Anything for a Vote Page 6

  The Democrats knew they were in trouble when they met in Baltimore in May to pick their candidate—and thousands of Whigs were waiting for them in the streets, marching and chanting:

  With Tip and Tyler

  We’ll bust Van’s biler.

  Well, maybe you had to be there, but the demonstration certainly got the Democrats’ attention. The times they were a-changin’ but Van Buren won the nomination anyway. Many Democrats balked once again at Richard Johnson (who “openly and shamefully lives in adultery with a buxom young negro,” as one anonymous letter writer had it), but in the end, Johnson was nominated as well.

  THE CANDIDATES

  DEMOCRAT: MARTIN VAN BUREN Van Buren was basically a decent guy with a lot of government experience who didn’t know how to handle an economic crisis. And after four years in the presidency, many people still perceived him as Andrew Jackson’s lackey. The first cartoon portraying the Democratic Party as a donkey appeared during this election. Jackson rode the beast, Van Buren walked behind it, hat in hand, saying obsequiously, “I shall tread in the footsteps of my illustrious predecessor.”

  WHIG: WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON At age sixty-eight, Harrison was getting up there in years, but his reputation as war hero still inspired a great deal of loyalty. And much like George Herbert Bush would one day transform himself from New England preppie to Texas “aw-shucks” oilman, this Virginia aristocrat portrayed himself as a “just-folks” guy with a log cabin constituency. Voters bought it.

  THE CAMPAIGN

  The Whigs were handed a wonderful gift at the beginning of the 1840 campaign. Just after their convention, the Baltimore Republican published a remark supposedly made by a Whig backer of Henry Clay about Harrison: “Give him a barrel of hard cider and settle a pension of two thousand a year on him and, my word for it, he would sit the remainder of his days in a log cabin, by the side of a ‘sea-coal’ fire, and study moral philosophy.”

  This was meant to be an insult, but the Whigs turned it into the campaign’s greatest asset. In almost no time, Harrison became the “log cabin and hard cider” candidate, a guy who hung out with the coonskin cap boys, plowed the back forty with his own hands, and was always ready to raise a glass of cider. Never mind his Virginia ancestry and ownership of at least 2,000 acres—Harrison was now a man of the people. The Whigs organized huge rallies attended by thousands of people and held parades four and five miles long. The log cabin symbol was everywhere: There were log-cabin-shaped newspapers, songbooks, pamphlets, and badges. You could buy Log Cabin Emollient or whiskey in log-cabin-shaped bottles from the E.C. Booz distillery (incidentally, this is how the word booze entered the English language).

  The Democrats protested, mostly in vain, that Harrison wasn’t born in a log cabin, didn’t drink hard cider, and, when you came right down to it, wasn’t much of a war hero (a mediocre strategist, Harrison sustained heavy casualties in the fight at Tippecanoe). It didn’t do a bit of good. Crying “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!” the Whigs charged onward. Because Democrats whispered that Harrison did nothing without his political handlers—that he was “An Old Gentleman in Leading Strings”—the Whigs had their candidate make a few stump speeches (he was the first presidential candidate ever to do so). Democrats groaned that the man talked about nothing at all, but crowds gathered everywhere to hear him.

  THE WINNER: WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON

  The popular vote was closer than some people expected: Harrison’s 1,275,390 votes won out over Van Buren’s 1,128,854. But Old Tip killed in the Electoral College, 234 votes to the president’s 60. An incredible 78 percent of eligible voters turned out.

  The contest had been so vitriolic that there was no kissing and making up afterward. “We have been sung down, lied down, and drunk down,” wrote the Wheeling Times. “Right joyous are we that the campaign of 1840 is closed.” The Whigs were not exactly gracious in victory. Harrison’s election, they proclaimed, was proof that voters had “placed their seal of condemnation upon a band of the most desperate, aspiring and unprincipled demagogues that ever graced the annals of despotism.”

  RUNNING OFF AT THE MOUTH A congressman named Charles Ogle made a three-day-long speech in the House of Representatives, arguing that the White House was “as splendid as that of the Caesars, and as richly adorned as the proudest Asiatic mansion.” According to Ogle, Van Buren had mirrors nine feet high, slept on fine French linens, ate from silver plates with forks of gold, and—most incredibly—constructed on the White House grounds a pair of “clever sized hills” that resembled “an Amazon’s bosom, with a miniature knoll on its apex, to denote the nipple.”

