B900 
 
The Campaign of 1844 
 
 BY 
 
 WORTHINGTON CHAUNCEY FORD 
 
The Campaign of 1844 
 
 BY 
 
 WORTHINGTON CHAUNCEY FORD 
 
 Reprinted from the Proceedings of The American Antiquarian Society 
 FOR October, 1909. 
 
 WORCESTER, MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 THE DAVIS PRESS. 
 
 1909. 
 
 V„^»wx'2%* 
 

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 Auihor 
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 f£fi 28 1910 
 
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844. 
 
 In describing a political campaign three factors demand 
 attention: policies, candidates and actual results. The 
 noisy and irresponsible claims of party, the rosy and decep- 
 tively favorable atmosphere which surrounds the candidates, 
 constitute the apparent and picturesque aspects of the 
 contest, and are sometimes so far removed from actualities 
 as to involve a tragedy of hope. The cold grey light of the 
 day after election is the true medium for measuring the 
 expectations, the claims and the character of the struggle. 
 No appeal, calm or frenzied, lies from that judgment. The 
 successful candidate begins to feel the responsibilities of 
 his position when his followers, the unselfish as well as the 
 party "bummers," press for reward, or with advice. When 
 that stage is reached the campaign has become ancient 
 history. The defeated are forgotten, the platform put 
 away, and a popular mandate claimed for all acts of the 
 new administration. The campaign of 1844 was peculiar 
 in this: it marked the end of a quite remarkable political 
 career — that of Van Buren; it also unmistakably marked 
 a division between North and South which could only be 
 healed in blood. It brought into strong relief a character 
 of Massachusetts origin, but of truly national proportion. 
 
 In 1843, the principles of the two contending parties 
 (for no one believed the weight of the Liberty Party could 
 affect the result) were centred upon questions that played 
 little part in the campaign. Banking, currency, distribution, 
 and tariff, had been discussed for years, and the division 
 in opinion upon them was as wide as ever, and unfortunately 
 though necessarily, rested upon party lines. The attitude 
 of the leading candidates throughout the Union upon these 
 
questions was known, and the debates in Congress showed 
 Httle energy or originaUty. They were questions which, 
 like the poor, were and are always with us; and like the 
 poor, required a modification in treatment as the old meas- 
 ures became inadequate, and new evils or conditions arose. 
 Over none of them could the country lash itself into a fury, 
 and no one of them seemed to offer a single feature that 
 could sweep through the States and on its merit carry the 
 party to victory. Tyler was playing with Texas much 
 as his predecessors had done, and in so playing invited 
 war to the country and impeachment to himself. In the 
 first weeks of 1844 no one could have said with confidence 
 that the tariff would have been settled to general satisfaction, 
 or Texas brought nearer assured independence or even 
 annexation to the Union. The calm of political affairs 
 was broken only by the Whig dislike of Tyler, and by the 
 violence of discussion in Congress. A saying of the time 
 well expressed the situation. Seven principles governed 
 the parties, the five loaves and two fishes. 
 
 Under this apparently calm exterior forces were at work 
 at once permanent in their direction and increasing in 
 strength, but these forces were tending to rend the country 
 into sections at war with one another. For an expression 
 of these forces we look in vain to the men who were then 
 contending for the Presidency. The campaign of 1840 
 had brought a train of bitter disappointment to both parties. 
 The candidate of the Democracy had for years been desig- 
 nated and with only sporadic opposition in harmless force 
 and position. Van Buren had been the political heir of 
 Jackson, and custom prescribed a second term as his due. 
 The question of Vice-President was as usual of little import- 
 ance, something to be thrown to the South or West with 
 a reckless disregard of possibilities that in the actual event 
 of the other party amounted to a tragedy. For Harrison 
 was the chosen leader of the Whigs; and his running mate 
 was Tyler, a Virginian, who inherited eveiy quality calcu- 
 lated to antagonize the party from which he received his 
 nomination. The Virginian dynasty ended in 1824, with 
 the election of John Quincy Adams, and had in subsequent 
 
time exhausted its capacity for well-doing, whUe retaining, 
 even in accentuated form, its capacity for political and 
 administrative mischief. The election of 1840 long remained 
 in memory as a most remarkable exhibition of popular 
 feeling. It was the campaign of log cabins, rolling balls, 
 coon skins and hard cider. It was vociferous, quite mean- 
 ingless and inconclusive, save in ending in the defeating 
 of the Jackson Democrats.^ That the noise, the drunken- 
 ness and the hurrahs overthrew the Jacksonians, as was 
 claimed, is not for one moment to be admitted. The 
 financial conditions following the panic of 1837 were suffi- 
 cient to account for the result. A brief exhibition of Harri- 
 son was followed by the first experience of a Vice-President's 
 succession to office. The experience was not altogether 
 satisfying. A man who leaves his own to join the opposing 
 party is an object of suspicion to both. He loses the con- 
 fidence of the one, without gaining that of the other. At 
 heart a strict constructionist, Tyler could never wear the 
 WTiig uniform gracefully or willingl5^ He acted according 
 to his conscience, and it was a conscience that could not 
 entirely act with either Whigs or Republican-Democrats. 
 Three years of opposition brought round another presi- 
 dential contest, and under new conditions. Such a stam- 
 pede as had occurred in 1840 could not again occur. On 
 this point Van Buren was confident. "Can we expect the 
 people of this country to maintain the elevated standing 
 in the eyes of the world, which they have hitherto enjoyed, 
 if, after the lapse of years, and the fullest opportunity for 
 reflection, they suffer themselves to be a second time 
 operated upon by appliances, from the use of which every 
 friend to free government must turn with mortification 
 and disgust."^ 
 
 The country had slowly recovered from the effects of 
 its speculative intoxication, and Tyler had solved none 
 of the problems handed on by Van Buren in 1841. Before 
 1843 the "WTiigs were hopelessly divided, with Webster 
 
 ' "We go for Tippecanoe and Tyler too, 
 
 Without a why or wherefore. " — Campaign Song. 
 2 Van Buren to Snowden and others, January 29, 1S44, MS. 
 
