Chapter XV: The Battle of the Succession

I

From the adjournment of Congress in March, 1835, until it convened in December, the political leaders concerned themselves with presidential politics, and the struggle for position was desperate and unscrupulous. From the hour in the first year of his first Administration, when Jackson, fearful of an early death, wrote his celebrated letter to Judge Overton expressing a preference for Van Buren, the latter had been looked upon as the crown prince. From that hour the master political manipulators surrounding Jackson made no move not intended to advance the “magician” toward the goal of his ambition. In the summer of 1833 Major Lewis was disturbed over the prospective candidacy of Justice McLean,[870] but it failed to materialize, and, within a year after the Major’s trepidation, the White House circle realized that the most serious challenge to the plans for the succession would come from Hugh Lawson White of Tennessee, considered a renegade from the Jackson camp. The close attachment of the President and the Senator from his State had perceptibly cooled in less than a year after the inauguration. The latter was of a proud and sensitive temperament, and the growing intimacy of his old friend with the new school of practical politicians was enough to estrange him. Had he hoped in the beginning to become the legatee of Jackson, we should have a plausible explanation of his bitter resentment of the President’s failure to observe his one-term pledge. We only know that he drifted, first into the position of an independent supporter of the Administration, and later into one of frank hostility. His imagination began early to play pranks with his judgment. He began to seek evidence of slights. In all the new school of Jacksonian leaders he saw enemies. He carefully scrutinized the “Globe” for discriminations against him. That there was no conscious effort on the part of the paper to ignore him is shown in the action of Blair, on learning that the Senator was offended. In a cordial letter he assured the suspicious Senator that he felt “the most perfect consciousness” that he had “done nothing to offend--certainly not intentionally,” and begged him to “frankly state the offense that it may be righted.” The curt, ungracious reply of White was overlooked and an appeal made for a personal interview, but the response was so repellent that further attempts at a reconciliation were abandoned. There is some justification for the conclusion that White had early determined upon a quarrel with the view to placing himself at the head of the opposition wing of the Democratic Party. In 1833 the Opposition began to claim him as its own when he supported Calhoun’s bill on Executive patronage in a powerful speech, and joined Clay in opposing the Administration plan in the Nullification fight.

It is not surprising that under these conditions the small faction of the Democratic Party should have turned to him as the logical man to pit against the pretensions of Van Buren. The former was a Southerner, the latter a Northerner, and the slavery controversy had become acute. The fact that White was a Tennesseean was expected to embarrass and handicap Jackson in his support of the New Yorker. To the Whigs he not only presented the best prospect for a schism in the party in power, but for a time the leaders actually considered the wisdom of making him their own candidate. Clay was fearful that his candidacy would fail to infuse among the Whigs “the spirit and zeal necessary to insure success,” but thought he might, as an independent candidate, “obtain the undivided support of the South and South-West,” and thus throw the contest into the House and defeat Van Buren.[871] Thus all the elements were present to make his disaffection probable. Hurt by what he conceived to be Jackson’s ingratitude, jealous of the new friends that haunted the White House, importuned by the anti-Administration Democrats, and cleverly encouraged by the Whigs, he was gradually pushed into the attitude of a candidate. To all of these, the gossips of the day, malignant as always, added a new reason, which they insisted was the predominant one--the ambition of his wife.[872]

Just before he decided upon the plunge, the Whigs had been assiduous in their cultivation of him, and ardent in their expressions of sympathy because of the harsh treatment accorded him by his old friend in the White House. One of the most persistent of the tempters was Clay’s intimate and reflector, R. P. Letcher, Representative from Kentucky, who had maintained the most constant social relations with the Whites during the preceding winter, ingratiating himself into the old man’s confidence, and frequently enjoying the hospitality of his home. The hollow mockery of Letcher’s attachment appeared in a letter to a friend, written a little later, in which he galloped over the gossip of the capital, and announced that “Judge White is on the track running gaily, and won’t come off; and if he would, his wife wouldn’t let him.”[873] A more suspicious man than the Tennessee Senator might have found, in this, evidence of treachery and duplicity. The slur on Mrs. White was resented by Blair, in a stinging editorial in the “Globe,” but his excoriation of Letcher does not appear to have given White a more favorable impression of the editor.[874] The intimation regarding Mrs. White was basely false, the slur wholly unjustified.

By the spring of 1834, White had announced his candidacy and the gage of battle was thus thrown down to Jackson in Tennessee, which became the battle-ground. In the autumn of that year, while on a visit to the Hermitage, Jackson, on learning of the partiality of many for the Senator, had entered into a warm defense of his favorite, ridiculed the prospects of White outside his own State, and, in more conciliatory mood, proposed the nomination of the Tennesseean for Vice-President with a view to the succession on the expiration of Van Buren’s term. Learning of these interviews, White wrote to James K. Polk, knowing his intimacy with the President, inquiring as to his information on the presidential position, but the only satisfaction he received was a warning to give no credence to any such gossip unless from an unquestionable source.[875] But if Polk was not then familiar with Jackson’s uncompromising hostility to White’s aspirations, he was not to remain long in doubt. It was the plan of the Jackson organization in Tennessee, led by Polk and Felix Grundy, to simulate sympathy with the Senator’s ambition, and persuasively lead him into the shambles of the Baltimore Convention. But when he refused to go passively to the slaughter, and a meeting of the Tennessee congressional delegation was called in the interest of his candidacy, Polk and Grundy refused to attend, threw off the mask, and declared open war. Thus the fight was extended into the congressional elections in Tennessee in the summer of 1835, with Polk assuming the leadership of the Administration forces, taking the stump in opposition to White’s candidacy, and throwing the weight of his Nashville paper into the scale. Henceforth Polk’s attitude was courageous. He would be glad to see a son of Tennessee elevated to the Presidency if it could be done in regulation manner by the Democratic Party, but he would not countenance any attempt to divide the party in the interest of the Whigs. The National Democracy favored Van Buren, and it was the duty of Tennessee not to separate from the party in the Nation.

The elections resulted in the triumph of White’s followers, with casualties among Jackson’s congressional followers, but Polk was triumphantly reëlected, and he redoubled his efforts. At a series of banquets he denounced the attempt of Democrats to create a schism in the face of the common enemy. But immediately afterwards the Legislature, through the adoption of resolutions, formally nominated White for the Presidency.

