USA > Tennessee > History of Tennessee the making of a state > Part 31
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Jones's personal appearance gave him an advantage on the stump. He was ungainly and very slender. He was six feet, two inches tall. and weighed only one hundred and twenty-five pounds. He walked with a precise military step, not unlike a soldier on parade. His complexion was swarthy, his nose was large, and his expression was grave and solemn. In more respects than one he bore a remarkable resemblance to Ned Brace in the " Georgia Scenes." His bair was thin and curly. His mouth was extraordinarily large. His eyes were small and gray, and were shaded by heavy eyebrows. But his address, which was cordial and kind. more than redeemed his personal appearance. He had a touch of pleasant deference which rendered him extremely popular with his female constitu- ents. He lacked the personal dignity which made it diffi-
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cult for Polk to unbend in the light badinage of flippant conversation. His popularity was very great. On the stump in 1841, he knew it would be impossible to attempt to answer Polk's speeches. He had a wide and frag- mentary knowledge of men and measures, but nothing more. The Democrats said he had learned all he knew from " The Spirit of '76," a campaign paper published during the Harrison-Van Buren contest. Ile avoided all serious argument. But he had a genius for perverting and confounding words and terms, and would frequently harp on what he called a strange inconsistency of his worthy opponent, which resulted alone from his using the same word used by Polk and giving it a different signifi- cance. Polk had great powers of mimicry which he had used with unsparing pitilessness against Cannon. His imitations of Balie Peyton were especially effective. But against Jones his powers seemed to fail him. Jones was a master of all the arts of caricature and simulation. His impressive gravity, his powers of ridicule and travesty, his anecdotes told with irresistible humor, joined to his queer figure. his capacious mouth, and his large nose kept his audience in a state of perpetual uproar. People be- gan to laugh the moment he arose. On one occasion. after Polk had made a long and elaborate argument upon the Whigs and Federalists, Jones arose and running one hand gently over a coon-skin which he held in the other, remarked, "Did you ever see such fine fur?" The effect of Polk's speech went up like chaff in a wind before the mocking laughter which recognized the reference to the . Harrison campaign and the implied taunt. Occasionally after Polk's Federalist speech, Jones would assert that Ezekiel Polk, the grandfather of his competitor, was a Tory, and would then denounce the Tories in the bitterest terms, leaving his audience to imply that it came with a bad grace from a man with such antecedents to accuse other people of being Federalists. Polk would deny the
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truth of this assertion and would prove its falsity conclu- sively, but Jones, at the next appointment, would probably make the same statement and indulge in the same invec- tives. He was, on the stump, thoroughly unscrupulous. The most glaring falsehoods, when corrected at one place, would be reiterated at another. In this way Polk could never corner him. Polk at first tried his powers of ridi- cule upon Jones, but the latter never failed to turn the laugh on him. He did this, not by his wit, for in this Polk, though not a witty man, far excelled him, but by his comical expression. The most trivial phrases from Jones would call forth shouts of laughter, when remarks of ten times the humor and force from Polk would pass unre- garded. One of Polk's anecdotes has been preserved. He said the desire of the Whigs for office reminded him of an incident in the late war. A Virginia regiment had come from a part of the State which raised very fine horses, and not wishing to endanger the lives of those which were valuable, the soldiers mounted themselves on old mares, the majority of which had young colts. Much time was lost through the necessity of having to stop to let the colts suckle. The colonel commandant, in order to save time, finally made it a routine duty to allow them to suckle all at one time. So when the hour came, he would give the command, " At-ten-tion Reg-i-ment ! Halt ! Pre-pare to suck-le colts ! " The application was obvious, and there was much merriment and some blushing among the women, who in those days always attended " speak- ing." Jones retorted by saying that what the governor said was true - the Whigs were young colts. But that the governor himself was an old sucker who had been at it for fifteen years. The farmers in his section of coun- try generally let a live. healthy colt be weaned by his dam. but that in the case of a scrubby, unpromising fellow, they generally weaned him about the first Thursday in Au- gust. (The day of election.)
