THE "REIGN" BEGINS
Jackson's election to the presidency in 1828 was correctly described by
Senator Benton as "a triumph of democratic principle, and an assertion
of the people's right to govern themselves." Jefferson in his day was a
candidate of the masses, and his triumph over John Adams in 1800 was
received with great public acclaim. Yet the Virginian was at best an
aristocratic sort of democrat; he was never in the fullest sense a man
of the people. Neither Madison nor Monroe inspired enthusiasm, and for
John Quincy Adams even New Englanders voted, as Ezekiel Webster
confessed, from a cold sense of duty. Jackson was, as no President
before him, the choice of the masses. His popular vote in 1824 revealed
not only his personal popularity but the growing power of the
democratic elements in the nation, and his defeat in the House of
Representatives only strengthened his own and the people's
determination to be finally victorious. The untrained, self-willed,
passionate frontier soldier came to power in 1828 as the standard
bearer of a mighty democratic uprising which was destined before it ran
its course to break down oligarchical party organizations, to
liberalize state and local governments, and to turn the stream of
national politics into wholly new channels. It was futile for men of
the old school to protest and to prophesy misfortune for the country
under its new rulers. The people had spoken, and this time the people's
will was not to be denied.
Still haggard from his recent personal loss, the President-elect set
out for Washington, at the middle of January, 1829. With him went his
nephew, Andrew Jackson Donelson, who was to be his private secretary;
Mrs. Donelson, who was to preside over the executive mansion; an
accomplished niece of Mrs. Jackson, who was to be of social assistance;
an artist by the name of Earl, who resided at the White House
throughout Jackson's two Administrations, engaged continually in
painting portraits of the General; and, finally, the faithful Major
Lewis, whose intention was merely to attend the inauguration and then
return to his plantation. The puffing little steamboat on which the
party traveled down the Cumberland and up the Ohio was saluted and
cheered a hundred times a day; at Louisville, Cincinnati, and
Pittsburgh there were great outpourings of demonstrative citizens. Duff
Green, one of the party managers, proposed that a great cavalcade
should meet the victor at Pittsburgh and escort him by relays to the
capital. On Van Buren's advice the plan was abandoned. But as the party
passed along the National Road toward its destination it was accorded
an ovation which left nothing to be desired as an evidence of the
public favor.
Arrived in Washington, on the 11th of February--the day on which the
electoral votes were counted in the Senate--Jackson and his friends
found temporary lodgings at the Indian Queen Tavern, commonly known as
"the Wigwam." During the next three weeks the old inn was the scene of
unwonted activity. Office seekers besieged it morning, noon, and night;
politicians came to ask favors or give advice; exponents of every sort
of cause watched for opportunities to obtain promises of presidential
support; scores of the curious came with no other purpose than to see
what a backwoods President looked like. "The city is full of
speculation and speculators," wrote Daniel Webster to his sister-in-law
a few days after Jackson's arrival; "a great multitude, too many to be
fed without a miracle, are already in the city, hungry for office.
Especially, I learn that the typographical corps is assembled in great
force. From New Hampshire, our friend Hill; from Boston, Mr. Greene . .
. and from everywhere else somebody else. So many friends ready to
advise, and whose advice is so disinterested, make somewhat of a
numerous council about the President-elect; and, if report be true, it
is a council which only makes that darker which was dark enough
before."
To all, Jackson was accessible. But he was not communicative, and up to
Inauguration Day people were left to speculate not only upon the truth
of the rumor that there was to be a "full sweep" in the offices but
upon the new Administration's attitude on public questions in general.
Even Isaac Hill, a warm friend and supporter, was obliged to write to
an acquaintance four days before the inauguration that Jackson had
little to say about the future, "except in a general way." The men with
whom the Executive-elect was daily closeted were Major Lewis and
Senators Eaton and White. Van Buren would have been of the number, had
not his recently assumed duties as Governor kept him at Albany. He was
ably represented, however, by James A. Hamilton, a son of Alexander
Hamilton, to whose correspondence we owe most of what we know about the
laying of the plans for the new Administration.
