ACCESSION OF THE VICE-PRESIDENT TO THE PRESIDENCY.
The Vice-president was not in Washington when the President died: he
was at his residence in lower Virginia: some days would necessarily
elapse before he could arrive. President Harrison had not been
impressed with the probable fatal termination of his disease, and
the consequent propriety of directing the Vice-president to be sent
for. His cabinet could not feel themselves justified in taking such
a step while the President lived. Mr. Tyler would feel it indelicate
to repair to the seat of government, of his own will, on hearing the
report of the President's illness. The attending physicians, from
the most proper considerations, held out hopes of recovery to near
the last; but, for four days before the event, there was a pervading
feeling in the city that the President would not survive his attack.
His death left the executive government for some days in a state
of interregnum. There was no authority, or person present, legally
empowered to take any step; and so vital an event as a change in
the chief magistrate, required the fact to be formally and publicly
verified. In the absence of Congress, and the Vice-president, the
members of the late cabinet very properly united in announcing the
event to the country, and in despatching a messenger of state to Mr.
Tyler, to give him the authentic information which would show the
necessity of his presence at the seat of government. He repaired
to it immediately, took the oath of office, before the Chief Judge
of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, William Cranch,
Esquire; and appointed the late cabinet for his own. Each was
retained in the place held under his predecessor, and with the
strongest expressions of regard and confidence.
Four days after his accession to the presidency, Mr. Tyler issued an
address, in the nature of an inaugural, to the people of the United
States, the first paragraph of which was very appropriately devoted
to his predecessor, and to the circumstances of his own elevation to
the presidential chair. That paragraph was in these words:
"Before my arrival at the seat of government, the painful
communication was made to you, by the officers presiding over
the several departments, of the deeply regretted death of
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, late President of the United States.
Upon him you had conferred your suffrages for the first office
in your gift, and had selected him as your chosen instrument to
correct and reform all such errors and abuses as had manifested
themselves from time to time, in the practical operations of
the government. While standing at the threshold of this great
work, he has, by the dispensation of an all-wise Providence,
been removed from amongst us, and by the provisions of the
constitution, the efforts to be directed to the accomplishing
of this vitally important task have devolved upon myself.
This same occurrence has subjected the wisdom and sufficiency
of our institutions to a new test. For the first time in our
history, the person elected to the Vice-presidency of the United
States, by the happening of a contingency provided for in the
constitution, has had devolved upon him the presidential
office. The spirit of faction, which is directly opposed to
the spirit of a lofty patriotism, may find in this occasion
for assaults upon my administration. And in succeeding, under
circumstances so sudden and unexpected, and to responsibilities
so greatly augmented, to the administration of public affairs,
I shall place in the intelligence and patriotism of the people,
my only sure reliance.--My earnest prayer shall be constantly
addressed to the all-wise and all-powerful Being who made me,
and by whose dispensation I am called to the high office of
President of this confederacy, understandingly to carry out the
principles of that constitution which I have sworn 'to protect,
preserve, and defend.'"
Two blemishes were seen in this paragraph, the first being in that
sentence which spoke of the "errors and abuses" of the government
which his predecessor had been elected to "correct and reform;"
and the correction and reformation of which now devolved upon
himself. These imputed errors and abuses could only apply to the
administrations of General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, of both which
Mr. Tyler had been a zealous opponent; and therefore might not be
admitted to be an impartial judge. Leaving that out of view, the bad
taste of such a reference was palpable and repulsive. The second
blemish was in that sentence in which he contrasted the spirit of
"faction" with the spirit of "lofty patriotism," and seemed to
refer in advance all the "assaults" which should be made upon his
administration, to this factious spirit, warring upon elevated
patriotism. Little did he think when he wrote that sentence, that
within three short months--within less time than a commercial bill
of exchange usually has to run, the great party which had elected
him, and the cabinet officers which he had just appointed with such
warm expressions of respect and confidence, should be united in
that assault! should all be in the lead and van of a public outcry
against him! The third paragraph was also felt to be a fling at
General Jackson and Mr. Van Buren, and therefore unfit for a place
in a President's message, and especially in an inaugural address. It
was the very periphrasis of the current party slang against General
Jackson, plainly visible through the transparent hypothetical guise
which it put on; and was in these words:
"In view of the fact, well avouched by history, that the
tendency of all human institutions is to concentrate power in
the hands of a single man, and that their ultimate downfall
has proceeded from this cause, I deem it of the most essential
importance that a complete separation should take place between
the sword and the purse. No matter where or how the public
moneys shall be deposited, so long as the President can exert
the power of appointing and removing, at his pleasure, the
agents selected for their custody, the commander-in-chief of
the army and navy is in fact the treasurer. A permanent and
radical change should therefore be decreed. The patronage
incident to the presidential office, already great, is
constantly increasing. Such increase is destined to keep pace
with the growth of our population, until, without a figure of
speech, an army of officeholders may be spread over the land.
