Chapter LXXXV

REPUDIATION OF MR. TYLER BY THE WHIG PARTY: THEIR MANIFESTO: COUNTER MANIFESTO BY MR. CALEB CUSHING.

The conduct of Mr. Tyler in relation to a national bank produced its natural effect upon the party which had elected him--disgust and revolt. In both Houses of Congress individual members boldly denounced and renounced him. He seemed to be crushed there, for his assailants were many and fierce--his defenders few, and feeble. But a more formal act of condemnation, and separation was wanted--and had. On the 11th day of September--the day of the cabinet resignations, and two days after the transmission of the second veto message--the whigs of the two Houses had a formal meeting to consider what they should do in the new, anomalous, and acephalous condition in which they found themselves. The deliberations were conducted with all form. Mr. Senator Dixon of Rhode Island and Mr. Jeremiah Morrow of Ohio--both of them men venerable for age and character--were appointed presidents; and Messrs. Kenneth Rayner of North Carolina, Mr. Christopher Morgan of New York, and Richard W. Thompson of Indiana--all members of the House--were appointed secretaries. Mr. Mangum of North Carolina, then offered two resolutions:

"1. That it is expedient for the whigs of the Senate and House
of Representatives of the United States to publish an address
to the people of the United States, containing a succinct
exposition of the prominent proceedings of the extra session
of Congress, of the measures that have been adopted, and those
in which they have failed, and the causes of such failure;
together with such other matters as may exhibit truly the
condition of the whig party and whig prospects.

"2. That a committee of three on the part of the Senate, and
five on the part of the House, be appointed to prepare such
address, and submit it to a meeting of the whigs on Monday
morning next, the 13th inst., at half past 8 o'clock."

Both resolutions were unanimously adopted, and Messrs. Berrien of Georgia, Tallmadge of New York, and Smith of Indiana were appointed on the part of the Senate; and Messrs. Everett of Vermont, Mason of Ohio, Kennedy of Maryland, John C. Clark of New York, and Rayner of North Carolina, on the part of the House.

At the appointed time the meeting reassembled, and the committee made their report. Much of it was taken up with views and recommendations in relation to the general policy of the party: it is only of what relates to the repudiation of Mr. Tyler that this history intends to speak: for government with us is a struggle of parties: and it is necessary to know how parties are put up, and put down, in order to understand how the government is managed. An opening paragraph of the address set forth that, for twelve years the whigs had carried on a contest for the regulation of the currency, the equalization of exchanges, the economical administration of the finances, and the advancement of industry--all to be accomplished by means of a national bank--declaring these objects to be misunderstood by no one--and the bank itself held to be secured in the presidential election, and its establishment the main object of the extra session. The address then goes on to tell how these cherished hopes were frustrated:

"It is with profound and poignant regret that we find ourselves
called upon to invoke your attention to this point. Upon the
great and leading measure touching this question, our anxious
endeavors to respond to the earnest prayer of the nation have
been frustrated by an act as unlooked for as it is to be
lamented. We grieve to say to you that by the exercise of that
power in the constitution which has ever been regarded with
suspicion, and often with odium, by the people--a power which
we had hoped was never to be exhibited on this subject, by a
whig President--we have been defeated in two attempts to create
a fiscal agent, which the wants of the country had demonstrated
to us, in the most absolute form of proof, to be eminently
necessary and proper in the present emergency. Twice have we,
with the utmost diligence and deliberation, matured a plan
for the collection, safe-keeping and disbursing of the public
moneys through the agency of a corporation adapted to that end,
and twice has it been our fate to encounter the opposition
of the President, through the application of the veto power.
The character of that veto in each case, the circumstances in
which it was administered, and the grounds upon which it has
met the decided disapprobation of your friends in Congress,
are sufficiently apparent in the public documents and the
debates relating to it. This subject has acquired a painful
interest with us, and will doubtless acquire it with you, from
the unhappy developments with which it is accompanied. We are
constrained to say, that we find no ground to justify us in the
conviction that the veto of the President has been interposed
on this question solely upon conscientious and well-considered
opinions of constitutional scruple as to his duty in the case
presented. On the contrary, too many proofs have been forced
upon our observation to leave us free from the apprehension,
that the President has permitted himself to be beguiled into an
opinion that, by this exhibition of his prerogative, he might be
able to divert the policy of his administration into a channel
which should lead to new political combinations, and accomplish
results which must overthrow the present divisions of party in
the country; and finally produce a state of things which those
who elected him, at least, have never contemplated. We have seen
from an early period of the session, that the whig party did
not enjoy the confidence of the President. With mortification
we have observed that his associations more sedulously aimed
at a free communion with those who have been busy to prostrate
our purposes, rather than those whose principles seemed to
be most identified with the power by which he was elected.
We have reason to believe that he has permitted himself to
be approached, counselled and influenced by those who have
manifested least interest in the success of whig measures. What
were represented to be his opinions and designs have been freely
and even insolently put forth in certain portions, and those not
the most reputable, of the public press, in a manner that ought
to be deemed offensive to his honor, as it certainly was to the
feelings of those who were believed to be his friends. In the
earnest endeavor manifested by the members of the whig party in
Congress to ascertain specifically the President's notions in
reference to the details of such a bill relating to a fiscal
agent as would be likely to meet his approbation, the frequent
changes of his opinion, and the singular want of consistency in
his views, have baffled his best friends, and rendered the hope
of adjustment with him impossible."

"The plan of an exchange bank, such as was reported after the
first veto, the President is understood by more than one member
of Congress to whom he expressed his opinion, to have regarded
as a favorite measure. It was in view of this opinion, suggested
as it is in his first veto, and after using every proper effort
to ascertain his precise views upon it, that the committee of
the House of Representatives reported their second bill. It made
provision for a bank without the privilege of local discounting,
and was adapted as closely as possible to that class of
mercantile operations which the first veto message describes
with approbation, and which that paper specifically illustrates
by reference to the 'dealings in the exchanges' of the Bank
of the United States in 1833, which the President affirms
'amounted to upwards of one hundred millions of dollars.' Yet
this plan, when it was submitted to him, was objected to on a
new ground. The last veto has narrowed the question of a bank
down to the basis of the sub-treasury scheme, and it is obvious
from the opinions of that message that the country is not to
expect any thing better than the exploded sub-treasury, or some
measure of the same character, from Mr. TYLER. In the midst
of all these varieties of opinion, an impenetrable mystery
seemed to hang over the whole question. There was no such
frank interchange of sentiment as ought to characterize the
intercourse of a President and his friends, and the last persons
in the government who would seem to have been intrusted with his
confidence on those embarrassing topics were the constitutional
advisers which the laws had provided for him. In this review of
the position into which the late events have thrown the whig
party, it is with profound sorrow we look to the course pursued
by the President. He has wrested from us one of the best fruits
of a long and painful struggle, and the consummation of a
glorious victory; he has even perhaps thrown us once more upon
the field of political strife, not weakened in numbers, nor
shorn of the support of the country, but stripped of the arms
which success had placed in our hands, and left again to rely
upon that high patriotism which for twelve years sustained us in
a conflict of unequalled asperity, and which finally brought us
to the fulfilment of those brilliant hopes which he has done so
much to destroy."

Having thus shown the loss, by the conduct of the President, of all the main fruits of a great victory after a twelve years' contest, the address goes on to look to the future, and to inquire what is to be the conduct of the party in such unexpected and disastrous circumstances? and the first answer to that inquiry is, to establish a permanent separation of the whig party from Mr. Tyler, and to wash their hands of all accountability for his acts.

