Twenty Years of Congress Volume I Part 5

The result of this change was soon visible. In the preceding House, with a large Democratic majority, the Wilmot Proviso had been adopted. In the Whig House, over which Mr. Winthrop presided, it was found impossible to repeat the vote during the preparations for the national contest then impending. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which we acquired a vast territory from Mexico, was ratified by the Senate, and the House voted the fifteen millions demanded by it without adding a restriction of any kind on the subject of slavery. Every acre of the nine hundred thousand square miles was free territory while under the rule of Mexico, and the Commissioners of that government were extremely anxious that the United States should give a guaranty that its character in this respect should not be changed. They urged that to see slavery recognized upon soil once owned by Mexico would be so abhorrent to that government as it would be to the United States to see the Spanish Inquisition established upon it. Mr. Nicholas F. Trist, the American commissioner, gave a reply which a free Republic reads with increasing amazement. He declared that if the territory proposed to be ceded "were increased tenfold in value, and, in addition to that, covered a foot thick with pure gold, on the single condition that slavery should be forever excluded," he would not "entertain the offer for a moment, nor even think of sending it to his government. No American President would dare to submit such a treaty to the Senate."

With this suppression, if not indeed re-action, of the popular feeling in the North, on the subject of slavery, the two great parties approached the Presidential election of 1848. Each was under peculiar embarra.s.sment in the selection of a candidate, and the presentation of the principles on which support was to be asked.

The anomaly presented in the Congressional election of 1846, where an administration conducting a successful war was defeated before the people, promised to be repeated. The Democratic party had precipitated the war, had organized the military force that prosecuted it, had controlled its immense patronage, and had brought it to a victorious conclusion, yet had gained no political strength in the country. The two gallant soldiers who had so largely shared, if indeed they had not absorbed, its glory, were Whigs, and both were in ill-humor with the administration. After the battle of Buena Vista, Taylor's victorious progress had been checked and his army crippled by orders from Washington, which reduced his force, and turned the Regulars over to Scott. Scott ended his brilliant campaign in a flagrant quarrel with the Secretary of War, and was summoned home peremptorily with the prospect of a court-martial.

He was ordered to leave General William O. Butler, a Democratic general, in command of the army in the city of Mexico after resistance had ceased.

DEMOCRATIC OFFICERS IN MEXICAN WAR.

The administration had obviously endeavored from the first to create a Democratic hero out of the war. Authorized to appoint a large number of officers in the increased military force, raised directly by the United States, an unjust discrimination was made in favor of Democrats. Thus William O. Butler, John A. Quitman, and Gideon J. Pillow, prominent Democratic leaders in their respective States, were appointed Major-generals directly from civil life. Joseph Lane, James Shields, Franklin Pierce, George Cadwalader, Caleb Cushing, Enos D. Hopping, and Sterling Price, were selected for the high rank of Brigadier-general. Not one Whig was included, and not one of the Democratic appointees had seen service in the field, or possessed the slightest pretension to military education.

Such able graduates of West Point as Henry Clay, jun., and William R. McKee, were compelled to seek service through State appointments in volunteer regiments, while Albert Sidney Johnston, subsequently proved to be one of the ablest commanders ever sent from the Military Academy, could not obtain a commission from the General Government.

In the war between Mexico and Texas, by which the latter had secured its independence, Johnston had held high command, and was perhaps the best equipped soldier, both by education and service, to be found in the entire country outside the regular army at the time of the Mexican war. General Taylor urged the President to give Johnston command of one of the ten new regiments. Johnston took no part in politics; but his eminent brother, Josiah Stoddard Johnston, long a senator from Louisiana, was Mr. Clay's most intimate friend in public life, and General Taylor's letter was not even answered. The places were wanted for adherents of the administration, and Tibbatts of Kentucky, Jere Clemens of Alabama, Milledge L.

Bonham of South Carolina, Seymour of Connecticut, and men of that grade,--eminent in civil life, active partisans, but with no military training,--were preferred to the most experienced soldiers. This fact disfigures the energetic record of Mr. Marcy as secretary of War, and was eminently discreditable to the President and all his advisers.

