The party battles of the Jackson period

by Claude G. Bowers

VI

Meanwhile, as the debate proceeded, Jackson was watching South Carolina and making all his preparations. On January 24th, he wrote Poinsett that the Force Bill debate was about to begin, that he had done his duty, and if Congress failed to act, and he should be informed of the assemblage of an armed force, he stood ready for drastic measures.[578] There is something of the heroic mingled with pathos in the picture this letter presents of Jackson at this time. It was late at night. The House sat late. He had not heard since seven o’clock. “My eyes grow dim.”

Two hours later he ordered General Scott to Charleston to repel by force any attempt to seize the forts.[579] Holding his rage in check, measuring every step by his constitutional and legal powers, determined to do nothing rashly to precipitate bloodshed, Jackson held himself in readiness, as the debate on the Force Bill proceeded, to meet any eventuality that might arise.[580] But Jackson and the Administration were not at all satisfied with the progress of the debate. None of the trio of genius, Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, had yet participated. It would be too much to expect that Clay would speak on behalf of any Jackson measure, and it was certain that Calhoun would deliver one of his characteristically powerful arguments against the bill. There was just one man strong enough to meet the impact of that argument, and that was Webster. It was a reasonable hope that he would prominently support the measure involving the principles he had made his own. Among his intimates, such as Story, it was expected that he would enter at the psychological moment, but the great orator kept his own counsels, and during the early part of the debate was absent from the Senate Chamber on other engagements. As Calhoun prepared his heavy artillery for action, the apprehension of Jackson and his supporters increased, and every effort was made, at first through Webster’s friends, to learn his intentions.[581] Then, one day, a carriage halted before the lodgings of Webster, and the tall figure of Livingston emerged and entered the house. It was not a half-hearted welcome to the Administration camp that the Secretary of State offered. On the contrary, Webster was earnestly importuned to take the lead on the floor, and to frame any amendments he thought necessary.[582] If such importunity was unnecessary, it was none the less pleasing to the vanity of the orator, and Livingston was able to carry back to the White House the assurance that when Calhoun spoke he would be answered by Webster. On the 11th of February, Webster was ready and waiting.[583] Four days later, abandoning the hope that Webster might speak first, Calhoun began one of the most powerful speeches of his career. The Senate Chamber and the galleries were packed.

As the tall, gaunt figure, with slightly stooped shoulders, rose, the solemnity of his mien and manner, the fire in the wonderful eyes that “watched everything and revealed nothing,” suggested, to some, the conspirator with his back against the wall, to others the austere patriot battling for the liberties of his country.[584] We need not concern ourselves with the general tenor of his remarkable argument—a reiteration and reënforcement of his constitutional views. But the general spirit of resentment, the passionate hate of Jackson, the defiance, constitute dramatic features that assist in the sensing of the atmosphere in which the mighty battle was waged. Almost in the beginning, in defending his support of the tariff of 1816, and explaining that he had spoken at the instance of Ingham, the late Secretary of the Treasury, this spirit flared in an amazing tribute to that mediocre and unscrupulous politician, and an indirect attack upon Jackson for dismissing him. As he proceeded, he startled the Senate now and then by the injection of personalities. Here a contemptuous fling at Van Buren, there a hint at Mrs. Eaton, and everywhere references to contemplated “war” and “massacres” and “savages.” “I proclaim it,” he solemnly declared, “that should this bill pass, and attempt be made to enforce it, it will be resisted at every hazard—even that of death itself.” It was two o’clock on the second day of the speech that Calhoun concluded, with a warning to Southern Senators that should the bill be enacted all of them would be excluded from the emoluments of the Government, “which will be reserved for those only who have qualified themselves, by political prostitution, for admission into the Magdalen Asylum.”

The moment he sank into his seat, Daniel Webster rose.