II

Although the fame of Hugh Lawson White has been obscured by the years, he was familiarly known to his generation as “the Cato of the Senate.” Without sparkle or magnetism, the purity of his character, the soundness of his common sense, his fidelity to duty, and assiduous application commanded respect if not admiration. His senatorial speeches were noteworthy because of their temperate tone--rare in his generation. Clarity and strength characterized his every utterance. If his speeches lacked eloquence, they smacked of statesmanship and substance. No member of the Senate more impressively looked the part. Tall, slender, and well-proportioned, with a broad forehead and deep-set, serious, penetrating blue eyes, he was the embodiment of senatorial dignity. With long gray hair, brushed back from his forehead, and curling at some length on his shoulders, he appeared the patriarch. In repose, he was sad and stern. Because of the rarity and thoroughness of his speeches, he commanded the respect and confidence of his colleagues. He looked upon his duties with the solemnity of the Roman Senator of the noblest period of the Roman Republic. Always heard with attention, he was attentive to others, and he was frequently the one listener to an uninteresting speech. Even in familiar conversation, he rarely jested outside the domestic circle, and, while an interesting and instructive conversationalist about his own fireside, he was apt to be taciturn and retiring in company. Had fate ordained that he should have reached the Presidency, he would have made a safe, conventional Executive, and he would be remembered as a pure, patriotic public servant. Such was the man who was to give Jackson, in the election of his successor, his only uneasy hours.

III

The concern of the Jackson organization over White’s candidacy may be read in the persistency of Blair’s vigorous denunciations in the “Washington Globe.” Beginning in the early spring and continuing throughout the summer, the Administration organ teemed with attacks on the Tennessee Senator and his most ardent champion, John Bell, Speaker of the House of Representatives. The ill-advised announcement of White’s followers that his candidacy was intended to destroy the landmarks of party gave the editor his cue. “This artifice,” wrote Blair, “has been so frequently attempted, and in vain, by those seeking to divide and destroy the Republican [Democratic] Party in this country, that we would have supposed the design would not have been confessed on the part of those supporting the interests of a man, who, up to the age of sixty, at least has made it his boast to support his party firmly, as the only means of maintaining his principles. But he now seeks office at the hands of the Opposition, and like all new solicitors for the favor of Federalism, becomes a no-party man.”[876] The fact that White had voted with the Whigs on the Fortifications Bill was made the text of many discourses on the questionable character of his patriotism; his connection with Calhoun offered the opportunity to picture him as a half-disguised friend of Nullification. The encouragement given his candidacy by the Whig leaders was interpreted as a desertion of the house of his friends to do the work of the enemy. Tying him up tightly with the Whigs and the Nullifiers, attacking the no-party idea as a wooden horse of Troy in which discredited Federalism planned to reënter the Capitol, Blair smote the Tennesseean hip and thigh throughout the summer.

But scarcely less offensive to the “Globe” than White was John Bell, and the determination of the organization to prevent his reëlection to the Speakership was evident in the systematic attacks upon his record. Beginning in May, and continuing through the summer, there was scarcely an issue of the “Globe” that did not deal with some phase of Bell’s alleged perfidy, in a special article.[877] The virulent hostility to Bell, of the Kitchen Cabinet, was not due in whole to his relations with the candidacy of White. Following his election over Polk to the Speakership, Duff Green, in the “Telegraph,” ascribed Polk’s defeat to his support by the Kitchen Cabinet, and described “Kendall, Blair, and Lewis parading the lobby” in attempts to drum up votes for their favorite. This had been bluntly denied by Blair, who insisted that he had spoken to no one on the Speakership, and that Lewis was “known to have been inclined to Mr. Bell’s election.”[878] But the charge in the “Telegraph” had been accepted by many and the pride of the Jackson leaders had been aroused. The White candidacy, Bell’s espousal of it, and Polk’s determined stand against it, made it imperative that Bell should be retired in the interest of Polk.

Meanwhile the Baltimore Convention assembled on May 20, 1835--an assembly that no more deserves the popular reproach of being a convention of office-holders than the average convention of the dominant party ever since. The absence of delegates from South Carolina and Illinois was tolerable to the Jacksonians, but the failure of Tennessee to appear, notwithstanding the personal importunities of the President, was painfully embarrassing. That had to be corrected. A comparatively unknown Tennesseean, E. Rucker, was found in the city, and literally pushed into the convention to cast the unauthorized vote of Tennessee--and thus the word “Ruckerize” was added to the vocabulary of practical politicians. The polished Andrew Stevenson, who had resigned the Speakership to accept the diplomatic post in London, only to share the fate of Van Buren, was called upon to deliver the “keynote” address in the capacity of chairman. But this honor, bestowed upon the Virginians, was more than neutralized by New York’s desertion of her Virginia allies in the nomination of the vice-presidential candidate.

Never had the Old Dominion been dominated by a more powerful machine than that led by Judge Spencer Roane, a man of great intellectual force, who had been favored by Jefferson for the Chief Justiceship. He had a powerful colleague in his cousin, Thomas Ritchie, the forceful editor of the “Richmond Enquirer.” Stevenson was an important member of the clique, and no one was closer to its leader than the scholarly Senator William C. Rives, who had, as Jackson’s first Minister to France, negotiated the indemnity settlement. The Virginians had early pledged themselves to the political fortunes of Van Buren. The alliance of the two States, Virginia and New York, was one of the significant facts in the politics of the day. Never doubting the loyalty of their ally, Roane and his organization determined to dictate the nomination of Rives for the Vice-Presidency with a view to the succession. It was not until the eve of the convention that the Virginians learned, to their dismay, that the New Yorkers had other plans. Almost incredulous, chagrined, disturbed, Ritchie hastened to write Rives of the new developments. He had heard that “some of our strongest friends in Washington” were looking with favor on Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky. Van Buren’s preference was a mystery. However, Ritchie had been pressing Rives’s claims and had written letters, not only to delegates, but to “a gentleman in Washington, who can, if he thinks fit, exercise a sort of potential voice.” But unhappily for the Virginians, Lewis, Kendall, Blair, Silas Wright, and Hill were opportunists, with their eyes upon the West, in view of the candidacy of both Harrison and White. It was clear to them that expediency demanded the nomination of a Westerner for the Vice-Presidency. The stubborn, and now thoroughly outraged, Virginians refused to acquiesce in the reasoning of the Kitchen Cabinet, and Rives went down before the first of the “steam rollers” that have become so commonplace in national conventions.[879] Thoroughly disgusted by what they conceived to be a betrayal, the Virginia organization declared open war on Johnson, and Van Buren was much perturbed. But that wily diplomat, assisted by Silas Wright, immediately took personal charge of the work of conciliation, writing numerous letters to Rives and Ritchie, and the storm was stilled for the time when Van Buren made a journey to Castle Hill, the country home of the defeated candidate, where the fatted calf was killed and the leaders of the Roane organization were invited to participate in the feast and to accept the apologies and pledges of the presidential nominee.