Perhaps the most inexcusable blunder of the administration was the attempt to take Thomas H. Benton from the Senate, where he was honored, eminent, and useful, make him Lieutenant-general, and send him out to Mexico to supersede both Scott and Taylor in command of the army. The bill to enable this to be done actually pa.s.sed the House. When under discussion in that branch, a prominent Democratic member from Ohio declared, as one reason for pa.s.sing the bill, that two of the generals are opposed politically to the Democratic party, and "by their own acts or those of their friends are candidates for the Presidency." The evident basis of this argument was, that the Mexican war being a Democratic venture, no Whig had the right to profit by it. The bill was fortunately stopped in the Senate, though that body at the time had a Democratic majority. The measure was killed by one convincing speech from Mr. Badger of North Carolina. The senators knew Colonel Benton's temper and temperament, and understood how completely unfitted he was for military command, and how his appointment would demoralize and practically destroy the army. To the end of his life, however, Colonel Benton himself believed a serious mistake had been made. He had been commissioned colonel in the war of 1812, but though of unquestioned bravery, and deeply read in military science, it had never been his fortune to engage in battle, or to see the face of an enemy. Yet in the autobiographical sketch which precedes his "Thirty Years' View,"

he complacently a.s.sured himself that his appointment as Lieutenant- general over Scott and Taylor "could not have wounded professional honor," as at the time of his retiring from the army he "ranked all those who have since reached its head."

WHIG OPPOSITION TO GENERAL TAYLOR.

But all the efforts to make a Democratic hero out of the war failed.

The line-officers appointed from civil life behaved gallantly.

The volunteers under their command were exceptionally excellent,-- almost competent themselves to the conduct of a campaign. The political generals who vaulted from law-offices into the command of brigades and divisions were furnished by the War Department with staff-officers carefully chosen from the best educated and most skillful of the regular army. All would not suffice, however, to displace Taylor and Scott from the post of chief heroes. "Old Rough and Ready," as Taylor was called by his troops, became a popular favorite of irresistible strength, and in the Whig convention of 1848 was chosen over Mr. Clay as the standard-bearer of his party. He was placed before the people on his record as a soldier, unhampered by the political declarations which make up the modern platform. Mr. Clay had expected the nomination, and General Scott had offered to run on the same ticket as Vice-President; but against the constantly rising tide of Taylor's popularity both ordinary and extraordinary political combinations gave way. Even the Kentucky delegation divided,--in accordance with Mr. Crittenden's judgment, though not by his advice. To the overwhelming chagrin and mortification of Mr. Clay, a man unknown in political circles was preferred as the candidate of the party of which he felt himself to have been the creator. Mr. Clay was enraged by the result, and never became reconciled to it. Though he gave in the end a quiet vote at the polls for Taylor, he stubbornly refused during the campaign to open his lips or write a word in favor of his election.

Mr. Webster, though without the keen personal disappointment of Mr. Clay, was equally discontented with the nomination. He had spoken in a semi-public way for several months previous to the convention, of the folly of nominating "a swearing, swaggering, frontier colonel" for the Presidency,--an allusion to General Taylor, which was scandalously unjust, and which was contradicted by his whole life. When Taylor was finally nominated, Mr. Webster resented the selection as an indignity to the statesmen of the Whig party. His only ray of comfort was the defeat of Abbott Lawrence for the Vice-Presidency by Millard Fillmore. Mr. Lawrence was a man of wealth, the most prominent manufacturer at the time in the country, of high personal character, and of wide political influence.

He was the leading Taylor-Whig in New England, and his course had given offense to Mr. Webster to such an extent indeed, that on a public occasion, after the Presidential election, he referred to Mr. Lawrence in an unfriendly and discourteous manner.

The situation became still further complicated. The Whigs believed they had avoided the responsibility of positive declaration on either side of the issue embodied in the Wilmot Proviso, by selecting a military hero as their candidate. In the phrase of the day, he could make a "Star and Stripe" canva.s.s, with fair chance of success, on both sides of Mason and Dixon's line. There was loss to be incurred by either course. The Whig managers saw plainly that an anti-slavery policy would give almost the entire South to the Democrats, and a pro-slavery policy would rend the Whig party throughout the North. They wisely concluded, if the canva.s.s were merely a game to win votes, that the non-committal plan was the safe one. But this evasive course was not wholly successful.

There was a considerable body of men in New England, and especially in Ma.s.sachusetts, known as "Conscience Whigs," who had deep convictions on the subject of slavery, and refused to support General Taylor. Conspicuous among these were Henry Wilson, E.

