to this, one of these friends, named Marcy, carelessly said, "To the victors belong the spoils," little thinking that words thus spoken in jest would soon become proverbial.

The party to which Jackson belonged was the Republican, but his followers now changed the name to Dem-ocrat'ic, the name by which this party is still known.

Andrew Jackson, unlike the Presidents before him, came of a poor family, and had little education. When only fourteen he began to fight the British, and was taken prisoner by them. We are told that they once beat him most cruelly because he proudly refused to black their boots and act as their servant.

During his captivity, he took the smallpox, and shortly after recovering his liberty he lost his mother, who had procured his release and nursed him back to health. Left thus alone in the world, Jackson studied law for a little while, but he was too active to care much for books. A story says that his spelling especially was very bad. Early in his military career, it is said, he greatly puzzled one of the officers by putting the letters " O. K." on certain papers he had to examine. The officer finally asked him what these letters stood for, and Jackson scornfully answered: "Why, all correct, of course." This same story is also told of an Indian chief; and while it may not be any more true of him than of Jackson, you will often see these two letters used in this way.

As Jackson was very hot-tempered, he got into many quarrels. But he was loyal to his friends, and very quickwitted, as the following anecdotes prove.

We are told that once, during the races, a quarrel suddenly arose among the guests at a public dinner in Vir

ginia. Seeing that one of his friends at the other end of the room was in danger, Jackson promptly sprang upon the table, and striding along, in the midst of glasses and decanters, shouted to his friend that he was coming.

As he said this, he thrust his hand behind him into his coat pocket, and loudly clicked the lid of his snuffbox. The guests, thinking he had a pistol in his pocket, scattered in great haste, frantically crying: "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" This terror enabled Jackson to reach his friend, and made the rest of the guests forget the quarrel.

Roads in those days were quite unsafe. Once, when Jackson was driving along, he is said to have been way

laid by wagoners, who, wishing to have some fun, pointed a pistol at him and bade him dance. With great presence of mind, Jackson gravely assured them he could not dance except in slippers, and when the men bade him get them. out of his trunk, he had it taken down from the carriage and obediently opened it. But, instead of slippers, he took out a pair of pistols. Pointing these straight at the wagoners, he ordered them, in an awful voice, to dance themselves; and they capered frantically up and down the road until he allowed them to rest.

JACK

XX. JACKSON'S PRESIDENCY.

ACKSON was President two terms. About this time, Congress passed a law laying a high tariff, or duty, on goods brought from abroad, for the purpose of giving an advantage to home manufacturers. This law pleased the people in the North, because they manufactured many things, and wanted the Americans to buy from them rather than from European merchants. But in the South, where there were no manufactories then, people were angry, because they said that Northern goods were not so fine as the European, and that they already paid enough for all that came from abroad.

The result was that, in 1832, South Carolina said the law should be null, or of no force, in her limits. She claimed that, according to the Constitution, Congress had no right to make it, and announced that she would rather leave the Union than pay the tariff. Now, some mem

bers of Congress said that this question ought to be decided by the Supreme Court, and not by the states, and that a state, having once joined the Union, could not leave it without the consent of the rest of the states; but others, and among them the eloquent Southerners, Calhoun (călhoon') and Hayne, insisted that each state had the right to annul any law it considered unconstitutional, and even to leave the Union.

South Carolina was of the latter opinion, but Jackson was not, and we are told that when he heard the "Nullification Act" had been passed by South Carolina, he flew into a great rage, dashed his corncob pipe on the floor, and cried: "By the Eternal! I'll fix 'em!

General Scott."

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General Scott was then promptly sent to Charles'ton to see that the tariff law should be obeyed. Still, the two opinions on state rights were so strongly rooted that neither party could convince the other. It was therefore finally agreed that while the tariff should be collected at all the ports of the country to please the North, it should. be lowered little by little so as to please the South.

In settling this question, however, several famous speeches were made, among them one by Daniel Webster, who said that the Constitution was greater than any state, being "made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people." On that occasion also he spoke of "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable," a phrase which became the watchword of a great part of the country. This was Jackson's feeling also, so at a dinner party he once gave the toast: “Our Federal Union: it must be preserved."

President Jackson, or "Old Hickory," as his soldiers called him, was very fond of having his own way; and while he had many devoted friends, he also had some bitter enemies. As he did not call meetings of his regular Cabinet, but instead listened to the advice of a few other men, these were scornfully called, by his enemies, the "kitchen cabinet."

It was probably by advice of the "kitchen cabinet" that Jackson decided not to continue the United States Bank, but to send the money to different states, to be placed in what were called "pet banks." This change caused some trouble, for people borrowed that money and used it in rash ways, hoping to get rich very fast.

Jackson had two Indian wars to carry on while he was President. One was the Black Hawk War (1832), in Illi-nois' and Wis-con'sin, where the Indians, after selling their lands, obstinately refused to give them up to the settlers. The other was the Florida or Seminole War which began in 1835. The Seminole Indians had been beaten by Jackson himself some time before, and after the purchase of Florida they had consented to give up their land and go to the other side of the Mississippi.

Still, when the time came for them to move, their chief, Os-ce-o'la, would not go, and defiantly drove his knife into a table, saying: "The only treaty I will execute is with this." His influence was so great that the Seminoles rose up in arms and began to massacre all the whites. They surprised and killed one officer at dinner, and surrounded another in Wa-hoo' Swamp, where he was slain with more than a hundred men.

The Seminoles next retreated into the Ev'er-glades,