USA > New York > History of the state of New York, political and governmental, Vol. V > Part 14
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But it did not have the votes. Except on rare occa- sions, when the Democratic party temporarily suffered popular discipline or defeated itself by scattering its forces.
Jackson launched forth upon an aggressively partisan rule. Everything had to be Democratic, and notably the incumbency of the offices, down to the postmaster- ships and clerkships. He introduced the spoils system, and, like everything else introduced by that mighty man, it lasted. When the Whigs came into power the spoils seemed good to them; and the Republicans in their time, as we all know, have never been happy with- out the spoils. We shall not concern ourselves with an exculpation of Jackson for his startling performances in the matter of the spoils (about which, truth to tell, most Democrats are now a bit sensitive), further than to remark that they represented primordial impulses of
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human nature that were singularly strong in him-to be kind to one's friends, and as for one's foes, "treat 'em rough." We have happily lived to see the develop- ment of a more discriminating policy regarding the ordinary offices of the civil service-a policy with which, in its establishment, the name of another great Democratic President, Cleveland, is preeminently identified.
At an early period Jackson took a positive stand against renewing the charter of the Bank of the United States, on the grounds of the incompatibility with free institutions of the consolidation with the government of a great private moneyed corporation, the extra-consti- tutionality of such a policy, and the exercise by the Bank of sinister power and corrupting influences in connec- tion with politics. A tremendous struggle was precipi- tated. Clay made the Bank question the chief issue in his Presidential campaign of 1832, and was crushingly beaten, as already noted ; whereupon Jackson, soon after the beginning of his second term, went to the extremity of removing the government deposits from the Bank, although its charter was not to expire until 1836. The discussion continued to rage, but Jackson and the Democratic party stood immovable. The final results will be noticed in due order.
The State of South Carolina in those strenuous Jack- sonian times harbored a serious grievance against the national government. The trouble had nothing to do with the slavery question, but was purely economic, about the homely matters of opportunity to get on in the world and the price to pay accordingly. Owing to
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high protective excesses in the interest of northern manufacturers that had been perpetrated for some years, particularly under the tariff of 1828-the historic "tariff of abominations,"-the agricultural south was suffering. It was conceived by the South Carolinians that the proper thing was to "nullify" the Federal tariff laws-to refuse to permit them to be enforced so far as their State was concerned. Such a proceeding, if car- ried to its logical result, of course meant liberty of secession by South Carolina, or any other refractory State at its pleasure. The idea was at first put forth tentatively by means of certain intimations, with the hope that the Democratic President would consider it all right, or at least would not interfere. He was a stern and pragmatical man, and it was well to know what he would do. At a public dinner in honor of Jefferson's birthday in April, 1830, Jackson arose and gave the company his celebrated toast: "Our Federal Union : It must be preserved." This left no doubt as to his attitude. Nevertheless, South Carolina nullified (1832), trusting, it was afterward explained by John C. Calhoun (at that time Vice-President), that Jackson would tolerate a "peaceable secession." But the Presi- dent at once issued a proclamation (December 16) de- claring that the tariff laws of the nation, like all others, must be obeyed, sent a naval force to Charleston harbor. and ordered General Scott to be ready to move the army if necessary. In his proclamation were these immortal words: "I consider the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the
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letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, in- consistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed."
There was of course no armed conflict, although South Carolina took the result with no good grace. Calhoun, in protest, resigned as Vice-President, and in 1836 the State, still resentful, voted against the Demo- cratic national ticket.
By this action Jackson coerced a sovereign State, as in the instance of the Bank he annihilated a powerful and entrenched government institution. The principle in each case was the same-the superiority of the com- mon welfare to special interest.
The National Republican-Whig party was founded on two great issues :- First, thorough maintenance and application of the principle and system of tariff protec- tion; Second, assumption and prosecution by the Federal government of internal improvements-i. e., important works not undertaken, or likely to be, by the individual States, especially the building of avenues of interstate communication. In view of the logical sources of principal support for these two issues-the special classes who believed in governmental favors, benevolences, and stimulative initiatives in financial and commercial matters so long as these were devised and operated in certain directions of sufficient dignity and importance,-it was natural that the National Republicans and their successors, the Whigs, should welcome with great satisfaction the new issue presented to them in 1832 by President Jackson, that of the gov-
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ernment bank, and become ardent partisans of the menaced institution.
