MINISTER TO ENGLAND.--VICE-PRESIDENT.--ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY
In the summer of 1831 Van Buren knew very well the strong hold he had
upon his party, the entire and almost affectionate confidence which he
enjoyed from Jackson, and the prestige which his political and official
success had brought him. But to the country, as he was well aware, he
seemed also to be, as he was, a politician, obviously skilled in the
art, and an avowed candidate for the presidency. His conciliatory
bearing, his abstinence from personal abuse, his freedom from personal
animosities, all were widely declared to be the mere incidents of
constant duplicity and intrigue. The absence of proof, and his own
explicit denial and appeal to those who knew the facts, did not protect
him from the belief of his adversaries--a belief which, without
examination, has since been widely adopted--that to prostrate a
dangerous rival he had promoted the quarrel between Jackson and Calhoun.
McLane, the minister at London, wished to come home, and was to be the
new secretary of the treasury. Van Buren gladly seized the opportunity.
He would leave the field of political management. Three thousand miles
in distance and a month in time away from Washington or New York, there
could, he thought, be little pretense of personal manoeuvres on his
part. He would thus plainly submit his candidacy to popular judgment
upon his public career, without interference from himself. He would
escape the many embarrassments of every politician upon whom demands are
continually made,--demands whose rejection or allowance alike brings
offense. The English mission was prominently in the public service, but
out of its difficulties; and it was made particularly grateful to him by
his success in the recent negotiation over colonial trade. He therefore
accepted the post, for which in almost every respect he had
extraordinary equipment. He finally left the State Department in June,
1831; and on his departure from Washington Jackson conspicuously rode
with him out of the city. On August 1, he was formally appointed
minister to Great Britain; and in September he arrived in London,
accompanied by his son John.
Van Buren found Washington Irving presiding over the London legation in
McLane's absence as _chargé d'affaires_. Irving's appointment to be
secretary of legation under McLane had been one of Van Buren's early
acts,--a proof, Irving wrote, "of the odd way in which this mad world is
governed, when a secretary of state of a stern republic gives away
offices of the kind at the recommendation of a jovial little man of the
seas like Jack Nicholson." But this was jocose. When the appointment
was suggested, it was particularly pleasant to Van Buren that this
graceful and gentle bit of patronage should be given by so grim a figure
as Jackson. Irving had come on from Spain, his "Columbus" just finished,
and his "Alhambra Tales" ready for writing. His extraordinary popularity
in England and his old familiarity with its life made him highly useful
to the American minister, as Van Buren himself soon found. It was not
the last time that Englishmen respected the republic of the west the
more because the respect carried with it an homage to the republic of
letters. Irving's was an early one of the appointments which established
the agreeable tradition of the American diplomatic and consular service,
that literary men should always hold some of its places of honor and
profit. When Van Buren arrived, Irving was already weary of his post and
had resigned. He remained, however, with the new minister until he too
surrendered his office. The two men became warm and lifelong friends.
The day after Van Buren's arrival Irving wrote: "I have just seen Mr.
Van Buren, and do not wonder you should all be so fond of him. His
manners are most amiable and ingratiating; and I have no doubt he will
become a favorite at this court." After an intimacy of several months he
wrote: "The more I see of Mr. Van Buren, the more I feel confirmed in a
strong personal regard for him. He is one of the gentlest and most
amiable men I have ever met with; with an affectionate disposition that
attaches itself to those around him, and wins their kindness in return."
After a few months of the charming life which an American of distinction
finds open to him in London, a life for whose duties and whose pleasures
Van Buren was happily fitted,[10] there came to him an extraordinary and
enviable delight. He posted through England in an open carriage with the
author of the "Sketch Book" and "Bracebridge Hall." From those daintiest
sources he had years before got an idea of English country life, and of
the festivities of an old-fashioned English Christmas; and now in an
exquisite companionship the idea became more nearly clothed with reality
than happens with most literary enchantments. After Oxford and Blenheim;
after quartering in Stratford at the little inn of the Red Horse, where
they "found the same obliging little landlady that kept it at the time
of the visit recorded in the 'Sketch Book';" after Warwick Castle and
Kenilworth and Lichfield and Newstead Abbey and Hardwick Castle; after a
fortnight at Christmas in Barlborough Hall,--"a complete scene of old
English hospitality," with many of the ancient games and customs then
obsolete in other parts of England; after seeing there the "mummers and
morris dancers and glee singers;" after "great feasting with the
boar's-head crowned with holly, the wassail bowl, the yule-log,
snapdragon, etc.;"--after all these delights, inimitably told by his
companion, Van Buren returned to London, but not for long. He there
enjoyed the halcyon days which the brilliant society of London knew,
when George IV. had just left the throne to his undignified but
good-hearted and jovial brother; when Louis Philippe had found a
bourgeois crown in France and the condescending approval of England;
when Wellington was the first of Englishmen; when Prince Talleyrand, his
early republicanism and sacrileges not at all forgotten, but forgiven to
the prestige of his abilities and the splendid fascinations of his
society, was the chief person in diplomatic life; when the Wizard of the
North, though broken, and on his last and vain trip to the Mediterranean
for health, still lingered in London, one of its grand figures, and
sadly recalled to Irving the times when they "went over the Eildon hills
together;" when Rogers was playing Mæcenas and Catullus at
breakfast-tables of poets and bankers and noblemen. It was amid this
serene, shining, and magical translation from the politics at home that
Van Buren received the rude and humiliating news of his rejection by the
Senate; for his appointment had been made in recess, and he had left
without a confirmation.
One evening in February, 1832, before attending a party at
Talleyrand's, Van Buren learned of the rejection, as had all London
which knew there was an American minister. He was half ill when the news
came; but he seemed imperturbable. Without shrinking he mixed in the
splendid throng, gracious and easy, as if he did not know that his
official heart would soon cease to beat. Lord Auckland, then president
of the board of trade and afterwards governor-general of India, said to
him very truly, and more prophetically than he fancied: "It is an
advantage to a public man to be the subject of an outrage." Levees and
drawing-rooms and state dinners were being held in honor of the queen's
birthday. After a doubt as to the more decorous course, he kept the
tenor of diplomatic life until he ceased to be a minister; and Irving
said that, "to the credit of John Bull," he "was universally received
with the most marked attention," and "treated with more respect and
attention than before by the royal family, by the members of the present
and the old cabinet, and the different persons of the diplomatic corps."
On March 22, 1832, he had his audience of leave; two days later he dined
with the king at Windsor; and about April 1 left for Holland and a
continental trip, this being, so he wrote a committee appointed at an
indignation meeting in Tammany Hall, "the only opportunity" he should
probably ever have for the visit.
Van Buren's dispatches from England, now preserved in the archives of
the State Department, are not numerous. They were evidently written by
a minister who was not very busy in official duties apart from the
social and ceremonial life of a diplomat. Some of them are in his own
handwriting, whose straggling carelessness is quite out of keeping with
the obvious pains which he bestowed upon every subject he touched, even
those of seemingly slight consequence. Interspersed with allusions to
the northeastern boundary question, and with accounts of his protests
against abuses practiced upon American ships in British ports, and of
the spread of the cholera, he gave English political news and even
gossip. He discussed the chances of the reform bill, rumors of what the
ministry would do, and whether the Duke of Wellington would yield. Van
Buren participated in no important dispute, although before surrendering
his post he presented one of the hateful claims which American
administrations of both parties had to make in those days. This was the
demand for slaves who escaped from the American brig "Comet," wrecked in
the Bahamas, on her way from the Potomac to New Orleans, and who were
declared free by the colonial authorities.
It is safe to believe that Secretary Livingston read the more
interesting of these letters at the White House. Van Buren discreetly
lightened up some of the diplomatic pages with passages very agreeable
to Jackson. In describing his presentation to William IV., he told
Livingston that the king had formed the highest estimate of Jackson's
character, and repeated the royal remark "that detraction and
misrepresentation were the common lot of all public men." Of the
President's message of December, 1831, he wrote that few in England
refused to recognize its ability or the "distinguished talents of the
executive by whose advice and labors" the affairs "of our highly favored
country" had been "conducted to such happy results."
On July 5, 1832, Van Buren arrived at New York, having several weeks
before been nominated for the vice-presidency. He declined a public
reception, he said, because, afflicted as New York was with the cholera,
festivities would be discordant with the feelings of his friends; and a
few days later he was in Washington. Congress was in session, debating
the tariff bill; and he quickly enough found it true, as he had already
believed, that his rejection had been a capital blunder of his enemies.
