University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER III

NATIONAL POLITICS IN VIRGINIA, 1825-1845

The Federalist party had contrived to identify itself with
every principle odious to the masses of the people both North
and South. Everybody deserted it, and the great Republican
party held the political field in solitary triumph during the
administration of James Monroe (1817-1825).

But the old sectional differences were by no means done
away with, and this was convincingly shown in the controversy
over the admission of Missouri in 1820, as set forth in
the previous chapter.

At the end of Monroe's administration the Republican
party became split into four factions, headed respectively by
Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and William
H. Crawford. Of these only Crawford was distinctively
a representative of the southern nation. The northern nation
had its proper representative in John Quincy Adams, and
Jackson and Clay represented the great West, whose northern
sympathies were for the time obscured by its adoption of the
great principle of democracy championed by Virginia. All
three, however, were advocates of the ideas then popular
under the name of the "American System," embracing internal
improvements and a protective tariff. Mr. Crawford, who
was a native of Virginia and resident of Georgia, alone
opposed. He was consequently the favorite of Virginia and
Mr. Jefferson, and received the support of the Virginia Legislature
for the presidency.

Unfortunately just before the election a stroke of paralysis
impaired Mr. Crawford's health and dampened the ardor
of his friends. Calhoun, of South Carolina, who had also

designs on the presidency, wisely consented to abandon his
aspirations therefor for the vice presidency, and of the four
presidential candidates, Jackson received ninety-nine votes in
the electoral college, Adams, eighty-four, Crawford forty-one
and Clay thirty-seven. There being no choice by the people,
the selection between the three standing highest on the list
devolved upon the House of Representatives. In this body
Clay's friends would have voted for Crawford except for his
reported sickness, and they finally narrowly effected Adams'
installation into the coveted office of chief magistrate. Seven
states voted for Jackson, four for Crawford and thirteen for
Adams. Had Maryland voted against Adams he could not
have been elected and the vote of Maryland was carried in his
favor by a single vote, and of a total of 212 members of the
House of Representatives only eighty-seven members of the
House supported Adams, seventy-one Jackson and fifty-four
Crawford. The six New England states recorded their votes
for Adams, the whole of them together containing a population
not much greater than that of Georgia and Virginia,
which voted for Crawford.

Because Jackson's name, however, stood first in the list,
his adherents raised a cry that Adams had bought Clay's aid
by promising him the office of secretary of state. It seized
upon the sensibilities of the people to cry bargain and corruption,
and when Randolph formulated it as "the Combination
of the Black Leg and the Puritan" the charge flew like
wildfire over the land and caused great excitement.

Clay's preference had been originally Crawford, and consequently
the Crawford party in Virginia more or less sympathized
with Clay. As between Adams and Jackson, the
Crawford party preferred the former, and Crawford and
Clay aside would have voted for Adams in preference to
Jackson. The latter's violent conduct in Florida and strong
arbitrary will, evinced in public brawls and personal encounters,
argued poorly for the observance of strict constitutional
limitations. On the other hand, Adams had been secretary

of state for James Monroe eight years, and his views on the
American system were not as yet disclosed.

But it was not for long. In his inaugural address Adams
talked about the aqueducts of Rome as the example to be
imitated by this country, and strongly advised the extension
of roads and canals throughout the whole Union. Mr. Rush,
the secretary of the treasury, gave even a more explicit interpretation
to the policy of the Government which was[43] "to
organize the whole labor of the country, to entice into its
widest ranges its mechanical and intellectual capabilities,
instead of suffering them to slumber; to call forth, wherever
hidden, latent ingenuity; giving to effort activity and to
emulation ardor; to create employment for the greatest
amount of numbers by adapting it to the diversified faculties,
propensities and situations of men, so that every particle
of ability, every shade of genius, may come into requisition."

This latitudinous avowal of the administration threw the
followers of Mr. Crawford in opposition, and the great Republican
party slowly condensed into two great opposing bodies
called Democrats and National Republicans. In 1824 the Jackson
men and "old school" advocates stood furthest apart in
feeling. It was Jackson, Adams, Clay and Crawford. Yet
by the circumstance of their both being "outs" and their common
opposition to any class system, they were compelled by
1827 into some sort of union to beat the "ins." They came
to constitute the Democratic party, and as curiously illustrative
of the spirit of its Jackson wing, all the factions of the
old Federalist party, other than the Adams men, allied themselves
with it. Among the Jackson Democrats were such old
Federalists as Timothy Pickering and James A. Hamilton, son
of Alexander Hamilton.

The friends of Adams and Clay fused more naturally into
the National Republican party, and embraced that portion of
the old Federalist party who had supported the administration
of John Adams. Neither party, however, admitted any kinship

with the defunct Federalist party, and both looked to
Jefferson as the great exponent of their principles. Hamilton
was a discredited politician, and his fame was revived only
after the War of 1861-65, which wiped out the South as an
influential factor in the Government, and made popular the
monarchical and autocratic views of the North.

The support given the American system was not long in
bringing out again the sectional character of the Union. We
have seen that, as early as the first session of the First Congress,
William Grayson denounced the raising of revenue by
impost as particularly injurious to the South. Even under
the first tariff (approved July 4, 1789) the eastern interest
was in the ascendancy, and at the start there was a manifest
disposition for the advancement of commerce and manufactures,
in preference to agriculture. The next year (1790) saw
a greater preference. While New England was benefited by
an increase of bounty on dried fish from 5 cents a quintal to
10 cents, and the tax on molasses was made only 3 cents per
gallon instead of 2½ cents, salt in which the South was much
interested in curing bacon was taxed 12 cents a bushel instead
of 6 cents.

