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 Parties and patronage in the United Stat 
 
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Questions of the Day — LXVIII. 
 
 PARTIES AND PATRONAGE 
 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
 LYON GARDINER TYLER, M.A. 
 
 PRESIDENT OF WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE, VA.J AUTHOR OF "THE 
 
 LETTERS AND TIMES OF THE TYLERS," "a FEW FACTS FROM 
 
 THE RECORDS OF WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE," ETC. 
 
 * To place and power all public spirit tends. 
 In place and power all public spirit ends." 
 
 Tkontas Moore. 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 27 WEST TWENTV-THIRD ST. 27 KING WILLIAM ST., 
 
 Ijjc |imclurbocher $|kijs 
 1891 
 
'NlVtRsiTY 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Copyright, 1891 
 
 BY 
 
 LYON GARDINER TYLER 
 
 Ube Tftnicfterbocfter press, mew JJJorft 
 
 Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. — What is the Spoils System ? . . i 
 
 II. — The Federal Party, 1789-1801 . . 5 
 
 III. — The Republican Party, 1801-1825 . 30 
 IV. — The American System and the Spoils 
 
 System, 1824-1841 . . .41 
 
 V. — National Republicans, Democrats, and 
 
 Whigs, 1828-1844 . . . .55 
 
 VI. — The Whig Party and Tyler, 1841-1844, 59 
 
 VII. — Tyler, Polk, and Texas, 1844-1845 . 79 
 VIII. — The Spoils System Re-established, 1845- 
 
 1849 .... 96 
 
 IX. — Conclusion, 1849-1891 . . . 101 
 
 Appendix . . .... 109 
 
PARTIES AND PATRONAGE. 
 
 I. 
 
 WHAT IS THE SPOILS SYSTEM ? 
 
 IT seems to be the opinion of many writers 
 that the spoils system had its origin with 
 Andrew Jackson, because of the numerous 
 removals made by him of subordinate officers 
 during his administration of the national 
 government. But the view thus taken is, at 
 best, a narrow and imperfect one. To confine 
 the spoils system to removals from office or 
 to hold a particular president responsible for 
 effects the causes of which exist, in great 
 measure, independent of his will, is a singularly 
 unphilosophic way of looking at things. 
 
 To begin with removals from office is to 
 begin at the wrong end at any rate, for the 
 object of a partisan removal is a partisan 
 
2 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 appointment. The office has to be filled, in 
 the first place, before the removal can be made. 
 But both partisan appointments and' partisan 
 removals are far from commensurate with the 
 meaning of the term " spoils system." " Spoils 
 system " should be a general term applicable 
 to all those consequences flowing from an 
 abuse of the patronage of the government ; 
 for the corruption of the civil service, involved 
 in its partisan administration, is indissolubly 
 connected with the measures which corrupt the 
 men that control and the men that constitute 
 the civil service. As long as the present sys- 
 tem prevails of high tariffs, vast appropriations, 
 enormous expenditures, operating without any 
 man or state knowing how he or it is affected 
 by them, good, earnest, brave men like George 
 William Curtis, ex-President of the Civil- 
 Service Commission, will labor and labor in 
 vain to effect reform in the offices. It is a 
 suggestive fact that the English civil service 
 was not reformed until its illiberal commercial 
 system had been finally abandoned. 
 
 I think it easily demonstrated, therefore, 
 that civil-service corruption has flourished most 
 when the powers of the government have 
 
What is the Spoils System f 3 
 
 been strained to their widest construction ; for 
 it is then that we find, necessarily, private and 
 individual interests blending proportionably 
 with the operations of governments'. And as 
 in nearly every instance in which the pecuniary 
 forces of the nation have been brought into 
 operation, their springs of action have been 
 local or temporary, guided by no fixed princi- 
 ple such as is to be found in the relative 
 population and property of the several States, 
 it is natural to look to those periods in our his- 
 tory when the Federal government has assumed 
 to itself most authority, for the most conspicu- 
 ous exhibition of the system so much deplored. 
 I think it also can be shown that partisan 
 action has nourished least during those periods 
 and those administrations when the powers of 
 the government have been exerted with less 
 frequency or with something approaching 
 greater equality among the States and sec- 
 tions of the Union. Not always is a party 
 name significant of the same attitude borne 
 by its members towards the subject in ques- 
 tion ; for party, after all, is as variable as the 
 men that compose it, and thus the same party 
 may hold at different times entirely different 
 
4 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 principles, and be first the enemies of civil-ser- 
 vice corruption and next its devoted advocates 
 and friends. 
 
 I propose, in the pages that follow, to show 
 the truth of the general statement made above, 
 by examining — very briefly, it is true — the 
 leading features in the history of the several 
 parties that have contested the government of 
 the Union. I think it will assuredly appear — 
 assuming the explanation of the spoils system 
 to be what I have stated it to be, the result of 
 principles rather than of individual action 
 — that the evil of which we complain began at 
 a much earlier date than Andrew Jackson's 
 administration, having, in fact, its origin during 
 the organization of our national government 
 from 1789 to 1 80 1, and, while never entirely 
 suppressed, flourishing most according as the 
 same general principles of party administration 
 have been, during different periods, admitted 
 and recognized. 
 
II. 
 
 THE FEDERAL PARTY, I789-180I. 
 
 IT will be remembered that after the for- 
 mation of the Federal Constitution at 
 Philadelphia^ in 1787, it was submitted for 
 adoption or rejection to the conventions of 
 the several States. Opinion was nearly unani- 
 mous at the time that the powers vested, 
 under the Articles of Confederation, in the 
 Federal government were insufficient for the 
 discharge of its proper responsibility ; and 
 yet there was with many a very natural appre- 
 hension that the language of the proposed 
 Constitution was not as fixed and definite as it 
 might be. These last, called Anti-Federalists, 
 proposed a new convention to remove these 
 imperfections, whether real or apprehended ; 
 nor did their acknowledged patriotism and 
 elevated character suffer a doubt to remain of 
 the honesty of their purpose. By a large 
 
6 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 element of the country, however, the Con- 
 stitution was esteemed definite enough ; and 
 long and fierce were the debates which ac- 
 cordingly ensued in the conventions of the 
 several States. At length, however, the party 
 in favor of the adoption of the Constitution 
 prevailed ; but in the forefront of its columns 
 stood the money power of the land, which saw 
 in the increased authority accorded to the new 
 government immense opportunities for further 
 development. 1 
 
 Hammond, in his political history of New 
 York, 3 declares that the old divisions of party, 
 formed on the question of adopting the Con- 
 stitution, continued on what was a consequence 
 of the adoption, the construction of its terms. 
 In the distribution of individuals upon one 
 side or the other of this line, it is not to 
 be supposed that many anomalies did not 
 occur. That among the Federalists were to 
 be found the great majority of those who had 
 
 1 Mr. Chas. Francis Adams says that the Federalists ' ' would never 
 have succeeded in effecting the establishment of the Constitution had 
 they not received the active . . . co-operation of all that was left in 
 America of attachment to the mother country, as well as of the mon- 
 eyed interest, which ever points to strong government as surely as the 
 needle to the pole."' — Adams' " Adams," i., p. 443. 
 
 2 Hammond's " New York," i., p. 30. 
 
The Federal Party, 1789-1801. 7 
 
 supported the cause of the Constitution, and 
 most of those who had continued loyal to the 
 mother country during the Revolution, is cer- 
 tain. And equally certain it is that the Re- 
 publican party contained within its ranks a 
 decided majority not only of the Anti-Federal- 
 ists, but of those who had most strenuously 
 fought the battle of independence. 1 
 
 On the very first occasion, after the adop- 
 tion of the Constitution, for a conflict of issue, 
 viz., the elections to the first Congress in 
 1789, party lines were sharply drawn. The 
 success of the Federalists was assured by the 
 aid received from the public creditors ; and in 
 the unequal and arbitrary methods of public 
 policy, at once pursued by the government 
 which they had brought into power, is to 
 be seen the necessary price of their support. 
 
 1 This statement is made on the authority of Charles Francis 
 Adams, "Life of John Adams," i., p. 442, and of Hugh Blair 
 Grigsby, " Convention of 1788," i., p. 32. Grigsby shows that long 
 before 1789 parties had been formed not only on State topics but on 
 those connected with the Federal government. In Virginia the men 
 who in 1765 had opposed Henry's resolution on the stamp act ; who 
 in 1775 had opposed his resolution in favor of arming the Colony ; 
 who had opposed the Declaration of Independence ; who had op- 
 posed the adoption of the Articles of Confederation, were in the main 
 warm advocates of the adoption of the new Constitution. 
 
8 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 England was taken as the model ; and in 
 this model, as presented at that period, were 
 illustrated all the evils of the spoils system. 
 
 A vast range of patronage had been built 
 up in that country, and in the administration 
 of its rich and powerful interests the English 
 civil policy rioted in every form of corruption. 
 Commissions, offices, and posts of honor were 
 sold to the highest bidder, and the wholesale 
 bribery of voters was the ordinary course 
 of the elections from an office in Parliament 
 to the humblest position in a shire. The 
 great features on which this patronage was 
 founded were the vast funded debt of Eng- 
 land ; the Bank of England, with its enormous 
 agencies throughout the civilized world ; the 
 odious tariff and commercial system then pre- 
 vailing, but now happily abandoned ; and the 
 complex organization of an army and navy, 
 — all demanding the creation of thousands of 
 offices and the employment of thousands of 
 office-holders. 
 
 We are told by William Grayson that, as 
 soon as Congress assembled, in 1789, it was at 
 once besieged by an " infinity " of office-seekers 
 and creditors, who " looked to Congress for 
 
The Federal Party, //Sp-iSoi. g 
 
 some provisions in their favor." 1 To satisfy 
 them measures similar to the English system 
 were recommended by Hamilton, the Secretary 
 of the Treasury, under Washington. These 
 measures, though often of the first importance 
 in their proper nature, were rendered by the 
 way in which they were passed into law the 
 occasion of almost universal corruption. 
 
 At that time there was afloat in the United 
 States a considerable debt which had grown 
 out of the Revolutionary war. This debt was 
 of two kinds — the debt proper of the United 
 States, and the debts of the several States. 
 In the case of both, the evidences thereof, 
 bonds, etc., had passed from those to whom 
 they were originally due into the hands of 
 speculators and stock-jobbers. Whatever the 
 motive, Hamilton, in administering the duties 
 of the Treasury department, proposed that the 
 government should assume the payment of 
 
 1 ' ' The creditors of the domestic debt (the great supporters of the 
 new government) are now looking steadfastly on their friends for a 
 permanent provision in their interest. . . . There are an infinity of 
 persons here waiting for offices. Many of them have gone home for 
 want of money. This accounts for the great number of patriots who 
 were so very sanguine for the new government. " — Grayson to Henry, 
 " The Letters and Times of the Tylers." i., p. 168. 
 
io Parties and Patronage 
 
 a> ' 
 
 these debts ; and the funding and assump- 
 tion acts by which, after a long contest in 
 Congress, the deed was finally accomplished, 
 became famous in the annals of the Union. 
 
 This much may be said of them, that, if 
 they had been properly shaped and honestly 
 carried out, they would have been undoubt- 
 edly of great value in giving stability and 
 character to the government, and have recom- 
 mended themselves to the cordial approval of 
 the American people. But was this the case ? 
 It happened that many speculators of the 
 Eastern States owned an undue proportion 
 of the Revolutionary certificates of debt, 
 which, in most instances, had been purchased 
 from the poor soldiers, who could not wait 
 for their redemption, at merely nominal rates. 
 James Madison and the other Virginia repre- 
 sentatives wished to pay the purchasers at the 
 highest market-price and give the rest to the 
 original holders. But the Federalists thought 
 otherwise. The whole was paid at par to the 
 speculators, and the soldiers were thus cheated 
 out of their hard-earned wages. 1 Yet as to 
 
 1 Rives' " Madison," iii., pp. 76-90. Mr. Stone, of Maryland, 
 said that " it is a fact that the greatest part of the Continental debt 
 
The Federal Party, 1789-1801. 1 1 
 
 the Continental paper money which had been 
 made a legal tender, it was virtually repudiated 
 under the funding act. 
 
 In respect to the State debts, the facts were 
 worse. Some of the States, since the close of 
 the war, had made laudable endeavors to pay 
 their obligations. Others had received more 
 than their share of advances from the Federal 
 government. To carry out his general plan 
 of strengthening the Federal government by 
 drawing about it the support of the creditor 
 class, Hamilton proposed the assumption, in 
 gross, of the State debts, without any pre- 
 vious adjustment of accounts. The result was 
 that the other States became thus obligated, 
 through the Federal taxation, to pay the debts 
 of the States of New England, it appearing 
 from a list of the State debts accompanying the 
 Secretary's report that more than one half of 
 the aggregate State debts were due from those 
 States and South Carolina. 1 The burning 
 
 has travelled eastward of the Potomac." — Annals of Congress, 1789- 
 1791, p. 1982. The principle of Madison's proposition, though 
 voted down in the funding bill, received from both Congress and the 
 Executive a distinct recognition in another matter. — Rives, iii., pp. 
 88-90. 
 
 1 Massachusetts was to be rid by the assumption act of $4,000,000, 
 whereas, according to Federal representation, her just quota of the 
 
12 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 protest of the legislature of Virginia against 
 this corrupt action is the first in that long 
 series of protests which finally ended in war. 1 
 Of the scenes of corruption that ensued, by- 
 virtue of these unjust and unconstitutional 
 proceedings, Mr. Jefferson is a witness. Cou- 
 riers and relay horses went galloping by land, 
 and swift-sailing pilot-boats were sailing by 
 sea, and agents were employed in every State 
 to buy up, for two shillings on the pound, 
 paper and certificates of debt, before the hold- 
 ers knew that Congress had already provided 
 for their redemption at par. 2 
 
 After the same English model, the Federal- 
 whole amount assumed ($21,500,000) was $2,646,153. Virginia, on 
 the contrary, had paid $2,000,000 of her debt since the peace, and 
 had funded the balance at six per cent, interest, which was regularly 
 paid. But no credit for this was allowed under the assumption act. 
 Jackson, of Georgia, charged that the representatives of South Caro- 
 lina did not voice the opinions of her people.- — Annals of Congress., 
 1789-90, p. 1749. See Rives, iii., pp. 91-122. 
 
 1 Rives, iii., p. 149. Hen. Stats. Mr. Gallatin clearly showed 
 that, by the assumption in the way conducted, a purely gratuitous 
 debt of more than $10,000,000 was saddled upon the country. — 
 "Views on the Finances." 
 
 a "Jefferson's Works." Mr. Madison, Gen. Henry Lee, and Jack- 
 son, of Georgia, confirm Mr. Jefferson's statements. Lee, in a letter 
 of August 24, 1791, says concerning a. journey from Philadelphia : 
 ' ' My whole route presented to me a combined scene of stoclc 
 gambling.' - See Rives, iii., pp. 76, 144, 145. 
 
The Federal Party, 1789-1801. 13 
 
 ists created a national bank, enacted a tariff 
 system of protection for New England inter- 
 ests, established a bounty system for the 
 fishermen, an internal-revenue system, 1 and 
 organized an army and navy ; but the good 
 inherent in some of these measures they 
 almost entirely neutralized by the inequalities 
 of their application and the recklessness with 
 which they disregarded all constitutional limi- 
 tations in defending them. The manner, too, 
 in which many of the representatives in Con- 
 gress shared in the spoils of their own votes 
 is unsurpassed in shamelessness. 2 
 
 How could the lust for private gain, 
 sharpened by these measures, be restrained 
 from attacking the civil service of the gov- 
 ernment ? Their natural operation demanded 
 the creation of numerous offices, for their 
 proper execution and enforcement ; and we 
 
 1 These measures were all shown to be in the interest of the New 
 England States. As to the first tariff, see Grayson's letter, Tylers, 
 i., p. 167. As to the bank, see "Prospect before Us,'' Annals of 
 Congress, Rives, and newspapers of the day. 
 
 8 Among those who made money in this way were Smith, of South 
 Carolina (Randall's " Jefferson," i., p. 606), and Theodore Sedgwick 
 and James Hillhouse, of Connecticut, the second named a Speaker 
 of the House of Representatives.— Wood's "Adams,"p. 138, "Sedg- 
 wick & Co." 
 
14 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 have the emphatic testimony of William B. 
 Giles, 1 and many others of high authority, 
 that as soon as they were created they were 
 filled with "fierce and relentless partisans." 
 Hammond says that as the appointments by 
 Washington, in New York, were made on the 
 representation of Hamilton, John Jay, and 
 General Schuyler, all the Federal offices, from 
 chief-justice down to marshal, were filled 
 for political effect with Federalists.* 
 
 And the same thing occurred in Virginia, 8 
 where the district judgeship, the most impor- 
 tant Federal office in the State, was given to 
 Cyrus Griffin, a Federalist, instead of to John 
 Tyler, who, as Judge of the State Court of 
 Admiralty, which had been superseded by the 
 aforesaid District Court, considered his non- 
 nomination a removal from office. And 
 Tyler, to whom the office was afterwards re- 
 
 1 Annals of Congress, 1801-2, pp. 579-82. 
 
 2 John Jay was appointed Chief- Justice ; James Duane, Judge of 
 the U. S. District Court ; Richard Harrison, U. S. District Attor- 
 ney ; and William Smith, Marshal — all decided Federalists, and oppo- 
 nents of Governor Clinton. Hammond, p. 30 ; Tylers, i., p. 168. 
 
 3 John Blair was appointed Associate- Justice of the U. S. Supreme 
 Court ; Edmund Randolph, U. S. Attorney-General ; Cyrus Griffin, 
 Judge of the U. S. District Court ; John Marshall, District Attorney ; 
 and Edward Carrington, U. S. Marshal — all of them Federalists. 
 
The Federal Party, ij8tp-i8oi. 15 
 
 stored by President Madison, speaking of this 
 action of the Federalists, which was made the 
 principle of appointment in all similar cases, 
 despite the natural pretensions of the incum- 
 bents of the old offices under the States to 
 the new offices substituted for them under 
 the Constitution, declared that " this kind of 
 conduct began the strong distinction between 
 parties, producing a spirit of retaliation on 
 the part of the Republicans." 1 In 1796, Sena- 
 tor Henry Tazewell, writing 2 to James Monroe, 
 declared that every important officer south of 
 the Potomac had been succeeded by one north 
 of it, save two — Monroe and Iredell, — and the 
 
 1 Tylers, i., p. 246. 
 
 2 "Mr. Pinckney, and Mr. Short, having signified a wish to be 
 recalled, the President this day nominated Rufus King to succeed the 
 former at the Court of London, and Col. Humphreys to succeed the 
 latter at Madrid. Blair, of Virginia, has resigned his office as judge, 
 and Chase, of Maryland, has succeeded him. Rutledge, of South 
 Carolina, who had been appointed Chief-Justice of the U. S. in the 
 place of Mr. Jay, in the recess of the Senate had accepted and acted, 
 was refused by the Senate. So that you will discover that every > 
 officer So. of the Potomac has been succeeded by men north of that 
 line. In fact, Iredell, of No. Carolina, and yourself, are now the only 
 officers of the Gl. Gt. S. of Potomac who hold imminent positions. 
 
 I doubt not that your place will be supplied by some one No. of that 
 river. The conduct of the President in other instances, prompted as 
 he is by men who wish your recall, leads to a suspicion that he may 
 yield to their importunities." MS., Philadelphia, 14th May, 1796. 
 
i6 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 former, also, was soon after removed by his 
 recall from France. It was worse after Wash- 
 ington left the government in 1 797> an d John 
 Adams, typifying the full English idea of 
 patronage, succeeded. 
 
 The Federalists in possession of the State 
 offices kept pace with the national govern- 
 ment. In New England the town politics had 
 been long a source of spoils and corruption, 
 and Mr. Gerry, of Massachusetts, had alluded 
 in the Federal convention to the base charac- 
 ter of the men who got into the Legislature of 
 that State by the dirtiest means. 1 
 
 So open were the attacks made ft\ Massa- 
 chusetts on the freedom of elections, that John 
 Adams himself condemned them as "unwar- 
 
 1 Mr. Gerry said : "In Massachusetts the worst men get into the 
 Legislature. Several members of that body were lately convicted of 
 infamous crimes." — " Madison Papers," p. 801. 
 
 Massachusetts was the first colony to issue paper money which 
 largely depreciated. As she took the lead in the business, so she 
 went beyond all the other colonies in the amount of their issue. — 
 Phillips' "Paper Currency," p. ioo. Governors were elected and 
 turned out as the different interests happened to prevail. "The 
 paper currency was an easy way," says Phillips, " to pay old debts." 
 —p. 105. 
 
 Complaint had been made in the Boston Gazette, while the Massa- 
 chusetts Convention of 1787 was sitting, that money had been 
 employed by the Federalists to corrupt members ; but though a com- 
 mittee was appointed to enquire into the charge, no report was made. 
 — " Elliot's Debates," ii., p. 50. 
 
The Federal Party, //Sp-iSoi. 17 
 
 rantable and indecent." * In Connecticut, as in 
 , Massachusetts, a system of restricting the ballot 
 to a list of official nominations made by an 
 oligarchical interest had long prevailed ; and 
 by an act passed in 1801 the Federalists were 
 confirmed in the possession of Connecticut 
 until the convention of 1 818 at length modified 
 the objectionable laws. 2 In Rhode Island, 
 which had witnessed the whole Supreme Court 
 driven from their seats in 1786 for daring to 
 maintain the Constitution against an arrogant 
 legislature, scenes of a similar character were 
 enacted. Rhode Island continued a close 
 oligarchy until Dorr's Rebellion in 1842 pro- 
 duced a change. 
 
 In New York, the Federalists appear to 
 have resorted to every art to defeat the elec- 
 tion of George Clinton 3 for governor, in 
 1789, and in 1801 De Witt Clinton roundly 
 
 1 "John Adams' Works," i., p. 474. 
 
 2 The law required the ballot-box to be sealed up, and to remain so 
 until the Legislature met. In the meantime the voters were at the 
 mercy of the counters. Professor Baldwin's ' ' Early History of the 
 Ballot in Connecticut" ; American Hist. So. " Papers," iv., p. 81 ; 
 Wood's " Adams," pp. 256-9. 
 
