Details
CROCKETT, DAVID. Autograph letter signed in full to John Drurey, Washington City, 4 April l834. 4 full pages, 4to, inner two pages discreetly silked to protect a few short fold separations, the text entirely unaffected.
BOONE'S TIRADE AGAINST THE "DESPOT" PRESIDENT JACKSON AND THE "LITTLE JUDAS" MARTIN VAN BUREN
A remarkable long-winded outburst against Jackson, attacking his withdrawal of the Government's funds from the Bank of the United States, labelling Jackson a tyrant ruled by ambition and likening him to Julius Caesar. (In quotation, we have regularized Crockett's idiosyncratic punctuation and capitalization to normalize sentences, but have preserved his spelling and frequent grammatical inconsistencies.) "....Your favour of the 13th March came safe to hand....I will now give you a history of the times at headquarters [Washington]. We are still engaged in debating the great question of the removal of the [Federal government's] deposits [from the Bank of the United States.] This question have consumed almost the whole of the session [of Congress]....We have done no other business except to pass some few private Bills. I do hope we may dispose of it next week. The Senate took the vote last week on Mr. Clay's Resolutions. First resolution was that the Secretary's reasons were insufficient, and was not satisfactory to the Senate and the other was that the President [Jackson] has violated the Laws and the Constitution. The first resolution was adopted 28 to 18 and the Second by a vote of 27 to l9....This was the votes of the Senate and I hope the vote may be taken in the House next week. It will be a close vote. Both partys claim the victory. I still am of [the] opinion that the House will adopt similar Resolutions, to that of the Senate. My reasons for these opinions is that in so large and enteligent boddy of men called Honourable men cannot violate principle so much as for a majority to vote for a measure that every man that knows any thing must acknowledge is contrary to the laws and Constitution. I have convered ["conferred"] with some of our own numbers that has not acknowledged that the act was not right, that Jackson had not a friend in Congress but what was sorry that the act was done, but that they must sustain their party. This is what may be called forsaking principle to follow party. This is what I hope ever to be excused from. I cannot nor will not for sake principle to follow after any party and I do hope there may be a majority in Congress that may be governed by the same motive...."
"I do consider the question now before Congress is one of deep interest to the American people the question is whether we will surrender up our old long and happy mode of government and take a despot. If Jackson is sustained in this act we say that the will of one man shall be the law of the land. This you know the people will never submit to. I do believe nothing keeps the people quiet at this time only the hope that Congress will give some relief to the Country. We have had memorials from more than three hundred thousand people praying for the restoration of the deposits and a revival of the Charter of the United States Bank. They state that the manufactures have all stopped and dismissed their hands and that there is men, wimen and children ro[a]ming over the country offering to worke for their victuals. You know that such a state of thing[s] cannot be kept quiet long. This have never been the case before since previous to the old war [the War of l812?]. The people petitioned in vain...and at length we knew what followed and...my great dread is a Civil war. I do consider the South Carolina question [the great Nullification controversy] nothing to compare with the present moment. We see the whole circulatory medium of the Country deranged and destroyed and the whole commercial community oppresed and distressed...Just to gratify the ambition of one man [Jackson] that he may [w]reck his vengeance on the United States Bank. And for what? Just because it refused to lend its aid in upholding his party. The truth is he is surrounded by a set of imps...that is willing to sacrafice the country to promote their own interest.
"I have no doubt of the people getting their eyes open in time to defeat the little political Judas, Martin Van Buren....Never was the money of rome more compleat in the hands of Ceasar than the whole purse of the nation is at this time in the hands of our President Jackson....He is now in possession of both sword and purse. Ceasar said to the secretary of rome give me the money and the secretary said no person have a right to ask that but the roman Senate and Ceasar said to him that it would be as easy for Ceasar to take your life as to will it to another. With that the Secretary knowing that Ceasar had all powar he stepped aside and Ceasar took the money. How was it with Andrew Jackson when he asked Mr. Duane to remove the deposits and he refused & he was then dismissed and a more pliable one appointed and the act is done and I believe they are sorry for it. No man knows where the money of the Country is. Congress has no control over it. This is a new seen ["scene"] in our political history.
"The Post Office department is upwards of one million dollars behind hand and the Senate is handling the Post Master General without gloves....You know the President said in his last message to Congress and the nation that the post office was in a most flourishing condition when at the same time he knew that he knew that the Post Master Genl had borrowed three hundred and fifty thousand dollars from their pet banks at six percent interest....This is Jackson retrenchment...."
In l832, Jackson had vetoed the recharter of the second Bank of the United States, from a conviction that Congress lacked the Constitutional authority to grant such a charter, and believing that the bank, headed by the Philadelphian Nicolas Biddle, favored Eastern manufacturers over other citizens. In September l833, Jackson had moved to withdraw the Federal government's deposits, amounting to some $ll million, and redistributed the funds to politically selected state banks ("pet" banks). The Senate, led by Clay, voted to censure Jackson, but the censure was lifted three years later. In spite of Crockett's strong conviction that the constituents from his Tennessee district sided with him against Jackson, he seriously underestimated frontier support for Jackson's position, and in the next election, in l835, pro-Jackson forces in his district rallied and ejected Crockett from Congress. Bitter over his rejection, Crocket resolved to leave Tennessee, and he soon took up the cause of the Texas independence movement. (He is reported to have remarked in disgust to his Tennessee neighbors, "You all can go to hell and I'm going to Texas!).
