A Political History of the State of New York Volume I Part 15

CLINTON AND THE PRESIDENCY

1812

For many years DeWitt Clinton had had aspirations to become a candidate for President. He entered the United States Senate in 1802 with such an ambition; he became mayor of New York in 1803 with this end in view; he sought the lieutenant-governorship in 1811 for no other purpose; and, although he had never taken a managing step in that direction, looking cautiously into the future, he saw his way and only waited for the pa.s.sing of the Vice President. DeWitt Clinton, whatever his defects of character and however lacking he may have been in an exalted sense of political principle, appears to have been sincere in his anxiety to elevate his uncle to the presidential chair.

During Jefferson's administration his efforts seem never to have been intermitted, and only when the infirmities of advanced age admonished him that George Clinton's life and career were nearly at an end, did his mind and heart, acquiescing in the appropriation of his relative's mantle, seize the first opportunity of satisfying his unbounded ambition.

The opening presented in the spring of 1812 was not an unattractive one. A new party, controlled by a remarkable coterie of brilliant young men from the South, whose shibboleth was war with England, had sprung up in Congress, and, by sheer force of will and intellect, had dragged to the support of its policies the larger part of the Republican majority.[164] President Madison was thoroughly in sympathy with these members. He thought war should be declared before Congress adjourned, and, to hasten its coming, he had recommended an embargo for sixty days. "For my own part," he wrote Jefferson, "I look upon a short embargo as a step to immediate war, and I wait only for the Senate to make the declaration."[165] This did not sound like a peace voice; yet the anti-English party felt little cordiality for him. His abilities, as the event amply proved, were not those likely to wage a successful war. He was regarded as a timid man, incapable of a burst of pa.s.sion or a bold act. In place of resolute opinion he courted argument; with an inclination to be peevish and fretful, he was at times arrogantly pertinacious. Although his health, moreover, was delicate and he looked worn and feeble, he exhibited no consciousness of needing support, declining to reconstruct his Cabinet that abler men might lend the a.s.sistance his own lack of energy demanded. As time went on Republicans would gladly have exchanged him for a stronger leader, one better fitted by character and temperament to select the men and find a way for a speedy victory. It was no less plain that the conservatives thoroughly disliked him, and if they could have wrought a change without disrupting the party, it would have suited their spirit and temper to have openly opposed his renomination.

[Footnote 164: Of ninety-eight senators and representatives who voted, on June 18, 1812, for a declaration of war against England, seventy-six, or four less than a majority, resided south of the Delaware. No Northern State except Pennsylvania declared for war, while every Southern State except Kentucky voted solidly for it.]

[Footnote 165: Madison to Jefferson, April 24, 1812, _Writings_, Vol.

2, p. 532.]

DeWitt Clinton understood the situation, and his friends pointed with confidence to his well known character for firmness and nerve. Of Clinton, it may be justly said, that he seems most attractive, not as a politician, not as a mayor solicitous for the good government of a growing city, not as a successful promoter of the ca.n.a.l, but as a rugged, inflexible, determined, self-willed personality. Perhaps not many loved him, or longed for his companionship, or had any feeling of tenderness for him; yet, in spite of his manners or want of manners, there was a fascination about the man that often disarmed censure and turned the critic into a devotee. At this time he undoubtedly stood at the head of his party in the North. He was still young, having just entered his forties, still ambitious to shine as a statesman of the first magnitude. An extraordinary power of application had equipped him with the varied information that would make him an authority in the national life. Even his enemies admitted his capacity as a great executive. He had sometimes been compelled, for the sake of his own career, to regulate his course by a disregard of party creed, especially at a time when the principles of Republicanism were somewhat undefined in their character; but amid all the doubts and distractions of a checkered, eventful political career he was known for his absolute integrity, his clear head, and his steady nerve. His very pride made it impossible for him to condescend to any violation of a promise.