 The practical effect of similar laws in Colonial Massachusetts was 
 to continue the Assistants and Selectmen in office for life. — Perry's 
 " Historical Collections" (Massachusetts), p. 21. 
 
 3 Tylers, i., p. 168. " He gave me such an account of his business 
 as shocked me." — Grayson to Henry. 
 
1 8 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 charged, 1 in the Council of Appointment, that 
 "the administration of the State had been in 
 hands which had made all the appointments 
 in one way, to the exclusion of a large pro- 
 portion of the people." And in Virginia, 
 where the Federalists obtained possession of 
 the County Courts, which nominated all the 
 officers in the counties, a despotic domination 
 was established — all the more grievous, be- 
 cause, though constituting but a small fraction 
 of the people, they were, under the Constitu- 
 tion, in office for life, and "nothing short of a 
 convention could break up the junto." 2 As 
 late as 1816, Jefferson writes of a family of 
 Federalists in Virginia who got possession of 
 the county bench early in the history of the 
 government, and " never admitted a man upon 
 it that was not of their clan or connection." 
 A circular-letter was issued by the Governor to 
 correct such inequalities, but no attention was 
 paid to the recommendations it contained. 3 
 
 ^National Intelligencer, September 7, 1801. 
 
 a "Jeff. Works.," vii., p. 18. William Munford's address on the 
 necessity of a convention (1799). 
 
 3 James Blake, and George Summers, writing from Fairfax 
 County in 18 10, complained of the slight paid to the Executive, and 
 said that ' ' out of five Federalists recommended by the last court for 
 justices, four lived in the same neighborhood where there were four 
 
The Federal Party, ij8g—i8oi. 19 
 
 Distrust of the people, and jealousy of his • 
 personal prerogatives, appear to have been 
 the characteristics of John Adams ; though in 
 talent and personal integrity he was far supe- 
 rior to the race of speculating and stock-job- 
 bing "aristocrats" by whom hewas surrounded. 
 The popular uprising in Massachusetts, during 
 the year 1 786, seems to have prepossessed him 
 strongly against popular government, and this 
 spirit of distrust was shown in an inordinate 
 affectation of English ideas, which ran through 
 the whole category of high-sounding titles, 
 court levees, and society dress. 1 
 
 According to his own letters, Adams cen- 
 sured Washington, who had appointed a few 
 Republicans to office, and prided himself on 
 his " cautiousness " in this respect. In Con- 
 gress his mouth-pieces — Bayard and Otis — 
 laid down, with a precision worthy of Marcy, 
 the principle of the spoils. The first an- 
 
 acting magistrates before, and in one case a young man was nomi- 
 nated who lived in the same house with his step-father, also a justice, 
 whilst in other parts of the county the people had to ride ten miles 
 to a justice." — MS. State Archives. 
 
 1 Grayson wrote: "It is said that he (Adams) was the primum 
 mobile in the Senate for the titles for the President, in hopes that in 
 the scramble he might get a slice for himself . "—Tylers, i., p. 169. 
 
20 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 nounced ' " that the politics of the office-seeker 
 would be the great object of the President's 
 attention, and an invincible objection if dif- 
 ferent from his own," and the latter 8 that 
 " the pecuniary claims of Henry Miller for 
 extra clerk's hire," occasioned by his leaving 
 his office to electioneer for Adams was " a 
 paltry consideration infinitely outweighed by 
 the service he was rendering his country" in 
 so doing. 
 
 Adams throttled the press by the sedition 
 laws, 3 and debauched its editors by numerous 
 appointments to office in Virginia 4 and else- 
 where. I n the difficulties with France, he would 
 not rely upon the militia, which was probably 
 all right, but what was certainly all wrong, he 
 made the political principles of the volunteers, 
 authorized to be raised, the test of their accept- 
 ance to fight for their country. 5 Tax-collect- 
 
 1 Annals of Congress, 1797-98, p. 1232. 
 
 3 National Intelligencer, August 14, 1801. 
 
 s The press on both sides was equally abusive, but the hand of the 
 government fell on the Republicans only. Many were sent to cruel 
 confinement in jail for months. — Wood's ' ' Adams " ; National Intel- 
 ligencer, 
 
 4 In Virginia, Davis and Green, two editors, were appointed to 
 office. — Richmond Enquirer, 1804. 
 
 5 Nicholas complained that " the only preference for volunteers 
 hat occurred to him was, that the President had the appointment of 
 
The Federal Party, 1789— 1801. 21 
 
 ors 1 and judges, even those of the highest stamp, 
 turned active electioneerers. This was hardly 
 to be wondered at when men like Jay, Marshall, 
 and Ellsworth, whose personal purity is un- 
 questioned, saw no impropriety in uniting the 
 highest judicial functions with political offices 
 which almost necessarily made them partisans. 
 It is an historic fact that, while acting as chief- 
 justices, all three accepted missions abroad or 
 offices quite as incompatible at home, some- 
 times on the same day issuing reports in their 
 political character and delivering judgments in 
 their judicial. 2 The chief-justices communi- 
 cated the disease to their associates in a more 
 malignant type. At the beginning of August, 
 1800, Judge Chase left the bench to stump 
 
 the officers of those corps, whereas the militia officers were appointed 
 by the State Governments. " He read an extract from a letter of the 
 Secretary of War to an officer of high rank in the militia of Virginia, 
 which declared that "it was proper that there should be presented 
 certificates from prominent and known characters, setting forth the 
 principles of the associates — those of the officers especially." — " Deb. 
 on the Res. of Virginia and Kentucky," p. 205. 
 
 1 " In some parts of this State the assessors of the direct tax were 
 lately distributing from their pockets ' The Cannibal's Progress ' 
 and other infamous publications of the same kind." — Richmond 
 Examiner, Oct. 21, 1800. 
 
 2 Wharton shows that there was no precedent even in England 
 for such blending of judicial and ministerial duties. — Wharton's 
 "State Trials," Preliminary Notes. 
 
22 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 the State of Maryland in behalf of Adams' 
 administration, and the result was that the 
 Supreme Court, Ellsworth the Chief-Justice 
 being then on the French mission, was left for 
 a whole term without a quorum. 1 
 
 One would suppose that the Federalists, 
 who had had the first filling of the offices, 
 would have had few occasions to turn any one 
 out. But as the election in 1800 approached, 
 Adams appears to have had some matters to 
 settle on this score as well. Adams removed 
 William Gardner, Commissioner of the Loan 
 Office at Portsmouth, N. H., because he would 
 not sign an address of flattery. Wood says 
 that, " the same system of persecution was 
 immediately extended over the whole con- 
 tinent. Every person holding an office was 
 obliged to resign, or adore Mr. Adams as the 
 Augustus of the New World. A catalogue 
 of such expulsions would fill a pamphlet." 2 
 
 1 In Massachusetts the chief-justice in a charge to a grand jury 
 denounced ' ' the French system-mongers from the quin-tumvirate 
 at Paris, to the Vice-President ( Jefferson) and minority of Congress, as 
 apostles of atheism and anarchy, bloodshed and plunder." Wharton 
 says there was not a charge to the grand jury "which was not, at the 
 same time, a party harangue." — Ibid. 
 
 8 Two other persons were removed at the same time with Gardner — 
 the captain of the revenue cutter at Portsmouth and the Collector of 
 
The Federal Party, 1789-180/. 23 
 
 There were men of the highest worth who, 
 even then, saw in this action of Mr. Adams 
 all the evil that ever developed under Jackson 
 or any of the carpet-bag governments estab- 
 lished in the South after the late war. 1 
 
 After his defeat by Jefferson in 1800, Adams 
 increased his efforts to enlarge the patronage of 
 the government. A systematic attempt seems 
 to have been made by the Federalists to pack 
 
 the Revenue. The people of Portsmouth had been notified in advance 
 "by Russell, a printer in the interest of the government, that the signing 
 would be considered as a test, and after the refusal to sign of the 
 parties mentioned, he called loudly upon the government " to tumble 
 them from their offices." — Richmond Examiner, Jan. 17, 1800 ; 
 Richmond Enquirer, May 17, 1805. 
 
 In Philadelphia, Dr. James Reynolds was removed from the dis- 
 pensary because he was an Irishman and a Republican. Thereupon, 
 his five associates also resigned and their places were filled with 
 Federalists. — Ibid. See also Callender's "Prospect before Us.'' 
 The Richmond Examiner further said that, "in the Spring of 1798 
 several persons at Philadelphia were turned out of bread because they 
 -voted for Israel instead of Morgan, as Senator for the Assembly of 
 Pennsylvania. Mr. Israel, it is true, is a Republican." The removal 
 of Tench Coxe produced complaint from many good men. The 
 Federal historian, Hildreth, speaks of him as " a mousing politician," 
 but until he attempted to prove Adams to be a monarchist he stood 
 high in the opinion of the administration. Coxe retained through 
 life the warm friendship of Jefferson and Madison. 
 
 1 Mr. Nicholas condemned the conduct of the administration in 
 bribing men with offices, and removing them ' ' for daring to hazard 
 an opinion of an adverse character, " and predicted great abuse in the 
 future. — "Debates on the Resolutions of Virginia and Kentucky," 
 p. 205. 
 
24 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 the judiciary. That department, it was true, 
 was already filled with men who did not hesi- 
 tate to electioneer and exhibit their federalism 
 from the bench in the most indecorous man- 
 ner ; but to provide for still other partisans, a 
 bill was introduced after Mr. Adams' defeat 
 for re-election in 1800 to erect thirty-six new 
 judgeships, to be called Circuit Courts. Late 
 in the last session of his term of office, the bill 
 was hurried through Congress and the ap- 
 pointments placed in his hands. Adams did 
 not hesitate in the exercise of his power. 
 Without even a feeling of shame that he was 
 appointing men to office for life whose prin- 
 ciples had been just condemned by the people, 
 and without even waiting to know whether the 
 district judges would accept the new places in 
 the face of the storm which ultimately swept 
 away the law, he instituted a system of amotion 
 from one bench to the other, and even nomi- 
 nated, in the cases of Mr. Reed and another 
 person, two of the very members of Congress 
 who had voted for the bill, to the vacancies 
 thus enforced in the District Courts. Now, the 
 Constitution said that all judges should hold 
 "during good behavior," and yet it actually 
 happened, as one of the results of Mr. Adams' 
 
The Federal Party, /y8g-i8oi. 25 
 
 zeal, that two persons held the same commis- 
 sion at the same time from the Executive to 
 perform the same duties, while the office 
 to which the promotion was made remained 
 vacant. In the case of Mr. Green, who voted 
 for the bill, such was the extreme culpability 
 or negligence of Mr. Adams, that he was ac- 
 tually commissioned to the bench of the Cir- 
 cuit Court, although the Constitution forbade 
 the appointment of a member of Congress to 
 any civil office under the authority of the 
 United States, " which shall have been created 
 or the emoluments whereof shall have been 
 increased during the term for which he was 
 elected." l 
 
 But this is not half the story of the closing 
 session. 
 
 An inspection of the Executive Journal is 
 enough to surprise any person even in this 
 day of indiscriminate proscription. A perfect 
 army of surveyors, collectors, judges, were 
 sent to the complaisant Senate for their ap- 
 proval. The chiefs of the repudiated regency 
 
 1 Giles' speech. Annals of Congress, 1801, p. 581. Wood, p. 336. 
 The Federalists excused themselves by pleading the business neces- 
 sity for Circuit Courts, but this could not be allowed as long as judges 
 of the highest courts had time to run on political errands, closing up 
 court in the meantime. — Wharton's " State Trials." 
 
26 Parlies and Patronage. 
 
 treated themselves to high offices. John Mar- 
 shall made himself Chief-Justice for life, and 
 yet held on to the office of Secretary of State ; 
 Theophilus Parsons was made Attorney-Gen- 
 eral ; Harrison G. Otis, of the Essex junto, 
 who had persecuted Jefferson with the utmost 
 party virulence, became District Attorney of 
 Massachusetts ; and James A. Bayard, of the 
 Senate, was made Minister Plenipotentiary to 
 France. Down to twelve o'clock of the night 
 of March 3, 1801, the work Went on; and 
 when all the important offices were filled, 
 Adams busied himself making appointments 
 of justices of the peace for the District of 
 Columbia. But at that hour Levi Lincoln, 
 the Attorney-General appointed by Mr. Jeffer- 
 son, entered the office of the acting-Secretary 
 of State, John Marshall, bearing Mr. Jeffer- 
 son's watch in his hand, and required him to 
 surrender the place and all its papers. Judge 
 Marshall was forced to retire, casting a fare- 
 well look upon the commissions lying on the 
 table, and in after years used to laugh, and say 
 that " he had been allowed to pick up nothing 
 but his hat." 1 
 
 1 " Domestic Life of Jefferson," p. 308. 
 
The Federal Party, ij8g—i8oi. 27 
 
 The Federal regime drew at last to an end, 
 and never were people more rejoiced than the 
 Republicans were, who complained that the 
 past presented an endless vista of outrage and 
 corruption ; offices made the prey of wire- 
 workers and bitter partisans who had reviled 1 
 Jefferson without limit ; extortion, speculation, 
 and stock-jobbing among men high in au- 
 thority 2 ; the judiciary polluted by political in- 
 triguery ; espionage studiously encouraged 8 ; 
 nepotism favored in the highest places 4 ; and 
 what was worse than all, the base attempt 
 made by the Federal party in Congress to 
 steal the presidency from Jefferson and foist 
 Aaron Burr upon the nation — a gigantic at- 
 
 1 John Randolph said that ' ' every epithet of vituperation was ex- 
 hausted upon Jefferson." " Debates, 1828," p. 1323. 
 
 * Sedgwick, Speaker of the House of Representatives, had specu- 
 lated largely in paper certificates coming under the assumption laws. 
 More unblushing still was Jonathan Dayton, Speaker of the House 
 of Representatives in 1796, who used his office to secure the passage 
 of a bill to locate military warrants, in which he was largely inter- 
 ested, his published letters to his agents being of such a character as 
 to induce his request " to burn them." — Wood, 158, note 1. 
 
 3 The spy, Oram, was celebrated. — Wood, p. 126. 
 
 4 Adams appointed his son, J. Q. Adams, his son's father-in-law, Mr. 
 Johnson, and his brother-in-law, Col. Smith, besides other relations, 
 "to important offices. Jefferson said that Adams ' ' infinitely degraded 
 himself by his conduct on this subject, as General Washington had 
 done himself the greatest honor." — " Jefferson's Works," iv., p. 388. 
 
28 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 tempt at spoils without parallel in any period 
 of our history. 1 
 
 Such were the complaints of the Republi- 
 cans, and it must be admitted, looking at the 
 plain facts in the case, that they were founded 
 on much that was true. It is certain that 
 there is not a single feature of the " spoils 
 system," as practised by Jackson, or at any 
 other period of our history, that had not its 
 prototype in the decade immediately preced- 
 ing the close of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Adams' last act was one calculated greatly 
 to mortify his warmest admirers. After busily 
 filling all the offices down to a late hour of the 
 night of March 3, 1801, he disappeared in the 
 night-time, with his cabinet and hangers-on. 
 Not even his biographer and grandson can 
 justify this act, though he seeks to excuse the 
 weakness of the step by ascribing some of the 
 trouble to a sad family bereavement two weeks 
 before. Adams is said to have shed tears at 
 his defeat, 2 and such was the extreme despera- 
 
 ' Mr. Charles Francis Adams observes that " by this act the great 
 Federal party . . . sunk into obscurity and disgrace ; martyrs to 
 the false and immoral maxim that the end will sometimes justify the 
 means. "— " Life of John Adams," i., p. 595. 
 
 ! Tucker's " History of the United States," ii., p. 137. 
 
The Federal Party, 1789-1801. 29 
 
 tion of some of the Federalists that the sug- 
 gestion was made to him that he should ap- 
 point himself Chief-Justice, with a commission 
 to take effect as soon as his presidential tenure 
 terminated. 1 In Connecticut in the spring of 
 1 80 1 the last frantic act of the Federalists was 
 to sweep the offices of all Republicans. 3 
 
 1 Randall's ' ' Jefferson, " ii. , p. 626. 
 
 5 Rayner's " Jefferson," p. 397. Among other sins to be imputed 
 to the Federalists is the first of the series of personal flagellations in 
 Congress. Lyon of Vermont and Griswold of Connecticut came to 
 Wows in the presence of the Speaker. 
 
III. 
 
 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, 180I-1825. 
 
 JEFFERSON came into power at a time 
 when the Republicans of Pennsylvania 
 and New York had begun to retaliate 
 upon the Federalists for their systematic ex- 
 clusion from the offices. There could have 
 been no accident in this exclusion, for the 
 design was apparent in the fact that the 
 more adept the party was in hurling billings- 
 gate at Jefferson or Virginia, the more certain 
 was he of an appointment from Adams. In 
 Virginia Charles Symmes, who had revived the 
 story of Jefferson's running away in terror from 
 the British during his governorship, was Naval 
 Collector at Alexandria. 1 The papers were 
 unanimous in saying that where Adams did 
 
 1 The Enquirer sets out many certificates in favor of Jefferson's 
 administration of the State, but the best evidence exists in the fact 
 that he received, the thanks of the General Assembly (in a speech 
 addressed to him by the Speaker, John Tyler. — See Tyler's certifi- 
 cate, Richmond Enquirer, Sept. 10, 1805). 
 
 30 
 
The Republican Party, 1801-1825. 31 
 
 not directly remove he caused the resignations 
 of all opposed to him in politics, and appointed 
 others " in whom he could confide for an ad- 
 herence to all his measures." 
 
 The difference, however, after all between 
 the parties in a particular section is only one 
 of degree, and so the principles of the Repub- 
 licans in the tariff States of Pennsylvania and 
 New York, controlled as they were by the same 
 general purposes, were nearer the principles 
 of the Federalists of New England than the 
 principles of the Republicans of the South. 
 Hence far from pursuing the example of 
 McKean in Pennsylvania and De Witt Clin- 
 ton in New York, of removing in retaliation the 
 Federalists from the offices, Jefferson and his 
 successors, Madison and Monroe, naturally 
 adopted those ideas of public policy which 
 they had learned at home. 
 
 Now to say that these ideas were opposed 
 to removals from office is only stating part of 
 the truth. They were opposed to the spoils 
 system in all its forms and attitudes. And this 
 opposition itself sprang from what bordered 
 
 1 The National Intelligencer, Aug. 26, 1801 ; Richmond Enquirer, 
 May 3, 1805 ; Wood ; "Jefferson's Works.'' 
 
32 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 on a passion with the Virginia people — 
 jealousy of government. 
 
 Indeed, it is a curious fact that while New 
 England was intensely aristocratic and mon- 
 archical after the Revolution, on Virginia, 
 nearly half of whose people were slaves, de- 
 volved the honor of preserving republican 
 principles in America. Jefferson was not the 
 author of these principles, he was only their 
 expression. Spotswood recognized their exist- 
 ence as early as 1 7 1 2 l when he complained of the 
 Burgesses " for their Republican ways of think- 
 ing"; and Dinwiddie, 2 when he spoke of the 
 insolence of the House in sending their mace- 
 bearer "within the bar of the Supreme Court 
 and taking away the ministers of that Court as 
 were members of their House." They cropped 
 out in the Bill of Rights ; in the resistance 
 made to the British ; in the prostration of the 
 Established Church ; in the adoption of the 
 elective system of study at William and Mary 3 ; 
 
 1 " Spotswood Letters," i„ p. 132 ; ii., p. 1. 
 
 5 " Dinwiddie Papers," ii., p. 403 (1756). 
 
 3 So intense a Republican was Bishop James Madison, President 
 of William and Mary, that in his sermons he would never speak of 
 Heaven as a kingdom, but as that great republic where there was no 
 distinction of rank and where all men were free and equal. 
 
The Republican Party, 1801-1825. 33 
 
 in the opposition made to the adoption of the 
 Constitution; in the simplicity of manners and 
 dress everywhere cultivated ; and lastly, with 
 respect to the offices, in the limited power of 
 the governor under the Constitution, the civil- 
 service examination to which under the State 
 law all surveyors were subjected by the facul- 
 ty of William and Mary College, and in the 
 disapproval by the people and the large ma- 
 jority of the Virginian delegation, including 
 the two first senators, R. H. Lee and Gray- 
 son, of the removal power of the President. 
 If in the absence of an organized system of 
 schools, in the presence of negroes and the slow 
 movements of business, there was much to be 
 deplored in the condition of things in Virginia, 
 seldom has the world seen a greater moral ele- 
 vation, or a more noble simplicity and integrity 
 of character, than that which the general society 
 of the State enjoyed at this time. 1 The con- 
 
 1 Giles boasted in the State convention of 1829-30 : 
 "This most honorable celebrity, in favor of Virginians, had been 
 manifested on many occasions and in various ways since the aban- 
 donment of ali moral principles, and the introduction of an unprin- 
 cipled bargaining, huckstering, and trafficking in the legislation of 
 the Federal government alike degrading to its authors and the gov- 
 ernment. It has been particularly attested by the acknowledgments 
 and declarations of the busy authors themselves of this unprincipled 
 3 
 
34 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 tradictions of human history are such that this 
 result need not excite surprise, even with the 
 most skeptical. 
 
 To the " spoils system " at any rate the 
 Virginia doctrines were averse 1 ; and Jeffer- 
 son could not be otherwise than averse to 
 it also. As soon, therefore, as he entered 
 on his duties, he applied himself to reducing 
 the patronage of the government to the level 
 of that simplicity to which he was accustomed 
 in Virginia. In the abolition of the court 
 etiquette, levees, aristocratic toilets, high- 
 sounding titles, and formal speeches from the 
 throne, an immense stride was taken in the 
 direction of honesty and simplicity in the 
 
 trafficking course of legislation. It has often been observed, when 
 a proposition was made of introducing a Virginian into any of these 
 .trafficking schemes, it is in vain to apply to him. He is a Virginian. 
 Virginians never abandon their principles to their interests. " — P. 910. 
 
 1 Webster in his speech in Richmond in 1840 declared that "Vir- 
 ginia more than any other State in the Union had disavowed and con- 
 demned the doctrine of removals from office for opinions' sake." 
 — "Works," ii., p. 99. 
 
