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diff --git a/41634-0.txt b/41634-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4c0f6bf --- /dev/null +++ b/41634-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13682 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41634 *** + + Standard Library Edition + + + AMERICAN STATESMEN + + EDITED BY + JOHN T. MORSE, JR. + + IN THIRTY-TWO VOLUMES + VOL. XVIII. + + DOMESTIC POLITICS: THE TARIFF + AND SLAVERY + + MARTIN VAN BUREN + + + + + [Illustration: M. Van Buren] + + + + + American Statesmen + + STANDARD LIBRARY EDITION + + [Illustration: The Home of Martin Van Buren] + + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. + + + + + American Statesmen + + + MARTIN VAN BUREN + + BY + + EDWARD M. SHEPARD + + + [Illustration] + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY + The Riverside Press, Cambridge + 1899 + + + + + Copyright, 1888 and 1899, + BY EDWARD M. SHEPARD. + + Copyright, 1899, + BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. + + _All rights reserved._ + + + + +PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION + + +Since 1888, when this Life was originally published, the history of +American Politics has been greatly enriched. The painstaking and candid +labors of Mr. Fiske, Mr. Adams, Mr. Rhodes, and others have gone far to +render unnecessary the _caveat_ I then entered against the unfairness, +or at least the narrowness, of the temper with which Van Buren, or the +school to which he belonged, had thus far been treated in American +literature, and which had prejudicially misled me before I began my +work. Such a _caveat_ is no longer necessary. Even now, when the +political creed of which Jefferson, Van Buren, and Tilden have been +chief apostles in our land, seems to suffer some degree of +eclipse,--only temporary, it may well be believed, but nevertheless +real,--those who, like myself, have undertaken to present the careers of +great Americans who held this faith need not fear injustice or prejudice +in the field of American literature. + +In this revised edition I have made a few corrections and added a few +notes; but the generous treatment which has been given to the book has +confirmed my belief that historic truth requires no material change. + +A passage from the diary of Charles Jared Ingersoll (Life by William M. +Meigs, 1897) tempts me, in this most conspicuous place of the book, to +emphasize my observation upon one injustice often done to Van Buren. +Referring, on May 6, 1844, to his letter, then just published, against +the annexation of Texas, Mr. Ingersoll declared that, in view of the +fact that nearly all of Van Buren's admirers and most of the Democratic +press were committed to the annexation, Van Buren had committed a great +blunder and become _felo de se_. The assumption here is that Van Buren +was a politician of the type so painfully familiar to us, whose sole and +conscienceless effort is to find out what is to be popular for the time, +in order, for their own profit, to take that side. That Van Buren was +politic there can be no doubt. But he was politic after the fashion of a +statesman and not of a demagogue. He disliked to commit himself upon +issues which had not been fully discussed, which were not ripe for +practical solution by popular vote, and which did not yet need to be +decided. Mr. Ingersoll should have known that the direct and simple +explanation was the true one,--that Van Buren knew the risk and meant to +take it. His letter against the annexation of Texas, written when he +knew that it would probably defeat him for the presidency, was but one +of several acts performed by him at critical periods, wherein he +deliberately took what seemed the unpopular side in order to be true to +his sense of political and patriotic duty. The crucial tests of this +kind through which he successfully passed must, beyond any doubt, put +him in the very first rank of those American statesmen who have had the +rare union of political foresight and moral courage. + + EDWARD M. SHEPARD. + January, 1899. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAP. PAGE + I. AMERICAN POLITICS WHEN VAN BUREN'S CAREER BEGAN.-- + JEFFERSON'S INFLUENCE 1 + + II. EARLY YEARS.--PROFESSIONAL LIFE 14 + + III. STATE SENATOR: ATTORNEY-GENERAL: MEMBER OF THE + CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 38 + + IV. UNITED STATES SENATOR.--REËSTABLISHMENT OF + PARTIES.--PARTY LEADERSHIP 88 + + V. DEMOCRATIC VICTORY IN 1828.--GOVERNOR 153 + + VI. SECRETARY OF STATE.--DEFINITE FORMATION OF THE + DEMOCRATIC CREED 177 + + VII. MINISTER TO ENGLAND.--VICE-PRESIDENT.--ELECTION + TO THE PRESIDENCY 223 + + VIII. CRISIS OF 1837 282 + + IX. PRESIDENT.--SUB-TREASURY BILL 325 + + X. PRESIDENT.--CANADIAN INSURRECTION.--TEXAS.--SEMINOLE + WAR.--DEFEAT FOR REËLECTION 350 + + XI. EX-PRESIDENT.--SLAVERY.--TEXAS ANNEXATION.--DEFEAT + BY THE SOUTH.--FREE SOIL CAMPAIGN.--LAST YEARS 398 + + XII. VAN BUREN'S CHARACTER AND PLACE IN HISTORY 449 + + INDEX 469 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + MARTIN VAN BUREN _Frontispiece_ + + From a photograph by Brady in the Library of the State + Department at Washington. + Autograph from a MS. in the Library of the Boston Athenæum. + The vignette of "Lindenwald," Mr. Van Buren's home, near + Kinderhook, N. Y., is from a photograph. + Page + DE WITT CLINTON _facing_ 110 + + From a painting by Inman in the New York State Library, Albany, + N. Y. + Autograph from a MS. in the Library of the Boston Athenæum. + + EDWARD LIVINGSTON _facing_ 248 + + From a bust by Ball Hughes in the possession of Miss Julia Barton + Hunt, Barrytown on Hudson, N. Y. + Autograph from the Chamberlain Collection, Boston Public Library. + + SILAS WRIGHT _facing_ 416 + + From a portrait painted by Whitehorne, 1844-1846, in the New York + City Hall. + Autograph from the Chamberlain Collection, Boston Public Library. + + + + +MARTIN VAN BUREN + + + + +CHAPTER I + +AMERICAN POLITICS WHEN VAN BUREN'S CAREER BEGAN.--JEFFERSON'S INFLUENCE + + +It sometimes happened during the anxious years when the terrors of civil +war, though still smouldering, were nearly aflame, that on Wall Street +or Nassau Street, busy men of New York saw Martin Van Buren and his son +walking arm in arm. "Prince John," tall, striking in appearance, his +hair divided at the middle in a fashion then novel for Americans, was in +the prime of life, resolute and aggressive in bearing. His father was a +white-haired, bright-eyed old man, erect but short in figure, of precise +though easy and kindly politeness, and with a touch of deference in his +manner. His presence did not peremptorily command the attention of +strangers; but to those who looked attentively there was plain +distinction in the refined and venerable face. Passers-by might well +turn back to see more of the two men thus affectionately and +picturesquely together. For they were famous characters,--the one in +the newer, the other in the older politics of America. John Van Buren, +fresh from his Free Soil battle and the tussles of the Hards and Softs, +was striving, as a Democrat, to serve the cause of the Union, though +conscious that he rested under the suspicion of the party to whose +service, its divisions in New York now seemingly ended, he had +reluctantly returned. But he still faced the slave power with an +independence only partially abated before the exigencies of party +loyalty. The ex-President, definitely withdrawn from the same Free Soil +battle, a struggle into which he had entered when the years were already +heavy upon him, had survived to be once more a worthy in the Democratic +party, again to receive its formal veneration, but never again its old +affection. In their timid manoeuvres with slavery it was perhaps with +the least possible awkwardness that the northern Democrats sought to +treat him as a great Democratic leader; but they did not let it be +forgotten that the leader was forever retired from leadership. While the +younger man was in the thick of political encounters which the party +carried on in blind futility, the older man was hardly more than an +historical personage. He was no longer, his friends strove to think, the +schismatic candidate of 1848, but rather the ally and friend of Jackson, +or, better still and further away, the disciple of Jefferson. + +For, more than any other American, Martin Van Buren had succeeded to the +preaching of Jefferson's political doctrines, and to his political +power as well, that curious and potent mingling of philosophy, +statesmanship, and electioneering. The Whigs' distrust towards Van Buren +was still bitter; the hot anger of his own party over the blow he had +dealt in 1848 was still far from subsided; the gratitude of most Free +Soil men had completely disappeared with his apparent acquiescence in +the politics of Pierce and Buchanan. Save in a narrow circle of +anti-slavery Democrats, Van Buren, in these last days of his, was judged +at best with coldness, and most commonly with dislike or even contempt. +Not much of any other temper has yet gone into political history; its +writers have frequently been content to accept the harshness of partisan +opinion, or even the scurrility and mendacity visited upon him during +his many political campaigns, and to ignore the positive records of his +career and public service. The present writer confesses to have begun +this Life, not indeed sharing any of the hatred or contempt so commonly +felt towards Van Buren, but still given to many serious depreciations of +him, which a better examination has shown to have had their ultimate +source in the mere dislike of personal or political enemies,--a dislike +to whose expression, often powerful and vivid, many writers have +extended a welcome seriously inconsistent with the fairness of history. + +When Abraham Lincoln was chosen president in 1860, this predecessor of +his by a quarter century was a true historical figure. The bright, +genial old man connected, visibly and really, those stirring and +dangerous modern days with the first political struggles under the +American Constitution, struggles then long passed into the quiet of +history, to leave him almost their only living reminiscence. Martin Van +Buren was a man fully grown and already a politician when in 1801 the +triumph of Thomas Jefferson completed the political foundation of the +United States. Its profound inspiration still remained with him on this +eve of Lincoln's election. Under its influence his political career had +begun and had ended. + +At Jefferson's election the aspiration and fervor which attended the +first, the new-born sense of American national life, had largely worn +away. The ideal visions of human liberty had long before grown dim +during seven years of revolutionary war, with its practical hardships, +its vicissitudes of meanness and glory, and during the four years of +languor and political incompetence which followed. In the agitation for +better union, political theories filled the minds of our forefathers. +Lessons were learned from the Achæan League, as well as from the Swiss +Confederation, the German Empire, and the British Constitution. Both +history and speculation, however, were firmly subordinated to an +extraordinary common sense, in part flowing from, as it was most finely +exhibited in, the luminous and powerful, if unexalted, genius of +Franklin. From the open beginning of constitution-making at Annapolis in +1786 until the inauguration of John Adams, the American people, under +the masterful governing of Washington, were concerned with the framework +upon which the fabric of their political life was to be wrought. The +framework was doubtless in itself of a vast and enduring importance. If +the consolidating and aristocratic schemes of Hamilton had not met +defeat in the federal convention, or if the separatist jealousies of +Patrick Henry and George Clinton had not met defeat in Virginia and New +York after the work of the convention was done, there would to-day be a +different American people. Nor would our history be the amazing story of +the hundred years past. But upon the governmental framework thus set up +could be woven political fabrics widely and essentially different in +their material, their use, and their enduring virtue. For quite apart +from the framework of government were the temper and traditions of +popular politics out of which comes, and must always come, the essential +and dominant nature of public institutions. In this creative and deeper +work Jefferson was engaged during his struggle for political power after +returning from France in 1789, during his presidential career from 1801 +to 1809, and during the more extraordinary, and in American history the +unparalleled, supremacy of his political genius after he had left +office. In the circumstances of our colonial life, in our race +extractions, in our race fusion upon the Atlantic seaboard, and in the +moral effect of forcible and embittered separation from the parent +country, arose indeed, to go no further back, the political instincts of +American men. It is, however, fatal to adequate conception of our +political development to ignore the enormous formative influence which +the twenty years of Jefferson's rule had upon American political +character. But so partial and sometimes so partisan have been the +historians of our early national politics in their treatment of that +great man, that a just appreciation of the political atmosphere in which +Van Buren began his career is exceedingly difficult. + +There was an American government, an American nation, when Washington +gladly escaped to Mt. Vernon from the bitterly factional quarrels of the +politicians at Philadelphia. The government was well ordered; the nation +was respectable and dignified. But most of the people were either still +colonial and provincial, or were rushing, in turbulence and bad temper, +to crude speculations and theories. Twenty-five years later, Jefferson +had become the political idol of the American people, a people +completely and forever saturated with democratic aspirations, democratic +ideals, what John Marshall called "political metaphysics," a people with +strong and lasting characteristics, no longer either colonial or +provincial, but profoundly national. The skill, the industry, the arts +of the politician, had been used by a man gifted with the genius and not +free from the faults of a philosopher, to plant in American usages, +prejudices, and traditions,--in the very fibre of American political +life, a cardinal and fruitful idea. The work was done for all time. For +Americans, government was thenceforth to be a mere instrument. No longer +a symbol, or an ornament or crown of national life, however noble and +august, it was a simple means to a plain end; to be always, and if need +be rudely, tested and measured by its practical working, by its service +to popular rights and needs. In those earlier days, too, there had been +"classes and masses," the former of whom held public service and public +policy as matters of dignity and order and high assertion of national +right and power, requiring in their ministers peculiar and esoteric +light, and an equipment of which common men ought not to judge, because +they could not judge aright. Afterward, in Monroe's era of good feeling, +the personal rivalries of presidential candidates were in bad temper +enough; but Americans were at last all democrats. Whether for better or +worse, the nation had ceased to be either British or colonial, or +provincial, in its character. In the delightful Rip Van Winkle of a +later Jefferson, during the twenty years' sleep, the old Dutch house has +gone, the peasant's dress, the quaint inn with its village tapster, all +the old scene of loyal provincial life. Rip returns to a noisy, +boastful, self-assertive town full of American "push" and "drive," and +profane disregard of superiors and everything ancient. It was hardly a +less change which spread through the United States in the twenty years +of Jefferson's unrivaled and fruitful leadership. Superstitious regard +for the "well-born," for institutions of government as images of +veneration apart from their immediate and practical use; the faith in +government as essentially a financial establishment which ought to be on +peculiarly friendly relations with banks and bankers; the treatment and +consideration of our democratic organization as an experiment to be +administered with deprecatory deference to European opinion; the idea +that upon the great, simple elements of political belief and practice, +the mass of men could not judge as wisely and safely as the opulent, the +cultivated, the educated; the idea that it was a capital feature of +political art to thwart the rashness and incompetence of the lower +people,--all these theories and traditions, which had firmly held most +of the disciplined thought of Europe and America, and to which the lurid +horrors of the French Revolution had brought apparent consecration,--all +these had now gone; all had been fatally wounded, or were sullenly and +apologetically cherished in the aging bitterness of the Federalists. +There was an American people with as distinct, as powerful, as +characteristic a polity as belonged to the British islanders. In 1776 a +youthful genius had seized upon a colonial revolt against taxation as +the occasion to make solemn declaration of a seeming abstraction about +human rights. He had submitted, however, to subordinate his theory +during the organization of national defense and the strengthening of +the framework of government. Nor did he shine in either of those works. +But with the nation established, with a union secured so that its people +could safely attend to the simpler elements of human rights, Jefferson +and his disciples were able to lead Americans to the temper, the +aspirations, and the very prejudices of essential democracy. The +Declaration of Independence, the ten amendments to the Constitution +theoretically formulating the rights of men or of the States, sank deep +into the sources of American political life. So completely indeed was +the work done, that in 1820 there was but one political party in +America; all were Jeffersonian Republicans; and when the Republican +party was broken up in 1824, the only dispute was whether Adams or +Jackson or Crawford or Clay or Calhoun best represented the political +beliefs now almost universal. It seemed to Americans as if they had +never known any other beliefs, as if these doctrines of their democracy +were truisms to which the rest of the world was marvelously blind. + +Nothing in American public life has, in prolonged anger and even savage +desperation, equaled the attacks upon Jefferson during the steady growth +of his stupendous influence. The hatred of him personally, and the +belief in the wickedness of his private and public life, survive in our +time. Nine tenths of the Americans who then read books sincerely thought +him an enemy of mankind and of all that was sacred. Nine tenths of the +authors of American books on history or politics have to this day +written under the influence which ninety years ago controlled their +predecessors. And for this there is no little reason. As the American +people grew conscious of their own peculiar and intensely active +political force, there came to them a period of national and popular +life in which much was unlovely, much was crude, much was disagreeably +vulgar. Books upon America written by foreign travelers, from the days +of Jefferson down to our civil war, superficial and offensive as they +often were, told a great deal of truth. We do not now need to wince at +criticisms upon a rawness, an insolent condescension towards the +political ignorance of foreigners and the unhappy subjects of kings, a +harshness in the assertion of the equality of Caucasian men, and a +restless, boastful manner. The criticisms were in great measure just. +But the critics were stupid and blind not to see the vast and vital work +and change going on before their eyes, to chiefly regard the trifling +and incidental things which disgusted them. Their eyes were open to all +our faults of taste and manner, but closed to the self-dependent and +self-assertive energy the disorder of whose exhibition would surely pass +away. In every democratic experiment, in every experiment of popular or +national freedom, there is almost inevitable a vulgarizing of public +manners, a lack of dignity in details, which disturbs men who find +restful delight in orderly and decorous public life; and their disgust +is too often directed against beneficent political changes or reforms. +If one were to judge the political temper of the American people from +many of our own writers, and still more if he were to judge it from the +observations even of intelligent and friendly foreigners prior to 1861, +he would believe that temper to be sordid, mean, noisy, boastful, and +even cruel. But from the war of 1812 with England to the election of +Buchanan in 1856, the American people had been doing a profound, +organic, democratic work. Meantime many had seen no more than the +unsightly, the mean and trivial, the malodorous details, which were mere +incidents and blemishes of hidden and dynamic operations. Unimaginative +minds usually fail to see the greater and deeper movements of politics +as well as those of science. In the public virtues then maturing there +lay the ability long and strenuously to conduct an enterprise the +greatest which modern times have known, and an extraordinary popular +capacity for restraint and discipline. In those virtues was sleeping a +tremendously national spirit which, with cost and sacrifice not to be +measured by the vast figures of the statistician, on one side sought +independence, and on the other saved the Union,--an exalted love of men +and truth and liberty, which, after all the enervations of pecuniary +prosperity, endured with patience hardships and losses, and the less +heroic but often more dangerous distresses of taxation,--at the North a +magnanimity in victory unequaled in the traditions of men, and at the +South a composure and dignity and absence of either bitterness or +meanness which brought out of defeat far larger treasures than could +have come with victory. But these were not effects without a cause. In +them all was only the fruit, the normal fruit, of the political habits, +ideals, traditions, whose early and unattractive disorders had chagrined +many of the best of Americans, and had seemed so natural to foreigners +who feared or distrusted a democracy. There had been forming, during +forty or fifty years of a certain raw unloveliness, the peculiar and +powerful self-reliance of a people whose political independence meant +far more than a mere separate government. + +In these years Van Buren was one of the chief men in American public +life. He and his political associates had been profoundly affected by +the Jeffersonian philosophy of government. They robustly held its tenets +until the flame and vengeance of the slavery conflict drove them from +political power. In our own day we have, in the able speeches with which +Samuel J. Tilden fatigued respectful though often unsympathetic hearers +at Democratic meetings, heard something of the same robust political +philosophy, brought directly from intercourse with his famous neighbor +and political master. Van Buren himself breathed it as the very +atmosphere of American public life, during his early career which had +just begun when Jefferson, his robes of office dropped and his faults of +administration forgotten, seemed the serene, wise old man presiding +over a land completely won to his ideals of democracy. Under this +extraordinary influence and in this political light, there opened with +the first years of the century the public life to be narrated in this +volume. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +EARLY YEARS.--PROFESSIONAL LIFE + + +At the close of the American Revolution, Abraham Van Buren was a farmer +on the east bank of the Hudson River, New York. He was of Dutch descent, +as was his wife, whose maiden name Hoes, corrupted from Goes, is said to +have had distinction in Holland. But it would be mere fancy to find in +the statesman particular traits brought from the dyked swamp lands +whence some of his ancestors came. Those who farmed the rich fields of +Columbia county were pretty thorough Americans; their characteristics +were more immediately drawn from the soil they cultivated and from the +necessary habits of their life than from the lands, Dutch or English, +from which their forefathers had emigrated. Late in the eighteenth +century they were no longer frontiersmen. For a century and more this +eastern Hudson River country had been peacefully and prosperously +cultivated. There was no lack of high spirit; but it was shown in +lawsuits and political feuds rather than in skirmishes with red men. It +was close to the old town of Albany with its official and not +undignified life, and had comparatively easy access to New York by sloop +or the post-road. It had been an early settlement of the colony. Within +its borders were now the estates and mansions of large landed +proprietors, who inherited or acquired from a more varied and affluent +life some of the qualities, good and bad, of a country gentry. It was a +region of easy, orderly comfort, sound and robust enough, but not +sharing the straight and precise, though meddling, puritanical habits +which a few miles away, over the high Berkshire hills, had come from the +shores of New England. + +The elder Van Buren was said by his son's enemies to have kept a tavern; +and he probably did. Farming and tavern-keeping then were fairly +interchangeable; and the gracious manner, the tact with men, which the +younger Van Buren developed to a marked degree, it is easy to believe +came rather from the social and varied life of an inn than from the +harsher isolation of a farm. The statesman's boyish days were at any +rate spent among poor neighbors. He was born at Kinderhook, an old +village of New York, on the 5th of December, 1782. The usual years of +schooling were probably passed in one of the dilapidated, weather-beaten +schoolhouses from which has come so much of what is best in American +life. He studied later in the Kinderhook Academy, one of the higher +schools which in New York have done good work, though not equaling the +like schools in Massachusetts. Here he learned a little Latin. But when +at fourteen years of age he entered a law office, he had of course the +chief discipline of book-learning still to acquire. In 1835 his campaign +biographer rather rejoiced that he had so little systematic education, +fearing that "from the eloquent pages of Livy, or the honeyed eulogiums +of Virgil, or the servile adulation of Horace, he might have been +inspired with an admiration for regal pomp and aristocratic dignity +uncongenial to the native independence of his mind," and have imbibed a +"contempt for plebeians and common people," unless, perhaps, the +speeches of popular leaders in Livy "had kindled his instinctive love of +justice and freedom," or the sarcastic vigor of Tacitus "had created in +his bosom a fixed hatred of tyranny in every shape." At an early age, +however, it is certain that Van Buren, like many other Americans of +original force and with instinctive fondness for written pictures of +human history and conduct, acquired an education which, though not that +of a professional scholar, was entirely appropriate to the skillful man +of affairs or the statesman to be set in conspicuous places. This work +must have been largely done during the comparative leisure of his legal +apprenticeship. + +It was in 1796 that he entered the law office of Francis Sylvester at +Kinderhook, where he remained until his twentieth year. He there read +law. It is safe to say besides that he swept the office, lighted the +fires in winter, and, like other law students in earlier and simpler +days, had to do the work of an office janitor and errand boy, as well +as to serve papers and copy the technical forms of the common law, and +the tedious but often masterly pleadings of chancery. That his work as a +student was done with great industry and thoroughness is demonstrated by +the fact that at an early age he became a successful and skillful +advocate in arguments addressed to courts as distinguished from juries, +a division of professional work in which no skill and readiness will +supply deficiencies in professional equipment. His early reputation for +cleverness is illustrated by the story that when only a boy he +successfully summed up a case before a jury against his preceptor +Sylvester, being made by the justice to stand upon a bench because he +was so small, with the exhortation, "There, Mat, beat your master." + +In 1802 Van Buren entered the office of William P. Van Ness, in the city +of New York, to complete his seventh and final year of legal study. Van +Ness was himself from Columbia county and an eminent lawyer. He was +afterwards appointed United States district judge by Madison; and was +then an influential Republican and a close friend and defender of Aaron +Burr, then the vice-president. The native powers and fascination of Burr +were at their zenith, though his political character was blasted. Van +Buren made his acquaintance, and was treated with the distinguished and +flattering attention which the wisest of public men often show to young +men of promise. Van Buren's enemies were absurdly fond of the fancy that +in this slight intercourse he had acquired the skill and grace of his +manner, and the easy principles and love of intrigue which they ascribe +to him. Burr, for years after he was utterly disabled, inspired a +childish terror in American politics. The mystery and dread about him +were used by the opponents of Jackson because Burr had early pointed him +out for the presidency, and by the opponents of Clay because in early +life he had given Burr professional assistance. But upon Burr's +candidacy for governor in 1804 Van Buren's freedom from his influence +was clearly enough exhibited. + +In 1803 Van Buren, being now of age and admitted as an attorney, +returned to Kinderhook and there began the practice of his profession. +The rank of counsellor-at-law was still distinct and superior to that of +attorney. His half-brother on his mother's side, James J. Van Alen, at +once admitted the young attorney to a law partnership. Van Alen was +considerably older and had a practice already established. Van Buren's +career as a lawyer was not a long one, but it was brilliant and highly +successful. After his election to the United States Senate in 1821 his +practice ceased to be very active. He left his profession with a fortune +which secured him the ease in money matters so helpful and almost +necessary to a man in public life. Merely professional reputations +disappear with curious and rather saddening promptness and completeness. +Of the practice and distinction reached by Van Buren before he withdrew +from the bar, although they were unsurpassed in the State, no vestige +and few traditions remain beyond technical synopses of his arguments in +the instructive but hardly succulent pages of Johnson's, Wendell's, and +Cowen's reports. + +At an early day the legal profession reached in our country a consummate +vigor. Far behind as Americans were in other learning and arts, they +had, within a few years after they escaped colonial dependence, judges, +advocates, and commentators of the first rank. Marshall, Kent, and Story +were securely famous when hardly another American of their time not in +public and political life was known. In the legal art Americans were +even more accomplished than in its science; and Columbia county and the +valley of the Hudson were fine fields for legal practice. Many +animosities survived from revolutionary days. The landed families, long +used to administer the affairs of others as well as their own, saw with +jealousy and fear the rapid spread of democratic doctrines and of +leveling and often insolent manners. Political feuds were rife, and +frequently appeared in the professionally profitable collisions of +neighbors with vagrant cows, or on watercourses insufficient for the +needs of the up-stream and the down-stream proprietors. There were +slander suits and libel suits, and suits for malicious prosecution. Into +the most legitimate controversies over doubts about property there was +driven the bitterness which turns a lawsuit from a process to ascertain +a right into a weapon of revenge. + +Van Buren's political opinions were strong and clear from the beginning +of his law practice; but he was in a professional minority among the +rich Federalists of the county. The adverse discipline was invaluable. +Through zeal and skill and large industry, he soon led the Republicans +as their ablest lawyer, and the lawyers of Columbia county were famous. +William W. Van Ness, afterwards a judge of the supreme court of the +State, Grosvenor, Elisha Williams, and Jacob R. Van Rensselaer were +active at the bar. Williams, although his very name is nowadays hardly +known, we cannot doubt from the universal testimony of contemporaries, +had extraordinary forensic talents. He was a Federalist; and the most +decisive proof of Van Buren's rapid professional growth was his +promotion to be Williams's chief competitor and adversary. Van Buren's +extraordinary application and intellectual clearness soon established +him as the better and the more successful lawyer, though not the more +powerful advocate. Williams at last said to his rival, "I get all the +verdicts, and you get all the judgments." A famous pupil of Van Buren +both in law and in politics, Benjamin F. Butler, afterwards +attorney-general in his cabinet, finely contrasted them from his own +recollection of their conflicts when he was a law student. "Never," he +said, "were two men more dissimilar. Both were eloquent; but the +eloquence of Williams was declamatory and exciting, that of Van Buren +insinuating and delightful. Williams had the livelier imagination, Van +Buren the sounder judgment. The former presented the strong points of +his case in bolder relief, invested them in a more brilliant coloring, +indulged a more unlicensed and magnificent invective, and gave more life +and variety to his arguments by his peculiar wit and inimitable humor. +But Van Buren was his superior in analyzing, arranging, and combining +the insulated materials, in comparing and weighing testimony, in +unraveling the web of intricate affairs, in eviscerating truth from the +mass of diversified and conflicting evidence, in softening the heart and +moulding it to his purpose, and in working into the judgments of his +hearers the conclusions of his own perspicuous and persuasive +reasonings." Most of this is applicable to Van Buren's career on the +wider field of politics; and much here said of his early adversary on +the tobacco-stained floors of country court-houses might have been as +truly said of a later adversary of his, the splendid leader who, rather +than Harrison, ought to have been victor over Van Buren in 1840, and +over whom Van Buren rather than Polk ought to have been victor in 1844. + +In a few years Van Buren outgrew the professional limitations of +Kinderhook. In February, 1807, he had been admitted as a counsellor of +the supreme court; and this promotion he most happily celebrated by +marrying Hannah Hoes, a young lady of his own age, and also of Dutch +descent, a kinswoman of his mother, and with whom he had been intimate +from his childhood. In 1808, the council of appointment becoming +Republican, he was made surrogate of Columbia county, succeeding his +partner and half-brother Van Alen, a Federalist in politics, who was, +however, returned to the place in 1815, when the Federalists regained +the council. The office was a respectable one, concerned with the +probate of wills, and the ordering of estates of deceased persons. +Within a year after this appointment, Van Buren removed to the new and +bustling little city of Hudson, directly on the river banks. Here he +practiced law with rapidly increasing success for seven years. His +pecuniary thrift now enabled him to purchase what was called "a very +extensive and well-selected library." With this advantage he applied +himself to "a systematic and extended course of reading," which left him +a well, even an amply, educated man. His severity in study did not, +however, exclude him from the social pleasures of which he was fond, and +for which he was perfectly fitted. He learned men quite as fast as he +learned books. A country surrogate, though then enjoying fees, since +commuted to a salary, had only a meagre compensation. But the duties of +Van Buren's office did not interfere with his activity in the private +practice of the law. On the contrary, the office enabled him to make +acquaintances, a process which, even without adventitious aid, he always +found easy and delightful. + +In 1813, having been elected a member of the Senate of the State, he +became as such a member of the court for the correction of errors. This +was the court of last resort, composed, until 1847, of the chancellor, +the judges of the supreme court, the lieutenant-governor, and the +thirty-two senators. The latter, though often laymen, were members of +the court, partly through a curious imitation of the theoretical +function of the British House of Lords, and partly under the idea, even +now feebly surviving in some States, that some besides lawyers ought to +sit upon the bench in law courts to contribute the common sense which it +was fancied might be absent from their more learned associates. It was +not found unsuitable for members of this, the highest court, to be +active legal practitioners. While Van Buren held his place as a member +he was, in February, 1815, made attorney-general, succeeding Abraham Van +Vechten, one of the famous lawyers of the State. Van Buren was then but +thirty-two years old, and the professional eminence accorded to the +station was greater than now. Among near predecessors in it had been +Aaron Burr, Ambrose Spencer and Thomas Addis Emmett; among his near +successors were Thomas J. Oakley, Samuel A. Talcott, Greene C. Bronson +and Samuel Beardsley,--all names of the first distinction in the +professional life of New York. The office was of course political, as it +has always been, both in the United States and the mother country. But +Van Buren's appointment, if it were made because he was an active and +influential Republican in politics, would still not have been made +unless his professional reputation had been high. The salary was $5.50 a +day, with some costs,--not an unsuitable salary in days when the +chancellor was paid but $3000 a year. He held the office until July, +1819, when, upon the capture of the council of appointment by a +coalition of Clintonian Republicans and Federalists, he was removed to +give place to Oakley, the Federalist leader in the State Assembly. + +In 1816 Van Buren, now rapidly reaching professional eminence, removed +to Albany, the capital of New York. Though then a petty city of mean +buildings and about 10,000 inhabitants, it had a far larger relative +importance in the professional and social life of the State than has the +later city of ten times the population, with its costly and enormous +state-house, its beautiful public buildings, and its steep and numerous +streets of fine residences. In 1820 he purposed removing to New York; +but, for some reason altering his plans, continued to reside at Albany +until appointed secretary of state in 1829. His professional career was +there crowned with most important and lucrative work. Soon after moving +to Albany, he took into partnership Butler, just admitted to the bar. +Between the two men there were close and life-long relations. The +younger of them, also a son of Columbia county, reached great +professional distinction, became a politician of the highest type, and +remained steadfast in his attachment to Van Buren's political fortunes, +and to the robust and distinctly marked political doctrines and +practices of the Albany Regency. + +The law reports give illustrations of Van Buren's precision, his clear +and forcible common-sense, and his aptitude for that learning of the law +in which the great counsel of the time excelled. In 1813, soon after his +service began as state senator, he delivered an opinion in a case of +"escape;" and in very courteous words exhibited a bit of his dislike for +Kent, then chief justice of the supreme court, whose judgment he helped +to reverse, as well as his antipathy to imprisonment for debt, which he +afterwards helped to abolish. It was a petty suit against the sureties +upon the bond given by a debtor. Under a relaxation of the imprisonment +for debt recently permitted, the debtor was, on giving the bond, +released from jail, but upon the condition that he should keep within +the "jail liberties," which in the country counties was a prescribed +area around the jail. His bond was to be forfeit if he passed the +"liberties." While the debtor was driving a cow to or from pasture, the +latter contemptuously deviated "four, six, or ten feet" from the +liberties. The driver, yielding to inevitable bucolic impulse and +forgetting his bond, leaped over the imaginary line to bring back the +cow. He was without the liberties but a moment, and afterwards duly kept +within them. But the creditor was watchful, and for the technical +"escape" sued the sureties. Although the debtor was within the limits +when suit was brought, the lower court refused to pardon the debtor's +technical and unintentional fault. At common law the creditor was +entitled to satisfaction of the debtor's body; and the milder statute +establishing jail liberties was, the court said, to be strictly +construed against the debtor; it was not enough that the creditor had +the debtor's body when he called for it. The supreme court, headed by +Kent, affirmed this curiously harsh decision. In the court of errors, +Van Buren joined Chancellor Lansing in reversing the rule upon an +elaborate review of the law, which to this day is important authority, +and which could not have been more carefully done had something greater +seemed at stake than a bovine vagary and a few dollars. The young +lawyer, wearing for a time the judicial robes, now sat in a review, by +no means unpleasant, of the utterances of magistrates before whom he had +until then stood in considerable awe; and seized the opportunity, +doubtless with a keen perception of the drift of popular sentiment on +matters of personal liberty, to enlarge the mild policy of the later +law. When it was urged that, if the law were not technically +administered, imprisoned debtors would of a Sunday wander beyond the +"limits," securely able to return before Monday, when the creditor could +sue,--Van Buren, with a contemptuous fling at the supreme court, +confessed in Johnsonian sentences his lenient temper towards these +"stolen pleasures,"--his willingness that debtors should snatch the "few +moments of liberty which, although soured by constant perturbation and +alarm, are, notwithstanding, deemed fit subjects for judicial +animadversion." His rhetoric was rather agreeably florid when he +declared the law establishing "jail liberties" to be a concession for +humane purposes made by the inflexible spirit which authorized +imprisonment for debt. He strongly intimated his sympathy to be with +"the exertions of men of intelligence, reflection, and philanthropy to +mitigate its rigor; of men who viewed it as a practice fundamentally +wrong, a practice which forces their fellow-creatures from society, from +their friends, and their agonized families into the dreary walls of a +prison; which compels them to leave all those fascinating endearments to +become an inmate with vermin;" and all this, not for crime or frauds, +"but for the misfortune of being poor, of being unable to satisfy the +all-digesting stomach of some ravenous creditor." The practice was one +"confounding virtue and vice, and destroying the distinction between +guilt and innocence which should unceasingly be cherished in every +well-regulated government." Democrats rejoiced over this passage when +Van Buren was a candidate for the presidency. Richard M. Johnson, then +his associate upon the Democratic ticket, had successfully led an +agitation for the abolition of such imprisonment upon judgments rendered +in the federal courts. + +Van Buren's professional life terminated with his election as governor +in 1828. In 1830, while secretary of state at Washington, he is said to +have appeared before the federal supreme court in the great litigation +between Astor and the Sailors' Snug Harbor, in which he had been counsel +below; but no record is preserved of his argument there. His last +well-known argument was before the court of errors at Albany in Varick +v. Jackson, a branch of the famous Medcef Eden litigation. This long and +highly technical battle was lighted up by the fame and competitions of +the counsel. It arose upon the question whether a will of Eden which +gave a landed estate to his son Joseph, but if Joseph died without +children, then to his surviving brother, Medcef Eden the younger, +created for Joseph the old lawyers' delight of an "estate tail." If it +were an "estate tail," then the law of 1782, which, in the general +tendency of American legislation after the Revolution, was directed +against the entailing of property, would have made the first brother, +Joseph, the absolute owner, and have defeated the later claim of Medcef. +Joseph had failed while in possession of the property. His creditors, +accepting the opinion of Alexander Hamilton, then the head of the bar, +insisted that he had been the absolute owner, that the provision for his +brother Medcef's accession to the property was nugatory as an attempt to +entail the estate; and upon this view the creditors sold the lands, +which by the rapid growth of the city soon became of large value. +Hamilton's opinion for years daunted the younger Medcef and his children +from asserting the right which it was morally plain his father had +intended for him. Aaron Burr, not less Hamilton's rival at the bar than +in the politics of New York, gave a contrary opinion; but after killing +Hamilton in 1804 and yielding up the vice-presidency in 1805, his +brilliant professional gifts were exiled from New York. On his return in +1812 from years of conspiracy, adventure, and romance, he took up the +discredited Medcef Eden claim; and in the judicial test of the question +he, and not Hamilton, proved to have been correct. The struggle went on +in a number of suits; and when in 1823 the question was to be finally +settled in the court of last resort, Burr, fearing, as he himself +intimated to the court, lest the profound suspicion under which he +rested might obscure and break the force of his legal arguments, or +conscious that his past twenty years had dimmed his faculties, called to +his aid Van Buren, then United States senator and a chief of the +profession. As Van Buren and Burr attended together before the court of +errors, they doubtless recalled their meetings in Van Ness's office +twenty years before, when Burr, still a splendid though clouded figure +in American life, hoped, by Federalist votes added to the Republican +secession which he led, to reach the governorship and recover his +prestige; those days in which the unknown but promising young countryman +had interested a vice-president and enjoyed the latter's skillful and +not always insincere flattery. The firm and orderly procedure of Van +Buren's life was now well contrasted with the discredited and profligate +ability of the returned wanderer. Against this earlier but long +deposed, and against this later and regnant chief in the Republican +politics of New York, were ranged in these cases David B. Ogden, the +famous lawyer of the Federalist ranks, Samuel A. Talcott, and Samuel +Jones. In Van Buren's long, masterly, and successful argument there was +again an edge to the zeal with which he attacked the opinion of Kent, +the Federalist chancellor, who asked the court of errors to overrule its +earlier decisions, and the chancellor's own decision as well, and defeat +the intention of the elder Medcef Eden. + +Van Buren's professional career was most enviable. It lasted twenty-five +years. It ended before he was forty-six, when he was in the early +ripeness of his powers, but not until a larger and more shining career +seemed surely opened before him. He left the bar with a competence +fairly earned, which his prudence and skill made grow into an ample +fortune, without even malicious suggestion in the scurrility of politics +that he had profited out of public offices. In money matters he was more +thrifty and cautious than most Americans in public places. His enemies +accused him of meanness and parsimony, but apparently without other +reason than that he did not practice the careless and useless profusion +and luxury which many of his countrymen in political life have thought +necessary to indulge even when their own tastes were far simpler. In the +course of professional employment he acquired an important estate near +Oswego, whose value rapidly enhanced with the rapid growth of western +New York and the development of the lake commerce from that port. + +The chief interest now found in Van Buren's professional career lies in +its relation to his political life. He was the only lawyer of +conspicuous and practical and really great professional success who has +reached the White House. In the long preparation for the bar, in the +many hours of leisure at Kinderhook and Hudson and even Albany permitted +by the methods of practice in vogue before there were railways or +telegraphs, and when travel was costly and slow and postage a shilling +or more, he gained the liberal education more difficult of access to the +busier young attorney and counsel of these crowded days. Great lawyers +were then fond of illustrations from polite literature; they loved to +set off their speeches with quotations from the classics, and to give +their style finish and ornament not practicable to the precise, prompt +methods which their successors learn in the driving routine of modern +American cities. Van Buren did not, however, become a great orator at +the bar. His admirer, Butler, upon returning to partnership with him in +1820, wrote indeed to an intimate friend, Jesse Hoyt (destined +afterwards to bring grief and scandal upon both the partners), that if +he were Van Buren he "would let politics alone," and become, as Van +Buren might, the "Erskine of the State." But though his success, had he +continued in the profession, would doubtless have been of the very first +order, his oratory would never have reached the warm and virile +splendor of Erskine, or the weighty magnificence of Webster. Van Buren's +work as a lawyer brought him, however, something besides wealth and the +education and refinement of books, and something which neither Erskine +nor Webster gained. The profession afforded him an admirable discipline +in the conduct of affairs; and affairs, in the law as out of it, are +largely decided by human nature and its varying peculiarities. The +preparation of details; the keen and far-sighted arrangement of the +best, because the most practicable, plan; the refusal to fire off +ammunition for the popular applause to be roused by its noise and flame; +the clear, steady bearing in mind of the end to be accomplished, rather +than the prolonged enjoyment or systematic working out of intermediate +processes beyond a utilitarian necessity,--all these elements Van Buren +mastered in a signal degree, and made invaluable in legal practice. To +men more superbly equipped for _tours de force_, who ignored the uses of +long, attentive, varied, painstaking work, there was nothing admirable +in the methods which Van Buren brought into political life out of his +experience in the law. He was, to undisciplined or envious opponents, a +"little magician," a trickster. The same thing appears, in every +department of human activity, in the anger which failure often flings at +success. + +The predominance of lawyers in our politics was very early established, +and has been a characteristic distinction between politics in England +and politics in America. Conspicuous as lawyers have been in the +politics of the older country, they have rarely been figures of the +first rank. They have served in all its modern ministries, and sometimes +in other than professional stations; but, with the unimportant exception +of Perceval, not as the chief. English opinion has not unjustly believed +its greater landed proprietors to be animated with a strong and peculiar +desire for English greatness and renown; nor has the belief been +destroyed by their frequent opposition to the most beneficent popular +movements. Among these proprietors and those allied with them, even when +not strictly in their ranks, England has found her statesmen. To this +day, the speech of a lawyer in the British House of Commons is fancied +to show the narrowness of technical training, or is treated as a bid for +promotion to some of the splendid seats open to the English bar. In +America, the great landed proprietor very early lost the direction of +public affairs. All the members of the "Virginian dynasty" were, it is +true, large land-owners, and in the politics of New York there were +several of them. But land-ownership was to Jefferson, Madison, and +Monroe simply a means of support while they attended to public affairs; +it was not one of their chief recommendations to the landed interest +throughout the country. For a time in the early politics of New York the +landed wealth of the Schuylers, Van Rensselaers, and Livingstons was of +itself a source of strength; but in the spread of democratic sentiment +it was found that to be a great landlord was entirely consistent with +dullness, narrowness, and timid selfishness. Among the landlords there +soon and inevitably decayed that sense of public obligation belonging to +exalted position and leadership which sometimes brings courage, high +public spirit, and even a sound and active political imagination, to +those who preside over bodies of tenants. The laws were changed which +facilitated family accumulations of land. Since these early years of the +century a great land-owner has been in politics little more than any +other rich man. Both have had advantages in that as in any other field +of activity. Certain easy graces not uncommon to inherited wealth have +often been popular,--not, however, for the wealth, but for themselves. +Where these graces have existed in America without such wealth, they +have been none the less popular; but in England a lifetime of vast +public service and the finest personal attainments have failed to +overcome the distrust of a landless man as a sort of adventurer. + +When Van Buren's career began, the men who were making money in trade or +manufactures were generally too busy for the anxious and busy cares of +public life; the tradesmen and manufacturers who had already made money +were past the time of life when men can vigorously and skillfully turn +to a new and strange calling. There was no leisure class except +land-owners or retired men of business. Lawyers, far more than those of +any other calling, became public men, and naturally enough. Their +experience of life and their knowledge of men were large. The popular +interest in their art of advocacy; their travels from county seat to +county seat; their speeches to juries in towns where no other secular +public speaking was to be heard; the varieties of human life which +lawyers came to know,--varieties far greater where the same men acted as +attorneys and advocates than in England where they acted in only one of +these fields,--these and the like, combined with the equipment for the +forms of political and governmental work which was naturally gained in +legal practice and the systematic study of law, gave to distinguished +lawyers in America their large place in its political life. For this +place the liberality of their lives helped, besides, to fit them. They +had ceased to be disqualified for it by their former close alliance, as +in England, with the landed aristocracy; and they had not yet begun to +suffer a disqualification, frequently unjust, for their close relations +with corporate interests, between which and the public there often +arises an antagonism of interests. De Tocqueville, after his visit in +1832, said that lawyers formed in America its highest political class +and the most cultivated circle of society; that the American aristocracy +was not composed of the rich, but that it occupied the judicial bench +and the bar. And the descriptions of the liberal and acute though +theoretical Frenchman are generally trustworthy, however often his +striking generalizations are at fault. Such, then, was the intimacy of +relations between the professions of law and politics when Van Buren +shone in both. And when, in his early prime, he gave up the law, neither +forensic habits nor those of the attorney were yet too strongly set to +permit the easy and complete diversion of his powers to the more +generous and exalted activity of public life. + +It is simpler thus separately to treat Van Buren's life as a lawyer, +because in a just view of the man it must be subordinate to his life as +a politician. It is to be remembered, however, that in his earlier years +his progress in politics closely attended in time, and in much more than +time, his professional progress. When, at thirty, he sat as an appellate +judge in the court of errors, he was already powerful in politics; when, +at thirty-two, he was attorney-general, he was the leader of his party +in the state senate; when, at forty-five, he had perhaps the most +lucrative professional practice in New York, he was the leader of his +party in the United States Senate. But it will be easier to follow his +political career without interruption from his work as a lawyer, +honorable and distinguished as it was, and much of his political ability +as he owed to its fine discipline. + +Van Buren's domestic life was broken up by the death of his wife at +Albany, in February, 1819, leaving him four sons. To her memory Van +Buren remained scrupulously loyal until his own death forty-three years +afterwards. We may safely believe political enemies when, after saying +of him many dastardly things, they admitted that he had been an +affectionate husband. Nor were accusations ever made against the +uprightness and purity of his private life. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +STATE SENATOR.--ATTORNEY-GENERAL.--MEMBER OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL +CONVENTION + + +The politics of New York State were never more bitter, never more +personal, than when Van Buren entered the field in 1803. The Federalists +were sheltered by the unique and noble prestige of Washington's name; +and were conscious that in wealth, education, refinement, they far +excelled the Republicans. They were contemptuously suspicious of the +unlettered ignorance, the intense and exuberant vanity, of the masses of +American men. It was by that contempt and suspicion that they invited +the defeat which, protected though they were by the property +qualifications required of voters in New York, they met in 1800 at the +hands of a people in whom the instincts of democracy were strong and +unsubmissive. This was in our history the one complete and final defeat +of a great national party while in power. The Federalists themselves +made it final,--by their silly and unworthy anger at a political +reverse; by their profoundly immoral efforts to thwart the popular will +and make Burr president; by their fatal and ingrained disbelief in +common men, who, they thought, foolishly and impiously refused to +accept wisdom and guidance from the possessors of learning and great +estates; and finally by their unpatriotic opposition to Jefferson and +Madison in the assertion of American rights on the seas during the +Napoleonic wars. All these drove the party, in spite of its large +services in the past and its eminent capacity for service in the future, +forever from the confidence of the American people. The Federalists +maintained, it is true, a party organization in New York until after the +second war with England; but their efforts were rather directed to the +division and embarrassment of their adversaries than to victories of +their own strength or upon their own policy. They carried the lower +house of the legislature in 1809, 1812, and 1813. There were among them +men of the first rank, who retained a strong hold on popular respect, +among whom John Jay and Rufus King were deservedly shining figures. But +never after 1799 did the Federalists elect in New York a governor, or +control both legislative houses, or secure any solid power, except by +coalition with one branch or another of the Republicans. + +Van Buren's fondness for politics was soon developed. His father was +firmly attached to the Jeffersonians or Republicans,--a rather +discredited minority among the Federalists of Columbia county and the +estates of the Hudson River aristocracy. Inheriting his political +preferences, Van Buren, with a great body of other young Americans, +caught the half-doctrinaire enthusiasm which Jefferson then inspired, an +enthusiasm which in Van Buren was to be so enduring a force, and to +which sixty years later he was still as loyal as he had been in the hot +disputes on the sanded floors of the village store or tavern. During +these boyish years he wrote and spoke for his party; and before he was +eighteen he was formally appointed a delegate to a Republican convention +for Columbia and Rensselaer counties. + +Van Buren returned from New York to Columbia county late in 1803, just +twenty-one years old. At once he became active in politics. The +Republican party, though not strong in his county, was dominant in the +State; and the game of politics was played between its different +factions, the Federalists aiding one or the other as they saw their +advantage. The Republicans were Clintonians, Livingstonians, or +Burrites. George Clinton, in whose career lay the great origin of party +politics of New York, was the Republican leader. The son of an Irish +immigrant, he had, without the aid of wealth or influential connections, +made himself the most popular man in the State. He was the first +governor after colonial days were over, and was repeatedly reëlected. It +was his opposition which most seriously endangered New York's adoption +of the Federal Constitution. But in spite of the wide enthusiasm which +the completed Union promptly aroused, this opposition did not prevent +his reëlection in 1789 and 1792. The majorities were small, however, it +being even doubtful whether in the latter year the majority were fairly +given him. In 1795 he declined to be a candidate, and Robert R. +Livingston, the Republican in his place, was defeated. In 1801 Clinton +was again elected. Later he was vice-president in Jefferson's second +term and Madison's first term; and his aspiration to the presidency in +1808 was by no means unreasonable. He was a strong party leader and a +sincerely patriotic man. The Livingston family interest in New York was +very great. The chancellor, Robert R. Livingston, who nowadays is +popularly associated with the ceremony of Washington's inauguration, had +been secretary for foreign affairs under the Articles of Confederation, +and had left the Federalists in 1790. After his sixty years had under +the law disqualified him for judicial office, he became Jefferson's +minister to France and negotiated with Bonaparte the Louisiana treaty. +Brockholst Livingston was a judge of the Supreme Court of New York in +1801. In 1807 Jefferson promoted him to the federal Supreme Court. +Edward Livingston, younger than his brother, the chancellor, by +seventeen years, was long after to be one of the finest characters in +our politics. Early in Washington's administration he had become a +strong pro-French Republican, and had opposed Jay's treaty with Great +Britain; though forty years later, when Jackson brought him from +Louisiana to be secretary of state, he was sometimes reminded of his +still earlier Federalism. Morgan Lewis, judge of the Supreme Court and +afterwards chief justice, and still later governor, was a brother-in-law +of the chancellor. Smith Thompson, also a judge and chief justice, and +later secretary of the navy under Monroe and a judge of the federal +Supreme Court, and Van Buren's competitor for governor in 1828, was a +connection of the family. There were sneers at the Livingston conversion +to Democracy as there always are at political conversions. But whether +or not Chancellor Livingston's Democracy came from jealousy of Hamilton +in 1790, it is at least certain that he and his family connections +rendered political services of the first importance during a half +century. The drafting of Jackson's nullification proclamation in 1833 by +Edward Livingston was one of the noblest and most signal services which +Americans have had the fortune to render to their country. + +The best offices were largely held by the Clinton and Livingston +families and their connections, an arrangement very aristocratic indeed, +but which did not then seem inconsistent with efficient and decorous +performance of the public business. Burr naturally gathered around him +those restless, speculative men who are as immoral in their aspirations +as in their conduct, and whose adherence has disgraced and weakened +almost every democratic movement known to history. Burr had been +attorney-general; he had refused a seat in the Supreme Court; he had +been United States senator; and now in the second office of the nation +he presided with distinguished grace over the Federal Senate. His hands +were not yet red with Hamilton's blood when Van Buren met him at New +York in 1803; but Democratic faces were averted from the man who, loaded +with its honors and enjoying its confidence, had intrigued with its +enemies to cheat his exultant party out of their choice for president. +In tribute to the Republicans of New York, George Clinton had already +been selected in his place to be the next vice-president. While Van +Buren was near the close of his law studies at New York, Burr was +preparing to restore his fortunes by a popular election, for which he +had some Republican support, and to which the fatuity of the defeated +party, again rejecting Hamilton's advice, added a considerable +Federalist support. William P. Van Ness, as "Aristides," one of the +classical names under which our ancestors were fond of addressing the +public, had in the Burr interest written a bitter attack on the Clintons +and Livingstons, accusing them, and with reason, of dividing the offices +between themselves. + +Van Buren was easily proof against the allurements of Burr, and even the +natural influence of so distinguished a man as Van Ness, with whom he +had been studying a year. Sylvester, his first preceptor, was a +Federalist. So was Van Alen, his half-brother, soon to be his partner, +who in May, 1806, was elected to Congress. But Van Buren was firm and +resolute in party allegiance. In the election for governor in April, +1804, Burr was badly beaten by Morgan Lewis, the Clinton-Livingston +candidate, whom Van Buren warmly supported, and Burr's political career +was closed. The successful majority of the Republicans was soon resolved +into the Clintonians, led by Clinton and Judge Ambrose Spencer, and the +Livingstonians, led by Governor Lewis. The active participation of +judges in the bitter politics of the time illustrates the universal +intensity of political feeling, and goes very far to justify Jefferson's +and Van Buren's distrust of judicial opinions on political questions. +Brockholst Livingston, Smith Thompson, Ambrose Spencer, Daniel D. +Tompkins,--all judges of the State Supreme Court,--did not cease when +they donned the ermine to be party politicians; neither did the +chancellors Robert R. Livingston and Lansing. Even Kent, it is pretty +obvious, was a man of far stronger and more openly partisan feelings +than we should to-day think fitting so great a judicial station as he +held. The quarrels over offices were strenuous and increasing from the +very top to the bottom of the community. + +The Federalists in 1807 generally joined the Lewisites, or "Quids." +Governor Lewis, finding that the jealousy of the Livingston interests +would defeat his renomination by the usual caucus of Republican members +of the legislature, became the candidate of a public meeting at New +York, and of a minority caucus, and asked help from the Federalists. +Such an alliance always seemed monstrous only to the Republican faction +that felt strong enough without it. The regular legislative caucus, +controlled by the Clintonians, nominated Daniel D. Tompkins, then a +judge of the Supreme Court, and for years after the Republican +"war-horse." Van Buren adhered to the purer, older, and less patrician +Democracy of the Clintonians. Tompkins was elected, with a Clintonian +legislature; and the result secured Van Buren's first appointment to +public office. A Clintonian council of appointment was chosen. The +council, a complex monument of the distrust of executive power with +which George III. had filled his revolted subjects, was composed of five +members, being the governor and one member from each of the four +senatorial districts, who were chosen by the Assembly from among the six +senators of the district. The four senatorial members of the council +were always, therefore, of the political faith of the Assembly, except +in cases where all the senators from a district belonged to the minority +party in the Assembly. To this council belonged nearly every appointment +in the State, even of local officers. Prior to 1801 the governor +appointed, with the advice and consent of the council. After the +constitutional amendment of that year, either member of the council +could nominate, the appointment being made by the majority. Van Buren +became surrogate of Columbia county on February 20, 1808. There was no +prescribed term of office, the commission really running until the +opposition party secured the council of appointment. Van Buren held the +office about five years and until his removal on March 19, 1813, when +his adversaries had secured control of the council. + +At this time the system of removing the lesser as well as the greater +officers of government for political reasons was well established in New +York. It is impossible to realize the nature of Van Buren's political +education without understanding this old system of proscription, whose +influence upon American public life has been so prodigious. The strife +over the Federal Constitution had been fierce. Its friends, after their +victory, sought, neither unjustly nor unnaturally, to punish Governor +Clinton for his opposition. Although Washington wished to stand neutral +between parties, he still believed it politically suicidal to appoint +officers not in sympathy with his administration.[1] Hamilton +undoubtedly determined the New York appointments when the new government +was launched, and they were made from the political enemies of Governor +Clinton,--a course provoking an animosity which not improbably appeared +in the more numerous state appointments controlled by Clinton and the +Republican council. After the excesses of the French Revolution the +Republicans were denounced as Jacobins and radicals, dangerous in +politics and corrupt in morals. The family feuds aided and exaggerated +the divisions in this small community of freehold voters. Appointments +were made in the federal and state services for political reasons and +for family reasons, precisely as they had long been made in England. +Especially along the rich river counties from New York to the upper +Hudson were so distributed the lucrative offices, which were eagerly +sought for their profit as well as for their honor. + +The contests were at first for places naturally vacated by death or +resignation; the idea of the property right of an incumbent actually in +office lingered until after the last century was out. It is not clear +when the first removals of subordinate officers took place for political +reasons. Some were made by the Federalists during Governor Jay's +administration; but the first extensive removals seem to have occurred +after the elections of 1801. For this there were two immediate causes. +In that year the exclusive nominating power of the governor was taken +from him. Each of the other four members of the council of appointment +could now nominate as well as confirm. Appointments and removals were +made, therefore, from that year until the new Constitution of 1821, by +one of the worst of appointing bodies, a commission of several men +whose consultations were secret and whose responsibility was divided. +Systematic abuse of the power of appointment became inevitable. There +was, besides, a second reason in the anger against Federalists, which +they had gone far to provoke, and against their long and by no means +gentle domination. This anger induced the Republicans to seek out every +method of punishment. But for this, the abuse might have been long +deferred. Nor is it unlikely that the refusal of Jefferson, inaugurated +in March of that year, to make a "clean sweep" of his enemies, turned +the longing eyes of embittered Republicans in New York more eagerly to +the fat state offices enjoyed by their insolent adversaries of the past +twelve years. + +The Clintons and Livingstons had led the Republicans to a victory at the +state election in April, 1801. Later in that year George Clinton, now +again governor, called together the new council with the nominating +power vested in every one of its five members. This council acted under +distinguished auspices, and it deserves to be long remembered. Governor +Clinton presided, and his famous nephew, De Witt Clinton, was below him +in the board. The latter represented the Clintonian Republicans.[2] +Ambrose Spencer, a man of great parts and destined to a notable career, +represented the Livingstons, of whom he was a family connection. +Roseboom, the other Republican, was easily led by his two abler party +associates. The fifth member did not count, for he was a Federalist. Two +of the three really distinguished men of this council, De Witt Clinton +and Ambrose Spencer, it is not unjust to say, first openly and +responsibly established in New York the "spoils system" by removals, for +political reasons, of officers not political. The term of office of the +four senatorial members of this council had commenced while the +illustrious Federalist John Jay was governor; but they rejected his +nominations until he was tired of making them, and refused to call them +together. When Clinton took the governor's seat, he promptly summoned +the board, and in August, 1801, the work began. De Witt Clinton publicly +formulated the doctrine, but it did not yet reach its extreme form. He +said that the principal executive offices in the State ought to be +filled by the friends of the administration, and the more unimportant +offices ought to be proportionately distributed between the two parties. +The council rapidly divided the chief appointments among the Clintons +and Livingstons and their personal supporters. Officers were selected +whom Jay had refused to appoint. Edward Livingston, the chancellor's +brother, was given the mayoralty of New York, a very profitable as well +as important station; Thomas Tillotson, a brother-in-law of Chancellor +Livingston, was made secretary of state, in place of Daniel Hale, +removed; John V. Henry, a distinguished Federalist lawyer, was removed +from the comptrollership; the district attorney, the clerk and the +recorder of New York were removed; William Coleman, the founder of the +"Evening Post," and a strong adherent of Hamilton, was turned out of the +clerkship of the Circuit Court. And so the work went on through minor +offices. New commissions were required by the Constitution to be issued +to the puisne judges of the county courts and to justices of the peace +throughout the State once in three years. Instead of renewing the +commissions and preserving continuity in the administration of justice, +the council struck out the names of Federalists and inserted those of +Republicans. The proceedings of this council of 1801 have profoundly +affected the politics of New York to this day. Few political bodies in +America have exercised as serious and lasting an influence upon the +political habits of the nation. The tradition that Van Buren and the +Albany Regency began political proscription is untrue. The system of +removals was thus established several years before Van Buren held his +first office. Its founders, De Witt Clinton and Ambrose Spencer, were +long his political enemies. Governor Clinton, whose honorable record it +was that during the eighteen years of his governorship he had never +consented to a political removal, entered his protest--not a very hearty +one, it is to be feared--in the journal of the council; but in vain. In +the next year the two chief offenders were promoted,--De Witt Clinton +to be United States senator in the place of General Armstrong, a +brother-in-law of Chancellor Livingston, and Ambrose Spencer to be +attorney-general; and two years later Spencer became a judge of the +Supreme Court. + +After the removals there began a disintegration of the party hitherto +successfully led by Burr, the Clintons, and the Livingstons. Colonel +Swartwout, Burr's friend, was called by De Witt Clinton a liar, +scoundrel and villain; although, after receiving two bullets from +Clinton's pistol in a duel, he was assured by the latter, with the +courtesy of our grandfathers, that there was no personal animosity. +Burr's friends had of course to be removed. But in 1805, after the +Clintons and the Livingstons had united in the election of Lewis as +governor over Burr, they too quarreled,--and naturally enough, for the +offices would not go around. So, after the Clintonians on the meeting of +the legislature early in 1806 had captured the council, they turned upon +their recent allies. Maturin Livingston was removed from the New York +recordership, and Tillotson from his place as secretary of state. The +work was now done most thoroughly. Sheriffs, clerks, surrogates, county +judges, justices of the peace, had to go. But at the corporation +election in New York in the same year, the Livingstonians and +Federalists, with a majority of the common council, in their fashion +righted the wrong, and, with a vigor not excelled by their successors a +half century later, removed at once all the subordinate municipal +officers subject to their control who were Clintonians. In 1807 the +Livingstonian Republicans, or, as they were now called from the +governor, the Lewisites, with the Federalists and Burrites, secured +control of the state council; and proceeded promptly to the work of +removals, defending it as a legitimate return for the proscriptive +course of their predecessors. In 1808 the Clintonians returned to the +council, and, through its now familiar labors, to the offices from which +the Lewisites were in their turn driven. In 1810 the Federalists +controlled the Assembly which chose the council; and they enjoyed a +"clean sweep" as keenly as had the contending Republican factions. But +the election of this year, the political record tells us, taught a +lesson which politicians have ever since refused to learn, perhaps +because it has not always been taught. The removal of the Republicans +from office "had the natural tendency to call out all their forces." The +Clintonians in 1811, therefore, were enabled by the people to reverse +the Federalist proscription of 1810. The Federalists, again in power in +1813, again followed the uniform usage then twelve years old. Political +removals had become part of the unwritten law. + +At this time Van Buren suffered the loss of his office as surrogate, but +doubtless without any sense of private or public wrong. It was the +customary fate of war. In 1812 he was nominated for state senator from +the middle district, composed of Columbia, Dutchess, Orange, Ulster, +Delaware, Chenango, Greene, and Sullivan counties, as the candidate of +the Clintonian Republicans against Edward P. Livingston, the candidate +of the Lewisites or Livingstonians and Burrites as well as the +Federalists. Livingston was the sitting member, and a Republican of +powerful family and political connections. Van Buren, not yet thirty, +defeated him by a majority of less than two hundred out of twenty +thousand votes. In November, 1812, he took his seat at Albany, and +easily and within a few months reached a conspicuous and powerful place +in state politics. + +These details of the establishment of the "spoils system" in New York +politics seem necessary to be told, that Van Buren's own participation +in the wrong may be fairly judged. It is a common historical vice to +judge the conduct of men of earlier times by standards which they did +not know. Van Buren found thoroughly and universally established at +Albany, when he entered its life, the rule that, upon a change in the +executive, there should be a change in the offices, without reference to +their political functions. He had in his own person experienced its +operation both to his advantage and to his disadvantage. Federalists and +Republicans were alike committed to the rule. The most distinguished and +the most useful men in active public life, whatever their earlier +opinion might have been, had acquiesced and joined in the practice. Nor +was the practice changed or extended after Van Buren came into state +politics. It continued as it had thus begun, until he became a national +figure. Success in it required an ability and skill of which he was an +easy master; nor does he seem to have shrunk from it. But he was neither +more nor less reprehensible than the universal public sense about him. +For it must be remembered that the "spoils system" was not then +offensive to the more enlightened citizens of New York. The system was +no excess of democracy or universal suffrage. It had arisen amidst a +suffrage for governor and senators limited to those who held in freehold +land worth at least £100, and for assemblymen limited to those who held +in freehold land worth £20, or paid a yearly rent of forty shillings, +and who were rated and actually paid taxes. It was practiced by men of +aristocratic habits chosen by the well-to-do classes. It grew in the +disputes of great family interests, and in the bitterness of popular +elements met in a new country, still strange or even foreign to one +another, and permitted by their release from the dangers of war and the +fear of British oppression to indulge their mutual dislikes. + +The frequent "rotation" in office which was soon to be pronounced a +safeguard of republican institutions, and which Jackson in December, +1829, told Congress was a "leading principle in the Republicans' creed," +was by no means an unnatural step towards an improvement of the civil +service of the State. Reformers of our day lay great stress upon the +fundamental rule of democratic government, that a public office is +simply a trust for the people; and they justly find the chief argument +against the abuses of patronage in the notorious use of office for the +benefit of small portions of the people, to the detriment of the rest. +In England, however, for centuries (and to some extent the idea survives +there in our own time), there was in an office a quality of property +having about it the same kind of sacred immunity which belongs to real +or personal estate. There were reversions to offices after the deaths of +their occupants, like vested remainders in lands. It was offensive to +the ordinary sense of decency and justice that the right of a public +officer to appropriate so much of the public revenue should be attacked. +It did not offend the public conscience that great perquisites should +belong to officers performing work of the most trifling value or none at +all. The same practices and traditions, weakened by distance from +England and by the simpler life and smaller wealth of the colonists, +came to our forefathers. They existed when the democratic movement, +stayed during the necessities of war and civil reconstruction, returned +at the end of the last century and became all-powerful in 1801. To break +this idea of property and right in office, to make it clear that every +office was a mere means of service of the people at the wish of the +people, there seemed, to very patriotic and generally very wise men, no +simpler way than that the people by their elections should take away and +distribute offices in utter disregard of the interests of those who +held them. The odious result to which this afterwards led, of making +offices the mere property of influential politicians, was but +imperfectly foreseen. Nor did that result, inevitable as it was, follow +for many years. There seems no reason to believe that the incessant and +extensive changes in office which began in 1801, seriously lowered the +standard of actual public service until years after Van Buren was a +powerful and conspicuous politician. Political parties were pretty +generally in the hands of honest men. The prostituted and venal +disposition of "spoils," though a natural sequence, was to come long +after. Rotation was practiced, or its fruits were accepted and enjoyed +with satisfaction, by public men of the State who were really statesmen, +who had high standards of public honor and duty, whose minds were +directed towards great and exalted public ends. If it seemed right to De +Witt Clinton, Edward Livingston, Robert R. Livingston, and Ambrose +Spencer, surely lesser gods of our early political Olympus could not be +expected to refuse its advantages or murmur at its hardships. Nor was +the change distasteful to the people, if we may judge by their political +behavior. No faction or party seems to have been punished by public +sentiment for the practice except in conspicuous cases like those of De +Witt Clinton and Van Buren, where sometimes blows aimed at single men +roused popular and often an undeserved sympathy. The idea that a public +officer should easily and naturally go from the ranks of the people +without special equipment, and as easily return to those ranks, has been +popularly agreeable wherever the story of Cincinnatus has been told. +Early in this century the closeness of offices to ordinary life, and the +absence of an organized bureaucracy controlling or patronizing the +masses of men, seemed proper elements of the great democratic reform. +There had not yet arisen the very modern and utilitarian and the vastly +better conception of a service, the responsible directors of whose +policy should be changed with popular sentiment, but whose subordinates +should be treated by the public as any other employer would treat them, +upon simple and unsentimental rules of business. Another practical +consideration makes more intelligible the failure of our ancestors to +perceive the dangers of the great change they permitted. Offices were +not nearly as technical, their duties not nearly as uniform, as they +have grown to be in the more complex procedures of our enormously richer +and more populous time. Every officer did a multitude of things. +Intelligent and active men in unofficial life shifted with amazing +readiness and success from one calling to another. A general became a +judge, or a judge became a general,--as, indeed, we have seen in later +days. A merchant could learn to survey; a farmer could keep or could +learn to keep fair records. + +In the art of making of the lesser offices ammunition with which to +fight great battles over great questions, Van Buren became a master. His +imperturbable temper and patience, his keen reading of the motives and +uses of men, gave him so firm a hold upon politicians that it has been +common to forget the undoubted hold he long had upon the people. In +April, 1816, he was reëlected senator for a second term of four years. +His eight years of service in the senate expired in 1820. + +In November, 1812, the first session of the new legislature was held to +choose presidential electors. Not until sixteen years later were +electors chosen directly by the people. Van Buren voted for the +candidates favorable to De Witt Clinton for president as against +Madison. In the successful struggle of the Clintonians for these +electors, he is said in this, his first session, to have shown the +address and activity which at once made him a Republican leader. For his +vote against Madison Van Buren's friends afterwards made many apologies; +his adversaries declared it unpardonable treachery to one of the revered +Democratic fathers. But the young politician was not open to much +condemnation. De Witt Clinton, though he had but just reached the +beginning of middle life, was a very able and even an illustrious man. +He had been unanimously nominated in an orderly way by a caucus of the +Republican members of the legislature of 1811 and 1812 of which Van +Buren was not a member. He had accepted the nomination and had declined +to withdraw from it. There was a strong Republican opposition to the +declaration of war at that time, because preparation for it had not +been adequately made. Most of the Republican members of Congress from +New York had voted against the declaration. The virtues and abilities of +Madison were not those likely to make a successful war, as the event +amply proved. There was natural and deserved discontent with the +treatment by Jefferson's administration, in which Madison had charge of +foreign relations, and by Madison's own administration, of the +difficulties caused by the British Orders in Council, the Berlin and +Milan decrees of Napoleon, and the unprincipled depredations of both the +great belligerents. Van Buren is said by Butler, then an inmate of his +family, to have been an open and decided advocate of the embargo, and of +all the strong measures proposed against Great Britain and of the war +itself. Nor was this very inconsistent with his vote for Clinton. He had +a stronger sense of allegiance to his party in the State than to his +party at Washington; and the Republican party of New York had regularly +declared for Clinton. For once at least Van Buren found himself voting +with the great body of the Federalists, men who had not, like John +Quincy Adams, become reconciled to the strong and obvious, though +sometimes ineffective, patriotism of Jefferson's and Madison's +administrations. But whatever had been the motives which induced Van +Buren to support Clinton, they soon ceased to operate. Within a few +months after this the political relations between the two men were +dissolved; and they were politically hostile, until Clinton's death +fourteen years afterwards called from Van Buren a pathetic tribute. + +Although the youngest man but one, it was said, until that time elected +to the state senate, Van Buren was in January, 1814, chosen to prepare +the answer then customarily made to the speech of the governor. In it he +defended the war, which had been bitterly assailed in the address to the +governor made by the Federalist Assembly. Political divisions even when +carried to excess were, he said, inseparable from the blessings of +freedom; but such divisions were unfit in their resistance of a foreign +enemy. The great body of the New York Republicans, with Governor +Tompkins at their head, now gave Madison vigorous support; although +their defection in 1812 had probably made possible the Federalist +success at the election for the Assembly in 1813, which embarrassed the +national administration. Van Buren warmly supported Tompkins for his +reëlection in April, 1813, and prepared for the legislative caucus a +highly declamatory, but clear and forcible, address to Republican +electors in his behalf. The provocations to war were strongly set out. +It was declared that "war and war alone was our only refuge from +national degradation;" the "two great and crying grievances" were "the +destruction of our commerce, and the impressment of our seamen;" for +Americans did not anticipate the surrender at Ghent two years later to +the second wrong. While American sailors' "deeds of heroic valor make +old Ocean smile at the humiliations of her ancient tyrant," the address +urged Americans to mark the man, meaning the trading Federalist, who +believed "in commuting our sailors' rights for the safety of our +merchants' goods." In the sophomoric and solemn rhetoric of which +Americans, and Englishmen too, were then fond, it pointed out that the +favor of citizens was not sought "by the seductive wiles and artful +blandishments of the corrupt minions of aristocracy," who of course were +Federalists, but that citizens were now addressed "in the language which +alone becomes freemen to use,--the language to which alone it becomes +freemen to listen." + +In the legislative sessions of 1813 and 1814 Van Buren gave a practical +and skillful support to administration measures. But many of them were +balked by the Federalists, until in the election of April, 1814, the +rising patriotism of the country, undaunted by the unskillful and +unfortunate conduct of the war, pronounced definitely in favor of a +strong war policy. The Republicans recovered control of the Assembly; +and there were already a Republican governor and Senate. An extra +session was summoned in September, 1814, through which exceedingly +vigorous measures were carried against Federalist opposition. Van Buren +now definitely led. Appropriations were made from the state treasury for +the pay of militia in the national service. The State undertook to +enlist twelve thousand men for two years, a corps of sea fencibles +consisting of twenty companies, and two regiments of colored men; slaves +enlisting with the consent of their masters to be freed. Van Buren's +"classification act" Benton afterwards declared to be the "most +energetic war measure ever adopted in this country." By it the whole +military population was divided into 12,000 classes, each class to +furnish one able-bodied man, making the force of 12,000 to be raised. If +no one volunteered from a class, then any member of the class was +authorized to procure a soldier by a bounty, the amount of which should +be paid by the members of the class according to their ability, to be +determined by assessors. If no soldier from the class were thus +procured, then a soldier was to be peremptorily drafted from each class. +Van Buren was proud enough of this act to file the draft of it in his +own handwriting with the clerk of the Senate, indorsed by himself: "The +original Classification Bill, to be preserved as a memento of the +patriotism, intelligence, and firmness of the legislature of 1814-15. M. +V. B. Albany, Feb. 15, 1815." + +Cheered, after many disasters, by the victory at Plattsburg and the +creditable battle of Lundy's Lane, the Senate, in Van Buren's words, +congratulated Governor Tompkins upon "the brilliant achievements of our +army and navy during the present campaign, which have pierced the gloom +that for a time obscured our political horizon." The end of the war left +in high favor the Republicans who had supported it. The people were +good-humoredly willing to forget its many inefficiencies, to recall +complacently its few glories, and to find little fault with a treaty +which, if it established no disputed right, at least brought peace +without surrender and without dishonor. Jackson's fine victory at New +Orleans after the treaty was signed, though it came too late to +strengthen John Quincy Adams's dauntless front in the peace conference, +was quickly seized by the people as the summing up of American and +British prowess. The Republicans now had a hero in the West, as well as +a philosopher at Monticello. Van Buren drafted the resolution giving the +thanks of New York "to Major-General Jackson, his gallant officers and +troops, for their wonderful and heroic victory." + +In the method then well established the Republicans celebrated their +political success in 1814. Among the removals, Abraham Van Vechten lost +the post of attorney-general, which on February 17, 1815, was conferred +upon Van Buren for his brilliant and successful leadership in the +Senate. He remained, however, a senator of the State. At thirty-two, +therefore, he was, next to the governor, the leader of the Tompkins +Republicans, now so completely dominant; he held two political offices +of dignity and importance; and he was conducting besides an active law +practice. + +De Witt Clinton, after his defeat for the presidency, suffered other +disasters. It was in January, 1813, that he and Van Buren broke their +political relations; and the Republicans very largely fell off from him. +The reasons for this do not clearly appear; but were probably Clinton's +continuance of hostility to the national administration, which seemed +unpatriotic to the Republicans, and some of the mysterious matters of +patronage in which Clinton had been long and highly proscriptive. In +1815 the latter was removed from the mayoralty of New York by the +influence of Governor Tompkins in the council. He had been both mayor +and senator for several years prior to 1812. He was mayor and +lieutenant-governor when he was a candidate for the presidency. + +In 1816 the Republicans in the Assembly, then closely divided between +them and the Federalists (who seemed to be favored by the +apportionment), sought one of those immoral advantages whose wrong in +times of high party feeling seems invisible to men otherwise honorable. +In the town of Pennington a Federalist, Henry Fellows, had been fairly +elected to the Assembly by a majority of 30; but 49 of his ballots were +returned as reading "Hen. Fellows;" and his Republican competitor, Peter +Allen, got the certificate of appointment. The Republicans, acting, it +seems, in open conference with Van Buren, insisted not only upon +organizing the house, which was perhaps right, but upon what was wrong +and far more important. They elected the council of appointment before +Fellows was seated, as he afterwards was by an almost unanimous vote. +The "Peter Allen legislature" is said to have become a term of reproach. +But, as with electoral abuses in later days, the Federalists were not as +much aided as they ought to have been by this sharp practice of their +rivals; the people perhaps thought that, as they were in the minority +everywhere but in the Assembly, they ought not to have been permitted, +by a capture of the council, to remove the Republicans in office. + +At any rate the election in April, 1816, while the "Peter Allen +legislature" was still in office, went heavily in favor of the +Republicans, Van Buren receiving his second election to the Senate. On +March 4, 1816, he was chosen by the legislature a regent of the +University of the State of New York, an office which he held until 1829. +The University was then, as now, almost a myth, being supposed to be the +associated colleges and academies of the State. But the regents have had +a varying charge of educational matters. + +In 1817 the agitation, so superbly and with such foresight conducted by +De Witt Clinton, resulted in the passage of the law under which the +construction of the Erie Canal began. Van Buren's enmity to Clinton did +not cause him to oppose the measure, of which Hammond says he was an +"early friend." With a few others he left his party ranks to vote with +Clinton's friends; and this necessary accession from the "Bucktails" is +said by the same fair historian to have been produced by Van Buren's +"efficient and able efforts." In his speech favoring it he declared +that his vote for the law would be "the most important vote he ever gave +in his life;" that "the project, if executed, would raise the State to +the highest possible pitch of fame and grandeur," an expression not +discredited by the splendid and fruitful result of the enterprise. +Clinton, after hearing the speech, forgot for a moment their political +collisions, and personally thanked Van Buren. + +In April, 1817, Clinton was elected governor by a practically unanimous +vote. His resolute courage and the prestige of the canal policy +compelled this tribute from the Republicans, in spite of his +sacrilegious presidential aspiration in 1812, and his dismissal from the +mayoralty of New York in 1815. Governor Tompkins, now vice-president, +was Clinton's only peer in New York politics. The popular tide was too +strong for the efforts of Tompkins, Van Buren, and their associates. In +the eagerness to defeat Clinton, it was even suggested that Tompkins +should serve both as governor and vice-president; should be at once +ruler at Albany and vice-ruler at Washington. Van Buren did not, +however, go with the hot-heads of the legislature in opposing a bill for +an election to fill the vacancy left by the resignation, which it was at +last thought necessary for Tompkins to make, of the governorship. No one +dared run against Clinton; and he triumphantly returned to political +power. Under this administration of his, the party feud took definite +form. Clinton's Republican adversaries were dubbed "Bucktails" from the +ornaments worn on ceremonial occasions by the Tammany men who had long +been Clinton's enemies. The Bucktails and their successors were the +"regular" Republicans, or the Democrats as they were later called; and +they kept their regularity until, long afterwards, the younger and +greater Bucktail leader, when venerable and laden with honors, became +the titular head of the Barnburner defection. The merits of the feud +between Bucktails and Clintonians it is now difficult to find. Each +accused the other of coquetting with the Federalists; and the accusation +was nearly always true of one or the other of them. Politics was a +highly developed and extremely interesting game, whose players, though +really able and patriotic men, were apparently careless of the +undignified parts they were playing. Nor are Clintonians and Bucktails +alone in political history. Cabinets of the greatest nations have, in +more modern times, broken on grounds as sheerly personal as those which +divided Clinton and Van Buren in 1818. British and French ministries, as +recent memoirs and even recent events have shown, have fallen to pieces +in feuds of as little essential dignity as belonged to those of New York +seventy years ago. + +In 1819 the Bucktails suffered the fate of war; and Van Buren, their +efficient head, was removed from the attorney-general's office. Thurlow +Weed, then a country editor, grotesquely wrote at the time that +"rotation in office is the most striking and brilliant feature of +excellence in our benign form of government; and that by this doctrine, +bottomed, as it is, upon the Magna Charta of our liberties, Van Buren's +removal was not only sanctioned, but was absolutely required." The +latter still remained state senator, and soon waged a short and decisive +campaign to recover political mastery. He now came to the aid of +Governor Tompkins, who during the war with England had borrowed money +for public use upon his personal responsibility, and in the disbursement +of several millions of dollars for war purposes had, through +carelessness in bookkeeping or clerical detail, apparently become a +debtor of the State. The comptroller, in spite of a law passed in 1819 +to indemnify Tompkins for his patriotic services, took a hostile +attitude which threatened the latter with pecuniary destruction. In +March, 1820, Van Buren threw himself into the contest with a skill and +generous fervor which saved the ex-governor. Van Buren's speech of two +days for the old chief of the Bucktails, is described by Hammond, a +political historian of New York not unduly friendly to Van Buren, to +have been "ingenious, able, and eloquent." + +It was also in 1820 that Van Buren promoted the reëlection of Rufus +King, the distinguished Federalist, to the United States Senate. His +motives in doing this were long bitterly assailed; but as the choice was +intrinsically admirable, Van Buren was probably glad to gratify a +patriotic impulse which was not very inconsistent with party advantage. +In 1819 the Republican caucus, the last at which the Bucktails and +Clintonians both attended, was broken up amid mutual recriminations. +John C. Spencer, the son of Ambrose Spencer, and afterwards a +distinguished Whig, was the Clintonian candidate, and had the greater +number of Republican votes. In the legislature there was no choice, +Rufus King having fewer votes than either of the Republicans. When the +legislature of 1820 met, there appeared a pamphlet skillfully written in +a tone of exalted patriotism. This decided the election for King. Van +Buren was its author, and was said to have been aided by William L. +Marcy. Both had suffered at the hands of Clinton. However much they may +have been so influenced in secret, they gave in public perfectly sound +and weighty reasons for returning this old and distinguished statesman +to the place he had honored for many years. In 1813 King had received +the votes of a few Republicans, without whom he would have been defeated +by a Republican competitor. The Clintonians and their adversaries had +since disputed which of them had then been guilty of party disloyalty. +But it can hardly be doubted that King's high character and great +ability, with the revolutionary glamour about him, made his choice seem +patriotic and popular, and therefore politically prudent. + +Van Buren's pamphlet of 1820 was addressed to the Republican members of +the legislature by a "fellow-member" who told them that he knew and was +personally known to most of them, and that he had, "from his infancy, +taken a deep interest in the honor and prosperity of the party." This +anonymous "fellow-member" pronounced the support of King by Republicans +to "be an act honorable to themselves, advantageous to the country, and +just to him." He declared that the only reluctance Republicans had to a +public avowal of their sentiments arose from a "commendable apprehension +that their determination to support him under existing circumstances +might subject them to the suspicion of having become a party to a +political bargain, to one of those sinister commutations of principle +for power, which they think common with their adversaries, and against +which they have remonstrated with becoming spirit." He showed that there +were degrees even among Federalists; that some in the war had been +influenced by "most envenomed malignity against the administration of +their own government;" that a second and "very numerous and respectable +portion" had been those "who, inured to opposition and heated by +collision, were poorly qualified to judge dispassionately of the +measures of government," who thought the war impolitic at the time, but +who were ignorantly but honestly mistaken; but that a third class of +them had risen "superior to the prejudices and passions of those with +whom they once acted." In the last class had been Rufus King; at home +and in the Senate he had supported the administration; he had helped +procure loans to the State for war purposes. The address skillfully +recalled his Revolutionary services, his membership in the convention +which framed the Federal Constitution, his appointment by Washington as +minister to the English court, and his continuance there under +Jefferson. He was declared to be opposed to Clinton. The address +concluded by reciting that there had been in New York "exceptionable and +unprincipled political bargains and coalitions," which with darker +offenses ought to be proved, to vindicate the great body of citizens +"from the charge of participating in the profligacy of the few, and to +give rest to that perturbed spirit which now haunts the scenes of former +moral and political debaucheries;" but added that the nature of a vote +for King precluded such suspicions. + +The last statement was just. King's return was free from other suspicion +than that he probably preferred the Van Buren to the Clinton +Republicans. Van Buren, seeing that the Federalist party was at an end, +was glad both to do a public service and to ally with his party, in the +divisions of the future, some part of the element so finely represented +by Rufus King. In private Van Buren urged the support of King even more +emphatically. "We are committed," he wrote, "to his support. It is both +wise and honest, and we must have no fluttering in our course. Mr. +King's views towards us are honorable and correct.... Let us not, then, +have any halting. I will put my head on its propriety." Van Buren's +partisanship always had a mellow character. He practiced the golden rule +of successful politics, to foresee future benefits rather than remember +past injuries. Indeed, it is just to say more. In sending King to the +Senate he doubtless experienced the lofty pleasure which a politician of +public spirit feels in his occasional ability to use his power to reach +a beneficent end, which without the power he could not have reached,--a +stroke which to a petty politician would seem dangerous, but which the +greater man accomplishes without injury to his party standing. A year or +two after King's election, when Van Buren joined him at Washington, +there were established the most agreeable relations between them. The +refinement and natural decorum of the younger man easily fell in with +the polished and courtly manner of the old Federalist. Benton, who had +then just entered the Senate, said it was delightful to behold the +deferential regard which Van Buren paid to his venerable colleague, a +regard always returned by King with marked kindness and respect. + +In this year the era of good feeling was at its height. Monroe was +reëlected president by an almost unanimous vote, with Tompkins again as +vice-president. The good feeling, however, was among the people, and not +among the politicians. The Republican party was about to divide by +reason of the very completeness of its supremacy. The Federalist party +was extinguished and its members scattered. The greater number of them +in New York went with the Clintonian Republicans, with whom they +afterwards formed the chief body of the Whig party. A smaller number of +them, among whom were James A. Hamilton and John C. Hamilton, the sons +of the great founder of the Federalist party, William A. Duer, John A. +King (the son of the reëlected senator), and many others of wealth and +high social position, ranged themselves for a time in the Bucktail ranks +under Van Buren's leadership. In the slang of the day, they were the +"high-minded Federalists," because they had declared that Clinton's +supporters practiced a personal subserviency "disgusting to high-minded +and honorable men." With this addition, the Bucktails became the +Democratic party in New York. In April, 1820, the gubernatorial election +was between the Clintonians supporting Clinton, and the Bucktails +supporting Tompkins, the Vice-President. Clinton's recent and really +magnificent public service made him successful at the polls, but his +party was beaten at other points. + +Rufus King's reëlection to the Senate was believed to have some relation +to the Missouri question, then agitating the nation. In one of his +letters urging his Republican associates to support King, Van Buren +declared that the Missouri question concealed no plot so far as King was +concerned, but that he, Van Buren, and his friends, would "give it a +true direction." King's strong opposition to the admission of Missouri +as a slave State was, however, perfectly open. If he returned to the +Senate, it was certain he would steadily vote against any extension of +slavery. Van Buren knew all this, and doubtless meant that King was +bargaining away none of his convictions for the senatorship. But what +the "true direction" was which was to be given the Missouri question, is +not clear. About the time of King's reëlection Van Buren joined in +calling a public meeting at Albany to protest against extending slavery +beyond the Mississippi. He was absent at the time of the meeting, and +refused the use of his name upon the committee to send the anti-slavery +resolutions to Washington. Nor is it clear whether his absence and +refusal were significant. He certainly did not condemn the resolutions; +and in January, 1820, he voted in the state Senate for an instruction to +the senators and representatives in Congress "to oppose the admission, +as a State in the Union, of any territory not comprised within the +original boundary of the United States, without making the prohibition +of slavery therein an indispensable condition of admission." This +resolution undoubtedly expressed the clear convictions of the +Republicans in New York, whether on Van Buren's or Clinton's side, as +well as of the remaining Federalists. + +Van Buren's direct interest in national politics had already begun. In +1816 he was present in Washington (then a pretty serious journey from +Albany) when the Republican congressional caucus was held to nominate a +president. Governor Tompkins, after a brief canvass, retired; and +Crawford, then secretary of war, became the candidate against Monroe, +and was supported by most of the Republicans from New York. Van Buren's +preference was not certainly known, though it is supposed he preferred +Monroe. In 1820 he was chosen a presidential elector in place of an +absentee from the electoral college, and participated in the all but +unanimous vote for Monroe. He voted with the other New York electors for +Tompkins for the vice-presidency. In April, 1820, he wrote to Henry +Meigs, a Bucktail congressman then at Washington, that the rascality of +some of the deputy postmasters in the State was intolerable, and cried +aloud for relief; that it was impossible to penetrate the interior of +the State with friendly papers; and that two or three prompt removals +were necessary. The postmaster-general was to be asked "to do an act of +justice and render us a partial service" by the removal of the +postmasters at Bath, Little Falls, and Oxford, and to appoint successors +whom Van Buren named. In January, 1821, Governor Clinton sent this +letter to the legislature, with a message and other papers so numerous +as to be carried in a green bag, which gave the name to the message, in +support of a charge that the national administration had interfered in +the state election. But the "green-bag message" did Van Buren little +harm, for Clinton's own proscriptive rigor had been great, and it was +only two years before that Van Buren himself had been removed from the +attorney-generalship. In 1821 the political division of the New York +Republicans was carried to national politics. When a speaker was to be +chosen in place of Clay, Taylor of New York, the Republican candidate, +was opposed by the Bucktail congressmen, because he had supported +Clinton. + +In February, 1821, Van Buren gained the then dignified promotion to the +federal Senate. He was elected by the Bucktails against Nathan Sanford, +the sitting senator, who was supported by the Clintonians and +Federalists. Van Buren was now thirty-eight years old, and in the early +prime of his powers. He had run the gauntlet of two popular elections; +he had been easily first among the Republicans of the state Senate; he +had there shown extraordinary political skill and an intelligent and +public spirit; he had ably administered the chief law office of the +State which was not judicial. Though not yet keenly interested in any +federal question,--for his activity and thought had been sufficiently +engaged in affairs of his own State,--he turned to the new field with an +easy confidence, amply justified by his mastery of the problems with +which he had so far grappled. He reached Washington the undoubted leader +of his party in the State. The prestige of Governor Tompkins, although +just reëlected vice-president, had suffered from his recent defeat for +the governorship, and from his pecuniary and other difficulties; and +besides, he obviously had not Van Buren's unrivaled equipment for +political leadership. + +Before Van Buren attended his first session in the federal capital he +performed for the public most honorable service in the state +constitutional convention which sat in the autumn of 1821. This body +illustrated the earnest and wholesome temper in which the most powerful +public men of the State, after many exhibitions of partisan, personal, +and even petty animosities, could treat so serious and abiding a matter +as its fundamental law. The Democrats sent Vice-President Tompkins, both +the United States senators, King and Van Buren, the late senator, +Sanford, and Samuel Nelson, then beginning a long and honorable career. +The Clintonians and Federalists sent Chancellor Kent and Ambrose +Spencer, the chief justice. Van Buren was chosen from Otsego, and not +from his own county, probably because the latter was politically +unfavorable to him. + +This convention was one of the steps in the democratic march. It was +called to broaden the suffrage, to break up the central source of +patronage at Albany, and to enlarge local self-administration. The +government of New York had so far been a freeholders' government, with +those great virtues, and those greater and more enduring vices, which +were characteristic of a government controlled exclusively by the owners +of land. The painful apprehension aroused by the democratic resolution +to reduce, if not altogether to destroy, the exclusive privileges of +land-owners, was expressed in the convention by Chancellor Kent. He +would not "bow before the idol of universal suffrage;" this extreme +democratic principle, he said, had "been regarded with terror by the +wise men of every age;" wherever tried, it had brought "corruption, +injustice, violence, and tyranny;" if adopted, posterity would "deplore +in sackcloth and ashes the delusion of the day." He wished no laws to +pass without the free consent of the owners of the soil. He did not +foresee English parliaments elected in 1885 and 1886 by a suffrage not +very far from universal, or a royal jubilee celebrated by democratic +masses, or the prudent conservatism in matters of property of the +enfranchised French democracy,--he foresaw none of these when he +declared that England and France could not sustain the weight of +universal suffrage; that "the radicals of England, with the force of +that mighty engine, would at once sweep away the property, the laws, and +the liberty of that island like a deluge." Van Buren distinguished +himself in the debate. Upon this exciting and paramount topic he did not +share the temper which possessed most of his party. His speech was +clear, explicit, philosophical, and really statesmanlike. It so +impressed even his adversaries; and Hammond, one of them, declared that +he ought for it to be ranked "among the most shining orators and able +statesmen of the age." + +In reading this, or indeed any of the utterances of Van Buren where the +occasion required distinctness, it is difficult to find the ground of +the charge of "noncommittalism" so incessantly made against him. He +doubtless refrained from taking sides on questions not yet ripe for +decision, however clear, and whatever may have been his speculative +opinions. But this is the duty of every statesman; it has been the +practice of every politician who has promoted reform. Van Buren now +pointed out how completely the events of the forty years past had +discredited the grave speculative fears of Franklin, Hamilton, and +Madison as to the result of some provisions of the Federal Constitution. +With Burke he believed experience to be the only unerring touchstone. He +conclusively showed that property had been as safe in those American +communities which had universal suffrage as in the few which retained a +property qualification; that venality in voting, apprehended from the +change, already existed in the grossest forms at the parliamentary +elections of England. Going to the truth which is at the dynamic source +of democratic institutions, he told the chancellor that when among the +masses of America the principles of order and good government should +yield to principles of anarchy and violence and permit attacks on +private property or an agrarian law, all constitutional provisions would +be idle and unavailing, because they would have lost all their force and +influence. With a true instinct, however, Van Buren wished the steps to +be taken gradually. He was not yet ready, he said, to admit to the +suffrage the shifting population of cities, held to the government by +no other ties than the mere right to vote. He was not ready for a +really universal suffrage. The voter ought, if he did not participate in +the government by paying taxes or performing militia duty, to be a man +who was a householder with some of the elements of stability, with +something at stake in the community. Although they had reached "the +verge of universal suffrage," he could not with his Democratic friends +take the "one step beyond;" he would not cheapen the invaluable right by +conferring it with indiscriminating hand "on every one, black or white, +who would be kind enough to condescend to accept it." Though a Democrat +he was opposed, he said, to a "precipitate and unexpected prostration of +all qualifications;" he looked with dread upon increasing the voters in +New York city from thirteen or fourteen thousand to twenty-five +thousand, believing (curious prediction for a father of the Democratic +party!) that the increase "would render their elections rather a curse +than a blessing," and "would drive from the polls all sober-minded +people." + +The universal suffrage then postponed was wisely adopted a few years +later. Democracy marched steadily on; and Van Buren was willing, +probably very willing, to be guided by experience. He opposed in the +convention a proposal supported by most of his party to restrict +suffrage to white citizens, but favored a property qualification for +black men, the $250 freehold ownership until then required of white +voters. He would not, he said, draw from them a revenue and yet deny +them the right of suffrage. Twenty-five years later, in 1846, nearly +three-fourths of the voters of the State refused equal suffrage to the +blacks; and even in 1869, six years after the emancipation proclamation, +a majority still refused to give them the same rights as white men. + +The question of appointments to office was the chief topic in the +convention. Van Buren, as chairman of the committee on this subject, +made an interesting and able report. It was unanimously agreed that the +use of patronage by the council of appointment had been a scandal. Only +a few members voted to retain the council, even if it were to be elected +by the people. He recommended that military officers, except the +highest, be elected by the privates and officers of militia. Of the 6663 +civil officers whose appointment and removal by the council had for +twenty years kept the State in turmoil, he recommended that 3643, being +notaries, commissioners, masters and examiners in chancery, and other +lesser officers, should be appointed under general laws to be enacted by +the legislature; the clerks of courts and district attorneys should be +appointed by the common pleas courts; mayors and clerks of cities should +be appointed by their common councils, except in New York, where for +years afterwards the mayors were appointed; the heads of the state +departments should be appointed by the legislature; and all other +officers, including surrogates and justices of the peace as well as the +greater judicial officers, should be appointed by the governor upon the +confirmation of the Senate. Van Buren declared himself opposed, here +again separating himself from many of his party associates, to the +popular election of any judicial officers, even the justices of the +peace. Of all this he was long after to be reminded as proof of his +aristocratic contempt for democracy. His recommendations were adopted in +the main; although county clerks and sheriffs, whom he would have kept +appointive, were made elective. Upon this question he was in a small +minority with Chancellor Kent and Rufus King, having most of his party +friends against him. Thus was broken up the enormous political power so +long wielded at Albany, and the patronage distributed through the +counties. The change, it was supposed, would end a great abuse. It did +end the concentration of patronage at the capital; but the partisan +abuses of patronage were simply transferred to the various county seats, +to exercise a different and wider, though probably a less dangerous, +corruption. + +The council of revision fell with hardly a friend to speak for it. It +was one of those checks upon popular power of which Federalists had been +fond. It consisted of the governor with the chancellor and the judges of +the Supreme Court, and had a veto power upon bills passed by the +legislature. As the chancellor and judges held office during good +behavior until they had reached the limit of age, the council was almost +a chamber of life peers. The exercise of its power had provoked great +animosity. The chief judicial officers of the State, judges, and +chancellors, to whom men of our day look back with a real veneration, +had been drawn by it into a kind of political warfare, in which few of +our higher magistrates, though popularly elected and for terms, would +dare to engage. An act had been passed by the legislature in 1814 to +promote privateering; but Chancellor Kent as a member of the council +objected to it. Van Buren maintained with him an open and heated +discussion upon the propriety of the objections,--a discussion in which +the judicial character justly enough afforded no protection. Van Buren's +feeling against the judges who were his political adversaries was often +exhibited. He said in the convention: "I object to the council, as being +composed of the judiciary, who are not directly responsible to the +people. I object to it because it inevitably connects the +judiciary--those who, with pure hearts and sound heads, should preside +in the sanctuaries of justice--with the intrigues and collisions of +party strife; because it tends to make our judges politicians, and +because such has been its practical effect." He further said that he +would not join in the rather courtly observation that the council was +abolished because of a personal regard for the peace of its members. He +would have it expressly remembered that the council had served the ends +of faction; though he added that he should regard the loss of Chancellor +Kent from his judicial station as a public calamity. In his general +position Van Buren was clearly right. Again and again have theorists, +supposing judges to be sanctified and illumined by their offices, placed +in their hands political power, which had been abused, or it was feared +would be abused, by men fancied to occupy less exalted stations. Again +and again has the result shown that judges are only men, with human +passions, prejudices, and ignorance; men who, if vested with functions +not judicial, if freed from the checks of precedents and law and public +hearings and appellate review, fall into the same abuses and act on the +same motives, political and personal, which belong to other men. In the +council of revision before 1821 and the electoral commission of 1877 +were signally proved the wisdom of restricting judges to the work of +deciding rights between parties judicially brought before them. + +Van Buren's far from "non-committal" talk about the judges was not +followed by any support of the proposal to "constitutionize" them out of +office. The animosity of a majority of the members against the judges +then in office was intense; and they were not willing to accept the life +of the council of revision as a sufficient sacrifice. Nor was the +animosity entirely unreasonable. Butler, in one of his early letters to +Jesse Hoyt, described the austerity with which Ambrose Spencer, the +chief justice, when the young lawyer sought to address him, told him to +wait until his seniors had been heard. In the convention there were +doubtless many who had been offended with a certain insolence of place +which to this day characterizes the bearing of many judges of real +ability; and the opportunity of making repayment was eagerly seized. Nor +was it unreasonable that laymen should, from the proceedings of judges +when acting upon political matters which laymen understood as well as +they, make inferences about the fairness of their proceedings on the +bench upon which laymen could not always safely speak. By a vote of 66 +to 39, the convention refused to retain the judges then in office,--a +proceeding which, with all the faults justly or even naturally found +with them, was a gross violation of the fundamental rule which ought to +guide civilized lands in changing their laws. For the retention of the +judges was perfectly consistent with the judicial scheme adopted. Van +Buren put all this most admirably before voting with the minority. He +told the convention, and doubtless truly, that from the bench of judges, +whose official fate was then at their mercy, he had been assailed "with +hostility, political, professional, and personal,--hostility which had +been the most keen, active, and unyielding;" but that he would not +indulge individual resentment in the prostration of his private and +political adversary. The judicial officer, who could not be reached by +impeachment or the proceeding for removal by a two-thirds vote, ought +not to be disturbed. They should amend the constitution, he told the +convention, upon general principles, and not descend to pull down +obnoxious officers. He begged it not to ruin its character and credit by +proceeding to such extremities. But the removal of the judges did not +prove unpopular. Only eight members of the convention voted against the +Constitution; only fifteen others did not sign it. And the freeholders +of the State, while deliberately surrendering some of their exclusive +privileges, adopted it by a vote of 75,422 to 41,497. + +Van Buren's service in this convention was that of a firm, sensible, +far-seeing man, resolute to make democratic progress, but unwilling, +without further light from experience, to take extreme steps difficult +to retrace. With a strong inclination towards great enlargement of the +suffrage, he pointed out that a mistake in going too far could never be +righted "except by the sword." The wisdom of enduring temporary +difficulties, rather than to make theoretical changes greater than were +necessary to obviate serious and great wrongs, was common to him with +the highest and most influential type of modern law-makers. With some +men of the first rank, the convention had in it very many others crudely +equipped for its work; and it met in an atmosphere of personal and +political asperity unfavorable to deliberations over organic law. Van +Buren was politically its most powerful member. It is clear that his +always conservative temper, aided by his tact and by his temperate and +persuasive eloquence, held back his Democratic associates, headed by the +impetuous and angered General Root, from changes far more radical than +those which were made. Though eminent as a party man, he showed on this +conspicuous field undoubted courage and independence and high sense of +duty. Entering national politics he was fortunate therefore to be known, +not only as a skillful and adroit and even managing politician, as a +vigorous and clear debater, as a successful leader in popular movements, +but also as a man of firm and upright patriotism, with a ripe and +educated sense of the complexity of popular government, and a sober +appreciation of the kind of dangers so subtly mingled with the blessings +of democracy. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +UNITED STATES SENATOR.--REËSTABLISHMENT OF PARTIES.--PARTY LEADERSHIP + + +In December, 1821, Van Buren took his seat in the United States Senate. +The "era of good feeling" was then at its height. It was with perfect +sincerity that Monroe in his message of the preceding year had said: "I +see much cause to rejoice in the felicity of our situation." He had just +been reëlected president with but a single vote against him. The country +was in profound peace. The burdens of the war with England were no +longer felt; and its few victories were remembered with exuberant +good-nature. Two years before, Florida had been acquired by the strong +and persisting hand of the younger Adams. Wealth and comfort were in +rapid increase. The moans and rage of the defeated and disgraced +Federalists were suppressed, or, if now and then feebly heard, were +complacently treated as outbursts of senility and impotence. People were +not only well-to-do in fact, but, what was far more extraordinary, they +believed themselves to be so. In his great tariff speech but three or +four years later, Hayne called it the "period of general jubilee." Every +great public paper and speech, described the "felicity" of America. The +president pointed out to his fellow-citizens "the prosperous and happy +condition of our country in all the great circumstances which constitute +the felicity of a nation;" he told them that they were "a free, +virtuous, and enlightened people;" the unanimity of public sentiment in +favor of his "humble pretensions" indicated, he thought, "the great +strength and stability of our Union." And all was reciprocated by the +people. This modest, gentle ruler was in his very mediocrity agreeable +to them. He symbolized the comfort and order, the supreme respectability +of which they were proud. When in 1817 he made a tour through New +England, which had seen neither Jefferson nor Madison as visitors during +their terms of office, and in his military coat of domestic manufacture, +his light small-clothes and cocked hat, met processions and orators +without end, it was obvious that this was not the radical minister whom +Washington had recalled from Jacobin Paris for effusively pledging +eternal friendship and submitting to fraternal embraces in the National +Convention. Such youthful frenzy was now long past. America was enjoying +a great national idyl. Even the Federalists, except of course those who +had been too violent or who were still unrepentant, were not utterly +shut out from the light of the placid high noon. Jackson had urged +Monroe in 1816 "to exterminate that monster called party spirit," and to +let some Federalists come to the board. Monroe thought, however, "that +the administration should rest strongly on the Republican party," though +meaning to bring all citizens "into the Republican fold as quietly as +possible." Party, he declared, was unnecessary to free government; all +should be Republicans. And when Van Buren reached the sprawling, +slatternly American capital in 1821, all were Republicans. + +There were of course personal feuds in this great political family. +Those of New York were the most notorious; but there were many others. +But such rivalries and quarrels were only a proof of the political calm. +When families are smugly prosperous they indulge petty dislikes, which +disappear before storm or tragedy. The halcyon days could not last. +Monroe's dream of a country with but one party, and that basking in +perpetual "felicity," was, in spite of what seemed for the moment a +close realization, as far from the truth as the dreams of later +reformers who would in politics organize all the honest, respectable +folk together against all the dishonest. + +The heat of the Missouri question was ended at the session before Van +Buren's senatorial term began. It seemed only a thunder-storm passing +across a rich, warm day in harvest time, angry and agitating for the +moment, but quickly forgotten by dwellers in the pastoral scene when the +rainbow of compromise appeared in the delightful hues of Henry Clay's +eloquence. The elements of the tremendous struggle yet to come were in +the atmosphere, but they were not visible. The slavery question had no +political importance to Van Buren until fourteen years afterwards. In +judging the men of that day we shall seriously mistake if we set up our +own standards among their ideas. The moral growth in the twenty-five +years since the emancipation makes it irksome to be fair to the views of +the past generation, or indeed to the former views of half of our +present generation. Slavery has come to seem intrinsically wicked, +hideous, to be hated everywhere. But sixty-five years ago it still +lingered in several of the Northern States. It was wrong indeed; but the +temper of condemnation towards it was Platonic, full of the unavailing +and unpoignant regret with which men hear of poverty and starvation and +disease and crime which they do not see and which they cannot help. Nor +did slavery then seem to the best of men so very great a wrong even to +the blacks; there were, it was thought, many ameliorations and +compensations. Men were glad to believe and did believe that the human +chattels were better and happier than they would have been in Africa. +The economic waste of slavery, its corrupting and enervating effect upon +the whites, were thought to be objections quite as serious. Besides, it +was widely fancied to be at worst but a temporary evil. Jefferson's +dislike of it was shared by many throughout the South as well as the +North. The advantages of a free soil were becoming so apparent in the +strides by which the North was passing the South in every material +advantage, that the latter, it seemed, must surely learn the lesson. +For the institution within States already admitted to the Union, +anti-slavery men felt no responsibility. Forty years later the great +leader of the modern Republican party would not, he solemnly declared in +the very midst of a pro-slavery rebellion, interfere with slavery in the +States if the Union could be saved without disturbing it. If men in +South Carolina cared to maintain a ruinous and corrupting domestic +institution, even if it were a greater wrong against the slaves than it +was believed to be, or even if it were an injury to the whites +themselves, still men of Massachusetts and New York ought, it seemed to +them, to be no more disturbed over it than we feel bound to be over +polygamy in Turkey. + +But as to the territory west of the Mississippi not yet formed into +States, there was a different sentiment held by a great majority at the +North and by many at the South. Slavery was not established there. The +land was national domain, whose forms of political and social life were +yet to be set up. Why not, before the embarrassments of slave settlement +arose, devote this new land to freedom,--not so much to freedom as that +shining goddess of mercy and right and justice who rose clear and +obvious to our purged vision out of the civil war, as to the less noble +deities of economic well-being, thrift, and industrial comfort? +Democrats at the North, therefore, were almost unanimous that Missouri +should come in free or not at all; and so with the rest of the territory +beyond the Mississippi, except the old slave settlement of Louisiana, +already admitted as a State. The resolution in the legislature of New +York in January, 1820, supported by Van Buren, that freedom be "an +indispensable condition of admission" of new States, was but one of many +exhibitions of feeling at the North. Monroe and the very best of +Americans did not, however, think the principle so sacred or necessary +as to justify a struggle. John Quincy Adams, hating slavery as did but +few Americans, distinctly favored the compromise by which Missouri came +in with slavery, and by which the other new territory north of the +present southern line of Missouri extended westward was to be free, and +the territory south of it slave. With no shame he acquiesced in the very +thing about which forty years later the nation plunged into war. "For +the present," he wrote, "this contest is laid asleep." So the stream of +peaceful sunshine and prosperity returned over the land. + +Van Buren's views at this time were doubtless clear against the +extension of slavery. He disliked the institution; and in part saw how +inconsistent were its odious practices with the best civic growth, how +debasing to whites and blacks alike. In March, 1822, he voted in the +Senate, with Harrison Gray Otis of Massachusetts and Rufus King, for a +proviso in the bill creating the new Territory of Florida by which the +introduction of slaves was forbidden except by citizens removing there +for actual settlement, and by which slaves introduced in violation of +the law were to be freed. But he was in a minority. Northern senators +from Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Indiana refused to interfere with +free trade in slaves between the Southern States and this southernmost +territory. + +Among the forty-eight members of the Senate which met in December, 1821, +neither Clay nor Calhoun nor Webster had a seat. The first was restless +in one of his brief absences from official life; the second was +secretary of war; and Webster, out of Congress, was making great law +arguments and greater orations. Benton was there from the new State of +Missouri, just beginning his thirty years. The warm friendship and +political alliance between him and Van Buren must have soon begun. +During all or nearly all Van Buren's senatorship the two occupied +adjoining seats. Two years later Andrew Jackson was sent to the Senate +by Tennessee, as a suitable preliminary to his presidential canvass. +During the next two sessions Van Buren, Benton, and Jackson were thrown +together; and without doubt the foundations were laid of their lifelong +intimacy and political affection. Benton and Jackson, personal enemies +years before, had become reconciled. Among these associates Van Buren +adhered firmly enough to his own clear views; he did not turn +obsequiously to the rising sun of Tennessee. William H. Crawford, the +secretary of the treasury, had, in the Republican congressional caucus +of 1816, stood next Monroe for the presidential nomination. For reasons +which neither history nor tradition seems sufficiently to have brought +us, he inspired a strong and even enthusiastic loyalty among many of his +party. His candidacy in 1824 was more "regular" than that of either +Adams, Jackson, or Clay, whose friends combined against him as the +strongest of them all. Though Crawford had been prostrated by serious +disease in 1823, Van Buren remained faithful to him until, in 1825, +after refusing a seat in Adams's cabinet, he retired from national +public life a thoroughly broken man. + +The first two sessions of Congress, after Van Buren's service began, +seemed drowsy enough. French land-titles in Louisiana, the settlement of +the accounts of public officers, the attempt to abolish imprisonment for +debt, the appropriation for money for diplomatic representatives to the +new South American states and their recognition,--nothing more exciting +than these arose, except Monroe's veto, in May, 1822, of the bill +authorizing the erection of toll-gates upon the Cumberland road and +appropriating $9000 for them. This brought distinctly before the public +the great question of internal improvements by the federal government, +which Van Buren, Benton, and Jackson afterwards chose as one of the +chief battle-grounds for their party. For this bill Van Buren indeed +voted, while Benton afterwards boasted that he was one of the small +minority of seven who discerned its true character. But this trifling +appropriation was declared by Barbour, who was in charge of the +measure, not to involve the general question; it was said to be a mere +incident necessary to save from destruction a work for which earlier +statesmen were responsible. Monroe, though declaring in his veto that +the power to adopt and execute a system of internal improvements +national in their character would have the happiest effect on all the +great interests of the Union, decided that the Constitution gave no such +power. Six years later, in a note to his speech upon the power of the +Vice-President to call to order for words spoken in debate in the +Senate, Van Buren apologized for his vote on the bill, because it was +his first session, and because he was sincerely desirous to aid the +Western country and had voted without full examination. He added that if +the question were again presented to him, he should vote in the +negative; and that it had been his only vote in seven years of service +which the most fastidious critic could torture into an inconsistency +with his principles upon internal improvements. In January, 1823, during +his second session, Van Buren spoke and voted in favor of the bill to +repair the road, but still took no decided ground upon the general +question. He said that the large expenditure already made on the road +would have been worse than useless if it were now suffered to decay; +that the road, being already constructed, ought to be preserved; but +whether he would vote for a new construction he did not disclose. Even +Benton, who was proud to have been one of the small minority against +the bill of the year before for toll-gates upon the road, was now with +Van Buren, constitutional scruples yielding to the statesmanlike +reluctance to waste an investment of millions of dollars rather than +spend a few thousands to save it. + +In January, 1824, Van Buren proposed to solve these difficulties by a +constitutional amendment. Congress was to have power to make roads and +canals, but the money appropriated was to be apportioned among the +States according to population. No road or canal was to be made within +any State without the consent of its legislature; and the money was to +be expended in each State under the direction of its legislature. This +proposal seems to have fallen still-born and deservedly. It illustrated +Van Buren's jealousy of interference with the rights of States. But the +right of each State to be protected, he seemed to forget, involved its +right not to be taxed for improvements in other States which it neither +controlled nor promoted. Van Buren's speech in support of the proposal +would to-day seem very heretical to his party. A dozen years later he +himself would probably have admitted it to be so. He then believed in +the abstract proposition that such funds of the nation as could be +raised without oppression, and as were not necessary to the discharge of +indispensable demands upon the government, should be expended upon +internal improvements under restrictions guarding the sovereignty and +equal interests of the States. Henry Clay would not in theory have gone +much further. But to this subject in its national aspect Van Buren had +probably given but slight attention. The success of the Erie Canal, with +him doubtless as with others, made adverse theories of government seem +less impressive. But Van Buren and his school quickly became doubtful +and soon hostile to the federal promotion of internal improvements. The +opposition became popular on the broader reasoning that great +expenditures for internal improvements within the States were not only, +as the statesmen at first argued, violations of the letter of the +Constitution, whose sanctity could, however, be saved by proper +amendment, but were intrinsically dangerous, and an unwholesome +extension of the federal power which ought not to take place whether +within the Constitution or by amending it. Aided by Jackson's powerful +vetoes, this sentiment gained a strength with the people which has come +down to our day. We have river and harbor bills, but they are supposed +to touch directly or indirectly our foreign commerce, which, under the +Constitution and upon the essential theory of our confederation, is a +subject proper to the care of the Union. + +In the same session Van Buren spoke at length in favor of the bill to +abolish imprisonment for debt, and drew with precision the distinction +wisely established by modern jurisprudence, that the property only, and +not the body of the debtor, should be at the mercy of his creditor, +where the debt involved no fraud or breach of trust. + +The session of 1823-1824 was seriously influenced by the coming +presidential election. The protective tariff of 1824 was christened with +the absurd name of the "American system," though it was American in no +other or better sense than foreign war to protect fancied national +rights is an American system, and though the system had come from the +middle ages in the company of other restrictions upon the intercourse of +nations. It was carried by the factitious help of this designation and +the fine leadership of Clay. With Jackson and Benton, Van Buren voted +for it, against men differing as widely from each other as his +associate, the venerable Federalist Rufus King, differed from Hayne, the +brilliant orator of South Carolina. Upon the tariff Van Buren then had +views clearer, at least, than upon internal improvements. In 1824 he was +unmistakably a protectionist. The moderation of his views and the +pressure from his own State were afterwards set up as defenses for this +early attitude of his. But he declared himself with sufficient plainness +not only to believe in the constitutionality of a protective tariff, but +that 1824 was a fit year in which to extend its protective features. He +acted, too, with the amplest light upon the subject. The dislike of the +Holy Alliance, the hated recollections of the Orders in Council and the +Napoleonic decrees, the idea that, for self-defense in times of war, the +country must be forced to produce many goods not already +produced,--these considerations had great weight, as very well appears +in the speech for the bill delivered by Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, +afterwards Van Buren's associate on the presidential ticket. "When the +monarchs of Europe are assembled together, do you think," he asked, +"that we are not a subject of their holy consultations?" But the support +of the bill was upon broader considerations. The debates upon the tariff +in the House of Representatives in February, March, and April, and in +the Senate in April, 1824, were admirable presentations of the subject. +Webster in the House and Hayne in the Senate put the free trade side. +The former, still speaking his own sentiments, declared that "the best +apology for laws of prohibition and laws of monopoly will be found in +that state of society, not only unenlightened but sluggish, in which +they are most generally established." But now, he said, "competition +comes in place of monopoly, and intelligence and industry ask only for +fair play and an open field." He repudiated the principle of protection. +"On the contrary," said he, "I think freedom of trade to be the general +principle, and restriction the exception." + +Nor was Van Buren then left without the light which afterwards reached +him on the constitutional question. Rufus King said that, if gentlemen +wished to encourage the production of hemp and iron, they ought to bring +in a bill to give bounties on those articles; for there was the same +constitutional right to grant bounties as to levy restrictive duties +upon foreign products. Hayne made the really eloquent and masterly +speech for which he ought to stand in the first rank of orators, and +which summed up as well for free-traders now as then the most telling +arguments against artificial restrictions. He skillfully closed with +Washington's words: "Our commercial policy should hold an equal and +impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or +preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and +diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing +nothing." Hayne did not confine himself to the doctrines of Adam Smith, +or the hardships which protection meant to a planting region like his +own. For the chief interest of the South was in cotton; and the price of +cotton was largely determined by the ability of foreigners to import it +from America,--an ability in its turn dependent upon the willingness of +America to take her pay, directly or indirectly, in foreign commodities. +Hayne, however, went further. He clearly raised the question, whether +the encouragement of manufactures could constitutionally be made a +Federal object. + +Sitting day after day under this long debate in the little senate +chamber then in use, where men listened to speeches, if for no other +reason, because they were easily heard, Van Buren could not, with his +ability and readiness, have misunderstood the general principles +involved. Early in the debate, upon a motion to strike out the duty on +hemp, he briefly but explicitly said that "he was in favor of +increasing the duty on hemp, with a view of affording protection to its +cultivation in this country." He voted against limiting the duty on wool +to twenty-five per cent., but voted against a duty of twenty-five per +cent. on India silks,--a revenue rather than a protective duty. He voted +for duties on wheat and wheat flour and potatoes. He voted against +striking out the duty on books, in spite of Hayne's grotesque but +forcible argument that they were to be considered "a raw material, +essential to the formation of the mind, the morals, and the character of +the people." It is difficult to understand the significance of all Van +Buren's votes on the items of the bill; but the record shows them to +have been, on the whole, protectionist, with a preference for moderate +rates, but a firm assertion of the wool interests of New York. Benton +tells us that Van Buren was one of the main speakers for the bill; but +the assertion is not borne out by the record. He delivered no general +speech upon the subject, as did most of the senators, but seems to have +spoken only upon some of the details as they were considered in +committee of the whole. The best to be said in Van Buren's behalf is, +that his judgment was not yet so ripe upon the matter as not to be still +open to great change. He was in his third session, and still new to +national politics, and there was before him the plain and strong +argument that his State wanted protection. In 1835 Butler, speaking for +him as a presidential candidate, said that his personal feelings had +been "at all times adverse to the high tariff policy." But "high tariff" +was then, as now, a merely relative term. His votes placed him in that +year very near Henry Clay. That from 1824 he grew more and more averse +to the necessary details and results of a protective policy is probably +true. Nor ought it to be, even from the standpoint of free-traders, +serious accusation that a public man varies his political utterances +upon the tariff question, if the variation be progressive and steadily +towards what they deem a greater liberality. To Van Buren, however, the +tariff question never had a capital importance. Even thirty-two years +later, while rehearsing from his retirement the achievements of his +party in excuse of the support he reluctantly gave Buchanan, he did not +name among its services its insistence upon merely revenue duties, +although he had then for years been himself committed to that doctrine. + +Van Buren's vote for the tariff of 1824 had no very direct relation to +his political situation. His own successor was not to be chosen for +nearly three years. Crawford, whom he supported for the presidency, was +the only one of the four candidates opposed to the bill. Adams was +consistently a protectionist; he believed in actively promoting the +welfare of men, though chiefly if not exclusively American men, even +when they resisted their own welfare. He, like his father, was perfectly +ready to use the power of government where it seemingly promised to be +effective, without caring much for economical theories or constitutional +restrictions. Jackson himself was far enough away from the ranks of +strict constructionists on the tariff. In April, 1824, in the midst of +the debate, and while a presidential candidate, he wrote from the Senate +what free-traders, who afterwards supported him, would have deemed the +worst of heresies. Like most candidates, ancient and modern, he was "in +favor of a judicious examination and revision of" the tariff. He would +advocate a tariff so far as it enabled the country to provide itself +with the means of defense in war. But he would go further. The tariff +ought to "draw from agriculture the superabundant labor, and employ it +in mechanism and manufactures;" it ought to "give a proper distribution +to our labor, to take from agriculture in the United States 600,000 men, +women, and children." It is time, he cried, and quite as extravagantly +as Clay, that "we should become a little more Americanized." How slight +a connection the tariff had with the election of 1824 is further seen in +the fact that Jackson, who thus supported the bill, received the vote of +several of the States which strongly opposed the tariff. + +In March, 1824, Van Buren urged the Senate to act upon a constitutional +amendment touching the election of president. As the amendment could not +be adopted in time to affect the pending canvass, there was, he said, no +room for partisan feeling. He insisted that if there were no majority +choice by the electors, the choice should not rest with the house of +representatives voting by States, but that the electors should be +reconvened, and themselves choose between the highest two candidates. +The debate soon became thoroughly partisan. Rufus King, with but thinly +veiled reference to Crawford's nomination, denounced the practice by +which a caucus at Washington deprived the constitutional electors of any +free choice; members of Congress were attending to president-making +rather than to their duties. He thought that the course of events had +"led near observers to suspect a connection existing between a central +power of this description at the seat of the general government and the +legislatures of Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, and New York, and +perhaps of other States." To this it was pointed out with much force +that such a caucus had chosen Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe without +scandal or injury; that members of Congress were distinguished and +representative persons familiar with national affairs, who might with +great advantage respectfully suggest a course of action to their +fellow-citizens. Van Buren went keenly to the real point of the belated +objection to the system; it lay in the particular action of the recent +caucus. He did not think it worth while to consider "those nice +distinctions which challenged respect for the proceedings of conventions +of one description and denied it to others; or to detect those still +more subtle refinements which regarded meetings of the same character +as sometimes proper, and at others destructive of the purity of +elections and dangerous to the liberties of the people." After much talk +about the will of the people, the Senate by a vote of 30 to 13 postponed +the consideration of the amendments until after the election. Benton +joined Van Buren in the minority, although they did not agree upon the +form of amendment; but Jackson, perhaps because he was a candidate, did +not vote. + +It was highly probable that there would be embarrassment in choosing the +next president. It was already nearly certain that neither candidate +would have a majority of the electoral votes. The decision was then, as +in our own time, supposed to rest with New York; and naturally therefore +Van Buren's prestige was great, gained, as it had been, in that +difficult and opulent political field. His attachment to Crawford was +proof against the signs of the latter's decaying strength. Crawford was +to him the Republican candidate regularly chosen, and one agreeable to +his party by the vigorous democracy of his sentiments. His opposition to +Jefferson's embargo, and his vote for a renewal of the charter of the +Bank of the United States, had been forgotten since his warm advocacy of +the late war with England. His formal claims to the nomination were +great. For he had been in the Senate as early as 1807, and its president +upon the death of Vice-President Clinton in 1812; afterwards he had been +minister to France, and was now secretary of the treasury. In the +caucus of 1816 he had nearly as many votes as Monroe; and those votes +were cast for him, it was said, though without much probability, in +spite of his peremptory refusal to compete with Monroe. Moreover, +Crawford had a majesty and grace of personal appearance which, with +undoubtedly good though not great abilities, had, apart from these +details of his career, made him conspicuous in the Republican ranks; and +in its chief service he was, after the retirement of Monroe, the senior, +except Adams, whose candidacy was far more recent. Crawford's claim to +the succession was therefore very justifiable; he was the most obvious, +the most "regular," of the candidates. + +It has been said that Van Buren was at first inclined to Adams. The +latter's unequaled public experience and discipline of intellect +doubtless seemed, to Van Buren's precise and orderly mind, eminent +qualifications for the first office in the land. Adams at this time, by +a coincidence not inexplicable, thought highly of Van Buren. He entered +in his diary a remark of his own, in February, 1825, that Van Buren was +"a man of great talents and of good principles; but he had suffered them +to be too much warped by party spirit." This from an Adams may be taken +as extreme praise. It is pretty certain that if Van Buren had +reprehensibly shifted his position from Adams to Crawford, we should +find a record of it in the vast treasure-house of damnations which Adams +left. Nor is there good reason to suppose that Van Buren was influenced +by the nomination which Crawford's friends in Georgia gave him in 1824 +for the vice-presidency. This showed that New York had already +surrendered her favorite "son to the nation;" he was now definitely to +be counted a power in national politics, where he was known as the +"Albany director." Crawford's enemies in Georgia, the Clarkites, +ridiculed this nomination with the coarse and silly abuse which active +politicians to this day are always ready to use in their cynical +under-estimate of popular intelligence,--abuse which they are by and by +pretty sure to be glad to forget. Van Buren was pictured as half man and +half cat, half fox and half monkey, half snake and half mink. He was +dubbed "Blue Whiskey Van" and "Little Van." The Clarkites, being only a +minority in the Georgia Assembly, delighted to vote for him as their +standing candidate for doorkeeper and the like humbler positions. + +New York was greatly disturbed through 1824 over the presidency. Its +politics were in the position described by Senator Cobb, one of +Crawford's Georgia supporters. "Could we hit upon a few great +principles," he wrote home from Washington in January, 1825, "and unite +their support with that of Crawford, we should succeed beyond doubt." +But the great principles were hard to find. The people and the greater +politicians were therefore swayed by personal preferences, without +strong reason for either choice; and the lesser politicians were simply +watching to see how the tide ran. Adams was the most natural choice of +the New York Republicans. The South had had the presidency for six +terms. His early secession from the Federalists; his aid in solidifying +the Republican sentiment at the North; his support of Jefferson in the +patriotic embargo struggle; his long, eminent, and fruitful services; +and his place of secretary of state, from which Madison and Monroe had +in turn been promoted to the presidency,--all these commended him to +Northern Republicans as a proper candidate. + +De Witt Clinton admired and supported General Jackson. In 1819 the +latter had at a dinner in Tammany Hall amazed and affronted the former's +Bucktail enemies by giving as his toast, "De Witt Clinton, the +enlightened statesman and governor of the great and patriotic State of +New York." In January, 1824, Clinton was the victim of a political +outrage which illustrated the harsh partisanship then ruling in New York +politics, and may well have determined the choice of president. Clinton +had retired from the governor's chair; but he still held the honorary +and unpaid office of canal commissioner, to which he brought +distinguished honor but which brought none to him, and whose importance +he more than any other man had created. The Crawford men in the +legislature feared a combination of the men of the new People's party +with the Clintonians on the presidential question. Clinton seemed at the +time an unpopular character. To embarrass the People's party, Clinton's +enemies suddenly, and just before the rising of the legislature, offered +a resolution removing him from the canal commissionership. The People's +party, it was thought, by opposing the resolution, would incur popular +dislike through their alliance with the few and unpopular Clintonians; +while by supporting the resolution they would forfeit the support of the +latter upon which they relied. In either case the Crawford men would +apparently profit by the trick. The People's party men, including those +favoring Adams for president, at once seized the wrong horn of the +dilemma, and voted for Clinton's removal, which was thus carried by an +almost unanimous vote. But the people themselves were underrated; the +outrage promptly restored Clinton to popular favor. In spite of the +resistance of the politicians, he was, in the fall of 1824, elected by a +large majority to the governor's seat, to which, or to any great office, +it had been supposed he could never return; and this, although at the +same time and upon the same ticket one of those who had voted for his +removal was chosen lieutenant-governor. Van Buren was no party to this +removal, although his political friends at Albany were the first movers +in the scheme. He himself was far-sighted enough to see the probable +effect of so gross and indecent a use of political power. Nor was he so +relentless a partisan as to remember in unfruitful vengeance Clinton's +own prescriptive conduct, or to remove the latter from an honorary +seat which belonged to him above all other men. By this silly blunder +Clinton was again raised to deserved power, which he held until his +death. + +[Illustration: De Witt Clinton] + +The popular outburst consequent upon Clinton's removal in January, 1824, +made it very dangerous for the Bucktails to leave to the people in the +fall the choice of presidential electors. The rise of the People's party +for a time seriously threatened Van Buren's influence. Until 1824 the +presidential electors of New York had been chosen by its legislature. +The opponents of Crawford and Van Buren, fearing that the latter's +superior political skill would more easily capture the legislature in +November, 1824, raised at the legislative elections of 1823 a cry +against the Albany Regency, and demanded that presidential electors +should be chosen directly by the people. The Regency, popularly believed +to have been founded by Van Buren, consisted of a few able followers of +his, residing or in office at Albany. They were also called the +"conspirators." Chief among them were William L. Marcy, the comptroller; +Samuel A. Talcott, the attorney-general; Benjamin F. Butler, then +district attorney of Albany county; Edwin Croswell, the state printer; +Roger Skinner, the United States district judge; and Benjamin Knower, +the state treasurer. Later there joined the Regency, Silas Wright, +Azariah C. Flagg, Thomas W. Olcott, and Charles E. Dudley. Its members +were active, skillful, shrewd politicians; and they were much more. They +were men of strong political convictions, holding and observing a high +standard for the public service, and of undoubted personal integrity. In +1830 John A. Dix gave as a chief reason for accepting office at Albany +that he should there be "one of the Regency." His son, Dr. Morgan Dix, +describes their aggressive honesty, their refusal "to tolerate in those +whom they could control what their own fine sense of honor did not +approve;" and he quotes a remark made to him by Thurlow Weed, their long +and most formidable enemy, "that he had never known a body of men who +possessed so much power and used it so well." In his Memoirs, Weed +describes their "great ability, great industry, indomitable courage." +Two at least of the original members, Marcy and Butler, afterwards +justly rose to national distinction. Even to our own day, the Albany +Regency has been a strong and generally a sagacious influence in its +party. John A. Dix, Horatio Seymour, Dean Richmond, and Samuel J. Tilden +long directed its policy; and from the chief seat in its councils the +late secretary of the treasury, Daniel Manning, was chosen in 1885. + +In November, 1823, the People's party elected only a minority of the +legislature; but many of the Democrats were committed to the support of +an electoral law, and the movement was clearly popular. A just, though +possibly an insufficient objection to the law was its proposal of a +great change in anticipation of a particular election whose candidates +were already before the public. But there was no resort to frank +argument. Its indirect defeat was proposed by the Democratic managers, +and accomplished with the coöperation of many supporters of Adams and +Clay. A bill was reported in the Assembly, where the Regency was in a +minority, giving the choice of the electors to the people directly, but +cunningly requiring a majority instead of a plurality vote to elect. If +there were no majority, then the choice was to be left to the +legislature. The Adams and Clay men were unwilling to let a plurality +elect, lest in the uncertain state of public feeling some other +candidate might be at the head of the poll; and they were probably now +quite as confident as the Bucktails, and with more reason, of their +strength upon joint ballot in the legislature. Divided as the people of +New York were between the four presidential candidates, it was well +known that this device would really give them no choice. The +consideration of the electoral law was postponed in the Senate upon a +pretense of objection to the form of the bill, and with insincere +protestations of a desire to pass it. The outcome of all this was that +in the election of November, 1824, the Democrats were punished at the +polls both for the wanton attack on Clinton and for their unprincipled +treatment of the electoral bill. The Regency got no more than a small +minority in the legislature; and De Witt Clinton, as has been said, was +chosen governor by a great majority. + +Crawford's supporters at Washington believed that in a congressional +caucus he would have a larger vote than any other candidate. His +opponents, in the same belief, refused to join in a caucus, in spite of +the cry that their refusal was a treason to old party usage. The +Republicans at Albany, probably upon Van Buren's advice, had in April, +1823, declared in favor of a caucus, but without effect. Two thirds of +Congress would not assent. At last, in February, 1824, a caucus was +called, doubtless in the hope that many who had refused their assent +would, finding the caucus inevitable, attend through force of party +habit. But of the 261 members of Congress, only 66 attended; and they +were chiefly from New York, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia. In the +caucus 62 voted for Crawford for president and 57 for Albert Gallatin +for vice-president. A cry was soon raised against the latter as a +foreigner; so that in spite of his American residence of forty-five +years, and his invaluable services to the country and to the Republican +party through nearly all this period, he felt compelled to withdraw. + +The failure of the caucus almost destroyed Crawford's chances, though +Van Buren steadily kept up courage. A few days later he wrote a +confidential letter complaining of the subserviency and ingratitude of +the non-attendants, who had "partaken largely of the favor of the +party;" but despondency, he said, was a weakness with which he was but +little annoyed, and if New York should be firm and promptly explicit, +the election would be substantially settled. But New York was neither +firm nor promptly explicit. Its electoral vote was in doubt until the +meeting of the legislature in November. The Adams and Clay forces then +united, securing 31 out of the 36 electors, although one of the 31 seems +finally to have voted for Jackson. Five Crawford electors were chosen +with the help of the Adams men, who wished to keep Clay at the foot of +the poll of presidential electors, and thus prevent his eligibility as +one of the highest three in the House of Representatives. This device of +the Adams men may have deprived Clay of the presidency. Thus Van Buren's +New York campaign met defeat even in the legislature, where his friends +had incurred odium rather than surrender the choice of electors to the +people, while his forces were being thoroughly beaten by the people at +the polls. In the electoral college Crawford received only 41 votes; +Adams had 84 and Jackson 99; while Clay with only 37 was fourth in the +race, and could not therefore enter the contest in the House. Georgia +cast 9 electoral votes for Van Buren as vice-president. + +Van Buren did not figure in the choice of Adams in the House by the +coalition of Adams and Clay forces. Nor does his name appear in the +traditions of the manoeuvering at Washington in the winter of 1824-25, +except in a vague and improbable story that he wished, by dividing the +New York delegation in the House on the first vote by States, to prevent +a choice, and then to throw the votes of the Crawford members for +Adams, and thus secure the glory and political profit of apparently +electing him. He did not join in the cry that Adams's election over +Jackson was a violation of the democratic principle. Nor was it a +violation of that principle. Jackson had but a minority of the popular +vote. Clay was in political principles and habits nearer to Adams than +Jackson. It was clearly Clay's duty to take his strength to the +candidate whose administration was most likely to be agreeable to those +opinions of his own which had made him a candidate. The coalition was +perfectly natural and legitimate; and it was wholesome in its +consequences. It established the Whig party; it at least helped to +establish the modern Democratic party. That the acceptance of office by +Clay would injure him was probable enough. Coalitions have always been +unpopular in America and England, when there has seemed to follow a +division of offices. They offend the strong belief in party government +which lies deep in the political conscience of the two countries. + +In the congressional session of 1824-25 president-making in the House +stood in the way of everything else of importance. Van Buren, with +increasing experience, was taking a greater and greater part in +congressional work. He joined far more frequently in the debates. Again +he spoke for the abolition of imprisonment for debt, his colleague, +Rufus King, differing from him on this as he now seemed to differ from +him on most disputed questions. King had not been reëlected senator, +having declined to be a candidate, because, as he said, of his advancing +years. But doubtless Van Buren was correct in telling John Quincy Adams, +and the latter was correct in believing, as his diary records, that King +could not have been re-chosen. + +At this session Van Buren took definite stand against the schemes of +internal improvement. On February 11, 1825, differing even from Benton, +he voted against topographical surveys in anticipation of public works +by the Federal government. On February 23 he voted against an +appropriation of $150,000 to extend the Cumberland road, while Jackson +and Benton both voted for it. So, also, the next day, when Jackson voted +for federal subscriptions to help construct the Delaware and Chesapeake +Canal and the Dismal Swamp Canal, Van Buren was against him. Two days +before the session closed he voted against the bill for the occupation +of Oregon, Benton and Jackson voting in the affirmative. Van Buren was +one of the senatorial committee to receive the new president upon his +inauguration. It was doubtless with the easy courtesy which was genuine +with him that he welcomed John Quincy Adams to the political battle so +disastrous to the latter. + +When Congress met again, in December, 1825, Van Buren took a more +important place than ever before in national politics. He now became a +true parliamentary leader; for he, like Clay, had the really +parliamentary career which has rarely been seen in this country. +Dealing with amorphous political elements, Van Buren created out of them +a party to promote his policy, and seized upon the vigor and popular +strength of Jackson to lead both party and policy to supreme power. +While, before 1825, Van Buren had not represented in the Senate a party +distinctly constituted, from 1825 to 1828 he definitely led the +formation of the modern Democratic party. In this work he was clearly +chief. From the floor of the Senate he addressed those of its members +inclined to his creed, and the sympathetic elements throughout the +country, and firmly guided and disciplined them after that fashion which +in very modern days is best familiar to us in the parliamentary +conflicts of Great Britain. Since Van Buren wielded this organizing +power, there has been in America no equally authoritative and decisive +leadership from the Senate; although he has since been surpassed there, +not only as an orator, but in other kinds of senatorial work. Seward +seemed to exercise a like leadership in the six years or more preceding +Lincoln's election; but he was far more the creature of the stupendous +movement of the time than he was its creator. So, in the two years +before General Grant's renomination in 1872, Charles Sumner and Carl +Schurz, speaking from the Senate, created a new party sentiment; but the +sentiment died in a "midsummer madness" but for which our later +political history might have been materially different. In the +interesting and fruitful three years of Van Buren's senatorial +opposition, he showed the same qualities of firmness, supple tact, and +distinct political aims which had given him his power in New York; but +all now upon a higher plane. + +In December, 1825, Jackson was no longer in the Senate. His Tennessee +friends had placed him there as in a fitting vestibule to the White +House; but it seemed as hard then as it has been since, to go from the +Senate over the apparently broad and easy mile to the west on +Pennsylvania Avenue. So Jackson returned to the Hermitage, to await, in +the favorite American character of Cincinnatus, the popular summons +which he believed to be only delayed. Van Buren, now thoroughly +acquainted with the general, saw in him the strongest titular leader of +the opposition. It is pretty certain, however, that Van Buren's +preference was recent. The "Albany Argus," a Van Buren paper, had but +lately declared that "Jackson has not a single feeling in common with +the Republican party, and makes the merit of desiring the total +extinction of it;" while Jackson papers had ridiculed Crawford's + + "Shallow knaves with forms to mock us, + Straggling, one by one, to caucus." + +It has been the tradition, carefully and doubtless sincerely begun by +John Quincy Adams, and adopted by most writers dealing with this period, +that Adams met his first Congress in a spirit which should have +commanded universal support; and that it was a factious opposition, +cunningly led by Van Buren, which thwarted his patriotic purposes. But +this is an untrue account of the second great party division in the +United States. The younger Adams succeeded to an administration which +had represented no party, or rather which had represented a party now +become so dominant as to practically include the whole country. As +president he found himself able to promote opinions with a weighty +authority which he had not enjoyed while secretary of state in an era of +good feeling, and under a president who was firm, even if gentle. Nor +was it likely that Adams, with his unrivaled experience, his resolute +self-reliance, and his aggressively patriotic feeling, would fail to +impress his own views upon the public service, lest he might disturb a +supposititious unanimity of sentiment. His first message boldly sounded +the notes of party division. The second war with England was well out of +the public mind; and his old Federalist associations, his belief in a +strong, active, beneficent federal government, his traditional dislike +of what seemed to him extreme democratic tendencies and constitutional +refinings away of necessary federal power,--all these made him promptly +and ably take an attitude very different from that of his predecessors. +The compliment was perfectly sincere which, in his inaugural address, he +had paid the Republican and Federalist parties, saying of them that both +had "contributed splendid talents, spotless integrity, ardent +patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices to the formation and +administration" of the government. But it was idle for him to suppose +that the successors of these parties, although from both had come his +own supporters, and although, as in his offer of the treasury to +Crawford, he showed his desire, even in the chief offices, to ignore +political differences, would remain united under him, if he espoused +causes upon which they widely differed. After recapitulating the tenets +of American political faith, and showing that most discordant elements +of public opinion were now blended into harmony, he was again perfectly +sincere in saying that only an effort of magnanimity needed to be made, +that individuals should discard every remnant of rancor against each +other. This advice he was himself unable to follow; and so were other +men. In his inaugural he distinctly adopted as his own the policy of +internal improvements by the federal government, although he knew how +wide and determined had been the opposition to it. His own late chief, +Monroe, had pronounced the policy unconstitutional. But he now told the +people that the magnificence and splendor of the public works, the roads +and aqueducts, of Rome, were among the imperishable splendors of the +ancient republic. He asked to what single individual our first national +road had proved an injury. Of the constitutional doubts which were +raised, he said, with a touch of the contempt of a practical +administrator: "Every speculative scruple will be solved by a practical +blessing." To the self-consecrated guardians of the Constitution this +was as corrupt as offers of largesses to plebeians at Rome. In his first +message he recommended again the policy of internal improvements, and +proposed the establishment of a national university. Although he +admitted the Constitution to be "a charter of limited powers," he still +intimated his opinion that its powers might "be effectually brought into +action by laws promoting the improvement of agriculture, commerce, and +manufactures, the cultivation and encouragement of the mechanic and of +the elegant arts, the advancement of literature, and the progress of the +sciences, ornamental and profound;" and that to refrain from exercising +these powers for the benefit of the people themselves, would be to hide +the talent in the earth, and a "treachery to the most sacred of trusts." +Further, he now broached the novel project of the congress at Panama,--a +project surely doubtful enough to permit conscientious opposition. + +All this was widely different from the messages of content from +President Monroe. There was in these new utterances a clear political +diversion, marked not less by the brilliant and restless genius of Henry +Clay, now the secretary of state, than by the President's consciousness +of his own strong and disciplined ability. Here was a new policy +formally presented by a new administration; and a formal and organized +resistance was as sure to follow as effect to follow cause. Van Buren +was soon at the head of this inevitable opposition. It is difficult, at +least in the records of Congress, to find any evidence justifying the +long tradition that the opposition was factious or unworthy. It was +doubtless a warfare, with its surprises, its skirmishes, and its pitched +battles. Mistakes of the adversary were promptly used. Debates were not +had simply to promote the formal business before the House, but rather +to reach the listening voters. But all this belongs to parliamentary +warfare. Nor is it inconsistent with most exalted aims and an admirable +performance of public business in a free country. Gladstone, the +greatest living master in the work of political reform, has described +himself as an "old parliamentary hand." Nor in the motions, the +resolutions, the debates, led by Van Buren during his three years of +opposition, can one find any device which Palmerston or Derby or +Gladstone in one forum, and Seward and even Adams himself in his last +and best years in another, have not used with little punishment from +disinterested and enduring criticism. + +Immediately after Adams's inauguration Van Buren voted for Clay's +confirmation as secretary of state, while Jackson and fourteen other +senators, including Hayne, voted to reject him, upon the unfounded story +of Clay's sale of the presidency to Adams for the office to which he was +now nominated. Van Buren's language and demeanor towards the new +administration were uniformly becoming. He charged political but not +personal wrong-doing; he made no insinuation of base motives; and his +opposition throughout was the more forcible for its very decorum. + +The first great battle between the rapidly dividing forces was over the +Panama mission, a creation of Clay's exuberant imagination. The +president nominated to the Senate two envoys to an American congress +called by the new South American republics of Columbia, Mexico, and +Central America, and in which it was proposed that Peru and Chile also +should participate. The congress was to be held at Panama, which, in the +extravagant rhetoric of some of the Republicans of the South, would, if +the world had to elect a capital, be pointed out for that august +destiny, placed as it was "in the centre of the globe." Spain had not +yet acknowledged the independence of her revolted colonies; and it was +clear that the discussions of the congress must be largely concerned +with a mutual protection of American nations which implied an attitude +hostile to Spain. Adams, in his message nominating the envoys, declared +that they were not to take part in deliberations of belligerent +character, or to contract alliances or to engage in any project +importing hostility to any other nation. But referring to the Monroe +doctrine, Adams said that the mission looked to an agreement between the +nations represented, that each would guard by its own means against the +establishment of any future European colony within its borders; and it +looked also to an effort on the part of the United States to promote +religious liberty among those intolerant republics. The decisive +inducement, he added, to join in the congress was to lay the foundation +of future intercourse with those states "in the broadest principles of +reciprocity and the most cordial feelings of fraternal friendship." + +This was vague enough. But when the diplomatic papers were exhibited, it +was plain that the southern republics proposed a congress looking to a +close defensive alliance, a sort of confederacy or Amphictyonic council +as Benton described it; and that it was highly improbable that the +representatives from one country could responsibly participate in the +congress without most serious danger of incurring obligations, or +falling into precisely the embarrassments which the well settled policy +of the United States had avoided. It was perfectly agreeable to Adams, +resolute and aggressive American that he was, that his country should +look indulgently upon the smaller American powers, should stand at their +head, should counsel them in their difficulties with European nations, +and jealously take their side in those difficulties. Clay's eager, +enthusiastic mind delighted in the picture of a great leadership of +America by the United States, an American system of nations, breathing +the air of republicanism, asserting a young and haughty independence of +monarchical Europe, and ready for opposition to its schemes. In all this +there has been fascination to many American minds, which even in our own +day we have seen influence American diplomacy. But it was a step into +the entangling alliances against which American public opinion had from +Washington's day been set. When Adams asked an appropriation for the +expenses of the mission, he told the House of Representatives that he +was hardly sanguine enough to promise "all or even any of the +transcendent benefits to the human race which warmed the conceptions of +its first proposer," but that it looked "to the melioration of the +condition of man;" that it was congenial with the spirit which prompted +our own declaration of independence, which dictated our first treaty +with Prussia, and "which filled the hearts and fired the souls of the +immortal founders of our revolution." + +Such fanciful speculation the Republicans, led by Van Buren, opposed +with strong and heated protests, in tone not unlike the Liberal protests +of 1878 in England against Disraeli's Jingo policy. In the secret +session of the Senate Van Buren proposed resolutions against the +constitutionality of the mission, reciting that it was a departure from +our wise and settled policy; that, for the conference and discussion +contemplated, our envoys already accredited to the new republics were +competent, without becoming involved as members of the congress. These +resolutions, so the President at once wrote in his opulent and +invaluable diary, "are the fruit of the ingenuity of Martin Van Buren +and bear the impress of his character." The mission was, the opposition +thus insisted, unconstitutional; a step enlarging the sphere of the +federal government; a meddlesome and dangerous interference with foreign +nations; and if it lay in the course of a strong and splendid policy, +it was also part of a policy full of warlike possibilities almost sure +to drag us into old-world quarrels. Clay's "American system," Hayne said +in the senatorial debate, meant restriction and monopoly when applied to +our domestic policy, and "entangling alliances" when applied to our +foreign policy. + +Van Buren's speech was very able. He did not touch upon the liberality +of the Spanish Americans towards races other than the Caucasian, which +peered out of Hayne's speech as one of the Southern objections. After +using the wise and seemingly pertinent language of Washington against +such foreign involvements, Van Buren skillfully referred to the very +Prussian treaty which the President had cited in his message to the +House. The elder Adams, the Senate was reminded, had departed from the +rule commended by his great predecessor. He had told his first Congress +that we were indeed to keep ourselves distinct and separate from the +political system of Europe "if we can," but that we needed early and +continual information of political projects in contemplation; that +however we might consider ourselves, others would consider us a weight +in the balance of power in Europe, which never could be forgotten or +neglected; and that it was natural for us, studying to be neutral, to +consult with other nations engaged in the same study. The younger Adams +had been, Van Buren pointed out, appointed upon the Berlin mission to +carry out these heretical suggestions of his father. The Republicans of +that day had vigorously opposed the mission; and for their opposition +were denounced as a faction, and lampooned and vilified "by all the +presses supporting and supported by the government, and a host of +malicious parasites generaled by its patronage." But, covered with +Washington's mantle, the Republicans of '98 had sought to strangle at +its birth this political hydra, this first attempt since the +establishment of the government to subject our political affairs to the +terms and conditions of political connection with a foreign nation. +Probably anticipating the success of the administration senators by a +majority of five, Van Buren ingeniously reminded the Senate that those +early Republicans had failed with a majority of four against them. But +it was to be remembered, he continued, that after a few more such +Federalist victories the ruin of Federalism had been complete. Its +doctrines had speedily received popular condemnation. The new +administration under the presidency of that early minister to Prussia +had returned to the practices of the Federalist party, to which Van +Buren with courteous indirection let it be remembered that the president +had originally belonged. Except a guaranty to Spain of its dominions +beyond the Mississippi, which Jefferson had offered as part of the price +of a cession of the territory between that river and the Mobile, the +administrations of Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe had strictly followed +the admonition of Washington: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship +with all nations, entangling alliances with none." If we were asked to +form a connection with European states, such as was proposed with the +southern republics, Van Buren argued, no American would approve it; and +there was no sound reason, there was nothing but fanciful sentiment, to +induce us to distinguish between the states of Europe and those of South +America. Grant that there was a Holy Alliance in monarchical Europe, was +it not a hollow glory, inconsistent with a sober view of American +interests, to create a holy alliance in republican America? It might +indeed be easy to agree upon speculative opinions with our younger +neighbors at the south; but we should be humiliated in their eyes, and +difficulties would at once arise, when means of promoting those opinions +were proposed, and we were then to say we could talk but not fight. The +Monroe doctrine was not to be withdrawn; but we ought to be left free to +act upon it without the burden of promises, express or implied. The +proposed congress was a specious and disguised step towards an American +confederacy, full of embarrassment, full of danger; and the first step +should be firmly resisted. Such was the outline of Van Buren's argument; +and its wisdom has commanded a general assent from that day. + +Dickerson of New Jersey very well phrased sound American sentiment when +he said in the debate that, next to a passion for war, he dreaded a +passion for diplomacy. The majestic declamation of Webster, his +pathetic picture of a South America once oppressed but now emancipated, +his eloquent cry that if it were weak to feel that he was an American it +was a weakness from which he claimed no exemption,--all this met a good +deal of exuberant response through the country. But it failed, as in our +history most such efforts have failed, to convince the practical +judgment of Americans, a judgment never long dazzled or inspired by the +picture of an America wielding enormous or dominant international power. +The Panama congress met in the absence of the American representatives, +who had been delayed. It made a treaty of friendship and perpetual +confederation to which all other American powers might accede within a +year. The congress was to meet annually in time of common war, and +biennially in times of peace. But it never met again. The "centre of the +world" was too far away from its very neighbors. Even South American +republics could not be kept together by effusions of republican glory +and international love. + +In spite of its victory in Congress, Adams's administration had plainly +opened with a serious mistake. The opposition was perfectly legitimate; +and although in the debate it was spoken of as unorganized, it certainly +came out of the debate a pretty definite party. Before the debate Adams +had written in his diary, and truly, that it was the first subject upon +which a great effort had been made "to combine the discordant elements +of the Crawford and Jackson and Calhoun men into a united opposition +against the administration." Although some of the Southern opposition +was heated by a dislike of States in which negroes were to be +administrators, the division was not at all upon a North and South line. +With Van Buren voted Findlay of Pennsylvania, Chandler and Holmes of +Maine, Woodbury of New Hampshire, Dickerson of New Jersey, Kane of +Illinois, making seven Northern with twelve Southern senators. Against +Van Buren were eight senators from slave States, Barton of Missouri, +Bouligny and Johnston of Louisiana, Chambers of Alabama, Clayton and Van +Dyke of Delaware, Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, and Smith of Maryland. +It was an incipient but a true party division. + +Throughout this session of 1824-25 Van Buren was very industrious in the +Senate, and nearly, if not quite, its most conspicuous member, if +account be not taken of Randolph's furious and blazing talents. Calhoun +was only in the chair as vice-president; the great duel between him and +Van Buren not yet begun. Clay was at the head of the cabinet, and +Webster in the lower House. Jackson was in Tennessee, watching with +angry confidence, and aiding, the rising tide with the political +dexterity in which he was by no means a novice. Having only a minority +with him, and with Benton frequently against him, Van Buren gradually +drilled his party into opposition on internal improvements,--a most +legitimate and important issue. In December, 1825, he threw down the +gauntlet to the administration, or rather took up its gauntlet. He +proposed a resolution "that Congress does not possess the power to make +roads and canals within the respective States." At the same time he +asked for a committee to prepare a constitutional amendment on the +subject like his earlier proposal, saying with a touch of very polite +partisanship that though the President's recent declaration, that the +power clearly existed in the Constitution, might diminish, it did not +obviate the necessity of an amendment. In March, April, and May, 1826, +he opposed appropriations of $110,000 to continue the Cumberland road, +and of $50,000 for surveys preparatory to roads and canals, and +subscriptions to stock of the Louisville and Portland Canal Company and +of the Dismal Swamp Canal Company. All these were distinctly +administration measures. + +Although the principles advanced by Van Buren in this part of his +opposition have not since obtained complete and unanimous affirmance, +they have at least commanded so large, honorable, and prolonged support, +that his attitude can with little good sense be considered one of +factious difference. Especially wise was he on the question of +government subscriptions to private canal companies. Upon one of these +bills he said, in May, 1826, that he did not believe that the government +had the constitutional power to make canals or to grant money for them; +but he added that, if he believed otherwise, the grant of money should, +he thought, be made directly, and not by forming a partnership between +the government and a private corporation. In 1824 he had voted for the +road from Missouri to New Mexico; but this stood, as the Pacific railway +later stood, upon a different principle, the former as a road entirely +without state limits and a means of international commerce, and the +latter a road chiefly through federal territories, and of obvious +national importance in the war between the North and the South. + +The proposed amendment of the Constitution to prevent the election of +president by a vote of States in the House of Representatives, upon +which Van Buren had spoken in 1824, had now acquired new interest. Van +Buren seized Adams's election in the House as a good subject for +political warfare; and it was clearly a legitimate topic for party +discussion and division. Van Buren would have been far more exalted in +his notions of political agitation than the greatest of political +leaders, had he not sought to use the popular feeling, that the American +will had been subverted by the decision of the House, to promote his +plan of constitutional reform. He told the Senate in May, 1826, that he +was satisfied that there was no one point on which the people of the +United States were more perfectly united than upon the propriety of +taking the choice of president from the House. But Congress was not +ready for the change; however much in theory was to be said against the +clumsy system which nearly made Burr president in 1801,[3] and which +produced in 1825 a choice which Adams himself declared that he would +vacate if the Constitution provided a mode of doing it. + +As chairman of the judiciary committee, Van Buren participated in a most +laborious effort to enlarge the federal judiciary. Upon the question +whether the judges of the Supreme Court should be relieved from circuit +duty, he made an elaborate and very able speech upon the negative side. +The opportunity arose for a disquisition on the danger of centralized +government, and for a renewal of the criticisms he had made in the New +York Constitutional Convention upon the common and absurd picture of +judges as dwellers in an atmosphere above all human infirmity, and +beyond the reach of popular impression. Van Buren said, what all +sensible men know, that in spite of every effort, incompetent men will +sometimes reach the judicial bench. If always sitting among associates +_in banc_, their incompetence would be shielded, he said, by their abler +brethren. But if regularly compelled to perform their great duties alone +and in the direct face of the people, and not in the isolation of +Washington, there was another constraint, Van Buren said very +democratically and with substantial truth. "There is a power in public +opinion in this country," he declared, "and I thank God for it, for it +is the most honest and best of all powers, which will not tolerate an +incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the +lives and fortunes of his fellow citizens." He added an expression to +which he would afterwards have given most narrow interpretation. The +Supreme Court stood, he said, "as the umpire between the conflicting +powers of the general and state governments." There was in the speech +very plain though courteous intimation of that jealousy with which Van +Buren's party examined the political utterances of the court from +Jefferson's time until, years after Van Buren's retirement, the party +found it convenient to receive from the court, with a sanctimonious air +of veneration, the most odious and demoralizing of all its expressions +of political opinion. In arguing for a close and democratic relation +between the judges and the different parts of the country, and against +their dignified and exalted seclusion at Washington which was so +agreeable to many patriotic Americans, Van Buren said, in a passage +which is fairly characteristic of his oratorical manner:-- + + "A sentiment I had almost said of idolatry for the Supreme Court + has grown up, which claims for its members an almost entire + exemption from the fallibilities of our nature, and arraigns with + unsparing bitterness the motives of all who have the temerity to + look with inquisitive eyes into this consecrated sanctuary of the + law. So powerful has this sentiment become, such strong hold has + it taken upon the press of this country, that it requires not a + little share of firmness in a public man, however imperious may be + his duty, to express sentiments that conflict with it. It is + nevertheless correct, sir, that in this, as in almost every other + case, the truth is to be found in a just medium of the subject. To + so much of the high-wrought eulogies (which the fashion of the + times has recently produced in such great abundance) as allows to + the distinguished men who now hold in their hands that portion of + the administration of public affairs, talents of the highest order, + and spotless integrity, I cheerfully add the very humble testimony + of my unqualified assent. That the uncommon man who now presides + over the court, and who I hope may long continue to do so, is, in + all human probability, the ablest judge now sitting upon any + judicial bench in the world, I sincerely believe. But to the + sentiment which claims for the judges so great a share of exemption + from the feelings that govern the conduct of other men, and for the + court the character of being the safest depository of political + power, I do not subscribe. I have been brought up in an opposite + faith, and all my experience has confirmed me in its correctness. + In my legislation upon this subject I will act in conformity to + those opinions. I believe the judges of the Supreme Court (great + and good men as I cheerfully concede them to be) are subject to the + same infirmities, influenced by the same passions, and operated + upon by the same causes, that good and great men are in other + situations. I believe they have as much of the _esprit de corps_ as + other men. Those who think[4] otherwise form an erroneous estimate + of human nature; and if they act upon that estimate, will, soon or + late, become sensible of their delusion." + +At this session, upon the election by the Senate of their temporary +president, Van Buren received the compliment of four votes. In May, +1826, he participated in Benton's report on the reduction of executive +patronage, a subject important enough, but there crudely treated. The +report strongly exhibited the jealousy of executive power which had long +been characteristic of American political thought. By describing the +offices within the president's appointment, their numbers and salaries, +and the expense of the civil list, a striking picture was drawn--and in +that way a striking picture can always be drawn--of the power of any +great executive. By imagining serious abuses of power, the picture was +darkened with the dangers of patronage, as it could be darkened to-day. +The country was urged to look forward to the time when public revenue +would be doubled, when the number of public officers would be +quadrupled, when the president's nomination would carry any man through +the Senate, and his recommendation any measure through Congress. Names, +the report said, were nothing. The first Roman emperor was styled +Emperor of the Republic; and the late French emperor had taken a like +title. The American president, it was hinted, might by his enormous +patronage and by subsidies to the press, nominally for official +advertisements, subject us to a like danger. But the usefulness of such +pictures as these of Benton and Van Buren depends upon the practical +lesson taught by the artists. If there were disadvantages and dangers +which our ancestors rightly feared, in placing the federal patronage +under the sole control of the president, so there are disadvantages and +dangers in scattering it by laws into various hands, or in its +subjection to the traditions of "senatorial courtesy." + +Six bills accompanied the report. Two of them proposed the appointment +of military cadets and midshipmen, one of each from every congressional +district; and this was afterwards done, giving a petty patronage to +national legislators which public sentiment has but recently begun to +compel them to use upon ascertained merit rather than in sheer +favoritism. A third bill proposed that military and naval commissions +should run "during good behavior" and not "during the pleasure of the +president." A fourth sought with extraordinary unwisdom to correct the +old but ever new abuse of government advertising, by depriving the +responsible executive of its distribution and by placing it in the hands +of congressmen, perhaps the very worst to hold it. Another required +senatorial confirmation for postmasters whose emoluments exceeded an +amount to be fixed. The remaining bill was very wise, and a natural +sequence of Benton's not untruthful though too highly colored picture. +The law of 1820, which fixed at four years the terms of many subordinate +officers, was to be modified so as to limit the terms only for officers +who had not satisfactorily accounted for public moneys. It has been +commonly said that this act was a device of Crawford, when secretary of +the treasury, more easily to use federal patronage for his presidential +canvass. But there seems to be no sufficient reason to doubt that +Benton's and Van Buren's committee correctly stated the intent of the +authors of the law to have been no more than that the officer should be +definitely compelled by the expiration of his term to render his +accounts and have them completely audited; that it was not intended that +some other person should succeed an officer not found in fault; and that +the practice of refusing re-commissions to deserving officers was an +unexpected perversion of the law. The committee simply proposed to +accomplish the true intent of the law. The same bill required the +president to state his reasons for removals of officers when he +nominated their successors. The proposals in the last two bills were +very creditable to Benton and Van Buren and their coadjutors. It is +greatly to be lamented that they were not safely made laws while +patronage was dispensed conscientiously and with sincere public spirit +by the younger Adams, so far as he could control it. The biographer has +more particularly to lament that during the twelve years of Van Buren's +executive influence he seemed daunted by the difficulties of voluntarily +putting in practice the admirable rules which as a senator he would have +imposed by law upon those in executive stations. It was only three +years after this report, that the great chieftain, whom Benton and Van +Buren helped to the presidency, discredited all its reasoning by +proposing "a general extension" of the law whose operation they would +have thus limited. The committee also proposed by constitutional +amendment to forbid the appointment to office of any senator or +representative until the end of the presidential term in which he had +held his seat. This was also one of the reforms whose necessity seems +plain enough to the reformer, until in office he discovers the +conveniences and perhaps the public uses of the practice he has wished +to abolish. + +In the short session of 1826-1827, little of any importance was done. +Van Buren refused to vote with Benton to abolish the duty on salt, a +vote doubtless influenced by the apparent interest of New York, which +itself taxed the production of salt to aid the State in its internal +improvements, and which probably could not maintain the tax if foreign +salt were admitted free. Van Buren did not, indeed, avow, nor did he +disavow this reason. He was content to point out that the great canals +of New York were of national use, though their expense was borne by his +State alone. He voted at this session for lower duties on teas, coffees, +and wines. He did not join Benton and others in their narrow +unwillingness to establish a naval academy. Van Buren's temper was +eminently free from raw prejudices against disciplined education. The +death of one of the envoys to the Panama congress enabled him again at +this session to renew his opposition by a vote against filling the +vacancy. Another attempt was made to pass a bankruptcy bill; but again +it failed through the natural and wholesome dislike of increasing the +powers of the federal judiciary, and the preference that state courts +and laws should perform all the work to which they were reasonably +competent. The bill did not even pass the Senate, until by Van Buren's +opposition it had been reduced to a bill establishing a summary and +speedy remedy for creditors against fraudulent or failing traders, +instead of a general system of bankruptcy, voluntary and involuntary, +for all persons. Van Buren's speech against the insolvency features of +the bill was made on January 23, 1827, only a few days before his +successor as senator was to be chosen. But the thoughtless popularity +which often accompanies sweeping propositions of relief to insolvents +did not move him from resolute and successful opposition to what he +called (and later experience has most abundantly justified him) "an +injurious extension of the patronage of the federal government, and an +insupportable enlargement of the range of its judicial power." On +February 24, 1827, a few days after his reëlection, he delivered a lucid +and elaborate speech on the long-perplexing topic of the restrictions +upon American trade with the British colonies, a subject to be +afterwards closely connected with his political fortunes. + +The agitation of the coming presidential election left little of its +turbulence upon the records of the long session from December, 1827, to +May, 1828. Van Buren was doubtless busy enough out of the senate +chamber. But he was still a very busy legislator. He spoke at least +twice in favor of the bill to abolish imprisonment under judgments +rendered by federal courts for debts not fraudulently incurred, the bill +which Richard M. Johnson had pressed so long and so honorably; and at +last he saw the bill pass in January, 1828. He spoke often upon the +technical bill to regulate federal judicial process. Again he voted, and +again in a minority and in opposition to Benton and other political +friends, against bills to extend the Cumberland road and for other +internal improvements. Besides the usual bills to appropriate lands for +roads and canals, and to subscribe to the stock of private canal +companies, a step further was now taken in the constitutional change led +by Adams and Clay. Public land was voted for the benefit of Kenyon +College, in the State of Ohio. There was plainly intended to be no limit +to federal beneficence. In this session Van Buren again rushed to defend +the salt duty so dear to New York. + +At the same session was passed the "tariff of abominations," a measure +so called from the oppressive provisions loaded on it by its enemies, +but in spite of which it passed. Van Buren, though he sat still during +the debate, cast for the bill a protectionist vote, with Benton and +several others whose convictions were against it, but who yielded to +the supposed public sentiment or the peremptory instructions of their +States, or who did not yet dare to make upon the tariff a presidential +issue. The votes of the senators were sectionally thus distributed: For +the tariff,--New England, 6; Middle States, 8; Louisiana, 1; and the +Western States, 11; in all 26. Against it,--New England, 5; Maryland, 2; +Southern States, 13; and Tennessee, 1. It was a victory of neither +political party, but of the Middle and Western over the Southern States. +Only three negative votes were cast by senators who had voted against +the administration on the Panama question in 1826; while of the votes +for the tariff, fourteen were cast by senators who had then opposed the +administration. Of the senators in favor of the tariff, six, Van Buren, +Benton, Dickerson of New Jersey, Eaton of Tennessee (Jackson's close +friend), Kane of Illinois, and Rowan of Kentucky, had in 1826 been in +opposition, while ten of those voting against the tariff had then been +with them.