Rockwood h.o.a.r, and Charles Francis Adams. A defection of the same kind among the Whigs of New York was prevented by the active influence of Mr. Seward, but it developed rapidly in the northern section of Ohio. Throughout the country the Whigs began to fear that a mistake had been made, and that the old leaders had been thrown overboard without due thought of the consequences. Mr.

Clay's private correspondence exhibited unmistakable gratification at this aspect of affairs, for he felt a.s.sured that the influential Whigs who were now organizing against Taylor would have supported him as cordially as they had done in 1844.

These troubles in the Whig ranks tended, of course, to encourage the Democrats, and to give them for a time great promise of success.

The selection of their own candidate, however, had not been unattended with difficulty and dissension. Mr. Polk was from the first out of the question,--verifying the Scripture that those who draw the sword shall perish by the sword. The war inaugurated by him had been completely successful; "a glorious peace," as it was termed, had been conquered; a vast addition to our territory had been accomplished. Yet by common consent, in which Mr. Polk had gracefully concurred in advance, it was admitted that he was not available for re-election. He had sown the dragon's teeth, and the armed men who sprang forth wrested his sceptre from him. But it would not be candid to ascribe his disability solely to events connected with the war. He had pursued the most unwise course in dealing with the New-York Democracy, and had for himself hopelessly divided the party. He made the great blunder of not recognizing the strength and leadership of Van Buren and Silas Wright. He had been led to distrust them, had always felt aggrieved that Wright refused to run on his ticket as Vice-President, and was annoyed by the fact that, as candidate for governor, Wright received several thousand votes more than the electoral ticket which represented his own fortunes. This fact came to him in a manner which deeply impressed it upon his memory. At that time, before railroad or telegraph had hastened the transmission of news beyond the Alleghanies, Mr.

Polk in his Tennessee home was in an agony of doubt as to the result in New York. The first intelligence that reached him announced the certain victory of Wright, but left the electoral ticket undecided, with very unpleasant rumors of his own defeat. When at last the returns showed that he had a plurality of five thousand in New York, and was chosen President, it did not suffice to remove the deep impressions of those few days in which, either in the gloom of defeat or in the torture of suspense, he feared that he had been betrayed by the Barnburners of New York as a revenge for Van Buren's overthrow at Baltimore. As matter of fact the suspicion was absolutely groundless. The contest for governor between Silas Wright and Millard Fillmore called out intense feeling, and the former had the advantage of personal popularity over the latter just as Mr. Clay had over Mr. Polk. Mr. Wright's plurality was but five thousand greater than Mr. Polk's, and this only proved that among half a million voters there may have been twenty-five hundred who preferred Mr. Clay for President and Mr. Wright for governor.

PRESIDENT POLK AND MR. VAN BUREN.

But there was no manifestation of feeling or apparent withholding of confidence on the part of Mr. Polk when the result was finally proclaimed. On the contrary he offered the Treasury Department to Mr. Wright, feeling a.s.sured in advance, as the uncharitable thought, that Wright could not leave the governorship to accept it. When the office was declined, Mr. Polk again wrote Mr. Wright, asking his advice as to the New-York member of the cabinet. Mr. Wright submitted the names of three men from whom wise choice could be made,--Benjamin F. Butler, who had been attorney-general under President Jackson; John A. Dix, then recently chosen to the United- States Senate; and Azariah C. Flagg, eminent in the party, and especially distinguished for his administration of financial trust.

Mr. Polk, under other and adverse influence, saw fit to disregard Mr. Wright's counsel, and selected William L. Marcy, who was hostile to Wright, and distrusted by Van Buren, for Secretary of War. From that moment the fate of Mr. Polk as candidate for re-election was sealed. The cause might seem inadequate, but the effect was undeniable. The Democratic party at the outbreak of the civil war, sixteen years afterwards, had not wholly recovered from the divisions and strifes which sprung from the disregard of Mr. Van Buren's wishes at that crisis. No appointment to Mr. Polk's cabinet could have been more distasteful than that of Mr. Marcy. He had lost the State during Mr. Van Buren's Presidency in the contest for the governorship against Mr. Seward in 1838, and thus laid the foundation, as Mr. Van Buren believed, for his own disastrous defeat in 1840.

