Social affairs there were, of course. But they were simple enough to please the most ardent Jeffersonian—much too simple to please people accustomed to somewhat rigorous etiquette. Thus George Bancroft, who had the reputation of being one of Washington’s most punctilious gentlemen, thought well of Jackson’s character but very poorly of his levees. In describing a White House reception which he attended in 1831, he wrote:
The old man stood in the center of a little circle, about large enough for a cotillion, and shook hands with everybody that offered. The number of ladies who attended was small; nor were they brilliant. But to compensate for it there was a throng of apprentices, boys of all ages, men not civilized enough to walk about the room with their hats off; the vilest promiscuous medley that ever was congregated in a decent house; many of the lowest gathering round the doors, pouncing with avidity upon the wine and refreshments, tearing the cake with the ravenous keenness of intense hunger; starvelings, and fellows with dirty faces and dirty manners; all the refuse that Washington could turn forth from its workshops and stables.
The “people” still ruled. Yet it was only the public receptions that presented such scenes of disorder. The dinners which the President occasionally gave were well appointed. A Philadelphia gentleman who was once invited to the White House with two or three friends testifies that “the dinner was very neat and served in excellent taste, while the wines were of the choicest qualities. The President himself dined on the simplest fare: bread, milk, and vegetables.”
Jackson was never a rich man, and throughout his stay in the White House he found it no easy matter to make ends meet. He entertained his personal friends and official guests royally. He lavished hospitality upon the general public, sometimes spending as much as a thousand or fifteen hundred dollars on a single levee. He drew a sharp line between personal and public expenditures, and met out of his own pocket outlays that under administrations both before and after were charged to the public account. He loaned many thousands of dollars, in small amounts, to needy friends, to old comrades in arms, and especially to widows and orphans of his soldiery and of his political supporters; and a large proportion of these debts he not only never collected but actually forgot. Receipts from the Hermitage farm during his years of absence were small, and fire in 1834 made necessary a rebuilding of the family residence at considerable cost. The upshot was that when, in 1837, the General was preparing to leave Washington, he had to scrape together every available dollar in cash, and in addition pledge the cotton crop of his plantation six months ahead for a loan of six thousand dollars, in order to pay the bills outstanding against him in the capital.
Meanwhile the country came to the election of 1836. From the time of Van Buren’s withdrawal from the Cabinet in 1831 to become, with Jackson’s full approval, a candidate for the vice presidency, there never was doubt that the New Yorker would be the Democratic presidential nominee in 1836, or that his election would mean a continuation, in most respects, of the Jacksonian régime. Never did a President more clearly pick his successor. There was, of course, some protest within the party. Van Buren was not popular, and it required all of the personal and official influence that the President could bring to bear, backed up by judicious use of the patronage, to carry his program through. At that, his own State rebelled and, through a resolution of the Legislature, put itself behind the candidacy of Senator Hugh L. White. The bold actions of his second Administration, defiant alike of precedent and opposition, had alienated many of the President’s more intelligent and conservative followers. Yet the allegiance of the masses was unshaken; and when the Democratic convention assembled at Baltimore in May, 1835,—a year and a half before the election—the nomination of Van Buren was secured without a dissenting vote. There was no need to adopt a platform; everybody understood that Jackson’s policies were the platform, and that Jackson himself was as truly before the electorate as if he had been a candidate for a third term. In his letter of acceptance Van Buren met all expectations by declaring his purpose “to tread generally in the footsteps of President Jackson.”
The anti-Administration forces entered the campaign with no flattering prospects. Since 1832 their opposition to “executive usurpation” had won for them a new party name, “Whig.” But neither their opposition nor any other circumstance had given them party solidarity. National Republicans, anti-Masons, converted Jacksonians, state rights men—upon what broad and constructive platform could they hope to unite? They had no lack of able presidential aspirants. There was Clay, the National Republican candidate in 1832; there was Webster, of whom Jackson once said that he would never be President because he was “too far east, knows too much, and is too honest”; and there were lesser lights, such as Judge John McLean. But, again, how could the many discordant groups be rallied to the support of any single leader?
Jackson predicted in 1834 that his opponents would nominate William Henry Harrison, because “they have got to take up a soldier; they have tried orators enough.” The prophecy was a shrewd one, and in 1840 it was fulfilled to the letter. Upon the present occasion, however, the leaders decided to place no single nominee in the field, but rather to bring forward a number of candidates who could be expected to develop local strength and so to split the vote as to throw the final choice into the House of Representatives. This seemed the only hope of circumventing Van Buren’s election. Four sectional candidates entered the race: Webster was backed by New England; the Northwest united on Harrison; the Southwest joined the Tennessee revolters in support of White; Ohio had her own candidate in the person of McLean.
The plan was ingenious, but it did not work. Van Buren received 170 electoral votes against 124 in spite of his opponents. He carried fifteen of the twenty-six States, including four in New England. Harrison received 73 votes, White 26 (including those of Tennessee), and Webster 14. South Carolina refused to support any of the candidates on either side and threw away her votes on W.P. Mangum of North Carolina. The Democrats kept control of both branches of Congress.
Victory, therefore, rested with the Jacksonians—which means with Jackson himself. The Democrats would have control of both the executive and legislative branches of the Government for some years to come; the Bank would not soon be re-chartered; the veto power would remain intact; federal expenditure upon internal improvements had been curbed, and the “American system” had been checked; the national debt was discharged and revenue was superabundant; Jackson could look back over the record of his Administrations with pride and forward to the rule of “Little Van” with satisfaction. “When I review the arduous administration through which I have passed,” declared the President soon after the results of the election were made known, “the formidable opposition, to its very close, of the combined talents, wealth, and power of the whole aristocracy of the United States, aided as it is by the moneyed monopolies of the whole country with their corrupting influence, with which we had to contend, I am truly thankful to my God for this happy result.”
Congress met on the 5th of December for the closing session of the Administration. The note of victory pervaded the President’s message. Yet there was one more triumph to be won: the resolution of censure voted by the Senate in 1834 was still officially on the record book. Now it was that Benton finally procured the passage of his expunging resolution, although not until both branches of Congress had been dragged into controversy more personal and acrid, if possible, than any in the past eight years. The action taken was probably unconstitutional. But Jackson’s “honor” was vindicated, and that was all that he and his friends saw, or cared to see, in the proceeding.