 " Mr. Coalter considered the gentleman from Rockbridge (Mr. 
 Moore) as having pronounced one of the greatest eulogiums that ever 
 was uttered on any government. He was here during an election for 
 governor and did not hear the name of the candidate till after the 
 election." — " Debates Va. Convention," 1829-30, p. 719. The State 
 officers were not disturbed by the change of parties until after 1834. 
 Tylers, i., p. 524. 
 
The Republican Party, 1801-1825. 35 
 
 government, and when Jefferson addressed 
 himself to the offices the principle of his action 
 was in direct conflict with that of the Federal- 
 ists, who had " excluded from place every shade 
 of opinion which was not theirs." 
 
 The sin of the Federalists had consisted in 
 the passage of measures which had spread 
 demoralization far and wide throughout the 
 nation, by subsidizing thousands of speculators 
 and multiplying the offices, the appointments 
 to which they monopolized. While unable to 
 have all the measures repealed, Jefferson made 
 many very desirable reforms in the general ad- 
 ministration. I mention a few only : 
 
 The amount of force, including regulars and 
 militia, which the several acts of the preceding 
 administration had authorized the President to 
 raise, was considerably over 100,000 men. This 
 formidable army, which would have been with- 
 out criticism if it had been employed as it 
 should have been long before, in resisting the 
 encroachments of the French and the British, 
 was out of place in view of the peace policy of 
 the times. Accordingly, Jefferson very prop- 
 erly reduced it to four regiments of infantry, 
 two regiments of artillery, and two troops of 
 
36 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 light dragoons. A host of lucrative places 
 went out with the reduction. 
 
 Proceeding next to the civil establishment, 
 he withheld all commissions to justices 1 of 
 the District of Columbia, and others, which 
 the Adams administration had not had 
 time to issue. The inspectors of the internal 
 revenue, who had been brought into office 
 by the mere authority of the Executive, he 
 discontinued in a mass. Calling in the aid 
 of Congress, he next had the late judiciary act 
 and the internal-revenue laws repealed and in 
 so doing closed up three fourths of all the 
 offices, containing an army of stipendiaries. 2 
 
 1 Marbury, one of the justices, applied to the Supreme Court for a 
 mandamus to compel Jefferson to deliver his commission, but the 
 application was refused. 
 
 2 Tucker's "Jefferson," ii., p. 120. 
 
 There was no way, however, to rid the government of John Mar- 
 shall, who continued for years to impress upon it a policy condemned 
 by the overwhelming voice of the people during the rest of his life. 
 The great talents of Marshall and his purity of character as an indi- 
 vidual alone rescued his memory from the odium attaching to the 
 other "midnight judges.'' His position as Secretary of State, as it 
 seems to me, renders his acceptance of the office of Chief-Justice at 
 the time he did, highly censurable. Adams could not have acted 
 worse if he had indeed appointed himself Chief- Justice, as he was 
 urged to do. What would people nowadays think of a Chief- Justice 
 who would dine with a party under indictment of high treason? 
 And yet Marshall dined with Burr during trial. 
 3 
 
The Republican Party, 1801-1825. 37 
 
 No new appointments were made to any of 
 these positions, and in disarming the Federal- 
 ists, Jefferson rescued his own motives from 
 imputation by surrendering freely his own 
 patronage and authority. Of the remaining 
 one fourth left in office, Jefferson removed under 
 one hundred in eight years, and promoted Re- 
 publicans to the vacancies. But what was that 
 small number compared with the hundreds and 
 hundreds of partisan appointments and remov- 
 als made by the Federalists ? 
 
 Under James Madison there were only five 
 removals during eight years, and under James 
 Monroe only thirteen. 
 
 Under all three presidents, in fine, whatever 
 their mistakes, everything like speculation, 
 personal, interest, and private favor was dis- 
 countenanced and condemned. During all 
 their rule of twenty-four years no measure 
 was passed into law which brought one dollar 
 more into the pockets of the Southern people 
 than was brought into the pockets of the 
 Northern. The very measures which excited 
 most complaint — the embargo and non-inter- 
 course laws — bore heavily upon the exports of 
 the South. And while we may quarrel with 
 
38 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 Jefferson and Madison for bearing the insults 
 and outrages of France and Great Britain so 
 long, they have an apology in the fact that the 
 opposite party were even more timid and cau- 
 tious than themselves. Some idea of the 
 national demoralization occasioned by the acts 
 of the Federalists may be gained from the fact 
 that the capture and imprisonment by the 
 English of six thousand of our citizens cost the 
 New England States (among the first to resist 
 the tyranny of the British in 1775), not one 
 half the concern that the restrictions of the 
 embargo did for a single year. 
 
 We may smile at Jefferson's ideas of a proper 
 navy, and bewail the new lease of life given 
 reluctantly by Madison in 18 16 to the gigantic 
 monopoly of the United States Bank, and the 
 construction given by Monroe in favor of un- 
 limited appropriations on the part of the gov- 
 ernment ; but no one can read the messages of 
 these great men without recognizing the fact 
 that their influence and authority were not to 
 be purchased by sectional or partial interests. 
 They fully recognized the advantages of manu- 
 factures, education, and internal improvements, 
 but they would never have approved, and 
 
The Republican Parly, 1801-1825. 39 
 
 never did approve, the unblushing system sub- 
 sequently made popular, by the revival of 
 Federalism, of subsidized personal interests 
 under the name of "protection," and the 
 American system. All three presidents con- 
 stantly recommended, in doubtful cases, a 
 recourse to the States under the amendment 
 clause of the Constitution 1 ; and they all ear- 
 nestly urged that in the collection of the public 
 funds the tax should fall where its weight 
 would be lightest, and that in the expenditures 
 the surplus of revenue accruing after the pay- 
 ment of the actual running expenses of the 
 government be " repartitioned " among the 
 States according to the principles of justice 
 suggested by population or otherwise, whether 
 this took place in an actual transfer of the funds 
 
 1 Jefferson doubted the constitutionality of the annexing of Louisi- 
 ana ; but as the power of acquiring foreign territory is amply given 
 by treaty, by act of Congress, and by act of a State with consent of 
 Congress, it only showed his extreme anxiety to respect constitutional 
 limitations. However, if Jefferson violated the Constitution in re- 
 spect to this and other measures, it does not justify the sins of the 
 Federalists, as Dr. von Hoist, Schouler, and other writers would 
 seem to argue, nor prove the impracticability of the strict construction 
 view. Rather the reverse ; for if the possession of power was too 
 great a temptation for men of Jefferson's views, this only showed that 
 the Federalists, who openly boasted of their contempt of Consti- 
 tutional limitations, could not be trusted. 
 
40 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 to the States or in a distribution controlled by 
 the government itself in behalf of improve- 
 ments within them. 1 
 
 1 Jefferson, in his second inaugural address, March 4, 1805, advised 
 that ' ' the surplus be applied by a just repartition among the States and 
 by a corresponding amendment of the Constitution, in time of peace, 
 to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, and other great 
 objects within each State.'' In his message of December 2, 1806, he 
 states that ' ' the great mass of the articles on which impost was then 
 paid are foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich 
 enough to afford themselves the use of them." 
 
IV. 
 
 THE AMERICAN SYSTEM AND THE SPOILS SYSTEM, 
 1824-184I. 
 
 AT the end of Monroe's administration, the 
 Republican party held the field in soli- 
 tary triumph. The Federal party, fatally 
 shocked by the results of the war of 181 2 
 which they had opposed, had passed away. 
 But this was no evidence that their principles 
 had done so. On the contrary, it was now 
 that the policy of the " American system " was 
 adopted. In plain terms this policy meant 
 an appeal to the cupidity of contractors in 
 the West and manufacturers in the North and 
 East to batten on the fruits of all the other 
 industries of the Union. The policy fell 
 with peculiar hardship on the South, which 
 had no manufactures and was not likely to 
 have any as long as slavery continued there. 
 But the very fact of slavery helped the policy 
 
 4t 
 
42 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 with its supporters, since it always served them 
 as a convenient excuse for ascribing to slavery, 
 which hurt the South greatly, the evils of the 
 tariff, which injured it hardly less. The 
 American system was another name for the 
 "spoils system," since the tariff and roads and 
 canals that it contemplated meant anything 
 that a mere sectional majority in Congress 
 chose to authorize. 
 
 At this time, then, four aspirants for the 
 presidency loomed up — William H. Crawford, 
 who had been Secretary of the Treasury under 
 Monroe ; John Quincy Adams, Monroe's Sec- 
 retary of State ; Andrew Jackson, the hero of 
 the late war; and Henry Clay, the late Speaker 
 of the House of Representatives. All four 
 claimed to be of the "good old Republican 
 school," successors, in principle as in time, of 
 Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, though the 
 truth was that only Crawford had any real 
 pretensions to true orthodoxy. As the candi- 
 date in the line of the succession, the oppo- 
 nent of the American system and the favorite 
 of Mr. Jefferson, who knew his worth, Craw- 
 ford became the object of combined assault 
 from the other three, who relied upon the 
 
The American System. 43 
 
 scattered Federal vote to give success to their 
 plans. 
 
 Foreseeing that if the old plan of selecting 
 the presidential candidate by a party caucus 
 of the members of Congress would give the 
 nomination to Crawford, the first step taken 
 by the other three aspirants was to bring about 
 a revolt against the plan. " Mr. Crawford 
 being a man of distinguished talents, excellent 
 morals, and greatly esteemed, more than ordi- 
 nary means were employed to put him down. 
 The presses were employed for that purpose. 
 The Washington Republican was employed in 
 this city for that express purpose." 1 In North 
 Carolina and South Carolina, union tickets with 
 the names of Adams and Jackson were run. 3 
 
 Among other sins ascribed by his enemies 
 to Mr. Crawford, was the passage of the law 
 of May 15, 1820, fixing the tenure of office 
 in the Treasury Department at four years. 
 But that there was no sinister object with 
 Mr. Crawford in having this law enacted, only 
 the genuine one, however mistaken, of en- 
 suring greater regularity in the returns of 
 the disbursing officers who had grown careless 
 
 'Mr. Smith's Speech, Debates, 1830, p. 208. ! Ibid. 
 
44 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 and indifferent, all the facts go to show. Mr. 
 Webster, who was in Congress at the time, has 
 declared that " the several leading distinguished 
 gentlemen who advocated it did not dream of 
 the extension of the political power which they 
 were giving the executive." 1 The measure 
 was passed in both Houses of Congress with- 
 out division and without opposition, and there 
 is no evidence that Mr. Crawford, while in 
 office, availed himself of its provisions to re- 
 move a single incumbent, though he had ample 
 opportunity to do so. 2 
 
 The fact is, the principles of Mr. Crawford 
 were all against the idea that he could lend 
 himself to partisan objects. And how much 
 superior he was in magnanimity to all three 
 of his rivals after events developed. At a 
 trying period in the life of each one of them, 
 the voice of Crawford was lifted in kindness 
 and conciliation. Jackson came to know that 
 when he was arraigned before the Cabinet of 
 Monroe for invading Florida without authority, 
 Crawford had said much in mitigation of his 
 
 1 Calhoun's Works, iv. , p. 298. 
 
 5 What Adams says, in his Memoirs, to Crawford's disadvantage, 
 is a mere tissue of uncharitable suspicions. 
 
The American System. 45 
 
 offence ; and Clay and Adams received the 
 soothing assurance of his disbelief in the charge 
 of "bargain and corruption, "formulated against 
 them because of their co-operation in the House 
 of Representatives in 1824 on the failure of 
 the people to decide between the four presi- 
 dential aspirants named. 
 
 Through that co-operation J. Q. Adams had 
 been made President despite a decided majority 
 of the electoral college and of the House itself 
 against him ; and the irritation of the masses 
 had found vent in the terrible denunciation by 
 John Randolph of " the coalition of Blifil 
 and Black George,— the combination, unheard 
 of until then, of the Puritan with the blackleg." 
 When most men were willing to believe the 
 worst of Adams and Clay, the language of 
 Crawford, the late rival of those in power, 
 was : " I hope you know me too well to sup- 
 pose that I have countenanced the charge of 
 corruption which has been reiterated against 
 you." ' 
 
 1 " Clay's Correspondence," p. 192. John Tyler, who nominated 
 Crawford in the caucus of the Virginia Legislature, wrote to Clay a 
 similar letter ; but Clay 's subsequent ' ' mousing " with Tyler's Cabinet , 
 and Adams' unjust and virulent abuse, were not calculated to confirm 
 him in so good an opinion of the two members of the " coalition." 
 
4-6 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 Adams became President on March 4, 1825, 
 served four years, and was succeeded by Andrew 
 Jackson on March 4, 1829, who served till 
 March 4, 1837, when Martin Van Buren was 
 inaugurated, and served till March 4, 1841. 
 Though the two last called themselves by dif- 
 ferent party names from the first one, there 
 was in reality no substantial difference between 
 them. Thus, if Adams favored the extension 
 of roads and canals, Jackson and Van Buren 
 approved even larger expenditures in favor of 
 harbors and rivers. 1 And if Adams instigated 
 and approved the tariffs of 1828 and 1832, 
 Jackson had voted for that of 1824, and his 
 friends, Van Buren, Benton, Dickerson, 
 Wright, Dallas, Marcy, Livingston, etc., repre- 
 senting a majority of the manufacturing 
 States, not only voted for the tariffs of 1828 
 and 1832, but counselled war with South 
 Carolina in 1833, in preference to the alterna- 
 tive of reducing the tariff rates. 2 In the same 
 
 ' During Adams' four years the amount spent for internal improve- 
 ments was $2,083,331 ; but in 7829 and 1830, Jackson's first two 
 years, the amount was $2,501,590. — Tylers, i., 489, 493. 
 
 2 Calhoun said to Wright in the Senate : " The entire South may 
 well apply to the Senator as the author of the tariff of 1828, the reply 
 which a distinguished Senator [L. W. Tazewell] gave after its passage 
 to one [Van Buren] who now occupies a higher position [as Presi- 
 
The American System. 47 
 
 manner, if Adams claimed the right to appoint 
 ministers abroad, without the consent of the 
 Senate, as in the case of the Panama mission, 
 the difference was after all only one of degree 
 between himself and Jackson, who not only 
 claimed the right, but exercised it as in the 
 case of the famous Turkish mission. 
 
 dent] than he then did, and who undertook to explain his vote on that 
 occasion : ' ' Sir, you deceived me once — that was your fault ; but if you 
 deceive me again, the fault will be mine." — "Debates, 1836-37," 910. 
 
 In 1837 Tyler wrote: "When I voted for the compromise [in 
 J^SS], I did so in best faith. I was firmly convinced that the reduc- 
 tion was rapid enough ; for although the manufacturing interest had 
 greatly violated the rights of the South, and had brought us near to 
 civil war, yet I felt as an American, and was, therefore, disposed to 
 let down the system by slow degrees. Seven years were asked for, 
 and with others, I readily granted it. I well remember the opposition 
 then made. It came precisely from the quarter that now prefers a 
 more rapid stride. Look, I pray you, to Wright's speech in the 
 Senate. He had ten substantial objections to the act. See the 
 floundering of the party on the subject of coarse woollens. See, in 
 short, the numerous efforts to defeat the measure. The truth is, the 
 party [the Jackson party] went for force and the tariff. I boarded 
 with Governor Dickerson, who held us at arm's length. He would 
 make no concession — not the slightest. 
 
 ' ' And now this is the party which moves for reduction, instant, rapid 
 reduction. They represent Pennsylvania, New York, Maine, Con- 
 necticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island — a majority of the manu- 
 facturing States — and I would put their sincerity to the test. The 
 South should make loud calls upon them to press forward. If they are 
 sincere, we advance our interests by an instantaneous repeal. Cam- 
 breleng's bill should be considered the first measure of the session, 
 but mark it is a mere feint." — Tyler to Wise, MS., January 23, 1837. 
 
48 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 But to prove beyond a shadow of a question 
 the political identity of the three Presidents, 
 Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren, it is only 
 necessary to note two things : The first is that 
 the Crawford party of strict-construction which 
 opposed Adams during his administration were 
 also driven from Jackson, and under the name 
 of "Whig," which from 1834 to 1841 meant 
 State-rights, opposed the rule of Jackson and 
 Van Buren. And the second is that all the 
 leading friends of Jackson, who, as we have 
 seen, voted for high tariff and internal im- 
 provements, joined the new Republican party 
 of 1856, or were in active sympathy with them. 
 Van Buren led the defection of Free-Soilers in 
 1849 ; Blair, Jackson's editor, was a supporter 
 of Fremont in 1856, and his son, Montgomery 
 Blair, was a member of Lincoln's Cabinet ; B. 
 F. Butler, Jackson's Attorney-General, and 
 Fremont, the son-in-law of Benton, were lead- 
 ing Republicans ; and Benton himself died for- 
 lorn and discarded by his old friends. Finally, 
 J. Q. Adams himself declared, in 1842, that all 
 the leading measures of Jackson's first admin- 
 istration received his undivided approval. 1 
 
 1 " In the political divisions of parties, my opinions and princi- 
 ples were all in favor of the executive administration of the national 
 
The American System. 49 
 
 Like the fruits of the " spoils measures" al- 
 ready described as favored by the Federalists 
 from 1789 to 1801, the fruits of the American 
 system under Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren 
 were disastrous in the extreme. The same 
 wholesale demoralization and corruption en- 
 sued, attended at last by universal bankruptcy, 
 causing a grand revulsion of the people. Cal- 
 houn said ' that the surplus revenue caused by 
 the tariff of 1828, 2 enacted during Adams' ad- 
 ministration, which poured millions into the 
 Treasury beyond the most extravagant wants 
 of the administration, " was the source of deep 
 corruption in every direction." And to this may 
 be added the declaration of George R. Poin- 
 dexter 3 that, from the very hour of the pas- 
 sage of the act mentioned, the manufacturers 
 
 government, then formidably assailed by South Carolina nullifica- 
 tion under the shield and with the artillery of State sovereignty. 
 In the preceding summer of 1832 I had, in perfect concert with this 
 administration, as Chairman of the Committee of Manufactures, 
 carried through the tariff act of that year." — Niles, 63, p. 172. 
 ; " Debates, 1833-34," p, 1277. 
 
 2 " This act," says Giles, " passed in obedience to a convention of 
 manufacturers at Harrisburg who had excluded from the invitations 
 all the States intended to be made tributary, was dictated by a spirit 
 of electioneering and avarice, and had demoralized the whole 
 country." — "Debates in Va. Convention," p. 251. 
 
 3 Poindexter's remarks in his ' ' Report on New York Custom- 
 House " (1842). 
 
 4 
 
50 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 and their agents began to bribe and corrupt 
 the appraisers and other officers of the New 
 York custom-house to destroy the foreign com- 
 merce in woollens. By this and similar con- 
 trivances millions of dollars were plundered 
 from the other interests of the Union and es- 
 pecially from the South, to enrich the manu- 
 facturers of the North and the great contrac- 
 tors of the West. 1 
 
 As a consequence of all this, the infection 
 entered the offices. The system of removals 
 is the secondary stage of the spoils system ; 
 and though Adams had sown all the seed 
 which bore dreadful fruits in after years, his 
 administration is free from the charge of pro- 
 scription. As Secretary of State for eight 
 years under James Monroe, whose "purposes 
 of improvement " Adams had promised in his 
 inaugural address "to pursue to their consum- 
 mation" as "the whole sphere of his obliga- 
 tions," he had no excuse to remove any of 
 Monroe's appointees. On the contrary, com- 
 ing in without election by the people, his ob- 
 
 1 Senator Dickerson, who opposed the compromise tariff in 1833, 
 admitted that $12,000,000 were annually abstracted from the South 
 under the tariff law of 1828. — Tylers, i., p. 441. 
 
The American System. 51 
 
 vious policy was, in view of his candidacy for 
 re-election, to conciliate all the factions of his 
 party. 1 Therefore, when, like Madison and 
 Monroe, he offered places in his Cabinet to 
 some who had served under his predecessor, 
 he followed that course which was calculated 
 most to relieve him of formidable enemies at 
 the next election. Certainly by Clay's accept- 
 ing office under him, Adams made a powerful 
 supporter, and the known reason that induced 
 Crawford to decline was, as he said, 2 " the fear 
 of embarrassing his friends in opposing 
 Adams' administration, should it go wrong." 
 
 And yet portentous signs were not wanting, 
 even thus early, of the evils breeding in the 
 whole atmosphere of Adams' administration. 
 The press was again influenced by the ap- 
 pointment of its editors, 3 and Livingston 
 
 1 Wise put it pretty strongly perhaps when he said of Adams : 
 ' ' He was a weak minority President. His notorious policy was to 
 let his friends take care of themselves and bait well his political 
 enemies." — Cong. Globe, 1842, p. 779. 
 
 2 Southern Literary Messenger \ 'in., 279. 
 
 3 John Hampden Pleasants, the editor of the Richmond Whig, the • 
 leading National Republican paper of the South, was sent by Adams 
 as bearer of despatches to Rio Janeiro. — "Debates, 1828," p. 1286. 
 Binns, a scandalous writer, was given printingworth$l,500or$2,ooo. 
 Clay defended editorial appointments at "Fowler's Garden," May 
 29, 1830. 
 
52 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 spoke 1 of the "notorious defaulters" who, in 
 the persons of Watkins, Robertson, Arnold, 
 Rogerson, and others, 2 defrauded the govern- 
 ment during Adams' term. 
 
 In fact, nearly all the credit to which Adams 
 was unquestionably entitled, by permitting the 
 policy of his predecessors in respect to re- 
 movals to continue, was counter-balanced by 
 the share he had taken in putting down the old 
 congressional nomination, to make way for 
 the national political convention first instituted 
 in 183 1 by the anti-Masons, whom Adams 
 joined after his defeat for re-election in 1828. 
 For it is recognized that it was by this con- 
 trivance that wire-pulling and political boss- 
 ism became a dominating feature in American 
 politics. 
 
 " The very evils of the dreadful tariff itself," 
 (that of 1828,) complained Giles, 3 "were not 
 
 1 Livingston said, March 15, 1830 : "I speak only of facts that are 
 notorious. . . . One collector . . . was in the course of the 
 summer found to have abstracted the sum of eighty thousand dollars ; 
 another, nearly under the same circumstances, was found in arrears to 
 the amount of nearly thirty thousand dollars, and both have absconded ; 
 a minor defect was found in the accounts of the Patent Office, also 
 undiscovered from the want of official superintendence." — " De- 
 bates," vi. , p. 260. 
 
 a Enquirer, Oct. 16, 1832. Tylers, i. , p. 404. 
 
