The Wages of Fame

by Thomas Fleming

  “I worry about Polk. He’s mounting a very large tiger. I hope he doesn’t end up minus his arms and legs.”

  “He has a secret resource. Sarah Childress Polk.”

  “Her name won’t be on what he signs, what he says, what he does. It’ll be James Knox Polk’s presidency in the history books. That can do terrible things to a man’s peace of mind. Not to mention his stomach and intestines.”

  For a moment she almost told him about the Temple of Fame. “No matter what it says in the history books, for them it will be their presidency,” she said. “Their chance to live and work together on a scale, with a passion, that no other husband and wife have ever achieved in the history of the world. Then it will be our turn. James trusts in Sarah’s love, her intelligence. Why don’t you trust in mine?”

  “I do. But we’re only human, Caroline. We’re both … human.”

  “I know that. I know we may fail. The Polks may fail. But if we love each other, even the failure will be glorious.”

  She flung her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. For a moment, her left hand was upturned beside his ear. Hannah Stapleton’s diamond glinted in the lamplight. I mean what I just said. I mean every word of it, Caroline told herself—and Hannah’s hovering spirit—if by some miracle beyond her comprehension such a being existed.

  It was unquestionably the beginning of a memorable moment in their marriage. But before George could do more than return her kiss, a fist pounded on the door. A drunken voice shouted, “Senator Stapleton. We’ve got a new proposition! New York must be heard!”

  Caroline slipped under the bedcovers. Three beefy men blundered into the room. She recognized one of them—their old acquaintance Churchill C. Cambreleng, fatter, older, less self-confident. He had been an ex-congressman since the 1837 Democratic rout in New York that had signaled the downfall of Van Buren’s presidency.

  The sight of Caroline threw Cambreleng and his friends into confusion. They babbled apologies for their bad manners and hastily delivered their proposition to George. For New York to be properly consoled for abandoning Van Buren, they had to have the vice presidency.

  “I see no problem with that,” George said. “I presume you have Silas Wright in mind?”

  “Yes!” all three chorused. Senator Silas Wright had been Van Buren’s spokesman in Washington for the last four years. He had a reputation for straight dealing and honest statement that was in ironic contrast to his patron. Quiet, even shy in mixed company, he often drank too much at Caroline’s salons but never lost his dignity. His wife was even more shy and confessed to Caroline that she worried about her husband’s drinking.

  With more apologies, the New Yorkers stumbled into the hall. “Wright won’t accept,” Caroline said. “His wife hates Washington. She can’t wait to get her husband out of the place. As vice president he’d drink himself to death in a year. You’d better have a substitute in the wings.”

  George gazed ruefully at Caroline. The moment had passed. “Can I lay your previous motion on the table, Mrs. President? To be taken up at a later date?”

  “It can be brought up anytime you please, Mr. President.”

  The next morning, as the balloting resumed at Odd Fellows Hall, Churchill C. Cambreleng rose to announce that New York’s delegation was withdrawing Martin Van Buren’s name and switching their support to Polk. Cambreleng made the statement with an absolute minimum of enthusiasm. John Sladen leaped to his feet to shout that Louisiana, which had been supporting Lewis Cass, was also switching to Polk. Francis Pickens marched from the rear of the hall and addressed the chairman: “May I, speaking unofficially for the state of South Carolina, add my voice to this chorus?” The building burst into thunderous cheers; everyone thought he represented John C. Calhoun. At breakfast, Caroline had paused at Pickens’s table to urge him to make Julia Gardiner Tyler happy with this declaration.

  After casting New Jersey’s votes for Polk, Senator George Stapleton asked permission to address the convention. He told them about his visit to Andrew Jackson and the General’s unequivocal choice of Polk as his candidate. “Who else but the founder of our party could have made this inspired choice of another man from Tennessee?” George roared. “Our party was born with Old Hickory. It will be reborn with Young Hickory!”

  The cheers were even more stupendous. John Sladen made a motion to declare James Knox Polk the candidate of the Democratic Party for president by a unanimous vote. “Polk and Texas!” he howled. “No matter what great power casts its perfidious shadow, the will of the American people will not be thwarted by counsels of caution and timidity!”

  Delegates pranced in the aisles. At a signal from George, men in bartender’s aprons began handing out bottles of Tennessee bourbon. The band burst into “Hail the Conquering Hero.” Other orators ascended the platform to praise “Honest Jim” Polk. Tennesseans made it sound as if he had spent his boyhood at Andrew Jackson’s knee. George, making good on his promise, nominated Silas Wright for vice president. It was approved with another unanimous acclamation.

  A messenger was rushed to the room in Odd Fellows Hall where Samuel F. B. Morse had set up one of his telegraphs. It was connected to a receiver in the U.S. Capitol. Wright was asked if he accepted the task of becoming a sop to Martin Van Buren’s pride. Back whizzed the answer that Caroline had predicted: No. The delegates buzzed and swarmed like a hive of agitated bees. Eventually, George mounted the rostrum and nominated ex-senator George Mifflin Dallas of Pennsylvania—another state that Polk had to carry to win. Dallas was accepted with the same enthusiasm that had greeted Wright. By this time the Tennessee bourbon had taken effect and the delegates were ready to cheer anyone—even Henry Clay.