[5] The greater number of the opposition senators were +therefore against the tariff, though very certainly the votes of Van +Buren, Benton, and Eaton prevented the opposition from taking strong +ground or suffering injury on the tariff in the election. Van Buren's +silence in this debate of 1828 indicated at least a temper now hesitant. +But he and his colleague, Sanford, according to the theory then popular +that senators were simply delegated agents of their States, were +constrained, whatever were their opinions, by a resolution of the +legislature of New York passed almost unanimously in January, 1828. It +stated a sort of _ultima ratio_ of protection, commanding the senators +"to make every proper exertion to effect such a revision of the tariff +as will afford a sufficient protection to the growers of wool, hemp, and +flax, and the manufacturers of iron, woolens, and every other article, +so far as the same may be connected with the interest of manufactures, +agriculture, and commerce." The senators might perhaps have said to this +that, if they were to protect not only iron and woolens but also every +other article, they ought not to levy prohibitory duties on some and not +on other articles; that if they were equally to protect manufactures, +agriculture, and commerce, they could do no better than to let natural +laws alone. But the silly instruction said what no intelligent +protectionist means; his system disappears with an equality of +privilege; that equality must, he argues, at some point yield to +practical necessities. Van Buren took the resolution, however, in its +intended meaning, and not literally. Hayne concluded his fine struggle +against the bill by a solemn protest upon its passage that it was a +partial, unjust, and unconstitutional measure. + +At this session Van Buren, upon the consideration of a rule giving the +Vice-President power to call to order for words spoken in debate, made +perhaps the most elaborate of his purely political speeches. It was a +skillful and not unsuccessful effort to give philosophical significance +to the coming struggle at the polls. He spoke of "that collision, which +seems to be inseparable from the nature of man, between the rights of +the few and the many," of "those never-ceasing conflicts between the +advocates of the enlargement and concentration of power on the one hand, +and its limitation and distribution on the other." The one party, he +said, had "grown out of a deep and settled distrust of the people and of +the States:" the other, out of "a jealousy of power justified by all +human experience." The advocates of "a strong government," having been +defeated in much that they sought in the federal convention, had since, +he said, "been at work to obtain by construction what was not included +or intended to be included in the grant." He declared the incorporation +of the United States Bank to be the "great pioneer of constitutional +encroachments." Thence had followed those famous usurpations, the alien +and sedition laws of the older Adams's administration. Then came the +doctrine that the House of Representatives was bound to make all +appropriations necessary to carry out a treaty made by the President and +Senate; and then "the bold avowal that it belonged to the President +alone to decide upon the propriety" of a foreign mission, and that it +was for the Senate only "to pass on the fitness of the individuals +selected as ministers." He lamented the single lapse of Madison, "one +of the most, if not the most, accomplished statesman that our country +has produced," in signing the bill to incorporate the new bank. The +younger Adams, Van Buren declared, had "gone far beyond the utmost +latitude of construction" therefore claimed; and he added a reference, +decorous enough but neither fair nor gracious, to Adams's own early +entrance in the public service upon a mission unauthorized by Congress. +It was now demonstrated, he said, that the result of the presidential +choice of 1825 "was not only the restoration of the men of 1798, but of +the principles of that day." The spirit of encroachment had, it was +true, become more wary; but it was no more honest. The system had then +been coercion; now it was seduction. Then unconstitutional powers had +been exercised to force submission; now they were assumed to purchase +golden opinions from the people with their own means. Isolated acts of +the Federalists had not produced an unyielding exclusion from the +confidence of a majority of the people, for more than a quarter of a +century, of large masses of men distinguished for talent and private +worth. The great and glorious struggle had proceeded from something +deeper, an opposition to the principle of an extension of the +constructive powers of the government. Without harsh denunciation, and +by suggestion rather than assertion, the administration of John Quincy +Adams was grouped with the administration of his father. The earlier +administration had deserved and met the retribution of a Republican +victory. The later one now deserved and ought soon to meet a like fate. + +The issue was clearly made. The parties were formed. The result rested +with the people. On February 6, 1827, Van Buren had been reëlected +senator by a large majority in both houses of the New York legislature. +In his brief letter of acceptance he said no more on public questions +than that it should be his "constant and zealous endeavor to protect the +remaining rights reserved to the States by the federal Constitution," +and "to restore those of which they have been divested by construction." +This had been the main burden of his political oratory from the +inauguration of Adams. There are many references in books to doubts of +Van Buren's position until 1827; but such doubts are not justified in +the face of his prompt and perfectly explicit utterances in the session +of 1825-1826, and from that time steadily on. + +De Witt Clinton's death on February 11, 1828, removed from the politics +of New York one of its most illustrious men, a statesman of the first +rank, able and passionate, and of the noblest aspirations. The +understanding reached between him and Van Buren in 1826, for the support +of Jackson, had not produced a complete coalition. In spite of the union +on Jackson, the Bucktails nominated and Van Buren loyally supported for +governor against Clinton in 1826, William B. Rochester, a warm friend +and supporter of Adams and Clay, and one of the members of the very +Panama mission against which so strenuous a fight had been made. Clinton +was reëlected by a small majority. In a meeting at Washington after his +death, Van Buren declared the triumph of his talents and patriotism to +be monuments of high and enduring fame. He was glad that, though in +their public careers there had been "collisions of opinions and action +at once extensive, earnest, and enduring," they had still been "wholly +free from that most venomous and corroding of all poisons, personal +hatred." These collisions were now "turned to nothing and less than +nothing." Speaking of his respect for Clinton's name and gratitude for +his signal services, Van Buren concluded with this striking tribute: +"For myself, so strong, so sincere, and so engrossing is that feeling, +that I, who whilst living, never--no, never, envied him anything, now +that he has fallen, am greatly tempted to envy him his grave with its +honors." + +With this session of 1827-1828 ended Van Buren's senatorial career and +his parliamentary leadership. From 1821 to 1828 the Senate was not +indeed at its greatest glory. Webster entered it only in December, 1827. +Hayne and Benton with Van Buren are to us its most distinguished +members, if Randolph's rather indescribable and useless personality may +be excepted. But to neither of them has the opinion of later times +assigned a place in the first rank of orators, although Hayne's tariff +speech in 1824 deserves to be set with the greatest of American +political orations. The records and speeches of the Senate in which Van +Buren sat have come to us with fine print and narrow margins; they have +not contributed to the collected works of great men. But the Senate was +then an able body. The principles of American politics were never more +clearly stated. When the books are well dusted, and one has broken +through the starched formality in which the speakers' phrases were set, +he finds a copious fund of political instruction. The federal Senate was +more truly a parliamentary body in those formative days than perhaps at +any other period. Several at least of its members were in doubt as to +the political course they should follow; they were in doubt where they +should find their party associations. To them, debates had therefore a +real and present significance. There were some votes to be affected, +there were converts to be gained, by speeches even on purely political +questions; there were some senators whose votes were not inexorably +determined for them by the will of their parties or their constituents. +Much that was said had therefore a genuine parliamentary ring. The +orators really sought to convince and persuade those who heard them +within the easy and almost conversational limits of the old senate +chamber. There was little of the mere pronouncing of essays or +declamations intended to have their real and only effect elsewhere. In +this art of true parliamentary speaking rather than oratory, Van Buren +was a master such as Lord Palmerston afterwards became. He was not +eloquent. His speeches, so far as they are preserved, interest the +student of political history and not of literature. They are sensible, +clear, practical arguments made in rather finished sentences. One does +not find quotations from them in books of school declamation. But they +served far more effectively the primary end of parliamentary speaking +than did the elaborate and powerful disquisitions of Calhoun, or the +more splendid flood of Webster's eloquence. Van Buren's speeches were +intended to convince, and they did convince some of the men in the seats +about him. They were meant to persuade, and they did persuade. They were +lucid exhibitions of political principles, generally practical, and +touched sufficiently but not morbidly with the theoretical fears so +common to our earlier politics. Some of those fears have since been +shown to be groundless; but out of many of them has come much that is +best in the modern temper of American political institutions. Van +Buren's speeches did not rise beyond the reach of popular understanding, +although they never warmly touched popular sympathy. They were intended +to formulate and spread a political faith in which he plainly saw that +there was the material of a party,--a faith founded upon the jealousy of +federal activity, however beneficent, which sought to avoid state +control or encourage state dependence. The prolixity which was a grave +fault of his state papers and political letters was far less exhibited +in his oratorical efforts. His style was generally easy and vigorous, +with little of the turgid learning which loaded down many sensible +speeches of the time. Now and then, however, he resorted to the +sentences of stilted formality which sometimes overtake a good public +speaker, as a good actor sometimes lapses into the stage strut. + +In Van Buren's senatorial speeches there is nothing to justify the +charge of "non-committalism" so much made against him. When he spoke at +all he spoke explicitly; and he plainly, though without acerbity, +exhibited his likes and dislikes. Jackson was struck with this when he +sat in the Senate with him. "I had heard a great deal about Mr. Van +Buren," he said, "especially about his non-committalism. I made up my +mind that I would take an early opportunity to hear him and judge for +myself. One day an important subject was under debate in the Senate. I +noticed that Mr. Van Buren was taking notes while one of the senators +was speaking. I judged from this that he intended to reply, and I +determined to be in my seat when he spoke. His turn came; and he rose +and made a clear, straightforward argument, which, to my mind, disposed +of the whole subject. I turned to my colleague, Major Eaton, who sat +next to me. 'Major,' said I, 'is there anything non-committal about +that?' 'No, sir,' said the major." Van Buren scrupulously observed the +amenities of debate. He was uniformly courteous towards adversaries; and +the calm self-control saved him, as some greater orators were not +saved, from a descent to the aspersion of motive so common and so futile +in political debate. He could not, indeed, help now and then an allusion +to the venality and monarchical tendency of the Federalists and their +successors; but this was an old formula which strong haters had years +before made very popular in the Republican phrase-book, and which, as to +the venality, meant nobody in particular. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +DEMOCRATIC VICTORY IN 1828.--GOVERNOR + + +When in May, 1828, Van Buren left Washington, the country universally +recognized him as the chief organizer of the new party and its +congressional leader. As such he turned all his skill and industry to +win a victory for Jackson and Calhoun. There was never in the history of +the United States a more legitimate presidential canvass than that of +1828. The rival candidates distinctly stood for conflicting principles +of federal administration. On the one side, under Van Buren's shrewd +management, with the theoretical coöperation of Calhoun,--the natural +bent of whose mind was now aided and not thwarted by the exigencies of +his personal career,--was the party inclined to strict limitation of +federal powers, jealous for local powers, hostile to internal +improvements by the federal government, inclined to a lower rather than +a higher tariff. On the other side was the party strongly national in +temper, with splendid conceptions of a powerful and multifariously +useful central administration, impatient of the poverties and meannesses +of many of the States. The latter party was led by a president with +ampler training in public life than any American of his time, who +sincerely and intelligently believed the principles of his party; and +his party held those principles firmly, explicitly, and with practical +unanimity. Jefferson, in almost his last letter, written in December, +1825, to William B. Giles, a venerable leader of the Democracy, the +"Charles James Fox of Congress," Benton's "statesman of head and +tongue," recalled indeed Adams's superiority over all ordinary +considerations when the safety of his country had been questioned; but +Jefferson declared himself in "the deepest affliction" at the +usurpations by which the federal branch, through the decisions of the +federal court, the doctrines of the President, and the misconstructions +of Congress, was stripping its "colleagues, the state authorities, of +the powers reserved to them." The voice from Monticello, feeble with its +eighty-three years, and secretly uttered though it was, sounded the +summons to a new Democratic battle. + +Van Buren and his coadjutors, however, led a party as yet of inclination +to principles rather than of principles. It was out of power. There was +neither warmth nor striking exaltation in its programme. Its +philosophical and political wisdom needed the aid of one of those simple +cries for justice which are so potent in political warfare, and a leader +to interest and fire the popular temper. Both were at hand. The late +defeat of the popular will by the Adams-Clay coalition was the cry; the +hero of the military victory most grateful to Americans was the leader. +To this cry and this leader Van Buren skillfully harnessed an +intelligible, and at the least a reasonable, political creed. There were +thus united nearly all the elements of political strength. Not indeed +all, for the record of the leader was weak upon several articles of +faith. Jackson had voted in the Senate for internal improvement bills, +and among them bills of the most obnoxious character, those authorizing +subscriptions to the stocks of private corporations. He had voted +against reductions of the tariff. But the votes, it was hoped, exhibited +only his inexpertness in applying general principles to actual +legislation, or a good-natured willingness to please his constituents by +single votes comparatively unimportant. In truth these mistakes were +really inconsistencies of the politician, and no more. There had been a +long inclination on Jackson's part to the Jeffersonian policy. Over +thirty years before, he had in Congress been a strict constructionist +and an anti-federalist. In 1801 he had required a candidate desiring his +support to be "an admirer of state authority, agreeable to the true +literal meaning" of the Constitution, and "banishing the dangerous +doctrine of implication." If he were now to have undivided +responsibility, this old Democratic trend of his would, it was hoped, be +strong enough under Democratic advice. As a candidate, the +inconsistencies of a soldier politician were far outweighed by his +picturesque and powerful personality. It is commonly thought of Jackson +that he was a headstrong, passionate, illiterate man, used and pulled +about by a few intriguers. Nothing could be further from the truth. He +was himself a politician of a high order. His letters are full of +shrewd, vigorous, and even managing suggestions of partisan +manoeuvres. Their political utterances show a highly active and +generally sensible though not disciplined mind. He had had long and +important experience of civil affairs, in the lower house of Congress, +in the federal Senate when he was only thirty years old, in the +constitutional convention of his State, in its Supreme Court, later +again in the Senate; he had been for eight years before the country as a +candidate for its first office, and for many years in public business of +large importance. There were two of the most distinguished Americans, +men of the ripest abilities and amplest experience, and far removed from +rashness, who from 1824 or before had steadily preferred Jackson for the +presidency. These were Edward Livingston of Louisiana and De Witt +Clinton of New York. Daniel Webster described his manners as "more +presidential than those of any of the candidates." Jackson was, he +wrote, "grave, mild, and reserved." Unless in Jackson's case there were +effects without adequate causes, it is very certain that, with faults of +most serious character, he still had the ability, the dignity, and the +wisdom of a ruler of a high rank. He was, as very few men are, born to +rule. + +After Crawford's defeat, Van Buren is credited with a skillful +management of the alliance of his forces with those of Jackson. There is +not yet public, if it exist, any original evidence as to the details of +this work. Van Buren's enemies were fond of describing it as full of +cunning and trickery, the work of "the little magician;" and later and +fairer writers have adopted from these enemies this characterization. +But all this seems entirely without proof. Nor is the story probable. +The union of the Crawford and Jackson men was perfectly natural. +Crawford was a physical wreck, out of public life. Numerous as were the +exceptions, his followers and Jackson's included the great majority of +the strict constructionists; and but a minority of either of the two +bodies held the opposite views. Neither of the two men had, at the last +election, been defeated by the other. That Van Buren used at Washington +his unrivaled skill in assuaging animosities and composing differences +there can be no doubt. After the end of the session in March, 1827, +together with Churchill C. Cambreleng, a member of Congress from New +York and a close political friend of his, he made upon this mission a +tour through Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. They visited +Crawford, and were authorized to declare that he should support Jackson, +but did not wish to aid Calhoun. At Raleigh Van Buren told the citizens +that the spirit of encroachment had assumed a new and far more seductive +aspect, and could only be resisted by the exercise of uncommon virtues. +Passing through Washington on his way north, he paid a polite visit to +Adams, talking with him placidly about Rufus King, Monroe, and the +Petersburg horse-races. The President, regarding him as "the great +electioneering manager for General Jackson," promptly noted in his +diary, when the interview was over, that Van Buren was now acting the +part Burr had performed in 1799 and 1800; and he found "much resemblance +of character, manners, and even person, between the two men." + +As early as 1826 the Van Buren Republicans of New York, and an important +part of the Clintonians with the great governor at their head, had +determined to support Jackson. Van Buren is said to have concealed his +attitude until after his reëlection to the Senate in 1827. But this is a +complete error, except as to his public choice of a candidate. His +opposition to the Adams-Clay administration, it has already appeared, +had been outspoken from 1825. The Jackson candidacy was not indeed +definitely announced in New York until 1827. The cry for "Old Hickory" +then went up with a sudden unanimity which seemed to the Adams men a bit +of devilish magic, but which was the patient prearrangement of a +skillful politician appreciating his responsibility, and waiting, as the +greatest of living politicians[6] recently told England a statesman +ought to wait, until the time was really ripe, until the popular +inclination was sufficiently formed to justify action by men in +responsible public station. + +The opposition to the reëlection of John Quincy Adams in 1828 was +sincerely considered by him, and has been often described by others, as +singularly causeless, unworthy, and even monstrous. But in truth it led +to one of the most necessary, one of the truest, political revolutions +which our country has known. Both Adams and Clay were positive and able +men. They were resolute that the rather tepid democracy of Monroe should +be succeeded by a highly national, a federally active administration. +Prior to the election of 1824 Clay had been as nearly in opposition as +the era of good feeling permitted. Early in Monroe's administration he +had attacked the President's declaration that Congress had no right to +construct roads and canals. His criticism, Mr. Schurz tells us in his +brilliant and impartial account of the time, "had a strong flavor of +bitterness in it;" it was in part made up of "oratorical flings," by +which Clay unnecessarily sought to attack and humiliate Monroe. Adams's +diary states Clay's opposition to have been "violent, systematic," his +course to have been "angry, acrimonious." Late in 1819 Monroe's friends +had even consulted over the wisdom of defeating Clay's reëlection to the +speakership; and still later Clay had, as Mr. Schurz says, fiercely +castigated the administration for truckling to foreigners. When Clay +came into power, it would have been unreasonable for him to suppose that +there must not arise vigorous parliamentary opposition on the part of +those who consider themselves the true Republican successors of Monroe, +seeking to stop the diversion into strange ways which Clay and Adams had +now begun. Richard Rush of Pennsylvania, Adams's secretary of the +treasury, and now the Adams candidate for vice-president, had, in one of +his annual reports, declared it to be the duty of government "to augment +the number and variety of occupations for its inhabitants; to hold out +to every degree of labor, and to every modification of skill, its +appropriate object and inducement; to organize the whole labor of a +country; to entice into the widest ranges its mechanical and +intellectual capacities, instead of suffering them to slumber; to call +forth, wherever hidden, latent ingenuity, giving to effort activity and +to emulation ardor; to create employment for the greater amount of +numbers by adapting it to the diversified faculties, propensities, and +situations of men, so that every particle of ability, every shade of +genius, may come into requisition." Nor did this glowing picture of a +useful and beneficent government go far beyond the utterances of Rush's +senior associate on the presidential ticket. It is certain that it was +highly agreeable to Clay. + +Surely there could be no clearer political issue presented, on the one +side by Van Buren's speeches in the Senate, and on the other by +authoritative and solemn declarations of the three chief persons of the +administration. Whatever the better side of the issue may have been, no +issue was ever a more legitimate subject of a political campaign. It is +true that the accusations were unfounded, which were directed against +Adams for treachery to the Republican principles he professed after, on +adhering to Jefferson, he had resigned his seat in the Senate. He had +joined Jefferson on questions of foreign policy and domestic defense, +and had, until his election to the presidency, been chiefly concerned +with diplomacy. But though the accusations were false, it is true enough +that Adams himself had made the issue of the campaign. Nor was it +creditable to him that he saw in the opposition something merely +personal to himself. If he were wrong upon the issue, as Van Buren and a +majority of the people thought, his long public service, his utter +integrity, his exalted sense of the obligations of office, ought not to +have saved him from the battle or from defeat. How true and deep was +this political contest of 1828 one sees in the fact that from it, almost +as much as from the triumph of Jefferson, flow the traditions of one of +the great American parties, traditions which survived the corruptions of +slavery, and are still powerful in party administration.[7] If John +Quincy Adams had been elected, and if, as might naturally have been the +case, there had followed, at this commencement of railway building, a +firm establishment of the doctrine that the national government could +properly build roads within the States, it is more than mere speculation +to say that the later history of the United States would, whether for +the better or the worse, have been very different from what it has been. +The dangers to which American institutions would be exposed, if the +federal government had become a great power levying taxes upon the whole +country to be used in constructing railways, or, what was worse, +purchasing stock in railway corporations, and doing this, as it would +inevitably have done, according to the amount of pressure here or +there,--such dangers, it is easy to understand, seem, whether rightly or +wrongly, appalling to a large class of political thinkers. To realize +this sense of danger dissipates the aspect of _doctrinaire_ extravagance +in the speeches of Adams's opponents against latitudinarian +construction. + +In the canvass of 1828 there was on both sides more wicked and +despicable exhibition of slander than had been known since Jefferson and +John Adams were pitted against each other. Jackson was a military +butcher and utterly illiterate; the chastity of his wife was doubtful. +Adams had corruptly bargained away offices; his accounts of public +moneys received by him needed serious scrutiny; and, that the charges +might be precisely balanced, he had when minister at St. Petersburg +acted as procurer to the Czar of Russia. These lies doubtless defeated +themselves; but in each election since 1828 there have been politicians +low enough and silly enough to imitate them. To nothing of this kind did +Van Buren descend. Nor does it seem that even then he used the cry of a +corrupt bargain between Adams and Clay, in which Jackson believed as +long as he lived. The coalition of 1825, defeating, as it had, a +candidate chosen by a larger number of voters than any other, was the +most used, and probably the most successfully used, of any of the +campaign issues. Nor was this clearly illegitimate, although Adams and +many for him have hotly condemned its immorality. Every political +coalition between men lately in opposition political and personal, by +which both get office, is fairly open to criticism. In experience it has +always been full of political danger, although since the prejudice of +the times has worn away, the defense of Adams and Clay is seen to be +amply sufficient. Whatever had been their mutual dislikes political or +personal, each of them was politically and in his practical +statesmanship far nearer to the other than to any other of the +competitors. But we have yet to see a political campaign against a +coalition whose members have been rewarded with office, in which this +form of attack is not made by men very intelligent and most honest. Nor +is there any reason to hold the followers of Jackson to a higher +standard. In our own time we have seen two coalitions whose parties +wisely recognized this danger. The chief leaders of the Republican +revolt in 1884 neither sought nor took office from the former +adversaries with whom for once they then acted. The Dissenting Liberals +in England did not take office in the Conservative ministry formed in +1886; and the odium which, in the change later made in it, followed Mr. +Goschen into its second place, illustrated very well the truth that, +however honorable the course may be, it is inevitably dangerous.[8] + +Nor can moral condemnation be passed upon the use in 1828 of the defeat +in 1824, of the candidate having the largest popular vote. We see pretty +clearly in a constitutionally governed country that when power is +lawfully lodged with a public man, he must act upon his own judgment; +and that, if he be influenced by others, then he ought to be influenced +by the wishes and interests of those who supported him, and not of +those who opposed him, even though far more numerous than his +supporters. Repeatedly have we seen a state legislature, which the +arrangement of districts has caused to be elected from a party in +minority in the whole State, choose a federal senator who it was known +would have been defeated upon a popular vote; and this without criticism +of the conduct of the legislators, but only of the defective district +division. In Connecticut it has happened more than once that, neither +candidate for governor having a majority vote, the legislature has +chosen a candidate having one of the smaller minorities; and here again +without criticism of the legislature's morality. But still the general +rule of American elections is, that the candidate shall be chosen who is +preferred by more votes than any other. To assent to a constitutional +defeat of such a preference, but afterwards and under the law to make +strong appeal to right the wrong which the law has wrought, seems a +highly defensible course, and to deserve little of the criticism visited +upon the Jackson canvass of 1828. If party divisions be justifiable, if +chief public officers are to be chosen for their views on great +questions of state, if the cold appeals of political reasoning are ever +rightly strengthened by appeals to popular feelings, the campaign which +Van Buren and his associates began in 1825 or 1826 was perfectly +justifiable. Nor in its result can any one deny, whether it were for +better or worse, that their success in the battle worked a change in the +principles of administration, and not a mere vulgar driving from office +of one body of men that another might take their places. + +The death of De Witt Clinton left Van Buren easily the largest figure in +public life, as he had for several years been the most powerful +politician, in New York State. The gossip that the most important place +in Jackson's cabinet was really allotted to him before the election of +1828 is probably true. But, whether true or not, there was, apart from a +natural desire to administer the first office in his State, obvious +advantage to his political prestige in passing successfully through a +popular election. The most cynical of managing politicians recognize the +enormous strength of a man for whom the people have actually shown that +they like to vote. Van Buren may have counted besides upon the advantage +which Jackson's personal popularity brought to those in his open +alliance, although Adams was known still to have, as the election showed +he had, considerable Democratic strength. Van Buren took therefore the +Bucktail nomination for governor of New York. The National Republicans, +as the Adams men were called, nominated Smith Thompson, a judge of the +federal Supreme Court. Van Buren got 136,794 and Thompson 106,444 votes. +But in spite of so large a plurality Van Buren did not quite have a +majority of the popular vote. Solomon Southwick, the anti-Masonic +candidate, received 33,345 votes. It was the first election after this +extraordinary movement. The abduction of Morgan and his probable murder +to prevent his revelation of Masonic secrets had occurred in the fall of +1826. The criminal trials consequent upon it had caused intense +excitement; and a political issue was easily made, for many +distinguished men of both parties were members of that secret order. How +powerful for a time may be a popular cry, though based upon an utterly +absurd issue, became more obvious still later when electoral votes for +president were cast for William Wirt, the anti-Masonic candidate; and +when John Quincy Adams, after graduating from the widest experience in +public affairs of any American of his generation, was, as he himself +records, willing to accept, and when William H. Seward was willing to +tender him, a presidential nomination of the anti-Masonic party. As +Southwick's preposterous vote was in 1828 drawn from both parties, Van +Buren's prestige, although he had but a plurality vote, was increased by +his victory at the polls. Jackson very truly said in February, 1832, +that it was now "the general wish and expectation of the Republican +party throughout the Union" that Van Buren should take the place next to +the President in the national administration. Jackson was himself +elected by a very great popular and electoral majority. In New York, +where on this single occasion the electors were chosen in districts, and +where the anti-Masonic vote was cast against Jackson who held high rank +in the Masonic order, Adams secured 16 votes to Jackson's 18; but to +the latter were added the two electors chosen by the thirty-four +district electors. + +Van Buren's career as governor was very brief. He was inaugurated on +January 1, 1829, and at once resigned his seat in the federal Senate. On +March 12th of the same year he resigned the governor's seat. His +inaugural message is said by Hammond, the political historian of New +York, by no means too friendly to Van Buren, to have been "the best +executive message ever communicated to the legislature;" and after +nearly sixty years, it seems, in the leather-covered tome containing it, +a remarkably clear, wise, and courageous paper. The excitement over +internal improvements in communication was then at its height. He +declared that, whatever difference there might be as to whether such +improvements ought to be undertaken by the federal government or by the +States, none seriously doubted that it was wise to apply portions of the +means of New York to such improvements. The investment of the State in +the Delaware and Hudson canal, then just completed, had, he thought, +been "crowned with the most cheering success." Splendid, too, as had +been the success of the Erie and Champlain canals, it was still clear +that all had not been equally benefited. The friends of the state road +and of the Chemung and Chenango canals had urged him to recommend for +them a legislative support. But it was a time, he said, for "the utmost +prudence and circumspection" upon that "delicate and vitally interesting +subject." + +The banking question, he told the legislature, would make the important +business of its session. It turned out besides to be one of the +important businesses of Van Buren's career. To meet the attacks upon him +for having once been interested in a bank, he dexterously recited that, +"having for many years ceased to have an interest in those institutions +and declined any agency in their management," he was conscious of his +imperfect information. But he could not ignore a matter of such +magnitude to their constituents. The whole bank agitation at this time +showed the difficulties and scandals caused by the absence of a free +banking system, and by the long accustomed grants of exclusive banking +charters. Of the forty banks in the State, all specially incorporated, +the charters of thirty-one would expire within one, two, three, or four +years. Their actual capital was $15,000,000; their outstanding loans, +more than $30,000,000. Van Buren urged, therefore, the legislature now +to make by general law final disposition of the whole subject. The +abolition of banks had, he said, no advocate, and a dependence solely +upon those established by federal authority deserved none; but he +rejected the idea of a state bank. "Experience," he declared, "has shown +that banking operations, to be successful, and consequently beneficial +to the community, must be conducted by private men upon their own +account." He condemned the practice by which the State accepted a money +bonus for granting a bank charter, necessarily involving some monopoly. +The concern of the State, he pointed out, should be to make its banks +and their circulation secure; and such security was impaired, not +increased, by encouraging banks in competition with one another, and +"stimulated by the golden harvest in view," to make large payments for +their charters. He submitted for legislative consideration the idea of +the "safety fund" communicated to him in an interesting and intelligent +paper by Joshua Forman. Under this system all the banks of the State, +whatever their condition, were to contribute to a fund to be +administered under state supervision, the fund to be a security for all +dishonored bank-notes. To this extent all the banks were to insure or +indorse the circulation of each bank, thus saving the scandal and loss +arising from the occasional failure of banks to redeem their notes, and +making every bank watchful of all its associates. In compelling the +banks to submit to some general scheme, the representative of the people +would indeed, he said, enter into "conflict with the claims of the great +moneyed interest of the country; but what political exhibition so truly +gratifying as the return to his constituents of the faithful public +servant after having turned away every approach and put far from him +every sinister consideration!" + +Van Buren proposed a separation of state from national elections; a +question still discussed, and upon each side of which much is to be +said. He attacked the use of money in elections, "the practice of +employing persons to attend the polls for compensation, of placing large +sums in the hands of others to entertain the electors," and other +devices by which the most valuable of all our temporal privileges "was +brought into disrepute." If the expenses of elections should increase as +they had lately done, the time would soon arrive "when a man in middling +circumstances, however virtuous, will not be able to compete upon +anything like equal terms with a wealthy opponent." In long advance of a +modern agitation for reform which, lately beginning with us, will, it is +to be hoped, not cease until the abuses are removed, he proposed a law +imposing "severe and enforcible penalties upon the advance of money by +individuals for any purposes connected with the election except the +single one of printing." + +Turning to the field of general politics, he again declared the +political faith to whose support he wished to rally his party. That "a +jealousy of the exercise of delegated political power, a solicitude to +keep public agents within the precise limits of their authority, and an +assiduous adherence to a rigid and scrupulous economy, were indications +of a contracted spirit unbecoming the character of a statesman," he +pronounced to be a political heresy, from which he himself had not been +entirely free, but which ought at once to be exploded. Official +discretion, as a general rule, could not be confided to any one without +danger of abuse. But he reproved the parsimony which disagreeably +characterized the democracy of the time, and which inadequately paid +great public servants like the chancellor and judges. In the tendency of +the federal government to encroach upon the States lay, he thought, the +danger of the federal Constitution. But of the disposition and capacity +of the American people to resist such encroachments as our political +history recorded, there were, he said, without naming either Adams, "two +prominent and illustrious instances." As long as that good spirit was +preserved, the republic would be safe; and for that preservation every +patriot ought to pray. + +The reputation of the country had in some degree suffered, he said, from +"the uncharitable and unrelenting scrutiny to which private as well as +public character" had been subjected in the late election. But this +injury had been "relieved, if not removed, by seeing how soon the +overflowing waters of bitterness" had spent themselves, and "that +already the current of public feeling had resumed its accustomed +channels." These excesses were the price paid for the full enjoyment of +the right of opinion. With an assertion of "perfect deference to that +sacred privilege, and in the humble exercise of that portion of it" +which belonged to him, and of a sincere desire not to offend the +feelings of those who differed from him, he ended his message by +congratulating the legislature upon the election of Jackson and Calhoun. +This result, he said in words not altogether insincere or untrue, but +full of the unfairness of partisan dispute, infused fresh vigor into the +American political system, refuted the odious imputation that republics +are ungrateful, dissipated the vain hope that our citizens could be +influenced by aught save appeals to their understanding and love of +country, and finally exhibited in "bold relief the omnipotence of public +opinion, and the futility of all attempts to overawe it by the +denunciation of power, or to reduce it by the allurements of patronage." + +Among the Hoyt letters, afterwards published by Van Buren's rancorous +enemy, Mackenzie, are two letters of his upon his patronage as governor. +It is not unfair to suppose that he wrote many other letters like them, +and they give a useful glimpse of the distribution of offices at Albany +sixty years ago. These letters to Hoyt were of the most confidential +character, and showed a strong but not uncontrolled desire to please +party friends and to meet party expectations. But in none of them is +there a suggestion of anything dishonorable. He asked, "When will the +Republican party be made sensible of the indispensable necessity of +nominating none but true and tried men, so that when they succeed they +gain something?" He was unable to oblige his "good friend Coddington ... +in relation to the health appointments." Dr. Westervelt's claims were +"decidedly the strongest; and much was due to the relations in which he +stood to Governor Tompkins, especially from one who knew so well what +the latter has done and suffered for this State." He wrote of Marcy, +whom he appointed a judge of the supreme court, that he "was so situated +that I must make him a judge or ruin him." All this is doubtless not +unlike what the best of public officers have sometimes said and thought, +though rarely written; and, like most talk over patronage, it is not in +very exalted tone. But if Van Buren admitted as one of Westervelt's +claims to public office that he was of a Whig family and a Democrat +"from his cradle," he found among his other claims that he was "a +gentleman and a man of talent," and had been "three years in the +hospital and five years deputy health officer, until he was cruelly +removed." Dr. Manley he refused to remove from the health office, +because "his extraordinary capacity is universally admitted;" and +pointed out that the removal "could only be placed on political grounds, +and as he was a zealous Jackson man at the last election, that could not +have been done without danger." "I should not," he said, however, "have +given Manley the office originally, if I could have found a competent +Republican to take it." William L. Marcy, whom he made judge, was +already known as one of the ablest men in the State, and his appointment +was admirable, though his salvation from ruin, if Van Buren was speaking +seriously, was not a public end fit to be served by high judicial +appointment. John C. Spencer, one of the best lawyers of New York, was +appointed by Van Buren special counsel for the prosecution of Morgan's +murderers. Hammond wondered "how so rigid a party man as Mr. Van Buren +was, came to appoint a political opponent to so important an office," +but concluded that it was a fine specimen of his peculiar tact, because +Spencer, though a man of talents and great moral courage, might be +defeated in the prosecution, and thus be injured with the anti-Masons; +while if he succeeded, his vigor and fidelity would draw upon him +Masonic hostility. But the simpler explanation is the more probable. Van +Buren desired to adhere in this, as he did in most of his appointments, +to a high standard. Upon this particular appointment his own motives +might be distrusted; and he therefore went to the ranks of his +adversaries for one of their most distinguished and invulnerable +leaders. Van Buren was long condemned as a "spoils" politician; but he +was not accused of appointing either incompetent or dishonest men to +office. In the great place of governor he must have already begun to see +how difficult and dangerous was this power of patronage. It must be +fairly admitted that he pretty carefully limited, by the integrity and +efficiency of the public service, the political use which he made of his +appointments,--a use made in varying degrees by every American holding +important executive power from the first Adams to our own time. + +On March 12, 1829, Governor Van Buren resigned his office with the +hearty and unanimous approval of his party friends, whom he gathered +together on receiving Jackson's invitation to Washington. He was in +their hands, he said, and should abide by their decision. Both houses of +the legislature passed congratulatory and even affectionate resolutions; +and his brief and brilliant career in the executive chamber of the State +ended happily, as does any career which ends that a seemingly greater +one may begin. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SECRETARY OF STATE.--DEFINITE FORMATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC CREED + + +Van Buren was appointed secretary of state on March 5, 1829; but did not +reach Washington until the 22d, and did not act as secretary until April +4. James A. Hamilton, a son of Alexander Hamilton, but then an +influential Jackson man, was acting secretary in the meantime. The two +years of Van Buren's administration of this office are perhaps the most +picturesque years of American political history. The Eaton scandal; the +downfall of Calhoun's political power; the magical success of Van Buren; +the "kitchen cabinet;" the odious removals from office, and the outcries +of the removed; the fiery passion of Jackson; the horror both real and +affected of the opposition,--all these have been an inexhaustible quarry +to historical writers. Until very recently the larger use has been made +of the material derived from hostile sources; and it has seemed easy to +paint pictures of this really important time in the crudest and highest +colors of dislike. The American democracy, at last let loose, driven by +Jackson with a sort of demoniac energy and cunningly used by Van Buren +for his own selfish and even Mephistophelian ends, is supposed to have +broken from every sound and conservative principle. Perhaps for no other +period in our history has irresponsible and unverified campaign +literature of the time so largely become authority to serious writers; +and for no other period does truth more strongly require a judgment upon +well established results rather than upon partisan rumor and gossip. +During these years there was definitely and practically formed, under +the auspices of Jackson's administration, a political creed, a body of +principles or tendencies in politics which have ever since strongly held +the American people. Some of them have become established by a universal +acquiescence. During the same years there began an extension into +federal politics of the "spoils system," which has been an evil second +only to slavery, and from which we are only now recovering. To Van Buren +more than to any man of his time must be awarded the credit of forming +the creed of the Jacksonian Democracy. And in the shame of the abuse, +which has so greatly tended to neutralize the soundest articles of +political faith, Van Buren must participate with other and inferior men +of his own time, and with the very greatest of the men who followed him. +In this narrative it is impossible to ignore some of the petty and +undignified details which characterized the time,--details from part of +the discredit of which Van Buren cannot escape. But it would lead to +gross error to let such details obscure the vital and lasting political +work of the highest order in which Van Buren was a central and +controlling power. + +Besides Van Buren, Jackson's cabinet included Ingham of Pennsylvania in +the Treasury, Eaton in the War Department, Branch in the Navy, Berrien +of Georgia attorney-general, and Barry of Kentucky in the Post-Office, +succeeding McLean, who after a short service was appointed to the +Supreme Court. Eaton, Branch, and Berrien had been federal senators, the +first chiefly commended by Jackson's strong personal liking for him. +Ingham, Branch, and Berrien represented, or were supposed to represent, +the Calhoun influence. Van Buren in ability and reputation easily stood +head and shoulders above his associates. When he left Albany for +Washington he was believed to have done more than any one else to secure +the Republican triumph; and if Webster's recollections twenty years +later were correct, he did more to prevent "Mr. Adams's reëlection in +1828, and to obtain General Jackson's election, than any other man--yes, +than any ten other men--in the country." He was the first politician in +the party; Calhoun and he were its most distinguished statesmen. Already +the succession after Jackson belonged to one of them, the only doubt +being to which; and in that doubt was stored up a long and complicated +feud. The rivalry between these two great men was inevitable; it was not +dishonorable to either. Calhoun's fame was the older; he was already one +of the junior candidates for the presidency, popular in Pennsylvania +and even in New England, when Van Buren was hardly known out of New +York. In 1829 he had been chosen vice-president for the second time. He +had shown talents of a very high order. But he had now suffered some +years from the presidential fever which distorts the vision, and which, +when popularity wanes, becomes heavy with enervating melancholy. He was +an able doctrinaire, but narrow and dogmatic. The jealous and ravenous +temper of the rich slaveholders of South Carolina already possessed him. +He was a Southern man; and all the presidents thus far, except the elder +and younger Adams, had been Southerners. In 1824 he had stood +indifferent between Jackson and Adams, and in Jackson's final triumph +had borne no decisive part. Van Buren's wider, richer, and more +constructive mind, his superior political judgment, his mellower +personality, his practical skill in affairs, sufficiently explain his +victory over Calhoun, without resort to the bitter rumors of tricks and +magical manoeuvres spread by Calhoun's and Clay's friends, and which, +though without authentic corroboration, have to our own day been widely +accepted. + +Before Jackson's inauguration, Calhoun sought to prevent Van Buren's +selection for the State Department. He told the general that Tazewell of +Virginia ought to be appointed. New York, he said, would have been +secured by Clinton if he had lived; but now New York needed no +appointment. Jackson listened coldly to the plainly jealous appeal; and +James A. Hamilton, who was at the time on intimate terms with Jackson, +supposed it to be Calhoun's last interview with Jackson about the +cabinet. Van Buren had been Jackson's choice a year ago; and to all the +reasons which had then existed were now added his great services in the +canvass, and the prestige of his popular election as governor. + +The episode of Mrs. Eaton, the wife of the new secretary of war, was +absurd enough in a constitutionally governed country; but this silly +"court scandal," which might very well have enlivened the pages of a +secretary of a privy council or an ambassador from a petty German +prince, did no more than hasten the inevitable division. In the +hastening, however, Van Buren doubtless reaped some profit in Jackson's +greater friendship. Many respectable people in Washington believed that +unchastity on the part of this lady had induced her former husband, +Timberlake, to cut his throat. Her second marriage to Eaton had just +taken place in January, 1829, after Jackson, learning of the scandal but +disbelieving it, had said to Eaton, "Your marrying her will disprove +these charges, and restore Peg's good name." The general treated with +violent contempt the persons, some of them clergymen, "whose morbid +appetite," he wrote the Rev. Dr. Ely on March 23, 1829, "delights in +defamation and slander." Burning with anger at those who had dared in +the recent canvass to malign his own wife now dead, he defended with +chivalrous resolution the lady whom his own wife "to the last moment of +her life believed ... to be an innocent and much-injured woman." Even +Mrs. Madison, he said, "was assailed by these fiends in human shape." +When protests were made against Eaton's appointment to the cabinet, +Jackson savagely cried, "I will sink or swim with him, by God!" All this +had happened before Van Buren reached Washington. There then followed +the grave question, whether Mrs. Eaton should be adjudged guilty by +society and sentenced to exclusion from its ceremonious enjoyments. The +ladies generally were determined against her, even the ladies of +Jackson's own household. Jackson proposed the task, impossible even to +an emperor, of compelling recognition of this distressed and persecuted +consort of a minister of state. The unfortunate married men in the +cabinet were in embarrassment indeed. They would not if they could, so +they said,--or at least they could not if they would,--induce their +wives to visit or receive visits from the wife of their colleague. +Jackson showed them very clearly that no other course would satisfy him. +Calhoun in his matrimonial state was at the same disadvantage. Even +foreign ministers and their wives met the President's displeasure for +not properly treating the wife of the American secretary of war. + +When Van Buren entered this farcical scene, his widowed condition, and +the fortune of having sons rather than daughters, left him quite +unembarrassed. He politely called upon his associate's wife, as he +called upon the others; he treated her with entire deference of manner. +It is probable, though by no means clear, for popular feeling was +supposed to run high in sacred defense of the American home, that this +was the more politic course. It is now, however, certain that by doing +so he gave to Jackson, and some who were personally very close to +Jackson, more gratification than he gave offense elsewhere; and this has +been the occasion of much aspersion of Van Buren's motives. But whether +his course were politic or not, it is easy enough to see that any other +course would have been inexcusable. It would have been dastardly in the +extreme for Van Buren, reaching Washington and finding a controversy +raging whether or not the wife of one of his associates were virtuous, +to pronounce her guilty, as he most unmistakably would have done had he +refused her the attention which etiquette required him to pay all ladies +in her position. Parton in his Life of Jackson quotes from an anonymous +Washington correspondent, whose account he says was "exaggerated and +prejudiced but not wholly incorrect," the story that Van Buren induced +the British and Russian ministers, both of whom to their immediate peace +of mind happened to be bachelors, to treat Mrs. Eaton with distinction +at their entertainments. But the supposition seems quite gratuitous. +Neither of those unmarried diplomats was likely to do so absurdly +indefensible a thing as to insult by marked exclusion a cabinet +minister's wife, whom the President for any reason, good or bad, treated +with special distinction and respect. Van Buren's common sense was a +strong characteristic; and he doubtless looked upon the whole affair +with amused contempt. As the cabinet officer who had most to do with +social ceremonies, he may well have sought to calm the irritation and +establish for Mrs. Eaton, where he could, the usual forms of civility. +Like many other blessings of etiquette, these forms permit one to hold +unoffending neutrality upon the moral deserts of persons whom he meets. +It happened that Calhoun's friends had tried to prevent Eaton's +appointment to the War Department, and afterwards sought to remove him +from the cabinet. The episode added, therefore, keen edge to the growing +hostility of Jackson and his near friends to Calhoun, and thus tended to +strengthen his rival. But all this would have signified little but for +something deeper and broader. The preference of Van Buren had been +dictated by powerful causes long before Mrs. Timberlake became Mrs. +Eaton. These causes now grew more and more powerful. + +Calhoun was serving his second term as Vice-President. A third term for +that office was obnoxious to the rule already established for the +presidency. Calhoun therefore desired Jackson to be content with one +term; for if he took a second, Calhoun feared, and with good reason, +that he himself, being then out of the vice-presidency, and so no longer +in sight on that conspicuous seat of preparation, might fall +dangerously out of mind. So it was soon known that Calhoun's friends +were opposed to a second term for Jackson. At a Pennsylvania meeting on +March 31, 1830, the opposition was openly made. Before this, and quite +apart from Jackson's natural hostility to the nullification theory which +had arisen in Calhoun's State, he had conceived a strong dislike for +Calhoun for a personal reason. With this Van Buren had nothing whatever +to do, so far as appears from any evidence better than the +uncorroborated rumors which ascribe to Van Buren's magic every incident +which injured Calhoun's standing with Jackson. Years before, Monroe's +cabinet had discussed the treatment due Jackson for his extreme measures +in the Seminole war. Calhoun, then secretary of war, had favored a +military trial of the victorious general; but John Quincy Adams and +Monroe had defended him, as did also Crawford, the secretary of the +treasury. For a long while Jackson had erroneously supposed that Calhoun +was the only member of the cabinet in his favor; and Calhoun had not +undeceived him. Some time before Jackson's election, Hamilton had +visited Crawford to promote the desired reconciliation between him and +the general; and a letter was written by Governor Forsyth of Georgia to +Hamilton, quoting Crawford's explanation of the real transactions in +Monroe's cabinet. Jackson was ignorant of all this until a dinner given +by him in honor of Monroe in November, 1829. Ringold, a personal friend +of Monroe's, in a complimentary speech at seeing Jackson and Monroe +seated together, said to William B. Lewis that Monroe had been "the only +one of his cabinet" friendly to Jackson in the Seminole controversy; and +after dinner the remark, after being discussed between Lewis and Eaton +the secretary of war, was repeated by the latter to Jackson, who said he +must be mistaken. Lewis then told Jackson of Forsyth's letter, which +greatly excited him, already disliking Calhoun as he did, and not +unnaturally susceptible about his reputation in a war which had been the +subject of violent and even savage attacks upon him in the recent +canvass. Jackson sent at once to New York for the letter. But Hamilton +was unwilling to give it without Forsyth's permission; and when Forsyth, +on the assembling of Congress, was consulted, he preferred that Crawford +should be directly asked for the information. This was done, and +Crawford wrote an account which in May, 1830, Jackson sent to Calhoun +with a demand for an explanation. Calhoun admitted that he had, after +hearing of the seizure of the Spanish forts in Florida and Jackson's +execution of the Englishmen Arbuthnot and Ambrister, expressed an +opinion against him, and proposed an investigation of his conduct by a +court of inquiry. He further told Jackson, with much dignity of manner, +that the latter was being used in a plot to effect Calhoun's political +extinction and the exaltation of his enemies. The President received +Calhoun's letter on his way to church, and upon his return from +religious meditation wrote to the Vice-President that "motives are to be +inferred from actions and judged by our God;" that he had long repelled +the insinuations that it was Calhoun, and not Crawford, who had secretly +endeavored to destroy his reputation; that he had never expected to say +to Calhoun, "_Et tu, Brute!_" and that there need be no further +communication on the subject. Thus was finally established the breach +between Calhoun and Jackson, which this personal matter had widened but +had by no means begun. In none of it did Van Buren have any part. When +Jackson sent Lewis to him with Calhoun's letter and asked his opinion, +he refused to read it, saying that an attempt would undoubtedly be made +to hold him responsible for the rupture, and he wished to be able to say +that he knew nothing of it. This course was doubtless politic, and +deserves no applause; but it was also simply right. On getting this +message Jackson said, "I reckon Van is right; I dare say they will +attempt to throw the whole blame on him." + +A few weeks before, on April 13, 1830, the dinner to celebrate +Jefferson's birthday was held at Washington. It was attended by the +President and Vice-President, the cabinet officers, and many other +distinguished persons. There were reports at the time that it was +intended to use Jefferson's name in support of the state-rights +doctrines, and against internal improvements and a protective tariff. +This shows how clearly were already recognized some of the great causes +underlying the political movements and personal differences of the time. +The splendid parliamentary encounter between Hayne and Webster had taken +place but two or three months before. In his speech Hayne, who was +understood, as Benton tells us, to give voice to the sentiments of +Calhoun, had plainly enough stated the doctrine of nullification. +Jackson at the dinner robustly confronted the extremists with his famous +toast, "Our federal Union: it must be preserved." Calhoun, already +conscious of his leadership in a sectional controversy, followed with +the sentiment, true indeed, but said in words very sinister at that +time: "The Union: next to our liberty the most dear. May we all remember +that it can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States, +and distributing equally the benefit and burden of the Union." The +secretary of state next rose with a toast with little ring or +inspiration in it, but plainly, though in conciliatory phrase, declaring +for the Union. He asked the company to drink, "Mutual forbearance and +reciprocal concessions: through their agency the Union was established. +The patriotic spirit from which they emanated will forever sustain it." + +Van Buren was now definitely a candidate for the succession. His +Northern birth and residence, his able leadership in Congress of the +opposition to the Adams administration, his almost supreme political +power in the first State of the Union, his clear and systematic +exposition of an intelligible and timely political creed, the support +his friends gave to Jackson's reëlection,--all these advantages were now +reënforced by the tendency to disunion clear in the utterances from +South Carolina, by Calhoun's efforts to exclude Van Buren and Eaton from +the cabinet, by the hostility to Mrs. Eaton of the ladies in the +households of Calhoun and of his friends in the cabinet, and now by +Jackson's discovery that, at a critical moment of his career ten years +before, Calhoun had sought his destruction. Here was a singular union of +really sound reasons why Van Buren should be preferred by his party and +by the country for the succession over Calhoun, with the strongest +reasons why Jackson, and those close to him, should be in most eager +personal sympathy with the preference. In December, 1829, Jackson had +explicitly pronounced in favor of Van Buren. This was in the letter to +Judge Overton of Tennessee, which Lewis is doubtless correct in saying +he asked Jackson to write lest the latter should die before his +successor was chosen. Jackson himself drafted the letter, which Lewis +copied with some verbal alteration; and the letter sincerely expressed +his own strong opinions. After alluding to the harmony between Van Buren +and his associates in the War and Post-Office Departments, he said: "I +have found him everything that I could desire him to be, and believe him +not only deserving my confidence, but the confidence of the nation. +Instead of his being selfish and intriguing, as has been represented by +some of his opponents, I have ever found him frank, open, candid, and +manly. As a counselor, he is able and prudent, republican in his +principles, and one of the most pleasant men to do business with I ever +knew. He, my dear friend, is well qualified to fill the highest office +in the gift of the people, who in him will find a true friend and safe +depositary of their rights and liberty. I wish I could say as much for +Mr. Calhoun and some of his friends." He criticised Calhoun for his +silence on the bank question, for his encouragement of the resolution in +the South Carolina legislature relative to the tariff, and for his +objection to the apportionment of the surplus revenues after the +national debt should be paid. Jackson had not yet definitely learned +from Forsyth's letter about Calhoun's attitude in Monroe's cabinet; but +his well-aroused suspicion doubtless influenced his expression. His +strong personal liking for the secretary of state had been evident from +the beginning of the administration. In a letter to Jesse Hoyt of April +13, 1829, the latter wrote that he had found the President affectionate, +confidential, and kind to the last degree, and that he believed there +was no degree of good feeling or confidence which the president did not +entertain for him. In July he wrote to Hamilton: "The general grows upon +me every day. I can fairly say that I have become quite enamored with +him." + +The break between Calhoun and Jackson was kept from the public until +early in 1831. In the preceding winter, Duff Green, the editor of the +"Telegraph," until then the administration newspaper, but still entirely +committed to Calhoun, sought to have the publication of the +Calhoun-Jackson correspondence accompanied by a general outburst from +Republican newspapers against Jackson. The storm, Benton tells us, was +to seem so universal, and the indignation against Van Buren so great, +that even Jackson's popularity would not save the prime minister. +Jackson's friends, Barry and Kendall, learning of this, called to +Washington an unknown Kentuckian to be editor of a new and loyal +administration paper. Francis P. Blair was a singularly astute man, +whose name, and the name of whose family, afterwards became famous in +American politics. He belonged to the race of advisers of great men, +found by experience to be almost as important in a democracy as in a +monarchy. In February, 1831, Calhoun openly declared war on Jackson by +publishing the Seminole correspondence. Green having now been safely +reëlected printer to Congress, the "Telegraph," according to the plan, +strongly supported Calhoun. The "Globe," Blair's paper, attacked Calhoun +and upheld the President. The importance in that day ascribed by +politicians to the control of a single newspaper seems curious. In 1823, +Van Buren, while a federal senator, was interested in the "Albany +Argus," almost steadily from that time until the present the ably +managed organ of the Albany Regency;[9] and he then confidentially +wrote to Hoyt: "Without a paper thus edited at Albany we may hang our +harps on the willows. With it, the party can survive a thousand such +convulsions as those which now agitate and probably alarm most of those +around you." This seems an astonishingly high estimate of the power of a +paper which, though relatively conspicuous in the State, could have then +had but a small circulation. It was, however, the judgment of a most +sagacious politician. In 1822 he complained to Hoyt that his expenses of +this description were too heavy. In 1833 James Gordon Bennett, then a +young journalist of Philadelphia, wrote Hoyt a plain intimation that +money was necessary to enable him to continue his journalistic warfare +in Van Buren's behalf. Anguish, disappointment, despair, he said, +brooded over him, while Van Buren chose to sit still and sacrifice those +who had supported him in every weather. Van Buren replied that he could +not directly or indirectly afford pecuniary aid to Bennett's press, and +more particularly as he was then situated; that if Bennett could not +continue friendly to him on public grounds and with perfect +independence, he could only regret it, but he desired no other support. +He added, however, not to burn his ships behind him, that he had +supposed there would be no difficulty in obtaining money in New York, if +their "friends in Philadelphia could not all together make out to +sustain one press." Thus was invited a powerful animosity, vindictively +shown even when Van Buren was within three years of his death. + +Soon after his arrival Blair entered the famous Kitchen Cabinet, a +singularly talented body, fond enough indeed of "wire-pulling," but with +clear and steady political convictions. William B. Lewis had long been a +close personal friend of Jackson and manager of his political interests, +and had but recently earned his gratitude by rushing successfully to the +defense of Mrs. Jackson's reputation. Kendall and Hill were adroit, +industrious, skillful men; the former afterwards postmaster-general, and +the latter to become a senator from New Hampshire. Blair entered this +company full of zeal against nullification and the United States Bank. +Jackson himself was so strong-willed a man, so shrewd in management, so +skillful in reading the public temper, that the story of the complete +domination of this junto over him is quite absurd. The really great +abilities of these men and their entire devotion to his interests gained +a profound and justifiable influence with him, which occasional petty or +unworthy uses made of it did not destroy. No one can doubt that Jackson +was confirmed by them in the judgment to which Van Buren urged him upon +great political issues. The secretary of state refused to give the new +paper of Blair any of the printing of his department, lest its origin +should be attributed to him, and because he wished to be able to say +truly that he had nothing to do with it. Kendall, who lived through the +civil war, strongly loyal to the Union and to Jackson's memory, to die a +wealthy philanthropist, declared in his autobiography, and doubtless +correctly, that the "Globe" was not established by Van Buren or his +friends, but by friends of Jackson who desired his reëlection for +another four years. Nevertheless Van Buren was held responsible for the +paper; and its establishment was soon followed by the dissolution of the +cabinet. + +This explosion, it is now clear, was of vast advantage to the cause of +the Union. It took place in April, 1831, and in part at least was Van +Buren's work. On the 9th of that month he wrote to Edward Livingston, +then a senator from Louisiana spending the summer at his seat on the +Hudson River, asking him to start for Washington the day after he +received the letter, and to avoid speculation "by giving out that" he +was "going to Philadelphia." Livingston wrote back from Washington to +his wife that Van Buren had taken the high and popular ground that, as a +candidate for the presidency, he ought not to remain in the cabinet when +its public measures would be attributed to his intrigue, and thus made +to injure the President; and that Van Buren's place was pressed upon him +"with all the warmth of friendship and every appeal to my love of +country." + +Van Buren, with courageous skill, put his resignation to the public +distinctly on the ground of his own political aspiration. On April 11, +1831, he wrote to the President a letter for publication, saying that +from the moment he had entered the cabinet it had been his "anxious wish +and zealous endeavor to prevent a premature agitation of the question" +of the succession, "and at all events to discountenance, and if possible +repress, the disposition, at an early day manifested," to connect his +name "with that disturbing topic." Of "the sincerity and constancy +of his disposition" he appealed to the President to judge. But he +had not succeeded, and circumstances beyond his control had given +the subject a turn which could not then "be remedied except by a +self-disfranchisement, which, even if dictated by" his "individual +wishes, could hardly be reconcilable with propriety or self-respect." In +the situation existing at the time, "diversities of ulterior preference +among the friends of the administration" were unavoidable, and he added: +"Even if the respective advocates of those thus placed in rivalship be +patriotic enough to resist the temptation of creating obstacles to the +advancement of him to whose elevation they are opposed, by embarrassing +the branch of public service committed to his charge, they are +nevertheless, by their position, exposed to the suspicion of +entertaining and encouraging such views,--a suspicion which can seldom +fail, in the end, to aggravate into present alienation and hostility +the prospective differences which first gave rise to it." The public +service, he said, required him to remove such "obstructions" from "the +successful prosecution of public affairs;" and he intimated, with the +affectation of self-depreciation which was disagreeably fashionable +among great men of the day, that the example he set would, +"notwithstanding the humility of its origin," be found worthy of respect +and observance. When four years later he accepted the presidential +nomination he repeated the sentiment of this letter, but more +explicitly, saying that his "name was first associated with the question +of General Jackson's successor more through the ill-will of opponents +than the partiality of friends." This seemed very true. For every +movement which had tended to commit the administration or its chief +against Calhoun or his doctrines, he had been held responsible as a +device to advance himself. His adversaries had proclaimed him not so +much a public officer as a self-seeking candidate. It was a rare and +true stroke of political genius to admit his aspiration to the +presidency; to deny his present candidacy and his self-seeking; but, +lest the clamor of his enemies should, if he longer held his office, +throw doubt upon his sincerity, to withdraw from that station, and to +prevent the continued pretense that he was using official opportunities, +however legitimately, to increase his public reputation or his political +power. Thus would the candidacy be thrust on him by his enemies. In his +letter he announced that Jackson had consented to stand for reëlection; +and that, "without a total disregard of the lights of experience," he +could not shut his eyes to the unfavorable influence which his +continuance in the cabinet might have upon Jackson's own canvass in +1832. + +In accepting the resignation Jackson declared the reasons which the +letter had presented too strong to be disregarded, thus practically +assenting to Van Buren's candidacy to succeed him. Jackson looked with +sorrow, he said, upon the state of things Van Buren had described. But +it was "but an instance of one of the evils to which free governments +must ever be liable," an evil whose remedy lay "in the intelligence and +public spirit of" their "common constituents," who would correct it; and +in that belief he found "abundant consolation." He added that, with the +best opportunities for observing and judging, he had seen in Van Buren +no other desire than "to move quietly on in the path of" his duties, and +"to promote the harmonious conduct of public affairs." "If on this +point," he apostrophized the departing premier, "you have had to +encounter detraction, it is but another proof of the utter insufficiency +of innocence and worth to shield from such assaults." + +Never was a presidential candidate more adroitly or less dishonorably +presented to his party and to the country. For the adroitness lay in the +frank avowal of a willingness or desire to be president and a resolution +to be a candidate,--for which, so far as their conduct went, his +adversaries were really responsible,--and in seizing an undoubted +opportunity to serve the public. Quite apart from the sound reason that +the secretary of state should not, if possible, be exposed in dealing +with public questions to aspersions upon his motives, as Van Buren was +quite right in saying that he would be, it was also clear that the +cabinet was inharmonious; and that its lack of harmony, whatever the +facts or wherever the fault, seriously interfered with the public +business. The administration and the country, it was obvious, were now +approaching the question of nullification, and upon that question it was +but patriotic to desire that its members should firmly share the union +principles of their chief. Within a few weeks after the dissolution of +the cabinet, Jackson seized the opportunity afforded him by an +invitation from the city of Charleston to visit it on the 4th of July, +to sound in the ears of nullification a ringing blast for the Union. +If he could go, he said, he trusted to find in South Carolina "all +the men of talent, exalted patriotism, and private worth," however +divided they might have been before, "united before the altar of +their country on the day set apart for the solemn celebration of its +independence,--independence which cannot exist without union, and with +it is eternal." The disunion sentiments ascribed to distinguished +citizens of the State were, he hoped, if indeed they were accurately +reported, "the effect of momentary excitement, not deliberate design." +For all the work then performed in defense of the Union, Jackson and +his advisers of the time must share with Webster and Clay the gratitude +of our own and all later generations. The burst of loyalty in April, +1861, had no less of its genesis in the intrepid front and the political +success of the national administration from 1831 to 1833, than in the +pathetic and glorious appeals and aspirations of the great orators. + +Jackson now called to the work Edward Livingston, privileged to perform +in it that service of his which deserves a splendid immortality. He +became secretary of state on May 24, 1831. Eaton, the secretary of war, +voluntarily resigned to become governor of Florida; and Barry, the +postmaster-general, who was friendly to the reorganization, was soon +appointed minister to Spain, in which post Eaton later succeeded him. +Ingham, Branch, and Berrien, the Calhoun members, were required to +resign. The new cabinet, apart from the state department, was on the +whole far abler than the old; indeed, it was one of the ablest of +American cabinets. Below Livingston at the council table sat McLane of +Delaware, recalled from the British mission to take the treasury, +Governor Cass of Michigan, and Senator Woodbury of New Hampshire, +secretaries of war and navy. Amos Kendall brought to the post-office his +extraordinary astuteness and diligence in administration; and Taney, +later the chief justice, was attorney-general. The executive talents of +this body of men, loyal as they were to the plans of Jackson and Van +Buren, promised, and they afterwards brought, success in the struggle +for the principles now adopted by the party, as well as for the control +of the government. Van Buren stood as truly for a policy of state as +ever stood any candidate before the American people. One finds it +agreeable now to escape for a moment from the Washington atmosphere of +personal controversy and ambition. It is not to be forgotten, however, +that a like atmosphere has surrounded even those political struggles in +America, only three or four in number, which have been greater and +deeper than that in which Jackson and Van Buren were the chief figures. +From this temper of personal controversy and ambition the greatest +political benefactors of history have not been free, so inevitable is +the mingling with large affairs of the varied personal motives, +conscious and unconscious, of those who transact them. + +When Van Buren left the first place in Jackson's cabinet, the latter, +too, at last stood for the definite policy which he had but imperfectly +adopted when he was elected, and which, as a practical and immediate +political plan, it is reasonably safe to assert, was most largely the +creation of the sagacious mind of his chief associate. Before Van Buren +left Albany he had written to Hamilton on February 21, 1829, with +reference to Jackson's inaugural: "I hope the general will not find it +necessary to avow any opinion upon constitutional questions at war with +the doctrines of the Jefferson school. Whatever his views may be, there +can be no necessity of doing so in an inaugural address." This shows the +doubt, which had been caused by some of Jackson's utterances and votes, +of his intelligent and systematic adherence to the political creed +preached by Van Buren. Jackson's inaugural was colorless and safe +enough. Upon strict construction he said that he should "keep steadily +in view the limitations as well as the extent of the executive power;" +that he would be "animated by a proper respect for those sovereign +members of our Union, taking care not to confound the powers they have +reserved to themselves with those they have granted to the confederacy." +The bank he did not mention. And upon the living and really great +question, to which Van Buren had given so much study, Jackson said, +himself probably having a grim sense of humor at the absurd emptiness of +the sentence: "Internal improvement and the diffusion of knowledge, so +far as they can be promoted by the constitutional acts of the federal +government, are of high importance." + +Very different was the situation when two years later Van Buren left the +cabinet. In several state papers of great dignity and ability and yet +popular and interesting in style, Jackson had formulated a political +creed closely consistent with that advocated by Van Buren in the Senate. +Upon internal improvements, Jackson, on May 27, 1830, sent to the House +his famous Maysville Road veto. That road was exclusively within the +State of Ohio, and not connected with any existing system of +improvements. Jackson very well said that if it could be considered +national, no further distinction between the appropriate duties of the +general and state governments need be attempted. He pointed out the +tendency of such appropriations, little by little, to distort the +meaning of the Constitution; and found in former legislation "an +admonitory proof of the force of implication, and that necessity of +guarding the Constitution with sleepless vigilance against the authority +of precedents which have not the sanction of its most plainly defined +powers." In his annual message of December, 1830, he referred to the +system of federal subscriptions to private corporate enterprises, +saying: "The power which the general government would acquire within the +several States by becoming the principal stockholder in corporations, +controlling every canal and each sixty or hundred miles of every +important road, and giving a proportionate vote to all their elections, +is almost inconceivable, and in my view dangerous to the liberties of +the people." With these utterances ended the very critical struggle to +give the federal government a power which even in those days would have +been great, and which, as has already been said, had it continued with +the growth of railways, would have enormously and radically changed our +system of government. + +Before he left the Senate Van Buren had pronounced against the Bank of +the United States; but Jackson did not mention it in his inaugural. In +his first annual message, however, Jackson warned Congress that the +charter of the bank would expire in 1836, and that deliberation upon +its renewal ought to commence at once. "Both the constitutionality +and the expediency of the law creating this bank," he said, "are well +questioned ...; and it must be admitted by all that it has failed in the +great end of establishing a uniform and sound currency." This was plain +enough for a first utterance. A year later he told Congress that nothing +had occurred to lessen in any degree the dangers which many citizens +apprehended from that institution as then organized, though he outlined +an institution which should be not a corporation, but a branch of the +Treasury Department, and not, as he thought, obnoxious to constitutional +objections. + +The removal of the Cherokee Indians from within the State of Georgia he +defended