4
THE SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE SECTION
how that happy cutis iumation might have changed
the current of American history.
Benton' Waterloo
The Polk Administration, that carried on so suc
cessfully the war with Mexico, was, of course, Demo
cratic; and while Polk Irad made up his mind that
he did not desire a second term, lie naturally wanted
to be succeeded by a Democrat. Knowing fhe pen
chant of the American people for soldiers, and
realizing that the two most popular Generals witli
our army in Mexico Scott and Taylor were
Whigs, and also realizing that it would be ridiculous
to promote any General then in the field, holding a
junior commission, over those popular heroes, and
believing it necessary to have a Democratic idol come
out of the war a logical candidate -for President,
Polk determined to have a Lieutenant-Generalcy
created, the intention behg that Benton should be
the Lieutennnt-General and afterward the Demo
cratic nominee for President. A bill for that pur
pose was rushed through the House, but was de
feated in the Senate, as Benton claimed, through the
machinations of William L. Marcy, James Buehanan
and Robert J. Walker, all members of the Cabinet,
nil of whom wanted to be' President and none of
whom had any military record. Had this program
gone through, Benton would have been nominated
and elected President in 1848, and, it is as certain
as anything in politics can be that he would have
been re-elected in 1852. A stronger Union man than
Benton never lived. Had he, instead of Pierce, been
elected President in 1852, it would have averted the
trouble in Kansas that precipitated the Civil War.
That awful catastrophe would have been postponed
for years, perhaps for ever. All of which might
have happened, but for the ambitions of Buchanan,
Marcy and Walker.
"Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: 'It might have been.'"
The War of 1812 gave us Andrew Jackson and
William Henry Harrison as Presidents. While Jack
son was the hero of Horse Shoe Bend and Chalmette,
he had also been United States District Attorney,
Judge of the Supreme Court of Tennessee and a
member of both Houses of Congress phases of his
career little known and lightly valued in the public
mind. His civil career, however, may have had
weight in bringing about his election, by a majority
of one, as Major:General of the Tennessee Militia,
and probably no more important and far-reaching
events ever hung upon one vote. The people elected
Old Hickory President, because they knew that he
had broken the power of the Creek Nation in one
pitched battle and had routed the flower of the
British Army in another.
Jackson, no doubt, was aided materially iu his
three Presidential races by the fact that as a boy
he had served a few days in the Revolutionary Army,
and had received a cruel scalp wound from a sword
iu the hands of a brutal British officer for manfully
refusing to black his boots. We may wonder whether
Jackson thought of that gash in his head as evening
closed on his astounding victory in front of New
Orleans!
It is on record that, during the bitter Clay-Jackson
campaign of 1832, the elder Francis Preston Blair
went over to the White House and told the hero of
New Orleans that the Clay newspapers were declar
ing the story of his having been slashed in the head
by a British officer to be a fake. Whereupon, Jack
son made Blair run his fingers through his bristly
white hair and into the scar, as evidence of its
existence.
The Fathers were not all mild-mannered or mealy
mouthed in politics.
The Betrayal of Henry Clay
General Harrison had served iu both Houses of.
Congress, had been Governor of the North-West Ter
ritory, and Minister to one of the South American
States, and when elected to the Presidency was serv
ing in the humble position of County Clerk; but his
victories at Tippecanoe and the Thames were what
gave him the nomination and sent him to the White
House.
Harrison's nomination in 1839 made Henry Clay
beside himself with rage. When the news reached
the great Kentuckian in Washington, he rose from
his chair and walking rapidly up and down the room,
lifting his feet like a horse string-halted in both legs,
he stamped upon the floor, exclaiming: "My friends
are not worth the powder and shot it would take to
kill them! If there were two Henry Clays, one of
them would make the other President of the United
States. It is a diabolical intrigue. I know now
who have betrayed me. I am the most unfortunate
man in the history of parties. Always run by my
friends when sure to be defeated, and now betrayed
for a nomination when I, or any one, would be sure
of an election."