 8 " Debates in Va. Convention, 1829-30," p. 917. 
 
The American System. 53 
 
 brought upon us from any consideration of 
 the real merits of the tariff question, but the 
 calculation was who should get the most votes 
 for their favorite President by voting for the 
 unprincipled tariff. The parties threatened 
 one another with losing their respective candi- 
 dates for President. That one consideration 
 of carrying their own candidates had more 
 effect upon their proceedings than all others 
 put together." 
 
 When in 1829 Jackson assumed control, the 
 disease engendered by the spoils measures 
 showed itself in a constantly increasing viru- 
 lence. Removals took place by hundreds ; 
 editors were appointed to office not in twos 
 and threes, but in batches ; gigantic defalca- 
 tions, like those of Swartwout and Price, star- 
 tled the whole country ; and the key-note of 
 the whole crying evil was given by Marcy, of 
 New York: "To the victors belong the 
 spoils ! " But as evidence that, after all, civil- 
 service corruption is only part of a general 
 system, in great measure independent of the 
 will of the individual armed with the chief 
 authority, it is said that General Jackson, six 
 weeks before his death, declared that during all 
 
54 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 his presidency he had turned but one subordi- 
 nate out of office by an act of direct personal 
 authority. 1 No one can doubt that J. Q. 
 Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren were men 
 better and abler than the ordinary run of men ; 
 but it was the doctrines that they sustained, 
 perhaps often in ignorance of their full conse- 
 quences, and the measures that they instigated, 
 which encouraged others, not subject to the 
 same responsibilities nor possessed of the 
 same character or virtues, to do objectionable 
 things. 2 
 
 1 Parton's "Jackson," iii. , 669. 
 
 2 The following fact, is in further illustration : In 1842 Mr. Adams 
 complained that Virginia had five or six times as many officers in the 
 navy as she was entitled to. Wise, the chairman of the Naval 
 Committee, replied that this was a fact, but it was not due to Tyler's 
 administration, which was strictly impartial, but to his own, which 
 had occasioned the inequality by giving to Virginia, to Maryland, and 
 the District of Columbia out of 327 appointed, III midshipmen who 
 had risen to higher rank by promotion. Thereupon Mr. Adams de- 
 clared that it was not he that did it, but Mr. Southard, his Secretary 
 of the Navy, who dispensed all such favors. — Cong. Globe, 1842, 
 pp. 777-80. 
 
V. 
 
 NATIONAL REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS, AND 
 WHIGS, 1 828-1 844. 
 
 THE great Republican party which had 
 been split into four factions in 1824, 
 slowly condensed in 1828 into two opposing 
 bodies, called National Republicans and Demo- 
 crats. The first party consisted of the fac- 
 tions headed by J. Q. Adams and Clay, 
 respectively ; the second, of the factions led 
 by Andrew Jackson and William H. Crawford. 
 In 1824 the Jackson men and the Crawford 
 men stood farthest apart. It was Jackson,\ 
 Adams, Clay, and Crawford. Yet by the cir- 
 cumstance of their both being "outs," they 
 were compelled into a precarious agreement 
 to beat the " ins." The strength of Jackson 
 lay in the West ; the strength of Crawford in' 
 the South. These alpha and omega elements 
 were thus finally brought to constitute the 
 
 55 
 
56 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 Democratic party, and as curiously illustrative 
 of the Federal spirit of its Jackson wing, old 
 Timothy Pickering, John Adams' Secretary of 
 Stated and the sons of Alexander Hamilton 
 were Democrats. It was by means of this 
 coalition of latitudinarians and strict-construc- 
 tionists that Jackson routed Adams at the 
 election in the fall of 1828. 
 
 Immediately, however, upon Jackson's acces- 
 sion to office, the two elements of the party 
 began to quarrel. 1 First came a reorganization 
 of the Cabinet in 1831, which resulted in the 
 turning out of all the Southern low-tariff 
 Democrats, and in the installation of Northern 
 high-tariff men. Next came the tariff of 1832, 
 for which all the Northern men, save two 2 of 
 either party voted, and which increased the 
 rates of duties already raised to prohibition. 
 The protest of nullification was made by the 
 
 1 John Tyler wrote March 14, 1830 : " There is nothing sound in 
 the state of parties here. We still hold together, it is true, in the 
 expression of partiality for the President, but that is all. He cannot 
 be considered as standing at the head of a party, for in truth he has 
 none. A Kentuckian is ready to denounce him if he yields aught to 
 our constitutional scruples, and so are the Pennsylvanians, etc. , etc. , 
 while the South sustains him from fear of greater evils under the 
 auspices of another. . . . My own decided opinion is that Clay 
 was never so formidable as at this moment." — MS. 
 
 8 Tylers, i., p. 438. Senate Journal, 1831-3, p. 431. 
 
Republicans, Democrats, and Whigs. 57 
 
 South Carolina Democrats, and was answered 
 by a proclamation from the President, in which 
 the fundamental Republican doctrine, that the 
 Union was a compact between sovereign 
 States, was repudiated, and the heresy of a 
 consolidated nationality announced. This 
 hurled off another section of the Crawford 
 men, led by Tazewell and Tyler of Virginia, 
 who disapproved of nullification, but could 
 not approve the principles of the proclama- 
 tion. 1 Next in 1834 ensued the removal of the 
 
 1 The nullification controversy was quieted by Clay's introducing 
 the compromise tariff bill suggested by John Tyler. "I remember," 
 says the latter, ' ' that in a day or two after the proclamation was 
 issued I waited upon you, believing as I firmly did that you were the 
 only man in the Union who at that perilous moment had the influ- 
 ence to save the Union. The conversation turned on the proclama- 
 tion, and you unhesitatingly pronounced it ultra-Federal black 
 cockade (I use your language). You afterwards expressed to me 
 dissatisfaction with the Force bill, and when afterwards you declared 
 in the Senate that had you been present you would have voted for it, 
 am I mistaken in the fact that in a conversation afterwards you 
 ascribed that declaration to the circumstance that the Northern mem- 
 bers required you to make it as the condition of their support of the 
 compromise bill ? I have frequently so stated it. I bear in distinct 
 recollection your antipathy to the measure, as is fully evidenced by 
 the fact that your compromise bill rendered it a dead letter. In short, 
 I have never heard you do other than declare that the government was 
 the creature of the States, a compact among equals, and when we have 
 differed it has been more in construing the Constitution than on 
 fundamental principles. Thus have I always regarded you as a Re- 
 publican of the old school, who had indulged, when the public good 
 
58 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 deposits from the United States Bank, and 
 on this issue still another section, 1 headed by 
 Henry A. Wise and John Bell, left the Demo- 
 cratic party. Then followed the successful 
 effort of Benton to expunge the censure 
 passed by the Senate on Jackson for removing 
 the deposits from the United States Bank. 
 On this issue, in 1835, Judge Hugh Lawson 
 White left the party at the head of the Ten- 
 nessee Democrats. And finally, in 1837, dur- 
 ing Van Buren's annex, large fractions of the 
 Democratic party, called " Conservatives," 
 ^headed by Hugh S. Legare in South Carolina, 
 N. P. Tallmadge in New York, and William 
 C. Rives in Virginia, fell off on the question 
 of the sub-treasury. These several factions, 
 comprising a majority of the Crawford party, 
 formed, in union with National Republicans 
 led by Adams and Clay, the celebrated Whig 
 party. 
 
 seemed to require it, somewhat too much in a broad interpretation to 
 suit our Southern notions. . . . You are aware of my position in 
 this part of Virginia, where nine in ten are what are called State- 
 rights men." — Tyler MS. to H. Clay, September 18, 1839. Also 
 Tylers, i., p. 458. 
 
 1 Called the ' ' Awkward Squad, " consisting of some seventeen 
 members of the House of Representatives. — Hambleton's "Virginia 
 Politics, and Life of H. A. Wise." 
 
VI. 
 
 THE WHIG PARTY AND TYLER, 1841-1844. 
 
 THE avowed objection of the Crawford men 
 to the Jackson party was that they (the 
 Jackson men) had fallen under the control of a 
 ring called the Albany Regency, in favor of 
 tariff and the other so-called Federal meas- 
 ures, and in fact were not Democratic enough ; 
 and therefore the union with the National 
 Republicans was only possible under a new 
 name and a surrender of old principles. The 
 Jackson party had appropriated the name of 
 Democrats ; the retreating members from the 
 ranks could not endure the name of National 
 Republican. The National Republicans, from 
 whose ranks in a similar fashion many thou- 
 sands had gone over to the Democrats, were 
 glad enough to drop a name which had lost 
 its odor, and the opposition in 1834 united, in 
 a common cause, upon the name Whig. The 
 
 59 
 
60 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 old principles were also surrendered. Bank, 
 tariff, and internal improvements were given 
 up by Adams, Clay, and Webster, 1 and every- 
 where the Whig party claimed to be the true 
 representative of the old Republican party of 
 1 80 1, taking ground in its widest sense of 
 opposition to patronage, to spoils and corrup- 
 tion, to executive misrule, and in favor of 
 economy and primitive simplicity. On this 
 platform the opposition won a brilliant vic- 
 tory, in 1 840, over the Democrats ; and that 
 the Crawford Whigs contributed largely to 
 the result, the following facts demonstrate. 
 
 In Georgia, Crawford's home, previous to 
 the breach in 1833, there was no party what- 
 ever save the Democratic party, and yet so 
 large was the secession of Democrats on the 
 
 ' Adams announced himself against a bank of discount. — " Debates, 
 1837." At the last session under Van Buren he said his mind was not 
 made up on any question. — Tylers, ii. , 7. On the question of in- 
 ternal improvement, he declared that it had been " ingloriously " 
 deserted by Clay, Calhoun, and Webster. — Schouler's " Hist. U. S.," 
 iv., 183. 
 
 Clay thought the Bank question "obsolete" (Tylers, i., 598), of 
 "no practical value" (ibid?), and that "there was nothing in the 
 name of a Bank of the United States which had any magical charm, 
 or to which any one need be wedded." — Ibid., p. 601. On the tariff 
 he declared for the revenue principle. — Ibid., 601. 
 
 E. Littell wrote to Webster September 14, 1841, that " as far as 
 he could see, he (Webster) was not in favor of a corporation in 
 1840." — Littell MS. to Daniel Webster. See also Tylers, ii., 601. 
 
The Whig Party and Tyler. 6: 
 
 issues mentioned that in 1836, and again in 
 1840, the State went largely Whig. 1 In Ten- 
 nessee, -Jackson's home, which formerly heaped 
 up majorities of thousands in his favor, so ex- 
 tensive was the following of Judge White and 
 John Bell, the seceding Democrats, that both 
 in 1836 and 1840 the State declared against 
 the Democrats, directed by their most popu- 
 lar chieftain, General Jackson. And in like 
 manner, from being an overwhelming Demo- 
 cratic State, North Carolina came permanently 
 into the Whig ranks ; while in Virginia, where 
 the usual Democratic majority had been 
 twenty-five thousand over the National Repub- 
 licans, the contest with the new party (Whigs) 
 was "nip and tuck." 3 Even in the North, 
 States long Democratic wheeled into the 
 Whig line under the new coalition. 8 
 
 1 ' ' All in Georgia were Jackson men while General Jackson was in 
 office, " says Gov. George R. Gilmer in his " Georgians," 561. But 
 in 1836 the State went Whig by over 3,000, and in 1840 by 8,360. — 
 See Niles' Register and Georgia Papers. 
 
 2 The Whigs elected Tazewell Governor in 1834. And yet in 1832 
 the vote cast for Clay in Virginia was only 15,000 as against 40,000 
 for Jackson. Making allowance for the National Republicans who 
 turned Jackson men, it follows that probably two thirds of the Whig 
 party were original Democrats in Virginia. 
 
 3 Such as Maine, New York, Rhode Island, etc. In 1836, the 
 "Whigs had two presidential candidates, Harrison in the North and 
 White in the South. Granger and Tyler were the Whig nominees 
 
62 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 Everywhere prominent Democrat? were 
 leading the Whig cause. In Delaware, Jack- 
 son's Secretary of State, Louis McLane, voted 
 in 1840 for Harrison and Tyler, the Whig 
 nominees. In Maryland, the voters were mar- 
 shalled by McMahon, McCulloch, and General 
 Duff Green. In Virginia were seen B. W. 
 Leigh, Gilmer, Upshur, Tyler, Wise, Botts, 
 Rives, Thomas R. Dew, Judge N. B. Tucker 
 — all supporters of Jackson in 1828 ; in North 
 Carolina, Judge Owen, Mangum, and George 
 E. Badger ; in Georgia, Jackson's Attorney- 
 General, John M. Berrien ; in South Carolina, 
 William C. Preston, Waddy Thompson, and 
 
 for the vice-presidency. In Virginia a double-shotted ticket of Har- 
 rison and White was run ; and of the effect of this step Tyler wrote : 
 ' ' One word about the past. The double-shotted ticket killed us, 
 added to the fact that our leading journals played altogether for the 
 Northern States. They substantially dropped Judge White and took 
 up Harrison. This caused the thin turn-out in tide-water Virginia, 
 and lost us the vote of North Carolina. I remonstrated, but the 
 course could not be altered. . . . We must look to the future, 
 .and there our vision is limited by darkness. I fear that no union can 
 be formed between us and the latitudinarians of the North, but nous 
 verrons." — Tyler MS., Jan. 13, 1837. 
 
 In a later letter he wrote : ' ' My election was certain if Northern 
 and Western men had come to my aid. I saw that they would not, 
 nor will they now assist any Southern man to that station (the Vice- 
 Presidency). Be assured that I look not to it nor to any honor which 
 does not lie in the gift of the people of Virginia." — Tyler to Wise, 
 Dec. 26, 1838, MS. 
 
The Whig Party and Tyler. 63 
 
 Hugh S. Legare — the two former original 
 nullifiers ; in Tennessee, John Bell, Bailie 
 Peyton, and others ; in Mississippi, George 
 R. Poindexter, the leader of nullification in 
 that State in 1833 ; in New York, .N. P. Tall- 
 madge, John C. Spencer, and others. Indeed, 
 Clay himself stated that without the aid of the 
 Crawford-Jackson men the Whig party was 
 doomed to remain in a "perpetual and hope- 
 less minority." 1 
 
 The crushing victory of the coalition is still 
 remembered by the older generation among 
 us. Harrison and Tyler were elected, and 
 immediately after the election the old quarrel 
 between the Adams and Clay men, on the one 
 hand, and the old Crawford men on the other, 
 was renewed, just as had happened in the case 
 of the Democrats in 1831. Harrison, though 
 
 1 " Clay's Corr. , " p. 435. Tylers, i., p. 575, note I. Only in Mas- 
 sachusetts and Vermont were the National Republicans and Whigs 
 substantially the same. But these States were only a small fraction 
 of the Union, and even in them a discreet silence was observed on 
 the old issues-. In all the other States the words of Gilmer, written 
 in 1839, were true : " It is notorious that many, very many of those 
 who sustained the election and the administration of Mr. Adams are 
 now, and have been since the period of the proclamation, identified 
 with the Democratic party, while tens of thousands of the present 
 Whig party sustained Gen. Jackson's election first against Mr. Adams 
 and then against Mr. Clay." — MS. 
 
64 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 a Southern man in birth and opinions, had 
 owed his nomination to the Northern element 
 of the party, and, in consequence of this fact, 
 his Cabinet became a National Republican 
 affair, to the exclusion of the Crawford ele- 
 ment. In spite of all pledges to the contrary, 
 the idea of patronage was once more revived ; 
 the old Federal measures of Bank, 1 tariff, etc., 
 were once more brought forward, and the 
 offices were once more made the subject of 
 " spoils and corruption." 
 
 Harrison was President one month, and in 
 that month a fierce, cruel, and remorseless 
 proscription ensued. 2 And yet it is but just to 
 Harrison to say that so far from joining in the 
 slaughter of Democrats so universally decreed, 
 he bitterly condemned it, laying the whole 
 blame at the door of the Federal Whigs, 
 
 1 Buchanan said that he could truly say that ' ' during the whole 
 election campaign he had not seen a single resolution in favor of a 
 national bank which had been passed by any Whig meeting in any 
 part of the country." — Cong. Globe, 1841, App., 345. 
 
 8 In confining Harrison's responsibility for appointments to the list 
 sent to the executive session, Lucy M. Salmon makes a very serious 
 blunder. Wise roundly denounced "the reign of the one month" 
 for its unmerciful proscription. — Cong. Glove, 1842-43, 319. The 
 extra-session bore the real weight of Harrison's proscription which 
 Preston in the canvass declared should be "proscribed." See 
 note, p. 87. " Every office within reach of the executive had been 
 filled by corrupt and venomous leeches." — Westfield (Mass.) Palla. 
 
The Whig Party and Tyler. 65 
 
 "who," he said, "were bent upon seizing the 
 reins of government." x The stupid practice of 
 leaving to the heads of departments the ap- 
 pointment of officers was continued by Harri- 
 son, and thus removals ensued in reference to 
 which Harrison was not even consulted. 
 
 When, after four weeks' time, John Tyler, 
 the Vice-President, succeeded to the presi- 
 dential office by the death of Harrison, a he 
 
 1 Harrison complained to Promt ' ' of the Federal portion of the 
 Whig party," that if they continued their proscription much longer, 
 " they would drive him mad." — Tylers, ii., n. A medical pamphlet 
 was published in Philadelphia, showing that Harrison was ' ' hunted 
 to death by the importunity of the Whig office-seekers. " — Cong. Globe, 
 1 841, Append., 344. "* The two rivals, Clay and Webster, led the 
 charge, and in the first hours after the election a bitter fight raged 
 between them over the New York custom-house. 
 
 So wild did Clay become that the President had to say to him, 
 " Mr. Clay, you forget that I am the President." It ended by Har- 
 rison declining to have anything to do with him except by letter. He 
 pursued his designs, however, through the Cabinet, the majority of 
 whom were his friends. Webster, if more polite and gentlemanly, 
 was almost as hungry. Before he even assumed the duties of Secre- 
 tary of State, he notified Martin, the chief clerk in the department, 
 to vacate, and appointed his own son to the vacancy thus anticipated. 
 
 2 Duff Green says that "previous to the Harrisburg convention, he 
 went to North Bend, and became so convinced that Harrison could 
 not live out his term if nominated, that he did all he could, in con- 
 junction with McMahon and McCulloch, of Baltimore, to secure the 
 nomination for the second office, along with him, of John Tyler." — 
 " Life of Duff Green," MS., by his son, Col. Ben. E. Green. On 
 the very day of the nomination J. Q. Adams predicted Tyler's acces- 
 
 5 
 
66 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 found three difficulties confronting him — diffi- 
 culties, it may be safely said, unknown to any 
 of his predecessors, but demanding prompt 
 and speedy solution. In the first place, it is 
 admitted that incompetent, dishonest officers 
 filled a very large proportion of the offices, 
 whom the good of the country required should 
 be removed, but whose removal would raise 
 the reproach of proscription. 1 In the second 
 place, all the offices had been promised away 
 by Harrison and his Cabinet, on the strength 
 of which prominent Whigs had made "pecu- 
 niary and other engagements." 2 Succeeding 
 as he did to the legacy of Harrison, he might 
 
 sion. — Harper's Magazine, 1874, "Recollections of an Old Stager." 
 Before and after this time these calculations were frequent. — Tylers, 
 ii., p. 9. Whig gossip subsequently contradicted this in New Eng- 
 land, but Carl Schurz pronounces the similar Whig gossip that the 
 Bank question was an issue in the canvass ' ' an astounding asser- 
 tion." — Schurz" 'Clay," ii., 207. 
 
 1 Van Buren was a most amiable gentleman, but his administration 
 was characterized by numberless defalcations. Nearly all the land 
 receivers were defaulters. Every department was in debt. 
 
 ' 2 Letters of Waddy Thompson and C. L. Todd, who received the 
 Mexican and Russian missions, substantiate this fact. The former 
 states that ' ' having been formally and officially informed by Mr. 
 Webster that I was to receive the appointment in the fall, I had upon 
 the faith of it made my pecuniary and other engagements, and that 
 in addition to heavy losses," etc. See also Tylers, ii., 32, for & 
 similar status ascribed to the English mission. 
 
The Whig Party and Tyler. 67 
 
 justly apprehend unlimited resentment in case 
 he made a different disposition of the appoint- 
 ments. And in the third place, he knew that 
 if he interfered with the proscription of the 
 Cabinet, he would certainly inflame their re- 
 sentment just at the critical moment when the 
 quarrel was imminent between the opposing 
 factions in the Whig party. 
 
 That President Tyler, regardless of conse- 
 quences, honestly endeavored to reform the 
 government after the example of the Jeffer- 
 sonian school, of which he professed himself 
 a member, all the facts attest. Instead of en- 
 couraging the spirit of proscription which had 
 suddenly seized upon the Whig leaders, he 
 tried by every means to put a stop to it. 1 
 
 1 Mr. Tyler had, prior to Harrison's death, stood up against the 
 "spoils system." One of his first acts after Harrison's inauguration had 
 been to address a note to Harrison in favor of the retention of two 
 faithful Democratic office-holders, Messrs. George Loyall and Conway 
 Whittle, living in Norfolk. Harrison reappointed them in deference 
 to Mr. Tyler's request (Tylers, ii., p. 163, note 1), and thereupon 
 the Whig papers, to which the real agency was not known, began to 
 assume for their party the credit of liberality, to which they had no 
 claim. In the Whig of March 30, 1841, we read : " How is it that, 
 while General Harrison is so berated for removing obnoxious and 
 prostituted office-holders, he gets no credit for retaining others hardly 
 less obnoxious ? . . . Why is the reappointment of George Loyall 
 overlooked by Ritchie? — George Loyall, the quintessence of party 
 rancor and inexorable political bigotry." 
 
