This Country Of Ours, Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall [good short books .TXT] 📗

all hope of help from the President was lost.

However, the people of South Carolina were still determined, and in 1832 they declared that the tariff law of that year was null and void, and no law; and that if the Government tried to force them to regard it they would set up a government of their own.

The whole state was in wild excitement. People talked openly of separating from the Union, a President was chosen and medals were struck bearing the inscription, “First President of the Southern Confederacy.”

“If this thing goes on,” said Jackson, “our country will be like a bag of meal with both ends open. Pick it up in the middle endwise and it will run out. I must tie the bag and save the country.”

So Jackson sent a proclamation to the people of South Carolina begging them to think before they dragged their state into war. For war they should have, he told them plainly, if they persisted in their ways.

But South Carolina replied defiantly talking of tyranny and oppression, and declaring again their right to withdraw from the Union if they wished.

Both sides were so defiant that it seemed as if there might indeed be war. But there was none.

South Carolina found that the other Southern states would not join her as she had expected. So when the Government yielded so far as to reduce the tariff to some extent South Carolina grew quiet again and the danger passed.

Jackson was twice elected President. And at the end of his second term two states were added to the Union. In June, 1836, Arkansas, part of the Louisiana Purchase, became a state. It was still rather a wild place where men wore long two-edged knives called after a wild rascal, Captain James Bowie, and they were so apt to use them on the slightest occasions that the state was nicknamed the Toothpick State.

Arkansas came in as a slave state, and early the following year Michigan came in as a free state. Michigan had belonged at one time to New France, but after the War of Independence Britain gave it up to the United States when it became part of the North West Territory.

During the 1812 war Michigan was again taken by the British. But they only kept it for a short time, for soon after Captain Perry’s great victory it was won back again by the Americans.

Up to that time there were few settlements in the territory. But gradually more people came to settle, and at length in 1834 there were quite enough people to entitle it to be admitted as a state. And after some squabbling with Ohio over the question of boundaries it was admitted to the Union early in 1837. The state takes its name from the great lake Michigan, being an Indian word meaning “Great Sea.”

Michigan was the thirteenth new state to be admitted. Thus since the Revolution the number of states had been exactly doubled.

In 1837 Martin Van Buren became President. He had been Secretary of State and then Vice-President, and had been a great favourite with Jackson who was very anxious that he should become President after him.

Van Buren made very few changes in the cabinet, and his Presidency was very like a continuation of Jackson’s “reign.”

Yet no two men could be more different from each other than Jackson and Van Buren. Jackson was rugged, quick tempered and iron willed, marching straight to his end, hacking his way through all manner of difficulties. Van Buren was a smooth tongued, sleek little man who, said his enemies, never gave any one a straight answer, and who wrapped up his ideas and opinions in so many words that nobody could be sure what he really thought about any subject.

All the presidents before Van Buren had been of British descent, and they had all been born when the States were still British colonies. Van Buren was Dutch, and he had been born after the Revolution was complete.

This was not a happy time for America, for the whole country began to suffer from money troubles. One reason for this was that people had been trying to get rich too fast. They had been spending more than they had in order to make still more. Great factories were begun and never finished, railroads and canals were built which did not pay. Business after business failed, bank after bank shut its doors, and then to add to the troubles there was a bad harvest. Flour became ruinously dear, and the poor could not get enough to eat.

The people blamed the Government for these bad times. Deputation after deputation went to the President asking him to do something, railing at him as the cause of all their troubles.

But amid all the clamour Van Buren stood calm. “This was not a matter,” he said, “in which the Government ought to interfere. It was a matter for the people themselves,” and he bade them to be more careful and industrious and things would soon come right.

But the Government too had suffered, for government money had been deposited in some of the banks which had failed. And in order to prevent that in the future Van Buren now proposed a plan for keeping State money out of the banks, so that the State should not be hurt by any bank failing.

This came to be called the Subtreasury System. There was a good deal of opposition to it at first but in 1840 it became law. It is the chief thing to remember about Van Buren’s administration. It is also one of those things which become more interesting as we grow older.

 

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Chapter 74 - Harrison - The Hero of Tippecanoe

 

People had grown to dislike Van Buren so much that he had no chance of being elected a second time, and the next President was General Harrison. Never before or since perhaps has there been so much excitement over the election of a President. For Van Buren’s friends tried very hard to have him reelected, and Harrison’s friends worked just as hard on his behalf.

