THE PRESIDENT WITHOUT A PARTY.
The Whigs in 1840 completely overthrew the Democrats, and for the first
time elected a president and held the majority in both houses of
Congress. Yet, as it turned out, all that they really accomplished was
to elect a president without a party, for Harrison died when he had
hardly more than sat in the presidential chair, and was succeeded by the
vice-president, Tyler of Virginia.
Harrison was a true Whig; he was, when nominated, a prominent member of
the Whig party, although of course not to be compared with its great
leader, Henry Clay, or with its most mighty intellectual chief and
champion in the Northeast, Daniel Webster, whose mutual rivalry had done
much to make his nomination possible. Tyler, however, could hardly be
called a Whig at all; on the contrary, he belonged rightfully in the
ranks of those extreme Democrats who were farthest removed from the Whig
standard, and who were as much displeased with the Union sentiments of
the Jacksonians as they were with the personal tyranny of Jackson
himself. He was properly nothing but a dissatisfied Democrat, who hated
the Jacksonians, and had been nominated only because the Whig
politicians wished to strengthen their ticket and insure its election by
bidding for the votes of the discontented in the ranks of their foes.
Now a chance stroke of death put the presidency in the hands of one who
represented this, the smallest, element in the coalition that overthrew
Van Buren.
The principles of the Whigs were hazily outlined at the best, and the
party was never a very creditable organization; indeed, throughout its
career, it could be most easily defined as the opposition to the
Democracy. It was a free constructionist party, believing in giving a
liberal interpretation to the doctrines of the Constitution; otherwise,
its principles were purely economic, as it favored a high tariff,
internal improvements, a bank, and kindred schemes; and its leaders,
however they might quarrel among themselves, agreed thoroughly in their
devout hatred of Jackson and all his works.
It was on this last point only that Tyler came in. His principles had
originally been ultra-Democratic. He had been an extreme strict
constructionist, had belonged to that wing of the Democracy which
inclined more and more towards separation, and had thus, on several
grounds, found himself opposed to Jackson, Benton, and their followers.
Indeed, he went into opposition to his original party for reasons akin
to those that influenced Calhoun; and Seward's famous remark about the
"ill-starred coalition between Whigs and Nullifiers" might with certain
changes have been applied to the presidential election of 1840 quite as
well as to the senatorial struggles to which it had reference.
Tyler, however, had little else in common with Calhoun, and least of all
his intellect. He has been called a mediocre man; but this is
unwarranted flattery. He was a politician of monumental littleness.
Owing to the nicely-divided condition of parties, and to the sheer
accident which threw him into a position of such prominence that it
allowed him to hold the balance of power between them, he was enabled to
turn politics completely topsy-turvy; but his chief mental and moral
attributes were peevishness, fretful obstinacy, inconsistency,
incapacity to make up his own mind, and the ability to quibble
indefinitely over the most microscopic and hair-splitting plays upon
words, together with an inordinate vanity that so blinded him to all
outside feeling as to make him really think that he stood a chance to be
renominated for the presidency.
The Whigs, especially in the Senate, under Henry Clay, prepared at once
to push through various measures that should undo the work of the
Jacksonians. Clay was boastfully and domineeringly sure of the necessity
of applying to actual governmental work the economic theories that
formed the chief stock in trade of his party. But it was precisely on
these economic theories that Tyler split off from the Whigs. The result
was that very shortly the real leader of the dominant party, backed by
almost all his fellow party men in both houses of Congress, was at
daggers drawn with the nominal Whig president, who in his turn was
supported only by a "corporal's guard" of followers in the House of
Representatives, by all the office-holders whom fear of removal reduced
to obsequious subserviency, and by a knot of obscure politicians who
used him for their own ends, and worked alternately on his vanity and on
his fears. The Democrats, led by Benton, played out their own game, and
were the only parties to the three-cornered fight who came out of it
with profit. The details now offer rather dry reading, as the economic
theories of all the contestants were more or less crude, the results of
the conflict indecisive, and the effects upon our history ephemeral.
Clay began by a heated revival of one of Jackson's worst ideas, namely,
that when the people elect a president they thereby mark with the seal
of their approval any and every measure with which that favored mortal
or his advisers may consider themselves identified, and indorse all his
and their previous actions. He at once declared that the people had
shown, by the size of Harrison's majority, that they demanded the repeal
of the independent treasury act, and the passage of various other laws
in accordance with some of his own favorite hobbies, two out of three
voters, as a matter of fact, probably never having given a second
thought to any of them. Accordingly he proceeded to introduce a whole
batch of bills, which he alleged that it was only yielding due respect
to the spirit of Democracy to pass forthwith.
