306 ANDREW JACKSON 



resigned in consequence of instructions received from 

 their state legislatures. At length, January 16, 1837, 

 a few weeks before Jackson's retirement from office, 

 Benton's persistency triumphed and the resolution of 

 censure was expunged. It has been customary with 

 Whig writers to laugh at Benton for this, and to call 

 his conduct spiteful, boyish, and silly. It would be 

 more instructive, however, to observe that his conduct 

 was the natural outgrowth of the extreme theory of 

 popular government which he held. He looked upon 

 Jackson as a disinterested tribune of the people, who 

 for carrying out the popular will and ridding the 

 country of an exceedingly dangerous institution, at 

 the cost of some slight disregard of red tape, had 

 incurred unmerited censure ; and it seemed to him an 

 important matter, and not a mere idle punctilio, that 

 such a wrongful verdict should be reversed. There 

 was a good deal of truth, as well as some error, in this 

 view. If pushed to extremes it would result in un- 

 bridled democracy, which in the hands of a powerful 

 and unscrupulous leader is liable to pass into Caesar- 

 ism. Webster and the Whigs, in opposing this ex- 

 treme view of popular government, in contending for 

 the necessity of constitutional checks in such a coun- 

 try as ours, and in blaming Jackson for his autocratic 

 manner of overriding such checks, were quite right. 

 At the same time there can be little doubt that Jack- 

 son was purely disinterested, and that in this particu- 

 lar case he did fully represent the will of the people 

 in overthrowing a dangerous institution. The com- 

 mercial panic which followed in 1837 was by most 

 people attributed to his removal of the deposits. I 

 shall endeavour to show, in my next lecture, on " Tip- 