6 
 
 and Tyler on one side and Clay on the other. Before 1844 
 Tyler was dreaming of a renomination, counting upon the 
 support of a part of the Whigs and some of his former 
 associates among the Democrats, and a brilliant political 
 manoeuvre. Ambition is ever brightly coloured, but the 
 ambitions of a man in Tyler's situation were veritable 
 will-o'-the-wisps. No act could give him the confidence 
 of the Democrats ; every act tended to deprive him of any 
 confidence of the WTiigs. Named in derision "Captain" 
 Tyler he exerted little influence upon party movements 
 though willing to bargain with every faction.^ 
 
 Nor was the position of the Democracy as good as surface 
 signs would indicate. Apparently the party acquiesced 
 in the claims of Van Buren to another nomination, and on 
 the policies of his first term, policies directly inherited 
 from Jackson, But indications were not wanting of rest- 
 iveness under his leadership, and under the dictation of 
 a policy which no longer represented a quality of fight in 
 it, something ringing in tone to arouse the full energies of 
 the patriots who did the voting, or saw to it that others 
 voted to enable them to reap the rewards. Van Buren had 
 rivals in 1844 as he had in 1840, but the interval of four 
 years had greatly fed their hopes, and opened a vista of 
 political accidents by which they could profit. Even Jack- 
 son's influence had declined, and his command was humored 
 rather than obeyed. A letter from him served to bolster 
 up a cause or an individual, but could not point out a cause 
 or a success. To remove Van Buren from the path of these 
 ambitious ones many schemes were started. It was pro- 
 posed to place him on the Supreme Bench and then take 
 up Silas Wright as a candidate. If this idea originated 
 with Tyler, as was believed at the time, it may be taken 
 as a measure of his statesmanship and political manage- 
 ment. When Wright was consulted he answered: "Tell 
 Mr. Tyler from me, that if he desires to give to this whole 
 country a broader, deeper, heartier laugh than it ever had. 
 
 ^"The Elections of yesterday and the day before sufficiently prove that there is 
 no schism in the Democratic party, and not the shadow of a party for the electiou 
 of John Tyler as President of the United States." Adanis, Memoirs, XI, 44b. 
 
and at his own expense, he can effect it by making that 
 nomination. "* 
 
 In North and South this tendency to question the avail- 
 abihty of Van Buren made itself felt, but not to such an 
 extent as to awaken in him any suspicion of his success 
 in winning the nomination. The Southerners muttered 
 something about the "hypocrisy" of the New York poli- 
 ticians, and attributed their conduct and sentiments to 
 Van Buren. In the Northwest, Lewis Cass was coming 
 forward as a candidate of some pretentions. In Pennsyl- 
 vania, which had declared for Buchanan in 1842, his adher- 
 ents were feeling the pulse of the State in his favor. The 
 result was not promising. One of the delegates to the 
 Pittsburg Convention expressing a preference for Van 
 Buren was called a "sap-headed fool"; another used the 
 epithet "a, d — d liar" several times, and it was finally 
 decided to refer the matter to the people.^ It was too 
 early to push Buchanan for such a place. 
 
 The leading figure from the South was Calhoun, no longer 
 of presidential size, but possessing a following sufficient 
 to awaken apprehension in the minds of his competitors. 
 He himself was so completely absorbed by his views on 
 slavery, and his efforts to ward off any attack, foreign or 
 domestic upon it, that he had ceased to be looked upon in 
 any sense as a practical leader. With the concentrated 
 intensity of a fanatic he possessed some of the qualities of 
 a prophet; but the cause he represented required other 
 methods and other weapons that he could bring. South 
 Carolina in 1832 had received a set-back that had relegated 
 her leaders into that rather suspected and certainly uninflu- 
 ential class of violent agitators without enough force even 
 to effect a part of their purpose. In heart they were still 
 nullifiers, but the increasing weight of opposition to slavery 
 drove them to a defence of that institution and to the neglect 
 of all other problems of state. So Calhoun found his place 
 in Tyler's cabinet, whence he could conduct a keenly logical 
 but entirely futile contest in words with Great Britain — 
 
 *Silaa Wnght to Van Buren, January 2, 1844. MS. 
 'O. H. Browne to Van Buren, January 1, 1844. MS. 
 
8 
 
 supposed to be plotting the downfall of slavery in the 
 United States. He was in his element, and even to this 
 day the reader of his despatches is struck by their power 
 of refined argument, and by their entire want of any quality 
 which could make them acceptable. A monk of the Middle 
 Ages would show just those powers and just those defects. 
 As a political factor he had ceased to exist. Tyler admitted 
 that he did not so much as consult Calhoun upon his own 
 convention at Baltimore.^ In South Carolina the Calhoun 
 men were refractory and quite disposed to have nothing 
 to do with the Baltimore Convention, on the ground that 
 it was a "packed jury. "^ The friends of Polk in the South 
 reasoned thus : that Van Buren would be first on the ticket, 
 but as he would not be entirely acceptable to West and South, 
 those sections must be reconciled by naming to the second 
 place a man like Polk, who would be assured of the entire 
 southern vote. Such an argument received support by 
 the Mississippi Democratic Convention, held Januar}' 6, 
 1844, which nominated Van Buren for the Presidency, 
 endorsed Polk for the second place, after rejecting the 
 names of Calhoun, R. M. Johnson and W. R. King. 
 
