Part 16
_Resolved_, That the Whigs of the United States, now here assembled, hereby declare their reverence for the Constitution of the United States, their unalterable attachment to the national Union, and a fixed determination to do all in their power to preserve them for themselves and their posterity. They have no new principles to announce, no new platform to establish, but are content to broadly rest—where their fathers rested—upon the Constitution of the United States, wishing no safer guide, no higher law.
_Resolved_, That we regard with the deepest interest and anxiety the present disordered condition of our national affairs—a portion of the country ravaged by civil war, large sections of our population embittered by mutual recriminations; and we distinctly trace these calamities to the culpable neglect of duty by the present national administration.
_Resolved_, That the Government of the United States was formed by the conjunction in political unity of widespread geographical sections, materially differing not only in climate and products, but in social and domestic institutions; and that any cause that shall permanently array the different sections of the Union in political hostility and organized parties, founded only on geographical distinctions, must inevitably prove fatal to a continuance of the national Union.
_Resolved_, That the Whigs of the United States declare, as a fundamental rule of political faith, an absolute necessity for avoiding geographical parties. The danger so clearly discerned by the Father of his Country has now become fearfully apparent in the agitation now convulsing the nation, and must be arrested at once if we would preserve our Constitution and our Union from dismemberment, and the name of America from being blotted out from the family of civilized nations.
_Resolved_, That all who revere the Constitution and the Union must look with alarm at the parties in the field in the present Presidential campaign—one claiming only to represent sixteen Northern States, and the other appealing mainly to the passions and prejudices of the Southern States; that the success of either faction must add fuel to the flame which now threatens to wrap our dearest interests in a common ruin.
_Resolved_, That the only remedy for an evil so appalling is to support a candidate pledged to neither of the geographical sections now arrayed in political antagonism, but holding both in a just and equal regard. We congratulate the friends of the Union that such a candidate exists in Millard Fillmore.
_Resolved_, That, without adopting or referring to the peculiar doctrines of the party which has already selected Mr. Fillmore as a candidate, we look to him as a well-tried and faithful friend of the Constitution and the Union, eminent alike for his wisdom and firmness; for his justice and moderation in our foreign relations; for his calm and pacific temperament, so well becoming the head of a great nation; for his devotion to the Constitution in its true spirit; his inflexibility in executing the laws; but, beyond all these attributes, in possessing the one transcendant merit of being a representative of neither of the two sectional parties now struggling for political supremacy.
_Resolved_, That, in the present exigency of political affairs, we are not called upon to discuss the subordinate questions of administration in the exercising of the constitutional powers of the Government. It is enough to know that civil war is raging, and that the Union is imperilled; and we proclaim the conviction that the restoration of Mr. Fillmore to the Presidency will furnish the best if not the only means of restoring peace.
The campaign of 1856 was one of the most desperately fought conflicts in the history of American politics. In some of the Northern States, and particularly in Pennsylvania, that had to be carried against Buchanan in October to give promise of his defeat, the American party, or the supporters of Fillmore and Donelson, were nearly or quite as strong as the distinctive Republicans. Both were opposed to the election of Buchanan, but they were wide apart not only on the slavery issue, but on the questions of citizenship and religious proscription. As the contest warmed up the necessity for some sort of union between these elements was accepted on both sides, and in Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, and some other States the Americans, Republicans, and old Whigs united on State tickets. Illinois, while it gave its electoral vote to Buchanan, elected Colonel Bissell, an antislavery and anti-Buchanan Democrat, Governor, and in Pennsylvania the Democratic ticket was successful in October only by a very small majority.
In several of the States they harmonized on an electoral ticket. They did it by printing two electoral tickets for the two wings of the opposition. On one ticket the first candidate for elector was John C. Fremont, and on the other ticket was the name of Millard Fillmore. The understanding was that if the Union electoral ticket succeeded, the entire vote, less the one lost by using the names of Fillmore and Fremont, should be cast for either candidate if thereby he could be elected, and if such united vote would not elect either candidate the vote was to be divided between Fillmore and Fremont, as the voters indicated by the first name at the head of the ticket.