The War.ff 1812 also contributed largely to the
nomination of General Lewis Cass thirty-six years
later, his principal military achievement having been
to break his sword on hearing that General Hull had
surrendered. As the Whigs had nominated Zachary
Taylor, hero of Buena Vista, the Democrats were
in sore need of a hero, and being short of the article
did their best to make one of Cass. Taylor, .of
course, went to .the White House; but General Cass
would have been elected had not Martin Van Buren
bolted and run as the Free Soil candidate because,
he claimed, Cass had been instrumental in beating
him out of the nomination in 1844. Van Buren's
performance so outraged the Missouri Democrats
that they peremptorily changed the name of Van
Bnrpn County to Cass and that of Kinderhook to
Benton.
Speaking of Van Buren, an illustration .of the
far-reaching consequences that small things some
times have, even in the winning and losing of Presi
dencies, was the Quixotic attempt of President Jack
son to force Peggy O'Neal into exclusive Washington
society an attempt that disrupted the Jackson
Cabinet and made much politics. The Cabinet
ladies would have none of Mistress Peggy, and Old
Hickory would have none of their husbands. But
sly Martin Van Buren, being a widower and having
a very clear idea on which side his political bread
was buttered, wisely sided with Jackson and paid
court most, assiduously to pretty Peg a bit of
diplomacy that completely won the General, and
caused him to create the Sage of Kinderhook his
heir apparent. Thus, it is written that when Martin
Van Buren rang the O'Neal doorlell to make his
first call, the history of the United States wa3
changed for twenty years. Mistress Peggy cut nearly
as many high jinks and caused the powers of politics
and government nearly as much trouble as did Helen
in Trojan days.
James Parton says of Jackson that when the latter
came into the Presidency, a Presidential program
was arranged for twenty-four years, as follows:
Andrew Jackson, eight years; Martin Van Buren,
eight years; Thomas H. Benton, eight years; but
unfortunately for that scheme, Old Tippecanoe im
pinged on the scene in the coonskin, hard-cider, log
cabin hysteria of American politics and broke the
program exactly in the middle.
Calhoun'e Boomerang
It will be remembered that Jackson appointed
Van Buren Minister to England during a recess of
the Congress, and he served in that capacity several
- months. When his nomination was Bent to the
Senate it was rejected, his rival for the Presidency,
John C. Calhoun, then Vice-President, casting . the
deciding vote. A few moments later, Senator Benton
remarked to the truculent South Carolinian : "Mr.
Vice-President, you have broken a Minister to Eng
land, but made a President;" and so he had. The
day on which Chief Justice Taney, who had been
rejected by the Senate as Associate Justice,' admin
istered the Presidential oath to Martin Van Buren,
who had been rejected as Minister to the Court of
St. James, was one of the happiest in the stormy
life of Jackson; .
James K. Polk is the only man to have been both
Speaker of the House of Representatives and Presi
dent, though several other Speakers , strove man
fully for the supreme honor of the Republic. Polk,
however, did not reach the Presidency until long
after he had ceased to be Speaker. He and Thomas
Brackett Reed are the only Speakers who have been
thanked .by the House on a strict,, party vote, for
ability and- fairness" in the Chair, He also is the
only man elected to the Presidency, thus far, who
failed to carry his own State. In the Convention
that nominated Polk the vote on the first ballot stood
as follows : Martin Van Buren, of New York, 146 ;
Lewis Cass, of Michigan, 83; Richard M. Johnson,
of Kentucky, 23; James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania,
4; Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, 2; Commo
dore Stewart, of Pennsylvania, 1 ; John C. Calhoun,
of South Carolina, 6. Two-thirds being necessary
to nominate, the voting proceeded until the eighth
ballot, when Polk, whose name had not previously
been mentioned, received 44 votes, and on the ninth
ballot he was unanimously nominated. Van Buren
received a majority on only one ballot the first
while at the late Baltimore Convention I led on thirty
ballots, and had a clear majority on nine of thorn.