On the subject of the tariff, the Whig party (we will now drop the National Republican name, which obtained only temporarily) was originally without any real argument except that of its resolve to defend the protective policy against all possible future acts of retrogression by the Democrats. A strong, in fact an ultra, protective system was in force, and the Jackson administration passed another protective law in 1832, which proved the last straw for South Carolina and precipitated the nullification. Then came a new embarrassment for the protectionist Whigs. A trouble- some surplus revenue had accumulated from the tariff duties. The surplusage had to be stopped by tariff reductions and readjustments, and Clay and the other Whig statesmen joined in the necessary proceedings while cherishing in their hearts the principle of pro- tection. In due time the Democratic party did the expected, totally reverted from the protective idea, declared for a revenue tariff, established the law of the land accordingly, and on that basis the government was conducted and the country prospered until the Civil War. Nothing lasting was accomplished by the Whigs with their protectionist doctrine, and the people were never aware of loss or hardship resulting from their failure. Yet it cannot be doubted that the people would have been heard from in any such case. There was at one time, as we have seen, an actual rebellion on account of a too high, and especially too discriminative, tariff. But who ever heard of any popular uprising, rage, or
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disgust coinciding with or corresponding to deprivation of those protective largesses which in some quarters are considered so promotive of success and happiness ?
Respecting internal improvements on a program of Federal assumptions and acts, the Whigs were equally unsuccessful. The Democratic party had by this time gone as far as it would permit itself to go in enactments presumptive of central authority concerning proposals and details that involved constitutional questions. Both Monroe and Madison, while favoring, on general prin- ciple, schemes of internal improvement by government action and at government expense, had considered such schemes improper practically unless authorized by a constitutional amendment. The balanced arrangement of Federal and State powers, responsibility, and obliga- tions which was the distinguishing virtue of the Consti- tution, made it inexpedient for the national government to go into the States with improvement projects of its own. The States and the people locally, with the private business interests, were expected to be watchful over internal matters, to exert corresponding enterprise, and to take care of the expense and administration. State rights, for which the Democratic party stood, implied State duties. Against the Democratic opposi- tion to internal improvements the Whigs were unable to make any headway, and there never was the slightest indication that the people were with them on that issue. Their two successes at Presidential elections (1840 and 1848) were followed by no positive results of any note for their party policies. The first Whig President, William Henry Harrison, died after only a month in
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office; his successor, John Tyler, was recreant to the party; and the third, Zachary Taylor (who also died while serving), and fourth, Millard Fillmore, had to devote themselves to much more grave affairs than those of either internal improvements or tariff, and, moreover, never had the advantage of party control of Congress. It is interesting to speculate as to the prob- able results in relation to internal improvements if the Whig, instead of the Democratic, party had been dom- inant for the period, say, from 1833 to 1861. What would then have been the national policy about inter- state railroad and telegraph construction, development, and control? Could the Whigs, with any consistency, have left those functions and operations altogether to private enterprise? It is a curious question.
With their third issue, favoring the government bank, the Whigs were no more successful than with their programs of protection and internal improvements. At the beginning of the great controversy about the Bank (1829) they appeared to have the advantage so far as representative public opinion was concerned. Although the Democrats were very largely in the majority in each house of Congress, the opposition by President Jackson to renewal of the Bank charter was so far from receiv- ing concerted party support that when the recharter bill came up for action in the summer of 1832 it was passed. The President vetoed it, the ensuing campaign was fought on the issue which he thus made, and he was overwhelmingly sustained by the people. This decided the fate of the Bank, which, however, still had four years to run under its existing charter. But Jackson
ANDREW MCLEAN
Andrew McLean, editor; born in Scotland, August 7, 1848; came to this country in 1863 and served in the United States navy during the last years of the civil war; educated in Browne's commercial college, Brooklyn, and by private tutors ; engaged in journalism since 1868; held various positions with the Brooklyn Citizen and since 1886 has been its editor-in-chief; delegate to state constitutional convention of 1915.
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DAVID B. HILL
David B. Hill, 32d governor (1885-1891) ; born in Havana, Chemung (now Schuyler) county, N. Y., August 29, 1843 ; grad- uated from the Havana academy; studied law in Elmira and was admitted to the bar in 1864; served from Chemung county in the state assembly in 1871 and 1872; president of the demo- cratic state conventions of 1877 and 1881; mayor of Elmira in 1882; delegate to the national democratic convention of 1884; president of the New York state bar association in 1886 and 1887; chosen lieutenant governor of the state in 1882; became governor on the resignation of Grover Cleveland in 1885; elected governor in November, 1885; reelected in 1888; elected as a democrat to the United States senate ; presented credentials December 17, 1891, qualified January 27, 1892 and served until March 3, 1897; resumed the practice of law; died in Albany, October 20, 1910.
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had not ended with his war on the institution. By removing the government deposits (1833) he revived the dispute, and it now became even more bitter. He was charged with persecution of the Bank, and also with exercising dictatorial power. The Senate passed a resolution of censure against him, but after acrimonious debate lasting through still another Presidential con- test that body voted to expunge the resolution from its records (January, 1837), and he accordingly retired to private life completely vindicated.