by considerations which were practically unanswerable. It was +dangerously inconsistent with our political system to maintain within +the limits of a State Indian tribes, free from the obligations of state +laws, having a tribal independence, and bound only by treaty relations +with the United States. It was harsh to remove the Indians; but it would +have been harsher to them and to the white people of the State to have +supported by federal arms an Indian sovereignty within its limits. +Jackson, with true Democratic jealousy, refused in his political and +executive policy to defer to the merely moral weight of the opinion of +the Supreme Court. For in that tribunal political and social exigencies +could have but limited force in answering a question which, as the court +itself decided, called for a political remedy, which the President and +not the court could apply. + +The tariff might, Jackson declared, be constitutionally used for +protective purposes; but the deliberate policy of his party was now +plainly intimated. In his first message he "regretted that the +complicated restrictions which now embarrass the intercourse of nations +could not by common consent be abolished." In the Maysville veto he said +that, "as long as the encouragement of domestic manufactures" was +"directed to national ends," ... it should receive from him "a temperate +but steady support." But this is to be read with the expression in the +same paper that the people had a right to demand "the reduction of every +tax to as low a point as the wise observance of the necessity to protect +that portion of our manufactures and labor, whose prosperity is +essential to our national safety and independence, will allow." This +encouragement was, he said in his inaugural, to be given to those +products which might be found "essential to our national independence." +In his second message he declared "the obligations upon all the trustees +of political power to exempt those for whom they act from all +unnecessary burdens;" that "the resources of the nation beyond those +required for the immediate and necessary purposes of government can +nowhere be so well deposited as in the pockets of the people;" that +"objects of national importance alone ought to be protected;" and that +"of those the productions of our soil, our mines, and our workshops, +essential to national defense, occupy the first rank." Other domestic +industries, having a national importance, and which might, after +temporary protection, compete with foreign labor on equal terms, +merited, he said, the same attention in a subordinate degree. The +economic light here was not very clear or strong, but perhaps as strong +as it often is in a political paper. Jackson's conclusion was that the +tariff then existing taxed some of the comforts of life too highly; +protected interests too local and minute to justify a general exaction; +and forced some manufactures for which the country was not ripe. + +All this practical and striking growth in political science had taken +place during the two years of Jackson's and Van Buren's almost daily +intercourse at Washington. It is impossible from materials yet made +public to point out with precision the latter's handiwork in each of +these papers. James A. Hamilton describes his own long nights at the +White House on the messages of 1829 and 1830; and his were not the only +nights of the kind spent by Jackson's friends. Jackson, like other +strong men, and like some whose opportunities of education had been far +ampler than his, freely used literary assistance, although, with all his +inaccuracies, he himself wrote in a vigorous, lucid, and interesting +style. But with little doubt the political positions taken in these +papers, and which made a definite and lasting creed, were more +immediately the work of the secretary of state. The consultations with +Van Buren, of which Hamilton tells, are only glimpses of what must +continually have gone on. At the time of Jackson's inauguration Hamilton +wrote that the latter's confidence was reposed in men in no way equal to +him in natural parts, but who had been useful to him in covering "his +very lamentable defects of education," and whom, through his reluctance +to expose these defects to others, he was compelled to keep about him. +He added that Van Buren could never reach the same relation which Lewis +held with the general, because the latter would "not yield himself so +readily to superior as to inferior minds." This was a mistake. Van +Buren's personal loyalty to Jackson, his remarkable tact and delicacy, +had promptly aroused in Jackson that extraordinary liking for him which +lasted until Jackson died. With this advantage, Van Buren's clear-cut +theories of political conduct were easily lodged in Jackson's naturally +wise mind, to whose prepossessions and prejudices they were agreeable, +and received there the deference due to the practical sagacity in which +Van Buren's obvious political success had proved him to be a master. Van +Buren was doubtless greatly aided by the kitchen cabinet. He was careful +to keep on good terms with those who had so familiar an access to +Jackson. Kendall's singular and useful ability he soon discovered. It +was at the latter's instance that Kendall was invited to dinner at the +White House, where Van Buren paid him special attention. The influence +of the members of the kitchen cabinet with their master has been much +exaggerated. Soon after Lewis was appointed, and in spite of his +personal intimacy and of his rumored influence with the President, he +was, as he wrote to Hamilton, in some anxiety whether he might not be +removed; the President had at least, he said, entertained a proposition +to remove him, and was therefore, in view of Jackson's great debt to +him, no longer entitled to his "friendship or future support." + +Very soon after Van Buren's withdrawal from the cabinet, he was accused +of primarily and chiefly causing the official proscription of men for +political opinions which began in the federal service under Jackson. +From that time to the present the accusation has been carelessly +repeated from one writer to another, with little original examination of +the facts. It is clear that Van Buren neither began nor caused this +demoralizing and disastrous abuse. When he reached Washington in 1829, +the removals were in full and lamentable progress. In the very first +days of the administration, McLean was removed from the office of +postmaster-general to a seat in the Supreme Court, because, so Adams +after an interview with him wrote in his diary on March 14,1829, "he +refused to be made the instrument of the sweeping proscription of +postmasters which is to be one of the samples of the promised reform." +This was a week or two before Van Buren reached Washington. On the same +day Samuel Swartwout wrote to Hoyt from Washington: "No damned rascal +who made use of his office or its profits for the purpose of keeping Mr. +Adams in, and General Jackson out of power, is entitled to the least +lenity or mercy, save that of hanging.... Whether or not I shall get +anything in the general scramble for plunder remains to be proven; but I +rather guess I shall.... I know Mr. Ingham slightly, and would recommend +you to push like a devil, if you expect anything from that quarter.... +If I can only keep my own legs, I shall do well; but I'm darned if I can +carry any weight with me." This man, against Van Buren's earnest protest +and to his great disturbance, had some of the devil's luck in pushing. +He was appointed collector of customs at New York,--one of the principal +financial officers in the country. It is not altogether unsatisfactory +to read of the scandalous defalcation of which he was afterwards guilty, +and of the serious injury it dealt his party. The temper which he +exposed so ingenuously, filled Washington at the time. Nor did it come +only or chiefly from one quarter of the country. Kendall, then fresh +from Kentucky, who had been appointed fourth auditor, wrote to his wife, +with interestingly mingled sentiments: "I turned out six clerks on +Saturday. Several of them have families and are poor. It was the most +painful thing I ever did; but I could not well get along without it. +Among them is a poor old man with a young wife and several children. I +shall help to raise a contribution to get him back to Ohio.... I shall +have a private carriage to go out with me and bring my whole brood of +little ones. Bless their sweet faces." + +Van Buren confidentially wrote to Hamilton from Albany in March, 1829: +"If the general makes one removal at this moment he must go on. Would it +not be better to get the streets of Washington clear of office-seekers +first in the way I proposed?... As to the publication in the newspapers +I have more to say. So far as depends on me, my course will be to +restore by a single order every one who has been turned out by Mr. Clay +for political reasons, unless circumstances of a personal character have +since arisen which would make the reappointment in any case improper. To +ascertain that will take a little time. There I would pause." Among the +Mackenzie letters is one from Lorenzo Hoyt, describing an interview with +Van Buren while governor, and then complaining that the latter would +"not lend the utmost weight of his influence to displace from office +such men as John Duer," Adams's appointee as United States attorney at +New York. If they had been struggling for political success for the +benefit of their opponents, he angrily wrote, he wished to know it. He +added, however, that, from the behavior of the President thus far, he +thought Jackson would "go the whole hog." This was before Van Buren +reached Washington. In answer to an insolent letter of Jesse Hoyt urging +a removal, and telling the secretary of state that there was a "charm +attending bold measures extremely fascinating" which had given Jackson +all his glory, Van Buren wrote back: "Here I am engaged in the most +intricate and important affairs, which are new to me, and upon the +successful conduct of which my reputation as well as the interests of +the country depend, and which keep me occupied from early in the morning +until late at night. And can you think it kind or just to harass me +under such circumstances with letters which no man of common sensibility +can read without pain?... I must be plain with you.... The terms upon +which you have seen fit to place our intercourse are inadmissible." +Ingham, Jackson's secretary of the treasury, the next day wrote to this +typical office-seeker that the rage for office in New York was such that +an enemy menacing the city with desolation would not cause more +excitement. He added, speaking of his own legitimate work: "These duties +cannot be postponed; and I do assure you that I am compelled daily to +file away long lists of recommendations, etc., without reading them, +although I work 18 hours out of the 24 with all diligence. The +appointments can be postponed; other matters cannot; and it was one of +the prominent errors of the late administration that they suffered many +important public interests to be neglected, while they were cruising +about to secure or buy up partisans. This we must not do." + +Benton, friendly as he was to Jackson, condemned the system of removals; +and his fairness may well be trusted. He said that in Jackson's first +year (in which De Tocqueville, whom he was answering, said that Jackson +had removed every removable functionary) there were removed but 690 +officers through the whole United States for all causes, of whom 491 +were postmasters: the entire number of postmasters being at the time +nearly 8000. Kendall, reviewing the first three years of Jackson's +administration near their expiration, said that in the city of +Washington there had been removed but one officer out of seven, and +"most of them for bad conduct and character," a statement some of the +significance of which doubtless depends upon what was "bad character," +but which still fairly limits the epithet "wholesale" customarily +applied to these removals. In the Post-Office Department, he said, the +removals had been only one out of sixteen, and in the whole government +but one out of eleven. Kendall was speaking for party purposes; but he +was cautious and precise; and his statements, made near the time, show +how far behind the sudden "clean sweep" of 1861 was this earlier essay +in "spoils," and how much exaggeration there has been on the subject. +Benton says that in the departments at Washington a majority of the +employees were opposed to Jackson throughout his administration. Of the +officers having a judicial function, such as land and claims +commissioners, territorial judges, justices in the District of Columbia, +none were removed. The readiness to remove was stimulated by the +discovery of the frauds of Tobias Watkins, made just after his removal +from the fourth auditor's place, to which Kendall was appointed. Watkins +had been Adams's warm personal friend, so the latter states in his +diary, and "an over active partisan against Jackson at the last +presidential election." Unreasonable as was a general inference from one +of the instances of dishonesty which occur under the best +administrations, and a flagrant instance of which was soon to occur +under his own administration, it justified Jackson in his own eyes for +many really shameful removals. There had doubtless been among +office-holders under Adams a good deal of the "offensive partisanship" +of our day, many expressions of horror by subordinate officers at the +picture of Jackson as president. All this had angered Jackson, whose +imperial temper readily classed his subordinates as servants of Andrew +Jackson, rather than as ministers of the public service. Moreover, his +accession, as Benton not unfairly pointed out, was the first great party +change since Jefferson had succeeded the elder Adams. Offices had +greatly increased in number. In the profound democratic change that had +been actively operating for a quarter of a century, the force of old +traditions had been broken in many useful as in many useless things. +Great numbers of inferior offices had now become political, not only in +New York, but in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and other States. Adams's +administration, except in the change of policy upon large questions, had +been a continuation of Monroe's. He went from the first place in +Monroe's cabinet to the presidency. His secretaries of the treasury and +the navy and his postmaster-general and attorney-general had held office +under Monroe, the latter three in the very same places. But Jackson +thrust out of the presidency his rival, who had naturally enough been +earnestly sustained by large numbers of his subordinates; and Adams's +appointees were doubtless in general followers of himself and of Clay. + +Jackson's first message contained a serious defense of the removals. Men +long in office, he said, acquired the "habit of looking with +indifference upon the public interests," and office became considered "a +species of property." "The duties of all public officers," he declared, +with an ignorance then very common among Americans, could be "made so +plain and simple that men of intelligence may readily qualify themselves +for their performance." Further, he pointed out that no one man had "any +more intrinsic right" to office than another; and therefore "no +individual wrong" was done by removal. The officer removed, he +concluded, with almost a demagogic touch, had the same means of earning +a living as "the millions who never held office." In spite of individual +distress he wished "rotation in office" to become "a leading principle +in the Republican creed." Unfounded as most of this is now clearly seen +to be, it is certain that the reasoning was convincing to a very large +part of the American people. + +In his own department Van Buren practiced little of the proscription +which was active elsewhere. Of seventeen foreign representatives, but +four were removed in the first year. Doubtless he was fortunate in +having an office without the amount of patronage of the Post-Office or +the Treasury. Nothing in his career, however, showed a personal liking +for removals. The distribution of offices was not distasteful to him; +but his temper was neither prescriptive nor unfriendly. At times even +his partisan loyalty was doubted for his reluctance in this, which was +soon deemed an appropriate and even necessary party work. + +But Van Buren did not oppose the ruinous and demoralizing system. +Powerful as he was with Jackson, wise and far-seeing as he was, he must +receive for his acquiescence, or even for his silence, a part of the +condemnation which the American people, as time goes on, will more and +more visit upon one of the great political offenses committed against +their political integrity and welfare. But it must in justice be +remembered, not only that Van Buren did not begin or actively conduct +the distribution of spoils; not only that his acquiescence was in a +practice which in his own State he had found well established; but that +the practice in which he thus joined was one which it is probable he +could not have fully resisted without his own political destruction, and +perhaps the temporary prostration of the political causes to which he +was devoted. Though these be palliations and not defenses, the +biographer ought not to apply to human nature a rule of unprecedented +austerity. In Van Buren's politic yielding there was little, if any, +more timidity or time-serving than in the like yielding by every man +holding great office in the United States since Jackson's inauguration; +and the worst, the most corrupting, and the most demoralizing official +proscription in America took place thirty-two years afterwards, and +under a president who, in wise and exalted patriotism, was one of the +greatest statesmen, as he has been perhaps the best loved, of Americans, +and to whom blame ought to be assigned all the larger by reason of the +extraordinary power and prestige he enjoyed, and the moral fervor of the +nation behind him, which rendered less necessary this unworthy aid of +inferior patronage. + +So crowded and interesting were the two years of Van Buren's life in the +cabinet with matters apart from the special duties of his office, that +it is only at the last, and briefly, that an account can be given of his +career as secretary of state. His conduct of foreign affairs was firm, +adroit, dignified, and highly successful. It utterly broke the ideal of +turbulent and menacing incompetence which the Whigs set up for Jackson's +presidency. He had to solve no difficulty of the very first order; for +the United States were in profound peace with the whole world. He +performed, however, with skill and success two diplomatic services of +real importance, services which brought deserved and most valuable +strength to Jackson's administration. The American claims for French +spoliations upon American ships during the operation of Napoleon's +Berlin and Milan decrees had been under discussion for many years. They +were now resolutely pressed. In his message of December, 1829, Jackson, +doubtless under Van Buren's advice, paid some compliments to "France, +our ancient ally;" but then said very plainly that these claims, unless +satisfied, would continue "a subject of unpleasant discussion and +possible collision between the two governments." He politely referred to +"the known integrity of the French monarch," Charles X., as an assurance +that the claims would be paid. A few months afterwards this Bourbon was +tumbled off the French throne; and in December, 1830, Jackson with +increased courtliness, and with a flattering allusion to Lafayette, +conspicuous in this milder revolution as he had been in 1789, rejoiced +in "the high voucher we possess for the enlarged views and pure +integrity" of Louis Philippe. The new American vigor, doubtless aided by +the liberal change in France, brought a treaty on July 4, 1831, under +which $5,000,000 was to be paid by France, a result which Jackson, with +pardonable boasting, said in his message of December, 1831, was an +encouragement "for perseverance in the demands of justice," and would +admonish other powers, if any, inclined to evade those demands, that +they would never be abandoned. The French treaty came so soon after Van +Buren's retirement from the state department, and followed so naturally +upon the methods of his negotiation, and his instructions to William C. +Rives, our minister at Paris, that much of its credit belonged to him. +In March, 1830, a treaty was made with Denmark requiring the payment of +$650,000 for Danish spoliations on American commerce. The effective +pressing of these claims was justly one of the most popular performances +of the administration. Commercial treaties were concluded with Austria +in August, 1829; with Turkey in May, 1830; and with Mexico in April, +1831. + +But the chief transaction of Van Buren's foreign administration was the +opening of trade in American vessels between the United States and the +British West Indian colonies. This commerce was then relatively much +more important to the United States than in later times; and it was +chiefly by American shipping that American commerce was carried on with +foreign countries. The absurd and odious restrictions upon intercourse +so highly natural and advantageous to the people of our seaboard and of +the British West Indian islands had led to smuggling on a large scale, +and were fruitful of international irritations. Retaliatory acts of +Congress and Parliament, prohibitive proclamations of our presidents, +and British orders in council, had at different times, since the close +of the second British war in 1815, oppressed or prevented honest and +profitable trade between neighbors who ought to have been friendly +traders. Van Buren found the immediate position to be as follows. In +July, 1825, an act of Parliament had allowed foreign vessels to trade to +the British colonies upon conditions. To secure for American vessels the +benefit of this act, it was necessary that within one year American +ports should be open to British vessels bringing the same kind of +British or colonial produce as could be imported in American vessels; +that British and American vessels in the trade should pay the same +government charges; that alien duties on British vessels and cargoes, +that is, duties not imposed on the like vessels and cargoes owned by +Americans, should be suspended; and that the provision of an American +law of 1823 limiting the privileges of the colonial trade to British +vessels carrying colonial produce to American ports directly from the +colonies exporting it, and without stopping at intermediate ports, +should be repealed. John Quincy Adams's administration had failed within +the year to comply with the conditions imposed by the British law of +1825. In 1826, therefore, Great Britain forbade this trade and +intercourse in American vessels. Adams retorted with a counter +prohibition in March, 1827. And in this unfortunate position Van Buren +found our commercial relations with the West Indian, Bahama, and South +American colonies of England. The situation was aggravated by a claim +made by the American government in 1823 that American goods should pay +in the colonial ports no higher duties than British goods, a protest +against British protection to British industry in the British colonies +coming with little grace from a country itself maintaining the +protective system. Adams had sent Gallatin to England to remedy the +difficulty, but without success. + +Van Buren adopted a different method of negotiation. A more conciliatory +bearing was assumed towards our traditional adversary. Jackson, in +language sounding strangely from his imperious mouth, was made to say in +his first message that "with Great Britain, alike distinguished in peace +and war, we may look forward to years of peaceful, honorable, and +elevated competition; that it is their policy to preserve the most +cordial relations." These, he said, were his own views; and such were +"the prevailing sentiments of our constituents." In his instructions to +McLane, the minister at London, Van Buren, departing widely from +conventional diplomacy, expressly conceded that the American government +had been wrong in its claim that England should admit to its colonies +American goods on as favorable terms as British goods; that it had been +wrong in requiring British ships bringing colonial produce to come and +go directly from and to the producing colonies; and that it had been +wrong in refusing the privileges offered by the British law of 1825. +This frank surrender of untenable positions showed the highest skill in +negotiation, a business for which Van Buren was perhaps better equipped +than any American of his time. In these points we were "assailable;" we +had "too long and too tenaciously" resisted British rights. After these +admissions, it would, he said, be improper for Great Britain to suffer +"any feelings that find their origin in the past pretensions of this +government to have an adverse influence upon the present conduct of +Great Britain." McLane was to tell the Earl of Aberdeen that "to set up +the act of the late administration as the cause of forfeiture of +privileges which would otherwise be extended to the people of the United +States would, under existing circumstances, be unjust in itself, and +could not fail to excite their deepest sensibility." McLane was also to +allude to the parts taken by the members of Jackson's administration in +the former treatment of the question under discussion. And here Van +Buren used the objectionable sentence which led to his subsequent +rejection by the Senate as minister to England, and which through that, +such are the curious caprices of politics, led, or at least helped to +lead, him to the presidency. He said, "Their views upon that point have +been submitted to the people of the United States; and the counsels by +which your conduct is now directed are the result of the judgment +expressed by the only earthly tribunal to which the late administration +was amenable for its acts." + +In Van Buren's sagacious desire to emphasize the abandonment of claims +preventing the negotiation, he here introduced to a foreign nation the +American people as a judge that had condemned the assertion of such +claims by Jackson's predecessor. The statement was at least an +exaggeration. There was little reason to suppose that Adams's failure in +the negotiation over colonial trade had much, if at all, influenced the +election of 1828. Nor was it dignified to officially expose our party +contests to foreign eyes. But Van Buren was intent upon success in the +negotiation. He could succeed where others had failed, only by a strong +assertion of a change in American policy. His fault was at most one of +taste in the manner of an assertion right enough and wise enough in +itself. Nor were these celebrated instructions lacking in firmness or +dignity. Great Britain was clearly warned that she must then decide for +all time whether the hardships from which her West Indian planters +suffered should continue; and that the United States would not "in +expiation of supposed past encroachments" repeal their laws, leaving +themselves "wholly dependent upon the indulgence of Great Britain," and +not knowing in advance what course she would follow. In his speech in +the Senate in February, 1827, Van Buren had clearly stated the general +positions which he took in this famous dispatch. It is rather curious, +however, that he found occasion then to say upon this very subject what +he seemed afterwards to forget, that "in the collisions which may arise +between the United States and a foreign power, it is our duty to present +an unbroken front; domestic differences, if they tend to give +encouragement to unjust pretensions, should be extinguished or deferred; +and the cause of our government must be considered as the cause of our +country." So easy it is to advise other men to be bold and firm. + +McLane's long and very able letter to the British foreign secretary +closely followed his instructions. Lord Aberdeen was frankly told that +the United States had committed "mistakes" in the past; and that the +"American pretensions" which had prevented a former arrangement would +not be revived. The negotiation was entirely successful. In October, +1830, the President, with the authorization of Congress, declared +American ports open to British vessels and their cargoes coming from the +colonies, and that they should be subject to the same charges as +American vessels coming from the same colonies. In November a British +order in council gave to American vessels corresponding privileges. On +January 3, 1831, Jackson sent to the Senate the papers, including Van +Buren's letter of instructions. No criticism was made upon their tenor; +and the public, heedless of the phrases used in reaching the end, +rejoiced in a most beneficent opening of commerce. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MINISTER TO ENGLAND.--VICE-PRESIDENT.--ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY + + +In the summer of 1831 Van Buren knew very well the strong hold he had +upon his party, the entire and almost affectionate confidence which he +enjoyed from Jackson, and the prestige which his political and official +success had brought him. But to the country, as he was well aware, he +seemed also to be, as he was, a politician, obviously skilled in the +art, and an avowed candidate for the presidency. His conciliatory +bearing, his abstinence from personal abuse, his freedom from personal +animosities, all were widely declared to be the mere incidents of +constant duplicity and intrigue. The absence of proof, and his own +explicit denial and appeal to those who knew the facts, did not protect +him from the belief of his adversaries--a belief which, without +examination, has since been widely adopted--that to prostrate a +dangerous rival he had promoted the quarrel between Jackson and Calhoun. +McLane, the minister at London, wished to come home, and was to be the +new secretary of the treasury. Van Buren gladly seized the opportunity. +He would leave the field of political management. Three thousand miles +in distance and a month in time away from Washington or New York, there +could, he thought, be little pretense of personal manoeuvres on his +part. He would thus plainly submit his candidacy to popular judgment +upon his public career, without interference from himself. He would +escape the many embarrassments of every politician upon whom demands are +continually made,--demands whose rejection or allowance alike brings +offense. The English mission was prominently in the public service, but +out of its difficulties; and it was made particularly grateful to him by +his success in the recent negotiation over colonial trade. He therefore +accepted the post, for which in almost every respect he had +extraordinary equipment. He finally left the State Department in June, +1831; and on his departure from Washington Jackson conspicuously rode +with him out of the city. On August 1, he was formally appointed +minister to Great Britain; and in September he arrived in London, +accompanied by his son John. + +Van Buren found Washington Irving presiding over the London legation in +McLane's absence as _chargé d'affaires_. Irving's appointment to be +secretary of legation under McLane had been one of Van Buren's early +acts,--a proof, Irving wrote, "of the odd way in which this mad world is +governed, when a secretary of state of a stern republic gives away +offices of the kind at the recommendation of a jovial little man of the +seas like Jack Nicholson." But this was jocose. When the appointment +was suggested, it was particularly pleasant to Van Buren that this +graceful and gentle bit of patronage should be given by so grim a figure +as Jackson. Irving had come on from Spain, his "Columbus" just finished, +and his "Alhambra Tales" ready for writing. His extraordinary popularity +in England and his old familiarity with its life made him highly useful +to the American minister, as Van Buren himself soon found. It was not +the last time that Englishmen respected the republic of the west the +more because the respect carried with it an homage to the republic of +letters. Irving's was an early one of the appointments which established +the agreeable tradition of the American diplomatic and consular service, +that literary men should always hold some of its places of honor and +profit. When Van Buren arrived, Irving was already weary of his post and +had resigned. He remained, however, with the new minister until he too +surrendered his office. The two men became warm and lifelong friends. +The day after Van Buren's arrival Irving wrote: "I have just seen Mr. +Van Buren, and do not wonder you should all be so fond of him. His +manners are most amiable and ingratiating; and I have no doubt he will +become a favorite at this court." After an intimacy of several months he +wrote: "The more I see of Mr. Van Buren, the more I feel confirmed in a +strong personal regard for him. He is one of the gentlest and most +amiable men I have ever met with; with an affectionate disposition that +attaches itself to those around him, and wins their kindness in return." + +After a few months of the charming life which an American of distinction +finds open to him in London, a life for whose duties and whose pleasures +Van Buren was happily fitted,[10] there came to him an extraordinary and +enviable delight. He posted through England in an open carriage with the +author of the "Sketch Book" and "Bracebridge Hall." From those daintiest +sources he had years before got an idea of English country life, and of +the festivities of an old-fashioned English Christmas; and now in an +exquisite companionship the idea became more nearly clothed with reality +than happens with most literary enchantments. After Oxford and Blenheim; +after quartering in Stratford at the little inn of the Red Horse, where +they "found the same obliging little landlady that kept it at the time +of the visit recorded in the 'Sketch Book';" after Warwick Castle and +Kenilworth and Lichfield and Newstead Abbey and Hardwick Castle; after a +fortnight at Christmas in Barlborough Hall,--"a complete scene of old +English hospitality," with many of the ancient games and customs then +obsolete in other parts of England; after seeing there the "mummers and +morris dancers and glee singers;" after "great feasting with the +boar's-head crowned with holly, the wassail bowl, the yule-log, +snapdragon, etc.;"--after all these delights, inimitably told by his +companion, Van Buren returned to London, but not for long. He there +enjoyed the halcyon days which the brilliant society of London knew, +when George IV. had just left the throne to his undignified but +good-hearted and jovial brother; when Louis Philippe had found a +bourgeois crown in France and the condescending approval of England; +when Wellington was the first of Englishmen; when Prince Talleyrand, his +early republicanism and sacrileges not at all forgotten, but forgiven to +the prestige of his abilities and the splendid fascinations of his +society, was the chief person in diplomatic life; when the Wizard of the +North, though broken, and on his last and vain trip to the Mediterranean +for health, still lingered in London, one of its grand figures, and +sadly recalled to Irving the times when they "went over the Eildon hills +together;" when Rogers was playing Mæcenas and Catullus at +breakfast-tables of poets and bankers and noblemen. It was amid this +serene, shining, and magical translation from the politics at home that +Van Buren received the rude and humiliating news of his rejection by the +Senate; for his appointment had been made in recess, and he had left +without a confirmation. + +One evening in February, 1832, before attending a party at +Talleyrand's, Van Buren learned of the rejection, as had all London +which knew there was an American minister. He was half ill when the news +came; but he seemed imperturbable. Without shrinking he mixed in the +splendid throng, gracious and easy, as if he did not know that his +official heart would soon cease to beat. Lord Auckland, then president +of the board of trade and afterwards governor-general of India, said to +him very truly, and more prophetically than he fancied: "It is an +advantage to a public man to be the subject of an outrage." Levees and +drawing-rooms and state dinners were being held in honor of the queen's +birthday. After a doubt as to the more decorous course, he kept the +tenor of diplomatic life until he ceased to be a minister; and Irving +said that, "to the credit of John Bull," he "was universally received +with the most marked attention," and "treated with more respect and +attention than before by the royal family, by the members of the present +and the old cabinet, and the different persons of the diplomatic corps." +On March 22, 1832, he had his audience of leave; two days later he dined +with the king at Windsor; and about April 1 left for Holland and a +continental trip, this being, so he wrote a committee appointed at an +indignation meeting in Tammany Hall, "the only opportunity" he should +probably ever have for the visit. + +Van Buren's dispatches from England, now preserved in the archives of +the State Department, are not numerous. They were evidently written by +a minister who was not very busy in official duties apart from the +social and ceremonial life of a diplomat. Some of them are in his own +handwriting, whose straggling carelessness is quite out of keeping with +the obvious pains which he bestowed upon every subject he touched, even +those of seemingly slight consequence. Interspersed with allusions to +the northeastern boundary question, and with accounts of his protests +against abuses practiced upon American ships in British ports, and of +the spread of the cholera, he gave English political news and even +gossip. He discussed the chances of the reform bill, rumors of what the +ministry would do, and whether the Duke of Wellington would yield. Van +Buren participated in no important dispute, although before surrendering +his post he presented one of the hateful claims which American +administrations of both parties had to make in those days. This was the +demand for slaves who escaped from the American brig "Comet," wrecked in +the Bahamas, on her way from the Potomac to New Orleans, and who were +declared free by the colonial authorities. + +It is safe to believe that Secretary Livingston read the more +interesting of these letters at the White House. Van Buren discreetly +lightened up some of the diplomatic pages with passages very agreeable +to Jackson. In describing his presentation to William IV., he told +Livingston that the king had formed the highest estimate of Jackson's +character, and repeated the royal remark "that detraction and +misrepresentation were the common lot of all public men." Of the +President's message of December, 1831, he wrote that few in England +refused to recognize its ability or the "distinguished talents of the +executive by whose advice and labors" the affairs "of our highly favored +country" had been "conducted to such happy results." + +On July 5, 1832, Van Buren arrived at New York, having several weeks +before been nominated for the vice-presidency. He declined a public +reception, he said, because, afflicted as New York was with the cholera, +festivities would be discordant with the feelings of his friends; and a +few days later he was in Washington. Congress was in session, debating +the tariff bill; and he quickly enough found it true, as he had already +believed, that his rejection had been a capital blunder of his enemies. +The rejection occurred on January 25, 1832. Jackson's nomination had +gone to the Senate early in December, but the opposition had hesitated +at the responsibility for the affront. The debate took place in secret +session, but the speeches were promptly made public for their effect on +the country. Clay and Webster, the great leaders of the Whigs, and +Hayne, the eloquent representative of the Calhoun Democracy, and others, +spoke against Van Buren. Clay and Webster based their rejection upon his +language in the dispatch to McLane, already quoted. Webster said that +he would pardon almost anything where he saw true patriotism and sound +American feeling; but he could not forgive the sacrifice of these to +party. Van Buren, with sensible and skillful foresight, had frankly +admitted that we had been wrong in some of our claims; and Gallatin, it +was afterwards shown from his original dispatch to Clay, had expressly +said the same thing. But in a bit of buncombe Webster insisted that no +American minister must ever admit that his country had been wrong. "In +the presence of foreign courts," he solemnly said, "amidst the +monarchies of Europe, he is to stand up for his country and his whole +country; that no jot nor tittle of her honor is to suffer in his hands; +that he is not to allow others to reproach either his government or his +country, and far less is he himself to reproach either; that he is to +have no objects in his eye but American objects, and no heart in his +bosom but an American heart." To say all this, Webster declared, was a +duty whose performance he wished might be heard "by every independent +freeman in the United States, by the British minister and the British +king, and every minister and every crowned head in Europe." Van Buren's +language, Clay said, had been that of an humble vassal to a proud and +haughty lord, prostrating and degrading the American eagle before the +British lion. These cheap appeals fell perfectly flat. If Van Buren had +been open to criticism for the manner in which he pointed out a party +change in American administration, the error was, at the worst, +committed to preclude a British refusal from finding justification in +the offensive attitude previously taken by Adams. In admitting our +mistaken "pretensions," Van Buren had been entirely right, barring a +slight fault in the word, which did not, however, then seem to import +the consciousness of wrong which it carries to later ears. Webster and +Clay ought to have known that Van Buren's success where all before had +failed would make the American people loath to find fault with his +phrases. Nor were they at all ready to believe that Jackson's +administration toadied to foreign courts. They knew better; they were +convinced that no American president had been more resolute towards +other nations. + +It was also said that Van Buren had introduced the system of driving men +from office for political opinions; that he was a New York politician +who had brought his art to Washington. Marcy, one of the New York +senators, defended his State with these words, which afterwards he must +have wished to recall: "It may be, sir, that the politicians of New York +are not so fastidious as some gentlemen are as to disclosing the +principles on which they act. They boldly preach what they practice. +When they are contending for victory they avow their intention of +enjoying the fruits of it. If they are defeated, they expect to retire +from office; if they are successful, they claim, as a matter of right, +the advantages of success. They see nothing wrong in the rule that to +the victor belong the spoils of the enemy." To this celebrated and +execrable defense Van Buren owes much of the later and unjust belief +that he was an inveterate "spoilsman." It has already been shown how +little foundation there is for the charge that he introduced the system +of official proscription. Benton truly said that Van Buren's temper and +judgment were both against it, and that he gave ample proofs of his +forbearance. Webster did not touch upon this objection. Clay made it +very subordinate to the secretary's abasement before the British lion. + +The attack of the Calhoun men was based upon Van Buren's supposed +intrigue against their chief, and his breaking up of the cabinet. But +people saw then, better indeed than some historians have since seen, +that between Calhoun and Van Buren there had been great and radical +political divergence far deeper than personal jealousy. To surrender the +highest cabinet office, to leave Washington and all the places of +political management, in order to take a lower office in remote exile +from the sources of political power,--these were not believed to be acts +of mere trickery, but rather to be parts of a courageous and +self-respecting appeal for justice. It seemed a piece of political +animosity wantonly to punish a rival with such exquisite humiliation in +the eyes of foreigners. + +There was a clear majority against confirming Van Buren. But to make his +destruction the more signal, and as Calhoun had no opportunity to speak, +enough of the majority refrained from voting to enable the Democratic +vice-president to give the casting vote for the rejection of this +Democratic nominee. Calhoun's motive was obvious enough from his boast +in Benton's hearing: "It will kill him, sir, kill him dead. He will +never kick, sir, never kick." This bit of unaffected nature was +refreshing after all the solemnly insincere declarations of grief which +had fallen from the opposition senators in performing their duty. + +The folly of the rejection was quickly apparent. Benton very well said +to Moore, a senator from Alabama who had voted against Van Buren, "You +have broken a minister and elected a vice-president. The people will see +nothing in it but a combination of rivals against a competitor." The +popular verdict was promptly given. Van Buren had already become a +candidate to succeed Jackson five years later; he was only a possible +candidate for vice-president at the next election. When the rejection +was widely known, it was known almost equally well and soon that Van +Buren would be the Jacksonian candidate for vice-president. Meetings +were held; addresses were voted; the issue was eagerly seized. The +Democratic members of the New York legislature early in February, 1832, +under an inspiration from Washington, addressed to Jackson an expression +of their indignation in the stately words which our fathers loved, even +when they went dangerously near to bathos. They had freely, they said, +surrendered to his call their most distinguished fellow-citizen; when +Van Buren had withdrawn from the cabinet they had beheld in Jackson's +continual confidence in him irrefragable proof that no combination could +close Jackson's eyes to the cause of his country; New York would indeed +avenge the indignity thus offered to her favorite son; but they would be +unmindful of their duty if they failed to console Jackson with their +sympathy in this degradation of the country he loved so well. On +February 28, Jackson replied with no less dignity and with skill and +force. He was, he said,--and the whole country believed him,--incapable +of tarnishing the pride or dignity of that country whose glory it had +been his object to elevate; Van Buren's instructions to McLane had been +his instructions; American pretensions which Adams's administration had +admitted to be untenable had been resigned; if just American claims were +resisted upon the ground of the unjust position taken by his +predecessor, then and then only was McLane to point out that there had +been a change in the policy and counsels of the government with the +change of its officers. Jackson said that he owed it to the late +secretary of state and to the American people to declare that Van Buren +had no participation whatever in the occurrences between Calhoun and +himself; and that there was no ground for imputing to Van Buren advice +to make the removals from office. He had called Van Buren to the state +department not more for his acknowledged talents and public services +than to meet the general wish and expectation of the Republican party; +his signal ability and success in office had fully justified the +selection; his own respect for Van Buren's great public and private +worth, and his full confidence in his integrity were undiminished. This +blast from the unquestioned head of the party prodigiously helped the +general movement. The only question was how best to avenge the wrong. + +It was suggested that Van Buren should return directly and take a seat +in the Senate, which Dudley would willingly surrender to him, and should +there meet his slanderers face to face. Some thought that he should have +a triumphal entry into New York, without an idea of going into the +"senatorial cock-pit" unless he were not to receive the vice-presidency. +Others thought that he should be made governor of New York, an idea +shadowed forth in the Albany address to Jackson. As a candidate for that +place, he would escape the jealousies of Pennsylvania and perhaps +Virginia, and augment the local strength of the party in New York. To +this it was replied from Washington that they might better cut his +throat at once; that if the Republican party could not, under existing +circumstances, make Van Buren vice-president, they need never look to +the presidency for him. This was declared to be the unanimous opinion of +the cabinet. New York Republicans were begged not to "lose so glorious +an opportunity of strengthening and consolidating the party." The people +at Albany, it was said, were "mad, ... as if New York can make amends +for an insult offered by fourteen States of the Union." + +In this temper the Republican or Democratic convention met at Baltimore +on May 21, 1832. It was the first national gathering of the party; and +was summoned simply to nominate a vice-president. Jackson's renomination +was already made by the sovereign people, which might be justly +affronted by the assembling of a body in apparent doubt whether to obey +the popular decree. National conventions were inevitable upon the +failure of the congressional caucus in 1824. The system of separate +nominations in different States at irregular times was too inconvenient, +too inconsistent with unity of action and a central survey of the whole +situation. In 1824 its inconvenience had been obvious enough. In 1828 +circumstances had designated both the candidates with perfect certainty; +and isolated nominations in different parts of the country were then in +no danger of clashing. It has been recently said that the convention of +1832 was assembled to force Van Buren's nomination for vice-president. +But it is evident from the letter which Parton prints, written by Lewis +to Kendall on May 25, 1831, when the latter was visiting Isaac Hill, the +Jacksonian leader in New Hampshire, that the convention was even then +proposed by "the most judicious" friends of the administration. It was +suggested as a plan "of putting a stop to partial nominations" and of +"harmonizing" the party. Barbour, Dickinson, and McLane were the +candidates discussed in this letter; Van Buren was not named. He was +about sailing for England; and although an open candidate for the +presidential succession after Jackson, he was not then a candidate for +the second office. The ascription of the convention to management in his +behalf seems purely gratuitous. Upon this early invitation, the New +Hampshire Democrats called the convention. One of them opened its +session by a brief speech alluding to the favor with which the idea of +the convention had met, "although opposed by the enemies of the +Democratic party," as the Republican party headed by Jackson was now +perhaps first definitely called. He said that "the coming together of +representatives of the people from the extremity of the Union would have +a tendency to soothe, if not to unite, the jarring interests;" and that +the people, after seeing its good effects in conciliating the different +and distant sections of the country, would continue the mode of +nomination. This natural and sensible motive to strengthen and solidify +the party is ample explanation of the convention, without resorting to +the rather worn charge brought against so many political movements of +the time, that they arose from Jackson's dictatorial desire to throttle +the sentiment of his party. In making nominations the convention +resolved that each State should have as many votes as it would be +entitled to in the electoral college. To assure what was deemed a +reasonable approach to unanimity, two thirds of the whole number of +votes was required for a choice,--a precedent sad enough to Van Buren +twelve years later. On the first ballot Van Buren had 208 of the 283 +votes. Virginia, South Carolina, Indiana, and Kentucky, with a few votes +from North Carolina, Alabama, and Illinois, were for Philip P. Barbour +of Virginia or Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky. The motion, nowadays +immediately made, that the nomination be unanimous was not offered; but +after an adjournment a resolution was adopted that inasmuch as Van Buren +had received the votes of two thirds of the delegates, the convention +unanimously concur "in recommending him to the people of the United +States for their support." + +No platform was adopted. A committee was appointed after the nomination +to draft an address; but after a night's work they reported that, +although "agreeing fully in the principles and sentiments which they +believe ought to be embodied in an address of this description, if such +an address were to be made," it still seemed better to them that the +convention recommend the several delegations "to make such explanations +by address, report, or otherwise to their respective constituents of the +objects, proceedings, and result of the meeting as they may deem +expedient." This was a franker intimation than those to which we are now +used, that the battle was to be fought in each State upon the issue best +suited to its local sentiments; and was entitled to quite as much +respect as meaningless platitudes adopted lest one State or another be +offended at something explicit. Jackson's firm and successful foreign +policy, his opposition to internal improvements by the federal +government, his strong stand against nullification, his opposition to +the United States Bank,--for from the battle over the re-charter, +precipitated by Clay early in 1832 to embarrass Jackson, the latter had +not shrunk,--and above all Jackson himself, these were the real planks +of the platform. But the party wanted the votes of Pennsylvania +Jacksonians who believed in the Bank and of western Jacksonians who +wished federal aid for roads and canals. The great tariff debate was +then going on in Congress; and the subject seemed full of danger. The +election was like the usual English canvass on a parliamentary +dissolution. The country was merely asked without specifications: Do you +on the whole like Jackson's administration? + +There is no real ground for the supposition that intrigue or coercion +was necessary to procure Van Buren's nomination. It was dictated by the +simplest and plainest political considerations. Calhoun was in +opposition. After Jackson, Van Buren was clearly the most distinguished +and the ablest member of the administration party; he had rendered it +services of the highest order; he was very popular in the most important +State of New York; he was abroad, suffering from what Irving at the time +truly called "a very short-sighted and mean-spirited act of hostility." +The affront had aroused a general feeling which would enable Van Buren +to strengthen the ticket. In his department had been performed the most +shining achievements of the administration. To the politicians about +Jackson, and very shrewd men they were, Van Buren's succession to +Jackson promised a firmer, abler continuance of the administration than +that of any other public man. Could he indeed have stayed minister to +England, he would have continued a figure of the first distinction, free +from local and temporary animosities and embarrassments. From that post +he might perhaps, as did a later Democratic statesman, most easily have +ascended to the presidency; the vice-presidency would have been +unnecessary to the final promotion. But after the tremendous affront +dealt him by Calhoun and Clay, his tame return to private life would +seem fatal. He must reënter public life. And no reëntry, it was plain, +could be so striking as a popular election to the second station in the +land, nominal though it was, and in taking it to displace the very enemy +who had been finally responsible for the wrong done him. + +A month after his return Van Buren formally accepted the nomination. The +committee of the convention had assured him that if the great Republican +party continued faithful to its principles, there was every reason to +congratulate him and their illustrious president that there was in +reserve for his wounded feelings a just and certain reparation. Van +Buren said in reply that previous to his departure from the United +States his name had been frequently mentioned for the vice-presidency; +but that he had uniformly declared himself altogether unwilling to be +considered a candidate, and that to his friends, when opportunity +offered, he had given the grounds of his unwillingness. All this was +strictly true. He had become a candidate for the presidential +succession; and honorable absence as minister to England secured a +better preparation than presence as vice-president amidst the +difficulties and suspicions of Washington. But his position, he added, +had since that period been essentially changed by the circumstance to +which the committee had referred, and to which, with some excess of +modesty he said, rather than to any superior fitness on his part, he was +bound to ascribe his nomination. He gratefully received this spontaneous +expression of confidence and friendship from the delegated democracy of +the Union. He declared it to be fortunate for the country that its +public affairs were under the direction of one who had an early and +inflexible devotion to republican principles and a moral courage which +distinguished him from all others. In the conviction, he said, that on a +faithful adherence to these principles depended the stability and value +of our confederated system, he humbly hoped lay his motive, rather than +any other, for accepting the nomination. This rather clumsy affectation +of humility would have been more disagreeable had it not been closely +associated with firm and manly expressions, and because it was so +common a formality in the political vernacular of the day. In treating +the people as the sovereign, there were adopted the sort of rhetorical +extravagances used by attendants upon monarchs. + +On October 4, 1832, Van Buren, upon an interrogation by a committee of a +meeting at Shocco Springs, North Carolina, wrote a letter upon the +tariff. He said that he believed "the establishment of commercial +regulations with a view to the encouragement of domestic products to be +within the constitutional power of Congress." But as to what should be +the character of the tariff he indulged in the generalities of a man who +has opinions which he does not think it wise or timely to exhibit. He +did not wish to see the power of Congress exercised with "oppressive +inequality" or "for the advantage of one section of the Union at the +expense of another." The approaching extinguishment of the national debt +presented an opportunity for a "more equitable adjustment of the +tariff," an opportunity already embraced in the tariff of 1832, whose +spirit as "a conciliatory measure" he trusted would be cherished by all +who preferred public to private interests. These vague expressions would +have fitted either a revenue reformer or an extreme protectionist. Both +disbelieved, or said they did, in oppression and inequality. With a bit +of irony, perhaps unconscious, he added that he had been thus "explicit" +in the statement of his sentiments that there might not be room for +misapprehension of his views. He did, however, in the letter approve "a +reduction of the revenue to the wants of the government," and "a +preference in encouragement given to such manufactures as are essential +to the national defense, and its extension to others in proportion as +they are adapted to our country and of which the raw material is +produced by ourselves." The last phrase probably hinted at Van Buren's +position. He believed in strictly limiting protective duties, although +he had voted for the tariff of 1828. But he told Benton that he cast +this vote in obedience to the "_demos krateo_" principle, that is, +because his State required it. He again spoke strongly against the +policy of internal improvements, and the "scrambles and combinations in +Congress" unavoidably resulting from them. He was "unreservedly opposed" +to a renewal of the charter of the Bank, and equally opposed to +nullification, which involved, he believed, the "certain destruction of +the confederacy." + +A few days later he wrote to a committee of "democratic-republican young +men" in New York of the peculiar hatred and contumely visited upon him. +Invectives against other men, he said, were at times suspended; but he +had never enjoyed a moment's respite since his first entrance into +public life. Many distinguished public men had, he added, been seriously +injured by favors from the press; but there was scarcely an instance in +which the objects of its obloquy had not been raised in public +estimation in exact proportion to the intensity and duration of the +abuse. + +Both the letter from the Baltimore convention and Van Buren's reply +alluded to "diversity of sentiments and interests," disagreements "as to +measures and men" among the Republicans. The secession of Calhoun and +the bitter hostility of his friends seriously weakened the party. But +against this was to be set the Anti-Masonic movement which drew far more +largely from Jackson's opponents than from his supporters, for Jackson +was a Mason of a high degree. This strange agitation had now spread +beyond New York, and secured the support of really able men. Judge +McLean of the Supreme Court desired the Anti-Masonic nomination; William +Wirt, the famous and accomplished Virginian, accepted it. John Quincy +Adams would probably have accepted it, had it been tendered him. He +wrote in his diary: "The dissolution of the Masonic institution in the +United States I believe to be really more important to us and our +posterity than the question whether Mr. Clay or General Jackson shall be +the president." In New York the National Republicans or Whigs, with the +eager and silly leaning of minority parties to political absurdities or +vagaries, united with the Anti-Masons, among whom William H. Seward and +Thurlow Weed had become influential. In 1830 they had supported Francis +Granger, the Anti-Masonic candidate for governor. In 1832 the +Anti-Masons in New York nominated an electoral ticket headed by +Chancellor Kent, whose bitter, narrow, and unintelligent politics were +in singular contrast with his extraordinary legal equipment and his +professional and literary accomplishments, and by John C. Spencer, +lately in charge of the prosecution of Morgan's abductors. If the ticket +were successful, its votes were to go to Wirt or Clay, whichever they +might serve to elect. Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania was the Anti-Masonic +candidate for vice-president. In December, 1831, Clay had been nominated +for president with the loud enthusiasm which politicians often mistake +for widespread conviction. John Sergeant of Pennsylvania was the +candidate for vice-president. The Whig Convention made the Bank +re-charter the issue. The very ably conducted Young Men's National +Republican Convention, held at Washington in May, 1832, gave Clay a +noble greeting, made pilgrimage to the tomb of Washington there to seal +their solemn promises, and adopted a clear and brief platform for +protection, for internal improvements by the federal government, for the +binding force upon the coördinate branches of the government of the +Supreme Court's opinions as to constitutional questions, not only in +special cases formally adjudged, but upon general principles, and +against the manner in which the West Indian trade had been recovered. +They declared that "indiscriminate removal of public officers for a mere +difference of political opinion is a gross abuse of power, corrupting +the morals and dangerous to the liberties of the people of this +country." + +Even more clearly than in the campaign of 1828 was the campaign of 1832 +a legitimate political battle upon plain issues. The tariff bill of +1832, supported by both parties and approved by Jackson, prevented the +question of protection from being an issue, however ready the Whigs +might be, and however unready the Democrats, to give commercial +restrictions a theoretical approval. Except on the "spoils" question, +the later opinion of the United States has sustained the attitude of +Jackson's party and the popular verdict of 1832. The verdict was clear +enough. In spite of the Anti-Masonic fury, the numerous secessions from +the Jacksonian ranks, and some alarming journalistic defections, +especially of the New York "Courier and Enquirer" of James Watson Webb +and Mordecai M. Noah, the people of the United States continued to +believe in Jackson and the principles for which he stood. Upon the +popular vote Jackson and Van Buren received 687,502 votes against +530,189 votes for Clay and Wirt combined, a popular majority over both +of 157,313. In 1828 Jackson had had 647,276 votes and Adams 508,064, a +popular majority of 139,212. The increase in Jackson's popular majority +over two candidates instead of one was particularly significant in the +north and east. The majority in New York rose from 5350 to 13,601. In +Maine a minority of 6806 became a majority of 6087. In New Hampshire a +minority of 3212 became a majority of 6476. In Massachusetts a minority +of 23,860 was reduced to 18,458. In Rhode Island and Connecticut the +minorities were reduced. In New Jersey a minority of 1813 became a +majority of 463. The electoral vote was even more heavily against Clay. +He had but 49 votes to Jackson's 219. Wirt had the 7 votes of Vermont, +while South Carolina, beginning to step out of the Union, gave its 11 +votes to John Floyd of Virginia. Clay carried only Massachusetts, Rhode +Island, Connecticut, Delaware, a part of Maryland, and his own +affectionate Kentucky. Van Buren received for vice-president the same +electoral vote as Jackson, except that the 30 votes of Pennsylvania went +to Wilkins, a Pennsylvanian. Sergeant had the same 49 votes as Clay, +Ellmaker the 7 votes of Vermont, and Henry Lee of Massachusetts the 11 +votes of South Carolina.[11] + +This popular triumph brought great glory to Jackson's second +inauguration. The glory was soon afterwards made greater and almost +universal by his bold attack upon nullification, and by the vigorous and +ringing yet dignified and even pathetic proclamation of January, 1833, +drafted by Edward Livingston, in which the President commanded +obedience to the law and entreated for loyalty to the Union. It could +not be overlooked that the treasonable attitude of South Carolina had +been taken by the portion of the Democratic party hostile to Van Buren. +In a peculiar way therefore he shared in Jackson's prestige. + +[Illustration: Edward Livingston] + +The election seemed to clarify some of the views of the administration. +They now dared to speak more explicitly. On his way to the inauguration, +Van Buren, declining a dinner at Philadelphia, recited with approval +what he called Jackson's repeated and earnest recommendations of "a +reduction of duties to the revenue standard." In his second inaugural +Jackson said that there should be exercised "by the general government +those powers only that are clearly delegated." In his message of +December, 1833, he again spoke of "the importance of abstaining from all +appropriations which are not absolutely required for the public +interests, and authorized by the powers clearly delegated to the United +States;" and this he said with the more emphasis because under the +compromise tariff of 1833 a large decrease in revenue was anticipated. + +In September, 1833, was announced Jackson's refusal longer to deposit +the moneys of the government with the Bank of the United States. It is +plain that the dangers of the proposed deposits of the moneys in the +state banks were not appreciated. Van Buren at first opposed this +so-called "removal of the deposits." Kendall tells of an interview with +the Vice-President not long after his inauguration, and while he was a +guest at the White House. Van Buren then warmly remonstrated against the +continued agitation of the subject, after the resolution of the lower +House at the last session that the government deposits were safe with +the banks. Kendall replied that so certain to his mind was the success +of the Whig party at the next presidential election and the consequent +re-charter of the Bank, unless it were now stripped of the power which +the charge of the public moneys gave it, that if the Bank were to retain +the deposits he should consider further opposition useless and would lay +down his pen, leaving to others this question and all other politics. "I +can live," he said to the Vice-President, "under a corrupt despotism as +well as any other man by keeping out of its way, which I shall certainly +do." They parted in excitement. A few weeks later Van Buren confessed to +Kendall, "I had never thought seriously upon the deposit question until +after my conversation with you; I am now satisfied that you were right +and I was wrong." Kendall was sent to ascertain whether suitable state +banks would accept the deposits, and on what terms. While in New York +Van Buren, with McLane lately transferred from the Treasury to the State +Department, called on him and proposed that the order for the change in +the government depositories should take effect on the coming first of +January. The date being a month after the meeting of Congress, the +executive action would seem less defiant; and in the mean time the +friends of the administration could be more effectually united in +support of the measure. Kendall yielded to the proposition though +against his judgment, and wrote to the President in its favor. But +Jackson would not yield. Whether or not its first inspiration came from +Francis P. Blair or Kendall, the removal of the deposits was peculiarly +Jackson's own deed. The government moneys should not be left in the +hands of the chief enemy of his administration, to be loaned in its +discretion, that it might secure doubtful votes in Congress and the +support of presses pecuniarily weak. As the Bank's charter would expire +within three years, it was pointed out that the government ought to +prepare for it by withholding further deposits and gradually drawing out +the moneys then on deposit. Van Buren's assent was given, but probably +with no enthusiasm. He disliked the Bank heartily enough. The corrupting +danger of intrusting government moneys to a single private corporation +to loan in its discretion was clear. But a system of "pet banks" through +the States was too slight an improvement, if an improvement at all. And +any change would at least offend and alarm the richer classes. It is +impossible to say what effect upon the re-charter of the Bank and the +election of 1836 its continued possession of the deposits would have +had. Its tremendous power over credits doubtless gave it many votes of +administration congressmen. Possibly, as Jackson and Blair feared, it +might have secured enough to pass a re-charter over a veto. If it had +been thus re-chartered, it may be doubtful whether the blow to the +prestige of the administration might not have been serious enough to +elect a Whig in 1836. But it is not doubtful that Van Buren, and not +Jackson, was compelled to face the political results of this heroic and +imperfect measure. + +Some financial disturbance took place in the winter of 1833-1834, which +was ascribed by the Whigs to the gradual transfer of the government +moneys from the United States Bank and its numerous branches to the +state banks. For political effect, this disturbance was greatly +exaggerated. Deputations visited Washington to bait Jackson. Memorial +after memorial enabled congressmen to make friends by complimenting the +enterprise and beauty of various towns, and to depict the utter misery +to which all their industries had been brought, solely by a gradual +transference throughout the United States of $10,000,000, from one set +of depositories to another. The removal, Webster said, had produced a +degree of evil that could not be borne. "A tottering state of credit, +cramped means, loss of property and loss of employment, doubts of the +condition of others, doubts of their own condition, constant fear of +failures and new explosions, and awful dread of the future"--all these +evils, "without hope of improvement or change," had resulted from the +removal. Clay was more precise in his absurdity. The property of the +country had been reduced, he declared, four hundred millions in value. +Addressing Van Buren in the Vice-President's chair, he begged him in a +burst of bathos to repair to the executive mansion and place before the +chief magistrate the naked and undisguised truth. "Go to him," he cried, +"and tell him without exaggeration, but in the language of truth and +sincerity, the actual condition of this bleeding country, ... of the +tears of helpless widows no longer able to earn their bread, and of +unclad and unfed orphans." Van Buren, in the story often quoted from +Benton, while thus apostrophized, looked respectfully and innocently at +Clay, as if treasuring up every word to be faithfully borne to the +President; and when Clay had finished, he called a senator to the chair, +went up to the eloquent and languishing Kentuckian, asked him for a +pinch of his fine maccoboy snuff, and walked away. But this frivolity +was not fancied everywhere. At a meeting in Philadelphia it was resolved +"that Martin Van Buren deserves and will receive the execrations of all +good men, should he shrink from the responsibility of conveying to +Andrew Jackson the message sent by the Honorable Henry Clay." The whole +agitation was hollow enough. Jackson was not far wrong in saying in his +letter to Hamilton of January 2, 1834: "There is no real general +distress. It is only with those who live by borrowing, trade or loans, +and the gamblers in stocks." The business of the country was not +injured by refusing to let Nicholas Biddle and his subordinates, rather +than other men, lend for gain ten millions of government money. But +business was soon to be injured by permitting the state banks to do the +same thing. The change did not, as Jackson thought, "leave all to trade +on their own credit and capital without any interference by the general +government except using its powers by giving through its mint a specie +currency." + +Van Buren took a permanent residence in Washington after his +inauguration as vice-president. He now held a rank accorded to no other +vice-president before or since. He was openly adopted by the American +Augustus, and seemed already to wear the title of Cæsar. As no other +vice-president has been, he was the chief adviser of the President, and +as much the second officer of the government in power as in the dignity +of his station. His only chance of promotion did not lie in the +President's death. That the President should live until after the +election of 1836 was safely over, Van Buren had every selfish motive as +well as many generous motives to desire. His ambition was no-wise +disagreeable to his chief. To see that ambition satisfied would gratify +both patriotic and personal wishes of the tempestuous but not erratic +old man in the White House. For there was the utmost intimacy and +confidence between the two men. Van Buren had every reason, personal, +political, and patriotic, to desire the entire success of the +administration. He was not only the second member of it; but in his +jealous and anxious watch over it he was preserving his own patrimony. +His ability and experience were far greater than those of any other +of its members. After Taney had been transferred from the +attorney-general's office to the Treasury, in September, 1833, to make +the transfer of the deposits, Jackson appointed Benjamin F. Butler, Van +Buren's intimate friend, his former pupil and partner, to Taney's place. +Louis McLane, Van Buren's predecessor in the mission to England, and his +successor, after Edward Livingston, in the State Department, resigned +the latter office in the summer of 1834. He had disapproved Jackson's +removal of the deposits; he believed it would be unpopular, and the +presidential bee was buzzing in his bonnet. John Forsyth of Georgia, an +admirer of Van Buren, and one of his defenders in the senatorial debate +at the time of his rejection, then took the first place in the cabinet. +Van Buren accompanied Jackson during part of the latter's visit to the +Northeast in the summer of 1833, when as the adversary of nullification +his popularity was at its highest, so high indeed that Harvard College, +to Adams's disgust, made him a Doctor of Laws. But the exciting events +of Jackson's second term hardly belong, with the information we yet +have, to Van Buren's biography. They have been often and admirably told +in the lives of Jackson and Clay, the seeming chiefs on the two sides of +the long encounter. + +Van Buren's nomination for the presidency, bitter as the opposition to +it still was, came as matter of course. The large and serious secession +of Calhoun and his followers from the Jacksonian party was followed by +the later and more serious defection of the Democrats who made a rival +Democratic candidate of Hugh L. White, a senator from Tennessee, and +formerly a warm friend and adherent of Jackson. It was in White's behalf +that Davy Crockett wrote, in 1835, his entertaining though scurrilous +life of Van Buren. Jackson's friendship for Van Buren, Crockett said, +had arisen from his hatred to Calhoun, of which Van Buren, who was +"secret, sly, selfish, cold, calculating, distrustful, treacherous," had +taken advantage. Jackson was now about to give up "an old, long-tried, +faithful friend, Judge White, who stuck to him through all his +tribulations, helped to raise his fortunes from the beginning; +adventurers together in a new country, friends in youth and in old age, +fought together in the same battles, risked the same dangers, starved +together in the same deserts, merely to gratify this revengeful +feeling." Van Buren was "as opposite to General Jackson as dung is to a +diamond." + +It is difficult to find any justification for White's candidacy. He was +a modest, dignified senator whose popularity in the Democratic Southwest +rendered him available to Van Buren's enemies. But neither his abilities +nor his services to the public or his party would have suggested him +for the presidency. Doubtless in him as with other modest, dignified +men in history, there burned ambition whose fire never burst into flame, +and which perhaps for its suppression was the more troublesome. He +consented, apparently only for personal reasons, to head the Southern +schism from Jackson and Van Buren; and in his political destruction he +paid the penalty usually and justly visited upon statesmen who, through +personal hatred or jealousy or ambition, break party ties without a real +difference of principle. Benton said that White consented to run +"because in his advanced age he did the act which, with all old men, is +an experiment, and with most of them an unlucky one. He married again; +and this new wife having made an immense stride from the head of a +boarding-house table to the head of a senator's table, could see no +reason why she should not take one step more, and that comparatively +short, and arrive at the head of the presidential table." + +The Democratic-Republican Convention met at Baltimore on May 20, 1835, +nearly eighteen months before the election. There were over five hundred +delegates from twenty-three States. South Carolina, Alabama, and +Illinois were not represented. Party organization was still very +imperfect. The modern system of precise and proportional representations +was not yet known. The States which approved the convention sent +delegates in such number as suited their convenience. Maryland, the +convention being held in its chief city, sent 183 delegates; Virginia, +close at hand, sent 102; New York, although the home of the proposed +candidate, sent but 42, the precise number of its electoral votes. +Tennessee sent but one; Mississippi and Missouri, only two each. In +making the nominations, the delegates from each State, however numerous +or few, cast a number of votes equal to its representation in the +electoral college. The 183 delegates from Maryland cast therefore but +ten votes; while the single delegate from Tennessee, much courted man +that he must have been, cast 15. + +It was the second national convention of the party. The members +assembled at the "place of worship of the Fourth Presbyterian Church." +Instead of the firm and now long-recognized opening by the chairman of +the national committee provided by the well-geared machinery of our +later politics, George Kremer of Pennsylvania first "stated the objects +of the meeting." Andrew Stevenson of Virginia, the president, felt it +necessary in his opening speech to defend the still novel party +institution. Efforts, he said, would be made at the approaching election +to divide the Republican party and possibly to defeat an election by the +people in their primary colleges. Their venerable president had advised, +but in vain, constitutional amendments securing this election to the +people, and preventing its falling to the House of Representatives. A +national convention was the best means of concentrating the popular +will, the only defense against a minority party. It was recommended by +prudence, sanctioned by the precedent of 1832, and had proved effectual +by experience. They must guard against local jealousies. "What, +gentlemen," he said, "would you think of the sagacity and prudence of +that individual who would propose the expedient of cutting up the noble +ship that each man might seize his own plank and steer for himself?" The +inquiries must be: Who can best preserve the unity of the Democratic +party? Who best understands the principles and motives of our +government? Who will carry out the principles of the Jeffersonian era +and General Jackson's administration? These demands clearly enough +pointed out Van Buren. Prayers were then offered up "in a fervent, +feeling manner." The rule requiring two thirds of the whole number of +votes for a nomination was again adopted, because "it would have a more +imposing effect," though nearly half the convention, 210 to 231, thought +a majority was more "according to Democratic principles." Niles records +that the formal motion to proceed to the nomination caused a smile among +the members, so well settled was it that Van Buren was to be the +nominee. He received the unanimous vote of the convention. A strong +fight was made for the vice-presidency between the friends of Richard M. +Johnson of Kentucky and William C. Rives of Virginia. The former +received barely the two-thirds vote. The Virginia delegation upon the +defeat of the latter did what would now be a sacrilegious laying of +violent hands on the ark. Party regularity was not yet so chief a deity +in the political temple. The Virginians had, they said, an unpleasant +duty to perform; but they would not shrink from it. They would not +support Johnson for the vice-presidency; they had no confidence in his +principles or his character; they had come to the convention to support +principles, not men; they had already gone as far as possible in +supporting Mr. Van Buren, and they would not go further. Not long +afterwards Rives left the party. No platform was adopted; but a +committee was appointed to prepare an address to the people. + +The Whigs nominated General William Henry Harrison for the presidency +and Francis Granger for the vice-presidency. They had but a forlorn hope +of direct success. But the secession from the Democratic party of the +nullifiers, and the more serious secession in the Southwest headed by +White, made it seem possible to throw the election into the House. John +Tyler of Virginia was the nominee of the bolting Democrats, for +vice-president upon the ticket with White. The Whigs of Massachusetts +preferred their unequaled orator; for they then and afterwards failed to +see, as the admirers of some other famous Americans have failed to see, +that other qualities make a truer equipment for the first office of the +land than this noble art of oratory. South Carolina would vote against +Calhoun's victorious adversary; but she would not, in the first instance +at least, vote with the Whig heretics. + +It was a disorderly campaign, lasting a year and a half, and never +reaching the supreme excitement of 1840 or 1844. The opposition did not +deserve success. It had neither political principle nor discipline. +Calhoun described the Van Buren men as "a powerful faction (party it +cannot be called) held together by the hopes of public plunder and +marching under a banner whereon is written 'to the victors belong the +spoils.'" There was in the rhetorical exaggeration enough truth perhaps +to make an issue. But the political removals under Jackson were only +incidentally touched in the canvass. Amos Kendall, then +postmaster-general, towards the close of the canvass wrote a letter +which, coming from perhaps the worst of Jackson's "spoils-men," shows +how far public sentiment was even then from justifying the political +interference of federal officers in elections. Samuel McKean, senator +from Pennsylvania, had written to Kendall complaining that three +employees of the post-office had used the time and influence of their +official stations to affect elections, by written communications and +personal importunities. This, he said, was "a loathsome public +nuisance," though admitting that since Kendall became postmaster-general +he had given no cause of complaint. Kendall replied on September 27, +1836, that though it was difficult to draw the line between the rights +of the citizen and the assumptions of the officeholder, he thought it +dangerous to our institutions that government employees should "assume +to direct public opinion and control the results of elections in the +general or state government." His advice to members of his department +was to keep as clear from political strife as possible, "to shun mere +political meetings, or, if present, to avoid taking any part in their +proceedings, to decline acting as members of political committees or +conventions." In making appointments he would prefer political friends; +but he "would not remove a good postmaster and honest man for a mere +difference of political opinion." The complaints were for offenses +committed under his predecessor; one of the three offenders had left the +service; the other two had been free from criticism for seventeen +months. There can be little doubt that the standard thus set up in +public was higher than the general practice of Kendall or his +subordinates; but the letter showed that public sentiment had not yet +grown callous to this odious abuse. + +Jackson did not permit the presidential office to restrain him from most +vigorous and direct advocacy of Van Buren's claims. He begged Tennessee +not to throw herself "into the embraces of the Federalists, the +Nullifiers, or the new-born Whigs." They were living, he said, in evil +times, when political apostasy had become frequent, when public men +(referring to White, John Tyler, and others who had gone with them) were +abandoning principle and their party attachment for selfish ends. To +this it was replied that the president's memory was treacherous; that he +had forgotten his early friends, and listened only "to the voice of +flattery and the siren voice of sycophancy." The dissenting Republicans +affected to support administration measures, but protested against +Jackson's dictating the succession. They were then, they said, "what +they were in 1828,--Jacksonians following the creed of that apostle of +liberty, Thomas Jefferson." + +Without principle as was this formidable secession, it is impossible to +feel much more respect for the declaration of principles made for the +Whig candidates. Clay, the chief spokesman, complained that Jackson had +killed with the pocket veto the land bill, which proposed to distribute +the proceeds of the sales of public lands among the States according to +their federal population (which in the South included three fifths of +the slaves), to be used for internal improvements, education, or other +purposes. He pointed out, with "mixed feelings of pity and ridicule," +that the few votes in the Senate against the "deposit bill," which was +to distribute the surplus among the States, had been cast by +administration senators, since deserted by their numerous followers who +demanded distribution. He rejoiced that Kentucky was to get a million +and a half from the federal treasury. He denounced Jackson's "tampering +with the currency" by the treasury order requiring public lands to be +paid for in specie and not in bank-notes. Jackson's treatment of the +Cherokees seemed the only point of attack apart from his financial +policy. + +The real party platforms this year were curiously found in letters of +the candidates to Sherrod Williams, an individual by no means +distinguished. On April 7, 1836, he addressed a circular letter to +Harrison, Van Buren, and White, asking each of them his opinions on five +points: Did he approve a distribution of the surplus revenue among the +States according to their federal population, for such uses as they +might appoint? Did he approve a like distribution of the proceeds of the +sales of public lands? Did he approve federal appropriations to improve +navigable streams above ports of entry? Did he approve another bank +charter, if it should become necessary to preserve the revenue and +finances of the nation? Did he believe it constitutional to expunge from +the records of a house of Congress any of its proceedings? The last +question referred to Benton's agitation for a resolution expunging from +the records of the Senate the resolution of 1834, condemning Jackson's +removal of the deposits as a violation of the Constitution. Harrison, +for whose benefit the questions were put, returned what was supposed to +be the popular affirmative to the first three inquiries. The fourth he +answered in the affirmative, and the fifth in the negative. Van Buren +promptly pointed out to Williams that he doubted the right of an +elector, who had already determined to oppose him, to put inquiries +"with the sole view of exposing, at his own time and the mode he may +select, the opinions of the candidate to unfriendly criticism," but +nevertheless promised a reply after Congress had risen. This delay he +deemed proper, because during the session he might, as president of the +Senate, have to vote upon some of the questions. Williams replied that +the excuse for delay was "wholly and entirely unsatisfactory." Van Buren +curtly said that he should wait as he had stated. On August 8, not far +from the time nowadays selected by presidential candidates for their +letters of acceptance, Van Buren addressed a letter to Williams, the +prolixity of which seems a fault, but which, when newspapers were fewer +and shorter, and reading was less multifarious, secured perhaps, from +its length, a more ample and deliberate study from the masses of the +people. + +For clearness and explicitness, and for cogency of argument, this letter +has few equals among those written by presidential candidates. This most +conspicuous of Van Buren's preëlection utterances has been curiously +ignored by those who have accused him of "non-committalism." Congress, +he said, does not possess the power under the Constitution to raise +money for distribution among the States. If a distinction were +justifiable, and of this he was not satisfied, between raising money for +such a purpose and the distribution of an unexpected surplus, then the +distribution ought not to be attempted without previous amendment of the +Constitution. Any system of distribution must introduce vices into both +the state and federal governments. It would be a great misfortune if the +distribution bill already passed should be deemed a pledge of like +legislation in the future. So much of the letter has since largely had +the approval of American sentiment, and was only too soon emphasized by +the miserable results of the bill thus condemned. The utterance was +clear and wise; and it was far more. It was a singularly bold attitude +to assume, not only against the views of the opposition, but against a +measure passed by Van Buren's own party friends and signed by Jackson, a +measure having a vast and cheap popularity throughout the States which +were supposed, and with too much truth, not to see that for what they +took out of the federal treasury they would simply have to put so much +more in. "I hope and believe," said Van Buren, "that the public voice +will demand that this species of legislation shall terminate with the +emergency that produced it." To the inquiry whether he would approve a +distribution among the States of the proceeds of selling the public +lands, Van Buren plainly said that if he were elected he would not favor +the policy. These moneys, he declared, should be applied "to the general +wants of the treasury." To the inquiry whether he would approve +appropriations to improve rivers above ports of entry, he quoted with +approval Jackson's declaration in the negative. He would not go beyond +expenditures for lighthouses, buoys, beacons, piers, and the removal of +obstructions in rivers and harbors below such ports. + +Upon the bank question, too, he left his interrogator in no doubt. If +the people wished a national bank as a permanent branch of their +institutions, or if they desired a chief magistrate who as to that would +consider it his duty to watch the course of events and give or withhold +his assent according to the supposed necessity, then another than +himself must be chosen. And he added: "If, on the other hand, with this +seasonable, explicit, and published avowal before them, a majority of +the people of the United States shall nevertheless bestow upon me their +suffrages for the office of president, skepticism itself must cease to +doubt, and admit their will to be that there shall not be any Bank of +the United States until the people, in the exercise of their sovereign +authority, see fit to give to Congress the right to establish one." It +was high time "that the federal government confine itself to the +creation of coin, and that the States afford it a fair chance for +circulation." With the power of either house of Congress to expunge from +its records, he pointed out that the President could have no concern. +But rather than avoid an answer, he said that he regarded the passage of +Colonel Benton's resolution as "an act of justice to a faithful and +greatly injured public servant, not only constitutional in itself, but +imperiously demanded by a proper respect for the well-known will of the +people." + +This justly famous letter made up for the rather jejune and conventional +letter of acceptance written a year before. Not concealing his +sensitiveness to the charge of intrigue and management, Van Buren had +then appealed to the members of the Democratic convention, to the +"editors and politicians throughout the Union" who had preferred him, to +his "private correspondents and intimate friends," and to those, once +his "friends and associates, whom the fluctuations of political life" +had "converted into opponents." No man, he declared, could truly say +that he had solicited political support, or entered or sought to enter +into any arrangement to procure him the nomination he had now received, +or to elevate him to the chief magistracy. There was no public question +of interest upon which his opinions had not been made known by his +official acts, his own public avowals, and the authorized explanations +of his friends. The last was a touch of the frankness which Van Buren +used in vain to stop his enemies' accusations of indirectness. Instead +of shielding himself, as public men usually and naturally do, behind +Butler, the attorney-general, and others who had spoken for him, he +directly assumed responsibility for their "explanations." He considered +himself selected to carry out the principles and policy of Jackson's +administration, "happy," he said, "if I shall be able to perfect the +work which he has so gloriously begun." He closed with the theoretical +declaration which consistently ran through his chief utterances, that, +though he would "exercise the powers which of right belong to the +general government in a spirit of moderation and brotherly love," he +would on the other hand "religiously abstain from the assumption of such +as have not been delegated by the Constitution." + +Upon still another question Van Buren explicitly declared himself before +the election. In 1835, the year of his nomination, appeared the cloud +like a man's hand which was not to leave the sky until out of it had +come a terrific, complete, and beneficent convulsion. Then openly and +seriously began the work of the extreme anti-slavery men. Clay pointed +out in his speech on colonization in 1836 that "this fanatical class" of +abolitionists "were none of your old-fashioned gradual emancipationists, +such as Franklin, Rush, and the other wise and benevolent Pennsylvanians +who framed the scheme for the gradual removal of slavery." He was right. +Many of the new abolitionists were on the verge, or beyond it, of quiet +respectability. Educated, intelligent, and even wealthy as some of them +were, the abolitionists did not belong to the always popular class of +well-to-do folks content with the institutions of society. Most virtuous +and religious people saw in them only wicked disturbers of the peace. +All the comfortable, philosophical opponents of slavery believed that +such wild and reckless agitators would, if encouraged, prostrate the +pillars of civilization, and bring on anarchy, bloodshed, and servile +wars worse even to the slaves than the wrongs of their slavery. But to +the members of the abolition societies which now rose, this was no +abstract or economical question. They were undaunted by the examples of +Washington and Jefferson and Patrick Henry, who, whatever they said or +hoped against slavery, nevertheless held human beings in bondage; or of +Adams and other Northern adherents of the Constitution, who for a season +at least had joined in a pact to protect the infamous slave traffic. To +them, talk of the sacred Union, or of the great advance which negroes +had made in slavery and would not have made in freedom, was idle. With +unquenched vision they saw the horrid picture of the individual slave +life, not the general features of slavery; they saw the chain, the lash, +the brutalizing and contrived ignorance; they saw the tearing apart of +families, with their love and hope, precisely like those of white men +and women, crushed out by detestable cruelty; they saw the beastly +dissoluteness inevitable to the plantation system. Nor would they be +still, whatever the calm preaching of political wisdom, whatever the +sincere and weighty insolence of men of wisdom and uprightness and +property. Northern men of 1888 must look with a real shame upon the +behavior of their fathers and grandfathers towards the narrow, fiery, +sometimes almost hateful, apostles of human rights; and with even +greater shame upon the talk of the sacred right of white men to make +brutes of black men, a right to be treated, as the best of Americans +were so fond of saying, with a tender and affectionate regard for the +feelings of the white slave-masters. About the same time began the +continual presentation to Congress of petitions for the abolition of +slavery, and the foolish but Heaven-ordained attack of slaveholders on +the right of petition. The agitation rapidly flaming up was far +different from the practical and truly political discussion over the +Missouri Compromise fifteen years before. + +As yet, indeed, the matter was not politically important, except in the +attack upon Van Buren made by the Southern members of his party. Sixteen +years before, he had voted against admitting more slave States. He had +aided the reëlection