The disputes which arose from Marcy's appointment in the cabinet led to Wright's defeat for re-election in 1846, when John Young, the Whig candidate, was chosen governor of New York. To three men in the cabinet the friends of Mr. Wright ascribed the Democratic overthrow,--Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Robert J. Walker, and Mr. Marcy,-- each anxious for the Presidency, and each feeling that Mr. Wright was in his way. Mr. Wright died suddenly the year after his defeat, and it was supposed for a time that harmony in the New-York Democracy might be restored over his grave. But his friends survived, and their grief was the measure of their resentment.

The course of events which disabled Mr. Polk as a candidate proved equally decisive against all the members of his cabinet; and by the process of exclusion rather than by an enthusiastic desire among the people, and still less among the leaders, General Ca.s.s was selected by the Democratic Convention as candidate for the Presidency, and William O. Butler of Kentucky for the Vice-Presidency.

The Democracy of New York, in consequence of the divisions arising under the governorship of Mr. Wright, sent two full delegations to the convention, bearing credentials from separate organizations.

The friends of Mr. Marcy bore the name of Hunkers; the followers of Mr. Wright ranged themselves under the t.i.tle of Barnburners,-- distinctions which had prevailed for some years in New York. It was in fact the old division on the annexation of Texas, and now represented the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery wing of the Democratic party. The National Convention sought in vain to bridge the difficulty by admitting both delegations, giving to them united the right to cast the vote of the State. But the Barnburners declined thus to compromise a principle. On a question of bread, the half-loaf is preferable to starvation, but when political honor and deep personal feeling are involved, so material an adjustment is not practicable. The Barnburners retired from the convention, disclaimed all responsibility for its conclusions, and proceeded in due time to organize against the ticket of Ca.s.s and Butler.

The Hunkers, left in the convention as the sole representatives of the New-York Democracy, were startled at the situation and declined to vote. They were anxious that the nomination of Ca.s.s should not appear to be forced on the Barnburners by the rival faction. It thus happened that New York, which for twenty years under the skillful leadership of Mr. Van Buren had dictated the course of the Democracy, was now so shorn of influence through the factions engendered by his defeat, that a Presidential nomination was made, not only without her lead, but without her aid or partic.i.p.ation.

Ca.s.s BOLTED BY VAN BUREN'S FRIENDS.

The Democratic candidate was a man of high character. He had served creditably in the early part of the war of 1812, had been governor of Michigan Territory from 1813 to 1831, had been five years Secretary of War under General Jackson, and had gone to France as minister in 1836. He remained at the court of Louis Philippe, where he received eminent consideration, for six years. When he returned to this country in 1842, at sixty years of age, he undoubtedly intended to re-enter political life. He landed at Boston, and was received with enthusiasm by the New-England Democrats, especially of that cla.s.s who had not been in special favor during the long rule of Jackson and his successor. Popular ovations were arranged for him as he journeyed westward, and, by the time he reached his home in Detroit, General Ca.s.s was publicly recognized as a candidate for the Presidency. These facts did not escape the jealous and watchful eye of Mr. Van Buren. He was aggrieved by the course of General Ca.s.s, feeling a.s.sured that its direct effect would be to injure himself, and not to promote the political fortunes of the General. But the rivalry continued to develop. Ca.s.s remained in the field, a persistent candidate for nomination, and in the end proved to be, perhaps, the most powerful factor in the combination which secured the triumph of Polk. He had deeply wounded Mr. Van Buren, and, as the latter thought, causelessly and cruelly. He had disregarded a personal and political friendship of thirty years'

duration, and had sundered ties which life was too short to re- unite. Ca.s.s had gained no victory. He had only defeated old friends, and the hour of retribution was at hand.

When the delegation of Barnburners withdrew from the Baltimore Convention of 1848, they were obviously acting in harmony with Mr.

Van Buren's wishes. Had they been admitted, according to their peremptory demand, as the sole delegation from New York, they could have defeated Ca.s.s in the convention, and forced the nomination of some new man unconnected with the grievances and enmities of 1844.

But when the demand of the Barnburners was denied, and they were asked to make common cause with the a.s.sa.s.sins of Wright, as James S. Wadsworth had denominated the Hunkers, the indignantly shook the dust of the city from off their feet, returned to New York, and forthwith called a Democratic convention to meet at Utica on the 22d of June.

Before the time arrived for the Utica Convention to a.s.semble, the anti-slavery revolt was widely extended, and was, apparently, no less against Taylor than against Ca.s.s. There was agitation in many States, and the Barnburners found that by uniting with the opposition against both the old parties, a most effective combination could be made. It was certain to profit them in New York, and it promised the special revenge which they desired in the defeat of Ca.s.s. The various local and State movements were merged in one great convention, which met at Buffalo on the 9th of August, with imposing demonstrations.

