become completely reversed; its delegation to Congress held a caucus and found itself all but unanimously in favor of the restoration of the deposits to the bank; while public opinion was represented as overwhelmingly anti-Jackson." There was generally throughout the South a strong current of popular opinion in violent opposition to the position of the administration. "The administration had made their calculations ", announced a member of Congress from Kentucky, “that the hostility of the South to the Bank, and Virginia in particular, would make them overlook the right of the question-They have been deceived. Virginia has abandoned Jackson and cannot be recovered."" The ruinous losses suffered by many southerners doubtless "added to the detestation felt by the best people' for the Democratic principles and theories"."

The opposition in Congress kept up effective cooperation in the common cause of checking what they termed the arbitrary encroachments and usurpations of the executive, of remedying abuses which threatened "to absorb all the powers of Government in one, and to give to the country a self-willed despot in place of a ✓constitutional President "." Calhoun and Tyler worked enthusiastically with Clay and Webster to administer a rebuke to the determined president; by their united

Richmond Whig, in U. S. Telegraph, Jan. 14, Feb. 25, 1834; id., Jan. 10.

25 James Love to Crittenden, May 27, 1834, Crittenden MSS. "As far as I can hear, the Jackson party is staggering in every direction." J. T. Morehead to Crittenden, May 17, 1834, ibid.

"The best opinion here [Washington] is that before two years all the States from Maryland to Alabama inclusive, will be found in opposition to Genl. Jackson, or rather to Van Buren." A. Porter to J. P. Harrison, Feb. 18, 1834, Porter MSS.

se Memoir of Jefferson Davis, by his wife, I, 190.

Baltimore Chronicle, in U. S. Telegraph, Jan. 21, 1834.

efforts Clay's resolution of censure was carried through the Senate and Jackson's protest kept off the pages of the Senate journal.

Thus, in the spring of 1834, the national Whig party was born. Its parents were the anti-tariff and strictconstruction" Whig " following, largely located in the South and under the leadership of Calhoun, and Clay's National Republican party. Four years before, when the attraction between these extremes was first noticeable, when both were young, impetuous, and immature, they had offered a mutual but vain resistance to the force which was drawing them together. There followed the timid courtship of the summer and fall of. 1832; the result was the secret alliance of the following winter. If, indeed, it was a strange union, it was because it was dictated by political considerations; it never claimed to be a real love match. The offspring was of necessity a hybrid. Strangely enough, however, it was only during its infancy and youth that its characteristics betrayed its mongrel origin; when it reached maturity, the qualities inherited from the National Republican party asserted an absolute predominance.

The elements of the Whig party" were most heterogeneous-the leading and prominent men often held entirely opposite opinions and sentiments upon every important question of the period preceding the formation of the Whig coalition. Some were in favor of a

It took the name which the opposition had assumed in the local contests in the states. It should be clear from the foregoing that the term was a favorite with the Calhoun leaders and was openly assumed and extensively used by their followers in South Carolina during the, winter of 1832-1833. Later, the use of the term spread to other states, including New York and Connecticut, and soon had a general application to the anti-Jackson party. Niles' Register, XLVI, 101, 131; XLVII, 8-9. Cf., however, Sargent, Public Men and Events, I, 262.

protective tariff, others its most bitter opponents; some were for a United States bank, others against a bank of any kind; some were in favor of internal improvements, others strongly in doubt as to the constitutionality of such a move; besides these, there were some former nullifiers who could be expected to revive their doctrines upon the proper occasion. The Richmond Whig christened it "the ever memorable and blessed family compact which gave quiet to South Carolina, preserved the peace and integrity of the States and tempered the harsh operation of the tariff"." The name "whig" was regarded as å generic term embracing the united opposition. No attempt was made for some years at a formulation of principles and policies but its object stood out clearly from the beginning-to check Jackson and Jacksonian democracy, to "cure the sea of Jacksonism."

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There is a common cause for all the divisions of the Union, that should become paramount to every sectional object. What are the grievances of South Carolina now, compared with those of the nation? We appeal on this head to the speeches of Mr. McDuffie and Mr. Clay. The nullifiers of the South have always professed to cherish the Union. Well, then, it is now more in danger from the triumph of the Kitchen Cabinet, than any other circumstance. Whatever dispute remains between the Constitutionalists of the North and the quondam Nullifiers, may be settled when the common enemy is overthrown." 100 This was the spirit that animated those extremes which cooperated under the Whig banner.

"National Intelligencer, March 24, 1835.

100 National Gazette, in U. S. Telegraph, Jan. 2, 1834.

101

The Whig party of the South was at this stage, then, a combination of former National Republicans, nullifiers and bona fide state rights men of milder stripe," and Democrats alienated from Jackson for various reasons, especially because of the removal of the deposits. They could all have been grouped loosely about either Clay or Calhoun. Recognizing the natural leadership of these two men, it is interesting to notice how they looked upon cooperation such as was essential to the common cause that had brought them together.

102

Calhoun had regarded Clay as a rival even before he had broken away from his former nationalistic ideas. When Adams was elected president in 1824 Calhoun is said to have tried to bargain with him to defeat the appointment of Clay to a seat in the cabinet, even offering in return the support of the administration by the South Carolina delegation. Calhoun came to think of Clay, the father of the American system, more and more as a mischief maker.108 But when he found himself without influence in shaping the course of Jacksonian democracy, and finally at odds with the administration, he had to consider the possibility of another. alignment. As Clay noted, South Carolina was rather too contracted a position for Calhoun to start from.10 But he at first refused to think of a compact with Clay, deciding rather to stand aloof from existing party conflicts and to urge his followers to aim simply at a discharge of their duty of restoring the constitution."

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101 In the Carolinas, Virginia, and Georgia, it was sometimes still called the "State Rights" party or "State Rights Whig " party.

102 B. F. Perry, Reminiscences, 248-249.

103 Calhoun Correspondence, 291.

104 Clay, Private Correspondence, 288.

103 Calhoun Correspondence, 305, 310.

106

Shortly afterwards, however, he was making overtures to the friends of Clay in the South, bargaining to get the support of Virginia and the states which followed her lead in the presidential election, in return for which he agreed to leave a clear field for Clay should the election be thereby thrown into the House of Representatives. When this scheme failed, he began to formulate a definite policy. He saw his state rights followers in 1833-1834 holding the balance of power in the Senate and capable of exerting a strong influence in the House; seeing their strength, he was led to the determination not to merge them into one of the great parties but to preserve their separate existence. He refused to make a choice of evils of that sort and decided that "if there is to be Union against the administration, it must be Union on our own ground"; others may rally on us, but we rally on nothing but our doctrines". This was not so discouraging to the idea of coalition after all. His gratification over the spread of state rights led him to exaggerate its strength; he predicted that within a few years it would be the political faith of the country and that it would be hailed as the great conservative principle of the nation. He hoped that he would then be the one to dictate terms. The excitement following the removal of the deposits increased his confidence. He wrote to his brother: "A great political revolution is going on. The feeling of the North toward the South is rapidly reversing. We and our doctrines are daily growing in favour; and thousands who but a few months since execrated us,

108 Clay, Private Correspondence, 332-333.

107 Calhoun Correspondence, 328, 330.

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108

108 Calhoun Correspondence, 331, 332; Niles' Register, XLIII, 57.