“Good God!” gasped Moore. “Why didn’t you tell me that before I voted?”.
That same night, the Polks were guests at the White House. Old Hickory was in excellent health and spirits. He charmed the ladies as usual by sitting among them, exchanging witticisms. After dinner, he led the company into the Red Room, which was hung in vivid damask that more than justified its name. He sat down before the fire and insisted that Sarah take the place of honor on his right. As they began exchanging gossip about Tennessee births and marriages, into the room strolled Senators Benton and Stapleton.
The president welcomed them with a hearty hello. Benton acknowledged the salute and stooped to whisper the news of Van Buren’s rejection in Jackson’s ear. The old warrior sprang from his chair, his whole frame, from his legs to his erect white hair, quivering with wrath. “By the eternal!” he roared. “I’ll smash them!”
SIX
THE NEXT DAY, WHEN SARAH Polk reported this scene to Caroline Stapleton, she burst into tears. Sarah was more than a little puzzled. “My dear friend, what’s wrong? George voted for Mr. Van Buren. The president showered him with compliments for his loyalty. He told everyone Senator Stapleton had good and sufficient reasons to vote nay—Mr. Van Buren’s conduct toward him had been less than friendly—but his devotion to the Democratic Party had lifted him above revenge. Didn’t George tell you all this?”
“George and I disagreed, disagreed strongly about this matter.”
“You wanted him to vote the other way, with the vice president?”
Caroline nodded.
Sarah studied Caroline’s melancholy face. “My dear friend, my dearest friend, may I speak frankly to you?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve been playing this difficult game a little bit longer than you. James and I have run into similar problems. We’ve finally worked out a rule. I have the right to state my opinions with all the enthusiasm and logic I can muster. But the final decision rests with him. Men are peculiar beings. I think it comes from having to take orders from their mothers growing up. If a wife insists on having her way too often, she can stir up the fear that they’re being reduced to boys in diapers again.”
A force, a need, propelled Caroline out of her chair onto the couch beside Sarah. She flung her arms around her. “Your affection means so much to me.”
“Believe me, that feeling is more than reciprocated,” Sarah said.
For a moment they clung together, stunned, almost frightened by the intensity of their emotions. Caroline retreated to the other end of the couch and struggled for self-control. “Do you think General Jackson can do it?”
“Smash them? We’ll soon see.” Sarah held up a copy of the Washington Globe. “Here’s the first salvo. A call for a national convention to repudiate the insult to the president by nominating Mr. Van Buren as vice president.”
“A national convention,” Caroline said. This was a new idea. Previously, presidents and vice presidents had been nominated by a party caucus in Congress.
“It’s General Jackson’s idea, I gather. A kind of marshaling of the troops.”
That evening when George returned from the Senate, Caroline was awaiting him in the parlor. She had her tea table set with a half dozen sweetmeats and cheese tidbits that she knew he liked. Above the fireplace swung a flagon of hot toddy to banish the January chill. “My dreadful headache—maybe I should call it our headache—is gone. I want to hear all about the famous vote.”
She sprang up and kissed him. George returned the embrace with more than ordinary fervor. It was pleasing to see how eager he was to accept a truce. They sipped toddy and talked politics for an hour; George gave her fascinating quotations from the scurrilous things pro-Calhoun senators had said about Martin Van Buren in their speeches—and the vice president’s exultant comments at the final vote.
“Do you think Van Buren’s dead beyond kicking?”
“Far from it. The president’s reaction has changed the whole argument. Now Andrew Jackson’s the issue. He’s going to make Van Buren vice president at this convention—and obliterate John C. Calhoun.”
The next day a somber John Sladen satin Caroline’s parlor, where George had sat the night before, telling her much the same thing—and adding a denouement that both thrilled and chilled Caroline’s blood.
“If Jackson goes through with this and drives John C. Calhoun out of the Democratic Party, it will be the beginning of a national tragedy. South Carolina will regard it as an insult—and act accordingly.”