68 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 With regard to some of the offices that yet 
 remained filled with Democrats, the com- 
 mittals of Harrison and his Cabinet were so 
 pronounced that it was impossible to alter 
 them. These he approved, and got the blame 
 for them. But in the vast majority of cases, 
 where the removal desired appeared without 
 cause and without reason, he was emphatic in 
 his opposition to the policy proposed by the 
 Cabinet and other Whig leaders. " It was to 
 no purpose," said the Maryland Whig delega- 
 tion, " that those who placed him in power 
 remonstrated, held meetings, resolved, peti- 
 tioned, and insisted. Mr. Tyler shook his 
 head, spoke of his conscience, and determined 
 that no more removals should be made." x De- 
 
 1 Niks' Keg. , 63 p. 79. 
 
 Granger, who resigned from Tyler's Cabinet in September, 1841, said 
 that ' ' there were additional reasons for the withdrawal of members 
 from the Whig Cabinet, which," Mr. Grangersaid, " he would frankly 
 state : Many removals and appointments were made during the con- 
 gressional recess and before the death of General Harrison, which 
 were afterwards sent to the Senate for confirmation ; but since that 
 day very few had been disturbed. The President (Tyler) had seen 
 fit to retain in power the entire force of the Indian department. 
 . . . Custom-house officers were retained. All the most valu- 
 able offices of the Post-office department were under the control of 
 the President, who had permitted but few removals," etc., etc. By 
 these acts of the President, Mr. Granger said, " he had been forced 
 
The Whig Party and Tyler. 69 
 
 termining that his administration should not 
 have the appearance even of personal favor, 
 he declined to appoint Dr. Henry Curtis, his 
 brother-in-law, as Treasurer of the United 
 States, though Dr. Curtis had received the 
 promise of Harrison. 1 He issued instructions 
 to the Postmaster-General that no editor 
 should hold office, 2 and during his whole term 
 cautiously abstained from appointing any man 
 to office who was actively connected with a 
 newspaper, holding the old doctrine that the 
 press, the great instrument of enlightenment to 
 the people, should not be subjected, through 
 
 to consider his duty to the principles he had advocated, and to him- 
 self personally." Niles, 61, p. 231. Granger afterwards said in Con- 
 gress that he had removed 1,700 postmasters, and if Mr. Tyler had 
 permitted him he would have added 3,000 to the number, making 
 4,700 in all. — Cong. Globe, 1842, p. 701. Still later, Granger boasted 
 that " the whole credit of those removals belonged to him." "I claim 
 all the glory," said he, "and when, by the accession of Mr. Tyler, I 
 found the good work of reform must be arrested ... I promptly 
 and indignantly resigned. . . . and my only regret is that I did 
 not have time to chop off the official heads of about five thousand of 
 them." — Washington Madisonian, May 9, 1844. See Cong. Globe, 
 1841, p. 371, Gilmer's speech. 
 
 1 Richmond Whig, April 22, 1841. William Selden retained the 
 office of Treasurer throughout Tyler's administration, nor did any of 
 Tyler's relations receive office directly from him, although there were 
 two or three who received unimportant subordinate offices from the 
 Cabinet ministers without his knowledge or suggestion. 
 
 1 Niles, 61, p. 67. 
 
jo Parties and Patronage. 
 
 its conductors, to a system of rewards and 
 punishments. 1 
 
 These measures and others similar to them, 
 adverse to the principle of patronage, con- 
 tributed greatly to the rage of the Adams 
 and Clay factions in the Whig ranks. Led by 
 these two gentlemen, the Whig Congress in- 
 sisted upon pressing upon Mr. Tyler the issue 
 of a Bank exerting corporate powers in the 
 States. 2 Mr. Tyler, though feebly supported 
 
 1 Tyler, as a member of the Jackson party, had opposed the action 
 of his chief in appointing editors to office. — Tylers, i., p. 409. And 
 it was on account of his being an editor during his administration 
 that he declined to appoint M. M. Noah to the Liverpool consulate. 
 Oliver Harris, cited by Lucy M. Salmon as an instance of editorial 
 appointment, had had for two years no connection with any paper. 
 Dr. Silas Reed, of Boston, is a witness to this fact, and adds : "I 
 believe the President wholly innocent of the charge of appointing 
 editors to office." — MS. 
 
 2 For a detailed history of the Bank vetoes see Appendix, II. 
 
 Mr. Tyler took his stand in the ' ' absence of all his friends. " — Tylers, 
 ii., 12, 53. Gilmer and Wise were canvassing for Congress, and Wise 
 says that he did not hear of Harrison's death until two weeks after it 
 occurred. — Cong. Globe, 1842-43, p. 314. Having been a Bank man 
 himself, Wise thereupon wrote to Gen. Leslie Coombs, of Kentucky, 
 that ' ' he hoped that Tyler would follow the example of Madison, and, 
 upon the principle of stare decisis, approve a Bank bill. " But," 
 writes Wise, " in a short time after I had seen the inaugural, I visited 
 Mr. Tyler, and he at once dispelled my doubts and hopes, avowing 
 in our first conversation after he became President his continued 
 opposition to a United States Bank on constitutional grounds, and 
 saying he was too old to change them." — Wise MS. to T. F. Marshall, 
 
The Whig Party and Tyler. ji 
 
 by the Crawford Whigs in Congress, who were 
 cowed by the unexpected turn things had 
 taken, met the united powers with the veto. 
 And thus foiled in their designs, and morti- 
 fied at being cut out of the spoils which 
 they frankly admitted 1 they contemplated, the 
 whole Whig Cabinet, except Webster, re- 
 signed. 
 
 The whole character and policy of Mr. 
 Tyler were against making removals, but the 
 unprecedented position in which he found 
 himself, after the resignation of the Cabinet, 
 as the common object of attack of the Federal 
 elements of both parties, together with the 
 admitted incompetency and positive dishonesty 
 of most of the office-holders, rendered the 
 
 Dec. 29, 1842. To the taunt that Tyler was led by him and others 
 into vetoing the Bank bills, Wise replied : ' ' The President had shown 
 how hard it was to control him. They (Clay and the Whigs) had 
 endeavored to control him, and had been disappointed." — Cong, Globe, 
 1842, 916. 
 
 1 We have noticed the language of Granger, the Postmaster- 
 General. (See p. 68, note 1.) Bell, the Secretary of War, declared 
 that he did not resign because of the vetoes simply, but because 
 " there were other and pre-existing causes." Were these "causes" 
 the retention in office of the whole of the Indian Department? 
 The Washington Globe predicted the resignation of Ewing as soon 
 as the President restored certain Democrats to the land office. See 
 also Tylers, ii., 310; Cong. Globe, 1841, p. 388. 
 
72 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 policy sometimes unavoidable. How different,? 
 for instance, was Mr. Tyler's position from that 
 of J. Q. Adams when President. The latter 
 was aided by the stream of good example that 
 flowed down from the administrations of his 
 noble predecessors ; the former had to breast 
 the tide of corruption that had swollen into a 
 flood during a period nearly as long. Neither 
 was he in the position of Jefferson, in 1801, 
 who was able shortly to effect the suppression 
 of three fourths of all the office-holders with- 
 out a reappointment. 
 
 Mr. Upshur says that despite the breach 
 with the Whig leaders, Mr. Tyler continued 
 for some time to draw the majority of his 
 appointments from the Whig ranks. 1 And it 
 
 1 Tyler is censured by Lucy M. Salmon for removing Whigs "in. 
 order to please Democrats," and yet it is admitted that he had 
 appointed Whigs to office for many months after they had begun the 
 most virulent attack upon him. Not until after one year did the 
 President act in resistance. Appointed by Tyler in deference to the 
 previous promise of Harrison, Jonathan Roberts had "swept the 
 very offscourings of crime into the collector's office at Philadelphia.'' 
 (Robert J. Walker, MS.) "Loafers, pipe-layers, and pardoned 
 convicts were among his appointees." — Cong. Globe, 1842-43, p. 309. 
 The President removed him. 
 
 Van Rensselaer was removed from the post-office at Albany, ' ' at 
 the request of eminent men of both parties." — Washington Madi- 
 sonian, March 29, 1843, and April 14. "The mail was often de- 
 layed for days." So with all the rest. 
 
The Whig Party and Tyler. 73 
 
 was only when he found that the appointees 
 requited his kindness with the blackest in- 
 gratitude and used their offices for the pur- 
 poses of a proscription of their subordinates 
 that he called a halt. 
 
 Mr. Tyler, unlike Ewing and other Whigs 
 of the National Republican stamp, had never 
 taken unqualified ground against removals. 
 As early as 1834, while condemning Jackson's 
 use of the removing power, he had declared 
 that, " if properly exerted to get rid of in- 
 competent and unfaithful agents, it was bene- 
 ficial in its results." This position was also 
 assumed by Harrison in a circular issued from 
 the State Department, March 20, 1841, and it 
 was fully reaffirmed by Tyler himself in all 
 his early messages. When, therefore, the new 
 Whig appointees, who, having made their 
 applications through the Cabinet officers, were 
 nearly all friends of Clay, began, after the 
 vetoes, the most virulent assault on Mr. Tyler, 
 to the entire neglect of their duties, the latter 
 was compelled to remove some of them, in ac- 
 cordance with the doctrine laid down by both 
 Harrison and himself, for official delinquency. 
 And yet during his whole term of office the 
 
74 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 foreign missions were practically monopolized 
 by his political enemies, 1 and nineteen twentieths 
 of the office-holders at home were active and 
 avowed champions 2 of Mr. Van Buren and Mr. 
 Clay, and they opposed the administration in 
 ways of trickery and strains of billingsgate 
 which these times of gentility and, if you 
 choose, of little men can hardly credit. 
 
 The one thing which might have saved the 
 President from exerting the power with which 
 
 1 Everett was Minister at the Court of St. James throughout Tyler's 
 administration, but he was in no sense a partisan of Tyler. There 
 were resignations in certain missions towards the close of the admin- 
 istration, but no enforced vacancies, save in one or two for cause. 
 Wise relates how Tyler tendered the vacancy on the Bench of the U. 
 S. Supreme Court to Horace Binney and John Sergeant, two pro- 
 nounced political opponents, the latter of whom had engineered the 
 last Bank bill through Congress. Tyler knew that Sergeant had 
 received his information about his opinions, second-hand, through 
 Ewing, who had misstated them, and he knew that personally he was 
 an able and honest man. He therefore did not think the country 
 and the Supreme Court should be deprived of Sergeant's name and 
 services for any personal misjudgment of himself or his course. — 
 "Seven Decades." 
 
 On Sept. 13, 1S43, Tyler wrote to Wise: "I have made no 
 removals in New Orleans, nor are more than one or two desired from 
 any quarter. Besides, the Tyler Club, as it is called, consists of 400, 
 most of whom cannot expect office. ... I shall leave on Tuesday 
 or Wednesday for Washington, and then all hail to a Congress likely 
 to prove as turbulent and factious as any since the day of Adam ; but 
 I have a firm grasp on the reins." 
 
 2 Tylers, ii., 313. 
 
The Whig Party and Tyler. 75 
 
 he was armed, was urged by Tyler in his mes- 
 sage of December, 1841, but was left untried 
 by those who most impugned his motives. It 
 was to call into action the authority of Con- 
 gress to define in some way the limits of the 
 executive discretion and necessarily the respon- 
 sibility of the office-holders. This recommenda- 
 tion the President made, and it is the first of 
 its kind in any message. In the House 
 of Representatives the President's intimate 
 friend, Thomas W. Gilmer, proposed a bill to 
 impose upon the President the requirement of 
 giving a reason for every removal. Why 
 Congress paid no attention to either the 
 President's message or Mr. Gilmer's bill is not 
 difficult to understand, if we consider the vio- 
 lent partisanship that characterized the times, 
 produced by the lust of spoils. The members 
 of Congress were nearly all friends and parti- 
 sans of Van Buren and Clay, who stood at 
 the head of their respective parties, and 
 neither side, while perfectly willing to hamper 
 Tyler, cared to impose a permanent restriction 
 which would militate against themselves and 
 their favorites in the near future. 
 
 On the contrary, the Senate itself attempted 
 
j6 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 to usurp the power of appointment, 1 and Con- 
 gress showed in every act their partisan char- 
 acter. They proposed to abolish the veto 
 power, 2 and made repeated calls upon the 
 
 'Lucy M. Salmon says that Tyler "insisted on nominations dis- 
 pleasing to the Senate." But Sevier, of Arkansas, said: "It was 
 enough to ensure the rejection of the President's nominees, if they 
 were known to be Tyler men." And if then, in the cases especially 
 cited by her of Wise and Cushing, there were three successive 
 nominations, it was not because the President wished to displease the 
 Senate, which made a business of displeasing him, but it was because 
 he wanted to put on record his emphatic endorsement of their great 
 talents and worth. The Senate had at their previous session con- 
 victed itself of a liability to error, by confirming unanimously the 
 renomination of Silas Reed, whom they had at first rejected. And thus 
 the President was encouraged, and it was perhaps his duty to give the 
 Senate the most ample opportunity to correct their error. ' ' Indeed, " 
 says Wise, ' ' I hope I may be allowed to declare that, repeatedly 
 during the session succeeding Gen. Harrison's election, and after- 
 wards about the beginning of the called session of May, I was urged 
 more strongly by their great leader, Mr. Clay, to take some foreign 
 mission, than I ever was by Mr. Tyler to go to France." Wise's 
 Address, Emiuirer, May II, 1843. Indeed, it must not be forgotten 
 that it was the numerous arbitrary rejections of the Senate that con- 
 tributed to multiply Tyler's nominations, making Lucy M. Salmon's 
 figures grossly unfair in her ' ' History of the Appointing Power. " 
 
 2 Tylers, ii. , 166. Tyler wrote : ' ' Mr. Clay's proposition to abolish 
 the veto power is an attempt to convert the government into a mere 
 majority machine — a Legislature to be governed by a caucus. . . . 
 This is the ultra-federalism of Mr. Clay, who claims to have drawn his 
 principles forsooth from the resolutions of '98-99 ... I should 
 not visit Virginia until after the elections. A hue and cry would be 
 raised at my heels ; and yet if I could be either in Williamsburg or 
 Charles City for a single week, I would answer for the result of 
 Mr. Wise's election." — Tyler to Wm. Waller, March 26, 1843. MS. 
 
The Whig Party and Tyler. jj 
 
 executive for confidential communications on 
 subjects falling clearly within the executive 
 privileges. They proposed to take away from 
 the President the appointment of the Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury and the Treasurer of the 
 United States, simply because the President 
 would not remove William Selden, who held 
 the latter office. And to give point to these 
 usurpations, they purposely withheld from the 
 government, at the instigation of Adams and 
 Clay, the supplies deemed necessary to carry 
 it on. 1 
 
 To one and all of these usurpations, Presi- 
 dent Tyler opposed the same firm and con- 
 sistent attitude, winning the victory on every 
 issue and setting the precedent in many im- 
 portant matters. 2 
 
 J. Q. Adams, Jackson, and Van Buren had 
 enjoyed the control of the executive printing, 
 but this, by act of March 18, 1842, was for the 
 first time required to be let out to contract, 
 though the two Houses of Congress retained 
 the disposition of their own work, and re- 
 
 1 Tylers, ii., 157, 166. 
 
 " His messages of March 23 and May 18, 1842, defining the rights 
 of the executive in relation to calls of Congress, furnished precedent 
 during Mr. Cleveland's administration on a kindred matter. 
 
78 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 warded with their patronage papers inimical 
 to the Administration. 1 No provision was 
 made to pay the President's private secretary, 
 and all the expenses of the White House 
 were met by the President's meagre salary of 
 $25,ooo. 2 
 
 1 Tylers, ii. , p. 311, note 2. " Blanks used by the Executive de- 
 partments had been printed years ahead." 
 
 2 Now the President is paid $50,000, and he is allowed $65,000 to 
 meet the current expenses of the White House. 
 
VII. 
 
 TYLER, POLK, AND TEXAS, 1844-1845. 
 
 BEFORE the rupture of the Whigs with 
 President Tyler, the latter had left it to 
 a hostile Cabinet to say whether, in connection 
 with his veto message, in order to relieve his 
 motives from the imputation of being gov- 
 erned by a desire for re-election, he should 
 not positively declare that he would not be a 
 candidate for re-election, and their unanimous 
 decision was that it would be impolitic and 
 unwise for him to adopt that step. 1 After 
 their resignation he was attacked by the 
 
 1 Schouler says that Tyler, in offering to retire at the end of his 
 term, only showed that "his mind attached an importance to the 
 sacrifice," and " at all events the impulse to stand aside shifted more 
 quickly than the desire to gain credit for it." Now, the fact is, the 
 charge of an anxiety for re-election had been the unvarying cry of his 
 enemies from the moment of his accession. It was because they 
 attached importance to it, that Tyler made the proposal, nor 
 would any man, unless sincere in his purposes, have put it in the 
 power of his enemies, as Tyler did, to deprive himself of a cherished 
 end. 
 
 79 
 
80 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 dominant elements in both parties, and his 
 friends soon found it necessary to band to- 
 gether for self-preservation. These friends, 
 though inconsiderable in Congress, where 
 they were known as the "Corporal's Guard," 
 were certainly numerous in the States. They 
 were strong in Pennsylvania, where W. W. 
 Irwin's family (connected closely with the dis- 
 tinguished senator, R. J. Walker, 1 ) the Wil- 
 kinses, Porters, Sutherlands, Baches, and 
 others were Tyler men ; in East Virginia, 
 where the Christians, Wises, Upshurs, Crop- 
 pers, Armisteads, etc., carried the strongest 
 Whig district in 1840, for Wise in 1842, and 
 for Bailey in 1844 ; in New York, where the 
 Englishes, Van Nesses, Grahams, Gardiners, 
 etc., created a strong interest; and in New 
 Jersey, where Stockton and scores of others 
 made that State exceedingly friendly to Tyler. 
 Prevented by self-respect from supporting 
 Van Buren, whom they had opposed in 1840, 
 or Mr. Clay, who had poured upon the Presi- 
 dent personally and through his presses the 
 
 1 W. W. Irwin, one of the " Corporal's Guard," R. J. Walker, and 
 General Emory married three Miss Baches, who were Mrs. Robert 
 Tyler's schoolmates. 
 
Tyler, Polk, and Texas, 1844-1845. 81 
 
 vilest abuse, 1 they insisted on Mr. Tyler as- 
 suming the candidacy for re-election. And 
 this Tyler finally decided to do, not with any 
 hope of an election, but for the sole purpose 
 of enabling himself to maintain his position 
 successfully between the two great parties, as 
 long as they were led by two such men as 
 Clay and Van Buren. 2 Subsequently, linking 
 
 1 On September 13, 1844, Tyler wrote : " I am still abused by all 
 the papers in his (Clay's) advocacy, and he urged on that conspiracy 
 in 1841 which was designed to ruin me personally and politically. 
 His opposition to Texas, his attempt to revolutionize the government 
 through the abolition of the veto power — in short, his total want of 
 principle of every sort renders him the most obnoxious man in the 
 Union. Mr. Polk is, to say the least, a gentleman in principle and 
 conduct. If he comes into power his administration will be a con- 
 tinuance of my own, since he will be found the advocate of most of 
 my measures. Mr. Clay leads the Federal cohorts ; Mr. Polk the 
 Democratic. My friends will be treated with regard and attention, 
 and a rally on their part secures the election. They have rallied en 
 masse in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Con- 
 necticut, New York, etc., etc. I hope Mr. Waller will seriously 
 ponder before he commits himself to Clay." — Tyler to his Daughter, 
 Mrs. Waller. 
 
 A year before this he wrote to Jones, of the Madisonian, " to let 
 the Calhoun and Van Buren factions fight it out." " There is nothing 
 to hope from either faction." " Hold off as much as possible and let 
 your fire be directed at Clay. He broke up the Whig party for his 
 own selfish purposes." 
 
 2 Tyler's acceptance of a nomination from his friends hardly 
 justifies Schouler's ascription of "vanity," a weakness from which 
 according to the universal testimonv in Virginia to-day he was 
 
 6 
 
82 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 his name with that of Texas annexation, he 
 compelled the Democrats to relinquish Van 
 Buren, who had taken a half-hearted stand on 
 the subject, and to take Polk, who was General 
 Jackson's next choice. A few months after 
 this a full union was brought about between 
 Tyler's friends and the Democratic party. 
 They were solemnly assured by both Jackson 
 and Polk that they would be treated as 
 " friends and brethren " by the Democratic 
 party. I have seen the whole correspondence 
 on this subject. 1 First, Walker, chairman of the 
 
 singularly free in manner and act. Birney, the abolition can- 
 didate, had a much less following than Tyler, and yet he held 
 out to the end without any chance of an election. Tyler had, 
 on the contrary, offered to renounce the succession if the Whigs 
 would only pass the proper Bank bill. Mordecai M. Noah knew 
 all the facts, as he was once a friend ; but when Tyler refused 
 to give him the consulate at Liverpool because he was an editor, 
 he garbled a conversation with Tyler, but admitted that Tyler said 
 that "he entertained no hopes of an election himself." — Niles 64, p. 
 394 (1843). Tyler wrote to Jones, editor of the Madisonian, Jan. 16, 
 1844, to preserve in his paper "an exact balance between Van Buren, 
 and Clay.'' "Remember that mine is an isolated position." — Tyler 
 MS. That he had a most reasonable conception of his strength his 
 letters to Walker (post), to Gardiner, (Tylers, ii., p. 341,) and to Wise, 
 ii. , p. 317, show. He could prevent others from being elected if he 
 could not elect himself. See also John Tyler, Jr's., article. — Lippin- 
 cott's Magazine, 1888, p. 420. 
 
