s not then known, was the Vice-President,
Calhoun. The associate of Clay in those acts which had made a beginning
of internal improvements and of protection, long a statesman of the
strong-government school, Calhoun had been led by the distress and
discontent of his own people to examine the Constitution again, "in
order," as he said afterwards, "to ascertain fully the nature and
character of our political system," and had now come to a change of
views.

The nullification doctrine came before Congress in the winter of
1829-30, and was debated in the most famous of American debates. Clay
was not there to speak for his tariff system, but a greater orator than
Clay took up the challenge. In the greatest of all American orations
since Patrick Henry spoke for liberty, Webster spoke for union _and_
liberty, and Americans will never forget his words until liberty and
union are alike destroyed. Jackson was the last man in the country to
miss their force. No orator himself, he yet knew how to give words the
power of a promised or a threatened deed. Not long after the debate,
there was a public dinner of the States'-Rights men in Washington to
celebrate Jefferson's birthday. Jackson did not attend, but he sent a
toast, and probably the seven words of his toast were more confounding
to the nullifiers than all the stately paragraphs of Webster's oration.
It was: "Our Federal Union: it must be preserved." Calhoun's toast was:
"The Union,--next to our liberties the most dear,"--and Jackson, who was
just learning that he had been mistaken about Calhoun in 1818, began now
to see clearly that the great South Carolinian was in sympathy with the
nullifiers. Many South Carolinians, however, were still hoping that the
President would not take any active measures to defeat their plan. Some
of them went on hoping until the Fourth of July, 1831, when there was
read, at a public dinner of Union men at Charleston, a letter from
Jackson which left no doubt of what he meant to do if they kept on. He
was going to enforce the laws and preserve the Union.

Having by this time broken utterly with Calhoun, he desired to rid
himself of those cabinet members who were Calhoun's friends, and to that
end took the bold and unexampled step of changing his cabinet
entirely,--only Barry, the postmaster-general, being kept in office. Van
Buren fell readily into the plan, gave up his portfolio, and was at once
appointed minister to Great Britain. Edward Livingst