REJECTION OF MR. VAN BUREN, MINISTER TO ENGLAND.
At the period of the election of General Jackson to the Presidency, four gentlemen stood prominent in the political ranks, each indicated by his friends for the succession, and each willing to be the General's successor. They were Messrs. Clay and Webster, and Messrs. Calhoun and Van Buren; the two former classing politically against General Jackson—the two latter with him. But an event soon occurred to override all political distinction, and to bring discordant and rival elements to work together for a common object. That event was the appointment of Mr. Van Buren to be Secretary of State—a post then looked upon as a stepping-stone to the Presidency—and the imputed predilection of General Jackson for him. This presented him as an obstacle in the path of the other three, and which the interest of each required to be got out of the way. The strife first, and soon, began in the cabinet, where Mr. Calhoun had several friends; and Mr. Van Buren, seeing that General Jackson's administration was likely to be embarrassed on his account, determined to resign his post—having first seen the triumph of the new administration in the recovery of the British West India trade, and the successful commencement of other negotiations, which settled all outstanding difficulties with other nations, and shed such lustre upon Jackson's diplomacy. He made known his design to the President, and his wish to retire from the cabinet—did so—received the appointment of minister to London, and immediately left the United States; and the cabinet, having been from the beginning without harmony or cohesion, was dissolved—some resigning voluntarily, the rest under requisition—as already related in the chapter on the dissolution of the cabinet. The voluntary resigning members were classed as friends to Mr. Van Buren, the involuntary as opposed to him, and two of them (Messrs. Ingham and Branch) as friends to Mr. Calhoun; and became, of course, alienated from General Jackson. I was particularly grieved at this breach between Mr. Branch and the President, having known him from boyhood—been school-fellows together, and being well acquainted with his inviolable honor and long and faithful attachment to General Jackson. It was the complete extinction of the cabinet, and a new one was formed.
Mr. Van Buren had nothing to do with this dissolution, of which General Jackson has borne voluntary and written testimony, to be used in this chapter; and also left behind him a written account of the true cause, now first published in this Thirty Years' View, fully exonerating Mr. Van Buren from all concern in that event, and showing his regret that it had occurred. But the whole catastrophe was charged upon him by his political opponents, and for the unworthy purpose of ousting the friends of Mr. Calhoun, and procuring a new set of members entirely devoted to his interest. This imputation was negatived by his immediate departure from the country, setting out at once upon his mission, without awaiting the action of the Senate on his nomination. This was in the summer of 1831. Early in the ensuing session—at its very commencement, in fact—his nomination was sent in, and it was quickly perceptible that there was to be an attack upon him—a combined one; the three rival statesmen acting in concert, and each backed by all his friends. No one outside of the combination, myself alone excepted, could believe it would be successful. I saw they were masters of the nomination from the first day, and would reject it when they were ready to exhibit a case of justification to the country: and so informed General Jackson from an early period in the session. The numbers were sufficient: the difficulty was to make up a case to satisfy the people; and that was found to be a tedious business.
Fifty days were consumed in these preliminaries—to be precise, fifty-one; and that in addition to months of preparation before the Senate met. The preparation was long, but the attack vigorous; and when commenced, the business was finished in two days. There were about a dozen set speeches against him, from as many different speakers—about double the number that spoke against Warren Hastings—and but four off-hand replies for him; and it was evident that the three chiefs had brought up all their friends to the work. It was an unprecedented array of numbers and talent against one individual, and he absent,—and of such amenity of manners as usually to disarm political opposition of all its virulence. The causes of objection were supposed to be found in four different heads of accusation; each of which was elaborately urged:
1. The instructions drawn up and signed by Mr. Van Buren as Secretary of State, under the direction of the President, and furnished to Mr. McLane, for his guidance in endeavoring to reopen the negotiation for the West India trade.
2. Making a breach of friendship between the first and second officers of the government—President Jackson and Vice-President Calhoun—for the purpose of thwarting the latter, and helping himself to the Presidency.
