The Senate, especially during Jackson’s administration, was composed of remarkably gifted men, the most distinguished of whom opposed and detested the measures and policy he pursued, with such unbending obstinacy that he was filled with bitterness and wrath.  This feeling was especially manifested towards Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, the great lights of the Senate Chamber,—­although Jackson’s party had the majority of both Houses much of the time, and thus, while often hindered, he was in the end unchecked in his innovations and hostilities.  But these three giants he had to fight during most of his presidential career, which kept him in a state of perpetual irritation.  Their opposition was to him a bitter pill.  They were beyond his power, as independent as he.  Until then, in his military and gubernatorial capacity, his will had been supreme.  He had no opponents whom he could not crush.  He was accustomed to rule despotically.  As president he could be defied and restrained by Congress.  His measures had to be of the nature of recommendation, except in the power of veto which he did not hesitate to use unsparingly; but the Senate could refuse to ratify his appointments, and often did refuse, which drove him beyond the verge of swearing.  Again, in the great questions which came up for discussion, especially those in the domain of political economy, there would be honest differences of opinion; for political economy has settled very little, and is not, therefore, strictly a science, any more than medicine is.  It is a system of theories based on imperfect inductions.  There can be no science except what is based on indisputable facts, or accepted principles.  There are no incontrovertible doctrines pertaining to tariffs or financial operations, which are modified by circumstances.

The three great things which most signally marked the administration of Jackson were the debates on the tariffs, the quarrel with the United States Bank, and the Nullification theories of Calhoun.  It would seem that Jackson, when inaugurated, was in favor of a moderate tariff to aid military operations and to raise the necessary revenue for federal expenses, but was opposed to high protective duties.  Even in 1831 he waived many of his scruples as to internal improvements in deference to public opinion, and signed the bills which made appropriations for the improvement of harbors and rivers, for the continuation of the Cumberland road, for the encouragement of the culture of the vine and olive, and for granting an extended copyright to authors.  It was only during his second term that his hostility to tariffs became a passion,—­not from any well-defined views of political economy, for which he had no adequate intellectual training, but because “protection” was unpopular in the southwestern States, and because he instinctively felt that it favored monopolists at the expense of the people.  What he hated most intensely were capitalists and moneyed institutions;