The party battles of the Jackson period

by Claude G. Bowers

The weakness of his voice discouraged his ambition for forensic distinction. In the Governor’s Mansion at Frankfort he was married, early in life, to a charming woman noted for “her extraordinary mental force and her sagacity.”[364]

Like Kendall and Barry, Blair had begun his political career as an ardent supporter of Clay, and like them, had broken with him on the “bargain” story. According to Blair’s contention through life, Clay had confided to him in advance that, if such a contingency as did develop should arise in the congressional caucus, he would throw his support to Adams, and that he had protested against the plan. Whether true or not, that event marked the end of Blair’s interest in the political ambitions of the man from Ashland. From 1823 to 1827 he played a conspicuous part as one of the principals in the famous fight between the New and the Old Courts which all but reduced the State to a condition bordering on anarchy. This part of his career is difficult to understand. The New Court Party, with which he was affiliated, was a revolutionary organization mustering its strength from the indebtedness and poverty of the people. It proposed to relieve the condition of the poor through methods frankly revolutionary and worse. During the period of the court fight, and while acting as the clerk of the revolutionary court, two events completely changed the course of his career. He broke with Clay and allied himself with the Democratic Party; and he became a regular contributor to the columns of the “Frankfort Argus,” and a journalist by profession. On abandoning the court clerkship he immediately identified himself with Kendall in the publication of the paper, and the combined genius of these two extraordinary men converted the little Western journal into one of the most powerful and popular of the Jacksonian organs. All the credit appears to have gone to Kendall and none to his associate, for after the election it was Kendall and not Blair who was assured of recognition from the incoming Administration. After Kendall went to Washington, Blair, without the slightest notion of ever following, remained in Frankfort, writing special articles in support of Jacksonian policies for the “Argus.” Thus he plied his trenchant pen against the Bank, excoriated Nullification, attacked Clay, and damned Calhoun. He had suffered financial reverses, been forced to sacrifice much property, and was in distressed circumstances. Later, when he was assailed by Senator Poindexter as having gone to Washington as a “beggar,” he was indignantly to repel the charge. “The editor of the ‘Globe’ resigned, on leaving Frankfort to take charge of the press here,” he wrote, “the clerkship of the circuit court, the fees of which alone averaged $2000 annually, and the presidency of the Bank of the Commonwealth, and other employments which made his annual income upward of $3000—a sum twice as great as the salaries of the judges of the Supreme Court, and a third greater than that of the Governor of the State.”[365] Nevertheless, it was the state of his finances which had necessitated the temporary suppression of the fact that he had accepted the editorship of the “Globe.”

Once in the editorial chair, he assumed a militant attitude, and frankly announced that the paper would be devoted “to the discussion and maintenance of the principles which brought General Jackson into office”; and as early as April, 1831, four months after the first appearance of the paper, he began vigorously to advocate the reëlection of his idol in the White House.

The first issue appeared on December 7, 1830, published twice a week. In its initial days the inevitable quarrel between Blair and Green simmered, and while the “Globe” and the “Telegraph” were nervously toying with their pistols, the actual fight did not commence until Green published the Calhoun letters. Thereafter the contest was acrimonious and continuous. The immediate result of this battle was to impress Blair with the necessity of a daily publication, requiring a much larger outlay in money than either Blair or Kendall or both were able to advance. This, however, did not discourage the plucky little Kentuckian in the least. He called upon the friends and supporters of Jackson in the capital and throughout the country to subscribe for six hundred copies and pay for them in advance at the rate of ten dollars per annum. This money was easily collected, and thus, without the advance, by Blair, of a dollar of capital, the “Globe” was placed upon a firm and sure foundation.[366]

The journalistic genius of the little editor almost immediately gave the paper first rank in importance among all the papers then published in the country. Some of his admirers have said that “he became the master of a style of composition that compared favorably with that of Junius.”[367] However that may be, he unquestionably was forceful, entertaining, and at times, eloquent. He could be dignified and argumentative without being dull. He knew how to appeal at once to the lover of pure English and the uneducated artisan of the city or the frontiersman in the wilderness. He was a pioneer among the journalists who have known how to produce a paper that would be as welcome on the library table of the student as in the hut of the farmer on the outskirts of civilization. The secret of his strength was his direct method. There was nothing of equivocation or compromise in his character. He did not qualify away all force for the sake of conservatism. He liked to cross the Rubicon, burn the bridges, and devastate the country. Any one could understand precisely what he meant. He was intense in his convictions, and he had the audacity, inseparable from political genius, to move in a straight line, prepared to meet the enemy even on ground of the latter’s choosing. His gift of satire and sarcasm was a joy to his fellow partisans who delighted in him. At first intended as their spokesman, he became their leader. Politicians soon learned that it was not necessary to carry suggestions to the editor of the “Globe”—they went to his sanctum to get them. Capable of a skillful use of the rapier, he preferred the meat-axe. Nothing pleased him so much as the crushing of the skulls of the enemies of Jackson, and if these should happen to be Democrats, all the greater was the joy of the operation.

