THE JACKSON-CALHOUN BREAK

Their Diplomatic Correspondence

JACKSON TO CALHOUN-MAY 13, 1830

BUT for the publicity given this correspondence between President Andrew Jackson and Vice-President John C. Calhoun in 1830, growing out of the charge that Calhoun, as Secretary of War in Monroe's Cabinet twelve years previously, had recommended that General Jackson be reprimanded, if not punished, for his conduct of the Seminole War, Calhoun probably would have succeeded Jackson as President of the United States. The characters of the two men are clearly revealed in these diplomatic letters, which now and then promise a violent sequel.

The rupture between Jackson and Calhoun seems to have been instigated by William H. Crawford, a former Cabinet officer and Minister to France, who nursed Presidential aspirations. This breach was still further widened when Calhoun refused to support Jackson in an effort to reinstate Mrs. Eaton (Peggy O'Neill) in Washington society.

THAT frankness, which, I trust, has always characterized me through life, towardsthose with whom I have been in the habits of friendship, induces me to lay before you the enclosed copy of a letter from William H. Crawford, Esq., which was placed in my hands on yesterday. The submission, you will perceive, is authorized by the writer. The statements and facts it presents being so different from what I had heretofore understood to be correct, requires that it should be brought to your consideration. They are different from your letter to Governor Bibb, of Alabama, of the 13th May, 1818, where you state "General Jackson is vested with full power to conduct the war in the manner he may judge best and different, too, from your letters to me at that time, which breathe throughout a spirit of approbation and friendship, and particularly the one in which you say, "I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 20th ultimo, and to acquaint you with the entire approbation of the President of all the measures you have adopted to terminate the rupture with the Indians." My object in making this communication is to announce to you the great surprise which is felt, and to learn of you whether it be possible that the information given is correct; whether it can be, under all the circumstances of which you and I are both informed, that any attempt seriously to affect me was moved and sustained by you in the Cabinet council, when, as is known to you, I was but executing the wishes of the Government, and clothed with the authority to "conduct the war in the manner I might judge best."

You can, if you please, take a copy: the one enclosed you will please return to me.

THE CRAWFORD LETTER IN QUESTION, TO JOHN FORSYTH

I RECOLLECT having conversed with you at the time and place, and upon the subject, in that enclosure stated, but I have not a distinct recollection of what I said to you, but I am certain there is one error in your statement of that conversation to Mr.--. . I recollect distinctly what passed in the Cabinet meeting, referred to in your letter to Mr.--. .

Mr. Calhoun's proposition in the Cabinet was, that General Jackson should be punished in some form, or reprehended in some form; I am not positively certain which. As Mr. Calhoun did not propose to arrest General Jackson, I feel confident that I could not have made use of that word in my relation to you of the circumstances which transpired in the Cabinet, as I have no recollection of ever having designedly misstated any transaction in my life, and most sincerely believe I never did. My apology for having disclosed what passed in a Cabinet meeting is this: In the summer after that meeting, an extract of a letter from Washington was published in a Nashville paper, in which it was stated that I had proposed to arrest General Jackson, but that he was triumphantly defended by Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Adams. This letter, I always believed, was written by Mr. Calhoun, or by his directions. It had the desired effect. General Jackson became extremely inimical to me, and friendly to Mr. Calhoun. In stating the arguments of Mr. Adams to induce Mr. Monroe to support General Jackson's conduct throughout, adverting to Mr. Monroe's apparent admission that if a young officer had acted so he might be safely punished, Mr. Adams said, that if General Jackson had acted so, that if he was a subaltern officer, shooting was too good for him. This, however, was said with a view of driving Mr. Monroe to an unlimited support of what General Jackson had done, and not with an unfriendly view to the General. Indeed, my own views on the subject had undergone a material change after the Cabinet had been convened. Mr. Calhoun made some allusion to a letter the General had written to the President, who had forgotten that he had received such a letter, but said, if he had received such an one, he could find it; and went directly to his cabinet, and brought the letter out. In it General Jackson approved of the determination of the Government to break up Amelia island and Galveztown, and gave it also as his opinion that the Floridas ought to be taken by the United States. He added, it might be a delicate matter for the Executive to decide; but if the President approved of it, he had only to give a hint to some confidential Member of Congress, say Johnny Ray, and he would do it, and take the responsibility of it on himself. I asked the President if the letter had been answered. He replied, no; for that he had no recollection of having received it. I then said that I had no doubt that General Jackson, in taking Pensacola, believed he was doing what the Executive wished. After that letter was produced, unanswered, I should have opposed the infliction of punishment upon the General, who had considered the silence of the President as a tacit consent; yet it was after this letter was produced and read, that Mr. Calhoun made his proposition to the Cabinet for punishing the General. You may show this letter to Mr. Calhoun, if you please. With the foregoing corrections of what passed in the Cabinet, your account of it to Mr. is correct. Indeed, there is but one inaccuracy in it, and one omission. What I have written beyond them is a mere amplification of what passed in the Cabinet. I do not know that I ever hinted at the letter of the General to the President; yet that letter had a most important bearing upon the deliberations of the Cabinet, at least in my mind, and possibly in the minds of Mr. Adams and the President; but neither expressed any opinion upon the subject. It seems it had none upon the mind of Mr. Calhoun, for it made no change in his conduct.

CALHOUN TO JACKSON-MAY 29, 1830

IN answering your letter of the 13th instant, I wish to be distinctly understood, that however high my respect is for your personal character, and the exalted station which you occupy, I cannot recognize the right on your part to call in question my conduct on the interesting occasion to which your letter refers. I acted, on that occasion, in the discharge of a high official duty, and under responsibility to my conscience and my country only. In replying, then, to your letter, I do not place myself in the attitude ofapologizing for the part I may have acted, or of palliating my conduct on the accusation of Mr. Crawford. My course, I trust, requires no apology; and if it did, I have too much self-respect to make it to any one in a case touching the discharge of my official conduct. I stand on very different ground. I embrace the opportunity which your letter offers, not for the purpose of making excuses, but as a suitable occasion to place my conduct in relation to an interesting public transaction in its proper light; and I am gratified that Mr. Crawford, though far from intending me a kindness, has afforded me such an opportunity.

In undertaking to place my conduct in its proper light, I deem it proper to premise that it is very far from my intention to defend mine by impeaching yours. Where we have differed, I have no doubt that we differed honestly; and in claiming to act on honorable and patriotic motives myself, I cheerfully accord the same to you.

I know not that I correctly understood your meaning; but, after a careful perusal, I would infer from your letter that you had learned for the first time, by Mr. Crawford's letter, that you and I placed different constructions on the orders under which you acted in the Seminole War; and that you had been led to believe, previously, by my letters to yourself and Governor Bibb, that I concurred with you in thinking that your orders were intended to authorize your attack on the Spanish posts in Florida. Under these impressions, you would seem to impute to me some degree of duplicity, or at least concealment, which required on my part explanation. I hope that my conception of your meaning is erroneous ; but if it be not, and your meaning be such as I suppose, I must be permitted to express my surprise at the misapprehension, which, I feel confident, it will be in my power to correct by the most decisive proof, drawn from the public documents, and the correspondence between Mr. Monroe and yourself, growing out of the decision of the Cabinet on the Seminole affair, which passed through my hands at the time, and which I now have his permission to use, as explanatory of my opinion, as well as his, and the other members of his administration. To save you the trouble of turning to the file of your correspondence, I have enclosed extracts from the letters, which clearly prove that the decision of the Cabinet on the point that your orders did not authorize the occupation of St. Mark's and Pensacola, was early and fully made known to you, and that I, in particular, concurred in the decision.