  These were, as Democrats and even some horrified Whigs protested, some of the strangest and most twisted lies that were ever argued in the House of Representatives. Nevertheless, the speech was distributed nationwide and further set up the dichotomy between the supposedly aristocratic Van Buren and his supposedly countrified opponent Harrison.

  MUM’S THE WORD The Democrats attacked Harrison for the way his handlers—among them Thurlow Weed, the brilliant Tammany operative who was managing the campaign—kept him from replying to even the most innocuous queries about political issues. Was “Granny Harrison” senile? Was he a “man in an iron cage”? The Whigs denied these charges, but in private, the prominent Whig Nicholas Biddle cautioned, “Let the use of pen and ink be wholly forbidden [to Harrison] as if he were a mad poet in Bedlam.”

  OLD KINDERHOOK, OKAY? The election of 1840 may have given America its enduring expression “okay.” Since Van Buren hailed from Kinderhook, New York, some of his supporters started a new organization called the O.K. Club to promote Van Buren’s candidacy—O.K. standing for Old Kinderhook. Some etymologists believe that the phrase existed before Van Buren’s campaign (many believe that it began as an abbreviation of “all correct”), but the boy from Old Kinderhook certainly helped popularize the expression.

  Whigs claimed that their candidate, Virginia aristocrat William Henry Harrison, was just a good ol’ country boy.

  JAMES K. POLK

  VS.

  HENRY CLAY

  “A more ridiculous, contemptible, and forlorn candidate was never put forth by any party.”

  —New York Herald, on James Polk

  Unfortunately for the Whigs, the good times stopped rolling very, very quickly. One month into his term, William Henry Harrison was dead of pneumonia supposedly brought on by speaking for more than one hundred minutes without hat or coat as he made his inaugural address on a blustery March day.

  The Whigs were bereft, the Democrats joyous. So strong still were the ill feelings lingering from 1840 that most Democrats did not even pause for a hypocritical moment of silence for the fallen president. Poet William Cullen Bryant said he regretted Harrison’s death only because “he did not live long enough to prove his incapacity for the office of President.” And former president Andrew Jackson turned his eyes heavenward, calling Harrison’s death “the deed of a kind and overruling Providence.”

  The Whigs turned to John Tyler, the first vice president ever to replace a sitting president, a man whom John Quincy Adams tartly dubbed “His Accidency.” What occured proved to future political generations that choosing a vice-presidential candidate is a lot like picking a spouse—after the honeymoon, things change.

  Once in power, Tyler started acting far more like a Democrat than the “firm and decided” Whig he had declared himself to be. He vetoed a Whig bill for a new Bank of the United States (to replace the one Jackson had gutted) and went head-to-head with Whig leader Henry Clay, who resigned his Senate seat in protest. All but one member of Tyler’s cabinet would soon quit; essentially, the party disowned its own president, declaring in an extraordinary statement: “Those who bought the President into power can no longer, in any manner or degree, be justly held responsible or blamed for [his actions].”

  Naturally, Tyler’s chances of being Whig candidate for president in 1844 were less than zero. He made overtures to the Democrats, but they didn’t
trust him either, and so he was left out in the cold. But he still had one surprise up his sleeve. In 1843, Tyler negotiated a treaty to annex the slaveholding Republic of Texas (heretofore, because of the volatile slavery issue, the Texas situation had been sidestepped by both parties). But Tyler put a patriotic spin on the debate—if we don’t grab Texas, he proclaimed, Mexico will. Although his treaty was vetoed by the Senate in 1844, the issue of annexation was the pivot around which the election revolved.

  The Whigs assembled in Baltimore on May 1, 1844, and nominated Henry Clay for president. For vice president they picked New Jersey politician Theodore Frelinghuysen, a so-called Christian gentleman who was supposed to balance Clay’s reputation for high living, boozing, and playing cards.