3. Breaking up the cabinet for the same purpose.
4. Introducing the system of "proscription" (removal from office for opinion's sake), for the same purpose.
A formal motion was made by Mr. Holmes, of Maine, to raise a committee with power to send for persons and papers, administer oaths, receive sworn testimony, and report it, with the committee's opinion, to the Senate; but this looked so much like preferring an impeachment, as well as trying it, that the procedure was dropped; and all reliance was placed upon the numerous and elaborate speeches to be delivered, all carefully prepared, and intended for publication, though delivered in secret session. Rejection of the nomination was not enough—a killing off in the public mind was intended; and therefore the unusual process of the elaborate preparation and intended publication of the speeches. All the speakers went through an excusatory formula, repeated with equal precision and gravity; abjuring all sinister motives; declaring themselves to be wholly governed by a sense of public duty; describing the pain which they felt at arraigning a gentleman whose manners and deportment were so urbane; and protesting that nothing but a sense of duty to the country could force them to the reluctant performance of such a painful task. The accomplished Forsyth complimented, in a way to be perfectly understood, this excess of patriotism, which could voluntarily inflict so much self-distress for the sake of the public good; and I, most unwittingly, brought the misery of one of the gentlemen to a sudden and ridiculous conclusion by a chance remark. It was Mr. Gabriel Moore, of Alabama, who sat near me, and to whom I said, when the vote was declared, "You have broken a minister, and elected a Vice-President." He asked how? and I told him the people would see nothing in it but a combination of rivals against a competitor, and would pull them all down, and set him up. "Good God!" said he, "why didn't you tell me that before I voted, and I would have voted the other way." It was only twenty minutes before, for he was the very last speaker, that Mr. Moore had delivered himself thus, on this very interesting point of public duty against private feeling:
"Under all the circumstances of the case, notwithstanding the able views which have been presented, and the impatience of the Senate, I feel it a duty incumbent upon me, not only in justification of myself, and of the motives which govern me in the vote which I am about to give, but, also, in justice to the free and independent people whom I have the honor in part to represent, that I should set forth the reasons which have reluctantly compelled me to oppose the confirmation of the present nominee. Sir, it is proper that I should declare that the evidence adduced against the character and conduct of the late Secretary of State, and the sources from which this evidence emanates, have made an impression on my mind that will require of me, in the conscientious though painful discharge of my duty, to record my vote against his nomination."
The famous Madame Roland, when mounting the scaffold, apostrophized the mock statue upon it with this exclamation: "Oh Liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!" After what I have seen during my thirty years of inside and outside views in the Congress of the United States, I feel qualified to paraphrase the apostrophe, and exclaim: "Oh Politics! how much bamboozling is practised in thy game!"
The speakers against the nomination were Messrs. Clay, Webster, John M. Clayton, Ewing of Ohio, John Holmes, Frelinghuysen, Poindexter, Chambers of Maryland, Foot of Connecticut, Governor Miller, and Colonel Hayne of South Carolina, and Governor Moore of Alabama—just a dozen, and equal to a full jury. Mr. Calhoun, as Vice-President, presiding in the Senate, could not speak; but he was understood to be personated by his friends, and twice gave the casting vote, one interlocutory, against the nominee—a tie being contrived for that purpose, and the combined plan requiring him to be upon the record. Only four spoke on the side of the nomination; General Smith of Maryland, Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Bedford Brown, and Mr. Marcy. Messrs. Clay and Webster, and their friends, chiefly confined themselves to the instructions on the West India trade; the friends of Mr. Calhoun paid most attention to the cabinet rupture, the separation of old friends, and the system of proscription. Against the instructions it was alleged, that they begged as a favor what was due as a right; that they took the side of Great Britain against our own country; and carried our party contests, and the issue of our party elections, into diplomatic negotiations with foreign countries; and the following clause from the instructions to Mr. McLane was quoted to sustain these allegations:
"In reviewing the causes which have preceded and more or less contributed to a result so much regretted, there will be found three grounds upon which we are most assailable: 1. In our too long and too tenaciously resisting the right of Great Britain to impose protecting duties in her colonies. 2. In not relieving her vessels from the restriction of returning direct from the United States to the colonies after permission had been given by Great Britain to our vessels to clear out from the colonies to any other than a British port. And, 3. In omitting to accept the terms offered by the act of Parliament of July, 1825, after the subject had been brought before Congress and deliberately acted upon by our government. It is, without doubt, to the combined operation of these (three) causes that we are to attribute the British interdict; you will therefore see the propriety of possessing yourself fully of all the explanatory and mitigating circumstances connected with them, that you may be able to obviate, as far as practicable, the unfavorable impression which they have produced."