of Rufus King, a determined enemy of slavery. He +had strongly opposed Calhoun and the Southern nullifiers. In the +"Evening Post" and the "Plain-dealer" of New York appeared from 1835 to +1837 the really noble series of editorials by William Leggett, strongly +proclaiming the right of free discussion and the essential wrong of +slavery; although sometimes he condemned the fanaticism now aroused as +"a species of insanity." The "Post" strongly supported Van Buren, and +was declared at the South to be his chosen organ for addressing the +public. It denied, however, that Van Buren had any "connection in any +way or shape with the doctrines or movements of the abolitionists." But +such denials were widely disbelieved by the slaveholders. It was +declared that he had a deep agency in the Missouri question which fixed +upon him a support of abolition; his denials were answered by the +anti-slavery petitions from twenty thousand memorialists in his own +State of New York, and by the support brought him by the enemies of +slavery. To all this the Whig "dough-faces" listened with entire +satisfaction. They must succeed, if at all, through Southern distrust or +dislike of Van Buren. In July, 1834, he had publicly written to Samuel +Gwin of Mississippi that his opinions upon the power of Congress over +slave property in the Southern States were so well understood by his +friends that he was surprised that an attempt should be made to deceive +the public about them; that slavery was in his judgment "exclusively +under the control of the state governments;" that no "contrary opinion +to an extent deserving consideration" was entertained in any part of the +United States; and that, without a change of the Constitution, no +interference with it in a State could be had "even at the instance of +either or of all the slaveholding States." But, it was said, "Tappan, +Garrison, and every other fanatic and abolitionist in the United States +not entirely run mad, will grant that." And, indeed, Abraham Lincoln was +nominated twenty-four years later upon a like declaration of "the right +of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions +according to its own judgment exclusively." + +The District of Columbia, however, was one bit of territory in which +Congress doubtless had the power to abolish slavery. In our better days +it would seem to have been a natural enough impulse to seek to make free +soil at least of the capital of the land of freedom. But the District +lay between and was completely surrounded by two slave States. +Washington had derived its laws and customs from Maryland. If the +District were free while Virginia and Maryland were slave, it was feared +with much reason that there would arise most dangerous collisions. Its +perpetual slavery was an unforeseen part of the price Alexander Hamilton +had paid to procure the federal assumption of the war debts of the +States. In Van Buren's time there was almost complete acquiescence in +the proposition that, though slavery had in the District no +constitutional protection, it must still be deemed there a part of the +institution in Virginia and Maryland. How clear was the understanding +may be seen from language of undoubted authority. John Quincy Adams had +hitherto labored for causes which have but cold and formal interest to +posterity. But now, leaving the field of statesmanship, where his glory +had been meagre, and, fortunately for his reputation, with the shackles +of its responsibility no longer upon him, the generous and exalted love +of humanity began to touch his later years with the abiding splendor of +heroic and far-seeing courage. He became the first of the great +anti-slavery leaders. He entered for all time the group of men, +Garrison, Lovejoy, Giddings, Phillips, Sumner, and Beecher, to whom so +largely we owe the second and nobler salvation of our land. But Adams +was emphatically opposed to the abolition of slavery in the District. +In December, 1831, the first month of his service in the House, on +presenting a petition for such abolition, he declared that he should not +support it. In February, 1837, a few days before Van Buren's +inauguration, there occurred the scene when Adams, with grim and +dauntless irony, brought to the House the petition of some slaves +against abolition. In his speech then he said: "From the day I entered +this House down to the present moment, I have invariably here, and +invariably elsewhere, declared my opinions to be adverse to the prayer +of petitions which call for the abolition of slavery in the District of +Columbia." + +It is a curious but inevitable impeachment of the impartiality of +history that for a declaration precisely the same as that made by a +great and recognized apostle of anti-slavery, and made by that apostle +in a later year, Van Buren has been denounced as a truckler to the +South, a "Northern man with Southern principles." Van Buren's +declaration was made, not like Adams's in the easy freedom of an +independent member of Congress from an anti-slavery district, but under +the constraint of a presidential nomination partially coming from the +South. In the canvass before his election, Van Buren gave perfectly fair +notice of his intention. "I must go," he said, "into the presidential +chair the inflexible and uncompromising opponent of every attempt on the +part of Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia against +the wishes of the slaveholding States." This was the attitude, not only +of Van Buren and Adams, but of every statesman North and South, and of +the entire North itself with insignificant exceptions. The former's +explicit declaration was doubtless aimed at the pro-slavery jealousy +stirred up against himself in the South; it was intended to have +political effect. But it was none the less the unambiguous expression of +an opinion sincerely shared with the practically unanimous sense of the +country. + +A skillful effort was made to embarrass Van Buren with his Southern +supporters over a more difficult question. The anti-slavery societies at +the North sought to circulate their literature at the South. So strong +an enemy of slavery as William Leggett condemned this as "fanatical +obstinacy," obviously tending to stir up at the South insurrections, +whose end no one could foresee, and as the fruit of desperation and +extravagance. The Southern States by severe laws forbade the circulation +of the literature. Its receipts from Southern post-offices led to great +excitement and even violence. In August, 1835, Kendall, the +postmaster-general, was appealed to by the postmaster at Charleston, +South Carolina, for advice whether he should distribute papers +"inflammatory, and incendiary, and insurrectionary in the highest +degree," papers whose very custody endangered the mail. Kendall, in an +extraordinary letter, said that he had no legal authority to prohibit +the delivery of papers on account of their character, but that he was +not prepared to direct the delivery at Charleston of papers such as were +described. Gouverneur, the postmaster at New York, being then appealed +to by his Charleston brother, declined to forward papers mailed by the +American Anti-Slavery Society. This dangerous usurpation was defended +upon the principle of _salus populi suprema lex_. + +In December, 1835, Jackson called the attention of Congress to the +circulation of "inflammatory appeals addressed to the passions of the +slaves" (as they used to call the desire of black men to be free), +"calculated to stimulate them to insurrection and produce all the +horrors of a servile war." A bill was introduced making it unlawful for +any postmaster knowingly to deliver any printed or pictorial paper +touching the subject of slavery in States by whose laws their +circulation was prohibited. Webster condemned the bill as a federal +violation of the freedom of the press. Clay thought it unconstitutional, +vague, indefinite, and unnecessary, as the States could lay hold of +citizens taking such publications from post-offices within their +borders. Benton and other senators, several of them Democrats, and seven +from slaveholding States, voted against the bill, because they were, so +Benton said, "tired of the eternal cry of dissolving the Union, did not +believe in it, and would not give a repugnant vote to avoid the trial." +The debate did not reach a very exalted height. The question was by no +means free from doubt. Anti-slavery papers probably were, as the +Southerners said, "incendiary" to their States. Slavery depended upon +ignorance and fear. The federal post-office no doubt was intended, as +Kendall argued, to be a convenience to the various States, and not an +offense against their codes of morality. There has been little +opposition to the present prohibition of the use of the post-office for +obscene literature, or, to take a better illustration, for the circulars +of lotteries which are lawful in some States but not in others. + +When the bill came to a vote in the Senate, although there was really a +substantial majority against it, a tie was skillfully arranged to compel +Van Buren, as Vice-President, to give the casting vote. White, the +Southern Democratic candidate so seriously menacing him, was in the +Senate, and voted for the bill. Van Buren must, it was supposed, offend +the pro-slavery men by voting against the bill, or offend the North and +perhaps bruise his conscience by voting for it. When the roll was being +called, Van Buren, so Benton tells us, was out of the chair, walking +behind the colonnade at the rear of the vice-president's seat. Calhoun, +fearful lest he might escape the ordeal, eagerly asked where he was, and +told the sergeant-at-arms to look for him. But Van Buren was ready, and +at once stepped to his chair and voted for the bill. His close friend, +Silas Wright of New York, also voted for it. Benton says he deemed both +the votes to be political and given from policy. So they probably were. +To Van Buren all the fire-eating measures of Calhoun and the pro-slavery +men were most distasteful. He probably thought the bill would do more to +increase than allay agitation at the North. Walter Scott, when the +prince regent toasted him as the author of "Waverley," feeling that even +royal highness had no right in a numerous company to tear away the long +kept and valuable secrecy of "the great Unknown," rose and gravely said +to his host: "Sire, I am not the author of 'Waverley.'" There were, he +thought, questions which did not entitle the questioner to be told the +truth. So Van Buren may have thought there were political interrogations +which, being made for sheer party purposes, might rightfully be answered +for like purposes. Since the necessity for his vote was contrived to +injure him and not to help or hurt the bill, he probably felt justified +so to vote as best to frustrate the design against him. This persuasive +casuistry usually overcomes a candidate for great office in the stress +of conflict. But lenient as may be the judgment of party supporters, and +distressing as may seem the necessity, the untruth pretty surely returns +to plague the statesman. Van Buren never deserved to be called a +"Northern man with Southern principles." But this vote came nearer to an +excuse for the epithet than did any other act of his career. + +The election proved how large was the Southern defection. Georgia and +Tennessee, which had been almost unanimous for Jackson in 1836, now +voted for White. Mississippi, where in that year there had been no +opposition, and Louisiana, where Jackson had eight votes to Clay's five, +now gave Van Buren majorities of but three hundred each. In North +Carolina Jackson had had 24,862 votes, and Clay only 4563; White got +23,626 to 26,910 for Van Buren. In Virginia Jackson had three times the +vote of Clay; Van Buren had but one fourth more votes than White. In +Benton's own State, so nearly unanimous for Jackson, White had over 7000 +to Van Buren's 11,000. But in the Northeast Van Buren was very strong. +Jackson's majority in Maine of 6087 became a majority of 7751 for Van +Buren. New Hampshire, the home of Hill and Woodbury, had given Jackson a +majority of 6376; it gave Van Buren over 12,000. The Democratic majority +in New York rose from less than 14,000 to more than 28,000, and this +majority was rural and not urban. The majority in New York city was but +about 1000. Of the fifty-six counties, Van Buren carried forty-two, +while nowadays his political successors rarely carry more than twenty. +Connecticut had given a majority of 6000 for Clay; it gave Van Buren +over 500. Rhode Island had voted for Clay; it now voted for Van Buren. +Massachusetts was carried for Webster by 42,247 against 34,474 for Van +Buren; Clay had had 33,003 to only 14,545 for Jackson. But New Jersey +shifted from Jackson to Harrison, although a very close State at both +elections; and in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, Van Buren +fell far behind Jackson. The popular vote, omitting South Carolina, +where the legislature chose the electors, was as follows:-- + + New Middle + England. States. South. West. Total. + Van Buren 112,480 310,203 141,942 198,053 762,678 + Harrison, White, + and Webster 106,169 282,376 138,059 209,046 735,650 + +The electoral votes were thus divided: + + New Middle + England States. South. West. Total. + Van Buren 29 72 57 12 170 + Harrison 7 21 -- 45 73 + Webster 14 -- -- -- 14 + White -- -- 26 -- 26 + +Van Buren thus came to the presidency supported by the great Middle +States and New England against the West, with the South divided. +Omitting the uncontested reëlection of Monroe in 1820, and the almost +uncontested reëlection of Jefferson in 1804, Van Buren was the first +Democratic candidate for president who carried New England. He had there +a clear majority in both the electoral and the popular vote. Nor has any +Democrat since Van Buren obtained a majority of the popular vote in that +strongly thinking and strongly prejudiced community. Pierce, against the +feeble Whig candidacy of Scott, carried its electoral vote in 1852, but +by a minority of its popular vote, and only because of the large Free +Soil vote for Hale. No other Democrat since 1852 has had any electoral +vote from New England outside of Connecticut. Virginia refused its vote +to Johnson, who, in the failure of either candidate to receive a +majority of the electoral vote, was chosen vice-president by the Senate. + +When the electoral votes were formally counted before the houses of +Congress, the result, so contemporary record informs us, was "received +with perfect decorum by the House and galleries." Enthusiasm was going +out with Jackson, to come back again with Harrison. Van Buren's election +was the success of intellectual convictions, and not the triumph of +sentiment. He had come to power, as "the House and galleries" well knew, +in "perfect decorum." Not a single one of the generous but sometimes +cheap and fruitless rushes of feeling occasionally so potent in politics +had helped him to the White House. Not that he was ungenerous or lacking +in feeling. Very far from it; few men have inspired so steady and deep a +political attachment among men of strong character and patriotic +aspirations. But neither in his person nor in his speech or conduct was +there anything of the strong picturesqueness which impresses masses of +men, who must be touched, if at all, by momentary glimpses of great men +or by vivid phrases which become current about them. His election was no +more than a triumph of disciplined good sense and political wisdom. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +CRISIS OF 1837 + + +On March 4, 1837, Jackson and Van Buren rode together from the White +House to the Capitol in a "beautiful phaëton" made from the timber of +the old frigate Constitution, the gift to the general from the Democrats +of New York city. He was the third and last president who has, after +serving through his term, left office amid the same enthusiasm which +attended him when he entered it, and to whom the surrender of place has +not been full of those pangs which attend sudden loss of power, and of +which the certain anticipation ought to moderate ambition in a country +so rarely permitting a long and continuous public career. Washington, +amid an almost unanimous love and reverence, left a station of which he +was unaffectedly weary; and he was greater out of office than in it. +Jefferson and Jackson remained really powerful characters. Neither at +Monticello nor at the Hermitage, after their masters had returned, was +there any lack of the incense of sincere popular flattery or of the +appeals for the exercise of admitted and enormous influence, in which +lies much of the unspeakable fascination of a great public station. + +Leaving the White House under a still and brilliant sky, the retiring +and incoming rulers had such a popular and military attendance as +without much order or splendor has usually gone up Capitol Hill with our +presidents. Van Buren's inaugural speech was heard, it is said, by +nearly twenty thousand persons; for he read it with remarkable +distinctness and in a quiet air, from the historic eastern portico. He +returned from the inauguration to his private residence; and with a fine +deference insisted upon Jackson remaining in the White House until his +departure, a few days later, for Tennessee. Van Buren in his own +carriage took Jackson to the terminus of the new railway upon which the +journey home was to begin. He bade the old man a most affectionate +farewell, and promised to visit him at the Hermitage in the summer. + +The new cabinet, with a single exception, was the same as Jackson's: +John Forsyth of Georgia, secretary of state; Levi Woodbury of New +Hampshire, secretary of the treasury; Mahlon Dickerson of New Jersey, +secretary of the navy; Kendall, postmaster-general; and Butler, +attorney-general. Joel R. Poinsett, a strong union man among the +nullifiers of South Carolina, became secretary of war. Cass had left +this place in 1836 to be minister to France, and Butler had since +temporarily filled it, as well as his own post of attorney-general. The +cabinet had indeed been largely Van Buren's, two years and more before +he was president. + +Van Buren's inaugural address began again with the favorite touch of +humility, but it now had an agreeable dignity. He was, he said, the +first president born after the Revolution; he belonged to a later age +than his illustrious predecessors. Nor ought he to expect his countrymen +to weigh his actions with the same kind and partial hand which they had +used towards worthies of Revolutionary times. But he piously looked for +the sustaining support of Providence, and the kindness of a people who +had never yet deserted a public servant honestly laboring in their +cause. There was the usual congratulation upon American institutions and +history. We were, he said,--and the boast though not so delightful to +the taste of a later time was perfectly true,--without a parallel +throughout the world "in all the attributes of a great, happy, and +flourishing people." Though we restrained government to the "sole +legitimate end of political institutions," we reached the Benthamite +"greatest happiness of the greatest number," and presented "an aggregate +of human prosperity surely not elsewhere to be found." We must, by +observing the limitations of government, perpetuate a condition of +things so singularly happy. Popular government, whose failure had fifty +years ago been boldly predicted, had now been found "wanting in no +element of endurance or strength." His policy should be "a strict +adherence to the letter and spirit of the constitution ... viewing it as +limited to national objects, regarding it as leaving to the people and +the States all power not explicitly parted with." Upon one question he +spoke precisely. For the first time slavery loomed up in the inaugural +of an American president. It seemed, however, at once to disappear from +politics in the practically unanimous condemnation of the abolition +agitation, an agitation which, though carried on for the noblest +purposes, seemed--for such is the march of human rights--insane and +iniquitous to most patriotic and intelligent citizens. Van Buren quoted +the explicit declaration made by him before the election against the +abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia without the consent of +the slave States, and against "the slightest interference with it in the +States where it exists." Not a word was said of the extension of slavery +in the Territories. That question still slept under the potion of the +Missouri Compromise, to wake with the acquisition of Texas. In Van +Buren's declaration there was nothing in the slightest degree +inconsistent even with the Republican platforms of 1856 and 1860. + +The inaugural concluded with a fine tribute to Jackson. "I know," Van +Buren said, "that I cannot expect to perform the arduous task with equal +ability and success. But united as I have been in his counsels, a daily +witness of his exclusive and unsurpassed devotion to his country's +welfare, agreeing with him in sentiments which his countrymen have +warmly supported, and permitted to partake largely of his confidence, I +may hope that somewhat of the same cheering approbation will be found to +attend upon my path. For him I but express, with my own, the wishes of +all, that he may yet long live to enjoy the brilliant evening of his +well-spent life." + +The lucid optimism of the speech was in perfect temper with this one of +those shining and mellow days, which even March now and then brings to +Washington. But there was latent in the atmosphere a storm, carrying +with it a furious and complete devastation. In the month before the +inauguration, Benton, upon whom Van Buren was pressing a seat in the +cabinet, told the President-elect that they were on the eve of an +explosion of the paper-money system. But the latter offended Benton by +saying: "Your friends think you a little exalted in the head on the +subject." And doubtless the prophecies of the Bank opponents had been +somewhat discredited by the delay of the disaster which was to justify +their denunciations. The profoundly thrilling and hidden delight which +comes with the first taste of supreme power, even to the experienced and +battered man of affairs, had been enjoyed by Van Buren only a few days, +when the air grew heavy about him, and then perturbed, and then +violently agitated, until in two months broke fiercely and beyond all +restraint the most terrific of commercial convulsions in the United +States. Since Washington began the experiment of our federal government +amid the sullen doubts of extreme Federalists and extreme Democrats, no +president, save only Abraham Lincoln, has had to face at the outset of +his presidency so appalling a political situation. + +The causes of the panic of 1837 lay far deeper than in the complex +processes of banking or in the faults of federal administration of the +finances. But, as a man suddenly ill prefers to find for his ailment +some recent and obvious cause, and is not convinced by even a long and +dangerous sickness that its origin lay in old and continued habits of +life, so the greater part of the American people and of their leaders +believed this extraordinary crisis to be the result of financial +blunders of Jackson's administration. They believed that Van Buren could +with a few strokes of his pen repair, if he pleased, those blunders, and +restore commercial confidence and prosperity. The panic of 1837 became, +and has very largely remained, the subject of political and partisan +differences, which obscure its real phenomena and causes. The far-seeing +and patriotic intrepidity with which Van Buren met its almost +overwhelming difficulties is really the crown of his political career. +Fairly to appreciate the service he then rendered his country, the +causes of this famous crisis must be attentively considered. + +In 1819 the United States suffered from commercial and financial +derangement, which may be assumed to have been the effect of the second +war with Great Britain. The enormous waste of a great war carried on by +a highly organized nation is apt not to become obvious in general +business distress until some time after the war has ended. A buoyant +extravagance in living and in commercial and manufacturing ventures will +continue after a peace has brought its extraordinary promises, upon the +faith of which, and in joyful ignorance, the evil and inevitable day is +postponed. All this was seen later and on a vaster scale from 1865 to +1873. In 1821 the country had quite recovered from its depression; and +from this time on to near the end of Jackson's administration the United +States saw a material prosperity, doubtless greater than any before +known. The exuberant outburst of John Quincy Adams's message of +1827,--that the productions of our soil, the exchanges of our commerce, +the vivifying labors of human industry, had combined "to mingle in our +cup a portion of enjoyment as large and liberal as the indulgence of +Heaven has perhaps ever granted to the imperfect state of man upon +earth,"--was in the usual tone of the public utterances of our +presidents from 1821 to 1837. Our harvests were always great. We were a +chosen people delighting in reminders from our rulers of our prosperity, +and not restless under their pious urgency of perennial gratitude to +Providence. In 1821 the national debt had slightly increased, reaching +upwards of $90,000,000; but from that time its steady and rapid payment +went on until it was all discharged in 1834. Our cities grew. Our +population stretched eagerly out into the rich Mississippi valley. From +a population of ten millions in 1821, we reached sixteen millions in +1837. New York from about 1,400,000 became 2,200,000; and Pennsylvania +from about 1,000,000 became 1,600,000. But the amazing growth was at +the West--Illinois from 60,000 to 400,000, Indiana from 170,000 to +600,000, Ohio from 600,000 to 1,400,000, Tennessee from 450,000 to +800,000. Missouri had increased her 70,000 five-fold; Mississippi her +80,000 four-fold; Michigan her 10,000 twenty-fold. Iowa and Wisconsin +were entirely unsettled in 1821; in 1837 the fertile lands of the former +maintained nearly forty thousand and of the latter nearly thirty +thousand hardy citizens. New towns and cities rose with magical +rapidity. With much that was unlovely there was also exhibited an +amazing energy and capacity for increase in wealth. The mountain +barriers once passed, not only by adventurous pioneers but by the +pressing throngs of settlers, there were few obstacles to the rapid +creation of comfort and wealth. Nor in the Mississippi valley and the +lands of the Northwest were the settlers met by the harsh soil, the +hostilities and reluctance of nature in whose conquest upon the Atlantic +seaboard the American people had gained some of their strongest and most +enduring characteristics. We hardly realize indeed how much better it +was for after times that our first settlements were difficult. In the +easy opening and tillage of the rich and sometimes rank lands at the +West there was an inferior, a less arduous discipline. American temper +there rushed often to speculation, rather than to toil or venture. It +did not seem necessary to create wealth by labor; the treasures lay +ready for those first reaching the doors of the treasure house. To make +easy the routes to El Dorado of prairies and river bottoms was the +quickest way to wealth. + +Roads, canals, river improvements, preceded, attended, followed these +sudden settlements, this vast and jubilant movement of population. There +was an extraordinary growth of "internal improvements." In his message +of 1831, Jackson rejoiced at the high wages earned by laborers in the +construction of these works, which he truly said were "extending with +unprecedented rapidity." The constitutional power of the federal +government to promote the improvements within the States became a +serious question, because the improvements proposed were upon so vast a +scale. No single interest had for fifteen years before 1837 held so +large a part of American attention as did the making of canals and +roads. The debates of Congress and legislatures, the messages of +presidents and governors, were full of it. If the Erie Canal, finished +in 1825, had rendered vast natural resources available, and had made its +chief builder famous, why should not like schemes prosper further west? +The success of railroads was already established; and there was +indefinite promise in the extensions of them already planned. In 1830 +twenty-three miles had been constructed; in 1831 ninety-four miles; and +in 1836 the total construction had risen to 1273 miles. + +The Americans were then a far more homogeneous people than they are +to-day. The great Irish, German, and Scandinavian immigrations had not +taken place. Our race diversities were, with exceptions, unimportant in +extent or lost in the lapse of time, the diversities merely of British +descendants. Nor were there the extremes of fortune or the diversities +of occupation which have come with the growth of cities and +manufacturing interests. The United States were still a nation of +farmers. The compensations and balances, which in the varying habits and +prejudices of a more varied population tend to restrain and neutralize +vagaries, did not exist. One sentiment seized the whole nation far more +readily than could happen in the complexity of our modern population and +the diversity and rivalry of its strains. Not only did this homogeneity +make Americans open to single impulses; but there was little essential +difference of environment. They all, since the later days of Monroe's +presidency, had lived in the atmosphere of official delight and +congratulation over the past, and of unrestrained promise for the +future. All, whether in the grain fields at the North or the cotton +fields at the South, had behind them the Atlantic with traditions or +experiences of poverty and oppression beyond it. Every American had, in +his own latitude, since the ampler opening of roads and waterways, and +the peaceful conquest of the Appalachian mountain ranges, seen to the +west of him fertility and promise and performance. And the fertility and +promise had, since the second English war, been no longer in a land of +hardship and adventure remote and almost foreign to the seaboard. Every +American under Jackson's administration had before him, as the one +universal experience of those who had taken lands at the West, an +enormous and certain increase of value, full of enchantment to those +lately tilling the flinty soil of New England or the overused fields of +the South. If new lands at the West could be made accessible by internal +improvements, the succession of seed time and harvest had for a dozen +years seemed no more certain than that the value of those lands would at +once increase prodigiously. So the American people with one consent gave +themselves to an amazing extravagance of land speculation. The Eden +which Martin Chuzzlewit saw in later malarial decay was to be found in +the new country on almost every stream to the east of the Mississippi +and on many streams west of it, where flatboats could be floated. Frauds +there doubtless were; but they were incidental to the honest delusion of +intelligent men inspired by the most extraordinary growth the world had +seen. The often quoted illustration of Mobile, the valuation of whose +real estate rose from $1,294,810 in 1831 to $27,482,961 in 1837, to sink +again in 1846 to $8,638,250, not unfairly tells the story. In Pensacola, +lots which to-day are worth $50 each were sold for as much as lots on +Fifth Avenue in New York, which to-day are worth $100,000 apiece. Real +estate in the latter city was assessed in 1836 at more than it was in +the greatly larger and richer city of fifteen years later. From 1830 to +1837 the steamboat tonnage on the Western rivers rose from 63,053 to +253,661. From 1833 to 1837 the cotton crop of the newer slave States, +Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida, +increased from 536,450 to 916,960 bales, while the price with +fluctuations rose from ten to twenty cents a pound. Foreign capital +naturally enough came to share in the splendid money-making. From 1821 +to 1833 the annual import of specie from England had averaged about +$100,000, in the last year being only $31,903; but in 1834 it became +$5,716,253, in 1835 $914,958, and in 1836 $2,322,920, the entire export +to England of specie for all these three years being but $51,807, while +the average export from 1822 to 1830 had been about $400,000; and its +amount in 1831 had been $2,089,766, and in 1832 $1,730,571. From 1830 to +1837, both years inclusive, although the imports from all countries of +general merchandise exceeded the exports by $140,700,000, there was no +counter movement of specie. The imports of specie from all countries +during these years exceeded the exports by the comparatively enormous +sum of $44,700,000. The foreigners therefore took pay for their goods, +not only in our raw materials, but also in our investments or rather our +speculations, and sent these vast quantities of moneys besides. So our +good fortune fired the imaginations of even the dull Europeans. They +helped to feed and clothe us that we might experiment with Aladdin's +lamp. + +The price of public lands was fixed by law at $1.25 an acre; and they +were open to any purchaser, without the wholesome limits of acreage and +the restraint to actual settlers which were afterwards established. Here +then was a commodity whose price to wholesale purchasers did not rise, +and the very commodity by which so many fortunes had been made. In +public lands, therefore, the fury of money-getting, the boastful +confidence in the future of the country, reached their climax. From 1820 +to 1829 the annual sales had averaged less than $1,300,000, in 1829 +being $1,517,175. But in 1830 they exceeded $2,300,000, in 1831 +$3,200,000, in 1832 $2,600,000, in 1833 $3,900,000, and in 1834 +$4,800,000. In 1835 they suddenly mounted to $14,757,600, and in 1836 to +$24,877,179. In his messages of 1829 and 1830 Jackson not unreasonably +treated the moderate increase in the sales as a proof of increasing +prosperity. In 1831 his congratulations were hushed; but in 1835 he +again fancied, even in the abnormal sales of that year, only an ampler +proof of ampler prosperity. In 1836 he at last saw that tremendous +speculation was the true significance of the enormous increase. Prices +of course went up. Everybody thought himself richer and his labor worth +more. A week after Van Buren's inauguration a meeting was held in the +City Hall Park in New York to protest against high rents and the high +prices of provisions; and with much discernment the cry went up, "No rag +money; give us gold and silver!" + +There is no longer dispute that the prostration of business in 1837, and +for several years afterward, was the perfectly natural result of the +speculation which had gone before. The absurd denunciations of Van Buren +by the most eminent of the Whigs for not ending the crisis by +governmental interference are no longer respected. But it is still +fancied that the speculation itself was caused by one financial blunder, +and the crisis immediately occasioned by another financial blunder, of +Jackson. It is not improbable that the deposits of treasury moneys in +fifty state banks[12] instead of in the United States Bank and its twenty +and more branches, which began in the fall of 1833, aided the tendency +to speculation. But this aid was at the most a slight matter. The +impression has been sedulously created that these state banks, the "pet +banks," were doubtful institutions. There seems little reason to doubt +that in general they were perfectly sound and reputable institutions, +with which the government moneys would be quite as safe as with the +United States Bank. It is clear that if the latter Bank were not to be +rechartered, the deposits should, without regard to the accusations of +political meddling brought against it, have been removed some time in +advance of its death in March, 1836. At best it is matter of doubtful +speculation whether the United States Bank under Biddle's direction +would, in 1834, 1835, and 1836, while the government deposits were +enormously increasing, have behaved with much greater prudence and +foresight than did the state deposit banks. So far as actual experience +helps us, the doubt might well be solved in the negative. The United +States Bank, when its federal charter lapsed, obtained a charter from +Pennsylvania, continuing under the same management; and is said, and +possibly with truth, to have entered upon its new career with a great +surplus. But it proved no stronger than the state banks in 1837; it +obstructed resumption in 1838; it suspended again in 1839, while the +Eastern banks stood firm; and in 1841 it went to pieces in disgraceful +and complete disaster. + +The enormous extension of bank credits during the three years before the +break-down in 1837 was rather the symptom than the cause of the disease. +The fever of speculation was in the veins of the community before +"kiting" began. Bank officers dwelt in the same atmosphere as did other +Americans, and their sanguine extravagance in turn stimulated the +universal temper of speculation. + +When the United States Bank lost the government deposits, late in 1833, +they amounted to a little less than $10,000,000. On January 1, 1835, +more than a year after the state banks took the deposits, they had +increased to a little more than $10,000,000. But the public debt being +then paid and the outgo of money thus checked, the deposits had by +January 1, 1836, reached $25,000,000, and by June 1, 1836, $41,500,000. +This enormous advance represented the sudden increase in the sales of +public lands, which were paid for in bank paper, which in turn formed +the bulk of the government deposits. The deposits were with only a small +part of the six hundred and more state banks then in existence. But the +increase in the sales of public lands was the result of all the organic +causes and of all the long train of events which had seated the fever of +speculation so profoundly in the American character of the day. To those +causes and events must ultimately be ascribed the extension of bank +credits so far as it immediately arose out of the increase of government +deposits. Nor is there any sufficient reason to suppose that if the +deposits, instead of being in fifty state banks, had remained in the +United States Bank and its branches, the tendency to speculation would +have been less. The influences which surrounded that Bank were the very +influences most completely subject to the popular mania. + +But the increase of government deposits was only fuel added to the +flames. The craze for banks and credits was unbounded before the removal +of the deposits had taken place, and before their great increase could +have had serious effect. Between 1830 and January 1, 1834, the banking +capital of the United States had risen from $61,000,000 to about +$200,000,000; the loans and discounts of the banks from $200,000,000 to +$324,000,000; and their note circulation from $61,000,000 to +$95,000,000. The increase from January 1, 1834, to January 1, 1836, was +even more rapid, the banking capital advancing in the two years to +$251,000,000, the loans and discounts to $457,000,000, and the note +circulation to $140,000,000. But there was certainty of disaster in the +abnormal growth from 1830 to 1834. The insanity of speculation was in +ample though unobserved control of the country while Nicholas Biddle +still controlled the deposits, and was certain to reach a climax whether +they stayed with him or went elsewhere. + +It is difficult rightly to apportion among the statesmen and politicians +of the time so much of blame for the mania of speculation as must go to +that body of men. They had all drunk in the national intoxication over +American success and growth. But if we pass from the greater and deeper +causes to the lesser though more obvious ones, it is impossible not to +visit the greater measure of blame upon the statesmen who resisted +reduction of taxation, which would have left money in the pockets of +those who earned it, and not collected it in one great bank with many +branches or in fifty lesser banks; upon the statesmen who insisted that +the government ought to aid commercial ventures by encouraging the loans +to traders of its own moneys held in the deposit banks; upon the +statesmen who promoted the dangerous scheme of distributing the surplus +among the States instead of abolishing the surplus. As the condemnation +of public men in the wrong must be proportioned somewhat to the +distinction of their positions and the greatness of their natural gifts, +this larger share of blame must go chiefly to Daniel Webster and Henry +Clay. At the head of their associates, they had resisted the reduction +of taxation. In his speech on the tariff bill of 1832 Clay said, with +the exuberance so delightful to minds of easy discipline, that our +resources should "not be hoarded and hugged with a miser's embrace, but +liberally used." They insisted upon freely lending the public moneys. In +his speech on the distribution of the surplus, Webster urged that the +number of the deposit banks "be so far increased that each may regard +that portion of the public treasure which it may receive as an increase +of its effective deposits, to be used, like other moneys in deposit, as +a basis of discount, to a just and proper extent." The public money was +locked up, he declared, instead of aiding the general business of the +country. Nor after this was he ashamed in 1838 to condemn Jackson's +secretary of the treasury for advising the new deposit banks, as he had +himself thus advised them, "to afford increased facilities to commerce." +If, indeed, Congress would not take steps to keep a government surplus +out of the banks and in the pockets of producers, the secretary ought +not to have been harshly judged for advising that the money go out into +commerce rather than lie in bank vaults. + +The distribution of the surplus among the States by the law of 1836 was +the last and in some respects the worst of the measures which aided and +exaggerated the tendency to speculation. By this bill, all the money +above $5,000,000 in the treasury on January 1, 1837, was to be +"deposited" with the States in four quarterly installments commencing on +that day. According to the law the "deposit" was but a loan to the +States; but, as Clay declared, not "a single member of either House +imagined that a dollar would ever be recalled." It was in truth a mere +gift. Clay's triumphant ridicule of the opposition to this measure has +already been mentioned. Webster in sounding periods declared his "deep +and earnest conviction" of the propriety of the stupendous folly. He did +not, indeed, defend the general system of making the federal government +a tax-gatherer for the States. But this one distribution would, he said +in his speech of May 31, 1836, "remove that severe and almost +unparalleled pressure for money which is now distressing and breaking +down the industry, the enterprise, and even the courage of the +commercial community." The Whig press declared that a congressman who +could for mere party reasons vote against a measure which would bring so +much money into his State, must be "far gone in political hardihood as +well as depravity;" and that "to the Republican-Whig party alone are the +States indebted for the benefits arising from the distribution." William +H. Seward, two years before and two years later the Whig candidate for +governor of New York, said the proposal was "noble and just." The +measure passed the Senate with six Democratic votes against it, among +them the vote of Silas Wright, then probably closer than any other +senator to Van Buren. Jackson yielded to the bill what in his message in +December of the same year he called "a reluctant approval." He then gave +at length very clear reasons for his reluctance, but none for his +approval. He declared that "improvident expenditure of money is the +parent of profligacy," and that no intelligent and virtuous community +would consent to raise a surplus for the mere purpose of dividing it. In +his first message, indeed, Jackson had called the distribution among the +States "the most safe, just, and federal disposition" of the surplus. +But his views upon this, as upon other subjects, had changed during the +composition of the Democratic creed which went on during the early years +of his administration. His second message rehearsed at length the +objections to the distribution, though affecting to meet them. In his +third message he recommended the abolition of unnecessary taxation, not +the distribution of its proceeds; and in 1832 he made his explicit +declaration that duties should be "reduced to the revenue standard." +Benton says it was understood that in 1836 some of Van Buren's friends +urged Jackson to approve the bill, lest a veto of so popular a measure +might bring a Democratic defeat. There must have been some reason +unrelated to the merit of the measure. But whatever the opinions of Van +Buren's friends, he took care before the election to make known +unequivocally, in the Sherrod Williams letter already quoted, his +dislike of this piece of demagogy. From the passage of the deposit bill +in June, 1836, until the crash in 1837, this superb donation of +thirty-seven millions was before the enraptured and deluded vision of +the country. Over nine millions a quarter to be poured into +"improvements" or loaned to the needy,--what a delightful prospect to +citizens harassed by the restraints of prudent, fruitful industry! The +lesson is striking and wholesome, and ought not to be forgotten, that it +was when the land was in the very midst of these largesses that the +universal bankruptcy set in. + +During 1835 and 1836 there were omens of the coming storm. Some +perceived the rabid character of the speculative fever. William L. +Marcy, governor of New York, in his message of January, 1836, answering +the dipsomaniac cry for more banks, declared that an unregulated spirit +of speculation had taken capital out of the State; but that the amount +so transferred bore no comparison to the enormous speculations in stocks +and in real property within the State. Lands near the cities and +villages of the State had risen several hundred per cent. in value, and +were sold, not to be occupied by the buyers, but to be sold again at +higher prices. The passion for speculation prevailed to an extent before +unknown, not only among capitalists, but among merchants, who abstracted +capital from their business for land and stock speculations and then +resorted to the banks. The warning was treated contemptuously; but +before the year was out the federal administration also became anxious, +and the increase in land sales no longer signified to Jackson an +increasing prosperity. The master hand which drew the economic +disquisition in his message of 1836 pointed to these sales as the +effects of the extension of bank credit and of the over-issue of bank +paper. The banks, it was declared, had lent their notes as "mere +instruments to transfer to speculators the most valuable public land, +and pay the government by a credit on the books of the banks." Each +speculation had furnished means for another. No sooner had one purchaser +paid his debt in the notes than they were lent to another for a like +purpose. The banks had extended their business and their issues so +largely as to alarm considerate men. The spirit of expansion and +speculation had not been confined to deposit banks, but had pervaded the +whole multitude of banks throughout the Union, and had given rise to new +institutions to aggravate the evil. So Jackson proceeded with his sound +defense of the famous specie circular, long and even still denounced as +the _causa causans_ of the crisis of 1837. + +By this circular, issued on July 11, 1836, the secretary of the treasury +had required payment for public lands to be made in specie, with an +exception until December 15, 1836, in favor of actual settlers and +actual residents of the State in which the lands were sold. The enormous +sales of land in this year, and the large payments required for them +under the circular, at once made the banks realize that there ought to +be an actual physical basis for their paper transactions. Gold was +called from the East to the banks at the West to make the land payments. +Into the happy exaltation of unreal transactions was now plunged that +harsh demand for real value which sooner or later must always come. The +demand was passed on from one to another, and its magnitude and +peremptoriness grew rapidly. The difference between paper and gold +became plainer and plainer. Nature's vital and often hidden truth that +value depends upon labor could no longer be kept secret by a few wise +men. The suspicion soon arose that there was not real and available +value to meet the demands of nominal value. The suspicion was soon +bruited among the less as well as the more wary. Every man rushed to his +bank or his debtor, crying, "Pay me in value, not in promises to pay; +there is, I at last see, a difference between them." But the banks and +debtors had no available value, but only its paper semblances. Every man +found that what he wanted, his neighbors did not have to give him, and +what he had, his neighbors did not want. + +This is hardly an appropriate place to attempt an analysis of the +elements of a commercial crisis. But it is not possible rightly to +estimate Van Buren's moral courage and keen-sighted wisdom in meeting +the terrible pressure of 1837 without appreciating what it was which had +really happened. The din of the disputes over the refusal to re-charter +the bank, over the removal of the deposits, over the refusal to pay the +last installment of the distribution among the States, and over the +specie circular, resounds even to our own time. To many the crisis +seemed merely a financial or even a great banking episode. Many friends +of the administration loudly cried that the disaster arose from the +treachery of the banks in suspending. Many of its enemies saw only the +normal fruit of administrative blunders, first in recklessness, and last +in heartless indifference. To most Americans, whatever their +differences, the explanation of this profound and lasting disturbance +seemed to lie in the machinery of finance, rather than in the deeper +facts of the physical wealth and power of the trading classes. + +Speculation is sometimes said to be universal; and it was never nearer +universality than from 1830 to 1837. But speculation affects after all +but a small part of the community,--the part engaged in trade, venture, +new settlement or new manufacture; those classes of men the form of +whose work is not established by tradition, but is changing and +improving under the spur of ingenuity and invention, and with whom +imagination is most powerful and fruitful. These men use the surplus +resources of the vastly greater number who go on through periods of high +prices and of low prices with their steady toil and unvaried production. +In our country and in all industrial communities it is to the former +comparatively small class that chiefly and characteristically belong +"good times" and "bad times," panics and crises and depressions. It is +this class which in newspapers and financial reviews becomes "the +country." It chiefly supports the more influential of the clergy, the +lawyers, the editors, and others of the professional classes. It deals +with the new uses and the accumulations of wealth; it almost monopolizes +public attention; it is chiefly and conspicuously identified with +industrial and commercial changes and progress. But if great depressions +were as nearly universal as the rhetoric of economists and historians +would literally signify, our ancestors fifty years ago must have +experienced a devastation such as Alaric is said to have brought to the +fields of Lombardy. But this was not so. The processes of general +production went on; the land was tilled; the farmer's work of the year +brought about the same amount of comfort; the ordinary mechanic was not +much worse off. If some keen observer from another planet had in 1835 +and again later in 1837 looked into the dining-rooms and kitchens and +parlors of America, had seen its citizens with their families going to +church of a Sunday morning, or watched the tea-parties of their wives, +or if he had looked over the fields and into the shops, there would have +seemed to him but slight difference between the two years in the +occupations, the industry, or the comfort of the people. But if he had +stopped looking and begun to listen, he would in 1837 at once have +perceived a tremendous change. The great masses of producing men would +have been mute, as they usually are. But the capitalists, the traders, +the manufacturers, all whose skill, courage, imagination, and adventure +made them the leaders of progress, and whose voices were the only loud, +clear, intelligible voices, until there arose the modern organizations +of laboring men,--all those who in 1835 were flushed and glorious with a +royal money-getting,--he would now have heard crying in frenzy and +desperation. It is not meant to disparage the importance of this smaller +but louder body of men, or to underrate the disaster which they +suffered. In proportion to their numbers, they were vastly the most +important part of the community. If they were prostrated, there must not +only suffer the body of clerks, operatives, and laborers immediately +engaged in their enterprises, and who may for economical purposes be +ranked with them; but later on, the masses of the community must to a +real extent feel the interruption of progress which has overtaken that +section of the community to which are committed the characteristic +operations of material progress; and whether through the fault or the +misfortune of that section, the injury is alike serious. A wise ruler, +in touching the finances of his country, will forget none of this. He +will look through all the agitation of bankers and traders and +manufacturers, the well-voiced leaders of the richer classes of men, to +the far vaster processes of industry carried on by men who are silent, +and whose silent industry will go on whatever devices of currency or +banking may be adopted. This wisdom Van Buren now showed in an exalted +degree. + +The disaster which in 1837 overtook so large and so important a part of +the community was, in its ultimate nature, not difficult to comprehend. + +There had not been one equal and universal increase in nominal values. +Such an increase would not have produced the crisis. But while the great +mass of the national industry went on in channels and with methods and +rates substantially undisturbed, there took place an enormous and +speculative advance of prices in the cities where were carried on the +operations of important traders and the promoters of enterprises, and in +the very new country where these enterprises found their material. When +a new canal or road was built, or a new line of river steamers launched +and an unsettled country made accessible, several things inevitably +happened in the temper produced by the jubilant observation of the past. +There was not only drawn from the ordinary industry of the country the +wealth necessary to build the canal or road or steamers; but the country +thus rendered accessible seemed suddenly to gain a value measured by the +best results of former settlements, however exceptional, and by the most +sanguine hopes for the future. The owners of the prairies and woods and +river bottoms became suddenly rich, as a miner in Idaho becomes rich +when he strikes a true fissure vein. The owners of the canal or road or +line of steamers found their real investment at once multiplied in +dollars by the value of the country whose trade they were to enjoy; for, +new as that value was, it seemed assured. Like investments were made in +banks, and in every implement of direct or indirect use in the conduct +of industries which seemed to belong as a necessity to the new value of +the land. The numerous sales of lands and of stocks in roads or canals +or banks at rapidly advancing prices did not alter the nature, although +they vastly augmented the effect, of what was happening. The so-called +"business classes" throughout the country, related as they quickly +became, under the great impetus of the national hopefulness and vanity, +to the new lands, to the new cities and towns and farms, and to the +means of reaching them and of providing them with the necessities and +comforts of civilization, found their wealth rapidly and largely +increasing. Then naturally enough followed the spending of money in +personal luxury. This meant the withdrawal of labor in the older part of +the country from productive work, for which the country was fitted, to +work which, whether suitable or not, was unproductive. The unproductive +labor was paid, as the employers supposed, from the new value lately +created at the West. So capital, that is, accumulated labor, was first +spent in improvements in the new country, and then, and probably in a +far greater amount, spent in more costly food, clothes, equipage, and +other luxuries in the older country. The successive sales at advancing +prices simply increased the sense of new wealth, and augmented more and +more this destructive consumption of the products of labor, or the +destructive diversion of labor from productive to unproductive activity +at the East by the well-to-do classes. + +On the eve of the panic the new wealth, whose seeming possession +apparently justified this destructive consumption or diversion to luxury +of physical value, was primarily represented by titles to lands, stocks +in land, canal, turnpike, railroad, transportation, or banking +companies, and the notes issued by banks or traders or speculators. The +value of these stocks and notes depended upon the fruitfulness of the +lands or canals or roads or steamboat lines. Prices of many commodities +had, indeed, been enhanced by speculation beyond all proper relation to +other commodities, measured by the ultimate standard of the quantity and +quality of labor. But important as was this element, it was subordinate +to the apparent creation of wealth at the West. + +Before the panic broke, it began to appear that mere surveys of wild +tracts into lots made neither towns nor cities; that canals and roads +and steamboats did not hew down trees or drain morasses or open the +glebe. The basis of the operations of capitalists and promoters and +venturers in new fields, if those operations were to have real success, +must lie in the masses of strong and skillful arms of men of labor. The +operations were fruitless until there came a population well sinewed and +gladly ready for arduous toil. In 1836 and 1837 the operators found that +there was no longer a population to give enduring life to their new +operations. They had far outstripped all the immediate or even the +nearly promised movements of settlers. Men, however hardy, preferred to +work within an easier reach of the physical and social advantages of +settlements already made, until they could see the superior fruitfulness +of labor further on. The new cities and towns and farms and the means of +reaching them would be mere paper assets until an army of settlers was +ready to enter in and make them sources of actual physical wealth. But +the army stopped far short of the new Edens and metropolises. There was +no creation among them of the actual wealth, the return of physical +labor, to make good and real the popular semblances of wealth, upon the +faith of which in the older part of the country had arisen new methods +of business and habits of living. The withdrawal of actual wealth from +the multifarious treasuries of capital and industry, to meet the expense +of the improvements at the West and the increased luxury at the East, +had reached a point where the pressure caused by the deficiency of +physical wealth was too great for the hopefulness or credulity of those +who had been surrendering that wealth upon the promises of successful +and opulent settlements at the West. Nor was all this confined to +ventures in the new States. Almost every Eastern city had a suburb where +with slight differences all the phenomena of speculation were as real +and obvious as in Illinois or Mississippi. + +Jackson's specie circular toppled over the house of cards, which at best +could have stood but little longer. In place of bank-notes, which +symbolized the expectations and hopes of the owners of new towns and +improvements, the United States after July, 1836, required from all but +actual settlers gold and silver for lands. An insignificant part of the +sales had been lately made to settlers. They were chiefly made to +speculators. The public lands, which sold invariably at $1.25 an acre, +were enormously magnified in nominal value the instant the speculators +owned them. Paper money was freely issued upon these estimates of value, +to be again paid to the government for more lands at $1.25. But now +gold and silver must be found; and nothing but actual labor could find +gold and silver. A further stream of true wealth was summoned from the +East, already denuded, as it was, of all the surplus it had ready to be +invested upon mere expectation. Enormous rates were now paid for real +money. But of the real money necessary to make good the paper bubble +promises of the speculators not one-tenth part really existed. Banks +could neither make their debtors pay in gold and silver, nor pay their +own notes in gold and silver. So they suspended. + +The great and long concealed devastation of physical wealth and of the +accumulation of legitimate labor, by premature improvements and costly +personal living, became now quickly apparent. Fancied wealth sank out of +sight. Paper symbols of new cities and towns, canals and roads, were not +only without value, but they were now plainly seen to be so. Rich men +became poor men. The prices of articles in which there had been +speculation sank in the reaction far below their true value. The +industrious and the prudent, who had given their labor and their real +wealth for paper promises issued upon the credit of seemingly assured +fortunes, suffered at once with men whose fortunes had never been +anything better than the delusions of their hope and imagination. + +It is now plain enough that to recover from this crisis was a work of +physical reparation to which must go time, industry, and frugality. +There was folly in every effort to retain and use as valuable assets +the investments in companies and banks whose usefulness, if it had ever +begun, was now ended. There was folly in every effort to conceal from +the world by words of hopefulness the fact that the imagined values in +new cities and garden lands had disappeared in a rude disenchantment as +complete as that of Abou-Hassan in the Thousand and One Nights, or that +of Sly, the tinker, left untold in the Taming of the Shrew. Their sites +were no more than wild lands, whose value must wait the march of +American progress, fast enough indeed to the rest of the world, but slow +as the snail to the wild pacing of the speculators. Every pretense of a +politician, whether in or out of the senate chamber, that the government +could by devices of financiering avoid this necessity of long physical +repair, was either folly or wickedness. And of this folly or even +wickedness there was no lack in the anxious spring and summer of 1837. + +There had already occurred in many quarters that misery which is borne +by the humbler producers of wealth not for their own consumption, but +simply for exchange, whose earnings are not increased to meet the +inflation of prices upon which traders and speculators are accumulating +apparent fortunes and spending them as if they were real. On February +14, 1837, several thousand people met in front of the City Hall in New +York under a call of men whom the "Commercial Advertiser" described as +"Jackson Jacobins." The call was headed: "Bread, meat, rent, fuel! +Their prices must come down!" It invited the presence of "all friends of +humanity determined to resist monopolists and extortionists." A very +respectable meeting about high prices had been held two or three weeks +before at the Broadway Tabernacle. The meeting in the City Hall Park, +with a mixture of wisdom and folly, urged the prohibition of bank-notes +under $100, and called for gold and silver; and then denounced landlords +and dealers in provisions. The excitement of the meeting was followed by +a riot, in which a great flour warehouse was gutted. The rioters were +chiefly foreigners and few in number; nor were the promoters of the +meeting involved in the riot. The military were called out; and Eli +Hart & Co., the unfortunate flour merchants, issued a card pointing out +with grim truth "that the destruction of the article cannot have a +tendency to reduce the price." + +The distribution of the treasury surplus to the States precipitated the +crash. The first quarter's payment of $9,367,000 was made on January 1, +1837. There was disturbance in taking this large sum of money from the +deposit banks. Loans had to be called in, and the accommodation to +business men lessened for the time. There was speculative disturbance in +the receipt of the moneys by the state depositories. There was +apprehension for the next payment on April 1, which was accomplished +with still greater disturbance, and after the crisis had begun. The +calls for gold and silver, begun under the specie circular, and the +disturbances caused by these distributions, were increased by financial +pressure in England, whose money aids to America were but partly shown +by the shipments of gold and silver already mentioned. The extravagance +of living had been shown in foreign importations for consumption in +luxury, to meet which there had gone varied promises to pay, and +securities whose true value depended upon the true and not the apparent +creation of wealth in America. Before the middle of March the money +excitement at Manchester was great; and to the United States alone, it +was then declared, attention was directed for larger remittances and for +specie. The merchants of Liverpool about the same time sent a memorial +to the chancellor of the exchequer saying "that the distress of the +mercantile interest is intense beyond example, and that it is rapidly +extending to all ranks and conditions of the community, so as to +threaten irretrievable ruin in all directions, involving the prudent +with the imprudent." The "London Times" on April 10, 1837, said that +great distress and pressure had been produced in every branch of +national industry, and that the calamity had never been exceeded. + +The cry was quickly reëchoed from America. Commercial failures began in +New York about April 1. By April 8 nearly one hundred failures had +occurred in that city,--five of foreign and exchange brokers, thirty of +dry-goods jobbers, sixteen of commission houses, twenty-eight of +real-estate speculators, eight of stock brokers, and several others. +Three days later the failures had reached one hundred and twenty-eight. +Provisions, wages, rents, everything, as the "New York Herald" on that +day announced, were coming down. Within a few days more the failures +were too numerous to be specially noticed; and before the end of the +month the rest of the country was in a like condition. The prostration +in the newer cotton States was peculiarly complete. Their staple was now +down to ten cents a pound; within a year it had been worth twenty. All +other staples fell enormously in price. + +Later in April the merchants of New York met. Instead of condemning +their own folly, they resolved, in a silly fury, that the disaster was +due to government interference with the business and commercial +operations of the country by requiring land to be paid for in specie +instead of paper, to its destruction of the Bank, and to its +substitution of a metallic for a credit currency. A committee of fifty, +including Thomas Denny, Henry Parish, Elisha Riggs, and many others +whose names are still honored in New York, was appointed to remonstrate +with the president. "What constitutional or legal justification," it was +seriously demanded, "can Martin Van Buren offer to the people of the +United States for having brought upon them all their present +difficulties?" The continuance of the specie circular, they said, was +more high-handed tyranny than that which had cost Charles I. his crown +and his head. On May 3 the committee visited Washington and told the +President that their real estate had depreciated forty millions, their +stocks twenty millions, their immense amounts of merchandise in +warehouses thirty per cent. They piteously said to him, "The noble city +which we represent lies prostrate in despair, its credit blighted, its +industry paralyzed, and without a hope beaming through the darkness, +unless"--and here we might suppose they would have added, "unless +Americans at once stop spending money which has not been earned, and +repair the ruin by years of sensible industry and strict economy." But +the conclusion of the merchants was that the darkness must continue +unless relief came from Washington. It was unjust, they said, to +attribute the evils to excessive development of mercantile enterprise; +they flowed instead from "that unwise system which aimed at the +substitution of a metallic for a paper currency." The error of their +rulers "had produced a wider desolation than the pestilence which +depopulated our streets, or the conflagration which laid them in ashes." +In the opinion of these sapient gentlemen of business, it was the +requirement that the United States, in selling Western lands to +speculators, should be paid in real and not in nominal money, which had +prostrated in despair the metropolis of the country. They asked for a +withdrawal of the specie circular, for a suspension of government suits +against importers on bonds given for duties, for an extra session of +Congress to pass Clay's bill for the distribution of the land revenue +among the States, and for the re-chartering of the Bank. Never did men +out of their heads with fright propose more foolish attempts at relief +than some of these. But the folly, as will be seen, seized statesmen of +the widest experience as well as frenzied merchants. The President's +answer was dignified, but "brief and explicit." To the insolent +suggestion that Jackson's financial measures had been more destructive +than fire or pestilence, he calmly reminded them that he had made fully +known, before he was elected, his own approval of those measures; that +knowing this the people had deliberately chosen him; and that he would +still adhere to those measures. The specie circular should be neither +repealed nor modified. Such indulgence in enforcing custom-house bonds +would be allowed as the law permitted. The emergency did not, he +thought, justify an extra session. Nicholas Biddle called on Van Buren; +and many were disgusted that in the presence of this arch enemy the +president remained "profoundly silent upon the great and interesting +topics of the day." + +Van Buren's resolution to face the storm without either the aid or the +embarrassment of the early presence of Congress he was soon compelled to +abandon. Within a few days of the return of the merchants to New York, +that city sent the President an appalling reply. On May 10 its banks +suspended payment of their notes in coin. A few days before some banks +in lesser cities of the Southwest had stopped. On the day after the New +York suspension, the banks of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Albany, Hartford, +New Haven, and Providence followed. On the 12th the banks of Boston and +Mobile, on the 13th those of New Orleans, and on the 17th those of +Charleston and Cincinnati fell in the same crash. There was now simply a +general bankruptcy. Men would no longer meet their promises to pay, +because no longer could new paper promises pay off old ones. No longer +would men surrender physical wealth safely in their hands for the +expectation of wealth to be created by the future progress of the +country. But men with perfectly real physical wealth in their +storehouses, which they could not themselves use, were also in practical +bankruptcy because of their commercial debts most prudently incurred. +The natural exchange of their own goods for goods which they or their +creditors might use was obstructed by the utter discredit of paper +money, and by the almost complete disappearance of gold and silver. +Extra sessions of state legislatures were called to devise relief. The +banks' suspension of specie payment in New York was within a few days +legalized by the legislature of that State. On May 12 the secretary of +the treasury directed government collectors themselves to keep public +moneys where the deposit banks had suspended. + +For banks holding the public moneys sank with the others. And it was +this which compelled Van Buren in one matter to yield to the storm. On +May 15 he issued a proclamation for an extra session of Congress to meet +on the first Monday of September. It would meet, the proclamation said, +to consider "great and weighty matters." No scheme of relief was +suggested. The locking up of public moneys in suspended banks made +necessary some relief to the government itself. It was, perhaps, well +enough that excited and terrified people, casting about for a remedy, +should, until their wits were somewhat restored, be soothed by assurance +that the great council of the nation would, at any rate, discuss the +situation. Moreover, it was wise to secure time, that most potent ally +of the statesman. Within the three months and a half to elapse, Van +Buren, like a wise ruler, thought the true nature of the calamity would +become more apparent; proposals of remedies might be scrutinized; and +thoughtless or superficial men might weary of their own absurd +proposals, or the people might fully perceive their absurdity. + +During the summer popular excitement ran very high against the +administration. The Whig papers declared it to be "the melancholy truth, +the awful truth," that the administration did nothing to relieve, but +everything to distress the commercial community. Abbot Lawrence, one of +the richest and most influential citizens of Boston, told a great +meeting, on May 17, that there was no other people on the face of God's +earth that were so abused, cheated, plundered, and trampled on by their +rulers; that the government exacted impossibilities. No overt act, he +said, with almost a sinister suggestion, ought to be committed until the +laws of self-preservation compelled a forcible resistance; but the time +might come when the crew must seize the ship. The friends of the +administration sought, indeed, to stem the tide; and a series of +skillfully devised popular gatherings was held, very probably inspired +by Van Buren, who highly estimated such organized appeals to popular +sentiment. In Philadelphia a great meeting denounced the bank +suspensions and the issue of small notes as devices in the interest of a +foreign conspiracy to throw silver coin out of circulation and export it +to Europe, to raise the prices of necessaries, and recommence a course +of gambling under the name of speculation and trade, in which the people +must be the victims, and "the foreign and home desperadoes" the gainers. +The meeting declared for a metallic currency. "We hereby pledge our +lives, if necessary," they said, "for the support of the same." Later, +on May 22, there was in the same city a large gathering at Independence +Square, which solemnly called upon the administration "manfully, +fearlessly, and at all hazards to go on collecting the public revenues +and paying the public dues in gold and silver." Their forefathers, who +fought for their liberties, the framers of our Constitution, the +patriarchs whose memory they revered, were, with a funny mixture of +truth and falsehood, declared to have been hard-money men. A week later, +a great meeting in Baltimore approved the specie circular, and urged its +fearless execution, "notwithstanding the senseless clamors of the +British party;" for the crisis, they said, was "a struggle of the +virtuous and industrious portions of the community against bank +advocates and the enemies to good morals and republicanism." Protests +were elsewhere made against forcing small notes into circulation. Paper +had, however, to be used, for there was nothing else. Barter must go on, +even upon the most flimsy tokens. In New York one saw, as were seen +twenty-four years later, bits of paper like this: "The bearer will be +entitled to fifty cents' value in refreshments at the Auction Hotel, 123 +and 125 Water Street. New York, May, 1837. Charles Redabock." In +Tallahassee a committee of citizens was appointed to print bank tickets +for purposes of change. In Easton the currency had a more specific +basis. One of the tokens read: "This ticket will hold good for a sheep's +tongue, two crackers, and a glass of red-eye." + +When Congress assembled, the country had cried itself, if not to sleep, +at least to seeming quiet. The sun had not ceased to rise and set. +Although merchants and bankers were prostrate with anxiety or even in +irremediable ruin; although thousands of clerks and laborers were out of +employment or earning absurdly low wages,--for near New York hundreds +of laborers were rejected who applied for work at four dollars a month +and board; although honest frontiersmen found themselves hopelessly +isolated in a wilderness,--for the frontier had suddenly shrunk far +behind them,--still the harvest had been good, the masses of men had +been at work, and economy had prevailed. The desperation was over. But +there was a profound melancholy, from which a recovery was to come only +too soon to be lasting. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PRESIDENT.--SUB-TREASURY BILL + + +Van Buren's bearing in the crisis was admirable. Even those who have +treated him with animosity or contempt do not here refuse him high +praise. "In this one question," says Von Holst, "he really evinced +courage, firmness, and statesmanlike insight.... Van Buren bore the +storm bravely. He repelled all reproaches with decision, but with no +bitterness.... Van Buren unquestionably merited well of the country, +because he refused his coöperation, in accordance with the guardianship +principle of the old absolutisms, to accustom the people of the Republic +also to see the government enter as a saving _deus ex machina_ in every +calamity brought about by their own fault and folly.... Van Buren had +won a brilliant victory and placed his countrymen under lasting +obligations to him."[13] + +Van Buren met the extra session with a message which marks the zenith of +his political wisdom. It is one of the greatest of American state +papers. With clear, unflinching, and unanswerable logic he faced the +crisis. There was no effort to evade the questions put to him, or to +divert public attention from the true issue. The government could not, +he showed, help people earn their living; but it could refuse to aid the +deception that paper was gold, and the delusion that value could arise +without labor. The masterly argument seems long to a sauntering reader; +but it treated a difficult question which had to be answered by the +multitudes of a democracy many of whom were pinched and excited by +personal distresses and anxiety and who were sure to read it. Few +episodes in our political history give one more exalted appreciation of +the good sense of the American masses, than that, in this stress of +national suffering, a skillful politician should have appealed to them, +not even sweetening the truth, but resisting with direct and painful +sobriety their angry and natural impulses; this, too, when most of the +talented and popular leaders were promoting, rather than reducing or +diverting the heated folly of the time. + +Van Buren quietly began by saying that the law required the secretary of +the treasury to deposit public moneys only in banks that paid their +notes in specie. All the banks had stopped such payment. It was obvious +therefore that some other custody of public moneys must be provided, and +it was for this that he had summoned Congress. He then began what was +really an address to the people. He pointed out that the government had +not caused, and that it could not cure, the profound commercial +distemper. Antecedent causes had been stimulated by the enormous +inflations of bank currency and other credits, and among them the many +millions of foreign loans, and the lavish accommodations extended "by +foreign dealers to our merchants." Thence had come the spirit of +reckless speculation, and from that a foreign debt of more than thirty +millions; the extension to traders in the interior of credits for +supplies greatly beyond the wants of the people; the investment of +thirty-nine and a half millions in unproductive public lands; the +creation of debts to an almost countless amount for real estate in +existing or anticipated cities and villages; the expenditure of immense +sums in improvements ruinously improvident; the diversion to other +pursuits of labor that should have gone to agriculture, so that this +first of agricultural countries had imported two millions of dollars +worth of grain in the first six months of 1837; and the rapid growth of +luxurious habits founded too often on merely fancied wealth. These evils +had been aggravated by the great loss of capital in the famous fire at +New York in December, 1835, a loss whose effects, though real, were not +at once apparent because of the shifting and postponement of the burdens +through facilities of credit, by the disturbance which the transfers of +public moneys in the distribution among the States caused, and by +necessities of foreign creditors which made them seek to withdraw specie +from the United States. He pointed out the unprecedented expansion of +credit in Great Britain at the same time, and, with the redundancy of +paper currency[14] there, the rise of adventurous and unwholesome +speculation. + +To the demand for a reëstablishment of a national bank, he replied that +quite a contrary thing must be done; that the fiscal concerns of the +government must be separated from those of individuals or corporations; +that to create such a bank would be to disregard the popular will twice +solemnly and unequivocally expressed; that the same motives would +operate on the administrators of a national as on those of state banks; +that the Bank of the United States had not prevented former and similar +embarrassments, and that the Bank of England had but lately failed in +its own land to prevent serious abuses of credit. He knew indeed of loud +and serious complaint because the government did not now aid commercial +exchange. But this was no part of its duty. It was not the province of +government to aid individuals in the transfer of their funds otherwise +than through the facilities of the post-office. As justly might the +government be asked to transport merchandise. These were operations of +trade to be conducted by those who were interested in them. Throughout +Europe domestic as well as foreign exchanges were carried on by private +houses, and often, if not generally, without the assistance of banks. +Our own exchanges ought to be carried on by private enterprise and +competition, without legislative assistance, free from the influence of +political agitation, and from the neglect, partiality, injustice, and +oppression unavoidably attending the interference of government with the +proper concerns of individuals. His own views, Van Buren declared, were +unchanged. Before his election he had distinctly apprised the people +that he would not aid in the reëstablishment of a national bank. His +conviction had been strengthened that such a bank meant a concentrated +money power hostile to the spirit and permanency of our republican +institutions. + +He then turned to those state banks which had held government deposits. +At all times they had held some of the federal moneys, and since 1833 +they had held the whole. Since that year the utmost security had been +required from them for such moneys; but when lately called upon to pay +the surplus to the States, they had, while curtailing their discounts +and increasing the general distress, been with the other banks fatally +involved in the revulsion. Under these circumstances it was a solemn +duty to inquire whether the evils inherent in any connection between the +government and banks of issue were not such as to require a divorce. +Ought the moneys taken from the people for public uses longer to be +deposited in banks and thence to be loaned for the profit of private +persons? Ought not the collection, safe-keeping, transfer, and +disbursement of public moneys to be managed by public officers? The +public revenues must be limited to public expenses so that there should +be no great surplus. The care of the moneys inevitably accumulated from +time to time would involve expense; but this was a trifling +consideration in so important a matter. Personally it would be agreeable +to him to be free from concern in the custody and disbursement of the +public revenue. Not indeed that he would shrink from a proper official +responsibility, but because he firmly believed the capacity of the +executive for usefulness was in no degree promoted by the possession of +patronage not actually necessary. But he was clear that the connection +of the executive with powerful moneyed institutions, capable of +ministering to the interests of men in points where they were most +accessible to corruption, was more liable to abuse than his +constitutional agency in the appointment and control of the few public +officers required by the proposed plan. + +Thus was announced the independent treasury scheme, the divorce of bank +and state, the famous achievement of Van Buren's presidency. He argued +besides elaborately in favor of the specie circular. An individual +could, if he pleased, accept payment in a paper promise or in any other +way as he saw fit. But a public servant should in exchange for public +domain take only what was universally deemed valuable. He ought not to +have a discretion to measure the value of mere promises. The $9,367,200 +in the treasury for deposit with the States in October, or rather for a +permanent distribution to them, he desired to retain for federal +necessities. This would doubtless inconvenience States which had relied +on the federal donation; but as the United States needed the money to +meet its own obligations, there was neither justice nor expediency in +generously giving it away. Van Buren here left the defensive with a +menace to the banks that a bankruptcy law for corporations suspending +specie payment might impose a salutary check on the issues of paper +money. + +The President finally spoke in words which seem golden to all who share +his view of the ends of government. "Those who look to the action of +this government," he said, "for specific aid to the citizen to relieve +embarrassments arising from losses by revulsions in commerce and credit, +lose sight of the ends for which it was created, and the powers with +which it is clothed. It was established to give security to us all, in +our lawful and honorable pursuits, under the lasting safeguard of +republican institutions. It was not intended to confer special favors on +individuals, or on any classes of them; to create systems of +agriculture, manufactures, or trade; or to engage in them, either +separately or in connection with individual citizens or +organizations.... All communities are apt to look to government for too +much.... We are prone to do so especially at periods of sudden +embarrassment and distress.... The less government interferes with +private pursuits, the better for the general prosperity. It is not its +legitimate object to make men rich, or to repair by direct grants of +money or legislation in favor of particular pursuits, losses not +incurred in the public service." To avoid unnecessary interference with +such pursuits would be far more beneficial than efforts to assist +limited interests, efforts eagerly, but perhaps naturally, sought for +under temporary pressure. Congress and himself, Van Buren closed by +saying, acted for a people to whom the truth, however unpromising, could +always be spoken with safety, and who, in the phrase of which he was +fond, were sure never to desert a public functionary honestly laboring +for the public good. + +An angry and almost terrible outburst received this plain, honest, and +wise declaration that the people must repair their own disasters without +paternal help of government; and that, rather than to promote the +extension of credit with public moneys, the crisis ought to afford means +of departing forever from that policy. Most of the able men who to this +generation have seemed the larger statesmen of the day, joined with +passionate declamation in the furious gust of folly. It was a favorite +delusion that government was a separate entity which could help the +people, and not a mere agency, simply using wealth and power which the +people must themselves create. Webster, in a speech at Madison, Indiana, +on June 1, 1837, professed his conscientious convictions that all the +disasters had proceeded from "the measures of the general government in +relation to the currency." He ridiculed the idea that the people had +helped cause them. The people, he thought, had no lesson to learn. +"Over-trading, over-buying, over-selling, over-speculation, +over-production,"--these, he said, were terms he "could not very well +understand." In his speech of December, 1836, on the specie circular, he +had given a leonine laugh at the idea of there being inflation. If he +were asked, he said, what kept up the value of money "in this vast and +sudden expansion and increase of it," he should answer that it was kept +up "by an equally vast and sudden increase in the property of the +country." That this amazing utterance upon the dynamics of national +economy might be clear, he added that the vast and sudden increase was +"in the value of that property intrinsic as well as marketable." No +speculator of the day said a more foolish thing than did this towering +statesman. There were, he admitted, "other minor causes," but they were +"not worth enumerating." "The great and immediate origin of the evil" +was "disturbances in the exchange ... caused by the agency of the +government itself." At the extra session Webster described the shock +caused him by the President's "disregard for the public distress," by +his "exclusive concern for the interest of government and revenue, by +his refusal to prescribe for the sickness and disease of society," by +the separation he would draw "between the interests of the government +and the interests of the people." For his part he would be warm and +generous in his statesmanship. He resisted the bill to suspend the +"deposit" with the States; he would in the coming October pay out the +last installment, stricken though the treasury was. He would again +sweeten the popular palate with government manna, bitter as it had +proved itself to the belly. It was the duty of the government, he said, +to aid in exchanges by establishing a paper currency; he and those with +him preferred the long-tried, well-approved practice of the government +to letting Benton, as he said, "embrace us in his gold and silver arms +and hug us to his hard money breast." As if this were not a time for +soberness over its shameful abuses, credit, and the banks and bank-notes +which aided it were almost apotheosized. At St. Louis in the summer, +Webster, in a speech which he did not include in his collected works, +said that help must come "from the government of the United States, from +thence alone;" adding, "Upon this I risk my political reputation, my +honor, my all.... He who expects to live to see all these twenty-six +States resuming specie payments in regular succession once more, may +expect to see the restoration of the Jews. Never! He will die without +the sight." + +John Quincy Adams had told his friends at home that the distribution of +the public moneys among the state banks was the most pernicious cause of +the disaster, although, differing from Webster, he admitted that "the +abuse of credit, especially by the agency of banks," and the +unrestrained pursuit of individual wealth, were the proximate causes of +the disaster, for history had testified + + "Peace to corrupt, no less than war to waste." + +He would punish suspension of specie payments by a bank with a +forfeiture of its charter and the imprisonment of its president and +officers. A national bank, he said, was "the only practicable expedient +for restoring and maintaining specie payments." In the extra session he +showed that the deposit banks of the South already held more money of +the government than their States would receive, if the last installment +of distribution should be paid, while the Northern banks held far less +of that money than the Northern States were to receive. He denounced as +a Southern measure the proposition to postpone this piece of +recklessness. Should the Northern States hail with shouts of Hosanna +"this evanescence of their funds from their treasuries," or be +"humbugged out of their vested rights by a howl of frenzy against +Nicholas Biddle," or be mystified out of their money and out of their +senses by a Hark follow! against all banks, or by a summons to Doctors' +Commons for a divorce of bank and state? + +That skillful political weathercock, Caleb Cushing, told his +constituents at Lowell that private banking was the "shinplaster +system;" and asked whether we wished to have men who, like the +Rothschilds, make "peace or war as they choose, and wield at will the +destiny of empires." The plan of the administration was like that of "a +cowardly master of a sinking ship, to take possession of the long boat +and provisions, cut off, and leave the ship's company and passengers to +their fate." To the plausible cry of separating bank and state he would +answer, "Why not separate court and state ... or law and state ... or +custom-house and state." It was "the new nostrum of political quackery." +Clay delivered a famous speech in the Senate on September 25, 1837. He +was appalled at the heartlessness of the administration. "The people, +the States, and their banks," he said in the favorite cant of the time, +"are left to shift for themselves," as if that were not the very thing +for them to do. We were all, he said,--"people, States, Union, +banks, ... all entitled to the protecting care of a parental +government." He cried out against "a selfish solicitude for the +government itself, but a cold and heartless insensibility to the +sufferings of a bleeding people." The substitution of an exclusive +metallic currency was "forbidden by the principles of eternal justice." +For his part he saw no adequate remedy which did "not comprehend a +national bank as an essential part of it." In banking corporations, +indeed, "the interests of the rich and poor are happily blended;" nor +should we encourage here private bankers, Hopes and Barings and +Rothschilds and Hottinguers, "whose vast overgrown capitals, possessed +by the rich exclusively of the poor, control the destiny of nations." + +The bill for the independent treasury was firmly pressed by the +administration. It did not deceive the people with any pretense that +banks and paper money would stand in lieu of industry, economy, and good +sense. The summer elections, then far more numerous than now, had, as +Clay warningly pointed out, gone heavily against Van Buren. The bill +passed the Senate, 26 to 20. In the House it was defeated. Upon the +election of speaker, the administration candidate, James K. Polk, had +had 116 votes to 103 for John Bell. But this very moderate majority was +insecure. A break in the administration ranks was promptly shown by the +defeat, for printers to the House, of Francis P. Blair and his partner, +who in their paper, the "Washington Globe," had firmly supported the +hard money and anti-bank policy. They received only 107 votes, about +fifteen Democrats uniting with the Whigs to defeat them. Van Buren was +unable to educate all his party to his own firm, clear-sighted views. +There was formed a small party of "conservatives," Democrats who took +what seemed, and what for the time was, the popular course. The +independent treasury bill was defeated in the House by 120 to 106. + +Van Buren's proposal was carried, however, to postpone the "deposite," +as it was called, the gift as it was, of the fourth installment of the +surplus. On October 1, Webster and Clay led the seventeen senators who +insisted upon the folly of the national treasury in its destitution +playing the magnificent donor, and further debauching the States with +streams of pretended wealth. Twenty-eight senators voted for the bill; +and in the House it was carried by 118 to 105, John Quincy Adams heading +the negative vote. + +The administration further proposed the issue of $10,000,000 in treasury +notes. It was a measure strictly of temporary relief. Gold and silver +had disappeared; bank-notes were discredited. The government, whose gold +and silver the banks would not pay out, was disabled from meeting its +current obligations; and the treasury notes were proposed to meet the +necessity. They were not to be legal tender, but interest-bearing +obligations in denominations not less than $50, to be merely receivable +for all public dues, and thus to gain a credit which would secure their +circulation. This natural and moderate measure was assailed by those who +were lauding a paper currency to the skies. The radical difference was +ignored between a general currency of small as well as large bills, +without intrinsic value, adopted for all time, and a limited and +perfectly secure government loan, to be freely taken or rejected by the +people, in bills of large amounts, to meet a serious but brief +embarrassment. "Who expected," said Webster in the Senate, "that in the +fifth year of the experiment for reforming the currency, and bringing it +to an absolute gold and silver circulation, the Treasury Department +would be found recommending to us a regular emission of paper money?" He +voted, however, for the bill, the only negative votes in the Senate +being given by Clay and four others. In the House it was carried by 127 +to 98. + +Such was the substantial work of the extra session. To the experience of +that crisis and the wisdom with which it was met may not improbably be +ascribed the hard-money leaven which, thirty or forty years later, +prevented the great disaster of further paper inflation, and brought the +country to a currency which, if not the best, is a currency of coin and +of redeemable paper, whose value, apart from the legal-tender notes +left us by the war and the decision of the Supreme Court, depends upon +the best of securities, coin or government bonds, deposited in the +treasury, and a currency whose amount may therefore safely be left to +the natural operations of trade. + +Clay's appeal for a great banking institution, which should accomplish +by magic the results of popular labor and saving, was met by a vote of +the House, 123 to 91, that it was inexpedient to charter a national +bank, many voting against a bank who had already voted against an +independent treasury. The Senate also resolved against a national bank +by 31 to 14, six senators who had voted against an independent treasury +voting also against a bank. The temporary expedient adopted by the +treasury on the suspension of the banks was therefore continued, and +public moneys were kept in the hands of public officers. + +Calhoun now rejoined the Democratic party. It was only the year before +he had denounced it as "a powerful faction held together by the hopes of +public plunder;" and early in this very year he had referred to the +removal of the deposits as an act fit for "the days of Pompey or Cæsar," +and had declared that even a Roman Senate would not have passed the +expunging resolution "until the times of Caligula and Nero." But Van +Buren, Calhoun now said, had been driven to his position; nor would he +leave the position for that reason. He referred to the strict +construction of the powers of the government involved in the divorce of +bank and state. There was no suggestion that Van Buren had become a +convert to nullification. But Calhoun could with consistency support Van +Buren. The independent treasury scheme was plainly far different from +the removal of the deposits from one great bank to many lesser ones. The +reasons for political exasperation had besides disappeared. Van Buren +was chief among the _beati possidentes_, and could not for years be +disturbed. His tact and skill left open no personal feud; he had not yet +conferred the title of Cæsar; no successor to himself was yet named by +any clear designation. Calhoun joined Silas Wright and the other +administration senators; but he still maintained a grim and independent +front. + +The extra session ended on October 16. Besides the issuance of +$10,000,000 in treasury notes and the postponement of the distribution +among the States, the only measure adopted for relief was a law +permitting indulgence of payment to importers upon custom-house bonds. +As those payments were to be made in specie, and as specie had left +circulation, it was proper that the United States as a creditor should +exhibit the same leniency which was wise and necessary on the part of +other creditors. + +Commercial distress had now materially abated, although many of its +wounds were still deep and unhealed. Before the regular session began in +December, substantial progress was made towards specie payments. The +price of gold in New York, which had ruled at a premium of eight and +seven eighths per cent., had fallen to five. On October 20 the banks of +New York, after waiting until Congress rose, to meet the wishes of the +United States Bank and its associates in Philadelphia, now invited +representatives from all the banks to meet in New York on November 27 to +prepare for specie payment. At this meeting the New York banks proposed +resumption on March 1, 1838, but they were defeated; and a resolution to +resume on July 1 was defeated by the votes of Pennsylvania and all the +New England States except Maine (which was divided), together with New +Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, South Carolina, and Indiana. Virginia, Ohio, +Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and the District of Columbia, with +New York, made the minority. An adjournment was taken to the second +Wednesday in April, the banks being urged meanwhile to prepare for +specie payments. + +The fall as well as the summer elections had been most disastrous for +the Democrats. New York, which the year before had given Van Buren +nearly 30,000 plurality, was now overwhelmingly Whig. The Van Buren +party began to be called the Loco-focos, in derision of the fancied +extravagance of their financial doctrines. The Loco-foco or Equal Rights +party proper was originally a division of the Democrats, strongly +anti-monopolist in their opinions, and especially hostile to +banks,--not only government banks but all banks,--which enjoyed the +privileges then long confirmed by special and exclusive charters. In the +fall of 1835 some of the Democratic candidates in New York were +especially obnoxious to the anti-monopolists of the party. When the +meeting to regularly confirm the nominations made in committee was +called at Tammany Hall, the anti-monopolist Democrats sought to capture +the meeting by a rush up the main stairs. The regulars, however, showed +themselves worthy of their regularity by reaching the room up the back +stairs. In a general scrimmage the gas was put out. The +anti-monopolists, perhaps used to the devices to prevent meetings which +might be hostile, were ready with candles and loco-foco matches. The +hall was quickly illuminated; and the anti-monopolists claimed that they +had defeated the nominations. The regulars were successful, however, at +the election; and they and the Whigs dubbed the anti-monopolists the +Loco-foco men. The latter in 1836 organized the Equal Rights party, and +declared it an imperative duty of the people "to recur to first +principles." Their "declaration of rights" might well have been drawn a +few years later by a student of Spencer's "Social Statics." The law, +they said, ought to do no more than restrain each man from committing +aggressions on the equal rights of other men; they declared "unqualified +hostility to bank-notes and paper money as a circulating medium," and to +all special grants by the legislature. A great cry was raised against +them as dangerous and incendiary fanatics. The Democratic press, except +the "Evening Post," edited by William Cullen Bryant, turned violently +upon the seceders. There was the same horror of them as the English at +almost the very time had of the Chartists, and which in our time is +roused by the political movements of Henry George. But with time and +familiarity Chartism and Loco-focoism alike lost their horrid aspect. +Several of the cardinal propositions of the former have been adopted in +acts of Parliament without a shudder. To the animosity of the Loco-focos +against special legislation and special privileges Americans probably +owe to-day some part of the beneficent movement in many of the States +for constitutional requirements that legislatures shall act by general +laws. + +The Equal Rights party, though casting but a few votes, managed to give +the city of New York to the Whigs, a result which convinced the +Democrats that, dangerous as they were, they were less dangerous within +than without the party. The hatred which Van Buren after his message of +September, 1837, received from the banks commended him to the +Loco-focos; and in October, 1837, Tammany Hall witnessed their +reconciliation with the regular Democrats upon the moderate declaration +for equal rights. The Whigs had, indeed, been glad enough to have +Loco-foco aid and even open alliance at the polls. But none the less +they thought the Democratic welcome back of the seceders an enormity. +From this time the Democrats were, it was clear, no better than +Loco-focos, and ought to bear the name of those dangerous iconoclasts. + +Van Buren met Congress in December, 1837, with still undaunted front. +His first general review of the operations of the government was but +little longer than his message to the extra session on the single topic +of finance. He refused to consider the result of the elections as a +popular disapproval of the divorce of bank and state. In only one State, +he pointed out, had a federal election been held; and in the other +elections, which had been local, he intimated that the fear of a +forfeiture of the state-bank charters for their suspension of specie +payments had determined the result. He still emphatically opposed the +connection between the government and the banks which could offer such +strong inducements for political agitation. He blew another blast +against the United States Bank, now a Pennsylvania corporation, for +continuing to reissue its notes originally made before its federal +charter had expired and since returned. He recommended a preëmption law +for the benefit of actual settlers on public lands, and a classification +of lands under different rates, to encourage the settlement of the +poorer lands near the older settlements. There was a conciliatory but +firm reference to the dispute with England over the northeastern +boundary. He announced his failure to adjust the dispute with Mexico +over the claims which had been pressed by Jackson. The Texan cloud +which six years later brought Van Buren's defeat was already +threatening. + +At this session the independent or sub-treasury bill was again +introduced, and again a titanic battle was waged in the Senate. In this +encounter Clay taunted Calhoun for going over to the enemy; and Calhoun, +referring to the Adams-Clay coalition, retorted that Clay had on a +memorable occasion gone over, and had not left it to time to disclose +his motives. Here it was that, in the decorous fury of the times, both +senators stamped accusations with scorn in the dust, and hurled back +darts fallen harmless at their feet. The bill passed the Senate by 27 to +25; but Calhoun finally voted against it because there had been stricken +out the provision that government dues should be paid in specie. The +bill was again defeated in the House by 125 to 111. The latter vote was +late in June, 1838. But while Congress refused a law for it, the +independent treasury in fact existed. Under the circular issued upon the +bank suspension, the collection, keeping, and payment of federal moneys +continued to be done by federal officers. The absurdity of the +declamation about one's blood curdling at Van Buren's recommendations, +about this being the system in vogue where people were ground "to the +very dust by the awful despotism of their rulers," was becoming apparent +in the easy, natural operation of the system, dictated though it was by +necessity rather than law. The Whigs, in the sounding jeremiades of +Webster and the perfervid eloquence of Clay, were joined by the +Conservatives, former Democrats, with Tallmadge of New York and Rives of +Virginia at their head. They had retired into the cave of superior +wisdom, of which many men are fond when a popular storm seems rising +against their party; they affected oppressive grief at Van Buren's +reckless hatred of the popular welfare, and accused him of designing +entire destruction of credit in the ordinary transactions of business. +This silly charge was continually made, and gained color from the +extreme doctrines of the Equal Rights movement and the fixing of the +Loco-foco name upon the Democratic party. + +The sub-treasury bill was again taken up at the long session of 1839-40 +by the Congress elected in 1838. Again the wisdom of separating bank and +state, again the wrong of using public moneys to aid private business +and speculation, were stated with perfectly clear but uninspiring logic. +Again came the antiphonal cry, warm and positive, against the cruelty of +withdrawing the government from an affectionate care for the people, and +from its duty generously to help every one to earn his living. In and +out of Congress it was the debate of the time, and rightly; for it +involved a profound and critical issue, which since the foundation of +the government has been second in importance only to the questions of +slavery and national existence and reconstruction. In 1840 the bill +passed the Senate by 24 to 18 and the House by 124 to 107. This chief +monument of Van Buren's administration seemed quickly demolished by the +triumphant Whigs in 1841, but was finally set up again in 1846 without +the aid of its architect. From that time to our own, in war and in +peace, the independence of the federal treasury has been a cardinal +feature of American finance. Nor was its theory lost even in the system +of national banks and public depositories created for the tremendous +necessities of the civil war.