Clinton's New York party friends naturally desired a legislative indors.e.m.e.nt for him before Congress could act. But Governor Tompkins'

sudden adjournment of the Legislature had stripped him of that advantage, and three days before the houses rea.s.sembled, on May 18, Madison was renominated by a congressional caucus, seventeen senators and sixty-six representatives, including three from New York, taking part in its proceedings. Eleven days later, ninety out of ninety-five Republican members of the New York Legislature voted in caucus to support Clinton.[166] If the Madison caucus doubted the wisdom of its action, the Clinton caucus was no less uncertain of the expediency of its decision. Governor Tompkins opposed it; the Livingstons a.s.sailed it; the Martling Men, led by Sanford and Lewis, refused to attend; Ambrose Spencer and John Taylor went into it because they were driven; and Erastus Root, in maintaining that Clinton could not, and as a Federal candidate ought not, to succeed, clearly voiced the sentiment of a large minority. In short, the most prominent men in the State opposed the nomination, knowing that Republicans outside of New York could not support it because of its irregularity.

[Footnote 166: "This unusual unanimity among the New York Republicans pointed to a growing jealousy of Virginia, which threatened to end in revival of the old alliance between New York and New England."--Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 6, p. 215. "George Clinton, who had yielded unwillingly to Jefferson, held Madison in contempt."--_Ibid._, Vol. 4, p. 227.]

But, at the supreme moment, events greatly favoured Clinton. Pierre Van Cortlandt, Obadiah German, and other members of Congress appeared upon the scene, bringing the story of Madison's unpopularity and bearing letters from Gideon Granger, the postmaster-general, urging the support of Clinton. Granger belonged to Connecticut, and, except William Eustis, about to retire as an inefficient secretary of war, was the only cabinet officer from a northern State. He knew that not a dozen northern members of Congress sincerely favoured war, and that not a man in the party save Madison himself, sincerely favoured the President's renomination; but he also knew that the South had determined to force the issue; and so in a powerful doc.u.ment he demanded the nomination of a man who, when conflict came, could shorten it by a vigorous administration. This appeal lifted the Clinton movement above the level of an ordinary state nomination.

On the day of his selection, DeWitt Clinton believed his chances more than even. Though the declaration of war had popularised Madison in the South and West, and, in a measure, solidified the Republicans in the North, the young aspirant still counted on a majority of malcontents and Federalists. The best obtainable information indicated that three Republicans in Ma.s.sachusetts would unite with the Federalists in choosing Clinton electors; that the rest of New England would act with Ma.s.sachusetts; and that Clinton would also obtain support in Maryland, Ohio, North Carolina, Delaware, New Jersey, and, possibly, Virginia. "If Pennsylvania should be combined," Clinton said to Gouverneur Morris, "I would come out all right." As late, too, as the middle of September, Rufus King ventured the opinion to Christopher Gore that while North Carolina was still uncertain, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland would probably become Clintonian, although Pennsylvania and Vermont would be "democratic and Madisonian."

To the Federalist leaders, Clinton called himself an American Federalist. If chosen President he engaged to make immediate peace with England, and to oppose the views of those Southern States which sought to degrade the Northern States by oppressing commerce.[167] It was this suggestion that led to a secret conference between Clinton, John Jay, Rufus King and Gouverneur Morris, held at the latter's home on August 5, to consider the advisability of forming a peace party.

Few scenes in political history are more dramatic than this meeting of Clinton and the three Federalist leaders of the Empire State. King at first objected to taking any part. He looked on Clinton, he said, as one who could lead only so long as he held the views and prejudices of his followers, and who, unless a large body of Republicans came with him, was not worth accepting. But King finally consented to be present, after Jay, although in ill health, promised to join them.

Morris was pleased to undertake his part, for a.s.sociation with Clinton upon the Ca.n.a.l Commission had made them somewhat intimate. It was agreed to exclude every topic except the plan of forming a peace party. The hour fixed was two in the afternoon; but it was five o'clock before Clinton entered the stately library at Morrisania.

[Footnote 167: "No canva.s.s for the Presidency was ever less creditable than that of DeWitt Clinton in 1812. Seeking war votes for the reason that he favoured more vigorous prosecution of the war; asking support from peace Republicans because Madison had plunged the country into war without preparation; bargaining for Federalist votes as the price of bringing about a peace; or coquetting with all parties in the atmosphere of bribery in bank charters--Clinton strove to make up a majority which had no element of union but himself and money."--Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 6, p. 410.]

