THE MADISON-PINCKNEY-CLINTON CONTESTS

1808–12

The election of Jefferson ended the line of the succession to the Presidency from the Vice-Presidency. Adams as Vice-President succeeded Washington as President, and Jefferson as Vice-President succeeded Adams, but the Burr fiasco made it impossible for the succession to be maintained, and for many years the line of succession to the Presidency was in the Premiers of the administration. Indeed during the entire century from 1800 to 1900 but one Vice-President has been elected to the Presidency. That single exception was Martin Van Buren, and he started under the Jackson administration as Premier. Madison, who was Secretary of State under Jefferson, succeeded Jefferson to the Presidency; Monroe, Secretary of State under Madison, succeeded Madison as President; John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State under Monroe, succeeded Monroe as President, and since that time Buchanan was the only Secretary of State who reached the Presidency, although Webster, Cass and Blaine, who were Premiers under several administrations, were defeated in Presidential contests.

Madison was generally regarded as the favorite of Jefferson for the succession, and Jefferson’s power at that time was second only to the power of Washington in dictating who should succeed him to the highest honor of the Republic. Irritating opposition to Madison came from his own State of Virginia, where the friends of Monroe were quite aggressive. Two caucuses had been held in the Virginia Legislature, one by the friends of Madison, and the other, much smaller in number, by the friends of Monroe, and both were thus formally presented to the country to succeed Jefferson.

A caucus of the Republican members of both branches of Congress was called to meet on the 23d of January, 1808. It was known that the friends of Madison largely outnumbered the friends of Monroe in Congress, and the active supporters of Monroe earnestly opposed a nomination by the Congressional caucus. The caucus was held, however, and was attended by a majority of the Senators and Representatives, and Madison was nominated on the 1st ballot, receiving 83 votes to 3 for Monroe and 3 for George Clinton. Monroe had a considerably larger strength in Congress, but the result was predetermined, and a number of them did not participate. George Clinton was nominated by substantially the same vote for Vice-President. The caucus system was under fire, and the caucus, in justification of its own act, adopted a resolution declaring that in making the nominations the members had “acted only in their individual characters as citizens,” and because it was “the most practical mode of consulting and respecting the interests and wishes of all upon a subject so truly interesting to the people of the United States.”

It was a considerable time before the friends of Monroe gave a cordial adhesion to the caucus nominations, but Jefferson, who was friendly to both Madison and Monroe, interposed and reconciled the friends of Monroe by the expectation that Monroe would succeed Madison; and as there was practically no serious opposition to Madison presented by the Federalists, the campaign drifted into the general acceptance of Madison’s election long before the election was held. The Federalists did not hold any caucus or formally present candidates, but accepted Pinckney and King, for whom they had voted in the last contest against Jefferson.

In the New England States vigorous contests were made by the Federalists to regain the supremacy they had lost, and New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which had voted for Jefferson, were regained by the Federalists, but the struggle was not made with any hope of defeating Madison for President. There had been no increase in the number of States nor in the vote of the electoral colleges. Madison won an easy and decisive victory, receiving 122 electoral votes to 47 for Pinckney and 6 for George Clinton, who was the regular nominee of the Republicans for Vice-President, and who was elected to that office by 113 electoral votes to 47 for King and 15 scattering. New York was obviously disaffected, as while the Republican caucus had accorded to Clinton of that State the second place on the ticket, and elected him Vice-President, the electoral vote of New York was divided, Madison receiving 13 to 6 cast for Clinton, and in the same electoral college Clinton received 13 votes for Vice-President to 3 for Madison and 3 for Monroe. The votes of North Carolina and Maryland were also divided, but that was not unusual, as after Washington retired the electoral votes of those States were divided, because their electors were chosen by Congressional districts.

There is no intelligent record of the popular vote, and it would be needless to attempt to present it, as outside of New England the States which were contested generally chose their electors by the Legislature. The following is the vote in detail as cast in the Electoral College:

STATES.President.Vice-President.
James Madison, Va.George Clinton, N. Y.C. C. Pinckney, S. C.George Clinton, N. Y.James Madison, Va.John Langdon, N. H.James Monroe, Va.Rufus King, N. Y.
New Hampshire——7————7
Vermont6————6——
Massachusetts——19————19
Rhode Island——4————4
Connecticut——9————9
New York136—133—3—
New Jersey8——8————
Pennsylvania20——20————
Delaware——3————3
Maryland9—29———2
Virginia24——24————
North Carolina11—311———3
South Carolina10——10————
Georgia6——6————
Kentucky[4]7——7————
Tennessee5——5————
Ohio3————3——
12264711339347

The battle for Madison’s second election in 1812 began in the early period of our second war with Great Britain. Many complicated foreign questions excited earnest discussion and renewed the partisan bitterness of the earlier national contests, while the struggle for the renewal of the charter of the United States bank convulsed financial and business circles. The bill was lost by indefinite postponement in the House in 1811 by a single vote, and soon thereafter a like bill was rejected in the Senate by the casting vote of the Vice-President. Madison did not possess the breadth of statesmanship so grandly exhibited by Jefferson, and he lacked in the positive qualities needed to meet the grave issues which confronted him. He parried our foreign questions with almost endless diplomatic correspondence, and in the conduct of the war he lacked in the settled purpose and methods which are always necessary to sustain a government in such a crisis.

