THE DRAMATIC BATTLE OF 1832
I
The campaign of 1832 marked the beginning of many things that have come
to be commonplace in American politics. For the first time the
politicians were under the compulsion of cultivating and conciliating,
not factions and groups, but the masses of the people. The day of
Democracy had dawned, with all that means of good and evil. And in this
struggle for the suffrage of the masses, Clay had unwittingly intrigued
the Jacksonians into the advantage. Accustomed for years to relying
solely on the wealthy and the influential, the great Whig leaders
signally failed to appreciate that the very elements they had rallied to
their support would tend to alienate the mechanics of the cities, the
farmers of the plains, the pioneers struggling with poverty on the
fringe of the forest. Thurlow Weed, who was one of the few practical
Whig politicians, saw it, but he was then comparatively obscure. The
clever politicians of the Kitchen Cabinet instantly sensed the
opportunity and grasped it. A great moneyed institution, never popular
with the masses, was seeking the humiliation of the most popular of
Presidents. The most fortunate of that day were responding to the call
of the Bank. The first battle at the polls between the “soul-less
corporation” and the “sons of toil” was on. For the first time in a
presidential election the demagogue appeared with his appeals to class
prejudice and class hate, and all the demagogy was not on the part of
the Jacksonians. If these sought to arouse the masses against the
prosperous, the prosperous, with gibes about the “mob,” were quite as
busy in prejudicing the classes against the masses.
And in this campaign the press played a more conspicuous and important
part than ever before. The Jacksonians, who had tested the political
possibilities of the press four years before, had perfected an
organization throughout the country dependent on the editorial lead of
the “Globe.” If the political leaders of the Whigs were even now slow to
grasp the potentiality of publicity, Nicholas Biddle of the Bank was
more alert, and, through his agency, the powerful “New York Courier and
Enquirer,” edited by James Watson Webb, deserted the Democracy to
espouse the cause of Clay and “the monster.” That money played a part in
the conversion was soon established in a congressional investigation;
and when the “National Intelligencer,” the Whig organ, joyously hailed
the convert, Blair was able sarcastically to comment on its being
“charmed with his [Webb’s] honesty and independence in complying with
his bargain with the Bank--and the bold, frank and honorable way in
which he unsays all that he has said in favor of the President for the
price paid him by Mr. Biddle.”[479] Thus the editors in 1832 fought with
a ferocity never before approached.
From the beginning Amos Kendall realized that the appeal would have to
be made to the masses. He therefore conceived the idea of inaugurating
the campaign with a more solemn and dignified appeal to the more
intellectual element. The result was a carefully prepared campaign
document reviewing the work of the first three years of Jackson’s
Administration. With a master hand he marshaled the triumphs of the
Administration, and marched them--an imposing procession--before the
reader. He anticipated and met all attacks. If parasites on the public
service had been displaced by friends of Jackson, the new blood had
injected new energy into the public offices. Business, long in arrears,
had been brought up. Public accounts were more promptly rendered and
settled. Scamps had been detected and scourged from office, and
peculations to the amount of $280,000 had been uncovered. Economy and
increased efficiency had resulted in the saving of hundreds of
thousands.
In our foreign relations Kendall found nothing to be desired. Jackson
had found Colombian cruisers depredating upon our commerce, and
Colombian ports subjecting American cargoes to oppressive duties; he
secured indemnities and the reduction of duties and the admission of
American vessels to Colombian waters on the same footing as those of
Colombia. He found no treaty with Turkey and the waters of the Bosphorus
closed to us; he negotiated a treaty and our flag waved in the
Bosphorus. He found no treaty with Austria--one was negotiated; a
suspended treaty with Mexico--it was put in operation; the indemnity
claims against Denmark for spoliation unpressed--he collected $750,000;
the British West Indian controversy entangled by unskilled diplomacy--he
untangled it with skillful diplomacy, and won a victory for American
commerce; the French spoliation claims held in abeyance--and he
triumphed there.
This brilliant foreign policy, he continued, had breathed new life into
our domestic and foreign commerce, until “a commercial activity scarcely
equaled in our history” was enjoyed. The hammers were heard in the
shipyards, laborers were employed at high wages, prosperity pervaded
every class and section. At Boston alone fifteen vessels were fitting
out for trade in the Black Sea.
Despite these achievements Kendall complained that the President’s
political foes had devoted their energy and ingenuity to obstruction
alone. Congress had refused or delayed the necessary appropriations,
denied him the means to maintain a mission to France, refused to confirm
the appointment of his Minister to England, trumped up charges of fraud
against his friends, resorted to childish investigations, charged the
President with sending bullies to attack members of Congress and to spy
upon them, and capped the climax of insufferable impudence with
resolutions to inquire into the private conversations of the hero of New
Orleans.
