground_.” This language, insists Jackson, means that ”it is the exclusive province of Congress and the President to decide whether the particular features of this act are _necessary_ and _proper_ ... and therefore const.i.tutional, or _unnecessary_ and _improper_, and therefore unconst.i.tutional.”[1417]
Thereupon Jackson points out what he considers to be the defects of the bill.
Congress has no power to ”grant exclusive privileges or monopolies,”
except in the District of Columbia and in the matter of patents and copyrights. ”Every act of Congress, therefore, which attempts, by grants of monopolies or sale of exclusive privileges for a limited time, or a time without limit, to restrict or extinguish its own discretion in the choice of means to execute its delegated powers, is equivalent to a legislative amendment of the Const.i.tution, and palpably unconst.i.tutional.”[1418] Jackson fiercely attacks Marshall's opinion that the States cannot tax the National Bank and its branches.
The whole message is able, adroit, and, on its face, plainly intended as a campaign doc.u.ment.[1419] A shrewd appeal is made to the State banks.
Popular jealousy and suspicion of wealth and power are skillfully played upon: ”The rich and powerful” always use governments for ”their selfish purposes.” When laws are pa.s.sed ”to grant t.i.tles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society--the farmers, mechanics, and laborers--who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government.
”There are no necessary evils in government,” says Jackson. ”Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing”--thus he runs on to his conclusion.[1420]
The ma.s.ses of the people, particularly those of the South, responded with wild fervor to the President's a.s.sault upon the citadel of the ”money power.” John Marshall, the defender of special privilege, had said that the Bank law was protected by the Const.i.tution; but Andrew Jackson, the champion of the common people, declared that it was prohibited by the Const.i.tution. Hats in the air, then, and loud cheers for the hero who had dared to attack and to overcome this financial monster as he had fought and beaten the invading Britis.h.!.+
Marshall was infinitely disgusted. He informs Story of Virginia's applause of Jackson's veto: ”We are up to the chin in politics. Virginia was always insane enough to be opposed to the Bank of The United States, and therefore hurras for the veto. But we are a little doubtful how it may work in Pennsylvania. It is not difficult to account for the part New York may take. She has sagacity enough to see her interest in putting down the present bank. Her mercantile position gives her a controul, a commanding controul, over the currency and the exchanges of the country, if there be no Bank of The United States. Going for herself she may approve this policy; but Virginia ought not to drudge for her benefit.”[1421]
Jackson did not sign the bill for the improvement of rivers and harbors, pa.s.sed at the previous session of Congress, because, as he said, he had not ”sufficient time ... to examine it before the adjournment.”[1422]
Everybody took the withholding of his signature as a veto.[1423] This bill included a feasible project for making the Virginia Capital accessible to seagoing vessels. Even this action of the President was applauded by Virginians:
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