Benton, however, even outdid Clay in paying homage to what he was
pleased to call the "democratic idea." At this time he speaks of the
last session of the Twenty-Sixth Congress as being "barren of measures,
and necessarily so, as being the last of an administration superseded by
the popular voice and soon to expire; and therefore restricted by a
sense of propriety, during the brief remainder of its existence, to the
details of business and the routine of service." According to this
theory an interregnum of some sixteen weeks would intervene between the
terms of service of every two presidents. He also speaks of Tyler as
having, when the legislature of Virginia disapproved of a course he
wished to follow, resigned his seat "in obedience to the democratic
principle," which, according to his views, thus completely nullified the
section of the Constitution providing for a six years' term of service
in the Senate. In truth Benton, like most other Jacksonian and
Jeffersonian leaders, became both foolish and illogical when he began to
talk of the bundle of vague abstractions, which he knew collectively as
the "democratic principle." Although not so bad as many of his school he
had yet gradually worked himself up to a belief that it was almost
impious to pay anything but servile heed to the "will of the majority;"
and was quite unconscious that to surrender one's own manhood and
judgment to a belief in the divine right of kings was only one degree
more ignoble, and was not a shadow more logical, and but little more
defensible, than it was blindly to deify a majority--not of the whole
people, but merely of a small fraction consisting of those who happened
to be of a certain sex, to have reached a certain age, to belong to a
certain race, and to fulfill some other conditions. In fact there is no
natural or divine law in the matter at all; how large a portion of the
population should be trusted with the control of the government is a
question of expediency merely. In any purely native American community
manhood suffrage works infinitely better than would any other system of
government, and throughout our country at large, in spite of the large
number of ignorant foreign-born or colored voters, it is probably
preferable as it stands to any modification of it; but there is no more
"natural right" why a white man over twenty-one should vote than there
is why a negro woman under eighteen should not. "Civil rights" and
"personal freedom" are not terms that necessarily imply the right to
vote. People make mistakes when governing themselves, exactly as they
make mistakes when governing others; all that can be said is, that in
the former case their self-interest is on the side of good government,
whereas in the latter it always may be, and often must be, the reverse;
so that, when any people reaches a certain stage of mental development
and of capacity to take care of its own concerns, it is far better that
it should itself take the reins. The distinctive features of the
American system are its guarantees of personal independence and
individual freedom; that is, as far as possible, it guarantees to each
man his right to live as he chooses and to regulate his own private
affairs as he wishes, without being interfered with or tyrannized over
by an individual, or by an oligarchic minority, or by a democratic
majority; while, when the interests of the whole community are at stake,
it is found best in the long run to let them be managed in accordance
with the wishes of the majority of those presumably concerned.
Clay's flourish of trumpets foreboded trouble and disturbance to the
Jacksonian camp. At last he stood at the head of a party controlling
both branches of the legislative body, and devoted to his behests; and,
if a little doubtful about the president, he still believed he could
frighten him into doing as he was bid. He had long been in the minority,
and had seen his foes ride roughshod over all he most believed in; and
now he prepared to pay them back in their own coin and to leave a heavy
balance on his side of the reckoning. Nor could any Jacksonian have
shown himself more domineering and influenced by a more insolent
disregard for the rights of others than Clay did in his hour of triumph.
On the other side, Benton braced himself with dogged determination for
the struggle; for he was one of those men who fight a losing or a
winning battle with equal resolution.
Tyler's first message to Congress read like a pretty good Whig document.
It did not display any especial signs of his former strict construction
theories, and gave little hope to the Democrats. The leader of the
latter, indeed, Benton, commented upon both it and its author with
rather grandiloquent severity, on account of its latitudinarian bias,
and of its recommendation of a bank of some sort. However, the ink with
which the message was written could hardly have been dry before the
president's mind began to change. He himself probably had very little
idea what he intended to do, and so contrived to give the Whigs the
impression that he would act in accordance with their wishes; but the
leaven had already begun working in his mind, and, not having much to
work on, soon changed it so completely that he was willing practically
to eat his own words.
Shortly after Tyler had sent in his message outlining what legislation
he deemed proper, he being by virtue of his position the nominal and
titular leader of the Whigs, Clay, who was their real and very positive
chief, and who was, moreover, determined to assert his chieftainship, in
his turn laid down a programme for his party to follow, introducing a
series of resolutions declaring it necessary to pass a bill to repeal
the sub-treasury act, another to establish a bank, another to distribute
the proceeds of the public land sales, and one or two more, to which was
afterwards added a bankruptcy measure.