The unrestrained power exerted by a selfishly ambitious man,
in order either to perpetuate his authority or to hand it over
to some favorite as his successor, may lead to the employment
of all the means within his control to accomplish his object.
The right to remove from office, while subjected to no just
restraint, is inevitably destined to produce a spirit of
crouching servility with the official corps, which in order
to uphold the hand which feeds them, would lead to direct and
active interference in the elections, both State and federal,
thereby subjecting the course of State legislation to the
dictation of the chief executive officer, and making the will of
that officer absolute and supreme."
This phrase of "purse and sword," once so appropriately used by
Patrick Henry, in describing the powers of the federal government,
and since so often applied to General Jackson, for the removal of
the deposits, could have no other aim than a fling at him; and the
abuse of patronage in removals and appointments to perpetuate power,
or hand it over to a favorite, was the mere repetition of the slang
of the presidential canvass, in relation to General Jackson and Mr.
Van Buren.
Departing from the usual reserve and generalization of an inaugural,
this address went into a detail which indicated the establishment of
a national bank, or the re-charter of the defunct one, masked and
vitalized under a Pennsylvania State charter. That paragraph ran
thus:
"The public interest also demands that, if any war has existed
between the government and the currency, it shall cease.
Measures of a financial character, now having the sanction of
legal enactment, shall be faithfully enforced until repealed by
the legislative authority. But I owe it to myself to declare
that I regard existing enactments as unwise and impolitic, and
in a high degree oppressive. I shall promptly give my sanction
to any constitutional measure which, originating in Congress,
shall have for its object the restoration of a sound circulating
medium, so essentially necessary to give confidence in all
the transactions of life, to secure to industry its just and
adequate rewards, and to re-establish the public prosperity.
In deciding upon the adaptation of any such measure to the end
proposed, as well as its conformity to the constitution, I shall
resort to the fathers of the great republican school for advice
and instruction, to be drawn from their sage views of our system
of government, and the light of their ever glorious example."
The concluding part of this paragraph, in which the new President
declares that, in looking to the constitutionality and expediency
of a national bank, he should look for advice and instruction to
the example of the fathers of the Republic, he was understood as
declaring that he would not be governed by his own former opinions
against a national bank, but by the example of Washington, a signer
of the constitution (who signed the charter of the first national
bank); and by the example of Mr. Madison, another signer of the
constitution, who, yielding to precedent and the authority of
judicial decisions, had signed the charter for the second bank,
notwithstanding his early constitutional objections to it. In other
parts of the paragraph he was considered as declaring in favor
of the late United States Bank, as in the previous part of the
paragraph where he used the phrases which had become catch-words in
the long contest with that bank--"war upon the currency"--"sound
circulating medium"--"restoration of national prosperity;" &c., &c.
He was understood to express a preference for the re-charter of
that institution. And this impression was well confirmed by other
circumstances--his zealous report in favor of that bank when acting
as volunteer chairman to the Senate's committee which was sent
to examine it--his standing a canvass in a presidential election
in which the re-charter of that bank, though concertedly blinked
in some parts of the Union, was the understood vital issue every
where--his publicly avowed preference for its notes over gold, at
Wheeling, Virginia--the retention of a cabinet, pledged to that
bank, with expressions of confidence in them, and in terms that
promised a four years' service together--and his utter condemnation
in other parts of his inaugural and in all his public speeches, of
every other plan (sub-treasury, state banks, revival of the gold
currency), which had been presented as remedies for the financial
and currency disorders. All these circumstances and declarations
left no doubt that he was not only in favor of a national bank, but
of re-chartering the late one; and that he looked to it, and to it
alone, for the "sound circulating medium" which he preferred to the
constitutional currency--for the keeping of those deposits which he
had condemned Jackson for removing from it--and for the restoration
of that national prosperity, which the imputed war upon the bank had
destroyed.