THE BATTLE OF THE SUCCESSION
I
From the adjournment of Congress in March, 1835, until it convened in
December, the political leaders concerned themselves with presidential
politics, and the struggle for position was desperate and unscrupulous.
From the hour in the first year of his first Administration, when
Jackson, fearful of an early death, wrote his celebrated letter to Judge
Overton expressing a preference for Van Buren, the latter had been
looked upon as the crown prince. From that hour the master political
manipulators surrounding Jackson made no move not intended to advance
the “magician” toward the goal of his ambition. In the summer of 1833
Major Lewis was disturbed over the prospective candidacy of Justice
McLean,[870] but it failed to materialize, and, within a year after the
Major’s trepidation, the White House circle realized that the most
serious challenge to the plans for the succession would come from Hugh
Lawson White of Tennessee, considered a renegade from the Jackson camp.
The close attachment of the President and the Senator from his State had
perceptibly cooled in less than a year after the inauguration. The
latter was of a proud and sensitive temperament, and the growing
intimacy of his old friend with the new school of practical politicians
was enough to estrange him. Had he hoped in the beginning to become the
legatee of Jackson, we should have a plausible explanation of his bitter
resentment of the President’s failure to observe his one-term pledge. We
only know that he drifted, first into the position of an independent
supporter of the Administration, and later into one of frank hostility.
His imagination began early to play pranks with his judgment. He began
to seek evidence of slights. In all the new school of Jacksonian leaders
he saw enemies. He carefully scrutinized the “Globe” for discriminations
against him. That there was no conscious effort on the part of the paper
to ignore him is shown in the action of Blair, on learning that the
Senator was offended. In a cordial letter he assured the suspicious
Senator that he felt “the most perfect consciousness” that he had “done
nothing to offend--certainly not intentionally,” and begged him to
“frankly state the offense that it may be righted.” The curt, ungracious
reply of White was overlooked and an appeal made for a personal
interview, but the response was so repellent that further attempts at a
reconciliation were abandoned. There is some justification for the
conclusion that White had early determined upon a quarrel with the view
to placing himself at the head of the opposition wing of the Democratic
Party. In 1833 the Opposition began to claim him as its own when he
supported Calhoun’s bill on Executive patronage in a powerful speech,
and joined Clay in opposing the Administration plan in the Nullification
fight.
It is not surprising that under these conditions the small faction of
the Democratic Party should have turned to him as the logical man to pit
against the pretensions of Van Buren. The former was a Southerner, the
latter a Northerner, and the slavery controversy had become acute. The
fact that White was a Tennesseean was expected to embarrass and handicap
Jackson in his support of the New Yorker. To the Whigs he not only
presented the best prospect for a schism in the party in power, but for
a time the leaders actually considered the wisdom of making him their
own candidate. Clay was fearful that his candidacy would fail to infuse
among the Whigs “the spirit and zeal necessary to insure success,” but
thought he might, as an independent candidate, “obtain the undivided
support of the South and South-West,” and thus throw the contest into
the House and defeat Van Buren.[871] Thus all the elements were present
to make his disaffection probable. Hurt by what he conceived to be
Jackson’s ingratitude, jealous of the new friends that haunted the White
House, importuned by the anti-Administration Democrats, and cleverly
encouraged by the Whigs, he was gradually pushed into the attitude of a
candidate. To all of these, the gossips of the day, malignant as always,
added a new reason, which they insisted was the predominant one--the
ambition of his wife.[872]
Just before he decided upon the plunge, the Whigs had been assiduous in
their cultivation of him, and ardent in their expressions of sympathy
because of the harsh treatment accorded him by his old friend in the
White House. One of the most persistent of the tempters was Clay’s
intimate and reflector, R. P. Letcher, Representative from Kentucky, who
had maintained the most constant social relations with the Whites during
the preceding winter, ingratiating himself into the old man’s
confidence, and frequently enjoying the hospitality of his home. The
hollow mockery of Letcher’s attachment appeared in a letter to a friend,
written a little later, in which he galloped over the gossip of the
capital, and announced that “Judge White is on the track running gaily,
and won’t come off; and if he would, his wife wouldn’t let him.”[873] A
more suspicious man than the Tennessee Senator might have found, in
this, evidence of treachery and duplicity. The slur on Mrs. White was
resented by Blair, in a stinging editorial in the “Globe,” but his
excoriation of Letcher does not appear to have given White a more
favorable impression of the editor.[874] The intimation regarding Mrs.
White was basely false, the slur wholly unjustified.
By the spring of 1834, White had announced his candidacy and the gage
of battle was thus thrown down to Jackson in Tennessee, which became the
battle-ground. In the autumn of that year, while on a visit to the
Hermitage, Jackson, on learning of the partiality of many for the
Senator, had entered into a warm defense of his favorite, ridiculed the
prospects of White outside his own State, and, in more conciliatory
mood, proposed the nomination of the Tennesseean for Vice-President with
a view to the succession on the expiration of Van Buren’s term. Learning
of these interviews, White wrote to James K. Polk, knowing his intimacy
with the President, inquiring as to his information on the presidential
position, but the only satisfaction he received was a warning to give no
credence to any such gossip unless from an unquestionable source.[875]
But if Polk was not then familiar with Jackson’s uncompromising
hostility to White’s aspirations, he was not to remain long in doubt. It
was the plan of the Jackson organization in Tennessee, led by Polk and
Felix Grundy, to simulate sympathy with the Senator’s ambition, and
persuasively lead him into the shambles of the Baltimore Convention. But
when he refused to go passively to the slaughter, and a meeting of the
Tennessee congressional delegation was called in the interest of his
candidacy, Polk and Grundy refused to attend, threw off the mask, and
declared open war. Thus the fight was extended into the congressional
elections in Tennessee in the summer of 1835, with Polk assuming the
leadership of the Administration forces, taking the stump in opposition
to White’s candidacy, and throwing the weight of his Nashville paper
into the scale. Henceforth Polk’s attitude was courageous. He would be
glad to see a son of Tennessee elevated to the Presidency if it could be
done in regulation manner by the Democratic Party, but he would not
countenance any attempt to divide the party in the interest of the
Whigs. The National Democracy favored Van Buren, and it was the duty of
Tennessee not to separate from the party in the Nation.
The elections resulted in the triumph of White’s followers, with
casualties among Jackson’s congressional followers, but Polk was
triumphantly reëlected, and he redoubled his efforts. At a series of
banquets he denounced the attempt of Democrats to create a schism in the
face of the common enemy. But immediately afterwards the Legislature,
through the adoption of resolutions, formally nominated White for the
Presidency.
