REJECTION OF MR. VAN BUREN, MINISTER TO ENGLAND.
At the period of the election of General Jackson to the Presidency,
four gentlemen stood prominent in the political ranks, each
indicated by his friends for the succession, and each willing to be
the General's successor. They were Messrs. Clay and Webster, and
Messrs. Calhoun and Van Buren; the two former classing politically
against General Jackson--the two latter with him. But an event
soon occurred to override all political distinction, and to bring
discordant and rival elements to work together for a common object.
That event was the appointment of Mr. Van Buren to be Secretary
of State--a post then looked upon as a stepping-stone to the
Presidency--and the imputed predilection of General Jackson for
him. This presented him as an obstacle in the path of the other
three, and which the interest of each required to be got out of
the way. The strife first, and soon, began in the cabinet, where
Mr. Calhoun had several friends; and Mr. Van Buren, seeing that
General Jackson's administration was likely to be embarrassed on
his account, determined to resign his post--having first seen
the triumph of the new administration in the recovery of the
British West India trade, and the successful commencement of other
negotiations, which settled all outstanding difficulties with other
nations, and shed such lustre upon Jackson's diplomacy. He made
known his design to the President, and his wish to retire from the
cabinet--did so--received the appointment of minister to London, and
immediately left the United States; and the cabinet, having been
from the beginning without harmony or cohesion, was dissolved--some
resigning voluntarily, the rest under requisition--as already
related in the chapter on the dissolution of the cabinet. The
voluntary resigning members were classed as friends to Mr. Van
Buren, the involuntary as opposed to him, and two of them (Messrs.
Ingham and Branch) as friends to Mr. Calhoun; and became, of course,
alienated from General Jackson. I was particularly grieved at this
breach between Mr. Branch and the President, having known him from
boyhood--been school-fellows together, and being well acquainted
with his inviolable honor and long and faithful attachment to
General Jackson. It was the complete extinction of the cabinet, and
a new one was formed.
Mr. Van Buren had nothing to do with this dissolution, of which
General Jackson has borne voluntary and written testimony, to be
used in this chapter; and also left behind him a written account
of the true cause, now first published in this Thirty Years'
View, fully exonerating Mr. Van Buren from all concern in that
event, and showing his regret that it had occurred. But the whole
catastrophe was charged upon him by his political opponents, and
for the unworthy purpose of ousting the friends of Mr. Calhoun, and
procuring a new set of members entirely devoted to his interest.
This imputation was negatived by his immediate departure from the
country, setting out at once upon his mission, without awaiting the
action of the Senate on his nomination. This was in the summer of
1831. Early in the ensuing session--at its very commencement, in
fact--his nomination was sent in, and it was quickly perceptible
that there was to be an attack upon him--a combined one; the three
rival statesmen acting in concert, and each backed by all his
friends. No one outside of the combination, myself alone excepted,
could believe it would be successful. I saw they were masters of
the nomination from the first day, and would reject it when they
were ready to exhibit a case of justification to the country: and so
informed General Jackson from an early period in the session. The
numbers were sufficient: the difficulty was to make up a case to
satisfy the people; and that was found to be a tedious business.
Fifty days were consumed in these preliminaries--to be precise,
fifty-one; and that in addition to months of preparation before
the Senate met. The preparation was long, but the attack vigorous;
and when commenced, the business was finished in two days. There
were about a dozen set speeches against him, from as many different
speakers--about double the number that spoke against Warren
Hastings--and but four off-hand replies for him; and it was evident
that the three chiefs had brought up all their friends to the
work. It was an unprecedented array of numbers and talent against
one individual, and he absent,--and of such amenity of manners as
usually to disarm political opposition of all its virulence. The
causes of objection were supposed to be found in four different
heads of accusation; each of which was elaborately urged:
1. The instructions drawn up and signed by Mr. Van Buren as
Secretary of State, under the direction of the President, and
furnished to Mr. McLane, for his guidance in endeavoring to reopen
the negotiation for the West India trade.
