USA > Tennessee > History of Tennessee the making of a state > Part 30
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nent Whigs. The " Banner," describing it, quoted the refrain of an old negro song : --
" Pussum up a gum-tree Cooney in the hollow."
Harris of the " Union " replied in three stanzas of dog- gerel which were among the briskest and raciest songs of the campaign : --
" Whiggies to the rescue, Cooney in a cage, Go it with a rush, boys, Go it with a rage.
" Mum is the word, boys, Brag is the game ; Cooney is the emblem Of Old Tip's fame.
" Go it, then, for cooney, Cooney in a cage ; Goit with a rush, boys, Go it with a rage."
It is characteristic of this contest that the Whigs seized at once upon lines which were written in derisive ridicule and made a campaign song of them. In May came the news that the Harrison men had carried Virginia and vari- ous other States, and the Whigs, as they passed the office of the " Union," yelled to the editor to " fetch out the buzzard." Jackson was again dragged into the struggle, but in vain. He wrote a letter indorsing Van Buren and speaking of Harrison as the "representative of Fed- eralistic principles in the present contest." But this sbib- boleth was no longer potent. He, Governor Polk and Adam Huntsman, who had defeated Crockett for Congress, visited Lexington, Tennessee. When Jackson arose next morning, he saw near the inn a "liberty pole," from which a Harrison and Tyler flag was flying. Both he and Polk made specches. Polk, who, without making a
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THE FIRST WHIG VICTORY.
regular canvass, neglected no opportunity of speaking for Van Buren, was presented by the grand jury of Sevier County as a nuisance. Both parties had their ablest men forward, but the Whigs outshone their rivals. White, who had agreed to support Harrison, was put on the Whig electoral ticket but died. Bell met A. O. P. Nicholson in East Tennessee. Foster, smarting under his recent resig- nation, canvassed the State from end to end, " from Car- ter to Shelby," a phrase which was first applied to Polk's canvass against Cannon. Wherever Foster went, he was received with unbounded enthusiasm, being frequently met by processions and greeted by ringing of bells and the huzzas of the people.
Among the most startling events of this year was the defection of Eaton, the intimate friend and adviser of Jackson, from the Van Buren canse. When he announced his intention of supporting Harrison, a change which he justified on the score that he had seen the disastrous re- sults of a hard money system in Spain, to which country Jackson had sent him as minister in 1836, there was a burst of indignation among the Democrats, and it was openly predicted that Jackson would refuse to receive him. In a speech delivered just before the election, in which he made an earnest appeal for Harrison and the Whigs, he said " he had heard it intimated that General Jackson would not recognize him as a friend on his return to Nash- ville," but that their meeting had been as cordial as at any time before.
The most notable political event of this anomalous con- test was the Whig Convention held at Nashville on the 17th of August, 1840. It was first suggested at a Whig Convention at Little Rock, and was originally designed to embrace merely the new, or the Western and Southern States. The idea was accepted aud swept like a fire from place to place, until it was universally adopted and the day selected. The Whigs of Muskingum County, Ohio, made
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an enormous ball painted in variegated colors, and covered with mottoes among which was one that had become a battle-cry for the Whigs, " Keep the ball rolling." This was sent to Nashville and arrived just preceding the time for the assembling of the convention. On the 12th of August, the " Nashville Whig " formally announced that Henry Clay himself would be present, and fears were en- tertained that the crowd would be larger than could be accommodated. The procession was to form at seven o'clock on Market Street and march to Walnut Grove. Marshals were appointed to keep order. They were to be mounted and were to wear black hats, blue silk sashes with rosettes on the shoulder, and were to carry white batons. The day was clear. Not a cloud was in the sky, and the sun rose resplendent. It was such a pageant as had never been seen in the Southwest before, as has been seen but once since then, - four years later, when a dis- tinguished Tennessean was to experience the humiliation of seeing one more gorgeous assemble for the purpose of doing honor to a rival candidate for the presidency. Four- teen States had each a general state banner. and indeed the immense throng fluttered with banners of all sizes and kinds and colors, generally of satin. Conspicuous in the
