Martin Van Buren Part 12

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "I shall not, whilst I have the honor to administer the government, bring a man into any office of consequence, knowingly, whose political tenets are adverse to the measures which the general government are pursuing; for this, in my opinion, would be a sort of political suicide."--Was.h.i.+ngton to Pickering, secretary of war, September 27, 1795. Vol. 11 of Sparks's edition of _Was.h.i.+ngton's Writings_, 74.

[2] I use the political name then in vogue. The greater part of the Republicans have, since the rearrangement of parties in John Quincy Adams's time, or rather since Jackson's time, been known as Democrats.

[3] The more conspicuous difficulty in 1801 arose from the voting by each elector for two candidates without distinguis.h.i.+ng which he preferred for president and which for vice-president. But the awkwardness and not improbable injustice of a choice by the House was also well ill.u.s.trated in February, 1801.

[4] Gales and Seaton's Debates in Congress give here the word "act"

instead of "think,"--but erroneously, I a.s.sume.

[5] The comparison cannot of course be complete, as some who were senators in 1826 were not senators in 1828.

[6] This and several other references of mine to Gladstone were written ten years and more before his death. These years of his brief but extraordinary Home Rule victory, of his final defeat,--for Lord Rosebery's defeat was Gladstone's defeat,--and of his retirement, have not only added a mellow and almost sacred splendor to his n.o.ble career, but have still better demonstrated his superb political gifts. What politician indeed, dead or living, is to be ranked above him?

[7] This was written nine years before the lamentable surrender of the organization of Van Buren's party at Chicago in 1896. It is safe to say that these traditions, even if fallen sadly out of sight, still make a deep and powerful force, which must in due time a.s.sert itself.

[8] After the Dissenting Liberals had acted with the Conservatives, not only in the first Home Rule campaign in 1886, but during the Salisbury administration from 1886 to 1892, and in the campaigns of 1892 and 1895, the coalition was ended and a new and single party formed, of which the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re and Mr. Chamberlain were leaders as really as Lord Salisbury or Mr. Balfour. The accession of the former to the Unionist ministry of 1895 was in no sense a reward for bringing over some of the enemy.

[9] This was written in 1887. The Albany Regency, after a life of sixty years, ended with the death of Daniel Manning, in Mr. Cleveland's first presidency, and with it ended the characteristic influence of its organ.

The Democratic management at Albany has since proceeded upon very different lines and has engaged the ability of very different men.

[10] A month or two after his arrival Van Buren wrote Hamilton that his place was decidedly the most agreeable he had ever held, but added: "Money--money is the thing." His house was splendid and in a delightful situation; but it cost him 500. His carriage cost him 310, and his servants with their board $2,600.

[11] In estimating the popular vote in 1828, Delaware and South Carolina are excluded, their electors having been chosen by the legislature. In Georgia in that year there was no opposition to Jackson. In 1832 no popular vote is included for South Carolina or for Alabama. In Mississippi and Missouri there was no opposition to Jackson. In 1829, upon Van Buren's recommendation when governor, the system in New York of choosing electors by districts, which had been in force in the election of 1838, was abolished; and there was adopted the present system of choosing all the electors by the popular vote of the whole State.

[12] The Treasurer's statement for August, 1837, gave eighty-four deposit banks. But of these, nine had less than $5000 each on deposit, six from $5000 to $10,000, and eight from $10,000 to $20,000. Fourteen had from $50,000 to $100,000 each. Only twenty-nine had more than $100,000 each. It is not unfair to speak of the deposits as being substantially in fifty banks.

The enormous land sales at the Southwest had placed a most disproportionate amount of money in banks in that part of the country.

John Quincy Adams seemed, but with little reason, to consider this an intentional discrimination against the North. It is quite probable that, if the deposits had been in one national bank, the peculiarly excessive strain at that point would have been modified. But this was no great factor in the crisis.

[13] I cannot refrain from noticing here the curious fact that Dr. Von Holst, after a contemptuous picture of Van Buren as a mere verbose, coa.r.s.e-grained politician given to scheming and duplicity, was not surprised at his meeting in so lofty a spirit this really great trial.