2. Making a breach of friendship between the first and second
officers of the government--President Jackson and Vice-President
Calhoun--for the purpose of thwarting the latter, and helping
himself to the Presidency.
3. Breaking up the cabinet for the same purpose.
4. Introducing the system of "proscription" (removal from office for
opinion's sake), for the same purpose.
A formal motion was made by Mr. Holmes, of Maine, to raise a
committee with power to send for persons and papers, administer
oaths, receive sworn testimony, and report it, with the committee's
opinion, to the Senate; but this looked so much like preferring an
impeachment, as well as trying it, that the procedure was dropped;
and all reliance was placed upon the numerous and elaborate
speeches to be delivered, all carefully prepared, and intended
for publication, though delivered in secret session. Rejection of
the nomination was not enough--a killing off in the public mind
was intended; and therefore the unusual process of the elaborate
preparation and intended publication of the speeches. All the
speakers went through an excusatory formula, repeated with equal
precision and gravity; abjuring all sinister motives; declaring
themselves to be wholly governed by a sense of public duty;
describing the pain which they felt at arraigning a gentleman
whose manners and deportment were so urbane; and protesting that
nothing but a sense of duty to the country could force them to the
reluctant performance of such a painful task. The accomplished
Forsyth complimented, in a way to be perfectly understood, this
excess of patriotism, which could voluntarily inflict so much
self-distress for the sake of the public good; and I, most
unwittingly, brought the misery of one of the gentlemen to a sudden
and ridiculous conclusion by a chance remark. It was Mr. Gabriel
Moore, of Alabama, who sat near me, and to whom I said, when the
vote was declared, "You have broken a minister, and elected a
Vice-President." He asked how? and I told him the people would see
nothing in it but a combination of rivals against a competitor, and
would pull them all down, and set him up. "Good God!" said he, "why
didn't you tell me that before I voted, and I would have voted the
other way." It was only twenty minutes before, for he was the very
last speaker, that Mr. Moore had delivered himself thus, on this
very interesting point of public duty against private feeling:
"Under all the circumstances of the case, notwithstanding the
able views which have been presented, and the impatience of
the Senate, I feel it a duty incumbent upon me, not only in
justification of myself, and of the motives which govern me
in the vote which I am about to give, but, also, in justice
to the free and independent people whom I have the honor in
part to represent, that I should set forth the reasons which
have reluctantly compelled me to oppose the confirmation of
the present nominee. Sir, it is proper that I should declare
that the evidence adduced against the character and conduct of
the late Secretary of State, and the sources from which this
evidence emanates, have made an impression on my mind that will
require of me, in the conscientious though painful discharge of
my duty, to record my vote against his nomination."
The famous Madame Roland, when mounting the scaffold, apostrophized
the mock statue upon it with this exclamation: "Oh Liberty! how many
crimes are committed in thy name!" After what I have seen during
my thirty years of inside and outside views in the Congress of the
United States, I feel qualified to paraphrase the apostrophe, and
exclaim: "Oh Politics! how much bamboozling is practised in thy
game!"
The speakers against the nomination were Messrs. Clay, Webster, John
M. Clayton, Ewing of Ohio, John Holmes, Frelinghuysen, Poindexter,
Chambers of Maryland, Foot of Connecticut, Governor Miller, and
Colonel Hayne of South Carolina, and Governor Moore of Alabama--just
a dozen, and equal to a full jury. Mr. Calhoun, as Vice-President,
presiding in the Senate, could not speak; but he was understood to
be personated by his friends, and twice gave the casting vote, one
interlocutory, against the nominee--a tie being contrived for that
purpose, and the combined plan requiring him to be upon the record.
Only four spoke on the side of the nomination; General Smith of
Maryland, Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Bedford Brown, and Mr. Marcy. Messrs.
