USA > Kentucky > History of Kentucky, Volume II > Part 19
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With all his qualities and associations so intimately Western, still Jackson was open to attack, particularly in Kentucky. Had he not un- justly censured the brave Kentuckians at New Orleans and, when the injustice of it was proved, had he retracted his base slanders? The less said about this subject the best, for his supporters found it hard to com- bat. However, when directly confronted with the subject, they answered it as best they could by claiming that Jackson was not wholly to blame for the criticism and that he had made amends.42 An address issuing from Garrard County stated that "The claims of the Hero of Orleans to civil preferment are certainly not increased *
* * by the injury which [he] recklessly endeavored to inflict on the State of Kentucky by unjustly charging her volunteer soldiers with 'inglorious flight' at Orleans and by refusing to do justice when convinced of injus-
tice. * * *" 43 The Legislature executed a political maneuver by re- fusing to pass a resolution for firing a salute on January 8, 1828, for the battle of New Orleans, although it had been the custom for the past few years to so honor the day. There was added significance in this refusal, for this was the date set for the Jackson convention in Frankfort.44 There was also a flare-up of Clay charges against certain bargains that Jackson and his supporters had sought to enter into in the election of 1825, and proof of the charges was produced.45 This did not prove of much lasting importance in the campaign, as it smacked too much of being hatched to neutralize the Jackson cry of "bargain and corruption." The old political hack of complicity with Burr in his Western escapade was bandied at each other by both sides. Jackson was accused of having plotted against his country with Burr; and Clay was charged with the same crime by the Jackson party.46 The question of the tariff and of internal improvements played practically no part in the campaign, al- though Clay attempted to introduce them as issues. In reply to a com- mittee from Madison County who had invited him to a public dinner, he said : "All who are opposed to the American system-all who are opposed to internal improvements, are now united with others in their endeavors to defeat the reelection of the present chief magistrate and to elevate an- other individual. Should they suceed there cannot be a doubt that the
40 Argus, Aug. 22, 1827.
41 For example, see Argus, Sept. 17, 1828.
42 See Kentucky Reporter, Nov. 6, 1826.
43 Robertson, Scrap Book, 153.
44 The House defeated the resolution by a vote of 53 to 37. Niles' Register, Vol. 33, P. 357.
45 See Niles' Register, Vol. 35, PP. 97, 123-128.
46 Argus, Oct. 8, 1828.
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most powerful element of this association would afterwards prevail in the conduct of public affairs." 47
This was the first real popular contest in a Presidential election that the state had ever experienced, and the ordinary individual entered into it with much zeal. Songs and symbols arose and played a determinable part in arousing enthusiasm. The Jackson men wore hickory leaves in their hats and carried hickory canes-all to show that they were for "Old Hickory." The Clay-Adams supporters carried hemp stalks, symbols of the American system of tariffs and internal improvements.48 A song that was a worthy forerunner of "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too," was the "Hunters of Kentucky." It was sung with great zest and animation and did much to keep up the Jackson enthusiasm. One of the characteristic stanzas was:
"But Jackson he was wide awake, And wasn't scared at trifles, For well he knew what aim we take, With our Kentucky rifles; So, he led us down to Cypress Swamp, The ground was low and mucky ;
There stood John Bull in martial pomp, But here was Old Kentucky : O! Kentucky, The Hunters of Kentucky." 49
Numerous campaign posters and leaflets made their appearance. The Jackson party issued one in which they referred to a slighting statement the Clay party had made about the standing of the Jackson men that "the Jackson boys will be barefooted on the 3d of November and can- not come to the polls!" and cleverly turned the slur to their own advan- tage: "Remember, in the winter of '76 the soldiers of Liberty, under Washington, stained the ice of the Delaware with the blood of their naked feet, in marching against the enemy of their country." 50
The congressional and state elections held prior to the Presidential contest were looked forward to eagerly by both sides, as straws in the wind. In 1826 a special election was held in the Fifth District to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Col. James Johnson, which resulted in the election by a close majority of the Jackson candidate.51 In the reg- ular congressional election of the following year the signs pointed strongly toward a majority state-wide sentiment for Jackson, and, as the state was soon to abandon the district system for the general ticket in voting for Presidential electors, Jackson had excellent chances to carry the complete state delegation.52 Seven Jackson congressmen were elected to five for Adams. The state House of Representatives was also carried by the Jackson party, as they were able to organize it by one vote.53 The best barometer of party strength was yet to appear. This was the state-wide election for governor and Legislature in August directly pre- ceding the Presidential election in November. The candidates for gov- ernor carried on a vigorous fight, with Barry perhaps more active than Metcalfe. The former stumped the state, engaging in joint debates at
