Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1854-04-05

l.
when they pleased, to pay it down in redemption
of their own notes, or even to render back to de-
positors State laws, stop laws, replevin laws, |
baseess paper, the resource in half the States to
to save the debtor from the creditor; and national
bankrupt laws from Congress, and local insolvent
laws, in the States, the demand of every session.
indian tribes occupying half or quarter of the
area of southern States, and unsettled questions
of wrong and insult, with half the powers of Eu-
rope. Such was the State of the country when
General Jackson became President; what was it |
when he left the Presidency! Protective tariffs
and federal international improvements discarded;
the national bank left to expire upon It's own lin
itation; the public lands redeemed from the pill
age of broken bank paper; no more unavailable
funds;" an abundant gold and silver currency;
the public debt paid off; the treasury made indie
pendent of nks; the Indian tribes removed from
the States; indemnites obtained from all foreign
powers for all past aggressions, and no new ones
committed; several treaties obtained from powers
that never would treat with US before; peace,
friendship and commerce with all the world; and
the measure established which, after one great
conflict with the expiring Bank Of the United
States and her affiliated banks in 1897, put an
end to bank dominion in the United States, and
all its train Of contractions and expansions, panic
and suspensions, distress and empirical relief
This is the answer which the respective periods
of the beginning and the ending of General Jack
sons administration gives to the fippant imputa-
ton of no capacity for civil government pass
on to the next: "The majority of the enlghten-
ed classes always opposed to him." A majority
of those classes which Mons.de Tocqueville would
chiefly see in the cities, and along the highways
bankers, brokers, obbers, contractors, politicians
and speculators-were certainly against him, and
he as certainly against them; but the mass of the
intelligence of the country was with him! and sus-
tained him in retrieving the country from the de-
plorable condition in which the "enlightened
classes" had sunk it! and in advancing it to that
state of felicity at home and respect abroad which
has made it the envy and admiration of the civil
lied world, and the absorbent of populations of
Europe: | pass on. ERASED to the Presidency
and maintained there solely by the recollection of
the victory of New Orleans" r.-.r
Here recollection, and military glare, reverse
the action of their previous attributes and be-
come stronger, instead of weaker, upon the lapse
of time. The victory at New Orleans was gain
ed in the first week, of the year 1915; and did not
bear this Presidential fruit until fourteen and eigh-
teen years afterwards, and until three previous
good seasons had passed without production-
There was Presidential election in 1916, when
tho uio Al
and imaginatons dazzled with it; but it did not
make Jackson President or even bring him for
ward as candidate. The same four years after
wards, at the election of 1S2O-not even a candi-
date then. Four years still later, at the election
of 1924, he became candidate, and-was not
26l. In the year 1928 he was first elected, re-
ceiving l7S out of 26l votes; and in 1892 he was
a second time elected receiving 2l9 out of 2SS
votes. Surely there must have been something
besides an old military recollection to make these
two elections SO different from the two former;
and there was! That something else was prnci-
pie! and the same that have stated in the be-
ginning of this chapter as entering into the can
vass of 1928, and ruling its issue. pass on to
the last disparagement "a victory which was
ordinary achievement, and only to be remem-
bered where battles were rare" ...-... .......
Such was not the battle at New Orleans. 1t
was no ordinary achievement. 1t was victory
of 1900 citizens just called from their homes,
without knowledge ofsciontifc war, under lead
er little schooled as themselves in that partic-
ular, without other advantages than slight field
work "a ditch and bank of earth) hastily thrown.
up-over double their numbers of British veter-
ans, survivors of the of the French revolution,
victors in the Peninsula and at Toulouse, under
trained generals of the Wellington school, and
and with disparity of loss never before Witness
ed. On one side 700 killed Gncluding the first
second and third generals;) l,o4O wounded; 500
taken prisoners On the other, six prvates killed
and seven wounded; and the total repulse of an
invading army which instantly fled to its "wood-
den walls" and never again placed a hostile foot
on American soil. Such an achievement is not
ordinary, much less Every" ordinary. Does Mons.
de Tocqueville judge the Importance of victories
by the number engaged, and the quantity of blood
: shed, or by their consequences? If the former,
r the cannonade on the heights Of Valmy, (Which
r was not battle, or even combat, but distant
! cannon-fring in which few were hurt,) must
f seem to him avery insignificant affair. Yet it did
: what the marvellous victories of Campaubert,
/. Montmirail, Chateau Thierry, Vauchamps and
Montereau could not do--turned back the invader,
and saved the soil of France from the iron hoof OF
o the conqueror's horse! and was commemorated
twelve yeaas afterwards by the great Emperor in
e ducal title bestowed upon one of its generals
s The victory at New Orleans did what the cannon
: ade at Valmy did-drove back the invader! and
also what it did not do-destroyed the one-fourth
nart of his force And therafornv n is not A., bs