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CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE GREAT WHIG CONVENTION OF 1844.
THE contest in 1844 was the first political struggle in Tennessee into which slavery entered as an issue, and it was the last in which the Whigs manifested that martial ardor which recalled the tempestuous shouts, the terrific charges, the bursting of shells, the flash of musketry, and the bristling of bayonets in actual warfare. The national Whigs entered the contest of 1844 inflamed with resent- ment against what they termed the treachery of Tyler, united, enthusiastic, and with a leader whose personal pop- ularity, if we except Jackson and the elder Pitt, surpasses anything recorded in the history of constitutional govern- ments. From the first his nomination was demanded so imperatively that he was nominated by acclamation when the Whig Convention met at Baltimore on May 1. The Whigs of Tennessee so far overcame the prejudices which the White campaign of 1836 had left behind, as to send delegates to join in the nomination. Theodore Freling- huysen of New Jersey was put forward for vice-president and the country rang with the refrain : -
" Hurrah, hurrah, the country 's risen, For Henry Clay and Frelinghuysen."
The defeat of Van Buren in 1840 had exasperated the Democrats, and acting upon a suggestion originating with Benton, they determinated to nominate him in 1844. Buchanan and Calhoun withdrew, and when the year of conflict opened, it seemed apparent that Van Buren would
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
have no serious opposition. In fact a majority of the delegates were instructed to vote for him. Negotiations had been in progress for some time looking to the annexa- tion of Texas to the United States, and in April, 1844, President Tyler submitted a treaty for that purpose to the Senate. In a letter written from Raleigh, North Carolina, shortly before he was nominated, Clay took con- servative grounds against annexation. This was followed shortly by a letter from Van Buren of similar significance. Andrew Jackson and the Tennessee Democrats were thun- derstruck, and the former at once declared that Van Buren must " explain," which meant retract this. Dele- gates had already been appointed and instructed to vote for Van Buren. When this letter was made public, those from the Southern States refused to obey these instruc- tions. Some resigned. In Tennessee the droll and whimsical Joseph C. Guild openly announced his determi- nation under no circumstances to vote for Van Buren. The adoption of the two-thirds rule made it impossible for "the Sage of Kinderhook" to be nominated. On the eighth ballot James K. Polk of Tennessee received forty-four votes, and on the ninth he was nominated. George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania was nominated for the vice-presidency. Polk was known to be a pronounced advocate of annexation and a follower of Jackson. He was called "Young Hickory." The Whigs declared he had been nominated " to gild the evening of the days of the hero of the Hermitage." One of the Whig papers said gravely that the coons in the forest all grinned when they heard of Polk's nomination. Another quoted them as running through the woods singing, -
" Ha, ha, ha, what a nominee Is Jimmy Polk of Tennessee."
In Tennessee his nomination was received with deep satisfaction by the Democrats, and by the Whigs with a desperate determination to pay off at last the score of the
-
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THE GREAT WHIG CONVENTION OF 1844.
part taken by Polk in the defeat of White. When the Democratic orators pleaded for Polk on the score of state pride, the Whigs with telling effect asked where had been Polk's state pride in 1836 ? The " Union" at Nashville, with Jeremiah George Harris at its head, and the " Whig" at Jonesboro, with Brownlow at its head, were the most active, the most vituperative, the most impetuous papers in the State. The Democratic papers overflowed with ridicule of the campaign emblems of 1840. and attempted to turn them against their opponents by caricatures rep- resenting a eoon in the aet of being skinned by a Loeo Foco, or on the ground being torn and rent asunder by Democratic dogs. They composed a campaign song, "The Coon is Dead," to which the Whigs responded by an- other, of which the refrain was, -
" The Coon is dead. Ah, how mistaken ! For you there's no such luek. You wish him dead, I doubt it not, But he lives in ' Old Kaiutuck.'"