The rejection occurred on January 25, 1832. Jackson's nomination had
gone to the Senate early in December, but the opposition had hesitated
at the responsibility for the affront. The debate took place in secret
session, but the speeches were promptly made public for their effect on
the country. Clay and Webster, the great leaders of the Whigs, and
Hayne, the eloquent representative of the Calhoun Democracy, and others,
spoke against Van Buren. Clay and Webster based their rejection upon his
language in the dispatch to McLane, already quoted. Webster said that
he would pardon almost anything where he saw true patriotism and sound
American feeling; but he could not forgive the sacrifice of these to
party. Van Buren, with sensible and skillful foresight, had frankly
admitted that we had been wrong in some of our claims; and Gallatin, it
was afterwards shown from his original dispatch to Clay, had expressly
said the same thing. But in a bit of buncombe Webster insisted that no
American minister must ever admit that his country had been wrong. "In
the presence of foreign courts," he solemnly said, "amidst the
monarchies of Europe, he is to stand up for his country and his whole
country; that no jot nor tittle of her honor is to suffer in his hands;
that he is not to allow others to reproach either his government or his
country, and far less is he himself to reproach either; that he is to
have no objects in his eye but American objects, and no heart in his
bosom but an American heart." To say all this, Webster declared, was a
duty whose performance he wished might be heard "by every independent
freeman in the United States, by the British minister and the British
king, and every minister and every crowned head in Europe." Van Buren's
language, Clay said, had been that of an humble vassal to a proud and
haughty lord, prostrating and degrading the American eagle before the
British lion. These cheap appeals fell perfectly flat. If Van Buren had
been open to criticism for the manner in which he pointed out a party
change in American administration, the error was, at the worst,
committed to preclude a British refusal from finding justification in
the offensive attitude previously taken by Adams. In admitting our
mistaken "pretensions," Van Buren had been entirely right, barring a
slight fault in the word, which did not, however, then seem to import
the consciousness of wrong which it carries to later ears. Webster and
Clay ought to have known that Van Buren's success where all before had
failed would make the American people loath to find fault with his
phrases. Nor were they at all ready to believe that Jackson's
administration toadied to foreign courts. They knew better; they were
convinced that no American president had been more resolute towards
other nations.
It was also said that Van Buren had introduced the system of driving men
from office for political opinions; that he was a New York politician
who had brought his art to Washington. Marcy, one of the New York
senators, defended his State with these words, which afterwards he must
have wished to recall: "It may be, sir, that the politicians of New York
are not so fastidious as some gentlemen are as to disclosing the
principles on which they act. They boldly preach what they practice.
When they are contending for victory they avow their intention of
enjoying the fruits of it. If they are defeated, they expect to retire
from office; if they are successful, they claim, as a matter of right,
the advantages of success. They see nothing wrong in the rule that to
the victor belong the spoils of the enemy." To this celebrated and
execrable defense Van Buren owes much of the later and unjust belief
that he was an inveterate "spoilsman." It has already been shown how
little foundation there is for the charge that he introduced the system
of official proscription. Benton truly said that Van Buren's temper and
judgment were both against it, and that he gave ample proofs of his
forbearance. Webster did not touch upon this objection. Clay made it
very subordinate to the secretary's abasement before the British lion.
The attack of the Calhoun men was based upon Van Buren's supposed
intrigue against their chief, and his breaking up of the cabinet. But
people saw then, better indeed than some historians have since seen,
that between Calhoun and Van Buren there had been great and radical
political divergence far deeper than personal jealousy. To surrender the
highest cabinet office, to leave Washington and all the places of
political management, in order to take a lower office in remote exile
from the sources of political power,--these were not believed to be acts
of mere trickery, but rather to be parts of a courageous and
self-respecting appeal for justice. It seemed a piece of political
animosity wantonly to punish a rival with such exquisite humiliation in
the eyes of foreigners.
There was a clear majority against confirming Van Buren. But to make his
destruction the more signal, and as Calhoun had no opportunity to speak,
enough of the majority refrained from voting to enable the Democratic
vice-president to give the casting vote for the rejection of this
Democratic nominee. Calhoun's motive was obvious enough from his boast
in Benton's hearing: "It will kill him, sir, kill him dead. He will
never kick, sir, never kick." This bit of unaffected nature was
refreshing after all the solemnly insincere declarations of grief which
had fallen from the opposition senators in performing their duty.
The folly of the rejection was quickly apparent. Benton very well said
to Moore, a senator from Alabama who had voted against Van Buren, "You
have broken a minister and elected a vice-president. The people will see
nothing in it but a combination of rivals against a competitor." The
popular verdict was promptly given. Van Buren had already become a
candidate to succeed Jackson five years later; he was only a possible
candidate for vice-president at the next election. When the rejection
was widely known, it was known almost equally well and soon that Van
Buren would be the Jacksonian candidate for vice-president. Meetings
were held; addresses were voted; the issue was eagerly seized. The
Democratic members of the New York legislature early in February, 1832,
under an inspiration from Washington, addressed to Jackson an expression
of their indignation in the stately words which our fathers loved, even
when they went dangerously near to bathos. They had freely, they said,
surrendered to his call their most distinguished fellow-citizen; when
Van Buren had withdrawn from the cabinet they had beheld in Jackson's
continual confidence in him irrefragable proof that no combination could
close Jackson's eyes to the cause of his country; New York would indeed
avenge the indignity thus offered to her favorite son; but they would be
unmindful of their duty if they failed to console Jackson with their
sympathy in this degradation of the country he loved so well. On
February 28, Jackson replied with no less dignity and with skill and
force. He was, he said,--and the whole country believed him,--incapable
of tarnishing the pride or dignity of that country whose glory it had
been his object to elevate; Van Buren's instructions to McLane had been
his instructions; American pretensions which Adams's administration had
admitted to be untenable had been resigned; if just American claims were
resisted upon the ground of the unjust position taken by his
predecessor, then and then only was McLane to point out that there had
been a change in the policy and counsels of the government with the
change of its officers. Jackson said that he owed it to the late
secretary of state and to the American people to declare that Van Buren
had no participation whatever in the occurrences between Calhoun and
himself; and that there was no ground for imputing to Van Buren advice
to make the removals from office. He had called Van Buren to the state
department not more for his acknowledged talents and public services
than to meet the general wish and expectation of the Republican party;
his signal ability and success in office had fully justified the
selection; his own respect for Van Buren's great public and private
worth, and his full confidence in his integrity were undiminished. This
blast from the unquestioned head of the party prodigiously helped the
general movement. The only question was how best to avenge the wrong.
It was suggested that Van Buren should return directly and take a seat
in the Senate, which Dudley would willingly surrender to him, and should
there meet his slanderers face to face. Some thought that he should have
a triumphal entry into New York, without an idea of going into the
"senatorial cock-pit" unless he were not to receive the vice-presidency.
Others thought that he should be made governor of New York, an idea
shadowed forth in the Albany address to Jackson. As a candidate for that
place, he would escape the jealousies of Pennsylvania and perhaps
Virginia, and augment the local strength of the party in New York. To
this it was replied from Washington that they might better cut his
throat at once; that if the Republican party could not, under existing
circumstances, make Van Buren vice-president, they need never look to
the presidency for him. This was declared to be the unanimous opinion of
the cabinet. New York Republicans were begged not to "lose so glorious
an opportunity of strengthening and consolidating the party." The people
at Albany, it was said, were "mad, ... as if New York can make amends
for an insult offered by fourteen States of the Union."
In this temper the Republican or Democratic convention met at Baltimore
on May 21, 1832. It was the first national gathering of the party; and
was summoned simply to nominate a vice-president. Jackson's renomination
was already made by the sovereign people, which might be justly
affronted by the assembling of a body in apparent doubt whether to obey
the popular decree. National conventions were inevitable upon the
failure of the congressional caucus in 1824. The system of separate
nominations in different States at irregular times was too inconvenient,
too inconsistent with unity of action and a central survey of the whole
situation. In 1824 its inconvenience had been obvious enough. In 1828
circumstances had designated both the candidates with perfect certainty;
and isolated nominations in different parts of the country were then in
no danger of clashing. It has been recently said that the convention of
1832 was assembled to force Van Buren's nomination for vice-president.
