The party battles of the Jackson period

by Claude G. Bowers

It is not surprising that under these conditions the small faction of the Democratic Party should have turned to him as the logical man to pit against the pretensions of Van Buren. The former was a Southerner, the latter a Northerner, and the slavery controversy had become acute. The fact that White was a Tennesseean was expected to embarrass and handicap Jackson in his support of the New Yorker. To the Whigs he not only presented the best prospect for a schism in the party in power, but for a time the leaders actually considered the wisdom of making him their own candidate. Clay was fearful that his candidacy would fail to infuse among the Whigs “the spirit and zeal necessary to insure success,” but thought he might, as an independent candidate, “obtain the undivided support of the South and South-West,” and thus throw the contest into the House and defeat Van Buren.[871] Thus all the elements were present to make his disaffection probable. Hurt by what he conceived to be Jackson’s ingratitude, jealous of the new friends that haunted the White House, importuned by the anti-Administration Democrats, and cleverly encouraged by the Whigs, he was gradually pushed into the attitude of a candidate. To all of these, the gossips of the day, malignant as always, added a new reason, which they insisted was the predominant one—the ambition of his wife.[872]

Just before he decided upon the plunge, the Whigs had been assiduous in their cultivation of him, and ardent in their expressions of sympathy because of the harsh treatment accorded him by his old friend in the White House. One of the most persistent of the tempters was Clay’s intimate and reflector, R. P. Letcher, Representative from Kentucky, who had maintained the most constant social relations with the Whites during the preceding winter, ingratiating himself into the old man’s confidence, and frequently enjoying the hospitality of his home. The hollow mockery of Letcher’s attachment appeared in a letter to a friend, written a little later, in which he galloped over the gossip of the capital, and announced that “Judge White is on the track running gaily, and won’t come off; and if he would, his wife wouldn’t let him.”[873] A more suspicious man than the Tennessee Senator might have found, in this, evidence of treachery and duplicity. The slur on Mrs. White was resented by Blair, in a stinging editorial in the “Globe,” but his excoriation of Letcher does not appear to have given White a more favorable impression of the editor.[874] The intimation regarding Mrs. White was basely false, the slur wholly unjustified.

By the spring of 1834, White had announced his candidacy and the gage of battle was thus thrown down to Jackson in Tennessee, which became the battle-ground. In the autumn of that year, while on a visit to the Hermitage, Jackson, on learning of the partiality of many for the Senator, had entered into a warm defense of his favorite, ridiculed the prospects of White outside his own State, and, in more conciliatory mood, proposed the nomination of the Tennesseean for Vice-President with a view to the succession on the expiration of Van Buren’s term. Learning of these interviews, White wrote to James K. Polk, knowing his intimacy with the President, inquiring as to his information on the presidential position, but the only satisfaction he received was a warning to give no credence to any such gossip unless from an unquestionable source.[875] But if Polk was not then familiar with Jackson’s uncompromising hostility to White’s aspirations, he was not to remain long in doubt. It was the plan of the Jackson organization in Tennessee, led by Polk and Felix Grundy, to simulate sympathy with the Senator’s ambition, and persuasively lead him into the shambles of the Baltimore Convention. But when he refused to go passively to the slaughter, and a meeting of the Tennessee congressional delegation was called in the interest of his candidacy, Polk and Grundy refused to attend, threw off the mask, and declared open war. Thus the fight was extended into the congressional elections in Tennessee in the summer of 1835, with Polk assuming the leadership of the Administration forces, taking the stump in opposition to White’s candidacy, and throwing the weight of his Nashville paper into the scale. Henceforth Polk’s attitude was courageous. He would be glad to see a son of Tennessee elevated to the Presidency if it could be done in regulation manner by the Democratic Party, but he would not countenance any attempt to divide the party in the interest of the Whigs. The National Democracy favored Van Buren, and it was the duty of Tennessee not to separate from the party in the Nation.

The elections resulted in the triumph of White’s followers, with casualties among Jackson’s congressional followers, but Polk was triumphantly reëlected, and he redoubled his efforts. At a series of banquets he denounced the attempt of Democrats to create a schism in the face of the common enemy. But immediately afterwards the Legislature, through the adoption of resolutions, formally nominated White for the Presidency.