This campaign document, the first of its kind, was sent broadcast over
the country to awaken the indignation of the faithful and to revive and
intensify the cry, “Hurrah for Jackson.”[480] And it had the effect
intended. The Jacksonians became all the more militant, ready to pounce
upon and rend their enemies. Even the courageous Tyler, unfriendly to
Jackson, cautioned his daughter in a letter home--“Speak of me always as
a Jackson man whenever you are questioned.”[481] With this document in
the hands of the intellectual, the Kitchen Cabinet turned with their
appeal to the masses on the Bank issue. This speedily became paramount.
But Clay and the Whigs were busy with intrigues with groups, and, to
understand the remarkable campaign in its ramifications, it is necessary
to pause for a peep behind the scenes where Clay may be seen in a light
other than that of a man who “would rather be right than President.” We
shall find him as willing, in Virginia, to unite with the champions of
the Nullification he abhorred, as, in New York, with the party of the
Anti-Masons he despised.
II
After the fashion of the old school politician of his day, Clay relied
upon intrigue, upon the cultivation of groups with special interests and
grievances. During the winter in Congress he had devoted himself to the
consolidation of business and the ultra-conservative elements behind his
candidacy. The bitterness of the contest was foreshadowed in the spring
when Blair announced the publication of an extra weekly issue of the
“Globe”; and in August, Duff Green made a similar announcement as to the
“Telegraph.” While Clay planned to win on the Bank issue, he very early
began a furious flirtation with the Nullifiers and the Anti-Masons,
thus injecting side issues that the Jacksonians were quick to accept. In
April, Clay was writing a Virginia friend[482] of a possible coalition
with the Nullification forces in three or four Southern States where
extreme State-Rights views were prevalent. Governor Floyd of Virginia,
destined to receive the electoral vote of the South Carolina Nullifiers,
and for a time alienated from Clay, was making overtures for a
conciliation. Duff Green, a messenger in Calhoun’s livery, had made a
remarkable proposition. The purport of this proposition was that
Calhoun’s friends would present his name for the Presidency if assured
of three or four of the Southern States; that about August he would be
announced as a candidate; that if arrangements could be made with Clay
to place no electoral ticket in the field in Virginia, and to throw the
support of his friends to Calhoun, the latter could carry the Old
Dominion; that carrying Virginia, he would have a fair chance of
carrying North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina, with a fighting
chance in Alabama and Mississippi; and, accomplishing that, he could
defeat the reëlection of Jackson, and force the determination of the
issue upon the House of Representatives where Clay would no doubt be
elected to the satisfaction of Calhoun. The wily editor made it clear to
Clay that he was to have no ticket in the States mentioned, and should
actively coöperate with Calhoun in Virginia.
And Clay was not shocked! But he had not “assumed that Calhoun had much
political capital anywhere outside South Carolina,” and doubted the
practicability of abandoning a ticket in Virginia because of the
imputations that would follow. And yet, if Calhoun could, by any chance,
carry three or four of the Southern States, it was a consummation
devoutly to be wished. “Let me hear from you, my dear friend, upon this
matter,” he wrote, “and particularly your views as to the strength of
the party of Mr. Calhoun in Virginia. Has it not relapsed into
Jacksonism? Can it be brought forth again in its original force to the
support of Mr. Calhoun? Suppose Mr. Calhoun is not put forth as a
candidate, what course, generally, will his friends in Virginia pursue?
Could our friends be prevailed upon to unite upon a ticket favorable to
Mr. Calhoun? Or, in the event of no ticket being put up, would they not
divide between Jackson and Calhoun, the larger part probably going to
Jackson?”[483] The pet plan of the Calhoun conspirators failed, and in
August, Duff Green set forth on a tour of investigation into New York
and Pennsylvania, returning to Washington encouraged in the conviction
that the defeat of Jackson could be accomplished through the unification
of all the hostile elements against him. In announcing the campaign
extras of the “Telegraph”--could he by chance have visited the marble
bank building in Philadelphia?--he declared that “we believe that our
duty requires us to demonstrate that General Jackson ought not to be
reëlected.” There was no mistaking the meaning of this move, and the
Jacksonians were instantly on their toes. Under the caption,
“Consummation of the Coalition,” Blair vigorously denounced it in the
“Globe.” “If Mr. Clay were elected,” he wrote, “Mr. Calhoun is well
aware that it would instantly establish the Southern League, which is
looked to by him as his only hope of ever attaining political power.