In common with the great mass of conservative Whigs who were at first greatly disappointed in the nomination of Fremont and the radical attitude of the new Republican party, I gradually drifted into the contest because of the offensive deliverances on slavery made by the Cincinnati platform. I knew Mr. Buchanan personally, and if I could have obeyed my individual preferences as to a candidate, would have voted for him. The slavery issue soon became so sharply defined that the great mass of the Whigs of the North fell in to the support of Fremont. There was considerable defection of prominent Whigs in Buchanan’s State, embracing the Reeds, the Ingersolls, the Whartons, the Randalls, and others of Philadelphia, whose conservative Whig views, with their great personal respect for Buchanan, influenced them to support him. Buchanan was not a magnetic man, not a popular man in the common acceptation of the term, but he was respected by all not only for his ability, but for his integrity and generally blameless reputation. He was a very courteous gentleman, but the multitude did not rush into his arms as it did into the arms of Clay and Blaine, and it is quite probable that his bachelor life, a destiny given him by a devotion with tragic end, doubtless made him less genial than he might have been.
Pennsylvania was the pivotal State in the contest, and Colonel Forney was chairman of the Democratic State Committee. He was thoroughly familiar with the political situation, and greatly impaired his health by his exhaustive efforts to save Buchanan in his home State. His relations with Buchanan were of the closest and most confidential nature, and each implicitly trusted the other. Buchanan knew Forney’s ability in the management of a great political battle, and there was no concealment between them as to the reward Forney should receive if Buchanan succeeded. Forney’s ambition was to continue in journalism, and it was not only understood, but the assurance voluntarily given to Forney by Buchanan, that if Buchanan became President, Forney should conduct the national organ in Washington and receive the Senate printing. What was then known as the Senate printing was an abuse that had grown up from small to large proportions until it became a fortune to any man who received it during the period of an administration. Gales and Seaton, of the _National Intelligencer_, had enjoyed it for many years, and when Democratic administrations became more distinctly partisan the favoritism was continued and the profits magnified. It was deemed a necessity for each administration to have an organ, and it was accepted in those days as the Democratic oracle of the nation. By making Forney the editor of the administration organ at Washington with the Senate printing, his highest ambition in his journalistic career would have been gratified, with ample fortune added. So intimate were Buchanan and Forney, that Forney’s family spent part of the summer at Wheatland, where Forney would occasionally tarry for a day’s rest and to consult with his chief.
Both parties were very confident of carrying the State in October, but Forney outgeneralled the leaders of the Union ticket by his masterful manipulation of Philadelphia, and the Buchanan State ticket was successful in October by 3500 majority. Had the Buchanan State ticket been defeated, Buchanan’s defeat for President would have been clearly foreshadowed, as it would doubtless have made a successful union on the electoral tickets in New Jersey, Indiana, and Illinois, as had already been done in Pennsylvania. Notwithstanding the loss of Pennsylvania in October, the friends of Fremont and Fillmore made desperate efforts to carry the State in November, and so well did they fight their battle that Buchanan’s majority in the State over the combined vote of Fremont and Fillmore was only 1025. The Fremont and Fillmore people believed that they had been defrauded out of the October election in Pennsylvania, and Forney was denounced with extreme bitterness that had lost none of its intensity in the Senatorial fight of 1857, when the resentments of the opposition made Forney’s defeat for Senator possible in a Democratic Legislature.
