Those who have read the history of the various strongholds of the French in Spain which were stormed during the Peninsular war, will remember these were the same troops and the same commanders, who were quite capable of the excesses in New Orleans that they committed in Spain.  This slander was never traced; but there were those remaining who, when the breach occurred between General Jackson and Governor Poindexter, asserted that General Jackson believed it, and who circulated industriously the contemptible slander.  Poindexter was an active supporter of General Jackson’s first election.  He believed him honest and capable, and deserving of the reward of the Presidency for his services to the country.  He thought, too, that he would bring back the Government to its early simplicity and purity, and administer it upon strictly republican principles.  He, with very many of the Jeffersonian school, felt it had diverged from the true track.

These people were opposed to protective tariffs, internal improvements by the United States Government within the limits of a State without the consent of the State, and a national bank, deeming all these measures unconstitutional.  The constitutionality of the bank had been affirmed by the Supreme Court, and Poindexter had acquiesced in the decision.  Nevertheless, as a senator from the State of Mississippi, he was in harmony with the Administration of Jackson, until Jackson began to send his personal friends and especial favorites from Tennessee to fill the national offices located in Mississippi.  Poindexter felt this as an insult to his State, and in the case of Gwinn’s appointment as register of the Land-Office at Clinton, Mississippi, he opposed the nomination when sent to the Senate.  He was successful in having it rejected.

He urged that though the office was national, and every man in the nation was eligible to fill it, yet it was due to the State that the incumbent should be selected from her own people, provided she could furnish one in every way qualified, and that it was a reflection upon the people of his State to fill the offices within her borders with aliens to her soil and interests—­strangers to her people, with no motive to be obliging and respectful to them in the discharge of the duties of the office; that the offices belonged to the people and not to the President, and it was respectful to the people of a State to tender to her people these offices, as had been heretofore the custom; that simply being the President’s favorite was not a qualification for office, and this departure from the established usages of former Administrations was a dangerous precedent, and would seem to establish a property in the office, belonging to the President.

This opposition enraged Jackson, who denounced Poindexter and persisted in his determination to give the office to Gwinn.  In this he finally succeeded; but most unfortunately for Gwinn, for it embroiled him in quarrels with the citizens of the State.  A duel with Judge Caldwell was the consequence, in which both fell.  Caldwell died immediately; Gwinn survived to suffer intensely for a few months, when death relieved him.