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After Polk had been unmercifully spurred and goaded, he repudiated his own methods and ridiculed Jones and his anecdotes. He himself, he said, tried to discuss great questions of state in a becoming and serious manner. His worthy opponent wisely made a jest of things which in- deed were beyond his comprehension. In fact, he was better fitted for the tights and spangles and sawdust of the circus ring than for the gubernatorial office. Jones did not wince. But in replying he said that in fact both he and his opponent were best fitted for the ring. That for himself he could not deny that he was fitted for tights (here he touched his thin legs), but his worthy compet- itor was fitted for the little fellow that is dressed up in a red cap and jacket and who rides around on a pony. Polk's smile, which his scoffing contemporaries often called " a horrible grin," was one of the standing jests of his enemies. Jones's reference to the monkey was greeted with vociferous and long-continuing laughter and Polk was long known as "the little fellow on the pony."
Polk made several attempts to break loose from Jones, as Cannon had attempted to break loose from him, but Jones was as eager in 1841 as he had been in 1839. As the canvass progressed, Polk began to lose his temper, and to assail Jones both in the newspapers and on the stump, without, however, in any measure destroying the latter's equanimity. The boisterous cheers, the loud laughter, the huzzas with which the Democrats had fol- lowed the canvass of 1839 were now, such was Brown- low's boast, hushed into religious silence when their leader came to face the young farmer from Wilson County. Not only did Polk lose his temper. The Democrats gen-
erally became irritated and sore. When the meeting took place in Somerville, there were two partners in busi- ness, one a Democrat and one a Whig. They agreed that the Whig should stay at the store, and the Democrat should attend " speaking." He was to listen faithfully,
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and report impartially what he heard. He was naturally a man of good temper, and not easily angered. When he returned his partner noticed that he appeared flushed and angry. Being asked what Polk said, he answered fiercely, " Mr. Polk made an ass of himself, talking sense to a lot of d-d fools." And Jones ? "Jones-Jones! I don't know what Jones said ! No more does anybody else. I know this much. If I were Mr. Polk I would n't allow any one to make a laughing-stock of me. He ought to get a stick and crack Jones's skull, and end this tom- foolery !" 1
As a matter of fact, all the enthusiasm, the dashing impetuosity, the fire, the shouting, and the cheering were with Jones. He had the " Hurrah boys" - the bonfire and the dress-parade element - the young men. The con- testants spoke to the largest erowds that had ever assem- bled in Tennessee. In some counties the roads leading to the county seat where the candidates were to speak were so erowded with people on foot, in buggies, on horseback, and in wagons, that they resembled caravans of emigrants. It was noticed that Polk, before the speaking began, generally stood at some point near the speaker's stand with a few friends, speaking to such as eame up to be introduced to him, while Jones was stalking through the crowd, poking fun at the boys, chucking the girls under the ehin, flattering the women, and bantering the men.
Nashville was the centre of the political life of the State. Indeed, it was said that there was a Whig junto or elique in Nashville who controlled the party through- out the entire State. Bell and Foster and A. A. Hall were among the leaders of this junto, and the Democrats asserted that Jones owed his nomination to the sub- serviency with which he had bowed his neck to this yoke when a member of the General Assembly, and voted to retain the seat of government at Nashville. In spite of the jealousy of other parts of the State. it was, as a mat-
1 Related by Colonel Sam Tate, who was the Whig in this anecdote.
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ter of course, from Nashville that the strongest influences radiated, and it was before a Nashville audience that speakers most desired to shine. Polk and Jones met for the first time on the 30th of March at Big Spring, in Wilson County. They reached Nashville on the 19th of May. The partisan complexion of reports sent to partisan newspapers in those times was a subject of amazement to men of liberal minds and unprejudiced understandings. According to the " Union," Jones was a poor creature whose ignorance and coarse buffoonery were rendered more glaring by the brilliancy and statesmanlike pro- fundity of Polk's classical orations. According to the " Whig," Polk's strength of mind and character had de- parted from him, as completely as if some Delilah-like influence had shorn him of his talents. It was an assured fact that the people of Tennessee would never let a man, such as Polk, be elected over the head of one who towered so high above him. It was significant, however, that the Whig papers occasionally went so far as to admit, in the high-flown style of the day. that it was a " battle of giants." From all of this. it was difficult for the Nash- ville people to form a moderately accurate estimate of the two champions, as they were often called. Party feeling ran high, and there was a feverish impatience to hear them.