Thus time passed on, and the tariff rates and bounties
steadily grew in figures, always to the disadvantage of the
South, until under the tariff of 1816 duties on cotton and
woolen cloth stood at 20 and 25 per cent and the average rate
of the bill was 20 per cent.

However, the primary object of this tariff, at this time,
as of all preceding it, was for revenue, and only incidentally
for protection, and it was not till 1820 that the direct issue
of a protective tariff was, for the first time, raised in Congress.
The policy was supported by the middle and western states,
aided by South Carolina, who suffered, as she had done a long
time before, under a sad misapprehension of her interests.
The rest of the South, under the lead of Virginia, was positive
against the measure. New England was divided on account
of its shipping interest which needed free trade. But the

opposition of the latter could not continue, since the rates for
revenue hitherto imposed had made predominant its manufacturing
interests.

Petitions in favor of an increase of duties, so as to afford
not revenue but protection, were offered at the session of
Congress in 1819. The Virginia Society for Promoting Agriculture
offered counter memorials. These were referred to a
committee of which Baldwin, of Pennsylvania, was chairman.
In March, 1820, he reported a bill raising the tariff rates on
woolen and cotton goods from an average of about 20 per cent
to 30 per cent. On April 22, 1820, John Tyler, of Virginia,
moved to strike out the first section of the bill, and two days
after opened the debate against the tariff in an exhaustive
reply to Mr. Baldwin. In this debate Mr. Tyler made the prediction,
scoffed at then but abundantly verified by subsequent
events, that "this was but the incipient measure of a system;
that after the lapse of a very few years we should be assailed
by as urgent petitions as those which have poured in on us at
the present session." The merchants of Richmond now followed
the example of the farmers of the state and adopted an
able memorial prepared by Thomas Rutherfoord of Richmond,
which drew a sharp criticism from Mr. Baldwin.

Despite all protests, the bill for revision in the House of
Representatives passed by a vote of 90 to 69, but the bill
failed in the Senate, and no new tariff was enacted at this
session.

But, as predicted, the manufacturers, defeated in 1820,
returned to the charge in 1824, and obtained this time an
imposition of duties averaging 33 per cent. This was an
enormous increase, but the lust of the manufacturers did not
stop at this point. Passed in a time of profound peace, these
high rates seemed only to sharpen the appetite of the tariff
men, and soon a new move was made for more rates and more
protection. So brazen indeed did the manufacturers and
northern speculators become that the slumbers of the whole
South were by this time perturbed. South Carolina, which

controlled by the city of Charleston, had, under the influence
of Lowndes and Calhoun, long acted with New England,
now wheeled into line with Virginia, and the whole South
awoke to realize that they were in the hands of a remorseless
northern majority. The milch cow which had for long years
allowed herself to be milked by the North at length began to
kick and wickedly shake her horns, under the patent device
which kept her poor and starved her young.

The tariff came up again in 1828. It was now a solid
South against a solid North. But instead of organizing armed
resistance against a system of taxation, which John Randolph
pronounced in many respects worse than any form of British
tyranny, the South adopted the poor politics of playing off
the interests of the middle states against the interests of the
eastern states. They united with Pennsylvania and Ohio to
impose duties on iron, hemp, wool and molasses, contrary to
the wishes of the New England states, hoping by thus amending
the bill to kill it in the estimation of its best friends. In
this they were disappointed. The representatives of New
England made a wry face and voted for the bill, as its advantages,
when calmly considered by them, overbalanced the
disadvantages. By this bill the rates of the protective tariff
were raised to an average of 50 per cent. As it satisfied nobody
entirely, it stands stigmatized in history as "the bill of abominations."
Yet, if the protective principle was a just one, this
tariff was the best that had ever passed into law, since by
the policy of the South its operations were more general and
uniform.

Virginia was hurled off from the Adams administration,
and in the election which followed in the fall of 1828 voted, as
a choice of evils, for Andrew Jackson. The manufacturers
had got their bill, but from the poison infused into its vitals
they had very little heart to forward the ambition of Adams
for a second term, who was left in a hopeless minority. Out
of 261 electoral votes, Adams received but eighty-three. The
Crawford men gave Virginia and Georgia to Jackson, and

there as elsewhere severely rebuked the indiscretion of
Adams.

But they had only jumped from the frying pan into the
fire. The administration of Jackson proved as one-sided as
that of Adams. Jackson, while putting a stop to the speculation
in roads and canals, approved all the river and harbor
bills submitted to him, and on the tariff, while declaring himself
for revenue, with incidental protection to the "best interests
of the country, including agriculture, commerce and manufactures,"
he made no serious attempt till the end of his
term to modify the Tariff of Abominations.

In the interim, the indignation of the South rose to great
heights. During the session of 1827-28, while the Tariff of
Abominations was before Congress, Virginia by resolutions
of her Legislature expressed her solemn objections to the constitutionality
of laws passed in the interest of protection,
and at the session of 1828-9 the Legislature passed resolutions
affirming the doctrines of 1798-9, that the Union was a compact
between sovereign states, and that as such each state had the
right to construe the compact for itself. She declared her
unalterable attachment to the Union, but insisted that the
tariff ought to be repealed. All the other southern states
adopted similar action. But no attention was paid by the
North to these complaints.