Buchanan, Fremont, and Fillmore each bore themselves with great dignity during the campaign. Fillmore was not in sympathy with Buchanan, but he had even less sympathy for Fremont and the radical Republican policy he represented. Fremont made his home during the contest in New York, under the strictest orders not to discuss any political question, either orally or by letter, with any outside of those in charge of his campaign. Along with several others, I called upon him at his home some time before the election, simply to pay our respects to the man we were supporting for President, and he was so extremely cautious that he evaded the most ordinary expressions relating to the conduct and prospects of the battle. He impressed me as possessing a stronger individuality than I had credited him with, and his enforced policy of silence made him appear as a severely dignified gentleman with strong intellectual possibilities. But considering the record he made in the early part of the war, when he had, for the first time, opportunity to display his abilities, there are few who will not feel that his election to the Presidency might have been equally disastrous to himself and to the country.
The battle ended by the election of Buchanan, although Fremont carried the New England States and New York and the Northwestern Democratic States with the whirl of the tempest. The following table exhibits the popular and electoral vote:
══════════════════╤═════════════════════════════╦═════════════════════════════ │ POPULAR VOTE. ║ ELECTORAL VOTE. ├─────────┬─────────┬─────────╫─────────┬────────┬────────── STATES. │James │ John C. │Millard ║ │ │ │Buchanan,│ Fremont,│Fillmore,║Buchanan.│Fremont.│Fillmore. │Penn. │ Cal. │N. Y. ║ │ │ ──────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────╫─────────┼────────┼────────── Maine │ 39,080│ 67,379│ 3,325 ║ ―― │ 8 │ ―― New Hampshire │ 32,789│ 38,345│ 422 ║ ―― │ 5 │ ―― Vermont │ 10,569│ 39,561│ 545 ║ ―― │ 5 │ ―― Massachusetts │ 39,240│ 108,190│ 19,626 ║ ―― │ 13 │ ―― Rhode Island │ 6,680│ 11,467│ 1,675 ║ ―― │ 4 │ ―― Connecticut │ 34,995│ 42,715│ 2,615 ║ ―― │ 6 │ ―― New York │ 195,878│ 276,007│ 124,604 ║ ―― │ 35 │ ―― New Jersey │ 46,943│ 28,338│ 24,115 ║ 7 │ ―― │ ―― Pennsylvania │ 230,710│ 147,510│ 82,175 ║ 27 │ ―― │ ―― Delaware │ 8,004│ 308│ 6,175 ║ 3 │ ―― │ ―― Maryland │ 39,115│ 281│ 47,460 ║ ―― │ ―― │ 8 Virginia │ 89,706│ 291│ 60,310 ║ 15 │ ―― │ ―― North Carolina │ 48,246│ ――――――│ 36,886 ║ 10 │ ―― │ ―― South Carolina[15]│ ――――――│ ――――――│ ―――――― ║ 8 │ ―― │ ―― Georgia │ 56,578│ ――――――│ 42,228 ║ 10 │ ―― │ ―― Alabama │ 46,739│ ――――――│ 28,552 ║ 9 │ ―― │ ―― Florida │ 6,358│ ――――――│ 24,195 ║ 7 │ ―― │ ―― Louisiana │ 22,164│ ――――――│ 20,709 ║ 6 │ ―― │ ―― Texas │ 31,169│ ――――――│ 15,639 ║ 4 │ ―― │ ―― Arkansas │ 21,910│ ――――――│ 10,787 ║ 4 │ ―― │ ―― Missouri │ 58,164│ ――――――│ 48,524 ║ 9 │ ―― │ ―― Tennessee │ 73,638│ ――――――│ 66,178 ║ 12 │ ―― │ ―― Kentucky │ 74,642│ 314│ 67,416 ║ 12 │ ―― │ ―― Ohio │ 170,874│ 187,497│ 28,126 ║ ―― │ 23 │ ―― Michigan │ 52,136│ 71,762│ 1,660 ║ ―― │ 6 │ ―― Indiana │ 118,670│ 94,375│ 22,386 ║ 13 │ ―― │ ―― Illinois │ 105,348│ 96,189│ 37,444 ║ 11 │ ―― │ ―― Wisconsin │ 52,843│ 66,090│ 579 ║ ―― │ 5 │ ―― Iowa │ 36,170│ 43,954│ 9,180 ║ ―― │ 4 │ ―― California │ 53,365│ 20,691│ 36,165 ║ 4 │ ―― │ ―― ├─────────┼─────────┼─────────╫─────────┼────────┼────────── Totals │1,838,169│1,341,264│ 874,534 ║ 174 │ 114 │ 8 ══════════════════╧═════════╧═════════╧═════════╩═════════╧════════╧══════════
[15] Chosen by Legislature.