In opening the interview, Morris simply read the resolutions prepared for a peace meeting. "Then Clinton observed," says Rufus King, "that he did not differ from us in opinions respecting public affairs, and that he entirely approved the resolutions; but, as his friends, comprehending a great majority of the Republican party in the State, were divided in their opinions respecting the war--prejudices against England leading some of them to approve the war--time was necessary to bring them to one opinion. Disastrous events had already happened, and owing to the incapacity of the national administration still further misfortunes would occur, and would serve to produce an union of opinion respecting the war; that for these reasons the proposed peace meeting should be deferred four or five weeks; in the interim he would confer with his friends for the purpose of bringing about a common opinion, and apprise the movers of his ulterior views on Monday, August 10, when the ca.n.a.l commissioners would hold a meeting."[168]

[Footnote 168: Rufus King, _Life and Correspondence_, Vol. 5, p. 269.]

During the now historic interview, Clinton said that the President's incapacity made it impossible for him longer to continue his party relation; and he pledged his honour that the breach between them was irreparable. Yet, on account of his friends as well as his own account, he said, he deemed it expedient to avoid publicity on the subject. He spoke of Spencer with bitterness, styling him "his creature," whom Armstrong governed, and who, in turn, influenced Tompkins and John Taylor. "Armstrong," he repeated, "while engaged in measures to procure a peace meeting in Dutchess County over which he had promised to preside, had been bought off by the miserable commission of a brigadier-general."[169]

[Footnote 169: _Ibid._, Vol. 5, p. 271.]

As the campaign grew older, the Federalists were perplexed and distracted by an increasing uncertainty as to what they should do.

This was especially true of those who sighed for power and despaired of getting it through the continuance of a Federalist party. Rufus King, clear as to the course which ought to be followed, earnestly advised his friends to nominate a respectable Federalist, not with the expectation of succeeding in the election, but for the purpose of keeping the Federal body unbroken in principle; that its character and influence might be reserved for the occasion which, in the present course of affairs, he said, could not fail to arrive. King, however, failed to influence his friends. On September 15, in a convention of sixty or more delegates from all the States north of the Potomac, it was recommended that, as it would be inexpedient to name a Federal candidate because impractical to elect one, Federalists should co-operate in the election of a President who would be likely to pursue a different policy from Madison.

This resolution was largely due to the eloquence of Harrison Gray Otis. He urged that the defeat of Madison would speedily lead to a peace, for which the door stood open in the repeal of the Orders in Council. Rufus King insisted that the name all had in mind be given in the resolution; although, he admitted, no one knew whether Clinton would pursue a policy different from Madison's. No man in the country, he said, was more equivocal in his character. He had disapproved the embargo and then receded from his opinion; and, to restore himself to the confidence of his party, he had published a tirade against the Federalists. "If we succeed in promoting his election," thundered the orator, "I fear we may place in the chair a Caesar Borgia instead of a James Madison."[170] These were bitter words, recalling Hamilton's famous criticism of Aaron Burr, but they were spoken without the wealth of Hamilton's experience to support them. That Clinton would sacrifice his own interests and his own ambition for the sake of any political cause no one could believe; that he had played fast and loose for a time with the great question of embargo was too well known to be denied; but that anything had occurred in his public career to justify Rufus King's simile, his worst enemies could not seriously credit. Even Christopher Gore was compelled to admit that the Federal leaders of Ma.s.sachusetts "are favourably impressed with the character and views of Clinton. Indeed, since last spring I have scarcely heard any one speak of him but extolled the excellence of his moral character and the purity of his present political views."[171] To this King simply replied: "I stated my sentiments to the meeting, a great majority of whom thought them incorrect. Time, which reveals truth, must decide between us."[172]

[Footnote 170: Rufus King, _Life and Correspondence_, Vol. 5, p. 281.]

[Footnote 171: Rufus King, _Life and Correspondence_, Vol. 5, pp.

281-4.]

[Footnote 172: _Ibid._, Vol. 5, p. 283.]