Last night, Caroline had attempted to complete her reconciliation. with George in their bedroom. But she had found herself unable to command the surrender, to summon the sweetness that his lovemaking had hitherto stirred in her flesh. Now she understood why, facing John Sladen in the parlor filled with gray January light. Snow scratched at the windows. Was a kind of winter taking root in her soul?
On John’s gaunt face lay the patina of defeat that had stirred pity in the past. She had banned that vagrant emotion from her soul in the name of marital fidelity. It was barred from the icy caverns where the underground river ran down to the sunless sea. She crouched in one of these caves, a spectator watching herself perform the rituals of secret partnership with this man, silently begging him to understand that she had no other choice, this was the best she could do.
“You think they might actually secede? Start a civil war?”
“I do. Unless Jackson surrenders on the tariff. He has to give Calhoun something to show his people.”
Again, Caroline saw the unrealism in those words. Andrew Jackson had never surrendered anything in his life. Yet she could not bring herself to speak as bluntly to John Sladen as she had spoken to George Stapleton.
Pity? Or a secret wish to see some sort of upheaval that would enable her to triumph over George with a livid I told you so? The more she thought about it, the more Caroline preferred the second answer.
Over the next three months, the nation’s newspapers churned out a semi verdict on the Van Buren rejection. The country seemed to agree that the Little Magician was no longer the issue. The president had been insulted, his leadership of the Democratic Party challenged. The defunct ambassador shrewdly said nothing. He did not even return home from England. Instead, he toured the Continent for his “health,” a hint that he was suffering sympathy-winning pangs from Calhoun’s attempted deathblow. Meanwhile, the president-as-general summoned his loyal Democratic troops to Baltimore for the nation’s first national political convention.
Delegations were elected by state conventions or by state legislatures. In New Jersey, Senator George Stapleton had no difficulty handpicking his contingent, with some assistance from Jeremy Biddle. There were representatives from every state except Missouri; Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who embodied the Democratic Party in that state, apparently felt a convention impinged on his independence.
Caroline and Sarah Polk stayed in Washington, D.C., while their spouses mustered in Baltimore. Caroline did not receive a line from George, but James Polk sent Sarah a full report of each day’s proceedings. It was apparent from the first day that Jackson’s iron hand was in control, even though he never stirred from the White House. The delegates resolved that a two-thirds majority would be required to win a domination. The president wanted to reinforce the image of massive support for him and his chosen vice president.
Two days later, before James Polk’s letter arrived with the intimate details of minor backstage maneuvering, the Washington Globe triumphantly reported the results: on the first ballot, Martin Van Buren had received 209 out of 344 votes for vice president. A second ballot, in response to a resolution from the floor, made the choice unanimous. The convention also approved a letter to the nominee, which stated, among other things, that his election would be. “a just and certain reparation” for his “wounded feelings” as well as “an ample retribution for the injury meditated against President Jackson.” Almost as an afterthought, the delegates unanimously concurred with nu
merous state legislatures that had already nominated Old Hickory for another four years m the White House.
George Stapleton and James Polk returned hailing the convention as a brilliant political idea. Neither had any enthusiasm for Martin Van Buren, but he was now a fact of their political lives, the man most likely to succeed Andrew Jackson. He had the votes of New York State’s ever-swelling numbers behind him—and Old Hickory’s certain endorsement, if he lived to deliver it.
“Not a word was spoken on behalf of our current vice president?” Caroline said.
“His name was never so much as mentioned,” George said with a complacency that made Caroline wonder if John Sladen’s remarks about aristocratic arrogance and democratic stupidity were not entirely misplaced.
“I fear his name may be mentioned elsewhere before long in ways that disturb our tranquillity,” Caroline said.
George and James Polk airily dismissed this prophecy. “The president has told me he plans to submit a new tariff with rates that will satisfy every reasonable man in South Carolina,” Polk said.
