Introducing the "New-York system of proscription" into the federal government, was the last of the accusations on which Mr. Van Buren was arraigned; and was just as unfounded as all the rest. Both his temper and his judgment was against the removal of faithful officers because of difference of political opinion, or even for political conduct against himself—as the whole tenor of his conduct very soon after, and when he became President of the United States, abundantly showed. The departments at Washington, and some part of every State in the Union, gave proofs of his forbearance in this particular.
I have already told that I did not speak in the debate on the nomination of Mr. Van Buren; and this silence on such an occasion may require explanation from a man who does not desire the character of neglecting a friend in a pinch. I had strong reasons for that abstinence, and they were obliged to be strong to produce it. I was opposed to Mr. Van Buren's going to England as minister. He was our intended candidate for the Presidency, and I deemed such a mission to be prejudicial to him and the party, and apt to leave us with a candidate weakened with the people by absence, and by a residence at a foreign court. I was in this state of mind when I saw the combination formed against him, and felt that the success of it would be his and our salvation. Rejection was a bitter medicine, but there was health at the bottom of the draught. Besides, I was not the guardian of Messrs. Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, and was quite willing to see them fall into the pit which they were digging for another. I said nothing in the debate; but as soon as the vote was over I wrote to Mr. Van Buren a very plain letter, only intended for himself, and of which I kept no copy; but having applied for the original for use in this history, he returned it to me, on the condition that I should tell, if I used it, that in a letter to General Jackson, he characterized it as "honest and sensible." Honest, I knew it to be at the time; sensible, I believe the event has proved it to be; and that there was no mistake in writing such a letter to Mr. Van Buren, has been proved by our subsequent intercourse. It was dated January 28, 1832, and I subjoin it in full, as contemporaneous testimony, and as an evidence of the independent manner in which I spoke to my friends—even those I was endeavoring to make President. It ran thus:
"Your faithful correspondents will have informed you of the event of the 25th. Nobody would believe it here until after it happened, but the President can bear me witness that I prepared him to expect it a month ago. The public will only understand it as a political movement against a rival; it is right, however, that you should know that without an auxiliary cause the political movement against you would not have succeeded. There were gentlemen voting against you who would not have done so except for a reason which was strong and clear in their own minds, and which (it would be improper to dissemble) has hurt you in the estimation of many candid and disinterested people. After saying this much, I must also say, that I look upon this head of objection as temporary, dying out of itself, and to be swallowed up in the current and accumulating topics of the day. You doubtless know what is best for yourself, and it does not become me to make suggestions; but for myself, when I find myself on the bridge of Lodi, I neither stop to parley, nor turn back to start again. Forward, is the word. Some say, make you governor of New-York; I say, you have been governor before: that is turning back. Some say, come to the Senate in place of some of your friends; I say, that of itself will be only parleying with the enemy while on the middle of the bridge, and receiving their fire. The vice-presidency is the only thing, and if a place in the Senate can be coupled with the trial for that, then a place in the Senate might be desirable. The Baltimore Convention will meet in the month of May, and I presume it will be in the discretion of your immediate friends in New-York, and your leading friends here, to have you nominated; and in all that affair I think you ought to be passive. 'For Vice-President,' on the Jackson ticket, will identify you with him; a few cardinal principles of the old democratic school might make you worth contending for on your own account. The dynasty of '98 (the federalists) has the Bank of the United States in its interest; and the Bank of the United States has drawn into its vortex, and wields at its pleasure, the whole high tariff and federal internal improvement party. To set up for yourself, and to raise an interest which can unite the scattered elements of a nation, you will have to take positions which are visible, and represent principles which are felt and understood; you will have to separate yourself from the enemy by partition lines which the people can see. The dynasty of '98 (federalists), the Bank of the United States, the high tariff party, the federal internal improvement party, are against you. Now, if you are not against them, the people, and myself, as one of the people, can see nothing between you and them worth contending for, in a national point of view. This is a very plain letter, and if you don't like it, you will throw it in the fire; consider it as not having been written. For myself, I mean to retire upon my profession, while I have mind and body to pursue it; but I wish to see the right principles prevail, and friends instead of foes in power."