Clay and Webster, and their friends, chiefly confined themselves to
the instructions on the West India trade; the friends of Mr. Calhoun
paid most attention to the cabinet rupture, the separation of old
friends, and the system of proscription. Against the instructions
it was alleged, that they begged as a favor what was due as a
right; that they took the side of Great Britain against our own
country; and carried our party contests, and the issue of our party
elections, into diplomatic negotiations with foreign countries; and
the following clause from the instructions to Mr. McLane was quoted
to sustain these allegations:
"In reviewing the causes which have preceded and more or less
contributed to a result so much regretted, there will be found
three grounds upon which we are most assailable: 1. In our too
long and too tenaciously resisting the right of Great Britain to
impose protecting duties in her colonies. 2. In not relieving
her vessels from the restriction of returning direct from the
United States to the colonies after permission had been given by
Great Britain to our vessels to clear out from the colonies to
any other than a British port. And, 3. In omitting to accept the
terms offered by the act of Parliament of July, 1825, after the
subject had been brought before Congress and deliberately acted
upon by our government. It is, without doubt, to the combined
operation of these (three) causes that we are to attribute the
British interdict; you will therefore see the propriety of
possessing yourself fully of all the explanatory and mitigating
circumstances connected with them, that you may be able to
obviate, as far as practicable, the unfavorable impression which
they have produced."
This was the clause relied upon to sustain the allegation of putting
his own country in the wrong, and taking the part of Great Britain,
and truckling to her to obtain as a favor what was due as a right,
and mixing up our party contests with our foreign negotiations. The
fallacy of all these allegations was well shown in the replies of
the four senators, and especially by General Smith, of Maryland;
and has been further shown in the course of this work, in the
chapter on the recovery of the British West India trade. But there
was a document at that time in the Department of State, unknown to
the friends of Mr. Van Buren in the Senate, which would not only
have exculpated him, but turned the attacks of his assailants
against themselves. The facts were these: Mr. Gallatin, while
minister at London, on the subject of this trade, of course sent
home dispatches, addressed to the Secretary of State (Mr. Clay), in
which he gave an account of his progress, or rather of the obstacles
which prevented any progress, in the attempted negotiation. There
were two of these dispatches, one dated September 22, 1826, the
other November the 14th, 1827. The latter had been communicated to
Congress in full, and printed among the papers of the case; of the
former only an extract had been communicated, and that relating to
a mere formal point. It so happened that the part of this dispatch
of September, 1826, not communicated, contained Mr. Gallatin's
report of the causes which led to the refusal of the British to
treat--their refusal to permit us to accept the terms of their act
of 1825, after the year limited for acceptance had expired--and
which led to the order in council, cutting us off from the trade;
and it so happened that this report of these causes, so made by
Mr. Gallatin, was the original from which Mr. Van Buren copied
his instructions to Mr. McLane! and which were the subject of so
much censure in the Senate. I have been permitted by Mr. Everett,
Secretary of State under President Fillmore--(Mr. Webster would have
given me the same permission if I had applied during his time, for
he did so in every case that I ever asked)--to examine this dispatch
in the Department of State, and to copy from it whatever I wanted; I
accordingly copied the following:
"On three points we were perhaps vulnerable.
"1. The delay of renewing the negotiation.
"2. The omission of having revoked the restriction on the
indirect intercourse when that of Great Britain had ceased.
"3. Too long an adherence to the opposition to her right of
laying protecting duties. This might have been given up as soon
as the act of 1825 passed. These are the causes assigned for the
late measure adopted towards the United States on that subject;
and they have, undoubtedly, had a decisive effect as far as
relates to the order in council, assisted as they were by the
belief that our object was to compel this country to regulate
the trade upon our own terms."
This was a passage in the unpublished part of that dispatch, and it
shows itself to be the original from which Mr. Van Buren copied,
substituting the milder term of "assailable" where Mr. Gallatin
had applied that of "vulnerable" to Mr. Adams's administration.
Doubtless the contents of that dispatch, in this particular, were
entirely forgotten by Mr. Clay at the time he spoke against Mr.
Van Buren, having been received by him above four years before
that time. They were probably as little known to the rest of the
opposition senators as to ourselves; and the omission to communicate
and print them could not have occurred from any design to suppress
what was material to the debate in the Senate, as the communication
and printing had taken place long before this occasion of using the
document had occurred.
