USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 4 > Part 10
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WHIG SUCCESSES (1840-1841)
Morton had scarcely been elected before the Whigs were planning for the campaign of 1840. Everett, desiring to travel, refused to run again, and they turned to ex-governor John Davis of Worcester, now a member of the United States Senate. The Boston Atlas and other Whig papers bitterly attacked the Jacksonian radicalism and tried to stir up a patriotic and anti-British feeling over the Maine boundary dispute, declaring that the Democrats were dilatory in their handling of this problem. The Democrats, gathering to them- selves large elements of the old Workingmen's and Anti- masonic parties, made every effort through Bancroft's Bay State Democrat to attract the mechanic and labor vote. Local issues, however, probably had little to do with the actual result, for "Honest John" Davis was swept into the governor's chair on the Harrison national landslide by a majority of
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15,000. Although Morton was defeated, as a matter of fact he secured more votes than in the previous year ; but the larger proportion of previously unplaced votes, which may have come from increased population or increased interest in the presi- dential election, were cast for Davis. Tired of twelve years of Democratic rule, the American people had just elected Harrison as an "Indignation President," and the State Demo- crats went down in the hurricane.
Heartened by the factional split in the national Whig machine resulting from the death of Harrison in 1871, the Massachusetts Democrats worked valiantly to retrieve their position. They denounced Davis as a remnant of outworn Federalism, and asserted that under his administration the Executive had failed to pursue the retrenchment plans advo- cated by Morton, and that the legislature had dangerously extended the credit of the Commonwealth to the Western Railroad. They presented a list of "rights of labor" measures, for the failure of which they held the Whigs responsible. These included proposals to hold stockholders in banks liable like partners for all funds involved, to abolish all property qualifications for voting, to extend the hours for voting until after sunset, to institute the secret ballot, to provide for the election of sheriffs and probate judges by popular vote, to re- vise the insolvency law, and to abolish imprisonment for debt. Notwithstanding this excellent bait and the obvious necessity for much of this legislation, Davis was again elected by a small majority (Davis, 55,974; Morton, 51,367), although there was a fifteen-thousand falling off in his vote from that of the presidential year.
THE LIBERTY PARTY (1841-1848)
One significant feature of the results of the 1841 election was the appearance on the political horizon of a forerunner of a new national party, the new Liberty party, which cast 1,081 votes in 1840 and 3,488 in 1841. This party, which appeared as a natural result of the rising antislavery opinion, functioned until absorbed into the Free-soil party in 1848. Although not supported by the Garrisonian "non-resisters," it grew in Massachusetts until 1846, practically holding the
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DEMOCRATIC RETURN
balance of power in the State election of 1843. Sufficiently strong to complicate more than one election, the Liberty Party owed its chief significance during the forties to the fact that it acted as a constant reminder of an issue destined to be fundamental in the next decade.
DEMOCRATIC RETURN (1842)
The year 1842 saw a return to power of Morton and the Democrats; a reversal to no small extent a result of events outside the State. The democratic tendencies of the pseudo- Whig, Tyler, demoralized the Whig party and also revived its opponents. Daniel Webster, who remained in Tyler's cabinet after the other Whigs had resigned, was forced to explain the reasons for his action in the famous "Faneuil Hall Address" of September 30, 1842, and resigned under heavy pressure as soon as the negotiations with Great Britain over the Maine boundary line were completed.
The Democrats, rejoicing at their unexpected good fortune, entered the campaign of 1842 with renewed enthusiasm; but their ranks were already beginning to split; Henshaw and his friends thought they saw an opportunity to displace Morton, Bancroft, and the other Van Buren Democrats by building up a Tyler-Calhoun machine in Massachusetts. Their activities were still under cover, for only a united front could bring success in the coming election.
More potent than the national situation in its influence on Massachusetts politics was the Democratic revolution of 1842 in Rhode Island. There the "Algerine" or conservative legislature refused to recognize the will of the people as ex- pressed in their vote of 1842 for a more liberal constitution; and the liberals under Thomas W. Dorr were forced into open rebellion. Feeling ran so high in New England that it was impossible for public men not to express themselves; and it soon became evident in Massachusetts that the Whigs were in sympathy with the conservative property-holding "Alger- ines ; " and the Democrats with the followers of Dorr. Hence Morton, offering a reform platform which included retrench- ment of expenditures, extension of education, and free suf- frage, polled 1,500 votes more than his opponent Davis
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(56,491 to 54,939). As the Liberty party received 6,382, almost double their vote of the previous year, there was no majority over all, but in the end the Democrats were success- ful in obtaining the governorship and control of the State senate.