parade were the " Straightouts," a military company of Tennessee, dressed in dark blue hunting shirts, trimmed with white coon-skin eaps and copperas breeches. sugges- tive of the early pioneer life with which the fame of General Harrison was intimately connected. They bore three banners. The first was of plain white upon which was the motto, " One Presidential Term and Fair Wages for Labor." The second represented an eagle with wings outspread, bearing in its talons the words. " Harrison and Reform," and underneath, " In Hoc Signo Vinces." The third was of blue muslin on which was a game-cock with the inscription, " A loud crow Chapman," in allusion to the phrase of "Crow, Chapman, Crow," one of those
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senseless absurdities in which the political phraseology of that day is peculiarly rich. The " Straightouts " were followed by a general committee on arrangements. Next came the Arkansas delegation whose banner bore David Crockett's immortal saying, " Be sure you are right, then go ahead." The Missouri banner represented a buffalo "roused to the claims of an early friend," in reference to Harrison's course during the contest over the admission of Missouri to the Union. Madison County, Alabama. in which party feeling ran unusually high, sent a large dele- gation and a banner on which was a fanciful design, repre- senting the Goddess of Liberty hovering over " Old Tip's Cabin," and underneath the significant phrase, " Day is Dawning." in allusion to recent Whig gains in Alabama, which then as now was overwhelmingly Democratic. Illinois and Mississippi both sent large state satin banners. The banner of Indiana, which had just given an enormous Whig majority, displayed a huge ball on which were the words, " The Ball in Motion. Indiana 10.000 Majority." Ohio displayed an eagle, bearing in its talons " For Presi- dent, the Farmer of North Bend." Kentucky, the State of the founder of the Whig party, who was to be orator of the day and who excited as much wildness of enthu- siasm in Tennessee as in his own State, was largely repre- sented. In addition to two richly uniformed and capari- soned military companies, many counties were represented by large delegations. The banner of one county repre- sented " Little Matty " flying from the White House, another, a portrait of Harrison. New York showed a pair of seales, with Van Buren going up on one side and Harrison coming down on the other, with the motto, " Weighed in the Balance and Found Wanting." New England's device was .-
" From hill and from valley From mountain and glen, We come to the resene Of our country again."
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Pennsylvania represented a fox following a lion - Jack- son was the lion. Tennessee, of course, formed much the largest part of the procession. The chief banner repre- sented on a blue ground a stately " Seventy-four " under full rig, pointed towards the White Ilouse and Capitol, which was seen dimly in the distance. The state banner, which was satin fringed with crape, displayed a device representing the tomb of the great Tennessean, recently deceased, around whose memory clung the same atmos- phere of unruffled serenity which distinguished him liv- ing, and whose unbending and exalted independence of character had opened the way in Tennessee for the party which was proud to number his name among those which had made it illustrious. The great Ball from Ohio was there, elevated upon wheels, and beside it strode the oak- like figure of Porter, the Kentucky giant.1 The rear was brought up by numerous county delegations from Tennes- see and Kentucky. Robertson County, Tennessee, sent an immense painted canoe on wheels. Manry County, in which Polk lived, sent as an ominous threat, a likeness of Hugh L. White, and the noble lines in which he resigned his place in the Senate.
The procession began to move at ten and arrived at the grove about twelve. E. H. Foster was elected chairman, and vice presidents were appointed from eleven States. Foster made the opening address, and almost before he closed cheers and shouts began to rise in stormy succes- sion until the air trembled with the noisy clamor. On the stand beside Foster sat a tall, spare figure, with a face whose features. far from symmetrical, have been rendered almost as familiar to us as to our fathers. Whatever may have been the measure of his statesmanship or the excel- lence of his celebrated American system, there was cer- tainly no doubt about the splendor of his fame, the vigor of his intellect, the gentleness and sweetness of his char-
