Congressional Giants. J. Michael Martinez

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СКАЧАТЬ a few months after her husband, a sailor, had died at sea. Whispered rumors suggested that her husband had killed himself after discovering that his wife had been conducting an affair with Eaton. Perhaps jealous at Peggy Eaton’s propensity to turn men’s heads, Floride Calhoun and the other ladies of her circle professed their outrage at the woman’s “unladylike,” scandalous behavior.

      Ordinarily, a president of the United States might have ignored what soon became known as the Petticoat Affair. Andrew Jackson, however, did not view the episode as ordinary. He was still grieving the sudden death of his beloved wife, Rachel, from heart disease a month after Jackson won the presidential election of 1828. He believed that Rachel had died owing to the stress of the campaign, when the general’s detractors had charged Rachel with adultery. She supposedly married Jackson before her marriage to her first husband had been dissolved. Jackson was incensed that Rachel had died because of scurrilous charges lodged against her good character. He viewed the charges against Peggy Eaton’s character as analogous to Rachel’s situation.¹⁰⁴

      The Petticoat Affair soured Jackson against Calhoun. The vice president had supported his wife even as Jackson supported the Eatons. Martin Van Buren, Jackson’s secretary of state, shrewdly recognized an opportunity to enter Jackson’s good graces. A widower who need not fear a wife’s disapproval, Van Buren vocally supported John and Peggy Eaton, winning the president’s approval. Later, Jackson threw his support to Van Buren to become his vice president and heir apparent, leaving Calhoun in the political wilderness.¹⁰⁵

      Jackson and Calhoun became further estranged in 1830 when the president learned that while Calhoun served as secretary of war, he had favored censuring Jackson for the general’s 1818 decision to invade Florida without presidential approval. Contemporaneous letters left little doubt that Calhoun had supported the censure despite his subsequent assurances to the contrary. The news enraged Jackson, who believed that his vice president had betrayed him. Their relationship never recovered from the revelation.¹⁰⁶

      

      The thinly veiled animosity between the president and vice president was illustrated by an otherwise minor incident that occurred during a formal dinner honoring Thomas Jefferson’s birthday held at the Indian Queen Hotel in Washington, DC, on April 13, 1830. As was the custom, political luminaries stood to offer toasts. They tended to be pro forma expressions of faith in the American republic and the speaker’s desire for the nation’s continued health and success in the days to follow. All eyes looked to President Jackson and he stood and lifted his wine glass. He said, much to the discomfort of the southern representatives, “Our Union—it must be preserved.” Jackson spoke only a few months after the debate between Robert Hayne and Daniel Webster on the nature of liberty and the Union. Everyone present understood what the seemingly trite comment meant in the context of the tariff debate. The president rejected all talk of nullification and secession.

      Calhoun was not anxious to demonstrate infidelity to his superior officer, but he could not allow the remark to pass without comment. After Jackson sat, Calhoun rose and surveyed the room. “The Union—next to our liberty the most dear,” he toasted, clearly expressing the southern view that the Union was a means to an end, not an end in itself. He was not quite finished, though, adding a postscript lest anyone think him too obtuse. “May we all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States and distributing equally the benefit and burden of the Union.”¹⁰⁷

      The two men, never close, drifted further apart over time. Perhaps the last nail in the coffin occurred over the nullification crisis. As his career progressed, Calhoun came to see the push for protective tariffs, a central feature of Henry Clay’s legislative program, as detrimental to the South. Tariffs tended to assist northern manufacturers at the expense of southerners, who were seldom involved in manufacturing, but often supplied raw materials to both northern businesses and European companies. The tariffs helped northern manufacturers compete against European importers, but they also drove down demands for raw materials.¹⁰⁸

      As vice president under Adams, Calhoun was angry that an 1828 tariff had been pushed through Congress over southern opposition. He anonymously produced an essay, “South Carolina Exposition and Protest,” denouncing the Tariff of Abominations and arguing for a strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. He became a vocal champion of nullification, which allowed a state to nullify, or void, a federal law that harmed the interests of the state, as determined by state legislatures. He also argued on behalf of concurrent majorities, the right of a state’s majority—although a minority of the whole nation—to oppose a tyranny of the majority on the federal level.

      Calhoun believed that his notions of federal-state relations were a natural extension of Jeffersonian theories of limited government. He cited arguments developed by Jefferson and Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions opposing the oppressive Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. If a minority did not possess the authority to resist a majority, it would be possible for the federal government to become ever more centralized, eventually eclipsing the states altogether and making a mockery of the carefully crafted system of federalism established by the Founders.¹⁰⁹

      Jackson initially appeared to be a state rights advocate, but he and Calhoun parted ways over nullification. Jackson recognized, even if Calhoun turned a blind eye, that allowing a state to nullify federal laws would only lead to chaos and disorder. The proper method of opposing federal control was through participation in federal lawmaking. Replacing the tyranny of the majority with the tyranny of the minority was not a viable solution to the crises of the 1820s and 1830s.¹¹⁰

      In July 1832, Jackson signed a new tariff law. He knew it would be unpopular in the South, and so he had pushed Congress to lower the tariff rates. If it were simply a matter of a specific rate, Jackson’s compromise effort might have placated all but the most hardened nullifiers, but emotions were too raw and opinions too fixed to allow for reasoned debate. The South Carolina legislature took the audacious step of nullifying both the 1828 and 1832 tariffs, declaring them void.

      Never a man to back down from a fight, Jackson prepared U.S. Navy ships to embark for the harbor in Charleston, South Carolina, and threatened to hang any man, including Calhoun, who supported nullification or secession. In his “Proclamation to the People of South Carolina” in December 1832, the president contended that nullification was a constitutional absurdity that could not and would not be tolerated.¹¹¹

      By the time the crisis erupted, Calhoun had resigned the vice presidency and entered the U.S. Senate. He helped to defuse the crisis by working with Henry Clay to craft a new tariff with slightly higher rates in exchange for Clay’s agreement to denounce Jackson’s military threats. Looking ahead to the next presidential election, Clay was eager to garner even a modicum of southern support, and he never minded denouncing “King Andrew,” anyhow. Congress then enacted a force bill allowing Jackson the authority to use the military to put down nullifiers should they take up arms.¹¹²

      Calhoun’s resignation as vice president in December 1832 came as no surprise. It had been a longtime coming. Calhoun was a philosophical proponent of nullification in an administration that vigorously opposed the concept. As Jackson prepared to enter his second term with a new vice president, Martin Van Buren, Calhoun had only three months left in office. He decided not to wait, resigning from the vice presidency before the end of his term. A day later, stepped into his new role as a U.S. senator representing South Carolina.¹¹³

      

      Now that he could speak freely as a South Carolina man once again, Calhoun was liberated. Recognizing that the presidency probably was beyond his reach, he need not pull his punches, or moderate his views. He came out strongly against many of Jackson’s actions, including the president’s decision to remove federal funds from the Second Bank of the United States and deposit them into state banks. He also voted to censure Jackson for removing the funds, which contributed СКАЧАТЬ