47 Colton, Life and Times of Henry Clay, I, 126, 127.
48 Argus, Aug. 15, 1827.
49 This song was written by Samuel Woodworth, who was also the author of the Old Oaken Bucket. Magazine of American History, 1884, 548, 549.
50 Original leaflet in the Durrett Collection in the University of Chicago Library. 61 This district was composed of the following counties: Scott, Harrison, Pendle- ton, Campbell, Boone and Grant. Niles' Register, Vol. 31, pp. 210, 241. 52 Niles' Register, Vol. 34, p. 25.
63 Ibid. Vol. 33, p. 1; see also p. 50.
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times and speaking to thousands. Amos Kendall performed a signally active and valuable service as editor of the Argus. He used every pos- sible art in furthering the cause of Jackson and the Jackson candidates, and he felt no hesitancy in bitterly assailing Clay.54 The Jackson party was very anxious to obliterate all traces of the former old and new court parties. In their attempt to win the support of each of these old factions and escape the antagonisms of both, they took as a candidate for gover- nor, Barry, who had been the chief justice of the new court, and for lieu- tenant-governor, Breathitt, who had been of the old court party. The Argus said: "All the friends of General Jackson should consider them- selves, as in fact they are, the same party. In selecting their candidates they should forget that old and new court parties ever existed and look only to the triumph of the cause in which they are now engaged." 55 The Clay-Adams party, with Metcalfe for governor, held out conspic- uously a course of conciliation. All parties should unite for the good of the state and vote their ticket. Metcalfe promised that he would look for merit in his appointees and not for their past political affiliations, for he would be governor of no political party, but of the state.56 The results of this election were exceedingly close. Metcalfe, the Clay candi- date, was able to defeat Barry by a vote of 38,940 to 38,231. Barry's defeat was attributed to certain tactics the Clay party had used in rousing the fears of the old court men that he would attempt to overturn the Court of Appeals again and in stirring up the settlers in the Green River region and in the Jackson Purchase by declaring that he was opposed to their interests. Barry's activities in the former new court troubles was undoubtedly used to some advantage against him. In the case of the lieutenant-governor, where these tactics could not be so successfully used, Breathitt, the Jackson candidate, was elected over Underwood by a vote of 37,541 to 36,454. This was the largest vote by far the state had ever polled, and it went beyond the estimates of either party. As was stated in Niles' Register, "This state was the great battle-ground of parties, and each exerted itself exceedingly." 57
There could be little doubt now that Jackson would carry the state in November. The campaign was for the remaining time intensified, with Kendall pouring forth in the Argus his bitterest invectives against Clay and Adams and all they represented. Jackson received in November the Kentucky vote by a comfortable majority and by sweeping the rest of the nation was carried into the Presidency. His majority was 7,934, being over 1,000 votes more than he had received all told in the preceding Presidential election, when he was running against Clay. His complete vote was 39,394, which was more than twice the number Clay had re- ceived in 1824, and nearly 15,000 more votes than had been cast for both candidates in that election. No campaign in the whole history of the state had ever been fought so vigorously as this one. There were more than three times as many people voting in this election as in the preceding one. Truly Kentucky had been given a taste of national cam- paigning, and she had responded with unparalleled vigor.