In 1830 a bill was passed by Congress making the custom
house appraisal more rigorous and effective, and the same
year George McDuffie, of South Carolina, made an ineffectual
effort to reduce all duties on woolens and cottons to about the
rates of the tariff of 1820. The patience of the South was
phenomenal, and only South Carolina took action, but unfortunately
adopted a policy which appeared to the other states
as illogical and irrational. This policy was nullification, which
the eloquent Hayne advanced in 1830 in his celebrated debate
with Webster. This, together with the approaching presidential
election, rendered the succeeding session of 1831-32 one
of much interest.

Not long before Congress came together the National
Republicans met at Baltimore and nominated Henry Clay on
a strong bank and tariff platform. At a conference of his
supporters he proposed to reduce the revenue taxes on tea,
coffee and wine and such other articles as did not enter into
competition with articles produced in this country. His object
was not to relieve the South, but to decrease the revenue so
as to prevent Jackson from paying off the national debt during
his term of office. On January 10, 1832, Clay proposed a
resolution in the Senate to this effect.

This resolution was debated and finally referred to the
Committee on Manufactures, who in a few days after, reported
a measure in accordance with its provisions. This, however,
was soon laid on the table, and a bill from the House of Representatives
prepared by Mr. John Quincy Adams, "in perfect
concert," as he said,[44] "with the administration," finally
passed both houses July 14, 1832. This bill proceeded, on the
principle of Mr. Clay's resolution, and abolished many of the
revenue taxes, thus exempting the manufacturing portion of
the community from almost all the burdens of taxation. The
duties remained at high protective rates on the protected
articles and the revision left the tariff a greater curse than it
was before.

The disgust of the southerners at the unconscionable conduct
of the majority in Congress was deep. They were told
in so many words that their property and their lives and even
the Union itself were nothing as compared with the profits of
the northern manufacturers. Things were coming to a crisis
which might have ended in the peaceable dissolution of an
impossible Union, when South Carolina shifted the issue by
taking action along the line of nullification, which revolted
the notions of the other southern states. The doctrine of
nullification set South Carolina apart to herself, and while
her sister southern states denounced the tariff they refused to
admit the logic of her political philosophy. The tariff men

gladly hid the true nature of the controversy under the seemingly
patriotic demand that the laws enacted by Congress
should be maintained.

After the passage of the tariff bill the governor of South
Carolina issued his proclamation, convening the Legislature
for the 22nd of October, 1832—a month in advance of the
regular meeting. The Legislature assembled, and on October
25, ordered a convention for the 19th of November. Pursuant
to this, the Convention met and adopted an ordinance that
the acts of Congress relating to the tariff should be null and
void within the state after the 1st of February, 1833. The
Legislature of South Carolina met directly after the adjournment
of the convention, November 27, 1832, and passed laws
providing for the prospective enforcement of the ordinance
within the state.

About this time the presidential election occurred. Virginia
and the Crawford men in the state cast their vote for
Andrew Jackson, who on some questions had favored states
rights. South Carolina voted for John Floyd, governor of
Virginia, who in a message to the Legislature took strong
ground against the coercion of South Carolina. The National
Republicans voted for Henry Clay. Jackson was elected by
an overwhelming vote.

Senator Littleton Waller Tazewell resigned and on December
10, W. C. Rives was elected as senator to fill the vacancy
caused by Mr. Tazewell's resignation.

Simultaneously with Rives' election appeared Jackson's
proclamation of December 10, 1832, denouncing both nullification
and secession and pronouncing the people of the United
States a people in the aggregate—in other words a consolidation.
The paper was written by Edward Livingston, a Jackson
Democrat of ultra Federal ideas, an advocate of the tariff
of 1828, and the defender of Jackson for his unconstitutional
act in appointing a minister to Turkey in 1831, before any
such mission was created or authorized by Congress. The
whole states rights party were on the instant hurled off from

the administration, and forced into sympathy with South
Carolina. The old duality once more appeared, and on January
21, 1833, a bill giving Jackson powers to use the army
and navy to enforce the tariff law was reported to the Senate,
and became the subject of a long and exciting debate.

The Union sympathy which had grown in Virginia since
the Missouri question was in strong evidence, however, and
it tried to settle the dispute with South Carolina by compromise.
The Legislature of Virginia sought to intervene, and
on January 26, 1833, instructed her senators, Rives and Tyler,
to support a compromise policy, and Benjamin Watkins Leigh
was appointed a commissioner to proceed to South Carolina,
with a view of persuading her to suspend her ordinance of
nullification.

This attempt at intervention was successful in both directions.
John Tyler, who on January 30, 1833, was reelected to
the Senate over James McDowell, a follower of Jackson, persuaded
Henry Clay to offer on February 12, 1833, a bill, essentially
repealing the tariff of 1832, and drafted in accordance
with Tyler's suggestions;[45] and Mr. Leigh's appointment as
commissioner to South Carolina was promptly followed by a
suspension of the nullification ordinance, whose operation was
set for the first of February, 1833. Mr. Leigh's arrival in
Columbia on February 3, had still further confirmed the
people of South Carolina in this pacific policy.