II
Although the fame of Hugh Lawson White has been obscured by the years,
he was familiarly known to his generation as “the Cato of the Senate.”
Without sparkle or magnetism, the purity of his character, the soundness
of his common sense, his fidelity to duty, and assiduous application
commanded respect if not admiration. His senatorial speeches were
noteworthy because of their temperate tone--rare in his generation.
Clarity and strength characterized his every utterance. If his speeches
lacked eloquence, they smacked of statesmanship and substance. No member
of the Senate more impressively looked the part. Tall, slender, and
well-proportioned, with a broad forehead and deep-set, serious,
penetrating blue eyes, he was the embodiment of senatorial dignity. With
long gray hair, brushed back from his forehead, and curling at some
length on his shoulders, he appeared the patriarch. In repose, he was
sad and stern. Because of the rarity and thoroughness of his speeches,
he commanded the respect and confidence of his colleagues. He looked
upon his duties with the solemnity of the Roman Senator of the noblest
period of the Roman Republic. Always heard with attention, he was
attentive to others, and he was frequently the one listener to an
uninteresting speech. Even in familiar conversation, he rarely jested
outside the domestic circle, and, while an interesting and instructive
conversationalist about his own fireside, he was apt to be taciturn and
retiring in company. Had fate ordained that he should have reached the
Presidency, he would have made a safe, conventional Executive, and he
would be remembered as a pure, patriotic public servant. Such was the
man who was to give Jackson, in the election of his successor, his only
uneasy hours.
III
The concern of the Jackson organization over White’s candidacy may be
read in the persistency of Blair’s vigorous denunciations in the
“Washington Globe.” Beginning in the early spring and continuing
throughout the summer, the Administration organ teemed with attacks on
the Tennessee Senator and his most ardent champion, John Bell, Speaker
of the House of Representatives. The ill-advised announcement of White’s
followers that his candidacy was intended to destroy the landmarks of
party gave the editor his cue. “This artifice,” wrote Blair, “has been
so frequently attempted, and in vain, by those seeking to divide and
destroy the Republican [Democratic] Party in this country, that we would
have supposed the design would not have been confessed on the part of
those supporting the interests of a man, who, up to the age of sixty, at
least has made it his boast to support his party firmly, as the only
means of maintaining his principles. But he now seeks office at the
hands of the Opposition, and like all new solicitors for the favor of
Federalism, becomes a no-party man.”[876] The fact that White had voted
with the Whigs on the Fortifications Bill was made the text of many
discourses on the questionable character of his patriotism; his
connection with Calhoun offered the opportunity to picture him as a
half-disguised friend of Nullification. The encouragement given his
candidacy by the Whig leaders was interpreted as a desertion of the
house of his friends to do the work of the enemy. Tying him up tightly
with the Whigs and the Nullifiers, attacking the no-party idea as a
wooden horse of Troy in which discredited Federalism planned to reënter
the Capitol, Blair smote the Tennesseean hip and thigh throughout the
summer.
But scarcely less offensive to the “Globe” than White was John Bell, and
the determination of the organization to prevent his reëlection to the
Speakership was evident in the systematic attacks upon his record.
Beginning in May, and continuing through the summer, there was scarcely
an issue of the “Globe” that did not deal with some phase of Bell’s
alleged perfidy, in a special article.[877] The virulent hostility to
Bell, of the Kitchen Cabinet, was not due in whole to his relations with
the candidacy of White. Following his election over Polk to the
Speakership, Duff Green, in the “Telegraph,” ascribed Polk’s defeat to
his support by the Kitchen Cabinet, and described “Kendall, Blair, and
Lewis parading the lobby” in attempts to drum up votes for their
favorite. This had been bluntly denied by Blair, who insisted that he
had spoken to no one on the Speakership, and that Lewis was “known to
have been inclined to Mr. Bell’s election.”[878] But the charge in the
“Telegraph” had been accepted by many and the pride of the Jackson
leaders had been aroused. The White candidacy, Bell’s espousal of it,
and Polk’s determined stand against it, made it imperative that Bell
should be retired in the interest of Polk.
Meanwhile the Baltimore Convention assembled on May 20, 1835--an
assembly that no more deserves the popular reproach of being a
convention of office-holders than the average convention of the dominant
party ever since. The absence of delegates from South Carolina and
Illinois was tolerable to the Jacksonians, but the failure of Tennessee
to appear, notwithstanding the personal importunities of the President,
was painfully embarrassing. That had to be corrected. A comparatively
unknown Tennesseean, E. Rucker, was found in the city, and literally
pushed into the convention to cast the unauthorized vote of
Tennessee--and thus the word “Ruckerize” was added to the vocabulary of
practical politicians. The polished Andrew Stevenson, who had resigned
the Speakership to accept the diplomatic post in London, only to share
the fate of Van Buren, was called upon to deliver the “keynote” address
in the capacity of chairman. But this honor, bestowed upon the
Virginians, was more than neutralized by New York’s desertion of her
Virginia allies in the nomination of the vice-presidential candidate.
Never had the Old Dominion been dominated by a more powerful machine
than that led by Judge Spencer Roane, a man of great intellectual force,
who had been favored by Jefferson for the Chief Justiceship. He had a
powerful colleague in his cousin, Thomas Ritchie, the forceful editor of
the “Richmond Enquirer.” Stevenson was an important member of the
clique, and no one was closer to its leader than the scholarly Senator
William C. Rives, who had, as Jackson’s first Minister to France,
negotiated the indemnity settlement. The Virginians had early pledged
themselves to the political fortunes of Van Buren. The alliance of the
two States, Virginia and New York, was one of the significant facts in
the politics of the day. Never doubting the loyalty of their ally, Roane
and his organization determined to dictate the nomination of Rives for
the Vice-Presidency with a view to the succession. It was not until the
eve of the convention that the Virginians learned, to their dismay, that
the New Yorkers had other plans. Almost incredulous, chagrined,
disturbed, Ritchie hastened to write Rives of the new developments. He
had heard that “some of our strongest friends in Washington” were
looking with favor on Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky. Van Buren’s
preference was a mystery. However, Ritchie had been pressing Rives’s
claims and had written letters, not only to delegates, but to “a
gentleman in Washington, who can, if he thinks fit, exercise a sort of
potential voice.” But unhappily for the Virginians, Lewis, Kendall,
Blair, Silas Wright, and Hill were opportunists, with their eyes upon
the West, in view of the candidacy of both Harrison and White. It was
clear to them that expediency demanded the nomination of a Westerner for
the Vice-Presidency. The stubborn, and now thoroughly outraged,
Virginians refused to acquiesce in the reasoning of the Kitchen Cabinet,
and Rives went down before the first of the “steam rollers” that have
become so commonplace in national conventions.[879] Thoroughly disgusted
by what they conceived to be a betrayal, the Virginia organization
declared open war on Johnson, and Van Buren was much perturbed. But that
wily diplomat, assisted by Silas Wright, immediately took personal
charge of the work of conciliation, writing numerous letters to Rives
and Ritchie, and the storm was stilled for the time when Van Buren made
a journey to Castle Hill, the country home of the defeated candidate,
where the fatted calf was killed and the leaders of the Roane
organization were invited to participate in the feast and to accept the
apologies and pledges of the presidential nominee.
