Character of Van Buren.

VAN BUREN'S PRESIDENCY

Van Buren became president through the grace of Andrew Jackson. He had all the virtues of mediocrity without the capacity of leadership. He was honest, cool-headed, courteous to his contemporaries, and loyal to his cause. He favored economy in expenditures, and although the spoils system throve during his administration, he sought to secure efficient persons for the offices within his gift. He was an intimate friend of the New York literary men of his day, and appointed Paulding, the novelist, secretary of the navy. His weakness was that he had not the capacity of command, and his party, no longer restrained by the strong will of Jackson, fell into confusion and lost the confidence of the country.

The first incident in his administration was the panic of 1837, symptoms of which began to appear before he was inaugurated. The

Panic of 1837; its Cause.

cause was overspeculation, chiefly in the newer parts of the country. The past six years had been a period of great confidence everywhere. Railroads were being built, immigrants were buying land at rapid advances, banks were lending money far in excess of their means, cotton rose to sixteen cents a pound in 1835 and fell to ten cents in 1836, "wildcat banks" were incorporated whose chief activity was to issue money to the land speculators, and the whole industrial community lived on the expectation that the morrow would carry the wave of speculation higher than it was to-day. Only a slight shock was needed to hurl the whole structure to the ground.

Circular.

Two things operating jointly served to furnish this check. The specie circular of 1836 (see page 425) forced land buyers to pay in specie, they asked the Western banks for gold and silver The Specie in redemption of notes, and the institutions which had most overissued began to suspend specie payment. The distribution of the surplus (see page 424), beginning in January, 1837, drew money from the deposit banks to transfer it to other places. This necessitated the calling in of loans, which implied the suspension of industrial development, and the reaction reached the remotest point of the country's business life. Then demoralization quickly arrived. European holders sent back bonds and demanded cash, owners of specie locked it in vaults, importations of goods fell off, and the public revenues ceasing, the government expenses used up the treasury's surplus so that the third installment of the deposits was suspended when only half of it had been distributed.

The Distribution of the Surplus.

So acute was the situation that congress was called in extra session in October. Though the government was out of debt, it had no

A BANK OR A SUB-TREASURY?

An Extra

433

money for its expenses, and since the law required public dues to be paid in specie or in notes of specie-paying banks, there was not enough currency in the treasury to enable it to carry on its business. The first thing, therefore, was to issue temporarily $10,000,000 in treasury notes. Van Buren was urged to repeal the specie circular, but refused steadfastly. The whigs declared that all the trouble came from the destruction of the bank of the United States and hoped to carry a bill for recharter, but congress and president remained firm, and this demand failed.

Session of

Congress.

gested.

Then Van Buren brought forward a plan to have the government take care of the deposits, known later as the sub-treasury bill. Let the government, he said, keep its own money, leaving it with the treasurer, the mints, postmasters, collectors, and other receivers until it was ordered paid out. At once arose Sub-treasa cry that these keepers were not responsible, and that ury Sugthe scheme, if adopted, would dangerously enlarge the patronage. The whigs hoped the distress would make a new bank seem necessary, and voted steadily against the sub-treasury. The democrats were divided; one part, strong in the Eastern cities, opposing the suggestion as unsafe, and the other supporting it. The second faction called itself the antimonopolists, but it was generally known as the "Locofocos," a nickname given by its enemies in New York. In the popular parlance of the day the sub-treasury bill was "the divorce bill," because it sought to "divorce the government from all banks." It failed in the extra session, came up in a simpler form in 1838, but was again lost. It was taken up again and successfully passed and signed July 4, 1840. When finally Adopted in passed, it created sub-treasuries to keep and pay out the public money at Boston, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and New Orleans, which, with the treasury at Washington left the funds in six important centers of business. It also provided that after the end of June, 1843, only specie should be received for public dues. The whigs fought the bill to the last, for its adoption meant the relinquishment of their hope for a bank; they repealed it in 1841, in the first days of their triumph, but the democrats restored it in 1846, omitting the specie feature.

1840.

Before this law was passed, the presidential campaign of 1840 was being conducted. Van Buren's nomination by his party was easily secured in a convention at Baltimore, May 4, 1840. Election of Several states had named candidates for the vice-presi- 1840. dency, and the convention thought it best to refrain from deciding between them. It was probably expected that the choice would at last fall to the senate. A platform strong in Jacksonian principles was adopted as the ground on which the country should continue to manifest its confidence in the existing administration.

The whigs approached the election year in high spirits. The long period of financial stringency, the inability of the democrats to unite on a positive remedy, and the many opponents of Van Buren in his party indicated that the democrats would have strong opposition. Clay saw the situation and had high hopes. It seemed that his opportunity was at last at hand. The convention was called at Harrisburg, December 4, 1839. As the time approached, a strong anti-Clay opposition appeared within the party. He was a mason, he had spoken against the abolitionists, and he was already twice defeated for the presidency. These facts, it was urged, made him an unavailable candidate, and Harrison, leading whig candidate in 1836, was pointed out as a stronger man. The opponents of Clay were well led by Thurlow Weed, party manager in the important state of New York. When the convention met, Clay had 102 votes on the first ballot, mostly from the slaveholding states, Harrison had 91, and General Winfield Scott had 57. Scott was a stalking-horse for Clay's enemies, who now began to shift their support to Harrison, with the result that the latter was finally named. Clay, deeply disappointed, burst into a rage when he learned the news. Walking rapidly to and fro, in a group of his friends, he exclaimed, "If there were two Henry Clays, one of them would make the other president!" John Tyler, of Virginia, deeply attached to the defeated leader, was nominated for vice-president. No platform was adopted, for in the groups of men supporting the action of the convention were so many of conflicting views that it was perilous to attempt to devise a body of principles on which they should appeal to the people. The whigs were content to rest their fate on the cry of "Down with Van Buren !"

