If the amendment could have come to a vote that first day, it might have passed. But in nine subsequent days of debate Blair and Isacks openly denounced him, and every other member of his own delegation spoke to oppose his amendment. As the talk dragged on and on, Crockett even made the either desperate or frivolous statement that he would vote for any measure any other member asked him to support, in return for a vote in favor of his amendment. Obviously he had learned that politics involved bargaining, but not as blatant as this. On January 14, with everyone in the House thoroughly tired of the subject, a vote to table the bill and the amendment carried by 103 to 65. To his constituents Crockett actually applauded the failure of the Polk bill, for now he could introduce a new one of his own. Worse, he reiterated for the Tennessee press his distrust of its own legislature. “If I am whipped,” he promised, “I will not stay whipped.”73
“You may suppose that such a man under no circumstances could do us much harm,” Polk fumed two days after the tabling motion carried. “Rely upon it he can be and has been opperated upon by our enemies. We cant trust him an inch.” The Tennessee delegation talked of preparing a statement to be signed by all of them repudiating Crockett's conduct, and one loyal Democrat back in Shelby County referred to “Davy Crockett” and fumed to Polk that “it is a misfortune to the state that such a man should be one of her delegates.”74
In his fury Polk made another accusation that may have had some foundation, and if so, it showed just how effectively the opposition had “opperated” on Crockett, and how naive he could be in the face of more skilled politicians. During the course of the debates he believed that he saw some of the National Republicans helping Crockett with his speeches and parliamentary procedure, most notably that same Joseph Gales whom Crockett had denounced the year before, yet who now Polk saw “nursing him, and dressing up and reporting speeches for him” in the National Intelligencer, even though Polk and others would swear that Crockett never delivered those speeches as reported. There appeared to be a good possibility that when it came time to vote anew for a House printer, Crockett might side with Gales and his partner, William Seaton, against the Democratic candidate, Duff Green.75 So incensed was Polk at Crockett's action that he sent full explanatory letters of the whole episode, including his suspicions, to several prominent men in Tennessee. It was evident that he felt that Crockett had declared war on his own delegation, and Polk and the rest were ready to fight back.
It is not hard to fathom what was happening to Crockett. He never felt truly accepted as a member of his own delegation. From the moment of his departure for the first session of the House, members of the opposition had been at least as friendly as his own party, and perhaps more so, and certainly anxious to accommodate, right up to Henry Clay and President Adams. Now when he simply tried to do what he knew to be right, his colleagues all abandoned him, and suddenly the only friends he seemed to have were men like Gales and other Republicans. A man of the world might have seen their motives as questionable, but a simple man of the canebrakes, a man who said and meant what he thought and felt, and who took others likewise at their word, saw only open hands of friendship from men whose agreement with his amendment only proved that he was right to go ahead. Besides, whom was he to represent, his fellow delegates, whom he knew in his pure heart to be wrong, or the people who had sent him here? Moreover, this had nothing to do with Jackson. Crockett's loyalty there was as iron fast as ever, it seemed. His dispute was with some of Jackson's supporters such as Polk, who appeared to have abandoned the interests of the common man, but certainly that was a different matter: Surely there was no disloyalty in being right?
Suddenly Crockett felt out of place and isolated in Washington. His colleagues rebuffed or ignored him, the bill was dead for the balance of this Congress, and his only friends seemed to be men he should not befriend. When he learned that Elizabeth's father intended to visit in Weakley County in the winter, he wished he could be there, and fell into a nostalgic reverie for home that he seemed never to have felt before. When he walked down the streets of Washington and saw dogs yapping after the farmers' carts on market days, he felt a sudden homesickness for his own hounds and the long hunts of winters before.76 In the unusual cold of this season in the East, he remembered the suffering of his poor neighbors in Tennessee. When a fire broke out across the Potomac in Alexandria, he watched it from the Capitol steps for a time, then joined others in a cab to rush over and help fight the flames for hours as families struggled to save their homes; and when discussion arose in the House the next day proposing to appropriate relief for the homeless, he supported the bill.77
Crockett decided to leave Washington the very day after the session ended, so anxious was he to be at home among friends and the people he understood. He became all the more anxious when the Tennessee delegation counterattack started with Pryor Lea's unsigned open letter in the Washington press on St. Valentine's Day. Without naming Crockett, Lea accused a representative of abandoning his delegation and courting the opposition, adding that “he has openly set himself up in market, offering to vote for any thing in order to get votes by it.” Lea reiterated Polk's charge that Crockett was getting cozy with Gales, and even that Crockett admitted on one occasion that Gales had “made me a much better speech than I made in the House, or ever could make.” Crockett took up the fight in the press, and replied in temper that Lea was a “poltroon, a scoundrel and a puppy,” suggesting that if Lea would identify himself, Crockett would “resent” the insults with a challenge. Lea did identify himself in responding, declining the invitation to duel but repeating his charge that his colleague had made himself the “willing instrument of political, sectional and personal malignities” opposed to the interests of Tennessee, on the part of men who wished to “induce him to act with them in future.”78 The correspondence went back and forth in the press for several days, with Crockett, by his intemperate language, giving Lea the best of it. Crockett himself termed the episode “unfortunate” and sought to get statements from several members of Congress attesting that there had been nothing underhanded in his conduct or the discharge of his duties. Not everyone responded.79
There seemed but one bright moment that winter in Washington. On March 4 Andrew Jackson took office as seventh president of the United States, and Crockett for one felt what he believed to be joy on the occasion, and vindication for the common man whom both he and Old Hickory championed. Jackson actually arrived in Washington unexpectedly early before his supporters were ready for him, and in order to avoid too much pomp, leading Crockett to quip that he had “stolen a march upon his friends, as he always had done upon his enemies.”80 No doubt Crockett called on Old Hickory prior to the inauguration if he was able, and certainly he felt no hesitation in making his first request of the president-elect when he joined Chilton and six other representatives, all Democrats, in requesting an appointment for another Jackson supporter.81 It was well for the applicant that Jackson regarded him favorably, for Crockett's name on the application would likely have produced no action. Old Hickory felt that he owed no patronage to the canebrake upstart.
