Quincy declares, "a mysterious charm upon old and young;" showed,
although in feeble health, a great consideration for others; and was in
private a really agreeable companion. It appears from these
reminiscences that the president was not merely the cause of wit in
others, but now and then appreciated it himself, and that he used to
listen with delight to the reading of the "Jack Downing" letters,
laughing heartily sometimes, and declaring: "The Vice-President must
have written that. Depend upon it Jack Downing is only Van Buren in
masquerade." It is a curious fact that the satirist is already the
better remembered of the two, although Van Buren was in his day so
powerful as to preside over the official patronage of the nation and to
be called the "Little Magician."

* * * * *

The two acts with which the administration of President Jackson will be
longest identified are his dealings with South Carolina in respect to
nullification, and his long warfare with the United States Bank. The
first brought the New England States back to him, and the second took
them away again. He perhaps won rather more applause than he merited by
the one act, and more condemnation than was just for the other. Let us
first consider the matter of nullification. When various Southern
States--Georgia at first, not South Carolina, taking the lead--had
quarrelled with the tariff of 1828, and openly threatened to set it
aside, they evidently hoped for the co-operation of the President; or at
least for that silent acquiescence he had shown when Georgia had been
almost equally turbulent on the Indian question and he would not
interfere, as his predecessor had done, to protect the treaty rights of
the Indian tribes. The whole South was therefore startled when he gave,
at a banquet on Jefferson's birthday (April 13, 1830), a toast that now
seems commonplace--"The Federal Union; it must be preserved." But this
was not all; when the time came he took vigorous, if not altogether
consistent, steps to preserve it.

When, in November, 1832, South Carolina for the first time officially
voted that certain tariff acts were null and void in that State, the
gauntlet of defiance was fairly thrown down, and Jackson took it up. He
sent General Scott to take command at Charleston, with troops near by,
and two gunboats at hand; he issued a dignified proclamation, written by
Livingston (December 10, 1832), which pronounced the act of S