Chapter 13

The Birth of the Whigs

New political parties were gelling as the 1830s length- ened. As early as 1828, the Democratic-Republicans of Jackson had unashamedly adopted the once- tainted name "Democrats.'' Jackson's opponents, fuming at his ironfisted exercise of presidential power, condemned him as "King Andrew I'' and began to coalesce as the Whigs—a name deliberately chosen to recollect eighteenth-century British and Revolutionary American opposition to the monarchy. The Whig party contained so many diverse ele- ments that it was mocked at first as "an organized incompatibility.'' Hatred of Jackson and his "execu- tive usurpation'' was its only apparent cement in its formative days. The Whigs first emerged as an iden- tifiable group in the Senate, where Clay, Webster, and Calhoun joined forces in 1834 to pass a motion censuring Jackson for his single-handed removal of federal deposits from the Bank of the United States. Thereafter, the Whigs rapidly evolved into a potent national political force by attracting other groups alienated by Jackson: supporters of Clay's Ameri- can System, southern states' righters offended by Jackson's stand on nullification, the larger northern industrialists and merchants, and eventually many of the evangelical Protestants associated with the Anti-Masonic party. Whigs thought of themselves as conservatives, yet they were progressive in their support of active government programs and reforms. Instead of boundless territorial acquisition, they called for internal improvements like canals, railroads, and telegraph lines, and they supported institutions like prisons, asylums, and pubic schools. The Whigs wel- comed the market economy, drawing support from manufacturers in the North, planters in the South, and merchants and bankers in all sections. But they were not simply a party of wealthy fat cats, however dearly the Democrats wanted to paint them as such. By absorbing the Anti-Masonic party, the Whigs blunted much of the Democratic appeal to the com- mon man. The egalitarian anti-Masons portrayed Jackson, and particularly his New York successor Martin Van Buren, as imperious aristocrats. This turned Jacksonian rhetoric on its head: now the Whigs claimed to be the defenders of the com- mon man and declared the Democrats the party of cronyism and corruption.

The Spoils System

Once in power, the Democrats, famously suspicious of the federal government, demonstrated that they were not above striking some bargains of their own. Under Jackson the spoils system—that is, rewarding political supporters with public office—was intro- duced into the federal government on a large scale. The basic idea was as old as politics. Its name came later from Senator William Marcy's classic remark in 1832, "To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy." The system had already secured a firm hold in New York and Pennsylvania, where well-greased machines ladled out the "gravy" of office. Jackson defended the spoils system on demo- cratic grounds. "Every man is as good as his neigh- bor," he declared—perhaps "equally better." As this was believed to be so, and as the routine of office was thought to be simple enough for any upstand- ing American to learn quickly, why encourage the development of an aristocratic, bureaucratic, office- holding class? Better to bring in new blood, he argued; each generation deserved its turn at the public trough. Washington was due, it is true, for a house- cleaning. No party overturn had occurred since the defeat of the Federalists in 1800, and even that had not produced wholesale evictions. A few office- holders, their commissions signed by President Washington, were lingering on into their eighties, drawing breath and salary but doing little else. But the spoils system was less about finding new blood than about rewarding old cronies. "Throw their ras- cals out and put our rascals in," the Democrats were essentially saying. The questions asked of each appointee were not "What can he do for the coun- try?" but "What has he done for the party?" or "Is he loyal to Jackson?" Scandal inevitably accompanied the new sys- tem. Men who had openly bought their posts by 262 CHAPTER 13 The Rise of a Mass Democracy, 1824-1840 In 1824 Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) said of Jackson, "When I was President of the Senate he was a Senator; and he could never speak on account of the rashness of his feelings. I have seen him attempt it repeatedly, and as often choke with rage. His passions are no doubt cooler now . . . but he is a dangerous man." campaign contributions were appointed to high office. Illiterates, incompetents, and plain crooks were given positions of public trust; scoundrels lusted for the spoils—rather than the toils—of office. Samuel Swartwout, despite ample warnings of his untrustworthiness, was awarded the lucrative post of collector of the customs of the port of New York. Nearly nine years later, he "Swartwouted out" for England, leaving his accounts more than a mil- lion dollars short—the first person to steal a million from the Washington government. But despite its undeniable abuse, the spoils sys- tem was an important element of the emerging two- party order, cementing as it did loyalty to party over competing claims based on economic class or geo- graphic region. The promise of patronage provided a compelling reason for Americans to pick a party and stick with it through thick and thin.

Gone to Texas

Americans, greedy for land, continued to covet the vast expanse of Texas, which the United States had abandoned to Spain when acquiring Florida in 1819. The Spanish authorities wanted to populate this virtually unpeopled area, but before they could carry through their contemplated plans, the Mexi- cans won their independence. A new regime in Mexico City thereupon concluded arrangements in 1823 for granting a huge tract of land to Stephen Austin, with the understanding that he would bring into Texas three hundred American families. Immi- grants were to be of the established Roman Catholic faith and upon settlement were to become properly Mexicanized. These two stipulations were largely ignored. Hardy Texas pioneers remained Americans at heart, resenting the trammels imposed by a "foreign" gov- ernment. They were especially annoyed by the pres- ence of Mexican soldiers, many of whom were ragged ex-convicts. Energetic and prolific, Texan-Americans num- bered about thirty thousand by 1835 (see "Makers of America: Mexican or Texican?" pp. 278-279). Most of them were law-abiding, God-fearing people, but some of them had left the "States" only one or two jumps ahead of the sheriff. "G.T.T." (Gone to Texas) became current descriptive slang. Among the adventurers were Davy Crockett, the famous rifle- man, and Jim Bowie, the presumed inventor of the murderous knife that bears his name. Bowie's blade was widely known in the Southwest as the "genuine Arkansas toothpick." A distinguished latecomer and leader was an ex-governor of Tennessee, Sam Hous- ton. His life had been temporarily shattered in 1829 when his bride of a few weeks left him, and he took up transient residence with the Arkansas Indians, who dubbed him "Big Drunk." He subsequently took the pledge of temperance. The pioneer individualists who came to Texas were not easy to push around. Friction rapidly increased between Mexicans and Texans over issues such as slavery, immigration, and local rights. Slav- ery was a particularly touchy topic. Mexico emanci- pated its slaves in 1830 and prohibited the further importation of slaves into Texas, as well as further colonization by troublesome Americans. The Texans refused to honor these decrees. They kept their slaves in bondage, and new American settlers kept bringing more slaves into Texas. When Stephen Austin went to Mexico City in 1833 to negotiate these differences with the Mexican government, the dictator Santa Anna clapped him in jail for eight months. The explosion finally came in 1835, when Santa Anna wiped out all local rights and started to raise an army to suppress the upstart Texans.