At the election of 1836 the stormy events of the pre- ceding eight years, though attended by much agitation and dissension among the Democrats, left the Whigs quite spiritless. Unable to unite on a national ticket, they distributed their votes, according to State prefer- ences, among three Presidential nominees of their party (William Henry Harrison, of Ohio; Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts; and Willie P. Mangum, of North Carolina), and in a portion of the south they adopted as their own a fourth candidate, Hugh L. White, of Tennessee, an anti-administration Democrat. In the Democratic party the personality and record of Jack- son, conjoined with the strong position of the great majority in support of his course and policies, brought an end to the differences, except among some of the southern elements ;- it may be remarked that as long as the Whig party lasted the Democrats had but an uncer- tain tenure in a number of the southern States. Martin Van Buren, of New York, Secretary of State under Jackson and a most sagacious and forceful leader of the party, was unanimously nominated for President by the
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national convention. The Electoral vote stood: Van Buren, 170; Harrison, 73; White, 26; Webster, 14; Mangum, 11. For Vice-President, Richard M. John- son (Democrat), of Kentucky, had 147 Electoral votes, just half of the whole number ; he was afterward chosen to the office by the Senate-this being the only instance of failure by the people to elect the Vice-President.
While failing to show any approach to success on the Presidential result, the Whigs made substantial gains in the House of Representatives, lacking only a few votes of enough to control that body. The panic of 1837 followed, and a decided reaction on the subject of financial policy set in against the Democratic party. This, however, brought no reversal, so far as the Bank was concerned, during Van Buren's administration (1837-41). The Bank had been abolished for sufficient reasons ; its resuscitation would mean simply a revival, in undoubtedly aggravated form, of the evil of a privi- leged central monoply as a "regulator" of finance and politics; and neither Van Buren nor any subsequent Democratic Executive gave the slightest consideration to the appeals in its favor. Moreover, the Van Buren administration rejected all the importunate requests for loans to private citizens and interests during the panic, on the ground that in no emergency could the govern- ment, responsible to the people, permit itself to be used as a means of special support for individuals or their enterprises. An objection to Jackson's course with the Bank was that, while destroying the old system, he sub- stituted only the tentative one of placing the government deposits with selected banking concerns. Van Buren set
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forth without delay to perfect an affirmative measure concerning the deposits, and devised the plan of the "Independent Treasury," making the government itself the sole depositary and thereby carrying to its logical conclusion the Jacksonian policy of the divorcement of the government from private financial and trade affairs and influences. In that effort he did not immediately have the cooperation of Congress, but an act was finally passed which he had the pleasure of signing on July 4, 1840, describing it as a new Declaration of Independ- ence. This was repealed by the Whigs in 1841, but was reestablished by the great Democratic administration of Polk in 1846-since which time the Independent Treasury with its Sub-Treasury ramifications has been retained without change by every successive administra- tion and unqualifiedly commended by writers of all political beliefs as one of the splendid inheritances of the government and country from Democratic initiative and rule.
In 1840 the Democratic party met its first national defeat, William Henry Harrison, Whig, being chosen President by 234 Electoral votes to 60 for Van Buren, and the Whigs obtaining a substantial majority in each house of Congress. Before any legislative results could be accomplished by the Whig administration, President Harrison died (April 4, 1841), and the Vice-President, John Tyler, of Virginia, took his place. Tyler throughout his term (1841-45) went counter to all the plans of the Whig party: hence the familiar verb, tylerize-"to act against the party that has elected one to office" (Standard Dictionary). Though signing
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the bill for doing away with the Independent Treasury he vetoed two measures designed to institute a govern- ment-controlled central Bank. After he had finished with the Bank scheme, the situation in which that whole ambitious project stood needed but a single word for its description-Finis. The people returned promptly to emphatic approval of the Jacksonian financial posi- tion, giving the Democratic party a majority of 63 in the House at the Congressional elections of 1842. Even the great Whig leaders who had most positively advo- cated the Bank's cause never ventured to renew the agitation. When Clay made his next race for the Presidency, in 1844, his platform was absolutely silent on the Bank subject.
The official position of the Democratic party con- cerning the Bank was continually expressed in the fol- lowing words in its national platforms: "That Con- gress has no power to charter a national bank; that we believe such an institution one of deadly hostility to the best interests of the country, dangerous to our republi- can institutions and the liberties of the people, and calculated to place the business of the country within the control of a concentrated money power and above the laws and the will of the people; and that the results of Democratic legislation in this and all other financial measures upon which issues have been made between the two political parties of the country, have demon- strated to candid and practical men of all parties their soundness, safety, and utility in all business pursuits."
