Volume I Part 26 (2/2)
Martin Van Buren's single message as governor exhibited a knowledge of conditions and needs that must rank it among the ablest state-papers in the archives of the capitol. Unlike some of his predecessors, with their sentences of stilted formality, he wrote easily and with vigour.
His message, however, was marred by the insincerity which shows the politician. He approved ca.n.a.ls, but, by cunningly advising ”the utmost prudence” in taking up new enterprises, he coolly disparaged the Chenango project; he shrewdly recommended the choice of presidential electors by general ticket instead of by congressional districts, knowing that opposition to the change died with DeWitt Clinton. With full knowledge of what he himself had done, in the last campaign, in urging upon John A. Hamilton the necessity of raising funds, he boldly attacked the use of money in elections, proposing ”the imposition of severe penalties upon the advance of money by individuals for any purposes connected with elections except the single one of printing.”
It is not surprising, perhaps, that a man of Van Buren's personal ambition found himself often compelled, for the sake of his own career, to make his public devotion to principle radically different from his practice; but it is amazing that he should thus brazenly a.s.sume the character of a reformer before the ink used in writing Hamilton was dry.
The prominent feature of Van Buren's message was the bank question, which, to do him credit, he discussed with courage, urging a general law for chartering banks without the payment of money bonus, and declaring that the only concern of the State should be to make banks and their circulation secure. In accord with this suggestion, he submitted the ”safety fund” project, subsequently enacted into law, providing that all banks should contribute to a fund, administered under state supervision, to secure dishonoured banknotes. There was a great deal of force in Van Buren's reasoning, and the New York City banks, which, at first, declined to recharter under the law, finally accepted the scheme with apparent cheerfulness. Had the real test, which came with the hard times of 1837, not broken it down, Van Buren's confidence in the project might have continued. After that catastrophe, which was destined to prove his Waterloo, he had confidence in nothing except gold and silver.
As antic.i.p.ated, Van Buren's inauguration as governor preceded his appointment as secretary of state under President Jackson only seventy days. It gave him barely time gracefully to a.s.sume the duties of one position before taking up those of the other. But, in making the change, he did not forget to keep an anchor to windward by having the amiable and timid Charles E. Dudley succeed him in the United States Senate. Dudley had the weakness of many cultured, charming men, who are without personal ambition or executive force. He was incapable of taking part in debate, or of exerting any perceptible influence upon legislation in the committee-room. Nevertheless, he was sincere in his friends.h.i.+ps; and the opinion obtained that if Van Buren had desired for any reason to return to the Senate, Dudley would have gracefully retired in his favour.
The appointments of Green C. Bronson as attorney-general, and Silas Wright as comptroller of state, atoned for Dudley's election; for they brought conspicuously to the front two men whose unusual ability greatly honoured the State. Bronson had already won an enviable reputation at the bar of Oneida County. He was now forty years old, a stalwart in the Jackson party, bold and resolute, with a st.u.r.dy vigour of intellect that was to make him invaluable to the Regency. He had been a Clintonian surrogate of his county and a Clintonian member of the a.s.sembly in 1822, but he had changed since then, and his present appointment was to give him twenty-two years of continuous public life as a Democrat, lifting him from justice to chief justice of the Supreme Court, and transferring him finally to the Court of Appeals.
Silas Wright was a younger man than Bronson, not yet thirty-five years old; but his admittance to the Regency completely filled the great gap left by Marcy's retirement. Like Marcy, he was large and muscular, although with a face of more refinement; like Marcy, too, he dressed plainly. He had an affable manner stripped of all affectation. From his first entrance into public life, he had shown a great capacity for the administration of affairs. He looked like a great man. His unusually high, square forehead indicated strength of intellect, and his lips, firmly set, but round and full, gave the impression of firmness, with a generous and gentle disposition. There was no evidence of brilliancy or daring. Nor did he have a politician's face, such as Van Buren's. Even in the closing years of Van Buren's venerable life, when people used often to see him, white-haired and bright-eyed, walking on Wall Street arm in arm with his son John, his was still the face of a master diplomatist. Wright, on the other hand, looked more like a strong, fearless business man. His manner of speaking was not unlike Rufus King's. He spoke slowly, without rhetorical embellishment, or other arts of the orator; but, unlike King, he had an unpleasant voice; nevertheless, if one may accept the opinion of a contemporary and an intimate, ”there was a subdued enthusiasm in his style of speaking that was irresistibly captivating.” The slightly rasping voice was ”almost instantly forgotten in the beauty of his argument,” which was ”clear, forcible, logical and persuasive.”[271]
[Footnote 271: John S. Jenkins, _Lives of the Governors of New York_, p. 790.]