[15] + +By the spring of 1838 business had revived during the year of enforced +industry and economy among the people. In January, 1838, the premium on +gold at New York sank to three per cent.; and when the bank convention +met on the adjourned day in April, the premium was less than one per +cent. The United States Bank resisted resumption with great affectation +of public spirit, but for selfish reasons soon to be disclosed. The New +York banks, with an apology to their associates, resolved to resume by +May 10, five days before the date to which the State had legalized the +suspension. The convention adopted a resolution for general resumption +on January 1, 1839, without precluding earlier resumption by any banks +which deemed it proper. In April it was learned that the Bank of +England was shipping a million sterling to aid resumption by the banks. +On July 10, Governor Ritner of Pennsylvania by proclamation required the +banks of his State to resume by August 1. On the 13th of that month the +banks of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, +Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois yielded to the +moral coercion of the New York banks, and to the resumption now enforced +on the Bank of the United States. By the fall of 1838 resumption was +general, although the banks at the Southwest did not follow until +midwinter. Confidence was so much restored that "runs" on the banks did +not occur. The crisis seemed at an end; and Van Buren not unreasonably +fancied that he saw before the country two years of steady and sound +return to prosperity. Two such years would, in November, 1840, bring the +reward of his sagacity and endurance. But a far deeper draft upon the +vitality of the patient had been made than was supposed; and in its last +agony, eighteen months later, Biddle's bank helped to blast Van Buren's +political ambition. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +PRESIDENT.--CANADIAN INSURRECTION.--TEXAS.--SEMINOLE WAR.--DEFEAT FOR +REËLECTION + + +Another unpopular duty fell to Van Buren during his presidency, a duty +but for which New York might have been saved to him in 1840. In the +Lower and Upper Canadas popular discontent and political tumult resulted +late in 1837 in violence, so often the only means by which English +dependencies have brought their imperial mistress to a respect for their +complaints.[16] The liberality of the Whigs, then lately triumphant in +England, was not broad enough to include these distant colonists. The +provincial legislature in each of the Canadas consisted of a Lower House +or assembly chosen by popular vote, and an Upper House or council +appointed by the governor, who himself was appointed by and represented +the crown. Reforms after reforms, proposed by the popular houses, were +rejected by the council. In Lower Canada the popular opposition was +among the French, who had never been embittered towards the United +States. In Upper Canada its strength was among settlers who had come +since the war closed in 1815. Lower Canada demanded in vain that the +council be made elective. Its assembly, weary of the effectual +opposition of the council to popular measures, began in 1832 to refuse +votes of supplies unless their grievances were redressed; and by 1837 +government charges had accrued to the amount of £142,100. On April 14, +1837, Lord John Russell, still wearing the laurel of a victor for +popular rights, procured from the imperial parliament permission, +without the assent of the colonial parliament, to apply to these charges +the money in the hands of the receiver-general of Lower Canada. This +extraordinary grant passed the House of Commons by 269 to 46. A far less +flagitious case of taxation without representation had begun the +American Revolution. The money had been raised under laws which provided +for its expenditure by vote of a local representative body. It was +expended by the vote of a body at Westminster, three thousand miles +away, but few of whose members knew or cared anything for the bleak +stretch of seventeenth-century France on the lower St. Lawrence, and +none of whom had contributed a penny of it. To even Gladstone, lately +the under-secretary for the colonies and then a "rising hope of +unbending Tories," there seemed nothing involved but the embarrassment +of faithful servants of the crown. This thoroughly British disregard of +sentiment among other people roused a deep opposition which was headed +by Papineau, eloquent and a hero among the French. An insurrection broke +out in November, 1837, and blood was shed in engagements at St. Denis +and St. Charles, not far from Montreal. But the insurgents were quickly +defeated, and within three weeks the insurrection in Lower Canada was +ended. + +In Upper Canada there was considerable Republican sentiment, and the +party of popular rights had among its leaders men of a high order of +ability. One of them, Marshall S. Bidwell, through the magnanimity or +procurement of the governor, escaped from Canada to become one of the +most honored and stately figures at the bar of New York. Early in 1836, +Sir Francis B. Head, a clever and not ill-natured man, arrived as +governor. He himself wrote the unconscious Anglicism that "the great +danger" he "had to avoid was the slightest attempt to conciliate any +party." It was assumed with the usual insufferable affectation of +omniscience that these hardy Western settlers were merely children who +did not know what was best for them. Even the suggestions of concession +sent him from England were not respected. In an election for the +Assembly he had the issue announced as one of separation from England; +and by the use, it was said, of his power and patronage, the colonial +Tories carried a majority of the House. Hopeless of any redress, and +fired by the rumors of the revolt in Lower Canada, an insurrection took +place early in December near Toronto. It was speedily suppressed. One of +the leaders, Mackenzie, escaped to Buffalo. Others were captured and +punished, some of them capitally. + +The mass of the Canadians were doubtless opposed to the insurrection. +But there was among them a widespread and reasonable discontent, with +which the Americans, and especially the people of northern and western +New York, warmly sympathized. It was natural and traditional to believe +England an oppressor; and there was every reason in this case to believe +the Canadians right in their ill-feeling. The refugees who had fled to +New York met with an enthusiastic reception, and, in the security of a +foreign land, prepared to advance their rebellion. On the long frontier +of river, lake, and wilderness, it was difficult, with the meagre force +regularly at the disposal of the United States, to prevent depredations. +This difficulty became enhanced by a culpable though not unnatural +invasion of American territory by British troops. On December 12, 1837, +Mackenzie, who had the day before arrived with a price of $4000 set upon +his head, addressed a large audience at Buffalo. Volunteers were called +for; and the next day, with twenty-five men, commanded by Van +Rensselaer, an American, he seized Navy Island in the Niagara River, but +a short distance above the cataract, and belonging to Canada. He there +established a provisional government, with a flag and a great seal; and +that the new State might be complete, paper money was issued. By +January, 1838, there were several hundred men on the island, largely +Americans, with arms and provisions chiefly obtained from the American +side. + +On the night of December 29, 1837, a party of Canadian militia crossed +the Niagara to seize the Caroline, a steamer in the service of the +rebels. It happened, however, that the steamer, instead of being at Navy +Island, was at Schlosser, on the American shore. The Canadians seized +the vessel, killing several men in the affray, and after setting her on +fire, loosened her from the shore, to go blazing down the river and over +the falls. This invasion of American territory caused indignant +excitement through the United States. Van Buren had promptly sought to +prevent hostility from our territory. On January 5, 1838, he had issued +a proclamation reciting the seizure of Navy Island by a force, partly +Americans, under the command of an American, with arms and supplies +procured in the United States, and declared that the neutrality laws +would be rigidly enforced and the offenders punished. Nor would they +receive aid or countenance from the United States, into whatever +difficulties they might be thrown by their violation of friendly +territory. On the same day Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott to the +frontier, and by special message asked from Congress power to prevent +such offenses in advance, as well as afterwards to punish them,--a +request to which Congress, in spite of the excitement over the invasion +at Schlosser, soon acceded. The militia of New York were, on this +invasion, called out by Governor Marcy, and placed under General Scott's +command. But there was little danger. On January 13 the insurgents +abandoned Navy Island. The war, for the time, was over, although +excitement and disorder continued on the border and the lakes as far as +Detroit; and in the fall of 1838 other incursions were made from +American territory. But they were fruitless and short-lived. Nearly nine +hundred arrests were made by the Canadian authorities. Many death +sentences were imposed and several executed, and many more offenders +were sentenced to transportation. + +England, in her then usual fashion, was duly waked to duty by actual +bloodshed. Sir Francis B. Head left Canada, and the Melbourne ministry +sent over the Earl of Durham, one of the finest characters in English +public life, to be governor-general over the five colonies; to redress +their wrongs; to conciliate, and perhaps yield to demands for +self-government: all which might far better have been done five years +before. Lord Durham used a wise mercy towards the rebels. He made rapid +progress in the reforms, and, best and first of all, he won the +confidence and affection of the people. But England used to distrust an +English statesman who practiced this kind of rule towards a dependency. +A malevolent attack of Lord Brougham was successful, and Lord Durham +returned to ministerial disgrace, though to a wiser popular applause, +soon to die in what ought to have been but an early year in his generous +and splendid career. Although punishing her benefactor, England was +shrewd enough to accept the benefit. The concessions which Lord Durham +had begun were continued, and Canada became and has remained loyal. +Before leaving Canada, Lord Durham was invited by a very complimentary +letter of Van Buren to visit Washington, but the invitation was +courteously declined. + +Mackenzie was arrested at Buffalo and indicted. After his indictment he +addressed many public meetings through the United States in behalf of +his cause, one at Washington itself. In 1839, however, he was tried and +convicted. Van Buren, justly refusing to pardon him until he had served +in prison two thirds of his sentence, thus made for himself a persistent +and vindictive enemy. + +Upon renewed raids late in 1838, the President, by a proclamation, +called upon misguided or deluded Americans to abandon projects dangerous +to their own country and fatal to those whom they professed a desire to +relieve; and, after various appeals to good sense and patriotism, warned +them that, if taken in Canada, they would be left to the policy and +justice of the government whose dominions they had, "without the shadow +of justification or excuse, nefariously invaded." This had no uncertain +sound. Van Buren was promptly declared to be a British tool. The plain +facts were ignored that the great majority of the Canadians, however +much displeased with their rulers, were hostile to Republican +institutions and to a separation from England, and that the majority in +Canada had the same right to be governed in their own fashion as the +majority here. There was seen, however, in this firm performance of +international obligations, only additional proof of Van Buren's coldness +towards popular rights, and of his sycophancy to power. + +The system of allowing to actual settlers, at the minimum price, a +preëmption of public lands already occupied by them, was adopted at the +long session of 1837-38. Webster joined the Democrats in favoring the +bill, against the hot opposition of Clay, who declared it "a grant of +the property of the whole people to a small part of the people." The +dominant party was now wisely committed to the policy of using the +public domain for settlers, and not as mere property to be turned into +money. But a year or two before, the latter system had in practice +wasted the national estate and corrupted the public with a debauchery of +speculation. + +The war between Mexico and the American settlers in her revolted +northeast province began in 1835. Early in 1836 the heroic defense of +the Alamo against several thousand Mexicans by less than two hundred +Americans, and among them Davy Crockett, Van Buren's biographer, and the +butchery of all but three of the Americans, had consecrated the old +building, still proudly preserved by the stirring but now peaceful and +pleasing city of San Antonio, and had roused in Texas a fierce and +resolute hatred of Mexico. In April, 1836, Houston overwhelmed the +Mexicans at San Jacinto, and captured their president, Santa Anna. + +In his message of December 21, 1836, Jackson, although he announced +these successes of the Texans and their expulsion of Mexican civil +authority, still pointed out to Congress the disparity of physical force +on the side of Texas, and declared it prudent that we should stand aloof +until either Mexico itself or one of the great powers should have +recognized Texan independence, or at least until the ability of Texas +should have been proved beyond cavil. The Senate had then passed a +resolution for recognition of Texan independence. But the House had not +concurred; and before Van Buren's inauguration Congress had done no more +than authorize the appointment of a diplomatic agent to Texas whenever +the President should be satisfied of its independence. In August, 1837, +the Texan representative at Washington laid before Van Buren a plan of +annexation of the revolted Mexican state. The offer was refused; and it +was declared that the United States desired to remain neutral, and +perceived that annexation would necessarily lead to war with Mexico. In +December, 1837, petitions were presented in Congress against the +annexation of Texas, now much agitated at the South; and Preston, +Calhoun's senatorial associate from South Carolina, offered a resolution +for annexation. Some debate on the question was had in 1838, in which +both the pro-slavery character of the movement and the anti-slavery +character of the opposition clearly appeared. But this danger to Van +Buren was delayed several years. Nor was he yet a character in the drama +of the slavery conflict which by 1837 was well opened. The agitation +over abolition petitions and the murder of Lovejoy the abolitionist are +now readily enough seen to have been the most deeply significant +occurrences in America between Van Buren's inauguration and his defeat; +but they were as little part of his presidency as the arrival at New +York from Liverpool on April 22 and 23, 1838, of the Sirius and the +Great Western, the first transatlantic steamships. In Washington the +slavery question did not get beyond the halls of Congress. The White +House remained for several years free from both the dangers and the +duties of the question accompanying the discussion. + +Van Buren's administration pressed upon Mexico claims arising out of +wrongs to American citizens and property which had long been a +grievance. Jackson had thought it our duty, in view of the "embarrassed +condition" of that republic, to "act with both wisdom and moderation by +giving to Mexico one more opportunity to atone for the past." In +December, 1837, Van Buren, tired of Mexican procrastination, referred +the matter to Congress, with some menace in his tone. In 1840 a treaty +was at last made for an arbitration of the claims, the king of Prussia +being the umpire. John Quincy Adams vehemently assailed the American +assertion of these claims, as intended to "breed a war with Mexico," and +"as machinery for the annexation of Texas;" and his violent +denunciations have obtained some credit. But Adams himself had been +pretty vigorous in the maintenance of American rights. And the plain and +well known facts are, that after several years of negotiation the claims +were with perfect moderation submitted for decision to a disinterested +tribunal; that they were never made the occasion of war; and that Van +Buren opposed annexation. + +In June, 1838, James K. Paulding, long the navy agent at New York, was +made secretary of the navy in place of Mahlon Dickerson of New Jersey, +who now resigned. Paulding seems to us rather a literary than a +political figure. Besides the authorship of part of "Salmagundi," of +"The Dutchman's Fireside," and of other and agreeable writings grateful +to Americans in the days when the sting of the question, "Who reads an +American book?" lay rather in its truth than in its ill-nature, +Paulding's pen had aided the Republican party as early as Madison's +presidency. Our politics have always, even at home, paid some honor to +the muses, without requiring them to descend very far into the partisan +arena. A curious illustration was the nomination of Edwin Forrest, the +famous tragedian, for Congress by the Democrats of New York in 1838, a +nomination which was more sensibly declined than made. An almost equally +curious instance was the tender Van Buren made of the secretaryship of +the navy to Washington Irving before he offered it to Paulding, who was +a connection by marriage of Irving's brother. Van Buren had, it will be +remembered, become intimately acquainted with Irving abroad; and others +than Van Buren strangely enough had thought of him for political +service. The Jacksonians had wanted him to run for Congress; and Tammany +Hall had offered him a nomination for mayor of New York. Van Buren wrote +to Irving that the latter had "in an eminent degree those peculiar +qualities which should distinguish the head of the department," and that +this opinion of his had been confirmed by Irving's friends, Paulding and +Kemble, the former of whom it was intimated was "particularly informed +in regard to the services to be rendered." But one cannot doubt that in +writing this the President had in mind the sort of service to the +public, and the personal pleasure and rest to himself, to be brought by +a delightful and accomplished man of letters, who was no mere recluse, +but long practiced in polished and brilliant life abroad, rather than +any business or executive or political ability. Irving wisely replied +that he should delight in full occupation, and should take peculiar +interest in the navy department; but that he shrank from the harsh +turmoils of life at Washington, and the bitter personal hostility and +the slanders of the press. A short career at Washington would, he said, +render him "mentally and physically a perfect wreck." Paulding's +appointment to the cabinet portfolio assigned to New York was not +agreeable to the politicians; and they afterwards declared that, if +Marcy had been chosen instead, the result in 1840 might have been +different. The next Democratic president gave the same place to another +famous man of letters, George Bancroft. + +On June 6, 1837, Louis Napoleon wrote the President from New York that +the dangerous illness of his mother recalled him to the old world; and +that he stated the reason for his departure lest the President might +"have given credence to the calumnious surmises respecting" him. The +famous adventurer used one of those many phrases of his which, if they +had not for years imposed on the world, no wise man would believe could +ever have obtained respect. Van Buren, as the ruler of a free people, +ought to be advised, the prince wrote, that, bearing the name he did, it +was impossible for him "to depart for an instant from the path pointed +out to me by my conscience, my honor, and my duty." + +The elections of 1838 showed a recovery from the defeat in 1837, a +recovery which would perhaps have been permanent if the financial crisis +had been really over. Maine wheeled back into the Van Buren ranks; and +Maryland and Ohio now joined her. In New Jersey and Massachusetts the +Whig majorities were reduced; and in New York, where Seward and Weed had +established a political management quite equal to the Regency, the +former was chosen governor by a majority of over 10,000, but still less +by 5000 than the Whig majority of 1837. The Democrats now reaped the +unpopularity of Van Buren's upright neutrality in the Canadian troubles. +Northern and western New York gave heavy Whig majorities. Jefferson +county on the very border, which had stood by Van Buren even in 1837, +went over to the Whigs. + +Van Buren met Congress in December, 1838, with more cheerful words. The +harvest had been bountiful, he said, and industry again prospered. The +first half century of our Constitution was about to expire, after +proving the advantage of a government "entirely dependent on the +continual exercise of the popular will." He returned firmly to his +lecture on economics and the currency, drawing happily, but too soon, a +lesson from the short duration of the suspension of specie payments in +1837 and the length of that in 1814. We had been saved, he said, the +mortification of seeing our distresses used to fasten again upon us so +"dangerous an institution" as a national bank. The treasury would be +able in the coming year to pay off the $8,000,000 outstanding of the +$10,000,000 of treasury notes authorized at the extra session. Texas +had withdrawn its application for admission to the Union. The final +removal of the Indian tribes to the west of the Mississippi in +accordance with the Democratic policy was almost accomplished. There +were but two blemishes on the fair record the White House sent to the +Capitol. Swartwout, Jackson's collector of New York, was found, after +his super-session by Jesse Hoyt, to be a defaulter on a vast scale. His +defalcations, the President carefully pointed out, had gone on for seven +years, as well while public moneys were kept with the United States Bank +and while they were kept with state banks, as while they were kept by +public officers. It was broadly intimated that this disgrace was not +unrelated to the general theory which had so long connected the +collection and custody of public moneys with the advancement of private +interests; and the President asked for a law making it a felony to apply +public moneys to private uses. Swartwout's appointment in 1829, as has +been said, was strenuously opposed by Van Buren as unfit to be made. +After a year or two Jackson returned to Van Buren his written protest, +saying that time had proved his belief in Swartwout's unfitness to be a +mistake. Van Buren's own appointment to the place was, however, far from +an ideal one. Jesse Hoyt was shown by his published correspondence--a +veritable instance, by the way, of "_stolen_ sweets"--to have been a +shrewd, able man, who enjoyed the strangely varied confidence of many +distinguished, discreet, and honorable men, and of many very different +persons, ranging through a singular gamut of religion, morals, +statesmanship, economics, politics, patronage, banking, trade, stock +gambling, and betting. The respectability of some of Hoyt's friends and +his possession of some ability palliate, but do not excuse, his +appointment to a great post. + +The second Florida war still dragged out its slow and murderous length. +The Seminoles under pressure had yielded to Jackson's firm policy of +removing all the Indian tribes to the west of the Mississippi. The +policy seemed, or rather it was, often cruel, as is so much of the +progress of civilization. But the removal was wise and necessary. Tribal +and independent governments by nomadic savages could not be tolerated +within regions devoted to the arts and the government of white men. +Whatever the theoretical rights of property in land, no civilized race +near vast areas of lands fit for the tillage of a crowding population +has ever permitted them to remain mere hunting grounds for savages. The +Seminoles in 1832, 1833, and 1834 agreed to go west upon terms like +those accepted by other Indians. The removal was to take place, one +third of the tribe in each of the three years 1833, 1834, and 1835; but +the dark-skinned men, as their white brothers would have done, found or +invented excuses for not keeping their promise of voluntary +expatriation. Late in 1835, when coercion, although it had not yet been +employed against the Seminoles, was still feared by them, they rose +under their famous leader, the half-breed Powell, better known as +Osceola, and massacred the federal agent and Major Dade, and 107 out of +111 soldiers under him. Then followed a series of butcheries and +outrages upon white men of which we have heard, and doubtless of crimes +enough upon Indians of which we have not heard. Among the everglades, +the swamps and lakes of Florida, its scorching sands and impenetrable +thickets, a difficult, tedious, inglorious, and costly contest went on. +Military evolutions and tactics were of little value; it was a war of +ambushes and assassination. Osceola, coming with a flag of truce, was +taken by General Jessup, the defense for his capture being his violation +of a former parole. He was sent to Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, +and there died, after furnishing recitations to generations of +schoolboys, and sentiment to many of their elders. Van Buren had been +compelled to ask $1,600,000 from Congress at the extra session. Before +his administration was ended nearly $14,000,000 had been spent; and not +until 1842 did the war end. It was one of the burdens of the +administration which served to irritate a people already uneasy for +deeper and more general reasons. The prowess of the Indian chief, his +eloquence, his pathetic end, the miseries and wrongs of the aborigines, +the cost and delay of the war, all reënforced the denunciation of Van +Buren by men who made no allowance for embarrassments which could be +surmounted by no ability, because they were inevitable to the settlement +by a civilized race of lands used by savages. Time, however, has +vindicated the justice and mercy, as well as the policy of the removal, +and of the establishment of the Indian Territory. + +A few days before the close of the session Van Buren asked Congress to +consider the dispute with Great Britain over the northeast boundary. +Both Maine and New Brunswick threatened, by rival military occupations +of the disputed territory, to precipitate war. Van Buren permitted the +civil authorities of Maine to protect the forests from destruction; but +disapproved any military seizure, and told the state authorities that he +should propose arbitration to Great Britain. If, however, New Brunswick +sought a military occupation, he should defend the territory as part of +the State. Congress at once authorized the President to call out 50,000 +volunteers, and put at his disposal a credit of $10,000,000. Van Buren +persisted in his great effort peacefully to adjust the claims of our +chronically belligerent northeastern patriots,--in Maine as in New York +finding his fate in his duty firmly and calmly to restrain a local +sentiment inspiring voters of great political importance to him. The +"news from Maine" in 1840 told of the angry contempt the hardy lumbermen +felt for the President's perfectly statesmanlike treatment of the +question. + +In the summer of 1839 Van Buren visited his old home at Kinderhook; and +on his way there and back enjoyed a burst of enthusiasm at York, +Harrisburg, Lebanon, Reading, and Easton in Pennsylvania, at Newark and +Jersey City in New Jersey, and at New York, Hudson, and Albany in his +own State. There were salutes of artillery, pealing of bells, mounted +escorts in blue and white scarfs, assemblings of "youth and beauty," the +complimentary addresses, the thronging of citizens "to grasp the hand of +the man whom they had delighted to honor," and all the rest that makes +up the ovations of Americans to their black-coated rulers. He landed in +New York at Castle Garden, amid the salutes of the forts on Bedloe's, +Governor's, and Staten Islands, and of a "seventy-four," whose yards +were covered with white uniformed sailors. After the reception in Castle +Garden he mounted a spirited black horse and reviewed six thousand +troops assembled on the Battery; and then went in procession along +Broadway to Chatham Street, thence to the Bowery, and through Broome +Street and Broadway back to the City Hall Park. Not since Lafayette's +visit had there been so fine a reception. At Kinderhook he was +overwhelmed with the affectionate pride of his old neighbors. He +declined public dinners, and by the simple manner of his travel offered +disproof of the stories about his "English servants, horses and +carriages." The journey was not, however, like the good-natured and +unpartisan presidential journeys of our time. The Whigs often churlishly +refused to help in what they said was an electioneering tour. Seward +publicly refused the invitation of the common council of New York to +participate in the President's reception, because the State had honored +him with the office of governor for his disapproval of Van Buren's +political character and public policy, and because an acceptance of the +invitation "would afford evidence of inconsistency and insincerity." Van +Buren's own friends gave a party air to much of the welcome. Democratic +committees were conspicuous in the ceremonies; and in many of the +addresses much that was said of his administration was fairly in a +dispute certain to last until the next year's election was over. Van +Buren could hardly have objected to the coldness of the Whigs, for his +own speeches, though decorous and respectful to the last degree to those +who differed from him, were undisguised appeals for popular support of +his financial policy. At New York he referred to the threatening +dissatisfaction in his own State concerning his firm treatment of the +Canadian troubles. But he was persuaded, he said, that good sense and +ultimately just feeling would give short duration to these unfavorable +impressions. + +The President was too experienced and cool in judgment to exaggerate the +significance of superficial demonstrations like these, which often +seemed conclusive to his exuberant rival Clay. He was encouraged, +however, by the elections of 1839. In Ohio the Whigs were "pretty +essentially used up," though unfortunately not to remain so a +twelve-month. In Massachusetts Morton, the Van Buren candidate for +governor, was elected by just one vote more than a majority of the +102,066 votes cast. Georgia, New Jersey, and Mississippi gave +administration majorities. In New York the adverse majority which in +1837 had been over 15,000, and in 1838 over 10,000, was now less than +4000, in spite of the disaffection along the border counties. It was not +an unsatisfactory result, although for the first time since 1818 the +legislature was completely lost. Another year, Van Buren now hoped, +would bring a complete recovery from the blow of 1837. But the autumn of +1839 had also brought a blast, to grow more and more chilling and +disastrous. + +In the early fall the Bank of the United States agreed to loan +Pennsylvania $2,000,000; and for the loan obtained the privilege of +issuing $5 notes, having before been restricted to notes of $20 and +upwards. "Thus has the Van Buren State of Pennsylvania," it was boasted, +"enabled the banks to overcome the reckless system of a Van Buren +national administration." The price of cotton, which had risen to 16 +cents a pound, fell in the summer of 1839, and in 1840 touched as low a +point as 5 cents. In the Northwest many banks had not yet resumed since +1837. To avoid execution sales it was said that two hundred plantations +had been abandoned and their slaves taken to Texas. The sheriff, instead +of the ancient return, _nulla bona_, was said, in the grim sport of the +frontier, to indorse on the fruitless writs "G. T.," meaning "Gone to +Texas." A money stringency again appeared in England, in 1839. Its +exportation of goods and money to America had again become enormous. The +customs duties collected in 1839 were over $23,000,000, and about the +same as they had been in 1836, having fallen in 1837 to $11,000,000, and +afterwards in 1840 falling to $13,000,000. Speculation revived, the land +sales exceeding $7,000,000 in 1839, while they had been $3,700,000 in +1838, and afterwards fell to $3,000,000 in 1840. Under the pressure from +England the Bank of the United States sank with a crash. The +"Philadelphia Gazette," complacently ignoring the plain reasons for +months set before its eyes, said that the disaster had "its chief cause +in the revulsion of the opium trade with the Chinese;" that upon the +news that the Orientals would no longer admit the drug the Bank of +England had "fairly reeled;" and that, the balance of trade being +against us, we had to dishonor our paper. Explanations of like frivolity +got wide credence. The Philadelphia banks suspended on October 9, 1839, +the banks of Baltimore the next day, and in a few days the banks in the +North and West followed. The banks of New York and New England, except +those of Providence, continued firm. Although the excitement of 1839 did +not equal that of 1837, there was a duller and completer despondency. It +was at last known that the recuperative power of even our own proud and +bounding country had limits. Years were yet necessary to a recovery. +But the presidential election would not, alas! wait years. With no +faltering, however, Van Buren met Congress in December, 1839. He began +his message with a regret that he could not announce a year of +"unalloyed prosperity." There ought never, as presidential messages had +run, to be any alloy in the prosperity of the American people. But the +harvest, he said, had been exuberant, and after all (for the grapes of +trade and manufacture were a little sour), the steady devotion of the +husbandman was the surest source of national prosperity. A part of the +$10,000,000 of treasury notes was still outstanding, and he hoped that +they might be paid. We must not resort to the ruinous practice of +supplying supposed necessities by new loans; a permanent debt was an +evil with no equivalent. The expenditures for 1838, the first year over +whose appropriations Van Buren had had control, had been less than those +of 1837. In 1839 they had been $6,000,000 less than in 1838; and for +1840 they would be $5,000,000 less than in 1839. The collection and +disbursement of public moneys by public officers rather than by banks +had, since the bank suspensions in 1837, been carried on with unexpected +cheapness and ease; and legislation was alone wanting to insure to the +system the highest security and facility. Nothing daunted by the second +disaster so lately clouding his political future, Van Buren sounded +another blast against the banks. With unusual abundance of harvests, +with manufactures richly rewarded, with our granaries and storehouses +filled with surplus for export, with no foreign war, with nothing indeed +to endanger well-managed banks, this banking disaster had come. The +government ought not to be dependent on banks as its depositories, for +the banks outside of New York and Philadelphia were dependent upon the +banks in those great cities, and the latter banks in turn upon London, +"the centre of the credit system." With some truth, but still with a +touch of demagogy, venial perhaps in the face of the blatant and silly +outcries against him from very intelligent and respectable people, he +said that the founding of a new bank in a distant American village +placed its business "within the influence of the money power of +England." Let us then, he argued, have gold and silver and not +bank-notes, at least in our public transactions; let us keep public +moneys out of the banks. Again he attacked the national bank scheme. In +1817 and 1818, in 1823, in 1831, and in 1834 the United States Bank had +swelled and maddened the tides of banking, but had seldom allayed or +safely directed them. Turning with seemingly cool resolution, but with +hidden anxiety, to the menacing distresses of the American voters, he +did not flinch or look for fair or flattering words. We must not turn +for relief, he said, to gigantic banks, or splendid though profitless +railroads and canals. Relief was to be sought, not by the increase, but +by the diminution of debt. The faith of States already pledged was to +be punctiliously kept; but we must be chary of further pledges. The +bounties of Providence had come to reduce the consequences of past +errors. "But let it be indelibly engraved on our minds," he said, "that +relief is not to be found in expedients. Indebtedness cannot be lessened +by borrowing more money, or by changing the form of the debt." + +The House of Representatives was so divided that its control depended +upon whether five Whig or five Democratic congressmen from New Jersey +should be admitted. They had been voted for upon a general ticket +through the whole State; and the Whig governor and council had given the +certificate of election to the Whigs by acquiescing in the actions of +the two county clerks who had, for irregularities, thrown out the +Democratic districts of South Amboy and Millville. A collision arose +curiously like the dispute over the electoral returns from Florida and +Louisiana in 1877. This exclusion of the two districts the Democrats +insisted to have been wrongful; and not improbably with reason, for at +the next election in 1839 the State, upon the popular vote, gave a +substantial majority against the Whigs, although by the district +division of the State a majority of the legislature were Whigs and +reëlected the Whig governor. The clerk of the national House had, +according to usage, prepared a roll of members, which he proceeded to +call. He seems to have placed on the roll the names of the New Jersey +representatives holding the governor's certificates. But before calling +their names, he stated to the House that there were rival credentials; +that he felt that he had no power to decide upon the contested rights; +and that, if the House approved, he would pass over the names until the +call of the other States was finished. The rival credentials included a +record of the votes upon which the governor's certificate was presumed +to be based. Objection was made to passing New Jersey, and one of the +governor's certificates was read. The New Jerseymen with certificates +insisted that their names should be called. The clerk declined to take +any step without the authority of the House, holding that he was in no +sense a chairman. He behaved in the case with modesty and decorum, and +the savage criticisms upon him seem to have no foundation except this +refusal of his to decide upon the _prima facie_ right to the New Jersey +seats, or to act as chairman except upon unanimous consent. He was +clearly right. He had no power. The very roll he prepared, and his +reading it, had no force except such as the House chose to give them. +Upon any other theory he would practically wield an enormous power +justified neither by the Constitution nor by any law. On the fourth day +of tumult a simple and lawful remedy was discovered to be at hand. Any +member could himself act as chairman to put his own motion for the +appointment of a temporary speaker; and if a majority acquiesced, there +was at once an organization without the clerk's aid. This was in +precise accord with the attitude of the clerk, hotly abused as he was by +Adams and others who adopted his position. So Adams proposed himself to +put the question on his own motion to call the roll with the members +holding certificates. Further confusion then ensued, which was +terminated by Rhett of South Carolina, who moved that John Quincy Adams +act as chairman until a speaker should be chosen. Rhett put his own +motion, and it was carried. Adams took the chair, rules were adopted, +and order succeeded chaos. None of the New Jerseymen were permitted to +vote for speaker, but a few Calhoun Democrats refused to vote for the +administration candidate. Most of the administration members offered to +accept a Calhoun man; but a few of them, naturally angry at South +Carolina dictation, refused, under Benton's advice, to vote for him. At +last the Whigs joined the Calhoun men, and ended this extraordinary +contest. The speaker, Robert M. T. Hunter, was a so-called states-rights +man, and a supporter of the independent treasury scheme. He had the +fortune, after a singularly varied and even important career in the +United States and the Confederate States, to be appointed by President +Cleveland to the petty place of collector of customs at Tappahannock, in +Virginia, and to live among Americans who were familiar with his +prominence fifty years ago, but supposed him long since dead. The clerk, +Hugh A. Garland, was reëlected, in spite of what Adams in his diary, +after his picturesque but utterly unjustifiable fashion, called the +"baseness of his treachery to his trust." The Whig New Jerseymen were +refused seats, and the apparent perversion of the popular vote was +rightly defeated by seating their rivals. The Whigs posed as defenders +of the sanctity of state authority, and sought, upon that political +issue, to force the Van Buren men to be the apologists for +centralization. + +It was at this session that the sub-treasury bill was passed. As a sort +of new declaration of independence Van Buren signed it on July 4, 1840. +His long and honorable and his greatest battle was won. It was the +triumph of a really great cause. The people, by their labor and capital, +were to support the federal government as a mere agency for limited +purposes. That government was not, in this way at least, to support or +direct or control either the people or their labor or capital. But the +captain fell at the time of his victory. The financial disaster of 1839 +had exhausted the good-nature and patience of the people. Dissertations +on finance and economics, however wise, now served to irritate and +disgust. These cool admonitions to economy and a minding of one's +business were popularly believed to be heartless and repulsive. + +In 1840 took place the most extraordinary of presidential campaigns. +While Congress was wrangling over the New Jersey episode in December, +1839, the Whig national convention again nominated Harrison for +President. Tyler was taken from the ranks of seceding Democrats as the +candidate for Vice-President. The slaughter of Henry Clay, the father +of the Whig party, had been effected by the now formidable Whig +politicians of New York, cunningly marshaled by Thurlow Weed. +Availability had its first complete triumph in our national politics. +They had not come, Governor Barbour of Virginia, the president of the +Whig convention, said, to whine after the fleshpots of Egypt, but to +give perpetuity to Republican institutions. To reach this end (not very +explicitly or intelligibly defined), it mattered not what letters of the +alphabet spelled the name of the candidate; for his part, he could sing +Hosanna to any alphabetical combination. No platform or declaration of +principles was adopted, lest some of those discontented with Van Buren +should find there a counter-irritant. The candidates, in accepting their +nominations, refrained from political discussion. Harrison stood for the +plain, honest citizen, coming, as one of the New York conventions said, +"like another Cincinnatus from his plough," resolute for a generous +administration, and ready to diffuse prosperity and to end hard times. +Tyler, formerly a strict constructionist member of the Jackson party, +was nominated to catch votes, in spite of his perfectly well known +opposition to the whole Whig theory of government. + +The Democratic, or Democratic-Republican, convention met at Baltimore on +May 5, 1840. The party name was now definitely and exclusively adopted. +Among the delegates were men long afterwards famous in the later +Republican party, John A. Dix, Hannibal Hamlin, Simon Cameron. There was +an air of despondency about the convention, for the enthusiasm over "log +cabin and hard cider" was already abroad. But the convention without +wavering announced its belief in a limited federal power, in the +separation of public moneys from banking institutions; and its +opposition to internal improvements by the nation, to the federal +assumption of state debts, to the fostering of one industry so as to +injure another, to raising more money than was required for necessary +expenses of government, and to a national bank. Slavery now took for a +long time its place in the party platform. The convention declared the +constitutional inability of Congress to interfere with slavery in the +States, and that all efforts of abolitionists to induce Congress to +interfere with slavery were alarming and dangerous to the Union. An +elaborate address to the people was issued. It began with a clear, and +for a political campaign a reasonably moderate, defense of Van Buren's +administration; it renewed the well-worn arguments for the limited +activity of government; it made a silly assertion that Harrison was a +Federalist, and an insinuation that the glory of his military career was +doubtful; it denounced the abolitionists, whose fanaticism it charged +the Whigs with enlisting in their cause. In closing, it recalled the +Democratic revolution of 1800 which broke the "iron rod of Federal +rule," and contrasted the "costly and stately pageants addressed merely +to the senses" by the Whigs with the truth and reason of the Democracy. + +During the canvass Van Buren submitted to frequent interrogation. In a +fashion that would seem fatal to a modern candidate, he wrote to +political friends and enemies alike, letter after letter, restating his +political opinions. Especially was it sought to arouse Southern distrust +of him. He was accused, with fire-eating anger, of having approved a +sentence of a court-martial against a naval lieutenant which was based +upon the testimony of negroes. He reiterated what he had already said +upon slavery; but late in the canvass he went one step further. When +asked his opinion as to the treatment by Congress of the abolition +petitions, he replied, justly enough, that the President could have no +concern with that matter; but lest he should be charged with +"non-committalism," he declared that Congress was fully justified in +adopting the "gag" rule. For years the petitions had been received and +referred. On one occasion in each House the subject had been considered +upon a report of a committee, and decided against the petitioners with +almost entire unanimity. The rule had been adopted only after it was +clear that the petitioners simply sought to make Congress an instrument +of an agitation which might lead to a dissolution of the Union. It was +thus that Van Buren made his extreme concession to the slavocracy. And +there was obvious a material excuse. No president while in office could +approve the perversion of legislative procedure from the making of laws +to be a mere stimulant of moral excitement. To encourage or justify +petitions intended to inflame public sentiment against a wrong might be +legitimate for some men, however well they knew, as Adams said he knew, +that the body addressed ought not to grant the petitioners' prayers. +Such a course might be noble and praiseworthy for a private citizen, or +possibly for a member of Congress representing the exalted moral +sentiment of a single district. It would be highly illegitimate for a +man holding a great public office, and there representing the entire +people and its established system of laws. John Quincy Adams, under his +sense of duty as president, had in 1828 pressed the humiliating claim +that England should surrender American slaves escaped to English +freedom; and there is little reason to doubt that, if he had remained in +the field of responsible and executive public life, he would have agreed +with Van Buren in his treatment of the matter of the abolition +petitions, or rather in his expressions from the White House about them. + +Harrison hastened to clear his skirts of abolitionism. Congress could +not, he declared, abolish slavery in the District of Columbia without +the consent of Virginia and Maryland and of the District itself. For, as +he argued, ignobly applying, as well as misquoting, the American words +solemnly lauded by Lord Chatham in his speech on Quartering Soldiers in +Boston, "what a man has honestly acquired is absolutely his own, which +he may freely give, but which cannot be taken from him without his +consent." He denounced as a slander the charge that he was an +abolitionist, or that the vote he had given against anti-slavery +restriction in Missouri had violated his conscience. He declared for the +right of petition, which indeed nobody disputed; but he did not say what +course should be taken with the anti-slavery petitions, which was the +real question to be answered. The discussion by the citizens of the free +States of slavery in the slave States was not, he said, "sanctioned by +the Constitution." "Methinks," he said at Dayton, "I hear a soft voice +asking, Are you in favor of paper money? I am;" and to that there were +"shouts of applause." + +In no presidential canvass in America has there been, as Mr. Schurz well +says in his life of Henry Clay, "more enthusiasm and less thought" than +in the Whig canvass of 1840. The people were rushing as from a long +restraint. Wise saws about the duties of government had become +nauseating. A plain every-day man administering a paternal and +affectionate government was the ruling text, while Tyler and his strict +construction quietly served their turn with some of the doctrinaires at +the South. The nation, Clay said, was "like the ocean when convulsed by +some terrible storm." There was what he called a "rabid appetite for +public discussions." + +Webster's campaign speeches probably marked the height of the splendid +and effectual flood of eloquence now poured over the land. The breeze of +popular excitement, he said, with satisfactory magniloquence, was +flowing everywhere; it fanned the air in Alabama and the Carolinas; and +crossing the Potomac and the Alleghanies, to mingle with the gales of +the Empire State and the mountain blasts of New England, would blow a +perfect hurricane. "Every breeze," he declared, "says change; the cry, +the universal cry, is for a change." He had not, indeed, been born in a +log cabin, but his elder brothers and sisters had; he wept to think of +those who had left it; and if he failed in affectionate veneration for +him who raised it, then might his name and the name of his posterity be +blotted from the memory of mankind. He touched the bank question +lightly; he denounced the sub-treasury as "the first in a new series of +ruthless experiments," and declared that Van Buren's "abandonment of the +currency" was fatal. Forgetting who had supported and who had opposed +the continued distribution of surplus revenues among the States, he +condemned the President for the low state of the treasury; and +notwithstanding it declared his approval of a generous policy of +internal improvements. He would not accuse the President of seeking to +play the part of Cæsar or Cromwell because Mr. Poinsett, his secretary +of war, had recommended a federal organization of militia, the necessity +or convenience of which, it was supposed, had been demonstrated by the +Canadian troubles; but the plan, he said, was expensive, +unconstitutional, and dangerous to our liberties. He was careful to say +nothing of slavery or the right of petition. Only in brief and casual +sentences did he even touch the charges that Van Buren had treated +political contests as "rightfully struggles for office and emolument," +and that federal officers had been assessed in proportion to their +salaries for partisan purposes. The President was pictured as full of +cynical and selfish disregard of the people; he had disparaged the +credit of the States; he had accused Madison, and, monstrous sacrilege, +even Washington, of corruption. "I may forgive this," Webster slowly +said to the appalled audience, "but I shall not forget it;" such +"abominable violations of the truth of history" filled his bosom with +"burning scorn." This was a highly imaginative allusion to Van Buren's +statement that the national bank had been originally devised by the +friends of privileged orders. Nor need the South, even Webster +intimated, have any fear of the Whigs about slavery. Could the South +believe that Harrison would "lay ruthless hands on the institutions +among which he was born and educated?" No, indeed, for Washington and +Hancock, Virginia and Massachusetts, had joined their thoughts, their +hopes, their feelings. "How many bones of Northern men," he asked with +majestic pathos, "lie at Yorktown?" Senator Rives, now one of the +Conservatives, said that Van Buren was indeed "mild, smooth, affable, +smiling;" but humility was "young and old ambition's ladder." The +militia project meant military usurpation. Look at Cromwell, he said; +look at Bonaparte. Were their usurpations not in the name of the people? +Preston of South Carolina said that Van Buren had advocated diminished +wages to others; now he should himself receive diminished wages. +Harrison was, he said "a Southern man with Southern principles." As for +Van Buren, this "Northern man with Southern principles," did he not come +"from beyond the Hudson," had he not been "a friend of Rufus King, a +Missouri restrictionist, a friend and advocate of free negro suffrage?" +Clay said that it was no time "to argue;" a rule his party for the +moment well observed. The nation had already pronounced upon the ravages +Van Buren had brought upon the land, the general and widespread ruin, +the broken hopes. With the mere fact of Harrison's election, "without +reference to the measures of his administration," he told the Virginians +at Hanover, "confidence will immediately revive, credit be restored, +active business will return, prices of products will rise; and the +people will feel and know that, instead of their servants being occupied +in devising measures for their ruin and destruction, they will be +assiduously employed in promoting their welfare and prosperity." + +All this was far more glorious than the brutally true advice of the old +man with a broad-axe on his shoulders, whom the Democrats quoted. When +asked what was to become of everybody in the heavy distress of the +panic, he answered, "Damn the panic! If you would all work as I do, you +would have no panic." The people no longer cared about "the interested +few who desire to enrich themselves by the use of public money." If, as +the Democrats said, the interested few had been thwarted, an almost +universal poverty had for some reason or other come with their defeat. +Perhaps the reflecting citizen thought that he might become, if he were +not already, one of the "interested few." Nor was the demagogy all on +the side of the Whigs, although they enjoyed the more popular quality of +the quadrennial product. Van Buren himself, in the futile fashion of +aging parties which suppose that their ancient victories still stir the +popular heart, recalled "the reign of terror" of the elder Adams, and +how the "Samson of Democracy burst the cords which were already bound +around its limbs," how "a web more artfully contrived, composed of a +high protective tariff, a system of internal improvements, and a +national bank, was then twined around the sleeping giant" until he was +"roused by the warning voice of the honest and intrepid Jackson." +Harrison's own numerous speeches were awkward and indefinite enough; but +still they showed an honest and sincere man, and in the enthusiasm of +the day they did him no harm. + +The revolts against the severe party discipline of the Democracy, aided +by the popular distress, were serious. Calhoun, indeed, had returned; +but all his supporters did not return with him. The Southern defection +headed by White in 1836 was still most formidable, and was now +reënforced by the Conservative secession North and South. Even Major +Eaton forgot Van Buren's gallantry ten years before, and joined the +enemy. The talk of "spoils" was amply justified; but the abuses of +patronage had not prevented Jackson's popularity, and under Van Buren +they were far less serious. This cry did not yet touch the American +people. The most serious danger of "spoils" still lay in the future. +Patronage abuses had injured the efficiency of the public service, but +they had not yet begun to defeat the popular will. Jackson came +resolutely to Van Buren's aid in the fashionable letter-writing. "The +Rives Conservatives, the Abolitionists and Federalists" had combined, +the ex-President vivaciously said, to obtain power "by falsehood and +slander of the basest kind;" but the "virtue of the people," he declared +in what from other lips would have seemed cant, would defeat "the money +power." Van Buren's firmness and ability entitled him, he thought, to a +rank not inferior to Jefferson or Madison, while he rather unhandsomely +added that he had never admired Harrison as a military man. + +The Whig campaign was highly picturesque. Meetings were measured by +"acres of men." They gathered on the field of Tippecanoe. Revolutionary +soldiers marched in venerable processions. Wives and daughters came with +their husbands and fathers. There were the barrel of cider, the +coon-skins, and the log cabin with the live raccoon running over it and +the latch-string hung out; for Harrison had told his soldiers when he +left them, that never should his door be shut, "or the string of the +latch pulled in." Van Buren meantime, with an aristocratic sneer upon +his face, was seated in an English carriage, after feeding himself from +the famous gold spoons bought for the White House. Harrison was a hunter +who had caught a fox before and would again; one of the county +processions from Pennsylvania boasted, "Old Mother Cumberland--she'll +bag the fox." Illinois would "teach the palace slaves to respect the log +cabin." "Down with the wages, say the administration." "Matty's policy, +fifty cents a day and French soup; our policy, two dollars a day and +roastbeef." Newspapers were full of advertisements like this: "The +subscriber will pay $5 a hundred for pork if Harrison is elected, and +$2.50 if Van Buren is." + +But the songs were most interesting. The ball, which Benton had said in +his last speech on the expunging resolution that he "solitary and alone" +had put in motion, was a mine of similes. They sang: + + "With heart and soul + This ball we roll." + + "As rolls the ball, + Van's reign does fall, + And he may look + To Kinderhook." + + "The gathering ball is rolling still, + And still gathering as it rolls." + +Harrison's battle with the Indians gave the effective cry of "Tippecanoe +and Tyler too." And so they sang: + + "Farewell, dear Van, + You're not our man; + To guard the ship, + We'll try old Tip." + + "With Tip and Tyler + We'll burst Van's biler." + + "Old Tip he wears a homespun suit, + He has no ruffled shirt--wirt--wirt; + But Mat he has the golden plate, + And he's a little squirt--wirt--wirt." + +When the election returns began to come from the August and September +States, the joyful excitement passed all bounds. Then the new Whigs +found a new Lilliburlero. To the tune of the "Little Pig's Tail" they +sang: + + "What has caused this great commotion, motion, motion, + Our country through? + It is the ball a-rolling on, + For Tippecanoe and Tyler too, Tippecanoe and Tyler too! + + "And with them we'll beat little Van, Van; + Van is a used-up man. + Oh, have you heard the news from Maine, Maine, Maine, + All honest and true? + One thousand for Kent and seven thousand gain + For Tippecanoe," etc. + +And then Joe Hoxie would close the meetings by singing "Up Salt River." + +The result was pretty plain before November. New Hampshire, Connecticut, +Rhode Island, and Virginia voted for state officers in the spring. All +had voted for Van Buren in 1836; all now gave Whig majorities, except +New Hampshire, where the Democratic majority was greatly reduced. In +August North Carolina was added to the Whig column, though in Missouri +and Illinois there was little change. But when in September Maine, which +had given Van Buren nearly eight thousand majority, and had since +remained steadfast, "went hell-bent for Governor Kent" and gave a slight +Whig majority, the administration's doom was sealed. + +Harrison received 234 electoral votes, and Van Buren 60. New York gave +Harrison 13,300 votes more than Van Buren; but a large part of this +plurality, perhaps all, came from the counties on the northern and +western borders. Only one Northern State, Illinois, voted for Van Buren. +Of the slave States, five, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, Missouri, +and Arkansas, were for Van Buren; the other eight for Harrison. There +was a popular majority in the slave States of about 55,000 against Van +Buren in a total vote of about 695,000, and in the free States, of about +90,000 in a total vote of about 1,700,000, still showing, therefore, his +greater popular strength in the free States. The increase in the popular +vote was the most extraordinary the country has ever known, proving the +depth and universality of the feeling. This vote had been about +1,500,000 in 1836; it reached about 2,400,000 in 1840, an increase of +900,000, while from 1840 to the Clay canvass of 1844 it increased only +300,000. Van Buren, as a defeated candidate in 1840, received about +350,000 votes more than elected him in 1836; and the growth of +population in the four years was probably less, not greater, than usual. +There were cries of "fraud and corruption" because of this enormously +increased vote, cries which Benton long afterwards seriously heeded; but +there seems to be no good reason to treat them otherwise than as one of +the many expressions of Democratic anguish. + +Van Buren received the seemingly crushing defeat with dignity and +composure. While the cries of "Van, Van, he's a used-up man," were +coming with some of the sting of truth through the White House windows, +he prepared the final message with which he met Congress in December, +1840. The year, he said, had been one of "health, plenty, and peace." +Again he declared the dangers of a national debt, and the equal dangers +of too much money in the treasury; for "practical economy in the +management of public affairs," he said, "can have no adverse influence +to contend with more powerful than a large surplus revenue." Again he +attacked the national bank scheme. During four years of the greatest +pecuniary embarrassments ever known in time of peace, with a decreasing +public revenue, with a formidable opposition, his administration had +been able punctually to meet every obligation without a bank, without a +permanent national debt, and without incurring any liability which the +ordinary resources of the government would not speedily discharge. If +the public service had been thus independently sustained without either +of these fruitful sources of discord, had we not a right to expect that +this policy would "receive the final sanction of a people whose unbiased +and fairly elicited judgment upon public affairs is never ultimately +wrong?" Again with a clear emphasis he declared against any attempt of +the government to repair private losses sustained in private business, +either by direct appropriations or by legislation designed to secure +exclusive privileges to individuals or classes. In the very last words +of this, his last message, he gave an account of his efforts to suppress +the slave trade, and to prevent "the prostitution of the American flag +to this inhuman purpose," asking Congress, by a prohibition of the +American trade which took supplies to the slave factories on the African +coast, to break up "those dens of iniquity." + +The short session of Congress was hardly more than a jubilee of the +Whigs, happily ignorant of the complete chagrin and frustration of their +hopes which a few months would bring. Some new bank suspensions occurred +in Philadelphia, and among banks closely connected with that city. The +Bank of the United States, after a resumption for twenty days, +succumbed amid its own loud protestations of solvency, its final +disgrace and ruin being, however, deferred a little longer. + +Van Buren's cabinet had somewhat changed since his inauguration. In 1838 +his old friend and ally, and one of the chief champions of his policy, +Benjamin F. Butler, resigned the office of attorney-general, but without +any break political or personal, as was seen in his fine and arduous +labors in the canvass of 1840 and in the Democratic convention of 1844. +Felix Grundy of Tennessee then held the place until late in 1839, when +he resigned. Van Buren offered it, though without much heartiness, to +James Buchanan, who preferred, however, to retain his seat in the +Senate; and Henry D. Gilpin, another Pennsylvanian, was appointed. Amos +Kendall's enormous industry and singular equipment of doctrinaire +convictions, narrow prejudices, executive ability, and practical +political skill and craft, were lost to the administration through the +failure of his health in the midst of the campaign of 1840. In an +address to the public he gave a curious proof that for him work was more +wearing in public than in private service. He stated that as he was poor +he should resort to private employment suitable to his health; and that +he proposed, therefore, during the canvass to write for the "Globe" in +defense of the President, in whose integrity, principles, and firmness +his confidence, he said, had increased. In 1838, when his health had +threatened to be unequal to his work, Van Buren had offered him the +mission to Spain, if it should become vacant. John M. Niles, formerly a +Democratic senator from Connecticut, took Kendall's place in the +post-office. + +Van Buren welcomed Harrison to the White House, and before the +inauguration entertained him there as a guest, with the easy and +dignified courtesy so natural to him, and in marked contrast to the +absence of social amenities on either side at the great change twelve +years before. Under Van Buren indeed the executive mansion was +administered with elevated grace. There was about it, while he was its +master, the unostentatious elegance suited to the dwelling of the chief +magistrate of the great republic. There were many flings at him for his +great economy, and what was called his parsimony; but he was accused as +well of undemocratic luxury. The talk seemed never to end over the gold +spoons. The contradictory charges point out the truth. Van Buren was an +eminently prudent man. He did not indulge in the careless and useless +waste which impoverished Jefferson and Jackson. By sensible and +honorable economy he is said to have saved one half of the salary of +$25,000 a year then paid to the President.[17] Returning to private life, +he was spared the humiliation of pecuniary trouble, which had +distressed three at least of his predecessors. But with his exquisite +sense of propriety, he had not failed to order the White House with +fitting decorum and a modest state. His son Abraham Van Buren was his +private secretary; and after the latter's marriage, in November, 1838, +to Miss Singleton of South Carolina, a niece of Andrew Stevenson, and a +relation of Mrs. Madison, he and his wife formed the presidential +family. In 1841 they accompanied the ex-President to his retirement at +Lindenwald. + +Under Andrew Jackson the social air of the White House had suffered from +his ill-health and the bitterness of his partisanship; and in this +respect the change to his successor was most pleasing. Van Buren used an +agreeable tact with even his strongest opponents; and about his levees +and receptions there were a charm and a grace by no means usual in the +dwellings of American public men. He had, we are told in the +Recollections of Sargent, a political adversary of his, "the high art of +blending dignity with ease and gravity." He introduced the custom of +dining with the heads of departments and foreign ministers, although +with that exception he observed the etiquette of never being the guest +of others at Washington. Judge Story mentions the "splendid dinner" +given by the President to the judges in January, 1839. + +John Quincy Adams's diary bears unintended testimony to Van Buren's +admirable personal bearing in office. From the time he reached +Washington as secretary of state, he had treated Adams in his defeat +with marked distinction and deference, which Adams, as he records, +accepted in his own house, in the White House, and elsewhere. At a +social party the President, he said, "was, as usual, courteous to all, +and particularly to me." Van Buren had therefore every reason to suppose +that there was between himself and Adams a not unfriendly personal +esteem. But Adams, in his churlish, bitter temper, apparently found in +these wise and generous civilities only evidence of a mean spirit. After +one visit at the White House during the height of the crisis of 1837, he +recorded that he found Van Buren looking, not wretched, as he had been +told, but composed and tranquil. Returning home from this observation of +the President's "calmness, his gentleness of manner, his easy and +conciliatory temper," this often unmannerly pen described besides "his +obsequiousness, his sycophancy, his profound dissimulation and +duplicity, ... his fawning civility." In a passage which was remarkable +in that time of political bitterness so largely personal, Clay said, in +his parliamentary duel with Calhoun, after the latter rejoined the +Democratic party, that he remembered Calhoun attributing to the +President the qualities of "the most crafty, most skulking, and the +meanest of the quadruped tribe." Saying that he had not shared Calhoun's +opinion, he then added of Van Buren:-- + + "I have always found him in his manner and deportment, civil, + courteous, and gentlemanly; and he dispenses in the noble mansion + which he now occupies, one worthy the residence of the chief + magistrate of a great people, a generous and liberal hospitality. + An acquaintance with him of more than twenty years' duration has + inspired me with a respect for the man, although I regret to be + compelled to say, I detest the magistrate." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +EX-PRESIDENT.--SLAVERY.--TEXAS ANNEXATION.--DEFEAT BY THE +SOUTH.--FREE-SOIL CAMPAIGN.--LAST YEARS + + +Van Buren loitered at Washington a few days after his presidency was +over, and on his way home stopped at Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New +York. At New York he was finely welcomed. Amid great crowds he was taken +to the City Hall in a procession headed by Captain Brown's corps of +lancers and a body of armed firemen. He reached Kinderhook on May 15, +1841, there to make his home until his death. He had, after the seemly +and pleasing fashion of many men in American public life, lately +purchased, near this village among the hills of Columbia county, the +residence of William P. Van Ness, where Irving had thirty years before +lived in seclusion after the death of his betrothed, and had put the +last touches to his Knickerbocker. It was an old estate, whose lands had +been rented for twenty years and under cultivation for a hundred and +sixty, and from which Van Buren now managed to secure a profit. To this +seat he gave the name of Lindenwald, a name which in secret he probably +hoped the American people would come to group with Monticello, +Montpellier, and the Hermitage. But this could not be. Van Buren had +served but half the presidential term of honor. He was not a sage, but +still a candidate for the presidency. Before the electoral votes were +counted in 1841, Benton declared for his renomination in 1844; and until +the latter year he again held the interesting and powerful but critical +place of the probable candidate of his party for the presidency. He +remained easily the chief figure in the Democratic ranks. His defeat had +not taken from him that honor which is the property of the statesman +standing for a cause whose righteousness and promise belong to the +assured future. His defeat signified no personal, no political fault. It +had come to him from a widespread convulsion for which, perhaps less +than any great American of his time, he was responsible. His party could +not abandon its battle for a limited and non-paternal government and +against the use of public moneys by private persons. It could not +therefore abandon him; for more than any other man who had not now +finally retired he represented these causes in his own person. But his +easy composure of manner did not altogether hide that eating and +restless anxiety which so often attends the supreme ambition of the +American. + +Two days after leaving the White House, Van Buren said, in reply to +complimentary resolutions of the legislature of Missouri, that he did +not utterly lament the bitter attacks upon him; for experience had +taught him that few political men were praised by their foes until they +were about abandoning their friends. With a pleasing frankness he +admitted that to be worthy of the presidency and to reach it had been +the object of his "most earnest desire;" but he said that the selection +of the next Democratic candidate must be decided by its probable effect +upon the principles for which they had just fought, and not upon any +supposition that he had been wounded or embittered by his defeat in +their defense. His description of a candidate meant himself, however, +and rightly enough. In November, 1841, he wrote of the "apparent success +of last year's buffoonery;" and intimated that, though he would take no +step to be a candidate, it was not true that he had said he should +decline a nomination. + +Early in 1842, the ex-President made a trip through the South, in +company with James K. Paulding, visiting on his return Clay at Ashland, +and Jackson at the Hermitage. He was one of the very few men on +personally friendly terms with both those long-time enemies. At Ashland, +doubtless, Texas was talked over, even if a bargain were not made, as +has been fancied, that Clay and Van Buren should remove the troublesome +question from politics. In a fashion very different from that of modern +candidates, he now wrote, from time to time, able, long, and explicit, +but somewhat tedious letters on political questions. In one of them he +touched protection more clearly than ever before. He favored, he said +in February, 1843, a tariff for revenue only; the "incidental +protection" which that must give many American manufacturers was all the +protection which should be permitted; the mechanics and laborers had +been the chief sufferers from a "high protective tariff." He was at last +and definitely "a low tariff man." He declared that he should support +the Democratic candidate of 1844; for he believed it to be impossible +that a selection from that source should not accord with his views. He +did not perhaps realize to how extreme a test his sincerity would be +put. He added words which four years later read strangely enough. "My +name and pretensions," he said, "however subordinate in importance, +shall never be at the disposal of any person whatever, for the purpose +of creating distractions or divisions in the Democratic party." + +The party was indeed known as the "Van Buren party" until 1844, so +nearly universal was the supposition that he was to be renominated, and +so plainly was he its leader. The disasters which had now overtaken the +Whigs made his return to power seem probable enough. The utterly +incongruous elements held together during the sharp discontent and +wonderful but inarticulate enthusiasm of 1840 had quickly fallen apart. +While on his way to Kinderhook Van Buren was the chief figure in the +obsequies at New York of his successful competitor. This honest man, of +whom John Quincy Adams said, with his usual savage exaggeration, that +his dull sayings were repeated for wit and his grave inanity passed off +for wisdom, had already quarreled with the splendid leader whose place +he was too conscious of usurping. Tyler's accession was the first, but +not the last illustration, which American politicians have had of the +danger of securing the presidency by an award of the second place to a +known opponent of the principles whose success they seek. Tyler had not +before his nomination concealed his narrow and Democratic views of +government. The Whigs had ostentatiously refused to declare any +principles when they nominated him. In technical conscientiousness he +marched with a step by no means cowardly to unhonored political +isolation, as a quarter of a century later marched another +vice-president nominated by a party in whose ranks he too was a new +recruit. + +Upon Tyler's veto of the bill for a national bank, an outcry of agony +went up from the Whigs; the whole cabinet, except Webster, resigned; a +new cabinet was formed, partly from the Conservatives; and by 1844, +Tyler was a forlorn candidate for the Democratic nomination, which he +claimed for his support of the annexation of Texas. + +Upon this first of the great pro-slavery movements Van Buren was +defeated for the Democratic nomination in 1844, although it seemed +assured to him by every consideration of party loyalty, obligation, and +wise foresight. The relations of government to private business ceased +to be the dominant political question a few months and only a few +months too soon to enable Van Buren to complete his eight years. Slavery +arose in place of economics. + +No mistake is more common in the review of American history than to +suppose that slavery was an active or definite force in organized +American politics after the Missouri Compromise and before the struggle +for the annexation of Texas under Tyler's administration. The appeals of +the abolitionists to the simpler and deeper feelings of humanity were +indeed at work before 1835; and from that year on they were profoundly +stirring the American conscience and storing up tremendous moral energy. +But slavery was not in partisan politics. In 1836 and 1840 there was +upon slavery no real difference between the utterances of the candidates +and other leaders, Whig and Democratic, whether North or South. Van +Buren was supported by many abolitionists; the profoundest distrust of +him was at the South. Upon no question touching slavery with which the +president could have concern, did his opinions or his utterances differ +from those of John Quincy Adams. Clay said in November, 1838, that the +abolitionists denounced him as a slaveholder and the slaveholders +denounced him as an abolitionist, while both united on Van Buren. The +charge of truckling to the South, traditionally made against Van Buren, +is justified by no utterance or act different from those made by all +American public men of distinction at the time, except perhaps in two +instances,--his vote as vice-president for Kendall's bill against +sending inflammatory abolition circulars through the post-office to +States which prohibited their circulation, and his approval of the rules +in the Senate and House for tabling or refusing abolition petitions +without reading them. But neither of these, as has been shown, was a +decisive test. In the first case he met a political trick; and for his +vote there was justly much to be said on the reason of the thing, apart +from Southern wishes. As late as 1848, Webster, in criticising Van +Buren's inconsistency, would say no more of the law than that it was one +"of very doubtful propriety;" and declared that he himself should agree +to legislation by Congress to protect the South "from incitements to +insurrection." In the second case Van Buren's position in public life +might of itself properly restrain him from acquiescing in an agitation +in Congress for measures which, with all responsible public men, Adams +included, he believed Congress ought not to pass. + +The Democratic convention was to meet in May, 1844. The delegates had +been very generally instructed for Van Buren; and two months before it +assembled his nomination seemed beyond doubt. But the slave States were +now fired with a barbarous enthusiasm to extend slavery by annexing +Texas. To this Van Buren was supposed to be hostile. His Southern +opponents, in February, 1843, skillfully procured from Jackson, innocent +of the plan, a strong letter in favor of the annexation, to be used, it +was said, just before the convention, "to blow Van out of water." The +letter was first published in March, 1844. Van Buren was at once put to +a crucial test. His administration had been adverse to annexation; his +opinion was still adverse. But a large, and not improbably a controlling +section of his party, aided by Jackson's wonderful prestige, deemed it +the most important of political causes. Van Buren was, according to the +plan, explicitly asked by a Southern delegate to state, with distinct +reference to the action of the convention, what were his opinions. + +The ex-President deeply desired the nomination; and the nomination +seemed conditioned upon his surrender. It was at least assured if he now +gave no offense to the South. But he did not flinch. He resorted to no +safe generalizations. His views upon the annexation were, he admitted, +different from those of many friends, political and personal; but in +1837 his administration after a careful consideration had decided +against annexation of the State whose independence had lately been +recognized by the United States; the situation had not changed; +immediate annexation would place a weapon in the hands of those who +looked upon Americans and American institutions with distrustful and +envious eyes, and would do us far more real and lasting injury than the +new territory, however valuable, could repair. He intimated that there +was jobbery in some of the enthusiasm for the annexation. The argument +that England might acquire Texas was without force; when England sought +in Texas more than the usual commercial favors, it would be time for the +United States to interfere. He was aware, he said, of the hazard to +which he exposed his standing with his Southern fellow-citizens, "of +whom it was aptly and appropriately said by one of their own number that +'they are the children of the sun and partake of its warmth.'" But +whether we stand or fall, he said, it is always true wisdom as well as +true morality to hold fast to the truth. If to nourish enthusiasm were +one of the effects of a genial climate, it seldom failed to give birth +to a chivalrous spirit. To preserve our national escutcheon untarnished +had always been the unceasing solicitude of Southern statesmen. The only +tempering he gave his refusal was to say that if, after the subject had +been fully discussed, a Congress chosen with reference to the question +showed the popular will to favor it, he would yield.