Caroline sought Sarah Polk’s eyes to see if she shared her growing skepticism about reasonable men. But Sarah’s Tennessee loyalty to Andrew Jackson, and her devotion to James Polk, left her unable to doubt the reasonableness of the great American electorate. More and more, Caroline found herself wishing, yes, wanting to see further proof of her growing conviction that men were no more reasonable than women in matters political.
Over the next months, John Sladen became Caroline’s prophet of unreason. He had gone to Baltimore with his father-in-law , Senator Legrand, and tried to rally an alternative candidate to Martin Van Buren. For a while they had conjured some support for Virginia’s governor, Francis Barbour, but it was only a brief illusion. Now John watched Vice President Calhoun stalk the streets of Washington, a man without a party. His head was defiantly erect, yet each day in the Senate he was forced to face row upon row of men who had repudiated him in Baltimore.
John Sladen was obsessed with the similarity to the fate of Aaron Burr. He too had been refused renomination as vice president by President Thomas Jefferson and had reeled from that blow to political oblivion. John believed it was imperative for Calhoun to learn from Burr’s mistakes. “I’ve warned him he must at all events keep the loyalty and support of South Carolina,” John told Caroline in one of his morning visits.
Why? Caroline silently asked. Wouldn’t it be better for Calhoun to go to Andrew Jackson and make peace with him? But that would violate another great masculine principle. A man must never admit he made a mistake. Caroline pretended to agree with John’s anguished analysis of the situation. But she saw his obsession with Burr was no more rational than George’s devotion to Andrew Jackson. She also saw that by embracing the hotheads in his native state, Calhoun would ruin himself as a national figure and trigger a confrontation with Andrew Jackson. She convinced herself she did not care. She only wanted one thing: to hurl I told you so at George Stapleton.
Over the next troublous months, the politicians concocted a chaos that transcended Caroline’s secret hopes. President Jackson’s new secretary of the treasury sent a revised tariff up to Congress. It called for significant reductions of many items on South Carolina’s complaint list. But Calhoun’s chief lieutenant in the Senate, Senator Robert Young Hayne, pronounced the revision as no better than the Tariff of Abominations that Martin Van Buren had perpetrated in 1828.
Hayne’s rejection implied that Van Buren, back from Europe and once more a frequent visitor to the White House, was using a reduced dosage to destroy John C. Calhoun and South Carolina on a slower schedule. They found food for further suspicion when John Quincy Adams, who had returned to Washington as a congressman from Massachusetts, backed Jackson’s bill. The image of the president as a dotard manipulated by the scheming Little Magician, who would cut a deal with Satan (aka Adams) himself, took on further substance.
George fretted over the South’s reaction and tried to persuade some of his fellow senators to support a further reduction in the tariff. He was buffeted with letters from Jeremy Biddle, urging him to do nothing of the sort. Caroline secretly enjoyed this exposure of Jeremy’s conservative bias. In the House of Representatives, meanwhile, John Sladen led a ferocious campaign for an absolute end of the tariff and an endorsement of free trade, This put him at odds with James Polk, who was defending Jackson’s bill against all comers. Presidential candidate Senator Henry Clay pushed a tariff bill of his own, which jacked the rates to astronomical heights, hoping to unite the West and the Northeast in a revival of his American System. This further convinced the Calhoun men that they were a beleaguered band, without friends anywhere.
What a marvelous mess, Caroline thought. Best of all, there was another boiling issue that distracted George, Andrew Jackson, and everyone else from finding time to become reasonable about the tariff: the Bank of the United States. This entity was in charge of guaranteeing a reliable currency for the nation. To perform this crucial task, it utilized the entire revenue of the U.S. government, which was deposited in its vaults. From its doors this river of cash flowed to branch offices in every state, which loaned the money at reasonable rates to carefully supervised state-chartered banks, who in turn loaned it to businessmen and farmers. For the previous dozen years, the BUS, as it was called, had been in the capable hands of Jeremy Biddle’s uncle, Nicholas Biddle. BUS-backed loans had helped build Principia Mills, the Delaware and Raritan Canal, and the Camden & Amboy Railroad.
