Penguin History of the United States of America (50 page)

The spoils system did, however, have one huge advantage which twentieth-century reformed arrangements do not possess: it paid for democracy without putting power in the hands of the very rich. Democracy, at any rate as practised in the United States, is an inherently expensive process. Voters have to be induced to cast their votes, and to cast them for the right candidates. This necessitates, not merely a large outlay on posters, leaflets,
campaign buttons and so on (and, nowadays, on airplanes, radio, television, opinion polls), but an active, labour-intensive political leadership which will shepherd citizens into the voting booths. The problem is enhanced by the fact that in America every year is election year: somebody is always running for something somewhere. The spoils system paid for election campaigns by taxing everyone who made a living out of politics. Officeholders were ruthlessly required to make regular donations to the party funds from their salaries. It was, in its way, a fair bargain, and if society never needed honest, efficient and hard-working administrators there might be more to be said for it than against it. It could even be argued reasonably that during most of the nineteenth century the United States needed little more competent, uncorrupt government than it got. Both the country and the political system survived the Civil War, which shows how strong they were. Only it is no use pretending that American politics in the nineteenth century was clean. It was as thoroughly, recklessly, unscrupulously and joyously corrupt as the politics of wicked old eighteenth-century Britain (from which many of its practices were inherited).

All this was in the future when Van Buren and his allies set up their Regency. They stood for reform. Their first business was to summon a convention which thoroughly democratized the New York state constitution, for example by abolishing the old, venal Council of Appointments and enacting that in future officials would either be elected by the people or (in 4,000 cases) appointed – in most cases by the state legislature. Either way was jam for a well-disciplined, popular party that usually won all elections. Their next enterprise was to spread the new doctrines and practices to the national level. Van Buren had himself chosen Senator by the legislature, and went down to Washington. He did not admit that he was an innovator; instead he said, and probably believed, that he was simply trying to revive the flagging Jeffersonian alliance between the planters of the South and the plains farmers of the North on the basis of the old Jeffersonian ideology of cheap, weak government and strict adherence to the letter of the Constitution. This stance served him well. Everyone still effective in politics described himself as a Republican – the old slogans still commanded much lip-service – and Van Buren took care to be seen making a pilgrimage to Monticello, where he went out with Mr Jefferson in a carriage. Nevertheless he was launching a new era.

Material conditions required it. The Industrial Revolution was erupting in Britain, the world’s greatest manufacturing nation. Yet her businessmen were alarmed by such progress towards industrialization as the Americans had made during the War of 1812, when imports had been cut off. A vast quantity of goods had piled up in British warehouses. Now they were dumped on the American market, according to the policy recommended in the House of Commons by Henry Brougham: ‘Stifle in the cradle those rising manufactures in the United States, which the war has forced into existence contrary to the natural course of things.’ This development was
briefly damaging, but its ill-effects were much mitigated by a series of appalling harvests in Britain and Europe, which generated a demand for American wheat and maize, paid for in hard cash. A boom developed, eagerly helped along by a surge of financial speculation: new banks, all anxious to lend money, multiplied like spring flowers. American and British goods sold extremely well. Then the weather improved in Europe: cash began to flow from the West to the East. There had been much thoroughly unsound dealing: for instance, the banks had printed far more paper money, as they were legally free to do, than their reserves of gold warranted. The result, in 1819, was the first of the long series of nineteenth-century crashes, in which all branches of the American economy suffered grievously.

The political consequences were twofold. First, it seemed to many voters that Jefferson’s warnings had been fulfilled. Congress had not renewed the charter of the First Bank of the United States, Hamilton’s creation, when it expired in 1811, but the extreme financial difficulties into which the War of 1812 plunged the government had persuaded President Madison, with many misgivings, to permit the foundation of a Second Bank, which started to function in 1816. It did not perform well. It plunged recklessly into the speculative enthusiasm of the post-war period, and then, in its battle to save itself from the effects of the 1819 crash, called in its loans so ruthlessly that many smaller concerns, not to mention individuals, were ruined. Add to this the suspension of payments in gold and silver (then universally regarded as the only ‘hard’, or real, form of money) by the lesser banks, and their widespread bankruptcies (which hurt their customers) and it is not surprising that 1819 convinced many Americans that all banks were untrustworthy, and the big national bank most of all. Thomas Hart Benton (1782 – 1858), about to become one of the first Senators from the new state of Missouri, discovered his life’s cause, which was to earn him the nickname of ‘Old Bullion’: hard money and down with the BUS. ‘All the flourishing cities of the West are mortgaged to this money power,’ he cried. ‘They may be devoured by it at any moment. They are in the jaws of the monster!’