"Old Hickory''Wallops Clay in 1832

Clay and Jackson were the chief gladiators in the looming electoral combat. The grizzled old general, who had earlier favored one term for a president and rotation in office, was easily persuaded by his cronies not to rotate himself out of office. Presiden- tial power is a heady brew and can be habit-forming. The ensuing campaign was raucous. The "Old Hero's'' adherents again raised the hickory pole and bellowed, "Jackson Forever: Go the Whole Hog.'' Admirers of Clay shouted, "Freedom and Clay,'' while his detractors harped on his dueling, gam- bling, cockfighting, and fast living. Novel features made the campaign of 1832 especially memorable. For the first time, a third party entered the field—the newborn Anti-Masonic 270 CHAPTER 13 The Rise of a Mass Democracy, 1824-1840 Banker Nicholas Biddle (1786-1844) wrote to Henry Clay (August 1, 1832) expressing his satisfaction: "I have always deplored making the Bank a party question, but since the President will have it so, he must pay the penalty of his own rashness. As to the veto message, I am delighted with it. It has all the fury of a chained panther biting the bars of his cage. It is really a manifesto of anarchy . . . and my hope is that it will contribute to relieve the country of the domination of these miserable [Jackson] people." party, which opposed the influence and fearsome secrecy of the Masonic order. Energized by the mys- terious disappearance and probable murder in 1826 of a New Yorker who was threatening to expose the secret rituals of the Masons, the Anti-Masonic party quickly became a potent political force in New York and spread its influence throughout the middle Atlantic and New England states. The Anti-Masons appealed to long-standing American suspicions of secret societies, which they condemned as citadels of privilege and monopoly—a note that harmo- nized with the democratic chorus of the Jackson- ians. But since Jackson himself was a Mason and publicly gloried in his membership, the Anti- Masonic party was also an anti-Jackson party. The Anti-Masons also attracted support from many evangelical Protestant groups seeking to use politi- cal power to effect moral and religious reforms, such as prohibiting mail deliveries on Sunday and otherwise keeping the Sabbath holy. This moral busybodiness was anathema to the Jacksonians, who were generally opposed to all government meddling in social and economic life. A further novelty of the presidential contest in 1832 was the calling of national nominating conven- tions (three of them) to name candidates. The Anti- Masons and a group of National Republicans added still another innovation when they adopted formal platforms, publicizing their positions on the issues. Henry Clay and his overconfident National Republicans enjoyed impressive advantages. Ample funds flowed into their campaign chest, including $50,000 in "life insurance'' from the Bank of the United States. Most of the newspaper editors, some of them "bought'' with Biddle's bank loans, dipped their pens in acid when they wrote of Jackson. Yet Jackson, idol of the masses, easily defeated the big-money Kentuckian. A Jacksonian wave again swept over the West and South, surged into Pennsyl- vania and New York, and even washed into rock- ribbed New England. The popular vote stood at 687,502 to 530,189 for Jackson; the electoral count was a lopsided 219 to 49.

The Lone Star Rebellion

Early in 1836 the Texans declared their independ- ence, unfurled their Lone Star flag, and named Sam Houston commander in chief. Santa Anna, at the head of about six thousand men, swept fero- ciously into Texas. Trapping a band of nearly two hundred pugnacious Texans at the Alamo in San Antonio, he wiped them out to a man after a thir- teen-day siege. Their commander, Colonel W. B. Travis, had declared, "I shall never surrender nor retreat. . . . Victory or Death." A short time later, a band of about four hundred surrounded and defeated American volunteers, having thrown down their arms at Goliad, were butchered as "pirates." All these operations further delayed the Mexican advance and galvanized American opposition. Slain heroes like Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, well-known in life, became legendary in death. 276 CHAPTER 13 The Rise of a Mass Democracy, 1824-1840 Texan war cries—"Remember the Alamo!" "Remem- ber Goliad!" and "Death to Santa Anna!"—swept up into the United States. Scores of vengeful Americans seized their rifles and rushed to the aid of relatives, friends, and compatriots. General Sam Houston's small army retreated to the east, luring Santa Anna to San Jacinto, near the site of the city that now bears Houston's name. The Mexicans numbered about thirteen hundred men, the Texans about nine hundred. Suddenly, on April 21, 1836, Houston turned. Taking full advantage of the Mexican siesta, the Texans wiped out the pursu- ing force and captured Santa Anna, who was found cowering in the tall grass near the battlefield. Con- fronted with thirsty bowie knives, the quaking dicta- tor was speedily induced to sign two treaties. By their terms he agreed to withdraw Mexican troops and to recognize the Rio Grande as the extreme southwestern boundary of Texas. When released, he repudiated the agreement as illegal because it was extorted under duress. These events put the U.S. government in a sticky situation. The Texans, though courageous, could hardly have won their independence without the help in men and supplies from their American cousins. The Washington government, as the Mexi- cans bitterly complained, had a solemn obligation under international law to enforce its leaky neutral- ity statutes. But American public opinion, over- whelmingly favorable to the Texans, openly nullified the existing legislation. The federal authorities were powerless to act, and on the day before he left office in 1837, President Jackson even extended the right hand of recognition to the Lone Star Republic, led by his old comrade in arms against the Indians, Sam Houston. Many Texans wanted not just recognition of their independence but outright union with the United States. What nation in its right mind, they reasoned, would refuse so lavish a dowry? The radi- ant Texas bride, officially petitioning for annexation in 1837, presented herself for marriage. But the expectant groom, Uncle Sam, was jerked back by the black hand of the slavery issue. Antislavery cru- saders in the North were opposing annexation with increasing vehemence; they contended that the whole scheme was merely a conspiracy cooked up by the southern "slavocracy" to bring new slave pens into the Union. At first glance a "slavery plot" charge seemed plausible. Most of the early settlers in Texas, as well as American volunteers during the revolution, had come from the states of the South and Southwest. But scholars have concluded that the settlement of Texas was merely the normal and inexorable march of the westward movement. Most of the immigrants came from the South and Southwest simply because these states were closer. The explanation was prox- imity rather than conspiracy. Yet the fact remained that many Texans were slaveholders, and admitting Texas to the Union inescapably meant enlarging American slavery.