When the time came, there was present an audience larger than that which had collected to ratify the nom- ination of Harrison. According to the terms of the dis- cussion, each speaker had two and a half hours. The speaking began at 2.30 and continued until 7.30. It was a repetition of what had taken place before. Polk made a speech that would have swept from the stump any man who had ever been governor of Tennessee beforc him, and any man who was governor after Jones until Andrew Johnson came forward. It was forcible, compre- hensive, powerful, vehement, almost eloquent. Bell, with his graceful purity of speech. his thorough political equip- ment, his rhetorical finish, his incisive analysis and philo-
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sophie amplification, might have answered it. Foster, the impassioned, the turgid, the alert, the lofty, might have answered it. The warm imagination and impetuous and dazzling rhetoric of Gus Henry might have sustained the contest on terms not altogether unequal. But James C. Jones, who scarcely possessed a single quality here attrib- uted to these three, did what not one of the three could have done - he completely demolished the speaker. He had no wit, he had no fancy, he had no oratorical powers, he had no knowledge, he had no great qualities of mind, he lacked everything that the others had, but he had what the others lacked, a power of ridicule and mimicry never equaled in this State. It is said that the Greeks, fearing alone the attack of the elephants which accom- panied the army of Darius, put them to flight by loud alarums and great tumult. Jones met Polk and routed him by the same tactics. He made the crowd laugh until it became frantic. He twisted and distorted everything that Polk had said until he, whose thoughts and words were so perverted, could not, for his life, have unraveled the maze of sophistry and nonsense. He turned serious arguments into jests, jests again into serious arguments. He discussed the spirit of an assertion or the actual letter of it, or he jumbled both together as suited his purpose. He held out hopes of Polk becoming a Whig. And why ? Because he grinned like the little fur-covered ani- mal that had been one of the emblems in the Harrison campaign. He told the most grotesque, the most ludicrous anecdotes with a mien of funereal gravity. When at a loss for something to say, he looked solemnly towards the audience, and then turned slowly and reproachfully to- wards his competitor, while the crowd burst into roars of laughter at the sight. The Democrats and Polk were mortified but not surprised, when the same party which had elected Harrison president, with cabins, coons, and cider, elected Jones governor with anecdotes, laughter, and waggery.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
POLK AND JONES IN 1843.
WHEN the General Assembly met in October, the two parties were very nearly evenly balaneed. In the House. the Whigs had a majority of one, and there was one mem- ber who was not strictly a member of either party. In the Senate, the Whigs had twelve and the Democrats twelve. Samuel Turney was again a member, and held the balance of power. In 1839 he had been elected in a Whig community on purely non-partisan grounds. He was elected a member of the Senate on a compromise. At this session was enacted an episode which makes a curious chapter in the history of partisan politics. As a result of the instructions of 1839, White and Foster hall resigned. In the encouraging eloquence of the " Whig." "Our noble Foster refused to drag the manaeles at the wheels of a chance majority, while he knows his own beloved Tennessee has power to bid him mount on a tri- umphal chariot, and lead her people rejoicing with him up the steeps of honor and prosperity."
As the right of the General Assembly to instruct the Senators whom it elects has often been a subject of par- tisan disputation, it may be of interest to know that it was a right never seriously denied before the war. During this session of the legislature, the right of instruction was discussed, and both parties were agreed upon it. In a report made by the majority of the committee to whom were referred the resolutions of 1839, and who recom- mended their reseission, it was said that as to the right of
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the constituent to instruct the representative there was very little difference of opinion. " This power is essential to the very existence and perpetuity of a representative government." The minority report took the same position. White and Foster both resigned in 1839, being unable to vote for measures for which they had been instructed to vote. In 1838 Grundy voted against the Sub-Treasury system, although he favored it, in obedience to legislative instructions. In 1846 Spencer Jarnagin voted for the Walker tariff against his convictions but in obedience to instructions. In 1842 Foster refused to vote for the an- nexation of Texas, contrary to instructions, but defended his vote on the ground that whilst he favored annexation, he regarded the instructions as general, not requiring him to vote for any particular measure. He admitted the right of instruction.