Brownlow sneered at the ridicule of the " Union." " When a Loco Foco, by the remission or apathy of the Whigs, slips into office, Democracy calls it 'the sober second thought of the people'; but when freemen, aroused as in 1840. assert their rights and turn ' rogues and royalists' out of office, they are said to be 'drunk on hard eider.'" The Democrats twitted the Whigs upon being divided among themselves, and renewed the old charges of bar- gain, intrigue, and corruption. It having been rumored that Jackson had finally conceded the falsity of this, he published a letter in May denying any reeantation. The Whigs, in June, were absolutely confident of victory. They far surpassed the Democrats in talent and in ora- tory. Governor Jones. like Polk in 1840, without ac- tually taking the stump, lost no opportunity of cheering on his political friends and exerting his influence for Clay. John Bell, whose enmity against Polk was fierce
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and unremitting, attacked him with unsparing denuncia- tions, and with a closely woven tissue of argument, invec- tive, and inference which no man but Polk himself eould have answered. Gus Henry, whose name is one of the brightest of those who, in the Southwest, established a school of remarkably brilliant political oratory, and who was fresh from his remarkable struggle against Cave Johnson, won his first laurels on the broader field of state polities in this campaign. Tall, erect, and of a striking beauty of features, his personal appearance rendered him peculiarly adapted to the style of rhetorical brilliancy of speaking which dazzled the imagination of his audience and charmed them into forgetfulness of argument, re- search, and reason. In this year he gained the sobriquet of "Eagle Orator," a phrase not then worn threadbare. Neil S. Brown took the stump, and displayed those genial qualities of character and intellect which subsequently made him governor of the State. In West Tennessee the enthusiasm of the Whigs was aroused to the highest pitch by the wit and sarcasm and fiery invective and flowery perorations of William T. Haskell, the splendor of whose intellect had not yet been dimmed by disease. Such enthusiastie efforts had but once before been made in the political arena of Tennessee. From Memphis where, as a local Whig organ said, the Clay Club was glorious to look upon, to East Tennessee, where, as Foster said, "the mountains were on fire." it was a stirring time, in which parts were played by inany men of brilliant talents. In the midst of the canvass an election for town magis- trate was held in Columbia. Polk's home, and the Clay candidate was elected by a vote of 68 to 34, a fact which was not suffered to go unnoted by the Whigs. Each party organized clubs, renewed the organizations of pre- vions elections, canvassed each district closely, and dis- seminated political literature with ceaseless energy.
In the discussion of public questions, the Democrats
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THE GREAT WHIG CONVENTION OF 1844.
again had decidedly the advantage. The rallying ery was Polk, Dallas, and Texas. The old issues were again prominent, the old charges were again ventilated, again hotly discussed, again stoutly maintained, and again fiercely controverted. The Whigs were thrown upon the defensive by Clay's position on the annexation of Texas. Over and above the question of slavery, Tennesseans were bound by too many ties to Texas to suffer them to be in- different. Polk's position was pronounced and unequiv- ocal. Clay had on one side the South, and on the other a small body of Abolitionists in the North. His first let- ters were designed to plaeate the latter. The Democrats in Tennessee and the South generally denounced him for courting the Abolitionists. The South was not in a mood to suffer any hesitation on this question, and on the 27th of July, 1844, he wrote from Ashland the celebrated let- ter which was published in a North Alabama paper. In
this, without changing his position, he changes front. In the previous letter he had emphasized the imperative . nature of certain antecedent conditions before annexation should take place. "I should be glad to see it, without dishonor, without war, with the common consent of the Union, and upon just and fair terms. I do not think that the subject of slavery ought to affect the question one way or the other." The Pythoness could not have uttered an oracle better adapted to the purpose for which it was designed. It succeeded in Tennessee, but the Abolition- ists manifested their disapproval by nominating national candidates the following month. Clay's letter failed of its effect, in so far as the Abolitionists were concerned, but Polk's Kane letter, written on the 15th of June, was more successful and saved Pennsylvania to the Democ- racy.
In August both parties held at Nashville what were called in those days conventions or popular assemblies, designed to elieit expressions of party fervor. The Dem-
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
ocrats held one on the 17th of August, called at the time the Polk, Dallas, and' Texas Convention, the motive of which was to protest against the " Disunion of Texas" movement. The proceedings were deliberative and dig- nified. The Whig Convention had been called to meet on the 21st of August, or less than a week after the date appointed for the Democrats. This convention was the most elaborate in detail which had ever been held in the
State of Tennessee. That of 1840 had been full of bright fantastical effects, queer sights, grotesque mixtures, gaudy colors, and beautiful images. But even then a large part of its snecess was due to the presence of Henry Clay. Then he was merely an illustrious Whig. Now he was again a candidate for the high office for which his long experience, his ripe statesmanship, his lofty intellect, and exalted character peculiarly fitted him in the eyes of the Whigs. This was to be held in the native State of his opponent. As Governor Jones said, " All eyes are now turned towards Tennessee." It was among the possi- bilities that the election might be decided in Tennessee. The Democrats appreciated the gravity of the situation, and in default of local talent, Lewis Cass, who had been defeated by Polk for the nomination, and who was a pro- spective candidate for the succession, gave both time and talents to the Democracy of the State. Thomas F. Marshall, the undisciplined and recalcitrant Kentuckian, threw the weight of his bright, wayward, and wasted genius in the scales for Polk.