The great national political game had now entered the state to stay. The national political organizations became the most vital interests now. The election had been largely fought out on enthusiasm and personalities, but they had been wonderfully effective in building up party organiza- tions. With the parties fast crystallizing, something more tangible and lasting than personalities was destined to appear. Before another Presi-
54 See Argus, June-November, 1828.
56 Jan. 16, 1828.
55 Argus, Feb. 4, 1829.
67 Vol. 34, P. 411; Argus, Aug. 13, 1828; Niles' Register, Vol. 35, pp. 4, 23.
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dent should be elected, candidates were going to be judged, not so much by their personalities but more by the principles they stood for. Impor- tant problems were arising and calling for solution; on these the national parties were soon to take very definite positions and stand out, not as Clay and Jackson parties, but as whigs and democrats.
CHAPTER LIII
DEMOCRATS AND WHIGS
There was great rejoicing throughout the West, for the people's can- didate, and a representative of the West at that, had won.1 Vast throngs flocked to Washington for the inauguration, of which Francis Scott Key exclaimed on this occasion: "It is beautiful; it is sublime." The recep- tion following was entirely otherwise, but still in keeping with a celebra- tion of the people's victory. High and low pushed into the White House to grasp the hand of the President, and there ensued a wild spectacle never equalled before or after. The jostling crowd upset the trays of the waiters, broke the dishes and smashed the furniture.
The people's president was now in power, and he was not slow in recognizing those who had put him there. Now he would put the rascals out to make way for his supporters; the spoils system was ushered in. There was no office so complicated that an ordinary man could not per- form its duties. Jackson said: "The duties of all public offices are, or at least admit of being made, so plain and simple that men of intelligence may readily qualify themselves for their performance; and I cannot but believe that more is lost by the long continuance of men in office than is generally to be gained by their experience." No state had been more loyal, or made a stronger fight than Kentucky, and for this she should have her proper recognition. Barry, who had failed by so small a margin in the gubernatorial election, was made postmaster-general, and Kendall, who had fought so valiantly as editor of the Argus, was given a position in the Treasury Department. Blair, who succeeded to the editorship of this paper for a time, was soon called to Washington as Jackson's political editor and became a member of the famous "kitchen cabinet." Thomas P. Moore was made envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Columbia ; Thomas C. Pickett, secretary of legation to the same country ; William Preston, minister to Spain; and Robert B. McAfee a little later, charge d'affaires to New Granada. Numerous jobs of less importance were meted out in the state. Post offices were filled with newspaper editors and others who had supported Jackson. Oldham, who had re- fused the nomination for lieutenant-governor in the interest of party har- mony, was given the post office at Louisville.2
The methods of Jackson were immediately assailed by the Clay party, who bitterly complained that their representatives were being dismissed on all sides to make way for the hungry Jackson group. Governor Met- calfe, in his message to the Legislature in 1829, after calling attention to this deplorable situation, declared that if something were not done, he feared the results on the nation. He was undecided whether all officers should be elected or their salaries reduced.3 The Jackson men answered
1 Kendall was very happy at the result-so pleased that he was quite generous to his political enemies in their defeat. He admitted that in the recent state elections, the New Court men deserved defeat, because they had not consulted the people. He had been made to feel the heavy hand of his opponents. The state printing as well as national had been taken away from him, and he had lost many subscribers; but now victory was at hand. Argus, Nov. 12, 1828.
2 Argus, March et seq., 1829; Doolan, "The Court of Appeals of Kentucky" in Green Bag, XII, 343; Collins, History of Kentucky, I, 358, 359. 3 Argus, Dec. 9, 1829.
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these complaints with like complaints of their own against the Clay party in state affairs. Metcalfe, they recalled, had, during the campaign for the governorship, promised that party affiliations should not count with him in his appointments, but, as it had actually turned out, Jackson's followers were proscribed and Clay men were appointed at every op- portunity.4
Once settled in the Presidency, Jackson began to develop his prin- ciples on the problems of the day and to establish reforms. The tariff, the United States Bank and internal improvements were calling for attention. The positions he took on these absorbing questions had a marked effect on his support in Kentucky. In fact, these were issues on which the opposi- tion built itself into a great political party, first known as national re- publican and then whig, who divided with the democrats the electorate of the nation until the alarms of approaching civil war destroyed the party. In Kentucky they developed a stronghold from which the demo- crats were able to dislodge them only on rare occasions.