But it is evident from the letter which Parton prints, written by Lewis
to Kendall on May 25, 1831, when the latter was visiting Isaac Hill, the
Jacksonian leader in New Hampshire, that the convention was even then
proposed by "the most judicious" friends of the administration. It was
suggested as a plan "of putting a stop to partial nominations" and of
"harmonizing" the party. Barbour, Dickinson, and McLane were the
candidates discussed in this letter; Van Buren was not named. He was
about sailing for England; and although an open candidate for the
presidential succession after Jackson, he was not then a candidate for
the second office. The ascription of the convention to management in his
behalf seems purely gratuitous. Upon this early invitation, the New
Hampshire Democrats called the convention. One of them opened its
session by a brief speech alluding to the favor with which the idea of
the convention had met, "although opposed by the enemies of the
Democratic party," as the Republican party headed by Jackson was now
perhaps first definitely called. He said that "the coming together of
representatives of the people from the extremity of the Union would have
a tendency to soothe, if not to unite, the jarring interests;" and that
the people, after seeing its good effects in conciliating the different
and distant sections of the country, would continue the mode of
nomination. This natural and sensible motive to strengthen and solidify
the party is ample explanation of the convention, without resorting to
the rather worn charge brought against so many political movements of
the time, that they arose from Jackson's dictatorial desire to throttle
the sentiment of his party. In making nominations the convention
resolved that each State should have as many votes as it would be
entitled to in the electoral college. To assure what was deemed a
reasonable approach to unanimity, two thirds of the whole number of
votes was required for a choice,--a precedent sad enough to Van Buren
twelve years later. On the first ballot Van Buren had 208 of the 283
votes. Virginia, South Carolina, Indiana, and Kentucky, with a few votes
from North Carolina, Alabama, and Illinois, were for Philip P. Barbour
of Virginia or Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky. The motion, nowadays
immediately made, that the nomination be unanimous was not offered; but
after an adjournment a resolution was adopted that inasmuch as Van Buren
had received the votes of two thirds of the delegates, the convention
unanimously concur "in recommending him to the people of the United
States for their support."
No platform was adopted. A committee was appointed after the nomination
to draft an address; but after a night's work they reported that,
although "agreeing fully in the principles and sentiments which they
believe ought to be embodied in an address of this description, if such
an address were to be made," it still seemed better to them that the
convention recommend the several delegations "to make such explanations
by address, report, or otherwise to their respective constituents of the
objects, proceedings, and result of the meeting as they may deem
expedient." This was a franker intimation than those to which we are now
used, that the battle was to be fought in each State upon the issue best
suited to its local sentiments; and was entitled to quite as much
respect as meaningless platitudes adopted lest one State or another be
offended at something explicit. Jackson's firm and successful foreign
policy, his opposition to internal improvements by the federal
government, his strong stand against nullification, his opposition to
the United States Bank,--for from the battle over the re-charter,
precipitated by Clay early in 1832 to embarrass Jackson, the latter had
not shrunk,--and above all Jackson himself, these were the real planks
of the platform. But the party wanted the votes of Pennsylvania
Jacksonians who believed in the Bank and of western Jacksonians who
wished federal aid for roads and canals. The great tariff debate was
then going on in Congress; and the subject seemed full of danger. The
election was like the usual English canvass on a parliamentary
dissolution. The country was merely asked without specifications: Do you
on the whole like Jackson's administration?
There is no real ground for the supposition that intrigue or coercion
was necessary to procure Van Buren's nomination. It was dictated by the
simplest and plainest political considerations. Calhoun was in
opposition. After Jackson, Van Buren was clearly the most distinguished
and the ablest member of the administration party; he had rendered it
services of the highest order; he was very popular in the most important
State of New York; he was abroad, suffering from what Irving at the time
truly called "a very short-sighted and mean-spirited act of hostility."
The affront had aroused a general feeling which would enable Van Buren
to strengthen the ticket. In his department had been performed the most
shining achievements of the administration. To the politicians about
Jackson, and very shrewd men they were, Van Buren's succession to
Jackson promised a firmer, abler continuance of the administration than
that of any other public man. Could he indeed have stayed minister to
England, he would have continued a figure of the first distinction, free
from local and temporary animosities and embarrassments. From that post
he might perhaps, as did a later Democratic statesman, most easily have
ascended to the presidency; the vice-presidency would have been
unnecessary to the final promotion. But after the tremendous affront
dealt him by Calhoun and Clay, his tame return to private life would
seem fatal. He must reënter public life. And no reëntry, it was plain,
could be so striking as a popular election to the second station in the
land, nominal though it was, and in taking it to displace the very enemy
who had been finally responsible for the wrong done him.
A month after his return Van Buren formally accepted the nomination. The
committee of the convention had assured him that if the great Republican
party continued faithful to its principles, there was every reason to
congratulate him and their illustrious president that there was in
reserve for his wounded feelings a just and certain reparation. Van
Buren said in reply that previous to his departure from the United
States his name had been frequently mentioned for the vice-presidency;
but that he had uniformly declared himself altogether unwilling to be
considered a candidate, and that to his friends, when opportunity
offered, he had given the grounds of his unwillingness. All this was
strictly true. He had become a candidate for the presidential
succession; and honorable absence as minister to England secured a
better preparation than presence as vice-president amidst the
difficulties and suspicions of Washington. But his position, he added,
had since that period been essentially changed by the circumstance to
which the committee had referred, and to which, with some excess of
modesty he said, rather than to any superior fitness on his part, he was
bound to ascribe his nomination. He gratefully received this spontaneous
expression of confidence and friendship from the delegated democracy of
the Union. He declared it to be fortunate for the country that its
public affairs were under the direction of one who had an early and
inflexible devotion to republican principles and a moral courage which
distinguished him from all others. In the conviction, he said, that on a
faithful adherence to these principles depended the stability and value
of our confederated system, he humbly hoped lay his motive, rather than
any other, for accepting the nomination. This rather clumsy affectation
of humility would have been more disagreeable had it not been closely
associated with firm and manly expressions, and because it was so
common a formality in the political vernacular of the day. In treating
the people as the sovereign, there were adopted the sort of rhetorical
extravagances used by attendants upon monarchs.
On October 4, 1832, Van Buren, upon an interrogation by a committee of a
meeting at Shocco Springs, North Carolina, wrote a letter upon the
tariff. He said that he believed "the establishment of commercial
regulations with a view to the encouragement of domestic products to be
within the constitutional power of Congress." But as to what should be
the character of the tariff he indulged in the generalities of a man who
has opinions which he does not think it wise or timely to exhibit. He
did not wish to see the power of Congress exercised with "oppressive
inequality" or "for the advantage of one section of the Union at the
expense of another." The approaching extinguishment of the national debt
presented an opportunity for a "more equitable adjustment of the
tariff," an opportunity already embraced in the tariff of 1832, whose
spirit as "a conciliatory measure" he trusted would be cherished by all
who preferred public to private interests. These vague expressions would
have fitted either a revenue reformer or an extreme protectionist. Both
disbelieved, or said they did, in oppression and inequality. With a bit
of irony, perhaps unconscious, he added that he had been thus "explicit"
in the statement of his sentiments that there might not be room for
misapprehension of his views. He did, however, in the letter approve "a
reduction of the revenue to the wants of the government," and "a
preference in encouragement given to such manufactures as are essential
to the national defense, and its extension to others in proportion as
they are adapted to our country and of which the raw material is
produced by ourselves." The last phrase probably hinted at Van Buren's
position. He believed in strictly limiting protective duties, although
he had voted for the tariff of 1828. But he told Benton that he cast
this vote in obedience to the "_demos krateo_" principle, that is,
because his State required it. He again spoke strongly against the
policy of internal improvements, and the "scrambles and combinations in
Congress" unavoidably resulting from them. He was "unreservedly opposed"
to a renewal of the charter of the Bank, and equally opposed to
nullification, which involved, he believed, the "certain destruction of
the confederacy."
A few days later he wrote to a committee of "democratic-republican young
men" in New York of the peculiar hatred and contumely visited upon him.
Invectives against other men, he said, were at times suspended; but he
had never enjoyed a moment's respite since his first entrance into
public life. Many distinguished public men had, he added, been seriously
injured by favors from the press; but there was scarcely an instance in
which the objects of its obloquy had not been raised in public
estimation in exact proportion to the intensity and duration of the
abuse.