IV

Meanwhile the Whigs were in a quandary as to what to do, with their greatest popular leader, noting a tendency to set him aside, spending the summer at Ashland in bitterness of soul. In a letter written in July he had unbosomed himself to a friend, with the confession that he had thought it probable that his party would again turn to him, but had noted a tendency to “discourage the use of my name.” In Ohio, where he was popular, the Legislature had discredited his possible candidacy by its endorsement of Justice McLean. In the spirit of an Achilles sulking in his tent, he discussed the various names canvassed, pointing out their weaknesses. White would be intolerable as a Whig candidate because “he has been throughout a supporter of the Jackson Administration and holds no principle, except in the matter of patronage, as to public measures, in common with the Whigs.” While he thought Webster’s attainments greatly superior to those of any other candidate, “it is to be regretted that a general persuasion seems to exist that he stands no chance.” Harrison was damned with the faint praise that he “could easier obtain the vote of Kentucky than any other candidate named.” The only rift in the clouds that he could see was in the nomination of three candidates, with White as one of the three, to draw off the Democratic strength in the South and portions of the West, and the defeat of Van Buren by thus throwing the contest into the House.[880] That this plan was uppermost in the minds of the Whigs is shown in a letter to Clay from James Barbour of Virginia, in August. Because of the slavery question, he thought White the strongest candidate to be pressed against Van Buren in Virginia. Webster was out of the question. McLean, not even considered. Harrison, after White, would make the strongest appeal. “It seems to me,” he continued, “that we have no prospect of excluding Van Buren but by the plan you suggest, of selecting two candidates who will be the strongest in their respective sections. White, I apprehend, for the South, Webster for the East, North and West, or whomsoever Pennsylvania prefers.”[881] Thus, in the correspondence of the Whig leaders, we have the proof that White was intrigued into the race by the Whigs with the view to furthering their own interest, and not his.

By September, Clay, having met Harrison in Cincinnati, and finding him “respectful and cordial,” was more cordial toward his candidacy, although he preferred any choice Pennsylvania might announce. The Rhode Island and Connecticut elections had shown that “it is in vain to look even to New England for the support of Mr. Webster.”[882] Out of this confusion of counsels, Harrison ultimately emerged with the general support of the Whigs, but, like the Democrats, the Whigs were to be embarrassed by a double tail to their ticket. With the popular sentiment favoring Tyler, the politicians, with their eyes on the Anti-Masons, nominated Granger. It was the contention of contemporaries that Clay, who had engineered the move against Tyler, feared that the concentration of the Whigs on some strong candidate for the Vice-Presidency might result in his election with Van Buren, because of the dissatisfaction of the Virginia Whigs with Johnson; and that a Whig Vice-President, under a Democratic President, would become a formidable rival for the presidential nomination in 1840.[883] Both Tyler and Granger, however, remained in the field, thus dividing the vote in the election.

The Massachusetts Whigs, nothing daunted by the turn of affairs, remained faithful to Webster, who was placed in the field; and in South Carolina, where Calhoun’s followers made a point of separating themselves from all parties and all other States, Senator Willie P. Mangum was nominated. Thus, in the campaign of 1836 there were five candidates, with the Democrats united behind Van Buren, and the Opposition dividing its strength between Harrison, White, Webster, and Mangum. Nothing could have been more to the liking of the Democracy. It entered the campaign in solid ranks except in Tennessee, where even the magic name of Jackson was unable to prevent a schism which was to result in the humiliation of the venerable chief.

V

During the summer of 1835 the militant methods of the Abolitionists forced the slavery question to the front to the embarrassment of the politicians and the candidates. The Nation was still on edge because of the anti-slavery and anti-abolition riots of the year before, when George Thompson, the Abolition firebrand from England, arrived in America with exhortations to the Northerners to end slavery at once. The South was outraged, the North, shocked. Coincident with Thompson’s mad crusade, the American Anti-Slavery Society, having collected a large sum of money for the purpose, began to circularize the country, and especially the South, with literature calculated to arouse the slaves to insurrection.[884] The defense of the abolitionists was that the literature was sent to the whites alone; but much of it fell into the hands of the blacks, and excitement reached fever heat. In Philadelphia a pouch of these tracts was confiscated by a mob, and sunk in the Delaware River. In Charleston the mail was searched for them, and three thousand citizens assembled at night to witness their destruction in a bonfire. Mass meetings were held in all the larger Northern cities to denounce the desperate enterprise of the abolitionists, and in Boston the citizens packed Faneuil Hall to hear Harrison Gray Otis denounce them in a spirited address. When Thompson, in one of his inflammatory speeches, proposed that the slaves should arise and cut their masters’ throats, the bitterness in the North was as pronounced as in the South, and after Garrison had narrowly escaped the rope through the intercession of the Mayor of Boston, whom he had scathingly attacked in his paper, the English orator went into hiding until he could be spirited out of the country. The most important effect of this miserable blunder of the abolitionists was to force the slavery question into politics, and from that hour on, the slave-owners of the South became dominant in the politics of the Republic.

It is certain that Jackson, like all other responsible leaders, abhorred these appeals to the slaves to rise and cut their masters’ throats. The burden of dealing with an important phase of the problem, the transmission of such matter through the mail, fell upon the Administration, and in the absence of any law to prevent it. But when the postmasters of New York and Charleston wrote Postmaster-General Kendall for instructions, that astute politician replied that the United States should not carry such matter in the mail; and, acting upon the hint, the postmasters threw all such matter out with the tacit consent of the Government.

