Volume I Part 24 (2/2)
But Rochester proved vastly more formidable as a candidate for governor than the Van Buren leaders antic.i.p.ated. It became well known that he was a supporter of the Adams administration, and that Henry Clay regarded him with favour. Indeed, it was through the latter's personal and political friends.h.i.+p that he secured the mission to Panama. Thus, the feeling began to obtain that Rochester, although the nominee of the Regency party, more nearly represented the interests and principles of the Adams administration than DeWitt Clinton, an avowed Jackson man, who had formed a coalition with Van Buren. For this reason, Peter B. Porter, an ardent admirer of Clay, and now a member of the People's party, entered with spirit into the campaign, appealing to the Clintonians, a large majority of whom favoured Adams, to resent Clinton's deal with Jackson's friends, and vote for Rochester, whose election would insure the success of the President, and bring credit to the people of the western counties, already ambitious to give the State a governor. This potent appeal was taken up throughout the State, influencing many Clintonians to support Rochester, and holding in line scores of Bucktails who favoured Adams.
It was a critical moment for Van Buren. He was not only a candidate for re-election to the United States Senate, but he had staked all upon the overthrow of the Adams administration. Yet, the election of his party's candidate for governor would in all probability overthrow the Clinton-Van Buren coalition, giving the vote of the State to the President, and possibly defeat his own re-election. It was a singular political mix-up.
Van Buren had hoped to exclude from the campaign all national issues, as he succeeded in doing the year before. But the friends of Clay and Adams could not be hoodwinked. The canva.s.s also developed combinations that began telling hard upon Van Buren's party loyalty. Mordecai M.
Noah, an ardent supporter of Van Buren, and editor of the New York _Enquirer_, came out openly for Clinton. For years, Noah had been Clinton's most bitter opponent. He opposed the ca.n.a.l, he ridiculed its champion, and he lampooned its supporters; yet he now swallowed the prejudices of a lifetime and indorsed the man he had formerly despised. Van Buren, it may safely be said, was at heart quite as devoted a supporter of the Governor, since the latter's re-election would be of the greatest advantage to his own personal interests; but whatever his defects of character, and however lacking he may have been in an exalted sense of principle, Van Buren appeared to be sincere in his devotion to Rochester. This was emphasised by the support of the Albany _Argus_ and other leading Regency papers.
Nevertheless, the election returns furnished ample grounds for suspicion. Steuben County, then a Regency stronghold, gave Clinton over one thousand majority. Other counties of that section did proportionately as well. It was explained that this territory would naturally support Clinton who had insisted in his message that the central and northern counties, having benefited by the Erie and Champlain ca.n.a.ls, ought to give Steuben and the southern tier a public highway. But William B. Rochester went to his watery grave[249]
thirteen years afterward with the belief that Van Buren and his confidential friends did not act in good faith.
[Footnote 249: Rochester was lost off the coast of North Carolina, on June 15, 1838, by the explosion of a boiler on the steamer _Pulaski_, bound from Charleston to Baltimore. Of 150 pa.s.sengers only 50 survived.]
With the help of the state road counties, however, Clinton had a narrow escape; the returns gave him only 3650 majority.[250] This margin appeared the more wonderful when contrasted with the vote of Nathaniel Pitcher, candidate for lieutenant-governor on the Rochester ticket, who received 4182 majority. ”Clinton luck!” was the popular comment.
[Footnote 250: Clinton's vote was 99,785--a falling off of 3,667 from 1824, while Rochester's was 96,135, an increase of 9,042 over Young's vote.--_Civil List, State of New York_ (1887), p. 166.]
The closeness of the result prompted the friends of the President to favour Rochester for United States senator to succeed Van Buren, whose term expired on March 4, 1827. Several of the Adams a.s.semblymen acted with the Regency party, and it was hoped that through them a winning combination might be made. But Van Buren had not been sleeping. He knew his strength, and with confidence he returned to Was.h.i.+ngton to renew his attacks upon the Administration. When, finally, the election occurred, he had a larger majority than sanguine friends antic.i.p.ated. Three Clintonians in the Senate and two in the a.s.sembly, recognising the coalition of Van Buren and Clinton, cast their votes for the former. In thanking the members of the Legislature for this renewed expression of confidence, Van Buren spoke of the ”gratifying unanimity” of their action, declaring that it should be his ”constant and zealous endeavour to protect the remaining rights reserved to the States by the Federal Const.i.tution; to restore those of which they have been divested by construction; and to promote the interests and honour of our common country.”
