Now, When The Struggle Came, He Could Not
Forget His Party In His Duty As President.
General Jackson's
position was much the same when Mr. Calhoun, on the question of the
tariff, endeavored to produce secession in South Carolina thirty
years ago, in 1832 - excepting in this, that Jackson was himself a
Southern man.
But Jackson had a strong conception of the position
which he held as President of the United States. He put his foot
on secession and crushed it, forcing Mr. Calhoun, as Senator from
South Carolina, to vote for that compromise as to the tariff which
the government of the day proposed. South Carolina was as eager in
1832 for secession as she was in 1859-60; but the government was in
the hands of a strong man and an honest one. Mr. Calhoun would
have been hung had he carried out his threats. But Mr. Buchanan
had neither the power nor the honesty of General Jackson, and thus
secession was in fact consummated during his Presidency.
But Mr. Lincoln's party, it is said - and I believe truly said -
might have prevented secession by making overtures to the South, or
accepting overtures from the South, before Mr. Lincoln himself had
been inaugurated. That is to say, if Mr. Lincoln and the band of
politicians who with him had pushed their way to the top of their
party, and were about to fill the offices of State, chose to throw
overboard the political convictions which had bound them together
and insured their success - if they could bring themselves to adopt
on the subject of slavery the ideas of their opponents - then the
war might have been avoided, and secession also avoided.
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