About the time that Hill was writing to his assistant editor, he was meeting daily, at the home of Obadiah B. Brown, a preacher-politician, where Amos Kendall, a Kentucky editor, then obscure, but destined to become the master mind of the Administration, was holding forth, and organizing a number of fellow journalists who had been useful in the campaign, to compel recognition. There, in the home of the jovial preacher, Kendall and Hill were making common cause with the smiling Major M. M. Noah of New York, Nathaniel Green of Massachusetts, and the quiet but sagacious Gideon Welles of Connecticut. More political history was being made in the humble abode of Brown than in the crowded, smoke-laden room at Gadsby’s.[128] The Kentucky editor does not seem to have encountered the same reticence in Jackson that Hill had found. After his first call at Gadsby’s, we find him writing his wife: “He expressed his regards for me and his disposition to serve me, in strong terms.” And a few days later, after his second call, he writes: “The other day I had a long conversation with General Jackson. At the close of it, after saying many flattering things of my capacity, character, etc., he observed, ‘I told one of my friends that you were fit for the head of a department, and I shall put you as near the head as possible.’”[129]
It is significant of the change of the times that, while the practical politicians of the new school were encouraged and jubilant, the seasoned veterans of political battle-fields were discouraged and not a little disgruntled. Amusing tales of the discomfiture of these were gayly carried to the politicians of the Opposition in the salon of Mrs. Smith, who recorded, toward the close of February, that “every one thinks there is great confusion and difficulty, mortification and disappointment at the Wigwam, as they call the General’s lodgings. Mr. Woodbury[130] looks glum, as well as several other disappointed expectants.”[131]
The battle royal occurred in the selection of the Cabinet. The one principle on which Jackson was determined was the exclusion from his Cabinet table of any aspirant for the succession. He had been profoundly impressed by the demoralizing effect of the intrigues of the presidential candidates in the Cabinet of Monroe.[132] This, however, did not deter the two powerful men of the party, Calhoun and Van Buren, from exerting themselves to pack the Cabinet with men favorable to their respective aspirations for the chief magistracy. Of the latter’s plans the President-elect knew nothing. He had probably decided to ask the clever New York politician to accept the portfolio of State before leaving the Hermitage. He had been intimate with Van Buren in the Senate; had been impressed with his tact, diplomacy, and ability, and especially with his genius in the creation, consolidation, and drilling of a party, and in formulating its policies. He was not unmindful of the part the “Red Fox”[133] had played in his nomination and election. In view of all the conditions the selection of Van Buren was logical and inevitable.[134] It was just as inevitable that Calhoun, the Vice-President, should be hostile to the choice. Primarily, we may be sure, the South Carolinian recognized in the suave and subtle New Yorker a dangerous rival for the succession. Whether he was even that early interested in strengthening the South at the expense of the North is not so certain. However that may be, he appeared in the throng of wire-pulling politicians at Gadsby’s, earnestly urging that Senator Tazewell of Virginia should be placed at the head of the Cabinet. This able statesman but a little time before had maintained close political relations with Van Buren,[135] but he was an extreme State-Rights advocate, entirely satisfactory to Calhoun. During the half-concealed struggle over the Cabinet, Van Buren, who had been elected Governor of New York and was staying in Albany, was well served in Washington by James A. Hamilton, whose mission was to keep in intimate touch with events and inform the New Yorker of all developments. Thus it happened that Hamilton was with Jackson when, at ten o’clock one morning, Calhoun called for a conference with the President-elect. “I know what it is about,” said Jackson to Van Buren’s agent. “He cannot succeed. I wish you to remain until he leaves.” It was during this conference, the last he ever had with the President on patronage matters, that Calhoun made his final stand for Tazewell, or against Van Buren. With great solemnity he urged the appointment of the Virginian, largely because of “his great knowledge and wisdom,” but partly on the ground that it would assure the support of Virginia for the Administration. It is doubtful whether, up to this time, Calhoun had appreciated the political sagacity of the man with whom he dealt. Jackson listened to his importunity with courteous attention, but did not commit himself. One suggestion he made, however, which must have warned the great Carolinian that his motives were divined. When Calhoun stressed the importance of cultivating Virginia, Jackson blandly inquired whether it would not be useful to have the support of New York. Calhoun’s reply disclosed his animus against the “Little Magician.” The appointment of Clinton, had he lived, might have guaranteed the support of the Empire State, but the selection of no other citizen of that State would. He left, no doubt with the feeling that he had failed in his mission, and never again approached Jackson on the subject of appointments. And the moment he left, a detailed story of the conference was given to Hamilton, who promptly sent it to his chief in Albany.[136]
When Jackson reached the capital he had made no decision as to the Treasury, and there he was to be buffeted about by many cross-currents. Van Buren, who was socially and politically intimate with Louis McLane of Delaware, was anxious that he should be named for the post, and the gentleman himself was on the ground ready to respond to the summons that failed to come. The political tacticians at Gadsby’s reached the decision early that the place should be awarded to Pennsylvania, and Samuel D. Ingham, who had rushed to Washington as a representative of one of the factions, with an application for a subordinate position in the Treasury, became an active candidate for the more important honor. This was displeasing to Jackson, who favored Henry Baldwin, but in this preference he was unable to secure any important support among his advisers.[137] Strangely enough, powerful influences almost immediately rushed to the support of the man who would have been delighted with a comparatively obscure position. The Pennsylvania congressional delegation, on which he had served for years, unanimously endorsed him. Stranger still, Calhoun, with whom Jackson at this juncture had no desire to break, became an ardent supporter of his candidacy. He had served in the House of Representatives many years before with the mediocre Pennsylvanian, and had found in him one of his most faithful idolaters. That his influence, and the desire to recognize him in the making of the Cabinet, was the determining factor, was the consensus of opinion at the time.