 Henry Clay was the sole candidate of the Whigs, and 
 the confidence of victory which now surrounded him made 
 him the shining mark of hostile criticism as well as friendly 
 adoration. Of the man nothing need be said beyond the 
 tribute paid to him by Webster in this veiy campaign: 
 "He is a man of frankness and honor, of unquestioned 
 talent and ability, and of a noble and generous bearing. "^ 
 To his enemies he was a demagogue. His career had not 
 been limited by consistency, some of his acts, both private 
 and public, were picturesquely in violation of recognized 
 conventions; but the personality of the man carried him 
 through situations wherein even stronger men would be 
 wrecked. And now the idol of his party, in the face of a 
 divided opposition, he counted upon gaining his wish, and 
 
 ®"As to my convention at Baltimore, Mr. Calhoun had no more to do with it than 
 a, man in Nova Zambia. I never troubled myself even to enquire his opinion about 
 it. " John Tyler to John S. Cunninyham, May 8, 1856. 
 
 ^Garland to Van Buren, January 12, 1844. MS. 
 
 * Speech at Valley Forge, October 3, 1844. Works, II, 280. 
 
9 
 
 overreached himself in grasping at it. Before two months 
 had passed his position on Texas was more than dubious, 
 and the more he explained, the greater was the doubt of 
 his conviction.^ 
 
 If a new candidate was to be, new issues must be raised. 
 The national bank question could not receive attention 
 because of Tyler's attitude. The leading discussions in 
 the last session had been upon the tariff, which was not a 
 strong point in Van Buren's past career, and Rule 21 of 
 the House of Representatives, involving the right of petition. 
 Some complained that Congress had apparently ''settled 
 down to an exclusive consideration of the 21st rule, and of 
 such other abstract propositions as the few friends of Mr. 
 Calhoun and old Mr. Adams choose to entertain it with. "-^^ 
 Tracy of New York explained the divisions among the 
 Democrats on those questions as due to the fact that "our 
 party is broader than our principles," an explanation at 
 once euphemistic and on the whole uncomplimentary to 
 the party. Inasmuch as the agitation on these two questions 
 was seen to come from Van Buren's friends, the South 
 warned him that a continuance in that course would arouse 
 deep distrust and dissatisfaction, which would extend to 
 the presidential question and to him as the northern candi- 
 date. Had tariff and abolition petitions alone' been the 
 issues, Calhoun would have thriven on the declamatory 
 agitation. 
 
 It would be interesting to compile the various criticisms 
 passed upon Van Buren, for his friends and enemies had 
 thus gauged the man not without accuracy. Rives, of 
 Virginia, who had been read out of the Jackson party for 
 alleged "apostasy," — a favorite word with the old Tenn- 
 essean, — announced that he was opposed to the "fatal 
 and demoralizing tendencies of Mr. Van Buren's whole 
 system of political action, and denounced his support as 
 an unscrupulous and sordid party oligarchy, working by 
 the " secret and invisible agency of self constituted conclaves 
 
 '"The object of Clay's highest ambition escaped him because, at the decisive 
 moment he was untrue to himself. " Schurz. Henry Clay, II, 265. 
 ^^SUas Wright to Polk, February 27, 1844, MS. 
 
10 
 
 and caucuses, controlled with absolute sway by a few bold 
 and adroit political managers."" The criticisms of friends 
 went deeper. Buchanan spoke of Van Buren's want of 
 popularity in 1840, as one of the causes of the disaster of 
 that year. The men who were Van Buren men acted more 
 because of their hope of being carried by him into office 
 and power than because of real affection or confidence in 
 the man himself. The very fact of his being the inevitable 
 candidate increased the irritation due to his having suffered 
 a severe defeat in 1840, and his past record was being over- 
 hauled in a spirit that boded much explanation on his 
 part. His vote on the tariff of 1828, "the tariff of abom- 
 inations," proved an annoying subject. 
 
 Unexpectedly rumors spread of negotiations begun by 
 Tyler for the annexation of Texas, and the possibility of 
 a treaty became the engrossing topic. ^^ The question was 
 not a new one, but one phase of it now became dominant — 
 the influence such a measure would have on political suprem- 
 acy. The contest between Whig and Democrat, could 
 be set aside as immaterial; the question of slave and free 
 States assumed a vast importance. But again, it was not 
 existing conditions which constituted the real problem, 
 but future possibilities. Dissolution of the Union was 
 the talk almost of the street. Did not this in itself mark 
 the extraordinary change which had taken place in policy 
 since 1832, the height of the nullification contest? It was 
 not necessary to go back so far. 
 
 In December, 1843, Clay declined to reply to a question 
 on the annexation of Texas to the United States, addressed 
 to him by Mr. Child, Editor of an abolition paper, on the 
 ground that he did not think it right, unnecessarily, to 
 present new questions to the public. It would be wicked 
 in Tyler, he said, to introduce an exciting topic, for his own 
 
 ^^ Rives to Edmond Fontaine, January 1, 1844. 
 