Second, the economic contraction generated huge tensions between debtors and creditors. They were especially acute in the West, where hard money was difficult to come by at the best of times, the economy of that region being so new that it was still largely based on barter. Yet cash was needed to pay debts and taxes. In Kentucky the contention grew so acute that a debtor party fought and won the state elections on a programme which allowed it to suspend the payment of debts and to abolish the old courts of law whose judges had denied the legality of such ‘stay’ measures. Henry Clay, the hero of the state, who had accepted a part-time job with the Second Bank of the United States, lost much popularity. In Tennessee the debtor sweep was neither so extreme nor so complete, but the radicals did succeed in overthrowing the ‘junto’ of rich men who had dominated the state since its foundation. The junto fought back. Its most notable member was Andrew Jackson: he was induced to declare himself a candidate
for the Presidency in 1824. Instantly this became the question of the hour in Tennessee. Jackson was the universal idol, and no one could afford to oppose him on anything, lest opposition hamper his drive to the White House. The new radical Governor quickly came to heel, making a compromise agreement with Jackson’s friends; as a result he and they together governed the state for the next ten years. It was not just New York which was generating complicated party politics.

The 1824 election promised to be exciting. There were four worthy candidates besides Jackson. John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State (a post which three Presidents – Jefferson, Madison and Monroe – had held before him), was America’s most successful and experienced diplomatist. Henry Clay, ‘Harry of the West’, was the proponent of the ‘American System’. Under this scheme high tariffs would have protected American infant industries against British competition, while bringing in revenue to pay for new roads, canals and other public works of a kind to bind the country together, especially the West to the East. The wonder of the age was the Erie Canal. It was 363 miles long and cost $7,000,000 to build. It was opened in 1825 and, by linking the Great Lakes to the Hudson river, linked the Western interior with the Atlantic, to the great benefit of trade. Clay hoped to promote many more such enterprises. John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, was a strong nationalist as well as the paladin of the South. William Crawford of Georgia, Secretary of the Treasury, was Van Buren’s choice. However, Crawford was soon put out of the question by an incapacitating illness, and Calhoun recognized that he could not win. He secured the Vice-Presidency (which no one else wanted) and announced that he supported Jackson.

The election turned out to be something of a fiasco. There were no exciting national issues, and none of the candidates had devoted enough time to stimulating the electorate, so turnout was low. The election had to go to the House of Representatives, because although Jackson had the largest share of the popular vote neither he nor anyone else had a majority of the votes in the electoral college. The House had to choose among the three top candidates. Clay was not one of them: Crawford had retained enough followers to edge out the Kentuckian. But an invalid could not he President; the real choice lay between Jackson and Adams.

Clay, the highly popular Speaker of the House, was in a commanding position. He used his great influence to help Adams, who got the necessary majority on the first ballot. All might have been well had Clay not then accepted appointment as Secretary of State. It was natural enough for him to do so, but Van Buren was right in calling it his death warrant. There was a vast uproar, especially in the West. Jackson jumped to the conclusion that there had been a ‘Corrupt Bargain’ between Adams and Clay. He rode home from Washington to Tennessee in a rage and began to plot his revenge. He soon found fellow-conspirators.

Martin Van Buren for one. Perhaps he did not yet think he could be
President himself, but he did deeply desire political power. Besides, Adams and Clay stood for policies that he could not accept. New York was a large, rich state with an interest in free trade. It could not accept a high protective tariff as proposed by the American System, and did not see why national revenue should be used to pay for local public works. New York had paid for the Erie Canal by itself: let others do likewise. So Van Buren soon made overtures to General Jackson. They discovered in each other the two most adroit politicians in America.

