The question being up, an investigation into the affairs of the Bank was demanded by administration supporters in the House. The committee appointed for this purpose gave a small majority report unfavourable to a recharter, under present conditions. The minority found the Bank reliable and worthy of an extension of charter. Upon the heel of a long Congressional struggle, the bill to give a new charter in 1836 was passed in House and Senate. The President's veto, which had been expected, came. The Senate attempted to pass the bill over the veto by a two-thirds vote, but was not successful. This happened in the summer before the election of 1832.

Though satisfied with what he had done the President was not satisfied that he had done enough, especially after the country sanctioned his autocratic will at the polls. Simply to defeat the future life of the Bank did not seem sufficient. His dislike for it growing, he now determined that it must be raided and ruined during the life yet left to it. In the last annual message of his first term, being the first after his second election, he proceeded in this direction, by expressing doubts as to the Bank's solvency and concern about the security of the public deposits in that institution. He recommended this subject for the serious investigation of Congress. This time the Committee on Ways and Means were the investigators. The majority of this Committee found the Bank sound and the funds safe. The resolutions of the House favoured the continuance of the national deposits in its keeping. Jackson was seemingly thwarted in his attempt to blast the Bank by fiat. But he had another term in which to finish his fight.

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CHAPTER XV. ·

AN AUTOCRATIC PRESIDENT.

It was in the air, in 1832, that the reëlection of Jackson was foreordained. That is, it is clear now that there were indications enough then to make it certain that nobody but Jackson would be elected. But instead of seeing the hopelessness of opposition, the fight for other candidates was waged with hopeful intensity, and at least one of the candidates staked immense hazard on his chance of election. This candidate was Henry Clay. He had been in training for the presidency for more than a score of years; he was the ablest statesman in Congress; he was sick with longing for the great prize. To make an unsuccessful attempt was likely to spoil his chance for another nomination for the presidency. Nevertheless Clay felt that the growing public opposition to Jackson's despotism was cumulative enough to justify the personal risk. Two Adamses had been defeated for reëlection; a Jackson might be. The opposition which looked to Clay as its natural leader had not yet assumed the name of Whig, but was still designated as the National Republican party as against the Democratic-Republican party of Jackson. It embodied certain tendencies which had crystallized under Monroe and J. Q. Adams; a national sense and sentiment, a devotion to the Union as an entity apart from the uniting States, the development of the nation by protective tariff and by internal meth

ods of improved communication; a strong government which could foster the nation's advance as a whole.

Clay had laboured for all these things, and could not refuse the demand of the National Republicans that he head the assault on the administration at the general election.

This demand was made very definite by a popular convention, which met at Baltimore, December 12, 1831, and by another which met at Baltimore in May, 1832, confirming the nomination of the first. These conventions declared for a protective tariff, for internal improvements, and for the inviolability of both Supreme Court and Senate; they protested against the President's autocratic attitude towards the Bench and the Senate, against his war on the Bank, against his hostility to the tariff and internal improvements, against his surrender of the Indians' rights to the Gulf States, and particularly against his corruption of the civil service by the doctrine of "to the victors belong the spoils." These conventions nominated Henry Clay, of Kentucky, for president, and John Sargeant, of Pennsylvania, for vicepresident.

But another Convention, also opposed to Jackson, had previously assembled and made nominations. Anti-Masonry was a popular fury at that time sweeping through the country. It had originated in the general horror at the alleged abduction and assassination of one Morgan, in western New York, for betraying the secrets of Masonry. The disavowal of the act by the Masonic fraternity had no effect in arresting the spread of the demand for the suppression of all secret societies as inimical to free institutions. As the agitation grew conventions met, lead

ers were developed, and finally the upheaving movement came to consider itself a political party. Its leaders resolved to try to unite all opponents of Jackson under its banners, and accordingly they held a national convention at Baltimore in September, 1831, which was presided over by Chief Justice Marshall. They wanted Clay, but finally nominated for President William Wirt of Maryland. He told them candidly that he had been made a mason, and saw no harm in such masonry as George Washington had practised; nevertheless, they stood by their nomination and Wirt accepted.

Finally the Democratic-Republicans met in convention, also at Baltimore, in May, 1832. They came together for a single purpose-to start the Jackson ball rolling with all the prestige and sanction that the new-fashioned method of a national convention could impart. The published aim, however, was to nominate not a president so much as a vicepresident,-Martin Van Buren, of New York, the mate desired by General Jackson. All opposition to Van Buren went down before the President's insistence, and after that nomination was made a unanimous resolution was passed, concurring in the nomination of General Jackson to a second term already made by several State legislatures.

No platform of principle was offered. The convention frankly presented the administration to the country on its personal merits. The issue on Jackson's side was therefore very simple; it was, "Do you like me and my ways? then reëlect me."

The situation thus produced is noteworthy, because it was the first time the national convention for the nominating of presidents came into being as an institution. It is an institution not provided for, nor

even dreamed of in the Constitution; yet it has prevailed uninterruptedly since 1832 because it is the only true method of carrying out the implied aim of the Constitution that the president shall spring from the people as a whole. The Congressional caucus for nominating a president, practised until 1824, was inevitable and unavoidable in a time when there were no railroads to make popular communication prompt; but it missed the point contemplated by the makers of the Constitution in that the executive was nominated by the legislative branch, and thus could not be wholly the creation of the people of the States. The custom of nominations by State legislatures, which began in 1824, was inadequate as a method, because local and sectional. The national convention came as an evolution: it arose from the need of having the chief executive put in nomination by the people themselves and by people representing all sections; it came as soon as steam, canals, and improved roads made a prompt intercommunication of views possible, and the travel of delegates feasible. It is also noteworthy that the first of these national conventions was held by the hobbyists of antimasonry, and that the regular parties immediately adopted the new plan.

The triangular fight was vehement and rancorous. Jackson was the object of bitter vituperation. His autocratic policy was the cause of much dread. Portents in the sky were seen indicative of a coming military despotism. But the great majority of the people liked him and his ways. On one side was the concrete hero of New Orleans, and he was still fighting; presumably what he was now fighting was as detestable as the British. On the other side were confused voices; a hubbub of anti-masonry and a