The Opposition, however, planned to turn the hatred of the abolitionists against Van Buren, who was hostile to the extension of slavery. Writing to Clay in the late summer of 1835, Senator Barbour rejoiced in the injection of the slavery question as certain to injure the Democratic nominee.[885] The close political associates of Van Buren were keenly alive to the danger, and John Forsyth wrote him that unless something should be done in New York he “should not be at all surprised at a decisive movement to establish a Southern Confederacy,” and suggested that “a portion of the Magician’s skill is required in this matter ... and the sooner you set the imps to work the better.”[886] Whether the wily politician “set the imps to work” we do not know, but within a month of the writing of the letter the New York postmaster publicly announced that he would refuse to forward the objectionable literature. This was given the widest publicity; so, too, the letter of Amos Kendall accepting and endorsing the action of the New York official. And about the same time, whether due to the Van Buren “imps” or not, one of the greatest meetings ever held in New York was held in the park to denounce the methods of the abolitionists. Nothing was done by Van Buren personally, in a public way, to divorce himself from all sympathy with the abolition movement.

The Whig nominee, determined publicly to repudiate the abolition methods, found an opportunity at a dinner in his honor at Vincennes, Indiana, in a speech intended as a friendly gesture to the slave-holding States, and for the cultivation of such of those in Virginia as were prone to associate Van Buren with the abolition sentiment in portions of New York.[887] The position of White was as clearly fixed on slavery as that of Calhoun, and we shall observe a little later how the latter sought to place Van Buren in a position hostile to Southern interests.

VI

Meanwhile Van Buren serenely went his way, undisturbed by the storm, and in the best of humor. Soon after the Baltimore Convention, the most unconventional campaign biography ever published in America was issued by a Philadelphia publishing house and given an extensive circulation. The present generation scarcely realizes that there were two Davy Crocketts--the man of the woods and the fight, and the less admirable creature who made a rather sorry figure in the Congress. It was the latter who was persuaded to write a part, and to father all, of this scurrilous biography of Van Buren, although it is generally accepted that Hugh Lawson White, the man of ponderous dignity and lofty ideals, was the man behind this questionable literary venture.[888] The personal references to Van Buren are crudely and coarsely offensive throughout.

“He is about fifty years old,” he wrote, “and notwithstanding his baldness, which reaches all around and half down his head, like a white pitch plaster, leaving a few white floating locks, he is only three years older than I am. His face is a good deal shriveled, and he looks sorry, not for anything he has gained, but what he may lose.”[889] In describing his subject’s mental operations, he found that “his mind beats round, like a tame bear tied to a stake, in a little circle, hardly bigger than the circumference of the head in which it is placed, seeking no other object than to convert the Government into an instrument to serve himself or his office-holding friends.”[890]

In explaining Van Buren’s rise, the hero of young Texas proceeded: “He has become a great man without any reason for it, and so have I. He has been nominated for President without the least pretensions; and so have I. But here the similarity stops. From his cradle he was on the non-committal tribe. I never was. He had always two ways to do a thing; I never had but one. He was generally half bent; I tried to be as straight as a gun barrel. He could not bear his rise; I never minded mine. He forgot all his old associates because they were poor folks; I stuck to the people that made me.”[891]

And in a superb bit of demagogy, Crockett described Van Buren as traveling through the country in an English coach with “English servants dressed in uniform--I think they call it livery”; refusing to mix “with the sons of the little tavern-keepers,” forgetting “his old companions and friends in the humbler walks of life”; eating “in a room by himself,” and carrying himself “so stiff in his gait and prim in his dress, that he was what the English call a Dandy.” The reader was assured that “when he enters the Senate Chamber in the morning, he struts and swaggers like a crow in a gutter,” that he “is laced up in corsets such as women in town wear, and if possible tighter than the best of them.” Indeed, Crockett found it “difficult to tell from his personal appearance whether he was a man or a woman.”[892] The Eaton scandal was salaciously served anew, the fight between Jackson and Benton was described in detail, and, unfortunately for his candidate for President, a chapter was devoted to a hot defense of White on the Bank and on the Fortifications Bill.

The book, now happily forgotten, is only interesting and historically important in indicating the tone of the political contests of the time, and the scurrility of the attacks on Van Buren in the campaign. If the Little Magician enjoyed the queer concoction, it was not without the realization of its possibility for doing harm. At any rate, a little later, another and a friendly biography by Holland was published, seriously reviewing Van Buren’s public career. While not written in bad taste, it aroused the ire of John Quincy Adams who took the time to read it. “A mere partisan electioneering work,” he wrote in his diary. “Van Buren’s personal character bears, however, a stronger resemblance to that of Mr. Madison than to that of Mr. Jefferson. These are both remarkable for their extreme caution in avoiding and averting personal collisions. Van Buren, like the Sosie of Molière’s ‘Amphitryon,’ is ‘l’ami de tout le monde.’ This is perhaps the secret of his great success in public life, and especially against the competitors with whom he is now struggling for the last step on the ladder of his ambition--Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. They, indeed, are left upon the field for dead; and men of straw, Hugh L. White, William Henry Harrison, and Daniel Webster, are thrust forward in their places. Neither of these has a principle to lean upon.”[893]

If these intrigues and attacks disturbed Van Buren in the least, he gave no sign. During a ten-day sojourn in New York in October, Philip Hone, who vainly sought an open date to entertain him at dinner, found “his outward appearance like the unruffled surface of the majestic river which covers rocks and whirlpools, but shows no marks of the agitation beneath.”[894] In this same good temper, he faced the ordeal of presiding over the Senate, dominated by his political foes, in the long session preceding the election. We shall here find him threading his way among pitfalls provided by his enemies with such skill as to conceal all effort.