The most pressing question was the personnel of the Cabinet. Upon only
one appointment was Jackson fully determined when he reached
Washington: Van Buren was to be Secretary of State. The "little
magician" had been influential in turning New York from Crawford to
Jackson; he had resigned his seat in the Senate and run for the
governorship with a view to uniting the party for Jackson's benefit; he
was the cleverest politician and, next to Calhoun, the ablest man, in
the Democratic ranks. When offered the chief place in the Cabinet he
promptly accepted. Edward Livingston was given his choice of the
remaining positions, but preferred to accept an election to the Senate.
With due regard for personal susceptibilities and sectional interests,
the list was then completed. A Pennsylvania Congressman, Samuel D.
Ingham, became Secretary of the Treasury; Senator John H. Eaton was
made Secretary of War; a Calhoun supporter from North Carolina, John
Branch, was given the Navy portfolio; Senator John M. Berrien of
Georgia became Attorney-General; and William T. Barry of Kentucky was
appointed Postmaster-General, after the incumbent, John McLean, refused
to accept the policy of a clean slate in the department. The
appointments were kept secret until one week before the inauguration,
when they were announced in the party organ at the capital, Duff
Green's United States Telegraph.
Everywhere the list caused consternation. Van Buren's was the only name
of distinction in it; and only one of the appointees had had experience
in the administration of national affairs. Hamilton pronounced the
group "the most unintellectual Cabinet we ever had." Van Buren doubted
whether he ought to have accepted a seat in such company. A crowning
expression of dissatisfaction came from the Tennessee delegation in
Congress, which formally protested against the appointment of Eaton.
But the President-elect was not to be swayed. His ideas of
administrative efficiency were not highly developed, and he believed
that his Cabinet would prove equal to all demands made upon it. Not the
least of its virtues in his eyes was the fact that, although nearly
evenly divided between his own followers and the friends of Calhoun, it
contained not one person who was not an uncompromising anti-Clay man.
Meanwhile a motley army of office seekers, personal friends, and
sightseers--to the number of ten or fifteen thousand--poured into
Washington to see the old rÈgime of Virginia, New York, and
Massachusetts go out and the new rÈgime of the people come in. "A
monstrous crowd of people," wrote Webster on Inauguration Day, "is in
the city. I never saw anything like it before. Persons have come five
hundred miles to see General Jackson, and they really seem to think
that the country is rescued from some dreadful danger." Another
observer, who was also not a Jacksonian, wrote: π
π Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, Vol. III, p. 168.
No one who was in Washington at the time of General Jackson's
inauguration is likely to forget that period to the day of his death.
To us, who had witnessed the quiet and orderly period of the Adams
Administration, it seemed as if half the nation had rushed at once into
the capital. It was like the inundation of the northern barbarians into
Rome, save that the tumultuous tide came in from a different point of
the compass. The West and the South seemed to have precipitated
themselves upon the North and overwhelmed it. . . .
Strange faces filled every public place, and every face seemed to bear
defiance on its brow. It appeared to me that every Jackson editor in
the country was on the spot. They swarmed, especially in the lobbies of
the House, an expectant host, a sort of PrÊtorian band, which, having
borne in upon their shields their idolized leader, claimed the reward
of the hard-fought contest.
The 4th of March dawned clear and balmy. "By ten o'clock," says an
eye-witness, "the Avenue was crowded with carriages of every
description, from the splendid baronet and coach, down to wagons and
carts, filled with women and children, some in finery and some in rags,
for it was the People's president." The great square which now
separates the Capitol and the Library of Congress was in Jackson's day
shut in by a picket fence. This enclosure was filled with people--"a
vast agitated sea"--while in all directions the slopes of Capitol Hill
were thickly occupied. At noon watchers on the west portico, looking
down Pennsylvania Avenue, saw a group of gentlemen issue from the
Indian Queen and thread its way slowly up the hill. All wore their hats
except one tall, dignified, white-haired figure in the middle, who was
quickly recognized as Jackson. Passing through the building, the party,
reinforced by Chief Justice Marshall and certain other dignitaries,
emerged upon the east portico, amid the deafening cheers of the
spectators. The President-elect bowed gravely, and, stepping forward to
a small cloth-covered table, read in a low voice the inaugural address;
the aged Chief Justice, "whose life was a protest against the political
views of the Jackson party," administered the oath of office; and the
ceremony was brought to a close in the customary manner by the new
Executive kissing the Bible. Francis Scott Key, watching the scene from
one of the gates, was moved to exclaim: "It is beautiful, it is
sublime."