DEMOCRATIC REFORM (1843)
Asserting that he had been elected by the people to reform abuses, Morton in his inaugural urged the abolition of capital punishment, except in aggravated cases of murder; the elimi- nation of double voting; a reduction in the poll tax; and a reform in taxation which would lift some of the burden from the poor and place it upon the rich by taxing more effectively such personal property as shares in stock companies and money at interest. As in his previous inaugural, he accused the Whig administration of extravagance, and questioned the advis- ability of large State grants for internal improvements. Al- though the Senate Democrats passed bills establishing the secret ballot, eliminating the poll tax, popularizing the tenure of judicial offices, redistricting cities for representation in the legislature, and prohibiting large additions to the State debt without consent of the voters, the Whigs in the lower house refused their assent. Hence only three Democratic measures were allowed to become law : a bill abolishing the poll tax for males between sixteen and twenty, an act repealing the "sun- set" law which had closed the polls at dark, and a bill intro- ducing the principle of individual liability of stockholders.
His reform program halted by the Whig members of the lower house, Morton was further harassed by the fact that his own party was weakening itself through factional quarrels. Henshaw, supported by Robert Rantoul, Jr., Benjamin F. Hallett, and Charles G. Greene, and in cooperation with the Washington administration, was working might and main to build up a Tyler-Calhoun machine and to push from power the supporters of Van Buren, led by Bancroft and Morton. Henshaw was appointed Secretary of the Navy upon a Cabinet shift following the resignation of Webster (an appointment not confirmed by the Senate) ; Rantoul was made collector of the port of Boston in place of the Whig, Levi Lincoln (ap- pointed by Harrison) ; and Hallett became the leader of the
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COTTON WHIGS
Calhoun group in the State convention, which was nevertheless forced to renominate Morton.
GOVERNOR BRIGGS (1843-1844)
The campaign of 1843 was characterized by the most un- warranted accusations that Morton had won the previous elec- tion by bribery, and by exceptional bitterness on the part of the Whigs because of the defection of Tyler. In the place of Davis, who had retired for the moment after his defeat but was soon to return to the Senate, the Republicans headed their ticket with George N. Briggs, Congressman from Berkshire, and John Reed, of Yarmouth. Sure of their city constitu- encies, the choice of Briggs was a direct bid for the vote of the Democratic small farmers and frontiersmen, who had been an important element in the Democratic strength.
The result of the election of 1843 was a restoration of the Whigs to State power ; the vote being Briggs, 57,899; Morton, 54,242, and S. E. Sewell (Liberty), 8,901. The causes for the Democratic reversal are hard to state with exactness, but there seems no doubt that the split in the party between the proslavery Calhounites and the Van Buren abolitionists played a part in conjunction with the rising Liberty Party.
As Briggs received only a plurality of the popular vote, his election was not consummated until the legislature met in January of 1844; but the office upon which he entered in that month he was destined to hold for seven years. "Briggs", says Schouler, "was a person of plain and simple manners, with a kind and affectionate heart, and yet a becoming dignity of bearing. He had good sense, a harmonizing disposition, and was honest as the day, temperate, and sincere. Men of the highest social importance here in Massachusetts were con- tent to serve under him in legislature, civil office, or town and local magistracy. The voters of the State, moreover, were well satisfied with such a chief ruler. In person he was of good height, with a calm blue eye, a healthy; complexion, and a well-knit figure."
COTTON WHIGS IN POWER (1843-1849)
Briggs represented the "Cotton Whigs," men of the type
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of Abbott Lawrence, Nathan Appleton, and Daniel Webster, who felt that the slavery issue was best handled by shunning it. To a group who hoped to quiet the turbulent waters of the antislavery agitation, the popular and soothing Briggs seemed ideal; but to Emerson he was "an excellent middle man; he looks well when speaking, and seems always just ready to say something good, but never said anything; he is an orateur manqué."
