Thirty Years' View (Vol. II of 2)

Notwithstanding the tone of this letter, it is entirely certain that Mr. Webster had agreed to go out with his colleagues, and was expected to have done so at the time they sent in their resignations; but, in the mean while, means had been found to effect a change in his determination, probably by disavowing the application of any part of the New York Herald letter to him – certainly (as it appears from his letter) by promising a co-operation in the establishment of a national bank (for that is what was intended by the blessings of a sound currency and cheap exchanges): and also equally certain, from the same letter, that he was made to expect that he would be able to keep all whiggery together – whig President Tyler, whig members of Congress, and whig people, throughout the Union. The belief of these things shows that Mr. Webster was entirely ignorant of the formation of a third party, resting on a democratic basis; and that the President himself was in regular march to the democratic camp. But of all this hereafter.

The reconstruction of his cabinet became the immediate care of the President, and in the course of a month it was accomplished. Mr. Walter Forward, of Pennsylvania, was appointed Secretary of the Treasury; the department of War was offered to Mr. Justice McLean of the Supreme Court of the United States, and upon his refusal to accept the place, it was conferred upon John C. Spencer, Esq., of New York; Mr. Abel P. Upshur, of Virginia, was appointed Secretary of the Navy – Hugh S. Legare, Esq., of South Carolina, Attorney-General – Charles A. Wickliffe, Esq., of Kentucky, Postmaster-General. This cabinet was not of uniform political complexion. Mr. Webster had been permanently of that party which, under whatsoever name, had remained antagonistic to the democracy. Mr. Forward came into public life democratic, and afterwards acted with its antagonists: the same of Mr. Wickliffe and Mr. Spencer: Mr. Upshur a whig, classed with Mr. Calhoun's political friends – Mr. Legare the contrary, and democratic, and distinguished for opposition to nullification, secession, and disunion.

CHAPTER LXXXV.

REPUDIATION OF MR. TYLER BY THE WHIG PARTY: THEIR MANIFESTO: COUNTER MANIFESTO BY MR. CALEB CUSHING

The conduct of Mr. Tyler in relation to a national bank produced its natural effect upon the party which had elected him – disgust and revolt. In both Houses of Congress individual members boldly denounced and renounced him. He seemed to be crushed there, for his assailants were many and fierce – his defenders few, and feeble. But a more formal act of condemnation, and separation was wanted – and had. On the 11th day of September – the day of the cabinet resignations, and two days after the transmission of the second veto message – the whigs of the two Houses had a formal meeting to consider what they should do in the new, anomalous, and acephalous condition in which they found themselves. The deliberations were conducted with all form. Mr. Senator Dixon of Rhode Island and Mr. Jeremiah Morrow of Ohio – both of them men venerable for age and character – were appointed presidents; and Messrs. Kenneth Rayner of North Carolina, Mr. Christopher Morgan of New York, and Richard W. Thompson of Indiana – all members of the House – were appointed secretaries. Mr. Mangum of North Carolina, then offered two resolutions:

"1. That it is expedient for the whigs of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States to publish an address to the people of the United States, containing a succinct exposition of the prominent proceedings of the extra session of Congress, of the measures that have been adopted, and those in which they have failed, and the causes of such failure; together with such other matters as may exhibit truly the condition of the whig party and whig prospects.

"2. That a committee of three on the part of the Senate, and five on the part of the House, be appointed to prepare such address, and submit it to a meeting of the whigs on Monday morning next, the 13th inst., at half past 8 o'clock."

Both resolutions were unanimously adopted, and Messrs. Berrien of Georgia, Tallmadge of New York, and Smith of Indiana were appointed on the part of the Senate; and Messrs. Everett of Vermont, Mason of Ohio, Kennedy of Maryland, John C. Clark of New York, and Rayner of North Carolina, on the part of the House.

At the appointed time the meeting reassembled, and the committee made their report. Much of it was taken up with views and recommendations in relation to the general policy of the party: it is only of what relates to the repudiation of Mr. Tyler that this history intends to speak: for government with us is a struggle of parties: and it is necessary to know how parties are put up, and put down, in order to understand how the government is managed. An opening paragraph of the address set forth that, for twelve years the whigs had carried on a contest for the regulation of the currency, the equalization of exchanges, the economical administration of the finances, and the advancement of industry – all to be accomplished by means of a national bank – declaring these objects to be misunderstood by no one – and the bank itself held to be secured in the presidential election, and its establishment the main object of the extra session. The address then goes on to tell how these cherished hopes were frustrated:

"It is with profound and poignant regret that we find ourselves called upon to invoke your attention to this point. Upon the great and leading measure touching this question, our anxious endeavors to respond to the earnest prayer of the nation have been frustrated by an act as unlooked for as it is to be lamented. We grieve to say to you that by the exercise of that power in the constitution which has ever been regarded with suspicion, and often with odium, by the people – a power which we had hoped was never to be exhibited on this subject, by a whig President – we have been defeated in two attempts to create a fiscal agent, which the wants of the country had demonstrated to us, in the most absolute form of proof, to be eminently necessary and proper in the present emergency. Twice have we, with the utmost diligence and deliberation, matured a plan for the collection, safe-keeping and disbursing of the public moneys through the agency of a corporation adapted to that end, and twice has it been our fate to encounter the opposition of the President, through the application of the veto power. The character of that veto in each case, the circumstances in which it was administered, and the grounds upon which it has met the decided disapprobation of your friends in Congress, are sufficiently apparent in the public documents and the debates relating to it. This subject has acquired a painful interest with us, and will doubtless acquire it with you, from the unhappy developments with which it is accompanied. We are constrained to say, that we find no ground to justify us in the conviction that the veto of the President has been interposed on this question solely upon conscientious and well-considered opinions of constitutional scruple as to his duty in the case presented. On the contrary, too many proofs have been forced upon our observation to leave us free from the apprehension, that the President has permitted himself to be beguiled into an opinion that, by this exhibition of his prerogative, he might be able to divert the policy of his administration into a channel which should lead to new political combinations, and accomplish results which must overthrow the present divisions of party in the country; and finally produce a state of things which those who elected him, at least, have never contemplated. We have seen from an early period of the session, that the whig party did not enjoy the confidence of the President. With mortification we have observed that his associations more sedulously aimed at a free communion with those who have been busy to prostrate our purposes, rather than those whose principles seemed to be most identified with the power by which he was elected. We have reason to believe that he has permitted himself to be approached, counselled and influenced by those who have manifested least interest in the success of whig measures. What were represented to be his opinions and designs have been freely and even insolently put forth in certain portions, and those not the most reputable, of the public press, in a manner that ought to be deemed offensive to his honor, as it certainly was to the feelings of those who were believed to be his friends. In the earnest endeavor manifested by the members of the whig party in Congress to ascertain specifically the President's notions in reference to the details of such a bill relating to a fiscal agent as would be likely to meet his approbation, the frequent changes of his opinion, and the singular want of consistency in his views, have baffled his best friends, and rendered the hope of adjustment with him impossible."

"The plan of an exchange bank, such as was reported after the first veto, the President is understood by more than one member of Congress to whom he expressed his opinion, to have regarded as a favorite measure. It was in view of this opinion, suggested as it is in his first veto, and after using every proper effort to ascertain his precise views upon it, that the committee of the House of Representatives reported their second bill. It made provision for a bank without the privilege of local discounting, and was adapted as closely as possible to that class of mercantile operations which the first veto message describes with approbation, and which that paper specifically illustrates by reference to the 'dealings in the exchanges' of the Bank of the United States in 1833, which the President affirms 'amounted to upwards of one hundred millions of dollars.' Yet this plan, when it was submitted to him, was objected to on a new ground. The last veto has narrowed the question of a bank down to the basis of the sub-treasury scheme, and it is obvious from the opinions of that message that the country is not to expect any thing better than the exploded sub-treasury, or some measure of the same character, from Mr. Tyler. In the midst of all these varieties of opinion, an impenetrable mystery seemed to hang over the whole question. There was no such frank interchange of sentiment as ought to characterize the intercourse of a President and his friends, and the last persons in the government who would seem to have been intrusted with his confidence on those embarrassing topics were the constitutional advisers which the laws had provided for him. In this review of the position into which the late events have thrown the whig party, it is with profound sorrow we look to the course pursued by the President. He has wrested from us one of the best fruits of a long and painful struggle, and the consummation of a glorious victory; he has even perhaps thrown us once more upon the field of political strife, not weakened in numbers, nor shorn of the support of the country, but stripped of the arms which success had placed in our hands, and left again to rely upon that high patriotism which for twelve years sustained us in a conflict of unequalled asperity, and which finally brought us to the fulfilment of those brilliant hopes which he has done so much to destroy."

Having thus shown the loss, by the conduct of the President, of all the main fruits of a great victory after a twelve years' contest, the address goes on to look to the future, and to inquire what is to be the conduct of the party in such unexpected and disastrous circumstances? and the first answer to that inquiry is, to establish a permanent separation of the whig party from Mr. Tyler, and to wash their hands of all accountability for his acts.

