Three Roads to the Alamo

by William C. Davis

  Crockett did come out “in the gunter,” by which his son meant the “full measure.” On the polling day late that summer, Arnold took 2,417 and Alexander 3,647, but Crockett throttled them both with 5,868 votes.23 Crockett more than doubled his vote of two years before, while Alexander's only grew by 800. More important, almost twelve thousand of the eligible voters turned out on election day, more than double the number who voted in 1825, and at least half of the new voters went for Crockett. The perceptive observer could have seen a phenomenon in operation. Something was happening in West Tennessee—mirrored across the nation—that brought thousands of new men to the polls to vote perhaps for the first time, and they liked what they saw in David Crockett. A new and stunning dynamic was entering American politics.

  There is no question that his election surprised many, perhaps not least Crockett himself. A few years later he told a friend that “he never knew why the people of his district elected him to Congress, as it was a matter he knew precious little about at the time and had no idea what he would be called on to do when he arrived in Washington.”24 That, of course, may just have been Crockett's old pretended pose of ignorance and naïveté, but others were quite genuinely taken aback. A friend wrote to Henry Clay just days after the balloting that “Crockett the bear hunter who voted for Colo. Williams, in opposition to Genl J[ackson], is elected 2 to 1.”25 Significantly, among politicians at large Crockett, if known at all at that moment, was remembered only for being the man who killed bears and who opposed Jackson's election to the Senate in 1825, and the two acts may have been viewed as somewhat synonymous. Far more significant, however, even though Henry Clay had undoubtedly never heard of Crockett before, Clay's son-in-law, James Erwin, now regarded this election result as sufficiently important to relate it to him in detail. He was already Jackson's archrival, and the man around whom an organization called National Republicans was starting to form as an opposition to Jackson's new Democratic Party.

  A few weeks after the election Crockett called on Erwin in Nashville and asked for an introduction to his father-in-law. Clay was the acknowledged leader of western statesmen in Washington, had been Speaker of the House, and now filled the post of secretary of state, and that alone made such a request understandable for an incoming freshman representative. Though he was not yet public on the matter, Clay shared at least some of Crockett's concerns over sale of public lands, and Crockett also agreed at least in part with some of Clay's advocacy of federally funded internal improvements. Yet at the same time, Crockett's wish to see Clay betrayed either a striking failure to sense the prevailing political breezes—or else an even less admirable evolution of his old policy of not taking any stand at all into one of trying to ingratiate himself with all parties so that no matter who lost, he would be on the winning side.

  Everyone in the nation knew that Clay loathed Jackson by now, suffering a near obsession with seeing Old Hickory defeated for the presidency in 1828. Though Clay and President John Quincy Adams formed a coalition at the moment, it was clear that after 1828 Clay would be the party leader no matter what happened. Thus for Crockett, on the record as an ardent Jackson man, to seek out Clay could in itself be suspicious, and how much more so when he told Erwin that when he arrived in Washington he intended “to pursue his own Course.” That certainly sounded like Crockett. But then he said that when the House organized and elected its Speaker, he intended to vote for John W. Taylor of New York, a prominent opponent of Jackson and a man all too closely associated with Clay. More startling yet, he suggested to Erwin that if clay thought Taylor a bad choice, Crockett would vote for anyone Clay suggested, “as he is more willing to trust your experience than his own.” Was Crockett trying to ingratiate himself with Clay as a fellow westerner with shared interests, or was there something more sinister in his offer? If Jackson lost in 1828, Clay might be the winner, or even if Adams were elected, still Clay would be the man of the future. Could Crockett really have entertained a calculating notion of currying favor just in case? Or worst of all—and far more likely—was he simply so naive that he believed that a professional career politician like Clay would give an honest opinion uninfluenced by party concerns; that because Crockett himself would “pursue his course” without reference to partisanship, Clay would too?

