Martin Van Buren

by Edward Morse Shepard

In this temper the Republican or Democratic convention met at Baltimore on May 21, 1832. It was the first national gathering of the party; and was summoned simply to nominate a vice-president. Jackson's renomination was already made by the sovereign people, which might be justly affronted by the assembling of a body in apparent doubt whether to obey the popular decree. National conventions were inevitable upon the failure of the congressional caucus in 1824. The system of separate nominations in different States at irregular times was too inconvenient, too inconsistent with unity of action and a central survey of the whole situation. In 1824 its inconvenience had been obvious enough. In 1828 circumstances had designated both the candidates with perfect certainty; and isolated nominations in different parts of the country were then in no danger of clashing. It has been recently said that the convention of 1832 was assembled to force Van Buren's nomination for vice-president. But it is evident from the letter which Parton prints, written by Lewis to Kendall on May 25, 1831, when the latter was visiting Isaac Hill, the Jacksonian leader in New Hampshire, that the convention was even then proposed by "the most judicious" friends of the administration. It was suggested as a plan "of putting a stop to partial nominations" and of "harmonizing" the party. Barbour, Dickinson, and McLane were the candidates discussed in this letter; Van Buren was not named. He was about sailing for England; and although an open candidate for the presidential succession after Jackson, he was not then a candidate for the second office. The ascription of the convention to management in his behalf seems purely gratuitous. Upon this early invitation, the New Hampshire Democrats called the convention. One of them opened its session by a brief speech alluding to the favor with which the idea of the convention had met, "although opposed by the enemies of the Democratic party," as the Republican party headed by Jackson was now perhaps first definitely called. He said that "the coming together of representatives of the people from the extremity of the Union would have a tendency to soothe, if not to unite, the jarring interests;" and that the people, after seeing its good effects in conciliating the different and distant sections of the country, would continue the mode of nomination. This natural and sensible motive to strengthen and solidify the party is ample explanation of the convention, without resorting to the rather worn charge brought against so many political movements of the time, that they arose from Jackson's dictatorial desire to throttle the sentiment of his party. In making nominations the convention resolved that each State should have as many votes as it would be entitled to in the electoral college. To assure what was deemed a reasonable approach to unanimity, two thirds of the whole number of votes was required for a choice,—a precedent sad enough to Van Buren twelve years later. On the first ballot Van Buren had 208 of the 283 votes. Virginia, South Carolina, Indiana, and Kentucky, with a few votes from North Carolina, Alabama, and Illinois, were for Philip P. Barbour of Virginia or Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky. The motion, nowadays immediately made, that the nomination be unanimous was not offered; but after an adjournment a resolution was adopted that inasmuch as Van Buren had received the votes of two thirds of the delegates, the convention unanimously concur "in recommending him to the people of the United States for their support."

No platform was adopted. A committee was appointed after the nomination to draft an address; but after a night's work they reported that, although "agreeing fully in the principles and sentiments which they believe ought to be embodied in an address of this description, if such an address were to be made," it still seemed better to them that the convention recommend the several delegations "to make such explanations by address, report, or otherwise to their respective constituents of the objects, proceedings, and result of the meeting as they may deem expedient." This was a franker intimation than those to which we are now used, that the battle was to be fought in each State upon the issue best suited to its local sentiments; and was entitled to quite as much respect as meaningless platitudes adopted lest one State or another be offended at something explicit. Jackson's firm and successful foreign policy, his opposition to internal improvements by the federal government, his strong stand against nullification, his opposition to the United States Bank,—for from the battle over the re-charter, precipitated by Clay early in 1832 to embarrass Jackson, the latter had not shrunk,—and above all Jackson himself, these were the real planks of the platform. But the party wanted the votes of Pennsylvania Jacksonians who believed in the Bank and of western Jacksonians who wished federal aid for roads and canals. The great tariff debate was then going on in Congress; and the subject seemed full of danger. The election was like the usual English canvass on a parliamentary dissolution. The country was merely asked without specifications: Do you on the whole like Jackson's administration?