This is the basis of the coalition between Mr. Clay and Mr. Calhoun. It
is like that of Octavius and Anthony which severed the Roman
empire.”[484]
That Blair had not misinterpreted was immediately evident in the
response of the Whig press. The influential Pleasants, of the “Richmond
Whig,” warmly commended Green’s action and promised, “on the part of the
‘Telegraph,’ a luminous exposé of the misrule of Jacksonism.” “Ah,”
wrote Blair, “the ‘Richmond Whig’ upon the appearance of Duff Green’s
proposals for a joint opposition leaps into its embrace.”[485] And from
that moment the “Globe” kept before its readers constantly the Calhoun
heresy and the coalition with the Whigs. Early in September he began to
discuss pointedly the Nullification meetings in South Carolina addressed
by “Mr. Calhoun’s leading partisans,” warning that the sinister doctrine
was “subversive of the Union,” and that “by forcing a clash between the
Government and South Carolina, Calhoun hopes to arouse the sympathy of
the entire South.” And he continued with a prescience that is now
startling: “The Vice-President, as his prospect closes upon the elevated
honors of the Federal Government, is exerting all his influence to place
South Carolina in a position which shall compel the other Southern
States to unite in a new system, or confederacy, which may open new
views to his ambition.”[486]
Thus, burning all bridges as far as the Nullifiers were concerned, the
Jacksonian leaders, in the interest of the President, concentrated on
capitalizing their connection with the Whigs and the Bank. When Whig
and Bank papers warmly recommended the “Telegraph” to the patronage
of the Clay supporters, Blair gave the recommendation publicity,
with the suggestion that “that paper is the open advocate of Calhoun
and Nullification.” Thus he forced the coalition into the open. “Are
not the Bank party turning to the Nullifiers?” he asked. “If not,
why do they circulate the extra of Duff Green which is devoted to
Nullification?”[487] Thus, by boldly repudiating and defying the
Nullification element and Calhoun, the Jackson leaders more than
neutralized any benefit that Clay and the Whigs might receive from
their sympathy and support.
III
But more important to Clay than the attitude of the Nullifiers was that
of the Anti-Masons. Strangely enough, he had, at first, looked upon the
growing movement, not only with complacency, but with approval. After
the failure of the new party in New York in 1830, he had written to a
friend: “If they had been successful they would probably have brought
out an Anti-Masonic candidate for President. Still, if I had been in New
York, I should have given my suffrage to Granger.[488] I will not
trouble you with the reasons.”[489] In the same letter, however, he
expresses the opinion that such strength as the proscriptive party might
muster would ultimately go to the Whigs, in general, and himself in
particular, because “it is in conformity with the general nature of
minorities,” when they have no candidate of their own, to support the
strongest opposition party. Then, too, they were protectionists, had
been abused by Van Buren’s organization in New York, “and General
Jackson has, as they think, persecuted them.” At any rate, wrote the
intriguing politician, “there is no occasion for our friends to attack
them.”
But a new light broke for Clay when, in the spring of 1831, the
Anti-Masons called a national convention, to meet two months before the
Whigs’. His close friends became apprehensive. The sounding of the
Anti-Masons disclosed no Clay sentiment. Quite the contrary. Much
distressed at this revelation, one of the leaders of the movement urged
him to exert his well-known powers of conciliation.[490] By the latter
part of June he had concluded that the new party might not prove so
advantageous after all. Writing to his bosom friend, Francis Brooke, he
found that “Anti-Masonry seems to be the only difficulty now in the way
of success, both in Pennsylvania and New York.”[491] By the middle of
July he was convinced that “it would be politic to leave the Jackson
party exclusively to abuse the Antis.”[492] A few days later he had
concluded that “the policy of the Antis is to force us to their
support,” and that “ours should be to win them to ours.”[493]
As the time for the convention approached, the Antis were split on Clay,
a small portion wishing the nomination of one who would later withdraw
in his favor, but the majority hoping for the nomination of one who
would be acceptable to the Whigs in their convention two months later.
The problem was finally solved by the nomination of William Wirt.
That this brilliant man would have scorned the honor on any other theory
than that his nomination would be acceptable to both the Whigs and Clay,
with whom he had served in the Cabinet, and for whom he entertained an
affection, is shown in his correspondence.[494] But, while resting at
Ashland and still ignorant of the convention’s action, Clay was writing
to Brooke that “if the alternative is between Andrew Jackson and an
Anti-Masonic candidate with his exclusive prescriptive principles, I
should be embarrassed in the choice.”[495]
In the interval between the two conventions, the Anti-Masons clung
desperately to the hope that Clay would do violence to his dominating,
domineering disposition by sacrificing himself. He was an intimate
friend of Wirt’s. Their views on fundamentals were alike. With Wirt
elected, Clay would be the power behind the throne. With a divided
opposition, Jackson’s election would be inevitable, and Clay hated him
with a consuming hate. For identical reasons the Whigs hoped that, on
the nomination of Clay, Wirt would retire in his favor. As the Whig
convention approached, Wirt abandoned all hope of his own nomination.
“There seems to be no doubt of Mr. Clay’s nomination in the convention
next week,” he wrote to Judge Carr. “So be it. In a personal point of
view I shall feel that I have made a lucky escape.”[496] After the
nomination of Clay, it was the ardent wish of Wirt to withdraw. His
intimations to his party’s leaders only brought the assurance that were
the party dissolved there “were not enough Clay men among them to touch
New York or Pennsylvania, nor consequently to elect Mr. Clay,” and he
was reluctantly forced to the conclusion that “there [was] no more
chance for Mr. Clay with the Anti-Masons than for the Pope of
Rome.”[497] But the absurdity of his situation annoyed him, and he was
soon wishing for “a little villa in Florida, or somewhere else, to
retire to, and beguile the painful hours, as Cicero did, in writing
essays.”