This was the clause relied upon to sustain the allegation of putting his own country in the wrong, and taking the part of Great Britain, and truckling to her to obtain as a favor what was due as a right, and mixing up our party contests with our foreign negotiations. The fallacy of all these allegations was well shown in the replies of the four senators, and especially by General Smith, of Maryland; and has been further shown in the course of this work, in the chapter on the recovery of the British West India trade. But there was a document at that time in the Department of State, unknown to the friends of Mr. Van Buren in the Senate, which would not only have exculpated him, but turned the attacks of his assailants against themselves. The facts were these: Mr. Gallatin, while minister at London, on the subject of this trade, of course sent home dispatches, addressed to the Secretary of State (Mr. Clay), in which he gave an account of his progress, or rather of the obstacles which prevented any progress, in the attempted negotiation. There were two of these dispatches, one dated September 22, 1826, the other November the 14th, 1827. The latter had been communicated to Congress in full, and printed among the papers of the case; of the former only an extract had been communicated, and that relating to a mere formal point. It so happened that the part of this dispatch of September, 1826, not communicated, contained Mr. Gallatin's report of the causes which led to the refusal of the British to treat—their refusal to permit us to accept the terms of their act of 1825, after the year limited for acceptance had expired—and which led to the order in council, cutting us off from the trade; and it so happened that this report of these causes, so made by Mr. Gallatin, was the original from which Mr. Van Buren copied his instructions to Mr. McLane! and which were the subject of so much censure in the Senate. I have been permitted by Mr. Everett, Secretary of State under President Fillmore—(Mr. Webster would have given me the same permission if I had applied during his time, for he did so in every case that I ever asked)—to examine this dispatch in the Department of State, and to copy from it whatever I wanted; I accordingly copied the following:
"On three points we were perhaps vulnerable.
"1. The delay of renewing the negotiation.
"2. The omission of having revoked the restriction on the indirect intercourse when that of Great Britain had ceased.
"3. Too long an adherence to the opposition to her right of laying protecting duties. This might have been given up as soon as the act of 1825 passed. These are the causes assigned for the late measure adopted towards the United States on that subject; and they have, undoubtedly, had a decisive effect as far as relates to the order in council, assisted as they were by the belief that our object was to compel this country to regulate the trade upon our own terms."
This was a passage in the unpublished part of that dispatch, and it shows itself to be the original from which Mr. Van Buren copied, substituting the milder term of "assailable" where Mr. Gallatin had applied that of "vulnerable" to Mr. Adams's administration. Doubtless the contents of that dispatch, in this particular, were entirely forgotten by Mr. Clay at the time he spoke against Mr. Van Buren, having been received by him above four years before that time. They were probably as little known to the rest of the opposition senators as to ourselves; and the omission to communicate and print them could not have occurred from any design to suppress what was material to the debate in the Senate, as the communication and printing had taken place long before this occasion of using the document had occurred.
The way I came to the knowledge of this omitted paragraph was this: When engaged upon the chapter of his rejection, I wrote to Mr. Van Buren for his view of the case; and he sent me back a manuscript copy of a speech which he had drawn up in London, to be delivered in New-York, at some "public dinner," which his friends could get up for the occasion; but which he never delivered, or published, partly from an indisposition to go into the newspapers for character—much from a real forbearance of temper—and possibly from seeing, on his return to the United States, that he was not at all hurt by his fall. That manuscript speech contained this omitted extract, and I trust that I have used it fairly and beneficially for the right, and without invidiousness to the wrong. It disposes of one point of attack; but the gentlemen were wrong in their whole broad view of this British West India trade question. Jackson took the Washington ground, and he and Washington were both right. The enjoyment of colonial trade is a privilege to be solicited, and not a right to be demanded; and the terms of the enjoyment are questions for the mother country. The assailing senators were wrong again in making the instructions a matter of attack upon Mr. Van Buren. They were not his instructions, but President Jackson's. By the constitution they were the President's, and the senators derogated from that instrument in treating his secretary as their author. The President alone is the conductor of our foreign relations, and the dispatches signed by the Secretaries of State only have force as coming from him, and are usually authenticated by the formula, "I am instructed by the President to say," &c., &c. It was a constitutional blunder, then, in the senators to treat Mr. Van Buren as the author of these instructions; it was also an error in point of fact. General Jackson himself specially directed them; and so authorized General Smith to declare in the Senate—which he did.
