Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 06.djvu/29

 JACKSON

JACKSU:^

vetoed by the President. July 10, 1832, as a mo- nopoly encouraging foreign investors who were not taxed; excluding competition; and giving to banks privileges denied to individuals; and the people sustained the President. In the election of 1832, Jackson received 687,502 popular and 219 electoral votes and Henry Clay 530,189 p<jpular and 49 electoral votes. Pennsylvania gave her 30 electoral votes to William Wilkins and thus Van Buren received 30 less than Jackson. Mas- sachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky voted for Clay. The 23d congress assembled, Dec. 3, 1832. In it was the greatest array of statesmen who had filled important stations, ever gathered in a single congress in the history of the nation. The house was Democratic, the senate Whig and the oppo- sition of the President to the Bank of the United States was the chief issue, and a financial panic, accompanied by great commercial distress, fol- lo%ved. In 1833 Secretary of State Livingston was appointed U.S. minister to Prance and Louis McLane of Delaware was appointed his successor in the state department and William J. Duane succeeded to the treasury portfolio. When Mr. Taney's name came before the senate for confirm- ation as secretary of the treasury, June 23, 1833, in place of Mr. Duane, removed for refusing to withdraw the deposits from the Bank of the United States, it was promptly rejected by a vote of thirty to fifteen, but the appointment of Ben- jamin F. Butler of New York as attorney-general was confirmed and Levi Woodbury was trans- ferred from the navy department to the treasury, and the navy department went to Mahlon Dick- inson of New Jersey. The President appointed Andrew Stevenson of Virginia, former speaker of the liouse, U.S. minister to England, Mr. Aaron Vail, the charge d'affaires, having per- formed the duties of the office since Mr. Van Buren's return in 1832, and when the senate re- jected the nomination the President adhered to his purpose till a senate was willing to confirm tiie nomination in 1836. In 1835, when a vacancy occurred in the bench of the U.S. supreme court, Roger B. Taney was appointed, but the senate refused to consider his name and when Chief-Jus- tice Marshall died in 1835 the President appointed Mr. Taney to the vacant seat, and the senate, now Democratic, promptly confirmed the nomination. Mr. Barry resigned his place as j)ostni;uster-gen- eral on April 10, and Amos Kendall was ap- pointed. On the return of Mr. Livingston from France and the settlement of the French im- broglio in 1836. General Cass was appointed U. S. minister to France, and Benjamin F. Butler was appointed secretary of war. at the same time continuing to hold the attorney-generalship. In 1835 the last instalment of the national debt was

paid, and a banquet was given in Washington in honor of the event. President Jackson attended the funeral of Representative Warren R. Davis, of Soutii Carolina, Jan. 30, 1835, the services being held in the rotunda of the capitol. After the services, wlien tiie President was descending the east steps of the capitol on his way to his caiTiage, leaning on the arm of Secretary of State Forsyth, a lunatic named Lawrence snapped a pistol at him. The cap exploded without dis- charging the pistol, and Jackson with uplifted cane advanced upon his assailant, who with his left hand drew another i)istol and attemjited to fire it, but the cap again failed to explode, and the man was arrested and confined in an asylum. In the excitement the President ciiarged the at- tempt on his life to his political enemies, but he apparently had no foundation for the charge. In 183G Vice-President Van Buren was elected President, Richard M. Johnson Vice-President, and James K. Polk was speaker of the 34th con- gress, which would expire March 3. 1837. The congress in both its branches was Democratic, and during the first week of the session Colonel Benton forced to a final vote his proposition, made over two years before, to exjjunge from the journal Mr. Clay's resolution of 1834 which censured President Jackson for removing Secre- tary Duane and the deposits. This liad been made a party measure in several states, and on March 16, 1837, after a debate for thirteen con- secutive hours, the motion to expunge passed the senate by a vote of 25 to 19. At the close of his term as President, Andrew Jackson, then seventy years of age, retired to the Hermitage and followed the life of a planter, his adopted son, with his wife and children, being members of the household, and they kept up the old-time hospitality for which the General was celebrated. On Aug. 18, 1840. he sent a letter of protest to the Nashville Union in answer to Henry Clay, who in a speech at Nashville had charged Jack- son with appointing Edward Livingston, '"a de- faulter," secretary of state, and Samuel Swart- wout collector of the port of New York, knowing that he was an associate of Aaron Burr. Jackson answered the charge by asserting that Clay voted in the senate for the confirmation of Livingston, and associated with Aaron Burr in Lexington, Ky. Late in life he was received in the com- munion of the Hermitage church, which had been the religious home of his wife for many years. He was elected a ruling elder of the church, but declined the office, quoting the Bible injunction, " Be not hasty in laying on of iiands," and adding, '• I am too young in the church for such an office." Harvard college conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D. in 1S.'^3. and in June, 1845, the New York Historical society of-