 '^Clay, in July, 1844, thought the Texas question "was a bubble blown up by Mr. 
 Tyler in the most exceptionable manner, for sinister purposes, and its bursting has 
 injured nobody but Mr. Van Buren." To Stephen H. Miller, July 1, 1844. One 
 of his correspondents, J. C. Wright, believed the question of annexation would be 
 no more than a nine days' topic of vituperation, and added "with the old issues we 
 are safe, depend upon it. " 
 
11 
 
 selfish purposes and to produce discord and distraction in 
 the nation.^^ Later in March, after the rumor of negotia- 
 tions with Texas had become pronounced, and while he 
 was making a progress of the Southern States, he could 
 write that there was "no such anxiety for the annexation 
 here at the South as you might have imagined. "^^ This 
 would argue that Clay's political foresight was not good, 
 or that there is danger in such progresses of defeating their 
 very object — that of getting in touch with public opinion, 
 a danger that attends the journeyings of a President as 
 well as a would-be President. 
 
 It would have puzzled the most astute politician to give 
 a reasonable forecast of the political situation in the first 
 days of the last week of April, 1844. But in five days of 
 that week a series of pronouncements came that did not 
 clarify the standing of the two parties at once, but gave 
 occasion for a movement that ended in overthrowing the 
 carefully laid plans of Van Buren, in defeating Clay, and 
 in irrevocably turning the public policy to the slave-holders 
 at the cost of disrupting the Democracy and almost of 
 disrupting the Union. On the morning of April 27 the 
 National Intelligencer printed a letter from Clay against the 
 immediate annexation of Texas. On the evening of the 
 same day the Globe published a letter of Van Buren taking 
 much the same position, ^^ a remarkable coincidence which 
 gave rise to a belief that the two opponents had consulted 
 one another on the matter. Four days later the secrecy 
 of the Senate was violated by the publication in the New 
 
 ^^ Clay to Crittenden, December 5, 1843. 
 
 ^*Clay to Crittenden, March 24, 1844. Seven days later W. S. Fulton wrote to 
 Van Buren: "The Texas treaty is now the engrossing topic here. Mr. Calhoun's 
 arrival induces the belief that a treaty will be immediately signed and sent to the 
 Senate. The Whigs are in great confusion. They do not know what to do. If 
 it is made manifest that Texas will fall into the hands of England, if the Treaty is 
 rejected, they will be compelled to go for the treaty. It will be death to any southern 
 man to vote against the Treaty. " W. S. Fulton to Van Buren, 31 March, 1844. MS. 
 
 '^Van Buren wrote his letter to W. H. Hammet, a member of Congress from Missis- 
 sippi, who had asked him to define his position on the question of annexation. Ham- 
 met had been a Methodist preacher, but turned politician, and had supported Van 
 Buren in 1840. Wright thought him vain, excitable and indiscreet, seeking to secure 
 credit for himself from the reply to his questions. Van Buren sent this reply to 
 Wright, who look a night upon it, thought well of it, and read it to his messmates. 
 
12 
 
 York Evening Post of the treaty for the annexation of 
 Texas submitted by Tyler. "It is John Tyler's last card 
 for a popular whirlwind to carry him through; and he has 
 played it with equal intrepidity and address. He has 
 compelled Clay and Van Buren to stake their last chance 
 upon opposition to the measure now, and has forced himself 
 upon the whole Democracy as their exclusive candidate 
 for the Presidency next December. "^^ 
 
 Cool-headed Silas Wright at once admitted the danger 
 of a serious split in the party because of Van Buren's letter, 
 and saw in the opposition the hand of Calhoun as well as 
 of Tyler. The disaffected improved the Texas question 
 to excite passion and prejudice, and sought in the few days 
 before the conventions in Baltimore to turn the agitation 
 to account in securing votes for any one who would not 
 antagonize the admission of Texas.^^ As a southern man 
 asserted, "Give us any northern man, or any man from a 
 Free State, who will not kill us all off," a demand that 
 clearly excluded Van Buren.^** So open was the discontent 
 among the Democrats that their opponents were confident 
 of success under Clay's leadership, and so true a Democrat 
 as William R. King, just leaving to represent this country 
 in France, confessed he saw no prospect of victory and a 
 party doomed to defeat. " Discontent, division, despond- 
 ency, seem to have taken complete possession of a large 
 portion of our prominent men; and, with a decided 
 majority of the people in our favor, we are about to be 
 shamefully beaten, from a want of harmony, and concert 
 of action."^® 
 
 It was decided to print it at once. Van Buren was consulted, and gave his approval, 
 after which Hammet was sought. While this search was being made, arrangements 
 were made with Rives for putting it in type. When Hammet was run down, he 
 "was frightened, and it was with some difficulty that we induced him to consent to 
 our proposition for publication before he had read it; but he behaved well, and himself 
 and the Major remained at the Globe office until about midnight, to examine the 
 proof." Wright to Van Buren, April 29, 1844. MS. Blair was sick at the time, 
 but had the letter read to him; and Rives offered Hammet one hundred dollars for 
 the manuscript. 
 
 ^® Adams, Memoirs, XII, 22. 
 
 ^''Wright to the New York Delegation to the Baltimore Convention, May 2, 1 844. 
 
 ^^ Parmenter to Bancroft, May 6, 1844. MS. 
 
 ^^ King to Bancroft, May 12, 1844. MS. 
 
