passed. The danger of disunion and civil war was thus completely removed. The session of congress was closed on the 3d of March, 1833, and on the 4th, General Jackson, who had been a second time elected to the office of president, in the autumn of 1832, delivered his inaugural address in the hall of representatives. It was chiefly occupied in recommending union to the states, and in pointing out the dangers they would incur by separation from, or disagreement with, each other. The office of vice-president had been conferred by the people on Martin Van Buren. The next important measure of General Jackson's administration was the removal of the government deposites from the bank of the United States to the local banks. In justification of this measure, the president, on the 18th of September, addressed to the cabinet a long and argumentative paper. His principal charges against the bank were, that its officers had employed means to retard the redemption of part of the public debt, retaining in their own hands the money which should have been applied to that redemption, and that they had exerted their influence, and misapplied their funds in controuling the press of the country, 6 The commercial embarrassment and distress occasioned by this measure arrayed a strong party in opposition to the president; and the subsequent session of congress was chiefly occupied with discussions connected with the Bank question.' The president was sustained in his course by the house of representatives; but the senate were resolute in their opposition. Matters were even carried so far that a vote censuring the conduct of the president, and pronouncing it unconstitutional, was passed in that body. The alarm occasioned throughout the country by the derangement of the currency, caused a temporary suspension of commercial business in many places, and a great number of petitions from citizens in various parts of the Union were addressed to the president, praying for the restoration of the deposites to the bank. But with his usual firmness of purpose, he maintained the position which he had taken, and the deposites were not restored. When the temporary panic had passed away, however, business speedily recovered its usual activity. What was its effect? When did General Jackson enter up- Who was chosen vice-president? What was the next important mea the president for this measure? What was its effect in congress? On business? 404 CLAIMS ON FRANCE ADJUSTED. In his message to congress at the opening of the session of 1834-5, the president adverted to certain claims on the French government for spoliations on our commerce, com mitted under the Berlin and Milan decrees of Napoleon which had been adjusted by a treaty fixing the amount at 25,000,000 francs, but had never been paid. A suggestion was thrown out in the message as to the propriety of making reprisals on French property in case of further delay. The French government of course took fire at this intimation, and assumed an attitude which seemed to threaten war. Neither nation, however, was in a situation to render this desirable; and the president, having in his message of 1835, without compromising his own dignity or that of his country, given such explanations of his previous declarations as he thought consistent with truth and propriety, the French ministry gladly availed themselves of the opportunity thus afforded of satisfying the American claims without delay. In the winter of 1836, the Seminole Indians commenced hostilities in Florida, ravaging the plantations, and killing great numbers of the inhabitants. A considerable force of regular troops and volunteers was sent against them without success, until it became necessary to order the greater part of the regular army to the defence of the southern border. The war, however, has not yet been terminated (October, 1836.) The Creeks and several other tribes having united their arms with those of the Seminoles, were reduced to submission, and the greater part of them transported west of the Mississippi; but the Seminoles are still engaged in hostilities with the people of Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi Great numbers of them have been destroyed, and others captured and transported to the western territories of the United States; but the nature of the country affords them great facilities for retreat and concealment; and the resolution which they evince, while it renders this the most obstinate of any of the numerous Indian wars in which the United States have been engaged, gives little reason to hope for its termination without effecting their removal en masse to the regions beyond the Mississippi. During the present administration, the whole of the public debt of the United States has been extinguished; and in the summer of the present year, (1836,) congress passed a bill What occasioned an apprehension of | What Indians commenced war ir war with France ? How was it averted? 1835? What is said concerning this war? Ap EXTINCTION OF THE PUBLIC DEBT. 405 for distributing the surplus revenue among the several states of the Union, which received the sanction of the president, and became a law. In the cursory view which we have thus taken of the events of the last eight years, we have carefully abstained from expressing any opinion on the character of the measures adopted by the government. That, as we have already observed, belongs to the future historian. A desire to render this brief history complete, has induced us to record these events, while a no less anxious desire to preserve its impartiality has determined us to leave to the unerring awards of time, the characters aud motives of our contemporaries. APPENDIX. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. JULY 4, 1776. ▲ Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, în Congress assembled. WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident:-that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such forms, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation, till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have ✔rned to the people at large, for their exercise; the state remaining, in APPENDIX. 407 the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and to eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation, For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states: For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: For imposing taxes on us without our consent: For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies: For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the forms of our governments: For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of ail ages, sexes, and conditions. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connexions and correspondence. They, too, nave |