“If you had seen him as I did on the Thames, you would, I think, let him alone.”
“You may be right, Barry,” Jackson replied. “I reckon you are. But thank God I didn’t see him there.”[199]
Dark though the picture is from the viewpoint of the civil service reformer, there is another possible point of view. All the officials dismissed from places were not high-minded, conscientious public servants, for among them were numerous criminals. The dismissal of Tobias Watkins, an Adams appointee and a personal friend of the former President, to make place for Amos Kendall, was the occasion for a great outburst of indignation from the Opposition. Within a month the product of the spoils system had discovered frauds on the part of the “martyr” to the amount of more than $7000, and an arrest followed. He was convicted and served his time in prison. Nor was that of Watkins an isolated case. Thus the collector at Buffalo[200] had procured false receipts for money never paid and was given credit at the Treasury; the collector at Key West[201] had permitted an unlawful trade between Cuba and Florida; the collector at Bath, Maine,[202] was dismissed for personally using $56,315 of the public funds; the collector at Portsmouth[203] was shown to have engaged in smuggling; the collector at St. Marks[204] was shown to have been plundering live-oak from the public lands; the collector at Petersburg[205] had used $24,857 of the public money; the collector at Perth Amboy[206] had made false returns, appropriated to his own use $88,000 of the public money, and fled to Canada; the collector at Elizabeth City, North Carolina,[207] had converted $32,791 to his personal use and joined the other “martyr” to the spoils system on Canadian soil.[208] In brief, the introduction of the spoils system had resulted, in eighteen months, in the uncovering of peculations in the Treasury Department alone of more than $280,000 by men whose dismissal from office had called forth the unmeasured denunciation of Jackson’s enemies, and it is manifestly unfair to withhold these facts while placing emphasis upon the “dismissal of collector to make way for Jackson’s henchmen.”
Thus, throughout the spring and summer of 1829, the President and his Cabinet were bored, harassed, and tortured with importunities for place, denounced as ingrates because they left any of the enemies in office, and damned by the enemy for every dismissal that was made.
II
The spring and summer was the time of the Red Terror.
The White Terror of retaliation began with the meeting of the hostile Senate in December.
The enemies of Jackson sought the earliest possible opportunity to denounce the wholesale dismissals, and the brilliant orators of the Opposition in the House made intemperate attacks, while in the Senate Webster spoke against the policy of proscription, without, however, adopting the absurd position that the President did not possess the constitutional power.[209] The early part of the session was given over to denunciations of the removals, and to a frankly hostile scrutiny, on the part of the Senate, of all nominations requiring confirmation. It foreshadowed the bitter party battles of the next eight years by rejecting the nominations of some of Jackson’s most ardent supporters in the campaign, and by taking the ridiculous position that journalists should be excluded from appointive office. This proscription, or massacre of the editors, was aimed at men, comparatively new to public life, who were speedily to develop into the most brilliant and sagacious of the Jacksonian leaders. Long and acrimonious executive sessions became the rule of the Senate. In some instances, action upon nominations was postponed for months under provocative circumstances that were not lost upon the fighting figure at the other end of the Avenue. The charge was made that a number of the President’s nominees were “vicious characters.” It was in the early days of this session that a comparatively new Senator, elected upon the supposition that he would support the President and his policies, and destined to be the only member of the Senate to realize personally upon that body’s venomous hostility to the Administration, stepped forth to organize and direct the fight against the confirmation of nominees in whom the President was deeply interested. John Tyler led the first onslaught on the Administration.
It is important to pause to contemplate Tyler’s character and career, because he typifies those Democrats who were so soon to enter into coöperation with the Whigs in opposition, and because history has been unjust in underestimating both his capacity and courage. We shall find him pursuing Jackson throughout the greater part of his Presidency, and paying the penalty to the people with a manliness which found little emulation among men to whom history has been more gracious.
John Tyler was the scion of a family distinguished in law and in politics. His father was a fine Revolutionary figure, and one of the first lawyers in Virginia. He inherited his father’s ability, predilections, and prejudices. Within three months after his admission to the bar, he was employed in every important case in the county, and when, at the age of twenty-seven, he abandoned his practice to enter Congress, his income was $2000 a year, which was $1300 more than Webster’s at the same age.[210] On reaching Washington, he was cordially welcomed by the Madisons into the White House circle. He was fond of the society of the President’s house, disliked the French cooking, but found consolation in the excellent champagne of which he was very fond.[211] He found Clay, with whom he was to be associated in the fights against Jackson, in the Speaker’s chair, and fell under the spell of his fascination. It was then, too, that he formed his intense admiration for Calhoun.