Burying Biddle's Bank

Its charter denied, the Bank of the United States was due to expire in 1836. But Jackson was not one to let the financial octopus die in peace. He was con- vinced that he now had a mandate from the voters for its extermination, and he feared that the slippery Biddle might try to manipulate the bank (as he did) so as to force its recharter. Jackson therefore decided in 1833 to bury the bank for good by remov- ing federal deposits from its vaults. He proposed depositing no more funds with Biddle and gradually shrinking existing deposits by using them to defray the day-to-day expenses of the government. By slowly siphoning off the government's funds, he would bleed the bank dry and ensure its demise. The Presidential Contest of 1832 271 Removing the deposits involved nasty com- plications. Even the president's closest advisers opposed this seemingly unnecessary, possibly unconstitutional, and certainly vindictive policy. Jackson, his dander up, was forced to reshuffle his cabinet twice before he could find a secretary of the Treasury who would bend to his iron will. A desper- ate Biddle called in his bank's loans, evidently hop- ing to illustrate the bank's importance by producing a minor financial crisis. A number of wobblier banks were driven to the wall by "Biddle's Panic," but Jack- son's resolution was firm. If anything, the vengeful conduct of the dying "monster" seemed to justify the earlier accusations of its adversaries. But the death of the Bank of the United States left a financial vacuum in the American economy and kicked off a lurching cycle of booms and busts. Surplus federal funds were placed in several dozen state institutions—the so-called "pet banks," chosen for their pro-Jackson sympathies. Without a sober central bank in control, the pet banks and smaller "wildcat" banks—fly-by-night operations that often consisted of little more than a few chairs and a suit- case full of printed notes—flooded the country with paper money. Jackson tried to rein in the runaway economy in 1836, the year Biddle's bank breathed its last. "Wild- cat" currency had become so unreliable, especially in the West, that Jackson authorized the Treasury to issue a Specie Circular—a decree that required all public lands to be purchased with "hard," or metal- lic, money. This drastic step slammed the brakes on the speculative boom, a neck-snapping change of direction that contributed to a financial panic and crash in 1837. But by then Jackson had retired to his Nashville home, hailed as the hero of his age. His successor would have to deal with the damage.

The Trail of Tears

Jackson's Democrats were committed to western expansion, but such expansion necessarily meant confrontation with the current inhabitants of the land. More than 125,000 Native Americans lived in the forests and prairies east of the Mississippi in the 1820s. Federal policy toward them varied. Beginning in the 1790s, the Washington government ostensibly recognized the tribes as separate nations andagreed to acquire land from them only through for- mal treaties. The Indians were shrewd and stubborn negotiators, but this availed them little when Ameri- cans routinely violated their own covenants, erasing and redrawing treaty line after treaty line on their maps as white settlement pushed west. Many white Americans felt respect and admira- tion for the Indians and believed that the Native Americans could be assimilated into white society. Much energy therefore was devoted to "civilizing" and Christianizing the Indians. The Society for Propagating the Gospel Among Indians was founded in 1787, and many denominations sent missionaries into Indian villages. In 1793 Congress appropriated $20,000 for the promotion of literacy and agricultural and vocational instruction among the Indians. Although many tribes violently resisted white encroachment, others followed the path of accom- modation. The Cherokees of Georgia made espe- cially remarkable efforts to learn the ways of the whites. They gradually abandoned their semino- madic life and adopted a system of settled agricul- ture and a notion of private property. Missionaries opened schools among the Cherokees, and the Indian Sequoyah devised a Cherokee alphabet. In 1808 the Cherokee National Council legislated a written legal code, and in 1827 it adopted a written constitution that provided for executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. Some Chero- kees became prosperous cotton planters and even turned to slaveholding. Nearly thirteen hundred black slaves toiled for their Native American masters in the Cherokee nation in the 1820s. For these efforts the Cherokees—along with the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles— were numbered by whites among the "Five Civilized Tribes." All this embrace of "civilization" apparently was not good enough for whites. In 1828 the Georgia leg- islature declared the Cherokee tribal council illegal and asserted its own jurisdiction over Indian affairs and Indian lands. The Cherokees appealed this move to the Supreme Court, which thrice upheld the rights of the Indians. But President Jackson, who clearly wanted to open Indian lands to white settlement, refused to recognize the Court's decisions. In a callous jibe at the Indians' defender, Jackson reportedly snapped, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it."* Feeling some obligation to rescue "this much injured race," Jackson proposed a bodily removal of the remaining eastern tribes—chiefly Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles— beyond the Mississippi. Emigration was supposed to be voluntary because it would be "cruel and unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers." Jackson evidently consoled himself with the belief that the Indians could pre- serve their native cultures in the wide-open West. Jackson's policy led to the forced uprooting of more than 100,000 Indians. In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, providing for the trans- planting of all Indian tribes then resident east of the Mississippi. Ironically, the heaviest blows fell on the Five Civilized Tribes. In the ensuing decade, count- less Indians died on forced marches to the newly established Indian Territory where they were to be "permanently" free of white encroachments. The Bureau of Indian Affairs was established in 1836 to administer relations with America's original inhabi- tants. But as the land-hungry "palefaces" pushed west faster than anticipated, the government's guar- antees went up in smoke. The "permanent" frontier lasted about fifteen years. Suspicious of white intentions from the start, Sauk and Fox braves from Illinois and Wisconsin, ably led by Black Hawk, resisted eviction. They were bloodily crushed in 1832 by regular troops, includ- ing Lieutenant Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, and by volunteers, including Captain Abraham Lincoln of Illinois.In Florida the Seminole Indians, joined by run- away black slaves, retreated to the swampy Ever- glades. For seven years (1835-1842), they waged a bitter guerrilla war that took the lives of some fifteen hundred soldiers. The spirit of the Seminoles was broken in 1837, when the American field comman- der treacherously seized their leader, Osceola, under a flag of truce. The war dragged on for five more years, but the Seminoles were doomed. Some fled deeper into the Everglades, where their descen- dants now live, but about four-fifths of them were moved to present-day Oklahoma, where several thousand of the tribe survive.

