The party battles of the Jackson period

by Claude G. Bowers

unprecedented sway over a party was due, in large measure, to his remarkably fascinating personality, his audacity and dash, his amazing powers of ingratiation, and his superb eloquence which acted upon the spirit of the party workers like the sound of a bugle to a battle charger. No American orator, perhaps, has ever approached his effect upon a partisan audience. Fluent, and at times capable of passages of inspired eloquence, a consummate master of the implements of sarcasm and ridicule, his was the oratory that moves men to action. He could lash his followers to fury or move them to tears. His speeches often lacked literary finish, and, at times, in their colloquialisms descended beneath the dignity of the man’s position, but even these occasional descents to buffoonery contributed to his popularity. He often spoke the language of the people—Webster and Calhoun, never. The contribution of new ideas to a discussion was not his forte. But he could gather up the material at hand, and weave it into a speech of fervent declamation which created the momentary impression that he was breaking virgin soil. His oratory was in his personality and his delivery. His voice was an exquisite musical instrument, with a clarion note that carried his words to the outskirts of the greatest throng. When he spoke, his expressive countenance glowed with his genius, his eyes flashed or caressed, his commanding figure seemed to grow, and in his combined dignity and grace he looked the part of the splendid commander of men, and the inspiring crusader of a cause. No man of his time, among all the great orators of that golden age, could so hold an audience literally spell-bound, Prentiss alone approaching him.

In personal intercourse, no politician ever possessed more of the seductive graces. There his magnetism was compelling. When he cared to put forth all his powers of attraction, no one could withstand his charm. Webster was godlike and compelled admiration; Clay was human and commanded love. Calhoun once said of him: “I don’t like Clay. He is a bad man, an impostor, a creature of wicked schemes. I won’t speak to him, but, by God, I love him!” His effect on both men and women has been ascribed to the fact that, masculine and virile though he was, he possessed feminine qualities that led to a sentimental feeling toward him. Men would follow him, knowing him to be wrong; stake their political fortunes on him, though they knew it would mean their own undoing; and women wept over his defeats and idolized him as a god.

As a political leader he was an opportunist. He often changed his tack to meet the passing breeze, but with the exception of his Bank reversal nothing could force him to admit it. As we proceed with the story of the party battles of the Jackson Administrations, we shall be impressed at times with his capability for trickery, demagogy, misrepresentation, deliberate misinterpretation, and dogmatic arrogance with his own friends and supporters. He brooked no equals. He accepted no rebuke and few suggestions, and led his party with a high-handedness that would have wrecked a lesser man.

His personal habits were not the best, and yet they were not of a nature that greatly shocked his generation. Adams thought him “only half educated” and was disgusted by the looseness of his public and his private morals.[380] But Adams was not in harmony with his times. Clay was an inveterate gambler—but so were a large portion of the public men in the Washington of the Thirties. And while a heavy drinker, he does not appear to have often been noticeably under the influence, as was Webster. But these vices never interfered with his work or diverted him for a moment from the pursuit of his ambition.

It was a militant figure that strode down the Avenue to the Capitol to lead the fight, with the stride of an Indian, his well-shaped feet encased in shoes instead of the boots generally worn at the time, and fastidiously attired as was his wont—a Henry Clay, in shining armor, his sword shimmering.

II

Five days after Congress convened, the Baltimore Convention nominated Clay for the high office he long had sought. It had been inevitable from the hour he rode out of Washington after the inauguration on his way to Baltimore. During his retirement, his letters of 1829 and 1830 furnish proof of his candidacy, albeit he carefully conveyed the impression that he was a little indifferent to the nomination, and more than doubtful of the result of the election.[381] In a letter to a political follower he early predicted that if Jackson could unite New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania upon his candidacy, opposition would be futile.[382] Two months later, Webster assured him of the support of Massachusetts, but feared that a first nomination from that State would “only raise the cry of coalition revived.”[383] And three days after his nomination at Baltimore, Clay had written of his skepticism of success, with the encouraging comment: “Something, however, may turn up (and that must be our encouraging hope) to give a brighter aspect to our affairs.”[384] Thus, when he entered the Senate we may be sure that it was with the fixed determination that something should “turn up.” It was his belief, as we have seen, that Jackson’s election depended upon his ability to carry Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York. At the time he entertained no hope of diverting Virginia from Jackson, but he hoped to carry Pennsylvania or New York, or both. Upon the former he pinned his faith—and there the tariff was strong, and the National Bank had its headquarters there, with its ramifications into every section of the country. His platform had been carefully thought out and thoroughly discussed in the correspondence of 1829 and 1830. It embraced internal improvements, a protective tariff, and the rechartering of the Bank. Thus, when Congress met, the Opposition candidate and his platform were before the people, and the congressional battles of the session were but heavy skirmishes preliminary to the battle for the Presidency.

As he looked over the personnel of Congress, Clay must have rejoiced over his advantage. There, by his side, sat Webster, with all the prestige of his great name and in all the splendor of his genius. Presiding still over the deliberations of the Senate was the stern-visaged political philosopher and sage who had definitely broken with Jackson-Calhoun. It could not have taken him long to discover, in the young Hercules with the harshly carven features, the brilliant possibilities of John M. Clayton. And there, harboring a secret grudge, and suffering acutely from the wounds inflicted on his mentor in the chair, sat the eloquent Hayne, meditating revenge. In Thomas Ewing of Ohio, a robust partisan and able debater, he found a fighter after his own heart. And while they were of the State Rights persuasion, and hostile to the tariff and internal improvements, he could scarcely have failed to catch in the eyes of the erudite Tazewell and Tyler of Virginia something of a promise that was to be fulfilled.

And against him, he saw John Forsyth and Benton, men of character and power, supported by Felix Grundy and Hugh White, “Ike” Hill and Mahlon Dickerson of New Jersey.

His was manifestly the advantage in the Senate.