It is not surprising that, after agreeing to enter Mr. Polk's cabinet on these conditions, Mr. Buchanan had abundant reason to complain afterwards that the President did not treat him with "delicacy and confidence." On several occasions he was on the point of resigning his position. He was especially aggrieved that the President refused to nominate him to the Supreme Bench in 1846 as the successor of Henry Baldwin. In view of Mr. Buchanan's career, both before and after that time, it seems strange that he should have desired the position. It seems stranger still that Mr. Polk, after refusing to appoint him, should have nominated George W. Woodward, a Pennsylvania Democrat, who was unacceptable to Mr. Buchanan. Mr. Polk, however, appreciated the temperament of Mr. Buchanan, and apparently knew how much he would endure without resentment. While his presence in the cabinet was evidently not a source of pleasure to the President, he realized that it brought character, strength, and power to the administration. Mr. Buchanan was an older man than Mr. Polk, was superior to him intellectually, had seen a longer and more varied public service, and enjoyed a higher personal standing throughout the country.
The timidity of Mr. Buchanan's nature made him the servant of the administration when, with boldness, he might have been its master. Had he chosen to tender his resignation in resentment of his treatment by Mr. Polk, the administration would have been seriously embarrassed. There was, at the time, no Northern Democrat of the same rank to succeed him, except General Cass, and he was ineligible by reason of his uncompromising attitude on the Oregon question. Mr. Polk could not call a Southern man to the State Department so long as Robert J. Walker was at the head of the Treasury. He could not promote Mr. Marcy from the War Department without increasing the discontent already dangerously developed in the ranks of the New-York Democracy. Mr. Buchanan, therefore, held absolute control of the situation had he chosen to assert himself. This he failed to do, and continued to lend his aid to an administration whose policy was destroying him in his own State, and whose patronage was persistently used to promote the fortunes of his rivals and his enemies.
Mr. Polk was by singular fortune placed at the head of one of the most vigorous and important administrations in the history of the government. He had not been trained in the higher duties of statesmanship, and was not personally equal to the weighty responsibilities which devolved upon him. He was overshadowed by the ability of at least three members of his cabinet, and was keenly sensible of their superiority. He had, however, a certain aptitude for affairs, was industrious, and in personal character above reproach. Mr. Webster described him with accuracy when he spoke of him as "respectable but never eminent."
EARLY CAREER OF JAMES K. POLK.
When first elected to the House of Representatives in 1824, Mr. Polk was but twenty-nine years of age. He was re-elected continuously for fourteen years. He was one of the most pronounced adherents of Jackson, and joined in the extreme and unreasonable opposition to the administration of John Quincy Adams. The period of his service in the House was distinguished by partisanship of a more bigoted and vindictive type than prevailed at any other time in the history of that body. He was Speaker during the last Congress of Jackson's Presidency and during the first under the administration of Van Buren. When the Whig members forced an inquiry in to the conduct of Samuel Swartwout, the defaulting collector of customs for the port of New York,—a case which figured prominently in the exciting Presidential canvass of 1840,—they would not trust Mr. Polk with the duty of naming the committee of investigation. The House itself exercised the power of appointment, to the great disparagement of the Speaker.
When Mr. Polk closed his service in the Chair, at the end of the Twenty-fifth Congress, no Whig member could be found who was willing to move the customary resolution of thanks,—an act of courtesy which derives its chief grace by coming from a political opponent. When the resolution was presented by a Democratic Representative from the South, it was opposed in debate by prominent Whig members. Henry A. Wise, who five years later supported Mr. Polk for the Presidency, desired to have the resolution peremptorily ruled out on a point of order. Sergeant S. Prentiss, the incomparably brilliant member from Mississippi, attacked it most violently. His impassioned invective did not stop short of personal indignity and insult to Mr. Polk. He denied with emphatic iteration that the Speaker had been "impartial." On the contrary he had been "the tool of the Executive, the tool of his party." He analyzed Mr. Polk's course in the appointment of committees, and with much detail labored to prove his narrowness, his unfairness, his injustice as a presiding officer. For one, he said, he was "not wiling to give to Mr. Polk a certificate of good behaviour, to aid him in his canvass for the governorship of Tennessee, for which he is known to be a candidate." He believed "this vote of thanks was to be used as so much capital, on which to do political business," and he declared with much vehemence that he "was not disposed to furnish it."
The opprobrious language of Prentiss did not wound Mr. Polk so seriously as did the vote of the House on the resolution of thanks. The Whigs, as a party, resisted its adoption. The Democrats could not even bring the House to a vote upon the resolution without the use of the previous question, and this, as a witty observer remarked, was about as humiliating as to be compelled to call the previous question on resolutions of respect for a deceased member. When the demand was made for "the main question to be put," the Whigs, apparently eager to force the issue to the bitter end, called for the ayes and noes. John Quincy Adams, who headed the roll, led off in the negative, and was sustained by such able and conservative members as John Bell from Mr. Polk's own State, McKennan of Pennsylvania, Evans of Maine, Corwin of Ohio, Menifee from the Ashland district in Kentucky, and William Cost Johnson of Maryland. The vote stood 92 to 75. Mr. Polk had been chosen Speaker by a majority of thirteen. The Whigs had thus practically consolidated their party against a vote of courtesy to the presiding officer of the House.
Mr. Polk's situation was in the highest degree embarrassing, but he behaved with admirable coolness and self-possession. He returned his thanks to the "majority of the House," which had adopted the resolution, significantly emphasizing the word "majority." He said he regarded the vote just given "as of infinitely more value than the common, matter-of-course, customary resolution which, in the courtesy usually prevailing in parliamentary bodies, is passed at the close of their deliberations." His reference "to the courtesy usually prevailing in parliamentary bodies" was made, as an eye- witness relates, with "telling accent, and with a manner that was very disconcerting to the Whigs." His address was scrupulously confined to "the majority of the House," and to the end Mr. Polk exhibited, as was said at the time, "a magnificent contempt for the insulting discourtesy of the Whigs."
EARLY CAREER OF JAMES K. POLK.
The incident was made very prominent in the ensuing canvass in Tennessee, where Mr. Polk won a signal victory, and was installed as governor. The Democrats treated the action of the House as a deliberate insult, not merely to the Speaker, but to his State, and not only to his State, but to the venerable ex-president, whose residence at the Hermitage, in the judgment of his devoted followers, made Tennessee illustrious and almost sacred ground. Jackson himself was roused to intense indignation, and, though beyond threescore and ten, was active and unceasing in his efforts to insure a victory to Mr. Polk. The contest, though local in its essential character, attracted observation and interest far beyond the borders of the State.