VII

The halls of Congress in the session of December, 1835, were used as the hustings, and there, largely, the presidential battle was fought. The first blow was struck by the Jacksonians in the election of Polk to the Speakership, over Bell. The latter was a man of much capacity, considered by Van Buren as the intellectual superior of White, and he had been elected to the Speakership, on the resignation of Stevenson, through a combination of the Whigs and anti-Administration Democrats. In seeking a reconciliation with the Jacksonians, he had hinted at a desire for a confidential conference with Van Buren, and the two were finally invited to dine with a mutual friend. Unhappily for Bell, a severe toothache, real or diplomatic, forced the candidate of the Jacksonian Democracy to retire the moment the ladies left the table. When a few days later the two found themselves together on the speakers’ rostrum on the occasion of the delivery of Adams’s oration on Lafayette, Bell had attempted to discuss the differences of the factions, but the canny Red Fox “put a civil end to the conversation with a few general remarks in regard to the duty the friends of Judge White owed” to the party, and soon afterward the Tennessee Senator had entered the field, and Bell was forced to espouse his cause.[895] Thus the course of history may have been changed by the toothache of a politician. At any rate, it was enough, to the Jacksonian leaders, to know that Polk had risked his popularity and future by taking the offensive in favor of Van Buren, and he was rewarded with the Speakership.

The Whigs instantly accepted the challenge by bitterly opposing the confirmation of Roger B. Taney as Chief Justice of the United States. No one questioned his professional ability or his eminent fitness for a high judicial position. Bitterly hostile as he was to Jackson’s Bank policy, John Marshall had recognized Taney’s qualifications for the bench when the President had previously made an unsuccessful attempt to elevate his former Secretary of the Treasury to that tribunal. At that time the venerable Chief Justice had quietly interested himself in his successor’s behalf, and among the papers of Senator Leigh, still in possession of the family, is the brief but significant note from Marshall: “If you have not made up your mind on the nomination of Mr. Taney, I have received some information in his favor which I would wish to communicate.”[896] But after Marshall’s death and Taney’s appointment, the Whig and pro-Bank politicians attempted to array all the late jurist’s friends and admirers against the confirmation by picturing Jackson as not only hostile to the trend of his decisions, but to the perpetuation of his memory. The “Richmond Whig” announced that “he [Jackson] thinks undue honors have been rendered to the memory of General Marshall, and predicts that the attempt to build a monument to his memory in Washington will fail.” This was a willful perversion of a comment actually made to the editor of the “Southern Literary Messenger” at Rip Raps, that, in view of Jackson’s inability to interest Congress in an appropriation for a monument to Washington, he was afraid that it would be impossible to build one to Marshall.[897] But the idea of the fighting Secretary of the Treasury in the seat of Marshall was maddening to the Whig leaders, and the nomination was attacked with intemperance and even scurrility by both Webster and Clay, and it was not until in March, three months after the nomination was sent to the Senate, that it was confirmed.

But the appearance of resolutions from legislatures, instructing Whig and pro-Bank Senators to vote to expunge the resolution of censure against Jackson, was the most bitter pill of all. Not only did it further embitter the Whigs against the Administration, but it put them at loggerheads with each other. This was especially true of the Whig Senators from Virginia, Tyler and Leigh, who took opposite views as to the inviolability of instructions. Throughout his entire career, Tyler had stoutly insisted upon the right of the people, speaking through their legislatures, to instruct their representatives in the Senate. This position had been adopted by the Virginia Whigs, and accepted by the people of the State. Because of this, Leigh now sat in the Senate, in the seat from which Rives had been instructed. But when a resolution was introduced in the Virginia Assembly, instructing the Senators from that State to vote to expunge, the Whigs began to divide on the question of compliance in the event of its adoption. There was never any question as to the attitude of John Tyler. Pilloried in history as a second-rate politician and a weakling, it is impossible to study his career without being impressed with his consistency, which was all too rare in his generation, and the unfaltering courage with which he lived up to his principles, regardless of the effect upon his personal fortunes. But Leigh, who owed his seat in the Senate to the principle of instructions, was made of less heroic clay. With the encouragement of Virginians, including Judge Brooke, who always reflected the views of Henry Clay, he began to hedge. Senator Barbour, another of Clay’s intimates, urged upon Tyler sophisticated reasons for ignoring the instructions.[898] When the resolutions were adopted in the lower branch of the legislature, the pressure of the Whigs to ignore them met with a gracious yielding on the part of Leigh, and the unscrupulous partisans were able to concentrate their efforts on Tyler. Such was the logic of party bigotry in 1836 that the Maryland Legislature, which had nominated Tyler for the Vice-Presidency, threatened to rescind the nomination if he complied with the instructions, and the future President, the truckling, tricky politician of historical caricature, expressed his disgust in a letter to his son: “These incidents look almost like a political romance in these days when everything is surrendered for office.... Give me the assurance that history will do me justice ... and I will go to my grave in peace.”[899] When the resolution was passed by both branches, and certified to the two Senators, Tyler, without a moment’s hesitation, resigned in a dignified letter to Van Buren, and retired to private life. Leigh ignored the instructions and retained his seat, but resigned in July. This contradiction sadly crippled the Whigs in Virginia; and when, during the spring, a dinner was given the two Senators by their fellow partisans, and Tyler was lauded for his act, the spicy Thomas Ritchie, of the “Richmond Enquirer,” insisted that two of the toasts were:

“John Tyler: Honor to him, because he could not, with honor, retain his seat.”

“Senator Leigh: Honor to him, because he could not, with honor, relinquish his seat.”

Thus Tyler passed from the ranks of the Opposition in the Senate, and William C. Rives, the friend of Jackson and Van Buren, vindicated by events, returned to strengthen the forces of the Administration.