Harrison was the general who had led his men to victory at Tippecanoe, and he immediately became first favourite with the people. He was an old man now of nearly seventy, and since he had left the army had been living quietly on his farm in the country.

So one of Van Buren’s friends said scornfully that Harrison was much more fit to live in a log cabin and drink hard cider than live in the White House and be President.

It was meant as a sneer, but Harrison’s good friends took it up. Log Cabin and Hard Cider became their war-cry, and the election was known as the Log Cabin and Hard Cider campaign. And soon many simple country people came to believe that Harrison really lived in a log cabin, and that he was poor, and had to work for his living even as an old man.

All sorts of songs were made and sung about this gallant old farmer.

“Oh, know ye the farmer of Tippecanoe? The gallant old farmer of Tippecanoe? With an arm that is strong and a heart that is true, The man of the people is Tippecanoe.”

That is the beginning of one song and there were dozens more like it.

And while the old farmer of Tippecanoe was said to be everything that was good and honest and lovable, Van Buren on the other hand was represented as being a bloated aristocrat, who sat in chairs that cost six hundred dollars, ate off silver plates with golden forks and spoons, and drove about in an English coach with a haughty smile on his face.

It was a time of terrible excitement, and each side gave the other many hard knocks. But in the end Harrison was elected by two hundred and thirty-four electoral votes to Van Buren’s sixty. As Vice-President John Tyler was chosen. “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” had been one of the election cries.

Inauguration day was bleak and cold, rain threatened and a chill wind blew. But in spite of unkind weather Harrison’s friends arranged a grand parade. And mounted on a white horse the new President rode for two hours through the streets. Then for another hour he stood in the chill wind reading his address to the people.

All the time he wore no overcoat. Because, it is said, rumours were spread abroad that he was not strong, and he wanted to show that he was. When the long ceremony was at length over he was thoroughly chilled, but no serious illness followed.

It was soon seen, however, that he could not bear the strain of his great office. He had never been strong. Of late years he had been used to a quiet country life, seeing few people and taking things easily.

Now from morning till night he lived in a whirl. He was besieged with people who wanted posts. For the spoils system being once begun, every President was almost forced to continue it. And never before had any President been beset by such a buzzing crowd.

Harrison was a kindly old man, and he would gladly have given offices to all who asked. It grieved him that he could not. But he was honest, too, and he tried to be just in making these new appointments. So his days were full of worry and anxious thought. Soon under the heavy burden he fell ill. And just a month after his inauguration he died.

Never before had a President died in office, and it was a shock to the whole people. Every one grieved, for even those who had been his political enemies and worked hard to prevent his election loved the good old man. Death stilled every whisper of anger against him, and, united in sorrow, the whole nation mourned his loss and followed him reverently to the grave.

 

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Chapter 75 - Tyler - Florida Becomes a State

 

John Tyler now became President. At first there was some doubt as to what he should be called. Adams, the ex-President, said he should be called “Vice-President acting as President.” But that was much too long. Someone else suggested “Regent,” but that smacked too much of royalty. But the people did not worry about it; they just called him President, and so the matter settled itself.

One important matter during Tyler’s presidency was the settling of the boundary between British America and Maine. The uncertainty of where the border between the two countries really was had caused a good deal of friction, the British accusing the Americans and the Americans accusing the British of encroaching on their territory. Many attempts had been made to settle it, but hey had all failed. And both sides had become so angry over it that it was very nearly a question of war.

But now at last the question was thrashed out between Daniel Webster, the great orator acting for the United States, and Lord Ashburton acting for Britain. Lord Ashburton came out to Washington. The business was carried through in a friendly fashion and settled satisfactorily.

The twenty-seventh state was admitted to the Union during Tyler’s time of office. This was Florida. Since Spain had given up Florida to the United States there had been a good deal of unrest among the Indians. And at last the settlers decided that it would be better to send them out of the country altogether.

So the settlers made a treaty with the Indians by which the Indians agreed to accept lands in the West instead of their Florida lands. But when the time came for them to go they refused to move, and a war which lasted seven years was begun.

It was a terrible war and thousands of lives