For surely here, if anywhere, the essential fibre of the man would be discovered. I must also express my regret that this writer, to whom Americans owe very much, should have been content (although in this he has but joined some other historians of American politics) to accept mere campaign or partisan rumors which when directed against other men, have gone unnoticed, but against Van Buren have become the basis for emphatic disparagement and contumely. Even Mackenzie, the publisher of the purloined letters, writing his pamphlet with the most obvious and reckless venom, is quoted by this learned historian as respectable authority. Van Buren had refused during nearly a year to pardon Mackenzie from prison for his unlawful use of American territory to prepare armed raids on Canada. Sir Francis B. Head's opinion was doubtless somewhat colored; but he was not entirely without justification in applying to Mackenzie the words: "He lies out of every pore in his skin. Whether he be sleeping or waking, on foot or on horseback, together with his neighbors or writing for a newspaper, a mult.i.tudinous swarm of lies, visible, palpable, and tangible, are buzzing and settling about him like flies around a horse in August."

(Narrative of Sir F. B. Head, London, 1839.)

[14] The reference was to commercial paper and not to bank-notes. But both had been active characteristics of American speculation.

[15] The depositories now authorized for the proceeds of the internal revenue secured the government by a deposit of the bonds of the latter, which the depositories must of course purchase and own. (_U. S. Rev.

Stats._ -- 5153.)

[16] I cannot refrain in this revised edition to note that England, although not always a ready scholar, has in later years learned a fa.r.s.eeing wisdom which in colonial administration makes her the teacher of the world. The modern policy of deference to local sentiment and of finding her own advantage in the independent prosperity of the colony, has bound continents, islands, races, religions, to the English empire, and brought from them wealth to England, as the old rule of force never did.

[17] It should be remembered that several great expenses of the White House were then and are now met by special and additional appropriations.

[18] I must again complain of the curious though unintended unfairness of Professor Von Holst (_Const. Hist. of the U. S._ 1828-1846, Chicago, 1879, p. 663). He treats this letter with great contempt. He a.s.sumes indeed that Van Buren's declaration for annexation would have given him the nomination; and admits that Van Buren declared himself "decidedly opposed to annexation." After this sufficient proof of courage, for Van Buren could at least have simply promised to adopt the vote of Congress on the main question, it was not very sensible to declare "disgusting"

Van Buren's efforts "to creep through the th.o.r.n.y hedge which shut him off from the party nomination." Professor Von Holst's "disgust" seems particularly directed against the pa.s.sage here annotated where, after his strong argument against annexation, he declared that he would not be influenced by sectional feeling, and would obey the wishes of a Congress chosen with reference to the question. Few, I think, will consider this promise with reference to such a question, either cowardly or "disgusting," made, as it was, by a candidate for the presidency, of a democratic republic, after clearly and firmly declaring his own views in advance of the congressional elections.

[19] James G. Blaine's _Twenty Years_, vol. i. pp. 269, 272.

[20] An engraving of this portrait accompanies Holland's biography, written for the campaign of 1836.

[21] The mania for election betting among public men was very curious.

In the letters and memoranda printed by Mackenzie, the bets of John Van Buren and Jesse Hoyt are given in detail. They ranged from $5000 to $50; from "three cases of champagne" or "two bales of cotton," to "boots, $7," or "a ham, $3." They were made with the younger Alexander Hamilton, James Watson Webb, Moses H. Grinnell, John A. King, George F. Talman, Dudley Selden, and other notable men of the time.

[22] One of the latest and most important historians of the time, after saying that "nothing ruffled" Van Buren, is contented with a different explanation from mine. Professor Sumner says that "he was thick-skinned, elastic, and tough; he did not win confidence from anybody." But within another sentence or two the historian adds, as if effect did not always need adequate cause, that "as president he showed the honorable desire to have a statesmanlike and high-toned administration." (Sumner's _Jackson_, p. 451.)

[23] Here again I spoke of Gladstone, to whom, as this revised edition is going to press, the civilized world is bringing, in his death, a n.o.ble and fitting tribute.

[24] This expression was not original with Van Buren, as has been supposed. It was used by Fisher Ames in 1788; and Bartlett's _Quotations_ also gives a still earlier use of part of it by Matthew Henry in 1710.