IV
Meanwhile the Whigs were in a quandary as to what to do, with their
greatest popular leader, noting a tendency to set him aside, spending
the summer at Ashland in bitterness of soul. In a letter written in July
he had unbosomed himself to a friend, with the confession that he had
thought it probable that his party would again turn to him, but had
noted a tendency to “discourage the use of my name.” In Ohio, where he
was popular, the Legislature had discredited his possible candidacy by
its endorsement of Justice McLean. In the spirit of an Achilles sulking
in his tent, he discussed the various names canvassed, pointing out
their weaknesses. White would be intolerable as a Whig candidate because
“he has been throughout a supporter of the Jackson Administration and
holds no principle, except in the matter of patronage, as to public
measures, in common with the Whigs.” While he thought Webster’s
attainments greatly superior to those of any other candidate, “it is to
be regretted that a general persuasion seems to exist that he stands no
chance.” Harrison was damned with the faint praise that he “could easier
obtain the vote of Kentucky than any other candidate named.” The only
rift in the clouds that he could see was in the nomination of three
candidates, with White as one of the three, to draw off the Democratic
strength in the South and portions of the West, and the defeat of Van
Buren by thus throwing the contest into the House.[880] That this plan
was uppermost in the minds of the Whigs is shown in a letter to Clay
from James Barbour of Virginia, in August. Because of the slavery
question, he thought White the strongest candidate to be pressed against
Van Buren in Virginia. Webster was out of the question. McLean, not even
considered. Harrison, after White, would make the strongest appeal. “It
seems to me,” he continued, “that we have no prospect of excluding Van
Buren but by the plan you suggest, of selecting two candidates who will
be the strongest in their respective sections. White, I apprehend, for
the South, Webster for the East, North and West, or whomsoever
Pennsylvania prefers.”[881] Thus, in the correspondence of the Whig
leaders, we have the proof that White was intrigued into the race by the
Whigs with the view to furthering their own interest, and not his.
By September, Clay, having met Harrison in Cincinnati, and finding him
“respectful and cordial,” was more cordial toward his candidacy,
although he preferred any choice Pennsylvania might announce. The Rhode
Island and Connecticut elections had shown that “it is in vain to look
even to New England for the support of Mr. Webster.”[882] Out of this
confusion of counsels, Harrison ultimately emerged with the general
support of the Whigs, but, like the Democrats, the Whigs were to be
embarrassed by a double tail to their ticket. With the popular sentiment
favoring Tyler, the politicians, with their eyes on the Anti-Masons,
nominated Granger. It was the contention of contemporaries that Clay,
who had engineered the move against Tyler, feared that the concentration
of the Whigs on some strong candidate for the Vice-Presidency might
result in his election with Van Buren, because of the dissatisfaction of
the Virginia Whigs with Johnson; and that a Whig Vice-President, under a
Democratic President, would become a formidable rival for the
presidential nomination in 1840.[883] Both Tyler and Granger, however,
remained in the field, thus dividing the vote in the election.
The Massachusetts Whigs, nothing daunted by the turn of affairs,
remained faithful to Webster, who was placed in the field; and in South
Carolina, where Calhoun’s followers made a point of separating
themselves from all parties and all other States, Senator Willie P.
Mangum was nominated. Thus, in the campaign of 1836 there were five
candidates, with the Democrats united behind Van Buren, and the
Opposition dividing its strength between Harrison, White, Webster, and
Mangum. Nothing could have been more to the liking of the Democracy. It
entered the campaign in solid ranks except in Tennessee, where even the
magic name of Jackson was unable to prevent a schism which was to result
in the humiliation of the venerable chief.
V
During the summer of 1835 the militant methods of the Abolitionists
forced the slavery question to the front to the embarrassment of the
politicians and the candidates. The Nation was still on edge because of
the anti-slavery and anti-abolition riots of the year before, when
George Thompson, the Abolition firebrand from England, arrived in
America with exhortations to the Northerners to end slavery at once. The
South was outraged, the North, shocked. Coincident with Thompson’s mad
crusade, the American Anti-Slavery Society, having collected a large sum
of money for the purpose, began to circularize the country, and
especially the South, with literature calculated to arouse the slaves to
insurrection.[884] The defense of the abolitionists was that the
literature was sent to the whites alone; but much of it fell into the
hands of the blacks, and excitement reached fever heat. In Philadelphia
a pouch of these tracts was confiscated by a mob, and sunk in the
Delaware River. In Charleston the mail was searched for them, and three
thousand citizens assembled at night to witness their destruction in a
bonfire. Mass meetings were held in all the larger Northern cities to
denounce the desperate enterprise of the abolitionists, and in Boston
the citizens packed Faneuil Hall to hear Harrison Gray Otis denounce
them in a spirited address. When Thompson, in one of his inflammatory
speeches, proposed that the slaves should arise and cut their masters’
throats, the bitterness in the North was as pronounced as in the South,
and after Garrison had narrowly escaped the rope through the
intercession of the Mayor of Boston, whom he had scathingly attacked in
his paper, the English orator went into hiding until he could be
spirited out of the country. The most important effect of this miserable
blunder of the abolitionists was to force the slavery question into
politics, and from that hour on, the slave-owners of the South became
dominant in the politics of the Republic.
It is certain that Jackson, like all other responsible leaders, abhorred
these appeals to the slaves to rise and cut their masters’ throats. The
burden of dealing with an important phase of the problem, the
transmission of such matter through the mail, fell upon the
Administration, and in the absence of any law to prevent it. But when
the postmasters of New York and Charleston wrote Postmaster-General
Kendall for instructions, that astute politician replied that the United
States should not carry such matter in the mail; and, acting upon the
hint, the postmasters threw all such matter out with the tacit consent
of the Government.
