From: Tom Lynch
Date: 3/21/00
Time: 5:30:04 AM
Remote Name: 207.103.93.86
Jackson's Letter to Martin van Buren
When Jackson was elected President in 1828, he entered the office with many problems to deal with. The most profound one would be his confrontation with the supporters of nullification. President Jackson was angry with the leaders of the state of South Carolina because they put forth the idea that a state had the right to nullify the laws of the federal government. They were beginning to openly talk of secession and raising troops for the purposes of defense and shut down the federal courts. Jackson was vehemently opposed to the idea that states had power over the federal government. The concern that Jackson shows about secession seems a little out of place in the United States today. In those early years of the republic there was a serious question over whether it would hold together or not though. People who valued states rights felt that the federal governments power was granted by the individual states, not that the states power was derived from the federal government as Jackson and his supporters saw it. The struggle of federal authority over state authority was brought to the fore with the passage of the tariff of abominations and the rumor that the federal government would use its power to remove slavery from America. The letter shows that Jackson's style of leadership was very aggressive. He took the attacks against the federal government personally and was not prepared to see the Union go down without a serious fight. He claims that any bloodshed by a secessionist movement will be met with overbearing force and crushed. He makes it very clear that he is willing to use any means necessary when he ends his letter to van Buren by writing, "The union shall be preserved."