Log Cabins and Hard Cider of 1840

Martin Van Buren was renominated by the Demo- crats in 1840, albeit without terrific enthusiasm. The party had no acceptable alternative to what the Whigs called "Martin Van Ruin." The Whigs, hungering for the spoils of office, scented victory in the breeze. Pangs of the panic were still being felt, and voters blamed their woes on the party in power. Learning from their mistake in 1836, the Whigs united behind one candidate, Ohio's William Henry Harrison. He was not their ablest statesman—that would have been Daniel Webster or Henry Clay—but he was believed to be their ablest vote-getter. The aging hero, nearly sixty-eight when the campaign ended, was known for his successes against Indians and the British at the Battles of Tippecanoe (1811) and the Thames (1813). Harri- son's views on current issues were only vaguely known. "Old Tippecanoe" was nominated primarily because he was issueless and enemyless—a tested recipe for electoral success that still appeals today. John Tyler of Virginia, an afterthought, was selected as his vice-presidential running mate. The Whigs, eager to avoid offense, published no official platform, hoping to sweep their hero into office with a frothy huzza-for-Harrison campaign reminiscent of Jackson's triumph in 1828. A dull- witted Democratic editor played directly into Whig hands. Stupidly insulting the West, he lampooned Harrison as an impoverished old farmer who should be content with a pension, a log cabin, and a barrel of hard cider—the poor westerner's champagne. Whigs gleefully adopted honest hard cider and the sturdy log cabin as symbols of their campaign. Har- risonites portrayed their hero as the poor "Farmer of North Bend," who had been called from his cabin and his plow to drive corrupt Jackson spoilsmen from the "presidential palace." They denounced Van Buren as a supercilious aristocrat, a simpering dandy who wore corsets and ate French food from golden plates. As a jeering Whig campaign song proclaimed, Old Tip, he wears a homespun shirt, He has no ruffled shirt, wirt, wirt. But Matt, he has the golden plate, and he's a little squirt, wirt, wirt. The Whig campaign was a masterpiece of inane hoopla. Log cabins were dished up in every conceiv- able form. Bawling Whigs, stimulated by fortified cider, rolled huge inflated balls from village to vil- lage and state to state—balls that represented the snowballing majority for "Tippecanoe, and Tyler too." In truth, Harrison was not lowborn, but from one of the FFVs ("First Families of Virginia"). He was not poverty-stricken. He did not live in a one-room log cabin, but rather in a sixteen-room mansion on a three-thousand-acre farm. He did not swill down gallons of hard cider (he evidently preferred whiskey). And he did not plow his fields with his own "huge paws." But such details had not mattered when General Jackson rode to victory, and they did not matter now. The Democrats that hurrahed Jackson into the White House in 1828 now discovered to their cha- grin that whooping it up for a backwoods westerner was a game two could play. Harrison won by the surprisingly close margin of 1,274,624 to 1,127,781 popular votes, but by an overwhelming electoral margin of 234 to 60. With hardly a real issue debated, though with hard times blighting the incumbent's fortunes, Van Buren was washed out of Washington on a wave of apple juice. The hard- ciderites had apparently received a mandate to tear down the White House and erect a log cabin.

