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HISTORY 1829-1850] of such vessels. Lake Erie had seven in 1826; and in 1830,

while the only important lake town, Detroit, was hardly yet more than a frontier fort, a daily line of steamers was running to it from Buffalo, carrying the increasing stream of emigrants to the western territory.

166. The land system of the United States had much to do with the early development of the West. From the first settlement,

the universally recognized rule had been that of absolute individual property in land, with its corollary of unrestricted competitive or “rack” rents; and this rule was accepted fully in the national land system, whose basis was reported by Jefferson, as chairman of a committee of the Confederation Congress (1785). The public lands were to be divided into “hundreds” each ten miles square and containing one hundred mile-square plots. The hundred was called a “township,” and was afterwards reduced to six miles square, of thirty-six mile-square plots of 640 acres each. From time to time principal meridians and east and west base lines have been run, and townships, have been determined by their relations to these lines. The sections (plots) have been subdivided, but the transfer describes each parcel from the survey map, as in the case of “the south-west quarter of section 20, township 30, north, range 1 east of the third principal meridian.” The price fixed in 1790 as a minimum was $2 per acre; it has tended to decrease, and no effort has ever been made to gain a revenue from it. When the nation acquired its western territory it secured its title to the soil, and always made it a fundamental condition of the admission of a new state that it should not tax United States lands. To compensate the new states for the freedom of unsold public lands from taxation, one township in each thirty-six was reserved to them for educational purposes; and the excellent public school systems of the Western states have been founded on this provision. The cost of obtaining a quarter section (160 acres), under the still later homestead system of granting lands to actual settlers, has come to be only about $26; the interest on this, at 6%, represents an annual rent of one cent per acre—making this, says F. A. Walker, as nearly as possible the “no-rent land” of the economists.

167. The bulk of the early westward migration was of home production; the great immigration from Europe did not begin until about 1847. The West as well as the East thus had its institutions fixed before being called upon to absorb an enormous foreign element.

168. The eight years 1829-1837 have been called “the reign of Andrew Jackson”; his popularity, his long struggle for the

presidency, and his feeling of his official ownership of the subordinate offices gave to his administration at least an appearance of Caesarism. But it was a strictly constitutional Caesarism; the restraints of written law were never violated, though the methods adopted within the law were new to national politics. Since about 1800 state politics in New York and Pennsylvania had been noted for the systematic use of the offices and for the merciless manner in which the officeholder was compelled to work for the party which kept him in place. The presence of New York and Pennsylvania politicians in Jackson's cabinet taught him to use the same system. Removals, except for cause, had been relatively rare before; but under Jackson men were removed almost exclusively for the purpose of installing some more serviceable party tool; and a clean sweep was made in the civil service. Other parties adopted the system, and it remained the rule at a change of administration until comparatively recent years.

169. The system brought with it a semi-military reorganization of parties. Hitherto nominations for the more important

offices had been made mainly by legislative caucuses; candidates for president and vice-president were nominated by caucuses of congressmen, and candidates for the higher state offices by caucuses of the state legislatures. Late in the preceding period “conventions” of delegates from the members of the party in the state

were held in New York and Pennsylvania; and in 1831-1832 this became the rule for presidential nominations. It rapidly developed into systematic state, county, and city “conventions”; and the result was the appearance of that complete political machinery, the American political party, with its local organizations, and its delegates to county, state and national conventions. The Democratic machinery was the first to appear, in Jackson's second term (1833-1837). Its workers were paid in offices, or hopes of office, so that it was said to be built on the “cohesive power of public plunder”; but its success was immediate and brilliant. The opposing party, the (q.v.), had no chance of victory in 1836; and its complete overthrow drove its leaders into the organization of a similar machinery of their own, which scored its first success in 1840. Since that time these strange bodies, unknown to the law, have governed the country by turns; and their enormous growth has steadily made the organization of a third piece of such machinery more difficult or hopeless.

170. The Bank of the United States had hardly been heard of in politics until the new Democratic organization came into

hostile contact with it. A semi-official demand upon it for a political appointment was met by a refusal; and the party managers called Jackson's attention to an institution which he could not but dislike the more he considered it. His first message spoke of it in unfriendly terms, and every succeeding message brought a more open attack. The old party of Adams and Clay had by this

time taken the name of Whigs, probably from the notion that they were struggling against “the reign of Andrew Jackson,” and they adopted the cause of the bank with eagerness. The bank charter did not expire until 1836, but in 1832 Clay brought up a bill for a new charter. It was passed and vetoed; and the Whigs made the veto an important issue of the presidential election of that year. They were beaten; Jackson was re-elected, receiving 219 electoral votes, and Clay, his Whig opponent, only 49, and the bank party could never again get a majority in the House of Representatives for the charter. The insistence of the president on the point that the charter was a “monopoly” bore weight with the people. But the president could not obtain a majority in the Senate. He determined to take a step which would give him an initiative, and which his opponents could not induce both houses to unite in overriding or punishing. Taking advantage of the provision

that the secretary of the treasury might order the public funds to be deposited elsewhere than in the bank or its branches, he directed the secretary to deposit all the public funds elsewhere. Thus deprived of its great source of dividends, the bank fell into difficulties, became a state bank after 1836, and then went into bankruptcy. (See
 * United States; and .)

171. All the political conflicts of Jackson's terms of office were close and bitter. Loose in his ideas before 1829, Jackson showed a steady tendency to adopt the strictest construction of the powers of the Federal government, except in such official perquisites as the offices. He grew into strong opposition to

all traces of the “American system,” and vetoed bills for internal improvements unsparingly; and his feeling of dislike to all forms of protection is as evident, though he took more care not to make it too public. There are many reasons for believing that his drift was the work of a strong school of leaders—Martin Van Buren, Thomas H. Benton, Edward Livingston, Roger B. Taney, Levi Woodbury, Lewis Cass, W. L. Marcy and others—who developed the policy of the party, and controlled it until the great changes of parties about 1850 took their power from them. At all events, some persistent influence made the Democratic party of 1830-1850 the most consistent and successful party which had thus far appeared in the United States.

172. (q.v.) and Jackson were of the same

stock—Scottish-Irish—much alike in appearance and characteristics, the former representing the trained and educated logic of the race, the latter its instincts and passions. Jackson was led to break off his friendly relations with