There were two vacancies in the Senate, that of Alexan- der Anderson, elected to fill out White's term, and Grundy's unexpired term, to which A. O. P. Nicholson had been appointed. The prominent Whig candidates for the Senate were Spencer Jarnagin and E. H. Foster, who had been the Harrison electors for the State at large the year before. Then, as now, this was considered an onerous task worthy of substantial partisan recognition, when adequately per- formed. Foster was peculiarly objectionable to the Demo- crats because of liis effective party work the year before, and because his general identification with White and his resignation rendered it especially galling to have him now returned to the Senate. It was charged that Jones had suggested the plan afterwards pursued by the Democrats for the guidance of the Whigs, in case they failed to elect a working majority. This was earnestly denied by Jones. The fact that Turney held the balance of power in the Senate suggested an obvious method of defeating Foster which was at once adopted. The Whig caucus nominated Foster and Jarnagin, and the Senate, with Samuel Turney's
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vote, elected his brother Hopkins L. Turney, at that time a member of Congress. The House refused to concur. The Senate refused to meet the House in joint convention until Turney received instructions from his constituency to vote to bring on an election of United States senators. The day appointed by joint resolution was December 2. On that day, Turney and the twelve Whigs repaired to the house, but the twelve Democrats remained in the senate chamber. Among the number was Andrew John- son, who was apparently with Laughlin, the leader in this queer filibustering. When the roll of the Senate was called, the clerk reported "no quorum." The speaker sent the doorkeeper to request the absent members to attend the meeting of the joint convention. The House then proceeded to organize, in order, with the majority of the Senate, to proceed to business. About twenty Demo- cratic members of the House at once left the hall. This scene was reenacted for four days, when Turney refused any longer to attend the meetings of the joint convention. On the eleventh of December the Democrats entered a protest against the methods pursued to elect a United States senator, as unconstitutional. Under the law, the election must be made by the legislature and not by con- vention, that is, it must be made by each body in its un- divided capacity and in its own hall, not in joint meeting. Another ground of protest was the refusal of the two can- didates elected in caucus to answer certain questions re- garding their positions on certain public questions. More even than this, the Democrats had offered to compromise the matter by electing one Democrat and one Whig, each party to elect its own candidate but both to be from dif- ferent geographical divisions. This proposition was " de- feated by the votes of the exclusive Whigs, who have thus refused a measure calculated to produce reconciliation between the two great parties." The Democrat selected was of course H. L. Turney. This puerile proposition
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and others equally trivial were rejected by the Whigs. The Democrats who signed this protest fully realized the folly of it. There was no record of a United States sen- ator ever having been elected by any other method than by the one proposed. Indeed, Johnson himself had been a member of the General Assembly in 1839 and 1840, and had concurred in previous proceedings of this nature. The other offer to compromise by electing one Whig and one Democrat (like various other propositions to resign and hold forthwith another election in order to get the opinion of the people) was not only imbecile and contemp- tible. It was a direct sacrifice of principle. Exactly the thing irrational in polities and impossible in a representa- tive form of government is the reconciliation of opposing parties. The stability of republican institutions, as the purity of water, depends not upon stillness and quietude, but upon struggle and commotion. Other conditions are unnatural and of short duration as was the " Era of Good Feeling." The bulk of the people have little time for looking after their collective interests. The exercise of power without supervision leads to depravity and roguery. The organization of parties furnishes the people not only officers to perform necessary functions but also a large body of alert, vigilant, and self-interested inspectors and supervisors, who watch closely public affairs and promptly report any dereliction and delinquency. Andrew Johnson and his associates, who figure in state history as the " Im- mortal Thirteen," knew the extravagance and inanity of their propositions, but they expected to defeat the election of a Whig senator for the present, hoping to achieve a different result at the next election.