The Opposition, however, planned to turn the hatred of the abolitionists
against Van Buren, who was hostile to the extension of slavery. Writing
to Clay in the late summer of 1835, Senator Barbour rejoiced in the
injection of the slavery question as certain to injure the Democratic
nominee.[885] The close political associates of Van Buren were keenly
alive to the danger, and John Forsyth wrote him that unless something
should be done in New York he “should not be at all surprised at a
decisive movement to establish a Southern Confederacy,” and suggested
that “a portion of the Magician’s skill is required in this matter ...
and the sooner you set the imps to work the better.”[886] Whether the
wily politician “set the imps to work” we do not know, but within a
month of the writing of the letter the New York postmaster publicly
announced that he would refuse to forward the objectionable literature.
This was given the widest publicity; so, too, the letter of Amos Kendall
accepting and endorsing the action of the New York official. And about
the same time, whether due to the Van Buren “imps” or not, one of the
greatest meetings ever held in New York was held in the park to denounce
the methods of the abolitionists. Nothing was done by Van Buren
personally, in a public way, to divorce himself from all sympathy with
the abolition movement.
The Whig nominee, determined publicly to repudiate the abolition
methods, found an opportunity at a dinner in his honor at Vincennes,
Indiana, in a speech intended as a friendly gesture to the slave-holding
States, and for the cultivation of such of those in Virginia as were
prone to associate Van Buren with the abolition sentiment in portions of
New York.[887] The position of White was as clearly fixed on slavery as
that of Calhoun, and we shall observe a little later how the latter
sought to place Van Buren in a position hostile to Southern interests.
VI
Meanwhile Van Buren serenely went his way, undisturbed by the storm, and
in the best of humor. Soon after the Baltimore Convention, the most
unconventional campaign biography ever published in America was issued
by a Philadelphia publishing house and given an extensive circulation.
The present generation scarcely realizes that there were two Davy
Crocketts--the man of the woods and the fight, and the less admirable
creature who made a rather sorry figure in the Congress. It was the
latter who was persuaded to write a part, and to father all, of this
scurrilous biography of Van Buren, although it is generally accepted
that Hugh Lawson White, the man of ponderous dignity and lofty ideals,
was the man behind this questionable literary venture.[888] The personal
references to Van Buren are crudely and coarsely offensive throughout.
“He is about fifty years old,” he wrote, “and notwithstanding his
baldness, which reaches all around and half down his head, like a white
pitch plaster, leaving a few white floating locks, he is only three
years older than I am. His face is a good deal shriveled, and he looks
sorry, not for anything he has gained, but what he may lose.”[889] In
describing his subject’s mental operations, he found that “his mind
beats round, like a tame bear tied to a stake, in a little circle,
hardly bigger than the circumference of the head in which it is placed,
seeking no other object than to convert the Government into an
instrument to serve himself or his office-holding friends.”[890]
In explaining Van Buren’s rise, the hero of young Texas proceeded: “He
has become a great man without any reason for it, and so have I. He has
been nominated for President without the least pretensions; and so have
I. But here the similarity stops. From his cradle he was on the
non-committal tribe. I never was. He had always two ways to do a thing;
I never had but one. He was generally half bent; I tried to be as
straight as a gun barrel. He could not bear his rise; I never minded
mine. He forgot all his old associates because they were poor folks; I
stuck to the people that made me.”[891]
And in a superb bit of demagogy, Crockett described Van Buren as
traveling through the country in an English coach with “English servants
dressed in uniform--I think they call it livery”; refusing to mix “with
the sons of the little tavern-keepers,” forgetting “his old companions
and friends in the humbler walks of life”; eating “in a room by
himself,” and carrying himself “so stiff in his gait and prim in his
dress, that he was what the English call a Dandy.” The reader was
assured that “when he enters the Senate Chamber in the morning, he
struts and swaggers like a crow in a gutter,” that he “is laced up in
corsets such as women in town wear, and if possible tighter than the
best of them.” Indeed, Crockett found it “difficult to tell from his
personal appearance whether he was a man or a woman.”[892] The Eaton
scandal was salaciously served anew, the fight between Jackson and
Benton was described in detail, and, unfortunately for his candidate for
President, a chapter was devoted to a hot defense of White on the Bank
and on the Fortifications Bill.
The book, now happily forgotten, is only interesting and historically
important in indicating the tone of the political contests of the time,
and the scurrility of the attacks on Van Buren in the campaign. If the
Little Magician enjoyed the queer concoction, it was not without the
realization of its possibility for doing harm. At any rate, a little
later, another and a friendly biography by Holland was published,
seriously reviewing Van Buren’s public career. While not written in bad
taste, it aroused the ire of John Quincy Adams who took the time to read
it. “A mere partisan electioneering work,” he wrote in his diary. “Van
Buren’s personal character bears, however, a stronger resemblance to
that of Mr. Madison than to that of Mr. Jefferson. These are both
remarkable for their extreme caution in avoiding and averting personal
collisions. Van Buren, like the Sosie of Molière’s ‘Amphitryon,’ is
‘l’ami de tout le monde.’ This is perhaps the secret of his great
success in public life, and especially against the competitors with whom
he is now struggling for the last step on the ladder of his
ambition--Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. They, indeed, are left upon
the field for dead; and men of straw, Hugh L. White, William Henry
Harrison, and Daniel Webster, are thrust forward in their places.
Neither of these has a principle to lean upon.”[893]
If these intrigues and attacks disturbed Van Buren in the least, he gave
no sign. During a ten-day sojourn in New York in October, Philip Hone,
who vainly sought an open date to entertain him at dinner, found “his
outward appearance like the unruffled surface of the majestic river
which covers rocks and whirlpools, but shows no marks of the agitation
beneath.”[894] In this same good temper, he faced the ordeal of
presiding over the Senate, dominated by his political foes, in the long
session preceding the election. We shall here find him threading his way
among pitfalls provided by his enemies with such skill as to conceal all
effort.