"In this state of things, the whigs will naturally look with anxiety to the future, and inquire what are the actual relations between the President and those who brought him into power; and what, in the opinion of their friends in Congress, should be their course hereafter. On both of these questions we feel it to be our duty to address you in perfect frankness and without reserve, but, at the same time, with due respect to others. In regard to the first, we are constrained to say that the President, by the course he has adopted in respect to the application of the veto power to two successive bank charters, each of which there was just reason to believe would meet his approbation; by his withdrawal of confidence from his real friends in Congress and from the members of his cabinet; by his bestowal of it upon others notwithstanding their notorious opposition to leading measures of his administration, has voluntarily separated himself from those by whose exertions and suffrages he was elevated to that office through which he reached his present exalted station. The existence of this unnatural relation is as extraordinary as the annunciation of it is painful and mortifying. What are the consequences and duties which grow out of it? The first consequence is, that those who brought the President into power can be no longer, in any manner or degree, justly held responsible or blamed for the administration of the executive branch of the government; and that the President and his advisers should be exclusively hereafter deemed accountable."

Then comes the consideration of what they are to do? and after inculcating, in the ancient form, the laudable policy of supporting their obnoxious President when he was 'right,' and opposing him when he was 'wrong' – phrases repeated by all parties, to be complied with by none – they go on to recommend courage and unity to their discomfited ranks – to promise a new victory at the next election; and with it the establishment of all their measures, crowned by a national bank.

"The conduct of the President has occasioned bitter mortification and deep regret. Shall the party, therefore, yielding to sentiments of despair, abandon its duty, and submit to defeat and disgrace? Far from suffering such dishonorable consequences, the very disappointment which it has unfortunately experienced should serve only to redouble its exertions, and to inspire it with fresh courage to persevere with a spirit unsubdued and a resolution unshaken, until the prosperity of the country is fully re-established, and its liberties firmly secured against all danger from the abuses, encroachments or usurpations of the executive department of the government."

This was the manifesto, so far as it concerns the repudiation of Mr. Tyler, which the whig members of Congress put forth: it was answered (under the name of an address to his constituents) by Mr. Cushing, in what may be called a counter manifesto: for it was on the same subject as the other, and counter to it at all points – especially on the fundamental point of, which party the President was to belong to! the manifesto of the whig members assigning him to the democracy – the counter manifesto claiming him for the whigs! In this, Mr. Cushing followed the lead of Mr. Webster in his letter of resignation: and, in fact, the whole of his pleading (for such it was) was an amplification of Mr. Webster's letter to the editors of the National Intelligencer, and of the one to Messrs. Bates and Choate, and of another to Mr. Ketchum, of New York. The first part of the address of Mr. Cushing, is to justify the President for changing his course on the fiscal corporation bill; and this attempted in a thrust at Mr Clay thus:

"A caucus dictatorship has been set up in Congress, which, not satisfied with ruling that body to the extinguishment of individual freedom of opinion, seeks to control the President in his proper sphere of duty, denounces him before you for refusing to surrender his independence and his conscience to its decree, and proposes, through subversion of the fundamental provisions and principles of the constitution, to usurp the command of the government. It is a question, therefore, in fact, not of legislative measures, but of revolution. What is the visible, and the only professed, origin of these extraordinary movements? The whig party in Congress have been extremely desirous to cause a law to be enacted at the late session, incorporating a national bank. Encountering, in the veto of the President, a constitutional obstacle to the enactment of such a law at the late session, a certain portion of the whig party, represented by the caucus dictatorship, proceeds then, in the beginning, to denounce the President. Will you concur in this denunciation of the President?"

This was the accusation, first hinted at by Mr. Rives in the Senate, afterwards obscurely intimated in Mr. Webster's letter to the two Massachusetts senators; and now broadly stated by Mr. Cushing; without, however, naming the imputed dictator; which was, in fact, unnecessary. Every body knew that Mr. Clay was the person intended; with what justice, not to repeat proofs already given, let the single fact answer, that these caucus meetings (for such there were) were all subsequent to Mr. Tyler's change on the bank question! and in consequence of it! and solely with a view to get him back! and that by conciliation until after the second veto. In this thrust at Mr. Clay Mr. Cushing was acting in the interest of Mr. Webster's feelings as well as those of Tyler; for since 1832 Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster had not been amicable, and barely kept in civil relations by friends, who had frequently to interpose to prevent, or compose outbreaks; and even to make in the Senate formal annunciation of reconciliation effected between them. But the design required Mr. Clay to be made the cause of the rejection of the bank bills; and also required him to be crippled as the leader of the anti-administration whigs. In this view Mr. Cushing resumes:

"When Lord Grenville broke up the whig party of England, in 1807, by the unseasonable pressure of some great question, and its consequent loss, 'Why,' said Sheridan, 'did they not put it off as Fox did? I have heard of men running their heads against a wall; but this is the first time I ever heard of men building a wall, and squaring it, and clamping it, for the express purpose of knocking out their brains against it.' This bon mot of Sheridan's will apply to the whig party in Congress, if, on account of the failure of the bank bill at the late session, they secede from the administration, and set up as a Tertium Quid in the government, neither administration nor opposition."