6
BOWIE
1824-1826
He has acquired an influence since you left us that astonishes those that have witnessed its Progress; his success in these land titles have led the mob to believe that he is endowed with more than human energy & ability.
WALTER OVERTON, 1826
Alexandria and western Louisiana were reeling with political excitement in the fall of 1824, when James Bowie moved to his new home in a room at Bailey's Hotel. There were still no real parties. More and more now, with a presidential election imminent, factions in the region gelled into two, those supporting Henry Clay and those favoring Jackson. Each candidate enjoyed strong personal ties to the region's influential men, as Clay did with Johnston and Brent, while Jackson commanded widespread popular loyalty thanks to his victory at New Orleans. Clay had strong support among the French-Creole population, whom Jackson had
offended with his high-handedness in 1815. Clay also favored a high protective tariff on sugar, which endeared him to planters. Jackson, on the other hand, came free of the taint of the professional politicians who many thought had run the country for their own benefit long enough. Some of the old Jeffersonians looked to him as well.
Certainly James Bowie favored Clay, for “Harry of the West” represented most of the interests that concerned him, and Bowie's close associates were Clay supporters as well. Being opportunists rather than ideologues, they all favored Clay's stand on a sugar tariff, but they opposed his equally firm support of tariffs that protected other industries than their own. In the end, though, the presidential contest was for Bowie what it was for everyone else—a matter of distant interest at best. An electoral college composed of delegates chosen by popular ballot still elected presidents. Louisianans in 1824 would not see the names of Clay, Adams, or Jackson on their ballots, but only those of nominated electors pledged to one of the candidates. As a result state and local politics commanded far more attention, and raised much greater excitement. With no fixed political ideology in sway in the region, voters still looked at matters through the lens of immediate and personal importance. Loyalty, like partisanship, was local.1
The gubernatorial contest attracted only passing attention that year. For some time now common custom had alternated governors from the American and the French communities, and “by due rotation” the Creoles expected and got the chair for one of their own that year.2 The real attention went to even more local races. At least seven prominent men entered the contest for the Rapides seat in the legislature, including Johnston's brother John, Bowie's friend from the Seventeenth—Nineteenth Louisiana, Samuel L. Wells, Gen. Walter H. Overton of the state militia, and more. The partisans of Wells and Overton especially laid on each other with a heavy hand, arousing some high feeling. Arbiters watched the polling places carefully for fraud on election day in July, making certain to speak with every voter to ensure eligibility. Overton won by the narrow margin of five votes, and by the time Bowie arrived, partisans on all sides were trying to cool the feelings aroused by the campaign.3
William Brent's contest for reelection generated the most heat. Many in the parishes of Rapides, Opelousas, Attakapas, Natchitoches, Ouachita, and Concordia, which made up the Third Congressional District, still felt bitter toward Brent for his slanderous campaign against Johnston in the last race. Now he ran against Henry Bullard of Rapides, a Jacksonian, and the campaign quickly turned nasty. Bullard's supporters circulated rumors that Brent himself had filed forged papers to secure his property in the district.
