Martin Van Buren

by Edward Morse Shepard

In the canvass of 1828 there was on both sides more wicked and despicable exhibition of slander than had been known since Jefferson and John Adams were pitted against each other. Jackson was a military butcher and utterly illiterate; the chastity of his wife was doubtful. Adams had corruptly bargained away offices; his accounts of public moneys received by him needed serious scrutiny; and, that the charges might be precisely balanced, he had when minister at St. Petersburg acted as procurer to the Czar of Russia. These lies doubtless defeated themselves; but in each election since 1828 there have been politicians low enough and silly enough to imitate them. To nothing of this kind did Van Buren descend. Nor does it seem that even then he used the cry of a corrupt bargain between Adams and Clay, in which Jackson believed as long as he lived. The coalition of 1825, defeating, as it had, a candidate chosen by a larger number of voters than any other, was the most used, and probably the most successfully used, of any of the campaign issues. Nor was this clearly illegitimate, although Adams and many for him have hotly condemned its immorality. Every political coalition between men lately in opposition political and personal, by which both get office, is fairly open to criticism. In experience it has always been full of political danger, although since the prejudice of the times has worn away, the defense of Adams and Clay is seen to be amply sufficient. Whatever had been their mutual dislikes political or personal, each of them was politically and in his practical statesmanship far nearer to the other than to any other of the competitors. But we have yet to see a political campaign against a coalition whose members have been rewarded with office, in which this form of attack is not made by men very intelligent and most honest. Nor is there any reason to hold the followers of Jackson to a higher standard. In our own time we have seen two coalitions whose parties wisely recognized this danger. The chief leaders of the Republican revolt in 1884 neither sought nor took office from the former adversaries with whom for once they then acted. The Dissenting Liberals in England did not take office in the Conservative ministry formed in 1886; and the odium which, in the change later made in it, followed Mr. Goschen into its second place, illustrated very well the truth that, however honorable the course may be, it is inevitably dangerous.[8]

Nor can moral condemnation be passed upon the use in 1828 of the defeat in 1824, of the candidate having the largest popular vote. We see pretty clearly in a constitutionally governed country that when power is lawfully lodged with a public man, he must act upon his own judgment; and that, if he be influenced by others, then he ought to be influenced by the wishes and interests of those who supported him, and not of those who opposed him, even though far more numerous than his supporters. Repeatedly have we seen a state legislature, which the arrangement of districts has caused to be elected from a party in minority in the whole State, choose a federal senator who it was known would have been defeated upon a popular vote; and this without criticism of the conduct of the legislators, but only of the defective district division. In Connecticut it has happened more than once that, neither candidate for governor having a majority vote, the legislature has chosen a candidate having one of the smaller minorities; and here again without criticism of the legislature's morality. But still the general rule of American elections is, that the candidate shall be chosen who is preferred by more votes than any other. To assent to a constitutional defeat of such a preference, but afterwards and under the law to make strong appeal to right the wrong which the law has wrought, seems a highly defensible course, and to deserve little of the criticism visited upon the Jackson canvass of 1828. If party divisions be justifiable, if chief public officers are to be chosen for their views on great questions of state, if the cold appeals of political reasoning are ever rightly strengthened by appeals to popular feelings, the campaign which Van Buren and his associates began in 1825 or 1826 was perfectly justifiable. Nor in its result can any one deny, whether it were for better or worse, that their success in the battle worked a change in the principles of administration, and not a mere vulgar driving from office of one body of men that another might take their places.

The death of De Witt Clinton left Van Buren easily the largest figure in public life, as he had for several years been the most powerful politician, in New York State. The gossip that the most important place in Jackson's cabinet was really allotted to him before the election of 1828 is probably true. But, whether true or not, there was, apart from a natural desire to administer the first office in his State, obvious advantage to his political prestige in passing successfully through a popular election. The most cynical of managing politicians recognize the enormous strength of a man for whom the people have actually shown that they like to vote. Van Buren may have counted besides upon the advantage which Jackson's personal popularity brought to those in his open alliance, although Adams was known still to have, as the election showed he had, considerable Democratic strength. Van Buren took therefore the Bucktail nomination for governor of New York. The National Republicans, as the Adams men were called, nominated Smith Thompson, a judge of the federal Supreme Court. Van Buren got 136,794 and Thompson 106,444 votes. But in spite of so large a plurality Van Buren did not quite have a majority of the popular vote. Solomon Southwick, the anti-Masonic candidate, received 33,345 votes. It was the first election after this extraordinary movement. The abduction of Morgan and his probable murder to prevent his revelation of Masonic secrets had occurred in the fall of 1826. The criminal trials consequent upon it had caused intense excitement; and a political issue was easily made, for many distinguished men of both parties were members of that secret order. How powerful for a time may be a popular cry, though based upon an utterly absurd issue, became more obvious still later when electoral votes for president were cast for William Wirt, the anti-Masonic candidate; and when John Quincy Adams, after graduating from the widest experience in public affairs of any American of his generation, was, as he himself records, willing to accept, and when William H. Seward was willing to tender him, a presidential nomination of the anti-Masonic party. As Southwick's preposterous vote was in 1828 drawn from both parties, Van Buren's prestige, although he had but a plurality vote, was increased by his victory at the polls. Jackson very truly said in February, 1832, that it was now "the general wish and expectation of the Republican party throughout the Union" that Van Buren should take the place next to the President in the national administration. Jackson was himself elected by a very great popular and electoral majority. In New York, where on this single occasion the electors were chosen in districts, and where the anti-Masonic vote was cast against Jackson who held high rank in the Masonic order, Adams secured 16 votes to Jackson's 18; but to the latter were added the two electors chosen by the thirty-four district electors.