There is no real ground for the supposition that intrigue or coercion was necessary to procure Van Buren's nomination. It was dictated by the simplest and plainest political considerations. Calhoun was in opposition. After Jackson, Van Buren was clearly the most distinguished and the ablest member of the administration party; he had rendered it services of the highest order; he was very popular in the most important State of New York; he was abroad, suffering from what Irving at the time truly called "a very short-sighted and mean-spirited act of hostility." The affront had aroused a general feeling which would enable Van Buren to strengthen the ticket. In his department had been performed the most shining achievements of the administration. To the politicians about Jackson, and very shrewd men they were, Van Buren's succession to Jackson promised a firmer, abler continuance of the administration than that of any other public man. Could he indeed have stayed minister to England, he would have continued a figure of the first distinction, free from local and temporary animosities and embarrassments. From that post he might perhaps, as did a later Democratic statesman, most easily have ascended to the presidency; the vice-presidency would have been unnecessary to the final promotion. But after the tremendous affront dealt him by Calhoun and Clay, his tame return to private life would seem fatal. He must reënter public life. And no reëntry, it was plain, could be so striking as a popular election to the second station in the land, nominal though it was, and in taking it to displace the very enemy who had been finally responsible for the wrong done him.

A month after his return Van Buren formally accepted the nomination. The committee of the convention had assured him that if the great Republican party continued faithful to its principles, there was every reason to congratulate him and their illustrious president that there was in reserve for his wounded feelings a just and certain reparation. Van Buren said in reply that previous to his departure from the United States his name had been frequently mentioned for the vice-presidency; but that he had uniformly declared himself altogether unwilling to be considered a candidate, and that to his friends, when opportunity offered, he had given the grounds of his unwillingness. All this was strictly true. He had become a candidate for the presidential succession; and honorable absence as minister to England secured a better preparation than presence as vice-president amidst the difficulties and suspicions of Washington. But his position, he added, had since that period been essentially changed by the circumstance to which the committee had referred, and to which, with some excess of modesty he said, rather than to any superior fitness on his part, he was bound to ascribe his nomination. He gratefully received this spontaneous expression of confidence and friendship from the delegated democracy of the Union. He declared it to be fortunate for the country that its public affairs were under the direction of one who had an early and inflexible devotion to republican principles and a moral courage which distinguished him from all others. In the conviction, he said, that on a faithful adherence to these principles depended the stability and value of our confederated system, he humbly hoped lay his motive, rather than any other, for accepting the nomination. This rather clumsy affectation of humility would have been more disagreeable had it not been closely associated with firm and manly expressions, and because it was so common a formality in the political vernacular of the day. In treating the people as the sovereign, there were adopted the sort of rhetorical extravagances used by attendants upon monarchs.

On October 4, 1832, Van Buren, upon an interrogation by a committee of a meeting at Shocco Springs, North Carolina, wrote a letter upon the tariff. He said that he believed "the establishment of commercial regulations with a view to the encouragement of domestic products to be within the constitutional power of Congress." But as to what should be the character of the tariff he indulged in the generalities of a man who has opinions which he does not think it wise or timely to exhibit. He did not wish to see the power of Congress exercised with "oppressive inequality" or "for the advantage of one section of the Union at the expense of another." The approaching extinguishment of the national debt presented an opportunity for a "more equitable adjustment of the tariff," an opportunity already embraced in the tariff of 1832, whose spirit as "a conciliatory measure" he trusted would be cherished by all who preferred public to private interests. These vague expressions would have fitted either a revenue reformer or an extreme protectionist. Both disbelieved, or said they did, in oppression and inequality. With a bit of irony, perhaps unconscious, he added that he had been thus "explicit" in the statement of his sentiments that there might not be room for misapprehension of his views. He did, however, in the letter approve "a reduction of the revenue to the wants of the government," and "a preference in encouragement given to such manufactures as are essential to the national defense, and its extension to others in proportion as they are adapted to our country and of which the raw material is produced by ourselves." The last phrase probably hinted at Van Buren's position. He believed in strictly limiting protective duties, although he had voted for the tariff of 1828. But he told Benton that he cast this vote in obedience to the "demos krateo" principle, that is, because his State required it. He again spoke strongly against the policy of internal improvements, and the "scrambles and combinations in Congress" unavoidably resulting from them. He was "unreservedly opposed" to a renewal of the charter of the Bank, and equally opposed to nullification, which involved, he believed, the "certain destruction of the confederacy."

A few days later he wrote to a committee of "democratic-republican young men" in New York of the peculiar hatred and contumely visited upon him. Invectives against other men, he said, were at times suspended; but he had never enjoyed a moment's respite since his first entrance into public life. Many distinguished public men had, he added, been seriously injured by favors from the press; but there was scarcely an instance in which the objects of its obloquy had not been raised in public estimation in exact proportion to the intensity and duration of the abuse.