If he remained in the field, it was because Henry Clay preferred it. The
relations of the ostensible rivals were close and confidential
throughout the campaign. Clay feared that Wirt’s withdrawal would be
ascribed to his influence, and would intensify the Anti-Masonic feeling
against him. Then, again, the Whig board of strategy planned to deprive
Jackson of the electoral vote of New York and Pennsylvania through an
ingenious combination of the two opposition parties in those States. In
New York the proscriptive party, meeting first, endorsed its national
nominees, and nominated leaders of their own for Governor and
Lieutenant-Governor. With great cunning they selected an electoral
ticket, including Chancellor Kent, an idolater of Clay. The Whigs
followed, and accepted the Anti-Masonic ticket, and thus the Opposition
was consolidated in the Empire State. There was no mystery as to the
intent in regard to the State ticket--it was to have the united support
of both parties. The weakness, with the public, was the absence of any
indication as to the intended disposal of the electoral vote. The plan
of the conspirators was to throw the electoral votes to Wirt provided
there was a possibility of his election, or no possibility of the
election of either Wirt or Clay; and for Clay in the event Wirt could
not win and the Whig nominee could with the electoral vote of New
York.[498] The plan met with the hearty approval of Clay, who
entertained high hopes of its success in depriving Jackson of the
electoral vote upon which his election depended.[499] Thus, before the
campaign had fairly started, the politicians of these two parties were
working in close coöperation with a complete understanding, while the
rank and file of both parties were left entirely in the dark. Wirt, with
no faith in the coalition, was doing nothing to advance his
candidacy.[500] Thus the nominee of one party was secretly planning to
deliver the prize to the man his own party had repudiated. Not only did
he write no letters to advance his party’s cause, but he “refused to
answer whenever such answers could be interpreted as canvassing for
office.”[501]
Meanwhile the Jacksonians were merely amused at these intrigues of the
old school politicians. The secret of their strength, here as always,
was in their daring. Not only did they ignore the Anti-Masons and refuse
to conciliate them, but they cast them off as completely as they had the
Nullifiers. The highest member of the Masonic order in America was at
the head of Jackson’s Cabinet, and John Quincy Adams gave the utmost
publicity to the fact by addressing his attacks on Masonry to Edward
Livingston. Jackson himself sought and found an opportunity to go on
record against the prescriptive hysteria. In this manner the Jacksonian
managers rallied the Masons to their banner, and they held in their
hands the ammunition with which to blow to atoms the plan of the
coalition leaders to deliver the rank and file of the enemies of Masonry
to Clay.
Early in October Blair published in the “Globe,” without comment,
Clay’s manly letter to some Anti-Masons in Indiana refusing to be drawn
into sectarian quarrels. “If a President of the United States ... were
to employ his official power to sustain, or to abolish, or to advance
the interest of Masonry or Anti-Masonry,” he had written, “it would be
an act of usurpation and tyranny.”[502] That was enough. The Democratic
press of the country, taking the cue from the “Globe,” reproduced the
letter, and thus the rank and file of the party everywhere was
strengthened in its determination not to support its author.
While Clay was intriguing with the Nullifiers and the Anti-Masons, the
Democrats were audaciously denouncing both, and were gaining rather than
losing by their temerity.
IV
There was but one issue--and that the Bank. Clay had made it the issue
with the officers of the institution and their allied business
interests; the clever leaders of the Jackson forces made it an issue
with the masses of the people, who had always looked with suspicion and
dislike upon the powerful financial institution.[503] And then, perhaps,
the “Emperor Nicholas” bitterly regretted having yielded to the
blandishments of Clay. If he had not considered the cost in money to the
institution when he yielded, Clay understood it as well as Webster. They
knew that a fight against the “weak old man,” as they foolishly called
Jackson, would be “no holiday affair.” Satisfied of the support of the
business element, they had calculated the cost of reaching the people
generally--and they had the work of Biddle cut out for him.[504] And
almost immediately, Biddle was as deeply involved as Clay himself.
The campaign plans of the two parties differed, since their special
appeals were to different elements. The Clay men relied on the
distribution, with Bank money, of the printed speeches of Clay, Webster,
and Calhoun, of tracts and pamphlets. These, falling into the hands of
the masses, were thrown aside. They were sympathetically perused by the
bankers, merchants, manufacturers, preachers, professors, and lawyers
who were in no need of conversion.[505] The Bank made desperate efforts
to win to its support the press of the larger cities and towns. It was
notoriously willing to prove its appreciation of such support with the
coin of the realm.[506] That Webb’s paper had been won over with Bank
money was common knowledge after the congressional investigation, and
Amos Kendall, in the “Globe,” charged that the “Evening Post” had been
“approached,” and that the “Standard” of Philadelphia had been offered
five hundred dollars and a new set of type, and the inducement had been
increased by five hundred dollars two days later.