  Erwin made no mistake in delineating Crockett for Henry Clay. “Col. Crockett is perhaps the most illiterate Man, that you have ever met in Congress Hall,” he said. “He is not only illiterate but he is rough & uncouth, talks much & loudly, and is by far, more in his proper place, when hunting a Bear, in a Cane Break, than he will be in the Capital.” Yet it would be worth the great Clay's time to be mindful of Crockett and perhaps to court him. “He is independant and fearless & has a popularity at home that is unaccountable,” added Erwin, and then he threw in the essential element. “He is the only man that I now know in Tennessee that Could openly oppose Genl. Jackson in his District & be elected to Congress.”26 The message was clear enough: Crockett had confronted the Jackson bear in his own Tennessee lair and still emerged a vote winner. He would need watching. If he proved to be a sensible man, or even a foolish one who could be managed—as his offer on the speakership suggested—he might be a potential convert to the Clay-Adams party, and a potent weapon to use wittingly or unwittingly against Old Hickory.

  Crockett did something seemingly unusual after his election victory. He spent time with his family, and even took them to western North Carolina for a visit with Elizabeth's relatives. They stopped first in Nashville in the third week of September, where the congressman-elect made his call on Erwin. As they traveled east, he suffered another recurrence of malaria, severe enough that though he continued on his way, once Crockett reached Swannanoa, near Asheville, he remained bedridden four weeks recuperating.27 While there he found himself unintentionally involved in a feud between two local politicians that grew out of their own recent congressional election. Insults flew, and a challenge to a duel ensued, resulting in a meeting on November 6, several miles south of Swannanoa in Saluda. One of the principals, Samuel Carson, had been Crockett's friend, and now David accompanied him to the dueling field, where he saw Carson's opponent take an apparently fatal bullet. Crockett was never a man quick to violence. He had a temper but generally kept it well governed unless highly provoked. Moreover, he was more prone to ridicule dueling than to participate, but typically his sense of loyalty to a friend overrode any opposition in principle, and the next that was seen of him he was riding back to Carson's home for all his poor horse was worth, flailing his hat almost to tatters against the animal's flank to get more speed, and yelling “the Victory is Ours.” It had been a season of victory.28

  There was no time to take his family back to Tennessee now, for Congress was due to start its session on December 3. Elizabeth would have to get home on her own. By November 15, after allowing a physician to “bleed” him sufficiently to satisfy conventional wisdom about treating his illness, he rallied strength despite his weakness and, in company with Congressman Carson and his colleague Lewis Williams, left for Washington.29 Crockett was no doubt glad of the company of these two experienced men, especially the ten-year veteran Williams. He felt uneasy and uncertain about how he would fare when thrown into the House with what he called “the great men of the nation,” and they must have passed the time on the long journey educating Crockett on procedures and customs.30 At the same time Williams, like Erwin, watched Crockett on Clay's behalf and let Clay know of their progress.31

  The trip itself may have come close to killing Crockett, for he was hardly in any condition to make a grueling overland journey. “I have thought that I was never to See my family any more,” he confessed a few weeks later, “tho thanks be to god I hope that I am Recovering.”32 The long hours in the saddle, and the poor beds and indifferent fare at the inns along the way did not help. Offered rabbit for dinner at one stop, he declared that he would “rather eat a paper of pins” than a bunny.33 They traveled by way of Richmond, Virginia, and
while there Crockett learned that the Jacksonians intended to run Andrew Stevenson for the Speakership, a choice he found acceptable enough.34 On reaching Washington he rented a room at Mrs. Ball's boarding-house, and there met surely for the first time his fellow boarders Thomas Chilton of Kentucky, Nathaniel Claiborne of Virginia, and William Clark of Pennsylvania.35 Even here his company was potentially dangerous, for Clark and Chilton were about to break with Jackson in favor of Adams and Clay, and Claiborne was already in their camp. Of course Crockett may have had no idea of the leanings of his fellow boarders when he took lodging at Mrs. Ball's. He just needed a place to live. But it is also just possible that Williams or Erwin directed him to a house populated by Clay's friends, where their influence might be subtly applied. Certain it is that from the day of his election to the moment he walked into the chamber of the House of Representatives for the first time, the interested eyes of Jackson's enemies were on him, and he was scarcely in Washington before his companion Williams introduced him to President Adams himself on November 27.36