Many of those composing it had held high rank in the old parties.

Salmon P. Chase of Ohio was selected as president. The convention represented a genuine anti-slavery sentiment, and amid excitement and enthusiasm Martin Van Buren was nominated for President, and Charles Francis Adams for Vice-President. The Barnburners, the anti-slavery Whigs, and the old Abolitionists, co-operated with apparent harmony under the general name of the Free-soil party; and the impression with many when the convention adjourned was, that Mr. Van Buren would have a plurality over both Ca.s.s and Taylor in the State of New York. The management of the popular canva.s.s was intrusted to Democratic partisans of the Silas Wright school, and this fact had a significant and unexpected influence upon the minds of anti-slavery Whigs.

In the first flush of the excitement, the supporters of the regular Democratic nominee were not alarmed. They argued, not illogically, that the Free-soil ticket would draw more largely from the Whigs than from the Democrats, and thus very probably injure Taylor more than Ca.s.s. But in a few weeks this hope was dispelled. The Whigs of the country had been engaged for a long period in an earnest political warfare against Mr. Van Buren. In New York the contest had been personal and acrimonious to the last degree, and ordinary human nature could hardly be expected the bury at once the grievances and resentments of a generation. Nor did the Whigs confide in the sincerity of Mr. Van Buren's anti-slavery conversion. His repentance was late, and even the most charitable suspected that his desire to punish Ca.s.s had entered largely into the motives which suddenly aroused him to the evils of slavery after forty years of quiet acquiescence in all the demands of the South. Mr. Seward, who possessed the unbounded confidence of the anti-slavery men of New York, led a most earnest canva.s.s in favor of General Taylor, and was especially successful in influencing Whigs against Van Buren.

In this he was aided by the organizing skill of Thurlow Weed, and by the editorial power of Horace Greeley. Perhaps in no other National election did three men so completely control the result.

They gave the vote of New York to General Taylor, and made him President of the United States.

MR. WEBSTER'S MARSHFIELD SPEECH.

At an opportune moment for the success of the Whigs, Mr. Webster decided to support General Taylor. He thoroughly distrusted Ca.s.s, --not in point of integrity, but of discretion and sound judgment as a statesman. He had rebuked Ca.s.s severely in a diplomatic correspondence touching the Treaty of Washington, when he was Secretary of State and Ca.s.s minister to France. The impression then derived had convinced him that the Democratic candidate was not the man whom a Whig could desire to see in the Presidential chair. In Mr. Van Buren's anti-slavery professions, Mr. Webster had no confidence. He said pleasantly, but significantly, that "if he and Mr. Van Buren should meet under the Free-soil flag, the latter with his accustomed good-nature would laugh." He added, with a touch of characteristic humor, "that the leader of the Free- spoil party suddenly becoming the leader of the Free-soil party is a joke to shake his sides and mine." Distrusting him sincerely on the anti-slavery issue, Mr. Webster showed that on every other question Mr. Van Buren was throughly objectionable to the Whigs.

The Marshfield speech, as this effort was popularly known at the time, had great influence with the Northern Whigs. Mr. Webster did not conceal his belief that General Taylor's nomination was "one not fit to be made," but by the clearest of logic he demonstrated that he was infinitely to be preferred to either of his compet.i.tors.

Mr. Webster at that time had the confidence of the anti-slavery Whigs in a large degree; he had voted for the Wilmot Proviso, and his public course had been that of a just and conservative expositor of their advanced opinion. From the day of the Marshfield speech, the belief was general that Van Buren would draw far more largely from the Democrats than from the Whigs; that his candidacy would give the State of New York to Taylor, and thus elect him President.

The loss of Whig votes was not distasteful to Mr. Van Buren after the prospect of his securing the electors of New York had vanished.