By the middle of September, Clinton exhibited lamentable weakness as a political organiser. Opposing him, he had the whole power of state and national administrations, and the most prominent men of the party, led by Erastus Root. Besides, a new Legislature, elected in the preceding April, had a Republican majority on joint ballot divided between Clintonians and Madisonians; and, still further to perplex the situation, twenty Republican a.s.semblymen absolutely refused to vote unless Madison were given a fair division of the electors. This meant the surrender of one elector out of three, an arrangement to which Clinton dared not consent.

Clinton, though seriously impressed by the gravity of his position, seems to have done nothing to clear the way; but the hour of crisis brought with it the man demanded. During recent years a new and very remarkable figure in political life had been coming to the front.

Martin Van Buren, afterward President of the United States, was establishing his claim to the position of commanding influence he was destined to hold during the next three decades. His father, an innkeeper in the village of Kinderhook, gave him a chance to learn a little English at the common schools, and a little Latin at the academy. At the age of fourteen, he began sweeping an office and running errands for a country attorney, who taught him the law. Then he went to New York City to finish his education in the office of William P. Van Ness, an old Columbia County neighbour, at that time making his brilliant and bitter attack as "Aristides" upon the Clintons and the Livingstons. A year later, in 1803, Van Buren celebrated his twenty-first birthday by forming a partnership in Kinderhook with a half-brother, James J. Van Alen, already established in the practice. In 1808, he became surrogate; and when the Legislature convened in November, 1812, he took a seat in the Senate, the youngest man save one, it is said, until then elected to that body.

Martin Van Buren had shown unusual sagacity as a politician. Born under conditions which might have disheartened one of different mould, bred in a county given up to Federalism, and taught in the law for six years by an uncompromising follower of Hamilton, he nevertheless held steadfastly to the Jeffersonian faith of his father. Nor would he be moved in his fealty to the Clintons, although Van Ness, his distinguished law preceptor, worshipped Burr and hated his enemies. As a very young man, Van Buren was able to see that the principles of Republicanism had established themselves in the minds of the great majority of the people interested in political life, and if he had been persuaded that Aaron Burr and his Federalist allies were to be restored to power in 1804, he was far too shrewd to be tempted by the prospects of such a coalition. He had also shown, from his first entrance into politics, a remarkable capacity for organisation. He had courage, a social and cheerful temper, engaging manners, and extraordinary application. He also had the happy faculty of guiding without seeming to dictate; he could show the way without pushing one along the path. Finally, back of all, was the ability that soon made him the peer of Elisha Williams, the ablest lawyer in a county famous for its brilliant men, enabling him quickly to outgrow the professional limitations of Kinderhook, and to extend his practice far beyond the limits of the busy city of Hudson.

Martin Van Buren cannot be ranked as a great orator. He spoke too rapidly, and he was wanting in imagination, without which eloquence of the highest character is impossible. Besides, although his head was well formed and his face singularly attractive, his small figure placed him at a disadvantage. He possessed, however, a remarkable command of language, and his graceful, persuasive manner, often animated, sometimes thrilling, frequently impa.s.sioned, inspired confidence in his sincerity, and easily cla.s.sed him among the ablest speakers. His best qualities consisted in his clearness of exposition, his masterly array of forcible argument, his faculty for balancing evidence, for acquiring and comparing facts, and for appreciating tendencies.

When Van Buren entered the State Senate he was recognised as the Republican leader of his section. A recent biographer says that his skill in dealing with men was extraordinary, due no doubt to his temper of amity and inborn genius for society. "As you saw him once,"

wrote William Allen Butler, "you saw him always--always punctilious, always polite, always cheerful, always self-possessed. It seemed to any one who studied this phase of his character as if, in some early moment of destiny, his whole nature had been bathed in a cool, clear, and unruffled depth, from which it drew this lifelong serenity and self-control."[173] Any intelligent observer of public life must have felt that Martin Van Buren was only at the opening of a great political career. Inferior to DeWitt Clinton in the endowments which obtain for their possessor the t.i.tle of a man of genius, he could, though thirteen years younger, weigh the strength of conflicting tendencies in the political world with an accuracy to which Clinton could not pretend.