VII
The halls of Congress in the session of December, 1835, were used as the
hustings, and there, largely, the presidential battle was fought. The
first blow was struck by the Jacksonians in the election of Polk to the
Speakership, over Bell. The latter was a man of much capacity,
considered by Van Buren as the intellectual superior of White, and he
had been elected to the Speakership, on the resignation of Stevenson,
through a combination of the Whigs and anti-Administration Democrats. In
seeking a reconciliation with the Jacksonians, he had hinted at a desire
for a confidential conference with Van Buren, and the two were finally
invited to dine with a mutual friend. Unhappily for Bell, a severe
toothache, real or diplomatic, forced the candidate of the Jacksonian
Democracy to retire the moment the ladies left the table. When a few
days later the two found themselves together on the speakers’ rostrum on
the occasion of the delivery of Adams’s oration on Lafayette, Bell had
attempted to discuss the differences of the factions, but the canny Red
Fox “put a civil end to the conversation with a few general remarks in
regard to the duty the friends of Judge White owed” to the party, and
soon afterward the Tennessee Senator had entered the field, and Bell was
forced to espouse his cause.[895] Thus the course of history may have
been changed by the toothache of a politician. At any rate, it was
enough, to the Jacksonian leaders, to know that Polk had risked his
popularity and future by taking the offensive in favor of Van Buren, and
he was rewarded with the Speakership.
The Whigs instantly accepted the challenge by bitterly opposing the
confirmation of Roger B. Taney as Chief Justice of the United States. No
one questioned his professional ability or his eminent fitness for a
high judicial position. Bitterly hostile as he was to Jackson’s Bank
policy, John Marshall had recognized Taney’s qualifications for the
bench when the President had previously made an unsuccessful attempt to
elevate his former Secretary of the Treasury to that tribunal. At that
time the venerable Chief Justice had quietly interested himself in his
successor’s behalf, and among the papers of Senator Leigh, still in
possession of the family, is the brief but significant note from
Marshall: “If you have not made up your mind on the nomination of Mr.
Taney, I have received some information in his favor which I would wish
to communicate.”[896] But after Marshall’s death and Taney’s
appointment, the Whig and pro-Bank politicians attempted to array all
the late jurist’s friends and admirers against the confirmation by
picturing Jackson as not only hostile to the trend of his decisions, but
to the perpetuation of his memory. The “Richmond Whig” announced that
“he [Jackson] thinks undue honors have been rendered to the memory of
General Marshall, and predicts that the attempt to build a monument to
his memory in Washington will fail.” This was a willful perversion of a
comment actually made to the editor of the “Southern Literary Messenger”
at Rip Raps, that, in view of Jackson’s inability to interest Congress
in an appropriation for a monument to Washington, he was afraid that it
would be impossible to build one to Marshall.[897] But the idea of the
fighting Secretary of the Treasury in the seat of Marshall was maddening
to the Whig leaders, and the nomination was attacked with intemperance
and even scurrility by both Webster and Clay, and it was not until in
March, three months after the nomination was sent to the Senate, that it
was confirmed.
But the appearance of resolutions from legislatures, instructing Whig
and pro-Bank Senators to vote to expunge the resolution of censure
against Jackson, was the most bitter pill of all. Not only did it
further embitter the Whigs against the Administration, but it put them
at loggerheads with each other. This was especially true of the Whig
Senators from Virginia, Tyler and Leigh, who took opposite views as to
the inviolability of instructions. Throughout his entire career, Tyler
had stoutly insisted upon the right of the people, speaking through
their legislatures, to instruct their representatives in the Senate.
This position had been adopted by the Virginia Whigs, and accepted by
the people of the State. Because of this, Leigh now sat in the Senate,
in the seat from which Rives had been instructed. But when a resolution
was introduced in the Virginia Assembly, instructing the Senators from
that State to vote to expunge, the Whigs began to divide on the question
of compliance in the event of its adoption. There was never any question
as to the attitude of John Tyler. Pilloried in history as a second-rate
politician and a weakling, it is impossible to study his career without
being impressed with his consistency, which was all too rare in his
generation, and the unfaltering courage with which he lived up to his
principles, regardless of the effect upon his personal fortunes. But
Leigh, who owed his seat in the Senate to the principle of instructions,
was made of less heroic clay. With the encouragement of Virginians,
including Judge Brooke, who always reflected the views of Henry Clay, he
began to hedge. Senator Barbour, another of Clay’s intimates, urged upon
Tyler sophisticated reasons for ignoring the instructions.[898] When the
resolutions were adopted in the lower branch of the legislature, the
pressure of the Whigs to ignore them met with a gracious yielding on the
part of Leigh, and the unscrupulous partisans were able to concentrate
their efforts on Tyler. Such was the logic of party bigotry in 1836 that
the Maryland Legislature, which had nominated Tyler for the
Vice-Presidency, threatened to rescind the nomination if he complied
with the instructions, and the future President, the truckling, tricky
politician of historical caricature, expressed his disgust in a letter
to his son: “These incidents look almost like a political romance in
these days when everything is surrendered for office.... Give me the
assurance that history will do me justice ... and I will go to my grave
in peace.”[899] When the resolution was passed by both branches, and
certified to the two Senators, Tyler, without a moment’s hesitation,
resigned in a dignified letter to Van Buren, and retired to private
life. Leigh ignored the instructions and retained his seat, but resigned
in July. This contradiction sadly crippled the Whigs in Virginia; and
when, during the spring, a dinner was given the two Senators by their
fellow partisans, and Tyler was lauded for his act, the spicy Thomas
Ritchie, of the “Richmond Enquirer,” insisted that two of the toasts
were:
“John Tyler: Honor to him, because he could not, with honor, retain his
seat.”
“Senator Leigh: Honor to him, because he could not, with honor,
relinquish his seat.”
Thus Tyler passed from the ranks of the Opposition in the Senate, and
William C. Rives, the friend of Jackson and Van Buren, vindicated by
events, returned to strengthen the forces of the Administration.