Had he drawn in equal proportion from the two parties, his candidacy would have had no effect. It would have neutralized itself, and left the contest between Ca.s.s and Taylor as though he had not entered the race. By a rule of influence, whose working is obvious, the tenacity of the Democratic adherents of Van Buren increased as the Whigs withdrew. The contest between Ca.s.s and Van Buren finally became in New York, in very large degree, a struggle between Democratic factions, in which the anti-slavery profession was an instrumentality to be temporarily used, and not a principle to be permanently upheld. As the Whigs left Van Buren, the Democrats left Ca.s.s, and the end of the canva.s.s gave a full measure of satisfaction, not only to the supporters of Taylor, but to the followers of Van Buren, who polled a larger vote for him than was given to Ca.s.s. New York, as in 1844, decided the contest. The friends of Van Buren had not simply beaten Ca.s.s at the polls, they had discredited him as a party leader. In the pithy phrase of John Van Buren, they had exposed him to the country as the candidate "powerful for mischief, powerless for good."

The total vote of New York was, for Taylor, 218,603; for Ca.s.s, 114,318; for Van Buren, 120,510. The canva.s.s for the governorship was scarcely less exciting than that for the Presidency. Hamilton Fish was the Whig candidate; John A. Dix, then a senator of the United States, ran as the representative of Mr. Van Buren's Free- soil party; while the eminent Chancellor Walworth, who had recently lost his judicial position, was nominated as a supporter of Ca.s.s by the Regular Democracy. Mr. Fish had been candidate for Lieutenant- governor two years before on the Whig ticket with John Young, and was defeated because of his outspoken views against the Anti-Renters.

Those radical agitators instinctively knew that the descendant of Stuyvesant would support the inherited rights of the Van Rensselaers, and therefore defeated Mr. Fish while they elected the Whig candidates for other offices. Mr. Fish now had his abundant reward in receiving as large a vote as General Taylor, and securing nearly one hundred thousand plurality over the Van Buren candidate, while he in turn received a small plurality over the representative of General Ca.s.s.

The result of the two contests left the Van Buren wing, or the Barnburners, in majority over the Hunkers, and gave them an advantage in future contests for supremacy, inside the party. Truthful history will hold this to have been the chief object of the struggle with many who vowed allegiance at Buffalo to an anti-slavery creed strong enough to satisfy Joshua R. Giddings and Charles Sumner.

With Ca.s.s defeated, and the Marcy wing of the party severely disciplined, the great ma.s.s of the Van Buren host of 1848 were ready to disavow their political escapade at Buffalo. Dean Richmond, Samuel J. Tilden, John Van Buren, C. C. Cambreleng, and Sanford E.

Church, forgot their anti-slavery professions, reunited with the old party, and vowed afresh their fidelity to every principle against which they had so earnestly protested. Mr. Van Buren himself went with them, and to the end of his life maintained a consistent pro-slavery record, which, throughout a long public career was varied only by the insincere professions which he found it necessary to make in order to be revenged on Ca.s.s. But it would be unjust to include in this condemnation all the New-York Democrats who went into the Buffalo movement. Many were honest and earnest, and in after life followed the principles which they had then professed. Chief among these may be reckoned Preston King, who exerted a powerful influence in the anti-slavery advances of after years, and James S. Wadsworth, who gave his name, and generously of his wealth, to the cause, and finally sealed his devotion with his blood on the battle-field of the Wilderness.

CHARACTER OF MR. VAN BUREN.

Mr. Van Buren spent the remainder of his life in dignified retirement --surviving until his eightieth year, in 1862. In point of mere intellectual force, he must rank below the really eminent men with whom he was so long a.s.sociated in public life. But he was able, industrious, and, in political management, clever beyond any man who has thus far appeared in American politics. He had extraordinary tact in commending himself to the favor and confidence of the people. Succeeding to political primacy in New York on the death of De Witt Clinton in 1828, he held absolute control of his party for twenty years, and was finally overthrown by causes whose origin was beyond the limits of his personal influence. He stood on the dividing-line between the mere politician and the statesman,-- perfect in the arts of the one, possessing largely the comprehensive power of the other. His active career began in 1812, and ended in 1848. During the intervening period he had served in the Legislature of New York, had been a member of the Const.i.tutional Convention of 1820, had been attorney-general of the State, and had been chosen its governor. In the national field he had been senator of the United States, Secretary of State, minister to England, Vice- President, and President. No other man in the country has held so many great places. He filled them all with competency and with power, but marred his ill.u.s.trious record by the political episode of 1848, in which, though he may have had some justification for revenge on unfaithful a.s.sociates in his old party, he had none for his lack of fidelity to new friends, and for his abandonment of a sacred principle which he had pledged himself to uphold.

