CHAPTER II.

THE RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY IN THE SOUTH,

1836-1840.

If the situation before 1836 had revealed certain anomalies in the anti-administration ranks, the future had still more in store. It was now to exhibit this Whig opposition, increased by a new element, making its first presidential contest in the South under the banner of a man who had supported each and every step which Jackson had taken-every move that had tended to lessen the confidence of the nation in its chief magistrate. This, too, was done under the slogan of resistance to executive usurpation which now came to have a still more enlarged definition. Reference is made to the campaign of Judge Hugh L. White in the South against Van Buren, the official nominee for the presidency.

Even before Jackson had begun his second four years of service at the head of the national government, his intention to make Van Buren his successor had become noised about. At once objectors appeared on all sides, even among the loudest advocates of Jacksonian democracy. Martin Van Buren was almost the last man who could have been expected to stem the current in the South which had set in against the party in power. There were, to be sure, those who were called "collar men ", ready to bow the knee and submit their necks to the collar without knowing why or wherefore, but it was felt that they were limited to the less

intelligent people and were steadily decreasing in number. The state rights men always preferred to explain their breach with the administration as due to their "aversion and even abhorrence" toward Van Buren, who came to be denounced as "the Arch Magician, abolitionist and political intriguer" and whose corruption they considered as more and more verified every day. Not only was there this widespread personal hostility to Van Buren but, on the other hand, Jackson's own course was regarded as a new and arbitrary proceeding this matter of choosing one's successor in that high office. The number of those who took this view steadily increased but this did not bend the president from his purpose. On the contrary, it soon became a matter of general comment that he was making use of the vast official patronage of the executive department to further his intention. It was inevitable that the leaders within the party who had more or less definite presidential aspirations should be chagrined at this and inclined to join the number of the disaffected. While matters were in this condition, Senator White of Tennessee yielded to the request of the delegation from his state and announced his willingness to make the contest for the presidency.

Thus far Jackson had apparently suffered but little in his home state from his course on the bank and on nullification. There the politicians held sway and they saw to it that the state remained on the loyal side. But when it is realized that Tennessee's presidential vote in 1836 was more than double that of the previous election, it

1 1 B. B. Smith to Mangum, May 27, 1836; cf. S. Hillman to Mangum, Feb. 16, 1834, Mangum MSS.

Mangum to John Bell, June 15, 1835, etc., ibid.

Scott, Memoir of H. L. White, 330; Niles' Register, XLVIII, 39.

becomes clear that there must have been a large “stayat-home vote", evidently not in sympathy with Jacksonian democracy as it could not be brought to the polls even by the intense local excitement in the interest of " Old Hickory "

As president, moreover, Jackson had distributed the rewards for fidelity among his active supporters with absolute disregard for impartiality. Polk and Grundy and others had received the confidence and favor of the administration, while John Bell and the friends of Judge White had to a large extent been overlooked. This favoritism caused a gradual estrangement of the latter group from the administration. As soon as Jackson perceived this lukewarmness, his partiality increased and reconciliation grew more and more impossible. The decision was reached on the part of the White supporters that their popular senator was, on general political principles as on all other grounds, preferable to Van Buren for the next presidency; so they prepared to push his candidacy even at the risk of a rupture with the executive. They tried to make it clear, however, that he was put forward as the representative of all those democratic principles which had brought Jackson into office and that no antagonism was necessarily intended to the president whose administration they had consistently supported."

Judge White was a strict constructionist of the purest type. He had an exaggerated fear of federalism and consistently opposed on constitutional grounds a na

Cf. Caldwell, "John Bell of Tennessee ", in Am. Hist. Rev., IV, 657.

Cf. Bell's Vauxhall speech, Nashville Banner, June 15, 1835, in Niles' Register, XLVIII, 330-336; also his address to the editor of the Nashville Republican, May 4, 1835, in ibid., 229-232.

tional bank, a protective tariff, and internal improvements by the national government. He had been Jackson's confidential adviser in the early part of his first administration but had been superseded by the so-called "kitchen cabinet". Retiring gracefully, he remained a loyal supporter of the president but was always suspicious of his close relations with Van Buren, which caused a gradual estrangement."

The movement to repudiate Jackson's choice for a successor spread, and concentrated in the South on White as the opposing candidate. It acquired a sound basis when, in 1835, both the Alabama and Tennessee legislatures passed resolutions formally nominating him for the presidency. Jackson did all he could to stem the tide. On February 23, 1835, he wrote a letter denying that he had interfered with the free choice by the people of a presidential candidate." White and his friends were denounced by the official organ" and newspapers were established in Tennessee to combat the heresy. But the movement acquired such strength that it soon became the most formidable factor of the opposition to Van Buren in the South.

This new group of anti-administration men, who had hitherto been careful not to incur Jackson's displeasure, had much in common with those advocates of particularism who had broken away from him in the nullification period. Under the circumstances the state rights men, except in South Carolina where they could

• Scott, Memoir of H. L. White, 73-76, 78-81; cf. his letter to Sherrod Williams, July 2, 1836, Niles' Register, LI, 44.

7 Scott, op. cit., 246, 251.

Niles' Register, XLVII, 378; Scott, op. cit., 331-332.

Niles' Register, XLVIII, 80-81.

10 Washington Globe, April 13, 15, etc., 1835; Niles' Register, XLIX, 294, 337, 376.

not forget White's vote on the Force Bill, naturally came at once to his support.'

11

But the course of the nationalists was more uncertain. Except in Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Louisiana, and perhaps Virginia, they found themselves outnumbered by the other opposition factions. In the first three states they went for Harrison, the regular candidate of the northern Whigs. The Virginia nationals solved their peculiar problems in convention by nominating Harrison and Tyler and then adopting the regular White electoral ticket." But elsewhere in the South they followed the majority and supported White, it being evident that except by union and harmony they could not expect to defeat Van Buren. The great rally-cry had become "Anything to beat Van Buren". Clay himself favored White as a separate opposition candidate for the South, hoping that the election might thereby be thrown into the House and Van Buren's defeat secured." Even should White be elected, he and his friends considered it a lesser evil than the success of the " designated heir "."

Jackson and his press characterized the opposition at this time as "White-whiggery ", a combination of "federalists, nullifiers, and new born whigs ", a " Holy

" Id., XLVIII, 264; Tyler, Tylers, I, 516-517; Gilmer, First Settlers of Upper Georgia, 501-502.

12 Niles' Register, L, 330. Tyler was the favorite Whig candidate in the South for the vice-presidency. There was little interest, however, in this phase of the contest. See R. B. Gillian to Mangum, April 1, 1836,

Mangum MSS.

13 Clay, Private Correspondence, 394-395; Coleman, Life of J. J. Crittenden, I, 89.

14 Crittenden, writing to J. T. Morehead, Dec. 23, 1835, commended "the common object of checking the dictated succession and changing the Dynasty. . . . To some extent the friends of White and Harrison have, as I have before stated, a common object, namely, to defeat Van Burenism, and this common object is a point of union for them." Crittenden MSS.