The way I came to the knowledge of this omitted paragraph was this:
When engaged upon the chapter of his rejection, I wrote to Mr. Van
Buren for his view of the case; and he sent me back a manuscript
copy of a speech which he had drawn up in London, to be delivered in
New-York, at some "public dinner," which his friends could get up
for the occasion; but which he never delivered, or published, partly
from an indisposition to go into the newspapers for character--much
from a real forbearance of temper--and possibly from seeing, on his
return to the United States, that he was not at all hurt by his
fall. That manuscript speech contained this omitted extract, and I
trust that I have used it fairly and beneficially for the right,
and without invidiousness to the wrong. It disposes of one point of
attack; but the gentlemen were wrong in their whole broad view of
this British West India trade question. Jackson took the Washington
ground, and he and Washington were both right. The enjoyment of
colonial trade is a privilege to be solicited, and not a right to
be demanded; and the terms of the enjoyment are questions for the
mother country. The assailing senators were wrong again in making
the instructions a matter of attack upon Mr. Van Buren. They were
not his instructions, but President Jackson's. By the constitution
they were the President's, and the senators derogated from that
instrument in treating his secretary as their author. The President
alone is the conductor of our foreign relations, and the dispatches
signed by the Secretaries of State only have force as coming from
him, and are usually authenticated by the formula, "_I am instructed
by the President to say_," &c., &c. It was a constitutional
blunder, then, in the senators to treat Mr. Van Buren as the author
of these instructions; it was also an error in point of fact.
General Jackson himself specially directed them; and so authorized
General Smith to declare in the Senate--which he did.
Breaking up the cabinet, and making dissension between General
Jackson and Mr. Calhoun, was the second of the allegations against
Mr. Van Buren. Repulsed as this accusation has been by the character
of Mr. Van Buren, and by the narrative of the "Exposition," it has
yet to receive a further and most authoritative contradiction, from
a source which admits of no cavil--from General Jackson himself--in
a voluntary declaration made after that event had passed away, and
when justice alone remained the sole object to be accomplished. It
was a statement addressed to "Martin Van Buren, President of the
United States," dated at the Hermitage, July 31st, 1840, and ran in
these words:
"It was my intention as soon as I heard that Mr. Calhoun had
expressed his approbation of the leading measures of your
administration, and had paid you a visit, to place in your
possession the statement which I shall now make; but bad health,
and the pressure of other business have constantly led me to
postpone it. What I have reference to is the imputation that
has been sometimes thrown upon you, that you had an agency in
producing the controversy which took place between Mr. Calhoun
and myself, in consequence of Mr. Crawford's disclosure of what
occurred in the cabinet of Mr. Monroe relative to my military
operations in Florida during his administration. Mr. Calhoun is
doubtless already satisfied that he did you injustice in holding
you in the slightest degree responsible for the course I pursued
on that occasion: but as there may be others who may still be
disposed to do you injustice, and who may hereafter use the
circumstance for the purpose of impairing both your character
and his, I think it my duty to place in your possession the
following emphatic declaration, viz.: _That I am not aware of
your ever saying a word to me relative to Mr. Calhoun, which had
a tendency to create an interruption of my friendly relations
with him:--that you were not consulted in any stage of the
correspondence on the subject of his conduct in the cabinet of
Mr. Monroe;--and that, after this correspondence became public,
the only sentiment you ever expressed to me about it was that of
deep regret that it should have occurred._ You are at liberty
to show this letter to Mr. Calhoun and make what other use of
it you may think proper for the purpose of correcting the
erroneous impressions which have prevailed on this subject."
A testimony more honorable than this in behalf of a public man, was
never delivered, nor one more completely disproving a dishonorable
imputation, and showing that praise was due where censure had
been lavished. Mr. Van Buren was not the cause of breaking up the
cabinet, or of making dissension between old friends, or of raking
up the buried event in Mr. Monroe's cabinet, or of injuring Mr.
Calhoun in any way. Yet this testimony, so honorable to him, was
never given to the public, though furnished for the purpose, and now
appears for the first time in print.