13 
 
 Clay was nominated without opposition. Tyler did not 
 obtain the help from his treaty which he had expected. 
 His convention of office-holders met on the same day as 
 the Democratic National Convention, and ended its labors 
 by giving him a nomination without so much as suggesting 
 a running mate. Nothing could have expressed the doubts 
 of the Democrats more clearly than the conduct of the 
 rival party convention. A large majority of the delegates 
 had been instructed or pledged to vote for Van Buren. 
 They turned down the two leading names, Van Buren and 
 Cass, and took up Polk who had been intended for the 
 second place on the ticket; and on the Vice Presidency 
 blundered into naming Silas Wright, who would not accept 
 under any condition, and thus made a second choice neces- 
 sary in Dallas. New York was set aside and Pennsylvania 
 recognized. Tyler's treaty was rejected by the Senate 
 eight days later, 16 to 35, and Congress adjourned without 
 taking a definite step in the matter of annexation. The 
 session had been fi-uitful only of profitless discussion.^" 
 
 Now that Van Buren was out of the way, the existence 
 of Tyler as a candidate was a source of danger. Had Van 
 Buren received the nomination, the Tyler following, such 
 as it was, would have been in revolt, and could not hope 
 for any consideration or recognition from the Van Burenites. 
 So pressure was brought upon Tyler to withdraw from the 
 contest. The Polk wing cried out for oblivion to the past, 
 and promised a welcome to the republican ranks. They 
 induced Jackson to write a letter in favor of Tyler's standing 
 aside, on the ground that such a step would unite all Dem- 
 ocrats into one family without distinction, all former differ- 
 ences forgotton, and all cordially united in sustaining the 
 Democratic candidates. ^^ Tyler beheved that his own 
 candidacy had forced the Baltimore Convention to name 
 one who was favorable to the admission of Texas into the 
 Union.^^ The political idea he wished to compass was 
 
 ^ Adam,? (Memoirs, XII, 57) spoke of it as the "first session of the most perverse 
 and worthless Congress that ever disgraced this Confederacy. " 
 
 21 Nilea Register, LXVI. p. 416. 
 
 22 Tyler to Ritchie, January 9, 1851. 
 
14 
 
 thus provided for, and he could retire with honor. His 
 letter of withdrawal was published late in August. ^^ 
 
 An united party! That was the cry, and resolutions on 
 that line began to flow in from every part of the country. 
 Sometimes the poetic and imaginative gave a curious expres- 
 sion to this feeling. "Resolved," said one body of the 
 unterrified, "That in the proceedings of the Baltimore 
 convention we have beheld the summer storm which purifies 
 the atmosphere, succeeded by the bursting forth of the 
 glorious sun, the harbinger of a bright and glorious day. "^* 
 Ritchie, in the Richmond Enquirer could see only victory 
 as a result. "It heals all divisions; unites our party with 
 bands of iron." Van Buren, good party man as he was, 
 called upon his followers to support the ticket. He knew 
 as well as we know to-day that it was not his Texas letter 
 which defeated him in the Convention. For j^ears he 
 wrote and talked of the intrigues and plottings that had 
 overthrown him, and his relations with Polk were short 
 and unfortunate, because Polk had reaped the benefits 
 of this underground work. Did Van Buren have cause to 
 complain of methods in which he had been so great an 
 adept? In pursuing his own ends he had educated others 
 in the same school of political management. 
 
 Of the campaign methods little will suffice. There were 
 the same riotous claims, the same personalities, the same 
 trickery and evasion, and the same appearance, if not the 
 reality, of fraud, which are noted in the aftermath of every 
 campaign, be it for the election of a President or of a pound- 
 master. Polk's issue was sprung as a surprise, and could 
 best win if carried along with a rush. On Texas the public 
 mind was excited, feverish and unstable. His opponent 
 thought he could win on the old issues, and hardly realized 
 
 ^Before nine months had passed Tyler complained of Polk's unrelenting war 
 against his sincere friends in ofSce. To Alexander Gardiner, May 21, 1845. 
 
 ^■* Quoted by Bidlack, in Congressional Globe, 28th Congress, 1st session p. 662. 
 Summers (Congressional Globe, June 4, 1844,) compared the Democratic party to 
 "two shipwrecked mariners, who were clinging to a plank on the tempest-tossed ocean, 
 each struggling to obtain exclusive possession to the destruction of the other, as the 
 only means of salvation; but, when providentially washed ashore, embracing each 
 other, and unitedly singing hosannahs in a transport of joy. " 
 
15 
 
 the strength of the Texas measure. Indecent personalities 
 and irrelevant topics gave rise to local flurries, and the 
 campaign swept along till the day of election. Clay was 
 defeated. The blow was stunning to the Whigs. Fre- 
 linghuysen claimed that the defeat in New York was due 
 to an "alliance of the foreign vote, and that most impractic- 
 able of all organizations, the Abolitionists." Millard Fill- 
 more damned the Abolitionists, and despaired of the 
 Republic. ''May God save the country; for it is evident 
 the people will not."^^ The opinion was general that no 
 man of real ability could in the future be elected President; 
 it was to be the reward of mediocrity. Even the Polk 
 following was at first amazed by the victory. It meant 
 the extinction of the Whig party in the southern states. 
 
