The result of the congressional elections even more impressively indicated the drift away from the Jacksonian policies. The Democratic majority in the House during the Twenty-Fourth Congress, of 46, was reduced in the next Congress to a plurality of 2 over the Whigs, with 10 independent members holding the balance of power. Whether this was due to a reaction against the Democratic Party, or merely measured the loss of the personal prestige of Jackson as the candidate, was the problem that gave concern to the Democracy. If Van Buren looked forward with any misgivings to his Administration, however, he gave no sign; and Jackson, if chagrined over his loss of Tennessee, was masterful in dissimulation. There was as much jubilation in the Democratic camp as though the victory had been as decisive as that of four years before. When the electoral votes were being counted, Clay turned to Van Buren with the observation: “It is a cloudy day, sir.” “The sun will shine,” replied the smiling Red Fox, “on the 4th of March, sir.”[925]
CHAPTER XVI
TWILIGHT TRIUMPHS
I
Jackson returned to the White House after the election in a serious physical condition. The exertions of the hot summer, the long and wearisome journey, the keen disappointment over the loss of Tennessee, and his humiliation over his defeat in the Hermitage precinct, had greatly weakened the old lion. The return journey to the capital had increased his debility, and soon after reaching the White House he was driven to his bed by a hemorrhage of the lungs. Ill almost to death, no word of sympathy reached him from his foes, and from his bed he grimly directed and encouraged the counter-attacks with the spirit of the Jackson of New Orleans. In his final Message to Congress, he paid tribute to the fidelity and integrity of his subordinates, and in ordinary times this would have been permitted to pass unchallenged in view of his early relinquishment of power. But the times were not ordinary. The last short session was to be one of extraordinary bitterness, with personal altercations commonplace, and with statesmen of prominence toying all too lightly with their pistols.
Thus the tribute to the subordinates of the Executive departments was eagerly seized upon by Henry A. Wise, the brilliant and impassioned young Whig of Virginia, as a pretext for a bitter personal attack—one of the most severe, satiric, sarcastic philippics to be found in the records of Congress from the first session to the present hour. The way was paved for it through the presentation of a resolution providing for the appointment of a special committee to deal with that portion of the Message to which Wise took exception. He summoned to his purpose all the accumulated charges of eight years of rancorous party warfare, marched them with a militant swing before the House, and demanded an investigation to determine, on the eve of the stricken President’s departure from public life, whether he had been falsely accused. Had Jackson actually made such claims for his subordinates? he asked. No, he had not even written the Message because physically unfit. “It comes to us and the country reeking with the fumes of the Kitchen Cabinet.”
The excited Representatives gathered about the young orator were not kept long in doubt as to the particular object of his attack. Describing Jackson’s electioneering activities in Tennessee, Wise dropped the veil: “I am told,” he said, “that they carried him around like a lion for show, and made him roar like a lion. They had catechisms prepared for him, and the negotiations of the mission were conducted by pre-concerted questions and answers. A crowd would collect on the highway, or in the bar-rooms, and some village politician of the party would inquire, ‘What think you, General, of such a man?’ In a loud tone, much too stentorian for those lungs which are now lacerated, the answer rang, ‘He is a traitor, sir.’ ‘There, there,’ repeated the demagogues in the crowd, ‘did you not hear that?’ ‘What think you of another, General?’ ‘He is a liar, sir.’ ‘What of another?’ ‘He made a speech for which he paid a stenographer five dollars.’ And another was ‘on the fence sir, on the fence.’ ‘But, General, what think you of Mr. [the first time that Reuben was ever called ‘Mister’] Reuben M. Whitney?’ ‘There is no just cause of complaint against Mr. Whitney, sir; he is as true a patriot as ever was; they are all liars who accuse him of aught of wrong.’”[926] Thus it was evident from the speech of Wise that the attack was aimed at Whitney, erroneously described by some historians as a member of the Kitchen Cabinet,[927]
but nevertheless entrusted with the public money. Little can be said in defense of Jackson’s confidence in this man, who had been ferociously assailed in the House in the preceding spring by Wise and Balie Peyton, a hot-headed Whig from Tennessee. With the clever support of the Democrats, the resolution was adopted and Wise was made chairman of the investigating committee. This investigation, probably intended merely as a peg on which to hang partisan harangues against the stricken President, to whose physical condition Wise had made sneering reference, accomplished nothing.
Before the committee had got fairly started, it struck a snag in a personal altercation in the committee room between Peyton and Wise on one side, and Whitney on the other, resulting in the refusal of the latter to appear again unless assured that members of the committee would attend unarmed! The balking witness was thereupon cited for contempt and dragged to the bar of the House; and the clever Administration leaders quickly grasped the opportunity to divert attention from the main question to the arrogant, violent methods of the hot-headed young Whigs in charge. Thus Whitney set himself to the task of proving that he could not appear before the committee without serious danger of assassination. Witnesses to the altercation, on which he based his conclusion, were summoned, and a week was consumed in the hearing of evidence and the cross-examination of witnesses.
The incident on which Whitney based his fears is graphically described in the testimony of John Fairfield, a Representative from Maine.[928] The picture painted of the committee room scene is not inspiring. Whitney had declined to answer a question because of reflections on his integrity by Peyton, and it seems that he had gone so far as to scowl at the Tennessee Hotspur in explaining his refusal. It was a day when honor was a sensitive plant, and Peyton sprang to his feet with a promise to “take his life upon the spot.” The equally fiery Wise, ever ready for a combat, rose to the occasion, and took his position beside his irate colleague with the comment that “this damned insolence is intolerable.” Encouraged by the open sympathy of Wise, the Tennesseean began to meditate aloud, as on the stage, on the enormity of the insult, and to mutter that he would not be insulted “by a damned thief and robber.” His passion, feeding on his hot meditations, and his excitement growing greater, he wheeled upon Whitney, who, alarmed, sprang to his feet and claimed the protection of the committee. “Damn you—damn you!” shouted the white-faced Peyton, “you shan’t say a word while in this room—if you do I will put you to death.” With these words he put his hand to his bosom and moved toward the object of his fury, and Wise and other members of the committee tried to calm the infuriated statesman. “Don’t, Peyton,” cried Wise, “damn him, he is not worth your notice.” Somewhat mollified by this assurance, the insulted Representative sank into his chair—but his blood still boiled. “Damn him, his eyes are upon me!” he cried as in a melodrama. “Damn him, he is looking at me—he shan’t do it!” By this time it was thought possible to calm the nerves of the jumpy Peyton if the witness, whose eyes were so offensive, could be removed from the room; and as he passed out, Wise requested the committee to remain seated to prevent an encounter in the corridor.[929] Thus far the impulsive Virginian appeared in the favorable light of a peace-maker, but, finding pleasure in the narration of the manner in which the hated minion of the Administration had been frightened out of his wits, he began to boast that his purpose in getting close to Whitney had been to shoot him at the slightest provocation, and he was thus drawn into the controversy along with Peyton.