whole country. It was in favor of a protective tariff, and of internal improvements at national expense; it was in favor

1 The question whether the general government or State governments should carry on internal improvements had largely been confined heretofore to the matter of canals and great highways. The attention from this time given to the construction of railroads, which superseded canals and highways, and were private enterprises carried on under State laws, made the old debate steadily of less importance, and when, after the war for the Union, internal improvements were carried on upon a vast scale, the question had ceased to be one of constitutional opinion, dividing parties.

also of a United States Bank, with branches, to be chartered by the government, instead of a multitude of local banks.

147. Party Government. There had been parties before, as we have seen, but from this time forward for many years, the system of government was party government. That is, not only did the people divide usually into two great parties on national questions, but they kept the same division in State and even in city and town questions. The discipline of party organization seemed to demand this. When a party came into power, it made a clean sweep of the offices, turned out the men of the opposite party who had held them, and put in men of their own party.

Jackson introduced this method of what was long called practical politics. He treated the offices as rewards for those who had worked for him.' It is estimated that when Congress first met after Jackson came into power, a thousand removals from office had taken place against about a hundred and fifty all told in previous administrations. Party government had already become common in the States, especially in New York; but from this time forward it was the rule throughout the country, and a class of men came into existence who made their living out of politics. Jackson was an imperious man, and his rule, unlike that of previous Presidents, was without much regard to his Cabinet. He was much influenced by a small group of his immediate friends, and it was they indeed who largely determined the changes in office.

148. Webster and Hayne. Jackson had a powerful party behind him, and there were many in it who pushed to an extreme the doctrine of State sovereignty. The question whether the Constitution intended a Union superior to the States, or a compact between States where each was supreme, was debated in the United States Senate in 1830. Robert Young Hayne, of South Carolina, defended the State-sovereignty doctrine, and

1 The system has been called the Spoils System, from the remark made by a prominent politician that "to the victors belong the spoils."

Daniel Webster,' of Massachusetts, the doctrine of the supremacy of the Union. In the debate Webster earned the reputation of being the ablest constitutional defender of the Union. The closing words of one of his speeches, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable," became a watchword.2

149. Nullification. The Southern States had at first favored a protective tariff, because it had made a new market for cotton, where it would not be taxed. The Northern States, taking advantage of the tariff, had turned their energies to manufacturing. The tariff, by successive acts, had been made to cover a great many articles. The North was thus growing rich, but the South seemed to be gaining nothing. The great articles of export, cotton and tobacco, went from the South; it was by selling these that the country was able to buy goods from Europe. But when these goods came, a heavy tax was laid on them, and thus they had to be sold at a high price. The South said: "If the tariff be made lower, these goods which our tobacco and cotton have bought in England, will not cost us so much." The North objected: "Yes. But the

1 Daniel Webster was born in Salisbury, now Franklin, N.H., January 18, 1782. He was educated first at Phillips Academy, Exeter, and afterward at Dartmouth College. He was so shy a youth that he could not be induced to speak a piece in school, but by the time he had left college he had overcome his shyness, and was noted as a debater. He was admitted to the bar in 1805, and practiced first in Portsmouth, N.H. He was a member of Congress in

1813, and was opposed to the war, though he did not go the length of the New England Federalists. In 1816 he removed to Boston, where he became famous as a lawyer. He took part in revising the constitution of Massachusetts, and was sent again to Congress in 1822. He had already become noted as an orator. His speech on the second centennial of the landing of the Pilgrims brought him great fame, and later his address at Bunker Hill, in 1825, added to his distinction. He was United States senator and Secretary of State under Harrison, and again under Fillmore. His public services are further referred to in the text. He made a powerful impression on his contemporaries by the weight of his presence and speech. Carlyle called him a steam-engine in boots. He died at his country home in Marshfield, Mass., October 24, 1852. The latest and best account of him is that by Senator Lodge, in the American Statesmen series.

2 The speeches of Webster and Hayne well repay reading, not only as a discussion of a fundamental public question, but also for their rhetorical power.

foreign goods will be so cheap that it will be impossible for us to manufacture and sell them at the same or a lower price, and all our manufactories will have to stop."

At last the State of South Carolina declared that the tariff had become so oppressive to her citizens that it could no longer be borne. A convention was called in November, 1832, which passed an ordinance declaring the tariff acts to be null and void so far as South Carolina was concerned. The convention threatened that if the Federal government should attempt to enforce the tariff acts, South Carolina, as a free and independent State, would withdraw from the Union. Nullification was the name given to the act by which the State declared certain laws to have no force in her territory. Mr. Calhoun and his followers maintained that the State could refuse to obey laws made by Congress, when those laws were injurious to her, and that the Federal government could not force her to obey. But people saw instinctively that force might be used; hence all over the State, military companies were formed, and preparations for resistance were made.

Clay's Compromise Tariff. Though President Jackson believed that the States should manage their own affairs, he believed also that when laws were passed in Congress for the whole country, no one State had a right to refuse to obey those laws. He told South Carolina at once that, if she resisted, the whole force of the Union would be used against her. For a while it looked as if there would be fighting. But Clay, who was the leader of the protectionists, came forward and proposed a compromise by which the tariff was modified. South Carolina had won her point. The doctrine of Nullification had not been put to the test of arms; but the doctrine of State sovereignty had established itself still more firmly in the South.

150. The Bank of the United States and the State Banks. - The charter of the Bank of the United States was to expire in 1836. Jackson had shown hostility to the bank when he first came into office. Like Jefferson he regarded it as unconstitutional, and he looked upon it as a political machine in the hands of his enemies. He attacked it as a moneyed power which might, if not checked, become a menace to the liberty of the people. He threw all his personal influence, which largely controlled