 Intrigue there had been, and plenty of it, north, south 
 and west. The explanation is not sufficient. It was a 
 final and irreparable split between North and South. North- 
 ern democrats were pitted against southern democrats, 
 and the policies of the two sections were diametrically 
 opposed. The political historian of New York, Hammond, 
 told the truth to Van Buren. "More than forty years' 
 experience proves the more the Northern Democracy yields 
 to the South, the more she demands; and individuals at 
 the North, after for years acceding to the wishes of the 
 southern men and in the compromising spirit of the Con- 
 stitution sustaining what are called 'Southern principles' 
 generally receive from that section of the country a feeble 
 and reluctant support."^® The South was now in open 
 revolt, and intent upon securing full control of the Govern- 
 ment. Polk was for annexation simply. Van Buren could 
 not be brought to see the crux of the situation. Clay always 
 thought that the tariff had been the real issue. ^^ None 
 admitted the existence of the great moral question of the 
 extension of slaver5^^^ 
 
 ^^ Fillmore to Clay, November 11, 1844. 
 ^^ Hamrnoyid to Van Buren, April 7, 1S44. MS. 
 
 ^^ Meeting in Ciniicinati, Salmon P. Chase, chairman, where extension of slavery 
 was the principal subject. 
 
 ^Clay to James F. Bahcock and others, December 17, 1844. 
 
16 
 
 The question in its essence was this: Was the nation 
 to take upon itself the support and perpetuation of slavery 
 in Texas, and of the slave trade between the Southern States 
 and the people of that government? The question was far- 
 reaching, involving the very existence of the national 
 government, and the very continuance of the Constitution. 
 No one believed that the South would consent to give up 
 one tittle of its hold on the administration of government, 
 or one degree of its power in the national legislature. Dic- 
 tatorial by training, and wielding a voting strength far 
 beyond their due right, were the right of suffrage to be truly 
 equal, the men from the South kept their authority by 
 measures intolerable in a free country, by methods inde- 
 fensible in character and tendency, and by threats indecently 
 provocative of scenes in the floor of Congress at once debasing 
 and disgraceful. Under the shelter of the Constitution 
 as then interpreted, the South claimed protection to its 
 peculiar institution, and compelled the North to meet its 
 demands. When Calhoun asserted that the annexation 
 of Texas was necessaiy to preserve the domestic institutions 
 of the two countries — slavery in the United States and 
 slavery in Texas — he gave away the whole question. Annex- 
 ation would mean an extension and a perpetuation of 
 slavery, an increase in the political influence of the slave 
 holders, a continuance of the unholy alliance between North 
 and South to maintain the compromise in the Constitution. 
 
 Of course, out-and-out annexationists could advance no 
 arguments which were not on the lines favored by the 
 South. Moderate annexationists could use the relations 
 with Mexico, or other interested countries, as a means to 
 secure delay; the eventuality would still foster the slave 
 power. Jackson, Polk, Clay, Benton, Van Buren and 
 others were willing or anxious to take Texas, and for one 
 and the same end, however much they seemed to differ 
 in arguments. Only the open opponents of annexation 
 were able to argue freely though not always effectively. 
 The contrast between two Massachusetts men on this side 
 of the question was illuminative. Webster made three 
 reported speeches during the campaign. In two of them 
 
17 
 
 he spoke of Texas, but his references were by the way and 
 
 perfunctory.^^ He opposed receiving Texas because he 
 would "do nothing, now or at any time, that shall tend to 
 extend the slavery of the African race on this continent." 
 His speeches were on the tariff, a demand for protection, 
 a permanent, settled, steady, protective policy. He made 
 the Constitution a cover for this demand, and predicted 
 the overthrow of the Constitution should Polk come into 
 the Presidency. Did this result follow? Did not the 
 course of history prove that the tariff issue was of little 
 importance? 
 
 Against this course of Webster, place that of John Quincy 
 Adams. He too made three addresses in the campaign. 
 I use the word address advisedly, for campaign speeches 
 they were not. It does not follow that they were not 
 partisan, as Adams felt strongly the Whig side of the con- 
 test; but they were something more than partisan, — a 
 personal defence, based upon documentary evidence, upon 
 questions, profoundly affecting the position and tendency 
 of the American States. They contained excellent his- 
 torical material, expressed in vigorous language. The 
 more important one was delivered at Boston,^^ and gave 
 an account of the negotiations with Mexico for Texas, at 
 once a defence against charges of traitorous conduct, an 
 attack upon Andrew Jackson, and a protest against a war 
 of aggression in behalf of slavery. The second was given 
 at Braintree,^^ and was a defence against the malicious 
 attacks of Charles J. Ingersoll, and an exposition of the 
 causes underlying the Texan question. The third was 
 made at North Bridgewater on November 6, and summar- 
 ized the essential principles of the campaign. ^^ 
 
 Adams occupied a solitary position, one that was his 
 fate for the larger part of his public life. He was a Whig, 
 
 *^ At Philadelphia and Valley Forge, Works, II, 270, 291. Towards the end of the 
 eampaign he did become more expansive on the Texan question, but never left the 
 tariflf issue. 
 
 * Address to the Young Men's Whig Club of Boston, October 7. Printed in the 
 National Intelligencer, October 12, 1844. 
 
 31 Published in Niles's National Register, LXVIl, 154. 
 
 ^Printed in the Boston Courier, November, 9, 1844. 
 