The tariff question was the least troublesome at this time. Ken- tuckians, as already shown, were almost a unit in favor of a protective tariff, and Jackson had said so little about the tariff that his attitude could not be construed into hostility. The tariff of 1828 had been so cleverly devised by the Jackson leaders that it gave satisfaction to the regions of Jackson support, with certain objectionable features to New England. If it were rejected, New England would be responsible and the Jackson men would reap the reward of having introduced a protective tariff. The law was passed and Kentucky found no objections. The Kentucky del- egates who had attended the tariff convention in Harrisburg in 1827, had, in an address to the people, clearly set forth the position of the state on the subject : "To Kentucky, exhausted by incessant drains of her specie to the East, to buy dry goods, and to the West, and North, and South, to buy land, and cut off from a profitable foreign market the pro- posed measures of relief cannot be otherwise than most salutary. They will have a tendency to revive our drooping agriculture and give life and animation to our villages. They will stimulate and enable us to improve our roads and our rivers and draw from our earth its abundant re- sources." 5
Clay had been, since his early days in the state Legislature, a champion of the tariff, and he had later worked out his "American system" of tariffs and internal improvements. Until the rising party divisions be- tween Clay and Jackson appeared, most Kentuckians had agreed with this system. But now, for party advantage, if for no other reason, there were those who opposed it simply because Clay was advocating it. Jack- son's opinions on the tariff were not so tenacious and immutable as on other important questions of the day, but he had come to link it with the public debt, with the logical result that as the debt was paid off and a surplus began to accumulate, the tariff perforce would have to be reduced. The idea was prevalent in the South that a protective tariff was uncon- stitutional and destructive to the rights of the states. The tariff of 1828, designed on no scientific basis, but rather arranged as a clever political maneuver, had met with much opposition and came justly to be termed the "Tariff of abominations." A movement was soon on foot for a complete revision. The Kentucky Legislature came out strongly in sup- port of a continuation of the protective tariff. It declared "That it is a constitutional exercise of power on the part of congress, to encourage and protect the manufactures of the United States, by imposts and re- strictions on the goods, wares and merchandise of foreign nations, and that the acts of congress usually known by the name of the tariff laws
4 Ibid., April 6, et seq., 1831.
5 Robertson, Scrap Book, 146.
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are not only constitutional, but are founded upon principles of policy demanded by the best interests of these states." It also took occasion to endorse the other factor in Clay's American system-internal improve- ments. It resolved : "That congress does possess the power, under the constitution, to adopt a general system of internal improvements as a national measure for national purposes." It declared these sentiments should be forwarded to the governors of Virginia, South Carolina, Geor gia and Mississippi "as the expression of the view of the general as- sembly of Kentucky on the constitutional power of congress over the subjects of domestic manufactures and internal improvements; and for the purpose of ascertaining the views and opinions of the several states of the United States on the subjects."
These opinions were not purely partisan, for the resolutions were passed by much larger majorities than the Clay supporters could com- mand. A substitute offered for the first resolution that Congress had no constitutional power to lay duties or imposts designed to prohibit im- ports either partially or generally and that "the powers of congress are not general, but special, not omnipotent, but limited, and defined by the constitution" was overwhelmingly rejected by a vote of 82 to 12. Other substitutes were also decisively defeated. These were largely non-par- tisan opinions on subjects which Kentucky as a unit had generally favored. But when an effort was made to gain partisan advantage out of this for Clay, the situation changed. The preamble which contained this sentence was carried by only 18 votes: "And the general assembly of Kentucky cannot omit to avail itself of an occasion so appropriate to call to its aid the oft-repeated sentiments of their most distinguished fellow citizen, Henry Clay, whose zealous and able exertions and whose eminent services in support of both measures have been only equalled by his ardent patriotism and unbending integrity." "
The agitation over the country resulted in a new tariff, passed in 1832 and largely the work of Adams along the lines suggested by Clay. Although it continued unabated the protective feature, it was signed by Jackson and was not wholly unacceptable to the Jacksonian demo- crats. Thus the tariff could not be made a major issue in the campaign of 1832. Jackson's tariff opinions cost him few votes in Kentucky.