The attitude of Ewing of Ohio toward similar resolutions by the
legislature of his State was that of Leigh.[900]
All these manifestations of popular approval of the Administration, and
dissatisfaction with the Whigs and their allies in the Senate, tended to
infuriate the Opposition which found itself helpless before the tide. In
Tennessee, however, the Administration was unable to secure instructions
aimed at White, and the attempt merely furnished the opportunity for
laudatory speeches on the Tennessee Senator, and bitter denunciations of
the proposal to expunge. This defeat in Tennessee was the only hopeful
sign that reached the Whigs in Washington.[901]
The greater part of the congressional session was devoted to some phase
of the abolition agitation, and Calhoun bent all his efforts toward
arraying the North and South against each other. He seemed determined to
have it that the Northern people were in sympathy with the methods and
purposes of the radical followers of Garrison. The mobs that had all but
lynched Garrison, and forced the friends of Thompson to spirit him away,
were Northern mobs. If the obnoxious literature had been burned by the
people of Charleston, it had been thrown into the river by the people of
Philadelphia and denounced by the people of Boston. No Northern
statesman or politician had raised a voice in defense of the
abolitionists, and most of them vied with Calhoun in their denunciation
of them. But when, on January 7th, an abolition petition was presented,
and Calhoun moved that it be not received and supported his motion in an
intemperate speech, some of the most pronounced pro-slavery Senators
took alarm. The great Nullifier declared that an irrepressible fight had
been forced and should be met. “We must meet the enemy on the
frontier--on the question of receiving,” he said. “We must secure that
important pass--it is our Thermopylæ. The power of resistance, by the
universal law, is on the exterior. Break through the shell, penetrate
the crust, and there is no resistance within.” When, four days later,
Buchanan presented a petition for the abolition of slavery in the
District of Columbia and moved that it be received and rejected, Calhoun
demanded that the question be put first on receiving, and a debate was
precipitated which dragged along for weary weeks, ending in the defeat
of Calhoun’s plan.
During the period of these intermittent discussions, the “Telegraph,”
reflector of Calhoun, teemed with articles bitterly attacking, not so
much the abolitionists as the North. This determination to treat the
Northerners as enemies of Southern institutions was so apparent that a
number of pro-slavery Southern Senators were moved to protest and to
criticism of the Southern leader. Whether he was actuated, that early,
by a desire to lay the foundation for a Southern Confederacy, or merely
used this method to create feeling in the Southern States against the
candidacy of Van Buren, can never be determined. But the Democrats
supporting Van Buren had no doubt that the latter was the dominating
motive. The sharp-tongued Isaac Hill, of New Hampshire, in a fierce
assault on Calhoun’s position, directly charged that the “Telegraph” had
been exerting itself from the time of the Nullification movement to
drive a wedge between the sections, and warned Calhoun that the
agitation he was forcing on Congress played directly into the hands of
the abolitionists. But the latter had determined upon his course, and
appeared not only willing, but anxious, actually to break with the
friends of the South among the Northerners in Congress.
If he expected, however, in his fight against receiving the petitions,
to prove Van Buren hostile to the interest of the South, he failed. The
ten votes he mustered were recruited from both parties. Five were
Whigs,[902] three were Democrats supporting the Administration,[903] and
two were against the Administration and hostile to Van Buren.[904]
Thus, with the exception of three Senators, all the supporters of Van
Buren and the Administration voted to receive the petitions. The vote of
White was unquestionably political, intended to strengthen his candidacy
among the pro-slavery radicals of the Southern States.
But Calhoun was not discouraged. His political motive was more apparent
in the battle over his bill to regulate the transmission of the mails,
and exclude therefrom all abolition literature intended for the
slave-holding States. We have noted the excitement of the preceding
summer, and the attitude of Kendall. In his Message at the opening of
Congress, Jackson had recommended the enactment of such a law “as will
prohibit, under severe penalties, the circulation in the Southern
States, through the mail, of incendiary publications intended to
instigate the slaves to insurrection.” Calhoun had eagerly seized upon
this recommendation to move its reference to a special committee,
instead of to the regularly organized Committee on Post-Offices.
Buchanan opposed the suggestion on the ground that the unusual course
would tend to increase the excitement of the people.[905] Grundy of
Tennessee held that the very fact that the majority of the Committee on
Post-Offices came from a section not directly interested would give more
weight to its recommendations.[906] King of Alabama took advantage of
Calhoun’s queer disclaimer of a political motive to insinuate its
existence, and favored the regular course for the reasons advanced by
Buchanan.[907] Leigh supported Calhoun’s plan on the fantastic ground
that since the obnoxious mail could not be excluded by the existing
post-office regulations, the Committee on Post-Offices was clearly not
the proper body.[908] But it was left to Preston of South Carolina to
explain bluntly the motive of Calhoun. Since the South was especially
interested, the committee should be composed of Senators from the
slave-holding States. The Senate good-naturedly consented to Calhoun’s
plan, and a special committee was named with Calhoun as chairman.
A little later, an extreme bill, professing to meet the views of the
President, was submitted, accompanied by an inflammatory report,
reiterative of the compact theory of the Constitution, and calculated
further to fan the excitement on the subject of abolition. Both the
Administration and Whig leaders were hostile to the measure, but it best
served the purpose of Calhoun to ignore the Whigs and to harp
incessantly upon the opposition from Senators close to the Jackson-Van
Buren organization. The report, according to the interpretation of
Calhoun, set forth three propositions: that the National Government had
no right to prohibit papers, no right to say what papers should be
transmitted, and that these rights belonged to the States.[909] The bill
provided that it should be a crime for a postmaster knowingly to receive
and put into the mail any written, printed, or pictorial matter
concerning slavery, directed to any post-office in a State which
prohibited the circulation of such matter; that such literature, if not
withdrawn from the mails within a given time, should be burned; and it
made the Postmaster-General and all his subordinates responsible for the
enforcement of the law.
Early in the debate the political motive appeared when King of Alabama
again charged Calhoun with being moved by hostility to Jackson. What,
exclaimed the bristling Carolinian, “I have too little respect for
General Jackson’s judgment, and if he were not President of the United
States, I would say for his character, to place myself in such a
position.”[910] On the following day we find him striking the same note:
“I cannot but be surprised at the course of the friends of the
Executive,” he said. “I have heard Senators denounce this measure,
recommended by the Executive, as unconstitutional, as tyrannical, as an
abuse of power, who never before dared whisper a word against the
Administration. Is it because the present Executive is going out of
power that his influence is declining?”[911] This constant harping on
the attitude of the Administration Senators, whether so intended or not,
was looked upon by them as an attempt to make political capital against
Van Buren in the slave States. “I wish the gentleman would restrain the
frequent repetition of such expressions,” said Cuthbert of Georgia, “as
they necessarily bring on him a suspicion of his sincerity. Why should
this be a party question? It would show a wickedness, a recklessness of
the welfare of our common country for any man to endeavor to make it
so.”[912]
But Calhoun persisted in his attempt to maneuver the friends of Van
Buren into an attitude offensive to the Southern States. Benton notes,
significantly, that it was rather remarkable that three tie votes
occurred in succession, two on amendments, and one on the engrossment of
the bill. His clear implication is that this was done to force Van Buren
to cast a deciding vote, never doubting that it would be hostile to the
measure. When the bill came up for engrossment, Calhoun demanded an aye
and nay vote. When three men appeared to make a majority, three on the
other side instantly appeared. At the time the vote was being taken, Van
Buren had left the chair and was pacing up and down, concealed by the
colonnade, behind the rostrum. Benton says that “his eyes were wide open
to see what would happen.”[913] He observed the keen eyes of the excited
Calhoun searching the chamber for his anticipated prey. He heard him ask
“eagerly and loudly” where the Vice-President had gone, and demand that
the sergeant-at-arms look for him. But Van Buren had heard and seen all,
and, when the time came, he calmly took the chair, and with his
characteristic serenity cast the deciding vote in favor of engrossment.