  Crockett's fellow delegates from Tennessee included James K. Polk, John Bell, John Blair, Robert Desha, Jacob Isacks, Pryor Lea, John H. Marable, and James Mitchell, the very man who had dubbed him “gentleman from the cane.” Almost to a man they backed Jackson, and most of them Crockett would have known in person or by reputation. When they all took their seats on December 3, the first order of business was organization of the House, and it became speedily apparent that the Democrats held more than enough of a majority to deny Taylor the speakership. As Polk saw it, the contest was a referendum on the coming presidential contest itself, and Andrew Stevenson of Pennsylvania was the Jackson candidate. The Clay-Adams men ran Taylor but simply never had the votes. Polk did note that in the voting there had been some “undisciplined malitia against well drilled regulars,” a metaphor indicating that some supposed Jackson men tried to act independently rather than follow the party line, but he may have been referring to Crockett in particular, thanks to his militia title of “colonel.”37 If Crockett still intended to vote for Taylor, he finally came around and voted with his delegation, though his original adherence to Taylor remains puzzling, the only apparent explanation being that, though friendly to Clay, Taylor had the reputation of being his own man.

  At the same time they reelected Matthew St. Clair Clarke of Pennsylvania to be clerk. Crockett did not know Clarke, but he soon would. When the House gave one of its principal patronage jobs, the office of public printer, it also went to a Democrat, Duff Green, though his allegiance was to his kinsman John C. Calhoun much more than to Jackson. Unaware of this, Crockett actually crowed over the appointment, because it displaced Joseph Gales as publisher of the daily Congressional Debates and returned him to his editorship of the Washington National Intelligencer. Without knowing Gales, apparently, Crockett called him a “treasury pap Sucking Editor,” apparently holding it against him that the Clay-Adams coalition that defeated Jackson in 1824 had given Gales his post. In short, his resentment was not for Gales the man but for the seeming “corrupt bargain” that had gotten him his job.38

  Crockett commenced his days in Congress as befitted a new man, keeping quiet and watching and learning. He joined the rest of his delegation in petitioning President Adams not to interfere with a current appointee in West Tennessee, presented a petition to establish a new mail route in his district, and paid a call on the postmaster general to urge the appointment of his friend James Gibson to a postmastership, only to be told that he could name whomever he pleased and the cabinet official would approve.39 It went slightly to Crockett's head, for never before in his life had he experienced such deference, especially from such quarters. “I find a representative have powar to appoint who they pleas,” he wrote a friend.40 What Crockett did not realize was that Postmaster General John McLean, having broken with the administration, was distributing as much patronage to the Jacksonian opposition as he could. Thus, even though Crockett got what he wanted, his pride in his new influence was misplaced. McLean simply used him unwittingly to a different end. These were murky waters in Washington.

  Crockett waited exactly three days before trying to make his mark. His ego boost from McLean may have helped propel him to some extent, but in the main it was simply like him not to observe the conventions of being seen but not heard for awhile as a freshman. Besides, he epitomized one of the phenomena of American politics that Tocqueville would witness just three years later. “In America a deputy is generally a nobody apart from his position in the assembly,” said the visiting French observer, and certainly that applied to Crockett. “He is therefore perpetually stung by the need to acquire importance there, and he has a petulant longing to air his ideas in and out of season. He is pushed in that direction not only by his own vanity but also by that of his electors, whom he is always bound to gratify.”41 Add to that the fact that for Crockett, the shortest distance toward any destination was always straight ahead, and he had neither the time nor the finesse to play conventional games toward that end. He had come there to get that vacant land issue settled, and on December 6 he introduced a bill to effect his goal. Moreover, based apparently on little more than his own naive optimism and, thanks to McLean, perhaps a mistaken notion of his “powar,” he believed confidently that he would see the bill passed that session, and even sent open letters to editors in his district telling constituents what he was accomplishing for them.42