  The Democrats met a month later, also in Baltimore. Their convention was stormy, to say the least. Martin Van Buren was considered the front-running candidate, but many didn’t like that he opposed the annexation of Texas. Finally, after eight rounds of balloting, former Speaker of the House and Andrew Jackson protégé James K. Polk was picked as a compromise candidate. The vice-presidential nod went to Pennsylvania lawyer George M. Dallas.

  THE CANDIDATES

  DEMOCRAT: JAMES K. POLK James K. Who? That’s what most Americans were saying after the Democratic pick was announced. But Polk, former governor of Tennessee as well as House Speaker, was admired by many Democrats as a solid and loyal party member. Not surprisingly, the Whigs hated him. On Polk’s last day as Speaker, Henry Clay had made a special trip over from the Senate to shout from the visitor’s gallery: “Go home, God damn you. Go home where you belong!”

  WHIG: HENRY CLAY Clay had influenced American politics for twenty-five years as Speaker, senator, and party leader. This was his third try for the presidency, after 1824 and 1832, and he wanted it badly.

  THE CAMPAIGN

  The Whigs immediately targeted Polk’s obscurity and made derisive comments to newspaper editors all over the country: “Who is James K. Polk?” they cried. “Good God, what a nomination!” They claimed that the very raccoons in the forests of Tennessee were now singing: “Ha, ha, ha, what a nominee / Is Jimmy Polk of Tennessee!”

  You couldn’t call Henry Clay obscure, but the Democrats fired back at something else—the candidate’s supposed baggage train of gambling, dueling, womanizing, and “By the Eternal!” swearing. An alleged Protestant minister wrote a letter published in numerous Democratic papers claiming to have heard Clay curse extensively during a steamboat trip. A popular leaflet titled Twenty-One Reasons Why Clay Should Not Be Elected listed as reason two that “Clay spends his days at the gambling table and his nights in a brothel.” Clay was also accused of being a white slaver, and the Democrats hammered again at the “corrupt bargain” that he and John Quincy Adams supposedly had made to steal the presidency from Jackson in 1824. Not much was true, but Clay played enough cards and drank enough liquor for the mud to stick. It was much harder to slander James K. Polk, a man so thoroughly colorless that his nickname was “Polk the Plodder.”

  The Whigs tried to brand Polk as a man who owned slaves to elicit votes from abolitionists, but this was a little tricky since both Polk and Clay were slave owners. The Whigs got around this technicality by claiming that it was all a matter of degree—that Polk was really an ultra slaveholder, in slavery “up to his ears.” One Whig newspaper claimed that Polk had branded the initials J.K.P onto the shoulders of a group of forty of his slaves. This was so patently untrue that the paper later printed a retraction.

  THE WINNER: JAMES K. POLK

  The term Manifest Destiny was not coined by New York journalist John L. O’Sullivan until 1845, but that’s what the 1844 election was all about. Polk was firmly in favor of annexation—not only of Texas but of Oregon Territory as well—hence his famous campaign slogan, “Fifty-four Forty or Fight!” which referred to the northernmost latitude to which America should extend. Clay waffled on annexation, which cost Southern votes and annoyed Northerners. And there was one other factor, an effective third party outing by the Liberty Party of New York—a group of Abolitionists and radicals—who garnered 62,000 votes nationwide.

  In the end, Polk beat Clay by only about 39,000 popular votes, although he bested him in the Electoral College 170 to 105.

  THE NASTY PERSONAL SMEAR THAT HENRY CLAY ONLY WISHED WERE TRUE Democrats accused Clay, an admitted lover of gambling, of having invented poker. In fact, Clay was only a superb practitioner of the newfangled bluffing card game, which was based on the English game of brag.

  HEY, GO EASY ON THAT STUFF! In desperation to find something to smear Polk with, Sam Houston, hero of the Texas war against Mexico, proclaimed that moderate drinker Polk was “victim of the use of water as a beverage.” This tactic—attacking a candidate for not drinking enough—was unsuccessful and rarely used in subsequent presidential smear campaigns.

  VOTER FRAUD, 1844-STYLE Since Polk had Scotch-Irish heritage, a group of key New York City Democrats used their influence to naturalize thousands of Irish immigrants, eager to have them vote in the election. The Whigs quickly pounced on these newly registered voters, telling them that Clay’s name was actually “Patrick O’Clay.”