Thus, in much less than two years, Van Buren easily retrieved all, and more, than he had lost by the election of Clinton and the defeat of Crawford. His position was singularly advantageous. Whatever happened, he was almost sure to gain. He stood with Clinton, with Jackson, and with a party drilled and disciplined better than regular troops. In his biography of Andrew Jackson, James Parton says of Van Buren at this time: ”His hand was full of cards, and all his cards were trumps.”[251] Andrew Jackson, who had been watching his career, said one day to a young New Yorker: ”I am no politician; but if I were a politician, I would be a New York politician.”[252]
[Footnote 251: James Parton, _Life of Andrew Jackson_, Vol. 3, p.
131.]
[Footnote 252: _Ibid._, p. 136.]
Van Buren's advantage, however, great as it was, did not end with his re-election to the United States Senate. One after another, the men who stood between him and the object of his ambition had gradually disappeared. Ambrose Spencer was no longer on the bench, James Tallmadge had run his political course, and Daniel D. Tompkins was in his grave. Only DeWitt Clinton was left, and on February 11, 1828, death very suddenly struck him down. Stalwart in form and tremendous in will power, few dreamed that he had any malady, much less that death was shadowing him. He was in his fifty-ninth year.
Of DeWitt Clinton it may fairly be said that ”his mourners were two hosts--his friends and his foes.” Everywhere, regardless of party, marks of the highest respect and deepest grief were evinced. The Legislature voted ten thousand dollars to his four minor children, an amount equal to the salary of a ca.n.a.l commissioner during the time he had served without pay. Indeed, nothing was left undone or unsaid which would evidence veneration for his memory and sorrow for his loss. He had lived to complete his work and to enjoy the reward of a great achievement. Usually benefactors of the people are not so fortunate; their halo, if it comes at all, generally forms long after death. But Clinton seemed to be the creature of timely political accidents. The presentation of his ca.n.a.l scheme had made him governor on July 1, 1817; and he represented the State when ground was broken at Rome on July 4; his removal as ca.n.a.l commissioner made him governor again in 1825; and he represented the State at the completion of the work. On both occasions, he received the homage of the entire people, not only as champion of the ca.n.a.l, but as the head of the Commonwealth for which he had done so much.
There were those who thought the time of his death fortunate for his fame, since former opponents were softened and former friends had not fallen away. An impression also obtained that little was left him politically to live for. New conditions and new men were springing up.
As a strict constructionist of the Federal Const.i.tution, with a leaning toward states' rights, he could not have followed Clintonians into the Whig party soon to be formed, nor would he have been at home among the leaders of the Jackson or new Democratic party, who were unlikely to have any use for him. He would not be second to Van Buren, and Van Buren would not suffer him to interfere with the promotion of his own career. It is possible Van Buren might have supported him for governor in 1828, but he would have had no hesitation in playing his own part regardless of him. Had Clinton insisted, so much the worse for Clinton. Of the two men, Van Buren possessed the advantage. He had less genius and possibly less self-reliance, but in other respects--in tact, in prudence, in self-control, in address--indeed, in everything that makes for party leaders.h.i.+p, Van Buren easily held the mastery.
Clinton's career was absolutely faultless in two aspects--as an honest man, and a husband, only praise is due him. He died poor and pure.
Yet, there are pa.s.sages in his history which evidence great defects.
Life had been for him one long dramatic performance. Many great men seem to have a suit of armour in the form of coldness, brusqueness, or rudeness, which they put on to meet the stranger, but which, when laid aside, reveals simple, charming, and often boyish manners. Clinton had such an armour, but he never put it off, except with intimates, and not then with any revelation of warmth. He was cold and arrogant, showing no deference even to seniors, since he denied the existence of superiors. n.o.body loved him; few really liked him; and, except for his ca.n.a.l policy, his public career must have ended with his dismissal from the New York mayoralty. It seemed a question whether he really measured up to the stature of a statesman.
Nevertheless, the judgment of posterity is easily on the side of Clinton's greatness. Thurlow Weed spoke of him as a great man with weak points; and Van Buren, in his attractive eulogy at Was.h.i.+ngton, declared that he was ”greatly tempted to envy him his grave with its honours.” He may well have done so; for, although Van Buren reached the highest office in the gift of the people, and is clearly one of the ablest leaders of men in the history of the Empire State, his fame does not rest on so sure a foundation. Clinton was a man of great achievement. He was not a dreamer; nor merely a statesman with imagination, grasping the idea in its bolder outlines; but, like a captain of industry, he combined the statesman and the practical man of affairs, turning great possibilities into greater realities. It may be fairly said of him that his career made an era in the history of his State, and that in a.s.serting the great principle of internal improvements he blazed the way that guided all future comers.
CHAPTER x.x.xII
VAN BUREN ELECTED GOVERNOR
1828
<script>