Both the letter from the Baltimore convention and Van Buren's reply
alluded to "diversity of sentiments and interests," disagreements "as to
measures and men" among the Republicans. The secession of Calhoun and
the bitter hostility of his friends seriously weakened the party. But
against this was to be set the Anti-Masonic movement which drew far more
largely from Jackson's opponents than from his supporters, for Jackson
was a Mason of a high degree. This strange agitation had now spread
beyond New York, and secured the support of really able men. Judge
McLean of the Supreme Court desired the Anti-Masonic nomination; William
Wirt, the famous and accomplished Virginian, accepted it. John Quincy
Adams would probably have accepted it, had it been tendered him. He
wrote in his diary: "The dissolution of the Masonic institution in the
United States I believe to be really more important to us and our
posterity than the question whether Mr. Clay or General Jackson shall be
the president." In New York the National Republicans or Whigs, with the
eager and silly leaning of minority parties to political absurdities or
vagaries, united with the Anti-Masons, among whom William H. Seward and
Thurlow Weed had become influential. In 1830 they had supported Francis
Granger, the Anti-Masonic candidate for governor. In 1832 the
Anti-Masons in New York nominated an electoral ticket headed by
Chancellor Kent, whose bitter, narrow, and unintelligent politics were
in singular contrast with his extraordinary legal equipment and his
professional and literary accomplishments, and by John C. Spencer,
lately in charge of the prosecution of Morgan's abductors. If the ticket
were successful, its votes were to go to Wirt or Clay, whichever they
might serve to elect. Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania was the Anti-Masonic
candidate for vice-president. In December, 1831, Clay had been nominated
for president with the loud enthusiasm which politicians often mistake
for widespread conviction. John Sergeant of Pennsylvania was the
candidate for vice-president. The Whig Convention made the Bank
re-charter the issue. The very ably conducted Young Men's National
Republican Convention, held at Washington in May, 1832, gave Clay a
noble greeting, made pilgrimage to the tomb of Washington there to seal
their solemn promises, and adopted a clear and brief platform for
protection, for internal improvements by the federal government, for the
binding force upon the coördinate branches of the government of the
Supreme Court's opinions as to constitutional questions, not only in
special cases formally adjudged, but upon general principles, and
against the manner in which the West Indian trade had been recovered.
They declared that "indiscriminate removal of public officers for a mere
difference of political opinion is a gross abuse of power, corrupting
the morals and dangerous to the liberties of the people of this
country."
Even more clearly than in the campaign of 1828 was the campaign of 1832
a legitimate political battle upon plain issues. The tariff bill of
1832, supported by both parties and approved by Jackson, prevented the
question of protection from being an issue, however ready the Whigs
might be, and however unready the Democrats, to give commercial
restrictions a theoretical approval. Except on the "spoils" question,
the later opinion of the United States has sustained the attitude of
Jackson's party and the popular verdict of 1832. The verdict was clear
enough. In spite of the Anti-Masonic fury, the numerous secessions from
the Jacksonian ranks, and some alarming journalistic defections,
especially of the New York "Courier and Enquirer" of James Watson Webb
and Mordecai M. Noah, the people of the United States continued to
believe in Jackson and the principles for which he stood. Upon the
popular vote Jackson and Van Buren received 687,502 votes against
530,189 votes for Clay and Wirt combined, a popular majority over both
of 157,313. In 1828 Jackson had had 647,276 votes and Adams 508,064, a
popular majority of 139,212. The increase in Jackson's popular majority
over two candidates instead of one was particularly significant in the
north and east. The majority in New York rose from 5350 to 13,601. In
Maine a minority of 6806 became a majority of 6087. In New Hampshire a
minority of 3212 became a majority of 6476. In Massachusetts a minority
of 23,860 was reduced to 18,458. In Rhode Island and Connecticut the
minorities were reduced. In New Jersey a minority of 1813 became a
majority of 463. The electoral vote was even more heavily against Clay.
He had but 49 votes to Jackson's 219. Wirt had the 7 votes of Vermont,
while South Carolina, beginning to step out of the Union, gave its 11
votes to John Floyd of Virginia. Clay carried only Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, Connecticut, Delaware, a part of Maryland, and his own
affectionate Kentucky. Van Buren received for vice-president the same
electoral vote as Jackson, except that the 30 votes of Pennsylvania went
to Wilkins, a Pennsylvanian. Sergeant had the same 49 votes as Clay,
Ellmaker the 7 votes of Vermont, and Henry Lee of Massachusetts the 11
votes of South Carolina.[11]
This popular triumph brought great glory to Jackson's second
inauguration. The glory was soon afterwards made greater and almost
universal by his bold attack upon nullification, and by the vigorous and
ringing yet dignified and even pathetic proclamation of January, 1833,
drafted by Edward Livingston, in which the President commanded
obedience to the law and entreated for loyalty to the Union. It could
not be overlooked that the treasonable attitude of South Carolina had
been taken by the portion of the Democratic party hostile to Van Buren.
In a peculiar way therefore he shared in Jackson's prestige.
[Illustration: Edward Livingston]
The election seemed to clarify some of the views of the administration.
They now dared to speak more explicitly. On his way to the inauguration,
Van Buren, declining a dinner at Philadelphia, recited with approval
what he called Jackson's repeated and earnest recommendations of "a
reduction of duties to the revenue standard." In his second inaugural
Jackson said that there should be exercised "by the general government
those powers only that are clearly delegated." In his message of
December, 1833, he again spoke of "the importance of abstaining from all
appropriations which are not absolutely required for the public
interests, and authorized by the powers clearly delegated to the United
States;" and this he said with the more emphasis because under the
compromise tariff of 1833 a large decrease in revenue was anticipated.
In September, 1833, was announced Jackson's refusal longer to deposit
the moneys of the government with the Bank of the United States. It is
plain that the dangers of the proposed deposits of the moneys in the
state banks were not appreciated. Van Buren at first opposed this
so-called "removal of the deposits." Kendall tells of an interview with
the Vice-President not long after his inauguration, and while he was a
guest at the White House. Van Buren then warmly remonstrated against the
continued agitation of the subject, after the resolution of the lower
House at the last session that the government deposits were safe with
the banks. Kendall replied that so certain to his mind was the success
of the Whig party at the next presidential election and the consequent
re-charter of the Bank, unless it were now stripped of the power which
the charge of the public moneys gave it, that if the Bank were to retain
the deposits he should consider further opposition useless and would lay
down his pen, leaving to others this question and all other politics. "I
can live," he said to the Vice-President, "under a corrupt despotism as
well as any other man by keeping out of its way, which I shall certainly
do." They parted in excitement. A few weeks later Van Buren confessed to
Kendall, "I had never thought seriously upon the deposit question until
after my conversation with you; I am now satisfied that you were right
and I was wrong." Kendall was sent to ascertain whether suitable state
banks would accept the deposits, and on what terms. While in New York
Van Buren, with McLane lately transferred from the Treasury to the State
Department, called on him and proposed that the order for the change in
the government depositories should take effect on the coming first of
January. The date being a month after the meeting of Congress, the
executive action would seem less defiant; and in the mean time the
friends of the administration could be more effectually united in
support of the measure. Kendall yielded to the proposition though
against his judgment, and wrote to the President in its favor. But
Jackson would not yield. Whether or not its first inspiration came from
Francis P. Blair or Kendall, the removal of the deposits was peculiarly
Jackson's own deed. The government moneys should not be left in the
hands of the chief enemy of his administration, to be loaned in its
discretion, that it might secure doubtful votes in Congress and the
support of presses pecuniarily weak. As the Bank's charter would expire
within three years, it was pointed out that the government ought to
prepare for it by withholding further deposits and gradually drawing out
the moneys then on deposit. Van Buren's assent was given, but probably
with no enthusiasm. He disliked the Bank heartily enough. The corrupting
danger of intrusting government moneys to a single private corporation
to loan in its discretion was clear. But a system of "pet banks" through
the States was too slight an improvement, if an improvement at all. And
any change would at least offend and alarm the richer classes. It is
impossible to say what effect upon the re-charter of the Bank and the
election of 1836 its continued possession of the deposits would have
had. Its tremendous power over credits doubtless gave it many votes of
administration congressmen. Possibly, as Jackson and Blair feared, it
might have secured enough to pass a re-charter over a veto. If it had
been thus re-chartered, it may be doubtful whether the blow to the
prestige of the administration might not have been serious enough to
elect a Whig in 1836. But it is not doubtful that Van Buren, and not
Jackson, was compelled to face the political results of this heroic and
imperfect measure.
Some financial disturbance took place in the winter of 1833-1834, which
was ascribed by the Whigs to the gradual transfer of the government
moneys from the United States Bank and its numerous branches to the
state banks. For political effect, this disturbance was greatly
exaggerated. Deputations visited Washington to bait Jackson. Memorial
after memorial enabled congressmen to make friends by complimenting the
enterprise and beauty of various towns, and to depict the utter misery
to which all their industries had been brought, solely by a gradual
transference throughout the United States of $10,000,000, from one set
of depositories to another. The removal, Webster said, had produced a
degree of evil that could not be borne. "A tottering state of credit,
cramped means, loss of property and loss of employment, doubts of the
condition of others, doubts of their own condition, constant fear of
failures and new explosions, and awful dread of the future"--all these
evils, "without hope of improvement or change," had resulted from the
removal. Clay was more precise in his absurdity. The property of the
country had been reduced, he declared, four hundred millions in value.