Equally erroneous was the assumption, taken for granted throughout
the debate, and so extensively and deeply impressed upon the public
mind, that Mr. Calhoun was the uniform friend of General Jackson
in the election--his early supporter in the canvass, and steadfast
adherent to the end. This assumption has been rebutted by Mr.
Calhoun himself, who, in his pamphlet against General Jackson,
shows that he was for _himself_ until withdrawn from the contest
by Mr. Dallas at a public meeting, in Philadelphia, in the winter
of 1823-4; and after that was _perfectly neutral_. His words
are: "_When my name was withdrawn from the list of presidential
candidates, I assumed a perfectly neutral position between Gen.
Jackson and Mr. Adams._" This clears Mr. Van Buren again, as he
could not make a breach of friendship where none existed, or
supplant a supporter where there was no support: and that there was
none from Mr. Calhoun to Gen. Jackson, is now authentically declared
by Mr. Calhoun himself. Yet this head of accusation, with a bad
motive assigned for it, was most perseveringly urged by his friends,
and in his presence, throughout the whole debate.
Introducing the "New-York system of proscription" into the federal
government, was the last of the accusations on which Mr. Van Buren
was arraigned; and was just as unfounded as all the rest. Both his
temper and his judgment was against the removal of faithful officers
because of difference of political opinion, or even for political
conduct against himself--as the whole tenor of his conduct very
soon after, and when he became President of the United States,
abundantly showed. The departments at Washington, and some part of
every State in the Union, gave proofs of his forbearance in this
particular.
I have already told that I did not speak in the debate on the
nomination of Mr. Van Buren; and this silence on such an occasion
may require explanation from a man who does not desire the character
of neglecting a friend in a pinch. I had strong reasons for that
abstinence, and they were obliged to be strong to produce it. I was
opposed to Mr. Van Buren's going to England as minister. He was our
intended candidate for the Presidency, and I deemed such a mission
to be prejudicial to him and the party, and apt to leave us with a
candidate weakened with the people by absence, and by a residence
at a foreign court. I was in this state of mind when I saw the
combination formed against him, and felt that the success of it
would be his and our salvation. Rejection was a bitter medicine, but
there was health at the bottom of the draught. Besides, I was not
the guardian of Messrs. Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, and was quite
willing to see them fall into the pit which they were digging for
another. I said nothing in the debate; but as soon as the vote was
over I wrote to Mr. Van Buren a very plain letter, only intended
for himself, and of which I kept no copy; but having applied for
the original for use in this history, he returned it to me, on
the condition that I should tell, if I used it, that in a letter
to General Jackson, he characterized it as "honest and sensible."
Honest, I knew it to be at the time; sensible, I believe the event
has proved it to be; and that there was no mistake in writing
such a letter to Mr. Van Buren, has been proved by our subsequent
intercourse. It was dated January 28, 1832, and I subjoin it in
full, as contemporaneous testimony, and as an evidence of the
independent manner in which I spoke to my friends--even those I was
endeavoring to make President. It ran thus:
"Your faithful correspondents will have informed you of the
event of the 25th. Nobody would believe it here until after it
happened, but the President can bear me witness that I prepared
him to expect it a month ago. The public will only understand
it as a political movement against a rival; it is right,
however, that you should know that without an auxiliary cause
the political movement against you would not have succeeded.
There were gentlemen voting against you who would not have done
so except for a reason which was strong and clear in their own
minds, and which (it would be improper to dissemble) has hurt
you in the estimation of many candid and disinterested people.