Thoroughly frightened, Biddle spent lavishly for the printing and
distribution of speeches and articles. Mailing the president of the
Kentucky Bank[507] Webster’s speech on the Veto, and an article
reviewing the Message, he instructed that these, “as well as Mr. Clay’s
& Mr. Ewing’s speeches on the same subject,” be “printed and
dispersed.”[508] More than $80,000--an enormous sum for those days--was
spent by the Bank under the head of “stationery and printing” during the
period of the campaign. Thousands of friendly newspapers were bought in
bulk and scattered broadcast, and Blair announced the discovery that
“about four bushels of the ‘Extra Telegraph’ is sent to New York to a
single individual for distribution.”[509] An analysis of Benton’s speech
and a reply was printed in pamphlet form, and thousands flooded the
country and burdened the mails.
But more sinister still was the appearance, for the first time in
American politics, of the weapons of intimidation and coercion. In New
Orleans a bank commenced discounting four months’ paper at eight per
centum--“because of the veto.” An advertisement appeared in a Cincinnati
paper offering $2.50 per hundred for pork if Clay should be elected,
$1.50 if Jackson won--a bribe of one dollar a head on each hundred
pounds of pork. From Brownsville, Pennsylvania, went forth the
disturbing report that “a large manufacturer has discharged all his
hands, and others have given notice to do so,” and that “not a single
steam boat will be built this season at Wheeling, Pittsburg or
Louisville.” From Baltimore: “A great many mechanics are thrown out of
employment by the stoppage of building. The prospect ahead is that we
shall have a very distressing winter.” And so the work went on, with the
Bank and its political champions holding the sword of Damocles over the
heads of the masses who dared to vote for Jackson.[510] Jackson was held
before the conservative and timid as rash, dangerous, destructive.
Webster’s State convention speech at Worcester, expanding on the
unfortunate sentence from the Veto Message as to the finality of Supreme
Court decisions, was given general circulation. Even the brilliant
Ritchie, of the “Richmond Enquirer,” lived in constant terror of some
rash act of Jackson’s that would wreck the country.[511]
For the benefit of the ardent Jacksonians who disliked and distrusted
Van Buren, the nominee for Vice-President, the Whig and Bank press
gravely quoted some mysterious “Philadelphian” to whom Jackson had said,
“with his own lips,” that a reëlection would satisfy him as a
vindication, and that he would resign and go home, leaving Van Buren in
the Presidency. Even the “National Intelligencer” referred to the rumor
as “the disclosure of an important fact ... going to confirm our own
impressions.” And Blair had been forced to notice and denounce the story
with the comment that “we had always thought Simpson the most depraved
of all the miscreants purchased by the Bank, but certainly now
Gales[512] deserves to be put below him.”[513] Earlier in the campaign
the Whigs had attempted to serve the same purpose by circulating
alarming reports regarding Jackson’s health. And Blair, in denouncing
this canard, announced that the President “receives from 50 to 100
persons daily, is incessantly engaged in the despatch of the duties of
his office, and joins regularly at table his large dinner parties of
from 40 to 50 persons twice a week.”[514]
For the benefit of the preachers, teachers, and moral forces, the old
stories of Jackson’s bloodthirstiness were revived, apropos of the
attack by Sam Houston on a member of Congress. At first the President
had merely instigated the assault--and then the imaginative Whig scribes
worked out a bloodcurdling, circumstantial story. After the brutal
attack, the swaggering Houston had met Postmaster-General Barry at the
theater, and the two had talked it over at the theater bar, and, after
being congratulated by the Cabinet member, he had called on Jackson and
been heartily commended for his act.
Thus the Whigs used every weapon that came into their hands--money,
subsidized and bought papers, the hostility to Masonry, the hate of the
Nullifiers, the fear of Van Buren, intimidation, coercion, and slander.
And something comparatively new to politics--the cartoon--soon became a
feature of the fight. Here the Democrats were at a disadvantage, and the
pictorial editorials that have come down to us are largely anti-Jackson.
Here we find the President pictured as a raving maniac, as Don Quixote
tilting at the pillars of the splendid marble bank building in
Philadelphia, as a burglar attempting to force the bank doors with a
battering ram, while the most popular cartoon among the friends of Clay
pictured Jackson receiving a crown from Van Buren and a scepter from the
Devil.[515]
V
But all the while the consummate politicians of the Jackson party were
reaching and arousing the masses. Long before the opening of the
campaign, Amos Kendall, Lewis, Hill, and Blair were cunningly appealing
to the interests, the prejudices, and the hero worship of the voters of
the cornfield and the village. These forerunners of the modern
politician were keenly appreciative of the fact that between 1824 and
1832 a great body of voters, previously proscribed because of their
poverty and lack of property, had been newly enfranchised. With the
Whigs these were non-existent. The journalistic training of Kendall,
Hill, and Blair pointed to the press as the surest way to reach the
masses with their propaganda. The old-fashioned politician still
affected a contempt for the press, and particularly for the little
struggling papers of the country. The genius of Kendall immediately
seized upon these, and, long before the campaign began, the sallow,
prematurely gray young man of mystery, shut up in his petty office in
the Treasury, was busy night and day, and especially at night, preparing
articles and editorials laudatory of the Jackson policies, denunciatory
of the Opposition, and these, sent to editors all over the country, were
printed as their own. Thus the followers of Jackson in every nook and
corner of the country were constantly supplied with ammunition in the
shape of arguments they could comprehend and assimilate.