Big Woes for the "Little Magician"

Martin Van Buren, eighth president, was the first to be born under the American flag. Short and slender, bland and bald, the adroit little New Yorker has been described as "a first-class second-rate man.'' An accomplished strategist and spoilsman—"the wiz- ard of Albany''—he was also a statesman of wide experience in both legislative and administrative Examining the Evidence 273 Satiric Bank Note,1837 Political humor can take more forms than the commonly seen caustic car- toon. Occasionally, historians stumble upon other examples, such as this fake bank note. A jibe at Andrew Jackson's money policies, it appeared in New York in 1837 after Jackson's insistence on shutting down the Bank of the United States resulted in the suspension of specie payments. The clever creator of this satiric bank note for six cents left little doubt about the worthlessness of the note or Jackson's responsibility for it. The six cents payable by the "Humbug Glory Bank"—whose symbols were a donkey and a "Hickory Leaf" (for Old Hickory)—were redeemable "in mint drops or Glory at cost." The bank's cashier was "Cunning Reuben," possibly an anti-Semitic allusion to usu- rious Jewish bankers. Can you identify other ways in which this document takes aim at Jackson's banking policies? What symbols did the note's cre- ator assume the public would comprehend? life. In intelligence, education, and training, he was above the average of the presidents since Jackson. The myth of his mediocrity sprouted mostly from a series of misfortunes over which he had no control. From the outset the new president labored under severe handicaps. As a machine-made candi- date, he incurred the resentment of many Demo- crats—those who objected to having a "bastard politician'' smuggled into office beneath the tails of the old general's military coat. Jackson, the master showman, had been a dynamic type of executive whose administration had resounded with furious quarrels and cracked heads. Mild-mannered Martin Van Buren seemed to rattle about in the military boots of his testy predecessor. The people felt let down. Inheriting Andrew Jackson's mantle without his popularity, Van Buren also inherited the ex- president's numerous and vengeful enemies. Van Buren's four years overflowed with toil and trouble. A rebellion in Canada in 1837 stirred up ugly incidents along the northern frontier and threatened to trigger war with Britain. The presi- dent's attempt to play a neutral game led to the wail, "Woe to Martin Van Buren!'' The antislavery agita- tors in the North were in full cry. Among other griev- ances, they were condemning the prospective annexation of Texas (see p. 280). Worst of all, Jackson bequeathed to Van Buren the makings of a searing depression. Much of Van Buren's energy had to be devoted to the purely nega- tive task of battling the panic, and there were not enough rabbits in the "Little Magician's'' tall silk hat. Hard times ordinarily blight the reputation of a president, and Van Buren was no exception.

The Bank War

President Jackson did not hate all banks and all businesses, but he distrusted monopolistic banking and overbig businesses, as did his followers. A man of virulent dislikes, he came to share the prejudices of his own West against the "moneyed monster'' known as the Bank of the United States. What made the bank a monster in Jackson's eyes? The national government minted gold and sil- ver coins in the mid-nineteenth century but did not issue paper money. Paper notes were printed by pri- vate banks. Their value fluctuated with the health of the bank and the amount of money printed, giv- ing private bankers considerable power over the nation's economy. No bank in America had more power than the Bank of the United States. In many ways the bank acted like a branch of government. It was the princi- 268 CHAPTER 13 The Rise of a Mass Democracy, 1824-1840 pal depository for the funds of the Washington gov- ernment and controlled much of the nation's gold and silver. Its notes, unlike those of many smaller banks, were stable in value. A source of credit and stability, the bank was an important and useful part of the nation's expanding economy. But the Bank of the United States was a private institution, accountable not to the people, but to its elite circle of moneyed investors. Its president, the brilliant but arrogant Nicholas Biddle, held an immense—and to many unconstitutional—amount of power over the nation's financial affairs. Enemies of the bank dubbed him "Czar Nicolas I" and called the bank a "hydra of corruption," a serpent that grew new heads whenever old ones were cut off. To some the bank's very existence seemed to sin against the egalitarian credo of American democ- racy. The conviction formed the deepest source of Jackson's opposition. The bank also won no friends in the West by foreclosing on many western farms and draining "tribute" into eastern coffers. Profit, not public service, was its first priority. The Bank War erupted in 1832, when Daniel Webster and Henry Clay presented Congress with a bill to renew the Bank of the United States' charter. The charter was not set to expire until 1836, but Clay pushed for renewal four years early to make it an election issue in 1832. As Jackson's leading rival for the presidency, Clay, with fateful blindness, looked upon the bank issue as a surefire winner. Clay's scheme was to ram a recharter bill through Congress and then send it on to the White House. If Jackson signed it, he would alienate his worshipful western followers. If he vetoed it, as seemed certain, he would presumably lose the pres- idency in the forthcoming election by alienating the wealthy and influential groups in the East. Clay seems not to have fully realized that the "best peo- ple" were now only a minority and that they gener- ally feared Jackson anyhow.The recharter bill slid through Congress on greased skids, as planned, but was killed by a scorching veto from Jackson. The "Old Hero" declared the monopolistic bank to be unconstitu- tional. Of course, the Supreme Court had earlier declared it constitutional in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), but Jackson acted as though he regarded the executive branch as superior to the judicial branch. The old general growled privately, "The Bank . . . is trying to kill me, but I will kill it." Jackson's veto message reverberated with con- stitutional consequences. It not only squashed the bank bill but vastly amplified the power of the presi- dency. All previous vetoes had rested almost exclu- sively on questions of constitutionality. But though Jackson invoked the Constitution in his bank-veto message, he essentially argued that he was vetoing the bill because he personally found it harmful to the nation. In effect, he was claiming for the presi- dent alone a power equivalent to two-thirds of the votes in Congress. If the legislative and executive branches were partners in government, he implied, the president was unmistakably the senior partner. The gods continued to misguide Henry Clay. Delighted with the financial fallacies of Jackson's message but blind to its political appeal, he arranged to have thousands of copies printed as a campaign document. The president's sweeping accusations may indeed have seemed demagogic to the moneyed interests of the East, but they made perfect sense to the common people. The bank issue was now thrown into the noisy arena of the presidential contest of 1832.