Benton was positive that had he voted otherwise the Calhoun faction,
with the aid of the “Telegraph,” would have inflamed the South against
him. This would have been all the easier because Hugh Lawson White, who
was playing openly for the extreme State-Rights and pro-slavery support,
voted for the bill. But Van Buren and his friends were not blind to the
conspiracy, and the two Democratic Senators from New York, intimate
political friends of the presidential nominee, ascertaining first that
their votes were not needed to defeat the measure, cast expediency votes
in its favor, and thus robbed Calhoun and White of the opportunity to
make political capital out of the bill. It was defeated by a vote of 25
to 19.[914]
Thus the session dragged on into June, with none of the parties gaining
any material advantage for the purposes of the campaign. As the session
was drawing to a close, Senator White, who took his candidacy more to
heart than any of the other candidates, made a discussion of the
resolution to expunge the occasion for an acidulous attack upon Jackson
in the presence of Van Buren, who serenely presided. He charged that
Jackson had “made up his mind who should be his successor,” and had used
all the power of patronage to destroy him (White). With great
particularity, he went over the part the President was taking in the
canvass then on, the letters he had written, the copies of the
“Washington Globe” he had personally franked, the material he had
furnished White’s enemies upon the stump in Tennessee.[915] The personal
tone of the attack appears to have made a painful impression even upon
White’s friends, and certainly did not disturb the smiling complacency
of Van Buren, who listened with courteous attention. The “Congressional
Globe” of the session is filled with such assaults on Jackson and his
Administration, but the Big-Wigs of both parties, with the exception of
Calhoun and White, maintained an unusual reserve. But Calhoun did his
part in full measure. Not only did he abuse Jackson with indecent
invective, but, in the presence of Van Buren, sneered at the latter’s
character and ability. Jackson had “courage and firmness; is warlike,
bold, audacious; but he is not true to his word and violates the most
solemn pledges without scruple.” He had “done the State some service,
too, which is remembered greatly to his advantage.” But Van Buren “has
none of these recommendations.” No, as Senator Mangum[916] had said, he
“has none of the lion or tiger breed about him; he belongs more to the
fox and the weasel.”[917]
With nothing better to offer than this, the tired statesmen adjourned on
July 4th, and hastened to their homes, some to sulk in their tents in
disgust, others to take the field to wage the fight.
VIII
In 1836 the issues of the campaign were not so clearly defined by
conditions as in 1832, nor by platform declarations, as in more recent
years. The party declarations of principle had no meaning. That of the
Democrats could have summed up all in the endorsement of the Jackson
Administration and a pledge to continue the Jacksonian policies; that of
the Whigs in a denunciation of the principles and policies of Jacksonian
Democracy.
The platform of Senator White is found in his letter in reply to that of
a committee informing him of his nomination--a personal protest. “When
an attempt is made,” he wrote, “to create a party not founded upon
settled political principles, composed of men belonging to every
political sect, having no common bond of unity save that of a wish to
place one of themselves in the highest office known to the Constitution,
for the purpose of having all the honors, offices, and emoluments of the
Government distributed by them among their followers, I consider such an
association, whether composed of many or a few, a mere faction, which
ought to be resisted by every man who loves his country, and wishes to
perpetuate its liberties.”[918]
The most influential leaders of the Whigs were not enthusiastic over any
of the Opposition candidates, with the exception of Webster, who
manifestly had no chance. “White and Webster are now the golden calves
of the people,” wrote the caustic Adams, “and their dull sayings are
repeated for wit, and their grave inanity is passed off for wisdom. This
bolstering up of mediocrity would seem not suited to sustain much
enthusiasm.” Such as there was, the cynical Puritan ascribed to the fact
that “a practice of betting has crept in,” and “that adds a spur of
private, personal, and pecuniary interest to the impulse of
patriotism.”[919] Naturally, Adams was not enamoured of Van Buren, who
impressed him as a “demagogue of the same school [as “Ike” Hill] with a
tincture of aristocracy--an amalgamated metal of lead and copper.”[920]
There was no hero worshiping of the candidates in 1836, but the worship
of Jackson continued, and the Whigs contemplated the phenomenon with
melancholy misgivings. Philip Hone, that faithful chronicler of Whig
sentiment, found the political aspect of the country “worse than ever.”
Indeed, “General Jackson’s star is still in the ascendant and shines
brighter than ever.” A month before the nomination of Van Buren, the
Whig diarist had been forced to admit that business conditions had
vastly improved.[921] In truth the Whigs were without an issue they
dared advance, and could hope for success only through the amalgamation
of all the disgruntled with the Whigs--the Anti-Masons, Nullifiers,
State-Rights extremists, and disappointed office-seekers--and this was
manifestly impossible.
The campaign was not so exciting as that of 1832, and lacked the
hysteria of the stump which characterized that of 1840. The newspapers
were relied upon largely for propaganda, and the “Globe” was summoned to
herculean efforts. To meet the work of Blair, a campaign paper, called
the “Appeal,” was established in Washington to advocate the claims of
White. The “Telegraph,” edited by the frenzied Duff Green, viciously
attacked both Jackson and Van Buren. And the work of these papers
colored that of all the minor papers of the country. But the people
remained calm and indifferent. The attacks upon the candidates, many
bald slanders, stirred no one but the politicians. The custom of
interrogating candidates had now become fixed, and the three aspirants
were bombarded with questions covering a multitude of subjects.
The followers of Calhoun feverishly continued their efforts to embarrass
Van Buren on the abolition movement. From North Carolina came a demand
for his position on the right of Congress to abolish slavery in the
District of Columbia. His answer was not as definite as the questioner
had hoped. There was no question as to the right of Congress to act in
the District, but the wily candidate had no intention to give a curt
reply. His answer was that Congress had no right to interfere with
slavery in the States--a question not put; and that he was opposed to
the abolishment of slavery in the District by congressional
action--which was not a reply at all.