Van Buren's career as governor was very brief. He was inaugurated on January 1, 1829, and at once resigned his seat in the federal Senate. On March 12th of the same year he resigned the governor's seat. His inaugural message is said by Hammond, the political historian of New York, by no means too friendly to Van Buren, to have been "the best executive message ever communicated to the legislature;" and after nearly sixty years, it seems, in the leather-covered tome containing it, a remarkably clear, wise, and courageous paper. The excitement over internal improvements in communication was then at its height. He declared that, whatever difference there might be as to whether such improvements ought to be undertaken by the federal government or by the States, none seriously doubted that it was wise to apply portions of the means of New York to such improvements. The investment of the State in the Delaware and Hudson canal, then just completed, had, he thought, been "crowned with the most cheering success." Splendid, too, as had been the success of the Erie and Champlain canals, it was still clear that all had not been equally benefited. The friends of the state road and of the Chemung and Chenango canals had urged him to recommend for them a legislative support. But it was a time, he said, for "the utmost prudence and circumspection" upon that "delicate and vitally interesting subject."

The banking question, he told the legislature, would make the important business of its session. It turned out besides to be one of the important businesses of Van Buren's career. To meet the attacks upon him for having once been interested in a bank, he dexterously recited that, "having for many years ceased to have an interest in those institutions and declined any agency in their management," he was conscious of his imperfect information. But he could not ignore a matter of such magnitude to their constituents. The whole bank agitation at this time showed the difficulties and scandals caused by the absence of a free banking system, and by the long accustomed grants of exclusive banking charters. Of the forty banks in the State, all specially incorporated, the charters of thirty-one would expire within one, two, three, or four years. Their actual capital was $15,000,000; their outstanding loans, more than $30,000,000. Van Buren urged, therefore, the legislature now to make by general law final disposition of the whole subject. The abolition of banks had, he said, no advocate, and a dependence solely upon those established by federal authority deserved none; but he rejected the idea of a state bank. "Experience," he declared, "has shown that banking operations, to be successful, and consequently beneficial to the community, must be conducted by private men upon their own account." He condemned the practice by which the State accepted a money bonus for granting a bank charter, necessarily involving some monopoly. The concern of the State, he pointed out, should be to make its banks and their circulation secure; and such security was impaired, not increased, by encouraging banks in competition with one another, and "stimulated by the golden harvest in view," to make large payments for their charters. He submitted for legislative consideration the idea of the "safety fund" communicated to him in an interesting and intelligent paper by Joshua Forman. Under this system all the banks of the State, whatever their condition, were to contribute to a fund to be administered under state supervision, the fund to be a security for all dishonored bank-notes. To this extent all the banks were to insure or indorse the circulation of each bank, thus saving the scandal and loss arising from the occasional failure of banks to redeem their notes, and making every bank watchful of all its associates. In compelling the banks to submit to some general scheme, the representative of the people would indeed, he said, enter into "conflict with the claims of the great moneyed interest of the country; but what political exhibition so truly gratifying as the return to his constituents of the faithful public servant after having turned away every approach and put far from him every sinister consideration!"

Van Buren proposed a separation of state from national elections; a question still discussed, and upon each side of which much is to be said. He attacked the use of money in elections, "the practice of employing persons to attend the polls for compensation, of placing large sums in the hands of others to entertain the electors," and other devices by which the most valuable of all our temporal privileges "was brought into disrepute." If the expenses of elections should increase as they had lately done, the time would soon arrive "when a man in middling circumstances, however virtuous, will not be able to compete upon anything like equal terms with a wealthy opponent." In long advance of a modern agitation for reform which, lately beginning with us, will, it is to be hoped, not cease until the abuses are removed, he proposed a law imposing "severe and enforcible penalties upon the advance of money by individuals for any purposes connected with the election except the single one of printing."