Politics for the People

The election of 1840 conclusively demonstrated two major changes in American politics since the Era of Good Feelings. The first was the triumph of a pop- 282 CHAPTER 13 The Rise of a Mass Democracy, 1824-1840 ulist democratic style. Democracy had been some- thing of a taint in the days of the lordly Federal- ists. Martha Washington, the first First Lady, was shocked after a presidential reception to find a greasy smear on the wallpaper—left there, she was sure, by an uninvited "filthy democrat." But by the 1840s, aristocracy was the taint, and democracy was respectable. Politicians were now forced to unbend and curry favor with the voting masses. Lucky indeed was the aspiring office seeker who could boast of birth in a log cabin. In 1840 Daniel Webster publicly apologized for not being able to claim so humble a birthplace, though he quickly added that his brothers could. Hopelessly handicapped was the candidate who appeared to be too clean, too well dressed, too grammatical, too highbrowishly intellectual. In truth, most high polit- ical offices continued to be filled by "leading citi- zens." But now these wealthy and prominent men had to forsake all social pretensions and cultivate the common touch if they hoped to win elections. Snobbish bigwigs, unhappy over the change, sneered at "coonskin congressmen" and at the newly enfranchised "bipeds of the forest." To them the tyranny of "King Numbers" was no less offensive than that of King George. But these critics protested in vain. The common man was at last moving to the center of the national political stage: the sturdy American who donned plain trousers rather than silver-buckled knee breeches, who sported a plain haircut and a coonskin cap rather than a powdered wig, and who wore no man's collar, often not even one of his own. Instead of the old divine right of kings, America was now bowing to the divine right of the people.

"Old Hickory''as President

The new president cut a striking figure—tall, lean, with bushy iron-gray hair brushed high above a prominent forehead, craggy eyebrows, and blue eyes. His irritability and emaciated condition resulted in part from long-term bouts with dysentery, malaria, tuberculosis, and lead poisoning from two bullets that he carried in his body from near-fatal duels. His autobiography was written in his lined face. Jackson's upbringing had its shortcomings. Born in the Carolinas and early orphaned, "Mischie- vous Andy'' grew up without parental restraints. As a youth he displayed much more interest in brawling and cockfighting than in his scanty opportunities for reading and spelling. Although he eventually learned to express himself in writing with vigor and clarity, his grammar was always rough-hewn and his spelling original, like that of many contemporaries. He sometimes misspelled a word two different ways in the same letter.The youthful Carolinian shrewdly moved "up West" to Tennessee, where fighting was prized above writing. There—through native intelligence, force of personality, and powers of leadership— he became a judge and a member of Congress. Afflicted with a violent temper, he early became involved in a number of duels, stabbings, and bloody frays. His passions were so profound that on occasion he would choke into silence when he tried to speak. The first president from the West, the first nomi- nated at a formal party convention (in 1832), and only the second without a college education (Wash- ington was the first), Jackson was unique. His uni- versity was adversity. He had risen from the masses, but he was not one of them, except insofar as he shared many of their prejudices. Essentially a fron- tier aristocrat, he owned many slaves, cultivated broad acres, and lived in one of the finest mansions in America—the Hermitage, near Nashville, Ten- nessee. More westerner than easterner, more coun- try gentleman than common clay, more courtly than crude, he was hard to fit into a neat category. Jackson's inauguration seemed to symbolize the ascendancy of the masses. "Hickoryites" poured into Washington from far away, sleeping on hotel floors and in hallways. They were curious to see their hero take office and perhaps hoped to pick up a well-paying office for themselves. Nobodies min- gled with notables as the White House, for the first time, was thrown open to the multitude. A milling crowd of clerks, shopkeepers, hobnailed artisans, and grimy laborers surged in, wrecking the china and furniture and threatening the "people's cham- pion" with cracked ribs. Jackson was hastily spirited through a side door, and the White House miracu- lously emptied itself when the word was passed that huge bowls of well-spiked punch had been placed on the lawns. Such was "the inaugural brawl." To conservatives this orgy seemed like the end of the world. "King Mob" reigned triumphant as Jacksonian vulgarity replaced Jeffersonian simplic- ity. Faint-hearted traditionalists shuddered, drew their blinds, and recalled with trepidation the open- ing scenes of the French Revolution.

Depression Doldrums and the Independent Treasury

The panic of 1837 was a symptom of the financial sickness of the times. Its basic cause was rampant speculation prompted by a mania of get-rich- quickism. Gamblers in western lands were doing a "land-office business'' on borrowed capital, much of it in the shaky currency of "wildcat banks.'' The speculative craze spread to canals, roads, railroads, and slaves. But speculation alone did not cause the crash. Jacksonian finance, including the Bank War and the Specie Circular, gave an additional jolt to an already teetering structure. Failures of wheat crops, ravaged by the Hessian fly, deepened the distress. Grain prices were forced so high that mobs in New York City, three weeks before Van Buren took the oath, stormed warehouses and broke open flour barrels. The panic really began before Jackson left office, but its full fury burst about Van Buren's bewildered head. Financial stringency abroad likewise endan- gered America's economic house of cards. Late in 1836 the failure of two prominent British banks created tremors, and these in turn caused British investors to call in foreign loans. The resulting pinch in the United States, combined with other setbacks, heralded the beginning of the panic. Europe's eco- nomic distresses have often become America's dis- 274 CHAPTER 13 The Rise of a Mass Democracy, 1824-1840 tresses, for every major American financial panic has been affected by conditions overseas. Hardship was acute and widespread. American banks collapsed by the hundreds, including some "pet banks,'' which carried down with them several millions in government funds. Commodity prices drooped, sales of public lands fell off, and cus- toms revenues dried to a rivulet. Factories closed their doors, and unemployed workers milled in the streets. The Whigs came forward with proposals for active government remedies for the economy's ills. They called for the expansion of bank credit, higher tariffs, and subsidies for internal improvements. But Van Buren, shackled by the Jacksonian philosophy of keeping the government's paws off the economy, spurned all such ideas. The beleaguered Van Buren tried to apply vin- tage Jacksonian medicine to the ailing economy through his controversial "Divorce Bill.'' Convinced that some of the financial fever was fed by the injec- tion of federal funds into private banks, he cham- pioned the principle of "divorcing'' the government from banking altogether. By establishing a so-called independent treasury, the government could lock its surplus money in vaults in several of the larger cities. Government funds would thus be safe, but they would also be denied to the banking system as reserves, thereby shriveling available credit resources. Van Buren's "divorce'' scheme was never highly popular. His fellow Democrats, many of whom longed for the risky but lush days of the "pet banks," supported it only lukewarmly. The Whigs con- demned it, primarily because it squelched their hopes for a revived Bank of the United States. After a prolonged struggle, the Independent Treasury Bill passed Congress in 1840. Repealed the next year by the victorious Whigs, the scheme was reenacted by the triumphant Democrats in 1846 and then contin- ued until merged with the Federal Reserve System in the next century.