"In this state of things, the whigs will naturally look with
anxiety to the future, and inquire what are the actual relations
between the President and those who brought him into power;
and what, in the opinion of their friends in Congress, should
be their course hereafter. On both of these questions we feel
it to be our duty to address you in perfect frankness and
without reserve, but, at the same time, with due respect to
others. In regard to the first, we are constrained to say that
the President, by the course he has adopted in respect to the
application of the veto power to two successive bank charters,
each of which there was just reason to believe would meet his
approbation; by his withdrawal of confidence from his real
friends in Congress and from the members of his cabinet; by
his bestowal of it upon others notwithstanding their notorious
opposition to leading measures of his administration, has
voluntarily separated himself from those by whose exertions
and suffrages he was elevated to that office through which he
reached his present exalted station. The existence of this
unnatural relation is as extraordinary as the annunciation of
it is painful and mortifying. What are the consequences and
duties which grow out of it? The first consequence is, that
those who brought the President into power can be no longer,
in any manner or degree, justly held responsible or blamed for
the administration of the executive branch of the government;
and that the President and his advisers should be exclusively
hereafter deemed accountable."

Then comes the consideration of what they are to do? and after inculcating, in the ancient form, the laudable policy of supporting their obnoxious President when he was '_right_,' and opposing him when he was '_wrong_'--phrases repeated by all parties, to be complied with by none--they go on to recommend courage and unity to their discomfited ranks--to promise a new victory at the next election; and with it the establishment of all their measures, crowned by a national bank.

"The conduct of the President has occasioned bitter
mortification and deep regret. Shall the party, therefore,
yielding to sentiments of despair, abandon its duty, and submit
to defeat and disgrace? Far from suffering such dishonorable
consequences, the very disappointment which it has unfortunately
experienced should serve only to redouble its exertions, and
to inspire it with fresh courage to persevere with a spirit
unsubdued and a resolution unshaken, until the prosperity of
the country is fully re-established, and its liberties firmly
secured against all danger from the abuses, encroachments or
usurpations of the executive department of the government."

This was the manifesto, so far as it concerns the repudiation of Mr. Tyler, which the whig members of Congress put forth: it was answered (under the name of an address to his constituents) by Mr. Cushing, in what may be called a counter manifesto: for it was on the same subject as the other, and counter to it at all points--especially on the fundamental point of, _which party the President was to belong to!_ the manifesto of the whig members assigning him to the democracy--the counter manifesto claiming him for the whigs! In this, Mr. Cushing followed the lead of Mr. Webster in his letter of resignation: and, in fact, the whole of his pleading (for such it was) was an amplification of Mr. Webster's letter to the editors of the National Intelligencer, and of the one to Messrs. Bates and Choate, and of another to Mr. Ketchum, of New York. The first part of the address of Mr. Cushing, is to justify the President for changing his course on the fiscal corporation bill; and this attempted in a thrust at Mr Clay thus:

"A caucus dictatorship has been set up in Congress, which,
not satisfied with ruling that body to the extinguishment of
individual freedom of opinion, seeks to control the President in
his proper sphere of duty, denounces him before you for refusing
to surrender his independence and his conscience to its decree,
and proposes, through subversion of the fundamental provisions
and principles of the constitution, to usurp the command of
the government. It is a question, therefore, in fact, not of
legislative measures, but of revolution. What is the visible,
and the only professed, origin of these extraordinary movements?
The whig party in Congress have been extremely desirous to
cause a law to be enacted at the late session, incorporating a
national bank. Encountering, in the veto of the President, a
constitutional obstacle to the enactment of such a law at the
late session, a certain portion of the whig party, represented
by the caucus dictatorship, proceeds then, in the beginning, to
denounce the President. Will you concur in this denunciation of
the President?"