 1 Through the courtesy of General Duncan S. Walker and the 
 lamented Bancroft. 
 
Tyler, Polk, and Texas, 1844-1845. 83 
 
 National Democratic Executive Committee, 
 writes 1 to Polk and Jackson that Mr. 
 Muhlenberg, the Democratic candidate for 
 Governor of Pennsylvania, and other friends 
 were greatly alarmed at the avowed intention 
 of Tyler's friends in Philadelphia, expressed 
 at meetings on July 4th, " to run separate 
 electoral tickets " ; that he deemed it a matter 
 of " the highest importance " that letters 
 should be written by Jackson and Polk "of a 
 character to put Tyler's friends at perfect ease 
 
 1 Walker MS., July 10, 1844. In this letter Walker also writes : 
 " On yesterday I called on the President who said that he knew 
 that he was to retire to private life in any event on the 4th of March, 
 and that he would at once withdraw, but that if he were to do 
 so now, it would not aid the Democratic cause ; for his friends 
 were so exasperated by the assertions of the Globe and other presses 
 "that if he withdrew, they would either remain neutral, or many of 
 them join Mr. Clay ; that they considered themselves proscribed and 
 invited not to join our party. He stated his deep regret at this 
 state of things, and his great anxiety that Polk and Dallas should be 
 elected . . . that his friends numbered about 150,000, and that 
 they were chiefly Republicans who voted for the Whigs in 1840 ; and 
 that if a different course was pursued towards them — if they could 
 be assured on reliable authority that they would be received with 
 pleasure and confidence by you and your friends into the ranks of the 
 Democratic party and treated as brethren and equals, he would 
 at once withdraw, and that his friends with all their influence and 
 presses would then, he had no doubt, come in, and uniting every- 
 where zealously and efficiently with us, render our victory certain and 
 easy." 
 
84 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 as to the treatment which would be accorded 
 them in case of victory." 
 
 On the next day Walker again writes 1 to 
 Polk that he had just seen a letter of General 
 Jackson, but "as it spoke of Benton as crazy 
 it would not be published or even shown to 
 Mr. Tyler." The letter actually shown to Mr. 
 Tyler was one from Jackson directed to Major 
 William B. Lewis, Second Auditor, and it was 
 full of the most satisfactory assurances. 8 An 
 extract from it found its way into the papers. 3 
 Jackson in fact informed Polk of his action, 
 and subsequently sent him a copy of the 
 Lewis letter 4 ; while Polk himself imitated 
 Jackson's action by giving direct pledges to 
 Walker and F. O. J. Smith in the Tyler men's 
 behalf. 5 
 
 It was by this means and on the basis of 
 equality that the Tyler Whigs and Democrats 
 united. The election of 1828 was repeated, 
 for as in that election the followers of Craw- 
 
 1 Walker to Polk, MS., July it, 1844. 
 
 2 It is dated July 26, 1844. MS. 
 
 3 Tylers, ii., p. 338. 
 
 4 Jackson MS. 
 
 5 Tallmadge MSS. to R. J. Walker, Dec. 9, 1844, and March 30, 
 1845. These pledges had nothing to do with the downfall of the 
 Globe as charged by Blair. Tylers, ii., 404, 408, 409, 413. 
 
Tyler, Polk, and Texas, 18.44—1845. 85 
 
 ford and of Jackson won the victory over. J. 
 Q. Adams, supported by Henry Clay ; so in 
 this, under very similar circumstances, they 
 won the victory over Henry Clay supported 
 by J. Q. Adams. 
 
 In respect to the result the following ex- 
 tract from a letter of Gov. N. P. Tallmadge 
 to R. J. Walker is explanatory : 
 
 "Faycheedah, W. T., Dec. 9, '44. 
 
 "In this remote region we have just got re- 
 turns enough to settle the Presidential elec- 
 tion. I have never doubted the result and it 
 seems New York decided the contest in favor 
 of Polk. I am amused with the Whig papers in 
 their awkward attempts to account for their 
 defeat. They have abused the Conserva- 
 tives [Tyler men] so much and underrated 
 their numbers and strength in such a manner 
 that they dare not charge the defeat to them. 
 They, therefore, talk about the foreign vote, 
 abolition vote, etc. But let any one compare 
 the vote in the strong Democratic counties, 
 where there are no foreigners and abolition- 
 ists, and the story is at once told. Those 
 counties which gave Harrison such large ma- 
 
86 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 jorities have now given Polk majorities 
 equally large. These changes have decided 
 the election. This is just as I always told you 
 it would be. After the invitation given by 
 Polk and Jackson through you for the Conser- 
 vatives to unite with the old party and that all 
 past differences would be forgotten and they 
 treated as if no such difference had ever 
 existed, they did not hesitate to go into the 
 contest. The result is seen." 1 
 
 1 The Northern Whigs used to console themselves with the idea 
 that if Clay had not written a letter half in favor of Texas to S. F. 
 Miller, of Alabama, he would have retained the abolition vote and 
 carried New York and Michigan. But the argument is as broad as 
 it is long ; for if Clay had not placated his Southern friends, who were 
 all for annexation in one way or another, the chances are that the 
 sensitiveness of slavery would have lost to him Delaware, Maryland, 
 North Carolina, and Tennessee, the last Polk's own State, which 
 were all carried for Clay by slender majorities. Keep in mind 
 these facts. Before Clay's Raleigh letter appeared, the South was a 
 unit for annexation — Democratic Address — Tylers, ii., 284. So 
 Stephens said in the House that while there was division on 
 Tyler's treaty, everybody in Georgia agreed as to the expediency of 
 annexation. — Cong- Globe, 1844-45, I9°- Duncan said that the Whig 
 stump-speakers pleaded that Clay should be elected, because he was 
 the man of all others to procure the annexation. — Ibid., Append., p. 
 495 . Milton Brown, of Tennessee, boasted that his resolution by which 
 Texas was finally annexed was in fact "an original Whig proposition 
 and received only a reluctant support from the Democrats. " — A. V. 
 Brown's Speeches, p. 219. Add to all this the fact attested by Upshur, 
 Tyler, and other witnesses, that two thirds of the Senate promised to 
 vote for a treaty. — Tylers ii., 284, 285, 396. Cropper said that 
 
Tyler, Polk, and Texas, 1844— 184.5. 87 
 
 After the presidential election, so far was 
 Tyler from desiring in any way to embarrass 
 his successor that he abstained entirely from 
 making any new nominations save, indeed, in 
 cases of resignation or other peremptory cir- 
 cumstances. 1 
 
 Senator Archer urged Upshur to consummate the treaty. — Richmond 
 Enquirer, July 2, 1844. Archer, indeed, was guilty of a strange 
 contradiction, ; for in his speech on the rejected treaty, he said that 
 annexation by joint resolutions was the proper mode, and in his re- 
 port on the joint resolutions he contended for the treaty alternative ! 
 In the Lewis letter Jackson assumes responsibility for making a declara- 
 tion to Houston of the disposition of the Senate in favor of Texas on 
 the strength of what Walker had informed him and what had reached 
 him from other sources. See also Henderson's letter of March 30, 
 1844, Jones' Official Corr. The Tyler treaty which secured the 
 lands of Texas to the United States was superior to the terms of the 
 joint resolutions which left the lands to the new State. Jones 
 thought the treaty &great hardship on Texas, and called attention to 
 the fact that the United States in 1850 gave for only one third of the 
 land, as much as the whole debt of Texas which the Tyler treaty 
 assumed in return for the lands. Since that time Texas has realized 
 many millions from this source, and to-day stands possessed of a 
 most valuable land fund for school purposes, worth untold millions of 
 dollars. So much for our wise Senate which lost this fund to the 
 Union ! 
 
 1 As the names of all appointees made during vacation have, under 
 the Constitution, to be submitted to the Senate at its next session, the 
 session of 1844-45, like that of 1841, is made to bear a deceptious ap- 
 pearance. Previous to the election in 1844 the Whig office-holders 
 ran mad over Clay's candidacy, and Tyler had to remove some of 
 those whom he had left in office up to this time, for ample cause, in- 
 volving official neglect. Many of the names mentioned by Niles 
 were, however, only re-nominations. The talented authoress of the 
 
88 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 Indeed, it is well known that at Polk's re- 
 quest, expressed through A. V. Brown and 
 Cave Johnson, he put Mr. Polk's own brother 
 into the only office of dignity open to him for 
 appointment by the return of the incumbent, 
 viz., the Mission to the Two Sicilies, a nomi- 
 nation which Polk could not well have made 
 without incurring the charge of flagrant nepo- 
 tism. 1 
 
 "Appointing Power" does not understand this, but, as Tyler was no 
 longer a candidate, for want of a better reason, charges on Tyler " a 
 spirit of revenge" — an idea at once repelled by the whole character of 
 Tyler as shown in a hundred different ways. Thus, after the defeat of 
 Clay, the President wrote to Jones, the editor of the Madisonian, who 
 had said some hard words of Clay in his paper : ' ' My own opinion is 
 that we had better now leave off abusing Mr. Clay altogether. He is 
 dead and let him rest." — Tyler MS. When he interfered on behalf 
 of Crittenden's son, who was captured by the Mexicans, he wrote : 
 " I would seek no sweeter revenge over my enemies than to render 
 them favors." — Tylers, ii. , 264, n. 3. At another time he said : "I 
 expected no mercy at the hands of my opponents and should be very 
 silly to bear malice. " — Tylers, ii. For evidence of Tyler's indisposi- 
 tion to make further changes after Polk's election, see Tylers, ii., 
 
 357, 359- 
 
 1 The office had been promised to a friend ; but the friend, being 
 assured by Brown and Johnson that Polk would provide for him, 
 released Tyler from his promise. Polk never did anything for him. 
 Memorandum of a conversation with John Tyler, Jr. R. Tyler, 
 writing to R. J. Walker, Secretary of the Treasury under Polk, com- 
 plained of Polk's proscription of Tyler's friends: "He [President 
 Tyler] had very kind feelings, the kindest I may well say, towards Mr. 
 Polk before his inauguration, and unless Cave Johnson, Aaron Brown, 
 and James Walker made the falsest representations, he had some 
 
Tyler, Polk, and Texas, 1844-1845. 89 
 
 It is also known that before sending the 
 messenger to Texas with the joint resolutions 
 for the annexation of Texas Mr. Tyler sent 
 Mr. Calhoun to consult Mr. Polk, the Presi- 
 dent-elect, a proof of his anxiety in all cases 
 to do the proper thing. 1 Nor did he vanish 
 in the night of March 3d, as John Adams did, 
 treating his successor as a kind of infection to 
 be avoided as carefully as possible. On the 
 contrary, Mr. Tyler welcomed Mr. Polk to the 
 White House with dignity and respect, gave 
 him and Mrs. Polk a dinner party, and while 
 
 reasons to be satisfied with his successor. This matter shall come up 
 again next winter, and other matters connected with William H. 
 Polk's and Pickett's appointments to office." — MS., August 28, 1845. 
 
 Nelson was made judge of the Supreme Court at this session, but 
 he agreed in politics with Polk, and had the endorsement of all the 
 New York Democrats. The vacancy had occurred at the previous 
 session, and sought to be filled then by the appointment of John C. 
 Spencer, rejected by the Senate. The vacancy was, therefore, one 
 proper to be filled by Tyler. 
 
 1 " I think that President Tyler, having been for four years dili- 
 gently bent upon the annexation of Texas, cannot be blamed for 
 exercising his constitutional right as President of the United States 
 in completing the annexation. Sir Robert Peel's administration ex- 
 changed ratifications of a boundary treaty with the United States in 
 the very last hours of its existence." — Geo. Bancroft MS., 20 July, 
 1883. " Tyler was a scholar," says Bancroft ; " I remember the 
 English Minister in New York expressing the opinion of his superi- 
 ority over Van Buren." — Memorandum of a conversation with 
 Bancroft. 
 
90 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 not choosing to embarrass the new President 
 by a continuance at the White House longer 
 than five o'clock of March 3d, he remained in 
 Washington at Fuller's Hotel until in com- 
 pany with Polk at the Capitol he saw him take 
 the oath of office to support the Constitution 
 of the United States. 1 
 
 But the best commentary on Tyler's use 
 of the appointing power, on the high char- 
 acter of those he selected, and on his own 
 vigilance and jealousy in supervising the dis- 
 bursing agents of the government, remains 
 yet to be mentioned. Tyler came into office 
 on the issue of " Reform," when the spirit of 
 spoils, engendered by the tariff and American 
 system, had made every land receiver a de- 
 faulter and every custom-house a nest for 
 rogues. The fidelity and ability of the office- 
 holders appointed by Tyler are attested by no 
 fact more conclusive than this, that during a 
 period of four years but a single default 
 occurred, and that scarcely worthy of mention, 
 for $15 on the part of a deputy postmaster 
 somewhere in the interior of Kentucky. 2 
 
 1 Tyler had tendered to Polk the position of Secretary of the Navy 
 after Gilmer's death. — Polk MS. to Cave Johnson. March 20, 1844. 
 
 * Tylers, ii. , p. 398. The Post-office Department probably had more 
 office-holders, than all the rest combined. When President Tyler 
 
Tyler, Polk, and Texas, 1844- 1845. 91 
 
 The strict-construction views of Mr. Tyler 
 made him the natural enemy of patronage, 
 and of its effect, "spoils and corruption." 
 By his vetoes of the Bank bills, tariff bills, and 
 bills for internal improvement, he deprived 
 himself of extensive opportunities to extend 
 the range of his personal favors, and saved 
 the government from a host of appointments. 
 By these means and by strict supervision 
 over all disbursements, while he enlarged the 
 navy, restored the dilapidated fortifications, 
 and made numerous important treaties, he 
 managed to reduce the expenditures of the 
 government by many millions under the aver- 
 age of the expenditures of Mr. Van Buren. 
 " In all things respecting the public expendi- 
 tures, he (Tyler)," wrote Webster, " was re- 
 markably cautious, exact, and particular." * 
 
 jested with Postmaster-General Wickliffe about the $15 defalcation in 
 his department, and said, "Ah, Mr. Postmaster-General, you have 
 cast discredit on me and my administration," this exemplary officer 
 replied : " But, Mr. President, I have paid the money out of my own 
 pocket ! " 
 
 1 Ibid., ii., 373, 398. Tyler's average expenditures were $22,- 
 987,411.78, which was $3,481,158.95 less than Van Buren's. — Cor- 
 win's Report, Exec. Doc. [n], p. 9. The debt stood January 1, 1842, 
 at $15,028,486.37, with charges created by Van Buren unprovided for 
 amounting to several millions more. — Sumner's Currency and Tyler's 
 Message of June 1, 1841. In October, 1845, the debt stood at appa- 
 rently $17,075,445.52, but with a balance available of upwards of 
 
92 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 And Jefferson Davis states the surprise of 
 the committee of Congress (of which he was 
 a member) appointed in 1846 to investigate 
 the charges against Mr. Webster respecting 
 the secret-service fund, when Mr. Tyler ap- 
 peared before them, and " declining the offer 
 of the book containing the warrants drawn 
 against this fund, recited the warrants drawn, 
 giving the names and amounts in each case, 
 and thus covered all which the record con- 
 tained." 1 
 
 $8,000,000.00 in the Treasury. — Walker's Report, December, 1845. 
 Treasury, departments and all, were bankrupt when Tyler took con- 
 trol, but this is what C. H. Raymond, the Texas agent at Washington, 
 said at the close of his term : ' ' The diplomatic corps waited on 
 the President this morning at the White House. He has had much 
 opposition and many difficulties to encounter, and yet no President 
 has closed his term with the affairs of the nation in a more prosperous 
 condition than they are at this moment." — "Jones' Official Corre- 
 spondence,'' p. 417. 
 
 1 " It seemed to me such an extraordinary exhibition of memory 
 that I took occasion to remark upon it, when he modestly replied that 
 supposing these disbursements would never be inquired into, he had 
 felt more than the ordinary weight of responsibility in regard to 
 them, and could not probably have so well remembered the ex- 
 penditure of any other fund. Thus did he exhibit a conscientious 
 integrity more commendable even than his memory." — Davis MS. 
 Mr. Davis adds : " As an extemporaneous speaker, I regard him as 
 the most felicitous among the orators I have known." Henry S. 
 Foote, Davis' rival in Mississippi, entertained a like exalted opinion 
 of Tyler's character and talents. — "Casket of Reminiscences," p. 
 
Tyler, Polk, and Texas, 1844-1845. 93 
 
 Such was Tyler's administration of the 
 offices. Some thought him a doctrinarian 
 of narrow notions ; but after all, old-fash- 
 ioned as he was, did the peculiar views of 
 this, the last of the Virginian Presidents, inter- 
 fere with an enlarged administration of the 
 government ? Take the State Department, 
 and from China to Africa its trophies are ap- 
 parent : the Florida war settled ; the Rhode 
 Island difficulties adjusted ; the Northeastern 
 boundary, complicated with the troubles about 
 the Caroline, Creole, and right of search negoti- 
 ated ; the Danes compelled to abandon their 
 immemorial exactions on the commerce of the 
 Danish Sound ; damages exacted from Mexico, 
 Venezuela, and other nations ; extradition 
 treaties with England and France ; commer- 
 cial treaties with Texas, the Zollverein, and 
 other States ; the Monroe doctrine carried to its 
 farthest limits in the guaranty of independence 
 
 57. For Charles Dickens', Judge Henry Baldwin's, Munford's J 
 Rives', etc., opinions of Tyler, see Tylers, i., 334, 336 ; ii., 191. 
 Mr. Edward W. Bok, editor of the " Beecher Memorial," writes 
 that ' ' only six weeks before his death Mr. Beecher, in an evening 
 sermon of rare excellence, and delivered before an immense audience, 
 in which he spoke to parents about the training of children, men- 
 tioned the example of President Tyler, and by his illustration 
 brought tears to many eyes." — Bok MS., March 19, 1887. 
 
94 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 given in 1843 to the Sandwich Islands ; the 
 treaty made with China ; Fremont sent to ex- 
 plore the West despite the protest of his supe- 
 rior officers ; Whitman, the missionary, aided 
 in transporting immigrants to Oregon ; Com- 
 modore Jones sent to explore the coast of 
 California ; the honor of the Union main- 
 tained by Commodore Morris despatched 
 with his man-of-war to protect an humble 
 colored citizen of the United States from the 
 outrages of the Montevideans * ; and finally 
 Texas annexed. In the Navy Department a 
 high state of efficiency prevailed : two new 
 squadrons, the home and the African, added 
 to the strength of the navy ; the old Navy 
 Board abolished and the modern system of 
 Bureaus established ; a bill to establish a naval 
 academy passed by the Senate and only failing 
 in the House; a depot for nautical charts 
 made a fact, and soon developed by the great 
 scientist, Matthew F. Maury, of Virginia, into 
 the National Observatory ; Alexander Dallas 
 Bache raised to the head of the coast sur- 
 vey, etc. 
 
 In the War Departments Spencer had waded 
 
 1 Spencer's Letter, Niks, 63, pp. 140-43. 
 
Tyler, Polk, and Texas, 1844-184.5. 95 
 
 through the tedious accounts that had accumu- 
 lated there ; and the forts recently dismantled 
 bristled with military equipment. In the Post 
 Office the receipts were made to cover the 
 expenditures, which had not been the case for 
 years. 
 
 Finally, a full Treasury was handed over to 
 Polk, into which no defaulter had placed his 
 hand. The friend of science, Tyler aided 
 Morse in his experiments with the telegraph, 
 and took pride in having America represented 
 in foreign courts by such eminent literary 
 characters as Irving, Everett, Thompson,, 
 Payne, and others of almost equal distinction. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE SPOILS SYSTEM RE-ESTABLISHED, 1 845- 1 849. 
 
 JAMES K. POLK was inaugurated on 
 March 4, 1845. Did he respect the 
 pledges which he had given to Tyler's 
 friends ? I am sorry to say he did not. The 
 same quarrel occurred in 1845 between the 
 Jackson and Crawford wings of his party as 
 had occurred after the joint victory in 1828. 
 The responsibility begins with Jackson himself ; 
 for though Jackson had shaken off the influence 
 of the Albany Regency while Texas hung' 
 trembling in the scale, he fell again under it 
 as soon as the presidential contest of 1 844 was 
 decided in Polk's favor. Persuaded by Blair 
 and Benton, he urged Polk in December, 
 1844, to turn all the Tyler men out and not to 
 appoint R. J. Walker to his Cabinet. 1 
 
 Polk, though he failed to obey in the last 
 
 'Jackson MS., December, 1844. 
 96 
 
The Spoils System Re-established. 97 
 
 particular, obeyed with apparent alacrity in 
 the first. And, therefore, no sooner was he 
 inaugurated than he instituted the most re- 
 morseless proscription against the few friends 
 Mr. Tyler had appointed to office, embracing 
 also in the proscription the friends of Mr. 
 Calhoun and even of Mr. Walker himself, who, 
 as Texas men, had thrown their influence ad- 
 versely to Van Buren in the Democratic con- 
 vention in May, 1844. 1 Polk ostracised Tyler 
 men, Calhoun men, Walker men, and Whigs. 
 In the Wisconsin Territory, Tallmadge, 8 the 
 
 1 Walker's correspondence contains letters from General Duff Green, 
 denouncing the removal of F. W. Birdsall, a Calhounite, from the 
 office of measurer in the New York Custom-House. Birdsall himself 
 writes : "Be assured that you (Walker) are not forgiven for your 
 course in that Convention (the Democratic), resulting as it did in the 
 defeat of the nomination of Mr. Van Buren. It is the same unfor- 
 giving spirit that has induced so much perseverance to effect the 
 removal of all the friends of the other Democratic candidates from 
 the custom-house here. . . . Certain it is that the removals, 
 with few exceptions, suit the Van Buren wing of his (Polk's) party, 
 while the appointments, by their political character, would seem to 
 result from the political and other associations of the Collector.'' 
 — MS., September II, 1845. 
 
 2 In his letter of March 30, 1845, Tallmadge writes : "Mr. Macy 
 says you suggested that I get letters from some Democratic friends 
 against my removal from the place I now hold. I cannot consent 
 to go about for letters on such a subject. I trust I am too well 
 known to Mr. Polk and all his Cabinet to require any such thing. 
 And after what Mr. Polk wrote to you and F. O. J. Smith in relation 
 to the Conservatives and the reunion of the old Jackson party, 
 
 7 
 
98 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 Governor, was removed. And so were Reed, 
 U. S. Surveyor of Missouri ; Captain John 
 Lester, the hero of North Point ; Van Ness, 
 Hope, Cooper, etc., all friends of Mr. Tyler to 
 whom Polk was bound by the most solemn 
 considerations. Even Major Wm. B. Lewis, 
 whom Jackson had made his go-between, 
 went by the board after Jackson's death in 
 June, 1845. 
 