The new tariff, called "the Compromise Tariff," was
based on the principle of a gradual reduction of the rates. As
reported by Clay to the Senate, it provided for biennial reductions
of one-tenth on all duties over 20 per cent until the 31st
of December, 1841, when one-half of the residue was to be
deducted, and after the 30th of June, 1842, the duties on all
goods were to be reduced to 20 per cent, to be paid in cash at
the home valuation, and levied with a view to "an economical
administration of the government."

The Force bill and the Compromise Tariff—the sword and

the olive branch, the vulture and the dove—confronted one
another in the Senate until the 20th of February, when the
Force bill was passed by a vote of 32 to 1. The vote of Virginia
was divided—William C. Rives voting for it and John
Tyler voting against it. In the House on March 1st the Force
bill was passed by 149 to 47. It should be observed that in
the vote in the Senate all the opposition southern senators,
save John Tyler, withdrew from their seats, and, for various
reasons of policy, did not vote. There were some senators,
doubtless, who voted for the bill, because they considered its
teeth had been drawn by the Compromise Tariff bill then pending.
This feeling would have governed Mr. Clay in voting for
the bill, but he was not present.[46]

On the other hand, the Compromise Tariff, which Mr. Clay
proposed in the Senate February 12, 1833, was offered by his
friend, Mr. Letcher, in the House on February 25. It passed
that House the next day by 119 votes to 85, and was sent to the
Senate, where it passed on March 1, the same day as the
Force bill passed the House, by twenty-nine to sixteen.

When the South Carolina convention met again on March
11, the ordinance nullifying the tariff measure was repealed,
but the convention passed another act nullifying the Force
bill.

Thus the Union was saved by the intervention of Virginia,
for civil war, with very certain consequences, would have
resulted, had the tariff continued unchanged. As a matter
of fact the South was far more solid at this time than its vote
in Congress seemed to indicate. On December 19, 1832, Governor
John Floyd gave notice in a special message to the
Legislature that he would not allow any Federal troops to
pass through Virginia, and wrote in his Diary[47] as follows:
"I understand this morning that when my message was
received in the city of Washington the friends of the President
were with him almost all night consulting upon the
propriety of retracing his steps, but as yet his personal hatred

John Floyd

to Calhoun induces him to insist upon using the sword to enforce
his doctrine of treason. If so, there is no Government or
Constitution but his will, and that proclamation. If he uses
force, I will oppose him with a military force. I nor my
country will not be enslaved without a struggle." Whatever
the difference of opinion in the South, there is hardly any
doubt that the shedding of blood would have consolidated its
resistance as it did in 1861. The excitement over this incident
had scarcely subsided, when Jackson kindled another flame
by his removal of the Federal deposits from the United States
Bank. Mr. Clay in the Senate offered a resolution of censure
and the Virginia Legislature instructed its senators to vote
for it. Mr. Rives refused to obey and resigned, and was succeeded
by Benjamin Watkins Leigh. Mr. Tyler, his colleague,
worked enthusiastically with Mr. Webster and Mr. Calhoun
in the Senate for the resolution, and it was adopted.

Then commenced the movement begun by Thomas H. Benton
to instruct senators to repeal the censure. Virginia underwent
another change in opinion, and the senators from Virginia
were instructed by the new Legislature, Jacksonian in
sentiment on this issue, to vote for the expunging of the censure.
Many senators resigned rather than obey instructions,
and among them was John Tyler. Mr. Leigh did not obey
and held on a year longer, which made him unpopular.
Mr. Tyler was succeeded by William C. Rives and Mr. Leigh
by Richard E. Parker, and when the latter resigned to fill a
vacancy in the Supreme Court of the state, he was succeeded
in the Senate by William H. Roane (son of Judge Spencer
Roane), who served from September 4, 1837, to March 3, 1841.

Jackson's administration terminated March 3, 1837, when
he was succeeded as president by Martin Van Buren, of New
York. He came in just in time to face the financial storm
which attacked the business of the country, occasioned by the
reckless management of President Jackson. Grain and coal
reached high prices in the fall of 1836 and a great flour riot
occurred in City Hall Park in New York in the month of

February, 1837. Things were in a chaotic state when Van
Buren took charge.

President Van Buren's scheme for restoring a healthful
condition of the country was the independent treasury. This
plan of finance had been originated in 1834 by William F.
Gordon, a representative in Congress from Virginia, but it
had found no favor at the time. Its revival at this moment
by Van Buren drove from the Democratic party a set of politicians
who called themselves "Conservatives" and numbering
as leaders N. P. Talmadge, of New York, Hugh S. Legaré, of
South Carolina, and William C. Rives, of Virginia. They were
in favor of a government system of deposits with state banks,
under restrictions and regulations tending to the better safety
of the public funds and the repression of speculation. They
were the latest revolters from the Democratic party and gradually
came to constitute an important element in the new
Whig party which had been in process of formation since
1832.