Breaking up the cabinet, and making dissension between General Jackson and Mr. Calhoun, was the second of the allegations against Mr. Van Buren. Repulsed as this accusation has been by the character of Mr. Van Buren, and by the narrative of the "Exposition," it has yet to receive a further and most authoritative contradiction, from a source which admits of no cavil—from General Jackson himself—in a voluntary declaration made after that event had passed away, and when justice alone remained the sole object to be accomplished. It was a statement addressed to "Martin Van Buren, President of the United States," dated at the Hermitage, July 31st, 1840, and ran in these words:
"It was my intention as soon as I heard that Mr. Calhoun had expressed his approbation of the leading measures of your administration, and had paid you a visit, to place in your possession the statement which I shall now make; but bad health, and the pressure of other business have constantly led me to postpone it. What I have reference to is the imputation that has been sometimes thrown upon you, that you had an agency in producing the controversy which took place between Mr. Calhoun and myself, in consequence of Mr. Crawford's disclosure of what occurred in the cabinet of Mr. Monroe relative to my military operations in Florida during his administration. Mr. Calhoun is doubtless already satisfied that he did you injustice in holding you in the slightest degree responsible for the course I pursued on that occasion: but as there may be others who may still be disposed to do you injustice, and who may hereafter use the circumstance for the purpose of impairing both your character and his, I think it my duty to place in your possession the following emphatic declaration, viz.: That I am not aware of your ever saying a word to me relative to Mr. Calhoun, which had a tendency to create an interruption of my friendly relations with him:—that you were not consulted in any stage of the correspondence on the subject of his conduct in the cabinet of Mr. Monroe;—and that, after this correspondence became public, the only sentiment you ever expressed to me about it was that of deep regret that it should have occurred. You are at liberty to show this letter to Mr. Calhoun and make what other use of it you may think proper for the purpose of correcting the erroneous impressions which have prevailed on this subject."
A testimony more honorable than this in behalf of a public man, was never delivered, nor one more completely disproving a dishonorable imputation, and showing that praise was due where censure had been lavished. Mr. Van Buren was not the cause of breaking up the cabinet, or of making dissension between old friends, or of raking up the buried event in Mr. Monroe's cabinet, or of injuring Mr. Calhoun in any way. Yet this testimony, so honorable to him, was never given to the public, though furnished for the purpose, and now appears for the first time in print.
Equally erroneous was the assumption, taken for granted throughout the debate, and so extensively and deeply impressed upon the public mind, that Mr. Calhoun was the uniform friend of General Jackson in the election—his early supporter in the canvass, and steadfast adherent to the end. This assumption has been rebutted by Mr. Calhoun himself, who, in his pamphlet against General Jackson, shows that he was for himself until withdrawn from the contest by Mr. Dallas at a public meeting, in Philadelphia, in the winter of 1823-4; and after that was perfectly neutral. His words are: "When my name was withdrawn from the list of presidential candidates, I assumed a perfectly neutral position between Gen. Jackson and Mr. Adams." This clears Mr. Van Buren again, as he could not make a breach of friendship where none existed, or supplant a supporter where there was no support: and that there was none from Mr. Calhoun to Gen. Jackson, is now authentically declared by Mr. Calhoun himself. Yet this head of accusation, with a bad motive assigned for it, was most perseveringly urged by his friends, and in his presence, throughout the whole debate.
Introducing the "New-York system of proscription" into the federal government, was the last of the accusations on which Mr. Van Buren was arraigned; and was just as unfounded as all the rest. Both his temper and his judgment was against the removal of faithful officers because of difference of political opinion, or even for political conduct against himself—as the whole tenor of his conduct very soon after, and when he became President of the United States, abundantly showed. The departments at Washington, and some part of every State in the Union, gave proofs of his forbearance in this particular.
I have already told that I did not speak in the debate on the nomination of Mr. Van Buren; and this silence on such an occasion may require explanation from a man who does not desire the character of neglecting a friend in a pinch. I had strong reasons for that abstinence, and they were obliged to be strong to produce it. I was opposed to Mr. Van Buren's going to England as minister. He was our intended candidate for the Presidency, and I deemed such a mission to be prejudicial to him and the party, and apt to leave us with a candidate weakened with the people by absence, and by a residence at a foreign court. I was in this state of mind when I saw the combination formed against him, and felt that the success of it would be his and our salvation. Rejection was a bitter medicine, but there was health at the bottom of the draught. Besides, I was not the guardian of Messrs. Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, and was quite willing to see them fall into the pit which they were digging for another. I said nothing in the debate; but as soon as the vote was over I wrote to Mr. Van Buren a very plain letter, only intended for himself, and of which I kept no copy; but having applied for the original for use in this history, he returned it to me, on the condition that I should tell, if I used it, that in a letter to General Jackson, he characterized it as "honest and sensible." Honest, I knew it to be at the time; sensible, I believe the event has proved it to be; and that there was no mistake in writing such a letter to Mr. Van Buren, has been proved by our subsequent intercourse. It was dated January 28, 1832, and I subjoin it in full, as contemporaneous testimony, and as an evidence of the independent manner in which I spoke to my friends—even those I was endeavoring to make President. It ran thus:
"Your faithful correspondents will have informed you of the event of the 25th. Nobody would believe it here until after it happened, but the President can bear me witness that I prepared him to expect it a month ago. The public will only understand it as a political movement against a rival; it is right, however, that you should know that without an auxiliary cause the political movement against you would not have succeeded. There were gentlemen voting against you who would not have done so except for a reason which was strong and clear in their own minds, and which (it would be improper to dissemble) has hurt you in the estimation of many candid and disinterested people. After saying this much, I must also say, that I look upon this head of objection as temporary, dying out of itself, and to be swallowed up in the current and accumulating topics of the day. You doubtless know what is best for yourself, and it does not become me to make suggestions; but for myself, when I find myself on the bridge of Lodi, I neither stop to parley, nor turn back to start again. Forward, is the word. Some say, make you governor of New-York; I say, you have been governor before: that is turning back. Some say, come to the Senate in place of some of your friends; I say, that of itself will be only parleying with the enemy while on the middle of the bridge, and receiving their fire. The vice-presidency is the only thing, and if a place in the Senate can be coupled with the trial for that, then a place in the Senate might be desirable. The Baltimore Convention will meet in the month of May, and I presume it will be in the discretion of your immediate friends in New-York, and your leading friends here, to have you nominated; and in all that affair I think you ought to be passive. 'For Vice-President,' on the Jackson ticket, will identify you with him; a few cardinal principles of the old democratic school might make you worth contending for on your own account. The dynasty of '98 (the federalists) has the Bank of the United States in its interest; and the Bank of the United States has drawn into its vortex, and wields at its pleasure, the whole high tariff and federal internal improvement party. To set up for yourself, and to raise an interest which can unite the scattered elements of a nation, you will have to take positions which are visible, and represent principles which are felt and understood; you will have to separate yourself from the enemy by partition lines which the people can see. The dynasty of '98 (federalists), the Bank of the United States, the high tariff party, the federal internal improvement party, are against you. Now, if you are not against them, the people, and myself, as one of the people, can see nothing between you and them worth contending for, in a national point of view. This is a very plain letter, and if you don't like it, you will throw it in the fire; consider it as not having been written. For myself, I mean to retire upon my profession, while I have mind and body to pursue it; but I wish to see the right principles prevail, and friends instead of foes in power."
The prominent idea in this letter was, that the people would see the rejection in the same light that I did—as a combination to put down a rival—as a political blunder—and that it would work out the other way. The same idea prevailed in England. On the evening of the day, on the morning of which all the London newspapers heralded the rejection of the American minister, there was a great party at Prince Talleyrand's—then the representative at the British court, of the new King of the French, Louis Phillippe. Mr. Van Buren, always master of himself, and of all the proprieties of his position, was there, as if nothing had happened; and received distinguished attentions, and complimentary allusions. Lord Aukland, grandson to the Mr. Eden who was one of the Commissioners of Conciliation sent to us at the beginning of the revolutionary troubles, said to him, "It is an advantage to a public man to be the subject of an outrage"—a remark, wise in itself, and prophetic in its application to the person to whom it was addressed. He came home—apparently gave himself no trouble about what had happened—was taken up by the people—elected, successively, Vice-President and President—while none of those combined against him ever attained either position.
There was, at the time, some doubt among their friends as to the policy of the rejection, but the three chiefs were positive in their belief that a senatorial condemnation would be political death. I heard Mr. Calhoun say to one of his doubting friends, "It will kill him, sir, kill him dead. He will never kick sir, never kick;" and the alacrity with which he gave the casting votes, on the two occasions, both vital, on which they were put into his hands, attested the sincerity of his belief, and his readiness for the work. How those tie-votes, for there were two of them, came to happen twice, "hand-running," and in a case so important, was matter of marvel and speculation to the public on the outside of the locked-up senatorial door. It was no marvel to those on the inside, who saw how it was done. The combination had a superfluity of votes, and, as Mr. Van Buren's friends were every one known, and would sit fast, it only required the superfluous votes on one side to go out; and thus an equilibrium between the two lines was established. When all was finished, the injunction of secrecy was taken off the proceedings, and the dozen set speeches delivered in secret session immediately published—which shows that they were delivered for effect, not upon the Senate, but upon the public mind. The whole proceeding illustrates the impolicy, as well as peril to themselves, of rival public men sitting in judgment upon each other, and carries a warning along with it which should not be lost.
As an event affecting the most eminent public men of the day, and connecting itself with the settlement of one of our important foreign commercial questions—as belonging to history, and already carried into it by the senatorial debates—as a key to unlock the meaning of other conduct—I deem this account of the REJECTION of Mr. Van Buren a necessary appendage to the settlement of the British West India trade question—as an act of justice to General Jackson's administration (the whole of which was involved in the censure then cast upon his Secretary of State), and as a sunbeam to illuminate the labyrinth of other less palpable concatenations.