Thus far the people had been sufficiently impressed by the dignity of
the occasion to keep their places and preserve a reasonable silence.
But when the executive party started to withdraw, men, women, and
children rushed past the police and scrambled up the steps in a wild
effort to reach their adored leader and grasp his hand. Disheveled and
panting, the President finally reached a gate at which his horse was in
waiting; and, mounting with difficulty, he set off for the White House,
followed by a promiscuous multitude, "countrymen, farmers, gentlemen,
mounted and unmounted, boys, women, and children, black and white."
The late President had no part in the day's proceedings. On arriving in
Washington, Jackson had refused to make the usual call of the incoming
upon the outgoing Executive, mainly because he held Adams responsible
for the newspaper virulence which had caused Mrs. Jackson such distress
and had possibly shortened her life. Deserted by all save his most
intimate friends, the New Englander faced the last hours of his
Administration in bitterness. His diary bears ample evidence of his
ill-humor and chagrin. On the 3d of March he took up his residence on
Meridian Hill, near the western limits of the city; and thence he did
not venture until the festivities of the ensuing day were ended. No
amount of effort on the part of mediators ever availed to bring about a
reconciliation between him and his successor.
According to custom, the inaugural program came to an end with a
reception at the White House; and arrangements were made to entertain a
large number of guests. Police control, however, proved wholly
inadequate, and when the throng that followed the President up the
Avenue reached the executive grounds it engulfed the mansion and poured
in by windows as well as doors, until the reception rooms were packed
to suffocation. Other guests, bidden and unbidden--"statesmen and
stable-boys, fine ladies and washerwomen, white people and
blacks"--continued for hours to besiege the doors. "I never saw such a
mixture," records Judge Story; "the reign of King Mob seemed
triumphant. I was glad to escape from the scene as soon as possible."
The President, too, after being jostled for an hour, very willingly
made his way by a side entrance to the street and thence to his hotel.
A profusion of refreshments, including barrels of orange punch, had
been provided; and an attempt to serve the guests led to a veritable
saturnalia. Waiters emerging from doors with loaded trays were borne to
the floor by the crush; china and glassware were smashed; gallons of
punch were spilled on the carpets; in their eagerness to be served men
in muddy boots leaped upon damask-covered chairs, overturned tables,
and brushed bric-‡-brac from mantles and walls. "It would have done Mr.
Wilberforce's heart good," writes a cynical observer, "to have seen a
stout black wench eating in this free country a jelly with a gold spoon
at the President's House." Only when some thoughtful person directed
that tubs of punch be placed here and there on the lawn was the
congestion indoors relieved. When it was all over, the White House
resembled a pigsty. "Several thousand dollars' worth of broken china
and cut glass and many bleeding noses attested the fierceness of the
struggle." It was the people's day, and it was of no avail for
fastidious Adamsites to lift their eyebrows in ridicule or scorn.
Those in whom the establishment of the new order aroused keenest
apprehension were the officeholders. A favorite theme of the Jackson
forces during the late campaign was the abuses of the patronage, and
the General came into office fully convinced that an overhauling of the
civil service would be one of the greatest contributions that he could
make to his country's welfare. Even if he had been less sure of this
than he was, the pressure which office seekers and their friends
brought to bear upon him would have been irresistible. Four-fifths of
the people who flocked to Washington at inauguration time were seekers
after office for themselves or their friends, and from every county and
town the country over came pleas of service rendered and claims for
reward. But Jackson needed little urging. He thought, and rightly, that
many of the incumbents had grown lax in the performance of their
duties, if indeed they had ever been anything else, and that fresh
blood was needed in the government employ. He believed that short terms
and rapid rotation made for alertness and efficiency. He felt that one
man had as much right to public office as another, and he was so
unacquainted with the tasks of administration as to suppose all honest
citizens equally capable of serving their fellowmen in public station.