This was the accusation, first hinted at by Mr. Rives in the Senate, afterwards obscurely intimated in Mr. Webster's letter to the two Massachusetts senators; and now broadly stated by Mr. Cushing; without, however, naming the imputed dictator; which was, in fact, unnecessary. Every body knew that Mr. Clay was the person intended; with what justice, not to repeat proofs already given, let the single fact answer, that these caucus meetings (for such there were) were all subsequent to Mr. Tyler's change on the bank question! and in consequence of it! and solely with a view to get him back! and that by conciliation until after the second veto. In this thrust at Mr. Clay Mr. Cushing was acting in the interest of Mr. Webster's feelings as well as those of Tyler; for since 1832 Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster had not been amicable, and barely kept in civil relations by friends, who had frequently to interpose to prevent, or compose outbreaks; and even to make in the Senate formal annunciation of reconciliation effected between them. But the design required Mr. Clay to be made the cause of the rejection of the bank bills; and also required him to be crippled as the leader of the anti-administration whigs. In this view Mr. Cushing resumes:

"When Lord Grenville broke up the whig party of England, in
1807, by the unseasonable pressure of some great question, and
its consequent loss, 'Why,' said Sheridan, 'did they not put it
off as Fox did? I have heard of men running their heads against
a wall; but this is the first time I ever heard of men building
a wall, and squaring it, and clamping it, for the express
purpose of knocking out their brains against it.' This _bon mot_
of Sheridan's will apply to the whig party in Congress, if, on
account of the failure of the bank bill at the late session,
they secede from the administration, and set up as a _Tertium
Quid_ in the government, neither administration nor opposition."

Having presented this spectacle of their brains beaten out against a wall of their own raising, if the whig party should follow Mr. Clay into opposition to the Tyler-Webster administration, Mr. Cushing took the party on another tack--that of the bird in the hand, which is worth two in the bush; and softly commences with them on the profit of using the presidential power while they had it:

"Is it wise for the whig party to throw away the actuality of
power for the current four years? If so, for what object? For
some contingent _possibility_ four years hence? If so, what one?
Is the contingent possibility of advancing to power four years
hence any one particular man in its ranks, whoever he may be,
and however eminently deserving, a sufficient object to induce
the whig party to abdicate the power which itself as a body
possesses now?"

And changing again, and from seduction to terror, he presents to them, as the most appalling of all calamities, the possible election of a democratic President at the next election through the deplorable divisions of the whig party.

"If so, will its abdication of power now tend to promote that
object? Is it not, on the contrary, the very means to make sure
the success of some candidate of the democratic party?"

Proceeding to the direct defence of the President, he then boldly absolves him from any violation of faith in rejecting the two bank bills. Thus:

"In refusing to sign those bills, then, he violated no
engagement, and committed no act of perfidy in the sense of a
forfeited pledge."

And advancing from exculpation to applause, he makes it an act of conscience in Mr. Tyler in refusing to sign them, and places him under the imperious command of a triple power--conscience, constitution, oath; without the faculty of doing otherwise than he did.

"But, in this particular, the President, as an upright
man, could do no otherwise than he did. He conscientiously
_disapproved_ those bills. And the constitution, which he was
sworn to obey, _commands_ him, expressly and peremptorily
commands him, if he do not approve of any bill presented to him
for his signature, to return it to the House of Congress in
which it originated. 'If he approve he shall sign it: _if not_,
he SHALL return it,' are the words of the constitution. Would
you as conscientious men yourselves, forbid the President of the
United States to have a conscience?"

Acquittal of the President of all hand in the initiation of the second bill, is the next task of Mr. Cushing, and he boldly essays it.

"The President, it is charged, trifled with one or more of the
retiring secretaries. Of what occurred at cabinet meetings, the
public knows and can know nothing. But, as to the main point,
whether he initiated the fiscal corporation bill. This idea is
incompatible with the dates and facts above stated, which show
that the consideration of a new bill was forced on the President
by members of Congress. It is, also, incompatible with the fact
that, on Tuesday, the 17th of August, as it is said by the
Secretary of War, the President expressed to him doubt as to
any bill."