[* NOTE.--An error of statement occurs on page 72, Volume I, in regard to the action of the Whig caucus for Speaker in December, 1847. Mr. Winthrop was chosen after Mr. Vinton had declined, and was warmly supported by Mr. Vinton. The error came from an incorrect account of the caucus in a newspaper of that time.]

CHAPTER V.

Review (_continued_).--Contrast between General Taylor and General Ca.s.s.--The Cabinet of President Taylor.--Political Condition of the Country.--Effect produced by the Discovery of Gold in California.

--Convening of Thirty-first Congress.--Election of Howell Cobb as Speaker.--President Taylor's Message.--His Recommendations Distasteful to the South.--Ill.u.s.trious Membership of the Senate.--Mr. Clay and the Taylor Administration.--Mr. Calhoun's Last Speech in the Senate.

--His Death.--His Character and Public Services.--Mr. Webster's 7th of March Speech.--Its Effect upon the Public and upon Mr.

Webster.--Mr. Clay's Committee of Thirteen.--The Omnibus Bill.-- Conflict with General Taylor's Administration.--Death of the President.--Mr. Fillmore reverses Taylor's Policy and supports the Compromise Measures.--Defeat of Compromise Bill.--Pa.s.sage of the Measures separately.--Memorable Session of Congress.--Whig and Democratic Parties sustain the Compromise Measures.--National Conventions.--Whigs nominate Winfield Scott over Fillmore.--Mr.

Clay supports Fillmore.--Mr. Webster's Friends.--Democrats nominate Franklin Pierce.--Character of the Campaign.--Overwhelming Defeat of Scott.--Destruction of the Whig Party.--Death of Mr. Clay.-- Death of Mr. Webster.--Their Public Characters and Services compared.

With the election of General Taylor, the various issues of the slavery question were left undecided and unchanged. Indeed, the progress of the canva.s.s had presented a political anomaly. General Ca.s.s was born in New England of Puritan stock. All his mature life had been spent in the free North-West. He was a lawyer, a statesman, always a civilian, except for a single year in the volunteer service of 1812. General Taylor was born in Virginia, was reared in Kentucky, was a soldier by profession from his earliest years of manhood, had pa.s.sed all his life in the South, was a resident of Louisiana, engaged in planting, and was the owner of a large number of slaves. Yet in the face of these facts General Ca.s.s ran as the distinctively pro-slavery candidate, and General Taylor received three-fourths of the votes of New England, and was supported throughout the North by the anti-slavery Whigs, who accepted William H. Seward as a leader and Horace Greeley as an exponent. But his contradiction was apparent, not real. It was soon found that the confidence of the Northern men who voted for Taylor had not been misplaced.

CABINET OF PRESIDENT TAYLOR.

As his inauguration approached, the anxiety in regard to his public policy grew almost painfully intense throughout the country. There had never been a cabinet organized in which so deep an interest was felt,--an interest which did not attach so much to the persons who might compose it as to the side--pro-slavery or anti-slavery-- to which the balance might incline. When the names were announced, it was found that four were from the south side of Mason and Dixon's line, and three from the north side. But a review of the political character of the members showed that the decided weight of influence was with the North. John M. Clayton of Delaware, Secretary of State, nominally from the South, had voted for the Wilmot Proviso, and had defended his action with commanding ability. William M.

Meredith of Pennsylvania was one of the ablest lawyers of the country, a scholar, a wit, an orator; his training had not, however, fitted him for the Treasury Department to which he was called.

Thomas Ewing of Ohio, selected to organize the Department of the Interior, just then authorized by law, was a man of intellectual power, a lawyer of the first rank, possessing a stainless character, great moral courage, unbending will, an incisive style, both with tongue and pen, and a breadth of reading and wealth of information never surpa.s.sed by any public man in America. Jacob Collamer of Vermont, Postmaster-general, was an able, wise, just, and firm man, stern in principle, conservative in action. The Attorney-general was Reverdy Johnson of Maryland, an ardent Whig partisan, distinguished in his profession, born and living in a slave State, but firmly devoted to the Union, as in later life he abundantly proved. The p.r.o.nounced Southern sentiment, as represented by Toombs and Stephens, had but two representatives in the cabinet,--George W. Crawford of Georgia (nephew of the eminent William H. Crawford), Secretary of War; and William Ballard Preston of Virginia, Secretary of the Navy,--able and upright men, but less distinguished than their a.s.sociates.