Addressing Van Buren in the Vice-President's chair, he begged him in a
burst of bathos to repair to the executive mansion and place before the
chief magistrate the naked and undisguised truth. "Go to him," he cried,
"and tell him without exaggeration, but in the language of truth and
sincerity, the actual condition of this bleeding country, ... of the
tears of helpless widows no longer able to earn their bread, and of
unclad and unfed orphans." Van Buren, in the story often quoted from
Benton, while thus apostrophized, looked respectfully and innocently at
Clay, as if treasuring up every word to be faithfully borne to the
President; and when Clay had finished, he called a senator to the chair,
went up to the eloquent and languishing Kentuckian, asked him for a
pinch of his fine maccoboy snuff, and walked away. But this frivolity
was not fancied everywhere. At a meeting in Philadelphia it was resolved
"that Martin Van Buren deserves and will receive the execrations of all
good men, should he shrink from the responsibility of conveying to
Andrew Jackson the message sent by the Honorable Henry Clay." The whole
agitation was hollow enough. Jackson was not far wrong in saying in his
letter to Hamilton of January 2, 1834: "There is no real general
distress. It is only with those who live by borrowing, trade or loans,
and the gamblers in stocks." The business of the country was not
injured by refusing to let Nicholas Biddle and his subordinates, rather
than other men, lend for gain ten millions of government money. But
business was soon to be injured by permitting the state banks to do the
same thing. The change did not, as Jackson thought, "leave all to trade
on their own credit and capital without any interference by the general
government except using its powers by giving through its mint a specie
currency."
Van Buren took a permanent residence in Washington after his
inauguration as vice-president. He now held a rank accorded to no other
vice-president before or since. He was openly adopted by the American
Augustus, and seemed already to wear the title of Cæsar. As no other
vice-president has been, he was the chief adviser of the President, and
as much the second officer of the government in power as in the dignity
of his station. His only chance of promotion did not lie in the
President's death. That the President should live until after the
election of 1836 was safely over, Van Buren had every selfish motive as
well as many generous motives to desire. His ambition was no-wise
disagreeable to his chief. To see that ambition satisfied would gratify
both patriotic and personal wishes of the tempestuous but not erratic
old man in the White House. For there was the utmost intimacy and
confidence between the two men. Van Buren had every reason, personal,
political, and patriotic, to desire the entire success of the
administration. He was not only the second member of it; but in his
jealous and anxious watch over it he was preserving his own patrimony.
His ability and experience were far greater than those of any other
of its members. After Taney had been transferred from the
attorney-general's office to the Treasury, in September, 1833, to make
the transfer of the deposits, Jackson appointed Benjamin F. Butler, Van
Buren's intimate friend, his former pupil and partner, to Taney's place.
Louis McLane, Van Buren's predecessor in the mission to England, and his
successor, after Edward Livingston, in the State Department, resigned
the latter office in the summer of 1834. He had disapproved Jackson's
removal of the deposits; he believed it would be unpopular, and the
presidential bee was buzzing in his bonnet. John Forsyth of Georgia, an
admirer of Van Buren, and one of his defenders in the senatorial debate
at the time of his rejection, then took the first place in the cabinet.
Van Buren accompanied Jackson during part of the latter's visit to the
Northeast in the summer of 1833, when as the adversary of nullification
his popularity was at its highest, so high indeed that Harvard College,
to Adams's disgust, made him a Doctor of Laws. But the exciting events
of Jackson's second term hardly belong, with the information we yet
have, to Van Buren's biography. They have been often and admirably told
in the lives of Jackson and Clay, the seeming chiefs on the two sides of
the long encounter.
Van Buren's nomination for the presidency, bitter as the opposition to
it still was, came as matter of course. The large and serious secession
of Calhoun and his followers from the Jacksonian party was followed by
the later and more serious defection of the Democrats who made a rival
Democratic candidate of Hugh L. White, a senator from Tennessee, and
formerly a warm friend and adherent of Jackson. It was in White's behalf
that Davy Crockett wrote, in 1835, his entertaining though scurrilous
life of Van Buren. Jackson's friendship for Van Buren, Crockett said,
had arisen from his hatred to Calhoun, of which Van Buren, who was
"secret, sly, selfish, cold, calculating, distrustful, treacherous," had
taken advantage. Jackson was now about to give up "an old, long-tried,
faithful friend, Judge White, who stuck to him through all his
tribulations, helped to raise his fortunes from the beginning;
adventurers together in a new country, friends in youth and in old age,
fought together in the same battles, risked the same dangers, starved
together in the same deserts, merely to gratify this revengeful
feeling." Van Buren was "as opposite to General Jackson as dung is to a
diamond."
It is difficult to find any justification for White's candidacy. He was
a modest, dignified senator whose popularity in the Democratic Southwest
rendered him available to Van Buren's enemies. But neither his abilities
nor his services to the public or his party would have suggested him
for the presidency. Doubtless in him as with other modest, dignified
men in history, there burned ambition whose fire never burst into flame,
and which perhaps for its suppression was the more troublesome. He
consented, apparently only for personal reasons, to head the Southern
schism from Jackson and Van Buren; and in his political destruction he
paid the penalty usually and justly visited upon statesmen who, through
personal hatred or jealousy or ambition, break party ties without a real
difference of principle. Benton said that White consented to run
"because in his advanced age he did the act which, with all old men, is
an experiment, and with most of them an unlucky one. He married again;
and this new wife having made an immense stride from the head of a
boarding-house table to the head of a senator's table, could see no
reason why she should not take one step more, and that comparatively
short, and arrive at the head of the presidential table."
The Democratic-Republican Convention met at Baltimore on May 20, 1835,
nearly eighteen months before the election. There were over five hundred
delegates from twenty-three States. South Carolina, Alabama, and
Illinois were not represented. Party organization was still very
imperfect. The modern system of precise and proportional representations
was not yet known. The States which approved the convention sent
delegates in such number as suited their convenience. Maryland, the
convention being held in its chief city, sent 183 delegates; Virginia,
close at hand, sent 102; New York, although the home of the proposed
candidate, sent but 42, the precise number of its electoral votes.
Tennessee sent but one; Mississippi and Missouri, only two each. In
making the nominations, the delegates from each State, however numerous
or few, cast a number of votes equal to its representation in the
electoral college. The 183 delegates from Maryland cast therefore but
ten votes; while the single delegate from Tennessee, much courted man
that he must have been, cast 15.
It was the second national convention of the party. The members
assembled at the "place of worship of the Fourth Presbyterian Church."
Instead of the firm and now long-recognized opening by the chairman of
the national committee provided by the well-geared machinery of our
later politics, George Kremer of Pennsylvania first "stated the objects
of the meeting." Andrew Stevenson of Virginia, the president, felt it
necessary in his opening speech to defend the still novel party
institution. Efforts, he said, would be made at the approaching election
to divide the Republican party and possibly to defeat an election by the
people in their primary colleges. Their venerable president had advised,
but in vain, constitutional amendments securing this election to the
people, and preventing its falling to the House of Representatives. A
national convention was the best means of concentrating the popular
will, the only defense against a minority party. It was recommended by
prudence, sanctioned by the precedent of 1832, and had proved effectual
by experience. They must guard against local jealousies. "What,
gentlemen," he said, "would you think of the sagacity and prudence of
that individual who would propose the expedient of cutting up the noble
ship that each man might seize his own plank and steer for himself?" The
inquiries must be: Who can best preserve the unity of the Democratic
party? Who best understands the principles and motives of our
government? Who will carry out the principles of the Jeffersonian era
and General Jackson's administration? These demands clearly enough
pointed out Van Buren. Prayers were then offered up "in a fervent,
feeling manner." The rule requiring two thirds of the whole number of
votes for a nomination was again adopted, because "it would have a more
imposing effect," though nearly half the convention, 210 to 231, thought
a majority was more "according to Democratic principles." Niles records
that the formal motion to proceed to the nomination caused a smile among
the members, so well settled was it that Van Buren was to be the
nominee. He received the unanimous vote of the convention. A strong
fight was made for the vice-presidency between the friends of Richard M.
Johnson of Kentucky and William C. Rives of Virginia. The former
received barely the two-thirds vote. The Virginia delegation upon the
defeat of the latter did what would now be a sacrilegious laying of
violent hands on the ark. Party regularity was not yet so chief a deity
in the political temple. The Virginians had, they said, an unpleasant
duty to perform; but they would not shrink from it. They would not
support Johnson for the vice-presidency; they had no confidence in his
principles or his character; they had come to the convention to support
principles, not men; they had already gone as far as possible in
supporting Mr. Van Buren, and they would not go further. Not long
afterwards Rives left the party. No platform was adopted; but a
committee was appointed to prepare an address to the people.
