The Reign of Andrew Jackson: A Chronicle of the Frontier in Politics

by Frederic Austin Ogg

THE “REIGN” BEGINS

Jackson’s election to the presidency in 1828 was correctly described by Senator Benton as “a triumph of democratic principle, and an assertion of the people’s right to govern themselves.” Jefferson in his day was a candidate of the masses, and his triumph over John Adams in 1800 was received with great public acclaim. Yet the Virginian was at best an aristocratic sort of democrat; he was never in the fullest sense a man of the people. Neither Madison nor Monroe inspired enthusiasm, and for John Quincy Adams even New Englanders voted, as Ezekiel Webster confessed, from a cold sense of duty. Jackson was, as no President before him, the choice of the masses. His popular vote in 1824 revealed not only his personal popularity but the growing power of the democratic elements in the nation, and his defeat in the House of Representatives only strengthened his own and the people’s determination to be finally victorious. The untrained, self-willed, passionate frontier soldier came to power in 1828 as the standard bearer of a mighty democratic uprising which was destined before it ran its course to break down oligarchical party organizations, to liberalize state and local governments, and to turn the stream of national politics into wholly new channels. It was futile for men of the old school to protest and to prophesy misfortune for the country under its new rulers. The people had spoken, and this time the people’s will was not to be denied.

Still haggard from his recent personal loss, the President-elect set out for Washington, at the middle of January, 1829. With him went his nephew, Andrew Jackson Donelson, who was to be his private secretary; Mrs. Donelson, who was to preside over the executive mansion; an accomplished niece of Mrs. Jackson, who was to be of social assistance; an artist by the name of Earl, who resided at the White House throughout Jackson’s two Administrations, engaged continually in painting portraits of the General; and, finally, the faithful Major Lewis, whose intention was merely to attend the inauguration and then return to his plantation. The puffing little steamboat on which the party traveled down the Cumberland and up the Ohio was saluted and cheered a hundred times a day; at Louisville, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh there were great outpourings of demonstrative citizens. Duff Green, one of the party managers, proposed that a great cavalcade should meet the victor at Pittsburgh and escort him by relays to the capital. On Van Buren’s advice the plan was abandoned. But as the party passed along the National Road toward its destination it was accorded an ovation which left nothing to be desired as an evidence of the public favor.

Arrived in Washington, on the 11th of February—the day on which the electoral votes were counted in the Senate—Jackson and his friends found temporary lodgings at the Indian Queen Tavern, commonly known as “the Wigwam.” During the next three weeks the old inn was the scene of unwonted activity. Office seekers besieged it morning, noon, and night; politicians came to ask favors or give advice; exponents of every sort of cause watched for opportunities to obtain promises of presidential support; scores of the curious came with no other purpose than to see what a backwoods President looked like. “The city is full of speculation and speculators,” wrote Daniel Webster to his sister-in-law a few days after Jackson’s arrival; “a great multitude, too many to be fed without a miracle, are already in the city, hungry for office. Especially, I learn that the typographical corps is assembled in great force. From New Hampshire, our friend Hill; from Boston, Mr. Greene … and from everywhere else somebody else. So many friends ready to advise, and whose advice is so disinterested, make somewhat of a numerous council about the President-elect; and, if report be true, it is a council which only makes that darker which was dark enough before.”

To all, Jackson was accessible. But he was not communicative, and up to Inauguration Day people were left to speculate not only upon the truth of the rumor that there was to be a “full sweep” in the offices but upon the new Administration’s attitude on public questions in general. Even Isaac Hill, a warm friend and supporter, was obliged to write to an acquaintance four days before the inauguration that Jackson had little to say about the future, “except in a general way.” The men with whom the Executive-elect was daily closeted were Major Lewis and Senators Eaton and White. Van Buren would have been of the number, had not his recently assumed duties as Governor kept him at Albany. He was ably represented, however, by James A. Hamilton, a son of Alexander Hamilton, to whose correspondence we owe most of what we know about the laying of the plans for the new Administration.

The most pressing question was the personnel of the Cabinet. Upon only one appointment was Jackson fully determined when he reached Washington: Van Buren was to be Secretary of State. The “little magician” had been influential in turning New York from Crawford to Jackson; he had resigned his seat in the Senate and run for the governorship with a view to uniting the party for Jackson’s benefit; he was the cleverest politician and, next to Calhoun, the ablest man, in the Democratic ranks. When offered the chief place in the Cabinet he promptly accepted. Edward Livingston was given his choice of the remaining positions, but preferred to accept an election to the Senate. With due regard for personal susceptibilities and sectional interests, the list was then completed. A Pennsylvania Congressman, Samuel D. Ingham, became Secretary of the Treasury; Senator John H. Eaton was made Secretary of War; a Calhoun supporter from North Carolina, John Branch, was given the Navy portfolio; Senator John M. Berrien of Georgia became Attorney-General; and William T. Barry of Kentucky was appointed Postmaster-General, after the incumbent, John McLean, refused to accept the policy of a clean slate in the department. The appointments were kept secret until one week before the inauguration, when they were announced in the party organ at the capital, Duff Green’s United States Telegraph.

Everywhere the list caused consternation. Van Buren’s was the only name of distinction in it; and only one of the appointees had had experience in the administration of national affairs. Hamilton pronounced the group “the most unintellectual Cabinet we ever had.” Van Buren doubted whether he ought to have accepted a seat in such company. A crowning expression of dissatisfaction came from the Tennessee delegation in Congress, which formally protested against the appointment of Eaton. But the President-elect was not to be swayed. His ideas of administrative efficiency were not highly developed, and he believed that his Cabinet would prove equal to all demands made upon it. Not the least of its virtues in his eyes was the fact that, although nearly evenly divided between his own followers and the friends of Calhoun, it contained not one person who was not an uncompromising anti-Clay man.

Meanwhile a motley army of office seekers, personal friends, and sightseers—to the number of ten or fifteen thousand—poured into Washington to see the old régime of Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts go out and the new régime of the people come in. “A monstrous crowd of people,” wrote Webster on Inauguration Day, “is in the city. I never saw anything like it before. Persons have come five hundred miles to see General Jackson, and they really seem to think that the country is rescued from some dreadful danger.” Another observer, who was also not a Jacksonian, wrote: ¹

¹ Parton, Life of Andrew Jackson, Vol. III, p. 168.

No one who was in Washington at the time of General Jackson’s inauguration is likely to forget that period to the day of his death. To us, who had witnessed the quiet and orderly period of the Adams Administration, it seemed as if half the nation had rushed at once into the capital. It was like the inundation of the northern barbarians into Rome, save that the tumultuous tide came in from a different point of the compass. The West and the South seemed to have precipitated themselves upon the North and overwhelmed it. …

Strange faces filled every public place, and every face seemed to bear defiance on its brow. It appeared to me that every Jackson editor in the country was on the spot. They swarmed, especially in the lobbies of the House, an expectant host, a sort of Prætorian band, which, having borne in upon their shields their idolized leader, claimed the reward of the hard-fought contest.