 No part of this proscription was due to 
 Walker, who performed his part in Polk's 
 Cabinet as a statesman in procuring the 
 reduction of the tariff rates of 1842. But the 
 good of this reduction was more than set off 
 by the enormous increase in the ofhces and 
 expenditures occasioned by the Mexican war, 
 instigated by the Albany Regency, with Marcy 
 in the Cabinet and Benton in the Senate, at 
 their head. 
 
 Polk had the opportunity for glory and 
 rejected it. Briefly told, Tyler, as early as 
 1842, wished to send Webster to England to 
 negotiate a tripartite treaty — England, Mexico, 
 
 and after what my friends did in New York, which carried that 
 State and gave him the election, I do not deem anything necessary in 
 relation to myself. I have never given myself one moment's anxiety 
 about it, having entire confidence in Mr. Polk's good faith and 
 justice in such a matter." — Tallmadge MS. to R. J. Walker. 
 
The Spoils System Re-established. 99 
 
 and the United States as parties — by which 
 the independence of Texas should be guaran- 
 teed, California and New Mexico annexed, 
 and all of Oregon, save the part north of the 
 Columbia River, acquired. Washington Terri- 
 tory, however, was to be sacrificed only for 
 the much greater consideration of California 
 and New Mexico. In 1843, Tyler sent Duff 
 Green to Mexico as bearer of despatches 
 with private instructions on the subject. Her- 
 rera, President of Mexico, was for peace, and 
 sent his confidential friend, Isaac D. Marks, to 
 Washington at the session of 1844-45, who 
 impressed Tyler and Calhoun with the cer- 
 tainty of acquiring Texas, and all the other 
 territory by this method. Soon after, Tyler's 
 administration expired, and the same facts 
 were imparted to Polk by Marks and by Ben. 
 E. Green, who had been Secretary of Lega- 
 tion in Mexico. Thereupon, Polk sent Slidell 
 to Mexico with a view to consummate matters ; 
 but, instead of sending him as minister quoad 
 hoc, he greatly offended the Mexican pride by 
 sending him as minister plenipotentiary. At 
 the same time, Taylor was ordered to march to 
 the Rio Grande. The result was Herrera's 
 downfall and bloodshed, ending in difficulties 
 
ioo Parties and Patronage. 
 
 in the Union, only to be settled fifteen years 
 later by war itself. 1 After four years, the 
 result of Polk's policy, with reference to his 
 party and the Union was seen. By his war 
 policy and his failure to settle the slavery 
 question when the treaty of Guadaloupe 
 Hidalgo was negotiated, and by the proscrip- 
 tion of Tyler men, Calhoun men, and Whigs, 
 he drove off thousands of supporters, and in 
 the end found himself deserted by that very 
 Albany Regency which he had so honored and 
 favored. Led by Van Buren, Blair, Butler, 
 and Tappan, the Albany Regency marched off 
 to the " Freesoilers " in 1848 and accused Polk 
 of all manner of broken pledges. 2 At the 
 election in 1848, the "People's candidate," 
 General Zachary Taylor, was voted for by 
 thousands of Democrats, and elected. Polk 
 survived the disaster only a few months and 
 Taylor's death followed Polk's very shortly. 
 
 1 Tylers, ii., 260, 434, 448, 449, 692. Duff Green's "Facts and 
 Suggestions.'' Col. B. E. Green's MS. 
 
 2 They said, for instance, that Polk promised to select Benton's 
 proposition for the annexation of Texas. But all the Cabinet of Polk 
 ridiculed the idea. See Mason's Letter, Tylers, ii., 408. I have 
 a copy of Walker's MS. to the same effect, and Bancroft told me 
 there was no truth in the charge. 
 
IX. 
 
 CONCLUSION, 1 849-I 89 1. 
 
 I HAVE now come to a period within the 
 memory of many now living ; and why 
 should I detain the reader by presenting the 
 details of other administrations ? The general 
 fact is the same. By Polk's administration the 
 spoils system of the old Funding times, when 
 two Speakers of the House were acknowledged 
 speculators in their own influence and votes, 
 was fully re-established in the government. 
 How could much change ensue for the better 
 under either Fillmore, the Whig (1850-185 3), 
 or Franklin Pierce or James Buchanan, the 
 Democrats (1853-1861). Personally pure, 
 able, accomplished men, of incorruptible integ- 
 rity, men of whom the nation might well be 
 proud, the first, Fillmore, was brought up in 
 the New York Anti-Masonic school, which had 
 devised the national political convention ; and 
 
102 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 the last two, Pierce and Buchanan, had been 
 original Jackson men, who had admitted the 
 principle of rotation in office and were, there- 
 fore, at the mercy of their own admission and 
 of the spoilers who held them to it. 
 
 The condition of things was greatly aggra- 
 vated when the Southern influence was en- 
 tirely eliminated from one of the great parties. 1 
 The Whig party, never a unit, went to pieces, 
 and in 1856 a new party, taking the name of 
 the old Republican party, was formed in the 
 North out of various fragments and fractions 
 of the old parties. Composed of the dissatis- 
 fied of all the parties, it united the most fervent 
 patriotism with the most notorious lust for 
 spoils. The highest reverence for human 
 rights was there combined with the utmost 
 disregard for constitutional limitations. Into it 
 went all the most notorious spoils elements of 
 the country, — the surviving Anti-Masons led by 
 William H. Seward ; the Albany Regency led 
 
 ' Miss Salmon, in her pamphlet on the "Appointing Power,'' 
 citing authority of various kinds, shows that as late as 1859 the doc- 
 trine of spoils found no favor in the South. " The tendency of the 
 North," she says, "was in favor of proscription; at the South 
 against it." 
 
 It was Calhoun in 1835, who had moved to repeal the law of 
 1820, fixing a four-years' tenure of office in the Treasury Department, 
 and he had received the support of the Virginia senators, Tyler and 
 Leigh. 
 
Conclusion, 1849-1891. 103 
 
 by Fremont (Benton's son-in-law), F. P. Blair, 
 B. F. Butler, of New York, and many others 
 of the old Van Buren Democratic clique ; the 
 " Know-nothings," whose secret orgies Henry 
 A. Wise so effectually exposed ; the Abo- 
 litionists, whose platform was the " imme- 
 diate dissolution of the Union"; and many 
 thousand foreigners who were fresh from the 
 absolutism of the Old World and talked of 
 allegiance to the " government " instead of to 
 the people. Success of party had meant, pre- 
 vious to i860, the proscription of men of differ- 
 ent parties ; success after it with the spoilsmen, 
 the spoliation of a whole section. The prin- 
 ciple of patronage sprung at once into active 
 operation. The low tariff of the Confederate 
 Congress figured in bringing about the war. 
 "What will become of my tariff?" was the 
 question asked by Lincoln of Col. John B. 
 Baldwin. 1 The war had to be, with the true 
 men of the North, in order to save the Union; 
 but with the spoilsmen, in order to save the 
 Morrill tariff, passed after the Southern sena- 
 tors had left their seats. Otherwise "grass 
 would grow in the streets of New York." 
 War, once opened for the sake of Union, justi- 
 
 1 Tylers, ii., p. 633. 
 
io4 
 
 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 fied, under the guise of patriotism, any and 
 every measure of spoils. The offices were 
 multiplied tenfold, the expenditures of the 
 government increased beyond the worst dream 
 of the Anti-Federalists ; and when the Union 
 was saved, and the South was subjugated, there 
 poured down upon its war-worn fields and 
 charred and smoking towns a host of public 
 plunderers in comparison with whom the 
 Swartwouts of Jackson's day were angels. One 
 Moses, who was thought by the ruling powers 
 a fit person to lead the poor South Carolinians 
 out of the wilderness of Reconstruction, was 
 sent to a prison home in his native State of 
 M assachusetts. ' 
 
 1 DEBTS AND LIABILITIES OF THE SOUTHERN STATES. 
 
 States. 
 
 At the Close of the 
 War. 
 
 After Reconstruc- 
 tion. 
 
 North Carolina .... 
 South Carolina .... 
 
 $5,939,654 87 
 4,036,952 87 
 221,000 00 
 Nominal. 
 
 10,099,074 34 
 9,669,500 00 
 5,000,000 00 
 Nominal. 
 
 20,105,606 66 
 Nominal. 
 
 31,938,144 59 
 
 $38,381,967 37 
 19,761,265 62 
 15,763,447 54 
 50,137,500 °° 
 50,540,206 61 
 34,887,467 85 
 39,158,914 47 
 20,000,000 00 
 45,688,263 46 
 20,361,000 00 
 45,480,542 21 
 
 
 $87,009,933 33 
 
 $380,160,575 13 
 
Conclusion, 184.9— r8gi. 105 
 
 Probably some of the evil doings in the 
 South enacted after the war were unavoidable. 
 Probably they were, many of them, necessary 
 features of a time of disorganization. Prob- 
 ably all men and all sections, blinded by bad 
 passions, judged wrong and acted wrong. We 
 do not need to enquire into responsibilities, 
 but it is sufficient to say that the same prin- 
 ciples that called into being the spoils system 
 a hundred years ago existed and held high 
 carnival during the days of Reconstruction. 
 Since that time they have continued to exist, 
 as evidenced by a tariff pronounced by Prof. 
 W. G. Sumner, of Yale College, "unexampled 
 save by the most unenlightened nations on the 
 earth," by vast surpluses in the Treasury, by 
 vast appropriations, by public defaulters with- 
 out number, by enormous grants to railroads 
 of the public lands, by Star-route rings in the 
 Post-office Department, and by presidents and 
 Cabinet officers turned speculators and stock- 
 jobbers, some of the last actually charged with 
 and tried for embezzlement. One wearies of 
 the record of shame. 1 
 
 1 George F. Hoar, the able and eloquent senator from Massachusetts, 
 declared in a speech in the Senate, during the trial of W. W. Bel- 
 
106 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 Briefly told, Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Hayes, 
 Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, and Harrison have 
 all had to struggle with the demon of the 
 " spoils." 
 
 Under the system of legislation which has 
 prevailed since the war, offices have been cre- 
 ated for millions of dependents. The recipi- 
 ents of government bounty, whom Calhoun, 
 in his report in 1835, thought so alarming, 
 would appear as a corporal's guard beside the 
 army after army of office-holders, pensioners, 
 agents, etc., now supported by the Federal 
 government. The expenditures ' for a single 
 year under the present regime would have run 
 the government twelve years as administered 
 by Andrew Jackson. And not the least ugly 
 feature of all this is that on the unfortunate 
 South falls the burden of this vast spoliation. 
 Out of the whole number of those who receive 
 substantial assistance from the Federal gov- 
 
 knap, Grant's Secretary of War, that he had heard " the taunt from 
 friendliest lips " that " the only product of her [the United States'] 
 institutions in which she surpassed all others beyond question was her 
 corruption. " 
 
 1 Out of all proportion to the population, which has increased but 
 five times the population of Jackson's day. Jackson's average ex- 
 penditures were in rough numbers, $25,000,000 ; the net expendi- 
 tures for 1889, $299,288,978. 
 
Conclusion, 1849-1891. 107 
 
 eminent probably not over one hundredth part 
 reside in the Southern States. 
 
 But no good cause was ever yet won by 
 despair. In spite of the tremendous agencies 
 for evil in affiliated co-operation, the signs of 
 reform are seen. It is impossible to suppose 
 that a people as intelligent as the people of the 
 United States will forever submit to injustice, 
 forever lie under the heel of the speculator. 
 The South once, through her presidents, tried 
 to lead the way to reform, but her efforts were 
 not permanent. One turns hopefully to the 
 land of the Sumners, the Fiskes, the Eliots, 
 and the Blaines. 1 Let New England, rich in 
 
 ' Mr. Blaine, in lately advocating a policy of reciprocity with 
 South America, should be reminded of the sentiments of the cele- 
 brated student of international relations, Jonathan Elliot, who, writ- 
 ing to one at the head of affairs like Mr. Blaine, said : 
 
 "Our foreign relations under your guidance will doubtless be so 
 conducted as to draw closer those ties which so happily in times like 
 the present bind us in amicable relations with all the civilized nations 
 of the earth on the basis of that liberal commercial reciprocity and 
 free-trade of which it has been the glory of our earlier negotiators to 
 lay the corner-stone in the preamble to the first treaty with France in 
 1778 ; and which has since formed the basis on which all our nego- 
 tiations have been negotiated." MS., Oct. 19, 1841. 
 
 Mr. Blaine has the example before him of Sir Robert Peel, who, as 
 Prime-Minister, came into power the avowed champion of protec- 
 tion, but left it having procured the overthrow of the corn laws and 
 the whole tariff legislation. 
 
108 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 her trade and commerce, in her arts and sci- 
 ences, in her statesmen and her scholars, in her 
 talents and genius, step at length to the front 
 and win a victory for reform which will not 
 be temporary. The Old New England had 
 its faults, even if it had its merits ; but it is to 
 the "New New England" of to-day, full of 
 progressive and liberal ideas, that I appeal. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I. 
 
 Washington's cabinet. 
 
 IT is sometimes said that Washington, in 
 selecting his cabinet in 1789, aimed at 
 the establishment of a balance between parties. 
 This would have been a most absurd proceed- 
 ing, and the facts are all against the idea. 
 Hamilton and Knox were conceded Federal- 
 ists, while Edmund Randolph had been one of 
 the main champions of the Federal party in 
 the Virginia Convention of 1788. Jefferson 
 had been out of the country at the time of 
 the adoption of the Constitution, and on the 
 question then before the public had declared 
 himself as '■ neither Federalist nor anti-Fed- 
 eralist." It was after the formation of the 
 cabinet that Randolph and Jefferson united 
 
 109 
 
no Parties and Patronage. 
 
 with the anti-Federalists under the name of 
 Republicans. It is curious to read John 
 Adams' arraignment of Washington's admin- 
 istration for monopoly and exclusion which he 
 said " prevailed throughout," and to which 
 " he had been so often compelled to submit." 
 ("Works," x., 121.) 
 
 II. 
 
 TYLER AND THE BANK. 
 
 Clay's disloyalty to Tyler goes back to the 
 session of 1838-39, when, in the election for 
 senator, he instigated the Whigs at Rich- 
 mond to vote for Rives, who had opposed 
 the Whig party in everything, over Tyler, who 
 had helped to build it up. A. P. Upshur, in a 
 letter, dated March 23, 1840, writes as follows : 
 
 "John Tyler was sacrificed by the party 
 which brought Rives into power ; and yet 
 the Whig party, with whom and for whose 
 sake Tyler fell, has endeavored to put the 
 heel of this same Mr. Rives on his head. 
 By what terms shall we designate such con- 
 duct as this ? Who can hope to win the favor 
 
Appendix. 1 1 1 
 
 of such a party by deserving it ? Who can 
 expect to escape its persecutions by serving it 
 faithfully ? After all that it has done, — I 
 speak of it in Virginia, — it would not be at all 
 surprising if Mr. Van Buren himself became 
 its chosen leader. As mere parties then, and 
 in reference to party conduct, a hair makes 
 the difference between Whigs and Democrats. 
 With professions of States-rights doctrines, 
 loud and ostentatious, until credulity is 
 shocked and good taste disgusted, what has 
 either of them done to sustain the principles 
 it professes ? . Now tell me which of 
 
 the great parties will come forward in good 
 faith to build up the States once more in their 
 just dignity and importance, and thus restore 
 the true and only balance of the Constitution? 
 Neither of them, — my life upon it, neither of 
 them. . . . However, I will merely add 
 that I have great respect for, and confidence 
 in, General Harrison. If the Whigs should 
 elect him, as I sincerely hope they may, I have 
 great hopes that he will do as much as a 
 President can do to restore the government to 
 its purity." 
 
 Shortly before Upshur's letter, the Anti- 
 
ii2 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 Masonic Whigs defeated Clay's nomination at 
 Harrisburg by setting up Scott as a tertium 
 quid. Something of the same intriguery was 
 attempted against Tyler by the same parties, 
 who tried to make Tallmadge, Leigh, Bell, 
 Preston, and others the instruments of their 
 purposes. But so contemptible and far- 
 fetched were these movements to Tyler's 
 injury, that, according to the statement of the 
 conspirators themselves, the effort failed in the 
 case of Preston, since " not a single Southern 
 delegate approved the suggestion of his nom- 
 ination for Vice-President." (Niles, 61, p. 
 232.) Leigh, also, indignantly denied that he 
 was the convention's choice, and Judge Owen 
 was for Tyler because he carried North Caro- 
 lina in 1836 for Vice-President, when Harrison 
 and White lost it. Indeed, Legare voiced 
 the Whig convention when he wrote : " As 
 for Mr. Tyler, if he does not obtain the unani- 
 mous vote of the South, I shall begin to fear 
 that faction has entirely bereft us of the clear 
 judgment of which more than any other people 
 we stand in need." 1 The substitution of any 
 of the parties named as the Whig nominee 
 
 1 Legare MS., June 12, 1840. 
 
Appendix. 1 1 3 
 
 would not have made the Whig record any- 
 better ; for all of them, like Tyler, were origin- 
 ally anti-Bank Democrats. Tallmadge became 
 a Tyler man subsequently. 
 
 After the election of 1840, Clay began the 
 work of discord as soon as he saw there was 
 probability of his rival, Webster, being called 
 into Harrison's Cabinet. Tyler saw the rupture 
 in advance, and wrote to Wise, November 25, 
 1840, that "the introduction of either Clay, 
 Scott, or Webster into the Cabinet would ex- 
 cite the jealousy of the others and produce 
 discontent and final rupture." * Again he 
 wrote on December 20, 1840 : 
 
 " There are so many jarring views to recon- 
 cile and harmonize that the work is one of 
 immense difficulty ; and in your ear let me 
 whisper what you already know — that that 
 branch of the Whig party called the Nationals 
 is composed of difficult materials to handle. 
 They are too excessive in their notions, — I 
 mean many of them, — and are accustomed to 
 look upon a course of honest compromise as 
 a concession of something which they call 
 principle, but which, dissected, is nothing 
 
 1 Tyler MS. 
 
114 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 more than mistaken convictions." On Janu- 
 ary 15, 1 84 1, Mr. Gilmer, the Governor of 
 Virginia, wrote that the appointment of Web- 
 ster ("a Federalist of the worst dye") as 
 Secretary of State had been disapproved by 
 " Tyler and all the Southern Whigs at Wash- 
 ington." r 
 
 In the meantime, Clay had organized his 
 caucus in Congress. He would not tell Wright 
 in the Senate whether he meant to propose a 
 Bank, 2 but he took his measures accordingly. 
 The work at the last session under Van Buren 
 was done in secret. He said to Wise that 
 it was " a fortunate thing old Virginia had 
 gone for Van Buren, as the Whigs would 
 not now be bound by her peculiar opinions." 
 But to this remarkable doctrine of morals 
 Wise retorted that he had one time heard 
 Clay say that "he would prefer to be defeated 
 with his native State, Virginia, on his side, to 
 being victorious with her vote against him." 3 
 
 Clay offered Wise important foreign mis- 
 sions, and tried to persuade Preston, from 
 whom he anticipated opposition in the Senate, 
 
 1 Tylers, ii., p. 704. "-Ibid, ii., p. 6. 
 
 s Hambleton's " Virginia Politics, and Life of Henry A. Wise." 
 
Appendix. 115 
 
 to accept a seat in the Cabinet. Alleging an im- 
 poverished treasury, he induced Harrison to 
 call an extra-session, using the strength of the 
 Whig caucus to enforce his views. Harrison 
 called the extra-session, but would not declare 
 for a national bank ; and on the contrary ex- 
 pressed advanced States-rights views in his 
 inaugural, describing the Union as " a part- 
 nership " of allied States. He ceased to con- 
 fer with Clay, complained of the Federal 
 Whigs, and in an interview with Thomas 
 Dunn English received in no pleasant manner 
 the suggestion that the Whigs contemplated 
 a Bank measure. : Harrison's confidential 
 friends told Rives that a District Bank, with 
 branches in the States with the assent of the 
 States, was " a favorite and fundamental idea " 
 with Harrison. 2 
 
 Tyler succeeded Harrison on the 4th of 
 April, and Thompson's statement of his inter- 
 view with the Vice-President on March 1, 
 1 84 1 ; Tyler's letters to Rives of April 9th ; to 
 Tucker of April 25th ; to Clay of April 30th ; 
 Tyler's interview with Clay at the extra-ses- 
 
 1 Newark Sunday Call, June 6, 1888. 
 
 8 Congressional Globe, 1841 ; Appendix, 367. 
 
1 1 6 Parties and Patronagz. 
 
 sion ; and Ewing's statement that Tyler's veto 
 of the first Bank bill was according to his 
 "expressed opinions pertinaciously adhered 
 to," render the charge that he surprised the 
 Whigs by his course supremely ridiculous. 
 It is true that Tyler in his inaugural, April 9, 
 1 84 1, expressed general principles only, and 
 did not indicate particular acts. Neither did 
 Washington, or J. Q. Adams, (or Lincoln, 
 when he spoke of executing the laws, " so far 
 as was practicable " ; but did not say whether 
 he would reinforce Fort Sumter or not). 
 Ritchie said that Harrison's inaugural, which 
 said not a word of Bank or tariff, was " a 
 miserable flummery of vague generality." And 
 yet Schurz, who praises Lincoln and Harrison, 
 charges Tyler with equivocation. Different 
 from Schurz, Benton quarrels with Tyler for 
 departing, in his inaugural message, too much 
 from the "reserve" and "generality", of such 
 papers (" Thirty Years' View "). 
 
 Indeed, in referring to the opinions of the 
 " fathers of the Republican school," Tyler 
 made his position' on particular measures far 
 more certain than probably any one of the 
 presidents named ; since, in a letter to the 
 
Appendix. 1 1 7 
 
 Whigs of Norfolk during the preceding cam- 
 paign, he had boasted 1 that "he had never 
 departed in any particular " from the views held 
 by the Republican school, — a claim he stood 
 scarcely entitled to make if the Bank measure, 
 against which he had repeatedly voted, was a 
 measure of that school. 
 
 In his message at the extra-session, June 
 1, 1 84 1, Tyler clearly put the Bank out of 
 consideration by saying that it was condemned 
 by the popular voice, the arbiter to which the 
 Whigs had repeatedly appealed. 
 