This slashing, brilliant style delighted Jackson, who, strangely enough, had a profound admiration for the fluent writer. The old warrior took him to his bosom. That the editor of the “Court journal” should be mistaken was unthinkable to the President; and when any one asked him for information on any subject with which he was unfamiliar, he would invariably reply: “Go to Frank Blair—he knows everything.” And Jackson believed it. Firmly convinced that the people were entitled to all public information, when any such came to his attention he would instantly say, “Give it to Blair.”[368] He consulted the little ugly Kentuckian constantly on all matters of domestic policy, on party matters and patronage, and even on delicate points concerned with international programmes. The intimacy of this relationship soon trickled down from the capital to the party workers in the most remote sections, and, in time, the paper took its place with the Bible in all well-regulated Democratic households. Jackson himself is said to have read nothing during his Presidency but the Bible, his correspondence, and the “Globe.”[369] The Democratic press throughout the country got its cue from Blair’s editorials, and he, astute politician and advertiser, took pains to cultivate intimate relations with all papers supporting the Administration. Many articles, written by Kendall in the office of the “Globe,” and sent to country papers for publication as their own, were afterwards collected and reproduced in the Administration organ to indicate the trend of public opinion.

Naturally the enemies of the Administration in Congress looked upon Blair and his paper with venomous hatred, and not without cause. No head was too distinguished for his bludgeon, and it descended with resounding whacks upon the craniums of the greatest as well as the least of these, leading to many furious protests and denunciations on the floor of the House and Senate. The “Congressional Globe” is thickly sprinkled with references to the paper. There was nothing of novelty in a statesman rising to a question of personal privilege to explain that the editor had done him an injustice in describing him as a liar, an anarchist, or a traitor. Occasionally Clay, or some lesser light, would rise to protest against the action of the President in conveying information, to which the Congress was entitled, through the columns of his organ. Henry A. Wise would complain that “the Secretary of the Treasury has already informed Congress and the country, through the columns of the ‘Globe’ of Saturday last,” that a certain policy would be pursued.[370] Or perhaps he would merely desire to explain that a certain editorial was a “total perversion of the facts.”[371] Or maybe it was John Quincy Adams who took the floor to describe the editor of the “Globe” as “the ambassador of the Executive,” an ambassador being “a distinguished person sent abroad to lie for the benefit of his country.”[372] One member would secure recognition to “indignantly repel the charge made against him by the ‘Globe’ of being an anarchist and a revolutionist.”[373] Even Webster was not impervious to the darts of the journalist, and did not think it beneath his dignity formally to protest against an editorial paragraph, “flagitiously false,” which had reflected upon him as chairman of the Finance Committee.[374]

With the politicians, the country press, and the party leaders in the Congress treating the “Globe” as the editorial reflection of the President, it is not surprising that the diplomatic corps should have accepted the general assumption, and that the foreign offices of Europe should have attached no little significance to any of its observations on international affairs. Of the truth of this we have one very striking illustration.

While Livingston was Secretary of State, James Buchanan was the American Minister at St. Petersburg, charged with the negotiation of a highly important commercial treaty. All went well until the terms of the treaty had been practically agreed upon, when he had an interview with the brilliant Count Nesselrode, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who protested against what he termed the unfriendly attitude of the American press toward the Emperor and Russia, apropos of Poland. Not only, he complained, had the “Globe,” which he characterized as “the Government paper,” failed to correct the false impressions of the press generally, but it “had itself been distinguished by falsehoods.” He hoped, therefore, that the President “would adopt measures to remove this cause of complaint in the future, at least against the official paper in Washington.”[375] Recovering as quickly as possible from his astonishment, Buchanan explained that the press in the United States was not subject to governmental supervision, but the practical-minded Nesselrode was not at all impressed. He baldly charged that the “Globe” “formed an exception to the rule and was a paper over which the Government exercised a direct control.” Such being the Russian understanding, the Count was disappointed at the failure of Livingston, when he had met the Russian Minister to the United States in New York City, to offer assurances that no more offensive articles would appear in that journal, and even more chagrined to learn, after that interview, that the “Globe” had been “more violent than before.” Buchanan was forced to concede that the “Globe” was commonly called the “official paper,” but earnestly protested that it was free from governmental control. He was “persuaded that even the influence of Mr. Livingston over the editor” was not much greater than his own, and he had no influence at all. Here Buchanan was on safe ground, but Nesselrode was not so easily convinced. With a disconcerting smile of incredulity, he suggested that “General Jackson himself must certainly have some influence over the editor.” Finding himself in a blind alley, Buchanan was lamely admitting that the President might have such influence, when Nesselrode, taking instant advantage of the admission, and without waiting for the conclusion of the sentence, requested him to ask Jackson to “exercise it for the purpose of inducing the ‘Globe’ to pursue a more cautious course hereafter.” Buchanan, glad of the opportunity to drop the subject, hastened to assure the Count that it would afford him great pleasure “to make his wishes known to the President.”[376]

Thus, such was the genius of Blair and Kendall in impressing themselves upon the affairs of the Nation that, within three years after the establishment of the “Globe,” they had become political powers in the Republic, and so much international figures that their editorials were carefully read in the foreign offices of Europe.