Martin Van Buren

by Edward Morse Shepard

After a few months of the charming life which an American of distinction finds open to him in London, a life for whose duties and whose pleasures Van Buren was happily fitted,[10] there came to him an extraordinary and enviable delight. He posted through England in an open carriage with the author of the "Sketch Book" and "Bracebridge Hall." From those daintiest sources he had years before got an idea of English country life, and of the festivities of an old-fashioned English Christmas; and now in an exquisite companionship the idea became more nearly clothed with reality than happens with most literary enchantments. After Oxford and Blenheim; after quartering in Stratford at the little inn of the Red Horse, where they "found the same obliging little landlady that kept it at the time of the visit recorded in the 'Sketch Book';" after Warwick Castle and Kenilworth and Lichfield and Newstead Abbey and Hardwick Castle; after a fortnight at Christmas in Barlborough Hall,—"a complete scene of old English hospitality," with many of the ancient games and customs then obsolete in other parts of England; after seeing there the "mummers and morris dancers and glee singers;" after "great feasting with the boar's-head crowned with holly, the wassail bowl, the yule-log, snapdragon, etc.;"—after all these delights, inimitably told by his companion, Van Buren returned to London, but not for long. He there enjoyed the halcyon days which the brilliant society of London knew, when George IV. had just left the throne to his undignified but good-hearted and jovial brother; when Louis Philippe had found a bourgeois crown in France and the condescending approval of England; when Wellington was the first of Englishmen; when Prince Talleyrand, his early republicanism and sacrileges not at all forgotten, but forgiven to the prestige of his abilities and the splendid fascinations of his society, was the chief person in diplomatic life; when the Wizard of the North, though broken, and on his last and vain trip to the Mediterranean for health, still lingered in London, one of its grand figures, and sadly recalled to Irving the times when they "went over the Eildon hills together;" when Rogers was playing Mæcenas and Catullus at breakfast-tables of poets and bankers and noblemen. It was amid this serene, shining, and magical translation from the politics at home that Van Buren received the rude and humiliating news of his rejection by the Senate; for his appointment had been made in recess, and he had left without a confirmation.

One evening in February, 1832, before attending a party at Talleyrand's, Van Buren learned of the rejection, as had all London which knew there was an American minister. He was half ill when the news came; but he seemed imperturbable. Without shrinking he mixed in the splendid throng, gracious and easy, as if he did not know that his official heart would soon cease to beat. Lord Auckland, then president of the board of trade and afterwards governor-general of India, said to him very truly, and more prophetically than he fancied: "It is an advantage to a public man to be the subject of an outrage." Levees and drawing-rooms and state dinners were being held in honor of the queen's birthday. After a doubt as to the more decorous course, he kept the tenor of diplomatic life until he ceased to be a minister; and Irving said that, "to the credit of John Bull," he "was universally received with the most marked attention," and "treated with more respect and attention than before by the royal family, by the members of the present and the old cabinet, and the different persons of the diplomatic corps." On March 22, 1832, he had his audience of leave; two days later he dined with the king at Windsor; and about April 1 left for Holland and a continental trip, this being, so he wrote a committee appointed at an indignation meeting in Tammany Hall, "the only opportunity" he should probably ever have for the visit.

Van Buren's dispatches from England, now preserved in the archives of the State Department, are not numerous. They were evidently written by a minister who was not very busy in official duties apart from the social and ceremonial life of a diplomat. Some of them are in his own handwriting, whose straggling carelessness is quite out of keeping with the obvious pains which he bestowed upon every subject he touched, even those of seemingly slight consequence. Interspersed with allusions to the northeastern boundary question, and with accounts of his protests against abuses practiced upon American ships in British ports, and of the spread of the cholera, he gave English political news and even gossip. He discussed the chances of the reform bill, rumors of what the ministry would do, and whether the Duke of Wellington would yield. Van Buren participated in no important dispute, although before surrendering his post he presented one of the hateful claims which American administrations of both parties had to make in those days. This was the demand for slaves who escaped from the American brig "Comet," wrecked in the Bahamas, on her way from the Potomac to New Orleans, and who were declared free by the colonial authorities.