The sub-treasury bill was first taken up and promptly passed and signed.
Benton, of course, led the hopeless fight against it, making a long and
elaborate speech, insisting that the finances were in excellent shape,
as they were, showing the advantages of hard money, and denouncing the
bill on account of the extreme suddenness with which it took effect, and
because it made no provision for any substitute. He also alluded
caustically to the curious and anomalous bank bill, which was then being
patched up by the Whig leaders so as to get it into some such shape that
the president would sign it.
The other three important measures, that is, the bank, distribution, and
bankruptcy bills, were all passed nearly together; as Benton pointed
out, they were got through only by a species of bargain and sale, the
chief supporters of each agreeing to support the other, so as to get
their own pet measure through. "All must go together or fall together.
This is the decree out of doors. When the sun dips below the horizon a
private congress is held; the fate of the measures is decided; a bundle
is tied together; and while one goes ahead as a bait, another is held
back as a rod."
The bankruptcy bill went through and was signed. It was urged by all the
large debtor class, whose ranks had been filled to overflowing by the
years of wild speculation and general bank suspension and insolvency.
These debtors were quite numerous enough to constitute an important
factor in politics, but Benton disregarded them nevertheless, and fought
the bill as stoutly as he did its companions, alleging that it was a
gross outrage on honesty and on the rights of property, and was not a
bankrupt law at all, but practically an insolvent law for the abolition
of debts at the will of the debtor. He pointed out grave and numerous
defects of detail, and gave an exhaustive abstract of bankruptcy
legislation in general; the speech gave evidence of the tireless
industry and wide range of learning for which Benton was preeminently
distinguished.
The third bill to be taken up and passed was that providing for the
distribution of the public lands revenue, and thus indirectly for
assuming the debts of the states. Tyler, in his message, had
characteristically stated that, though it would be wholly
unconstitutional for the federal government to assume the debts of the
states, yet it would be highly proper for it to give the latter money
wherewith to pay them. Clay had always been an enthusiastic advocate of
a distribution bill; and accordingly one was now passed and signed with
the least possible delay. It was an absolutely indefensible measure. The
treasury was empty, and loan and tax bills were pending at the very
moment, in order to supply money for the actual running of the
government. As Benton pointed out, Congress had been called together (a
special session having been summoned by Harrison before his death) to
raise revenue, and the first thing done was to squander it. The
distribution took place when the treasury reports showed a deficit of
sixteen millions of dollars. The bill was pushed through mainly by the
states which had repudiated their debts in whole or in part; and as
these debts were largely owed abroad, many prominent foreign
banking-houses and individuals took an active part in lobbying for the
bill. Benton was emphatically right in his opposition to the measure,
but he was very wrong in some of the grounds he took. Thus he inveighed
vigorously against the foreign capitalists who had come to help push the
bill through Congress; but he did not have anything to say against the
scoundrelly dishonesty displayed by certain states towards their
creditors, which had forced these capitalists into the endeavor to
protect themselves. He also incidentally condemned the original
assumption by the national government of the debts of the states, at the
time of the formation of the Constitution, which was an absolute
necessity; and his constitutional views throughout seem rather strained.
But he was right beyond cavil on the main point. It was criminal folly
to give the states the impression that they would be allowed to create
debts over which Congress could have no control, yet which Congress in
the end would give them the money to pay. To reward a state for
repudiating a debt by giving her the wherewithal to pay it was a direct
and unequivocal encouragement of dishonesty. In every respect the bill
was wholly improper; and Benton's attitude towards it and towards
similar schemes was incomparably better than the position of Clay,
Webster, and the other Whigs.
Both the bankrupt bill and the distribution bill were repealed very
shortly; the latter before it had time to take effect. This was an
emphatic indorsement by the public of Benton's views, and a humiliating
rebuke to the Whig authors of the measures. Indeed, the whole
legislation of the session was almost absolutely fruitless in its
results.