The Whig Convention met on the 21st of August. Minute details of this picturesque pageant have been pre- served in contemporary newspapers. The political pro- cessions of the present day, such as those which marched through the streets of New York in 1884 in honor of Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Blaine, are intended to impress the imagination of the beholders rather by the spectacle of a vast multitude aided at most by a few banners, and a
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THE GREAT WILIG CONVENTION OF 1844.
transparency or two. than to tickle the fancy and dazzle the eye by bright colors and sumptuous display. But there was more abandonment. more enthusiasm, less self- consciousness in those days. "The Great Whig Conven- tion of 1844," as it was long called, was the finest of the kind ever held in the Southwest. It was a tournament from the pages of Froissart, adapted to modern times and republican conditions. The romances of the Middle Ages spread before us tourney-fields upon which were assem- bled stately knights clad in glittering armor and mounted upon horses nobly eaparisoned ; heralds resplendent with coats upon which were embroidered in rich colors the arms of distinguished warriors ; bevies of beautiful ladies in green silks and purple velvets, gayly decked with gar- lands of mingled roses and lilies ; laughing pages, jovial friars, rubicund burgesses with pretty daughters in modest smocks, jesters in motley wear -in short, a throng of checkered hues, quaint costumes, unbridled merriment, dramatic pomp. glittering pageantry, fanciful ceremonies, and gaudy spangles, surpassing the tulip, the peacock, and the butterfly. The Great Whig Convention of 1844 had in some shape or distortion all of these things. They ap- peared in the guise of mounted guardsmen, immense bod- ies of men in costumes, the reds and whites and blues of the "Stars and Stripes," beautiful silken banners with curiously wrought devices, liberty-poles, coons, open ear- riages filled with the fresh-hued beauties who were the boast of Tennessee, troops of symmetrieal and spirited horses, bands of music, speeches sparkling with rhetorical tinsel, lace work, and pearl brocade.
The procession formed on the Public Square, and moved out to Walnut Grove in a vast cavalcade of about six thousand people. The entire number of those present was estimated at between thirty and forty thousand. There were twenty-six open carriages in which were ladies who wore sashes of white and blue. Nearly every State in
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ILISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
the Southwest was represented by a delegation. A prize banner had been offered to the county (outside of David- son) which should send the largest delegation. It was made of rieh, pink satin with a fawn-colored fringe, and upon it was painted a full-length portrait of Henry Clay, over whose head was suspended the American eagle, the stars and stripes falling in graceful folds on either side. This was awarded to Wilson County, the native county of the governor, whose life was spent in doing noble homage to the great Whig, and who, by a strange but fitting fatal- ity, was the only friend not of his household that stood by his bedside as his restless spirit sank into eternal rest. The county seat of Wilson County is Lebanon, so named because of the cedars in its neighborhood, and the Wilson County delegation bore cedar boughs covered with checked cloth, and branches of cedar with the green upon them. A local chronicler comparing Polk to Macbeth, said he must have thought that " Birnam Wood had come to Dunsinane." Some of the banners had such devices as "Our Battle-Cry is Harry of the West." The banner of the " Coon-Rangers of Nubbin Ridge " displayed on one side Clay, on the other the " Same old Coon " tearing down a polkberry stock, saying, " Polkberries can't hurt this Coon." Henry County showed " Old Hal " mounted on a race-horse, just reaching the presidential goal, pursued at a long distance by " Little Jimmy " on a donkey. Among the Rutherford County delegation was a troop of little Whigs with a banner on which was the motto, " Oh how we do wish we could vote for Clay and Frelinghuysen." There was in another part, a body of pioneers weighing about two hundred pounds each, with battle-axes and large bear-skin caps. A cotton loom formed a part of the procession. This was mounted on a car drawn by six horses, each bearing a small postilion clothed in varie- gated colors. One banner displayed a significant motto : "Hemp Cravats for all Disunionists." All the emblems
1
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THE GREAT WHIG CONVENTION OF 1844.
of 1840 were revived. There were great numbers of mil- itary companies as in the Harrison campaign - Clay Guards, Harrison Guards, Straightouts, Slashers. The eoon, the barrel, the ball, the liberty-pole, the cabin. the grotesque caricatures, the derisive rhymes and mottoes, all were there.