  The next order of business was the platform. George and party chairman Robert Walker saw to it that it began with a ringing demand to annex Texas and Oregon. The rest of the document was identical to the statements on which the party had run in 1840. Most important was the call for noninterference by the federal government in any and all “American institutions”—a code term for slavery.

  The convention was over. The first stage of the miracle had occurred. Sarah Childress and James Knox Polk were on their way to the White House. Ahead there were still delicate negotiations with President Tyler to persuade him to get out of the race in Polk’s favor. But Caroline was confident she and George could handle this problem. Back in Washington, D.C., at their big brick house on Pennsylvania Avenue, she wrote the most important letter of her life to Sarah Polk.

  Dearest Friend,

  I hardly need congratulate you and James on the nomination. You know my feelings on that score. The newspapers will tell you most of what transpired at the convention. There were reporters swarming everywhere. I want to share something else with you, a vision of the future that I implore you to tell no one—not even your husband. Never have I had such a sense of large events impending since I came to Washington. But thought—true thought—about them is being lost in the welter of arguments about slavery. I believe you and I can think about these events better than any of the distracted males of our acquaintance—including our husbands. I hope that is not too hard a saying for you. I know you love James and I love George. But love does not—or should not—blind a woman to a man’s limitations. Do you agree? I know you do, so I will proceed with absolute trust that you will honor the request with which I began this letter.

  Together, the Polks and the Stapletons can lay the foundation for the resolution of this immense problem. There is no doubt in my mind or yours that eventually the blacks must be freed. When and how is the question. The Northern states with substantial numbers of blacks—New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania—abolished slavery in a series of steps, first freeing. the children of slaves when they reached maturity and finally ending it altogether. Why were they able to do this without any concern for what terrifies the South—a black insurrection? Because the numbers of slaves in proportion to the white population was relatively small.

  As lo
ng as the South’s 3 million slaves are compacted within its borders, Southerners will regard abolition as an attempt by Northerners to cut the throats of their wives and children. The one hope of persuading the South to accept a gradual manumission of their blacks is diffusion. Only when the Africans are spread over a vastly wider domain, becoming, say, no more than ten or twenty percent of the population in most places, will the fear of a race war subside.

  You and James know that the annexation of Texas will almost certainly start a war with Mexico. It will, if you follow Andrew Jackson’s vision, inexorably lead to the conquest of New Mexico and California. With an army at your command, it should not be difficult to persuade the British to settle the Oregon border the way General Jackson settled Florida with the Spanish—give us what we want or we’ll take it. But that new territory, immense as it is, will not be enough to disperse the blacks to the point where manumission will be permissible. To achieve that we must have Mexico itself.

  I know the thought is breathtaking. A politician would recoil at the immense problems the idea suggests. But we who have time to reflect, to plan, to await the moment, should not flinch from what seems unthinkable at first. The advantages would be as immense as the problems. Mexico is already a mixed race, Spanish and Indian. Blacks could be introduced there in large numbers—the country is relatively underpopulated. Grateful to those who gave them freedom, they might even become our legates, or at the worst our helots, to retain control of the country for the foreseeable future. The British have done similar things in India, with armies of native troops under white leadership.

  The task of persuading the American people to accept this idea will be large, I admit. But the people worship success. A war that swiftly conquers Mexico will make James K. Polk a national hero. He may well acquire the kind of authority that Andrew Jackson possessed—and the consequent ability to persuade the mass that his vision is inspired by the gods. Waiting in the wings will be General George Stapleton, to second his leadership and assume his power when James lays it aside to the plaudits of a grateful nation.

  Does this stir you as it does me? I think it will. I think it will earn us an eternal accolade in the Temple of Fame.

  Devotedly,

  Caroline

  In the nursery, she could hear George romping with little Paul. She had barely kissed the child when they returned from Baltimore. This letter was already burning in her mind. Slowly, Caroline reread it and carefully sealed the envelope. Almost immediately she was assailed by terrific guilt. A voice spoke in her head, her heart, her soul. How can you leave out the rest of it? Without the whole truth this letter is a lie. Your love for Sarah will become a lie. But the whole truth was untellable. It was forever sealed in those caves of ice, where the sacred river ran down to the sunless sea.

  She would tell her as much as she could—as much, perhaps, as she owed her. She tore open the envelope and added a postscript.

  There is a dark alternative to this vision. Throughout the South, men are joining secret societies and swearing solemn oaths to take Mexico and keep it if war breaks out. My friend John Sladen is one of them. They have another purpose—to make the South strong enough to confront the North as an equal, and make demands that the North may not be able to accept; a complete suppression of abolitionism, for instance, a fugitive slave law with teeth. If the North refuses, the entire South, puissant with conquest, with Texas and Mexico and California in its grasp, will secede and dare the North to do something about it. I think—I hope—this darkness can be averted by inspired leadership. But if it comes to the worst version of the scenario, is it so terrible if the two sections go their separate ways? It might be best for both peoples. For the blacks of course there might be a longer wait for freedom. But their fate is already hard. It is difficult to see how it would be much worse in a seceded South. The same principle of emancipation by diffusion would, I think, ultimately prevail.