The center and soul of the Democratic organization was the office of the
“Globe.” Among the papers of national reputation, but two others were
supporting Jackson, the “New Hampshire Patriot” of “Ike” Hill, and Van
Buren’s organ, the “Albany Argus.” But the “Globe” was equal to the
demand upon it. Doubling the number of issues, the ferociously partisan
Blair sat in the office writing feverishly, with Kendall gliding in and
out with copy. Both possessed a genius for controversy. Both had
mastered a style combining literary qualities, attractive to the
educated, with the “pep” and “punch” that impressed, interested,
delighted, the multitude. Blair dipped his pen in vitriol. In satire and
sarcasm he had few equals. He was no parlor warrior, and he struck
resounding blows like a boiler-maker. And he wrote in a flowing style
that, at times, approached real eloquence. Having the average man in
mind, his editorials, filling the greater part of the paper, were
concise and brief. When language seemed weak, he resorted to italics.
The longer and more sustained argumentative articles were written by the
more brilliant Kendall. Through July, August, September, and October he
wrote a series of articles on “The Bank and the Veto,” beginning in an
argumentative vein, and gradually growing personal until he was devoting
one issue to the financial connections between the Bank and Duff Green,
another to similar connections of Webb, of the “Courier and Enquirer,”
and another to Gales, of the “Intelligencer.”
Infuriated by the gibes, taunts, and attacks, the Whigs charged that the
“Globe” was being distributed gratuitously--the business manager replied
with an affidavit as to the legitimacy of its circulation.[516] News of
the deepest import was crowded out by the exigencies of the campaign,
and with the cholera scourge taking a heavy toll of lives in Washington,
the only mention of it in the “Globe” was in the official reports of the
Board of Health. But there was room for columns of quotations from
Democratic papers on the Veto, all striking the exultant key--“The
Monster is Destroyed.”
Only the persistent hammering of the Whigs on the unfortunate sentence
of the Veto Message caused acute distress in Democratic circles.
Webster’s Worcester speech was annoying. Here a sneer, there a gibe in
the “Globe,” but sneers and gibes did not quite satisfy the editor, who
finally made a laborious effort to explain,[517] and, finding the effort
tame, Blair countercharged with the publication of Clay’s bitter
anti-Bank speech of 1811 with appropriate comments upon it from the
Jacksonian papers of the country.
As the campaign approached the end, Blair stressed the theory that the
real fight was between Jackson and the Bank, with Clay a mere pawn in
the game. “We see,” he wrote, “the most profligate apostasies invited
and applauded--the grossest misrepresentations circulated--the worst
forgeries committed--open briberies practiced, and all for what? Not
avowedly to elect Henry Clay or William Wirt, but any ‘available
candidate’[518]--in other words, any candidate with whom, in the end,
the Bank directors can make the best bargain.”[519] And a week later,
under the caption, “The Gold,” Blair announces that through private
advices “we learn that certain heavy trunks, securely hooped with iron,
have arrived at Lexington[520] from the East.”[521] Such was the
character of the publicity with which the Jacksonians appealed to the
masses of the people.
But the practical minds of the leaders of the Kitchen Cabinet were not
content with creating public opinion--they systematically organized and
directed it. In every community, no matter how obscure, some Jackson
leader, with a genius for organization work, was busy welding the
Jackson forces into a solid mass. Here Major Lewis took charge. He
anticipated the card-index system of the modern politicians. There was
scarcely a county in the country in which he did not know the precise
man or men upon whom absolute reliance could be placed. And “Ike” Hill,
now a United States Senator, made an extensive organizing tour through
Ohio and Pennsylvania in early August.
In both publicity and organization, the greater part of the ability and
all the genius was with Jackson.
VI
The Jacksonians depended also to a greater extent than the Opposition on
appeals to the people, face to face. A creature of another world,
looking down from the skies upon the United States in the late summer
and autumn of 1832, would have concluded that its people moved about in
enormous processions on horseback, with waving flags, branches and
banners. Great meetings were held in groves, addressed by fiery orators,
furiously denouncing “The Monster” and the “Corporation” and calling
upon the people to “stand by the Hero.” Men left their homes, bade
farewell to their families as though enlisting for a war, and rode from
one meeting to another for weeks at a time.[522] Nor was this hysterical
enthusiasm confined to the more primitive sections of the country. A
French traveler sojourning in New York City was profoundly impressed by
a Jackson parade there. “It was nearly a mile long,” he wrote. “The
Democrats marched in good order to the glare of torches; the banners
were more numerous than I have ever seen in any religious festival; all
were in transparency on account of the darkness. On some were inscribed
the names of Democratic societies, or sections; others bore imprecations
against the Bank of the United States. Nick Biddle and Old Nick here
figured largely.... From farther than the eye could reach came marching
on the Democrats. The procession stopped before the houses of the
Jackson men to fill the air with cheers, and halted at the door of the
leaders of the opposition to give three, six or nine groans. These
scenes belong to history and partake of the grand; they are the
episodes of a wondrous epic which will bequeath a lasting memory to
posterity.”[523]
And into these amazing demonstrations the campaign glee club, also new
to American politics, entered, to play a conspicuous part, with pretty
girls, and children gayly dressed, singing round the hickory poles that
were raised wherever there were idolaters of Jackson. And so they sang:
“Here’s a health to the heroes who fought
And conquered in Liberty’s cause;
Here’s health to Old Andy who could not be bought
To favor aristocrat laws.