 Mr. Ewing, the Secretary of the Treasury, 
 in close accordance with Harrison's views and 
 with Tyler's scruples, recommended a Bank 
 which obviated the objection of national incor- 
 poration inhering in the old Bank, by locating 
 the main bank in the District of Columbia, 
 and authorizing it to establish its branches in 
 the States with the assent of the States. The 
 outlines of the plan had received the approval 
 of Eppes as far back as 1814, of Calhoun and 
 the most rigid States-rights men since. But 
 Clay denounced 2 the measure as "a rickety 
 
 1 Tylers, i., p. 623. 
 
 8 Cong. Globe, 1841, Append, p. 354 ; Tylers, ii., p. 54, 80 (note 2). 
 
1 1 8 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 4> 
 
 District bank," and proposed a scheme of his 
 own with all the old objections. The President 
 vetoed it. 
 
 However, he did not send his veto in at once ; 
 for though, as he told Bell, " he had made up 
 his mind on the veto from the first," he thought, 
 " to give time for the excitement to subside." 
 In the interim, he advised a District bank, 
 which should have agencies in the States to 
 deal in exchanges only and be free from local 
 discounts, which made even Ewing's measure 
 obnoxious, as a matter of expediency, in its 
 details. 
 
 During the consideration of the principle of 
 this measure, Tyler offended Ewing, Granger, 
 and the rest by stopping their proscription 
 in the departments. By way of retaliation 
 Ewing, Bell, and Badger asserted afterwards 
 that Tyler said nothing about the assent of 
 the States as to the last Bank measure. But 
 Bell also said that he could not pretend to 
 relate all that Tyler had said at the Cabinet 
 meeting, and there was Ewing's declaration in 
 regard to Tyler's " pertinacity " about the first 
 bill vetoed, which turned entirely on State 
 assent. The President relates that he intend- 
 
Appendix. 119 
 
 ed to follow the principle laid down two years 
 before by the Supreme Court (Bank of Augusta 
 vs. Earle), according to which, in establishing 
 agencies to deal in exchange, the assent of the 
 States, by the comity of nations, might be pre- 
 sumed till directly withheld. And that this was 
 his understanding is proved by A. H. H. Stuart, 
 who on the day of the first veto brought to 
 Tyler the very paper made the basis of the 
 bill in question, and received in the President's 
 own hand on the margin an amendment which 
 saved the point so important to be recognized. 
 This paper was carried, so Stuart says, to the 
 Whig caucus ; and yet, though from either 
 design or otherwise, the bill as adopted by 
 Congress did not contain the marginal reserva- 
 tion, both Stuart, who admits the amendment, 
 and the three Cabinet officers mentioned, most 
 strangely asserted that the bill contained the 
 principle contended for by the President I 1 
 
 Now Ewing was quite right in declaring 
 that the principle discussed contained nothing 
 " new " to Tyler, to whom the whole Bank 
 question had been long familiar. Indeed, the 
 paper brought by Stuart to the President had 
 
 1 See Benton, ii., 212, 241 ; Tylers, ii., 98-103. 
 
120 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 been offered by Bayard in the Senate more 
 than seven weeks before ; and Tyler had then 
 taken the same position in conversation as he 
 took to Stuart afterwards, and so had Rives in 
 a public speech at the time. 1 
 
 Kennedy quotes Tyler as saying several 
 days before his first veto that his forthcoming 
 message " would shadow forth a measure which 
 had been long endeared to him." — (" States- 
 man's Manual.") Botts also stated that the 
 President, in the early part of the session, 
 spoke to him of an exchange bank which he 
 said he much preferred to Ewing's measure. 
 Indeed, as far back as 1834, Tyler had men- 
 tioned in the Senate the beneficial effects 
 exerted by the old Bank through this feature 
 of its business. Hence Wise's ascription to 
 Rives of the authorship of the last plan must 
 be taken with the allowance due to a book 
 written without documents and in his old age. 2 
 
 A principle only was discussed at the Cabinet 
 meeting of August 1 8th ; and as to the reported 
 draft of the bill Ewing could only say he had 
 " heard " that Tyler had seen and approved 
 
 1 Tylers, ii., 99 ; Cong. Globe, 1841, Appendix, 353. 
 5 See " Seven Decades," p. 188. 
 
Appendix. 121 
 
 it ; but Webster, whom in a subsequent letter 
 Ewing gave as his informant, never confirmed 
 the charge, and Tyler unequivocally denied it. 
 Who, indeed, should have known better the ex- 
 tent of his suggestions at the Cabinet meeting 
 — Tyler, who made the suggestions, or the 
 ministers who received them second-hand ? 
 The Cabinet was told merely " to aid " in get- 
 ting the bill before Congress properly ; but 
 "not to commit him (Tyler) to members of 
 Congress." In accordance with the most 
 familiar rules of agency, Tyler reserved most 
 fully the right of confirmation, as well he 
 might in a matter so important. The fact is, 
 as Bell admits, Tyler especially required that 
 the bill should be submitted to him for correc- 
 tion "before it was presented to the House." 
 
 According to the garbled statements of the 
 Cabinet ministers, he appeared even more 
 cautious as to his attitude than ever before, 
 insisting that the thing should not be called a 
 Bank of the United States, as indeed it was 
 not, being a mere District bank, and in rela- 
 tion to the Union at large a fiscal agent or 
 institute for the collection and disbursement 
 of the national funds. 
 
122 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 As soon as the President became aware of 
 the defects of the bill, at once in every pos- 
 sible way were the Whigs who had the bill in 
 charge informed of their mistake. The edito- 
 rials of the Washington Madisonian of October 
 26 and 27, 1842, are minute in giving details 
 which are confirmed by the independent state- 
 ments of Tyler and Wise. First, Messrs. 
 Gregg and Williams, of New York, were sent 
 to Sergeant to inform him of the President's 
 objections, and then, Wise dropping in at the 
 White House, the President sent him also to 
 Sergeant, lest the first message might miscarry. 
 Botts, who admits seeing the amendment 
 drawn by Tyler to relieve the bill of its ob- 
 jections, and which was put into the hands of 
 many members of Congress, repels Ewing's 
 insinuation that Tyler vetoed because of pique 
 at the disclosures in Botts' " Coffee-house " 
 letter, and points to facts inconsistent with 
 this idea. 1 
 
 Indeed, Benton and Buchanan show that 
 the last bill was really a worse discount affair 
 than the first, since in the most obvious man- 
 ner, under the management of the attorney for 
 
 1 JViles, 61, p. 79. 
 
Appendix. 123 
 
 the old United States Bank, John Sergeant, 
 who answered to the description of a true 
 " Philadelphia lawyer," all the restrictions even 
 of the first vetoed bill on the running and re- 
 newal of paper had been covertly stricken out 
 in the latter. 1 Now if the objections of Tyler, 
 of Harrison, of White, and of the Supreme 
 Court were mere "cobwebs," as Schouler, the 
 Boston historian, seems to think, pray why did 
 Clay reject the original Cabinet measure or 
 decline to let the Whigs accept any amend- 
 ments of the last measure, though they were 
 fully warned beforehand in respect to its de- 
 fects ? Either the " cobwebs " were of vital 
 importance, or the Whigs did not really want 
 a Bank and acted in bad faith throughout. 
 Schouler can take either horn of the dilemma 
 that he fancies. 
 
 Probably, after all, it was the similar want of 
 sympathy of Ewing and the rest with Tyler's 
 scruples that accounted for some of their stub- 
 bornness. Thus, Archer, who admitted that 
 the decision in the case of the Bank of Augusta 
 vs. Earle gave the right to deal in exchanges in 
 the States till prohibited by them, excused the 
 
 1 Cong. Globe, 1841, 419; Appendix, 340-346. 
 
124 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 absence in the bill of the limitation in italics, 
 because, although the defect created an uncon- 
 stitutionality, "it was an unconstitutionality 
 which existed in futuro" — a contingency 
 deemed by him not necessary to be taken 
 notice of ! 1 The bill was rushed through 
 under the previous question, and when Tyler 
 sought to postpone the measure till the next 
 session, the answer came that he must pledge 
 himself to retain his Cabinet. This is stated 
 on the authority of Tyler, Spencer, Cushing, 
 and Wise. 2 
 
 Ewing admitted making the attempt to 
 effect a postponement, and said the Whigs 
 declined because "the President would give 
 no assurances that the delay was not sought 
 as the means and occasion for hostile move- 
 ments." 8 
 
 When at a later day Botts proposed to im- 
 peach the President, Wise, who knew all the 
 parties implicated in the overture made to 
 Tyler, "challenged, defied, and dared" the 
 Whigs to proceed. The trial would release 
 
 1 Hid., 1841, Appendix, 339. 
 
 s Tylers, ii., 100. Miles, 63, p. 140. Cushing's speech at New- 
 buryport, 1842, and Cong. Globe, 1842-3, p. 98. 
 3 Niles, 61, p. 33. 
 
Appendix. 125 
 
 both Tyler and Webster from the obligations 
 of silence as to Cabinet measures, and to one 
 Thompson who denied that he was one of the 
 parties, Wise said that " it did not make the 
 fact false because one member out of 242 had 
 no knowledge of it." He said "he could lay 
 his hand on more than one member who could 
 testify." 1 It is also now known that while the 
 bill was pending in Congress Botts and Crit- 
 tenden, the latter, a member of the Cabinet, 
 wrote secretly that the Whigs intended if 
 possible to obtain a bank with a larger recog- 
 nition of Federal authority than the one first 
 vetoed*; and J. Q. Adams, who voted against 
 the first bill vetoed (called the Fiscal Bank of 
 the United States), because, as he said, it had 
 been adapted too much to the President's views, 
 voted for the Fiscal Corporation of the United 
 States (as Sergeant had called the last measure, 
 despite the admission of the Cabinet that the 
 bill was to be called the Fiscal Institute). 
 
 But the last act of the Cabinet rendered 
 their motives too plain. The Constitution 
 appears to limit the President's power to fill 
 
 1 Cong. Globe, 1842-3, pp. 98, 416. 
 ! Tylers, ii., 116. 
 
126 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 vacancies to cases " happening during vaca- 
 tion." After the second veto, instead of wait- 
 ing till vacation, all save Webster resigned a 
 few hours before Congress adjourned, thus 
 necessitating nominations immediately. 1 Crit- 
 tenden was one, at least, who calculated upon 
 the possibility of plunging the government 
 into anarchy. 3 And while all these fine pro- 
 ceedings were enacting, Clay, whom drink, 
 disappointment, and jealousy of Tyler and 
 Webster had made a perfect maniac of, was 
 abusing senators like Choate and King and 
 threatening to " drive Tyler before him." 
 
 The statements of the Cabinet ministers 
 themselves are full of contradictions. Thus 
 Ewing said that his bill had received the 
 President's approval, but in the next breath 
 he declared that the President " had not read 
 it throughout " — having in fact suggested but 
 the general principle. Again he said that the 
 President never consulted him about his veto 
 of the Fiscal Corporation, but he subsequently 3 
 admitted that he was present at a Cabinet 
 
 1 Mr. Frederick Schley of Baltimore said that he was present at 
 the meeting or dinner when Clay dictated the Cabinet resignations. 
 5 See Tylers, ii., 95, note 1. 
 8 Niks, 63, p. 283. 
 
Appendix. 127 
 
 meeting when the whole affair was discussed. 
 Indeed, a correspondent of the Madisonian 
 declares that he was present with Tyler on the 
 day the bill was introduced in Congress, and 
 heard him in Ewing's presence strongly object 
 to the measure. As to that, Ewing admits 
 that he heard from others that Tyler had said 
 that "he would cut his right hand off first 
 rather than approve the bill," — -a remark which 
 Botts identifies as made within the two days 
 that the bill 1 rested before the House, and no 
 denial is made of the repeated messages sent 
 to Sergeant in the earliest moments of the 
 measure. 
 
 But why, indeed, was Tyler under obliga- 
 tions to inform Ewing especially on a question 
 that he had so fully discussed with him at the 
 Cabinet meeting of August 18th? The fact 
 is, as Tyler states, fully fifty persons stood 
 informed of the President's objections by the 
 President personally, and this before anything 
 was done, or vote taken. 2 
 
 Ewing also stated that his bill, whose gen- 
 eral outline the President had approved, had 
 the power to deal in exchanges as fully devel- 
 
 1 Ibid., 61, p. 79. 2 Tylers, ii., ioo 
 
128 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 oped as the Fiscal Corporation. But Clay had 
 denounced Ewing's bill as " a mere local 
 bank," 1 while he voted for the Fiscal Corpora- 
 tion as a national institution. Ewing's bill 
 proposed only to employ State banks to trans- 
 act the business in the States " other than 
 local discount," while the Fiscal Corporation 
 proposed to allow the incorporators to create 
 [charter] agencies or banks in the States for 
 that purpose ! 
 
 All that the Whigs could trump up against 
 Tyler were rumors that he was intriguing with 
 the Democrats, who, nevertheless, opposed all 
 forms of banks ; and that he instigated certain 
 letters to the New York Herald. But for 
 these rumors there was no authority, and in 
 fact they were absolutely false. 
 
 Tyler subsequently recommended the ex- 
 chequer, which, derided by the Whigs in 1841, 
 received the high endorsement of Sir Horsley 
 Palmer, late president of the Bank of England 3 ; 
 but just as the sub-treasury first rejected by 
 the Democrats in 1834 was afterwards accepted 
 by them, so the exchequer was taken up many 
 
 1 Cong. Globe, 1841, Appendix, p. 354. 
 " Lippincott's Mag., March, 1888. 
 
Appendix. 129 
 
 years later by Lincoln and Chase and made 
 the basis of the present system of government 
 finance. 
 
 I append Mr. Tyler's letter to Mr. Clay of 
 April 30th, 1 84 1. He urges him, if he must 
 have a Bank, to devise one which shall obviate 
 "constitutional objections." This was the 
 very description given by Ewing in his report 
 to Congress on June 2, 1841, 1 explanatory of 
 his District bank, which Clay rejected, because 
 it avoided the only constitutional objection 
 recognized by Jefferson himself, the power of 
 "national incorporation." 2 
 
 (John Tyler to Henry Clay.) 
 
 Washington, April 30, 1841. 
 
 My Dear Sir : 
 
 Your letter of the 15th was received some 
 days ago, and its acknowledgment at an earlier 
 day has been prevented by pressing engage- 
 ments. At its date you had not probably seen 
 my address to the people of the U. States, 
 which was designed as an exponent of the 
 principles on which I should administer the 
 
 1 Tylers, ii., 35. 
 
 8 "Jefferson's Works," v., p. 412 ; vi., p. 305. 
 
1 30 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 Gov't. Considering the brief time allowed 
 me and the extreme pressure on my time, 
 it will not be expected that I shall come 
 before Congress with matured plans of public 
 policy connected with deeply interesting and 
 intricate subjects. There are some points so 
 simple in themselves as to require but brief 
 consideration. The repeal of the sub-treasury 
 and, if necessary, additional burthens for the 
 relief of the Treasury. The wants of the 
 Treasury will be made manifest, and the state 
 of our military defences requires immediate 
 attention. There is not a seaport town that 
 does not hold its existence at the will of 
 a great naval power. Altho' I am not 
 apprehensive of a war, yet I cannot but feel 
 solicitude as to the ability of the country to 
 repel invasion. If these shall be the only 
 matters attended to at the extra-session, great 
 good will have been done. The pressing wants 
 of the Treasury will have been relieved, the 
 war on the currency will have ceased, and the 
 banks be placed in a condition to afford partial 
 relief. Should legislation stop here, the public 
 monies would be restored to the custody pro- 
 vided for them by the Act of 1 789, which law 
 
Appendix. 131 
 
 has been abrogated by the course of Jackson 
 and his successor. To these objects the late 
 President's proclamation concerning Congress 
 seems exclusively to have looked. It will, 
 however, be for Congress to decide whether 
 other measures shall claim its attention. The 
 citizens of this District should undoubtedly not 
 be forgotten. 
 
 My opinions on the subject of a distribution 
 of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands 
 were promulged some three winters ago in a 
 report submitted to the H. of Delegates of 
 Virginia. I made the basis of that distribution 
 an abandonment of that course which has for 
 some time prevailed, of annual appropriations 
 to harbors and rivers, a course wholly indefen- 
 sible in any view in which I can regard it, — 
 thereby substituting a wholesome, sound, and 
 agreeable action in place of one unequal and 
 therefore unjust, not to say anything of its 
 want of constitutionality — and without which 
 substitution the loudest and most violent com- 
 plaints will be urged against the distribution at 
 this time. 
 
 As to a Bank, I design to be perfectly frank 
 with you — I would not have it urged prema- 
 
132 Parties and Patronage. 
 
 turely. The public mind is still in a state of 
 great disquietude in regard to it. The late 
 exposures at Philadelphia have not been calcu- 
 lated to put it at rest. The misnomer given to 
 that Bank by the injudicious policy pursued 
 by those who obtained its charter and the late 
 disclosures have furnished the demagogues 
 with new weapons to assail those who advo- 
 cate a Bank charter, — whilst the close division 
 of votes by which, if at all, it will pass through 
 Congress, will encourage the tdtraists in 
 efforts to destroy it before it can go into 
 operation. I apprehend a strong protest from 
 the minority and an avowed purpose to cancel 
 it, the charter, at a future day. Should this be 
 done, are you sure that capitalists will adven- 
 ture their capital in it ? The fact is before the 
 world that Jackson tore the charter of the old 
 Bank into tatters, and his followers will go 
 forth as agitators, and the result of their 
 agitations may prove disastrous. If, however, 
 you see nothing in this of force, then I desire 
 you to consider whether you cannot so frame 
 a Bank as to avoid all constitutional objections 
 — which of itself would attach to it a vast host 
 of our own party to be found all over the 
 
Appendix. 133 
 
 Union. I make these suggestions for your 
 consideration — and make them in that spirit 
 of frankness which will always characterize 
 my course towards you. I have no intention 
 to submit anything to Congress on this subject 
 to be acted on, but shall leave it to its own 
 action, and in the end shall resolve my doubts 
 by the character of the measure proposed, 
 should any be entertained by me. 
 
 My attention is turned to the removals from 
 office after the manner that you suggest, and 
 I hope that to the recent appointments you 
 have nothing to object. The P. Office at 
 Lexington shall be attended to. I derived 
 very great pleasure in affixing my signature to 
 the Commission of Mr. Denalde for the ap- 
 pointment of naval officer at New Orleans. 
 
 I tender you assurances of high esteem and 
 regard. 
 
 John Tyler. 
 
 Hon. Henry Clay. " l 
 
 1 I am indebted to the courtesy of Thomas H. Clay of Boston, 
 grandson of the illustrious Senator, Henry Clay, for the copy of this 
 letter. For other letters made use of in this volume I am indebted to 
 Dr. J. S. H. Fogg of the same city. 
 
QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 4S — Bodyke : A Chapter in the History of Irish Landlordism. By 
 Henry Norman. Octavo, cloth, illustrated • • • 75 
 
 43 — Slav or Saxon : A Study of the Growth and Tendencies of Russian 
 Civilization. By Wm. D. Foulke, A.M. Octavo, cloth . I oo 
 
 44 — The Present Condition of Economic Science, and the Demand 
 for a Radical Change in its Methods and Aims. By 
 Edward C. Lunt. Octavo, cloth 75 
 
 46 — Property in Land. An essay on the New Crusade. By Henry 
 Winn. Octavo, paper 25 
 
 47— The Tariff History of the United States. By F. W. Taussig. 
 Octavo, cloth 1 25 
 
 48— The President's Message, 1887. With Annotations by R. R. 
 Bowker. Octavo, paper 25 
 
 49 — Essays on Practical Politics. By Theodore Roosevelt. 
 Octavo, paper 40 
 
 50 — Friendly Letters to American Farmers and Others. By J. S. 
 
 Moore. Octavo, paper' ....... 25 
 
 51 — American Prisons in the Tenth United States Census. By 
 
 Frederick Howard Wines. Octavo, paper, ... 25 
 
 52 — Tariff Chats. By Henry J. Philpott. Octavo, paper . 25- 
 
 53 — The Tariff and its Evils ; or, Protection which does not Protect. 
 By John H. Allen, Octavo, clothi 1 00 
 
 54 — Relation of the Tariff to Wages. By David A. Wells. Octavo, 
 P a per 25 
 
 55 — True or False Finance. The Issue of 1888. By A Tax-payer. 
 Octavo, paper . . . 25 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers, New York and London. 
 
QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 56— Outlines of a New Science. By E. J. Donnell. Octavo, cloth. 
 
 . i . i oo 
 
 5"? — The Plantation Negro as a Freeman. By Philip A. Bruce. 
 Octavo, cloth , . . i 25 
 
 58 — Politics as a Duty and as a Career. Octavo, paper . 25 
 
 59 — Monopolies and the People. By Chas. W.Baker. Octavo, cloth. 
 
 1 25 
 
 60— The Public Regulation of Railways. By W. D. Dabney, 
 formerly Chairman of the Committee on Railways and Internal 
 Navigation in the Legislature of Virginia. Octavo . . r 25 
 
 61— Railway Secrecy and Trusts: Its Relation to Interstate Legis- 
 lation. An Analysis of the Chief Evils of Railway Management in 
 the United States, and Influence of Existing Legislation upon these 
 Evils, and Suggestions for their Reform. By John M. Bonham, 
 author of " Industrial Liberty.'' Octavo . . . . 1 00 
 
 62 — American Farms : Their Condition and Future. By J. R. Elliott. 
 Octavo, cloth . . . . . . . . 1 25 
 
 63 — Want and Wealth. A Discussion of Certain Economic Dangers of 
 the Day. An Essay. By Edward J. Shriver, Secretary N. Y. 
 Metal Exchanged Octavo, paper . . . . 25 
 
 64 — The Question of Ships. Comprising The Decay of Our Ocean 
 Mercantile Marine : Its Cause and its Cure. By Da 
 Wells ; and Shipping Subsidies and Bounties. By John 
 Codman 25 
 
 65 — A Tariff Primer. The Effects of Protection Upon the Farmer and 
 Laborer. By Porter Sherman, M.A 25 
 
 66 — The Death Penalty. A Consideration of the Objections to Capital 
 Punishment, with a Chapter on War. By Andrew J. Palm i 25 
 (The numbers omitted represent Monographs no longer in print.) 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers, New York and London.