Both the letter from the Baltimore convention and Van Buren's reply alluded to "diversity of sentiments and interests," disagreements "as to measures and men" among the Republicans. The secession of Calhoun and the bitter hostility of his friends seriously weakened the party. But against this was to be set the Anti-Masonic movement which drew far more largely from Jackson's opponents than from his supporters, for Jackson was a Mason of a high degree. This strange agitation had now spread beyond New York, and secured the support of really able men. Judge McLean of the Supreme Court desired the Anti-Masonic nomination; William Wirt, the famous and accomplished Virginian, accepted it. John Quincy Adams would probably have accepted it, had it been tendered him. He wrote in his diary: "The dissolution of the Masonic institution in the United States I believe to be really more important to us and our posterity than the question whether Mr. Clay or General Jackson shall be the president." In New York the National Republicans or Whigs, with the eager and silly leaning of minority parties to political absurdities or vagaries, united with the Anti-Masons, among whom William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed had become influential. In 1830 they had supported Francis Granger, the Anti-Masonic candidate for governor. In 1832 the Anti-Masons in New York nominated an electoral ticket headed by Chancellor Kent, whose bitter, narrow, and unintelligent politics were in singular contrast with his extraordinary legal equipment and his professional and literary accomplishments, and by John C. Spencer, lately in charge of the prosecution of Morgan's abductors. If the ticket were successful, its votes were to go to Wirt or Clay, whichever they might serve to elect. Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania was the Anti-Masonic candidate for vice-president. In December, 1831, Clay had been nominated for president with the loud enthusiasm which politicians often mistake for widespread conviction. John Sergeant of Pennsylvania was the candidate for vice-president. The Whig Convention made the Bank re-charter the issue. The very ably conducted Young Men's National Republican Convention, held at Washington in May, 1832, gave Clay a noble greeting, made pilgrimage to the tomb of Washington there to seal their solemn promises, and adopted a clear and brief platform for protection, for internal improvements by the federal government, for the binding force upon the coördinate branches of the government of the Supreme Court's opinions as to constitutional questions, not only in special cases formally adjudged, but upon general principles, and against the manner in which the West Indian trade had been recovered. They declared that "indiscriminate removal of public officers for a mere difference of political opinion is a gross abuse of power, corrupting the morals and dangerous to the liberties of the people of this country."

Even more clearly than in the campaign of 1828 was the campaign of 1832 a legitimate political battle upon plain issues. The tariff bill of 1832, supported by both parties and approved by Jackson, prevented the question of protection from being an issue, however ready the Whigs might be, and however unready the Democrats, to give commercial restrictions a theoretical approval. Except on the "spoils" question, the later opinion of the United States has sustained the attitude of Jackson's party and the popular verdict of 1832. The verdict was clear enough. In spite of the Anti-Masonic fury, the numerous secessions from the Jacksonian ranks, and some alarming journalistic defections, especially of the New York "Courier and Enquirer" of James Watson Webb and Mordecai M. Noah, the people of the United States continued to believe in Jackson and the principles for which he stood. Upon the popular vote Jackson and Van Buren received 687,502 votes against 530,189 votes for Clay and Wirt combined, a popular majority over both of 157,313. In 1828 Jackson had had 647,276 votes and Adams 508,064, a popular majority of 139,212. The increase in Jackson's popular majority over two candidates instead of one was particularly significant in the north and east. The majority in New York rose from 5350 to 13,601. In Maine a minority of 6806 became a majority of 6087. In New Hampshire a minority of 3212 became a majority of 6476. In Massachusetts a minority of 23,860 was reduced to 18,458. In Rhode Island and Connecticut the minorities were reduced. In New Jersey a minority of 1813 became a majority of 463. The electoral vote was even more heavily against Clay. He had but 49 votes to Jackson's 219. Wirt had the 7 votes of Vermont, while South Carolina, beginning to step out of the Union, gave its 11 votes to John Floyd of Virginia. Clay carried only Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, a part of Maryland, and his own affectionate Kentucky. Van Buren received for vice-president the same electoral vote as Jackson, except that the 30 votes of Pennsylvania went to Wilkins, a Pennsylvanian. Sergeant had the same 49 votes as Clay, Ellmaker the 7 votes of Vermont, and Henry Lee of Massachusetts the 11 votes of South Carolina.[11]

This popular triumph brought great glory to Jackson's second inauguration. The glory was soon afterwards made greater and almost universal by his bold attack upon nullification, and by the vigorous and ringing yet dignified and even pathetic proclamation of January, 1833, drafted by Edward Livingston, in which the President commanded obedience to the law and entreated for loyalty to the Union. It could not be overlooked that the treasonable attitude of South Carolina had been taken by the portion of the Democratic party hostile to Van Buren. In a peculiar way therefore he shared in Jackson's prestige.