BOONE'S TIRADE AGAINST THE "DESPOT" PRESIDENT JACKSON AND THE "LITTLE JUDAS" MARTIN VAN BUREN
A remarkable long-winded outburst against Jackson, attacking his withdrawal of the Government's funds from the Bank of the United States, labelling Jackson a tyrant ruled by ambition and likening him to Julius Caesar. (In quotation, we have regularized Crockett's idiosyncratic punctuation and capitalization to normalize sentences, but have preserved his spelling and frequent grammatical inconsistencies.) "....Your favour of the 13th March came safe to hand....I will now give you a history of the times at headquarters [Washington]. We are still engaged in debating the great question of the removal of the [Federal government's] deposits [from the Bank of the United States.] This question have consumed almost the whole of the session [of Congress]....We have done no other business except to pass some few private Bills. I do hope we may dispose of it next week. The Senate took the vote last week on Mr. Clay's Resolutions. First resolution was that the Secretary's reasons were insufficient, and was not satisfactory to the Senate and the other was that the President [Jackson] has violated the Laws and the Constitution. The first resolution was adopted 28 to 18 and the Second by a vote of 27 to l9....This was the votes of the Senate and I hope the vote may be taken in the House next week. It will be a close vote. Both partys claim the victory. I still am of [the] opinion that the House will adopt similar Resolutions, to that of the Senate. My reasons for these opinions is that in so large and enteligent boddy of men called Honourable men cannot violate principle so much as for a majority to vote for a measure that every man that knows any thing must acknowledge is contrary to the laws and Constitution. I have convered ["conferred"] with some of our own numbers that has not acknowledged that the act was not right, that Jackson had not a friend in Congress but what was sorry that the act was done, but that they must sustain their party. This is what may be called forsaking principle to follow party. This is what I hope ever to be excused from. I cannot nor will not for sake principle to follow after any party and I do hope there may be a majority in Congress that may be governed by the same motive...."
"I do consider the question now before Congress is one of deep interest to the American people the question is whether we will surrender up our old long and happy mode of government and take a despot. If Jackson is sustained in this act we say that the will of one man shall be the law of the land. This you know the people will never submit to. I do believe nothing keeps the people quiet at this time only the hope that Congress will give some relief to the Country. We have had memorials from more than three hundred thousand people praying for the restoration of the deposits and a revival of the Charter of the United States Bank. They state that the manufactures have all stopped and dismissed their hands and that there is men, wimen and children ro[a]ming over the country offering to worke for their victuals. You know that such a state of thing[s] cannot be kept quiet long. This have never been the case before since previous to the old war [the War of l812?]. The people petitioned in vain...and at length we knew what followed and...my great dread is a Civil war. I do consider the South Carolina question [the great Nullification controversy] nothing to compare with the present moment. We see the whole circulatory medium of the Country deranged and destroyed and the whole commercial community oppresed and distressed...Just to gratify the ambition of one man [Jackson] that he may [w]reck his vengeance on the United States Bank. And for what? Just because it refused to lend its aid in upholding his party. The truth is he is surrounded by a set of imps...that is willing to sacrafice the country to promote their own interest.
"I have no doubt of the people getting their eyes open in time to defeat the little political Judas, Martin Van Buren....Never was the money of rome more compleat in the hands of Ceasar than the whole purse of the nation is at this time in the hands of our President Jackson....He is now in possession of both sword and purse. Ceasar said to the secretary of rome give me the money and the secretary said no person have a right to ask that but the roman Senate and Ceasar said to him that it would be as easy for Ceasar to take your life as to will it to another. With that the Secretary knowing that Ceasar had all powar he stepped aside and Ceasar took the money. How was it with Andrew Jackson when he asked Mr. Duane to remove the deposits and he refused & he was then dismissed and a more pliable one appointed and the act is done and I believe they are sorry for it. No man knows where the money of the Country is. Congress has no control over it. This is a new seen ["scene"] in our political history.
"The Post Office department is upwards of one million dollars behind hand and the Senate is handling the Post Master General without gloves....You know the President said in his last message to Congress and the nation that the post office was in a most flourishing condition when at the same time he knew that he knew that the Post Master Genl had borrowed three hundred and fifty thousand dollars from their pet banks at six percent interest....This is Jackson retrenchment...."
In l832, Jackson had vetoed the recharter of the second Bank of the United States, from a conviction that Congress lacked the Constitutional authority to grant such a charter, and believing that the bank, headed by the Philadelphian Nicolas Biddle, favored Eastern manufacturers over other citizens. In September l833, Jackson had moved to withdraw the Federal government's deposits, amounting to some $ll million, and redistributed the funds to politically selected state banks ("pet" banks). The Senate, led by Clay, voted to censure Jackson, but the censure was lifted three years later. In spite of Crockett's strong conviction that the constituents from his Tennessee district sided with him against Jackson, he seriously underestimated frontier support for Jackson's position, and in the next election, in l835, pro-Jackson forces in his district rallied and ejected Crockett from Congress. Bitter over his rejection, Crocket resolved to leave Tennessee, and he soon took up the cause of the Texas independence movement. (He is reported to have remarked in disgust to his Tennessee neighbors, "You all can go to hell and I'm going to Texas!).