USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. V > Part 13
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established a new and highly interesting principle of Democratic policy-the principle of fearless assump- tion of responsibility and unhesitating action by the President and Congress in great emergencies. Under the doctrine of strict construction of the Constitution, resort to the embargo, involving complete paralysis of foreign commerce, was certainly a matter of question- able "granted power." But the administration felt that a resolute government, adequate to the prompt decision of novel questions critically affecting the country, was more important than the refinements of caution. The people expect every efficiency on the part of the government; the one thing they will never endure is timidity. In case of over-exercise of authority by the government, or any responsible branch of it-Execu- tive, House, or Senate,-they have a sure remedy at the next election.
Despite the unpopularity of the embargo, the Democracy's supremacy had become so firmly estab- lished that at the expiration of Jefferson's second term it was returned to power by a vote of nearly three to one in the Electoral College-James Madison, of Virginia, its regular nominee, receiving 122 votes; George Clinton, of New York, also a Democrat, 6; and Charles C. Pinckney, of South Carolina, Federalist, 47.
CHAPTER III EVOLUTIONARY PHASES
1809-1824
M ADISON, like his predecessor, was given two terms in the Presidential office, throughout which both the Senate and House of Repre- sentatives continued Democratic by great majorities. At his second election, in 1812, the Federalists refrained from making a party nomination for President and endorsed the candidacy of DeWitt Clinton of New York (nephew of Vice-President George Clinton), who represented a wing of the Democracy that in no way diverged from the Madisonians in principle, or even in course concerning emergent matters, but sought power on the strength of its leader's claims and the argument that as Virginia had been honored with the Presidency for twenty out of the twenty-four years since the government was founded, it was time for her to step aside in favor of the great State of New York. Owing to the coalition of the Clintonians and Federalists, Madison was reëlected by a much diminished majority; his Electoral vote was 128 and Clinton had 89.
At that period the modern system of nominating con- ventions, platforms, letters of acceptance by candidates, national party committees, etc., had not been devised.
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Originally the Presidential nominees were selected by the "general agreement" of a few party leaders, and that plan was always pursued by the Federalists except when they took up Clinton with the hope of defeating Madi- son. The Democracy introduced the method of nomi- nating the President and Vice-President by a Congres- sional caucus, composed of the party members of the House and Senate and coming together in the early part of each Presidential year. This was the nearest approxi- mation to a representative and responsible national assemblage that was adapted to the early political con- ditions of the country. The suffrage was limited by property and other qualifications; it was the settled custom for the people to leave all current details to their qualified men who were prominent in public life; and as the facilities of travel were still primitive the holding of national conventions directly representative of the people would in practice have presented little attraction except to office-holders, certain persons of more or less factious disposition, defeated or disappointed aspirants, and the like. The Democracy, however, desired to keep in as close touch as possible with the people of the country at large, and on the great question of the Presidency the quadrennial Congressional caucus was the best practical agency to that end. The caucus, moreover, completely represented the States, and its members were under the continual scrutiny and instruc- tion of their constituents.
To enlarge the scope of popular participation in the government at its source was one of the foremost aims of the early Democracy. It was the Democracy that
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initiated and continually prosecuted the great and pro- longed struggle in the States for extending the suffrage to all adult male citizens, subject only to local regula- tions as to residence, etc. Collateral to that struggle was the cause of free public education. Universal suffrage and the common school system were twin developments of the spirit of the American Democracy. In saying this, of course no exclusive claim is made in favor of the Democratic party. The advance of educa- tion, in particular, was an object dear to good citizens generally; universal suffrage was long held to be a quite different matter, but by the constant and uncom- promising insistence of the Democracy it won its way to complete acceptance, and in the end had no stronger supporters than those who by both natural and party inclination had little in common with the masses. As universal suffrage meant more votes to be cast it was for the highest interest of all politically active to put themselves in a receptive attitude toward the voters.
It was wisely recognized by the framers of the Consti- tution that the basis of suffrage was not a proper subject of stipulation by the national government. But the democratic influences in the Constitutional convention insisted on and obtained a very important concession to the principle of a widely extended popular suffrage. In return for their consent to the choice of the Presi- dent, Vice-President, and Senators by select bodies instead of popular vote, it was provided that the electors in each State for members of the national House of Representatives should have "the qualifications requi- site for electors of the most numerous branch of the
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State Legislature." Thus the sanction of national authority was given to any desired liberality of suffrage permission, no matter how extreme. This was purely a democratic measure, and upon its foundation the Democracy as a party, against strenuous opposition, fought for the abolition of property and similar arti- ficial distinctions in the electorate until not a vestige of them remained. The contest lasted for fifty years. (For a dispassionate account of the various phases of the suf- frage question, from Colonial times to the present, the reader is referred to the "Cyclopedia of American Gov- ernment," article on Suffrage.)