In this declaration the words "national bank" meant, of course, a central privileged institution similar in
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organization, powers, and tendencies to the old dis- carded establishment.
During the period reviewed in this chapter there was a radical change from the original ideas and methods of party organization, control, nominations, and opera- tions. In preparation for the campaign of 1824 a Congressional caucus was called, mainly in the interest of Crawford, one of the Presidential aspirants, but the attendance was small and the action taken received no recognition from the Democracy at large; this was the last of the nominating caucuses. Four years later the personal issue between Jackson and Adams was squarely defined, and no national nominating ceremonies were necessary. But in 1832, with two great parties in the field and actively competing for general support, it was decided by the leaders of both to refer the nominations of President and Vice-President directly to the people through their representatives in special assemblages.
The first Democratic national convention was held in Baltimore, May 21, 1832, Robert Lucas, of Ohio, pre- siding. As Jackson's renomination unanimously was a foregone conclusion, no rule was adopted to govern the choice of the Presidential candidate, but it was decided that a two-thirds vote should be required for the Vice- Presidential selection. At the next national convention the two-thirds rule was applied to both the Presidential and Vice-Presidential nominations; and it has since been adhered to in every national convention of the party.
From the national nominating system was evolved the plan of precise formulation and declaration of party
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principles and issues in platforms, and in 1840 the Democrats presented to the public their first national platform. The first national committee of the party was established in 1848.
The inception of minor parties, undertaking to com- pete on certain questions with the two powerful poli- tical organizations, dates from the campaign of 1832, when the Anti-Masonic party made its appearance on the fantastic issue of suppression of all secret oath- bound orders, and actually carried a State, Vermont, for its Presidential ticket.
In 1840 the Abolition, or Liberty, party, representing the radical sentiment of opposition to slavery, was insti- tuted.
Concerning these and the numerous other sporadic parties that have since sprung up, it is needless to com- ment with any particularity. All of them have proved utterly futile, and their annals belong merely to the miscellanies, marginalia, and curiosities of politics. The genius of our institutions has required from the beginning, and requires to-day, a two-party system, and a two-party system only. The American people believe in positive politics conducted by two major forces, each of them strong enough fairly to balance the other, and each broad enough, from the viewpoint of inherited American standards and principles of government, to appeal powerfully to the comprehensive public.
It has happened that a major party has become decadent and defunct; this may occur again. But no major party has gone into dissolution as the consequence of minor party pressure or pretension ; and no minor party has
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risen to the dignity of a major party or even a perma- nently weighty third party. There have been serious splits in the great parties, which have presented cer- tainly the most favorable situations possible to be imagined for hopeful third party development; but in that direction nothing, absolutely nothing, has resulted except for the campaigns immediately in prospect. No teaching of American political history is more persist- ent or striking than that of the futility of minor party voting.
CHAPTER V THE MEXICAN WAR AND THE WILMOT PROVISO
1844-1848
"T HE American Democracy place their trust in the intelligence, the patriotism, and the dis- criminating justice of the American people. We regard this as a distinctive feature of our political creed, which we are proud to maintain before the world as the great moral element in a form of government springing from and upheld by the popular will."
With these words the early national platforms of the Democratic party began. In keeping with their spirit was an unfaltering and consistent course, with which the characteristic disposition and action of the Whigs sharply contrasted. The inconsistencies of Henry Clay are proverbial. Resembling them were the frequent embarrassments and hesitations of his party. Neither the Whig party nor Clay lacked aggres- siveness in maintaining an issue when once decided upon. But finding it impossible to make progress with the people on their issues after due endeavors, the Whigs had recourse to circumspection and expediency, hoping thus to win popular favor away from the positive
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Democrats. Such has never proved the method of good politics in the long run.
In the latter part of Tyler's administration the Texas question became acute. Texas, adjoining the Louisiana Purchase at the southwest and belonging first to Spain and then, after the successful Mexican Revolution, to the republic of Mexico, had been largely penetrated and settled by citizens of our southern States, who, as was the custom of those times among southern Ameri- cans, owned negro slaves. These settlers revolted against Mexico and set up a separate Texan republic (1836). They next sought admission to the United State by annexation, which meant the addition of another slave State to the Union, and also war with Mexico on account of the claim of the Texans to a vast territory still in Mexican possession, extending to the Rio Grande River from its mouth to its source. Some years elapsed before the annexation proposal was defi- nitely formulated. President Tyler favored it, and early in 1844 an annexation treaty was presented to the Senate, which that body held under consideration for several months and then rejected-the Whig members and a few northern Democrats voting against it.
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