England delegates and some from Ohio had decided not to support him
under any circumstances, and they were later welcomed into the Free
Soil Democracy that nominated Van Buren on the distinct antislavery
extension platform. Among the most disgruntled of those who attended
the convention was Horace Greeley. I met him then for the first time,
and saw as much of him as I could, as he was my ideal fellow-editor.
As soon as Taylor was nominated he started for New York, and I met him
just as he was departing. He was evidently in great haste to make the
Camden & Amboy train, and he was hurrying down Chestnut Street. His
low-crowned, broad-brimmed, fuzzy fur hat set at an angle of 45 degrees
on the back of his head, his profusion of shirt collar protected from
wandering over his shoulders by an immense black silk handkerchief he
used as a necktie, with the awkward knot serenely resting under his
left ear, and his immense baggy black swallowtail coat, and the literal
carpetbag he held by one handle, while the other lay down on the side
of the bag, did not contribute much toward his genteel appearance. It
was evident that he was mad clear through. In answer to my question as
to how he liked the nomination of Taylor, he curtly answered, “Can’t
say that I admire it,” and shuffled along toward the ferry, but the
_Tribune_ of the next morning had a terrific leader against Taylor,
the title of which was “The Philadelphia Slaughterhouse,” and Greeley
long hesitated about coming into the support of Taylor. He could not
follow Van Buren, in whom he had no faith and against whom he had made
his first great battle as an editor in 1840. Finally, seeing that the
choice was between Cass and Taylor, Greeley decided to support the
Whig candidate, and the Whigs of New York showed their appreciation of
his action by nominating him to fill an unexpired term in Congress, to
which he was elected by a large majority.
The contest for Vice-President had been very animated, and for some
time before the meeting of the convention it seemed probable that
Abbott Lawrence, a New England millionaire, might win it. He made the
first attempt that had been ventured to gain a national nomination by
the money-in-politics system, but after Taylor had been nominated for
President his friends naturally looked to some representative supporter
of Clay to be placed second on the ticket, and Fillmore led Lawrence
on the 1st ballot and was nominated on the 2d. The ballots were as
follows:
════════════════════╤═════════╤═════════
│ 1st │ 2d
│ Ballot. │ Ballot.
────────────────────┼─────────┼─────────
Millard Fillmore │ 115 │ 173
Abbott Lawrence │ 109 │ 83
Scattering │ 50 │ 4
════════════════════╧═════════╧═════════
George Evans, of Maine, and T. M. T. McKennen, Andrew Stewart, and John
Sergeant, of Pennsylvania, all received a few votes. The nomination
of Fillmore was made unanimous by the delegates who remained in the
convention. The convention adopted no platform.
After the nomination of General Taylor for President an interesting,
and what would now be regarded as a most ludicrous, incident occurred
relating to the letter written by Governor Morehead, President of
the Convention, to General Taylor advising him of his nomination
for the Presidency. At that time the prepayment of postage was not
compulsory, and unpaid letters were charged from five to ten times the
present rate of letter postage. President Morehead promptly mailed a
letter to General Taylor at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, notifying him of
his nomination, but several weeks elapsed without any response. The
telegraph was then in its infancy, and unthought of as an agent except
in the most urgent emergency, and Governor Morehead finally sent a
trusted friend to visit General Taylor and inquire why his letter of
acceptance had not been given. Every political crank, as well as many
others in the country, had been writing letters to General Taylor on
the subject of the Presidency, very few of whom prepaid their letter
postage. Old “Rough and Ready” became vexed beyond endurance at the
tax imposed upon him, and he gave peremptory orders to the postmaster
to send to the dead-letter office all letters addressed to him which
were unpaid. Governor Morehead, assuming that a letter advising a man
of his nomination for the Presidency, that carried with it a reasonably
certain election, was a matter of quite as much interest to Taylor as
to himself, had not prepaid the postage on his letter, and it had gone
to the dead-letter office in accordance with Taylor’s general orders.
When the mistake was discovered, the error was corrected by the sending
of a second letter—postage prepaid—to General Taylor, to which he
promptly responded, and the explanation given that the original letter
had miscarried in the mails.