  And in what is probably the first incident of floating voter fraud, a Democratic Party boss in New Orleans sent a boatload of Democrats up the Mississippi River. They stopped and voted in three different places.

  Democrats warned that Henry Clay spent “his days at a gambling table and his nights in a brothel.”

  ZACHARY TAYLOR

  VS. LEWIS CASS

  Historians may say that Jimmy Polk lacked personality (all right, they actually say that he was “colorless and methodical,” “a loner,” “not well liked,” a “stern task-master,” “inflexible,” and “Puritanical”), but they all agree he worked his butt off. Elected at the age of forty-nine, Polk was the youngest president to date; he regularly put in ten to twelve hours a day and held two cabinet meetings a week. Polk put it this way: “No President who performs his duty faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure.”

  Just how faithfully Polk performed can be judged by the fact that of the four goals he set for himself in the presidency—reducing the tariff, re-establishing an independent treasury (a way to get money out of the hands of private banks without a national bank), acquiring Oregon from the British, and acquiring California from Mexico—he accomplished the first three in a year.

  The last required a “small war,” as Polk called it, against Mexico. It turned out to be bigger and bloodier than Polk expected. The Mexicans lost all the major battles but simply would not surrender. The nation grew increasingly tired of dead bodies coming back home. By 1848, the war was won and the United States was significantly larger—but the damage to Polk’s popularity was considerable.

  Big and bloody conflicts such as the war with Mexico often make heroes out of military men—who then run for president. This was the case with General Zachary Taylor, “Old Rough and Ready,” hero of the battle of Buena Vista. The Whigs nominated Taylor for president when they convened in Philadelphia in June of 1847. His running mate was Millard Fillmore, former congressman and comptroller of New York State.

  The Democrats were having a much harder time finding a candidate. Polk had made few friends in his own party and decided not to run for re-election. The best the Democrats could come up with was Lewis Cass, former Michigan governor and U.S. senator, who picked General William O. Butler, another Mexican war hero, as his vice president.

  THE CAMPAIGN The sixty-four-year-old Taylor had the perfect voting record for a presidential candidate—he had never voted once, for anyone. He was as middle-of-the-road as you could get. He was a Southerner but not too much of slaveholder; he was a war hero but not a man who started a war; he was a Whig but, as Taylor himself put it, “not an ultra Whig.” No one could tell what “Old Rough and Ready” was thinking, but a few suspected the answer was “not much.”

  Lewis Cass was a nice enough fellow and had a distinguishe
d career, but his name rhymed with both “ass” and “gas.” Predictably enough, he was depicted in cartoons as “General Gass,” with cannons farting noxious fumes out of his belly, or as “The Gas Bag,” with an enormous rear end, ready to lift off into the sky, like a hotair balloon. Whigs claimed that Cass had sold white men into slavery (not true). Whigs also said that he was guilty of graft in a previous job as superintendent of Indian Affairs—another lie. Finally, they just gave up and called him a “pot-bellied, mutton-headed cucumber,” which seemed to sum it all up.

  Taylor also received his fair share of abuse. One cartoon showed a phrenologist measuring his head with a pair of calipers. The good scientist’s judgment? Taylor was “Obstinate and Mulish” as well as “Utterly wanting in all Sympathy.”

  THE WINNER: ZACHARY TAYLOR With everyone now voting on November 7 because of a newly enacted federal law, Taylor was the victor, winning the election 1,361,393 votes to Cass’s 1,223,460. It was close, though mainly because Martin Van Buren had leapt into the race with an antislavery splinter party, the Free Soilers, and garnered more than 290,000 votes. The campaign issue of slavery was quickly coming of age.

  Interesting footnote: When the Whigs won, a Democratic appointee named Nathaniel Hawthorne was fired from his civil service position at the Salem Custom House. At which point the poor man had no choice but to write The Scarlet Letter.

  FRANKLIN PIERCE

  VS.

  WINFIELD SCOTT

  “Tis said that when in Mexico,

  While leading on his force,

  Pierce took a sudden fainting fit,