The prominent idea in this letter was, that the people would see the rejection in the same light that I did—as a combination to put down a rival—as a political blunder—and that it would work out the other way. The same idea prevailed in England. On the evening of the day, on the morning of which all the London newspapers heralded the rejection of the American minister, there was a great party at Prince Talleyrand's—then the representative at the British court, of the new King of the French, Louis Phillippe. Mr. Van Buren, always master of himself, and of all the proprieties of his position, was there, as if nothing had happened; and received distinguished attentions, and complimentary allusions. Lord Aukland, grandson to the Mr. Eden who was one of the Commissioners of Conciliation sent to us at the beginning of the revolutionary troubles, said to him, "It is an advantage to a public man to be the subject of an outrage"—a remark, wise in itself, and prophetic in its application to the person to whom it was addressed. He came home—apparently gave himself no trouble about what had happened—was taken up by the people—elected, successively, Vice-President and President—while none of those combined against him ever attained either position.
There was, at the time, some doubt among their friends as to the policy of the rejection, but the three chiefs were positive in their belief that a senatorial condemnation would be political death. I heard Mr. Calhoun say to one of his doubting friends, "It will kill him, sir, kill him dead. He will never kick sir, never kick;" and the alacrity with which he gave the casting votes, on the two occasions, both vital, on which they were put into his hands, attested the sincerity of his belief, and his readiness for the work. How those tie-votes, for there were two of them, came to happen twice, "hand-running," and in a case so important, was matter of marvel and speculation to the public on the outside of the locked-up senatorial door. It was no marvel to those on the inside, who saw how it was done. The combination had a superfluity of votes, and, as Mr. Van Buren's friends were every one known, and would sit fast, it only required the superfluous votes on one side to go out; and thus an equilibrium between the two lines was established. When all was finished, the injunction of secrecy was taken off the proceedings, and the dozen set speeches delivered in secret session immediately published—which shows that they were delivered for effect, not upon the Senate, but upon the public mind. The whole proceeding illustrates the impolicy, as well as peril to themselves, of rival public men sitting in judgment upon each other, and carries a warning along with it which should not be lost.
As an event affecting the most eminent public men of the day, and connecting itself with the settlement of one of our important foreign commercial questions—as belonging to history, and already carried into it by the senatorial debates—as a key to unlock the meaning of other conduct—I deem this account of the REJECTION of Mr. Van Buren a necessary appendage to the settlement of the British West India trade question—as an act of justice to General Jackson's administration (the whole of which was involved in the censure then cast upon his Secretary of State), and as a sunbeam to illuminate the labyrinth of other less palpable concatenations.
CHAPTER LX.
BANK OF THE UNITED STATES—ILLEGAL AND VICIOUS CURRENCY.
In his first annual message, in the year 1829, President Jackson, besides calling in question the unconstitutionality and general expediency of the Bank, also stated that it had failed in furnishing a uniform currency. That declaration was greatly contested by the Bank and its advocates, and I felt myself bound to make an occasion to show it to be well founded, and to a greater extent than the President had intimated. It had in fact issued an illegal and vicious kind of paper—authorized it to be issued at all the branches—in the shape of drafts or orders payable in Philadelphia, but voluntarily paid where issued, and at all the branches; and so made into a local currency, and constituting the mass of all its paper seen in circulation; and as the greatest quantity was usually issued at the most remote and inaccessible branches, the payment of the drafts were well protected by distance and difficulty; and being of small denominations, loitered and lingered in the hands of the laboring people until the "wear and tear" became a large item of gain to the Bank, and the difficulty of presenting them at Philadelphia an effectual bar to their payment there. The origin of this kind of currency was thus traced by me: It was invented by a Scotch banker of Aberdeen, who issued notes payable in London, always of small denominations, that nobody should take them up to London for redemption. The Bank of Ireland seeing what a pretty way it was to issue notes which they could not practically be compelled to pay, adopted the same trick. Then the English country bankers followed the example. But their career was short. The British parliament took hold of the fraud, and suppressed it in the three kingdoms. That parliament would tolerate no currency issued at one place, and payable at another.