Then followed the questions of the Equal Righters, or Locofocos, as they
were dubbed in New York by the “Courier and Enquirer,” as to Van Buren’s
position on their “declaration of rights.” The reply of the Red Fox,
that his long public career furnished a sufficient illumination of his
position on the general principles of the new party, was considered by
the Locos as an “evasion,” and denounced as unsatisfactory “to any true
Democrat.”
Meanwhile Clay was exercising an unnatural restraint on his partisan
zeal, remaining in strict retirement at Ashland, tending his cattle,
looking over his fields, writing an occasional letter, and meditating a
retirement from the Senate before the next session. During the preceding
winter, the death of a favorite daughter had crushed him to the earth.
He keenly felt the apparent neglect of his party. In the canvass he took
no part. It was not until the campaign was nearing its close, in
October, that he appeared upon the platform to discuss the candidates,
and then with evident reluctance. A barbecue had been arranged at
Lexington, within sight of Clay’s home, and a declination to participate
would have given deadly offense. He spoke, however, with unusual
temperance, urging a unification of the opposition against Van Buren.
This was to have been expected. Paying tribute to the civic worth of
White, he announced his intention to vote for Harrison, not because he
was his first choice--for he pretended to prefer Webster--but because he
thought that Harrison “combined the greatest prospects of defeating Mr.
Van Buren.”[922]
If Clay was indifferent, his old rival, Andrew Jackson, was not.
Assuming the certainty of his favorite’s election, his personal pride
was touched by White’s challenge of his own leadership in Tennessee, and
as soon as Congress adjourned, he started on the long and tiresome
journey to the Hermitage. Passing through eastern Tennessee, he
appeared frankly in the rôle of a canvasser for votes. With old-time
fire, he denounced his erstwhile friend, the Senator, as a Federalist--a
discovery he had but recently made; and with all the fervor of
Jacksonian friendship he held Van Buren up as the purest and most
uncompromising of Democrats. The domineering quality of his leadership
flared in his declaration that no friend of White’s could be other than
his own enemy. At Blountville, Jonesboro, Greenville, Newport, Lebanon,
and Nashville--every point he touched--he delivered political harangues
in conversations with the friends and admirers who flocked to greet
him.[923] Thus he employed every method known to electioneering, short
of actually taking the stump.
This effort of the President was met by White with a powerful speech at
Knoxville, where a banquet in his honor was arranged for the purpose.
“It is not I who am to be put down and disgraced in this controversy, if
Tennessee is either coaxed or coerced to surrender her choice,” he said.
“The Saviour of the World, when upon earth, found among the small number
of His disciples, one Judas, who not only sold but betrayed him for his
thirty pieces of silver. It were vain for one of my humble attainments,
who has nothing to offer but his best efforts to promote the public
welfare, to hope that all who professed to be his friends must continue
to act up to that character. Already have I found more than one Judas,
who, by parting with their interest in me, have received, or expect to
receive, more than twice their thirty pieces.”[924] Thus, however tame
the campaign elsewhere, it was a hand-to-hand struggle in the
President’s own State--and here Jackson was to meet the greatest
humiliation of his career.
IX
The elections in 1836 were not held on the same day in all the States,
and from November 4th, when Pennsylvania and Ohio voted, until November
23d, when the election was held in Rhode Island, the politicians were
kept in suspense, and it was not until the first week in December that
the Democrats were able to rejoice in the certainty of their victory.
Massachusetts, which then idolized her Webster, gave him her electoral
vote, and stood alone. South Carolina, which had encouraged White to
enter the contest, again sulked, and, going outside the list of avowed
candidates, gave hers to Senator Willie Mangum, of North Carolina. White
greatly disappointed the Whigs, who had expected him to get enough votes
in the Southern and Western States to throw the contest into the House
of Representatives, by carrying only Tennessee and Georgia. Harrison
received the electoral votes of Delaware, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland,
New Jersey, Ohio, and Vermont--a total of 73; while Van Buren won
Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island in New England;
Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, and
Virginia in the South; Illinois and Michigan in the West; and both the
most important States in the Union, Pennsylvania and New York. With only
124 electoral votes divided among his four opponents, Van Buren had 170,
a majority of 46.
However, in the results the more prescient of the Democratic leaders
could find ample justification for concern as to the future. The votes
of Georgia, Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee, which had gone to
Jackson four years before, had been lost by Van Buren, and he had gained
only Connecticut. But the electoral vote does not indicate the full
extent of the Democratic slump. The popular vote in some of the States
he had carried had fallen off woefully from the previous election. The
Democratic majority in Virginia had decreased from 22,158 to 6893; in
Illinois from 8718 to 3114; in North Carolina from 20,299 to 3284. As
compared with Jackson’s popular majority of 157,293 in 1832, Van Buren
won only on a popular majority of 24,893 out of a total of 1,498,205
votes cast. In his own State of New York, however, he increased
Jackson’s popular majority of 13,601 in 1832 to 32,272.
In White House circles there were some painfully humiliating features in
the results, and to none more than to Jackson. The people of Tennessee
gave White a majority of 10,000, and even in the President’s own
precinct, White received 43 votes to 18 for Van Buren. In Georgia, the
home of the President’s Secretary of State, John Forsyth, the people
turned from the candidate of the Georgian, who was so intimately
identified with Van Buren’s political fortunes that he was to be
retained at the head of the Cabinet through the new Administration, to
give their vote to White. In Tennessee, the result was not unnatural.
The President overestimated his strength in assuming that he could
persuade the people to reject their neighbor and fellow citizen, who had
served them well, for a New York politician. In Georgia the turnover was
political, due to the ascendancy of the radical State-Rights party, and
the strength of the Nullifying element which Forsyth had courageously
fought.
The result of the congressional elections even more impressively
indicated the drift away from the Jacksonian policies. The Democratic
majority in the House during the Twenty-Fourth Congress, of 46, was
reduced in the next Congress to a plurality of 2 over the Whigs, with 10
independent members holding the balance of power. Whether this was due
to a reaction against the Democratic Party, or merely measured the loss
of the personal prestige of Jackson as the candidate, was the problem
that gave concern to the Democracy. If Van Buren looked forward with any
misgivings to his Administration, however, he gave no sign; and
Jackson, if chagrined over his loss of Tennessee, was masterful in
dissimulation. There was as much jubilation in the Democratic camp as
though the victory had been as decisive as that of four years before.
When the electoral votes were being counted, Clay turned to Van Buren
with the observation: “It is a cloudy day, sir.” “The sun will shine,”
replied the smiling Red Fox, “on the 4th of March, sir.”[925]