Nor did this stop here. Governor Jones, in accordance with the law, sent in a list of twelve directors of the State Bank early in the session. Two days before the adjourn- ment, the Senate called up the nominations and rejected them. Jones sent in a new list the day of adjournment
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which met a similar fate. In this way, the Democrats then forming the board held over for two years more. A recommendation to investigate the condition of the bank was also voted down. An extra session was called in 1842, but without effecting any change of affairs.
These things Polk was compelled to face. In answer to what is known as the Memphis Interrogatories, he was forced to defend the " Immortal Thirteen." When in 1843 the second struggle between Polk and Jones came on, the Democrats entered it in the face of a whirlwind. It had often been charged that the old Bank of Tennessee was used to advance the interests of the Jackson party. The defalcation of Joel Parrish was pointed to as the result of this course, and Parrish himself was quoted as saying he would suffer his right arm to come off before he would divulge the secret workings of the bank. These charges had been repudiated by the people and proven false by actual occurrences. But they were now again revived with greater plausibility than before. "The ad- dress to the Republican party of Tennessee " of the 4th of July, 1840. had been signed by four directors of the new Bank of Tennessee, one of whom, Dr. Felix Robert- son, was chairman of the Republican committee. The Whigs in 1843 bitterly denounced the management of the bank, and pointed significantly to the resolution passed at the extra session declaring an investigation inexpedient and useless. Brownlow, of the " Jonesboro Whig," poured forth a steady stream of vituperation, of terrible invective, of coarse ribaldry, and of sharp, biting sarcasm. The Whigs waged the war with more than wonted enthusiasm. Jones had not failed to profit by his previous campaign, by intermingling with the world, by contact with the leaders of the party. He had developed a talent for political management in recognition of which the Democratic papers had promoted him to the leadership of the Nash- ville Junto. Ilis knowledge of public questions had
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broadened, his mind had become more liberalized, the tone of his discussion less flippant. But his unscrupulous in- genuity, his hardened equanimity, his powers of mimicry, of burlesque, of mockery, of farcical exaggeration, the grotesque solemnity of his features, the heavy eyebrows, the small eyes twinkling over the large nose, and the broad mouth still remained with him.
In addition to the issues which had arisen within the State, the two candidates fell to upon the same questions which had occupied them in 1841. The bankrupt law, however, which held then a secondary position, now came in for more extended discussion. The Whigs generally favored it, and the Democrats opposed it. It had been passed in 1841 and repealed in 1842. Polk in 1843, after its repeal, was very severe in his denunciation, and Jones ridiculed this by his celebrated " Lay on, Nancy " anecdote. It reminded him of a fellow - this was then, as now, the anecdote-teller's conventional form of introduction - whose cabin was attacked by a bear, there being no one there but a small child, his wife, and himself. The man ran up into the loft, and left his wife to contest the matter with the bear, which she did most gallantly. The fight took place in the yard close to the door. The husband in the loft watched the fight with intense interest, yelling, " Lay on, Nancy ! Lay on, Nancy ! LAY ON, Nancy !" After the bear was laid out, as dead as the bankrupt law, the fellow crawled down puffing and blowing, and going up to his wife said, " W-e-ll, Nancy, ain't we brave ?"
The canvass of 1843 was watched with deep and wide- spread interest throughout the United States, and in Ten- nessee bets as high as 83.000 were made between Whigs and Democrats. The " Frankfort Commonwealth " said that " should the Whigs, as we confidently anticipate, carry the election in Tennessee, we believe the result will be con- sidered as decisive of the presidential election of 1844." The "National Forum " thought the contest in Tennessee
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would decide the complexion of the United States Senate, also " it is the first regularly contested battle of the cam- paign which is to decide who is to be the next president." Governor Jones in a letter to Prentiss said: " This is the battle-ground of the nation." The election of Jones was greeted by the Whigs throughout the Union with boundless enthusiasm. The Whigs of Philadelphia passed a vote of thanks to him, and the " Boston Atlas " suggested that a suitable gift as a memorial be presented to him by the Whigs of the United States. Various suggestions were made that he should be put on the ticket the year follow- ing for the vice-presidency. Another substantial result for the Whigs was the election of Jarnagin and Foster to the Senate.
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