John C. Calhoun certainly thought of the Presidency, and his part of the world, the strongly Jeffersonian Atlantic South, was as much opposed to the dangerously Hamiltonian American System as was New York. Calhoun calculated that if Jackson won the election of 1828 he himself, as Vice-President, would be well placed for the succession when the old gentleman stepped down. So the South Carolinian became a rival to the New Yorker for Jackson’s favour. Meanwhile Henry Clay, determined to re-elect Adams and then to succeed him, tried to organize a resistance to this takeover bid. He did not have much success, because President Adams took a thoroughly eighteenth-century view of ‘faction’ and refused to cadge votes from the mob.

The election of 1828 was the first mature Presidential battle in American history, foreshadowing all that have followed it. For the rival teams of politicians the stakes were high, and all (with the exception of John Quincy Adams) flung themselves heartily into the fray. The decision would be made by the mass of adult white males, for the choice of Presidential electors was now in the hands of the ordinary citizen in every state except South Carolina, and all property restrictions on the right to vote had been swept away. There were no unpledged electoral candidates: all were committed either to Jackson or Adams. No means to victory was neglected. Shocking scurrilities, like those once circulated about Jefferson and the elder Adams, were freely published: Jackson was accused of bigamy, Adams of having pimped for the Tsar of Russia. But the secret of empire, now revealed, was organization. The methods of the Albany Regency were applied on a nationwide scale. Jackson co-ordinated the efforts of his followers by letter: correspondence committees, like those of the Revolution, were formed throughout the Union. Like so much else in this campaign, these committees were to prove permanent additions to American life. They were the skeleton of the future Democratic party. Newspapers – daily, weekly, monthly – propagated Jacksonian opinions; the party battle was waged with model discipline and fury in Congress (Senator Van Buren commanding). Everything which might secure the loyalty of office-holders or dazzle the simple was tried. In imitation of the Liberty Trees of the Revolution, for instance, hickory trees were planted, with due ceremony, in honour of Old Hickory. Clay struggled in vain against all the hullabaloo and the grand alliance of the West, the South and New York. The Adams administration was successfully labelled corrupt, inefficient, aristocratic and Federalist, even though in at least one state, New Jersey, the old Federalists were Jacksonians
(which perhaps explains why the state went for Adams). The truth or falsehood of the label scarcely mattered: people made up their minds on the oddest grounds. The Irish immigrants of New York, for example, remembering that they had been ill-served in the time of the President’s father by the Aliens Act, voted for Jackson – thus beginning one of the more permanent affiliations in American politics. The important thing was to make sure that Jackson supporters voted, which the campaign succeeded at brilliantly. Old Hickory’s nationwide popularity; his unassailable hold on the South, where he was born, and the West, where he made his career; ‘song, slogan, and nonsense’
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– these explain the victory. Jackson won 178 electoral college votes to Adams’s eighty-three, and in March 1829 he entered Washington like a conqueror, to the alarm of the genteel and the hysterical joy of everyone else. On inauguration day the White House was invaded by a triumphant mob, which snatched all the refreshments meant for its betters and was only ever got outside again because tubs of punch were placed alluringly on the lawns. ‘I never saw such a crowd here before,’ said Daniel Webster in grave amazement. ‘Persons have come five hundred miles to see General Jackson, and they really seem to think that the country is rescued from some dreadful danger!’

Webster had put his finger on more than the secret of one election victory. From 1828 until the Civil War the most successful political parties would always be those which discovered some fearful threat to American liberties and persuaded the citizens that to vote for them was the right way to meet the danger. Underneath the self-importance and incessant boasting about the glories of republicanism which so many hostile foreign visitors noticed, the Americans were deeply insecure. They knew that they were conducting an extraordinary experiment, that of democracy, in a world that was in many ways inimical to it; and though they proclaimed, and believed, that its universal victory over monarchy and aristocracy was inevitable and near at hand, they were also perpetually nervous that it might at any moment be subverted. The politicians found it most profitable to play on these fears.