[Illustration: MILLARD FILLMORE]
One of the interesting episodes of the convention was the arrival in
Philadelphia, while the Whig convention was in session, of General
Cass and his suite of Democratic leaders of national fame. Cass was
on his way home from Washington, and the short time that he remained
here he liberally divided public attention with the Whigs. An immense
crowd welcomed Cass at the Jones Hotel, on Chestnut, above Sixth, and I
there for the first time saw and heard General Cass, Senator Houston,
Senator Allen, Senator Benton, and Representative Stevenson, all of
whom spoke from the balcony of the hotel, and were cheered to the
echo. I recall Houston as one of the handsomest men I have ever seen,
with perfect physique, of heroic form, and a superbly chiselled face,
portraying all the strength of the best type of the Roman. Cass was
heavy and ponderous, but an able and attractive speaker, and I remember
Benton well because his speech made him remembered as a colossal,
perpendicular I. Allen was then notable as the “fog-horn,” and he could
be heard a square beyond any of the others. A facetious delegate in the
Whig convention, with admirable mock gravity, suggested that as the
Democratic funeral train was in this city taking Cass’s body home by
the lakes, the convention should adjourn.
As might have been expected, and as was greatly feared by both the
leading parties, the slavery issue was at once made the vital one of
the contest. The Democrats hoped that as the contest warmed up the Van
Buren followers would acquiesce as they did in 1844, but what at first
seemed to be a cloud on the Democratic horizon no bigger than a man’s
hand soon after developed into a promised tempest. The Barnburners,
who had withdrawn from the Democratic National Convention, called a
State convention, to meet at Utica, N. Y., on the 22d of June, and
invited delegates from other States for conference. Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Ohio, and Wisconsin were represented, and after devoting
two days to the discussion of the best policy to adopt, Van Buren was
formally nominated for President, and Henry Dodge, of Wisconsin, for
Vice-President, who declined, and supported Cass. Van Buren’s formal
acceptance of the nomination followed soon thereafter, and it was the
first definite notice to the regular Democrats that the Free-Soil
Democracy was going to be earnestly arrayed against Democratic success.
Although Van Buren had accepted the first nomination, it was deemed
wise as the campaign progressed to have a much more representative
national body to make him the candidate, and a largely attended
mass convention met at Buffalo on the 9th of August, over which
Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, presided, and which had
representatives from seventeen States. On the formal ballot for
President, Van Buren had 159 votes to 129 for John P. Hale, of New
Hampshire, who had already been nominated by the Abolitionists, and
Charles Francis Adams was nominated by acclamation for Vice-President.
After this convention had made its nominations and declared its
platform, Mr. Hale, the Abolition candidate, retired from the contest,
and he and his followers gave a cordial support to Van Buren. The
following was the Van Buren platform as declared by the Buffalo
convention:
_Whereas_, We have assembled in convention, as a union of freemen,
for the sake of freedom, forgetting all past political differences,
in common resolve to maintain the rights of free labor against the
aggressions of the slave power, and to secure free soil for a free
people; and
_Whereas_, The political conventions recently assembled at Baltimore
and Philadelphia, the one stifling the voice of a great constituency,
entitled to be heard in its deliberations, and the other abandoning
its distinctive principles for mere availability, have dissolved the
national party organizations heretofore existing by nominating for
the chief magistracy of the United States, under the slaveholding
dictation, candidates, neither of whom can be supported by the
opponents of slavery extension without a sacrifice of consistency,
duty, and self-respect; and
_Whereas_, These nominations so made furnish the occasion and
demonstrate the necessity of the union of the people under the banner
of free democracy, in a solemn and formal declaration of their
independence of the slave power, and of their fixed determination to
rescue the Federal Government from its control:
_Resolved_, Therefore, that we, the people here assembled, remembering
the example of our fathers in the days of the first Declaration of
Independence, putting our trust in God for the triumph of our cause,
and invoking His guidance in our endeavors to advance it, do now plant
ourselves upon the national platform of freedom, in opposition to the
sectional platform of slavery.
_Resolved_, That slavery in the several States of this Union which
recognize its existence depends upon State laws alone, which cannot
be repealed or modified by the Federal Government, and for which
laws that Government is not responsible. We therefore propose no
interference by Congress with slavery within the limits of any State.
_Resolved_, That the proviso of Jefferson, to prohibit the existence
of slavery after 1800 in all the Territories of the United States,
southern and northern; the votes of six States and sixteen delegates,
in the Congress of 1784 for the proviso, to three States and
seven delegates against it; the actual exclusion of slavery from
the Northwestern Territory by the ordinance of 1787, unanimously
adopted by the States in Congress; and the entire history of that
period—clearly show that it was the settled policy of the nation not
to extend, nationalize, or encourage, but to limit, localize, and
discourage slavery; and to this policy, which should never have been
departed from, the Government ought to return.