Without discussing in this place the movements for further suffrage extension that have since developed, with results of commanding importance and interest, it may be remarked that none of them would have been to the slightest degree possible without the foundation of universal manhood suffrage for citizens that was secured by the persistent efforts of the Democratic party in State after State until every resistance was overcome. The great principle upon which the struggle was fought was that of the obligation of government to guarantee equal rights to all-that is, all possessing free citizen- ship and exercising it as an active personal function unimpaired by offenses against the law, or by other disqualifications of uniform application and operation as to individuals, specified by competent authority. The question of citizenship for people not free, of course did not exist; and the question of the entrance of women upon the theater of political action had hardly been propounded. With the changes of later times it came to
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pass, first, that there were no longer people not free ; and second, that the women increasingly demanded the bal- lot. Each of these situations involved not merely peculiar, but extraordinary, special questions, consider- ations, and conditions as related to the grant of suffrage. In the case of the people formerly not free, a favorable decision was promptly made by the substantially imperative direction of a tremendously powerful poli- tical party actuated largely by the expectation of great advantage for itself; in the case of the women, the con- clusion was approached very gradually, as in the case of the Democracy's struggle to fully establish equal man- hood suffrage-a result which, because of the principle concerned, marks the starting-point of the whole prac- tical claim to "Votes for Women."
Of high importance also in the list of popular reforms that attended the rise and progress of the Democracy, was the transfer to the individual voters of the real power in the election of the President and Vice-Presi- dent. This power was at first exercised in a number of the States by the Legislatures, which reserved to them- selves the appointment of the Presidential Electors and tenaciously refused to surrender the privilege. The pressure of public demand, however, brought a slow but sure change, and in 1828, when Jackson won his first election and the modern Democratic party entered upon its career, only one State, South Carolina, adhered to the old plan of legislative choice of the Electors.
With the entire popular success of the Democracy and the disproof of all the prejudiced arguments against it on supposed practical and prudential grounds, the
CHARLES O'CONOR
Charles O'Conor, lawyer; born in New York City, January 22, 1804; admitted to the bar when 20 years of age; candidate for lieutenant governor, 1848 ; senior counsel for Jefferson Davis after the civil war and in conjunction with Horace Greeley went on his bail bond when he was indicted for treason; nominated in 1872 by a faction of the democratic party at Louisville for the presidency; retired from public and professional life in 1881 and settled at Nantucket, Mass., where he died, May 12, 1884.
SAMUEL SULLIVAN COX
Samuel Sullivan Cox, congressman; born in Zanesville, O., September 30, 1824; attended Ohio university, Athens and was graduated from Brown university in 1846; studied law; owner and editor of the Columbus O. Statesman, 1853-1854; appointed secretary of legation to Peru in 1855; delegate to the democratic national conventions of 1864 and of 1868; elected to congress from Ohio and served from March 4, 1857 to March 3, 1865; moved to New York City March 4, 1865, and practiced law; re-elected to congress from New York and served from March 4, 1869 to March 3, 1873; unsuccessful candidate of the demo- crats and liberal republicans for representative in the 43d congress ; subsequently elected to the 43d congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of James Brooks; elected again and served in all from December 1, 1873 to March 3, 1885; appointed speaker pro tempore of the house of representatives June 7, 1876 and elected speaker pro tempore June 19, 1876 and served until he vacated the office June 24, 1876; elected to the 49th congress to fill vacancy caused by the resignation of Joseph Pulitzer; reelected to the 50th and 51st congresses, serv- ing from December 6, 1886 until his death in New York City, September 10, 1889.
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surviving opposition of the Federalists became more and more narrowed to the elder generation of irrecon- cilables. The young men, of whatever antecedents and associations, upon engaging in political activity arrayed themselves, with but very few exceptions, on the side of the Democracy. Eminently representative of these were John Quincy Adams, son of President John Adams, and Henry Clay-both of whom, in full accord with the spirit and course of the Democracy, were among its vigorous and valuable champions and were by its power elevated to the most distinguished positions that they attained in their very long and cease- lessly active public careers.
Certain celebrated acts of the government during the Madison administrations (1809-17) evidenced the bold and independent attitude of the Democracy in the treatment of questions decidedly complex from the early constitutional point of view. In those days the determination of most large matters of policy was necessarily experimental. The important things were not such slight precedent as obtained after only some twenty years of experience, or studious applications of doctrine to realities for mere doctrine's sake, but free- dom from rigidity and readiness to grapple with prob- lems despite sharp divergence of opinion in the party. Marshall, the great Chief-Justice, was interpreting the Constitution along enterprising lines; and the Demo- cratic government showed a comparable spirit of breadth, which, moreover, was undisturbed by appre- hensions as to involvement in heresies to be pointed out and analyzed by surprised future commentators.