The Whig party, in its origin, was made up of a hotchpot
of opposition to the Democratic party. It was composed of
the National Republican party which had been made up in
1828 of the followers of Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams,
and of those Democrats who had left the Democratic party
because of its nationalistic attitude under Jackson and Van
Buren. These consisted in Virginia of the states rights men,
like Abel P. Upshur and Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, who
sympathized with South Carolina in the doctrine of nullification
and left the party in 1832, then the Democrats, like Senators
Tazewell and Tyler, who did not approve of nullification
but who condemned even more the doctrine of consolidation
in President Jackson's proclamation against South Carolina,
and left the party in 1833, then the Democrats, like Henry
A. Wise, who left the party in 1834 because they disapproved
of Jackson's action in removing the Government deposits
from the Bank of United States, then the Democrats who condemned
Benton's expunging resolution in 1835, and followed

the lead of Judge Hugh Lawson White, of Tennessee, and
finally the "Conservatives," just mentioned, who shied at
Van Buren's independent treasury. The generic appellation
of "Whig" embraced all the heterogeneous elements thus
united, and their real single bond of union was opposition to
Jackson and the Jacksonian Democracy.

In the election of 1836 the union of these elements was
not complete and no common candidate could be agreed upon
by the Whigs. William Henry Harrison was the favorite candidate
of the National Republican Whigs of the North, and
Hugh L. White, of Tennessee, was the favorite of the states
rights Whigs of the South, but the Massachusetts Whigs voted
for Daniel Webster and the South Carolina Whigs voted for
Willie P. Mangum. John Tyler was placed upon the White
ticket for vice president, and in several states upon the Harrison
ticket as well, but most of the northern states supported
Francis Granger of New York for vice president. Under
these circumstances the Democrats had an easy victory, and
no one of Whig candidates for either president or vice-president
was elected.

Suggestive of the halting consolidation of the Whig party
through a number of years was the hot contest in 1838 between
John Tyler and William C. Rives in Virginia for the Senate
of the United States. The former received on the first ballot
the full strength of the Whig party in the Virginia Legislature,
but the Conservatives, who still held aloof, voted for Mr.
Rives, and prevented Tyler's election. An intrigue set on foot
by Mr. Clay, by which the bulk of the Whig vote went over to
Mr. Rives, was defeated by Mr. Tyler's personal friends, who
were indignant at what they termed his betrayal by Mr. Clay,
and the Legislature adjourned without any election at this
time.

Before it could reassemble, the great Whig national convention
met at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, December 4, 1839,
and nominated the Whig party's first successful ticket, Harrison
and Tyler, which was elected the following year. The

Legislature of Virginia convened in 1840, and Mr. Tyler being
out of the way, Mr. Rives was elected Senator, without further
difficulty. Soon after in a letter, called his "Castle Hill" letter,
he made clear his opposition to the Democrats, and his condemnation
of the old National Republican measures of bank,
tariff and internal improvements.

During the presidential campaign of 1840 the course of
the Whig orators in the North was to talk loudly of "reform"
and to say nothing of the old National Republican measures
of bank, tariff and internal improvements. In the South,
where the Whig constituencies were largely old Crawford men
and practically all for states rights, they were strong in their
professions against these measures. And Mr. Clay's position
was that all the old issues had become "obsolete" in the
presence of the federalism of the Jackson-Van Buren Democracy.
In Virginia, where the Whigs were chiefly Crawford
men, General Harrison was defended in the address of the
Whig state convention, written by James Lyons, of Richmond,
as an opponent of bank, tariff and internal improvements.
Indeed, in a speech in the United States Senate, made in September,
1841, Mr. Buchanan declared[48] that "during the whole
election campaign of 1840 he never saw one single resolution
in favor of a national bank which had been passed by any
Whig meeting in any part of the country."

William Henry Harrison was President one month, and
the Vice President John Tyler, whose succession was expected
and predicted by many, became President April 4th. He was
the last of the Virginia Presidents, and came into unfortunate
collision with his party dominated by Mr. Clay and the
National Republicans of the North. They attempted to revive
the American system, which had been abandoned in the canvass,
and naturally met the opposition of President Tyler.
Nevertheless the administration pursued the lines of policy
set out by the "Virginia Dynasty," and without a party in
either house of Congress was remarkably successful in pushing

through its measures. Like the administrations of Jefferson,
Madison and Monroe, it stood for essential principles,
which were as follows:

1. First of all, it stood for Democracy. The headquarters
of the National Republican portion of the Whig party was
New England, and that country had not yet fully dispossessed
itself of autocratic views inherited from Colonial times. In
Virginia no white man was a servant, and in all public and
legal matters all white men stood on a plane of perfect
equality, entitled to all the guaranties of freedom. The Whig
principle of Democracy found expression in many of President
Tyler's official statements. Thus he wrote in his fourth
annual message: "The guaranty of religious freedom, of the
freedom of the press, of the liberty of speech, of the trial by
jury, of the habeas corpus, and of the domestic institutions in
each of the states, leaving the private citizen in the exercise of
the high and ennobling attitudes of his nature and to each
state the privilege (which can only be judiciously exerted by
itself) of consulting the means best calculated to advance its
own happiness—these are the great and important guaranties
of the Constitution, which the lovers of liberty must
cherish and the advocates of Union must ever cultivate."