Some charged Brent with “indelicate character” flaws, and only a few concentrated on issues, like Brent's break with Clay on the tariff issue. For his part Brent wisely stayed in Washington the entire time and allowed surrogates to campaign for him. He announced himself in favor of renewing the United States claim for Texas as a part of the Louisiana Purchase, saying it should be annexed, a position bound to appeal to men like Bowie. He used his congressional franking privilege so blatantly in sending out his own campaign material that the local postmasters complained about the volume of his mail, but among the voters at large it gradually came to appear that Brent was an absent victim, in Congress doing his job while men attacked him at home where he could not defend himself in person.4 In the end the backlash from the Bullard campaign largely reelected Brent, but behind it yet more bitterness was added to the Wells-Overton animosity. “Electioneering is warm,” Johnston's brother John warned him just before the voting; “it may produce some unpleasant results if they should indulge in their passions.”5
The congressional election was just past when Bowie moved to Alexandria, but by then Brent had engendered even more hostility. Josiah Johnston took his seat in the U.S. Senate early in 1824 to fill out the unexpired term of another. The office went up for election again that fall, and when Johnston sought it, Brent reneged on his former promise of support and campaigned against him, circulating charges that Johnston's close personal alignment with Clay included full support of all the tariffs, not just the one on sugar. Johnston responded with accusations of his own, and by the time Bowie took up his rented residence in Alexandria, Brent was publicly accusing Johnston of being “mean, scurrilous and cowardly.” All that prevented a duel was Brent's refusal to accept Johnston's challenge.6 Within a few weeks Brent further enraged many in Louisiana when the presidential election went to the House of Representatives after neither Jackson, Adams, nor Clay received sufficient votes in the electoral college. Jackson had the plurality in the college and was expected to win in the House, but Clay threw his support to Adams. Even though Louisiana at large favored Jackson, its delegation was divided. One man voted for Jackson, but Brent and the third went for Adams, giving him the state. The result led to charges of a “corrupt bargain” when Adams made Clay his secretary of state, while men in Louisiana predicted that it would be unsafe for Brent ever to return home.7
All this served as background for the Bowie family's just completed first venture into politics, and James Bowie's first taste of what it could be like. His brother John served as justice of the peace in Catahoula in 1821-22, and was a frequent fixture at the parish courthouse, whether taking the payment of parish taxes or buying land at a sheriff's sale.8 In the spring of 1824 he decided to seek Catahoula's seat in the legislature, running against James G. Taliaferro, a man with whom he had done business selling some slaves just the year before.9 John Bowie kept his reasons for seeking office to himself, but obviously having a voice in the legislature in Baton Rouge would not hurt any of the family's enterprises, including James's land deals. “Squire Bowie,” as some called him, campaigned actively, and by coincidence spent much of his time in the Bayou Maçon area, where his brother's claims were being surveyed. He spread sufficient mischief that Taliaferro was forced to abandon his determination not to campaign—but too late.10
The result smelled bad from the day of the election in July. Of the five polling places in the district, somehow only two of them received their regulation ballot boxes. As a result, in three locations no voting took place. At the other two Taliaferro charged that “votes were taken and counted which were illegal.” Some voters appeared to be under age, while others may not have owned sufficient real property to qualify, which suggested purchased votes. Moreover, the two ballot boxes furnished did not have proper locks and keys for security. Even worse, Taliaferro complained that “the most violent and unfair exertions were made to compromit the interest of the opposing candidate,” meaning himself. Those “violent and unfair exertions” seemed to smack of intimidation, something that was much more James Bowie's game than his nearsighted brother John's.11 When John emerged the victor with a majority of a mere three votes, Taliaferro contested the result, but it may have been preordained against him. So prominent was John Bowie and so wide were his contacts in some areas of Catahoula that when Taliaferro took depositions relating to the voting, it had to be done in the home of John's mulatto cousin James on Bayou Bushley.12 Taliaferro's charges may have been nothing more than spite at being defeated in what just happened to be an extremely ineptly run election, something not uncommon in Louisiana. But the humid aroma of a fix clung to the result like a stale dew all the same.
James Bowie might well need a good connection, not so much in Baton Rouge as in Washington. He may have left Avoyelles behind when he moved to Alexandria, but the suspicions of the General Land Office followed him.13 In March, George Graham—already devoting increased scrutiny—finally saw the lost Harper letter and stated that at least nine claims—including all of Martin's and Wilson's—were false.14By December he established that “Bowie was concerned in all of them.”15 That winter Graham counterattacked, warning his agents against false claims, stirring the press against forgers, and replacing Sutton with John Hughes.16 However, the new man found all of Bowie's documents mysteriously missing, quite possibly removed at James's behest by John Wilson, a surveyor
recently fired for extortion.17 After the scare over the Bayou Maçon grants, Bowie knew not to leave any originals of his forgeries on file. And meanwhile he was creating more, again churning out titles using Robert Martin and his brother William, recording the titles in several parishes.18 He was anxious to get surveys and patents so he could sell the land for good money in the current boom for cotton land, but Graham stymied him with delays while waiting to bring the matter to Congress in December 1825.19 George Davis also suspected Milo Johnson, and when he performed some Catahoula surveys without authorization, including a claim for John Bowie, Davis stopped him. “I had not expected to find the name of Bowie among the claimants there,” Davis told Graham.20 Seemingly it was impossible to escape that name, a name soon to become known in important circles as a synonym for fraud.
Bowie did nothing to help. In the fall of 1825 he registered at least six new bogus claims for 8,100 acres or more in the Southwest District headquartered at Opelousas, using two of the fictitious grantee names from his Sutton claims, and having a third presented by Martin Despallier of Rapides, a man so transparently a front that it was soon known to land officials that “Despallier is the person who has the reputation of having made the claims known in our state as the Bowie claims.”21 If Bowie's audacity commanded admiration, his prudence did not, for this was no time to be handing the land offices more forged papers. Information of widespread fraud flooded Washington, attended by stories of the eviction of good settlers thanks to frauds like Bowie's, some claiming his activities to be worse than burglary or horse theft.22 At this very time Bowie was evicting squatters from his Terrebonne claims.23
Three Roads to the Alamo Page 18