The attitude of Ewing of Ohio toward similar resolutions by the legislature of his State was that of Leigh.[900]

All these manifestations of popular approval of the Administration, and dissatisfaction with the Whigs and their allies in the Senate, tended to infuriate the Opposition which found itself helpless before the tide. In Tennessee, however, the Administration was unable to secure instructions aimed at White, and the attempt merely furnished the opportunity for laudatory speeches on the Tennessee Senator, and bitter denunciations of the proposal to expunge. This defeat in Tennessee was the only hopeful sign that reached the Whigs in Washington.[901]

The greater part of the congressional session was devoted to some phase of the abolition agitation, and Calhoun bent all his efforts toward arraying the North and South against each other. He seemed determined to have it that the Northern people were in sympathy with the methods and purposes of the radical followers of Garrison. The mobs that had all but lynched Garrison, and forced the friends of Thompson to spirit him away, were Northern mobs. If the obnoxious literature had been burned by the people of Charleston, it had been thrown into the river by the people of Philadelphia and denounced by the people of Boston. No Northern statesman or politician had raised a voice in defense of the abolitionists, and most of them vied with Calhoun in their denunciation of them. But when, on January 7th, an abolition petition was presented, and Calhoun moved that it be not received and supported his motion in an intemperate speech, some of the most pronounced pro-slavery Senators took alarm. The great Nullifier declared that an irrepressible fight had been forced and should be met. “We must meet the enemy on the frontier--on the question of receiving,” he said. “We must secure that important pass--it is our Thermopylæ. The power of resistance, by the universal law, is on the exterior. Break through the shell, penetrate the crust, and there is no resistance within.” When, four days later, Buchanan presented a petition for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and moved that it be received and rejected, Calhoun demanded that the question be put first on receiving, and a debate was precipitated which dragged along for weary weeks, ending in the defeat of Calhoun’s plan.

During the period of these intermittent discussions, the “Telegraph,” reflector of Calhoun, teemed with articles bitterly attacking, not so much the abolitionists as the North. This determination to treat the Northerners as enemies of Southern institutions was so apparent that a number of pro-slavery Southern Senators were moved to protest and to criticism of the Southern leader. Whether he was actuated, that early, by a desire to lay the foundation for a Southern Confederacy, or merely used this method to create feeling in the Southern States against the candidacy of Van Buren, can never be determined. But the Democrats supporting Van Buren had no doubt that the latter was the dominating motive. The sharp-tongued Isaac Hill, of New Hampshire, in a fierce assault on Calhoun’s position, directly charged that the “Telegraph” had been exerting itself from the time of the Nullification movement to drive a wedge between the sections, and warned Calhoun that the agitation he was forcing on Congress played directly into the hands of the abolitionists. But the latter had determined upon his course, and appeared not only willing, but anxious, actually to break with the friends of the South among the Northerners in Congress.

If he expected, however, in his fight against receiving the petitions, to prove Van Buren hostile to the interest of the South, he failed. The ten votes he mustered were recruited from both parties. Five were Whigs,[902] three were Democrats supporting the Administration,[903] and two were against the Administration and hostile to Van Buren.[904] Thus, with the exception of three Senators, all the supporters of Van Buren and the Administration voted to receive the petitions. The vote of White was unquestionably political, intended to strengthen his candidacy among the pro-slavery radicals of the Southern States.

But Calhoun was not discouraged. His political motive was more apparent in the battle over his bill to regulate the transmission of the mails, and exclude therefrom all abolition literature intended for the slave-holding States. We have noted the excitement of the preceding summer, and the attitude of Kendall. In his Message at the opening of Congress, Jackson had recommended the enactment of such a law “as will prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern States, through the mail, of incendiary publications intended to instigate the slaves to insurrection.” Calhoun had eagerly seized upon this recommendation to move its reference to a special committee, instead of to the regularly organized Committee on Post-Offices. Buchanan opposed the suggestion on the ground that the unusual course would tend to increase the excitement of the people.[905] Grundy of Tennessee held that the very fact that the majority of the Committee on Post-Offices came from a section not directly interested would give more weight to its recommendations.[906] King of Alabama took advantage of Calhoun’s queer disclaimer of a political motive to insinuate its existence, and favored the regular course for the reasons advanced by Buchanan.[907] Leigh supported Calhoun’s plan on the fantastic ground that since the obnoxious mail could not be excluded by the existing post-office regulations, the Committee on Post-Offices was clearly not the proper body.[908] But it was left to Preston of South Carolina to explain bluntly the motive of Calhoun. Since the South was especially interested, the committee should be composed of Senators from the slave-holding States. The Senate good-naturedly consented to Calhoun’s plan, and a special committee was named with Calhoun as chairman.

A little later, an extreme bill, professing to meet the views of the President, was submitted, accompanied by an inflammatory report, reiterative of the compact theory of the Constitution, and calculated further to fan the excitement on the subject of abolition. Both the Administration and Whig leaders were hostile to the measure, but it best served the purpose of Calhoun to ignore the Whigs and to harp incessantly upon the opposition from Senators close to the Jackson-Van Buren organization. The report, according to the interpretation of Calhoun, set forth three propositions: that the National Government had no right to prohibit papers, no right to say what papers should be transmitted, and that these rights belonged to the States.[909] The bill provided that it should be a crime for a postmaster knowingly to receive and put into the mail any written, printed, or pictorial matter concerning slavery, directed to any post-office in a State which prohibited the circulation of such matter; that such literature, if not withdrawn from the mails within a given time, should be burned; and it made the Postmaster-General and all his subordinates responsible for the enforcement of the law.

Early in the debate the political motive appeared when King of Alabama again charged Calhoun with being moved by hostility to Jackson. What, exclaimed the bristling Carolinian, “I have too little respect for General Jackson’s judgment, and if he were not President of the United States, I would say for his character, to place myself in such a position.”[910] On the following day we find him striking the same note: “I cannot but be surprised at the course of the friends of the Executive,” he said. “I have heard Senators denounce this measure, recommended by the Executive, as unconstitutional, as tyrannical, as an abuse of power, who never before dared whisper a word against the Administration. Is it because the present Executive is going out of power that his influence is declining?”[911] This constant harping on the attitude of the Administration Senators, whether so intended or not, was looked upon by them as an attempt to make political capital against Van Buren in the slave States. “I wish the gentleman would restrain the frequent repetition of such expressions,” said Cuthbert of Georgia, “as they necessarily bring on him a suspicion of his sincerity. Why should this be a party question? It would show a wickedness, a recklessness of the welfare of our common country for any man to endeavor to make it so.”[912]

