The Ordinance of Nullification: State

The tariff difficulty, which had led to this controversy, was for the time quieted by another "compromise bill," offered by Henry Clay. This provided for the gradual reduction of duties till 1843, when they were to reach a general level of twenty per cent. This bill was accepted by Calhoun and his friends as a practical concession to their doctrines, and as enabling them to retire with some dignity from the discreditable attitude into which they had forced their State. The second administration of President Jackson, beginning in March, 1833, was mainly devoted to the war on the United States Bank, which had been begun by his veto of the bill to re-charter that institution.]

The removal of the deposits of the public moneys from the Bank of the United States [was] a measure productive of more immediate distress to the community and larger train of evil consequences than perhaps any similar measure in our political history. It was finally determined on while the President was on his Northern tour, in the summer of 1833, receiving in every part of New England those demonstrations of respect which his patriotic course in the great nullification struggle had inspired. It is proper to state that up to this period, in the judgment of more than one committee of Congress appointed to investigate its affairs, in the opinion of both Houses of Congress, who in 1832 had passed a bill to renew the charter, and of the House of Representatives, which had resolved that the deposits were safe in its custody, the affairs of the bank had been conducted with prudence, integrity, and remarkable skills. It was not the least evil consequence of the warfare waged upon the bank, that it was finally drawn into a position (though not till its Congressional charter expired and it accepted very unwisely a charter as a State institution) in which, in its desperate struggle to sustain itself, it finally forfeited the confidence of its friends and the public, and made a deplorable and shameful shipwreck at once of its interests and honor, involving hundreds, at home and abroad, in its own deserved ruin.