One feature of the struggle was an attempt by Clay, promptly and
successfully resisted by Benton and Calhoun, to institute the hour limit
for speeches in the Senate. There was a good deal of excuse for Clay's
motion. The House could cut off debate by the previous question, which
the Senate could not, and nevertheless had found it necessary to
establish the hour limit in addition. Of course it is highly undesirable
that there should not be proper freedom of debate in Congress; but it is
quite as hurtful to allow a minority to exercise their privileges
improperly. The previous question is often abused and used tyrannically;
but on the whole it is a most invaluable aid to legislation. Benton,
however, waxed hot and wrathful over the proposed change in the Senate
rules. He, with Calhoun and their followers, had been consuming an
immense amount of time in speech-making against the Whig measures, and
in offering amendments; not with any hopes of bettering the bills, but
for outside effect, and to annoy their opponents. He gives an amusingly
naive account of their course of action, and the reasons for it,
substantially as follows:--
The Democratic senators acted upon a system, and with a thorough
organization and a perfect understanding. Being a minority, and able
to do nothing, they became assailants, and attacked incessantly;
not by formal orations against the whole body of a measure, but by
sudden, short, and pungent speeches directed against the vulnerable
parts, and pointed by proffered amendments. Amendments were
continually offered--a great number being prepared every night and
placed in suitable hands for use the next day--always commendably
calculated to expose an evil and to present a remedy. Near forty
propositions of amendment were offered to the first fiscal agent
bill alone--the yeas and nays were taken upon them seven and thirty
times. All the other prominent bills--distribution, bankrupt, fiscal
corporation, new tariff act, called revenue--were served the same
way; every proposed amendment made an issue. There were but
twenty-two of us, but every one was a speaker and effective. The
"Globe" newspaper was a powerful ally, setting out all we did to the
best advantage in strong editorials, and carrying out our speeches,
fresh and hot, to the people; and we felt victorious in the midst of
unbroken defeats.
It is no wonder that such rank filibustering, coupled with the
exasperating self-complacency of its originators, should have excited in
Whig bosoms every desperate emotion short of homicidal mania.
Clay, to cut off such useless talk, gave notice that he would move to
have the time for debate for each individual restricted; remarking very
truthfully that he did not believe the people at large would complain of
the abridgment of speeches in Congress. But the Democratic senators,
all rather fond of windy orations, fairly foamed at the mouth at what
they affected to deem such an infringement of their liberties; and
actually took the inexcusable resolution of bidding defiance to the rule
if it was adopted, and refusing to obey it, no matter what degree of
violence their conduct might bring about,--a resolution that was wholly
unpardonable. Benton was selected to voice their views upon the matter,
which he did in a long, and not very wise speech; while Calhoun was
quite as emphatic in his threats of what would happen if attempt should
be made to enforce the proposed rule. Clay was always much bolder in
opening a campaign than in carrying it through; and when it came to
putting his words into deeds, he wholly lacked the nerve which would
have enabled him to contend with two such men as the senators from
Missouri and South Carolina. Had he possessed a temperament like that of
either of his opponents, he would have gone on and have simply forced
acquiescence; for any legislative body can certainly enforce what rules
it may choose to make as to the conduct of its own members in addressing
it; but his courage failed him, and he withdrew from the contest,
leaving the victory with Democrats.
When the question of the re-charter of the district banks came up, it of
course gave Benton another chance to attack his favorite foe. He offered
a very proper amendment, which was voted down, to prohibit the banks
from issuing a currency of small notes, fixing upon twenty dollars as
being the lowest limit. This he supported in a strong speech, wherein he
once again argued at length in favor of a gold and silver currency, and
showed the evil effects of small bank-notes, which might not be, and
often were not, redeemable at par. He very properly pointed out that to
have a sound currency, especially in all the smaller denominations, was
really of greater interest to the working men than to any one else.
The great measure of the session, however, and the one that was intended
to be the final crown and glory of the Whig triumph, was the bill to
establish a new national bank. Among the political theories to which
Clay clung most closely, only the belief in a bank ranked higher in his
estimation than his devotion to a protective tariff. The establishment
of a national bank seemed to him to be the chief object of a Whig
success; and that it would work immediate and immense benefit to the
country was with him an article of faith. With both houses of Congress
under his control, he at once prepared to push his pet measure through,
impatiently brushing aside all resistance.
But at the very outset difficulty was feared from the action of the
president. Tyler could not at first make up his mind what to do; or
rather, he made it up in half a dozen different ways every day. His
peevishness, vacillation, ambitious vanity, and sheer puzzle-headedness
made him incline first to the side of his new friends and present
supporters, the Whigs, and then to that of his old democratic allies,
whose views on the bank, as on most other questions, he had so often
openly expressed himself as sharing. But though his mind oscillated like
a pendulum, yet each time it swung farther and farther over to the side
of the Democracy, and it began to look as if he would certainly in the
end come to a halt in the camp of the enemies of the Whigs; his approach
to this destination was merely hastened by Clay's overbearing violence
and injudicious taunts.