18 
 
 who did not hesitate to lash the leaders of that party in 
 State and Nation. He was a supporter of Clay, yet openly 
 critical of his policy and often doubtful of his availability. 
 He could not accept the Liberty Party, and denounced 
 the abolition methods. Such had been his course in the 
 past that hardly an important act in his long and varied 
 career received commendation. The treaty of Ghent, the 
 Florida treaty and his Presidential policy were made the 
 bases of serious charges against him; and his opposition to 
 the extension of slavery while recognizing the legal rights 
 of the States under the Constitution directed upon him the 
 concentrated opposition of all parties and factions, the 
 abolitionists as well as the regulars. Opposition called 
 out his best powers. In Congress he was a master of par- 
 liamentary usage, and day after day proved the wrong- 
 headedness of the majority by forcing them to go on record. 
 Such a contest drawn out for months and years could not 
 be fruitful of brilliant victories, and the contemporary view 
 was that it was a futile struggle on his part, and crowned 
 by a barren victory. Yet looking over the ground at this 
 interval of time, the merit of his service and sacrifice becomes 
 evident.^^ 
 
 The period was politically one of transition. Feeling 
 the increasing power of the economy of the North, the South 
 struck out for some addition to its strength that should at 
 least enable it to hold its own. Only two methods were 
 possible, disunion or an increase of territory and consequent 
 voting strength in the House. In either case slavery must 
 be maintained as the institution of the southern states. 
 To this time enough votes had been obtained from the North 
 to enable the South to impose its policy upon the nation. 
 It had been a long series of compromises, in which the 
 tariff had played a very im ortant part. The industries 
 
 ^Barton H. Wise, in the Life of Henry A. Wise, admits the tactical blunder of the 
 South in raising the question of the right to petition. "As long as the right to peti- 
 tion seemed in any wise abridged, or denied, the anti-slavery party not only awakened 
 the sympathies of many on that score, but were also constantly able to provoke 
 discussion upon the abstract question of slavery; and thus through its existence in 
 the District of Columbia were furnished, as Adams said, with a 'fulcrum for their 
 lever, so much so that he declared he would not abolish slavery there, even if it were 
 in his own power to do so.' " 
 
19 
 
 of the North had sent to Congress men who yielded all to 
 the South. But the rise of a free West threatened to throw 
 over those compromises, and the old arguments no longer 
 gave foundation for the old forms of agreement. States- 
 manship could no longer rest upon an ability temporarily 
 to harmonize North and South, or to transmute a protective 
 duty into fugitive slave laws or gag rules. A Clay, who 
 could hedge so skillfully as to face both ways, a Webster 
 who could subsist on the bounty of manufacturers to do 
 their bidding, were as much out of date as a Calhoun, water- 
 logged by his slavery views, or a Van Buren a northern 
 man flirting with southern principles. Compromises had 
 broken down. 
 
 While these men, and their like, were local in aim, Adams 
 is almost the one man in public life who bulks large, on a 
 national scale. He who had negotiated the Florida treaty, 
 and alone in Monroe's Cabinet stood out for including 
 Texas, could not be mistaken in the meaning to the South 
 of annexation in 1844. That very treaty was now brought 
 forward as a means of charging him with treacherj^ to his 
 country and to his trust. The charge was supported by 
 southern men, with Jackson in the lead. The man who 
 had deliberately left the Federalist party upon a question 
 of principle, and had been the butt of the democracy of 
 the Middle West, the Jacksonian democracy, had nothing 
 to learn of partisan warfare. The despairing bitterness 
 of dying Federalism and the exuberant strength and unre- 
 strained coarseness of the new democracy had given him 
 a varied experience in all forms of abuse. He had seen his 
 own policy as President hooted out of court by his successors, 
 and he returned to Congress with no backing other than 
 was given by the handful of supporters in his district, and 
 by his own unquestioned abilities and upright heart. 
 
 He possessed in a great measure a quality that is par- 
 ticularly exasperating, — an intelligently directed unexpect- 
 edness. He alone was able to speak the truth, no matter 
 how unpalatable to friend and foe. While Polk was ringing 
 all possible changes on Texas, and while Clay was striving 
 to stem the current towards annexation by bending to its 
 
20 
 
 force, Adams stated exactly what had been, was, and was 
 to be. His learning and method made his exposition of 
 telling and permanent weight. After 1844 it would be 
 impossible to hold to the charge that Texas had been sac- 
 rificed by Adams in 1819, or that Jackson's course on that 
 question had even a shadow of consistency to cover its 
 naked weakness. After 1844 no one need have gone astray 
 as to Jackson's fairness, his prejudices, or his intentions 
 in his approaches to Texas. The plain statement of facts 
 by Adams, touched as it was with an intense personal 
 indignation, put an end to the flow of misrepresentation 
 which served to cloak greed and political intrigue. The 
 blow told where he wanted it most to tell. Jackson and 
 his followers gasped, denounced ''little Johnny Q," that 
 wicked old man, that mendacious old scoundrel, and poured 
 out replies that did everything but overthrow the cold 
 facts so regularly marshalled by Adams. His progress in 
 developing his attitude on slavery had been rapid, and had 
 landed him in an unexpected position. The Missouri 
 question of 1820 brought the question and its possibilities 
 before him, but vaguely. Was it not Rufus King, one of 
 the really able men of the day, who first pointed out to 
 Adams the dire consequences lurking in that problem of 
 statehood? After his Presidency he took his ground, and 
 told the South that most unpalatable truth, the doom of 
 slavery, and from that time he becomes the embodiment 
 of that question. So much so that the movement to expel 
 him from the House was based upon the idea that if he could 
 be removed from the councils of the nations or silenced 
 on the exasperating subject to which he was devoting him- 
 self none other could be found hardy enough to fill his place.^* 
 But he did not confine himself to criticism and denun- 
 ciation of conduct ; he had a remedy, which involved punish- 
 ment to the South, in that it would deprive them of their 
 special privilege of unequal representation. He saw the 
 evil in the aristocratic provision of the Constitution that 
 gave to a small number of whites in the slave states a dis- 
 
 ^'Thomaa T. Marshall, quoted in Quincy's Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, 388. 
 
