The party battles of the Jackson period

by Claude G. Bowers

While Adams indulged in these unfriendly reflections merely to feed his personal vanity, and to record his superiority, Clay, equally bitter, was not content to shut his reflection up between the covers of a book. To him defeat had been especially bitter. He hated Jackson with vindictive malice because the latter really credited the “bargain” story, and had sanctioned its circulation. His overpowering passion was to reach the Presidency. He had entered the official household of Adams as the head of the Cabinet when the “Secretarial Succession” seemed definitely established, and had looked forward to succeeding his chief at the end of his second Administration. The fact that there had been no second Administration had been due, in part, to the prevalent opinion that Clay had entered into a bargain for power, and he faced retirement from public life feeling that his great opportunity had failed him and that his reputation had been stained. He was the type of man whose bitterness must find relief in action. From the moment he recovered from the shock of the election, he dedicated himself to the pursuit of Jackson.

In judging of the sincerity of his unrelenting opposition during the next eight years, it is well to bear in mind that before Jackson had perfected a policy, or proclaimed a principle, Mr. Clay attended a banquet given in his honor within a stone’s throw of the White House, at which he assailed the President with an intemperance of denunciation never exceeded in later years. This was evidently personal. One week after the inauguration he said to Mrs. Bayard Smith: “There is not in Cairo or in Constantinople a greater moral despotism than is at this moment exercised over public opinion here. Why, a man dare not avow what he thinks or feels, or shake hands with a personal friend, if he happens to differ from the powers that be.”[154] On the very day this remarkable statement was recorded by the chronicler of the Whig drawing-rooms, Adams wrote in his diary: “Mr. Clay told me some time since that he had received invitations at several places on his way to Lexington to public dinners, and should attend them, and that he intended freely to express his opinions.”[155] A little later Adams notes that while riding he passed Mr. Clay in a carriage driving toward Baltimore on his way to Kentucky—pale, stern, and sour. On that journey, and without having at that time any particular actions of the new Administration on which to base an attack, he spoke wherever the opportunity was afforded, and always with a vehement denunciation of President Jackson.

The inauguration was over; the people from afar, having seen “their” President and visited “their” White House, had returned to their homes; and Henry Clay, the most consummate of politicians, one of the most eloquent of men, was already meditating upon the organized assault that was to be made upon the new régime. Now let us acquaint ourselves with the advisers with whom the President had surrounded himself officially.

VI

By common consent the Whig aristocracy conceded that Martin Van Buren was the strong man of the Cabinet because of an uncanny cleverness as a politician, while denying him the qualities of statesmanship or intellectual leadership. Even as a politician tradition would have him of the superficial, manipulating, intriguing sort. History had generally accepted this tradition until Mr. Shepard’s masterful biography[156] focused attention upon his career, and the publication of his fascinating “Autobiography” disclosed his intellectuality. He stood out among the politicians of his time, to whom history has been kinder, because of his refusal to indulge in the popular personal attacks or to stoop to disreputable intrigues. A man of even temper, blessed with a sense of humor, he found it not only possible but profitable and pleasurable to maintain social relations with political opponents, and all that the embittered Adams could see in this was that “he thought it might one day be to his interest to seek friendship.” In senatorial debates he had discussed principles and policies calmly, instead of indulging in flamboyant discourses flaming with personalities—and this was accepted in his day as evidence that he held his principles lightly. Adams wrote that “his principles are always subordinate to his ambition.”[157]

This “superficial politician” was the greatest lawyer elected to the Presidency before the Civil War, and, with the possible exception of the second Harrison, the greatest lawyer-President we have had. Living in a community overwhelmingly Federalistic, this “trimmer without principles” became a bitter opponent of Federalism. With all the rich and powerful of the locality allied with Federalism, this “courtier” entered the other camp. When Burr was a candidate for Governor, with the support of Van Buren’s preceptor in the law, this young man, who “was under the influence of his evil genius,” ardently supported the Clinton-Livingston candidate, who was elected. When he entered politics, he found the spoils system thoroughly established in New York, and political proscription practiced by both parties, but that was not to prevent his enemies from charging him with its initiation. He did not quarrel with the system. He used, but never abused it. And in the days of his limitation to State politics, he displayed qualities of statesmanship, patriotism, and courage. New York Federalism did not dismiss him as a mere schemer and intriguer when he led his party in the State Senate. He met the Federalist attack upon the War of 1812 upon the floor of the Senate, and not in party caucus. When Federalism fought every needful measure, he became as much the spokesman of the war party in Albany as Clay, Calhoun, and Grundy in Washington. In reaching an estimate of Van Buren, it is important to bear in mind that this alleged man of indecision, without initiative or constructive capacity, was the author of “the most energetic war measure” adopted in the country.[158] As a member of the Constitutional Convention of New York, dealing with the extension of suffrage, when Chancellor Kent, giving free rein to his aristocratic tendencies, was opposing the extension, and mere demagogues were advocating the immediate letting down of the bars to all, it is significant, both of his Americanism and

his wisdom, that Van Buren scorned both the rôle of reactionary and demagogue, and proposed the plan for the gradual extension of suffrage in a speech couched in the language of seasoned statesmanship. Thus, at the time he entered National life, there was nothing in his career to justify the conventional estimate of his public character.

With the inauguration of Adams, soon after he had entered the United States Senate, Van Buren became the recognized leader of the Opposition, and he set himself the task of organizing and militantizing a party to fight the Federalistic trend of the President. There were various elements on which he could draw. With his genius for organization and direction, he made it his work to seek a common ground upon which all could stand together in harmony. He fought the principles and policies of the Administration in dignified fashion, without recourse to scurrility; but he capitalized every mistake and gave it fullest publicity through the circulation of carefully prepared speeches, after the fashion of the present day. Careful to discriminate, even in his attacks, between personal and political wrongdoing, he treated Adams with the utmost courtesy. With a party formed, he drilled it as carefully as was ever done by the Albany Regency. He instilled into it the party spirit. He mobilized an army. With this he fought the Administration on the floor.