A little later, an extreme bill, professing to meet the views of the President, was submitted, accompanied by an inflammatory report, reiterative of the compact theory of the Constitution, and calculated further to fan the excitement on the subject of abolition. Both the Administration and Whig leaders were hostile to the measure, but it best served the purpose of Calhoun to ignore the Whigs and to harp incessantly upon the opposition from Senators close to the Jackson-Van Buren organization. The report, according to the interpretation of Calhoun, set forth three propositions: that the National Government had no right to prohibit papers, no right to say what papers should be transmitted, and that these rights belonged to the States.[909] The bill provided that it should be a crime for a postmaster knowingly to receive and put into the mail any written, printed, or pictorial matter concerning slavery, directed to any post-office in a State which prohibited the circulation of such matter; that such literature, if not withdrawn from the mails within a given time, should be burned; and it made the Postmaster-General and all his subordinates responsible for the enforcement of the law.

Early in the debate the political motive appeared when King of Alabama again charged Calhoun with being moved by hostility to Jackson. What, exclaimed the bristling Carolinian, “I have too little respect for General Jackson’s judgment, and if he were not President of the United States, I would say for his character, to place myself in such a position.”[910] On the following day we find him striking the same note: “I cannot but be surprised at the course of the friends of the Executive,” he said. “I have heard Senators denounce this measure, recommended by the Executive, as unconstitutional, as tyrannical, as an abuse of power, who never before dared whisper a word against the Administration. Is it because the present Executive is going out of power that his influence is declining?”[911] This constant harping on the attitude of the Administration Senators, whether so intended or not, was looked upon by them as an attempt to make political capital against Van Buren in the slave States. “I wish the gentleman would restrain the frequent repetition of such expressions,” said Cuthbert of Georgia, “as they necessarily bring on him a suspicion of his sincerity. Why should this be a party question? It would show a wickedness, a recklessness of the welfare of our common country for any man to endeavor to make it so.”[912]

But Calhoun persisted in his attempt to maneuver the friends of Van Buren into an attitude offensive to the Southern States. Benton notes, significantly, that it was rather remarkable that three tie votes occurred in succession, two on amendments, and one on the engrossment of the bill. His clear implication is that this was done to force Van Buren to cast a deciding vote, never doubting that it would be hostile to the measure. When the bill came up for engrossment, Calhoun demanded an aye and nay vote. When three men appeared to make a majority, three on the other side instantly appeared. At the time the vote was being taken, Van Buren had left the chair and was pacing up and down, concealed by the colonnade, behind the rostrum. Benton says that “his eyes were wide open to see what would happen.”[913] He observed the keen eyes of the excited Calhoun searching the chamber for his anticipated prey. He heard him ask “eagerly and loudly” where the Vice-President had gone, and demand that the sergeant-at-arms look for him. But Van Buren had heard and seen all, and, when the time came, he calmly took the chair, and with his characteristic serenity cast the deciding vote in favor of engrossment. Benton was positive that had he voted otherwise the Calhoun faction, with the aid of the “Telegraph,” would have inflamed the South against him. This would have been all the easier because Hugh Lawson White, who was playing openly for the extreme State-Rights and pro-slavery support, voted for the bill. But Van Buren and his friends were not blind to the conspiracy, and the two Democratic Senators from New York, intimate political friends of the presidential nominee, ascertaining first that their votes were not needed to defeat the measure, cast expediency votes in its favor, and thus robbed Calhoun and White of the opportunity to make political capital out of the bill. It was defeated by a vote of 25 to 19.[914]

Thus the session dragged on into June, with none of the parties gaining any material advantage for the purposes of the campaign. As the session was drawing to a close, Senator White, who took his candidacy more to heart than any of the other candidates, made a discussion of the resolution to expunge the occasion for an acidulous attack upon Jackson in the presence of Van Buren, who serenely presided. He charged that Jackson had “made up his mind who should be his successor,” and had used all the power of patronage to destroy him (White). With great particularity, he went over the part the President was taking in the canvass then on, the letters he had written, the copies of the “Washington Globe” he had personally franked, the material he had furnished White’s enemies upon the stump in Tennessee.[915] The personal tone of the attack appears to have made a painful impression even upon White’s friends, and certainly did not disturb the smiling complacency of Van Buren, who listened with courteous attention. The “Congressional Globe” of the session is filled with such assaults on Jackson and his Administration, but the Big-Wigs of both parties, with the exception of Calhoun and White, maintained an unusual reserve. But Calhoun did his part in full measure. Not only did he abuse Jackson with indecent invective, but, in the presence of Van Buren, sneered at the latter’s character and ability. Jackson had “courage and firmness; is warlike, bold, audacious; but he is not true to his word and violates the most solemn pledges without scruple.” He had “done the State some service, too, which is remembered greatly to his advantage.” But Van Buren “has none of these recommendations.” No, as Senator Mangum[916] had said, he “has none of the lion or tiger breed about him; he belongs more to the fox and the weasel.”[917]

With nothing better to offer than this, the tired statesmen adjourned on July 4th, and hastened to their homes, some to sulk in their tents in disgust, others to take the field to wage the fight.

VIII

In 1836 the issues of the campaign were not so clearly defined by conditions as in 1832, nor by platform declarations, as in more recent years. The party declarations of principle had no meaning. That of the Democrats could have summed up all in the endorsement of the Jackson Administration and a pledge to continue the Jacksonian policies; that of the Whigs in a denunciation of the principles and policies of Jacksonian Democracy.

The platform of Senator White is found in his letter in reply to that of a committee informing him of his nomination—a personal protest. “When an attempt is made,” he wrote, “to create a party not founded upon settled political principles, composed of men belonging to every political sect, having no common bond of unity save that of a wish to place one of themselves in the highest office known to the Constitution, for the purpose of having all the honors, offices, and emoluments of the Government distributed by them among their followers, I consider such an association, whether composed of many or a few, a mere faction, which ought to be resisted by every man who loves his country, and wishes to perpetuate its liberties.”[918]

The most influential leaders of the Whigs were not enthusiastic over any of the Opposition candidates, with the exception of Webster, who manifestly had no chance. “White and Webster are now the golden calves of the people,” wrote the caustic Adams, “and their dull sayings are repeated for wit, and their grave inanity is passed off for wisdom. This bolstering up of mediocrity would seem not suited to sustain much enthusiasm.” Such as there was, the cynical Puritan ascribed to the fact that “a practice of betting has crept in,” and “that adds a spur of private, personal, and pecuniary interest to the impulse of patriotism.”[919] Naturally, Adams was not enamoured of Van Buren, who impressed him as a “demagogue of the same school [as “Ike” Hill] with a tincture of aristocracy—an amalgamated metal of lead and copper.”[920]

There was no hero worshiping of the candidates in 1836, but the worship of Jackson continued, and the Whigs contemplated the phenomenon with melancholy misgivings. Philip Hone, that faithful chronicler of Whig sentiment, found the political aspect of the country “worse than ever.” Indeed, “General Jackson’s star is still in the ascendant and shines brighter than ever.” A month before the nomination of Van Buren, the Whig diarist had been forced to admit that business conditions had vastly improved.[921] In truth the Whigs were without an issue they dared advance, and could hope for success only through the amalgamation of all the disgruntled with the Whigs—the Anti-Masons, Nullifiers, State-Rights extremists, and disappointed office-seekers—and this was manifestly impossible.