As for the grievances of persons removed, his view was that "no
individual wrong is done by removal, since neither appointment to nor
continuance in office is a matter of right."
Shortly after the election Major Lewis wrote to a friend that the
General was "resolved on making a pretty clean sweep of the
departments." It is expected, he added, that "he will cleanse the
Augean stables, and I feel pretty confident that he will not disappoint
the popular expectation in this particular." If a complete overturn was
ever really contemplated, the plan was not followed up; and it is more
than possible that it was Van Buren who marked off the limits beyond
which it would not be expedient to go. None the less, Jackson's
removals far exceeded those made by his predecessors. Speaking broadly,
the power of removal had never yet been exercised in the Federal
Government with offensive partizanship. Even under Jefferson, when the
holders of half of the offices were changed in the space of four years,
there were few removals for political reasons.
No sooner was Jackson in office, however, than wholesale proscription
began. The ax fell in every department and bureau, and cut off chiefs
and clerks with equal lack of mercy. Age and experience counted rather
against a man than in his favor, and rarely was any reason given for
removal other than that some one else wanted the place. When Congress
met, in December, it was estimated that a thousand persons had been
ousted; and during the first year of the Administration the number is
said to have reached two thousand. The Post-Office Department and the
Customs Service were purged with special severity. The sole principle
on which the new appointees were selected was loyalty to Jackson.
Practically all were inexperienced, most were incompetent, and several
proved dishonest.
"There has been," wrote the President in his journal a few weeks after
the inauguration, "a great noise made about removals." Protest arose
not only from the proscribed and their friends, but from the Adams-Clay
forces generally, and even from some of the more moderate Jacksonians.
"Were it not for the outdoor popularity of General Jackson," wrote
Webster, "the Senate would have negatived more than half his
nominations." As it was, many were rejected; and some of the worst
were, under pressure, withdrawn. On the general principle the President
held his ground. "It is rotation in office," he again and again
asserted in all honesty, "that will perpetuate our liberty," and from
this conviction no amount of argument or painful experience could shake
him. After 1830 one hears less about the subject, but only because the
novelty and glamor of the new regime had worn off.
Jackson was not the author of the spoils system. The device of using
the offices as rewards for political service had long been familiar in
the state and local governments, notably in New York. What Jackson and
his friends did was simply to carry over the spoils principle into the
National Government. No more unfortunate step was ever taken by an
American President; the task of undoing the mischief has been long and
laborious. Yet the spoils system was probably an inevitable feature of
the new rule of the people; at all events, it was accepted by all
parties and sanctioned by public sentiment for more than half a
century.
Like Philip II of Spain, who worked twelve hours a day at the business
of being a King, Jackson took the duties of his exalted post very
seriously. No man had ever accused him of laxness in public office,
civil or military; on the contrary, his superiors commonly considered
themselves fortunate if they could induce or compel him to keep his
energies within reasonable bounds. As President he was not without
distressing shortcomings. He was self-willed, prejudiced, credulous,
petulant. But he was honest, and he was industrious. No President ever
kept a closer watch upon Congress to see that the rights of the
executive were not invaded or the will of the people thwarted; and his
vigilance was rewarded, not only by his success in vindicating the
independence of the executive in a conflict whose effects are felt to
this day, but by the very respectable amount of legislation which he
contrived to obtain in the furtherance of what he believed to be the
public welfare. When a rebellious Congress took the bit in its teeth,
he never hesitated to crack the whip over its head. Sometimes the
pressure was applied indirectly, but with none the less effect. One of
the first acts of the Senate to arouse strong feelings in the White
House was the rejection of the nomination of Isaac Hill to be Second
Comptroller of the Treasury. A New Hampshire senatorship soon falling
vacant, the President deftly brought about the election of Hill to the
position; and many a gala hour he had in later days as Lewis and other
witnesses described the chagrin of the senators at being obliged to
accept as one of their colleagues a man whom they had adjudged unfit
for a less important office.