Silas Wright had already been in public life eight years, first as surrogate of St. Lawrence County, afterward as state senator, and later as a member of Congress. He had also increased his earnings at the bar by holding the offices of justice of the peace, town clerk, inspector of schools, and postmaster at Canton. From the outset, he had allied himself with the Regency party, and, with unfailing regularity he had supported all its measures, even those which his better judgment opposed. His ability and gentle manners, too, apparently won the people; for, although St. Lawrence was a Clintonian stronghold, a majority of its voters believed in their young office-holder--a fact that was the more noteworthy since he had broken faith with them. In the campaign of 1823, he favoured the choice of presidential electors by the people; afterward, in the Senate, he voted against the measure. So bitter was the resentment that followed this bill's defeat, that many of the seventeen senators, who voted against it, ever afterward remained in private life. But Wright was forgiven, and, two years later, sent to Congress, where his public career really began. In a bill finally amended into the tariff act of 1828, he sought to remove the complaint of manufacturers that the tariff of 1824 was partial to iron interests, and the criticism of agriculturalists, that the woollens bill, of 1827, favoured the manufacturer. In this debate, he gave evidence of that genius for legislation which was destined soon to s.h.i.+ne in the United States Senate at a time when some of the fiercest political fights of the century were being waged.
It is evident Van Buren did not appreciate the capacity of Silas Wright in 1831; otherwise, instead of William L. Marcy, Wright would have succeeded Nathan Sanford in the United States Senate.[272] Marcy had made an excellent state comptroller; his able and luminous reports had revealed the necessity of preserving the general fund, and the danger of constructing additional lateral ca.n.a.ls. As a judge of the Supreme Court, also, his sound judgment had won him an enviable reputation, especially in the trial of the Morgan abductors, which was held at a time of great excitement and intense feeling. But, as a United States senator, Marcy failed to realise the expectations of his friends. Very likely two years were insufficient to test fairly his legislative capacity. Besides, his services, however satisfactory, would naturally be dwarfed in the presence of the statesmen then engaged in the great const.i.tutional debate growing out of the Foote resolution, limiting the sale of public lands. Congress was rapidly making history; and the Senate, lifted into great prominence by the speeches of Webster and Hayne, had become a more difficult place than ever for a new member. At all events, Marcy did not exhibit the parliamentary spirit that seeks to lead, or which delights in the struggles of the arena where national reputations are made. He, moreover, had abundant opportunity. Thomas H. Benton says that the session of 1832 became the most prolific of party topics and party contests in the annals of Congress; yet Marcy was dumb on those subjects that were interesting every one else.
[Footnote 272: ”Marcy was the immediate predecessor of Wright as state comptroller and United States senator. Each possessed rare talents, but they were totally dissimilar in mental traits and political methods. Both were statesmen of scrupulous honesty, who despised jobbery. Marcy was wily and loved intrigue. Wright was proverbially open and frank. Marcy never trained himself to be a public speaker, and did not s.h.i.+ne in the hand-to-hand conflicts of a body that was l.u.s.trous with forensic talents. A man's status in the United States Senate is determined by the calibre and skill of the opponents who are selected to cross weapons with him in the forum. Wright was unostentatious, studious, thoughtful, grave. Whenever he delivered an elaborate speech the Whigs set Clay, Webster, Ewing, or some other of their leaders to reply to him.”--H.B. Stanton, _Random Recollections_, p. 39.]
Even when the great opportunity of Marcy's senatorial career was thrust upon him--the defence of Van Buren at the time of the latter's rejection as minister to Great Britain--he failed signally. The controversy growing out of Jackson's cabinet disagreements, ostensibly because of the treatment of Mrs. Eaton, wife of the Secretary of War, but really because of Calhoun's hostility to Van Buren, due to the President's predilections for him as his successor, had made it evident to Van Buren that an entire reorganisation of the Cabinet should take place. Accordingly, on April 11, 1831, he opened the way, by voluntarily and chivalrously resigning. President Jackson soon after appointed him minister to England, and Van Buren sailed for his post. But when the question of his confirmation came up, in the following December, Calhoun and his friends, joined by Webster and Clay, formed a combination to defeat it. Calhoun's opposition was simply the enmity of a political rival, but Webster sought to put his antagonism on a higher level, by calling Van Buren to account for instructions addressed to the American Minister at London in regard to our commercial relations with the West Indian, Bahama, and South American colonies of England.