With Briggs in the Governor's chair and a safe majority in the legislature, the Whigs proceeded to attack Morton's ap- pointments and to reverse his policies. In the United States Senate they secured the rejection of Henshaw's designation to the Navy and Rantoul's appointment to the collectorship. The Tyler-Calhoun faction seemed for the moment sufficiently squelched; but the situation among the Van Burenites was little better. Morton, who so long had headed the State ticket, withdrew in favor of Bancroft, who received the next guber- natorial nomination.
In the election of 1844, such local issues as the Dorr Rebel- lion in Rhode Island and the extension of the suffrage were revived; but in reality State politics were at last dominated by the national contest. Bancroft had labored for Van Buren at the Baltimore convention; but when he found the latter's nomination was impossible, he became a leading influence in the choice of Polk. Both the Tyler-Calhoun Democrats and the Van Buren Democrats in Massachusetts were disappointed ; but they smothered their differences and worked for Polk. The Democratic party was successful nationally, though it could not carry Massachusetts. The State was too strongly Whig and antiannexationist, and it cast a majority vote for Clay a week after the New York State vote had made Polk's election certain. Briggs polled 69,570; Bancroft, 54,714; and Sewell (Liberty), 9,635. The increasing Liberty vote as well as the 10,000 cast for James G. Birney began to point clearly to the force that was destined ere long to disintegrate both of the older parties.
NATIONAL INFLUENCE IN MASSACHUSETTS (1845-1846)
Polk, who had been a Jacksonian rather than a Calhoun
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THE MEXICAN WAR
Democrat, now bestowed his Massachusetts patronage upon the Van Buren faction. Bancroft was made Secretary of the Navy, and ex-governor Morton, collector of the port of Boston. But the Henshaw-Rantoul-Hallett group could not be entirely denied; they secured minor posts, and busied them- selves with intrigues to undermine the prestige of the domi- nant faction. Nor was all serene in the camp of the Whigs. Rufus Choate retired from the Federal Senate to allow his friend Webster to return; but Webster's close relations with Tyler had antagonized many politicians, and he no longer had the unanimous backing of the conservative Whigs. The abolitionist Whigs were becoming restive under the leadership of the "Cotton Whigs." This opposition was aggravated by the expulsion of Samuel Hoar from Charleston, South Caro- lina, whither he had been sent to protest against the treatment of negro seamen who were citizens of Massachusetts. The Whigs were also disturbed in the election of 1845 by the formation of a Republican-American Party which had come into prominence by the election of a mayor in Boston, and which now presented a State ticket on a platform of restric- tion of Irish immigration.
The State election of 1845 aroused little interest. The Democrats substituted Isaac Davis of Worcester, a zealous advocate of popular education, for Bancroft, while Briggs and Sewell ran again on their respective tickets. Each of these three received a smaller vote than in the previous year, partly due to the 8,089 votes cast for Henry Shaw, of Lanes- borough, the candidate on the American-Republican (Native American) ticket. As no majority resulted from the election, the choice rested with the legislature, strongly Whig in com- plexion, which quickly reëlected Briggs.
MASSACHUSETTS IN THE MEXICAN WAR (1846-1847)
The declaration of war against Mexico in 1846 contributed to complicate the political history of the Bay State. To the factional difficulties already alluded to in the Democratic party, the War with Mexico now offered a new source of friction. Bancroft did not approve of the war, and numerous Massachusetts Democrats saw in it simply a slaveholders'
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plot to annex more slave territory. The Whigs were even more divided on the question. In the United States Senate, John Davis had voted against the war, though Webster had offered no opposition. Many of the younger Whigs, such as Charles Sumner, J. G. Palfrey, and Charles Francis Adams, violently opposed the war; and "their disagreement with the conservative Whigs," says Darling, "marks the beginning of the Free Soil movement." Even the conservative Governor Briggs refused to give commissions to the officers of a certain company of volunteer militia, unless they agreed that they would not march beyond the boundaries of Massachusetts. At the same time the Boston Whig, a leading party organ, vigorously denounced the war as a result of the alliance be- tween the "Cotton Whigs" of the North and the slave expan- sionists of the South.
In the State elections of 1846, however, both parties patched their differences long enough to present a united front. Again there were four tickets headed by the same men as in the previous years, except that the Native Americans substituted Francis Baylies for Shaw. The vote (Briggs, 54,831; Davis, 33,199; Sewell, 9,997; Baylies, 3,423) showed the Demo- cratic total lower than at any time since 1834. The Native- Americans cast less than half their vote of the previous year. The Liberty Party polled its greatest vote. The votes for Sewell and Baylies seem to have been drawn chiefly from the Whigs, the small Democratic vote probably being due to internal friction in the party.