1 He was said to be eight feet tall.
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acter. the magnificence of his oratory, the importance of his services to the party which he had founded, or the no- bility of ambition which had cemented it for this contest by his generous self-sacrifice. When he arose, the audi- ence, as if electrified, arose with him. The applause rose and swelled like the roar of the waters at Niagara. Hats were thrown in the air. Men acted as if possessed, some of them embracing each other as in transports of rapture, others with tears in their eyes choking with emotion. In those days the fever of political frenzy had spread even to the women and many were present. They were as ungovernable in their emotions as the sterner sex, and several fainted, overcome by an excess of zeal and enthu- siasm. Clay stood for a moment and gazed with kindling eye upon the frantic speetaele. Then he lifted one hand, and in a little while the silence was so deep that the ery- ing of a child on the outskirts of the crowd could be heard by all who were present. Clay's speech was neither very brilliant nor very profound, but it was suited to the occasion. It was a ringing denunciation of the abuses which had crept into the government under the adminis- tration of the "military chieftain " whose rugged impet- uosity had so often borne down his own finer and more. elastic talents. It was full of alarums and drum-beats to victory and the blare of trumpets. On the whole, per- haps, it was a little more dignified, a little more thought- ful than the type of heated iron and hissing water which elected Harrison and accomplished what the Whigs vain- gloriously declared "was the greatest moral revolution of the age." After Clay, on this and succeeding days, came J. J. Crittenden of Kentucky, Balie Peyton, the knight- errant of Tennessee politics, and others, men of greater or less brilliancy, whose reputations still remain as tradi- tions only - traditions which are but the beads and wrought flowers upon the skirts of history.
After this convention the Democrats began to lose heart. Their last effort was a trick, a shallow, disgrace-
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ful trick, such a trick as the censorious are fond of declar- ing a disgrace to the political life of this day. It is not without comfort to us to reflect that an accurate knowl- edge of our forefathers reveals to us the same errors of unreasoning passion and unjust prejudice in their meth- ods of thought and action which we deplore in ourselves in anticipation of the verdict of our children.
General Harrison made several speeches in Ohio during the few months immediately preceding the election. In one of these he said the people had an inalienable right to petition for redress of grievances, even for the abolition of slavery, if they regarded that an evil. He was at once denounced as being an Abolitionist, a charge which was daily repeated in Democratic journals. During the latter days of October, the "Nashville Whig" gave notice to the Whigs that some treachery was designed and to be on their guard. On the 2d of November the treachery was made apparent. Handbills were scattered broadcast con- taining a letter of Harrison's to Arthur Tappan, the un- daunted fanatic, declaring himself an Abolitionist. If this had been true, Harrison would have lost Tennessee and every Southern State. The " Union " at once issued an extra edition containing the letter. But the " Whig" was not less enterprising than the Democratic organ, and it appeared the same day in flaming headlines publishing a letter of denial by General Harrison. Van Buren re- ceived 48,289 votes ; Harrison, 60,391. It was said there was not a sober Whig in Tennessee the day the result was announced. The "Straightonts," in high glee, went to the lodgings of the editor of the " Union," gave " Three cheers for Jeremiah George," and called on him to show himself. Harris came forward and good-humoredly " ac- knowledged the corn." The crowd cheered him again and left. The asperities of political warfare were moderating since the time when a mountaineer with hard knuckles and a big fist made it a rule " to lick on the spot any man that said he didn't vote for Hugh White."
CHAPTER XXXVI.
POLK AND JONES IN 1841.
A STRIKING characteristic of the politicians of that day was their stoutness of heart, and the din and tumult of 1840 had not died away before the Democrats began preparations for 1841. On the 10th of December, 1840, Dr. Felix Robertson distributed a circular in which he suggested the plan of an organization for the following year. Five men were to be appointed a corresponding committee in each county, and these were to select three Democrats in each civil district to distribute documents and get voters to go to the polls. The Whigs were not less alert. An old Whig still living 1 has described the thoroughness of the Whig organization during the three years, 1841, 1843, and 1844, as surpassing anything ever before witnessed in the Southwest. Not only were the ordinary committees appointed, but each civil district was placed under a kind of political martial law. Those vot- ers who were unalterably attached to the Democratic or the Whig parties were polled. Those who were doubtful were turned over to some Whig friend or neighbor to be persuaded, wheedled, and argued into voting the Whig ticket. All who were halt, maim, or blind were each as- signed to some individual whose duty it was to procure a vehicle and bring them to the polls. Tennessee had now beconie and for many years remained as prominent in the politics of that day as New York in the politics of our day. Jackson's residence in the State, and the fact that
1 Colonel Sam Tate.
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the Whigs had carried it over his opposition made it con- spicuous as a battlefield. Nashville, through the various conventions which met there, became a gathering place for the Southwest. Here were arranged many of the plans of campaign, and here often were concocted the schemes and plots by which shrewd and subtle managers controlled the actions of their parties. From Tennessee came some of the ablest leaders among the Whigs and Democrats of the United States. From now until 1850 the biographies of the candidates for the governorship appeared in all political papers and their utterances were quoted. The messages of the governors were generally reprinted in full in the Eastern papers.