Andrew Jackson had a frontiersman’s dislike of banks because of their habit of calling in overdue loans on the farms and crops of his friends. He reserved a special animosity for the Bank of the United States because it was a direct descendant of the institution created by Alexander Hamilton, modeled much too blatantly on the Bank of England. All this smacked of the old Federalist elite whom Thomas Jefferson had defeated in 1800 and Jackson had finally and totally routed in 1828 with his fulminations against aristocrats. The fact that numerous lawyers who were also congressmen and senators, notably Daniel Webster, were paid fat fees by the bank in its ordinary operations only intensified Old Hickory’s suspicions that the BUS was an enemy of the people.
Nevertheless, thanks to the distractions of Peggy Eaton and the feud with Calhoun, the bank might have slumbered like a dormant volcano into the president’s second term if Henry Clay, casting about for an issue to challenge Jackson, had not persuaded Nicholas Biddle to ask for the bank to be rechartered in 1832. Biddle was a Clay man to his bones, a fervent believer in the American System. He was arrogantly confident, thanks to the number of congressmen on his payroll, that he could have his way—and humiliate Andrew Jackson in the bargain.
Here was an argument that was made to order for fanaticism on all sides. Caroline could scarcely conceal her delight at how confused George became as he wrestled with entreaties from his uncle Malcolm Stapleton and his best friend, Jeremy Biddle, to defend the BUS and with trumpet calls from Andrew Jackson and James Polk to destroy it. In the House of Representatives, James Polk led a feverish Jackson-driven crusade against recharter, while John Sladen and other Calhoun men rallied to the side of the bank, on the principle that it was their sworn duty to oppose whatever Andrew Jackson wanted. The corrupt hand of Martin Van Buren was perceived as another reason to defend the BUS. If it was destroyed, the nation’s financial control would pass to the ever more powerful banks of New York, who were all the Little Magician’s clients or vice versa.
Day and night the oratory raged. At White House dinners, the president looked exhausted, his cough sounded more and more alarming, his step seemed feeble. When Caroline expressed her concern, he took her arm and said, “Don’t fret your pretty head about me, child. The bank is trying to kill me. But I assure you, I will kill it instead.”
A few days later, at tea with Sarah Polk, Caroline saw similar traces of exhaustion on her usually serene face. “Is something worrying you?” Caroline asked.
“James has had a te
rrible attack of stomach and bowel complaints. It’s always a sign that he’s overworking. But I can’t ask him to rest. So much depends on this struggle against the BUS. The Calhoun men have a clear majority on the committee. They’re going to recommend recharter. James is working day and night on a minority report. He can’t bear the thought of failing General Jackson.”
“What about the tariff? I haven’t heard anyone mention it in a month:”
“The tariff?” Sarah said dazedly. “Who cares about that, now?”
Caroline asked John Sladen the same question and got almost the same answer. George was equally hazy about the subject that had absorbed him two months ago. He was in an agony of indecision about how to vote on the bill to recharter the BUS. To vote against it seemed to be a desecration of the Stapleton manes. His grandfather had played a major role in the founding of Hamilton’s BUS. When it was rechartered in 1816, Hugh Stapleton had been the floor leader in the Senate, the man who pushed it through. Letters were cascading in from business leaders in New Jersey, urging his support. He asked Caroline what she thought he should do.
“Isn’t it the first principle of your existence never to disobey President Jackson?” she asked.
George looked hangdog. It was a clear hit. He went off to his study to meditate on his mail. The great bank debate churned on, with the forces of Biddle and Clay, supplemented by Calhoun volunteers, clearly in control. Both the House and the Senate reported bills with substantial majorities in favor of recharter.
The Wages of Fame Page 26