Much thought had been bestowed upon the composition of the Cabinet, and
some of the President's warmest supporters urged that he should make
use of the group as a council of state, after the manner of his
predecessors. Jackson's purposes, however, ran in a different
direction. He had been on intimate terms with fewer than half of the
members, and he saw no reason why these men, some of whom were
primarily the friends of Calhoun, should be allowed to supplant old
confidants like Lewis. Let them, he reasoned, go about their appointed
tasks as heads of the administrative departments, while he looked for
counsel whithersoever he desired. Hence the official Cabinet fell into
the background, and after a few weeks the practice of holding meetings
was dropped.
As advisers on party affairs and on matters of general policy the
President drew about himself a heterogeneous group of men which the
public labeled the "Kitchen Cabinet." Included in the number were the
two members of the regular Cabinet in whom Jackson had implicit
confidence, Van Buren and Eaton. Isaac Hill was a member. Amos Kendall,
a New Englander who had lately edited a Jackson paper in Kentucky, and
who now found his reward in the fourth auditorship of the Treasury, was
another. William B. Lewis, prevailed upon by Jackson to accept another
auditorship along with Kendall, rather than to follow out his original
intention to return to his Tennessee plantation, was not only in the
Kitchen Cabinet but was also a member of the President's household.
Duff Green, editor of the Telegraph, and A. J. Donelson, the
President's nephew and secretary, were included in the group; as was
also Francis P. Blair after, in 1830, he became editor of the new
administration organ, the Globe. It was the popular impression that the
influence of these men, especially of Lewis and Kendall, was very
great--that, indeed, they virtually ruled the country. There was some
truth in the supposition. In matters upon which his mind was not fully
made up, Jackson was easily swayed; and his most intimate "Kitchen"
advisers were adepts at playing upon his likes and dislikes. He,
however, always resented the insinuation that he was not his own
master, and all testimony goes to show that when he was once resolved
upon a given course his friends were just as powerless to stop him as
were his enemies.
The Jacksonians were carried into office on a great wave of popular
enthusiasm, and for the time being all the powers of government were
theirs. None the less, their position was imperiled almost from the
beginning by a breach within the administration ranks. Calhoun had
contented himself with reÎlection to the vice presidency in 1828 on the
understanding that, after Jackson should have had one term, the road to
the White House would be left clear for himself. Probably Jackson, when
elected, fully expected Calhoun to be his successor. Before long,
however, the South Carolinian was given ground for apprehension. Men
began to talk about a second term for Jackson, and the White House gave
no indication of disapproval. Even more disconcerting was the large
place taken in the new rÈgime by Van Buren. The "little magician" held
the chief post in the Cabinet; he was in the confidence of the
President as Calhoun was not; there were multiplying indications that
he was aiming at the presidency; and if he were to enter the race he
would be hard to beat, for by general admission he was the country's
most astute politician. With every month that passed the Vice
Presidentªs star was in graver danger of eclipse.
Several curious circumstances worked together to widen the breach
between the Calhoun and Van Buren elements and at the same time to
bring the President definitely into the ranks of the New Yorker's
supporters. One was the controversy over the social status of "Peggy"
Eaton. Peggy was the daughter of a tavern keeper, William O'Neil, at
whose hostelry both Jackson and Eaton had lived when they were
senators. Her first husband, a purser in the navy, committed suicide at
sea; and Washington gossips said that he was driven to the act by
chagrin caused by his wife's misconduct, both before and after her
marriage. On the eve of Jackson's inauguration the widow became Mrs.
Eaton, and certain disagreeable rumors connecting the names of the two
were confirmed in the public mind. When Eaton was made Secretary of
War, society shrugged its shoulders and wondered what sort of figure
"Peg O'Neil" would cut in Cabinet circles. The question was soon
answered. At the first official functions Mrs. Eaton was received with
studied neglect by the wives of the other Cabinet officers; and all
refused either to call on her or to receive her in their homes.