His democracy was, however, not the unlicensed rule of
the masses, as apparently defined in what was known as the
Jackson-Van Buren democracy. It was a democracy of law,
and found its application, under the Constitution, to Dorr's
Rebellion in Rhode Island, which occurred in 1842. While
sympathizing largely with the complaints against the narrow
rule of suffrage which prevailed in that state, Tyler took his
stand on the side of the constituted authorities as against the
mob followers of Thomas W. Dorr, with the result that while
the peace of the state was preserved, most of the ancient disabilities
were removed. Two years later Webster wrote to
Tyler a letter commenting upon these matters and described
his management of the Rhode Island business as "worthy of
all praise."[49]

2. Next it stood for Expatriation and for Protection of
the Flag to everything on board ship. President Tyler
encouraged emigration from Europe and immigration to the
unsettled areas of the West, which in the course of a few
years began to blossom as a rose. In the case of the Creole
there was found an application of the immunity of merchant
vessels as a part of the territory to which they belonged. The
Creole was a merchant vessel which was carried by mutinous
slaves into the port of Nassau, and their escape there was
encouraged by the English authorities. In the negotiations
with Lord Ashburton in 1842 the President insisted that the
law of England, which prohibited slavery, did not apply where
a ship was driven by "violence" into one of its ports.[50] This
was accepted by both Daniel Webster, the secretary of state,
and Lord Ashburton and recognized in their correspondence
with one another, and the slaves who escaped from the Creole
were afterwards paid for by the British government under
the convention of 1853 for the settlement of all outstanding
claims.

In the same correspondence the subject of impressment
was taken up and discussed. The president brought the subject
to the attention of the negotiators, and in Webster's
letter he put the exemption of our naturalized citizens from
such irritating duress strongly on the ground that foreign
nations justified expatriation by encouraging emigrant ships
and granting passports.[51] As a final disposition of the matter
Webster announced the stand which would be hereafter main
tained by this nation that "in every regular documented
American merchant vessel the crew who navigated it will find
their protection in the flag which is over them."

3. Next this administration, like the Virginia Dynasty,
stood for Annexation. Territorial questions absorbed the
attention of the President from the beginning. The far-reaching

diplomacy of Great Britain threatened the United States
on every side. She had entrenched herself in China, her fleet
scoured the Pacific Ocean, and while on the north she held
the whole line from Maine to Oregon in dispute, on the south
and west she was busily intriguing with Texas and Mexico
to acquire the domination of that boundless unsettled country
which stretched from the Mississippi River to the Pacific.
But the United States, under this Virginia administration,
triumphantly overreached the shrewd diplomats and
intriguers of Great Britain.

The first victory was obtained by the signing of the treaty
of Washington in August, 1842. Of this treaty, Mr. Webster,
the secretary of state, himself said that "it proceeded from
step to step and from day to day under the President's own
immediate supervision and direction" and that "the President
took upon himself the responsibility of what it contained
and what it omitted." This treaty, signed on the ninth of
August, 1842, settled definitely the question of boundary as
far as the Rocky Mountains between the United States and
Canada—a settlement which had been vainly essayed from the
beginning of the Government.

Proceeding next to check British activities in the Pacific,
President Tyler, in December, 1842, asserted the Monroe
Doctrine as to the Hawaiian Islands and sent a consul to represent
this Government there. This action was taken just in
time, for not long after the British commander in the Pacific
took possession of these Islands in the name of his government.
President Tyler, through his secretary of state, Hugh
S. Legaré, entered a formal protest, and the occupation was
disavowed by the authorities in England, and the independence
of the Islands, under the virtual protectorship of the
United States, formally guaranteed. The wisdom of his action
was admitted by all his successors, and led the way to ultimate
acquisition under President McKinley.

For the settlement of all outstanding territorial questions,
the President's next move was to propose a tripartite treaty

with Great Britain and Mexico.[52] By this measure Mexico was
to recognize the independence of Texas, with which she was
carrying on a fruitless war, Great Britain was to get the line
of the Columbia River for the boundary of Oregon, and the
United States was to get California and all the West down to
the line of 36 degrees. Lord Ashburton, representing England,
and Almonte, representing Mexico, thought favorably
of the proposition and it was in the contemplation of the
President to send Mr. Webster to England to put the treaty in
shape; but the failure of Congress to appropriate money for
the purpose led to a postponement, and political developments
speedily brought Texas to the front for direct action in the
meantime.

President Tyler ascertained in the summer of 1843 that,
unless prompt action was taken, Texas, assailed by Mexico,
would throw herself into the arms of Great Britain. Not
deeming it prudent to wait any longer, he caused a treaty to
be negotiated for the annexation, and when that treaty was
rejected, "contrary to all assurances"[53] from senators, he
appealed to the House of Representatives under the clause
of the Constitution authorizing Congress to admit new states.
To accentuate his purposes he announced himself a candidate
for reelection to the presidency, and thus forced the Democratic
party to drop Mr. Van Buren to whom the party was
committed, but who was opposed to annexation, and to take
up Mr. Polk, who until a few days before the Democratic convention
was a candidate for the vice presidency only. The
joint resolutions of Congress, thus invigorated, passed Congress,
and two days before Mr. Polk came in, Mr. Tyler had
approved them and sent a messenger to invite Texas into the
Union.

The messenger arrived in Texas not a day too soon, for
Mexico had, under the persuasion of the English and French

consuls, already offered to recognize the independence of
Texas, provided the latter would pledge herself never to be
annexed to any other government. Texas rejected the Mexican
proposition and accepted that of the United States, but
it is very probable that, in the absence of a counter-proposition,
the Mexican offer would have been accepted. Some historical
writers make the mistake of saying that Texas was
annexed by the Polk administration, but all that was done
under Polk was done in pursuance of the joint resolutions
passed under Mr. Tyler.

Had Texas failed of annexation, a great slave state would
have sprung into existence on our southwestern flank, which
would have probably incorporated California and the West.
And to this new center the southern states would have gravitated
in a short time.