But here again appeared cross-currents difficult to understand. South Carolina, usually so subservient to the wishes of her great statesman, but now cool toward him, was uncompromisingly hostile to his favorite for the Treasury. The other leading members of the South Carolina delegation, known to be opposed to Ingham and to prefer McLane to him, had hesitated from motives of delicacy to make their views known to Jackson; and Van Buren’s favorite for the position authorized Hamilton, Van Buren’s emissary, to notify the General of their willingness to call if their opinion was wanted.[138] On February 17th, the Carolinians, including Senator Hayne, McDuffie, Hamilton, Archer, and Drayton, filed into the throne room at Gadsby’s, and Hamilton, who acted as spokesman, began by tactfully commending the selection of Van Buren, and then turned to the Treasury. Before he could announce his candidate, Jackson interrupted with the announcement that Ingham had been chosen. Nothing daunted, Hamilton suggested as a better choice the brilliant Langdon Cheves of South Carolina. “Impossible,” snapped the grim old man. Then why not McLane? That, too, was instantly dismissed, and the Carolinians left Gadsby’s in a rage. “I assure you I am cool—damn cool—never half so cool in my life,” Hamilton exclaimed immediately afterwards.[139]
For the War Department there was no such competition, and after an unsuccessful attempt had been made to conciliate Tazewell with the post, Jackson, who was anxious to have among his advisers one of his old friends and managers, satisfied himself with the selection of Senator John H. Eaton of Tennessee.
The processes of reasoning leading to the appointment of Senator John Branch of North Carolina as Secretary of the Navy have been lost to history and there is no clue. We know that Van Buren and his friends strongly urged the selection of Woodbury of New Hampshire; and McLane expressed the contemporary state of mind in a letter to his friend: “By what interest that miserable old woman, Branch, was ever dreamed of, no one can tell.” This much we know—that Branch himself did not have the most remote idea of entering the Cabinet when the invitation reached him from Gadsby’s, and he withheld his acceptance until he could consult with a number of his friends.[140] Two reasons have been advanced as probable. The one, popular at the time, was that Jackson’s advisers thought that something should be done to promote the social prestige of the Administration; and the other, generally accepted by historians, that the appointment was made as another concession to Calhoun. While the Carolinian made no request for his inclusion in the Cabinet, Branch was one of his most loyal followers.
There is no real justification for astonishment over the decision of the conferees at the Wigwam to ask Senator John McPherson Berrien of Georgia to accept the position of Attorney-General. Not only was he a brilliant member of the Senate, noted as an orator, but his professional reputation in his section was almost as great as that of Webster in New England. His votes in the Senate on the party measures of the Adams Administration had been pleasing to Jackson, and, whether he was named as another gesture of good-will toward Calhoun, as generally assumed, or not, his appointment could not have been displeasing to the Vice-President.
While the Postmaster-General had not hitherto been a member of the Cabinet, the Jackson board of strategy, wishing to manifest its appreciation of John McLean, who had held the post under Adams while exerting himself on behalf of Jackson, determined to raise the position to the Cabinet and retain him.[141]
Thus the Cabinet was completed, and after a fashion indicative of no desire on the part of Jackson to quarrel with his Vice-President. Van Buren, who did not enter into the President’s calculations as to the succession, had been given the most desirable post, but his friends, McLane and Woodbury, had been set aside for Ingham and Branch, both devoted to the political fortunes of Calhoun. The latter was represented by half the Cabinet, Ingham, Branch, and Berrien, and no stretch of the imagination could make the other two members, Eaton and McLean, other than absolutely independent of the wily politician of Kinderhook. The processes through which all this was speedily changed enter into one of the most fascinating dramas of political intrigue in the history of the Republic.