The Whigs nominated General William Henry Harrison for the presidency
and Francis Granger for the vice-presidency. They had but a forlorn hope
of direct success. But the secession from the Democratic party of the
nullifiers, and the more serious secession in the Southwest headed by
White, made it seem possible to throw the election into the House. John
Tyler of Virginia was the nominee of the bolting Democrats, for
vice-president upon the ticket with White. The Whigs of Massachusetts
preferred their unequaled orator; for they then and afterwards failed to
see, as the admirers of some other famous Americans have failed to see,
that other qualities make a truer equipment for the first office of the
land than this noble art of oratory. South Carolina would vote against
Calhoun's victorious adversary; but she would not, in the first instance
at least, vote with the Whig heretics.
It was a disorderly campaign, lasting a year and a half, and never
reaching the supreme excitement of 1840 or 1844. The opposition did not
deserve success. It had neither political principle nor discipline.
Calhoun described the Van Buren men as "a powerful faction (party it
cannot be called) held together by the hopes of public plunder and
marching under a banner whereon is written 'to the victors belong the
spoils.'" There was in the rhetorical exaggeration enough truth perhaps
to make an issue. But the political removals under Jackson were only
incidentally touched in the canvass. Amos Kendall, then
postmaster-general, towards the close of the canvass wrote a letter
which, coming from perhaps the worst of Jackson's "spoils-men," shows
how far public sentiment was even then from justifying the political
interference of federal officers in elections. Samuel McKean, senator
from Pennsylvania, had written to Kendall complaining that three
employees of the post-office had used the time and influence of their
official stations to affect elections, by written communications and
personal importunities. This, he said, was "a loathsome public
nuisance," though admitting that since Kendall became postmaster-general
he had given no cause of complaint. Kendall replied on September 27,
1836, that though it was difficult to draw the line between the rights
of the citizen and the assumptions of the officeholder, he thought it
dangerous to our institutions that government employees should "assume
to direct public opinion and control the results of elections in the
general or state government." His advice to members of his department
was to keep as clear from political strife as possible, "to shun mere
political meetings, or, if present, to avoid taking any part in their
proceedings, to decline acting as members of political committees or
conventions." In making appointments he would prefer political friends;
but he "would not remove a good postmaster and honest man for a mere
difference of political opinion." The complaints were for offenses
committed under his predecessor; one of the three offenders had left the
service; the other two had been free from criticism for seventeen
months. There can be little doubt that the standard thus set up in
public was higher than the general practice of Kendall or his
subordinates; but the letter showed that public sentiment had not yet
grown callous to this odious abuse.
Jackson did not permit the presidential office to restrain him from most
vigorous and direct advocacy of Van Buren's claims. He begged Tennessee
not to throw herself "into the embraces of the Federalists, the
Nullifiers, or the new-born Whigs." They were living, he said, in evil
times, when political apostasy had become frequent, when public men
(referring to White, John Tyler, and others who had gone with them) were
abandoning principle and their party attachment for selfish ends. To
this it was replied that the president's memory was treacherous; that he
had forgotten his early friends, and listened only "to the voice of
flattery and the siren voice of sycophancy." The dissenting Republicans
affected to support administration measures, but protested against
Jackson's dictating the succession. They were then, they said, "what
they were in 1828,--Jacksonians following the creed of that apostle of
liberty, Thomas Jefferson."
Without principle as was this formidable secession, it is impossible to
feel much more respect for the declaration of principles made for the
Whig candidates. Clay, the chief spokesman, complained that Jackson had
killed with the pocket veto the land bill, which proposed to distribute
the proceeds of the sales of public lands among the States according to
their federal population (which in the South included three fifths of
the slaves), to be used for internal improvements, education, or other
purposes. He pointed out, with "mixed feelings of pity and ridicule,"
that the few votes in the Senate against the "deposit bill," which was
to distribute the surplus among the States, had been cast by
administration senators, since deserted by their numerous followers who
demanded distribution. He rejoiced that Kentucky was to get a million
and a half from the federal treasury. He denounced Jackson's "tampering
with the currency" by the treasury order requiring public lands to be
paid for in specie and not in bank-notes. Jackson's treatment of the
Cherokees seemed the only point of attack apart from his financial
policy.
The real party platforms this year were curiously found in letters of
the candidates to Sherrod Williams, an individual by no means
distinguished. On April 7, 1836, he addressed a circular letter to
Harrison, Van Buren, and White, asking each of them his opinions on five
points: Did he approve a distribution of the surplus revenue among the
States according to their federal population, for such uses as they
might appoint? Did he approve a like distribution of the proceeds of the
sales of public lands? Did he approve federal appropriations to improve
navigable streams above ports of entry? Did he approve another bank
charter, if it should become necessary to preserve the revenue and
finances of the nation? Did he believe it constitutional to expunge from
the records of a house of Congress any of its proceedings? The last
question referred to Benton's agitation for a resolution expunging from
the records of the Senate the resolution of 1834, condemning Jackson's
removal of the deposits as a violation of the Constitution. Harrison,
for whose benefit the questions were put, returned what was supposed to
be the popular affirmative to the first three inquiries. The fourth he
answered in the affirmative, and the fifth in the negative. Van Buren
promptly pointed out to Williams that he doubted the right of an
elector, who had already determined to oppose him, to put inquiries
"with the sole view of exposing, at his own time and the mode he may
select, the opinions of the candidate to unfriendly criticism," but
nevertheless promised a reply after Congress had risen. This delay he
deemed proper, because during the session he might, as president of the
Senate, have to vote upon some of the questions. Williams replied that
the excuse for delay was "wholly and entirely unsatisfactory." Van Buren
curtly said that he should wait as he had stated. On August 8, not far
from the time nowadays selected by presidential candidates for their
letters of acceptance, Van Buren addressed a letter to Williams, the
prolixity of which seems a fault, but which, when newspapers were fewer
and shorter, and reading was less multifarious, secured perhaps, from
its length, a more ample and deliberate study from the masses of the
people.
For clearness and explicitness, and for cogency of argument, this letter
has few equals among those written by presidential candidates. This most
conspicuous of Van Buren's preëlection utterances has been curiously
ignored by those who have accused him of "non-committalism." Congress,
he said, does not possess the power under the Constitution to raise
money for distribution among the States. If a distinction were
justifiable, and of this he was not satisfied, between raising money for
such a purpose and the distribution of an unexpected surplus, then the
distribution ought not to be attempted without previous amendment of the
Constitution. Any system of distribution must introduce vices into both
the state and federal governments. It would be a great misfortune if the
distribution bill already passed should be deemed a pledge of like
legislation in the future. So much of the letter has since largely had
the approval of American sentiment, and was only too soon emphasized by
the miserable results of the bill thus condemned. The utterance was
clear and wise; and it was far more. It was a singularly bold attitude
to assume, not only against the views of the opposition, but against a
measure passed by Van Buren's own party friends and signed by Jackson, a
measure having a vast and cheap popularity throughout the States which
were supposed, and with too much truth, not to see that for what they
took out of the federal treasury they would simply have to put so much
more in. "I hope and believe," said Van Buren, "that the public voice
will demand that this species of legislation shall terminate with the
emergency that produced it." To the inquiry whether he would approve a
distribution among the States of the proceeds of selling the public
lands, Van Buren plainly said that if he were elected he would not favor
the policy. These moneys, he declared, should be applied "to the general
wants of the treasury." To the inquiry whether he would approve
appropriations to improve rivers above ports of entry, he quoted with
approval Jackson's declaration in the negative. He would not go beyond
expenditures for lighthouses, buoys, beacons, piers, and the removal of
obstructions in rivers and harbors below such ports.
Upon the bank question, too, he left his interrogator in no doubt. If
the people wished a national bank as a permanent branch of their
institutions, or if they desired a chief magistrate who as to that would
consider it his duty to watch the course of events and give or withhold
his assent according to the supposed necessity, then another than
himself must be chosen. And he added: "If, on the other hand, with this
seasonable, explicit, and published avowal before them, a majority of
the people of the United States shall nevertheless bestow upon me their
suffrages for the office of president, skepticism itself must cease to
doubt, and admit their will to be that there shall not be any Bank of
the United States until the people, in the exercise of their sovereign
authority, see fit to give to Congress the right to establish one." It
was high time "that the federal government confine itself to the
creation of coin, and that the States afford it a fair chance for
circulation." With the power of either house of Congress to expunge from
its records, he pointed out that the President could have no concern.