President Tyler had much of the idealism of his Virginia
predecessors, and he never could look upon the annexation
of Texas as other than one, as he said, of "great public advantage,
embracing the whole country and all its interests"—the
monopoly of the cotton plant, the growth of the gulf and
coastwise traffic and the extension of the national domain.[54]
And yet the dual nature of the Union was undoubtedly present
in the controversy which raged over Texas. The South
favored it as a means of lending strength to its representation
in Congress, which it would have done independently of
the question of slavery. The North—New England especially
—opposed it because they did not wish to strengthen the rival
nation. Massachusetts was willing to act the part it played
on the question of annexing Louisiana. In 1844 the Massachusetts
Legislature, after declaring that "uniting an independent
foreign state with the United States was not among the powers
delegated to the Federal Government," stated its resolve to
be "to submit to undelegated powers in no body of men on
earth," and in 1845 it announced the doctrine of nullification
by declaring that "the admission of Texas would have no

binding force whatever on the people of Massachusetts." It
will be noticed that this action was taken not on account of
slavery, but on account of alleged unconstitutionality.

The question of Oregon was perhaps as free from all sectional
influences as any that could be expected. In imitation
of Jefferson, President Tyler sent John C. Frémont to explore
the passes of the Rocky Mountains, and to his sensible encouragement
of Elijah White and others in hastening over immigrants
to the West was largely due the success of the United
States in preventing Great Britain from getting possession
of Oregon and the California Coast. The treaty consummated
under Polk's administration, defining the northwestern
boundary, had its beginning with Mr. Tyler, though he did
not remain in office long enough to effect its conclusion.

4. Next the Tyler administration stood for Economy and
Peace. It is a singular fact that this term of four years presents
the solitary instance of an administration in which
expenses were reduced under any previous four years. Upon
Mr. Tyler's entering into office he found the Government
deficient in its annual income by some $12,000,000. When he
left the Government the receipts had not only been equal to
the expenditures, but an actual surplus existed of $8,000,000.
Compared with Van Buren's administration, he expended
nearly $14,000,000 less during his term of four years. So that
with the surplus of $8,000,000 there was saved and provided
the grand total of $22,000,000, being nearly an actual saving
of one year's expenditure in four, the total expenditures of
Mr. Van Buren being $105,874,282.94, and those of Mr. Tyler
$91,949,647.14[55]

This reduction in the national expense was brought about
by the vetoes of the President of lavish bills for internal
improvements and by his personal supervision over all the
disbursing agents of the Government and the office holders in
general, whereby waste and embezzlement were prevented.
Such, indeed, was the honesty of this last Virginia administration

that only $15 was lost to the Government in any of
the departments—this occurring in the Post Office Department,
whose receipts nevertheless were once more brought to
cover the cost of its administration.

This close watch maintained on the expenses relieved
Mr. Tyler of the necessity of following the course of Mr. Jefferson
in reducing the army and navy. Efficiency was maintained
in both, and even additional strength imparted. The
army was used to suppress the Florida Indians, and the fortifications
at New York and Old Point, in view of any possible
trouble with Great Britain, were immensely strengthened with
men and guns.

As to the navy, the addition was made of two new squadrons,
the Home Squadron and the African Squadron, the
former to protect our interests near our own shores, as the
name suggested, and the latter to be used on the coast of
Africa, in accordance with President Tyler's own suggestion
in the treaty of Washington, to suppress the slave trade.[56]
Nor is it to be forgotten that to this administration is owing
the National Observatory, first instituted as the Depot for
Nautical Charts, under the celebrated Virginia scientist
Matthew Fontaine Maury.

The Whigs repealed the Independent Treasury passed
under Mr. Van Buren, and President Tyler vetoed the bills
for creating a new national bank, which they forced upon him
contrary to their professions in the presidential canvass preceding.
In defeating this gigantic monopoly, Carl Schurz
has declared[57] that Tyler rendered his country "a valuable
service." In lieu thereof he recommended a system of finance
known as "the Exchequer," which Webster endorsed as only
second in value to the Constitution itself.[58] In its character
as a government measure, with a board of control under the

supervision of the Treasury Department and in its provisions
to issue government notes and receive deposits it was a prototype
of the present Federal Reserve System. This being
rejected by Congress for mere political reasons, President
Tyler kept the government money in what was practically his
own keeping, during the rest of his administration, without
any other guide than the law of 1789 establishing the Treasury
Department, and the resolution of 1816. This revenue was
deposited in carefully selected banks and secured by government
stock, and the government lost not one cent. Stimulated
by the tariff of 1842 affairs took a change for the better all
around in 1843. The currency of "shinplasters" was replaced
by one of gold and silver and treasury notes at par, and state
stocks which had been as low as thirty cents rose to a
premium. Exchanges which had been as high as 20 cents
became little more than what was required to convey specie
from place to place, and the credit of the Government never
rose to a higher point than it did towards the close of the
administration.