_Resolved_, That our fathers ordained the Constitution of the United
States in order, among other great national objects, to establish
justice, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty; but expressly denied to the Federal Government, which they
created, all constitutional power to deprive any person of life,
liberty, or property, without due legal process.
_Resolved_, That, in the judgment of this convention, Congress has
no more power to make a slave than to make a king; no more power
to institute or establish slavery than to institute or establish
a monarchy. No such power can be found among those specifically
conferred by the Constitution, or derived by any just implication from
them.
_Resolved_, That it is the duty of the Federal Government to relieve
itself from all responsibility for the existence or continuance of
slavery wherever the Government possesses constitutional authority to
legislate on that subject, and is thus responsible for its existence.
_Resolved_, That the true and, in the judgment of this convention, the
only safe means of preventing the extension of slavery into territory
now free is to prohibit its existence in all such territory by an act
of Congress.
_Resolved_, That we accept the issue which the slave power has forced
upon us; and to their demand for more Slave States and more slave
territory, our calm but final answer is, no more Slave States and no
more slave territory. Let the soil of our extensive domains be ever
kept free for the hardy pioneers of our own land, and the oppressed
and banished of other lands, seeking homes of comfort and fields of
enterprise in the New World.
_Resolved_, That the bill lately reported by the committee of eight
in the Senate of the United States was no compromise, but an absolute
surrender of the rights of the non-slaveholders of all the States;
and while we rejoice to know that a measure which, while opening the
door for the introduction of slavery into territories now free, would
also have opened the door to litigation and strife among the future
inhabitants thereof, to the ruin of their peace and prosperity, was
defeated in the House of Representatives, its passage, in hot haste,
by a majority embracing several Senators who voted in open violation
of the known will of their constituents, should warn the people to
see to it that their representatives be not suffered to betray them.
There must be no more compromises with slavery; if made, they must be
repealed.
_Resolved_, That we demand freedom and established institutions for
our brethren in Oregon, now exposed to hardships, peril, and massacre
by the reckless hostility of the slave power to the establishment of
free government for free territory, and not only for them, but for
our new brethren in New Mexico and California.
_And whereas_, It is due not only to this occasion, but to the whole
people of the United States, that we should declare ourselves on
certain other questions of national policy; therefore,
_Resolved_, That we demand cheap postage for the people; a
retrenchment of the expenses and patronage of the Federal Government;
the abolition of all unnecessary offices and salaries; and the
election by the people of all civil officers in the service of the
Government, so far as the same may be practicable.
_Resolved_, That river and harbor improvements, whenever demanded by
the safety and convenience of commerce with foreign nations, or among
the several States, are objects of national concern; and that it is
the duty of Congress, in the exercise of its constitutional powers, to
provide therefor.
_Resolved_, That the free grant to actual settlers, in consideration
of the expenses they incur in making settlements in the wilderness,
which are usually fully equal to their actual cost, and of the public
benefits resulting therefrom, of reasonable portions of the public
lands, under suitable limitations, is a wise and just measure of
public policy which will promote, in various ways, the interests of
all the States of this Union; and we therefore recommend it to the
favorable consideration of the American people.
_Resolved_, That the obligations of honor and patriotism require
the earliest practicable payment of the national debt; and we are,
therefore, in favor of such a tariff of duties as will raise revenue
adequate to defray the necessary expenses of the Federal Government,
and to pay annual instalments of our debt, and the interest thereon.
_Resolved_, That we inscribe on our banner, “Free Soil, Free Speech,
Free Labor and Free Men,” and under it will fight on, and fight ever,
until a triumphant victory shall reward our exertions.
The Presidential contest of 1848 for the first time presented the
Native American party in the field with national candidates. It had
its origin chiefly from the Philadelphia riots of 1844, resulting from
a bitter feud between the Catholics and Protestants in the uptown
river districts of Philadelphia. The organization of the Native
American party immediately followed in Philadelphia, with opposition to
Catholics and foreigners as its faith, and for nearly a decade it held
the balance of power between the Whigs and Democrats in that city, and
several times elected members of Congress. A like party was organized
in New York, and attained some local success in that city. The
national convention of the Native Americans was held in Philadelphia
in September, 1847, and while it did not make a formal nomination,
it recommended General Taylor for President and chose Henry A. S.
Dearborn, of Massachusetts, for Vice-President. The party was unknown
and unfelt in the contest, although it aided somewhat in giving the
electoral vote of Pennsylvania to Taylor.