Now what happened in these cabinet meetings is well known to the public from the concurrent statement of three of the secretaries, and from presidential declarations to members of Congress, and these statements cover the main point of the initiation of the second bill by the President himself; and that not on the 18th, but the 16th of August, and not only to his cabinet but to Mr. Stuart of Virginia the same evening; and that it was two days afterwards that the two members of Congress called upon him (Messrs. Sergeant and Berrien), not to force him to take a bill, but to be forced by him to run his own bill through in three days. Demurring to the idea that the President could be forced by members of Congress to adopt an obnoxious bill, the brief statement is, that it is not true. The same is to be said of the quoted remark of the Secretary at War, Mr. Bell, that the President expressed to him a doubt whether he would sign any bank bill--leaving out the astonishment of the Secretary at that declaration, who had been requested by the President the day before to furnish facts in favor of the bill; and who came to deliver a statement of these facts thus prepared, and in great haste, upon request; and when brought, received with indifference! and a doubt expressed whether he would sign any bill. Far from proving that the President had a consistent doubt upon the subject, which is the object of the mutilated quotation from Mr. Bell--it proves just the contrary! proves that the President was for the bill, and began it himself, on the 16th; and was laying an anchor to windward for its rejection on the 17th! having changed during the night.

The retirement of all the cabinet ministers but one, and that for such reasons as they gave, is treated by Mr. Cushing as a thing of no signification, and of no consequence to any body but themselves. He calls it a common fact which has happened under many administrations, and of no permanent consequence, provided good successors are appointed. All that is right enough where secretaries retire for personal reasons, such as are often seen; but when they retire because they impeach the President of great moral delinquency, and refuse to remain with him on that account, the state of the case is altered. He and they are public officers; and officers at the head of the government; and their public conduct is matter of national concern; and the people have a right to inquire and to know the public conduct of public men. The fact that Mr. Webster remained is considered as overbalancing the withdrawal of all the others; and is thus noticed by Mr. Cushing:

"And that, whilst those gentlemen have retired, yet the
Secretary of State, in whose patriotism and ability you have
more immediate cause to confide, has declared that he knows
no sufficient cause for such separation, and continues to
co-operate cordially with the President in the discharge of the
duties of that station which he fills with so much honor to
himself and advantage to the country."

Certainly it was a circumstance of high moment to Mr. Tyler that one of his cabinet remained with him. It was something in such a general withdrawing, and for such reasons as were given, and was considered a great sacrifice on the part of Mr. Webster at the time. As such it was well remembered a short time afterwards, when Mr. Webster, having answered the purposes for which he was retained, was compelled to follow the example of his old colleagues. The address of Mr. Cushing goes on to show itself, in terms, to be an answer to the address of the whig party--saying:

"Yet an address has gone forth from a portion of the members of
Congress, purporting to be the _unanimous_ act of a meeting of
THE whigs of Congress, which, besides arraigning the President
on various allegations of fact and surmises not fact, recommends
such radical changes of the constitution."

The address itself of the whig party is treated as the work of Mr. Clay--as an emanation of that caucus dictatorship in Congress of which he was always the embodied idea. He says:

"Those changes, if effected, would concentrate the chief powers
of government in the hands of that of which this document
(the whig address) itself is an emanation, namely a caucus
dictatorship of Congress."

This defence by Mr. Cushing, the letters of Mr. Webster, and all the writers in the interests of Mr. Tyler himself, signified nothing against the concurrent statements of the retiring senators, and the confirmatory statements of many members of Congress. The whig party recoiled from him. Instead of that "whig President, whig Congress, and whig people," formed into a unit, with the vision of which Mr. Webster had been induced to remain when his colleagues retired--instead of this unity, there was soon found diversity enough. The whig party remained with Mr. Clay; the whig Secretary of State returned to Massachusetts, inquiring, "_where am I to go?_" The whig defender of Mr. Tyler went to China, clothed with a mission; and returning, found that greatest calamity, the election of a democratic President, to be a fixed fact; and being so fixed, he joined it, and got another commission thereby: while Mr. Tyler himself, who was to have been the Roman cement of this whig unity, continued his march to the democratic camp--arrived there--knocked at the gate--asked to be let in: and was refused. The national democratic Baltimore convention would not recognize him.