Jackson was furious. It was enough for him that Mrs. Jackson had
thought well of the suspected woman, and all his gallantry rose in her
defense. Professing to regard the attitude of the protesters as nothing
less than an affront to his Administration, he called upon the men of
the Cabinet, and upon the Vice President, to remonstrate with their
wives in Mrs. Eaton's behalf. But if any such remonstrances were made,
nothing came of them. "For once in his life, Andrew Jackson was
defeated. Creeks and Spaniards and Redcoats he could conquer, but the
ladies of Washington never surrendered, and Peggy Eaton, though her
affairs became a national question, never got into Washington society."
π The political effect of the episode was considerable. Van Buren was a
widower, and, having no family to object, he showed Mrs. Eaton all
possible courtesy. On the other hand, Mrs. Calhoun was the leader of
those who refused Mrs. Eaton recognition. Jackson was not slow to note
these facts, and his opinion of Van Buren steadily rose, while he set
down Calhoun as an obdurate member of the "conspiracy."
π Brown, Andrew Jackson, p. 127.
Throughout the winter of 1829-30 the Calhoun and Van Buren factions
kept up a contest which daily became more acrimonious and open. Already
the clique around the President had secretly decided that in 1832 he
must run again, with Van Buren as a mate, and that the New Yorker
should be the presidential candidate in 1836. Though irritated by the
Vice President's conduct in the Eaton affair and in other matters,
Jackson threw over the understanding of 1828 with reluctance. Even
when, on the last day of 1829, his friends, alarmed by the state of his
health, persuaded him to write a letter to a Tennessee judge warmly
commending Van Buren and expressing grave doubts about the South
Carolinian--a statement which, in the event of worst fears being
realized, would be of the utmost value to the Van Buren men--he was
unwilling to go the full length of an open break.
But Lewis and his coworkers were craftily laying the train of powder
that would lead to an explosion, and in the spring of 1830 they were
ready to apply the match. When the President had been worked up to the
right stage of suspicion, it was suddenly made known to him that it was
Calhoun, not Crawford, who in Monroe's Cabinet circle in 1818 had urged
that the conqueror of Florida be censured for his bold deeds. This had
the full effect desired. Jackson made a peremptory demand upon the Vice
President for an explanation of his perfidy. Calhoun responded in a
letter which explained and explained, yet got nowhere. Whereupon
Jackson replied in a haughty communication, manifestly prepared by the
men who were engineering the whole business, declaring the former
Secretary guilty of the most reprehensible duplicity and severing all
relations with him. This meant the end of Calhoun's hopes, at all
events for the present. He could never be President while Jackson's
influence lasted. Van Buren had won; and the embittered South
Carolinian could only turn for solace to the nullification movement, in
which he was already deeply engulfed.
Pursuing their plans to the final stroke, the Administration managers
forced a reconstruction of the Cabinet, and all of Calhoun's supporters
were displaced. Louis McLane of Delaware became Secretary of the
Treasury; Lewis Cass of Michigan, Secretary of War; Levi Woodbury of
New Hampshire, Secretary of the Navy; and Roger B. Taney of Maryland,
Attorney-General. Van Buren also retired, in conformity with Jackson's
announced intention not to have any one in the Cabinet who was a
candidate for the succession; and Edward Livingston, Jackson's old
Louisiana friend, became Secretary of State.
It was decided that a fitting post for a successor while awaiting his
turn--particularly for one who was not popular--would be the
ministership to Great Britain; and Van Buren duly traveled to London to
take up the duties of this position. But when the appointment was
submitted to the Senate, Calhoun's friends adroitly managed matters so
that the Vice President should have the satisfaction of preventing
confirmation by his casting vote. "It will kill him, sir, kill him
dead," declared the vengeful South Carolinian to a doubting friend. "He
will never kick, sir, never kick." But no greater tactical error could
have been committed. Benton showed the keener insight when he informed
the jubilant Calhoun men that they had "broken a minister," only to
elect a Vice President.