The contest between Polk and Jones in 1841 was fol- lowed with keen interest by the Democrats, who hoped to find some indication of the " sober second thought of the people " asserting itself after the frenzy of 1841, and by the Whigs to see if their hold upon popular favor gave promise of being permanent. The contest of 1843 was conspicuous as preceding 1844. The canvass of 1841 turned chiefly upon national issues. This was now and long continued a matter of course. James K. Polk was the Democratic candidate, and James C. Jones was the Whig candidate. The leading question was of course the bank. The Independent Treasury scheme had at last be- come a law in 1840, but was promptly repealed in 1841, and the rest of the session was spent in vain endeavors to establish a National or Fiscal Bank of the United States. Polk favored the reestablishment of the Sub-Treasury System and Jones a National Bank. He twitted Polk with a change upon this subject which was more apparent than real. In so far as the abstract question of a Na- tional Bank was concerned, neither party in Tennessee had what is called a straight record. Clay had opposed this measure in 1811, and Grundy had favored it in 1814. The petition for a branch at Nashville which was signed
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by William Carroll, John C. MeLemore, and other lead- ing Demoerats was used by the Whigs in this as in other campaigns. Indeed, the Democrats were somewhat ham- pered by a diversity of opinion within their own ranks upon the question of a bank. There was a small but very determined body of voters who acted with the Democrats on all other questions, but who had been converted to the National Bank idea. The leadership of the party at once "read them out of the party." In vain they called at- tention to Madison's and Jackson's earlier record. The party organs insisted upon their "going where they be- longed," into the ranks of the Whigs.
The "Knoxville Argus" was one of the Democratic organs. It denounced bank Democrats as Federalists. "The ' Post' says we are reading . Bank Democrats ' out of the party," declared the " Argus." " We are doing no such thing, for bank men, whether they call themselves Democrats or not, are not in the party. Their only ap- propriate place is in the federal ranks. We will have nothing to do with them -we will hold with them no political communion."
On the other hand, the position of the Whigs upon the tariff was uneertain and indirect. Indeed, it was not till this canvass that the Whigs came out boldly for even a moderate degree of protection. Even so late as 1839 Ephraim H. Foster denounced the protective tariff sys- tem as one "that steals from unconscious purses." Bell had said in 1832, "It is scarcely necessary to say that I regard what is called the American system, the great idol of the majority, as the direct and baleful canse of the present distracted condition of the country." It was not till the forties that the Tennessee Whigs became protec- tionists, and even then they rarely went beyond the doc- trines of Jackson's Coleman letter, and Polk's Kane let- ter. Gentry was the only Whig who voted for the tariff of 1842. The Democrats were not without flaws in their
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party record. The Whigs were a protective party with occasional free-trade utterances, and the Democrats were a free-trade party with occasional protective utterances. When a small amount of revenue was to be raised, the Whigs favored a protective rate. When a large amount of revenue was to be raised the Democrats favored a pro- tective rate with discriminations within certain broad land- marks. In Tennessee the bulk of the people were op- posed to high duties, and this compelled the Whigs to handle this subject with extreme caution.
Upon the subject of internal improvements the Whigs generally had the advantage. Jefferson, Jackson, and Polk himself had at some time or in some measure squinted at a system of internal improvements at the ex- pense of the general government. Boasting of his con- sistency, Polk said : " I challenge the newspaper press of the State to pick out the act - the single aet upon which I have changed my principles." Jones called attention to the fact that when a member of the General Assembly of Tennessee, he had, in a report on internal improvements, referred to the " propriety of such works being constructed by the State or general government." Again in a cireu- lar dated the 10th of May, 1825, he said : " A judicious system of internal improvements. within the powers dele- gated to the general government, I therefore approve." When twitted by Jones concerning these things. he evaded it by saying that if such things were necessarily to be, he favored Tennessee getting its share.