The machinations of the Henshaw faction were so efficient that, under the chairmanship of Hallett, they were able to control the Democratic party convention at Worcester in 1847. There they set aside Davis, and nominated for governor Caleb Cushing, formerly a Tyler-Whig, and now a brigadier general in the Mexican War. They passed resolutions supporting Polk, approving the Walker tariff, the subtreasury, and Mor- ton's policies while governor.
SLAVERY AS AN ISSUE (1847-1848)
Outwardly harmonious, the convention was forced to face the real issue dividing its councils toward the end of the ses-
From photographs
GEORGE NIXON BRIGGS
Courtesy of Harvard College Library
CALEB CUSHING
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SLAVERY AS AN ISSUE
sion. Amasa Walker presented a resolution, apparently based on the famous Wilmot Proviso introduced in the National House that year, opposing the extension of slavery into any territory which might in the future be acquired by the United States. This resolution was never voted on, but it pointed to a coming split in the Democratic ranks. The Whigs at their con- vention were confronted with the same problem when Palfrey, one of the younger and more radical delegates, offered a resolu- tion (which was rejected) that the Whig party refuse to sup- port any candidates for the Presidency except those known to oppose the extension of slavery. The results of the fall elec- tion were undoubtedly influenced by the Mexican War, then in progress. Briggs won a majority of the votes, Cushing polled six thousand more than had Davis in the previous election, while there was a decline in both the Liberty and Native-American support.
State politics in 1848 was inevitably influenced by the national campaign, which was much disturbed by the slavery issue in its new form, now concerned, as it was, with the terms of organization of the annexed territory. The Whigs had hoped for the nomination of Webster for the Presidency, but made the best of Taylor, and again presented Biggs and Reed on the State ticket. After the national Democratic nomina- tion of Cass, the antislavery Democrats broke from their party allegiance, joined in the Free-soil convention, and ac- cepted the candidacy of Van Buren on their ticket. A Massa- chusetts man, and son of an ex-president, was nominated for vice-president,-Charles Francis Adams, whom Morton de- scribed as "the greatest Iceberg in the Northern Hemisphere." A convention called in September to organize a Free-soil party in Massachusetts included such radical Whigs as Charles Sumner; many Van Buren Democrats of the type of John Mills, Amasa Walker, John A. Bolles and Dr. Abner Phillips; and numerous representatives of the Liberty Party.
Marcus Morton did not join the Free-soilers in this cam- paign, but his son played a prominent part. Their nominees were S. C. Phillips, a Whig merchant of Salem, for governor, and John Mills of Springfield for lieutenant governor. The more radical Democrats were now allied to the new party.
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The regular Democrats renominated Cushing. It is doubtful whether Whigs or Democrats contributed the most to the new Free-soil party ; but it is certain that the process thoroughly disrupted the Democratic organization. The vote in the elec- tion of 1848 was: Briggs, 61,640; Phillips, 36,011; Cushing, 25,323; scattering, 1,081. The Democrats were a poor third,
FREE-SOIL PARTY (1848-1850)
The Free-soil party was an inevitable outcome of the War with Mexico, and it expressed the fundamental political issue of the fifties. The new party prevented a clear majority over all for Briggs, thus throwing the election into the legislature, where he had a majority. The election of the Louisianian, Zachary Taylor, as President in 1848, and with it the loss of Federal patronage in New England, for the moment badly weakened the Democratic machine in Massachusetts, and Briggs was easily reëlected in 1849. Caleb Cushing, although he had established himself in the previous year as perhaps the most influential of the Democratic leaders in the State, declined to run again in 1849. So the state ticket that year was headed by George S. Boutwell, an Antislavery Democrat, already recognized as a powerful legislative debater, then on the threshold of a long and influential political career.
The political situation of 1849 quickly changed. The com- promise of 1850 with its hated Fugitive Slave Law aroused the anger of the Free-soil leaders to a white heat, and their denunciation of Webster after his "Seventh of March Speech" in 1850 knew no bounds. At a meeting in the Adams House at Boston in September, Henry Wilson, Free-soil leader and later United States Senator and Vice-President, proposed a coalition with the Democrats in the fall elections for the pur- pose of securing a legislature that would choose a Free-soil Senator. Although the project was strongly opposed by the prominent Free-soilers, except Sumner, it was spontaneously followed in the autumn contest. The results suggested the possibility of a Democratic-Free-soil coalition.
