“Here’s a health to the heroes who fought
And conquered in Liberty’s cause;
Here’s health to Old Andy who could not be bought
To favor aristocrat laws.
Hurrah for the Roman-like Chief—
He never missed fire at all;
But ever when called to his country’s relief
Had a ready picked flint and a ball.
“Hurrah for the Hickory tree
From the mountain tops down to the sea.
It shall wave o’er the grave of the Tory and knave,
And shelter the honest and free.”[524]
Even where the Whigs were strongest, the militant Democrats poured forth in defiant demonstrations. When Jackson, returning to Washington from the Hermitage in the closing days of the campaign, approached Lexington, the home of his rival, a multitude streamed down the road five miles to meet him, with over a thousand on horseback and in carriages, and before he reached his lodging the throng extended back two miles along the road “with green hickory bushes waving like bright banners in a breeze.”[525]
It was inevitable that in such a campaign personalities should intrude. In the winter of 1831-32, while Congress was in session, Jackson took advantage of the presence of Dr. Harris, an eminent Philadelphia surgeon, to have the bullet from Benton’s pistol, long lodged in his shoulder, removed. When the surgeon appeared at the White House, he was engaged with company, but excused himself with the explanation that he would have to submit to an operation; and a few hours later he reappeared among his friends with his arm in a sling. “Precisely,” wrote Blair, “as he had appeared with it in battle among the enemies of his country.”[526] This gave the Whigs their cue, and their press teemed with references to the “disgusting affair” in which the shot had been fired. And Blair himself was able to retaliate in kind with the story of a wound received by Clay in a personal conflict. “He was taken to a kind friend’s house,” he wrote, “he was treated with the utmost tenderness and courtesy by that friend’s wife and family, and while enjoying their hospitality, he amused himself ... by winning the money of his kind host at Brag.”
If Jackson was a brawler, it was given out thus that Clay was not only a brawler, but a gambler and an ingrate. Both stories made their way through the country.[527]
If the cholera was not of sufficient importance for the news columns of the party press, it was rich in suggestion to the politicians. The Dutch Synod requested Jackson to set a day aside for prayer. He replied that he had faith in the efficacy of prayer, but that the special day to be set aside should be designated by the State authorities. Whereupon Clay arose to offer a resolution in the Senate setting a day aside and fixing the day. Aha, cried Blair, he wants a veto on a religious subject. “It is not the cholera that makes them so pious; it is the hope to steal a march on the old Hero.... What whited sepulchers some of these partisan leaders are!” he wrote.[528]
And when, a little later, the “Pittsburgh Statesman,” a Clay paper, suggested that “the only effectual cure, under existing circumstances, for genuine Jacksonism is the equally genuine Asiatic Spasmodic Cholera,” the “Troy Budget,” supporting Jackson, was not surprised at “such political depravity,” coming from the “editorial slanderers and ruthless murderers of Mrs. Jackson.” And “Ike” Hill, in the “New Hampshire Patriot,” was reminded that Clay himself had prayed “for war, pestilence and famine” in preference to the reëlection of Jackson. When the President left the capital for the Hermitage, the “Troy Sentinel,” Whig, with its eye on the church vote, announced with emphasis that he had left Washington “at eight o’clock on Sunday morning.” Blair, denouncing the story as “a lie,” declared that “he did not leave the city until Monday morning and spent the Sabbath in religious duties as usual.” When “Ike” Hill, speaking at a complimentary dinner at the Eagle Coffee House, in Concord, assailed Clay and Senator John Holmes, and referred to some Senators as “low and blackguard,” the “National Intelligencer” protested, and Blair replied with a description of Holmes as a “besotted Senator who had indulged in indecent and ribald slang throughout the session,” and as one given to “low buffoonery”—the “mere Thersites of the Senate.”[529] Charges of impropriety touching on the personal integrity of political leaders were commonplace. The “Globe,” centering its fire upon the activities of the Bank, charged it with subsidizing and seducing the press by paying for the publication of political speeches at advertising rates.[530] “Every press in Philadelphia,” it said, “is closed by its influence, against the admission of anything unfavorable to its pretensions. The ‘Mechanics’ Free Press’ broke ground against it in conformity with the principles of its party, when lo! a shower of gold, amounting to $1700 for publishing Mr. McDuffie’s report, silenced it, and for good reasons, doubtless, it has ever since held its peace about the Bank.” And the Whig press was equally shocked to find that officers high in the Government were sending the “Globe” all over the country under their official frank. “A lie!” screamed Blair. And so the battle of personalities went on. From Hill’s “New Hampshire Patriot” came the resurrection of the long-discredited “bargain” story against Clay.
Meanwhile, what had become of the candidates and what were their feelings as to the prospects? While scarcely due to the strain of the campaign, all three, Jackson, Clay, and Wirt, were threatened with serious illness. As we have seen, Clay was threatened with paralysis about the time of his retirement from the Cabinet. During the summer and autumn of 1832 the old trouble returned. His friend, Brooke, who became concerned over his health, urged him to caution, and Clay, much moved by his friend’s solicitude, promised to be more careful of his diet, to abstain from wine, and to reduce his consumption of tobacco to “one form.”[531] At times, during the summer session, he had been forced to leave Washington for a brief period of rest at his friend’s home at St. Julien, Virginia; and as soon as Congress adjourned, he hastened to White Sulphur Springs for two weeks in hope of relief from the waters. Skeptical at first of his election, his confidence increased until he and Webster were exchanging letters of congratulation on its certainty.
Wirt, who had a serious attack, and was in a weakened condition, was forced by his physician to leave Baltimore, rather than take a chance with the cholera. After a brief sojourn at Bedford Springs, he went with his family to Berkley Springs where he remained through September. Here, with no thought of his own election, but with ardent hopes for Clay, he ignored the clamor of the campaign. Riding and lounging about the grounds during the day, regaling company with ghost stories in the evening, he bore no resemblance to a presidential candidate.[532]
Soon after Congress adjourned, the scourge reached Washington, taking heavy toll of the Irish and Swedish laborers engaged in the first macadamizing of Pennsylvania Avenue, and spreading rapidly from the poorer parts to the White House section. Because of Jackson’s weakened condition, his physicians insisted that he spend three months at the Hermitage, and near the middle of August, accompanied part of the way by Amos Kendall, Frank Blair, “Ike” Hill, Major Lewis, Lewis Cass, and Benton, he left the sweltering and infected capital and went down the Ohio. He was in high glee. Never for a moment had he doubted the result of the election. During the congressional fight over the recharter bill he had not punished those who had withheld their support by denying them patronage, except in the case of his most bitter foes. Just before the vote in the House, an Ohio Representative solicited an appointment for a constituent, and, upon being granted the favor, he explained that he thought it due Jackson for him to know that the favor was being granted a member who would vote for the Bank.