Thus we soon enter upon the party phase of the fight. The effect upon some of Jackson’s State-Rights supporters was one of painful embarrassment. While the average Virginian had no sympathy with Nullification, he subscribed to the State-Rights doctrine and to the right of secession. The very point on which Clay cunningly and unscrupulously pounced was therefore the one which caused the greatest consternation among the Administration Democrats of the Old Dominion. It was to them that Clay was making his appeal. The Virginia Assembly, which had just unanimously elected W. C. Rives, a Jacksonian, to the Senate, instantly reversed itself by electing John Tyler, an enemy, to that body, to succeed Tazewell, who had resigned. W. S. Archer, writing to Cambreleng in New York, declared that it would be ridiculous to expect Virginia to endorse the Proclamation,[555] and Governor Floyd, who had received South Carolina’s vote in the recent election, rejoiced to find “the poor unworthy dogs, Ritchie, Van Buren & Co. deserted.”[556] To the momentarily embarrassed Ritchie, his cleverness pointed a way out. Penning a mild objection to some of the doctrinal points, he accepted it as primarily a denunciation of Nullification, and, as such, gave it the support of his great prestige and pen.[557]
Such was the position of many others among the Southern leaders of the Jackson party, but Ritchie found himself in a minority. John Tyler, never friendly to Jackson, now seized upon the Proclamation as a pretext for pushing to the head of the Opposition. Writing heatedly to Tazewell of the “servility” to party of many Southern statesmen supporting the President, he drew a gloomy picture of the future. The Proclamation, he thought, had “swept away all the barriers of the Constitution,” had established “a consolidated military despotism.” He “trembled” for South Carolina. “The war cry is up—rely upon it,” he wrote. “The boast is that the President by stamping like another Pompey on the earth can raise a hundred thousand men.”[558]
It is significant of Whig hopes, that, when Tyler wrote and Ritchie was supporting the President, John Hampden Pleasants, the editor of the “Richmond Whig,” and an intimate of Clay’s, was denouncing the principles enunciated by Jackson and Livingston.[559] Resolutions were adopted by the Legislature denouncing both Nullification and the Proclamation.
Nor was Jackson indifferent to the attitude Virginia might assume. He planned to isolate South Carolina, and he feared an alliance with Virginia more than with any other State. Wishing to reach the Virginians as speedily as possible, he called upon Lewis Cass to prepare a letter in the form of an appeal to be published in Ritchie’s “Richmond Enquirer.” Within a few days after the appearance of the Proclamation, Virginians were reading a letter described by Ritchie as from “one of the ablest men in the country.” Making no defense of the tariff, but pointing out the impossibility of the radical changes demanded being made within the limited time allowed by the Carolina politicians, he suggested that “Virginia might interpose most efficaciously, and add another leaf to the wreath which adorns her civic chaplet,” if her Legislature would appoint a committee to proceed to South Carolina and “entreat her convention ... to recall its late steps, and at all events to delay her final action till another trial is made to reduce the tariff.”[560] This was to lead, a little later, to the adoption of a similar plan.
Strange as it may now seem, the position of Virginia prevented New York from endorsing the Proclamation unqualifiedly, through her Legislature—and thereon hangs a tale of the political cunning of Martin Van Buren. In the Empire State the Proclamation had been received with enthusiasm. Even so bitter a partisan as Philip Hone poured forth his admiration and commendation on the pages of his diary. “As a composition, it is splendid,” he wrote, “and will take its place in the archives of our country, and dwell in the memory of our citizens alongside of the Farewell Address.... I think Jackson’s election may save the Union. If he is sincere in his Proclamation, he will put down this rebellion. Mr. Clay, pursuing the same measures, would not have been equally successful.”[561] We have seen, in Jackson’s letter to Hamilton, his desire that every agency of publicity should be employed to focus the sentiment against Nullification. The New York Legislature being then in session, Hamilton wrote leading men in Albany urging the passage of a commendatory resolution. In the absence of definite encouragement, he then wrote Van Buren, his political and personal friend, suggesting that he bring pressure to bear upon his friends in the Assembly. The letter was returned, opened, but unanswered, and Hamilton lost no time in writing of the incident to Jackson, with the comment that “this unfriendly, nay offensive course, resulted from Van Buren’s fear of offending the dominant political party in Virginia.”[562]
That Van Buren was deeply embarrassed by the doctrinal features of the Proclamation, if not by the possible effect upon his candidacy for the Presidency and his popularity among the Virginia politicians, has been admitted and explained by himself.[563] The document was delivered to him at the home of a friend in Albany as the party was in the act of going in to dinner. Instantly his practiced eye caught the phrasing that would arouse the ire of the State-Rights element. The Whigs in Albany were just as keen, and proceeded, with celerity, to take advantage. William H. Seward immediately offered a resolution in the State Senate to the effect that “the President of the United States ... had advanced the true principles upon which only the Constitution can be maintained and defended.” With Van Buren on the ground, and with the Democrats in the majority, the Whigs hoped, not without reason, either to force the Jacksonians to accept the conclusions of the resolution, or to a rejection of the endorsement, which would be interpreted as a rupture of the relations of the President and Vice-President. The Democrats did neither—they postponed action. It was probably at this juncture that Van Buren received the letter from Hamilton and returned it unanswered. Realizing, however, the fatality of non-action, Van Buren prepared a resolution, together with an elaborate and laborious report, taking issue with “the history given by the President of the formation of our Government,” and calculated to satisfy the State-Rights men of Virginia. These were adopted, and sent to the White House with an explanation. Just what Jackson thought of it will never be known, for he filed the letter without a word of comment to his secretary, in whose presence it was read.[564] Nor was the subject ever mentioned in future conversations between the two leaders.[565] That a copy was also sent to Rives and Ritchie in Virginia we may be sure.
Such were the cross-currents of party politics at the time, with Jackson playing a bold and straight game, thinking solely of the Union, and Clay and Van Buren, rival candidates for the Presidency, pussyfooting and conciliating on a vital issue.
Meanwhile what was the effect in South Carolina? Senator Hayne, now Governor, met the challenge of the President in an able document, bitter in its defiance, which fired the fighting blood of the Nullifiers. Preston described it as “a document whose elegance of diction, elaborate and conclusive argument, just and clear constitutional exposition, confuted all the show of argument of the President’s Proclamation.”[566] Outside of Nullification circles, the bitterness of this counterblast made a deep impression. Adams found it “full of bitter words,” and, after reading it, sent it to James K. Polk, the Jackson leader in the House.[567] The Hayne defiance was echoed by the Nullifiers. The eloquent Preston, addressing a mass meeting in Charleston, declared that “there are 16,000 back countrymen with arms in their hands and cockades in their hats, ready to march to our city at a moment’s warning to defend us.... I will pour down a torrent of volunteers that will sweep the myrmidons of the tyrant from the soil of Carolina.”[568] But Calhoun was disappointed with the Proclamation. He had hoped for an intemperate, ranting denunciation of the Carolinians that would heat their blood and put them on the march. The sober dignity of the document and its impressive appeal to the better natures of the people interfered with his plans.
In the House of Representatives, the Carolinians were seething with wrath. The impassioned McDuffie, according to Adams, “could not contain himself,” and declared that “if Congress should approve the principles of that proclamation, the liberties of the country were gone forever.” Whereupon Archer rose to suggest that a communication “would very shortly be received upon which the gentleman would have an opportunity to express his opinion without restraint.”[569]