  Very quickly reality began to confront him. Congress did not move speedily on anything unless it was a highly charged partisan issue, which hardly applied to West Tennessee acreage. After two weeks Crockett's enthusiasm began to wane as he found nothing being done, and little inclination to do anything until after Christmas. The House sometimes sat barely an hour a day.43 More than two months after he introduced his bill, there was still no movement, and no chance of hurrying it as there had been when he sat in the state legislature. “Thare is such a disposition here to show Eloquience that this will be a long Session and do no good,” he concluded by February 1828. He still expected to get his bill passed somehow, though, predicting that “in a few weeks you will find that I have been successful.”44

  Instead the speeches just droned on. He soon found that the most irksome thing about being a representative was having to listen to all those endless attempts at eloquence, especially since so many were aimed not at the business of the House but toward the coming election. He began ducking out whenever he thought a speaker had gone on long enough, and some days when there was no likelihood of anything else being done, he did not attend at all.45“There's too much talk,” he complained. “Many men seem to be proud they can say so much about nothing. Their tongues keep working, whether they've got any grist to grind or not.” Nothing that some men simply sat without ever saying a word, Crockett concluded that they still earned their eight dollars a day in salary just by listening, “provided they don't go to sleep.” For his own part he found the thought of splitting stringy gumwood on a hot August day far less daunting than trying to keep awake in the House.46 It was all what Crockett called “one of my plaguy botherations.”47

  While he waited in what amounted to a triumph of hope over experience for the House to do something with his land bill, Crockett at least took pleasure in seeing the advance of Jackson's presidential prospects. It troubled him to see so much time wasted on the floor of Congress in partisan squabbling, but Jackson himself appeared to be above it all. He thought Old Hickory like the rough diamond in the soil, and of course that was just how Crockett saw himself. The gem had no value until polished, and the more Jackson's enemies tried to rub him, the brighter he sparkled. By early February he felt no doubt of Jackson's election. “Old hickory is rising,” he told his constituents. “The die is cast.”48

  As the session wore on and spring came, Crockett's optimism for action on his land bill dipped even lower. When the House bogged down in debate on the tariff in March, he looked on in dismay as a largely partisan element tried to reshape the
duties in a way that would align the West, the South, and the mid-Atlantic states against New England, the home of President Adams. Critics charged that the House was concerned not with protecting manufacturers but manufacturing a president, and Crockett became so frustrated that he determined to vote against every single tariff amendment and against the tariff bill itself. The faster they got rid of the issue, the sooner they might come to his land bill. Moreover, the maneuvering of the public's business for such obvious partisan ends rankled him, and while he placed no blame on Jackson—who may not have approved the tariff manipulation—the behavior of Old Hickory's adherents, including Polk, increased Crockett's suspicion of party machines and of the men like Polk who ran them.49

  There was still no action on the land bill. In time Crockett gained confidence in himself and his deportment, and believed: “I am getting along very well with the great men of the nation much better than I expected.”50 So he was, but there were undercurrents that escaped him. Polk, always difficult to read, no doubt felt some suspicion, before the session commenced, of both Crockett's depth as a statesman and his soundness for Jackson. Then, too, when he received a letter from a constituent asking him to help collect a modest $12.75 debt owed by Crockett that was more than five years overdue, he had to wonder just how responsible his colorful colleague might be. Perhaps most disturbing of all, well-meaning West Tennesseans confirmed for him what he may have feared privately: “Should that bill pass Relinquishing those lands to the State,” said an enthusiastic Crockett supporter from near Jackson, “Crockett will be invincible, whether he aids in the cause or not.”51 If there was one thing the Jackson men in Tennessee had to guard against, it was someone who could not be counted on to follow the Jackson line becoming invincible.