Hurrah for the Roman-like Chief--
He never missed fire at all;
But ever when called to his country’s relief
Had a ready picked flint and a ball.
“Hurrah for the Hickory tree
From the mountain tops down to the sea.
It shall wave o’er the grave of the Tory and knave,
And shelter the honest and free.”[524]
Even where the Whigs were strongest, the militant Democrats poured forth
in defiant demonstrations. When Jackson, returning to Washington from
the Hermitage in the closing days of the campaign, approached Lexington,
the home of his rival, a multitude streamed down the road five miles to
meet him, with over a thousand on horseback and in carriages, and before
he reached his lodging the throng extended back two miles along the road
“with green hickory bushes waving like bright banners in a breeze.”[525]
It was inevitable that in such a campaign personalities should intrude.
In the winter of 1831-32, while Congress was in session, Jackson took
advantage of the presence of Dr. Harris, an eminent Philadelphia
surgeon, to have the bullet from Benton’s pistol, long lodged in his
shoulder, removed. When the surgeon appeared at the White House, he was
engaged with company, but excused himself with the explanation that he
would have to submit to an operation; and a few hours later he
reappeared among his friends with his arm in a sling. “Precisely,” wrote
Blair, “as he had appeared with it in battle among the enemies of his
country.”[526] This gave the Whigs their cue, and their press teemed
with references to the “disgusting affair” in which the shot had been
fired. And Blair himself was able to retaliate in kind with the story of
a wound received by Clay in a personal conflict. “He was taken to a kind
friend’s house,” he wrote, “he was treated with the utmost tenderness
and courtesy by that friend’s wife and family, and while enjoying their
hospitality, he amused himself ... by winning the money of his kind host
at Brag.”
If Jackson was a brawler, it was given out thus that Clay was not only a
brawler, but a gambler and an ingrate. Both stories made their way
through the country.[527]
If the cholera was not of sufficient importance for the news columns of
the party press, it was rich in suggestion to the politicians. The Dutch
Synod requested Jackson to set a day aside for prayer. He replied that
he had faith in the efficacy of prayer, but that the special day to be
set aside should be designated by the State authorities. Whereupon Clay
arose to offer a resolution in the Senate setting a day aside and fixing
the day. Aha, cried Blair, he wants a veto on a religious subject. “It
is not the cholera that makes them so pious; it is the hope to steal a
march on the old Hero.... What whited sepulchers some of these partisan
leaders are!” he wrote.[528]
And when, a little later, the “Pittsburgh Statesman,” a Clay paper,
suggested that “the only effectual cure, under existing circumstances,
for genuine Jacksonism is the equally genuine Asiatic Spasmodic
Cholera,” the “Troy Budget,” supporting Jackson, was not surprised at
“such political depravity,” coming from the “editorial slanderers and
ruthless murderers of Mrs. Jackson.” And “Ike” Hill, in the “New
Hampshire Patriot,” was reminded that Clay himself had prayed “for war,
pestilence and famine” in preference to the reëlection of Jackson. When
the President left the capital for the Hermitage, the “Troy Sentinel,”
Whig, with its eye on the church vote, announced with emphasis that he
had left Washington “at eight o’clock on Sunday morning.” Blair,
denouncing the story as “a lie,” declared that “he did not leave the
city until Monday morning and spent the Sabbath in religious duties as
usual.” When “Ike” Hill, speaking at a complimentary dinner at the Eagle
Coffee House, in Concord, assailed Clay and Senator John Holmes, and
referred to some Senators as “low and blackguard,” the “National
Intelligencer” protested, and Blair replied with a description of Holmes
as a “besotted Senator who had indulged in indecent and ribald slang
throughout the session,” and as one given to “low buffoonery”--the “mere
Thersites of the Senate.”[529] Charges of impropriety touching on the
personal integrity of political leaders were commonplace. The “Globe,”
centering its fire upon the activities of the Bank, charged it with
subsidizing and seducing the press by paying for the publication of
political speeches at advertising rates.[530] “Every press in
Philadelphia,” it said, “is closed by its influence, against the
admission of anything unfavorable to its pretensions. The ‘Mechanics’
Free Press’ broke ground against it in conformity with the principles of
its party, when lo! a shower of gold, amounting to $1700 for publishing
Mr. McDuffie’s report, silenced it, and for good reasons, doubtless, it
has ever since held its peace about the Bank.” And the Whig press was
equally shocked to find that officers high in the Government were
sending the “Globe” all over the country under their official frank. “A
lie!” screamed Blair. And so the battle of personalities went on. From
Hill’s “New Hampshire Patriot” came the resurrection of the
long-discredited “bargain” story against Clay.