Adroit lying and manipulation have more than once
robbed men of the Presidency.
History sometimes repeats itself very nearly in
the movements and machinations of Conventions
the fluctuating tides of politics and the story of
the nomination and election of Polk is of dramatic
interest and somewhat parallel to the Baltimore
situation.
A "Gentlemen' Agreement" That Went Wrong
It was generally accepted that the Democrats
would nominate Martin Van Buren and that the
Whigs would nominate Henry Clay. So, that pair
of worthy and ambitious patriots entered into a
gentlemen's agreement that the question of Texas
annexation, then brewing, should be postponed until
a more convenient season; at least, more convenient
for them. Consequently, Clay wrote a letter against
annexation, and Van Buren gave out a statement of
the same tenor, that would now be dubbed an inter
view. Everything seemed lovely for the twain, but
only seemed so; for a coterie of Southern statesmen
was bent on the immediate annexation of Texas and
on having a President of their own way of thinking.
So, they went quietly and systematically to work to
frustrate the nomination of Van Buren, who had
already secured a majority of the delegates to the
Convention. Many of them, however, were more for
the immediate annexation of Texas than they were
for Van Buren. So, some scheme had to be devised
to save their faces while defeating their candidate.
General Jackson, rusticating at the Hermitage
after weathering the multitudinous storms of a long
life, but with his eagle eye still sweeping the political
horizon and his vengeful heart still set on beating
his ancient enemy, Henry Clay, was for Van Buren
tooth and nail; but he was also for the immediate
annexation of Texas.
Old Hickory was of an unsuspecting character,
and the wily politicians determined to circumvent
him and to make him the destroyer of Martin Van
Buren. Considering how whole-heartedly he stood
by his friends, one is forced to pronounce such a
performance a most cruel one. The schemers in
duced Aaron V. Brown, a Congressman from Ten
nessee, to write Jackson a private letter of inquiry
concerning his views on annexation. In his inno
cence, the General sent a strong reply declaring him
self in favor of immediate annexation. The chances
are that, if pressed, he would have declared in favor
of annexing all of Mexico. However, at the psycho
logical moment the Jackson letter was published and
widely exploited, creating a tremendous sensation.
Even with this aid, it was necessary to formulate a
plan whereby the annexationist delegates who were
instructed for Van Buren could help to crush him
while appearing to support him, thereby exonerating
themselves to their constituents at home. So, the
two-thirds rule was introduced and many annexa
tionist Van Buren delegates voted for it, enabling
themselves to keep the word of promise to the ear
but to break it in fact by voting for Van Buren on
every ballot, knowing full well that he never could
obtain the necessary two-thirds. The plan worked
like a charm in 1844, giving the Democrats a Presi
dent and giving the country Texas, New Mexico,
Arizona, California, Nevada and parts of Oklahoma,
Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska and Utah. Subse
quently as fate frequently ordains in balancing
accounts it worked as a boomerang when, in 1848,
Van Buren bolted for the sake of revenge and de
feated General Cass.
From Battlefield to White Home
I have spoken of Zachary Taylor among the Presi
dents who have owed their White House tenures to
their war records. Taylor not only had never had
any civil experience, but he had never even voted
prior to becoming President. This was due to his
having been in the regular army since he had been
of voting age. His nomination, which Webster de
clared was one unfit to be made, caused the angry
Senator from Massachusetts to characterize him as
a "mere rough frontier soldier," caused Henry Clay
to sulk in his tent, led to Clay being defeated for
President and to the death of the Whig party.
The war between the States made General Grant
President, and aided materially in making Presidents
of Johnson, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Harrison and
McKinley. It also gave Presidential nominations to
McClellan and Hancock, and did much toward
making Frank P. Blair and B. Gratz Brown Vice
Presidential nominees. Grant had never held civil
office prior to being President had, indeed, never
Continued on Page 12)
