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They had

some openly, and others secretly, gloried in the result. predicted calamities, and a great one had befallen us. They had foretold the consequences of a conflict with the mistress of the seas, and their visions and predictions had become realities. They charged imbecility and weakness, which their own course contributed to produce. They charged the whole to the influence of Democratic principles, and to those who were guided by them. It is now difficult to believe, what then all knew, that there were men among us, who, to accomplish their ends-restoration to power—were willing, nay, rejoiced to see our nation humiliated and trampled upon. Such victories over us tended, in their estimation, to cripple Madison and his administration, which would open the pathway for Federalism to ride into power again. The lower Madison and his party sank in the estimation of the world, the higher they would be elevated, at least in comparison. They calculated, if once in power, they would be exempt from British aggressions, owing to the attitude they had maintained toward that power and against our own Government. Such were the feelings and purposes of the Federal party at that time. Their descendants have not really improved in principle or patriotism.

50.-THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS.

The defence of Baltimore, the victory of Macdonough on Lake Champlain, and Perry on Lake Erie, are still locally celebrated by the people in those vicinities. They were great and important events, worthy of the courage and energy of those engaged in them. They form bright pages in our history. The memory and achievements of the prominent actors will go down. to posterity as examples worthy of imitation. But the battle of New Orleans acquired a national consideration. Although it is local in name, its significance is national, and as wide-spread as our Union, and has its mark in the history of the world. It was won with trifling means over the most ample, and by some thirty-five hundred raw militia over fourteen thousand of England's choicest veterans. It was won by one comparatively new in the art of war, over one of Great Britain's most experienced

generals. The assailants chose their time and selected the place of conflict. The Americans had no bulwarks of defence except those hastily provided by General Jackson from bales of cotton. There was skill in the attack, but far greater in the defence. The British troops fought because that was their employment, the American troops for liberty, their country, their homes, and firesides. The former were trained to war, the latter were fired by duty, and instinctively performed it for a country of which they were proud to form a part. The watchward of the one was "Beauty and booty," and the other "Victory or death!" The cool commands of the one general were deliberately obeyed, while the martial fire and indomitable energy of the other sent a thrill to every heart, which gave it quick impulse and double power. The one line fired its aimless shots, and the other gave direction to the unerring hunter's rifle. The difference was soon told in the death-struggles of the encounter. General Packenham lost over 2,000, killed, wounded, and prisoners, and General Jackson seven killed and six wounded. No victory could be more complete. This was the last battle of the war. News of General Jackson's unparalleled achievement rapidly spread over the country, arousing the spirits and awakening the patriotism of all who gloried in our success. The news of Jackson's victory came from the South, and that of the treaty of peace from the East. These opened the hearts and mouths of all true patriots, while the Hartford-Convention emissaries at Washington were dumb, and returned home in mysterious silence to their party. The nation rejoiced, and the 8th of January, the day on which the battle was fought, has ever since been celebrated by those who glory in Democratic principles.

But General Jackson soon found that in the heart of his camp there were mutinous traitors. The news of peace had been received, but not officially. The British army remained not many miles distant. General Jackson well understood that his duty required the utmost vigilance until notified by authority of the treaty of peace. Those who, too cowardly to fight, had been protected by him, sought to create a mutiny on account of his vigilance. He arrested the ringleader for the crime of attempting

to create mutiny. A jare came to his rescue with a writ of habeas corpus, which the general quietly put in his pocket, and sent him four miles from camp. When peace was proclaimed, the judge returned and fined the general a thousand dollars, for contempt of his authority, while aiding in a mutiny. The general paid the fine, while it was difficult to protect the judge from Lynch law.

The enemies of the general, and others having occasion for strong precedents under which to protect themselves, have assumed that the general declared martial law and suspended the writ of habeas corpus, neither of which is true. He refused to obey the habeas corpus, because he believed it one link in the chain of mutiny. If the writ had been lawfully suspended, the judge could not have had him arrested under it and fined. He would have set up the suspension and denied his jurisdiction. He never issued an order suspending the civil and establishing martial law. Like all other officers, he controlled his camp and enforced. the usual discipline, and nothing more. After taking command at New Orleans, General Jackson issued public orders requiring four things in aid of the protection of his camp. One was, that no person should leave the city without permission; another, that all who arrived should report at headquarters; another, that those going or coming on the river should report to Lieutenant Henry, of the navy; and the last, that all lights in the city should be extinguished, and people retire to their dwellings by nine o'clock at night. These were deemed judicious and necessary for the protection of both the citizens and army. He did not displace the civil law, or those administering it, but protected and sustained both.