[18] Van Buren thus +closed his letter: "Nor can I in any extremity be induced to cast a +shade over the motives of my past life, by changes or concealments of +opinions maturely formed upon a great national question, for the +unworthy purpose of increasing my chances for political promotion." + +To a presidential candidate the eve of a national convention is dim with +the self-deceiving twilight of sophistry; and the twilight deepens when +a question is put upon which there is a division among those who are, or +who may be, his supporters. He can keep silence, he can procure the +questioning friend to withdraw the troublesome inquiry; he can ignore +the question from an enemy; he can affect an enigmatical dignity. Van +Buren did neither of these. His Texas letter was one of the finest and +bravest pieces of political courage, and deserves from Americans a long +admiration. + +The danger of Van Buren's difference with Jackson it was sought to +avert. Butler visited Jackson at the Hermitage, and doubtless showed him +for what a sinister end he had been used. Jackson did not withdraw his +approval of annexation; but publicly declared his regard for Van Buren +to be so great, his confidence in Van Buren's love of country to be so +strengthened by long intimacy, that no difference about Texas could +change his opinions. Van Buren's nomination was again widely supposed +to be assured. But the work of Calhoun and Robert J. Walker had been too +well done. The convention met at Baltimore on May 27, 1844. George +Bancroft headed the delegation from Massachusetts. Before the Rev. Dr. +Johns had "fervently addressed the Throne of Grace" or the Rev. Mr. +McJilton had "read a scripture lesson," the real contest took place over +the adoption of the rule requiring a two thirds vote for a nomination. +For it was through this rule that enough Southern members, chosen before +Van Buren's letter as they had been, were to escape obedience to their +instructions to vote for him. Robert J. Walker, then a senator from +Mississippi, a man of interesting history and large ability, led the +Southerners. He quoted the precedent of 1832, when Van Buren had been +nominated for the vice-presidency under the two thirds rule, and that of +1835, when he had been nominated for the presidency. These nominations +had led to victory. In 1840 the rule had not been adopted. Without this +rule, he said amid angry excitement, the party would yield to those +whose motto seemed to be "rule or ruin." Butler, Daniel S. Dickinson, +and Marcus Morton led the Northern ranks. Butler regretted that any +member should condescend to the allusion to 1840. That year, he said, +had been a debauchery of the nation's reason amid log cabins, hard +cider, and coon-skins; and in an ecstasy of painful excitement at the +recollection and amid a tremendous burst of applause "he leaped from +the floor and stamped ... as if treading beneath his feet the object of +his loathing." The true Democratic rule, he continued, required the +minority to submit to the majority. Morton said that under the majority +rule Jefferson had been nominated; that rule had governed state, county, +and township conventions. Butler admitted that under the rule Van Buren +would not be nominated, although a majority of the convention was known +to be for him. In 1832 and 1835 the two thirds rule had prevailed +because it was certainly known who would be nominated; and the rule +operated to aid not to defeat the majority. If the rule were adopted, it +would be by the votes of States which were not Democratic, and would +bring "dismemberment and final breaking up of the party." Walker laughed +at Butler's "tall vaulting" from the floor; and, refusing to shrink from +the Van Buren issue, he protested against New York dictation, and +warningly said that, if Van Buren were nominated, Clay would be elected. +After the convention had received with enthusiasm a floral gift from a +Democratic lady whom the President declared to be fairer than the +flowers, the vote was taken. The two thirds rule was adopted by 148 to +118. All the negatives were Northerners, except 14 from Missouri, +Maryland, and North Carolina. Fifty-eight true "Northern men with +Southern principles" joined ninety Southerners in the affirmative. It +was really a vote on Van Buren,--or rather upon the annexation of +Texas,--or rather still upon the extension of American slave territory. +It was the first battle, a sort of Bull Run, in the last and great +political campaign between the interests of slavery and those of +freedom. + +On the first ballot for the candidate, Van Buren had 146 votes, 13 more +than a majority. If after the vote on the two thirds rule anything more +were required to show that some of these votes were given in mere formal +obedience to instructions, the second ballot brought the proof. Van +Buren then sank to 127, less than a majority; and on the seventh ballot +to 99. A motion was made to declare him the nominee as the choice of a +majority of the convention; and there followed a scene of fury, the +President bawling for order amid savage taunts between North and South, +and bitter denunciations of the treachery of some of those who had +pledged themselves for Van Buren. Samuel Young of New York declared the +"abominable Texas question" to be the fire-brand thrown among them by +the "mongrel administration at Washington," whose hero was now doubtless +fiddling while Rome was burning. Nero seems to have been Calhoun, though +between the god-like young devil of antiquity wreathed with sensual +frenzy and infamy, and the solemn, even saturnine figure of the great +modern advocate of human slavery, the likeness seemed rather slight. The +motion was declared out of order; and the name of James K. Polk was +presented as that of "a pure whole-hogged Democrat." On the eighth +ballot he had 44 votes. Then followed the magnanimous scene of "union +and harmony" which has so often, after a conflict, charmed a political +body into unworthy surrender. The great delegation from New York retired +during the ninth balloting; and returned to a convention profoundly +silent but thrilling with that bastard sense of coming glory in which a +lately tumultuous and quarreling body waits the solution of its +difficulties already known to be reached but not yet declared. Butler +quoted a letter which Van Buren had given him authorizing the withdrawal +of his name if it were necessary for harmony; he eulogized Polk as a +strict constructionist, and closed by reading a letter from Jackson +fervently urging Van Buren's nomination. Daniel S. Dickinson said that +"he loved this convention because it had acted so like the masses," and +cast New York's 35 votes for Polk. The latter's nomination was declared +with the utmost joy, and sent to Washington over Morse's first telegraph +line, just completed. Silas Wright of New York, Van Buren's strong +friend and a known opponent of annexation, was, in the fashion since +followed, nominated for the vice-presidency, to soothe the feelings and +the conscience of the defeated. Wright peremptorily telegraphed his +refusal. He told his friends that he did "not choose to ride behind on +the black pony." George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania took his place. + +The Democratic party now threw away all advantage of the issue made by +the undeserved defeat four years before. Thirty-six years later it +repeated the blunder in discarding Van Buren's famous neighbor and +disciple. Polk's was the first nomination by the party of a man of the +second or of even a lower rank. Polk was known to have ability inferior +not only to that of Van Buren and Calhoun, but to Cass, Buchanan, +Wright, and others. He was the first presidential "dark horse," and +indeed hardly that. His own State of Tennessee had, by resolution, +presented him as its choice for vice-president with Van Buren in the +first place. He had been speaker of the national House, and later, +governor of his State; but since holding these places had been twice +defeated for governor. In accepting the nomination he declared, with an +apparent fling at Van Buren, that, if elected, he should not accept a +renomination, and should thus enable the party in 1848 to make "a free +selection." + +The nomination aroused disgust enough. "Polk! Great God, what a +nomination!" Letcher, the Whig governor of Kentucky, wrote to Buchanan. +But the experiment of 1840 with the Whigs had been disastrous; the +people had swung back to the strict doctrines of the Democracy. Van +Buren faithfully kept his promise to support the nomination; under his +urgency Wright finally accepted the nomination for governor of New York. +And by the vote of New York Henry Clay was defeated by a man vastly his +inferior. Polk had 5000 plurality in that State; but Wright had 10,000. +Had not James G. Birney, the abolitionist candidate who polled there +15,812 votes, been in the field, not even Van Buren's party loyalty +would have prevented Clay's election. Van Buren's friends saved the +State; but in doing so voted for annexation. In April, 1844, Clay had +written a letter against annexation. As it appeared within a few days of +Van Buren's letter, and as the personal relations between the two great +party leaders were most friendly, some have inferred an arrangement +between them to take the question out of politics. This would indeed +have been an extraordinary occurrence. One might well wish to have +overheard a negotiation between two rivals for the presidency to exclude +a great question distasteful to both. After the Democratic convention, +Tyler's treaty of annexation was rejected in the Senate by 35 to 16, six +Democrats from the North, among them Wright of New York and Benton of +Missouri, voting against it. During the campaign Clay had weakly +abandoned even the mild emphasis of his first opposition, and by flings +at the abolitionists had openly bid for the pro-slavery vote; thus +perhaps losing enough votes in New York to Birney to defeat him. After +the election the current for annexation seemed too strong; and a +resolution passed both Houses authorizing the admission of Texas as a +State. The resolution provided for the formation of four additional +States out of Texas. In any such additional State formed north of the +Missouri compromise line, slavery was to be prohibited; but in those +south of it slavery was to be permitted or prohibited as the inhabitants +might choose. + +Slavery was now clearly before the political conscience of the nation. +Van Buren was the conspicuous victim of the first encounter. The +Baltimore convention had in its platform complimented "their illustrious +fellow-citizen," "his inflexible fidelity to the Constitution," his +"ability, integrity, and firmness," and had tendered to him, "in +honorable retirement," the assurance of the deeply-seated "confidence, +affection, and respect of the American Democracy." This sentence to +"honorable retirement" Van Buren, who was only in his sixty-second year +and in the amplitude of his natural powers, received with outward +complacency. On the eve of the election he pointed out, probably +referring to Cass, that the hostility to him had not been in the +interest of Polk, and warmly said that, unless the Democratic creed were +a delusion, personal feelings ought to be turned to nothing. Van Buren +was, however, profoundly affected by what he deemed the undeserved +Southern hostility to himself. For he hardly yet appreciated that his +defeat was politically legitimate, and not the result of political +treachery or envy. Between him and the Southern politicians had opened a +true and deep division over the greatest single question in American +politics since Jefferson's election. + +With Polk's accession and the Mexican war, the schism in the Democratic +ranks over the extension of American slave territory became plainer. +Even during the canvass of 1844 a circular had been issued by William +Cullen Bryant, David Dudley Field, John W. Edmonds, and other Van Buren +men, supporting Polk, but urging the choice of congressmen opposed to +annexation. Early in the new administration the division of New York +Democrats into "Barnburners" and "Old Hunkers" appeared. The former were +the strong pro-Van Buren, anti-Texas men, or "radical Democrats," who +were likened to the farmer who burned his barn to clear it of rats. The +latter were the "Northern men with Southern principles," the supporters +of annexation, and the respectable, dull men of easy consciences, who +were said to hanker after the offices. The Barnburners were led by men +of really eminent ability and exalted character: Silas Wright, then +governor, Benjamin F. Butler, John A. Dix, chosen in 1845 to the United +States Senate, Azariah C. Flagg, the famous comptroller, and John Van +Buren, the ex-President's son, and a singularly picturesque figure in +politics, who was, in 1845, made attorney-general by the legislature. He +had been familiarly called "Prince John" since his travels abroad during +his father's presidency. Daniel S. Dickinson and William L. Marcy were +the chief figures in the Hunker ranks. Polk seemed inclined, at the +beginning, to favor, or at least to placate, the Barnburners. He +offered the Treasury to Wright, though he is said to have known that +Wright could not leave the governorship. He offered Butler the War +Department, but the latter's devotion to his profession, for which he +had resigned the attorney-general's place in Van Buren's cabinet, made +him prefer the freedom of the United States attorneyship at New York, +and Marcy was finally given the New York place in the cabinet. Jackson's +death in June, 1845, deprived the Van Buren men of the tremendous moral +weight which his name carried, and which might have daunted Polk. It +perhaps also helped to loosen the weight of party ties on the Van Buren +men. After this the schism rapidly grew. In the fall election of 1845 +the Barnburners pretty thoroughly controlled the Democratic party of the +State in hostility to the Mexican war, which the annexation of Texas had +now brought. Samuel J. Tilden of Columbia county, and a profound admirer +of Van Buren, became one of their younger leaders. + +[Illustration: Silas Wright] + +Now arose the strife over the "Wilmot Proviso," in which was embodied +the opposition to the extension of slavery into new Territories. Upon +this proviso the modern Republican party was formed eight years later; +upon it, fourteen years later, Abraham Lincoln was chosen president; and +upon it began the war for the Union, out of whose throes came the vastly +grander and unsought beneficence of complete emancipation. David Wilmot +was a Democratic member of Congress from Pennsylvania; in New York he +would have been a Barnburner. In 1846 a bill was pending to appropriate +$3,000,000 for use by the President in a purchase of territory from +Mexico as part of a peace. Wilmot proposed an amendment that slavery +should be excluded from any territory so acquired. All the Democratic +members, as well as the Whigs from New York, and most strongly the Van +Buren or Wright men, supported the proviso. The Democratic legislature +approved it by the votes of the Whigs with the Barnburners and the Soft +Hunkers, the latter being Hunkers less friendly to slavery. It passed +the House at Washington, but was rejected by the Senate, not so quickly +open to popular sentiment. In the Democratic convention of New York, in +October, 1846, the "war for the extension of slavery" was charged by the +Barnburners on the Hunkers. The former were victorious, and Silas Wright +was renominated for governor, to be defeated, however, at the election. +Polk, Marcy, and Dickinson, angered at the Democratic opposition in New +York to the pro-slavery Mexican policy, now threw all the weight of +federal patronage against the Barnburners, many of whom believed the +administration to have been responsible for Wright's defeat. Van Buren +and his influence were completely separated from the national +administration. Just before the adjournment of Congress in 1847, the +appropriation to secure territory from Mexico was again proposed. Again +the Wilmot Proviso was added in the House; again it was rejected in the +Senate, to the defeat of the appropriation; and again Barnburners and +Whigs carried in the New York legislature a resolution approving it, and +directing the New York senators to support it. + +The tide was rising. It seemed that Mexican law prohibited slavery in +New Mexico and California, and that upon their cession the principles of +international law would preserve their condition of freedom. Benton, +therefore, deemed the Wilmot Proviso unnecessary; a "thing of nothing in +itself, and seized upon to conflagrate the States and dissolve the +Union." For the Supreme Court had not then pronounced slavery a +necessary accompaniment of American supremacy. But the legal protection +of freedom was practically unsubstantial, even if not technical; there +could be no doubt of the determination of the South to carry slavery +into these Territories, whatever might be the obligations of either +municipal or international law; and their conquest, therefore, made +imminent a decision of the vital question whether slavery should be +still further extended. + +At the Democratic convention at Syracuse, in September, 1847, the +Hunkers, after a fierce struggle over contested seats, seized control of +the body. David Dudley Field, for the Barnburners, proposed a resolution +that, although the Democracy of New York would faithfully adhere to the +compromises of the Constitution and maintain the reserved rights of the +States, they would still declare, since the crisis had come, "their +uncompromising hostility to the extension of slavery into territory now +free." This was defeated. The Barnburners then seceded, and issued an +address, in which Lawrence Van Buren, the ex-President's brother, +joined. They protested that the anti-slavery resolution had been +defeated by a fraudulent organization of the convention, and called a +mass meeting at Herkimer, on October 26, "to avow their principles and +consult as to future action." The Herkimer convention was really an +important preliminary to the formation of the modern Republican party. +It was a gathering of the ex-President's friends. Cambreleng, his old +associate, presided; David Wilmot addressed the meeting; and John Van +Buren, now very conspicuous in politics, reported the resolutions. In +these the fraud at Syracuse was again denounced; a convention was called +for Washington's birthday in 1848, to choose Barnburner delegates to +contest the seats of those chosen by the Hunkers in the national +Democratic convention. It was declared that the freemen of New York +would not submit to slavery in the conquered provinces; and that, +against the threat of Democrats at the South that they would support no +candidate for the presidency who did not assent to the extension of +slavery, the Democrats of New York would proclaim their determination to +vote for no candidate who did so assent. + +It was clear that Van Buren sympathized with all this. Relieved from the +constraint of power, there strongly revived his old hostility to +slavery; he recalled his vote twenty-eight years before against +admitting Missouri otherwise than free. He now perceived how profound +had really been the political division between him and the Southern +Democrats when, in 1844, he wrote his Texas letter. Ignoring the +legitimate character of the politics of Polk's administration in denying +official recognition or reward to Barnburners,--legitimate if, as Van +Buren had himself pretty uniformly maintained, patronage should go to +friends rather than enemies, and if, as was obvious, there had arisen a +true political division upon principles,--Van Buren was now touched with +anger at the proscription of his friends. Excluded from the power which +ought to have belonged to the chief of Democrats enjoying even in +"honorable retirement" the "confidence, affection, and respect" of his +party, independence rapidly grew less heinous in his eyes. One can +hardly doubt that there now more freely welled up in his mind, to +clarify its vision, the sense of personal wrong which, since Polk's +nomination, had been so long held in magnanimous and dignified +restraint,--though of this he was probably unconscious. Van Buren was +not insincere when, in October, 1847, he wrote from Lindenwald to an +enthusiastic Democratic editor in Pennsylvania, who had hoisted his name +to the top of his columns for 1848. Whatever, he said, had been his +aspirations in the past, he now had no desire to be President; every day +confirmed him in the political opinions to which he had adhered. +Conscious of always having done his duty to the people to the best of +his ability, he had "no heart burnings to be allayed and no resentments +to be gratified by a restoration of power." Life at Lindenwald was +entirely adapted to his taste; and he was (so he wrote, and so doubtless +he had forced himself to think) "sincerely and heartily desirous to wear +the honors and enjoyments of private life uninterruptedly to the end." +If tendered a unanimous Democratic support with the assurance of the +election it would bring, he should not "hesitate respectfully and +gratefully, but decidedly to decline it," adding, however, the proviso +so precious to public men, "consulting only my own feelings and wishes." +It was in the last degree improbable, he said,--and so it was,--that any +emergency should arise in which this indulgence of his own preferences +would, in the opinion of his true and faithful friends, conflict with +his duty to the party to which his whole life had been devoted, and to +which he owed any personal sacrifice. The Mexican war had, he said, been +so completely sanctioned by the government that it must be carried +through; and, he ominously added, the propriety of thereafter +instituting inquiries into the necessity of its occurrence, so as to fix +the just responsibility to public opinion of public servants, was then +out of season. Not a word of praise did he speak of Polk's +administration; in this he was for once truly and grimly +"non-committal." + +In the New York canvass of 1847, the Barnburners, after their secession, +"talked of indifferent matters." The Whigs were therefore completely +successful. In the legislature the Barnburners, or "Free-soilers" as +they began to be called, outnumbered the Hunkers. Dickinson proposed in +the Senate at Washington a resolution, the precursor of Douglas's +"squatter sovereignty,"--that all questions concerning the domestic +policy of the Territories should be left to their legislatures to be +chosen by their people. Lewis Cass, now the coming candidate of the +South, asserted in December, 1847, the same proposition, pointing out +that, if Congress could abolish the relation of master and servant in +the Territories, it might in like manner treat the relation of husband +and wife. After this "Nicholson letter" of his, Cass might well have +been asked whether he would have approved the admission of a State where +the last relation was forbidden, and where concubinage existed as a +"domestic institution." Dickinson's proposal meant that the first +settlers of each Territory should determine it to freedom or to slavery; +it meant that in admitting new States the nation ought to be indifferent +to their laws on slavery. If slavery were a mere incident in the polity +of the State, a matter of taste or convenience, the proposition would +have been true enough. But euphemistic talk about "domestic +institutions" blinded none but theorists or lovers of slavery to the +truth that slavery was a fearful and barbarous power, and that it must +become paramount in any new Southern State, monstrous and corrupting in +its tendencies towards savagery, unyielding, wasteful, and ruinous,--a +power whose corruption and savagery, whose waste and ruin, debauched and +enfeebled all communities closely allied to the States which maintained +it,--a power in whose rapid growth, in whose affirmative and dictatorial +arrogance, and in the intellectual ability and even the moral +excellences of the aristocracy which administered it at the South, there +was an appalling menace. As well might one propose the admission to +political intimacy and national unity of a State whose laws encouraged +leprosy or required the funeral oblations of the suttee. If there were +already slave States in the confederacy, it was no less true that the +nation had profoundly suffered from their slavery. Nor could all the +phrases of constitutional lawyers make the slave-block, the black laws, +and all the practices of this barbarism mere local peculiarities, +distasteful perhaps to the North but not concerning it, peculiarities to +be ranked with laws of descent or judicial procedure. Cass and Dickinson +for their surrender to the South were now called "dough-faces" and +"slavocrats" by the Democratic Free-soilers. They were the true +"Northern men with Southern principles." + +The Barnburners met at Utica on February 16, an earlier day than that +first appointed, John Van Buren again being the chief figure. The +convention praised John A. Dix for supporting the Wilmot Proviso; and +declared that Benton, a senator from a slave State, but now a sturdy +opponent of extending the evil, and long the warm friend and admirer of +Van Buren, had "won a proud preëminence among the statesmen of the day." +Delegates were chosen to the national convention to oppose the Hunkers. +In April, 1848, the Barnburner members of the legislature issued an +address, the authors of which were long afterwards disclosed by Samuel +J. Tilden to be himself and Martin and John Van Buren. At great length +it demonstrated the Free-soil principles of the Democratic fathers. + +The national convention assembled in May, 1848. It offered to admit the +Barnburner and Hunker delegations together to cast the vote of the +State. The Barnburners rejected the compromise as a simple nullification +of the vote of the State, and then withdrew. Lewis Cass was nominated +for president, the Wilmot Proviso being thus emphatically condemned. For +Cass had declared in favor of letting the new Territories themselves +decide upon slavery. The Barnburners, returning to a great meeting in +the City Hall Park at New York, cried, "The lash has resounded through +the halls of the Capitol!" and condemned the cowardice of Northern +senators who had voted with the South. Among the letters read was one +from Franklin Pierce, who had in 1844 voted against annexation, a letter +which years afterwards was, with a reference to his famous friend and +biographer, called the "Scarlet Letter." The delegates issued an +address written by Tilden, fearlessly calling Democrats to independent +action. In June a Barnburner convention met at Utica. Its president, +Samuel Young, who had refused at the convention at Baltimore in 1844 to +vote for Polk when the rest of his delegation surrendered, said that if +the convention did its duty, a clap of political thunder would in +November "make the propagandists of slavery shake like Belshazzar." +Butler, John Van Buren, and Preston King, afterwards a Republican +senator, were there. David Dudley Field read an explicit declaration +from the ex-President against the action and the candidates of the +national convention. This letter, whose prolixity is an extreme +illustration of Van Buren's literary fault, created a profound +impression. He declared his "unchangeable determination never again to +be a candidate for public office." The requirement by the national +convention that the New York delegates should pledge themselves to vote +for any candidate who might be nominated was, he said, an indignity of +the rankest character. The Virginia delegates had been permitted, +without incurring a threat of exclusion, to declare that they would not +support a certain nominee. The convention had not allowed the Democrats +of New York fair representation, and its acts did not therefore bind +them. + +The point of political regularity, when discussed upon a technical +basis, was, however, by no means clear. The real question was whether +the surrender of the power of Congress over the Territories, and the +refusal to use that power to exclude slavery, accorded with Democratic +principles. On this Van Buren was most explicit. Jefferson had proposed +freedom for the Northwest Territories; and all the representatives from +the slaveholding States had voted for the ordinance. Not only Washington +and the elder and younger Adams had signed bills imposing freedom as the +condition of admitting new Territories or States, but those undoubted +Democrats, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson, had signed such +bills; and so had he himself in 1838 in the case of Iowa. This power of +Congress was part of "the compromises of the Constitution," compromises +which, "deeply penetrated" as he had been "by the convictions that +slavery was the only subject that could endanger our blessed Union," he +had, he was aware, gone further to sustain against Northern attacks than +many of his best friends approved. He would go no further. As the +national convention had rejected this old doctrine of the Democracy, he +should not vote for its candidate, General Cass; and if there were no +other candidate but General Taylor, he should not vote for president. If +our ancestors, when the opinion and conduct of the world about slavery +were very different, had rescued from slavery the territory now making +five great States, should we, he asked, in these later days, after the +gigantic efforts of Great Britain for freedom, and when nearly all +mankind were convinced of its evils, doom to slavery a territory from +which as many more new States might be made. He counseled moderation and +forbearance, but still a firm resistance to injustice. + +This powerful declaration from the old chief of the Democracy was +decisive with the convention. Van Buren was nominated for president, and +Henry Dodge, a Democratic senator of Wisconsin, for vice-president. +Dodge, however, declined, proud though he would be, as he said, to have +his name under other circumstances associated with Van Buren's. But his +State had been represented in the Baltimore convention; and as one of +its citizens he cordially concurred in the nomination of Cass. A +national convention was called to meet at Buffalo on August 9, 1848. + +Charles Francis Adams, the son of John Quincy Adams, presided at the +Buffalo convention; and in it Joshua R. Giddings, the famous +abolitionist, and Salmon P. Chase were conspicuous. To the unspeakable +horror of every Hunker there participated in the deliberations a negro, +the Rev. Mr. Ward. Butler reported the resolutions in words whose +inspiration is still fresh and ringing. They were assembled, it was +said, "to secure free soil for a free people;" the Democratic and Whig +organizations had been dissolved, the one by stifling the voice of a +great constituency, the other by abandoning its principles for mere +availability. Remembering the example of their fathers in the first +declaration of independence, they now, putting their trust in God, +planted themselves on the national platform of freedom in opposition to +the sectional platform of slavery; they proposed no interference with +slavery in any State, but its prohibition in the Territories then free; +for Congress, they said, had "no more power to make a slave than to make +a king." There must be no more compromises with slavery. They accepted +the issue forced upon them by the slave power; and to its demand for +more slave States and more slave Territories, their calm and final +answer was, "no more slave States and no more slave territory." At the +close were the stirring and memorable words: "We inscribe on our banner, +Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men; and under it we will +fight on and fight ever, until a triumphant victory shall reward our +exertions." + +Joshua Leavitt of Massachusetts, one of the "blackest" of abolitionists, +reported to the convention the name of Martin Van Buren for president. +After the convention was over, even Gerrit Smith, the ultra-abolitionist +candidate, declared that, of all the candidates whom there was the least +reason to believe the convention would nominate, Van Buren was his +preference. The nomination was enthusiastically made by acclamation, +after Van Buren had on an informal ballot received 159 votes to 129 cast +for John P. Hale. A brief letter from Van Buren was read, declaring that +his nomination at Utica had been against his earnest wishes; that he had +yielded because his obligation to the friends, who had now gone so far, +required him to abide by their decision that his name was necessary to +enable "the ever faithful Democracy of New York to sustain themselves in +the extraordinary position into which they have been driven by the +injustice of others;" but that the abandonment at Buffalo of his Utica +nomination would be most satisfactory to his feelings and wishes. The +exclusion of slavery from the Territories was an object, he said, +"sacred in the sight of heaven, the accomplishment of which is due to +the memories of the great and just men long since, we trust, made +perfect in its courts." Charles Francis Adams was nominated for +vice-president; and dazzled and incredulous eyes beheld on a +presidential ticket with Martin Van Buren the son of one of his oldest +and bitterest adversaries. That adversary had died a few months before, +the best of his honors being his latest, those won in a querulous but +valiant old age, in a fiery fight for freedom. + +In September, John A. Dix, then a Democratic senator, accepted the +Free-soil nomination for governor of New York. The Democratic party was +aghast. The schismatics had suddenly gained great dignity and +importance. Martin Van Buren, the venerable leader of the party, its +most famous and distinguished member, this courtly, cautious +statesman,--could it be he rushing from that "honorable retirement," to +whose safe retreat his party had committed him with so deep an +affection, to consort with long-haired and wild-eyed abolitionists! He +was the arch "apostate," leading fiends of disunion who would rather +rule in hell than serve in heaven. Where now was his boasted loyalty to +the party? Rage struggled with loathing. All the ancient stories told of +him by Whig enemies were revived, and believed by those who had long +treated them with contempt. It is clear, however, that Van Buren's +attitude was in no wise inconsistent with his record. His party had +never pronounced for the extension of slavery; nor had he. The Buffalo +convention was silent upon abolition in the District of Columbia. There +was for the time in politics but one question, and that was born of the +annexation of Texas,--Shall slavery go into free territory? As amid the +clash of arms the laws are stilled, so in the great fight for human +freedom, the independent treasury, the tariff, and internal improvements +could no longer divide Americans. + +The Whigs had in June nominated Taylor, one of the two heroes of the +Mexican war. It is a curious fact that Taylor had been authoritatively +sounded by the Free-soil leaders as to an acceptance of their +nomination. Clay and Webster were now discarded by their party for this +bluff soldier, a Louisiana slaveholder of unknown politics; and with +entire propriety and perfect caution the Whigs made no platform. A +declaration against the extension of slavery was voted down. Webster +said at Marshfield, after indignation at Taylor's nomination had a +little worn away, that for "the leader of the Free-_spoil_ party" to +"become the leader of the Free-soil party would be a joke to shake his +sides and mine." The anti-slavery Whigs hesitated for a time; but Seward +of New York and Horace Greeley in the New York "Tribune" finally led +most of them to Taylor rather than, as Seward said, engage in "guerrilla +warfare" under Van Buren. Whigs must not, he added, leave the ranks +because of the Whig affront to Clay and Webster. "Is it not," he finely, +though for the occasion sophistically, said, "by popular injustice that +greatness is burnished?" This launching of the modern Republican party +was, strangely enough, to include in New York few besides Democrats. In +November, 1847, the Liberty or Abolition party nominated John P. Hale +for president; but upon Van Buren's nomination he was withdrawn. + +Upon the popular vote in November, 1848, Van Buren received 291,263 +votes, while there were 1,220,544 for Cass and 1,360,099 for Taylor. Van +Buren had no electoral votes. In no State did he receive as many votes +as Taylor; but in New York, Massachusetts, and Vermont he had more than +Cass. The vote of New York was an extraordinary tribute to his personal +power; he had 120,510 votes to 114,318 for Cass; and it was clear that +nearly all the former came from the Democratic party. In Ohio he had +35,354 votes, most of which were probably drawn from the Whig +abolitionists. In Massachusetts he had 38,058 votes, in no small part +owing to the early splendor, the moral austerity and elevation of +Charles Sumner's eloquence. "It is not," he said, "for the Van Buren of +1838 that we are to vote; but for the Van Buren of to-day,--the veteran +statesman, sagacious, determined, experienced, who, at an age when most +men are rejoicing to put off their armor, girds himself anew and enters +the lists as champion of Freedom." Taylor had 163 electoral votes and +Cass 127. + +The political career of Van Buren was now ended. It is mere speculation +whether he had thought his election a possible thing. That he should +think so was very unlikely. Few men had a cooler judgment of political +probabilities; few knew better how powerful was party discipline in the +Democratic ranks, for no one had done more to create it; few could have +appreciated more truly the Whig hatred of himself. Still the wakening +rush of moral sentiment was so strong, the bitterness of Van Buren's +Ohio and New York supporters had been so great at his defeat in 1844, +that it seemed not utterly absurd that those two States might vote for +him. If they did, that dream of every third party in America might come +true,--the failure of either of the two great parties to obtain a +majority in the electoral college, and the consequent choice of +president in the House, where each of them might prefer the third party +to its greater rival. Ambition to reënter the White House could indeed +have had but the slightest influence with him when he accepted the +Free-soil nomination. Nor was his acceptance an act of revenge, as has +very commonly been said. The motives of a public man in such a case are +subtle and recondite even to himself. No distinguished political leader +with strong and publicly declared opinions, however exalted his temper, +can help uniting in his mind the cause for which he has fought with his +own political fortunes. If he be attacked, he is certain to honestly +believe the attack made upon the cause as well as upon himself. When his +party drives him from a leadership already occupied by him, he may +submit without a murmur; but he will surely harbor the belief that his +party is playing false with its principles. In 1848 there was a great +and new cause for which Van Buren stood, and upon which his party took +the wrong side; but doubtless his zeal burned somewhat hotter, the edge +of his temper was somewhat keener, for what he thought the indignities +to himself and his immediate political friends. To say this is simply to +pronounce him human. His acceptance of the nomination was given largely +out of loyalty to those friends whose advice was strong and urgent. It +was the mistake which any old leader of a political party, who has +enjoyed its honors, makes in the seeming effort--and every such +political candidacy at least seems to be such an effort--to gratify his +personal ambition at its expense. Van Buren and his friends should have +made another take the nomination, to which his support, however +vigorous, should have gone sorrowfully and reluctantly; and the form as +well as the substance of his relations to the canvass should have been +without personal interest. + +Had Van Buren died just after the election of 1848 his reputation to-day +would be far higher. He had stood firmly, he had suffered politically, +for a clear, practical, and philosophical method and limitation of +government; he had adhered with strict loyalty to the party committed to +this method, until there had arisen the cause of human freedom, which +far transcended any question still open upon the method or limits of +government. With this cause newly risen, a cause surely not to leave the +political field except in victory, he was now closely united. He might +therefore have safely trusted to the judgment of later days and of wiser +and truer-sighted men, growing in number and influence every year. His +offense could never be pardoned by his former associates at the South +and their allies at the North. No confession of error, though it were +full of humiliation, no new and affectionate return to party allegiance, +could make them forget what they sincerely deemed astounding treason and +disastrous sacrilege. Loyal remembrance of his incomparable party +services had irretrievably gone, to be brought back by no reasoning and +by no persuasion. If he were to live, he should not have wavered from +his last position. Its righteousness was to be plainer and plainer with +the passing years. + +Van Buren did live, however, long after his honorable battle and defeat; +and lived to dim its honor by the faltering of mistaken patriotism. In +1849, John Van Buren, during the efforts to unite the Democratic party +in New York, declared it his wish to make it "the great anti-slavery +party of the Union." Early in 1850 and when the compromise was +threatened at Washington, he wrote to the Free-soil convention of +Connecticut that there had never been a time when the opponents of +slavery extension were more urgently called to act with energy and +decision or to hold their representatives to a rigid responsibility, if +they faltered or betrayed their trust. With little doubt his father +approved these utterances. A year later, however, the ex-President, with +nearly all Northern men, yielded to the soporific which Clay in his old +age administered to the American people. In their support of the great +compromise between slavery and freedom, Webster and Clay forfeited much +of their fame, and justly. For though the cause of humanity gained a +vast political advantage in the admission of California as a free State, +the advantage, it was plain, could not have been long delayed had there +been no compromise. But the rest of the new territory was thrown into a +struggle among its settlers, although the power of Congress over the +Territories was not yet denied; and a fugitive-slave law of singular +atrocity was passed. All the famous Northern Whigs were now true +"doughfaces." Fillmore, president through Taylor's death, one of the +most dignified and timid of their number, signed the compromise bills. + +The compromise being passed, Van Buren with almost the entire North +submissively sought to believe slavery at last expelled from politics. +It would have been a wise heroism, it would have given Van Buren a +clearer, a far higher place with posterity, if after 1848 he had even +done no more than remain completely aloof from the timid politics of the +time, if he had at least refused acquiescence in any compromise by which +concessions were made to slavery. But he was an old man. He shared with +his ancient and famous Whig rivals that intense love and almost +adoration of the Union, upon which the arrogant leaders of the South so +long and so successfully played. The compromise was accomplished. It +would perhaps be the last concession to the furious advance of the cruel +barbarism. The free settlers in the new Territories would, he hoped, by +their number and hardihood, defeat the incoming slave-owners, and even +under "squatter sovereignty" save their homes from slavery. If the Union +should now stand without further disturbance, all might still come right +without civil war. Economic laws, the inexorable and beneficent progress +of civilization, would perhaps begin, slowly indeed but surely, to press +to its death this remnant of ancient savagery. But if the Union were to +be broken by a violation of the compromise, a vast and irremediable +catastrophe and ruin would undo all the patriotic labors of sixty +years, would dismiss to lasting unreality the dreams of three +generations of great men who had loved their country. It seemed too +appalling a responsibility. + +Upon all this reasoning there is much unfair modern judgment. The small +number of resolute abolitionists, who cared little for the Union in +comparison with the one cause of human rights, and whose moral fervor +found in the compromises of the Constitution, so dear and sacred to all +American statesmen, only a covenant with hell, may for the moment be +ignored. Among them there was not a public man occupying politically +responsible or widely influential place. The vast body of Northern +sentiment was in two great classes. The one was led by men like Seward, +and even Benton, who considered the South a great bully. They believed +that to a firm front against the extension of slavery the South would, +after many fire-eating words, surrender in peace. The other class +included most of the influential men of the day, some of them greater +men, some lesser, and some little men. Webster, Clay, Cass, Buchanan, +Marcy, Douglas, Fillmore, Dickinson, were now joined by Van Buren and by +many Free-soil men of 1848 daunted at the seeming slowness with which +the divine mills were grinding. They believed that the South, to assert +the fancied "rights" of their monstrous wrong, would accept disunion and +even more, that in this cause it would fiercely accept all the terrors +of a civil war and its limitless devastation. The event proved the +first men utterly in the wrong; and it was fortunate that their mistake +was not visible until in 1861 the battle was irreversibly joined. The +second and more numerous class were right. There had to be yielding, +unless such evils were to be let loose, unless Webster's "ideas, so full +of all that is horrid and horrible," were to come true. The anxiety not +to offend the South was perhaps most strikingly shown after the election +of Lincoln. A distinguished statesman of the modern Republican party has +recently pointed out[19] that in February, 1861, the Republican members +of Congress, and among them Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, +acquiesced in the organization of the new Territories of Colorado, +Dakota, and Nevada, without any prohibition of slavery, thus ignoring +the very principle and the only principle upon which their great battle +had been fought and their great victory won. + +Complete truth dwelt only with the small and hated abolitionist +minority. Without honored and influential leaders in political life they +alone saw that war with all these horrors was better, or even a +successful secession was better, than further surrender of human rights, +a surrender whose corruption and barbarism would cloud all the glories, +and destroy all the beneficence of the Union. No historical judgment has +been more unjust and partial than the implied condemnation of Van Buren +for his acquiescence in Clay's compromise, while only gentle words have +chided the great statesmen whose eloquence was more splendid and +inspiring but whose devotion to the Union was never more supreme than +Van Buren's,--statesmen who had made no sacrifice like his in 1844, who +in their whitening years had taken no bold step like his in 1848, and +who had in 1850 actively promoted the surrender to which Van Buren did +no more than submit after it was accomplished. + +In 1852 the overwhelming agreement to the compromise brought on a +colorless presidential campaign, fought in a sort of fool's paradise. +Its character was well represented by Franklin Pierce, the second +Democratic mediocrity raised to the first place in the party and the +land, and by the absurd political figure of General Scott, fitly enough +the last candidate of the decayed Whig party. Both parties heartily +approved the compromise, but it mattered little which of the two +candidates were chosen. The votes cast for John P. Hale, the Free-soil +candidate, were as much more significant and honorable as they were +fewer than those cast for Pierce or Scott. Van Buren, in a note to a +meeting in New York, declared that time and circumstances had issued +edicts against his attendance, but that he earnestly wished for Pierce's +election. He attempted no argument in this, perhaps the shortest +political letter he ever wrote. But John Van Buren, in a speech at +Albany, gave some reasons which prevent much condemnation of his +father's perfunctory acquiescence in the action of his party. The +movement of 1848, he said, had been intended to prevent the extension of +slavery. Since then, California had come in, a Free State, and not, as +the South had desired, a slave State; and "the abolition of the slave +market in the District of Columbia was another great point gained." The +poverty of reasons was shown in the eager insistence that every member +of Congress from New Hampshire had voted against slavery extension, and +that the Democratic party now took its candidate from that State +"without any pledges whatever." + +After this election Van Buren spent two years in Europe. President +Pierce tendered him the position of the American arbitrator upon the +British-American claims commission established under the treaty of +February 8, 1853, but he declined. During his absence the South secured +the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the +practical opening to slavery of the new Territories north of the line of +36° 30'. If the settlers of Kansas, which lay wholly on the free side of +that compromise line, desired slavery, they were to have it. But even +this was not sufficient. The hardy settlers of this frontier, separated +though they were by the slave State of Missouri from free soil and free +influences, would, it now seemed, pretty certainly favor freedom. The +ermine of the Supreme Court had, therefore, to be used to sanctify with +the Dred Scott decision the last demand of slavery, inconsistent though +it was with the claims of the South from the time when it secured the +Missouri Compromise until Calhoun grimly advanced his monstrous +propositions. Slavery was to be decreed a constitutional right in all +Territories, whose exercise in them Congress was without power to +prohibit, and which could not be prevented even by the majority of their +settlers until they were admitted as States. + +Van Buren came back to America when there was still secret within the +judicial breast the momentous decision that the American flag carried +human slavery with it to conquered territory as a necessary incident of +its stars and stripes, and that Congress could not, if it would, save +the land to freedom. Van Buren voted for Buchanan; a vote essentially +inconsistent with his Free-soil position, a vote deeply to be regretted. +He still thought that free settlers would defeat the intention of the +Kansas-Nebraska act, and bring in, as they afterwards did, a free though +bleeding Kansas. There was something crude and menacing in this new +Republican party, and in its enormous and growing enthusiasm. It was +hard to believe that its candidate had been seriously selected for chief +magistrate of the United States. Fremont probably seemed to Van Buren a +picturesque sentimentalist leading the way to civil war, which, if it +were to come, ought, so it seemed to this former senator and minister +and president, to be led in by serious and disciplined statesmen. The +new party was repulsive to him as a body chiefly of Whigs; old and +bitter adversaries whom he distrusted, with hosts of camp-followers +smelling the coming spoils. All this a young man might endure, when he +saw the clear fact that the Republican convention, ignoring for the time +all former differences, had pronounced not a word inconsistent with the +Democratic platform of 1840, and had made only the one declaration +essential to American freedom and right, that slavery should not go into +the Territories. Van Buren was not, however, a young man, or one of the +few old men in whom a fiery sense of morality, and an eager and buoyant +resolution, are unchilled by thinner and slower blood, and indomitably +overcome the conservative influences of age. A bold outcry from him, +even now, would have placed him for posterity in one of the few niches +set apart to the very greatest Americans. But since 1848 Van Buren had +come to seventy-four years. + +Invited to the Tammany Hall celebration of Independence Day, he wrote, +on June 28, 1856, a letter in behalf of Buchanan. There was no +diminution in explicit clearness; but hope was nearly gone; the peril of +the Union obscured every other danger; the South was so threatening that +patriotism seemed to him to require at the least a surrender to all that +had passed; and for the future our best reliance would be upon a fair +vote in Kansas between freedom and slavery. He could not come to its +meeting, he told Tammany Hall, because of his age. He had left one +invitation unanswered; and if he were so to leave another, he might be +suspected of a desire to conceal his sentiments. But this letter should +be his last, as it was his first, appearance in the canvass. He was glad +of the Democratic reunion; for although not always perfectly right, in +no other party had there been "such exclusive regard and devotion to the +maintenance of human rights and the happiness and welfare of the masses +of the people." There was a touch of age in his fond recitals of the +long services of that party since, in Jefferson's days, it had its +origin with "the root-and-branch friends of the Republican system;" of +its support of the war of 1812; of its destruction of the national bank; +of its establishment of an independent treasury. But slavery, he +admitted, was now the living issue. Upon that he had no regrets for his +course. He had always preferred the method of dealing with that +institution practiced by the founders of the government. He lamented the +recent departure from that method; no one was more sincerely opposed +than himself to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. He had heard of +it, and condemned it in a foreign land; he had there foreseen the +disastrous reopening of the slavery agitation. But the measure was now +accomplished; there was no more left than to decide what was the best +now to do. The Kansas-Nebraska act had, he said, gradually become less +obnoxious to him; though this impression, he admitted, might result from +the unanimous acquiescence in it of the party in which he had been +reared. Its operation, he trusted, would be beneficial; and he had now +come to believe that the feelings and opinions of the free States would +be more respected under its provisions than by specific congressional +interference. He did not doubt the power of Congress to enable the +people of a Territory to exclude slavery. Buchanan's pledge to use the +presidential power to restore harmony among the sister States could be +redeemed in but one way; and that was, to secure to the actual settlers +of the Territory a "full, free, and practical enjoyment" of the rights +of suffrage on the slavery question conferred by the act. He praised +Buchanan, if not exuberantly, still sufficiently. He must, Van Buren +thought, be solicitous for his reputation in the near "evening of his +life." He believed that Buchanan would redeem his pledge, and should +therefore cheerfully support him. If Buchanan were elected, there were +"good grounds for hope" that the Union might be saved. Such was this +saddening and despondent letter. It was a defense of a vote which it was +rather sorry work that he should have needed to make. But the tramp of +armies and the conflagration of American institutions were heard and +seen in the sky with terrifying vividness. The letter secured, however, +no forgiveness from the angry South. The "Richmond Whig" said: "If there +is a man within the limits of the Republic who is cordially abhorred and +detested by intelligent and patriotic men of all parties at the South, +that man is Martin Van Buren." + +Many of the best Americans shared Van Buren's distrust of Fremont and of +those who supported Fremont; they shared his love of peace and his fear +of that bloodshed, North and South, which seemed the dismal El Dorado to +which the "pathfinder's" feet were surely tending. So the majority of +the Northern voters thought; for those north of Mason and Dixon's line +who divided themselves between Buchanan and Fillmore, the candidate of +the "Silver Gray" Whigs, considerably outnumbered the voters for +Fremont. + +In 1860 Van Buren voted for the union electoral ticket which represented +in New York the combined opposition to Lincoln. Every motive which had +influenced him in 1856 had now increased even more than his years. The +Republican party was not only now come bringing, it seemed, the torch in +full flame to light an awful conflagration; but in its second national +convention there became obvious upon the tariff question the +preponderance of the Whig elements, which made up the larger though not +the more earnest or efficient body of its supporters. + +After Van Buren's return from Europe in 1855, he lived in dignified and +gracious repose. This complete and final escape from the rush about him +had often seemed in his busy strenuous years full of delight. But +doubtless now in the peaceful pleasures of Lindenwald and in the +occasional glimpses of the more crowded social life of New York which +was glad to honor him, there were the regrets and slowly dying +impatience, the sense of isolation, which must at the best touch with +some sadness the later and well-earned and even the best-crowned years. +At this time he began writing memoirs of his life and times, which were +brought down to the years 1833-1834; but they were never revised by him +and have not been published. Out of this work grew a sketch of the early +growth of American parties, which was edited by his sons and printed in +1867. Its pages do not exhibit the firm and logical order which was so +characteristic of Van Buren's political compositions. It was rather the +reminiscence of the political philosophy which had completely governed +him. With some repetitions, but in an easy and interesting way, he +recalled the far-reaching political differences between Jefferson and +Hamilton. In these chapters of his old age are plain the profound and +varied influences which had been exercised over him by the great founder +of his party, and his unquenchable animosity towards "the money power" +from the days of the first secretary of the treasury to its victory of +"buffoonery" in 1840. In one chapter, with words rather courtly but +still not to be mistaken, he condemns Buchanan for a violation of the +principles of Jefferson and Jackson in accepting the Dred Scott decision +as a rule of political action; and this the more because its main +conclusion was unnecessary to adjudge Dred Scott's rights in that suit, +and because its announcement was part of a political scheme. Chief +Justice Taney and Buchanan, Van Buren pointed out, though raised to +power by the Democratic party, had joined it late in life, "with +opinions formed and matured in an antagonist school." Both had come from +the Federalist ranks, whose political heresy Van Buren believed to be +hopelessly incurable. + +At the opening of the civil war Van Buren's animosity to Buchanan's +behavior became more and more marked. He strongly sympathized with the +uprising of the North; and sustained the early measures of Lincoln's +administration. But he was not to see the dreadful but lasting and +benign solution of the problem of American slavery. His life ended when +the fortunes of the nation were at their darkest; when McClellan's seven +days' battle from the Chickahominy to the James was just over, and the +North was waiting in terror lest his troops might not return in time to +save the capital. For several months he suffered from an asthmatic +attack, which finally became a malignant catarrh, causing him much +anguish. In the latter days of his sickness his mind wandered; but when +sensible and collected he still showed a keen interest in public +affairs, expressed his confidence in President Lincoln and General +McClellan, and declared his faith that the rebellion would end without +lasting damage to the Union. + +On July 24, 1862, he died, nearly eighty years old, in the quiet summer +air at Lindenwald, the noise of battle far away from his green lawns +and clumps of trees. In the ancient Dutch church at Kinderhook the +simple funeral was performed; and a great rustic gathering paid the last +and best honor of honest and respectful grief to their old friend and +neighbor. For his fame had brought its chief honor to this village of +his birth, the village to which in happy ending of his earthly career he +returned, and where through years of well-ordered thrift, of a gentle +and friendly hospitality, and of interesting and not embittered +reminiscence, he had been permitted + + "To husband out life's taper at the close, + And keep the flame from wasting by repose." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +VAN BUREN'S CHARACTER AND PLACE IN HISTORY + + +In the engraved portrait of Van Buren in old age, prefixed to his +"History of Parties," are plainly to be seen some of his traits,--the +alert outlooking upon men, the bright, easy good-humor, the firm, +self-reliant judgment. Inman's painting, now in the City Hall of New +York,[20] gives the face in the prime of life,--the same shrewd, kindly +expression, but more positively touched with that half cynical doubt of +men which almost inevitably belongs to those in great places. The deep +wrinkles of the old and retired ex-president were hardly yet incipient +in the smooth, prosperous, almost complacent countenance of the +governor. In the earlier picture the locks flared outwards from the +face, as they did later; as yet, however, they were dark and a bit +curling. His form was always slender and erect, but hardly reached the +middle height, so that to his political enemies it was endless delight +to call him "Little Van." + +In the older picture one sees a scrupulous daintiness about the ruffled +shirt and immaculate neckerchief; for Van Buren was fond of the +elegance of life. The Whigs used to declare him an aristocrat, given to +un-American, to positively British splendor. Very certainly he never +affected contempt for the gracious and stately refinement suited to his +long held place of public honor, that contempt which a silly underrating +of American good sense has occasionally commended to our statesmen. At +Lindenwald, among books and guests and rural cares, he led what in the +best and truest sense was the life of a country gentleman, not set like +an urban exotic among the farmers, but fond of his neighbors as they +were fond of him, and unaffectedly sharing without loss of distinction +or elegance their thrifty and homely cares. When he retired to this home +he was able, without undignified or humiliating shifts, to live in ease +and even affluence. For in 1841 his fortune of perhaps $200,000 was a +generous one. His last days were not, like those of Jefferson and Monroe +and Jackson, embittered by money anxieties, the penalty of the careless +profusion the temptation to which, felt even by men wise in the affairs +of others, is often greater than the certain danger and unwisdom of its +indulgence. But no suggestion was breathed against his pecuniary +integrity, public or private. Nor was there heard of him any story of +wrong or oppression or ungenerous dealing. + +Van Buren's extraordinary command of himself was apparent in his +manners. They are finely described from intimate acquaintance by +William Allen Butler, the son of Van Buren's long-time friend, in his +charming and appreciative sketch printed just after Van Buren's death. +They had, Mr. Butler said, a neatness and polish which served every turn +of domestic, social, and public intercourse. "As you saw him once, you +saw him always--always punctilious, always polite, always cheerful, +always self-possessed. It seemed to anyone who studied this phase of his +character as if, in some early moment of destiny, his whole nature had +been bathed in a cool, clear, and unruffled depth, from which it drew +this life-long serenity and self-control." An accomplished English +traveler, "the author of 'Cyril Thornton,'" who saw him while secretary +of state, and before he had been abroad, said that he had more of "the +manner of the world" than any other of the distinguished men at +Washington; that in conversation he was "full of anecdote and vivacity." +Chevalier, one of our French critics, in his letters from America +described him as setting up "for the American Talleyrand." John Quincy +Adams, as has been said, sourly mistook all this, and even the especial +courtesy Van Buren paid him after his political downfall, as mere proof +of insincerity; and he more than once compared Van Buren to Aaron Burr, +a comparison of which many Democrats were fond after 1848. In his +better-natured moments, however, Adams saw in his adversary a +resemblance to the conciliatory and philosophic Madison. For his +"extreme caution in avoiding and averting personal collisions," he +called him another Sosie of Molière's "Amphitryon," "ami de tout le +monde." + +Van Buren's skill in dealing with men was indeed extraordinary. It +doubtless came from this temper of amity, and from an inborn genius for +society; but it had been wonderfully sharpened in the unrivaled school +of New York's early politics. When he was minister at London, he wrote +that he was making it his business to be cordial with prominent men on +both sides; a branch of duty, he said, in which he was not at home, +because he had all his life been "wholly on one side." But he was +jocosely unjust to himself. He was, for the politics of his day, +abundantly fair to his adversaries. Sometimes indeed he saw too much of +what might be said on the other side. Had he seen less, he would +sometimes have been briefer, less indulgent in formal caution. Nor did +he fail to avoid the unnecessary misery caused to many public men, the +obstacles needlessly raised in their way, by personal disputes, or by +letting into negotiations matters of controversy irrelevant to the thing +to be done. Patience in listening, a steady and singularly acute +observance of the real end he sought, and a quick, keen reading of men, +saved him this wearing unhappiness so widespread in public life. Once he +thus criticised his friend Cambreleng: "There is more in small matters +than he is always aware of, although he is a really sensible and useful +man." In this maxim of lesser things Van Buren was carefully practiced. +During the Jackson-Adams campaign, the younger Hamilton was about +sending to some important person an account of the general. Van Buren, +knowing of this, wrote to Hamilton, and, after signing his letter, +added: "P. S.--Does the old gentleman have prayers in his own house? If +so, mention it modestly." + +His self-command was not stilted or unduly precise or correct. He was +very human. A candidate for governor of New York would to-day hardly +write to another public man, however friendly to him, as Van Buren in +August and September, 1828, wrote to Hamilton. "Bet on Kentucky, +Indiana, and Illinois," he said, "jointly if you can, or any two of +them; don't forget to bet all you can." But this was the fashion of the +day.[21] His life was entirely free from the charges of dissipation or of +irregular habits, then so commonly, and often truly, made against great +men. This very correctness was part of the offense he gave his rivals +and their followers. It would hardly be accurate to describe him, even +in younger years, as jovial with his friends; but he was perfectly +companionable. Of a social and cheerful temper, he not only liked the +decorous gaiety of receptions and public entertainment, but was +delighted and delightful in closer and easier conversation and in the +chat of familiar friends. His reminiscences of men are said to have been +full of the charm which flows from a strong natural sense of humor, and +a correct and vivid memory of human action and character. + +There are many apocryphal stories of Van Buren's craft or cunning or +selfishness in politics. It is a curious appreciation with which +reputable historians have received such stories from irresponsible or +anonymous sources; for they deserve as little credence as those told of +Lincoln's frivolity or indecency. To them all may not only be pleaded +the absence of any proof deserving respect, but they are refuted by +positive proof, such as from earliest times has been deemed the best +which private character can in its own behalf offer to history. In +politics Van Buren enjoyed as much strong and constant friendship as he +encountered strong and constant hatred. Nothing points more surely to +the essential soundness of life and the generosity of a public man than +the near and long-continued friendship of other able, upright, and +honorably ambitious men. It was an extraordinary measure in which Van +Buren enjoyed friendship of this quality. With all the light upon his +character, Jackson was too shrewd to suffer long from imposition. His +intimacy with Van Buren for twenty years and more was really +affectionate; his admiration for the younger statesman was profound. +The explanation is both unnecessary and unworthy, which ascribes to +hatred of Clay all Jackson's ardor in the canvass of 1840 or his almost +pathetic anxiety for Van Buren's nomination in 1844. Their peculiar and +continuous association for six years at Washington had so powerfully +established Van Buren in his love and respect, that neither distant +separation nor disease nor the nearer intrigues and devices of rivals +could abate them. Those who were especially known as Van Buren men, +those who not only stood with him in the party but who went with him out +of it, were men of great talents and of the highest character. Butler's +career closely accompanied Van Buren's. Both were born at Kinderhook; +they were together in Hudson, in Albany, in Washington; they were +together as Bucktails, as Jacksonian Democrats, as Free-soil men; they +were close to one another from Butler's boyhood until, more than a +half-century later, they were parted by death. To this strong-headed and +sound-hearted statesman, we are told by William Allen Butler, in a fine +and wellnigh sufficient eulogy, that Van Buren was the object of an +affection true and steadfast, faithful through good report and evil +report, loyal to its own high sense of duty and affection, tender and +generous. Benton, liberal and sane a slaveholder though he was, did not +approve the Wilmot Proviso, or join the Free-soil revolt. But in +retirement and old age, reviewing his "Thirty Years," during twenty of +which he and Van Buren had, spite of many differences, remained on +closely intimate terms, he showed a deep liking for the man. Silas +Wright, Azariah C. Flagg, and John A. Dix, all strong and famous +characters in the public life of New York, were among the others of +those steadily faithful in loyal and unwavering regard for this +political and personal chief. Nor were they deceived. Jackson and +Butler, Wright and Flagg and Dix, sturdy, upright, skillful, experienced +men of affairs, were not held in true and lifelong friendship and +admiration by the insinuating manners, the clever management, the +selfish and timid aims, which make the Machiavellian caricature of Van +Buren so often drawn. No American in public life has shown firmer and +longer devotion to his friends. His reputation for statesmanship must +doubtless rest upon the indisputable facts of his career. But for his +integrity of life, for his sincerity, for his fidelity to those +obligations of political, party, and personal friendship, within which +lies so much of the usefulness as well as of the singular charm of +public life, his relations with these men make a proof not to be +questioned, and surely not to be weakened by the malicious or anonymous +stories of political warfare. + +For the absurdly sinister touch which his political enemies gave to his +character, it is difficult now to find any just reason. It may be that +the cool and imperturbable appearance of good-nature, with which he +received the savage and malevolent attacks so continually made upon +him, to many seemed so impossible to be real as to be sheer +hypocrisy;[22] and from the fancy of such hypocrisy it was easy for the +imagination to infer all the arts and characteristics of deceit. +Doubtless the caution of Van Buren's political papers irritated +impatient and angry opponents. They found them full of elaborate and +subtle reservations, as they fancied, against future political +contingencies; a charge, it ought to be remembered, which is continually +made against the ripest, bravest, and greatest character in English +politics of to-day or of the century.[23] Van Buren's reasoning was +perfectly clear, and his style highly finished. But he had not the sort +of genius which in a few phrases states and lights up a political +problem. The complexity of human affairs, the danger of short and +sweeping assertions, pressed upon him as he wrote; and the amplitude of +his arguments, sometimes tending to prolixity, seemed timid and +lawyer-like to those who disliked his conclusions. + +Van Buren was not, however, an unpopular man, except as toward the last +his politics were unpopular as politics out of sympathy with those of +either of the great parties, and except also at the South, where he was +soon suspected and afterwards hated as an anti-slavery man. He was on +the whole a strong candidate at the polls. In his own State and at the +Northeast his strength with the people grew more and more until his +defeat by the slaveholders in 1844. Perhaps the most striking proof of +this strength was the canvass of 1848, when in New York he was able to +take fully half of his party with him into irregular opposition, a feat +with hardly a precedent in our political history. And there was complete +reciprocity. Van Buren was profoundly democratic in his convictions. He +thoroughly, honestly, and without demagogy believed in the common people +and in their competence to deal wisely with political difficulties. Even +when his faith was tried by what he deemed the mistakes of popular +elections, he still trusted to what in a famous phrase of his he called +"the sober second thought of the people."[24] + +However widely the student of history may differ from the politics of +Van Buren's associates, the politics of Benton, Wright, Butler, and Dix, +and in a later rank of his New York disciples, of Samuel J. Tilden and +Sanford E. Church, it is impossible not to see that their political +purpose was at the least as long and steady as their friendship for Van +Buren. Love for the Union, a belief in a simple, economical, and even +unheroic government, a jealousy of taking money from the people, and a +scrupulous restriction upon the use of public moneys for any but public +purposes, a strict limitation of federal powers, a dislike of slavery +and an opposition to its extension,--these made up one of the great and +fruitful political creeds of America, a creed which had ardent and +hopeful apostles a half century ago, and which, save in the articles +which touched slavery and are now happily obsolete, will doubtless find +apostles no less ardent and hopeful a half century hence. Each of its +assertions has been found in other creeds; but the entire creed with all +its articles made the peculiar and powerful faith only of the Van Buren +men. As history gradually sets reputations aright, the leader of these +men must justly wear the laurel of a statesman who, apart from his +personal and party relations and ambitions, has stood clearly for a +powerful and largely triumphant cause. + +No vague, no thoughtless rush of popular sentiment touched or shook this +faith of Van Buren. Had there been indeed a readier emphasis about him, +a heartier and quicker sympathy with the temper of the day, he would +perhaps have aroused a popular enthusiasm, he might perhaps have been +the hero which in fact he never was. But his intellectual perceptions +did not permit the subtle self-deceit, the enthusiastic surrender to +current sentiment, to which the striking figures that delight the masses +of men are so apt to yield. Van Buren was steadfast from the beginning +to the end, save when the war threats of slavery alarmed his old age and +the sober second thought of a really patient and resolute people seemed +a long time coming. Two years before his death Jefferson wrote to Van +Buren an elaborate sketch of his relations with Hamilton and of our +first party division. Two years before his own death Van Buren was +finishing a history of the same political division written upon the +theory and in the tone running through Jefferson's writings. It was +composed by Van Buren in the very same temper in which he had +respectfully read the weighty epistle from the great apostle of +Democracy. Between the ending life at Monticello and that at Lindenwald, +the political faith of the older man had been steadily followed by the +younger. + +The rise of the "spoils" system, and the late coming, but steadily +increasing perception of its corruptions and dangers, have seriously and +justly dimmed Van Buren's fame. But history should be not less indulgent +to him than to other great Americans. The practical politics which he +first knew had been saturated with the abuse. He did no more than adopt +accustomed means of political warfare. Neither he nor other men of his +time perceived the kind of evil which political proscription of men in +unpolitical places must yield. They saw the undoubted rightfulness of +shattering the ancient idea that in offices there was a property right. +They saw but too clearly the apparent help which the powerful love of +holding office brings to any political cause, and which has been used by +every great minister of state the world over. Van Buren had, however, no +love of patronage in itself. The use of a party as a mere agency to +distribute offices would have seemed to him contemptible. In neither of +the great executive places which he held, as governor, secretary of +state, or president, did he put into an extreme practice the +proscriptive rules which were far more rigorously adopted about him. To +his personal temper not less than to his conceptions of public duty the +inevitable meanness and wrong of the system were distasteful. + +Chief among the elements of Van Buren's public character ought to be +ranked his moral courage and the explicitness of his political +utterances,--the two qualities which, curiously enough, were most +angrily denied him by his enemies. His well-known Shocco Springs letter +of 1832 on the tariff was indeed lacking in these qualities; but he was +then not chiefly interested. There was only a secondary responsibility +upon him. But it is not too much to say that no American in responsible +and public station, since the days when Washington returned from his +walk among the miserable huts at Valley Forge to write to the +Continental Congress, or to face the petty imbecilities of the jealous +colonists, has shown so complete a political courage as that with which +Van Buren faced the crisis of 1837, or in which he wrote his famous +Texas letter. Nor did any American, stirred with ambition, conscious of +great powers, as was this captain of politicians, and bringing all his +political fortunes, as he must do, to the risks of universal suffrage, +ever meet living issues dangerously dividing men ready to vote for him +if he would but remain quiet, with clearer or more decided answers than +did Van Buren in his Sherrod Williams letter of 1836 and in most of his +chief public utterances from that year until 1844. The courtesies of his +manner, his failure in trenchant brevity, and even the almost complete +absence of invective or extravagance from his papers or speeches, have +obscured these capital virtues of his character. He saw too many +dangers; and he sometimes made it too clear that he saw them. But upon +legitimate issues he was among the least timid and the most explicit of +great Americans. No president of ours has in office been more courageous +or more direct. + +It is perhaps an interesting, it is at least a harmless speculation, to +look for Van Buren's place of honor in the varied succession of men who +have reached the first office, though not always the first place, in +American public life. Every student will be powerfully, even when +unconsciously, influenced in this judgment by the measure of strength or +beneficence he accords to different political tendencies. With this +warning the present writer will, however, venture upon an opinion. + +Van Buren very clearly does not belong among the mediocrities or +accidents of the White House,--among Monroe, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, +Taylor, Fillmore, and Pierce, not to meddle with the years since the +civil war whose party disputes are still part of contemporary politics. +Van Buren reached the presidency by political abilities and public +services of the first order, as the most distinguished active member of +his party, and with a universal popular recognition for years before his +promotion that he was among the three or four Americans from whom a +president would be naturally chosen. Buchanan's experience in public +life was perhaps as great as Van Buren's, and his political skill and +distinction made his accession to the presidency by no means unworthy. +But he never led, he never stood for a cause; he never led men; he was +never chief in his party; and in his great office he sank with timidity +before the slaveholding aggressors, as they strove with vengeance to +suppress freedom in Kansas, and before the menaces and open plunderings +of disunion. Van Buren showed no such timidity in a place of equal +difficulty. + +Jackson stands in a rank by himself. He had a stronger and more vivid +personality than Van Buren. But useful as he was to the creation of a +powerful sentiment for union and of a hostility to the schemes of a +paternal government, it is clear that in those qualities of steady +wisdom, foresight, patience, which of right belong to the chief +magistracy of a republic, he was far inferior to his less picturesque +and less forceful successor. The first Adams, a man of very superior +parts, competent and singularly patriotic, was deep in too many personal +collisions within and without his party, and his presidency incurred too +complete and lasting, and it must be added, too just a popular +condemnation, to permit it high rank, though very certainly he belonged +among neither the mediocrities nor the accidents of the White House. + +If to the highest rank of American presidents be assigned Washington, +and if after him in it come Jefferson and perhaps Lincoln (though more +than a quarter of a century must go to make the enduring measure of his +fame), the second rank would seem to include Madison, the younger Adams, +and Van Buren. Between the first and the last of these, the second of +them, as has been said, saw much resemblance. But if Madison had a +mellower mind, more obedient to the exigencies of the time and of a +wider scholarship, Van Buren had a firmer and more direct courage, a +steadier loyalty to his political creed, and far greater resolution and +efficiency in the performance of executive duties. If one were to +imitate Plutarch in behalf of John Quincy Adams and Van Buren, he would +need largely to compare their rival political creeds. But leaving these, +it will not be unjust to say that in virile and indomitable continuance +of moral purpose after official power had let go its trammels, and when +the harassments and feebleness of age were inexorable, and though the +heavens were to fall, the younger Adams was the greater; that in +executive success they were closely together in a high rank; but that in +skill and power of political leadership, in breadth of political +purpose, in freedom from political vagaries, in personal generosity and +political loyalty, Van Buren was easily the greater man. + +Van Buren did not have the massive and forcible eloquence of Webster, or +the more captivating though fleeting speech of Clay, or the delightful +warmth of the latter's leadership, or the strength and glory which their +very persons and careers gave to American nationality. But in the +persistent and fruitful adherence to a political creed fitted to the +time and to the genius of the American people, in that noble art which +gathers and binds to one another and to a creed the elements of a +political party, the art which disciplines and guides the party, when +formed, to clear and definite purposes, without wavering and without +weakness or demagogy, Van Buren was a greater master than either of +those men, in many things more interesting as they were. In this exalted +art of the politician, this consummate art of the statesman, Van Buren +was close to the greatest of American party leaders, close to Jefferson +and to Hamilton. + +In his very last years the stir and rumbling of war left Van Buren in +quiet recollection and anxious loyalty at Lindenwald. As his growing +illness now and then spared him moments of ease, his mind must +sometimes have turned back to the steps of his career, senator of his +State, senator of the United States, governor, first cabinet minister, +foreign envoy, vice-president, and president. There must again have +sounded in his ears the hardly remembered jargon of Lewisites and +Burrites, Clintonians and Livingstonians, Republicans and Federalists, +Bucktails and Jacksonians and National Republicans, Democrats and Whigs, +Loco-focos and Conservatives, Barnburners and Hunkers. There must +rapidly though dimly have shifted before him the long series of his +struggles,--struggles over the second war with England, over internal +improvements, the Bank, nullification, the divorce of bank and state, +the resistance to slavery extension. Through them all there had run, and +this at least his memory clearly recalled, the one strong faith of his +politics and statesmanship. In all his labors of office, in all his +multifarious strifes, he never faltered in upholding the Union. But not +less firmly would this true disciple of Jefferson restrain the +activities of the federal government. Whatever wisdom, whatever +integrity of purpose might belong to ministers and legislators at +Washington,--though the strength of the United States might be theirs, +and though they were panoplied in the august prestige rightly ascribed +by American patriotism to that sovereign title of our nation,--still Van +Buren was resolute that they should not do for the people what the +States or the people themselves could do as well. To his eyes there was +clear and undimmed from the beginning to the close of his career, the +idea of government as an instrument of useful public service, rather +than an object of superstitious veneration, the idea but two years after +his death clothed with memorable words by a master in brief speech, the +democratic idea of a "government of the people, by the people, for the +people." + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + + +[1] "I shall not, whilst I have the honor to administer the government, +bring a man into any office of consequence, knowingly, whose political +tenets are adverse to the measures which the general government are +pursuing; for this, in my opinion, would be a sort of political +suicide."--Washington to Pickering, secretary of war, September 27, +1795. Vol. 11 of Sparks's edition of _Washington's Writings_, 74. + +[2] I use the political name then in vogue. The greater part of the +Republicans have, since the rearrangement of parties in John Quincy +Adams's time, or rather since Jackson's time, been known as Democrats. + +[3] The more conspicuous difficulty in 1801 arose from the voting by +each elector for two candidates without distinguishing which he +preferred for president and which for vice-president. But the +awkwardness and not improbable injustice of a choice by the House was +also well illustrated in February, 1801. + +[4] Gales and Seaton's Debates in Congress give here the word "act" +instead of "think,"--but erroneously, I assume. + +[5] The comparison cannot of course be complete, as some who were +senators in 1826 were not senators in 1828. + +[6] This and several other references of mine to Gladstone were written +ten years and more before his death. These years of his brief but +extraordinary Home Rule victory, of his final defeat,--for Lord +Rosebery's defeat was Gladstone's defeat,--and of his retirement, have +not only added a mellow and almost sacred splendor to his noble career, +but have still better demonstrated his superb political gifts. What +politician indeed, dead or living, is to be ranked above him? + +[7] This was written nine years before the lamentable surrender of the +organization of Van Buren's party at Chicago in 1896. It is safe to say +that these traditions, even if fallen sadly out of sight, still make a +deep and powerful force, which must in due time assert itself. + +[8] After the Dissenting Liberals had acted with the Conservatives, not +only in the first Home Rule campaign in 1886, but during the Salisbury +administration from 1886 to 1892, and in the campaigns of 1892 and 1895, +the coalition was ended and a new and single party formed, of which the +Duke of Devonshire and Mr. Chamberlain were leaders as really as Lord +Salisbury or Mr. Balfour. The accession of the former to the Unionist +ministry of 1895 was in no sense a reward for bringing over some of the +enemy. + +[9] This was written in 1887. The Albany Regency, after a life of sixty +years, ended with the death of Daniel Manning, in Mr. Cleveland's first +presidency, and with it ended the characteristic influence of its organ. +The Democratic management at Albany has since proceeded upon very +different lines and has engaged the ability of very different men. + +[10] A month or two after his arrival Van Buren wrote Hamilton that his +place was decidedly the most agreeable he had ever held, but added: +"Money--money is the thing." His house was splendid and in a delightful +situation; but it cost him £500. His carriage cost him £310, and his +servants with their board $2,600. + +[11] In estimating the popular vote in 1828, Delaware and South Carolina +are excluded, their electors having been chosen by the legislature. In +Georgia in that year there was no opposition to Jackson. In 1832 no +popular vote is included for South Carolina or for Alabama. In +Mississippi and Missouri there was no opposition to Jackson. In 1829, +upon Van Buren's recommendation when governor, the system in New York of +choosing electors by districts, which had been in force in the election +of 1838, was abolished; and there was adopted the present system of +choosing all the electors by the popular vote of the whole State. + +[12] The Treasurer's statement for August, 1837, gave eighty-four +deposit banks. But of these, nine had less than $5000 each on deposit, +six from $5000 to $10,000, and eight from $10,000 to $20,000. Fourteen +had from $50,000 to $100,000 each. Only twenty-nine had more than +$100,000 each. It is not unfair to speak of the deposits as being +substantially in fifty banks. + +The enormous land sales at the Southwest had placed a most +disproportionate amount of money in banks in that part of the country. +John Quincy Adams seemed, but with little reason, to consider this an +intentional discrimination against the North. It is quite probable that, +if the deposits had been in one national bank, the peculiarly excessive +strain at that point would have been modified. But this was no great +factor in the crisis. + +[13] I cannot refrain from noticing here the curious fact that Dr. Von +Holst, after a contemptuous picture of Van Buren as a mere verbose, +coarse-grained politician given to scheming and duplicity, was not +surprised at his meeting in so lofty a spirit this really great trial. +For surely here, if anywhere, the essential fibre of the man would be +discovered. I must also express my regret that this writer, to whom +Americans owe very much, should have been content (although in this he +has but joined some other historians of American politics) to accept +mere campaign or partisan rumors which when directed against other men, +have gone unnoticed, but against Van Buren have become the basis for +emphatic disparagement and contumely. Even Mackenzie, the publisher of +the purloined letters, writing his pamphlet with the most obvious and +reckless venom, is quoted by this learned historian as respectable +authority. Van Buren had refused during nearly a year to pardon +Mackenzie from prison for his unlawful use of American territory to +prepare armed raids on Canada. Sir Francis B. Head's opinion was +doubtless somewhat colored; but he was not entirely without +justification in applying to Mackenzie the words: "He lies out of every +pore in his skin. Whether he be sleeping or waking, on foot or on +horseback, together with his neighbors or writing for a newspaper, a +multitudinous swarm of lies, visible, palpable, and tangible, are +buzzing and settling about him like flies around a horse in August." +(Narrative of Sir F. B. Head, London, 1839.) + +[14] The reference was to commercial paper and not to bank-notes. But +both had been active characteristics of American speculation. + +[15] The depositories now authorized for the proceeds of the internal +revenue secured the government by a deposit of the bonds of the latter, +which the depositories must of course purchase and own. (_U. S. Rev. +Stats._ § 5153.) + +[16] I cannot refrain in this revised edition to note that England, +although not always a ready scholar, has in later years learned a +farseeing wisdom which in colonial administration makes her the teacher +of the world. The modern policy of deference to local sentiment and of +finding her own advantage in the independent prosperity of the colony, +has bound continents, islands, races, religions, to the English empire, +and brought from them wealth to England, as the old rule of force never +did. + +[17] It should be remembered that several great expenses of the White +House were then and are now met by special and additional +appropriations. + +[18] I must again complain of the curious though unintended unfairness +of Professor Von Holst (_Const. Hist. of the U. S._ 1828-1846, Chicago, +1879, p. 663). He treats this letter with great contempt. He assumes +indeed that Van Buren's declaration for annexation would have given him +the nomination; and admits that Van Buren declared himself "decidedly +opposed to annexation." After this sufficient proof of courage, for Van +Buren could at least have simply promised to adopt the vote of Congress +on the main question, it was not very sensible to declare "disgusting" +Van Buren's efforts "to creep through the thorny hedge which shut him +off from the party nomination." Professor Von Holst's "disgust" seems +particularly directed against the passage here annotated where, after +his strong argument against annexation, he declared that he would not be +influenced by sectional feeling, and would obey the wishes of a Congress +chosen with reference to the question. Few, I think, will consider this +promise with reference to such a question, either cowardly or +"disgusting," made, as it was, by a candidate for the presidency, of a +democratic republic, after clearly and firmly declaring his own views in +advance of the congressional elections. + +[19] James G. Blaine's _Twenty Years_, vol. i. pp. 269, 272. + +[20] An engraving of this portrait accompanies Holland's biography, +written for the campaign of 1836. + +[21] The mania for election betting among public men was very curious. +In the letters and memoranda printed by Mackenzie, the bets of John Van +Buren and Jesse Hoyt are given in detail. They ranged from $5000 to $50; +from "three cases of champagne" or "two bales of cotton," to "boots, +$7," or "a ham, $3." They were made with the younger Alexander Hamilton, +James Watson Webb, Moses H. Grinnell, John A. King, George F. Talman, +Dudley Selden, and other notable men of the time. + +[22] One of the latest and most important historians of the time, after +saying that "nothing ruffled" Van Buren, is contented with a different +explanation from mine. Professor Sumner says that "he was thick-skinned, +elastic, and tough; he did not win confidence from anybody." But within +another sentence or two the historian adds, as if effect did not always +need adequate cause, that "as president he showed the honorable desire +to have a statesmanlike and high-toned administration." (Sumner's +_Jackson_, p. 451.) + +[23] Here again I spoke of Gladstone, to whom, as this revised edition +is going to press, the civilized world is bringing, in his death, a +noble and fitting tribute. + +[24] This expression was not original with Van Buren, as has been +supposed. It was used by Fisher Ames in 1788; and Bartlett's +_Quotations_ also gives a still earlier use of part of it by Matthew +Henry in 1710. + + + + +INDEX + + + Abolitionists, their position in society, 269; + their doctrines, 269, 270; + petition Congress against slavery, 271; + circulate anti-slavery literature in South, 275; + denounced in Democratic Convention of 1840, 379; + also by Harrison, 381, 382; + their effect on sentiment before 1840, 403; + do not affect public men, 437; + their view of slavery situation correct, 438. + + Adams, Charles Francis, presides at Buffalo Convention, 427; + nominated for vice-president, 429. + + Adams, John, his foreign policy compared by Van Buren to John Q. + Adams's, 127-129; + history of his administration used to discredit that of his + son, 145-147, 386; + inferior to Van Buren in statesmanship, 464. + + Adams, John Quincy, + supports Jefferson and Madison's foreign policy, 59; + in peace negotiations, 63; + acquires Florida for United States, 88; + favors Missouri Compromise, 93; + favors tariff of 1824, 103; + attitude of Van Buren towards, as candidate, 107; + his opinion of Van Buren, 107; + the natural choice of New York Republicans, 109; + elected president, 115, 116; + welcomed by Van Buren upon inauguration, 117; + his view of factious nature of Van Buren's opposition, 119; + in reality creates division by his messages and policy, 120, 121; + urges internal improvements, ignores constitutional questions, 121, + 122; + urges Panama Congress, 122, 124, 126; + later uses Van Buren's own parliamentary methods, 123; + his opinion of Van Buren's character, 126; + attack of Van Buren upon, as imitator of his father, 127; + realizes consolidation of opposing elements, 130; + his constitutional views attacked by Van Buren, 132; + his disposal of patronage, 139; + attacked by Van Buren as outdoing his father in encroachments + on Constitution, 146; + his position as party leader in 1828, 153, 154; + comments of Jefferson on, 154; + visited by Van Buren, 158; + compares him to Aaron Burr, 158; + denounces opposition as unworthy, 159; + his position erroneous, 161; + his principles, not his character, the real issue, 161; + slandered in 1828, 163; + fairly criticised for his coalition with Clay, 163; + connected with anti-Masonic party, 167, 245; + defends Jackson in Monroe's cabinet, 185; + on causes for McLean's removal from postmastership, 207; + his appointees his own and Clay's followers, 213; + his action regarding trade with British West Indies, 218, 219; + becomes an anti-slavery leader, 273; + opposes abolition in the District of Columbia, 274; + optimism of his message of 1827, 288; + on banking situation in 1837, 295; + considers specie circular principal cause of panic, 335; + urges a national bank, 335, 336; + votes for fourth installment of surplus, 338; + denounces American claims on Mexico as a plot to annex Texas, 360; + his course on "gag" rule no more reasonable than Van Buren's, 381; + as president, presses American claim to fugitive slaves, 381; + considers Van Buren's politeness to be hypocrisy, 395, 396, 451; + on Harrison's ability, 401; + his death, 429; + comparison with Van Buren, 464, 465. + + Alamo, defense of, 357, 358. + + "Albany Argus," interest of Van Buren in, 191, 192. + + Albany Regency, its membership and character, 111, 112; + its high ability and integrity, 112; + its end, 192 n. + + Allen, Peter, his contested election in 1816, 64. + + Ambrister, Richard, executed by Jackson, 186. + + Ames, Fisher, uses phrase "second thought of the people," 458 n. + + Anti-Masons, in New York election of 1828, 166; + rise and popularity of, 167; + their importance in 1832, 245; + unite with Whigs in New York, 245; + nominate an electoral ticket, 245, 246. + + Arbuthnot, execution of, 186. + + Armstrong, General John, + replaced as United States senator by De Witt Clinton, 51. + + Auckland, Lord, his remark to Van Buren, 228. + + + Bancroft, George, secretary of navy, 362; + at Democratic Convention of 1844, 408. + + Bank of United States, + incorporation condemned as unconstitutional by Van Buren, 145; + attack upon, begun by Jackson, 203; + removal of deposits, 249-251; + not likely to have prevented crisis of 1837, 296, 297; + demanded by Whigs, 334, 335; + slow to resume specie payments, 348, 349; + its transactions with Pennsylvania, 370; + suspends payments in 1839, 371; + collapses again in 1841, 393; + bill to re-charter, vetoed by Tyler, 402. + + Barbour, Philip P., declares Cumberland road bill does not involve + question of internal improvements, 95; + candidate for vice-presidency in 1831, 237, 239; + at Whig convention of 1839, 378. + + Barnburners, origin of, 415; + their leaders, 415; + attempts of Polk to placate, 415, 416; + at first, control Democratic party in New York, 416, 417; + support Wilmot Proviso, 417; + alienated from Polk, 417; + defeated by Hunkers, 418; + secede in 1847, 419; + announce intention to support no candidate not in favor of Wilmot + Proviso, 419; + cause defeat of Hunkers in election of 1847, 422; + hold convention at Utica in 1847, 423, 424; + issue address, 424; + at national convention, 424; + their Utica convention of 1848, 425; + nominate Van Buren for president, 427; + join Free Soil party at Buffalo convention, 427; + nominate Dix for governor, 429; + rejoin Democratic party, 435. + + Barry, William T., succeeds McLean as postmaster-general, 179; + helps Blair to establish a Jacksonian paper, 191; + minister to Spain, 199. + + Barton, David, votes for Panama Congress, 131. + + Beardsley, Samuel, attorney-general of New York, 23. + + Beecher, Henry Ward, anti-slavery leader, 273. + + Bell, John, defeated for speakership of House, 337. + + Bennett, James Gordon, + asks aid from Van Buren in return for newspaper support, 192; + upon refusal, becomes Van Buren's enemy, 193. + + Benton, Thomas H., on Van Buren's classification act, 62; + describes Van Buren's friendship with King, 72; + enters Senate, his friendship with Van Buren, 94; + votes against internal improvements, 95; + votes for tariff of 1824, 99; + on Van Buren's advocacy of tariff, 102; + supports Van Buren's proposed amendment to electoral articles + in Constitution, 106; + on topographical surveys, 117; + votes for Cumberland road, 117; + votes for occupation of Oregon, 117; + not always in harmony with Van Buren, 131; + his report on reduction of executive patronage, 137-139; + urges abolition of salt duty, 140; + opposes a naval academy, 140; + again votes for Cumberland road, 142; + votes for tariff of 1828, 142; + praises Giles, 154; + considers Hayne mouthpiece of Calhoun, 188; + describes plan of Calhoun's friends to cry down Van Buren, 191; + condemns system of removals, 211; + denies large numbers of removals, 211; + defends Jackson, 212; + after Van Buren's rejection as minister, predicts his election as + vice-president, 234; + describes Van Buren's reception of Clay's "distress" appeal, 253; + on White's presidential ambition, 257; + moves expunging resolutions, 264; + votes against bill to exclude anti-slavery matter from mail, in + order to defy slaveholders, 276; + describes scheme to force Van Buren to vote on bill to prohibit + anti-slavery matter in the mails, 277; + on Van Buren's motives for supporting it, 277; + predicts to Van Buren a financial panic, 286; + says Van Buren's friends urged Jackson to approve distribution of + surplus, 302; + his advice in speakership contest of 1839, 376; + accuses Whigs of fraud in 1840, 391; + declares for Van Buren's renomination in 1844, 399; + votes against Texas treaty, 413; + considers Wilmot Proviso unnecessary, 418; + praised by Utica convention of 1847, 424; + considers South to be merely blustering, 437; + his friendship for Van Buren, 455. + + Berrien, John M., attorney-general, 179; + made to resign, 199. + + Biddle, Nicholas, + not so important to country as his friends assumed, 254; + not the man to have prevented panic of 1837, 296, 298; + calls on Van Buren, 319. + + Bidwell, Marshall S., leader of popular party in Upper Canada, 352. + + Birney, James G., vote for, in New York, 413; + defeats Clay, 413. + + Blair, Francis P., his character, establishes "Globe," 191; + enters kitchen cabinet, 193; + opposes nullification and the bank, 193; + refusal of Van Buren to aid, 194; + in connection with Kendall suggests removal of deposits, 251, 252; + supports hard money and loses House printing, 338. + + Bouligny, Dominique, votes for Panama congress, 131. + + Branch, John, secretary of navy, 179; + forced out of cabinet, 199. + + British West Indies, negotiations over trade rights in, 217-222. + + Bronson, Greene C., attorney-general of New York, 23. + + Brougham, Lord, attacks Durham, 356. + + Bryant, William Cullen, denounces Loco-focos, 344; + issues circular opposing Texas, but supporting Polk, 415. + + Buchanan, James, supported by Van Buren in 1856, 3, 441; + declines offer of attorney-generalship, 393; + letter of Letcher to, on Polk's nomination, 412; + supports compromise of 1850, 437; + letter of Van Buren favoring, 442-444; + praised mildly by Van Buren, 444; + condemned by Van Buren for accepting Dred Scott decision, 446; + his policy in 1861, condemned by Van Buren, 447; + inferior to Van Buren in ability, 463. + + Bucktails, faction of New York Democracy, 67; + originate in personal feuds, 67; + proscribed by Clintonians, 67; + support Rufus King for senator against Clintonians, 69; + joined by a few Federalists, 73; + gain election of 1820, 73; + in Congress, vote