The Two-Party System

The second dramatic change resulting from the 1840 election was the formation of a vigorous and durable two-party system. The Jeffersonians of an earlier day had been so successful in absorbing the programs of their Federalist opponents that a full- blown two-party system had never truly emerged in the subsequent Era of Good Feelings. The idea had prevailed that parties of any sort smacked of con- spiracy and "faction" and were injurious to the health of the body politic in a virtuous republic. By 1840 political parties had fully come of age, a lasting legacy of Andrew Jackson's tenaciousness. The Two-Party System 283 Both national parties, the Democrats and the Whigs grew out of the rich soil of Jeffersonian republicanism, and each laid claim to different aspects of the republican inheritance. Jacksonian Democrats glorified the liberty of the individual and were fiercely on guard against the inroads of "privi- lege'' into government. Whigs trumpeted the natural harmony of society and the value of community, and were willing to use government to realize their objectives. Whigs also berated those leaders—and they considered Jackson to be one—whose appeals to self-interest fostered conflict among individuals, classes, or sections. Democrats clung to states' rights and federal restraint in social and economic affairs as their basic doctrines. Whigs tended to favor a renewed national bank, protective tariffs, internal improve- ments, public schools, and, increasingly, moral reforms such as the prohibition of liquor and even- tually the abolition of slavery. The two parties were thus separated by real dif- ferences of philosophy and policy. But they also had much in common. Both were mass-based, "catchall'' parties that tried deliberately to mobilize as many voters as possible for their cause. Although it is true that Democrats tended to be more humble folk and Whigs more prosperous, both parties nev- ertheless commanded the loyalties of all kinds of Americans, from all social classes and in all sections. The social diversity of the two parties had important implications. It fostered horse-trading compro- mises within each party that prevented either from assuming extreme or radical positions. By the same token, the geographical diversity of the two parties retarded the emergence of purely sectional political parties—temporarily suppressing, through compro- mise, the ultimately uncompromisable issue of slav- ery. When the two-party system began to creak in the 1850s, the Union was mortally imperiled.

The Election of 1836

The smooth-tongued and keen-witted secretary of state, Martin Van Buren of New York, was Jackson's choice for "appointment" as his successor in 1836. The hollow-cheeked Jackson, now nearing seventy, was too old and ailing to consider a third term. But he was not loath to try to serve a third term through Van Buren, something of a "yes man." Leaving noth- ing to chance, Jackson carefully rigged the nominat- ing convention and rammed his favorite down the 272 CHAPTER 13 The Rise of a Mass Democracy, 1824-1840 throats of the delegates. Van Buren was supported by the Jacksonites without wild enthusiasm, even though he had promised "to tread generally" in the military-booted footsteps of his predecessor. As the election neared, the still-ramshackle organization of the Whigs showed in their inability to nominate a single presidential candidate. Their long-shot strategy was instead to run several promi- nent "favorite sons,'' each with a different regional appeal, and hope to scatter the vote so that no can- didate would win a majority. The deadlock would then have to be broken by the House of Representa- tives, where the Whigs might have a chance. With Henry Clay rudely elbowed aside, the leading Whig "favorite son'' was heavy-jawed General William Henry Harrison of Ohio, hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe (see p. 230). The finespun schemes of the Whigs availed nothing, however. Van Buren, the dapper "Little Magician," squirmed into office by the close popular vote of 765,483 to 739,795, but by the comfortable margin of 170 to 124 votes (for all the Whigs combined) in the Electoral College.