ELECTION OF SUMNER TO THE SENATE (1849)
As the Free-soilers were primarily interested in sending
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ELECTION OF SUMNER
Charles Sumner to the Senate, an understanding was soon arrived at by which the Democrats, in return for the control of State offices elected by the legislature, agreed to support Sumner. In accordance with this agreement, Henry Wilson was chosen president of the Senate; Nathaniel P. Banks, Free- soil Democrat, became speaker of the House; and George S. Boutwell was made governor. Robert Rantoul, Jr., but recently weaned from the Henshaw-Calhoun faction of Demo- crats, was elected to fill out Webster's term in the Senate, the latter having resigned to become Secretary of State in the Pierce Cabinet.
Although these elections progressed according to schedule, the opposition of the Whigs to this combination was intense. They received help from a small group of regular Democrats led by Caleb Cushing, now representing Newburyport in the House. In Cushing's mind, the preservation of the Union was more important than the question of slavery; and he led a group which believed that the election of Sumner would be a catastrophe for the Nation. In the Democratic caucus, Cush- ing presented resolutions against the support of Sumner ; and when he failed there, he took the fight to the floor of the House. Between January 14 and April 24 twenty-six ballots were taken, ending with the choice of Sumner by a majority of one.
In the hope of breaking the deadlock, the Senatorship had been offered to Wilson; but the latter stood firm for Sumner, asserting that the "coalition was not formed for his personal benefit, nor for George S. Boutwell's; it was formed to give Massachusetts a state government not under control of power- ful corporations, and a senator who would wake up the echoes of freedom in the Capitol of the nation; and they must keep voting till doomsday, if need be to accomplish the result."
In the length and severity of the contest this senatorial elec- tion has probably never been duplicated in any State of the Union, and it is doubtful whether any election to the Senate has been fraught with more important consequences. This coalition of 1850-1851 put in the Senate a brilliant orator to lead the Free-soil cause, and it placed the State government for the first time in the hands of a group of politicians who were steadfastly and aggressively opposed to slavery. It also
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gave impetus to the Democratic movement which attempted in 1853 to write a new Constitution, and succeeded during the fifties in reforming election practices. This coalition, by breaking the power of the "Cotton Whigs," and paving the way for Republican success, opened a new era in Massachu- setts politics.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ADAMS, CHARLES FRANCIS, JR .- Charles Francis Adams (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1900)-Biography of the author's father.
ADAMS, JAMES TRUSLOW .- New England in the Republic (Boston, Little, Brown, 1926)-Excellent on the social background.
ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY .- Memoirs, Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795-1848 (2 vols., Phila., Lippincott, 1874-1877)-Edited by C. F. Adams. Contains many references to Massachusetts political history.
ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY .- Memoirs, Comprising Portions of his Diary from 1795 to 1848 (12 vols., Phila., Lippincott, 1874-1877)-Edited by C. F. Adams.
AUSTIN, GEORGE LOWELL .- The History of Massachusetts from the Landing of the Pilgrims to the Present Time (Boston, Russell, 1876)-A brief survey.
AUSTIN, GEORGE LOWELL .- The History of Massachusetts from the Landing (Boston, Lee & Shepard, 1888).
BOUTWELL, GEORGE S .- Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs (2 vols., N. Y., McClure, Phillips, 1902)-Quite full on State politics during the 'forties and 'fifties, and on the coalition which elected Sumner.
BREWER, DANIEL CHAUNCEY .- The Conquest of New England by the Im- migrant (N. Y., Putnam's, 1926)-Discusses the dangers inherent in the flood of newcomers, and the basis for the fear of the "old stock."
DARLING, ARTHUR BURR .- Political Changes in Massachusetts, 1824-1848 (New Haven, Yale Univ. Press, 1925)-A scholarly, heavily docu- mented study of Massachusetts politics, which lays especial emphasis upon the history of the Democratic party.
DARLING, ARTHUR BURR .- "The Workingmen's Party in Massachusetts, 1833-1834" (American Historical Review, 1923, Vol. XXIV, pp. 81-86) -Contains enlightening comments on an obscure movement.
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