against a Clintonian speaker, 76; + elect Van Buren to Senate, 76; + try to destroy Clinton's power by removing from office of canal + commissioner, 109; + oppose bill for election of electors by people, 111; + secure its defeat in legislature, 113; + punished by defeat in election of 1824, 113; + oppose Clinton for reëlection in 1826, 147, 148. + (See Democratic party of New York.) + + Burr, Aaron, his standing in 1802, 17; + acquaintance with Van Buren, 17, 18; + used as a bugbear in American politics, 18; + attorney-general of New York, 23; + in Medcef Eden case, 29; + calls Van Buren to aid before court of errors, 29; + intrigues with Federalists in election of 1801, 38; + his standing in Republican party in 1803, 42, 43; + endeavors to gain governorship with Federalist aid, 43; + defeated, his political career closed, 44; + his friends turned out of office, 51; + compared by Adams to Van Buren, 158. + + Butler, Benjamin F., contrasts Van Buren and Williams as lawyers, 20; + enters partnership with Van Buren, his character, 24; + high opinion of Van Buren's legal ability, 31; + on Van Buren's attitude toward Madison, 59; + describes arrogance of Judge Spencer, 84; + on Van Buren's attitude toward tariff, 102; + member of Albany Regency, 111, 112; + succeeds Taney as attorney-general, 255; + continues in office under Van Buren, 283; + resigns, 393; + visits Jackson in Van Buren's interest, 407; + protests against adoption of two-thirds rule by convention of 1844, + 408, 409; + reads letter from Van Buren authorizing withdrawal of his name, 411; + leads Barnburners, 415; + declines Polk's offer of War Department, 416; + at Utica convention of 1848, 425; + reports resolutions at Buffalo convention, 427; + his friendship for Van Buren, 455. + + Butler, William Allen, on Van Buren's serenity, 451; + on his father's affection for Van Buren, 455. + + + Calhoun, John C., secretary of war, 94; + vice-president, 131; + inferior to Van Buren as party leader, 150; + his attitude in campaign of 1828, 153; + dislike of Crawford for, 157; + represented by Ingham, Branch, and Berrien in Jackson's cabinet, 179; + his rivalry with Van Buren begins, 179; + his public career and character, 180; + reasons for his defeat by Van Buren, 180; + tries to prevent Van Buren's appointment to State Department, 180; + connection with Eaton affair, 182, 184; + wishes to succeed Jackson in 1832, 184; + dislike of Jackson for, 185; + his condemnation of Jackson in Monroe's cabinet, 185; + betrayed by Crawford, 185, 186; + answers Jackson's demand for an explanation, 186; + his toast in reply to Jackson's Union sentiment, 188; + declaration of Jackson against him as successor, 190; + publishes Seminole correspondence, 191; + attacked by "Globe," 191; + defeats Van Buren's nomination by casting vote, 233, 234; + his secession weakens Jacksonian party, 245; + describes Democratic party as held together only by desire for + spoils, 261; + anxious to make Van Buren vote on bill to exclude anti-slavery + matter from mail, 277; + rejoins Democratic party, 340; + his reasons, 340, 341; + altercation with Clay in Senate, 346; + votes against sub-treasury bill, 346; + does not bring his followers back to support of Van Buren, 387; + his opinion of Van Buren quoted by Clay, 396; + in Texas intrigue, 408; + compared by Young to Nero, 410; + his slavery doctrines expounded by Supreme Court, 441. + + Cambreleng, Churchill C., with Van Buren visits Southern States, 157; + presides over Barnburner Herkimer convention, 419; + Van Buren's criticism of, 452. + + Cameron, Simon, at Democratic convention of 1840, 379. + + Canada, government of, 350; + popular discontent and parliamentary struggles in, 351; + insurrections in, during 1837, 352; + governorship of Head, 352, 353; + suppression of insurrections in, 353; + attempts of Mackenzie to invade, 353, 354; + the Caroline affair, 354; + attempts of Van Buren to prevent filibustering in, 355; + pacified by Lord Durham, 355, 356; + becomes loyal, 356. + + Cass, Lewis, secretary of war, 199; + minister to France, 283; + his "Nicholson letter," 422; + considered a doughface, 423; + nominated for presidency, 424; + refusal of Van Buren to support, on account of his pro-slavery + position, 426; + defeated in 1848, 431; + accepts compromise of 1850, 437. + + Chambers, Henry, votes for Panama congress, 131. + + Chandler, John, votes against Panama congress, 131. + + Charles X., + urged by Jackson to secure payment of American claims, 216. + + Chase, Salmon P., at Buffalo convention, 427. + + Cherokee Indians, removed from Georgia, 203. + + Chevalier, Michel, compares Van Buren to Talleyrand, 451. + + Civil service of United States, + Democratic dread of executive power over, 137, 138; + proposal to reorganize, 138-140. + + Clay, Henry, his connection with Burr, 18; + contrasted with Van Buren in debate, 21; + connection with Missouri Compromise, 90; + absent from Congress in 1821, 94; + calls protection the "American system," 99; + loses chance for presidency through action of New York, 115; + his action in election of Adams justified, 116; + shares with Adams the responsibility of creating division + in 1825, 122; + vote in Senate on confirmation of his nomination, 123; + urges Panama congress, 124, 125; + his opposition to Monroe, 159; + his policy inevitably brings on opposition, 160; + opposes Van Buren's confirmation as minister to England, 230; + denounces Van Buren for sycophancy, 231; + nominated for presidency by Whigs, 246; + by Young Men's convention, 246; + defeated in 1832, 248; + appeals to Van Buren to intercede with Jackson in behalf of the + bank, 253; + his attack on Jackson's land bill veto, 263; + condemns abolitionists, 269; + condemns bill to exclude anti-slavery matter from mails, 276; + opposes reduction of taxation, 299; + on real nature of deposit of surplus, 300; + denounces Van Buren's policy in 1837, 337; + demands a national bank, 337; + insists on payment of fourth installment of surplus, 338; + votes against treasury notes, 339; + taunts Calhoun with joining Van Buren, 346; + opposes preëmption bill, 357; + misled by popular demonstrations, 369; + cheated out of nomination in 1839, 378; + on campaign of 1840, 382; + holds Van Buren responsible for panic, 385; + on Van Buren's personal agreeableness, 396, 397; + visited by Van Buren, 400; + discusses Texas question with him, 400; + his position on slavery, 403; + defeated in 1844 by Polk, owing to Birney's candidacy, 412, 413; + writes letter against Texas annexation, 413; + later bids for pro-slavery vote, 413; + discarded for Taylor in 1848, 430; + brings about compromise of 1850, 435, 437; + inferior to Van Buren in real leadership, 465. + + Clayton, John M., votes for Panama congress, 131. + + Clinton, De Witt, in New York council of appointment of 1801, 48; + introduces and advocates "spoils system," 49, 50; + becomes United States senator, 51; + duel with Swartwout, 51; + justification of his party proscription, 56; + supported by Van Buren in 1812, 58; + his character, nominated for president against Madison, 58; + breaks relations with Van Buren, 63, 64; + removed from mayoralty of New York, 64; + secures passage of law establishing Erie Canal, 65; + supported in this by Van Buren, 65; + thanks Van Buren, 66; + elected governor, 66; + reëlected in 1820, 73; + accuses Monroe's administration of interfering in state election, 75; + supports Jackson, 109, 156; + complimented by Jackson, 109; + his position in New York politics as canal commissioner, 109; + removed by enemies in legislature, 110; + regains popularity, elected governor, 110; + his death, his character, 147; + eulogy of Van Buren upon, 148. + + Clinton, George, his separatist attitude toward Constitution, 5; + leads Republican party in New York, 40; + his career as governor of New York, 40; + declines nomination in 1795, 41; + reëlected in 1801, 41; + later aspirations, 41; + supplants Burr in vice-presidency, 43; + attacked by Van Ness, 43; + leads faction of Republicans, 44; + his friends excluded by Hamilton from federal offices, 46; + presides over council of appointment of 1801, 48, 49; + protests against proscription of Federalists, 50. + + Clintonians, faction of New York Democrats, 40, 41; + quarrel with Livingstonians, 44; + control regular party caucus, 45; + gain control of council of appointment, 45; + remove Livingstonians from office, 51; + lose and regain offices, 52; + nominate and cast New York electoral vote for De Witt Clinton, 58; + favor Erie Canal, 65; + opposed by Bucktail faction, 67; + joined by majority of Federalists, 73; + defeated in election of 1820, 73; + oppose election of Van Buren to Senate, 76; + join Bucktails in Democratic party, 158. + + Cobb, Thomas W., + laments absence of principles in campaign of 1824, 108. + + Coddington, ----, refusal of Van Buren to appoint to office, 173. + + Coleman, William, + friend of Hamilton, removed from office by Republicans, 50. + + Comet case, urged by Van Buren in England, 229. + + Compromise of 1850, its effect on Northern Democrats, 435; + its futility, 435; + defended by John Van Buren, 439, 440. + + Constitution, federal, circumstances preceding its formation, 4; + its development by Federalists, 4, 5; + and internal improvements, 96, 132, 201; + proposal of Van Buren to amend in this respect, 97, 98; + and protection, 101; + proposal of Van Buren to amend in election of president by electors, + 104-106, 133, 134; + attitude of Adams concerning, causes division of parties, 121, 122; + in relation to Panama congress, 126; + the bank, 145, 203; + distribution of surplus, 265; + its relation to slavery in the States, 272; + to slavery in Territories, 426, 444; + in Dred Scott case, 441. + + Constitutional convention of New York, its membership, 77; + its work, 77; + debate on necessity of a landed suffrage, 77-80; + on appointments to office, 81, 82; + abolishes council of revision, 82, 84; + removes judges from office, 85. + + Crawford, William H., supported by New York Republicans against Monroe + in 1816, 75; + the "regular" candidate of party in 1824, 94, 95; + supported by Van Buren, 95; + opposes tariff of 1824, 103; + his caucus nomination denounced by King, 105; + reasons for his popularity, his career, 106, 107; + nominated by caucus, 114; + his connection with four-year-term act, 139; + leaves public life, 157; + his followers join Jackson's, 157; + visited by Van Buren, 157; + willing to support Jackson, but not Calhoun, 157; + supports Jackson against Calhoun in Monroe's cabinet, 185; + describes Calhoun's attitude to Jackson, 186. + + Crockett, Davy, his scurrilous life of Van Buren, 256; + his defense of the Alamo, 358. + + Croswell, Edwin, member of Albany Regency, 111. + + Cumberland road, Monroe's veto of bill to erect toll-gates upon, 95; + further debates upon, 96, 132. + + Cushing, Caleb, denounces Van Buren's + policy in 1837, 336. + + + Dade, Major Francis, massacred by Seminoles, 366. + + Dallas, George M., nominated for vice-president, 411. + + Debt, imprisonment for, attempts to abolish, 26, 27, 98, 116, 142. + + Democratic party, its relations with Van Buren, 2; + in recent years loses Jeffersonian ideals, 12; + share of Van Buren in forming, 118, 119; + its opposition to Adams justifiable, 119; + caused by Adams's loose constitutional policy, 121, 122; + its policy not factious, 123; + created in debate on Panama congress, 130, 131; + drilled by Van Buren in opposing internal improvements, 131, 132, + 142; + its principles stated by Van Buren, 145, 153; + does not yet clearly hold them, 154; + united by Jackson's personality, 155; + different elements in, harmonized by Van Buren, 157; + its opposition to Adams and Clay not causeless, but praiseworthy, + 159-161; + significance of its victory, 162; + erroneous descriptions of its administration, 177, 178; + discussion in, over succession to Jackson, 185; + break in, between Calhoun and Van Buren, 191; + Van Buren's resignation from State Department in order not to + hurt, 195; + demands offices, 208-212; + enraged at rejection of Van Buren's nomination, 234; + rejects desire of New York to elect him governor, 236; + meets in national convention of 1832, 237; + not forced to adopt Van Buren, 237, 238; + requires two-thirds majority to nominate, 238; + nominates Van Buren for vice-presidency, 239; + avoids adopting a platform, 239; + fears to alienate believers in tariff and internal improvements, 240; + Van Buren's nomination the natural result of circumstances, 240, 241; + successful in election of 1832, 247, 248; + secession of Southwestern members from, 256, 257; + holds its national convention in 1835, 257; + action of party in calling convention defended, 258, 259; + adopts two-thirds rule, 259; + nominates Van Buren and Rives, 259; + Southwestern members of, nominate White and Tyler, 260; + elects Van Buren, 279, 280; + members of, urge Jackson to approve distribution bill, 302; + upholds specie circular during panic, 322, 323; + defeated in elections of 1837, 337, 342; + members of, desert independent treasury bill, 338; + rejoined by Calhoun, 340, 341; + faction of, joins Whigs in opposing Van Buren, 347; + regains ground in election of 1838, 362, 363; + its national convention despondent, 379; + its principles, 379; + declares against abolitionists, 379; + its address to the people, 379, 380; + cried down in election of 1840, 386; + badly defeated in 1840, 390, 391; + significance of defeat, 399; + bound to continue support of Van Buren, 399, 401; + its nomination desired by Tyler, 402; + its delegates to national convention instructed to nominate Van + Buren, 404; + majority of, desires annexation of Texas, 405; + national convention of, 408-411; + debate in, between Southern and Northern members, 408, 409; + adopts two-thirds rule, 409; + nominates Polk over Van Buren, 410, 411; + successful in election, 412, 413; + compliments Van Buren on honorable retirement, 414; + at national convention of 1848 wishes to include both New York + factions, 424; + nominates Cass, 424; + its rage at Free-soil secession, 429, 430; + defeated in election, 432; + impossibility of its pardoning Van Buren, 434; + nominates Pierce, 439; + nominates Buchanan, 441. + + Democratic party, in New York, supports Jackson, 158; + nominates and elects Van Buren governor, 166; + sends address to Jackson on Van Buren's rejection by Senate as + minister to England, 234; + proposes to elect Van Buren governor or send him to Senate, 236; + Loco-foco faction in, 342-344; + on reconciliation with Loco-focos, name transferred to whole + party, 344, 345; + offers Forrest nomination to Congress, 361; + favors literary men, 361, 362; + loses ground in elections of 1838, 363; + welcomes Van Buren's visit, 369; + continues, in 1839, to regain ground, 370; + its action in convention of 1844, 408-411; + held in support of Polk by Van Buren and Wright, 412, 413; + divides into Hunkers and Barnburners, 415-425; + reunited in 1849-1850, 435. + + Denny, Thomas, with Henry Parrish and others, on committee of New York + merchants to remonstrate against specie circular, 317. + + Derby, Earl of, compared as parliamentarian to Van Buren, 123. + + De Tocqueville, Alexis de, on lawyers in America, 35. + + Dickerson, Mahlon, condemns too much diplomacy, 129; + votes against Panama congress, 131; + supports tariff of 1828, 143; + secretary of navy under Van Buren, 283; + resigns, 360. + + Dickinson, Daniel S., at Democratic Convention of 1844, 408, 411; + leads Hunkers, 415; + uses federal patronage against Barnburners, 417; + suggests idea of squatter sovereignty, 422; + supports compromise of 1850, 437. + + Diplomatic history, conduct of State Department by Van Buren, 215; + negotiations leading to payment of French spoliation claims, 216; + payment of Danish spoliation claims, 217; + other commercial treaties, 217; + negotiations relative to British West India trade, 217-222; + Gallatin's mission to England, 219; + American claims abandoned by Van Buren, 220; + mutual concessions open trade, 222; + Van Buren's mission to England, 224-228; + rejection of Texas treaty, 413. + + Disraeli, Benjamin, + his Jingo policy compared to Clay's and Adams's, 126. + + District of Columbia, + question of abolition of slavery in, raised, 272, 273; + general understanding that this was impossible, 273, 274; + opinion of Van Buren concerning, 274, 275. + + Dix, John A., his desire to be one of Albany Regency, 112; + at Democratic convention of 1840, 379; + leads Barnburners, 415; + praised by Utica convention of 1847, 423; + accepts Free-soil nomination for governor, 429; + his friendship for Van Buren, 456. + + Dix, Dr. Morgan, describes honesty of Albany Regency, 112. + + Dodge, Henry, nominated by Barnburners for vice-presidency, 427; + declines to abandon Cass, 427. + + Douglas, Stephen A., supports compromise of 1850, 437. + + Dudley, Charles E., member of Albany Regency, 111; + offers to surrender seat in Senate to Van Buren, 236. + + Duer, John, + refusal of Van Buren to secure his removal from office, 209. + + Duer, William, joins Bucktail Republicans, 73. + + Durham, Earl of, sent to Canada, his character, 355; + his successful rule, 355; + recalled, 356; + declines invitation to visit Washington, 356. + + Dutch, in New York, Americanized in eighteenth century, 14. + + + Eaton, John H., supports tariff of 1828, 143; + secretary of war, 179; + marries Peggy Timberlake, 181; + repeats remarks about Calhoun to Jackson, 186; + resigns secretaryship,199; + succeeds Barry as minister to Spain, 199; + opposes Van Buren in 1840, 387. + + Eaton, Mrs. "Peggy," scandals concerning, 181; + upheld by Jackson, 181, 182; + ostracized by Washington society, 182; + treated politely by Van Buren, 183, 184. + + Eden, Joseph, in suit for Medcef Eden's property, 28. + + Eden, Medcef, suit concerning his will, 28-30. + + Edmonds, John W., + issues circular opposing Texas but supporting Polk, 415. + + Election of 1824, nominations for, discussed in Senate, 105; + candidates for, 106-109; + lack of principles in, 108; + nomination of Crawford by caucus, 114; + action of Adams men in New York throws out Clay, 115; + discussion of outcome of vote in House, 116; + its result used in 1828 to condemn Adams, 164. + + Election of 1828, a legitimate canvass, 153; + broad principles at stake in, 153, 154; + propriety of opposition to Adams and Clay, 159, 160; + founds principles of both parties until present day, 161; + saves country from dangers of centralization, 162; + slanderous character of, 162, 163; + the cry of corrupt bargain, 163; + the "demos krateo" cry legitimate, 165, 166. + + Ellmaker, Amos, nominated for vice-president by anti-Masons, 246. + + Ely, Rev. Dr. Ezra S., bitter letter of Jackson to, on clergy, 181. + + Emmett, Thomas Addis, attorney-general of New York, 23. + + England, lawyers not leaders in, 33; + political prejudice in, against lawyers, 33; + demands land-holding class as leaders, 34; + considers offices as property, 55; + unpopularity of political coalitions in, 116, 164; + attempts to exclude Americans from trade with West Indies, 217, 218; + offers trade upon conditions, 218; + on failure of United States to comply, prohibits trade, 218; + counter-claims of United States against, 219; + claims against, abandoned by Van Buren, 219, 222; + agrees to reciprocal concessions, 222; + Van Buren minister to, 224; + popularity of Irving in, 225; + social life of Van Buren in, 226-228; + its indifference to colonial grievances, 350; + votes to tax Canada without reference to colonial legislatures, 351; + sends Durham to remedy grievances, 356; + recalls him, 356; + second money stringency in, 371. + + Erie Canal, agitation for, 65; + favored by Van Buren, 65, 66. + + + Federalist party, + its influence on development of United States government, 5; + despises common people, 38; + only example of a destroyed party, 38; + deserves its fate, 38, 39; + continues to struggle in New York, 39; + aids Burr against Republicans, 43; + supports Lewis against Clintonians, 44; + begins spoils system in New York, 47; + aids Livingstonians to turn out Clintonian officers, 51, 52; + supports De Witt Clinton for president, 59; + controls New York Assembly, 60; + hinders war measures, 61; + struggles for control of New York legislature in 1816, 64; + defeated in elections, 65; + expires in 1820, 72, 88; + divides between Clintonians and Bucktails, 73; + position under Monroe, 89; + its career used by Van Buren to discredit J. Q. Adams, 128, 145, 146. + + Fellows, Henry, his election case in 1816, 64. + + Fillmore, Millard, signs compromise bills, 435, 437; + Whig candidate in 1856, 445; + an accidental president, 463. + + Field, David Dudley, + issues circular against Texas but supporting Polk, 415; + offers anti-slavery resolution in New York Democratic convention, 418; + reads Van Buren's letter to Utica convention, 425. + + Financial history, removal of deposits from the bank, 249-251; + exaggerated results of the withdrawal, 252-254; + real unwisdom of "pet bank" policy, 254; + causes of panic of 1837, 287-316; + financial depression after war of 1812, 287, 288; + land speculations, 291-294; + large foreign investments, 293; + discussion of "pet bank" policy, 295; + not in any sense the cause of the panic, 295, 296; + rapid increase of government surplus, 297; + question of responsibility for speculation among politicians, 298-302; + refusal to reduce taxation, 299; + distribution of surplus, 300-302; + objections of Jackson to distribution, 301, 302; + warnings of Marcy and Jackson disregarded, 302, 303; + specie circular, 304; + demand for gold payments, 304, 305; + nature of crisis of 1837 misunderstood, 305; + class affected by it small in numbers, 306; + great mass of people unaffected, 307; + over-estimation of new lands, 308, 309; + increased luxury, 309, 310; + high prices, 310, 311; + discovery of over-valuation, 311, 312; + collapse of nominal value, 313; + folly of attempt to conceal collapse, 314; + bread riots against high prices, 315; + disturbance caused by distribution of surplus, 315, 316; + financial crisis begins in England, 316; + failures begin in New York, 316; + general collapse, 317; + specie circular held to be the cause, 317-319; + suspension of specie payments, 319, 320; + general bankruptcy, 320; + use of token currency, 323; + Van Buren's message recommending independent treasury, 327-333; + proposed remedies of Whigs, 333-337; + defeat of first sub-treasury bill, 337; + postponement of fourth installment of surplus, 338; + issue of treasury notes, 338, 339; + beneficent results of these measures, 339, 340; + preparations for resumption of specie payment, 342; + defeat of second independent treasury bill, 346; + practical existence of an independent treasury, 346; + final passage of sub-treasury bill, 347, 348; + revival of business, 348; + resumption of payments by New York banks, 348, 349; + others follow, 349; + return of confidence, 349; + continued depression in South, 370; + brief revival of land speculation, 371; + renewed collapse of Western and Southern banks, 371; + final passage of sub-treasury bill, 377. + + Findlay, William, votes against Panama congress, 131. + + Flagg, Azariah C., member of Albany Regency, 111; + leads Barnburners, 415; + his friendship for Van Buren, 456. + + Florida, acquired in 1819, 88; + vote of Van Buren to exclude slave trade in, 93, 94. + + Floyd, John, receives South Carolina's electoral vote in 1832, 248. + + Forman, Joshua, proposes safety fund for New York banks, 170. + + Forrest, Edwin, declines a nomination to Congress, 361. + + Forsyth, John, quotes Crawford's account of Calhoun's proposal in + Monroe's cabinet to punish Jackson, 185; + refers Jackson to Crawford as authority, 186; + secretary of state, 255; + retained by Van Buren, 283. + + Fox, Charles James, compared to W. B. Giles, 154. + + France, urged by Jackson, agrees to pay spoliation claims, 216. + + Franklin, Benjamin, his share in effort for Union, 4. + + Free-soil party, loses faith in Van Buren, 3; + organized at Buffalo convention, 427; + its platform, 428; + nominates Van Buren over Hale, 428; + analysis of its vote in 1848, 431, 432; + later relations of Van Buren with, 435; + supports Hale in 1852, 439. + + Fremont, John C., Van Buren's opinion of, 441; + defeated in election, 445. + + + "Gag" rule, approved by Van Buren, 380; + his policy justified by executive position, 381. + + Gallatin, Albert, nominated for vice-president, withdraws, 114; + fails to settle West India trade question with England, 219; + agrees with Van Buren's position, 231. + + Garland, Hugh A., as clerk of the House refuses to decide status of + New Jersey congressmen, 375; + justification of his action, 375, 376; + denounced by Adams, 376; + reëlected clerk, 376. + + Garrison, William Lloyd, on powers of Congress over slavery, 272; + his position in American history, 273. + + Georgia, nominates Van Buren for vice-presidency, 108; + "Clarkite" faction in, abuses Van Buren, 108; + its conduct in Cherokee case rightly upheld by Jackson, 203, 204. + + Giddings, Joshua R., anti-slavery leader, 273; + at Buffalo convention, 427. + + Giles, William B., his character, 154. + + Gilpin, Henry D., attorney-general under Van Buren, 393. + + Gladstone, William Ewart, his shrewdness as parliamentarian, 123; + compared to Van Buren, 158 and n., 457; + fails to see any principle involved in Canadian question of 1837, + 351, 352. + + "Globe," defends Jackson, 191; + not established by Van Buren, 194; + supports hard money, loses House printing, 338. + + Goschen, George Joachim, his career shows danger of coalitions, 164. + + Gouverneur, ----, postmaster in New York city, refuses to forward + anti-slavery papers to Charleston, South Carolina, 276. + + Granger, Francis, + supported for governor of New York by Whigs and Anti-Masons, 245; + nominated for vice-president, 260. + + Grant, Ulysses S., his renomination in 1872, 118. + + Greeley, Horace, prefers Taylor to Van Buren in 1848, 431. + + Green, Duff, editor of "The Telegraph," + plans attack of Calhoun papers on Van Buren, 191. + + Grosvenor, Thomas P., member of Columbia County bar, 20. + + Grundy, Felix, attorney-general under Van Buren, 393. + + Gwin, Samuel, letter of Van Buren to, on slavery in the States, 272. + + + Hale, Daniel, removed from office by New York Republicans, 50. + + Hale, John P., defeated for nomination at Buffalo convention, 428; + withdraws from Liberty nomination, 431; + Free-soil candidate in 1852, 439. + + Hamilton, Alexander, + his aristocratic schemes defeated in Federal convention, 5; + his opinion in Medcef Eden case, 28; + killed by Burr, 29; + advises Federalists not to support Burr for governor, 43; + secures appointment of Clinton's opponents to federal offices in + New York, 46; + compared as party-builder to Van Buren, 465. + + Hamilton, James A., joins "Bucktails" in New York, 73; + acts as temporary secretary of state, 177; + on Calhoun's attempt to prevent Van Buren's appointment, 181; + visits Crawford in 1828, 185; + receives letter from Forsyth describing Calhoun's attitude toward + Jackson in Monroe's cabinet, 185; + refuses to give letter to Jackson, 186; + letter of Van Buren to, on Jackson's principles, 200; + aids Jackson in composing messages, 205; + on Jackson's demand for subservience in associates, 206; + letter of Van Buren to, on removals, 209. + + Hamilton, John C., joins Bucktail Republicans, 73. + + Hamlin, Hannibal, at Democratic convention of 1840, 379. + + Hammond, Jabez D., quoted, 65, 68, 78, 168; + on Van Buren's trickery, 175. + + Harrison, William Henry, nominated by Whigs in 1832, 260; + his answers to Williams's questions, 264; + vote for, in election, 279, 280; + renominated for president, 377; + denounced as a Federalist by Democrats, 379; + denies charge of abolitionism, 381, 382; + opposes abolition in District of Columbia, 381; + character of his speeches in the campaign, 386; + vote for, in 1840, 390, 391; + welcomed to White House by Van Buren, 394; + his death, 401; + one of the mediocrities of White House, 463. + + Harvard College, confers on Jackson degree of Doctor of Laws, 255. + + Hayne, Robert Y., on "era of good feeling," 88; + against tariff of 1824, 99, 100; + his arguments, 101, 102; + votes to reject Clay's nomination to State Department, 123; + on Clay's Panama scheme, 127; + protests against tariff of 1828, 144; + a leader of Senate until 1828, 148; + his debate with Webster, 188; + opposes confirmation of Van Buren as minister to England, 230. + + Head, Sir Francis B., on Mackenzie as a liar, 326 n.; + as governor, refuses to placate disaffected Canadians, 352, 353; + leaves Canada, 355. + + Henry, John V., + New York Federalist, removed from office by Republicans, 50. + + Henry, Matthew, on "sober second thought of people," 458 n. + + Henry, Patrick, his separatist attitude, 5. + + Hill, Isaac, in kitchen cabinet, 193; + letter of Lewis to, proposing a national convention, 237. + + Hoes, Hannah, marries Van Buren, 21; + her death, 36. + + Holmes, John, votes against Panama congress, 131. + + House of Representatives, defeats independent treasury bill, 337, 338; + rejects renewal of a bank, 340; + defeats second treasury bill, 346; + finally passes it, 348; + struggle for control of, in 1839, 374-377; + case of the five New Jersey congressmen, 374, 375; + refusal of clerk to call names of contestants, 374, 375; + organization of, by Adams and Rhett, 376, 377. + + Houston, Samuel, defeats Mexicans, 358. + + Hoxie, Joe, in campaign of 1840, 390. + + Hoyt, Jesse, letter of Butler to, on Van Buren, 31; + letter of Butler to, on judicial arrogance, 84; + letters of Van Buren to, on appointments to state office, 173, 174; + on Jackson, 190; + on necessity of a newspaper organ, 192; + writes insolent letter, urging Van Buren to dismiss office-holders, + 210; + succeeds Swartwout as collector at New York, 364; + his character, 364, 365; + his election bets, 453 n. + + Hoyt, Lorenzo, complains of Van Buren's slowness to remove opponents + from office, 209. + + Hunkers, origin of, their leaders, 415; + struggle with Barnburners in New York, 417; + aided by Polk, 417; + gain control of party, 418. + + Hunter, Robert M. T., elected speaker of House in 1839, 376; + his later career, 376. + + + Ingham, Samuel D., secretary of treasury, 179; + describes rush of office-seekers, 210. + + Inman, Henry, his portrait of Van Buren, 449. + + Internal improvements, debates on, in Senate, 95-98, 117, 142; + opposition becomes part of Democratic policy, 98; + advocated by Adams, 121; + bill for, vetoed by Jackson, 201, 202; + not mentioned by Democrats in platform of 1832, 240; + demand for, caused by expansion of West, 290. + + Irving, Washington, + appointed secretary of legation at London by Van Buren, 224; + his popularity in England, 225; + wishes to resign, but remains with Van Buren, 225; + his friendship for Van Buren, 225; + travels through England with Van Buren, 226; + on Van Buren's career in London, 228; + declines offers of Democratic nominations, 361; + declines offer of Navy Department, 361, 362; + lives at Kinderhook, 398. + + + Jackson, Andrew, Van Buren a representative of, in 1860, 2; + his connection with Burr, 18; + on "rotation in office," 54; + his victory at New Orleans, 63; + thanked by New York legislature, 63; + urges Monroe to appoint Federalists to office, 89; + elected to Senate, 94; + relations with Benton, 94; + his attitude on internal improvements, 98; + on the tariff, 104; + does not vote on proposed amendment of electoral procedure, 106; + votes for internal improvements, 117; + votes for occupation of Oregon, 117; + his popularity utilized by Van Buren to form a party, 118; + retires from Senate, 119; + slowness of Van Buren to support, 119; + votes to reject Clay's nomination to State Department, 123; + aids his own candidacy, 131; + defends Van Buren from charge of non-committalism, 151; + his congressional record inconsistent with nominal Jacksonian creed, + 155; + his career as strict constructionist, 155; + not a mere tool, but a real party manager, 155, 156; + and a real national statesman, 156; + management of his candidacy in New York, 158; + slandered in campaign of 1828, 162, 163; + offers Van Buren State Department, 167; + opposed by Anti-Masons, 167; + erroneous popular view of his first term, 177, 178; + its real significance, 178; + his cabinet, reasons for appointments, 179; + unmoved by Calhoun's objections to Van Buren's appointment, 180, 181; + anger at Mrs. Eaton's defamers, 181, 182; + quarrels with wives of cabinet secretaries, 182; + his condemnation by Calhoun in Monroe's cabinet for Seminole affair, + 185; + ignorant of Calhoun's attitude, 185; + told by Lewis and Crawford, 186; + demands an explanation from Calhoun, 186; + his reply to Calhoun, 187; + sends Calhoun's letter to Van Buren, 187; + his toast for the Union, 188; + declares for Van Buren as his successor, 189, 190; + friendly feelings of Van Buren for, 190; + attack upon, prepared by Green, 191; + absurdity of story of his control by kitchen cabinet, 193; + accepts Van Buren's resignation and approves his candidacy, 197; + his answer to invitation to visit Charleston, 198; + appoints Livingston secretary of state, 199; + reorganizes cabinet, 199, 200; + doubts of Van Buren as to his Jeffersonian creed, 200; + his inaugural colorless, 201; + vetoes Maysville road, his arguments, 201, 202; + begins opposition to bank, 202, 203; + defends removal of Cherokees from Georgia, 203; + refuses to follow Supreme Court, 203; + begins to doubt wisdom of high tariff, 204, 205; + gains much development of ideas from Van Buren and others, 205, 206; + not jealous of Van Buren's ability, 206; + adopts Van Buren's theories, 206; + not largely influenced by kitchen cabinet, 207; + angered at opposition in government officials, 212; + defends system of removals from office, 213; + his action less blameworthy than Lincoln's, 215; + urges France to pay spoliation claims, 216; + boasts of his success, 216, 217; + adopts peaceful tone toward England, 219; + his connection with West India trade, 222; + escorts Van Buren from Washington, 224; + complimented by William IV., 229, 230; + sends Van Buren's nomination to Senate, 230; + replying to New York Democrats, justifies Van Buren, 235; + does not desire, by national convention, to throttle the party, 238; + his policy renders a party platform unnecessary, 240; + significance of his election, 247; + issues nullification proclamation, 248; + adopts strict constructionist views, 249; + orders removal of deposits from Bank of United States, 249, 250; + refuses to postpone, 251; + fears to leave deposits in bank, 252; + considers distress fictitious, 253; + cordial relations with Van Buren as vice-president, 254; + his journey in New England, 255; + denounced by friends of White for preferring Van Buren, 256; + urges Tennessee to support Van Buren, 262; + attacked by Clay, 263; + signs bill to distribute surplus, 266; + condemns circulation of abolitionist matter in the mails, 276; + with Van Buren at inauguration, 282; + the last president to leave office with popularity, 282; + his departure from Washington, 283; + tribute of Van Buren to, in inaugural address, 285; + rejoices in high wages, 290; + and in sales of public lands, 294; + finally understands it to mean speculation, 294, 303; + aids speculation by his pet banks, 295; + reluctantly approves distribution of surplus, 301; + issues specie circular, 304; + his prudent attitude as president toward Texas, 358; + urges claims upon Mexico, 359; + dealings with Van Buren regarding Swartwout's appointment, 364; + writes letter supporting Van Buren in 1840, 387; + character of life in White House under, 395; + visited by Van Buren in 1842, 400; + writes letter in favor of Texas annexation, 404; + tries to minimize Van Buren's attitude on Texas, 407, 408; + his death weakens Van Buren politically, 416; + query of Van Buren concerning his family prayers, 453; + his firm affection for Van Buren, 454, 455; + inferior to Van Buren in statesmanship, 463. + + Jay, John, leader of New York Federalists, 39; + removals from office under, 47; + controversy with council over appointments, 49. + + Jefferson, Joseph, his play of "Rip Van Winkle," 7. + + Jefferson, Thomas, Van Buren's discipleship of, 2, 3, 12; + popular feeling at time of his election, 4; + creates American politics, 5, 6; + ill-treated by historians, 6, 10; + implants democracy in American tradition, 6, 7, 9; + bitterly hated by opponents, 9, 10; + his position as Sage of Monticello, 12, 13; + member of land-holding class, 33; + policy toward Europe opposed by Federalists, 39; + relations with Livingston family, 41; + refuses to proscribe Federalist office-holders, 48; + his attitude toward slavery, 91; + condemns constitutional doctrines of J. Q. Adams, 154; + retains popularity to end of term, 282; + sends Van Buren a sketch of his relations with Hamilton, 460; + his policy steadily followed by Van Buren, 460; + one of greatest presidents, 464; + compared as party-builder to Van Buren, 465. + + Jessup, General Thomas S., seizes Osceola, 366. + + Johns, Rev. Dr., at Democratic convention of 1844, 408. + + Johnson, Richard M., leads agitation for abolition of imprisonment for + debt by federal courts, 27, 142; + on interest of Holy Alliance in United States, 100; + votes for Panama congress, 131; + candidate for vice-presidency, 239; + nominated for vice-presidency in 1835, 259; + refusal of Virginia to support, 260; + chosen vice-president by Senate, 281. + + Johnston, Josiah S., votes for Panama congress, 131. + + Jones, Samuel, in Medcef Eden case, 30. + + + Kane, Elias K., votes against Panama congress, 131; + supports tariff of 1828, 143. + + Kansas-Nebraska bill, passed, its effect, 440, 441; + Van Buren's opinion of, 442-444. + + Kendall, Amos, helps Blair to establish Jacksonian paper, 191; + in kitchen cabinet, 193; + on Van Buren's non-connection with the "Globe," 194; + postmaster-general, 199; + on good terms with Van Buren, 207; + describes regret at dismissing old government officials, 208, 209; + defends propriety of removals under Jackson, 211; + letter of Lewis to, on a national convention, 237; + describes how he convinced Van Buren on bank question, 250; + asks state banks to accept deposits, 250; + willing to postpone action, 251; + his avowed moderation as to appointments to office, 261, 262; + his letter on abolition matter in the mails, 275, 276; + continues in office under Van Buren, 283; + resigns from Van Buren's cabinet, his reasons, 393, 394. + + Kent, James, his legal fame, 19; + dislike of Van Buren for, 25; + his decision in debtors' case reversed, 26; + attacked by Van Buren in Medcef Eden case, 30; + his political partisanship, 44; + in New York constitutional convention, 77; + opposes vigorously proposal to broaden suffrage, 77, 78; + opposes making county officers elective, 82; + controversy with Van Buren over act to promote privateering, 83; + comment of Van Buren on, 84; + his political narrowness, 246; + nominated on Anti-Mason electoral ticket, 246. + + Kent, James, elected governor of Maine in 1840, 390. + + King, John A., joins Bucktail Republicans, 73. + + King, Preston, at Utica convention, 425. + + King, Rufus, leader of New York Federalists, 39; + reëlected to U. S. Senate by Van Buren's aid, 68, 69; + Van Buren's eulogy of, 69-72; + his friendly relations with Van Buren, 72; + opposes admission of Missouri as slave State, 73, 74; + in New York constitutional convention, 77; + opposes making county officers elective, 82; + votes to prevent slave trade in Florida, 93; + opposes tariff of 1824, 99; + his constitutional argument, 100; + denounces caucus nominations, 105; + opposes abolition of imprisonment for debt, 116; + on account of advancing years, declines to be candidate for + reëlection, 117. + + Kitchen cabinet, its character and membership, 193; + its great ability, 193; + does not control Jackson, 193. + + Knower, Benjamin, member of Albany Regency, 111. + + Kremer, George, opens Democratic convention of 1835, 258. + + + Lafayette, Marquis de, compliment of Jackson to, 216. + + Lands, public, enormous sales of, 294; + significance of speculation in, not understood by Jackson, 294; + the source of fictitious wealth, 308-312; + specie circular causes depreciation in, 312, 313; + preëmption scheme adopted, 357. + + Lansing, Gerrit Y., + chancellor of New York, reverses Kent's decision in debt case, 26; + continues as judge to be a politician, 44. + + Lawrence, Abbot, + denounces administration for causing panic of 1837, 321, 322. + + Leavitt, Joshua, reports name of Van Buren to Buffalo convention, 428. + + Legal profession, its early eminence in United States, 19, 32, 33, 35; + shares in politics, 44. + + Leggett, William, + proclaims right of discussion and condemns slavery, 271; + condemns circulation of abolition literature in the South, 275. + + Letcher, Robert P., disgusted at nomination of Polk, 412. + + Lewis, Morgan, Republican leader in New York, 42; + defeats Burr for governor, 44; + leads Republican faction opposed to Clinton, 44; + asks aid from Federalists to secure reëlection, 44, 45. + + Lewis, William B., + tells Jackson of Forsyth's letter on the Seminole affair, 186; + asks Jackson to designate his choice for successor, 189; + in kitchen cabinet, 193; + not certain of Jackson's favor, 207; + suggests a national convention to nominate a vice-president, 237. + + Liberty party, + its vote in 1844 in the State of New York, defeats Clay, 412, 413; + nominates Hale in 1847, 431. + + Lincoln, Abraham, contrast with Van Buren in 1860, 3; + his responsibility for spoils system, 215; + attitude on slavery in the States, 272; + elected president on Wilmot Proviso, 416; + opposed by Van Buren in 1860, 445; + supported by Van Buren during war, 447. + + Livingston, Brockholst, his judicial career, 41; + both judge and politician, 44. + + Livingston, Edward, his career as Republican, 41; + appointed mayor of New York, 49; + favors Jackson for presidency, 156; + asked by Van Buren to succeed him as secretary of state, 194; + appointed by Jackson, 199; + drafts nullification proclamation, 248, 249. + + Livingston, Edward P., defeated by Van Buren for state senator, 53. + + Livingston, Maturin, removed from office by Clintonians, 51. + + Livingston, Robert R., defeated for governor of New York by Jay, 41; + his Revolutionary, legal, and diplomatic career, 41; + jealous of Hamilton, 42; + both judge and party leader, 44. + + Livingston family, gains influence through landed wealth, 33; + its political leadership in New York, 41, 42; + attacked by Burrites, 43; + quarrels with Clintonians, 51. + (See New York.) + + Livingstonians, faction of New York Democrats, 41, 42; + quarrel with Clintonians, 44; + expel Clintonians from municipal offices, 52. + + Loco-foco party, faction of Democrats, 342; + origin of name, 343; + their creed, 343; + denounced as anarchists, 344; + give New York city to Whigs, 344; + reunite with Democrats in 1837, upon a moderate declaration of equal + rights, 344. + + Louis Philippe, urged by Jackson to pay American claims, 216; + character of his court, 227. + + Lovejoy, Elijah P., anti-slavery leader, 273; + his murder not of political interest, 359. + + Lundy's Lane, battle of, 62. + + + McJilton, Rev. ----, at Democratic Convention of 1844, 408. + + McKean, Samuel, + complains to Kendall of political activity of postmasters, 261. + + McLane, Louis, secretary of treasury, 199; + Van Buren's instructions to him when minister to England, 219-221; + his successful negotiations regarding West India trade, 222; + wishes to return, 223; + mentioned as candidate for vice-presidency, 238; + wishes removal of deposits postponed, 250; + disapproving of removal of deposits, resigns State Department, 255. + + McLean, John T., appointed to Supreme Court, 179; + refuses to proscribe postmasters, 207; + wishes Anti-Masonic nomination for presidency, 245. + + Mackenzie, William L., quoted by Von Holst, 326 n.; + his character, 326; + leads an insurrection in Upper Canada, 353; + flies to Buffalo and plans a raid, 353; + indicted and convicted, 356; + on Van Buren's refusal to pardon him, becomes a bitter enemy, 356. + + Madison, James, member of land-owning class, 33; + his foreign policy attacked by Federalists, 39; + voted against by Van Buren in 1812, 58; + his incapacity as war leader, 59; + criticised by Van Buren for sanctioning Bank of United States, 146; + compared to Van Buren in regard to ability, 464. + + Maine, threatens war over disputed boundary, 367; + angered at Van Buren's peaceful measures, 367. + + Manley, Dr., refusal of Van Buren to remove from office, 174. + + Manning, Daniel, member of Albany Regency, 112, 192 n. + + Marcy, William L., + aids Van Buren, in behalf of King's election to Senate, 69; + member of Albany Regency, 111, 112; + appointed a judge by Van Buren, 174; + defends spoils system, his famous phrase, 232; + warns against over-speculation in 1836, 302, 303; + calls out New York militia to prevent raids into Canada, 335; + leads Hunkers, 415, 417; + supports compromise of 1850, 437. + + Marshall, John, on Jefferson's political principles, 6; + his legal fame, 19. + + Massachusetts, supports Webster for president in 1836, 260. + + Meigs, Henry, urged by Van Buren to remove postmasters, 75. + + Mexico, its war with Texas, 357; + neutrality toward, declared by Van Buren, 358; + claims against, pressed by Van Buren, 359, 360. + + Missouri, legislature of, compliments Van Buren, 399. + + Missouri question, in New York, 73, 74; + its slight effect on national complacency, 90, 91. + + Monroe, James, member of land-owning class, 33; + reëlected president, 72; + voted for by Van Buren in 1820, 75; + his message of 1820, 88; + his character, 89; + his tour in New England, 89; + views on party government, 89, 90; + vetoes internal improvement bill, 95, 96, 121; + discussion in his cabinet over Jackson's action in Seminole matter, + 185; + complimentary dinner to, in 1829, 186; + inferior as president to Van Buren, 463. + + Monroe doctrine, its relation to Panama congress, 124. + + Moore, Gabriel, remark of Benton to, on Van Buren, 234. + + Morgan, William, his Masonic revelations and abduction, 167. + + Morton, Marcus, elected governor of Massachusetts by one vote, 370; + leads Northern Democrats at convention of 1844, 408; + opposes two-thirds rule, 409. + + + Napoleon III., + explains to Van Buren his reasons for returning to Europe, 362. + + National Republicans, attacked by Van Buren, 145, 146; + organized in defense of Adams, 153, 154; + significance of their defeat, 162; + defeated in New York election, 166. + (See Whigs.) + + Nelson, Samuel, in New York constitutional convention, 77. + + New England, popularity of Van Buren in, 280. + + New Orleans, battle of, its effect, 63. + + New York, social conditions in, 14, 15; + litigiousness in, 19; + bar of, 20, 23; + Senate of, sits with Supreme judges as court of errors, 23; + imprisonment for debt in, 25; + Medcef Eden case in, 28, 29; + politics in, after 1800, 38, 39 (see Republican (Democratic) party); + council of appointment in, 45, 46; + spoils system in, 46-57; + casts electoral votes for Clinton in 1812, 58, 59; + war measures in, 61, 62; + thanks Jackson in 1814, 63; + popularity of Clinton in, 66; + instructs senators and representatives to oppose admission of slave + States, 74; + constitutional convention in, 77-87; + refuses suffrage to negroes, 81; + popular animosity in, against judges, 84; + approves their removal from office, 86; + struggle for vote of, in election of 1824, 109-115; + its vote secured by Adams and Clay, 115; + instructs Van Buren to vote for protection, 144; + reëlects Van Buren senator, 147; + prominence of Van Buren, 166; + election of 1828, 166, 167; + its presidential vote, 167, 168; + career of Van Buren as governor of, 168-176; + bread riots in 1837, 314, 315; + carried by Whigs, 342; + sympathy in, for Canadian insurrection, 353, 363, 369; + visits of Van Buren to, 367-369, 398; + carried by Polk in consequence of Birney's vote, 412, 413; + supports Wilmot Proviso, 417, 418; + carried by Whigs because of Barnburners' bolt, 422, 431; + election of 1860 in, 445. + + Newspapers, their early importance in politics, 191, 192. + + Niles, John M., + of Connecticut, succeeds Kendall in post office in 1838, 394. + + Niles's Register, on Democratic convention of 1835, 259. + + Noah, Mordecai M., opposes election of Jackson in 1832, 247. + + North, its attitude toward slavery in 1820, 91; + economically superior to South, 91; + disclaims responsibility for slavery in South, 92; + but opposes its extension to new territory, 92; + yet acquiesces in compromise, 93; + favors tariff of 1828, 143; + elects Van Buren in 1836, 280; + its attitude toward South after 1840, 437. + + Nullification, stated by Hayne in his reply to Webster, 188; + denounced by Jackson, 198, 199, 248, 249. + + + Oakley, Thomas J., attorney-general of New York, 23; + supplants Van Buren, 24. + + Ogden, David B., opposes Burr and Van Buren in Eden case, 30. + + Olcott, Thomas W., member of Albany Regency, 111. + + Osceola, leads Seminole insurrection, 366; + his capture and death, 366. + + Otis, Harrison Gray, votes to prevent slave trade in Florida, 93. + + Overton, Judge John, letter of Jackson to, 189. + + + Palmerston, Lord, compared as parliamentarian to Van Buren, 123, 149. + + Panama congress, suggested by Adams, 122; + and by Clay, 124; + its purposes as stated by Adams, 124-126; + contrary to settled policy of country, 125; + opposed by Van Buren in Senate, 126-129; + affected by slavery question, 127; + advocated by Webster, 130; + fails to produce any results, 130; + vote upon, creates a new party, 131. + + Papineau, Louis Joseph, heads insurrection in Lower Canada, 352. + + Parish, Henry, + on New York committee to remonstrate against specie circular, 317. + + Parton, James, quoted, 183, 237. + + Paulding, James K., succeeds Dickerson as secretary of navy, 360; + a Republican literary partisan, 360; + his appointment resented by politicians, 362; + visits South with Van Buren, 400. + + People's party, in New York, rivals of Bucktails, 109; + favors Adams for presidency, 110; + votes to remove Clinton from office, 110; + demands choice of electors by people, 111, 112. + + Phillips, Wendell, anti-slavery leader, 273. + + Pierce, Franklin, gets electoral vote of New England, but not the + popular vote, 280, 281; + opposes Texas annexation, 424; + Democratic candidate in 1852, 439; + supported by Van Buren, 439; + offers Van Buren position of arbitrator, 440; + one of mediocrities of White House, 463. + + Plattsburg, battle of, 62. + + Poinsett, Joel R., secretary of war under Van Buren, 283; + denounced by Webster for recommending federal organization of + militia, 383. + + Polk, James K., elected speaker of House, 337; + nominated for president, 410, 411; + his career, significance of his choice, 412; + his election causes a schism in Democratic party, 415, 416; + tries to placate Barnburners, 415, 416; + gives federal patronage to Hunkers, 417; + attitude of Van Buren toward, 420, 421; + one of mediocrities of White House, 463. + + Powell. See Osceola. + + Preston, William C., offers resolution to annex Texas, 359; + attacks Van Buren in campaign of 1840, 385. + + Prussia, treaty with, 127, 128. + + + Randolph, John, his career in Senate, 131, 148. + + Republican (Democratic) party, its ideals as framed by Jefferson, 6, 7; + gains majority of American people, 8, 9; + dominant in New York, 40; + factions and leaders of, 40-43; + defeats Burr in 1804, 44; + controlled by Clintonians, 45; + its share in establishing spoils system, 47-53; + New York members of, oppose war in 1812, 58, 59; + but later support Madison, 60; + recovers control of New York government, its war measures, 61, 62; + in favor at end of war, 63; + makes Jackson its military hero, 63; + commits sharp practice in "Peter Allen" case, 64, 65; + gains control of legislature in 1816, 65; + obliged to permit election of Clinton as governor, 66; + divides into factions of Bucktails and Clintonians, 67, 69; + receives accessions from Federalists, 72, 73; + opposes admission of Missouri as a slave State, 74; + in congressional caucus of 1816 nominates Monroe, 74, 75; + comprises all of country in 1820-1824, 90; + personal rivalries in, 90, 94, 95; + Crawford the regular candidate of, 106, 107. + + Republican party of 1856, founded on Wilmot Proviso, 416; + abandons it in 1861, 438; + nominates Fremont in 1856, 441, 442; + attitude of Van Buren toward, 441, 442, 445; + distrusted as dangerous, 445; + in election of 1860, 445. + + Rhett, Barnwell, + moves election of Adams in 1839 as temporary chairman of House, 376. + + Richmond, Dean, member of Albany Regency, 112. + + Riggs, Elisha, + on New York committee to remonstrate against specie circular, 317. + + Ringgold, Samuel, refers to Monroe as only one favorable to Jackson in + Seminole matter, 185. + + Rives, William C., instructions of Van Buren to, 217; + defeated for vice-presidential nomination, 259; + later leaves party, 260; + opposes independenttreasury, 347; + denounces Van Buren in election of 1840, as covertly planning + usurpation, 384, 385. + + Rochester, William B., + supported by Van Buren for governor against Clinton, 147. + + Rogers, Samuel, in London society in 1832, 227. + + Root, General Erastus, + leads radical party in constitutional convention, 87. + + Roseboom, ----, in council of appointment of 1801, 49. + + Rowan, John, supports tariff of 1828, 143. + + Rush, Richard, his wide views of functions of government, 160. + + Russell, Sir John, interferes with Canadian taxation, 351. + + + Sanford, Nathan, succeeded in United States Senate by Van Buren,76; + in New York constitutional convention, 77; + bound by instructions of New York legislature, 143. + + Santa Anna, captured at San Jacinto, 358. + + Schurz, Carl, his career in Senate compared with Van Buren's, 118. + + Schuyler family, member of landed aristocracy, 33. + + Scott, Sir Walter, in London society in 1832, 227. + + Scott, General Winfield, + sent by Van Buren to prevent troubles on Canadian frontier, 355; + Whig candidate for president in 1852, 439. + + Seminole war, Jackson's connection with, 185, 186; + its cause and progress, 365, 366; + policy of removal of Seminoles justified, 366, 367. + + Senate of United States, membership of, in 1821, 94; + debates internal improvements, 95-98; + debates tariff of 1824, 99-103; + debates on internal improvements and on Oregon, 117; + confirms Clay's appointment by Adams, 123; + debates Panama congress, 126-131; + position of Van Buren in, 131; + debates internal improvements, 132, 133; + and change in mode of election of president, 133; + debates bills to regulate executive patronage, 137-140; + on bankruptcy bill, 141; + its character during 1821-1828, 148; + more truly a parliamentary body then than later, 149; + debate in, on nomination of Van Buren as minister to England, 230-233; + rejects it, 233, 234; + debates bill to exclude anti-slavery matter from mails, 276-278; + a tie vote in, arranged to force Van Buren to vote, 277; + passes sub-treasury bill, 337; + votes against a bank, 340; + debate in, on second sub-treasury bill, 346; + resolves to recognize Texas, 358. + + Sergeant, John, nominated for vice-president, 246. + + Seward, William H., + his position in Senate compared with Van Buren's, 118-123; + connected with Anti-Masonic party, 167, 245; + approves distribution of surplus, 301; + elected governor of New York, 363; + publicly refuses to accept invitation to reception to Van Buren + in New York, 369; + prefers Taylor to Van Buren, 431; + wishes to defy South, 437. + + Seymour, Horatio, member of Albany Regency, 112. + + Singleton, Miss, marries Van Buren's son, 395. + + Skinner, Roger, member of Albany Regency, 111. + + Slavery, not a political issue in 1821, 91; + mild popular attitude towards, 91, 92; + attitude of abolitionists towards, 270; + attacked by Van Buren's supporter, Leggett, 271; + debated in connection with Texas, 359; + not in general politics, 359, 403; + enters politics with Texas question, 403, 414; + impossibility of attempts to exclude from politics, 422, 423. + + Smith, Gerrit, on Van Buren's nomination, 428. + + Smith, Samuel, votes for Panama congress, 131. + + South, attitude towards slavery, 91; + opposes tariff of 1828, 143; + condemns abolitionist petitions, 271; + accuses Van Buren of abolitionism, 271, 272; + prohibits circulation of abolition literature, 275; + upheld by Kendall, 275; + justified in its action, 277; + large defection from Van Buren in, 278, 279; + distrusts Van Buren in 1840, 380, 387, 403; + Van Buren charged with subserviency toward, 403; + desires to annex Texas, 404; + wins victory in defeating Van Buren's nomination, 410; + effect of slavery upon, 423; + considered a bully by Seward and Benton, 437; + attitude of "doughfaces" toward, justified by events, 437, 438; + secures Kansas-Nebraska bill, 440; + continues to loathe Van Buren, 444. + + South Carolina, votes for Floyd in 1832, 248; + supports White in 1836, 260. + + Southwick, Solomon, Anti-Masonic candidate in New York, 166. + + Spain, Panama congress a defiance of, 124. + + Spencer, Ambrose, attorney-general of New York, 23; + member of Clintonian faction, 44; + in council of appointment of 1801, represents Livingstonians, 48; + introduces spoils system, 49, 50; + promoted to higher offices, 51; + in New York constitutional convention, 77; + his judicial pride described by Butler, 84. + + Spencer, John G., Clintonian candidate for Senate in 1819, 69; + appointed by Van Buren to prosecute Morgan murderers, 174; + reasons for his appointment, 175; + nominated for election by Anti-Masons, 246. + + Spoils system, established in New York, 46; + attitude of Washington towards, 46; + its origin in struggles of Hamilton and Clinton, 46, 47; + beginnings of removals for political reasons, 47; + attitude of Jefferson toward, 48; + established in 1801 by De Witt Clinton, 48-50; + developed in years 1807-1813, 51, 52; + becomes part of unwritten law, 52, 53; + not to be wholly condemned at this time, 54; + valuable in destroying English idea of property in office, 55; + does not damage public service at first, 56, 57; + popular with voters, 56, 57, 214; + share of Van Buren in, 57, 58; + defense of, by Thurlow Weed, 67, 68; + Van Buren not responsible for its introduction into federal + politics, 207; + demand for, by Jacksonian office-seekers, 208-211; + does not secure a clean sweep under Jackson, 211, 212; + justification of removals under, 212, 213; + policy of, defended by Jackson, 213; + much worse under Lincoln, 215; + used as reproach against Van Buren, 232; + advocated by Marcy, 232; + denounced by Whigs, 246; + defense of, by Kendall, in 1836, 261, 262; + does not damage Van Buren in 1840, 387; + Polk's use of, against Van Buren, legitimate, 420. + + Squatter sovereignty, proclaimed by Dickinson and Cass, 422. + + Stevens, Thaddeus, + ignores slavery in organizing Territories in 1861, 438. + + Stevenson, Andrew, defends system of national conventions in 1835, 258. + + Story, Joseph, legal fame of, 19; + on Van Buren's hospitality, 395. + + Suffrage, basis of, + debate on, in New York constitutional convention, 77-80. + + Sumner, Charles, + his leadership in Senate compared with Van Buren's, 118; + position as anti-slavery leader, 273; + supports Van Buren in 1848, 432; + in 1861, abandons Wilmot Proviso, 438. + + Supreme Court, jealous attitude of Van Buren toward, 134-137; + Jackson's refusal to support, in Cherokee case, justified, 203, 204; + its opinion in Dred Scott case, 440, 441. + + Swartwout, Colonel John, his duel with De Witt Clinton, 51. + + Swartwout, Samuel, + his letter to Hoyt describes craze for office under Jackson, 208; + his career as collector of customs, 208; + his defalcation while collector of New York discovered, 364. + + Sylvester, Francis, studies of Van Buren in his office, 16; + defeated by Van Buren in lawsuit, 17; + a Federalist in politics, 43. + + + Talcott, Samuel A., attorney-general of New York, 23; + in Eden will case, 30; + member of Albany Regency, 101. + + Talleyrand, Marquis de, his position in 1832, 227; + compared by Chevalier to Van Buren, 451. + + Tallmadge, Nathaniel P., denounces Van Buren's financial policy, 347. + + Tammany Society, nucleus of Bucktail faction, 67; + offers Irving nomination for mayor, 361. + + Taney, Roger B., attorney-general, 199; + transferred to Treasury Department, 255; + his decision in Dred Scott case reviewed by Van Buren, 446, 447. + + Tappan, Lewis, on powers of Congress over slavery, 272. + + Tariff, of 1824, called "American System," 99; + how passed, 99; + aided by fear of Holy Alliance, 99, 100; + arguments against, 100, 101; + not a party question, 103, 104; + of 1828, called a "tariff of abomination," 142; + its character, sectional vote for, 143, 144; + Jackson's views on, 204, 205; + discussion of, in 1842, 240; + not mentioned in Democratic platform, 240; + not an issue in 1832, 247. + + Taylor, John W., + opposed by Bucktail congressmen as a supporter of Clinton, 76. + + Taylor, Zachary, refusal of Van Buren to support, 426; + nominated by Whigs, 430; + sounded by Free-soilers, 430; + preferred by anti-slavery Whigs to Van Buren, 431; + elected in 1848, 431; + one of the mediocrities of the White House, 463. + + Tazewell, Littleton W., suggested by Calhoun for State Department, 180. + + "Telegraph," its attack on Jackson, 191. + + Tennessee, appealed to by Jackson in behalf of Van Buren, 262; + presents Polk as candidate for vice-presidency, 412. + + Texas, its war of independence, 358; + recognition refused by Van Buren, 358; + offers annexation and is refused, 358; + opposition to, raises slavery question, 359; + refuge of bankrupts, 370; + annexation of, favored by Tyler, 402; + becomes a party question before Democratic convention in 1844, 404, + 409; + admitted to Union in 1845, 413. + + Thompson, Smith, Republican and Livingstonian leader in New York, 42; + both politician and judge, 44; + defeated by Van Buren for governor of New York, 166. + + Tilden, Samuel J., + inherits political ideas from Jefferson through Van Buren, 12; + member of Albany Regency, 112; + error of Democrats in discarding in 1880, 412; + leader of Barnburners, 416; + one of authors of Barnburner address of 1848, 424; + writes address calling Utica Convention, 425. + + Tillotson, Thomas, brother-in-law of R. R. Livingston, secretary of + state in New York, 49; + removed from office by Clintonians, 51. + + Timberlake, ----, first husband of Mrs. Eaton, commits suicide, 181. + + Tompkins, Daniel D., as judge, continues party politician, 44; + nominated for governor and elected by Clintonians, 45; + supports Madison in 1814, 60; + reëlected governor, 60; + removes De Witt Clinton from mayoralty of New York, 64; + resigns governorship to be vice-president, 66; + his pecuniary difficulties with State, 68; + defended by Van Buren in Senate, 68; + reëlected vice-president, 72; + defeated for governor in 1820, 73; + candidacy for president in 1816, 74; + inferior in prestige to Van Buren in 1821, 76; + in New York constitutional convention, 77; + comments of Van Buren on, 173. + + Tyler, John, nominated for vice-president in 1832, 260; + nominated for vice-president by Whigs, 377; + succeeds Harrison, his character, 402; + his career, 402; + his Texas treaty rejected, 413; + an accidental president, 463. + + + United States, political character of, formed by Jefferson, 5, 6; + becomes Democratic, 7-9; + gains individuality, 7; + its vulgarity and crudeness, 10; + not understood by foreigners, 10, 11; + its real development into national strength, 14, 17; + prominence of lawyers in, 32, 33, 35; + early political importance of land-holding class, 33, 34; + later position of wealth in, 34; + favors rotation in office as democratic, 57; + prosperity of, in 1821, 88; + believes itself happy, 89; + unpopularity of coalitions in, 116, 164; + considers panic of 1837 due to Jackson, 287; + suffers from depression after war of 1812, 287; + enjoys economic prosperity until Jackson's administration, 288; + optimism of, 288; + expansion of population, 288, 289; + land speculation in, 289-294; + enthusiasm over public works, 290; + people of, homogeneous and optimistic, 290-292; + luxury in, during speculative era, 309, 310; + depression in, during 1839, 377. + + University of the State of New York, connection of Van Buren with, 65. + + + Van Alen, James J., law partner of Van Buren, 18; + succeeded by him as surrogate, 22; + elected to Congress as Federalist, 43. + + Van Buren, Abraham, his farm, 14; + keeps a tavern, 15. + + Van Buren, Abraham, serves as his father's secretary, 395; + marries Miss Singleton, 395. + + Van Buren, John, his appearance, 1; + relations with his father in 1860, 1, 2; + his political attitude, 2; + accompanies his father to England, 224; + leads Barnburners, 415; + at Herkimer convention, 419; + at Utica convention of 1847, 423; + in part, author of Barnburner address, 424; + at Utica convention of 1848, 425; + continues rigidly anti-slavery until 1850, 435; + justifies submission to compromise of 1850, 439; + his election bets, 453 n. + + Van Buren, Lawrence, joins bolting Barnburners, 419. + + Van Buren, Martin, relations with his son in old age, 1; + appearance, 1; + his political position in 1860, 2, 3; + resemblance to Jefferson, 3; + lack of friends in later life, 3; + type of early statesmen of republic, 4; + influenced by Jefferson's ideals, 12; + ancestry, 14, 15; + birth and early schooling, 15, 16. + + _Legal Career._ + Enters law office, 16; + his education, 16; + becomes successful lawyer, 17; + enters office of Van Ness in New York, 17; + intercourse with Burr, 17, 18; + practises law at Kinderhook, 18; + his successful career, 18-36; + leads Republican lawyers, 20; + his contests with Williams, 20; + contrasted with Williams by Butler, 20, 21; + skill in argument and persuasion, 21; + marriage, 21; + holds office of surrogate, 22; + removes to Hudson, 22; + reading habits, 22; + continues to prosper in law, 22; + later as state senator becomes member of court of errors, 23; + becomes attorney-general, 23; + later removed for political reasons, 24; + moves to Albany, 24; + partnership with Butler, 24; + his opinion criticising Kent, 25; + in court of errors reverses Kent's opinion in a debt case, 26; + condemns practice of imprisoning for debt, 27; + in Medcef Eden case, 29; + his argument, 30; + secures a money competence, 30; + his Oswego estate, 30; + gains political lessons during law practice, 31, 32; + not an orator, 31; + his legal and political careers not strictly separable, 36; + loses wife, 36; + upright private life, 37. + + _Republican Leader in New York._ + Early enthusiasm for Jefferson, 39, 40; + not won by Burr faction in 1803, 43; + supports Lewis for governor, 44; + supports Clintonian faction in 1807, 45; + appointed surrogate by Clintonian council of appointment, 45; + not the founder of spoils system, 50, 53; + removed from office by Livingstonian faction, 52; + nominated for state senator, 53; + elected over Edward Livingston, 53; + finds spoils system established, 53; + becomes a master in use of offices, 57, 58; + reëlected senator, 58; + votes for Clintonian electors against Madison, 58; + later condemned for this action, 58; + an advocate of embargo and of war of 1812, 59; + places state party before national, 59; + dissolves relations with Clinton, 59; + in Senate defends war against Clinton's attack, 60; + supports Tompkins for governor, 60, 61; + supports war measures, 61; + becomes leader, 61; + drafts classification act to prepare militia, 62; + on victory at Plattsburg, 62; + drafts resolution of thanks to Jackson, 63; + becomes attorney-general, 63; + in "Peter Allen" election case, 64; + chosen regent of University of State of New York, 65; + leaves party ranks to vote for canal bill, 65; + thanked by Clinton, 66; + reluctant to allow Clinton's election in 1817, 66; + leads faction of "Bucktails," 67; + removed from office of attorney-general, 67; + his efforts in behalf of Tompkins's claims, 68; + writes pamphlet advocating reëlection of King to Senate, 69-71; + skill of his plea, 70, 71; + urges his choice in private, 71, 72; + friendly relations with King, 72; + declares King's election uninfluenced by Missouri question, 73; + calls meeting at Albany to protest against slavery extension, 74; + votes in Senate for instructions to United States senators to oppose + admission of a slave State, 74; + present at congressional caucus in 1816 to nominate a president, 74; + votes as elector for Monroe and Tompkins, 75; + urges removal of unfriendly postmasters in New York, 75; + not harmed by publication of this request, 75, 76; + as leader of party in State, chosen United States senator, 76. + + _Member of Constitutional Convention._ + Elected from Otsego County, 77; + his share in debate on extending franchise, 78; + not non-committal as charged, 79; + his argument for universal suffrage, 79, 80; + wishes it granted gradually, 80; + opposes restriction of suffrage to whites, 80; + favors property qualification for blacks, 80, 81; + reports on appointments to office, 81, 82; + recommends that militia elect all but highest officers, 81; + his recommendations as to civil office, 81, 82; + opposes election of judges, 82; + his objection to council of revision, 83; + unwilling to say a good word for it, 83; + votes against turning judges out of office, 85; + wisdom of his course in the convention, 86; + prevents his party from making radical changes, 86, 87; + shows courage, independence, and patriotism, 87. + + _United States Senator._ + Dislikes slavery in 1821, 93; + votes to restrict admission of slaves to Florida, 93; + his friends and associates in Senate, 94; + supports Crawford for succession to Monroe as "regular" candidate, + 95; + votes for Cumberland road bill, 95; + later apologizes for vote, 96; + proposes a constitutional amendment to authorize internal + improvements, 97; + probably impressed by Erie Canal, 98; + speech in favor of abolishing imprisonment for debt, 98; + votes for tariff of 1824, 99; + his protectionist views, 99; + his votes upon different sections, 102; + influenced by New York sentiment, 102; + later averse to high protection, 103; + but never considers tariff of supreme importance, 103; + urges constitutional amendment to leave election of president with + electors in case of failure on first trial, 104; + defends system of caucus nominations, 105; + prestige as leader of New York in election of 1824, 106; + at first inclined to Adams, 107; + Adams's opinion of, 107; + abused by Crawford's enemies, 108; + not involved in New York quarrel over canal commissionership, 110; + yet his power endangered by Clinton's return to popularity, 111; + his status in "Albany Regency," 111; + advises New York Republicans to favor congressional caucus, 114; + continues after failure of caucus to work for Crawford, 114; + fails to secure New York for him, 115; + not involved in election of Adams, 115; + does not denounce Adams's election, 116; + takes increasing share in proceedings, 116; + relations with King, 117; + votes against extending Cumberland road, 117; + votes against occupation of Oregon, 117; + on committee to receive Adams, 117; + becomes a parliamentary leader, 117; + the real creator of Democratic party, 118; + his position unique in American history, 118; + does not at first approve of Jackson as leader of opposition, 119; + his attitude toward Adams not factious, 120, 123; + votes to confirm Clay's nomination, 123; + abstains from personalities in opposition, 123; + introduces resolutions against Panama congress, 126; + comment of Adams upon, 126; + his speech upon the proposed mission, 127-129; + accuses Adams of Federalism, 128; + condemns proposed alliance of republics, 129; + most conspicuous member of Senate, 131; + unites opposition on internal improvements, 131; + offers resolutions and votes against roads and canals, 132; + wisdom of his position, 132; + willing to support military roads, 133; + renews movement to take choice of president from the House, 133, 134; + opposes proposal to relieve Supreme Court from circuit duty, 134; + shows desire to make Supreme Court democratic, 135; + opposes regarding it with too great respect, 135-137; + his share in Benton's report on executive patronage, 137-140; + its discrepancy with his later views, 139, 140; + votes against abolition of salt tax, 140; + favors establishment of Naval Academy, 140; + opposes a bankruptcy bill, 141; + speech on restrictions on trade with British colonies, 141; + renews opposition to imprisonment for debt, to internal improvements, + and repeal of salt tax in 1828, 142; + votes for tariff of 1828, 142; + bound by instructions of New York legislature, 144; + speech on power of vice-president to call to order, 144-147; + asserts the necessity of defeating Adams in order to curb federal + usurpation, 145, 146; + reëlected senator, 147; + supports Rochester against Clinton for governor of New York, 147; + eulogy on Clinton, 148; + survey of Van Buren's parliamentary career, 148-152; + characteristics of his speaking, 150; + clear in announcing opinions, 151; + praised by Jackson for freedom from non-committalism, 151; + courteous in debate, 151, 152. + + _Manager in Election of 1828._ + Recognized as chief organizer of new party, 153; + uses cry against Adams and Clay bargain, 154; + not justly charged with intrigue to unite Crawford's friends with + Jackson's, 157; + his visit to Crawford in 1827, 157; + visits Adams, 158; + compared by Adams to Burr, 158; + does not announce support of Jackson until 1827, 158; + his opposition to Adams not merely personal, 161; + does not use corrupt bargain cry, 163; + probably promised cabinet position by Jackson, 166; + wishes to increase his prestige by securing governorship of New + York, 166; + nominated and elected, 166; + resigns senatorship, 168. + + _Governor of New York._ + His inaugural message, 168-173; + favors state aid to canals, 168; + urges reorganization + of banking system, 169; + suggests various devices to increase security of banks, 170; + proposes separation of state and national elections, 170; + denounces increasing use of money in elections, 171; + advocates strict construction of Constitution, 171, 172; + defends reputation of country from results of campaign of 1828, 172; + congratulates legislature on election of Jackson, 172, 173; + his letters to Hoyt on patronage, 173-175; + shows partisanship, but desire to appoint able men, 174; + character of his appointees, 174, 175; + resigns governorship after ten weeks' term to enter cabinet, 175; + congratulated by legislature, 176. + + _Secretary of State._ + Unfriendly view of his career in cabinet, 177; + forms creed of Jacksonian Democracy, 178; + shares discredit of introducing spoils system, 178; + easily the strongest man in cabinet, 179; + already rival to Calhoun for succession to Jackson, 179; + reasons for his success over Calhoun, 180; + does not succeed by tricks, 180; + attempt of Calhoun to prevent his appointment as secretary of + state, 180; + pleases Jackson by politeness to Mrs. Eaton, 183; + his course both politic and proper, 183, 184; + not responsible for Jackson's dislike of Calhoun, 185; + refuses to take part in quarrel between the two, 187; + his toast at Jefferson's birthday dinner, 188; + becomes an acknowledged candidate for presidency after Calhoun's + nullification declarations, 188, 189; + Jackson's letter of recommendation, 189, 190; + his increasing esteem for Jackson, 190; + represented by "Albany Argus" in newspaper controversy, 191; + his high estimate of necessity of an organ, 192; + refuses to subsidize Bennett, 192; + declines to aid new Jackson paper with departmental printing, 194; + yet is held responsible for it, 194; + determines to resign and asks Livingston to take his place, 194; + wishes, as a candidate for presidency, to avoid suspicion, 195, 196; + boldness and prudence of his action, 196, 198; + avows unwillingness to injure Jackson's chances for reëlection, 196, + 197; + praised by Jackson in reply, 197; + his political creed fully adopted by Jackson, 200; + at first doubts Jackson's full adherence, 200; + probably assists in preparing Jackson's messages, 205, 206; + wins Jackson's affection, 206; + supplies him with political theories, 206; + on good terms with kitchen cabinet, 207; + not the originator of spoils system in federal offices, 207; + his letter to Hamilton advises caution, 209; + rebukes Hoyt for demanding a removal, 210; + does not practice proscription in the State Department, 214; + does not oppose the system elsewhere, 214; + palliating reasons for his conduct, 215; + successful in conduct of foreign affairs, 215; + advises Jackson to refer to France with politeness, 216; + deserves credit of securing payment of claims by France, 217; + adopts conciliatory policy toward England, 219; + in his instructions to McLane admits error of previous American + claims, 219, 220; + alludes in his instructions to overthrow of Adams's administration, + 220; + his position not undignified, 221; + yet previously had deprecated entrance of party politics into + diplomacy, 222; + success of his diplomacy, 222. + + _Minister to England._ + Constantly suspected of intrigue, 223; + desires to escape from politics while candidate for presidency by + accepting mission to England, 223, 224; + escorted out of city by Jackson, 224; + appoints Irving secretary of legation, 224; + finds him at London, 224, 225; + his friendship with Irving, 225; + Irving's opinion of, 225; + his travels through England, 226; + social life in London, 227; + learns news of rejection of his nomination by Senate, 227, 228; + his behavior, 228; + leaves England, 228; + character of his dispatches, 229; + presents claims in Comet case, 229; + writes passages in reports complimentary to Jackson, 229; + returns to New York, declines a public reception, 230; + goes to Washington, 230; + attacked in Senate as un-American and cowardly, 230, 231; + insincerity of the attack, 232; + accused also of introducing spoils system, 232; + attacked by Calhoun as an intriguer, 233; + Calhoun's desire to kill him politically, 234; + gains popularity from rejection, 234; + urged for vice-president, 234; + praised by New York legislature, 234; + upheld by Jackson, 235; + receives various offers of offices, 236; + plan to elect him governor of New York repudiated by party leaders, + 237; + not concerned in summoning national convention of 1832, 237, 238; + nominated for vice-presidency, 239; + his nomination not the result of coercion, 240; + the natural candidate, 240, 241; + party reasons for his nomination, 241; + his letter of acceptance, 241-243; + affects reluctance and humility, 242; + writes a vague letter on the tariff, 243, 244; + opposes internal improvements, a bank, and nullification, 244; + writes letter on his subjection to calumny, 244; + elected in 1832, 247; + speaks in approval of tariff for revenue, 249. + + _Vice-President._ + Opposes removal of deposits, 249; + has heated argument with Kendall, 250; + later adopts Jackson's position, 250; + proposes to Kendall that removal begin in January, 1834, 250; + dislikes bank, 251; + appealed to by Clay to intercede with Jackson, 253; + his conduct as described by Benton, 253; + lives in Washington as heir-apparent, 254; + his position superior to that of any other vice-president, 254; + his harmony + with Jackson, 254, 255; + accompanies Jackson on New England tour, 255; + his candidacy opposed by White of Tennessee, 256; + scurrilous biography of, by Crockett, 256; + nominated unanimously for president in 1835, 259; + letters of Jackson in his behalf, 262; + refuses to answer questions of Williams until after close of + Congress, 264; + his reply, 265-267; + condemns distribution of surplus, 265; + courage of this action, 266; + disapproves of Clay's land scheme, 266; + denies constitutionality of internal improvements, 266; + affirms opposition to bank, 267; + on Benton's expunging resolutions, 267; + his previous letter of acceptance of nomination, 267-269; + asserts freedom from intrigue, 268; + and intention to carry out Jackson's principles, 268; + his early record on slavery, 271; + supposed to approve of anti-slavery attitude of New York Democratic + papers, 271; + writes to Gwin upon powerlessness of Congress over slavery in the + States, 272; + asserts his opposition to abolition in the District of Columbia + against wish of slave States, 274; + his attitude the general one at that time, 275; + forced to give casting vote for Jackson's bill to prohibit abolition + literature in mails, 277; + his reasons for so voting, 278; + not a "doughface," 278; + vote for, in 1836, 278-281; + elected by New England and Middle States, 280; + only Democrat to carry New England in a contested election by + popular and electoral vote, 280; + significance of his election, 281; + triumphs by good sense without enthusiasm, 281. + + _President._ + His inauguration, 282, 283; + his farewell to Jackson, 283; + continues Jackson's cabinet, 283; + his inaugural address, 283-286; + personal modesty, 284; + optimism, 284; + repeats declaration against abolition in the District, 285; + tribute to Jackson, 285; + rejects Benton's warning of a financial panic, 286; + his relation to panic of 1837, 287; + said to have urged Jackson to sign distribution bill, 302; + denounced by New York merchants for specie circular after panic has + begun, 317; + refuses to modify circular or call a special session of Congress, + 319; + visited by Biddle, 319; + obliged by suspension of specie payments to call extra session, 321; + wishes to discourage hasty action, 321; + probably instigates meetings to throw blame on banks, 322; + and declare for metallic currency, 322; + his statesmanlike behavior during crisis, 325; + his message to the extra session, 326-333; + courageously states facts and appeals to reason, 326, 327; + points out inability of government to cure the evils, 327; + indicates real causes of inflation, 327, 328; + opposes renewal of a bank, 328, 329; + urges abandonment of pet banks, 330; + suggests independent treasury, 331; + defends specie circular and advocates retention of surplus + installment, 331; + restates limited powers of government, 332; + denounced by Webster, 334; + and others, 336; + not supported by his party in House, 337, 338; + his measures supported by Calhoun, 340, 341; + supported by Loco-foco faction in New York, 344; + his message to regular session of Congress, 345, 346; + refuses to be influenced by Democratic losses in elections, 345; + recommends preëmption law, 345; + refers to boundary troubles, 345; + continues to be denounced by Whigs, 346; + and by Conservative Democrats, 347; + hopes for return of prosperity after resumption in 1838, 349; + issues neutrality proclamation in connection with Canadian + insurrection, 354; + takes measures to punish offenses, 355; + invites Durham to visit Washington, 356; + refuses to pardon Mackenzie, 356; + denounced for further warning proclamation, 357; + refuses proposed annexation of Texas, 358; + not connected with anti-slavery agitation at the time, 359; + urges American claims upon Mexico with success, 360; + offers Navy Department to Washington Irving, 361; + thought to have erred in giving it to Paulding, 362; + letter of Louis Napoleon to, 362; + cheerful tone of message to second session of Congress, 363; + reaffirms sound financial doctrine, 363; + on Swartwout's defalcation, 364; + appoints Hoyt to succeed him, 364; + asks for appropriations for Seminole war, 366; + asks Congress for support in northeastern boundary question, 367; + damages Democratic party in Maine by his treatment of frontier + disputes, 367; + revisits New York, enthusiastic reception, 367, 368; + snubbed by Whigs, 368, 369; + partisan character of his journey and speeches, 369; + encouraged by elections of 1839, 369; + in message of 1839 regrets renewed bank failures, 372; + announces economy in government, 372; + renews attack on banks, 372, 373; + insists on inability of government aid to help the depression, 374; + signs sub-treasury bill, 377; + his administration defended by Democratic convention, 379; + writes letters in campaign, 380; + approves "gag" rule in Congress, 380; + justification of his attitude, 381; + denunciations of him by Webster in campaign, 384; + other attacks upon, as aristocrat and enemy to people, 385; + tries to rely on past record of party, 386; + abandoned by various Democratic factions, 387; + Jackson's letter in support of, 387; + how ridiculed by Whigs in campaign, 388-390; + vote for, in 1840, 390, 391; + composed under defeat, 391; + his final message repeats his views on bank and sub-treasury, 392; + urges prevention of slave trade, 392; + alterations in his cabinet, 393, 394; + welcomes Harrison to White House, 394; + his conduct as president, economy and elegance, 394, 395; + social charm of his administration, 395; + his civility to Adams, 396; + bitter opinion of, held by Adams, 396; + tribute of Clay to, 396, 397. + + _In Retirement--Candidate for Renomination._ + Return to New York and Kinderhook, 398; + his estate, 398; + remains leading single figure in party, 399; + continues to have ambition for reëlection, 399; + practically admits this in 1841, 399, 400; + journey through South, 400; + visits Jackson and Clay, 400; + writes long letters on public questions, 400; + views on low tariff, 401; + promises fidelity to Democratic party, 401; + attends funeral of Harrison, 401; + his renomination considered certain until 1844, 401; + only prevented by Texas question, 402; + his record on slavery a colorless one up to 1844, 403; + not subservient to South, 403; + defense of his vote on abolition circulars in mail, and of his + opinion on "gag" rule, 404; + suspected by South of hostility to annexation of Texas, 404; + majority of delegates to national convention instructed for, 404; + asked for a distinct statement on Texas, 405; + writes continuing to oppose annexation policy, 405; + his reasons, 405, 406; + willing to yield to a demand on part of Congress, 406; + courage of this open avowal, 407; + endeavor of Jackson to help Van Buren's candidacy, 407; + his previous nominations by two-thirds rule used as precedents in + convention, 408; + his nomination prevented by the rule, 409-411; + keeps promise to support Polk, 412; + urges Wright to accept nomination for governorship of New York, 412; + saves New York for Democrats, 413; + the first victim of the slave power, 414; + complimented by convention, 414; + outwardly placid, but secretly embittered by failure to secure + nomination, 414. + + _Free-soil Leader._ + His followers form the Barnburner wing of Democrats, 415, 416; + alienated from Polk's administration, 417; + sympathizes with secession of Barnburners in 1847, 419, 420; + revives anti-slavery feelings, 420; + angered at proscription of his friends by Polk, 420; + declares an end of his political ambitions, 420, 421; + refuses to commit himself as to origin of Mexican war, 421; + aids in composing Barnburner address of 1847, 424; + his letter to Utica convention, 425-427; + denounces Democratic national convention, 425; + asserts power of Congress over Territories, 426; + refuses to vote for Cass or Taylor, 426; + nominated for president, 427; + at Buffalo convention nominated by Free-soil party, 428; + his letter urging exclusion of slavery from Territories, 429; + rage of Democratic party with, 430; + fails to secure support of anti-slavery Whigs, 431; + vote for, in 1848, 431, 432; + leads Cass in New York, 431; + does not probably expect to be elected, 432; + his candidacy not an act of revenge, 433; + undoubtedly sincere in his advocacy of Free-soil principles, 433; + ends political career, 433. + + _In Retirement._ + His career up to 1848 logical and creditable, 434; + had he died then, his reputation would stand higher, 434; + separated beyond hope from his party, 434; + until 1859 sympathizes with Free-soilers, 435; + accepts finality of compromise of 1850, 436; + his justification, love of Union and dread of ruin, 436; + stands with majority of Northern statesmen, 438; + not to be condemned more than Clay or Webster, 439; + writes letter favoring Pierce in 1852, 439; + visits Europe, 440; + declines position as arbitrator upon British-American claims + commission, 440; + votes for Buchanan in 1856, 441; + expects squatter sovereignty to succeed, 441; + his distrust of Republican party, 441, 442; + letter in behalf of Buchanan, 442-444; + its cheerless tone, 442; + rehearses history of Democratic party, 443; + laments repeal of Missouri Compromise, 443; + hopes question of slavery in Territories may be settled peaceably, + 443; + asserts power of Congress over Territories, 444; + thinks Buchanan can save Union, 444; + unpardoned by South, 444; + votes against Lincoln in 1860, 445; + character of his retirement, 445; + writes autobiographical sketch, 446; + his history of American parties, 446; + condemns Buchanan for accepting Dred Scott decision, 446; + sympathizes with North in civil war, 447; + expresses confidence in Lincoln, 447; + last illness and death, 447; + his funeral, 448. + + _Character and Place in History._ + His personal appearance, 449; + elegance, 450; + his country life, thrift, and fortune, 450; + pecuniary integrity, 450; + his polished manners, 451; + called insincere by Adams, 451; + his fairness and personal friendliness to opponents, 452; + his skill in reading and managing men, 452, 453; + not stilted, yet free from dissipation, 453; + social agreeableness, 454; + fictitious stories of his cunning, 454; + his friendships, 454-456; + these the true test of his sincerity, 456; + his placidity under abuse thought hypocritical by opponents, 457; + his caution in political papers, 457; + his popularity in New York, 458; + his true democracy, 458; + creed of his followers, 459; + lack of enthusiasm prevents his being a popular hero, 459; + always follows principles of Jefferson, 460; + his fame dimmed by spoils system, 460; + yet his attitude in respect to it not a discreditable one, 461; + his courage a marked quality, 461, 462; + his prolixity and politeness obscure his clear statements of + opinion, 462; + does not belong among mediocrities of the White House, 463; + his eminence as a real leader, 463; + superior to Jackson in wisdom, 463; + and to John Adams in party leadership, 464; + stands with Madison and John Quincy Adams, 464; + comparison with Madison, 464; + with Adams, 465; + comparison with Webster and Clay, 465; + superior to either in party leadership, 465; + summary and review of his career, 465, 466; + his fidelity to principle throughout, 466, 467. + + _Personal Traits._ + General estimate of, 3, 462-466; + betting habits, 453; + bitterness, lack of, 123, 152, 163, 223, 420, 452; + cheerfulness, 114, 453; + conservatism, 186, 436; + courage, 87, 183, 195, 215, 266, 325, 407, 436, 461-463; + diplomatic ability, 221, 222; + education, 15-17, 22; + friendships, 454-456; + imperturbability, 228, 253, 391, 396, 414, 445, 451, 456; + integrity, 194, 268, 450, 456; + legal ability, 17-21, 25, 29, 30, 31; + magnetism, lack of, 281, 459; + manners, 4, 15, 18, 72, 206, 394, 395, 451; + modesty, 243, 268, 284; + non-committalism, 79, 147, 151, 265, 380, 400, 421, 461; + oratory, 27, 31, 32, 61, 78, 87, 150, 457; + personal appearance, 1, 449, 450; + private life, 37, 453; + political leadership, 58, 61, 69, 76, 87, 117-119, 131, 150, 153, + 157, 179, 180, 431, 452, 454; + scrupulousness, 68, 194, 195, 278; + shrewdness, 197, 207, 224, 229, 369, 452-454; + sincerity, 430, 431; + social qualities, 394, 395, 396, 397, 400, 450; + subserviency, alleged, to South, 403, 404, 439; + unfavorable views of, 158, 196, 223, 230, 231, 244, 256, 325 n., + 384, 385, 396, 406, 451, 456; + unpopularity in later years, 3, 444, 458. + + _Political Opinions._ + Bank of United States, 145, 244, 250, 251, 267, 328, 329, 345, 363, + 373, 391; + banking, 169, 170, 372, 373; + Barnburners, 419, 425, 429; + British West India trade, 141, 219-222; + Canadian rebellion, 354; + compromise of 1850, 436; + conscription, 62; + Democratic party, 145, 147, 242, 443, 446; + debt, imprisonment for, 26, 27, 98, 116, 142; + Dred Scott decision, 446, 447; + election of 1820, 75; + election of 1824, 115, 116; + election of 1828, 173; + election of 1840, 400; + election of 1848, 425; + elections, reform of, 170, 171; + embargo, 59; + Erie Canal, 65, 66; + expunging resolutions, 267; + Federalists, 70, 127, 152; + gag rule, 380, 381; + independent treasury, 330, 331, 377; + internal improvements, 95, 96, 97, 98, 117, 132, 133, 142, 168, 244, + 266; + Jeffersonian principles, 3, 4, 12, 39, 40, 145, 147, 171, 249, 284, + 329, 332, 458-460; + judiciary, 83, 84, 85, 134-137, 141, 142; + Kansas question, 442-444; + legislative instructions, 143; + Maine boundary, 367; + Mexican claims, 359, 360; + Mexican war, 421; + Missouri Compromise, 73, 74, 443; + naval academy, 140; + nullification, 244; + office, appointments to, 81, 82, 137-139, 173, 364; + Panama congress, 127-129, 141; + panic of 1837, 327, 328, 345; + party allegiance, 43, 59, 70-72, 175, 401, 414, 420, 426, 432; + preëmption law, 345; + presidential ambition, 193, 223, 242, 254, 278, 399, 400, 405-407, + 430, 433; + Republican party of 1856, 441, 442; + slave trade, 392; + slavery, 74, 93, 271, 277, 278, 285, 380, 403, 420, 426, 436; + slavery in Territories, 426, 429, 436, 441, 444; + States' rights, 97, 172; + specie circular, 319, 331; + spoils system, 53, 54, 57, 75, 173-175, 207, 209, 210, 214, 215, + 233, 460; + suffrage, basis of, 79, 80; + suffrage, negro, 80, 81; + surplus, distribution of, 265; + tariff, 99, 102, 103, 140, 142, 143, 243, 249, 401; + war of 1812, 50; + war of rebellion, 447. + + Van Dyke, ----, votes for Panama congress, 131. + + Van Ness, William P., studies of Van Buren with, 17; + his career at the bar, 17; + friendship with Burr, 17; + attacks Clintons and Livingstons in Burr's interest, 43; + his residence bought by Van Buren, 398. + + Van Ness, William W., competitor of Van Buren at bar, 20. + + Van Rensselaer, Jacob R., at Columbia County bar, 20. + + Van Rensselaer, ----, commands a filibustering expedition against + Canada, 353. + + Van Rensselaer family, + gains political influence through landed wealth, 33. + + Van Vechten, Abraham, succeeded by Van Buren as attorney-general, 23; + removed by Republicans, 63. + + Virginia, Democrats of, + refuse to support Johnson for vice-presidency, 259, 260. + + Von Holst, H. C., praises bearing of Van Buren during panic, 325; + his unhistorical view of Van Buren, 325 n., 406 n. + + + Walker, Robert J., + leads annexationists in Democratic convention of 1844, 408; + induces convention to adopt two-thirds rule, 408, 409; + protests against New York Democrats, 409. + + War of 1812, Republican opposition to, 58, 59; + causes of, 59. + + Ward, Rev. Thomas, at Buffalo convention, 427. + + Washington, George, + character of his presidential administration, 5, 6; + his prestige aids Federalists, 38; + refuses to appoint political opponents to office, 46; + his recall of Monroe, 89; + appealed to by Van Buren as authority against Adams's foreign + policy, 126-129; + leaves office with popularity, 282; + best of American presidents, 464. + + Watkins, Tobias, his removal from office, 212. + + Webb, James Watson, abandons Jackson in 1832, 247. + + Webster, Daniel, compared with Van Buren as lawyer, 32; + not in Congress in 1821, 94; + against tariff of 1824, 100; + on Panama congress, 130; + inferior to Van Buren as parliamentary leader, 150; + on Jackson's manners, 156; + on Van Buren's prominence in 1829, 179; + his debate with Hayne, 188; + votes to reject Van Buren's nomination as minister to England, 230; + condemns him for un-American conduct, 231; + exaggerates results of removal of deposits, 252; + supported for presidency by Massachusetts Whigs, 260; + condemns bill to exclude anti-slavery matter from mails, 276; + vote for, in election of 1836, 280; + urges extension of pet bank system, 299; + later condemns this policy, 300; + approves bill to distribute surplus, 300; + denounces Van Buren for causing panic, 333; + resists attempt to suspend depositing surplus, 334, 338; + ridicules possibility of resumption without government aid, 335; + votes for treasury notes, 339; + votes for preëmption bill, 357; + his speeches in campaign of 1840, 383, 384; + his denunciations of Van Buren, 383, 384; + on Van Buren's vote for the bill to exclude abolition matter from + mails, 404; + indignant at Taylor's nomination, 430; + his comment on Van Buren's Free-soil candidacy, 431; + forfeits fame by support of compromise, 435; + his motives, 437; + compared with Van Buren, 465. + + Weed, Thurlow, on rotation in office, 67; + praises Albany Regency, 112; + leader of Anti-Masonic party, 245; + manager of New York Whigs, 363; + prevents nomination of Clay in 1840, 378. + + Wellington, Duke of, his position in 1832, 227. + + West, favors tariff of 1828, 143; + opposes Van Buren in 1836, 280; + development of, after 1820, 288-290; + land hunger in, 289, 294, 309. + + Westervelt, Dr. ----, appointed to office by Van Buren, 173; + his "claims," 174. + + Whigs, in New York, coalesce with Anti-Masons, 245; + nominate Clay, 246; + their Young Men's convention nominates Clay, 246; + nominate Harrison and Granger in 1836, 260; + their policy in attacking Jackson, 263; + their real platform in Harrison's letter to Sherrod Williams, 264; + their refusal to reduce taxation increases speculation, 299; + and their advocacy of distribution, 300, 301; + rave against Van Buren as author of crisis of 1837, 321, 322, 333; + demand bank, 334-337; + demand payment of fourth installment of surplus, 338; + gain in election of 1837, 337, 342; + in New York, aided by Loco-focos, 344; + transfer name Loco-foco to whole Democratic party, 345; + aided by conservative Democrats, 347; + repeal sub-treasury, 348; + refuse to join popular receptions of Van Buren, 368; + endeavor to force New Jersey congressmen upon House, 377; + nominate Harrison and Tyler, 377, 378; + do not adopt a platform, 378; + their policy in election of 1840, 382-386, 388-390; + campaign songs, 389; + elect Harrison, 390, 391; + their difficulties with Tyler, 401, 402; + defeated in 1844, 412, 413; + support Wilmot Proviso, 417, 418; + nominate Taylor and reject resolution against slavery extension, 430; + anti-slavery members refuse to support Van Buren, 431; + elect Taylor, 432; + accept compromise of 1850, 435; + nominate Scott in 1852, 439; + support Fillmore in 1856, 445. + + White, Hugh L., heads secession from Democratic party, 256, 260; + reasons for his candidacy for presidency, 256, 257; + votes for bill to exclude anti-slavery matter from mail, 277; + vote for, 279, 280. + + Wilkins, William, receives electoral vote of Pennsylvania in 1832 for + vice-president, 248. + + William IV., character of his court, 227; + compliments Jackson to Van Buren, 229. + + Wilmot, David, + offers anti-slavery proviso to three-million bill, 416, 417; + at Barnburner convention, 419. + + Wilmot Proviso, origin of Republican party and civil war, 416; + becomes a party question, 417, 418; + discussion of its necessity in New Mexico and California, 418; + abandoned by Republicans in 1861, 438. + + Wirt, William, Anti-Masonic candidate for presidency, 167, 245, 248. + + Williams, Elisha, his prominence at Columbia County bar, 20; + his rivalry with Van Buren, 20, 21. + + Williams, Sherrod, + asks questions of presidential candidates in 1836, 264; + calls Van Buren's reasons for delay "unsatisfactory," 265. + + Woodbury, Levi, votes against Panama congress, 131; + secretary of navy, 199; + secretary of treasury under Van Buren, 283. + + Wright, Silas, member of Albany Regency, 111; + votes for bill to exclude abolition matter from mail, 277; + votes against distribution of surplus, 301; + leads administration senators, 341; + declines nomination for vice-presidency, 411; + accepts nomination for governor of New York, 412; + elected, 413; + votes against Texas treaty, 413; + leads Barnburners, 415; + offered Treasury Department by Polk, 416; + defeated for reëlection by Hunker opposition, 417; + his friendship for Van Buren, 456. + + + Young, Samuel, denounces Calhoun for raising Texas question, 410; + presides over Utica convention of 1848, 425. + + + + + The Riverside Press + CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, U. S. A. + ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY + H. O. HOUGHTON AND CO. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Martin Van Buren, by Edward M. Shepard + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41634 *** |