"Nullies"in South Carolina

The stage was set for a showdown. Through Jack- son's first term, the nullifiers—"nullies," they were called—tried strenuously to muster the necessary two-thirds vote for nullification in the South Car- olina legislature. But they were blocked by a de- termined minority of Unionists, scorned as "sub- mission men." Back in Washington, Congress tipped the balance by passing the new Tariff of 1832. Though it pared away the worst "abominations" of 1828, it was still frankly protective and fell far short of meeting southern demands. Worse yet, to many southerners it had a disquieting air of permanence. South Carolina was now nerved for drastic action. Nullifiers and Unionists clashed head-on in the state election of 1832. "Nullies," defiantly wear- ing palmetto ribbons on their hats to mark their loy- alty to the "Palmetto State," emerged with more than a two-thirds majority. The state legislature then called for a special convention. Several weeks later the delegates, meeting in Columbia, solemnly declared the existing tariff to be null and void within South Carolina. As a further act of defiance, the con- vention threatened to take South Carolina out of the 264 CHAPTER 13 The Rise of a Mass Democracy, 1824-1840 Union if Washington attempted to collect the cus- toms duties by force. Such tactics might have intimidated John Quincy Adams, but Andrew Jackson was the wrong president to stare down. The cantankerous general was not a die-hard supporter of the tariff, but he would not permit defiance or disunion. His military instincts rasped, Jackson privately threatened to invade the state and have the nullifiers hanged. In public he was only slightly less pugnacious. He dis- patched naval and military reinforcements to the Palmetto State, while quietly preparing a sizable army. He also issued a ringing proclamation against nullification, to which the governor of South Car- olina, former senator Robert Y. Hayne, responded with a counterproclamation. The lines were drawn. If civil war were to be avoided, one side would have to surrender, or both would have to compromise. Conciliatory Henry Clay of Kentucky, now in the Senate, stepped forward. An unforgiving foe of Jack- son, he had no desire to see his old enemy win new laurels by crushing the Carolinians and returning with the scalp of Calhoun dangling from his belt. Although himself a supporter of tariffs, the gallant Kentuckian therefore threw his influence behind a compromise bill that would gradually reduce the Tariff of 1832 by about 10 percent over a period of eight years. By 1842 the rates would be back at the mildly protective level of 1816.* The compromise Tariff of 1833 finally squeezed through Congress. Debate was bitter, with most of the opposition naturally coming from protectionist New England and the middle states. Calhoun and the South favored the compromise, so it was evident that Jackson would not have to use firearms and rope. But at the same time, and partly as a face- saving device, Congress passed the Force Bill, known among Carolinians as the "Bloody Bill.'' It authorized the president to use the army and navy, if necessary, to collect federal tariff duties. South Carolinians welcomed this opportunity to extricate themselves from a dangerously tight corner without loss of face. To the consternation of the Calhounites, no other southern states had sprung to their support, though Georgia and Vir- ginia toyed with the idea. Moreover, an appreciable Unionist minority within South Carolina was gath- ering guns, organizing militia, and nailing Stars and Stripes to flagpoles. Faced with civil war within and invasion from without, the Columbia convention met again and repealed the ordinance of nul- lification. As a final but futile gesture of fist- shaking, it nullified the unnecessary Force Bill and adjourned. Neither Jackson nor the "nullies'' won a clear-cut victory in 1833. Clay was the true hero of the hour, hailed in Charleston and Boston alike for saving the country. Armed conflict had been avoided, but the fundamental issues had not been resolved. When next the "nullies" and the Union clashed, compro- mise would prove more elusive.

The Tricky "Tariff of Abominations''

The touchy tariff issue had been one of John Quincy Adams's biggest headaches. Now Andrew Jackson felt his predecessor's pain. Tariffs protected Ameri- can industry against competition from European manufactured goods, but they also drove up prices for all Americans and invited retaliatory tariffs on American agricultural exports abroad. The middle states had long been supporters of protectionist tar- iffs. In the 1820s influential New Englanders like Daniel Webster gave up their traditional defense of free trade to support higher tariffs, too. The wool and textile industries were booming, and forward- thinking Yankees came to believe that their future prosperity would flow from the factory rather than from the sea. In 1824 Congress had increased the general tar- iff significantly, but wool manufacturers bleated for still-higher barriers. Ardent Jacksonites now played a cynical political game. They promoted a high- tariff bill, expecting to be defeated, which would give a black eye to President Adams. To their sur- prise, the tariff passed in 1828, and Andrew Jackson inherited the political hot potato. Southerners, as heavy consumers of manufac- tured goods with little manufacturing industry of their own, were hostile to tariffs. They were particu- larly shocked by what they regarded as the outra- geous rates of the Tariff of 1828. Hotheads branded it the "Black Tariff'' or the "Tariff of Abominations.'' Several southern states adopted formal protests. In South Carolina flags were lowered to half-mast. "Let the New England beware how she imitates the Old,'' cried one eloquent South Carolinian. Why did the South react so angrily against the tariff? Southerners believed, not illogically, that the "Yankee tariff" discriminated against them. The bustling Northeast was experiencing a boom in manufacturing, the developing West was prospering from rising property values and a multiplying popu- lation, and the energetic Southwest was expanding into virgin cotton lands. But the Old South was falling on hard times, and the tariff provided a con- venient and plausible scapegoat. Southerners sold their cotton and other farm produce in a world market completely unprotected by tariffs but were forced to buy their manufactured goods in an American market heavily protected by tariffs. The South and the Tariff 263 Protectionism protected Yankee and middle-state manufacturers. The farmers and planters of the Old South felt they were stuck with the bill. But much deeper issues underlay the southern outcry—in particular, a growing anxiety about pos- sible federal interference with the institution of slavery. The congressional debate on the Missouri Compromise had kindled those anxieties, and they were further fanned by an aborted slave rebellion in Charleston in 1822, led by a free black named Den- mark Vesey. The South Carolinians, still closely tied to the British West Indies, also know full well that their slaveowning West Indian cousins were feeling the mounting pressure of British abolitionism on the London government. Abolitionism in America might similarly use the power of the government in Washington to suppress slavery in the South. If so, now was the time, and the tariff was the issue, to take a strong stand on principle against all federal encroachments on states' rights. South Carolinians took the lead in protesting against the "Tariff of Abominations." Their legisla- ture went so far as to publish in 1828, though with- out formal endorsement, a pamphlet known as The South Carolina Exposition. It had been secretly writ- ten by John C. Calhoun, one of the few topflight political theorists ever produced by America. (As vice president, he was forced to conceal his author- ship.) The Exposition denounced the recent tariff as unjust and unconstitutional. Going a stride beyond the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, it bluntly and explicitly proposed that the states should nullify the tariff—that is, they should declare it null and void within their borders.