II

Although the fame of Hugh Lawson White has been obscured by the years, he was familiarly known to his generation as “the Cato of the Senate.” Without sparkle or magnetism, the purity of his character, the soundness of his common sense, his fidelity to duty, and assiduous application commanded respect if not admiration. His senatorial speeches were noteworthy because of their temperate tone—rare in his generation. Clarity and strength characterized his every utterance. If his speeches lacked eloquence, they smacked of statesmanship and substance. No member of the Senate more impressively looked the part. Tall, slender, and well-proportioned, with a broad forehead and deep-set, serious, penetrating blue eyes, he was the embodiment of senatorial dignity. With long gray hair, brushed back from his forehead, and curling at some length on his shoulders, he appeared the patriarch. In repose, he was sad and stern. Because of the rarity and thoroughness of his speeches, he commanded the respect and confidence of his colleagues. He looked upon his duties with the solemnity of the Roman Senator of the noblest period of the Roman Republic. Always heard with attention, he was attentive to others, and he was frequently the one listener to an uninteresting speech. Even in familiar conversation, he rarely jested outside the domestic circle, and, while an interesting and instructive conversationalist about his own fireside, he was apt to be taciturn and retiring in company. Had fate ordained that he should have reached the Presidency, he would have made a safe, conventional Executive, and he would be remembered as a pure, patriotic public servant. Such was the man who was to give Jackson, in the election of his successor, his only uneasy hours.

III

The concern of the Jackson organization over White’s candidacy may be read in the persistency of Blair’s vigorous denunciations in the “Washington Globe.” Beginning in the early spring and continuing throughout the summer, the Administration organ teemed with attacks on the Tennessee Senator and his most ardent champion, John Bell, Speaker of the House of Representatives. The ill-advised announcement of White’s followers that his candidacy was intended to destroy the landmarks of party gave the editor his cue. “This artifice,” wrote Blair, “has been so frequently attempted, and in vain, by those seeking to divide and destroy the Republican [Democratic] Party in this country, that we would have supposed the design would not have been confessed on the part of those supporting the interests of a man, who, up to the age of sixty, at least has made it his boast to support his party firmly, as the only means of maintaining his principles. But he now seeks office at the hands of the Opposition, and like all new solicitors for the favor of Federalism, becomes a no-party man.”[876] The fact that White had voted with the Whigs on the Fortifications Bill was made the text of many discourses on the questionable character of his patriotism; his connection with Calhoun offered the opportunity to picture him as a half-disguised friend of Nullification. The encouragement given his candidacy by the Whig leaders was interpreted as a desertion of the house of his friends to do the work of the enemy. Tying him up tightly with the Whigs and the Nullifiers, attacking the no-party idea as a wooden horse of Troy in which discredited Federalism planned to reënter the Capitol, Blair smote the Tennesseean hip and thigh throughout the summer.

But scarcely less offensive to the “Globe” than White was John Bell, and the determination of the organization to prevent his reëlection to the Speakership was evident in the systematic attacks upon his record. Beginning in May, and continuing through the summer, there was scarcely an issue of the “Globe” that did not deal with some phase of Bell’s alleged perfidy, in a special article.[877] The virulent hostility to Bell, of the Kitchen Cabinet, was not due in whole to his relations with the candidacy of White. Following his election over Polk to the Speakership, Duff Green, in the “Telegraph,” ascribed Polk’s defeat to his support by the Kitchen Cabinet, and described “Kendall, Blair, and Lewis parading the lobby” in attempts to drum up votes for their favorite. This had been bluntly denied by Blair, who insisted that he had spoken to no one on the Speakership, and that Lewis was “known to have been inclined to Mr. Bell’s election.”[878] But the charge in the “Telegraph” had been accepted by many and the pride of the Jackson leaders had been aroused. The White candidacy, Bell’s espousal of it, and Polk’s determined stand against it, made it imperative that Bell should be retired in the interest of Polk.

Meanwhile the Baltimore Convention assembled on May 20, 1835—an assembly that no more deserves the popular reproach of being a convention of office-holders than the average convention of the dominant party ever since. The absence of delegates from South Carolina and Illinois was tolerable to the Jacksonians, but the failure of Tennessee to appear, notwithstanding the personal importunities of the President, was painfully embarrassing. That had to be corrected. A comparatively unknown Tennesseean, E. Rucker, was found in the city, and literally pushed into the convention to cast the unauthorized vote of Tennessee—and thus the word “Ruckerize” was added to the vocabulary of practical politicians. The polished Andrew Stevenson, who had resigned the Speakership to accept the diplomatic post in London, only to share the fate of Van Buren, was called upon to deliver the “keynote” address in the capacity of chairman. But this honor, bestowed upon the Virginians, was more than neutralized by New York’s desertion of her Virginia allies in the nomination of the vice-presidential candidate.