But Calhoun persisted in his attempt to maneuver the friends of Van Buren into an attitude offensive to the Southern States. Benton notes, significantly, that it was rather remarkable that three tie votes occurred in succession, two on amendments, and one on the engrossment of the bill. His clear implication is that this was done to force Van Buren to cast a deciding vote, never doubting that it would be hostile to the measure. When the bill came up for engrossment, Calhoun demanded an aye and nay vote. When three men appeared to make a majority, three on the other side instantly appeared. At the time the vote was being taken, Van Buren had left the chair and was pacing up and down, concealed by the colonnade, behind the rostrum. Benton says that “his eyes were wide open to see what would happen.”[913] He observed the keen eyes of the excited Calhoun searching the chamber for his anticipated prey. He heard him ask “eagerly and loudly” where the Vice-President had gone, and demand that the sergeant-at-arms look for him. But Van Buren had heard and seen all, and, when the time came, he calmly took the chair, and with his characteristic serenity cast the deciding vote in favor of engrossment. Benton was positive that had he voted otherwise the Calhoun faction, with the aid of the “Telegraph,” would have inflamed the South against him. This would have been all the easier because Hugh Lawson White, who was playing openly for the extreme State-Rights and pro-slavery support, voted for the bill. But Van Buren and his friends were not blind to the conspiracy, and the two Democratic Senators from New York, intimate political friends of the presidential nominee, ascertaining first that their votes were not needed to defeat the measure, cast expediency votes in its favor, and thus robbed Calhoun and White of the opportunity to make political capital out of the bill. It was defeated by a vote of 25 to 19.[914]

Thus the session dragged on into June, with none of the parties gaining any material advantage for the purposes of the campaign. As the session was drawing to a close, Senator White, who took his candidacy more to heart than any of the other candidates, made a discussion of the resolution to expunge the occasion for an acidulous attack upon Jackson in the presence of Van Buren, who serenely presided. He charged that Jackson had “made up his mind who should be his successor,” and had used all the power of patronage to destroy him (White). With great particularity, he went over the part the President was taking in the canvass then on, the letters he had written, the copies of the “Washington Globe” he had personally franked, the material he had furnished White’s enemies upon the stump in Tennessee.[915] The personal tone of the attack appears to have made a painful impression even upon White’s friends, and certainly did not disturb the smiling complacency of Van Buren, who listened with courteous attention. The “Congressional Globe” of the session is filled with such assaults on Jackson and his Administration, but the Big-Wigs of both parties, with the exception of Calhoun and White, maintained an unusual reserve. But Calhoun did his part in full measure. Not only did he abuse Jackson with indecent invective, but, in the presence of Van Buren, sneered at the latter’s character and ability. Jackson had “courage and firmness; is warlike, bold, audacious; but he is not true to his word and violates the most solemn pledges without scruple.” He had “done the State some service, too, which is remembered greatly to his advantage.” But Van Buren “has none of these recommendations.” No, as Senator Mangum[916] had said, he “has none of the lion or tiger breed about him; he belongs more to the fox and the weasel.”[917]

With nothing better to offer than this, the tired statesmen adjourned on July 4th, and hastened to their homes, some to sulk in their tents in disgust, others to take the field to wage the fight.

VIII

In 1836 the issues of the campaign were not so clearly defined by conditions as in 1832, nor by platform declarations, as in more recent years. The party declarations of principle had no meaning. That of the Democrats could have summed up all in the endorsement of the Jackson Administration and a pledge to continue the Jacksonian policies; that of the Whigs in a denunciation of the principles and policies of Jacksonian Democracy.

The platform of Senator White is found in his letter in reply to that of a committee informing him of his nomination--a personal protest. “When an attempt is made,” he wrote, “to create a party not founded upon settled political principles, composed of men belonging to every political sect, having no common bond of unity save that of a wish to place one of themselves in the highest office known to the Constitution, for the purpose of having all the honors, offices, and emoluments of the Government distributed by them among their followers, I consider such an association, whether composed of many or a few, a mere faction, which ought to be resisted by every man who loves his country, and wishes to perpetuate its liberties.”[918]

The most influential leaders of the Whigs were not enthusiastic over any of the Opposition candidates, with the exception of Webster, who manifestly had no chance. “White and Webster are now the golden calves of the people,” wrote the caustic Adams, “and their dull sayings are repeated for wit, and their grave inanity is passed off for wisdom. This bolstering up of mediocrity would seem not suited to sustain much enthusiasm.” Such as there was, the cynical Puritan ascribed to the fact that “a practice of betting has crept in,” and “that adds a spur of private, personal, and pecuniary interest to the impulse of patriotism.”[919] Naturally, Adams was not enamoured of Van Buren, who impressed him as a “demagogue of the same school [as “Ike” Hill] with a tincture of aristocracy--an amalgamated metal of lead and copper.”[920]

There was no hero worshiping of the candidates in 1836, but the worship of Jackson continued, and the Whigs contemplated the phenomenon with melancholy misgivings. Philip Hone, that faithful chronicler of Whig sentiment, found the political aspect of the country “worse than ever.” Indeed, “General Jackson’s star is still in the ascendant and shines brighter than ever.” A month before the nomination of Van Buren, the Whig diarist had been forced to admit that business conditions had vastly improved.[921] In truth the Whigs were without an issue they dared advance, and could hope for success only through the amalgamation of all the disgruntled with the Whigs--the Anti-Masons, Nullifiers, State-Rights extremists, and disappointed office-seekers--and this was manifestly impossible.

The campaign was not so exciting as that of 1832, and lacked the hysteria of the stump which characterized that of 1840. The newspapers were relied upon largely for propaganda, and the “Globe” was summoned to herculean efforts. To meet the work of Blair, a campaign paper, called the “Appeal,” was established in Washington to advocate the claims of White. The “Telegraph,” edited by the frenzied Duff Green, viciously attacked both Jackson and Van Buren. And the work of these papers colored that of all the minor papers of the country. But the people remained calm and indifferent. The attacks upon the candidates, many bald slanders, stirred no one but the politicians. The custom of interrogating candidates had now become fixed, and the three aspirants were bombarded with questions covering a multitude of subjects.

The followers of Calhoun feverishly continued their efforts to embarrass Van Buren on the abolition movement. From North Carolina came a demand for his position on the right of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. His answer was not as definite as the questioner had hoped. There was no question as to the right of Congress to act in the District, but the wily candidate had no intention to give a curt reply. His answer was that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery in the States--a question not put; and that he was opposed to the abolishment of slavery in the District by congressional action--which was not a reply at all.