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For in that Madisonian era the Democracy favored and established a United States government bank; aye, it favored and established a protective tariff. Both of these actions were taken in 1816. Five years before (likewise under Madison), Congress, after an exciting controversy and by a close vote, had refused to recharter the Bank of the United States which Hamilton founded in 1791 pursuant to his plans for centralization; but that Congressional action was now reversed, the Bank was recreated for a term of twenty years, and the Demo- cratic President signed the bill. Regarding the tariff, a law was passed which also followed Hamiltonian conceptions ; for the first time protective duties, as such, were laid. Thus the Democracy, in two particular matters of great moment, took a course very distinctly showing that it did not limit its scope of practical action by any set rule-not even the set rule of "strict construction."
The Bank and Tariff acts of 1816 were measures incidental to the endeavors of the country to recover from the financial and commercial prostration caused by the war with Great Britain. They were believed to be on the whole wise and necessary in the prevailing conditions, and likely to prove sound in policy and effects provided the encouragement that they extended to special interests was not abused or made a pretext for undue future demands. They were in the same class with the two outstanding acts of Jefferson's administra- tions-the Louisiana purchase and the embargo. Assuming the desirability of acquiring Louisiana in 1803, the necessity of meeting the dangerous foreign
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emergency of 1807, and the wisdom of some positive remedies for the domestic ills of 1816, either prompt and conclusive govermental action had to be taken in each case, or the empowerment of a constitutional amendment, involving long drawn-out proceedings and therefore not available for the specific object, had to be awaited.
In the matter of the government bank, the Demo- cratic party later found cause to terminate its sanction, and in consequence was emphatically sustained by the country at the Presidential elections of 1832 and 1836. As for the tariff, it consistently held to the protectionist idea for a number of years, strengthening its original legislation on the subject from time to time, particularly in 1824 and 1828; but in the end, regarding the pre- viously "infant" industries as having been sufficiently cared for, it promulgated the historic doctrine of "tariff for revenue only," which received the general concurrence of the people until the Civil War.
Third in the line of Democratic Presidents was James Monroe, of Virginia, elected in 1816 by 183 Electoral votes to 34 for Rufus King, Federalist, .of New York, and reelected in 1820 by 231 to 1 for John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts. The Federalist party, always decrepit nationally since 1800, now gave up the ghost, and there ensued the famed "era of good feeling"-making a living reality of Jefferson's words, "We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists," because the formative work of the party of Democracy was completed and unanimously accepted.
That work, it cannot too frequently be remembered
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and emphasized, consisted in, First, the organization, development, and firm establishment of the American nation as a successful, harmonious, orderly, and absolutely efficient democracy-a comprehensive result never paralleled in any other powerful country in the history of the world; Second, the administration of the government and the direction of all political action con- formably to the principle of equal rights for all, with loving sympathy for the masses of the people and prac- tical inclination toward them because of their much greater need for a champion than the classes enjoying a strong economic position and its associated advan- tages-in other words, for every reason and considera- tion of eternal justice; and Third, and chiefest accom- plishment of all because it guaranteed the security of every other, the advancement of the party of Democracy itself to a position of predominating and ultimately undisputed influence and power by the virtue and force of its character and principles, its splendid record under the guidance of its statesmen, and its adequacy to that most responsible business of government, vigorous and fearless action on public questions.
Neither can it too frequently be remembered and emphasized that what the party of Democracy was in fundamental respects upon completing its evolution in Monroe's time, the Democratic party has continuously been since and is now. From the very nature of its original composition, precepts, and declared purposes its character was permanently fixed, and the successful substitution of a reverse nature was made permanently prohibitive. Casting its lot with the unpretentious
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elements of the public-the merely normal average elements,-not for their artificial or forced exaltation but for their equal right and welfare, a controlling sup- port for it from contrary elements actuated by class consciousness became necessarily forever impossible ;- such elements instinctively and passionately want a different kind of party, have always chosen one, and will always have one. Yet the broad impartiality and com- prehensive justice of the position taken and maintained by the Democracy secured and have preserved for it the whole-hearted cooperation of thoughtful and force- ful people in all ranks of society. Its leaders have ever been strong, able, and noted for the most convinced belief in the plain truths that it proclaims. Upon the fundamental matters referred to there never has been the slightest division in the Democratic party.
Monroe's administrations (1817-25) were marked by several great events, foremost of which, for its world effects, was the declaration of the Monroe doctrine in his annual message to Congress dated December 2, 1823. Florida, embracing not only the present State of that name but the Gulf coast running west to Louisiana, was acquired from Spain by treaty (1819). The Missouri Compromise, which settled the political slavery question for a quarter of a century, was adopted (1820).
