"The duty of the Executive is a plain one," wrote the President to
Joel R. Poinsett, a prominent South Carolina unionist; "the laws will
be executed and the United States preserved by all the constitutional
and legal means he is invested with." When the situation bore its most
serious aspect Jackson received a call from Sam Dale, who had been one
of his dispatch bearers at the Battle of New Orleans. "General Dale,"
exclaimed the President during the conversation, "if this thing goes
on, our country will be like a bag of meal with both ends open. Pick
it up in the middle or endwise, and it will run out. I must tie the
bag and save the country." "Dale," he exclaimed again later, "they are
trying me here; you will witness it; but, by the God of heaven, I will
uphold the laws." "I understood him to be referring to nullification
again," related Dale in his account of the interview, "and I expressed
the hope that things would go right." "They shall go right, sir," the
President fairly shouted, shattering his pipe on the table by way of
further emphasis.
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