The relations between Webster and the Administration leaders after the visit of Livingston had been intimate and confidential, and the orator had availed himself of the invitation to make desirable amendments. One stormy day during this period, the great opponent of the Democratic Party might have been seen rolling up to the Capitol in the White House carriage. On the floor, when he rose, were many of the Administration leaders, including Lewis, ready to hasten the news of the speech and its reception to the White House, where Jackson was anxiously, but confidently, waiting. It was late in the evening when the orator concluded his masterful argument on the proposition that “the Constitution is not a compact between sovereign States.” Brushing aside the personalities, scarcely referring to any speech made during the debate, he took the resolutions Calhoun had submitted as embodying his views, and based his argument upon these. Speaking with his accustomed gravity, with more than his usual earnestness, without passion or personal feeling, he took up the sophistries of the Nullification school and crushed them, one by one. Nullification was revolution, and success meant the destruction of the Republic, chaos, the end of American liberty. To prevent these evils was the duty of the National authority; and the Force Bill was necessary for their prevention.

Long before he closed, the lights had been lit in the little Senate Chamber where the crowd was densely packed. With his conclusion the galleries rose and cheered, and Poindexter, outraged at the exhibition of feeling, indignantly demanded an immediate adjournment. The great word had been spoken in the Senate—the Proclamation reiterated on the floor. No one was more delighted with Webster’s triumph than Jackson. “Mr. Webster replied to Mr. Calhoun yesterday,” he wrote Poinsett, “and, it is said, demolished him. It is believed by more than one that Mr. Calhoun is in a state of dementation—his speech was a perfect failure; and Mr. Webster handled him as a child.”[585]

Thus Webster entered upon more intimate relations with the White House, with Jackson personally thanking him for a great public service, and Livingston reiterating expressions of appreciation. The Jackson Senators, Isaac Hill excepted, joined in the assiduous cultivation of the orator, and he was invited to strike from a list of applicants for office the names of all displeasing to himself. Such was the enthusiasm of the President that overtures were unquestionably made to Webster, as set forth by Benton,[586] to gain his adherence to the Administration. It was a crisis in his life and in the politics of the Nation. He was then closer to Jackson’s views on vital matters than to those of either Clay or Calhoun. His antipathy to the latter’s doctrines was as pronounced as that of Jackson; and he had no respect for Clay’s play to the seditious with his compromise tariff. His ideas were not remote from those of Livingston. Had he then broken with his old co-workers, and allied himself with the dominant party, he would have been advanced immeasurably toward the Presidency. Senator Lodge admits[587] that there was much truth in Benton’s theory, but reasonably holds that the coalition would have been wrecked by the inevitable clashing of the conflicting temperaments.

VII

Meanwhile, with the debate dwindling to an anti-climax, Calhoun and his friends were not nearly so indifferent to war as they pretended. It was generally understood that Jackson was ready and eager to strike the moment an overt act was committed. With Hayne urging caution, some irresponsible hothead might at any moment hasten the crisis. Then, all knew, Jackson would place South Carolina under martial law, arrest Calhoun for treason, and turn him over to the courts for trial. Some of the latter’s friends began to interest themselves in a compromise tariff that would open a door of escape. The Whig protectionists, the Nullifiers, and the Bank were rapidly rushing together to make common cause against Jackson. Under Clay’s leadership at the beginning of the session these elements united in electing Duff Green, of the “Telegraph,” printer to the Senate, and Gales, of the “Intelligencer,” to the House. Thus, through Clay, the Nullification organ secured a new lease of life, and flooded the South with circularized appeals for support. “If the people of the South deserve to be free they will not permit this press to go down,” Green wrote—and this was known to Clay. The Bank party looked on approvingly, with John Sargeant writing enthusiastically to Biddle of the new political alignments. “The new state of parties,” he wrote, “will be founded upon a combination of the South, and the leaders of it are friends of the Bank upon principle, and will be more so from opposition to Jackson.”[588] With this alignment in mind, John M. Clayton cynically observed to Clay that “these South Carolinians are acting very badly, but they are good fellows, and it would be a pity to let Jackson hang them.”[589] When Representative Letcher of Kentucky, a boisterous partisan of Clay’s, suggested the compromise plan to his chief, he “received it at first coolly and doubtfully.”[590] Afterwards Clay reconsidered and broached the subject to Webster, who, holding the Jackson view, replied that “it would be yielding great principles to faction; that the time had come to test the strength of the Constitution and the Government.”[591] Thereafter Webster was not included in the consultations.