General Jackson, on all occasions, was a rigid upholder of the laws and institutions of the country. He believed that the Constitution was sacred, and that every man should hazard his life for its defence if necessary, and that every constitutional law should be enforced. He was stern and uncompromising in defence of his own rights and honor, and equally so in protecting others. It cannot be truly said that he ever suspended the writ of habeas corpus, or that he ever declared martial law, or interfered with the rights and privileges of others, further than to pro

tect his camp, and those within it receiving his protection. As commander of an army as well as in all other situations, General Jackson rigidly lived up to the rule of protecting men and their property, leaving them free to pursue happiness as they should deem best for themselves.

51. THE BANK BILLS OF 1815 AND 1816.

It has been elsewhere stated that Mr. Jefferson gave a Cabinet opinion in 1791, against the first bank chartered by Congress which expired in 1811, and which Congress failed to renew. In 1814 Congress passed a bill which Mr. Madison vetoed on the 20th of January, 1815, on the ground that it would not remedy existing evils or answer any salutary purpose of a public nature. His reasoning was clear, cogent, and conclusive. Mr. Jefferson, in speaking of the bank mania which then prevailed, said: “Like a dropsical man calling out for more water, water, our deluded citizens are clamoring for more banks, more banks. The American mind is now in that state of fever which the world has so often seen in the history of other nations. We are under the bank bubble, as England was under the South Sea bubble, France under the Mississippi bubble, and as every nation is liable to be, under whatever bubble design or delusion may puff up in moments when off their guard. We are now taught to believe that legerdemain tricks upon paper can produce as solid wealth as hard labor in the earth. It is vain for common-sense to urge that nothing can produce but nothing; that it is an idle dream to believe in a philosopher's stone which is to turn every thing into gold, and to redeem man from the original sentence of his Maker, 'In the sweat of his brow shall he eat his bread.""

Those favoring this bank application claimed, and perhaps some of them believed, that it would cure all the financial and monetary evils of the times, and furnish a currency of uniform value and equivalent to gold. But doubtless most of those favoring the measure saw in it the means of controlling business and making money with more ease and facility than by plodding on in the drudgery of hard labor. Patriotism and love of country had little share in the controlling inducements to action.

The next year Congress passed another bank bill, so framed as to obviate Mr. Madison's objections, and it became a law. Mr. Madison yielded to what he conceived the necessities of the times. He had not changed his opinion as to the unconstitutionality of the measure, but, yielding to the argument that a national bank had been recognized in so many ways as lawful, he was bound to yield his opinion. This did not change Mr. Jefferson's opinion. Experience showed that the new bank caused more evils than it prevented or cured. The maxim, that debts are contracted when banks loan freely and money is plenty, and paid when they contract and money is scarce, was most fully illustrated. Its capital, $35,000,000, was a potent power in the state. It must be loaned, and its representatives, in the shape of bills, must be circulated, to make the bank profitable. All must be used to make the enterprise as effective and powerful as the promises which had brought the charter from a doubting Congress and hesitating President. The promises of its authors were glittering with prosperity and wealth. The nation and the people were all to be made suddenly rich. We copy the following from Colonel Benton's "Thirty Years:"

"The Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816, and before 1820 had performed one of its cycles of delusive and bubble prosperity, followed by actual and wide-spread calamity. The whole paper system, of which it was the head and citadel, after a vast expansion, had suddenly collapsed, spreading desolation over the land, and carrying ruin to debtors. The years 1819-20 were a period of gloom and agony. No money, either gold or silver; no paper convertible into specie; no measure, or standard of value, left remaining. The local banks (all but those of New England) after a brief resumption of specie payments, again sunk into a state of suspension. The Bank of the United States, created as a remedy for all those evils, now at the head of the evil, prostrate and helpless, with no power left but that of suing its debtors, and selling their property, and purchasing for itself at its own nominal price. No price for property, or prod uce. No sales but those of the sheriff and marshal. No purchasers at execution sales, but the creditor, or some hoarder of

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