Crises during the presidency of andrew jackson
... that they may do this consistently with the Constitution; that the true construction of that instrument permits a State to retain its place in the Union and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may choose to consider constitutional"(Commager 188). This clearly shows that Jackson thought that nullification was illegal according to the Constitution, and any attempt to enact it was a rebellious act of treason. The Constitution wasn't specific on either side of the issue, but Jackson manipulated the meaning of it well to sound like he was right and nullification was illegal. After hearing Jackson, most of America was on his side. Jackson's harsh treatment of Indians needed backing from the Constitution, or else he would seem like a tyrant. Jackson thought progress was inevitable and the Indian land was needed to bring civilization to those areas. Twelve million whites were more important than "a few thousand savages"(Pessen 318). The main Indians being persecuted were the Cherokees, Choctaws, Creeks, and the Chickasaws. They lived in the south. Defenders of these tribes said that the policy of white farmers having the right to take the land of the savage was okay as long as they were savage, but these tribes were not savage. They were skilled in the art of white civilization. Many had intermarried with white wives, lived in white man's houses, and had adopted the white man's dress. The Cherokee Nation had built roads, schools, and churches, they had even invented their own written language. Some even owned slaves. They thought that they were protected by rights given to them by treaties with the United States. The state of Georgia refused to recognize any special quality about the Cherokees except that they were red men and the fact that they owned land which the white men wanted. In 1829 the Georgia legislature passed a law extending its authority over the Indian territory within the borders of the state. Then, a Cherokee named Corn Tassel, killed another Cherokee in the territory. He was taken before a Georgia court, found guilty, and then sentenced to be hanged. The Cherokee Nation appealed to United States Supreme Court on the grounds that Georgia lacked jurisdiction. The case was named Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court at that time was John Marshall. The lawyer for the Cherokee Nation was William Wirt, who had previously been passed over for the job of U.S. Attorney General by Jackson because he distrusted Wirt on Indian removal. When Jackson found out that Wirt was their lawyer, he denounced him as "wicked"(Coit 44). The court responded to the case by upholding the rights of the Indians against the state, and that they were dependent upon the federal government. Still Georgia disregarded the Supreme Court, and went ahead and executed Corn Tassel. There was another case, Worcester v. Georgia, originating in Georgia in 1829. It grew out of Georgia law forbidding whites to reside among Indians without licenses. Several missionaries, one of whom was named Worcester, appealed to the Supreme Court after their arrest for violating the law. Chief Justice John Marshall again decided against Georgia by stating that the Cherokees constituted a definite political community over which the laws of Georgia had no legal force. But again Georgia denied the authority of the Court and its sentence. Jackson refused to enforce the decision. He did so because he knew that the people in the South and the West would not tolerate its enforcement. His reaction to these decisions showed that he was for states' rights as much as he was for nationalism. Jackson's refusal to enforce these decisions in favor of the states was seen by states' rights people as a sign of toleration of nullification. It gave them the idea that he was in favor of states nullifying laws only if he also shared in their dislike for the intolerable laws. Now he was using the Constitution to prove his point in an almost opposite manner than the way he used it in the nullification crisis. He used the fact that the Constitution wasn't specific on that issue to manipulate it the way he desired. As long as he made the people happy, he didn't create much opposition. It was the same way with the next issue, the constitutionality of the Second Bank of the United States. President Jackson made it his mission to destroy the Second Bank of the United States. The Second Bank of the United States was chartered by Congress in 1816. The charter was supposed to run for twenty years. The capital stock of it was assigned at thirty-five million dollars, one-fifth was from the federal government, and the rest was from the public. It was a central bank designed to regulate the credit and currency operations of the country. It was supposed to provide stability to the economy, tighten credit, and prevent an excess of paper money. The Bank was declared constitutional in the Supreme Court case of M'Culloch v. Maryland. In this case Maryland tried to tax the Bank out of existence. Its Baltimore cashier, James M'Culloch refused to pay. So the state sued and the case went to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Marshall said, in a unanimous decision, that the Bank was constitutional and that it was unconstitutional for the state to tax the Bank. He said that since it was an agent of the national government, the state could not limit the nation's activity by the use of the taxing power. He said this because, in his words, "the power to tax involves the power to destroy"(Coit 148). By saying this he meant that a state could not hinder what the national government was trying do. This strengthened the power of the central government. And also took away some of the rights of the states. Presumably, Jackson should have been happy with this, given his stance on nullification, but he was not. He thought that the bank operated for the benefit of the rich few rather than the many poor people. The bank was against soft money, which was what westerners yearned for. They needed the cheap flow of paper money and easy credit to keep their farming economy up and running. He thought that it was a monopoly. He thought that it was independent of the people and had the means to nullify economic development. He also thought that it frequently interfered in politics. The Bank made the right loans to the right congressmen at the right times, one of whom was Daniel Webster. Nicholas Biddle was the head of the Bank of the United States. He was incredibly good at managing finances and the sort, but he was inept at politics. He is notorious for saying that he could destroy state banks and create a depression. This an...