Meanwhile, what had become of the candidates and what were their
feelings as to the prospects? While scarcely due to the strain of the
campaign, all three, Jackson, Clay, and Wirt, were threatened with
serious illness. As we have seen, Clay was threatened with paralysis
about the time of his retirement from the Cabinet. During the summer and
autumn of 1832 the old trouble returned. His friend, Brooke, who became
concerned over his health, urged him to caution, and Clay, much moved by
his friend’s solicitude, promised to be more careful of his diet, to
abstain from wine, and to reduce his consumption of tobacco to “one
form.”[531] At times, during the summer session, he had been forced to
leave Washington for a brief period of rest at his friend’s home at St.
Julien, Virginia; and as soon as Congress adjourned, he hastened to
White Sulphur Springs for two weeks in hope of relief from the waters.
Skeptical at first of his election, his confidence increased until he
and Webster were exchanging letters of congratulation on its certainty.
Wirt, who had a serious attack, and was in a weakened condition, was
forced by his physician to leave Baltimore, rather than take a chance
with the cholera. After a brief sojourn at Bedford Springs, he went with
his family to Berkley Springs where he remained through September. Here,
with no thought of his own election, but with ardent hopes for Clay, he
ignored the clamor of the campaign. Riding and lounging about the
grounds during the day, regaling company with ghost stories in the
evening, he bore no resemblance to a presidential candidate.[532]
Soon after Congress adjourned, the scourge reached Washington, taking
heavy toll of the Irish and Swedish laborers engaged in the first
macadamizing of Pennsylvania Avenue, and spreading rapidly from the
poorer parts to the White House section. Because of Jackson’s weakened
condition, his physicians insisted that he spend three months at the
Hermitage, and near the middle of August, accompanied part of the way by
Amos Kendall, Frank Blair, “Ike” Hill, Major Lewis, Lewis Cass, and
Benton, he left the sweltering and infected capital and went down the
Ohio. He was in high glee. Never for a moment had he doubted the result
of the election. During the congressional fight over the recharter bill
he had not punished those who had withheld their support by denying them
patronage, except in the case of his most bitter foes. Just before the
vote in the House, an Ohio Representative solicited an appointment for a
constituent, and, upon being granted the favor, he explained that he
thought it due Jackson for him to know that the favor was being granted
a member who would vote for the Bank.
“I can’t help that, sir, but I already knew it. See here--I can take a
roll of the House and check off every Democrat who will vote for the
Bank. In fact I have one here.”
Turning briskly, he produced it, and the Representative, running over
the list, indicated one name as that of a man who would vote with
Jackson.
“How do you know?” demanded Jackson.
When told that this Congressman had been so unmercifully berated by his
constituents that he had felt compelled to change his tack, the old
warrior smiled grimly.
“He is a lucky fellow,” he said, “to get the views of his constituents
beforehand. There are several other Democrats in the House who will not
get similar notice until next fall, sir.”[533]
Nothing occurred after that incident to alter his opinion of the
sentiment of the people. As Hill left the boat bearing the presidential
party down the Ohio, at Wheeling, Jackson said, as he clasped his hand:
“Isaac, it’ll be a walk. If our fellows didn’t raise a finger from now
on the thing would be just as well as done. In fact, Isaac, it’s done
now.”
That his friends shared his confidence we have ample evidence. Hill,
writing to a friend, advised him to bet all he could on Pennsylvania and
Ohio for Jackson--“not on stated majorities, but hang on to the general
result.” And he added frankly, “I am on the turf myself. Benton and his
friends out West are picking up all they can get.” John Van Buren, the
son of Martin, and popularly known as “Prince John,” made a small
fortune with his ventures on the election, and Hone, commenting on the
manner and appearance of Martin Van Buren, the nominee for
Vice-President, thought it indicated a feeling of absolute security.
The result was a notable victory for Jackson and his policies--an
unmistakable rebuke to Clay. In electoral votes Jackson received 219,
Clay 49, and Wirt 7, and the popular vote gave Jackson 124,392 over the
combined strength of Clay and Wirt, thus proving the absurdity of
Thurlow Weed’s theory that if Clay had acquiesced in the wishes of the
Anti-Masons he could have been elected. The only State carried by Wirt
was Vermont--as he had predicted. Clay carried Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, Connecticut, Delaware, and Kentucky, and five out of the eight
electoral votes of Maryland. All the other States went to Jackson but
one--South Carolina, with childish petulance, threw its vote away at the
behest of Calhoun.
Nothing could have been more ominous than this action. Going entirely
outside the regularly nominated candidates, and acting in conformity
with the views of the Nullifying party, which insisted on placing the
State outside the Union, she gave her vote to Governor Floyd of
Virginia. And Jackson, getting the returns, instantly caught the
significance of the act, and girded his loins for a life-and-death
struggle with Calhoun and Nullification.