But rather than avoid an answer, he said that he regarded the passage of
Colonel Benton's resolution as "an act of justice to a faithful and
greatly injured public servant, not only constitutional in itself, but
imperiously demanded by a proper respect for the well-known will of the
people."
This justly famous letter made up for the rather jejune and conventional
letter of acceptance written a year before. Not concealing his
sensitiveness to the charge of intrigue and management, Van Buren had
then appealed to the members of the Democratic convention, to the
"editors and politicians throughout the Union" who had preferred him, to
his "private correspondents and intimate friends," and to those, once
his "friends and associates, whom the fluctuations of political life"
had "converted into opponents." No man, he declared, could truly say
that he had solicited political support, or entered or sought to enter
into any arrangement to procure him the nomination he had now received,
or to elevate him to the chief magistracy. There was no public question
of interest upon which his opinions had not been made known by his
official acts, his own public avowals, and the authorized explanations
of his friends. The last was a touch of the frankness which Van Buren
used in vain to stop his enemies' accusations of indirectness. Instead
of shielding himself, as public men usually and naturally do, behind
Butler, the attorney-general, and others who had spoken for him, he
directly assumed responsibility for their "explanations." He considered
himself selected to carry out the principles and policy of Jackson's
administration, "happy," he said, "if I shall be able to perfect the
work which he has so gloriously begun." He closed with the theoretical
declaration which consistently ran through his chief utterances, that,
though he would "exercise the powers which of right belong to the
general government in a spirit of moderation and brotherly love," he
would on the other hand "religiously abstain from the assumption of such
as have not been delegated by the Constitution."
Upon still another question Van Buren explicitly declared himself before
the election. In 1835, the year of his nomination, appeared the cloud
like a man's hand which was not to leave the sky until out of it had
come a terrific, complete, and beneficent convulsion. Then openly and
seriously began the work of the extreme anti-slavery men. Clay pointed
out in his speech on colonization in 1836 that "this fanatical class" of
abolitionists "were none of your old-fashioned gradual emancipationists,
such as Franklin, Rush, and the other wise and benevolent Pennsylvanians
who framed the scheme for the gradual removal of slavery." He was right.
Many of the new abolitionists were on the verge, or beyond it, of quiet
respectability. Educated, intelligent, and even wealthy as some of them
were, the abolitionists did not belong to the always popular class of
well-to-do folks content with the institutions of society. Most virtuous
and religious people saw in them only wicked disturbers of the peace.
All the comfortable, philosophical opponents of slavery believed that
such wild and reckless agitators would, if encouraged, prostrate the
pillars of civilization, and bring on anarchy, bloodshed, and servile
wars worse even to the slaves than the wrongs of their slavery. But to
the members of the abolition societies which now rose, this was no
abstract or economical question. They were undaunted by the examples of
Washington and Jefferson and Patrick Henry, who, whatever they said or
hoped against slavery, nevertheless held human beings in bondage; or of
Adams and other Northern adherents of the Constitution, who for a season
at least had joined in a pact to protect the infamous slave traffic. To
them, talk of the sacred Union, or of the great advance which negroes
had made in slavery and would not have made in freedom, was idle. With
unquenched vision they saw the horrid picture of the individual slave
life, not the general features of slavery; they saw the chain, the lash,
the brutalizing and contrived ignorance; they saw the tearing apart of
families, with their love and hope, precisely like those of white men
and women, crushed out by detestable cruelty; they saw the beastly
dissoluteness inevitable to the plantation system. Nor would they be
still, whatever the calm preaching of political wisdom, whatever the
sincere and weighty insolence of men of wisdom and uprightness and
property. Northern men of 1888 must look with a real shame upon the
behavior of their fathers and grandfathers towards the narrow, fiery,
sometimes almost hateful, apostles of human rights; and with even
greater shame upon the talk of the sacred right of white men to make
brutes of black men, a right to be treated, as the best of Americans
were so fond of saying, with a tender and affectionate regard for the
feelings of the white slave-masters. About the same time began the
continual presentation to Congress of petitions for the abolition of
slavery, and the foolish but Heaven-ordained attack of slaveholders on
the right of petition. The agitation rapidly flaming up was far
different from the practical and truly political discussion over the
Missouri Compromise fifteen years before.
As yet, indeed, the matter was not politically important, except in the
attack upon Van Buren made by the Southern members of his party. Sixteen
years before, he had voted against admitting more slave States. He had
aided the reëlection of Rufus King, a determined enemy of slavery. He
had strongly opposed Calhoun and the Southern nullifiers. In the
"Evening Post" and the "Plain-dealer" of New York appeared from 1835 to
1837 the really noble series of editorials by William Leggett, strongly
proclaiming the right of free discussion and the essential wrong of
slavery; although sometimes he condemned the fanaticism now aroused as
"a species of insanity." The "Post" strongly supported Van Buren, and
was declared at the South to be his chosen organ for addressing the
public. It denied, however, that Van Buren had any "connection in any
way or shape with the doctrines or movements of the abolitionists." But
such denials were widely disbelieved by the slaveholders. It was
declared that he had a deep agency in the Missouri question which fixed
upon him a support of abolition; his denials were answered by the
anti-slavery petitions from twenty thousand memorialists in his own
State of New York, and by the support brought him by the enemies of
slavery. To all this the Whig "dough-faces" listened with entire
satisfaction. They must succeed, if at all, through Southern distrust or
dislike of Van Buren. In July, 1834, he had publicly written to Samuel
Gwin of Mississippi that his opinions upon the power of Congress over
slave property in the Southern States were so well understood by his
friends that he was surprised that an attempt should be made to deceive
the public about them; that slavery was in his judgment "exclusively
under the control of the state governments;" that no "contrary opinion
to an extent deserving consideration" was entertained in any part of the
United States; and that, without a change of the Constitution, no
interference with it in a State could be had "even at the instance of
either or of all the slaveholding States." But, it was said, "Tappan,
Garrison, and every other fanatic and abolitionist in the United States
not entirely run mad, will grant that." And, indeed, Abraham Lincoln was
nominated twenty-four years later upon a like declaration of "the right
of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions
according to its own judgment exclusively."
The District of Columbia, however, was one bit of territory in which
Congress doubtless had the power to abolish slavery. In our better days
it would seem to have been a natural enough impulse to seek to make free
soil at least of the capital of the land of freedom. But the District
lay between and was completely surrounded by two slave States.
Washington had derived its laws and customs from Maryland. If the
District were free while Virginia and Maryland were slave, it was feared
with much reason that there would arise most dangerous collisions. Its
perpetual slavery was an unforeseen part of the price Alexander Hamilton
had paid to procure the federal assumption of the war debts of the
States. In Van Buren's time there was almost complete acquiescence in
the proposition that, though slavery had in the District no
constitutional protection, it must still be deemed there a part of the
institution in Virginia and Maryland. How clear was the understanding
may be seen from language of undoubted authority. John Quincy Adams had
hitherto labored for causes which have but cold and formal interest to
posterity. But now, leaving the field of statesmanship, where his glory
had been meagre, and, fortunately for his reputation, with the shackles
of its responsibility no longer upon him, the generous and exalted love
of humanity began to touch his later years with the abiding splendor of
heroic and far-seeing courage. He became the first of the great
anti-slavery leaders. He entered for all time the group of men,
Garrison, Lovejoy, Giddings, Phillips, Sumner, and Beecher, to whom so
largely we owe the second and nobler salvation of our land. But Adams
was emphatically opposed to the abolition of slavery in the District.
In December, 1831, the first month of his service in the House, on
presenting a petition for such abolition, he declared that he should not
support it. In February, 1837, a few days before Van Buren's
inauguration, there occurred the scene when Adams, with grim and
dauntless irony, brought to the House the petition of some slaves
against abolition. In his speech then he said: "From the day I entered
this House down to the present moment, I have invariably here, and
invariably elsewhere, declared my opinions to be adverse to the prayer
of petitions which call for the abolition of slavery in the District of
Columbia."