After saying this much, I must also say, that I look upon this
head of objection as temporary, dying out of itself, and to
be swallowed up in the current and accumulating topics of the
day. You doubtless know what is best for yourself, and it does
not become me to make suggestions; but for myself, when I find
myself on the bridge of Lodi, I neither stop to parley, nor turn
back to start again. Forward, is the word. Some say, make you
governor of New-York; I say, you have been governor before: that
is turning back. Some say, come to the Senate in place of some
of your friends; I say, that of itself will be only parleying
with the enemy while on the middle of the bridge, and receiving
their fire. The vice-presidency is the only thing, and if a
place in the Senate can be coupled with the trial for that,
then a place in the Senate might be desirable. The Baltimore
Convention will meet in the month of May, and I presume it will
be in the discretion of your immediate friends in New-York,
and your leading friends here, to have you nominated; and
in all that affair I think you ought to be passive. 'For
Vice-President,' on the Jackson ticket, will identify you with
him; a few cardinal principles of the old democratic school
might make you worth contending for on your own account. The
dynasty of '98 (the federalists) has the Bank of the United
States in its interest; and the Bank of the United States has
drawn into its vortex, and wields at its pleasure, the whole
high tariff and federal internal improvement party. To set up
for yourself, and to raise an interest which can unite the
scattered elements of a nation, you will have to take positions
which are visible, and represent principles which are felt and
understood; you will have to separate yourself from the enemy
by partition lines which the people can see. The dynasty of '98
(federalists), the Bank of the United States, the high tariff
party, the federal internal improvement party, are against you.
Now, if you are not against them, the people, and myself, as
one of the people, can see nothing between you and them worth
contending for, in a national point of view. This is a very
plain letter, and if you don't like it, you will throw it in
the fire; consider it as not having been written. For myself, I
mean to retire upon my profession, while I have mind and body to
pursue it; but I wish to see the right principles prevail, and
friends instead of foes in power."
The prominent idea in this letter was, that the people would see
the rejection in the same light that I did--as a combination to put
down a rival--as a political blunder--and that it would work out the
other way. The same idea prevailed in England. On the evening of
the day, on the morning of which all the London newspapers heralded
the rejection of the American minister, there was a great party
at Prince Talleyrand's--then the representative at the British
court, of the new King of the French, Louis Phillippe. Mr. Van
Buren, always master of himself, and of all the proprieties of
his position, was there, as if nothing had happened; and received
distinguished attentions, and complimentary allusions. Lord
Aukland, grandson to the Mr. Eden who was one of the Commissioners
of Conciliation sent to us at the beginning of the revolutionary
troubles, said to him, "It is an advantage to a public man to be
the subject of an outrage"--a remark, wise in itself, and prophetic
in its application to the person to whom it was addressed. He
came home--apparently gave himself no trouble about what had
happened--was taken up by the people--elected, successively,
Vice-President and President--while none of those combined against
him ever attained either position.
There was, at the time, some doubt among their friends as to the
policy of the rejection, but the three chiefs were positive in
their belief that a senatorial condemnation would be political
death. I heard Mr. Calhoun say to one of his doubting friends, "It
will kill him, sir, kill him dead. He will never kick sir, never
kick;" and the alacrity with which he gave the casting votes, on
the two occasions, both vital, on which they were put into his
hands, attested the sincerity of his belief, and his readiness for
the work. How those tie-votes, for there were two of them, came
to happen twice, "hand-running," and in a case so important, was
matter of marvel and speculation to the public on the outside of
the locked-up senatorial door. It was no marvel to those on the
inside, who saw how it was done. The combination had a superfluity
of votes, and, as Mr. Van Buren's friends were every one known,
and would sit fast, it only required the superfluous votes on one
side to go out; and thus an equilibrium between the two lines was
established. When all was finished, the injunction of secrecy was
taken off the proceedings, and the dozen set speeches delivered in
secret session immediately published--which shows that they were
delivered for effect, not upon the Senate, but upon the public mind.
The whole proceeding illustrates the impolicy, as well as peril to
themselves, of rival public men sitting in judgment upon each other,
and carries a warning along with it which should not be lost.
As an event affecting the most eminent public men of the day, and
connecting itself with the settlement of one of our important
foreign commercial questions--as belonging to history, and already
carried into it by the senatorial debates--as a key to unlock the
meaning of other conduct--I deem this account of the REJECTION of
Mr. Van Buren a necessary appendage to the settlement of the British
West India trade question--as an act of justice to General Jackson's
administration (the whole of which was involved in the censure then
cast upon his Secretary of State), and as a sunbeam to illuminate
the labyrinth of other less palpable concatenations.