hese passions that he maintains his station and his popularity. General
Jackson is the slave of the majority: he yields to its wishes, its
propensities, and its demands; say rather, that he anticipates and
forestalls them.

Whenever the governments of the States come into collision with that
of the Union, the President is generally the first to question his own
rights: he almost always outstrips the legislature; and when the extent
of the federal power is controverted, he takes part, as it were, against
himself; he conceals his official interests, and extinguishes his own
natural inclinations. Not indeed that he is naturally weak or hostile
to the Union; for when the majority decided against the claims of the
partisans of nullification, he put himself at its head, asserted the
doctrines which the nation held distinctly and energetically, and was
the first to recommend forcible measures; but General Jackson appears to
me, if I may use the American expressions, to be a Federalist by taste,
and a Republican by calculation.

General Jackson stoops to gain the favor of the majority, but when he
feels that his popularity is secure, he overthrows all obstacles in the
pursuit of the objects which the community approves, or of those which
it does not look upon with a jealous eye. He is supported by a power
with which his predecessors were unacquainted; and he tramples on his
personal enemies whenever they cross his path with a facility which no
former President ever enjoyed; he takes upon himself the responsibility
of measures which no one before him would have ventured to attempt: he
even treats the national representatives with disdain approaching to
insult; he puts his veto upon the laws of Congress, and frequently
neglects to reply to that powerful body. He is a favorite who sometimes
treats his master roughly. The power of General Jackson perpetually
increases; but that of the President declines; in his hands the Federal
Government is strong, but it will pass enfeebled into the hands of his
successor.

I am strangely mistaken if the Federal Government of the United States
be not constantly losing strength, retiring gradually from public
affairs, and narrowing its circle of action more and more. It is
naturally feeble, but it now abandons even its pretensions to strength.
On the other hand, I thought that I remarked a more lively sense of
independence, and a more decided attachment to provincial government in
the States.