The White-Van Buren-Jackson contest of 1836 was discussed in detail again, and this led to a discussion of the origin of the Whig party. Polk made a searching and skillful argument proving that the Whigs were Fed- eralists with but a change of name. He reviewed at length the bargain, intrigue, and corruption charge of 1824, and paid exalted tribute to the public services and private character of General Jackson. The only question
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of state policy drawn into the canvass was the "Sterling Bond " charge upon which Jones based a demagogie ap- peal to the prejudices of the people. After the State Bank was chartered, Polk as governor suggested that the interest on a certain number of the bonds to be issued for that enterprise should be payable in pounds, shillings, and pence in order to negotiate them abroad, as Jones said, "to sell them like sheep in the market." The suggestion was practical and sensible. It strains our credulity to know that "upon this ground Jones attacked, and in a great measure successfully attacked, Polk's patriotism. The Democrats, in order to offset the prejudice flowing from this preposterous affair, made a counter-charge to this effect, that Jones in 1839, when a candidate for the state legislature, had advocated the same idea, and, out-Heroding Herod, gave as a reason for this that he had just sold his farm and expected to be paid in state bonds. The falsity of this charge was clearly proven. The Whigs were also charged with having condoned the defalcation of Robert H. MeEwen, the superintendent of public instruction. Jones accused Polk of using the patronage of the State Bank, and Polk accused Jones of being supported by the private banks, who hoped to break down the state banks.
But the election in 1841 turned upon other things than questions of public policy. It was in a large measure a revival and a continuation of the preceding year. The Whigs found a candidate peculiarly adapted to their needs. Immediately after their great success in 1840, the fruits of victory were taken from them by the death of Harrison and the refusal of Tyler to act in harmony with the party to which he owed his election. The approaching dissensions were not yet apparent when Jones was nomi- nated. Still in the national party they grew and in- creased in bitterness during the canvass in Tennessee. It was due to the Whig candidate that the spirits of the
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Whigs were not chilled by adversity, disappointment, and deferred hope. This candidate was James C. Jones, or as he is popularly called, even to this day, Jimmy Jones. When nominated, the Democrats ridiculed him as a man of yesterday "unknown to fame." Jones had all the at- tributes and all the antecedents of a popular hero. He was born in 1809, in Davidson County, near the Wilson County line, and almost within sight of the Hermitage. He was a delicate child, and being compelled to leave school on this account, he turned his attention to farm- ing. Plowing and the hard work of a farm restored his health and replenished his stores. He married at an early age. As a married man he was as striking a con- trast to Polk in this as in other things. Polk had no children at all, Jones welcomed a new one nearly every year. He took no part in politics until 1839, when he was elected a member of the legislature from Wilson County. As a member of this body, he gained neither applause nor blame. The ardency of his Whig senti- ments was soon established, for even as a candidate for the General Assembly he advocated the nomination of Clay by the Whigs for the presidency. The first time attention was drawn to him as a public speaker was in January, 1840, at Nashville, where a large meeting of Whigs assembled to ratify the nomination of Harrison. In 1840 he was one of the Whig presidential electors, and within a week after his return from the legislature he be- gan making speeches for Harrison and Tyler. His can- vass gave him the reputation of being a strong, effective stump-speaker. " He can hold a crowd well in hand," it was said, " and handle his opponent with ease." The Whig Convention that met at Murfreesboro on the 5th of March, 1841, met with the knowledge of the fact that their nominee would be called on to face the ablest stump-speaker in the Southwest - perhaps in the United States. Some one must be found who could "stand up
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before Polk." As by inspiration, Jones was suggested and unanimously nominated. His task was before him. He was to "get after Polk." The Whigs, in speaking of Jones's nomination, frequently confessed that " Lean Jimmy was nominated to get after Polk, and he went straight for him." They canvassed the State twice, in 1841 and in 1843, and the excitement of the two contests is still a tradition among Tennesseans. Polk had laughed Cannon from the stump by anecdotes, by ridicule, by bur- lesquing his manner of speaking, by confusing his mind, by the most ingenious perversions of his views, aided by a thorough grasp of political questions and masterly discus- sion of current issues. He invented and perfected the art of stump-speaking, and like the Guillotine of fable, though not of history, he was among the first vietims of the in- strument his refined ingenuity had invented. Polk real- ized from the first the qualities of the candidate pitted against him. In making appointments there was evi- dently a desire if not an intention on his part to avoid joint discussions. But Jones inet this by making every necessary sacrifice of pride in order to meet him.
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