Among the orators, in addition to those from Tennes- see and those who have been entirely forgotten, were two figures whose names to this day have a legendary sound. One of these was Albert Pike, whose career had touched all the elements of romance and adventure that existed in the Southwest from the wild Indian tribes, into which he had been adopted and of which he was probably a chief, to the composition of verses which had found recognition and appreciation even so far away and from such high au- thority as " Blackwood's Magazine." As a lawyer he was one of the most brilliant of his day. Even in these times of advanced scholarship his learning is remarkable and admirable. In those days it was wonderful. Other American linguists may be more thorough, none are more versatile and comprehensive. Genial, warm-hearted, and refined, he has touched the lyre in every strain and has made it sound harmoniously in all. He has written one bit of fugitive lyricism which deserves to find a place in every anthology of English verse.1 He is still living at Washington, one of the first officers in the masonic or- der in America, and if we except Joseph Holt, the keen- tongued and incisive lawyer who was in Buchanan's cab- inet, Governor . Charlie" Anderson of Ohio, who is spending the sunset of a bright career in the beautiful and picturesque little village of Kutawa in Kentucky, and Harvey M. Watterson, the reminiscent Nestor, whose charming pen has restored the faded glories of the great epie period of Southwestern oratory and statesmanship, Albert Pike is the last survivor of that group of orators
1 " After the midnight cometh morn."
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HISTORY OF TENNESSEE.
and lawyers who gave.a distinct character to both politi- cal and legal life in the Southwest before the war.
S. S. Prentiss was the other, a Mississippian, born and reared in New England, who possessed in an eminent de- gree all the characteristics which are popularly supposed to be peculiarly Southern. His character was high- minded, his pride was strong and disdainful, his courage was undoubted. Quick and impulsive, he resented an in- sult fiercely and at times with bloodshed. But his nat- ural disposition was generous and tender, his affections were warm, his devotion was unfaltering. His temper, sometimes unruly, ran riot with wit, but never with mal- ice. If contemporary judgment may be accepted, he was a profound lawyer. But his greatest renown was as an orator. In the estimation of Daniel Webster the most brilliant of American orators, in the estimation of Clay who stood next to Webster, he was an orator of the first magnitude, and by the united voices of his contemporaries he was adjudged to possess in a higher degree even than these two, that quality of oratory which manifests itself in gorgeous and resplendent imagery and dazzling meta- phor. So great was his reputation that his presence at the convention was greeted with enthusiasm similar to that which had made the earth tremble for Clay in 1840. His court-house speech at the convention of 1844 was long regarded as the most wonderful ever heard in the Southwest. Being overcome by an indisposition to which he was subject, be sank back into the arms of Governor Jones, who, overcome with emotion, exclaimed, "Die, Prentiss, die. You will never have a more glorious op- portunity."
But the struggle was vain. The Whigs of Tennessee had the supreme gratification of seeing the electoral vote of the State given to Clay. This is the only time in Amer- ican history that a successful candidate for the presi- dency lost his own State. Clay's majority was very small.1
1 One hundred and thirteen votes.
1
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THE GREAT WHIG CONVENTION IN 1844.