It was then that Clay came to the front as Commoner of the nation, and it was his able, eloquent, and inspiring utterances and actions, aided by Senator Crawford, of Georgia, that saved the administration when it was apparently threatened with defeat. Madison was unwilling to accept war with England until it became clearly evident that he must declare war or give the Federalists a restoration to power, and it was only after he had been very earnestly appealed to by the men upon whom he had most to depend, that he sent a message to Congress pointing out the necessity of a declaration of war, to which both branches in secret sessions gave their approval.

It was not until after Madison had decided upon an aggressive war policy with England that the Congressional caucus was called to nominate Republican candidates for President and Vice-President. The caucus met on the 12th of May apparently without objection, and Madison was renominated by a unanimous vote, only one member present declining to vote. Clinton had died in office, and a new nomination had to be made for Vice-President. John Langdon, of New Hampshire, who was the first Senator to be President pro tem. of the body, was nominated for Vice-President, receiving 64 votes to 16 for Elbridge Gerry and 2 scattering. Langdon declined the nomination, and the second caucus was convened when Gerry was nominated by a vote of 74 to 3 scattering. While the proceedings of the caucus were apparently very harmonious, there was significance in the fact that some 50 Republican Senators and Representatives did not attend, only one being present from New York State.

The reason for the New York members declining to attend the caucus was soon developed by a counter movement, made in New York, to bring out DeWitt Clinton, who was the leader of the Republicans of that State, as the candidate in opposition to Madison. The Federalists had no part in making him the competitor of Madison, but they were quite willing, in their utter helplessness, to support any bolt against the omnipotence of the Republican caucus. Many of the Republicans thought that the administration was not sufficiently aggressive in its opposition to England, and many others opposed Madison and were ready to support Clinton or any other promising candidate who was entirely opposed to the war. Had Clinton acted in harmony with the Republicans and supported Madison, he would have been a very formidable competitor of Monroe for the succession, but in allowing himself to be made a candidate of the opposition, he entirely lost his position as a Republican leader.

Madison had been nominated by the Republican Congressional caucus on the 12th of May, and on the 29th of May a caucus of the Republican members of the New York Legislature was held, at which 91 of the 93 members were present, and they unanimously nominated Clinton as a candidate for President, and the Federalists gradually dropped into his support. The Federalists took no formal action for the selection of candidates until September, when a conference of the leaders of that party was held in New York, with representatives from 11 States, and that conference nominated Clinton for President with Jared Ingersoll for Vice-President.

The campaign logically drifted into a square issue between the war and the peace parties, and even with all the factional hostility to Madison in the Republican ranks, such an issue could result only in the success of the party that sustained the Government in its war with England. The Federalists carried a solid New England vote for Clinton with the exception of Vermont, that broke loose from her Federal moorings and cast her entire electoral vote for Madison. New York, with the largest electoral vote of any State, was carried chiefly by Clinton’s personal popularity, and New Jersey was lost to Madison in disregard of the popular vote of the State by a Federal Senate and House that was successful against a Republican majority by reason of the peculiar shaping of the legislative districts. The Legislature repealed the law for the choice of electors by a popular vote, and elected Federal electors by the Legislature. Had the popular vote of New Jersey prevailed, the vote between Madison and Clinton in the Electoral College would have been 136 for Madison to 81 for Clinton. The following is the vote as cast by the electoral colleges:

STATES.President.Vice-President.
James Madison, Va.DeWitt Clinton, N. Y.Elbridge Gerry, Mass.Jared Ingersoll, Penn.
New Hampshire—817
Vermont8—8—
Massachusetts—22220
Rhode Island—4—4
Connecticut—9—9
New York—29—29
New Jersey—8—8
Pennsylvania25—25—
Delaware—4—4
Maryland6565
Virginia25—25—
North Carolina15—15—
South Carolina11—11—
Georgia8—8—
Kentucky12—12—
Tennessee8—8—
Louisiana3—3—
Ohio7—7—
Total1288913186

Louisiana was admitted into the Union on the 8th of April, 1812, and participated in the Presidential election, making 18 States. It will be seen that there was but one State that cast a divided electoral vote. Maryland continued to choose all but the electors at large by Congressional districts, and gave 6 votes to Madison and 5 to Clinton. North Carolina changed her method of electing by districts to the choice of electors by the Legislature, thus making her electoral vote solid. Gerry, the candidate for Vice-President on the ticket with Madison, received 3 more votes in the Electoral College than were given to Madison, one of which came from New Hampshire and two from Massachusetts.