After the same order of simplicity and economy was the
course of the administration in reference to the offices. By
the repeal effected by Jefferson of many laws made by the
Federalists, the first of the Virginia Dynasty got rid of
numerous offices and officeholders, and similarly, by his vetoes
of the bank bills, tariff bills and bills for internal improvements,
which he deemed unconstitutional, Tyler relieved the
government of the occasion of creating quite as many unnecessary
stipendiaries. As a strict constructionist, Tyler was a
natural enemy of "the Spoils System," which, begun by
the Federalists from the moment of their ascendency and
repressed by the Virginia Dynasty, had been revived by the
Federalistic administrations of John Quincy Adams, Andrew
Jackson and Martin Van Buren. Tyler would appoint no
editors to office at any time, and his administration is singularly
free from the charge of nepotism. He resorted to

removals only in case of violent partisans, who neglected their
duties.[59]

In strict pursuance of the Jeffersonian doctrine that a
national debt was a national evil, Tyler threw himself in the
breach when, in constructing the tariff bills, the Whigs in Congress
in 1842 proceeded to give away to the states the proceeds
of the sales of the public lands, when the government
itself was in need of all the money it could lay its hands upon.
Mr. Webster paid him the tribute of saying[60] that "in all
things respecting the expenditures of the public moneys,
Tyler was remarkably cautious, exact and particular."

5. Tyler's administration stood for the Monroe Doctrine
—a real Virginia doctrine. We have seen his action on this
question in the case of the Hawaiian Islands. His language
in his special message of December 30, 1842, after reciting
the importance of these islands in a commercial aspect and
their proximity to this continent, was as follows: "Considering,
therefore, that the United States possess so large a
share of the intercourse with those islands, it is deemed not
unfit to make the declaration that their government seeks,
nevertheless, no peculiar advantages, no exclusive control
over the Hawaiian government, but is content with its independent
existence and anxiously wishes for its security and
prosperity. Its forbearance in this respect under the circumstances
of the very large intercourse of their citizens with the
islands would justify this Government, should circumstances
hereafter arrive to require it, in making a decided remonstrance
against the adoption of an opposite policy by any other
power." His action as to Texas was even in a higher degree
an assertion of the Monroe Doctrine against the intrigues and
ambitions of France and England.

6. Finally, this administration stood, like the Virginia
Dynasty, for the doctrine of a Union considered as a Partner-

ship of free, independent and sovereign states. But like the
other Virginia Presidents, while clearly recognizing the difference
between the sections, Tyler never could reconcile himself
to the idea, till after the Peace Convention in 1861, that
the peaceable continuance of this Union was impracticable.
In the observance of states rights by which the local affairs
were to be left alone by the National Government, he loved,
like other states rights men, to think that he had found a
solution. Under this favorite delusion he failed to realize
that a majority which has the power is not apt to restrain
itself in the gratification of its ambitions.

It is in the profound recognition of this creed of Tyler
that the key to his political history is to be found. His attitude
was never a change of position, but a natural alignment
with parties as they successively developed during his life.
So in the matter of the bank vetoes the question with him
was one not merely of bank or no bank, but of the old one of
concentralization of power in Congress and of states rights,
of a consolidated nation like the present and a confederated
republic, where the government had strictly limited powers.[61]

And yet within the strict lines of the Constitution, none
of the Presidents was more determined in exerting the just
prerogatives of the government over which he presided. He
set a fortunate precedent which has been followed to this day
in taking the stand that as Vice President he succeeded on
the death of the incumbent to both the duties and office of
President, and this not by "chance" or "accident," as his
enemies later claimed, but by virtue of the Constitution and
election. And in another matter he was not less determined,
namely in the right of the admission of states like Texas by
Congress. The constitutionality of this, though denied at the
time, for a purpose, by northern statesmen, was fully accepted
by President McKinley and the Senate in 1898, when the
Hawaiian Islands were annexed under the same provision of
the Constitution. Nor was he less positive, when in 1842 the

House of Representatives required the President to communicate
to that body the names of such of the members of
Congress as had been applicants for public office, with the
papers relating thereto. He refused to comply, taking the
ground that such applications were under the executive control
and the papers necessarily confidential. In after days a
similar position was taken by President Cleveland in respect
to a resolution of Congress.

So much for the purposes and objects of this Virginia
administration.

War with Mexico followed the annexation of Texas, but
the one had no direct connection with the other. While
Mexico withdrew her ambassador from Washington, she did
not proceed to hostilities till a year after the measure of annexation,
and then war ensued by what appears to have been a
singular lack of tact on the part of Mr. Polk rather than any
intention on his part to involve the country in war, despite
the opinion to the contrary of the great mass of northern
writers, who picture a conspirator in every slave owner.
Mention has been made of the Tripartite Treaty, which,
though never actually formulated, occupied a good deal of the
attention of President Tyler in 1842.

It received the support of Daniel Webster, the Secretary
of State, and was not displeasing to either the British minister,
Lord Ashburton, or the Mexican minister, Gen. N.
Almonte. Mexico, Great Britain and the United States were
to enter into a treaty by which the Rio Grande was to be
recognized as the boundary of Texas and the line of the
Columbia River was to be accorded Great Britain as the
boundary of Oregon and the United States was to have California
and New Mexico as far south as the 36th degree.[62]

Had this treaty been actually negotiated the United States
would have lost the State of Washington, but in return would
have gained California and New Mexico and avoided war and
the slavery convulsions. But it was not consummated, and

the government under Tyler looked steadily to the settlement
of the Oregon boundary by the 49th parallel, which was finally
accomplished by President Polk, but not till his unwise
diplomacy had gotten him into the jaws of war with Great
Britain, from which he was glad enough to be released by the
intervention of the Senate.