Page:Nullification Controversy in South Carolina.djvu/278

Rh. He therefore, as on many another occasion, advised caution. He urged especially that, in view of the fact that the doctrine of a "constructive levying of war" was "justly unpopular in this country," the President should hesitate to pronounce as treason the mere passage of bills, and should ask Congress for the power to employ military force only if it was indispensable to the due execution of the laws.

While Jackson was thinking so much about meeting at the threshold any danger to the Union, Van Buren and the great majority of those with whom the President was in correspondence seem to have been thinking much more of the political phases of the issue. Although Jackson himself thought occasionally of the influence of the Nullifiers upon the elections, it was far from uppermost in his mind. During the fall of 1832 he felt confident that they could do little harm to him or Van Buren outside of South Carolina. To Amos Kendall it appeared at first that the issue would have the happy political effect of uniting with the friends of the administration all parties in the northern, middle, and western states and a large portion of the South, including even