In November, 1847, the Liberty party, that had twice nominated and ran
Birney as its candidate for President, met at New York and nominated
John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, for President, and Leicester King,
of Ohio, for Vice-President. When the Free-Soil Democracy developed
huge proportions and nominated Van Buren, the old Abolition party
was entirely absorbed in the Free-Soil organization. The Liberty
League, made up of a small number of the more radical Abolitionists,
held a meeting at Rochester on the 2d of June, 1848, and nominated
Gerrit Smith, of New York, for President, and Rev. Charles E. Foote,
of Michigan, for Vice-President; and what was called the Industrial
Congress, made up of a handful of labor agitators, met at Philadelphia
on the 13th of June, 1848, and nominated Gerrit Smith for President and
William S. Waitt, of Illinois, for Vice-President. Neither the Hale
Abolition party, the Liberty League Abolition party, nor the Industrial
Congress party presented any electoral tickets of which I have been
able to find any record. The canvass was a very earnest one, and the
Whigs steadily grew in confidence as it progressed, while the Democrats
were threatened on every side with disaster.
Pennsylvania broke from her Democratic moorings at the October
election, when William F. Johnson, Whig, was elected Governor by 305
majority, and generally the preliminary elections were favorable to
the Whigs. There were then thirty States, as Florida had come in
March 3, 1845; Texas, December 29, 1845; Iowa, December 28, 1846, and
Wisconsin, May 29, 1848, and the Presidential electors were then for
the first time all chosen on the same day, with the single exception of
Massachusetts. Van Buren did not carry a State, but he gave Taylor an
easy triumph by the large Democratic defection he caused in the pivotal
States. The following table exhibits the popular and electoral votes as
declared by Congress:
══════════════════╤════════════════════════════════════╦════════════════
│ POPULAR VOTE. ║ ELECTORS.
├───────────┬───────────┬────────────╫───────┬────────
STATES. │ Zachary │Lewis Cass,│ Martin Van ║Taylor.│ Cass.
│Taylor, La.│ Mich. │Buren, N. Y.║ │
──────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼────────────╫───────┼────────
Maine │ 35,125 │ 39,880 │ 12,096 ║ ―― │ 9
New Hampshire │ 14,781 │ 27,763 │ 7,560 ║ ―― │ 6
Vermont │ 23,122 │ 10,948 │ 13,837 ║ 6 │ ――
Massachusetts │ 61,070 │ 35,281 │ 38,058 ║ 12 │ ――
Rhode Island │ 6,779 │ 3,646 │ 730 ║ 4 │ ――
Connecticut │ 30,314 │ 27,046 │ 5,005 ║ 6 │ ――
New York │ 218,603 │ 114,318 │ 120,510 ║ 36 │ ――
New Jersey │ 40,015 │ 36,901 │ 829 ║ 7 │ ――
Pennsylvania │ 185,513 │ 171,176 │ 11,263 ║ 26 │ ――
Delaware │ 6,421 │ 5,898 │ 80 ║ 3 │ ――
Maryland │ 37,702 │ 34,528 │ 125 ║ 8 │ ――
Virginia │ 45,124 │ 46,586 │ 9 ║ ―― │ 17
North Carolina │ 43,550 │ 34,869 │ ―――― ║ 11 │ ――
South Carolina[13]│ ―――― │ ―――― │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 9
Georgia │ 47,544 │ 44,802 │ ―――― ║ 10 │ ――
Alabama │ 30,482 │ 31,363 │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 9
Florida │ 3,116 │ 1,847 │ ―――― ║ 3 │ ――
Mississippi │ 25,922 │ 26,537 │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 6
Louisiana │ 18,217 │ 15,370 │ ―――― ║ 6 │ ――
Texas │ 4,509 │ 10,668 │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 4
Arkansas │ 7,588 │ 9,300 │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 3
Missouri │ 32,671 │ 40,077 │ ―――― ║ ―― │ 7
Tennessee │ 64,705 │ 58,419 │ ―――― ║ 13 │ ――
Kentucky │ 67,141 │ 49,720 │ ―――― ║ 12 │ ――
Ohio │ 138,360 │ 154,775 │ 35,354 ║ ―― │ 23
Michigan │ 23,940 │ 30,687 │ 10,389 ║ ―― │ 5
Indiana │ 69,907 │ 74,745 │ 8,100 ║ ―― │ 12
Illinois │ 53,047 │ 56,300 │ 15,774 ║ ―― │ 9
Wisconsin │ 13,747 │ 15,001 │ 10,418 ║ ―― │ 4
Iowa │ 11,084 │ 12,093 │ 1,126 ║ ―― │ 4
├───────────┼───────────┼────────────╫───────┼────────
Totals │ 1,360,099 │ 1,220,544 │ 291,263 ║ 163 │ 127
══════════════════╧═══════════╧═══════════╧════════════╩═══════╧════════
[13] By Legislature.