  Now I have told you everything because I trust you absolutely—as a woman and as my beloved friend.

  ELEVEN

  ON JUNE 24, 1844, GEORGE and Caroline joined President Tyler, his sons, Robert and John Jr., and their wives on a voyage to New York aboard a small steam yacht that George had chartered for the occasion. It was a cheerful company. The president was on his way to marry Julia Gardner. The expectation of holding so much loveliness in his arms enabled him to look serenely on his latest political disappointment.

  A week ago, the Senate had rejected Secretary of State Calhoun’s treaty with Texas by a crushing vote. Whigs and disgruntled Van Buren Democrats combined to provide more nays than yeas—instead of the two-thirds majority needed to annex the republic. But the president declared himself undaunted. He was still determined to make Texas the twenty-seventh state, somehow.

  Tyler’s third-party candidacy was taking on shape and substance. By handing out federal jobs by the dozen, he had persuaded New York’s Tammany Hall, which nursed numerous grievances against Martin Van Buren’s Albany machine, to endorse him for president. Similar tactics had produced endorsements from dissident groups in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Tyler was going to be on the ballot in these three key states.

  “I haven’t heard a word from your friend Polk,” Tyler said. “Have you?”

  “I’m in touch with him almost every day,” George said. “He’s very concerned and perplexed by your candidacy, Mr. President. He asked General Jackson to write me a letter about it—with permission to show it to you.”

  “You have it with you?”

  George took it out of his pocket. Caroline had already read it, of course. In his unique scrawl, Old Hickory praised Tyler effusively for his efforts on behalf of Texas. He went on to declare Tyler’s withdrawal from the race “would be the certain means of electing Mr. Polk.” If Tyler and his followers agreed to this step, the General was sure Polk and his fellow Democrats would look on the president and his followers as “brethren—all former differences forgotten.”

  “This is what I wanted to see,” Tyler said, handing the letter to his sons. “Not for myself, I have no further desire for office, but for my friends, who have risked a great deal for me.”

  “It’s as far as any reasonable man can expect Mr. Polk to go,” George said.

  “I agree. When I return from my honeymoon, I’ll announce my withdrawal from the race.”

  George summoned the yacht’s steward and they soon had glasses of champagne in their hands. “To happiness!” the president said.

  Two days later, in the flower-bedecked Church of the Ascension on lower Fifth Avenue, one version of that mystical American word seemed within John Tyler’s grasp. The fifty-four-year-old president waited expectantly at the altar as glowing twenty-four-year-old Julia Gardiner came up the aisle on the arm of her brother, Alexander. Not a reporter or a sketch artist was in sight. The president had debarked from their yacht in the dawn and remained unseen in the Gardiners’ New York town house until the ceremony.

  On the way to the church in the Gardiner carriage, Tyler asked the Stapletons and his two sons to say nothing about his decision to withdraw from the race. “Julia will be disappointed. She honestly believes I can be elected,” he said.

  “You must focus her energies on Texas, Mr. President,” Caroline said. “If Mr. Polk is elected, why can’t you convince Congress that they should accept the people’s decision as a mandate and vote to annex Texas by a simple majority of both houses before you leave office? You would have the glory of bringing her into the Union—which you richly deserve.”

  Tyler smiled. “You’re not the first person to suggest that idea, Mrs. Stapleton. But few have put it so graciously.”

  Caroline was acting as Sarah Polk’s spokeswoman here. Since Caroline’s confessional letter after James Polk was nominated, she and Sarah had been in almost daily communication. As Caroline expected, Sarah did not flinch from the prospect of annexing New Mexico and California as well as Texas—or from the implications of conquering and holding Mexico—but she cooll
y declined to commit James Polk to such an awesome program. While it is useful to look far ahead, it is better to go one step at a time, she wrote. Foreseeing the ferocious opposition to Texas among the Whigs and abolitionists, she urged Caroline and George to use all their influence to persuade Tyler to annex the controversial republic while he was president. James would inherit an accomplished fact—and it would be up to the Mexicans to decide whether they wanted a war. Let’s spread the responsibility around, Sarah wrote.

  The newspapers reacted to the announcement of President Tyler’s May-September union with not a little randy humor. The New York Herald remarked that the White House had told everyone the president was taking a vacation from his arduous duties. “We rather think the president’s arduous duties are only beginning,” the reporter chortled. Other papers used the opportunity to make political jokes about Texas. It was, one editor said, a treaty of annexation Tyler could manage without the consent of the Senate.

  Whig presidential candidate Henry Clay and his Senate followers who had voted against acquiring Texas soon discovered they had mistaken Washington’s hermetic politics for the sentiments of the American people. North, South, East, and West, a hurricane of enthusiasm for bringing the republic into the Union swept the nation. Everyone wanted this immense swath of virtually uninhabited territory to be part of the United-States. One reason may have been the announcement that Texas would grant 640 acres to any head of a family who settled there and 320 acres to a single man. For many people, Texas became an instant El Dorado—and James K. Polk’s call for annexation won their passionate approval.