It is safe to believe that Secretary Livingston read the more interesting of these letters at the White House. Van Buren discreetly lightened up some of the diplomatic pages with passages very agreeable to Jackson. In describing his presentation to William IV., he told Livingston that the king had formed the highest estimate of Jackson's character, and repeated the royal remark "that detraction and misrepresentation were the common lot of all public men." Of the President's message of December, 1831, he wrote that few in England refused to recognize its ability or the "distinguished talents of the executive by whose advice and labors" the affairs "of our highly favored country" had been "conducted to such happy results."

On July 5, 1832, Van Buren arrived at New York, having several weeks before been nominated for the vice-presidency. He declined a public reception, he said, because, afflicted as New York was with the cholera, festivities would be discordant with the feelings of his friends; and a few days later he was in Washington. Congress was in session, debating the tariff bill; and he quickly enough found it true, as he had already believed, that his rejection had been a capital blunder of his enemies. The rejection occurred on January 25, 1832. Jackson's nomination had gone to the Senate early in December, but the opposition had hesitated at the responsibility for the affront. The debate took place in secret session, but the speeches were promptly made public for their effect on the country. Clay and Webster, the great leaders of the Whigs, and Hayne, the eloquent representative of the Calhoun Democracy, and others, spoke against Van Buren. Clay and Webster based their rejection upon his language in the dispatch to McLane, already quoted. Webster said that he would pardon almost anything where he saw true patriotism and sound American feeling; but he could not forgive the sacrifice of these to party. Van Buren, with sensible and skillful foresight, had frankly admitted that we had been wrong in some of our claims; and Gallatin, it was afterwards shown from his original dispatch to Clay, had expressly said the same thing. But in a bit of buncombe Webster insisted that no American minister must ever admit that his country had been wrong. "In the presence of foreign courts," he solemnly said, "amidst the monarchies of Europe, he is to stand up for his country and his whole country; that no jot nor tittle of her honor is to suffer in his hands; that he is not to allow others to reproach either his government or his country, and far less is he himself to reproach either; that he is to have no objects in his eye but American objects, and no heart in his bosom but an American heart." To say all this, Webster declared, was a duty whose performance he wished might be heard "by every independent freeman in the United States, by the British minister and the British king, and every minister and every crowned head in Europe." Van Buren's language, Clay said, had been that of an humble vassal to a proud and haughty lord, prostrating and degrading the American eagle before the British lion. These cheap appeals fell perfectly flat. If Van Buren had been open to criticism for the manner in which he pointed out a party change in American administration, the error was, at the worst, committed to preclude a British refusal from finding justification in the offensive attitude previously taken by Adams. In admitting our mistaken "pretensions," Van Buren had been entirely right, barring a slight fault in the word, which did not, however, then seem to import the consciousness of wrong which it carries to later ears. Webster and Clay ought to have known that Van Buren's success where all before had failed would make the American people loath to find fault with his phrases. Nor were they at all ready to believe that Jackson's administration toadied to foreign courts. They knew better; they were convinced that no American president had been more resolute towards other nations.

It was also said that Van Buren had introduced the system of driving men from office for political opinions; that he was a New York politician who had brought his art to Washington. Marcy, one of the New York senators, defended his State with these words, which afterwards he must have wished to recall: "It may be, sir, that the politicians of New York are not so fastidious as some gentlemen are as to disclosing the principles on which they act. They boldly preach what they practice. When they are contending for victory they avow their intention of enjoying the fruits of it. If they are defeated, they expect to retire from office; if they are successful, they claim, as a matter of right, the advantages of success. They see nothing wrong in the rule that to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy." To this celebrated and execrable defense Van Buren owes much of the later and unjust belief that he was an inveterate "spoilsman." It has already been shown how little foundation there is for the charge that he introduced the system of official proscription. Benton truly said that Van Buren's temper and judgment were both against it, and that he gave ample proofs of his forbearance. Webster did not touch upon this objection. Clay made it very subordinate to the secretary's abasement before the British lion.