At the Presidential election of 1824, the Federalist party having become extinct and no new organization having arisen, the Democracy in the various States divided in support of four candidates, all of whom were men of eminent repute as leaders of the party-Andrew
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Jackson, of Tennessee; John Quincy Adams, of Mas- sachusetts; William H. Crawford, of Georgia; and Henry Clay, of Kentucky. The Electoral result was as follows: Jackson, 99; Adams, 84; Crawford, 41; Clay, 37. As no one had a majority the decision was made by the House of Representatives, which, voting by States, chose Adams. This result was obtained by a combination of the Adams and Clay States.
CHAPTER IV THE JACKSONIAN ERA
1825-1844
N OTWITHSTANDING the great excitement attending the Presidential contest of 1824, it was not fought on any questions or question of policy, but was altogether a personal competitive affair to decide for the immediate future the leadership of the Democracy, and therefore of the united political con- stituency of the nation. The result was indeed for the passing time only. Popular support had favored General Jackson more than any other of the contestants ; and his character, traits, record, and well-known views combined to make him increasingly a popular hero, especially as he had been deprived of the Presidency by a union of the Adams and Clay forces, both of which, it was well understood, were likely to incline to pro- grams and tendencies, and be susceptible to influences, differentiated from those that distinguished and con- trolled the radical Democracy. It was hence inevi- table that the Jacksonians would insist upon the election of their leader in 1828. On the other hand, the one positive political idea marked out by the Adams admin- istration (1825-29) was that of its own supposed title to the succession in 1828 and again in 1832; for Adams
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expected a second term, and, recognizing Clay as his heir, appointed him Secretary of State. All the pre- vious Democratic Executives had been reëlected, and, after serving out their eight years, had been followed in the Presidency by their Secretaries of State.
But there is no dependable rule of succession in a democracy, or even of secure traditions or arrange- ments for personal aims-as numerous ambitious men have found to their grief. Jackson overwhelmingly defeated Adams in 1828, and won an even greater vic- tory over Clay in 1832. The Electoral vote in 1828 stood :- Jackson, 178; Adams, 83. In 1832 Jackson received 219 Electoral votes; Clay, 49; John Floyd, of Virginia (South Carolina nullification candidate), 11; and William Wirt, of Maryland (Anti-Masonic party) , 7.
With the first administration of Jackson (1829-33) the country again, and this time permanently, came under a two-party system. The ascendant Jacksonians discarded the old redundant title of Democratic-Repub- lican party, and took that of Democratic party. Their opponents, the Adams-Clay following, organized under the name of National Republican party, which was retained until after the campaign of 1832, when that of Whig party was substituted.
Both the Democratic party and the National Repub- lican or Whig party were absolutely and at all times non-sectional; no great sectional party, dividing the north and south, existed until the establishment of the modern Republican organization in 1854. A critical situation between the north and south, imperiling the
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Union, had supervened in 1819-20, when the proposal to admit the Territory of Missouri to statehood with permission to retain the institution of slavery was under debate in Congress. The north strenuously objected, and the south strenuously insisted. By the efforts of great and patriotic men, the famous Missouri Com- promise of 1820 was the result. Under that settlement Missouri was admitted with the permission of slavery, but slavery was thenceforth prohibited in all the rest of the as yet unorganized national domain lying north of Missouri's southern boundary, the parallel 36° 30'. The prescribed domain comprehended all the non- organized western territory (excepting Arkansas and what is now the principal part of Oklahoma) which the United States owned at that time and, indeed, until the annexation of Texas (1845). Both the north and south (so far as the political leaders were concerned) being satisfied with the Missouri Compromise, the sec- tional excitement totally ceased, and in the reconstruc- tion of parties that eventuated from the schism in the Democracy in 1824 not a trace of sectional feeling, in the political regard, remained.
The National Republican-Whig party began its career with much confidence, which apparently had every justification. In the first place, its leader was the great Henry Clay, and many of the most powerful intellectual characters, including Daniel Webster, John Quincy Adams, Rufus Choate, Thomas Ewing, and John M. Clayton were conspicuous in its councils. Next, while enjoying the favor of those who had formerly been Federalists or who were Federalistically
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predisposed, it rejected the discredited notions and avoided the strategic errors of the Federalist party, and, obedient in good faith to the popular will, was received and treated by the public with recognition accordingly. Withal, it prided itself upon being select in every creditable sense, and select it certainly was-even the majestic Republican party of our day is not one whit more so; it was accorded devoted support from among the honored families of the north and the aristocratic planters of the south, and its ordinary membership showed a shining array of the talented and efficient. And finally it possessed issues, very important and appealing issues, for which it fought with intense con- viction and splendid ability.
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