No one doubted how New England and the bank men outside of it would vote, but it was not certain what the rest of the country would do. Fortunately for the whigs the campaign had "Tippehardly opened when a lucky accident showed how they canoe and Tyler Too." could be reached. A disappointed friend of Clay was heard to say that Harrison, whose talents were very limited, if given a pension and a barrel of hard cider would retire to his log cabin and think no more of the presidency. The democrats seized on the remark and dubbed Harrison the "log-cabin candidate." But the blow reacted. The whigs made it a symbol of honor, saying it showed that their candidate was a man of the people, disdained by the aristocrats, whose heads were turned by their long lease of power. At every political meeting of the whigs a log cabin, a jug of cider, and a coon were displayed as tokens of their candidate's love of the people. A popular song lauding him as the "hero of Tippecanoe" also did much to create enthusiasm for his cause. This wave of popular excitement accomplished the object for which it was raised, and in the final test Harrison and Tyler, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," were chosen by 234 to 60 electoral votes. Van Buren lost his own state

TYLER AND CLAY

435

and carried only Virginia, South Carolina, Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, and New Hampshire.

This overwhelming victory resulted fatally for the victor. Duly inaugurated in March, 1841, he was at once overwhelmed by a horde of hungry whig office seekers, who dogged his steps, Death of exhausted his strength, and so disturbed his peace of mind that he yielded to an attack of pneumonia one month after he took the oath of office. One of his last acts was to call congress in extra session for May 31, 1841. When it met, Tyler was president.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF TYLER

Harrison.

Tyler's

Tyler now found himself at the head of a party with which he had little political sympathy. He believed in state rights, opposed a bank and a high tariff, and had only left the democratic fold because he resented the towering methods of Jackson. position. His nomination had been made without the slightest expectation that he would ever be in a position to veto a bill which the whigs had carried through congress.

Clay's

Attitude.

On the other hand, Clay, the real head of the party, was in no mood to resign his leadership. Harrison, had he lived, would have had a sharp struggle with this imperious man, who was not disposed to bow before so insignificant a figure as Tyler. When, therefore, the extra session began, Clay, a member of the senate, took charge of the situation like a military commander. He offered a resolution specifying what work the extra session should perform, the chief features being: the repeal of the sub-treasury act, the incorporation of a bank, the enactment of a higher tariff law, and the distribution of the proceeds of land sales. Tyler was very cautious, but he was also stubborn, and Clay's dashing assumption of power aroused him. He accepted a bill to abolish the sub-treasury, but sent back with a veto a bill to incorporate a great bank in the District of Columbia with branches in the states. Tyler and The whigs had a safe majority in each house, but they Question. could not pass a bill over a veto. They were greatly disappointed; for hearing rumors of Tyler's objections they thought they had eliminated from their bill all the features to which he was opposed. Smothering their resentment outwardly, they conferred with the president to know what kind of a bank bill he would approve. What he said became later a matter of dispute, but they hastily prepared a charter for a "Fiscal Corporation," passed it without difficulty, and sent it to the president. Tyler had expressed his opposition to the word "bank," and so the word was not used. The bill was said to have been shown to the president and to have had his approval. Great was the anger of its friends, therefore, when it came back in six days with a veto. Many had expected such action,

the Bank

Tyler repudiated by the Whigs.

spite of his previous approval; for the second bill differed from the first in little but the names it gave to bank and branches. Under it the great institution would have been able to do most of the things which Jackson had found so distasteful. Both vetoes showed that Tyler was fundamentally opposed to a bank on constitutional grounds. He had evidently tried hard to reconcile his desire for party harmony with his long-proclaimed principles, but the badly veiled discourtesy of Clay and other leading whigs in setting him aside as leader had wounded his pride and made him feel disposed to show them that he was still president. While the second veto was being prepared, congress passed a bill to distribute among the states the proceeds of land sales. Tyler accepted the bill, but it was repealed in the following year. The "Fiscal Corporation" was vetoed on September 9, 1841. Two days later all the cabinet but Webster, secretary of state, resigned as a token of their disapproval. They published letters denouncing what they declared Tyler's false conduct, and Clay, wishing to detach as many whigs as possible from the administration, secured a caucus of the leading members of the party which solemnly declared that "all political connection between them and John Tyler was at an end." Webster also gave reasons for his conduct, saying that he did not think it wise to leave the cabinet without giving the president time to select another secretary. Negotiations pending for the determination of the Northeast boundary made it desirable that he should remain in office. He was not on good terms with Clay, and resented the manner in which that leader sought to bend the whigs to his will. Tyler saw in this a good omen. He hoped to build up a party in which the dashing Kentuckian should not be supreme, and immediately filled the cabinet with men who, like himself, had once been Jacksonians, but who had left the democratic fold because they did not like the Jacksonian rule. As a party move, the step was a failure. Even Webster soon came to realize that Tyler was not the man to lead the whigs, and in May, 1843, when the administration was leaning strongly toward the annexation of Texas, he also withdrew from the cabinet. The only other distinctly whig measure passed through congress during Tyler's presidency was the tariff of 1842. The term through which the compromise of 1833 was to run was to expire June 31, 1842. Before that date the treasury had a deficit. There was much alarm for the future, and some attempts were made to devise a plan for relief; but the president stood by the compromise of 1833, and it was allowed to run its course. Finally, on August 30, 1842, a bill was passed fixing the duties on most articles at the rates in force in 1832, and the president gave it his approval. It involved the repeal of the distribution act of the previous year, and on that ground received enough democratic votes to pass the senate.

The Tariff of 1842.