It is a curious but inevitable impeachment of the impartiality of
history that for a declaration precisely the same as that made by a
great and recognized apostle of anti-slavery, and made by that apostle
in a later year, Van Buren has been denounced as a truckler to the
South, a "Northern man with Southern principles." Van Buren's
declaration was made, not like Adams's in the easy freedom of an
independent member of Congress from an anti-slavery district, but under
the constraint of a presidential nomination partially coming from the
South. In the canvass before his election, Van Buren gave perfectly fair
notice of his intention. "I must go," he said, "into the presidential
chair the inflexible and uncompromising opponent of every attempt on the
part of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia against
the wishes of the slaveholding States." This was the attitude, not only
of Van Buren and Adams, but of every statesman North and South, and of
the entire North itself with insignificant exceptions. The former's
explicit declaration was doubtless aimed at the pro-slavery jealousy
stirred up against himself in the South; it was intended to have
political effect. But it was none the less the unambiguous expression of
an opinion sincerely shared with the practically unanimous sense of the
country.
A skillful effort was made to embarrass Van Buren with his Southern
supporters over a more difficult question. The anti-slavery societies at
the North sought to circulate their literature at the South. So strong
an enemy of slavery as William Leggett condemned this as "fanatical
obstinacy," obviously tending to stir up at the South insurrections,
whose end no one could foresee, and as the fruit of desperation and
extravagance. The Southern States by severe laws forbade the circulation
of the literature. Its receipts from Southern post-offices led to great
excitement and even violence. In August, 1835, Kendall, the
postmaster-general, was appealed to by the postmaster at Charleston,
South Carolina, for advice whether he should distribute papers
"inflammatory, and incendiary, and insurrectionary in the highest
degree," papers whose very custody endangered the mail. Kendall, in an
extraordinary letter, said that he had no legal authority to prohibit
the delivery of papers on account of their character, but that he was
not prepared to direct the delivery at Charleston of papers such as were
described. Gouverneur, the postmaster at New York, being then appealed
to by his Charleston brother, declined to forward papers mailed by the
American Anti-Slavery Society. This dangerous usurpation was defended
upon the principle of _salus populi suprema lex_.
In December, 1835, Jackson called the attention of Congress to the
circulation of "inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of the
slaves" (as they used to call the desire of black men to be free),
"calculated to stimulate them to insurrection and produce all the
horrors of a servile war." A bill was introduced making it unlawful for
any postmaster knowingly to deliver any printed or pictorial paper
touching the subject of slavery in States by whose laws their
circulation was prohibited. Webster condemned the bill as a federal
violation of the freedom of the press. Clay thought it unconstitutional,
vague, indefinite, and unnecessary, as the States could lay hold of
citizens taking such publications from post-offices within their
borders. Benton and other senators, several of them Democrats, and seven
from slaveholding States, voted against the bill, because they were, so
Benton said, "tired of the eternal cry of dissolving the Union, did not
believe in it, and would not give a repugnant vote to avoid the trial."
The debate did not reach a very exalted height. The question was by no
means free from doubt. Anti-slavery papers probably were, as the
Southerners said, "incendiary" to their States. Slavery depended upon
ignorance and fear. The federal post-office no doubt was intended, as
Kendall argued, to be a convenience to the various States, and not an
offense against their codes of morality. There has been little
opposition to the present prohibition of the use of the post-office for
obscene literature, or, to take a better illustration, for the circulars
of lotteries which are lawful in some States but not in others.
When the bill came to a vote in the Senate, although there was really a
substantial majority against it, a tie was skillfully arranged to compel
Van Buren, as Vice-President, to give the casting vote. White, the
Southern Democratic candidate so seriously menacing him, was in the
Senate, and voted for the bill. Van Buren must, it was supposed, offend
the pro-slavery men by voting against the bill, or offend the North and
perhaps bruise his conscience by voting for it. When the roll was being
called, Van Buren, so Benton tells us, was out of the chair, walking
behind the colonnade at the rear of the vice-president's seat. Calhoun,
fearful lest he might escape the ordeal, eagerly asked where he was, and
told the sergeant-at-arms to look for him. But Van Buren was ready, and
at once stepped to his chair and voted for the bill. His close friend,
Silas Wright of New York, also voted for it. Benton says he deemed both
the votes to be political and given from policy. So they probably were.
To Van Buren all the fire-eating measures of Calhoun and the pro-slavery
men were most distasteful. He probably thought the bill would do more to
increase than allay agitation at the North. Walter Scott, when the
prince regent toasted him as the author of "Waverley," feeling that even
royal highness had no right in a numerous company to tear away the long
kept and valuable secrecy of "the great Unknown," rose and gravely said
to his host: "Sire, I am not the author of 'Waverley.'" There were, he
thought, questions which did not entitle the questioner to be told the
truth. So Van Buren may have thought there were political interrogations
which, being made for sheer party purposes, might rightfully be answered
for like purposes. Since the necessity for his vote was contrived to
injure him and not to help or hurt the bill, he probably felt justified
so to vote as best to frustrate the design against him. This persuasive
casuistry usually overcomes a candidate for great office in the stress
of conflict. But lenient as may be the judgment of party supporters, and
distressing as may seem the necessity, the untruth pretty surely returns
to plague the statesman. Van Buren never deserved to be called a
"Northern man with Southern principles." But this vote came nearer to an
excuse for the epithet than did any other act of his career.
The election proved how large was the Southern defection. Georgia and
Tennessee, which had been almost unanimous for Jackson in 1836, now
voted for White. Mississippi, where in that year there had been no
opposition, and Louisiana, where Jackson had eight votes to Clay's five,
now gave Van Buren majorities of but three hundred each. In North
Carolina Jackson had had 24,862 votes, and Clay only 4563; White got
23,626 to 26,910 for Van Buren. In Virginia Jackson had three times the
vote of Clay; Van Buren had but one fourth more votes than White. In
Benton's own State, so nearly unanimous for Jackson, White had over 7000
to Van Buren's 11,000. But in the Northeast Van Buren was very strong.
Jackson's majority in Maine of 6087 became a majority of 7751 for Van
Buren. New Hampshire, the home of Hill and Woodbury, had given Jackson a
majority of 6376; it gave Van Buren over 12,000. The Democratic majority
in New York rose from less than 14,000 to more than 28,000, and this
majority was rural and not urban. The majority in New York city was but
about 1000. Of the fifty-six counties, Van Buren carried forty-two,
while nowadays his political successors rarely carry more than twenty.
Connecticut had given a majority of 6000 for Clay; it gave Van Buren
over 500. Rhode Island had voted for Clay; it now voted for Van Buren.
Massachusetts was carried for Webster by 42,247 against 34,474 for Van
Buren; Clay had had 33,003 to only 14,545 for Jackson. But New Jersey
shifted from Jackson to Harrison, although a very close State at both
elections; and in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, Van Buren
fell far behind Jackson. The popular vote, omitting South Carolina,
where the legislature chose the electors, was as follows:--
New Middle
England. States. South. West. Total.
Van Buren 112,480 310,203 141,942 198,053 762,678
Harrison, White,
and Webster 106,169 282,376 138,059 209,046 735,650
The electoral votes were thus divided:
New Middle
England States. South. West. Total.
Van Buren 29 72 57 12 170
Harrison 7 21 -- 45 73
Webster 14 -- -- -- 14
White -- -- 26 -- 26
Van Buren thus came to the presidency supported by the great Middle
States and New England against the West, with the South divided.
Omitting the uncontested reëlection of Monroe in 1820, and the almost
uncontested reëlection of Jefferson in 1804, Van Buren was the first
Democratic candidate for president who carried New England. He had there
a clear majority in both the electoral and the popular vote. Nor has any
Democrat since Van Buren obtained a majority of the popular vote in that
strongly thinking and strongly prejudiced community. Pierce, against the
feeble Whig candidacy of Scott, carried its electoral vote in 1852, but
by a minority of its popular vote, and only because of the large Free
Soil vote for Hale. No other Democrat since 1852 has had any electoral
vote from New England outside of Connecticut. Virginia refused its vote
to Johnson, who, in the failure of either candidate to receive a
majority of the electoral vote, was chosen vice-president by the Senate.
When the electoral votes were formally counted before the houses of
Congress, the result, so contemporary record informs us, was "received
with perfect decorum by the House and galleries." Enthusiasm was going
out with Jackson, to come back again with Harrison. Van Buren's election
was the success of intellectual convictions, and not the triumph of
sentiment. He had come to power, as "the House and galleries" well knew,
in "perfect decorum." Not a single one of the generous but sometimes
cheap and fruitless rushes of feeling occasionally so potent in politics
had helped him to the White House. Not that he was ungenerous or lacking
in feeling. Very far from it; few men have inspired so steady and deep a
political attachment among men of strong character and patriotic
aspirations. But neither in his person nor in his speech or conduct was
there anything of the strong picturesqueness which impresses masses of
men, who must be touched, if at all, by momentary glimpses of great men
or by vivid phrases which become current about them. His election was no
more than a triumph of disciplined good sense and political wisdom.