All parties made earnest efforts to control the popular branch of
Congress, and national interest naturally centred in the Wilmot
district of Pennsylvania, as he was the author of the Wilmot Proviso,
that was the fountain of the slavery dispute. He had been twice elected
to Congress in what was then a strong Democratic district, composed
of Bradford, Susquehanna, and Tioga, but which have been among the
strongest Republican counties in the State since the organization
of that party. The district had given over 2000 majority for Polk
against Clay, and although Wilmot was the only member of Congress from
Pennsylvania who voted for the tariff of 1846, he was re-elected in the
fall of that year by a decided majority.
When Van Buren was nominated, Wilmot openly declared himself as a
Free-Soil Democrat, but he received the regular Democratic nomination
for Congress in his district. The Cass pro-slavery Democrats bolted
and nominated Jonah Brewster as a Simon-pure Democrat, and the Whigs
nominated Henry W. Tracy, confidently expecting to elect him. Wilmot
was triumphantly elected, receiving 8597 votes to 4795 for Tracy, Whig,
and 922 for Brewster, Cass Democrat. He also nearly evenly divided
the Democratic vote of Bradford and Tioga between Cass and Van Buren,
giving Taylor a large plurality over Cass in the district.
While the Wilmot Free-Soil Democrats bolted on the Democratic national
ticket, they generally supported Morris Longstreth, the Democratic
candidate for Governor, who was defeated by Johnson in October by 305
majority. The re-election of Wilmot in one of the strong Democratic
districts of Pennsylvania greatly strengthened the antislavery cause
throughout the country. He and his followers fell back into the
regular Democratic line in 1852 in support of Pierce, and they finally
severed their relations with the Democratic party in 1854, provoked by
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and in 1856 they carried the
Northern counties of the State by large majorities for Fremont.
Cass carried every State west of the Pennsylvania line, including Ohio,
where the antislavery sentiment of the Western Reserve was unwilling
to accept a large slaveholder as a candidate for President. Corwin,
the most brilliant and impressive of the stump-speakers of that day,
made desperate efforts to save the State, but Van Buren received over
35,000 votes, and Cass won the electors by a plurality of over 16,000.
I once heard Corwin in his inimitable way tell the story of that
campaign. The people of Ohio in that day were taught their politics by
mass-meetings, and any one of the audience was entirely at liberty to
interrogate the speaker. Corwin, in his plausible and fascinating way,
was trying to explain how the antislavery cause would be best served by
electing a slaveholder President, when a tall, lank countryman, sitting
on the fence, put a very pointed question to him, that he felt unable
to answer. He tried to meet it in a humorous way, but only aroused
his interrogator to make a more pointed inquiry of him, that Corwin
could not answer. He was one of the few orators who could convulse an
audience with his superb humor, and his facial expression was at times
even more mirth provoking than his language. The question involved
the negro issue, and Corwin had an unusually swarthy complexion, and
he unhorsed his inquirer by saying to his audience with an expression
that powerfully accentuated his remark: “I submit, fellow-citizens,
whether it is proper to put such a question to a man of my complexion,”
and the dispute ended in boisterous laughter and cheers for Corwin.
The Whigs won easy victories in all the debatable States of the South;
and General Taylor came to the Presidency knowing less about how his
election had been accomplished than any man who had ever been called to
the Chief Magistracy of the Republic. Thus was Martin Van Buren avenged
for the Southern betrayal of 1844.
THE PIERCE-SCOTT CONTEST
1852
While the Whigs were apprehensive as to General Taylor’s fidelity to an
aggressive Whig policy both before and after his election, when he came
to the selection of his Cabinet he quieted all doubts by appointing
a positive Whig Cabinet, with John M. Clayton, one of the ablest of
the Whig leaders of that day and an eminently practical politician,
to the Premiership. Taylor had little fitness for responsible civil
duties, and charged his Cabinet, that was made up of eminently able
men, with the administration of their different departments. The
slavery question was uppermost in the politics of the day, and the
Taylor Cabinet finally decided upon a policy to solve the delicate
problem by admitting none of the newly acquired Mexican possessions as
Territories, but leaving the question of slavery to be determined by
themselves when they came to admission as States.
[Illustration: FRANKLIN PIERCE]