Having presented this spectacle of their brains beaten out against a wall of their own raising, if the whig party should follow Mr. Clay into opposition to the Tyler-Webster administration, Mr. Cushing took the party on another tack – that of the bird in the hand, which is worth two in the bush; and softly commences with them on the profit of using the presidential power while they had it:

"Is it wise for the whig party to throw away the actuality of power for the current four years? If so, for what object? For some contingent possibility four years hence? If so, what one? Is the contingent possibility of advancing to power four years hence any one particular man in its ranks, whoever he may be, and however eminently deserving, a sufficient object to induce the whig party to abdicate the power which itself as a body possesses now?"

And changing again, and from seduction to terror, he presents to them, as the most appalling of all calamities, the possible election of a democratic President at the next election through the deplorable divisions of the whig party.

"If so, will its abdication of power now tend to promote that object? Is it not, on the contrary, the very means to make sure the success of some candidate of the democratic party?"

Proceeding to the direct defence of the President, he then boldly absolves him from any violation of faith in rejecting the two bank bills. Thus:

"In refusing to sign those bills, then, he violated no engagement, and committed no act of perfidy in the sense of a forfeited pledge."

And advancing from exculpation to applause, he makes it an act of conscience in Mr. Tyler in refusing to sign them, and places him under the imperious command of a triple power – conscience, constitution, oath; without the faculty of doing otherwise than he did.

"But, in this particular, the President, as an upright man, could do no otherwise than he did. He conscientiously disapproved those bills. And the constitution, which he was sworn to obey, commands him, expressly and peremptorily commands him, if he do not approve of any bill presented to him for his signature, to return it to the House of Congress in which it originated. 'If he approve he shall sign it: if not, he SHALL return it,' are the words of the constitution. Would you as conscientious men yourselves, forbid the President of the United States to have a conscience?"

Acquittal of the President of all hand in the initiation of the second bill, is the next task of Mr. Cushing, and he boldly essays it.

"The President, it is charged, trifled with one or more of the retiring secretaries. Of what occurred at cabinet meetings, the public knows and can know nothing. But, as to the main point, whether he initiated the fiscal corporation bill. This idea is incompatible with the dates and facts above stated, which show that the consideration of a new bill was forced on the President by members of Congress. It is, also, incompatible with the fact that, on Tuesday, the 17th of August, as it is said by the Secretary of War, the President expressed to him doubt as to any bill."

Now what happened in these cabinet meetings is well known to the public from the concurrent statement of three of the secretaries, and from presidential declarations to members of Congress, and these statements cover the main point of the initiation of the second bill by the President himself; and that not on the 18th, but the 16th of August, and not only to his cabinet but to Mr. Stuart of Virginia the same evening; and that it was two days afterwards that the two members of Congress called upon him (Messrs. Sergeant and Berrien), not to force him to take a bill, but to be forced by him to run his own bill through in three days. Demurring to the idea that the President could be forced by members of Congress to adopt an obnoxious bill, the brief statement is, that it is not true. The same is to be said of the quoted remark of the Secretary at War, Mr. Bell, that the President expressed to him a doubt whether he would sign any bank bill – leaving out the astonishment of the Secretary at that declaration, who had been requested by the President the day before to furnish facts in favor of the bill; and who came to deliver a statement of these facts thus prepared, and in great haste, upon request; and when brought, received with indifference! and a doubt expressed whether he would sign any bill. Far from proving that the President had a consistent doubt upon the subject, which is the object of the mutilated quotation from Mr. Bell – it proves just the contrary! proves that the President was for the bill, and began it himself, on the 16th; and was laying an anchor to windward for its rejection on the 17th! having changed during the night.

The retirement of all the cabinet ministers but one, and that for such reasons as they gave, is treated by Mr. Cushing as a thing of no signification, and of no consequence to any body but themselves. He calls it a common fact which has happened under many administrations, and of no permanent consequence, provided good successors are appointed. All that is right enough where secretaries retire for personal reasons, such as are often seen; but when they retire because they impeach the President of great moral delinquency, and refuse to remain with him on that account, the state of the case is altered. He and they are public officers; and officers at the head of the government; and their public conduct is matter of national concern; and the people have a right to inquire and to know the public conduct of public men. The fact that Mr. Webster remained is considered as overbalancing the withdrawal of all the others; and is thus noticed by Mr. Cushing:

"And that, whilst those gentlemen have retired, yet the Secretary of State, in whose patriotism and ability you have more immediate cause to confide, has declared that he knows no sufficient cause for such separation, and continues to co-operate cordially with the President in the discharge of the duties of that station which he fills with so much honor to himself and advantage to the country."