outh
Carolina contradictory to the Constitution, unauthorized by it, and
destructive of its aims. So far so good; but unfortunately the president
had, the week before (December 4, 1832), sent a tariff message to
Congress, of which John Quincy Adams wrote, "It goes far to dissolve the
Union into its original elements, and is in substance a complete
surrender into the hands of the nullifiers of South Carolina." Then came
Mr. Clay's compromise tariff of 1833, following in part the line
indicated by this message, and achieving, as Mr. Calhoun said, a victory
for nullification, leaving the matter a drawn game at any rate.

The action of Jackson thus accompanied settled nothing; it was like
valiantly ordering a burglar out of your house with a pistol, and adding
a suggestion that he will find a portion of the family silver on the
hall-table, ready packed for his use, as he goes out.

Nevertheless, the burglar was gone for the moment, and the president had
the credit of it. He had already been re-elected by an overwhelming
majority in November, 1832, receiving 219 electoral votes, and Clay 49,
while Floyd had the 11 votes of South Carolina (which still chose
electors by its Legislature--a practice now abandoned), and Wirt the 7
of Vermont. Van Buren was chosen vice-president, being nominated in
place of Calhoun by the Democratic National Convention, which now for
the first time came into operation. The president was now at his
high-water mark of popularity--always a dangerous time for a public man.
His vehement nature accepted his re-election as a proof that he was
right in everything, and he grew more self-confident than ever. More
imperiously than ever, he ordered about friends and opponents, and his
friends repaid it by guiding his affairs, unconsciously to himself.
Meantime he was encountering another enemy of greater power, because
more silent, than Southern nullification, and he was drifting on to his
final contest with the United States Bank.

Sydney Smith says that every Englishman feels himself able, without
instruction, to drive a pony-chaise, conduct a small farm, and edit a
newspaper. The average American assumes, in addition to all this, that
he is competent to manage a bank. President Jackson claimed for himself
in this respect no more than his fellows; the difference was in strength
of will and in possession of power. A man so ignorant that a member of
his own family, according to Mr. Trist, used to say that t