[Footnote 173: William Allen Butler, _Address on Martin Van Buren_ (1862).]

On reaching Albany, in November, 1812, Van Buren saw the electoral situation at a glance; and naturally, almost insensibly, he became Clinton's representative. He slipped into leadership as easily as Bonaparte stepped into the history of Europe, when he seized the fatal weakness in the well defended city of Toulon. Van Buren had approved embargo, non-intercourse, and the war itself. The discontent growing out of Jefferson's severe treatment of the difficulties caused by the Orders in Council and the Berlin and Milan Decrees, seems never to have shaken his confidence in Republican statesmanship, or aroused the slightest animosity against the congressional caucus nominee for President. But he accepted Clinton as the regular and practically the unanimous nominee of the Republican members of a preceding Legislature. Although Madison's nomination had come in the way then accepted, he had a stronger sense of allegiance to the expressed will of his party in the State. His adversaries, of whom he was soon to have many, charged him with treachery to the President and to the party. There came a time when it was a.s.serted, and, apparently, with some show of truth, that he had neither the courage nor the heart to keep the side of his convictions boldly and finally; that he was always thinking of personal interests, and trying to take the position which promised the greatest advantage and the greatest security. We shall have occasion, in the course of these pages, to study the basis of such criticism. But, in the present crisis, had he not been thoroughly sincere and single-hearted, he could easily have thrown in his fortunes with the winning side; for at that time he must have had little faith in the chances of Clinton's election. Vermont had been given up, Pennsylvania was scarcely in doubt, and the South showed unmistakable signs of voting solidly for Madison.[174]

[Footnote 174: "DeWitt Clinton was cla.s.sed by most persons as a reckless political gambler, but Martin Van Buren, when he intrigued, preferred to intrigue upon the strongest side. Yet one feeling was natural to every New York politician, whether a Clinton or a Livingston, Burrite, Federalist, or Republican,--all equally disliked Virginia; and this innate jealousy gave to the career of Martin Van Buren for forty years a bias which perplexed his contemporaries, and stood in singular contradiction to the soft and supple nature he seemed in all else to show."--Henry Adams, _History of the United States_, Vol. 6, pp. 409, 410.]

Van Buren's work not only encouraged several Federalists to vote for Clinton electors, but it compelled the Madisonians not to vote at all.

It seemed easy, when a master hand guided the helm, to bring order out of chaos. Upon joint ballot, the Clintonian electors received seventy-four votes to the Federalists' forty-five; twenty-eight blanks represented the Madison strength. Van Buren, however, could not control in other States. If some one in Pennsylvania, of equal tact in the management of men, could have supplemented his work, Clinton must easily have won. But it is not often given a party, or an individual, to have the a.s.sistance of two such men at the same time. After the votes were counted, it appeared that Clinton had carried New Hampshire, Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and had five votes in Maryland--eighty-nine in all.

The remaining one hundred and twenty-eight belonged to Madison.

In estimating the discontent excited by the declaration of war Clinton had failed to foresee that there is something captivating to a spirited people about the opening of a new war. He had also failed to notice that military failures could not affect Madison's strength. The surrender of Detroit, Dearborn's blunder in wasting time, and the inefficiency of the secretary of war had raised a storm of public wrath sufficient to annihilate Hull and to shake the earth under Eustis; but it pa.s.sed harmlessly over the head of the President. The foreign policy of Jefferson and Madison, approved by the Republican party, was on trial, and the defeat of the Administration meant a want of confidence in the party itself. Here, then, was a contingency against which Clinton had never thought of providing, and, as so often happens, the one thing not taken into consideration, proved decisive in the result.

CHAPTER XIX

QUARRELS AND RIVALRIES

1813

After Clinton's loss of the Presidency, it must have been clear to his friends and enemies alike that his influence in the Republican party was waning. A revolution in sentiment did not then sweep over the State with anything like the swiftness and certainty of the present era of cheap newspapers and rapid transit. Yet, in spite of his genius, which concealed, and, for a time, checked the suddenness of his fall, the rank and file of the party quickly understood what had happened. Friends began falling away. For several months Ambrose Spencer had openly and bitterly denounced him, and Governor Tompkins took a decisive part in relieving his rival of the last hope of ever again reckoning on the support of Republicans.