Turning to the field of general politics, he again declared the political faith to whose support he wished to rally his party. That "a jealousy of the exercise of delegated political power, a solicitude to keep public agents within the precise limits of their authority, and an assiduous adherence to a rigid and scrupulous economy, were indications of a contracted spirit unbecoming the character of a statesman," he pronounced to be a political heresy, from which he himself had not been entirely free, but which ought at once to be exploded. Official discretion, as a general rule, could not be confided to any one without danger of abuse. But he reproved the parsimony which disagreeably characterized the democracy of the time, and which inadequately paid great public servants like the chancellor and judges. In the tendency of the federal government to encroach upon the States lay, he thought, the danger of the federal Constitution. But of the disposition and capacity of the American people to resist such encroachments as our political history recorded, there were, he said, without naming either Adams, "two prominent and illustrious instances." As long as that good spirit was preserved, the republic would be safe; and for that preservation every patriot ought to pray.

The reputation of the country had in some degree suffered, he said, from "the uncharitable and unrelenting scrutiny to which private as well as public character" had been subjected in the late election. But this injury had been "relieved, if not removed, by seeing how soon the overflowing waters of bitterness" had spent themselves, and "that already the current of public feeling had resumed its accustomed channels." These excesses were the price paid for the full enjoyment of the right of opinion. With an assertion of "perfect deference to that sacred privilege, and in the humble exercise of that portion of it" which belonged to him, and of a sincere desire not to offend the feelings of those who differed from him, he ended his message by congratulating the legislature upon the election of Jackson and Calhoun. This result, he said in words not altogether insincere or untrue, but full of the unfairness of partisan dispute, infused fresh vigor into the American political system, refuted the odious imputation that republics are ungrateful, dissipated the vain hope that our citizens could be influenced by aught save appeals to their understanding and love of country, and finally exhibited in "bold relief the omnipotence of public opinion, and the futility of all attempts to overawe it by the denunciation of power, or to reduce it by the allurements of patronage."

Among the Hoyt letters, afterwards published by Van Buren's rancorous enemy, Mackenzie, are two letters of his upon his patronage as governor. It is not unfair to suppose that he wrote many other letters like them, and they give a useful glimpse of the distribution of offices at Albany sixty years ago. These letters to Hoyt were of the most confidential character, and showed a strong but not uncontrolled desire to please party friends and to meet party expectations. But in none of them is there a suggestion of anything dishonorable. He asked, "When will the Republican party be made sensible of the indispensable necessity of nominating none but true and tried men, so that when they succeed they gain something?" He was unable to oblige his "good friend Coddington ... in relation to the health appointments." Dr. Westervelt's claims were "decidedly the strongest; and much was due to the relations in which he stood to Governor Tompkins, especially from one who knew so well what the latter has done and suffered for this State." He wrote of Marcy, whom he appointed a judge of the supreme court, that he "was so situated that I must make him a judge or ruin him." All this is doubtless not unlike what the best of public officers have sometimes said and thought, though rarely written; and, like most talk over patronage, it is not in very exalted tone. But if Van Buren admitted as one of Westervelt's claims to public office that he was of a Whig family and a Democrat "from his cradle," he found among his other claims that he was "a gentleman and a man of talent," and had been "three years in the hospital and five years deputy health officer, until he was cruelly removed." Dr. Manley he refused to remove from the health office, because "his extraordinary capacity is universally admitted;" and pointed out that the removal "could only be placed on political grounds, and as he was a zealous Jackson man at the last election, that could not have been done without danger." "I should not," he said, however, "have given Manley the office originally, if I could have found a competent Republican to take it." William L. Marcy, whom he made judge, was already known as one of the ablest men in the State, and his appointment was admirable, though his salvation from ruin, if Van Buren was speaking seriously, was not a public end fit to be served by high judicial appointment. John C. Spencer, one of the best lawyers of New York, was appointed by Van Buren special counsel for the prosecution of Morgan's murderers. Hammond wondered "how so rigid a party man as Mr. Van Buren was, came to appoint a political opponent to so important an office," but concluded that it was a fine specimen of his peculiar tact, because Spencer, though a man of talents and great moral courage, might be defeated in the prosecution, and thus be injured with the anti-Masons; while if he succeeded, his vigor and fidelity would draw upon him Masonic hostility. But the simpler explanation is the more probable. Van Buren desired to adhere in this, as he did in most of his appointments, to a high standard. Upon this particular appointment his own motives might be distrusted; and he therefore went to the ranks of his adversaries for one of their most distinguished and invulnerable leaders. Van Buren was long condemned as a "spoils" politician; but he was not accused of appointing either incompetent or dishonest men to office. In the great place of governor he must have already begun to see how difficult and dangerous was this power of patronage. It must be fairly admitted that he pretty carefully limited, by the integrity and efficiency of the public service, the political use which he made of his appointments,—a use made in varying degrees by every American holding important executive power from the first Adams to our own time.

On March 12, 1829, Governor Van Buren resigned his office with the hearty and unanimous approval of his party friends, whom he gathered together on receiving Jackson's invitation to Washington. He was in their hands, he said, and should abide by their decision. Both houses of the legislature passed congratulatory and even affectionate resolutions; and his brief and brilliant career in the executive chamber of the State ended happily, as does any career which ends that a seemingly greater one may begin.