Jackson's Vice President: John C. Calhoun (jan 10, 1832 – jan 1, 1835)

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Another political opponent faced by Jackson in 1832 was an unlikely one — his own vice president. Following the passage of federal tariffs in 1828 and 1832 that they believed favored Northern manufacturers at their expense, opponents in South Carolina passed a resolution declaring the measures null and void in the state and even threatened secession. Vice President Calhoun supported the principle of nullification along with the notion that states could secede from the Union.

Although he believed the tariff to be too high, Jackson threatened to use force to enforce federal law in South Carolina. Already replaced by New York’s Martin Van Buren , Jackson’s former secretary of state, on the 1832 ticket, Calhoun protested and became the first vice president in American history to resign his office on December 28, 1832. Within weeks, a compromise was passed that included a modest reduction in the tariff along with a provision that empowered the president to use the armed forces if necessary to enforce federal laws. A crisis was averted, but the battle over states’ rights foreshadowed the Civil War three decades later.
During Jackson’s second term, he was the target of the first presidential assassination attempt in American history. As he was leaving a memorial service for a congressman inside the U.S. Capitol on January 30, 1835, deranged house painter Richard Lawrence emerged from the crowd and pointed a single-shot gold pistol at the president. When the gun failed to shoot, Lawrence pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired. The infuriated Jackson charged the shooter and hammered him with his cane while bystanders subdued the attempted assassin. The English-born Lawrence, who believed he was an heir to the British throne and owed a massive amount of money by the U.S. government, was found not guilty by reason of insanity and confined to institutions for the rest of his life.

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