The attack of the Calhoun men was based upon Van Buren's supposed intrigue against their chief, and his breaking up of the cabinet. But people saw then, better indeed than some historians have since seen, that between Calhoun and Van Buren there had been great and radical political divergence far deeper than personal jealousy. To surrender the highest cabinet office, to leave Washington and all the places of political management, in order to take a lower office in remote exile from the sources of political power,—these were not believed to be acts of mere trickery, but rather to be parts of a courageous and self-respecting appeal for justice. It seemed a piece of political animosity wantonly to punish a rival with such exquisite humiliation in the eyes of foreigners.

There was a clear majority against confirming Van Buren. But to make his destruction the more signal, and as Calhoun had no opportunity to speak, enough of the majority refrained from voting to enable the Democratic vice-president to give the casting vote for the rejection of this Democratic nominee. Calhoun's motive was obvious enough from his boast in Benton's hearing: "It will kill him, sir, kill him dead. He will never kick, sir, never kick." This bit of unaffected nature was refreshing after all the solemnly insincere declarations of grief which had fallen from the opposition senators in performing their duty.

The folly of the rejection was quickly apparent. Benton very well said to Moore, a senator from Alabama who had voted against Van Buren, "You have broken a minister and elected a vice-president. The people will see nothing in it but a combination of rivals against a competitor." The popular verdict was promptly given. Van Buren had already become a candidate to succeed Jackson five years later; he was only a possible candidate for vice-president at the next election. When the rejection was widely known, it was known almost equally well and soon that Van Buren would be the Jacksonian candidate for vice-president. Meetings were held; addresses were voted; the issue was eagerly seized. The Democratic members of the New York legislature early in February, 1832, under an inspiration from Washington, addressed to Jackson an expression of their indignation in the stately words which our fathers loved, even when they went dangerously near to bathos. They had freely, they said, surrendered to his call their most distinguished fellow-citizen; when Van Buren had withdrawn from the cabinet they had beheld in Jackson's continual confidence in him irrefragable proof that no combination could close Jackson's eyes to the cause of his country; New York would indeed avenge the indignity thus offered to her favorite son; but they would be unmindful of their duty if they failed to console Jackson with their sympathy in this degradation of the country he loved so well. On February 28, Jackson replied with no less dignity and with skill and force. He was, he said,—and the whole country believed him,—incapable of tarnishing the pride or dignity of that country whose glory it had been his object to elevate; Van Buren's instructions to McLane had been his instructions; American pretensions which Adams's administration had admitted to be untenable had been resigned; if just American claims were resisted upon the ground of the unjust position taken by his predecessor, then and then only was McLane to point out that there had been a change in the policy and counsels of the government with the change of its officers. Jackson said that he owed it to the late secretary of state and to the American people to declare that Van Buren had no participation whatever in the occurrences between Calhoun and himself; and that there was no ground for imputing to Van Buren advice to make the removals from office. He had called Van Buren to the state department not more for his acknowledged talents and public services than to meet the general wish and expectation of the Republican party; his signal ability and success in office had fully justified the selection; his own respect for Van Buren's great public and private worth, and his full confidence in his integrity were undiminished. This blast from the unquestioned head of the party prodigiously helped the general movement. The only question was how best to avenge the wrong.

It was suggested that Van Buren should return directly and take a seat in the Senate, which Dudley would willingly surrender to him, and should there meet his slanderers face to face. Some thought that he should have a triumphal entry into New York, without an idea of going into the "senatorial cock-pit" unless he were not to receive the vice-presidency. Others thought that he should be made governor of New York, an idea shadowed forth in the Albany address to Jackson. As a candidate for that place, he would escape the jealousies of Pennsylvania and perhaps Virginia, and augment the local strength of the party in New York. To this it was replied from Washington that they might better cut his throat at once; that if the Republican party could not, under existing circumstances, make Van Buren vice-president, they need never look to the presidency for him. This was declared to be the unanimous opinion of the cabinet. New York Republicans were begged not to "lose so glorious an opportunity of strengthening and consolidating the party." The people at Albany, it was said, were "mad, ... as if New York can make amends for an insult offered by fourteen States of the Union."