American Men of Action

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

Jackson was one of the most perfect political manipulators and machine-builders this country ever saw, and he had so perfected his machine at the close of his second term that he was able to name as his successor and the heir of his policies, Martin Van Buren, of New York, a man who had been one of Jackson's most valued lieutenants from the first, an astute politician, but not remarkable in any way, nor able to impress himself upon the country. He announced at his inauguration that it was his intention, to tread in the footsteps of his "illustrious predecessor," but none for a moment imagined that he was big enough to fill Jackson's shoes. Indeed, Jackson, was by far the most important figure at the inauguration.

Van Buren's term as President witnessed nothing more momentous than the great panic of 1837, which he faced with a calmness and clear-sightedness surprising even to his friends, but which nevertheless assisted a collection of malcontents, under the leadership of Henry Clay, calling themselves National Republicans or Whigs, to defeat him for re-election. There was really no valid reason why he should have been re-elected; he had little claim, upon the country, but was for the most part, merely a clever politician, the first to attain the presidency. His life had been marked by an orderly advance from local to state, and then to national offices—an advance obtained not because he stood for any great principle, but because he knew how to make friends and build his political fences.

His nomination and election to the presidency was in no sense an accident, as was Taylor's, Pierce's, Hayes's and Garfield's, but was carefully prearranged and thoroughly understood. Yet let us do him the justice to add that his public services were, in some respects, of a high order, and that he was not wholly unworthy of the last great honor paid him. He was a candidate for the nomination in 1844, but was defeated by James K. Polk; and four years later, secured the nomination, but was defeated at the polls by Zachary Taylor. That ended his political career.

In the campaign against him of 1840, the Whigs were fortunate in having for their candidate William Henry Harrison, a man of immense personal popularity, resembling Jackson in that his reputation had been made as an Indian fighter in the West, where he had defeated Tecumseh at the battle of Tippecanoe, and by a successful campaign in the war of 1812. Since then, he had been living quietly on his farm in Ohio, with no expectation of anything but passing his remaining years in quiet, for he was nearly seventy years of age. But Clay, with a sort of prophetic insight, picked him out as the Whig leader, and "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" became the rallying cry of a remarkable campaign, which swept the country from end to end and effectually swamped Van Buren. It was too strenuous for a man as old as Harrison, and he died at the White House within a month of taking the oath of office.

The "Tyler Too" was John Tyler, who had been elected Vice-President, and who assumed the office of President upon Harrison's death. His accession was little less than a bomb-shell to the party which had nominated him and secured his election. For he was a Virginian, a follower of Calhoun and an ardent pro-slavery man, while the Whigs were first, last and all the time anti-slavery. He had been placed on the ticket with Harrison, who was strongly anti-slavery, in the hope of securing the votes of some disaffected Democrats, but to see him President was the last thing the Whigs desired. The result was that he soon became involved in a bitter quarrel with Clay and the other leaders of the party, which effectually; killed any chance of renomination he may have had. He became the mark for perhaps the most unrestrained abuse ever aimed at a holder of the presidency.

It was largely unmerited, for Tyler was a capable man, had seen service in Congress and as governor of his state; but he was dry and uninspiring, and not big enough for the presidency, into which he could never have come except by accident. His administration was marked by few important events except the annexation of Texas, which will be dealt with more particularly when we come to consider the lives of Sam Houston and the other men who brought the annexation about. He retired to private life at the close of his term, appearing briefly twenty years later as a member of a "congress" which endeavored to prevent the war between the states, and afterwards as a member of the Confederate Congress, in which he served until his death.

Clay secured the Whig nomination for himself, in the campaign of 1844, and his opponent on the Democratic ticket was James Knox Polk, a native of North Carolina, but afterwards removing to Tennessee. He had been a member of Congress for fourteen years, and governor of Tennessee for three, and was a consistent exponent of Democratic principles. Two great questions were before the country: the annexation of Texas and the right to Oregon. Polk was for the immediate annexation of Texas and for the acquisition of Oregon up to 54° 40" north latitude, regardless of Great Britain's claims, and "Fifty-four forty or fight!" became one of the battle-cries of the campaign. Clay, inveterate trimmer and compromiser that he was, professed to be for the annexation of Texas, provided it could be accomplished without war with Mexico, which was arrant nonsense, since Mexico had given notice that she would consider annexation an act of war. The result of Clay's attitude, and of a widespread distrust of his policies, was that Polk was elected by a large majority.

His administration was destined to be a brilliant one, for Texas was at once annexed, and the brief war with Mexico which followed, one of the most successful ever waged by any country, carried the southwestern boundary of the United States to the Rio Grande, and added New Mexico and California to the national domain, while a treaty with England secured for the country the present great state of Oregon, although here Polk receded from his position and accepted a compromise which confined Oregon below the forty-ninth parallel. But even this was something of a triumph. With that triumph, the name of Marcus Whitman is most closely associated, through a brilliant but rather useless feat of his, of which we shall speak later on. Polk seems to have been an able and conscientious man, without any pretensions to genius—just a good, average man, like any one of ten thousand other Americans. He refused a renomination because of ill-health, and died soon after retiring from office.

The Democratic party had by this time become hopelessly disrupted over the slavery question, which had become more and more acute. The great strength of the state rights party had always been in the South, and southern statesmen had always opposed any aggression on the part of the national government. The North, on the other hand, had always leaned more or less toward a strong centralization of power. So it followed that while the Democratic party was paramount in the South, its opponents, by whatever name known, found their main strength in the North.

Yet, even in the North, there was a strong Democratic element, and, but for the intrusion of the slavery question, the party would have controlled the government for many years to come. But the North was gradually coming to feel that the slavery question was more important than the more abstract one of national aggression; the more so since, by insisting upon the enforcement of such measures as the Fugitive Slave Law, the South was, as it were, keeping open and bleeding a wound which might to some extent have healed. In 1848 the split came, and the Democratic party put two candidates in the field, Lewis Cass for the South, and Martin Van Buren for the North.