In 1825 Parliament permitted American vessels to trade with British colonies, on condition that American ports be opened within a year to British vessels on the same terms as to American vessels. The Adams administration, failing to comply with the statute within the year, set up a counter prohibition, which was in force when Van Buren, wis.h.i.+ng to reopen negotiations, instructed McLane, the American Minister at London, to say to England that the United States had, as the friends of the present administration contended at the time, been wrong in refusing the privileges granted by the act of 1825, but that our ”views have been submitted to the people of the United States, and the counsels by which your conduct is now directed are the result of the judgment expressed by the only earthly tribunal to which the late administration was amenable for its acts.” In other words, Van Buren had introduced party contests in an official dispatch, not brazenly or offensively, perhaps, but with questionable taste, and, for this, the great senators combined and spoke against him--Webster, Clay, Hayne, Ewing of Ohio, Holmes of Maine, and seven others--”just a dozen and equal to a full jury,” wrote Benton. Webster said he would pardon almost anything when he saw true patriotism and sound American feeling, but he could not forgive the sacrifice of these to party.
Clay characterised his language as that of an humble va.s.sal to a proud and haughty lord, prostrating the American eagle before the British lion. In the course of his remarks, Clay also referred, in an incidental way, to the odious system of proscription practised in the State of New York, which, he alleged, Van Buren had introduced into the general government.
Only four senators spoke in Van Buren's defence, recalling the weak protest made in the Legislature on the day of DeWitt Clinton's removal as ca.n.a.l commissioner, but this gave William L. Marcy the greater opportunity for acquitting himself with glory and vindicating his friend. It was not a strong argument he had to meet. Van Buren had been unfortunate in his language, although in admitting that the United States was wrong in refusing the privileges offered by the British law of 1825, he did nothing more than had Gallatin, whom Adams sent to England to remedy the same difficulty. Furthermore, by a.s.suming a more conciliatory course Van Buren had been entirely successful. To Webster's suggestion of lack of patriotism, and to Clay's declaration that the American eagle had been prostrated before the British lion, Marcy might have pointed to Van Buren's exalted patriotism during the War of 1812, citing the conscription act, which he drafted, and which Benton declared the most drastic piece of war legislation ever enacted into law. To Clay's further charge, that he brought with him to Was.h.i.+ngton the odious system of proscription, the New York senator could truthfully have retorted that the system of removals, inaugurated by Jackson, was in full swing before Van Buren reached the national capital; that if he did not oppose it he certainly never encouraged it; that of seventeen foreign representatives, the Secretary of State had removed only four; and that, in making appointments as governor, he never departed from the rule of refusing either to displace competent and trustworthy men, or to appoint the dishonest and incompetent. He could also have read Lorenzo Hoyt's wail that Van Buren would ”not lend the least weight of his influence to displace from office such men as John Duer,” Adams'
appointee as United States attorney at New York. But Marcy did nothing of the kind. He made no use of the abundant material at hand, out of which he might have constructed a brilliant speech if not a perfect defence. Quite on the contrary he contented himself simply with replying to Clay's slur. He defended the practice of political proscription by charging that both sides did it. Ambrose Spencer, he said, the man whom Clay was now ready to honour, had begun it, and he himself ”saw nothing wrong in the rule that to the victors belong the spoils of the enemy.”
If the conspiracy of distinguished statesmen to defeat Van Buren's confirmation was shallow and in bad taste, Marcy's defence was scarcely above the standard of a ward politician. Indeed, the attempted defence of his friend became the shame of both; since it forever fixed upon Marcy the odium of enunciating a vicious principle that continued to corrupt American political life for more than half a century, and confirmed the belief that Van Buren was an inveterate spoilsman.[273]
[Footnote 273: ”To this celebrated and execrable defence Van Buren owes much of the later and unjust belief that he was an inveterate spoilsman. Benton truly says that Van Buren's temper and judgment were both against it.”--Edward M. Shepard, _Life of Martin Van Buren_, p.
233.]
Probably an abler defence would in no wise have changed the result.
From the first a majority of senators had opposed Van Buren's confirmation, several of whom refrained from voting to afford Vice President Calhoun the exquisite satisfaction of giving the casting vote. ”It will kill him, sir, kill him dead,” Calhoun boasted in Benton's hearing; ”he will never kick, sir, never kick.” This was the thought of other opponents. But Thomas H. Benton believed otherwise.
”You have broken a minister and elected a Vice President,” he said.
”The people will see nothing in it but a combination of rivals against a compet.i.tor.”
This also was the prophecy of Thurlow Weed. While the question of rejection was still under consideration, that astute editor declared ”it would change the complexion of his prospects from despair to hope.
His presses would set up a fearful howl of proscription. He would return home as a persecuted man, throw himself upon the sympathy of the party, be nominated for Vice President, and huzzaed into office at the heels of General Jackson.”[274] On the evening Van Buren heard of his rejection, in London, Lord Auckland, afterward governor-general of India, said to him: ”It is an advantage to a public man to be the subject of an outrage.”
[Footnote 274: Thurlow Weed Barnes, _Life of Thurlow Weed_, Vol. 1, p.
375.]
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