Andrew Jackson Quotes
There is nothing that I shudder at more than the idea of a separation of the Union. Should such an event ever happen, which I fervently pray God to avert, from that date I view our liberty gone.
Jackson, Andrew. Correspondence of Andrew Jackson. Edited by John Spencer Bassett, vol. 4, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1929.
Fortunately he was wrong, but the threat of a breakup of the American Union intimidated most members of Congress to avoid anything that would offend a state or group of states. Thus slavery became more and more entrenched till it exploded into the Civil War. At the time the issues of contention included the fact that Louisiana was primarily Roman Catholic and ALL other states were majority Protestant. The territory functioned under French Law—the Napoleonic Code, while all the other states operated under the English Common Law (even today this is so), and there was concern with the French and Creole language and whether the Creoles would fit into American Culture.
It would be almost 30 years until Jackson would have been proved correct and the Civil War had begun.
There was an active secession movement by the Western States. New Orleans was then controlled by the Spanish who would not allow U.S. goods access to export from New Orleans. Some of the wealthier Western citizens thought that they would fare better as a vassal state of Spain rather than part of the newly formed United States. Jefferson, did not overreact and the movement for secession faded.
At the time his Vice President, John C. Calhoun, was expounding a theory of “nullification” by which the states could supersede and nullify federal law in their states. When Jackson finished his toast, it was Calhoun’s turn (See {635896}.) His toast supported the States’ Rights position over the federal government. In those days Presidents and Vice President’s were often political enemies or of opposite parties. The President’s advisors thought that his toast might be misinterpreted. So when they gave the toast to the press as “The Federal Union: It must be preserved.” That was the form in which the press reported the President’s toast and for many years that was the version most quoted even though it was never delivered that way. However Jackson was responsible for both versions.
In many respects, it is amazing that secession did not take place earlier.
Andrew Jackson was an American lawyer, soldier, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. An expansionist president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man" against a "corrupt aristocracy" and to preserve the Union.