It has been said and so often repeated. that Clay lost the election by his Alabama letter, that it seems to have been accepted as a historieal fact, but it is not true. He lost New York by it, and New York's thirty-six votes taken from Polk's one hundred and seventy electoral votes and added to Clay's one hundred and five, would have given Clay a majority of seven. But the demonstration should go beyond this. He carried Tennessee by a popular ma- jority of only one hundred and thirteen votes. If the letter which lost New York had not been written, he would have lost Tennessee, which had thirteen votes. Give him, therefore, New York, and give Tennessee to Polk, and Clay would have been beaten by nineteen votes.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
THE gubernatorial contest of 1845 manifested a reac- tion against the intense partisan zeal of previous years. A Democratic paper said : " It is observable by all that the great mass of the people are less excited than they have been in any canvass for many years." The only local question of sufficient importance to elicit discussion was the Tippling Act, and upon this there was no partisan division. An act had been passed in 1838, prohibiting the sale of spirituous liquors in less quantity than one quart under any circumstances, and likewise in quantities larger than a quart if to be drunk at the place where sold. The intent of this law was to abolish tippling houses as far as possible. Its operation, however, had effected the opposite result. In some places it was par- tially enforced, in others not at all, and on the whole it increased the number of houses where a single drink of ardent spirits could be purchased. This law was repealed by the Act of 1846, and the license system introduced under strong penalties for the prevention of immoral ex- cesses. The questions of national policy were again the issues upon which the battle was fought. In addition to the tariff, the distribution of the sales of public lands, the veto power, and the bank, the annexation of Texas, and the Oregon question were added to the topies of discussion. The Whigs nominated Ephraim H. Foster, who, with characteristic fire, accepted the nomination after nearly every Whig in the State had positively and
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THE DOWNFALL OF THE WHIGS.
in advance declined the dubious struggle. The election of Polk to the presideney, and the death of Jackson in January, 1845, with the incident revival of that feeling of personal regard and devotion which had been weakened during the years following the defeat of Hugh L. White, added to the generally undecided attitude of the Whig party towards Texas, made the prospects more than doubt- ful. The nomination of Foster at this particular erisis made this more doubtful still. His inconsistency on the tariff was glaring and self-confessed. In 1839 he had op- posed a protective tariff, and denounced it as a system that " steals from unconscious purses." He frankly ad- mitted the change - a change which Brown ridiculed as taking place in one who had been a United States senator. On the Texas question, his course was apparently more inconsistent than it was in fact. While a member of the national Senate he had been instructed to vote for the annexation of Texas. He voted against the Tyler Treaty, and after the election of 1844 himself introduced a bill for annexation. Robert J. Walker offered as an amend- ment that Texas should be one State, and admitted on an equal footing with the existing States. Foster voted against Walker's amendment, and then against his own bill on the ground that the amendment contained a con- cession to the abolitionists of the North. Brown attrib- uted this vote to the opposition of Henry, Jones, Neil S. Brown, Haskell, and other Whig leaders in the State. He defended his vote on the ground that it left the ques- tion of slavery open for future intrigue, and because it contained no provision against the assumption of the pub- lic debt of Texas.
Foster was born on the 17th of September, 1794, in Nelson County, Kentucky, and was the son of Robert C. Foster. In 1797 he removed with his family to Nash- ville, where Ephraim graduated in 1813 at Cumberland College. He studied law, and was admitted to the bar.
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He was Jackson's private secretary during the Creek War, and at the close of this resumed the practice of his pro- fession, in which he was successful, even at a bar of which Felix Grundy, Francis B. Fogg. Henry A. Wise, and Balie Peyton were members. He had been at different times elected to the House of Representatives, of which he was speaker. He was twice a member of the state Senate. He was tall, and had a commanding appearance. His disposition was warm-hearted and generous, his bear- ing was affable, courteous, and gracious. He possessed great personal popularity, and was popularly called "Old Eph." During the campaign with Brown, the Whig papers frequently boasted " Eph 's got him." His tem- per was violent and inflammable. When a young man of twenty-seven, he threw a book at a judge on the bench who had let fall a sneering remark. He was proud and high- spirited, and quick to resentment. He had a ready wit, and was noend for his repartee and raillery. His elo- hurried and impetuous, if not brilliant, and his Metion was fluent. His enemies sometimes called him Bombastes Furioso.
His opponent, Aaron V. Brown, was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, August 15. 1795, and was educated in North Carolina. He studied law under Judge Trimble at Nashville, and began the practice of his profession at that point. He removed to Giles County, and afterwards formed a partnership with James K. Polk of Maury County. He was frequently sent to the General Assembly as senator or legislator, - and from 1839 to 1845 was a member of Congress. He was, after his gubernatorial term of service, a member of Buchanan's cabinet. As a publie speaker, he possessed talents of a higher order than his competitor. He showed the training of the Polk school, and had a trick of entargling his opponent that was worthy of Jones. Referring to Foster's vote against the annexation of Texas, he described the latter standing
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