However, at first Tyler did not dare to come out openly against any and
all bank laws, but tried to search round for some compromise measure;
and as he could not invent a compromise in fact, he came to the
conclusion that one in words would do just as well. He said that his
conscience would not permit him to sign a bill to establish a bank that
was called a bank, but that he was willing to sign a bill establishing
such an institution provided that it was called something else, though
it should possess all the properties of a bank. Such a proposal opened a
wide field for the endless quibbling in which his soul delighted.
The secretary of the treasury, in response to a call from the Senate,
furnished a plan for a bank, having modeled it studiously so as to
overcome the president's scruples; and a select committee of the Senate
at once shaped a bill in accordance with the plans. Said Benton: "Even
the title was made ridiculous to please the president, though not so
much so as he wished. He objected to the name of bank either in the
title or the body of the charter, and proposed to style it 'Fiscal
Institute;' and afterwards the 'Fiscal Agent,' and finally the 'Fiscal
Corporation.'" Such preposterous folly on the president's part was more
than the hot-blooded and overbearing Kentuckian could stand; and, in
spite of his absorbing desire for the success of his measure, and of the
vital necessity for conciliating Tyler, Clay could not bring himself to
adopt such a ludicrous title, even though he had seen that the charter
provided that the institution, whatever it might be styled in form,
should in fact have all the properties of a bank. After a while,
however, a compromise title was agreed on, but only a shadow less
imbecile than the original one proposed by the president; and it was
agreed to call the measure the "Fiscal Bank" bill.
The president vetoed it, but stated that he was ready to approve any
similar bill that should be free from the objections he named. Clay
could not resist reading Tyler a lecture on his misconduct, during the
course of a speech in the Senate; but the Whigs generally smothered
their resentment, and set about preparing something which the president
would sign, and this time concluded that they would humor him to the top
of his bent, even by choosing a title as ridiculous as he wished; so
they styled their bill one to establish a "Fiscal Corporation." Benton
held the title up to well-deserved derision, and showed that, though
there had been quite an elaborate effort to disguise the form of the
measure, and to make it purport to establish a bank that should have the
properties of a treasury, yet that in reality it was simply a revival of
the old scheme under another name. The Whigs swallowed the sneers of
their opponents as best they could, and passed their bill.
The president again interposed his veto. An intrigue was going on among
a few unimportant congressmen and obscure office-holders to form a new
party with Tyler at its head; and the latter willingly entered into the
plan, his mind, which was not robust at the best, being completely
dazzled by his sudden elevation and his wild hopes that he could
continue to keep the place which he had reached. He had given the Whigs
reason to expect that he would sign the bill, and had taken none of his
cabinet into his confidence. So, when his veto came in, it raised a
perfect whirlwind of wrath and bitter disappointment. His cabinet all
resigned, except Webster, who stayed to finish the treaty with Great
Britain; and the Whigs formally read him out of the party. The Democrats
looked on with huge enjoyment, and patted Tyler on the back, for they
could see that he was bringing their foes to ruin; but nevertheless they
despised him heartily, and abandoned him wholly when he had served their
turn. Left without any support among the regulars of either side, and
his own proposed third party turning out a still-born abortion, he
simply played out his puny part until his term ended, and then dropped
noiselessly out of sight. It is only the position he filled, and not in
the least his ability, for either good or bad, in filling it, that
prevents his name from sinking into merciful oblivion.
There was yet one more brief spasm over the bank, however; the president
sending in a plan for a "Fiscal Agent," to be called a Board of
Exchequer. Congress contemptuously refused to pay any attention to the
proposition, Benton showing its utter unworthiness in an excellent
speech, one of the best that he made on the whole financial question.
Largely owing to the cross purposes at which the president and his party
were working, the condition of the treasury became very bad. It sought
to provide for its immediate wants by the issue of treasury notes,
differing from former notes of the kind in that they were made
reissuable. Benton at once, and very properly, attacked this proceeding.
He had a check drawn for a few days' compensation as senator, demanded
payment in hard money, and when he was given treasury notes instead,
made a most emphatic protest in the Senate, which was entirely
effectual, the practically compulsory tender of the paper money being
forthwith stopped.
It was at this time, also, that bills to subsidize steamship lines were
first passed, and that the enlarging and abuse of the pension system
began, which in our own day threatens to become a really crying evil.
Benton opposed both sets of measures; and in regard to the pension
matter showed that he would not let himself, by any specious plea of
exceptional suffering or need for charity, be led into vicious special
legislation, sure in the end to bring about the breaking down of some of
the most important principles of government.