21 
 
 proportionate share of political power on account of their 
 property in their fellowmen. To him, this human chattel 
 representation was the "fatal drop of prussic acid" in the 
 Constitution of the United States, opposed to popular 
 representation, to self-evident truths, and to the letter and 
 spirit of the Constitution itself. It was not so much that 
 each holder of slaves had substantially two votes, but 
 that "every member representing slaves is bound in league 
 offensive and defensive, with all the rest. Every member 
 represents the whole mass. They are knit together in one 
 line, while diverse interests and conflicting opinions distract 
 the councils of the other portion of the House, and always 
 surrender the cause of freedom to the congregated repre- 
 sentatives of slavery. "^^ This was the situation in the 
 Senate, in the Executive and in the Judiciary as well as 
 in the House. Was it not true courage that inspired him 
 to attack a pohcy so strongly intrenched? 
 
 The system of representation in the national legislature 
 was indefensibly wrong. That a slaveholder and five slaves 
 should exercise four times the political influence of a free- 
 man was a condition only equal to the rotten borough system 
 in England in the eighteenth century. Even if a good word 
 could be said in its favor in 1788, no good word could be 
 said in its behalf in 1844. It involved an inequality that 
 was vitally oppressive and of unending mischief in the 
 political life of the Nation. ^^ It was a Massachusetts man^^ 
 who stated in a public report that slave representation was 
 "effecting, by slow but sure degrees, the overthrow of all 
 the noble principles that were embodied in the Federal 
 Constitution," and the Massachusetts legislature asked 
 for the repeal of the clause in the Constitution providing 
 for the representation of slaves. Adams welcomed the 
 support as giving him the first and probably the last 
 opportunity of giving to the world his deliberate 'opinion 
 
 ■'^ Adams to Seward, May 10, 1844. MS. 
 
 ^ In April, 1844, John Quincy Adams wrote "the standing supremacy of the slave 
 representation is 112, a bare majority of the House, consisting of 80 slave-holders 
 and thirty-two free-trade auxiliaries." Memoirs, XII, 14. 
 
 3^ Charles Francis Adams. See also his pamphlet, Texas and the MassachusetU 
 Resolutions, Boston, 1844. 
 
22 
 
 upon so disastrous a feature of American political insti- 
 tutions.^^ 
 
 What then did the campaign of 1844 solve? Not the an- 
 nexation of Texas, because that measure was already assured 
 in spite of the decent attitude of delay or reserve some of 
 the leaders might assume. Not questions of tariff, bank, 
 distribution or land sales, for no popular mandate could 
 dictate the details of measures in which private interests 
 were predominant. The personality of Polk meant nothing, 
 not so much in fact as the personality of the defeated can- 
 didate. Clay. Yet there was then decided one of the most 
 momentous issues in our history. North was at last pitted 
 against South, and the struggle for supremacy was to last 
 for sixteen years, under constantly aggravating friction. 
 The policy of the South was determined beyond any change, 
 and it only asked an impossibility — to be allowed to work out 
 its destiny without aid, counsel or interference from the 
 North. The situation made it impossible for Polk to recog- 
 nize the Van Buren wing of his party. No follower of 
 Van Buren was given a place in the Cabinet, or received 
 an office which gave access to the President. Marcy was 
 an opponent to Van Buren; Buchanan had plotted against 
 him; and both were willing to vote for what the South 
 desired. The split in the party was not to be healed, and 
 the old leaders went down before it. A younger generation 
 was coming forward, men like Seward, Giddings and Chase, 
 who would be in at the death of this issue of slavery, them- 
 selves leaders in a new party, and themselves disciples of 
 John Quincy Adams. Turn the hands of the clock on a 
 little. The homely and direct pronouncement of Lincoln, 
 "The Nation cannot exist half slave, half free," could have 
 been uttered by Adams, for it expressed his opinion. The 
 
 With Joshua R. Giddings, Adams prepared the minority report on these resolu- 
 tions of the Massachusetts Legislature, 28th Cong. 1 sess. House Report 404. The 
 incident is of high interest. The committee appointed by the House to consider 
 these resolutions consisted of nine members, Adams, Rhett, (for whom Burt was 
 substituted) J. R. Ingersoll, Gilmer, Garrett Davis, Burke, Sample, Morse and Gid- 
 dings. Six reports were presented: Giddings joined with Adams, Burt with Gilmer 
 Davis with Ingersoll, and individual reports were made by Burke, Sample and Morse. 
 It would be difiScult to find a similar instance of discrepant views. 
 
23 
 
 freeing of the slaves under stress of war and an armed 
 occupation of tlie southern states, was only a fulfilment 
 of Adam's assertion of emancipation under martial law. 
 With the disappearance of slavery also went the chattel 
 representation in Congress, and so the ''drop of prussic 
 acid" was extracted from the Constitution. "The moral 
 question of the North American revolution," said Adams, 
 ''was one and the same with that of the institution of domes- 
 tic slaveiy. It is a question between might and right, 
 between the law of justice and the law of force." The 
 campaign of 1844 marked the culminating point in Adams's 
 career, and leaves him in high relief as the statesman of 
 that time. 
 
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