Then followed the questions of the Equal Righters, or Locofocos, as they were dubbed in New York by the “Courier and Enquirer,” as to Van Buren’s position on their “declaration of rights.” The reply of the Red Fox, that his long public career furnished a sufficient illumination of his position on the general principles of the new party, was considered by the Locos as an “evasion,” and denounced as unsatisfactory “to any true Democrat.”

Meanwhile Clay was exercising an unnatural restraint on his partisan zeal, remaining in strict retirement at Ashland, tending his cattle, looking over his fields, writing an occasional letter, and meditating a retirement from the Senate before the next session. During the preceding winter, the death of a favorite daughter had crushed him to the earth. He keenly felt the apparent neglect of his party. In the canvass he took no part. It was not until the campaign was nearing its close, in October, that he appeared upon the platform to discuss the candidates, and then with evident reluctance. A barbecue had been arranged at Lexington, within sight of Clay’s home, and a declination to participate would have given deadly offense. He spoke, however, with unusual temperance, urging a unification of the opposition against Van Buren. This was to have been expected. Paying tribute to the civic worth of White, he announced his intention to vote for Harrison, not because he was his first choice--for he pretended to prefer Webster--but because he thought that Harrison “combined the greatest prospects of defeating Mr. Van Buren.”[922]

If Clay was indifferent, his old rival, Andrew Jackson, was not. Assuming the certainty of his favorite’s election, his personal pride was touched by White’s challenge of his own leadership in Tennessee, and as soon as Congress adjourned, he started on the long and tiresome journey to the Hermitage. Passing through eastern Tennessee, he appeared frankly in the rôle of a canvasser for votes. With old-time fire, he denounced his erstwhile friend, the Senator, as a Federalist--a discovery he had but recently made; and with all the fervor of Jacksonian friendship he held Van Buren up as the purest and most uncompromising of Democrats. The domineering quality of his leadership flared in his declaration that no friend of White’s could be other than his own enemy. At Blountville, Jonesboro, Greenville, Newport, Lebanon, and Nashville--every point he touched--he delivered political harangues in conversations with the friends and admirers who flocked to greet him.[923] Thus he employed every method known to electioneering, short of actually taking the stump.

This effort of the President was met by White with a powerful speech at Knoxville, where a banquet in his honor was arranged for the purpose. “It is not I who am to be put down and disgraced in this controversy, if Tennessee is either coaxed or coerced to surrender her choice,” he said. “The Saviour of the World, when upon earth, found among the small number of His disciples, one Judas, who not only sold but betrayed him for his thirty pieces of silver. It were vain for one of my humble attainments, who has nothing to offer but his best efforts to promote the public welfare, to hope that all who professed to be his friends must continue to act up to that character. Already have I found more than one Judas, who, by parting with their interest in me, have received, or expect to receive, more than twice their thirty pieces.”[924] Thus, however tame the campaign elsewhere, it was a hand-to-hand struggle in the President’s own State--and here Jackson was to meet the greatest humiliation of his career.

IX

The elections in 1836 were not held on the same day in all the States, and from November 4th, when Pennsylvania and Ohio voted, until November 23d, when the election was held in Rhode Island, the politicians were kept in suspense, and it was not until the first week in December that the Democrats were able to rejoice in the certainty of their victory. Massachusetts, which then idolized her Webster, gave him her electoral vote, and stood alone. South Carolina, which had encouraged White to enter the contest, again sulked, and, going outside the list of avowed candidates, gave hers to Senator Willie Mangum, of North Carolina. White greatly disappointed the Whigs, who had expected him to get enough votes in the Southern and Western States to throw the contest into the House of Representatives, by carrying only Tennessee and Georgia. Harrison received the electoral votes of Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, and Vermont--a total of 73; while Van Buren won Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island in New England; Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and Virginia in the South; Illinois and Michigan in the West; and both the most important States in the Union, Pennsylvania and New York. With only 124 electoral votes divided among his four opponents, Van Buren had 170, a majority of 46.

However, in the results the more prescient of the Democratic leaders could find ample justification for concern as to the future. The votes of Georgia, Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee, which had gone to Jackson four years before, had been lost by Van Buren, and he had gained only Connecticut. But the electoral vote does not indicate the full extent of the Democratic slump. The popular vote in some of the States he had carried had fallen off woefully from the previous election. The Democratic majority in Virginia had decreased from 22,158 to 6893; in Illinois from 8718 to 3114; in North Carolina from 20,299 to 3284. As compared with Jackson’s popular majority of 157,293 in 1832, Van Buren won only on a popular majority of 24,893 out of a total of 1,498,205 votes cast. In his own State of New York, however, he increased Jackson’s popular majority of 13,601 in 1832 to 32,272.

In White House circles there were some painfully humiliating features in the results, and to none more than to Jackson. The people of Tennessee gave White a majority of 10,000, and even in the President’s own precinct, White received 43 votes to 18 for Van Buren. In Georgia, the home of the President’s Secretary of State, John Forsyth, the people turned from the candidate of the Georgian, who was so intimately identified with Van Buren’s political fortunes that he was to be retained at the head of the Cabinet through the new Administration, to give their vote to White. In Tennessee, the result was not unnatural. The President overestimated his strength in assuming that he could persuade the people to reject their neighbor and fellow citizen, who had served them well, for a New York politician. In Georgia the turnover was political, due to the ascendancy of the radical State-Rights party, and the strength of the Nullifying element which Forsyth had courageously fought.

The result of the congressional elections even more impressively indicated the drift away from the Jacksonian policies. The Democratic majority in the House during the Twenty-Fourth Congress, of 46, was reduced in the next Congress to a plurality of 2 over the Whigs, with 10 independent members holding the balance of power. Whether this was due to a reaction against the Democratic Party, or merely measured the loss of the personal prestige of Jackson as the candidate, was the problem that gave concern to the Democracy. If Van Buren looked forward with any misgivings to his Administration, however, he gave no sign; and Jackson, if chagrined over his loss of Tennessee, was masterful in dissimulation. There was as much jubilation in the Democratic camp as though the victory had been as decisive as that of four years before. When the electoral votes were being counted, Clay turned to Van Buren with the observation: “It is a cloudy day, sir.” “The sun will shine,” replied the smiling Red Fox, “on the 4th of March, sir.”[925]