On the question of the United States Bank, Jackson had very decided views and prejudices, and in these he was supported by the West gen- erally. This institution had been a competitor of the state banks and had brought down on itself the charges that it was a great tyrannical corporation and an agent of the money power. Senator Benton of Mis- souri had said of it: "I know towns, yea, cities, where this bank already appears as an engrossing proprietor. * All the flourishing cities of the West are mortgaged to this money power. They may be devoured by it at any moment. They are in the jaws of the monster! One gulp. one swallow, and all is gone." The bank was also accused of being in politics. The Jackson party in Kentucky claimed that the branch at Lex- ington was helping Clay in the campaign in every way possible-that it would lend money only to the supporters of Clay.7 Kendall, who had been so bitter an enemy of the bank in Kentucky, undoubtedly influenced the President in his hostility. But Jackson needed little urging, for, as he told Nicholas Biddle, the president of the United States Bank, "I do not dislike your bank any more than all banks, but ever since I read the history of the South Sea Bubble I have been afraid of banks." In his first message to Congress he referred to the fact that the charter of the
6 Niles' Register, Vol. 37, P. 428. The Jackson members chided the Clay men for introducing politics into this set of resolutions, which were designed to express the general sentiment of Kentuckians. Argus, April 21, 1830.
7 Argus, Oct. 31, 1832.
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bank would expire in 1836, and the question of a recharter would arise. "In order to avoid the evils resulting from precipitancy in a measure in- volving such important principles and such deep pecuniary interests, I feel that I cannot, in justice to the parties interested, too soon present it to a deliberate consideration of the Legislature and the people. Both the constitutionality and the expediency of the law creating this bank are well questioned by a large portion of our fellow-citizens, and it must be admitted by all that it has failed in the great end of establishing a uni- form and sound currency." 8 Believing that Jackson's position would not be upheld by the people, Clay and Biddle forced the bank question as an issue into the campaign of 1832 by pushing through Congress a bill rechartering the bank, although it still had four years to run. Jackson joined the issue by vetoing the bill.
The situation in Kentucky had changed somewhat since the days when relief had been uppermost. The state banking institutions left were the two branches of the United States Bank at Lexington and Louisville.ยบ The people were coming to see that after all these institutions were valuable assets to the state, building up a prosperity which the state banks had endangered or destroyed. A merchant said: "From the best means of information within my reach, the office of the United States Bank at Lexington during the last year negotiated exchange transactions to an amount exceeding $1,500,000 equal to one-half of the estimated exports of this section, the larger part of which was probably for the benefit of the stock-drovers. In thus promoting the general commerce of the coun- try its advantages are extended to all classes, and the institutions should be, and I believe is, viewed as one of the great causes of our sectional prosperity and has thereby gained a corresponding popularity." 10 Jack- son's summary action against the continuance of the bank thus won for him much less support here now than it would have done a decade earlier.
But the views of Jackson that cost him the most support in Kentucky were on the question of internal improvements. Clay had long been in favor of internal improvements and had made it a cardinal part of his American system. Kentuckians, irrespective of their politics, had also favored the development of roads, rivers and canals. They not only believed in engaging in these public undertakings, but held that the Na- tional Government should aid in their construction. Clay believed Con- gress should provide for the construction of interstate highways which could not or would not be undertaken by individual states or combination of states. He called attention to the fact that Congress had constructed light-houses and public buildings, provided for coast surveys and erected sea-walls-"everything on the margin of the ocean, but nothing for domestic trade; nothing for the great interior country." "Not one stone," he said, "had yet been broken, not one spade of earth removed, in any Western State."11 The right to regulate commerce, he declared, in- cluded the full power to construct roads and canals in the interior. It should not be forgotten that the West was a mighty region: "A new world has come into being since the Constitution was adopted. Are the narrow, limited necessities of the old thirteen states, or, indeed, parts only of the old thirteen states, as they existed at the formation of the present Constitution, forever to remain the rule of its interpretation ?" 12 In 1828 the Kentucky Legislature had recommended to Congress the
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