The feeling against Clinton was intensified by the common belief that the election of Rufus King, as United States senator to succeed John Smith, on March 4, 1813, paid the Federalists their price for choosing Clinton electors. The Republicans had a majority on joint ballot, and James W. Wilkin, a senator from the middle district, was placed in nomination; but when the votes were counted King had sixty-four and Wilkin sixty-one. It looked treacherous, and it suggested gross ingrat.i.tude, since Wilkin had presided at the legislative caucus which nominated Clinton for President; but, as we have seen, events had been moving in different ways, events destined to produce a strange crop of political results. In buying its charter, the Bank of America had contracted to do many things, and the election of a United States senator was not unlikely among its bargains. This theory seems the more probable since Clinton, whom Rufus King had denounced as a dangerous demagogue, would have preferred putting King into a position of embarra.s.sment more than into the United States Senate. Wilkin himself so understood it, or, at least, he believed that the Bank, and not Clinton, had contributed to his defeat, and he said so in a letter afterward found among the Clinton papers.

Hostile Republicans were, however, now ready to believe Clinton guilty of any act of turpitude or ingrat.i.tude; and so, on February 4, when a legislative caucus renominated Daniel D. Tompkins for governor by acclamation, Clinton received only sixteen votes for lieutenant-governor.

There is no evidence that Van Buren took part in Clinton's humiliation; but it is certain he did not act with all the fairness that might have been expected. He could well have said that Clinton was no worse than the majority of his party who had nominated him; that his aim, like theirs, was a vigorous prosecution of the war in the interest of an early peace; that he had no intention of separating himself from the Republican party, and that his renomination for lieutenant-governor would reunite the party, making it more potent to create and support war measures. But Van Buren himself was not beyond danger. Tammany's mutterings and Spencer's violent denunciations threatened to exclude others from the party, and to escape their hostility, this rising young statesman found it convenient to drop Clinton and shout for Tompkins. A less able and clear-headed man might have gone wrong at this parting of the ways, just as did Obadiah German and other friends of Clinton; but Van Buren never needed a guide-post to point out to him the safest political road to travel.

The better to prove his party loyalty, he consented to draft the usual grandiloquent address issued by the legislative caucus to Republican electors, always a soph.o.m.oric appeal, but quite in accord with the rhetoric of the time. If any doubt existed as to the orthodoxy of Van Buren's Republicanism, this address must have dissipated it. It sustained the general government by forcible argument, and it appealed with fervid eloquence and deep pathos to the patriotism of the people to continue their support of the party.

How great a part Clinton was yet to play in the history of his State no one could foresee. Much speculation has been indulged by writers as to the probable course of history had he been elected President, but the mere fact that he was able to inspire so small a fraction of his party with full faith in his leadership is decisive evidence that he was not then the man of the hour. It is certain that his enemies believed his political life had been brought to an ign.o.ble close.

Clinton probably felt that he would have no difficulty in living down the opprobrium put upon him by partisan hostility; and to prove that he was still in the political arena, a little coterie of distinguished friends, led by Obadiah German and Pierre Van Cortlandt, made a circle about him. From this vantage ground he defied his enemies, attacking Madison's conduct of the war with great severity, and protesting against the support of Tompkins and Taylor as the mere tools of Madison.

Clinton's usual good fortune also attended him. As we have seen, the April elections in 1812 returned a Federalist a.s.sembly, which selected a Council of Appointment opposed to Clinton's removal from the mayoralty. It displaced everybody else throughout the State.

Clintonians and Madisonians alike suffered, including the able and distinguished Thomas Addis Emmet, an ardent friend of Clinton who had been urged to accept the attorney-generalship after the death of Matthias B. Hildreth in the preceding August. But Clinton had the support of Jonas Platt, the leading member of the Council, and Platt refused to permit his removal. Doubtless the latter hoped to fill up the Federalist ranks with Clintonian recruits; and so with greater confidence than usual the Federalists, when their turn came, nominated Stephen Van Rensselaer for governor and George Huntington of Oneida County for lieutenant-governor.