A quarrel between Buchanan and Forney was more far-reaching in its results than can well be estimated by those not entirely familiar with the beginning and the end of the dispute. During the campaign, Buchanan, greatly pressed with the increased correspondence that came to him, asked Forney to send him a competent and trustworthy secretary, and Buchanan, for the first time, abandoned his uniform policy of writing all his own letters in clear, beautiful copper-plate style. Forney sent one of his own assistants to aid Buchanan, and having charge of Buchanan’s correspondence he became cognizant of the fact that the Southern leaders were very generally and earnestly demanding of Buchanan the pledge that Forney should not be made editor of the administration organ.
Buchanan parried the appeals of the Southern friends for some time, but finally, knowing that his election depended upon a united South, they became mandatory, and Buchanan, without advising Forney of the fact, finally gave his pledge that Forney should not be chosen. The secretary was indignant at this betrayal of his friend, and quietly sought Forney, advised him of the fact and expressed his purpose not to return. Forney required the secretary to go back and perform his duties and take no note of what had happened. He was greatly disappointed, as it denied him what was the great ambition of his life, involving editorial distinction and fortune, but he believed that Buchanan had yielded to imperious necessity and that he would not be allowed to suffer from the change.
It was not until after the election that Buchanan informed Forney of the necessity of making a change in his reward, and Forney proposed to accept a position in the Cabinet, to which Buchanan would have willingly consented, but the same intense opposition to Forney as a Cabinet officer surged against him from the South. It was next proposed by Buchanan that Forney should take the Berlin mission with a liberal commercial salary added, but Mrs. Forney peremptorily refused to entertain it. It was finally agreed that Forney should be elected to the Senate. The Democrats had a majority of three on joint ballot, and it was not doubted that any Democrat nominated by the caucus would be chosen. Henry D. Foster, a very prominent Democrat, who had been in Congress and who was the Democratic candidate for Governor in 1860, was a member of the House. He was a candidate for Senator, and doubtless would have been chosen had Forney not been suddenly injected into the field. It was not until the Legislature was about to meet that Forney’s candidacy was decided upon. It required very prompt and positive action to secure the nomination of Forney, and Buchanan, with all his extreme caution under ordinary circumstances, wrote a letter to Senator Mott urging the election of Forney. That letter became public and greatly exasperated the friends of the other candidates, but a new Democratic administration with the President from the State and just on the threshold of great political power was able to command the nomination for Forney, and it was accomplished, but leaving many open sores.
The Republicans and Americans of the Legislature were smarting under what they regarded as the fraud that Forney engineered to give the State to Buchanan, and they were quite willing to join any movement to defeat him. General Cameron had come into the Republican party in 1856, and was at the head of the electoral ticket, and he had a very strong hold upon some old Democratic friends. He proposed to the Republicans and Americans of the Legislature that if they would give him a united vote he could command three Democratic votes and be elected. The Union caucus, as it was called, appointed a committee to whom three Democrats must be shown and give their pledges to vote for Cameron, and if such report was made back to the caucus by the committee, without giving the names of the Democrats who were to vote for Cameron, the Republicans were pledged to vote unitedly for Cameron on the 1st ballot. The committee saw Representatives Lebo, Maneer, and Wagonseller, Democrats, who pledged themselves to vote for Cameron if they could elect him, and to the surprise of all parties except the very few who understood the arrangement, Cameron was elected Senator and Forney suffered a most humiliating defeat.
After Forney’s defeat for Senator, it became much more difficult than even before for Buchanan to reward him, as he doubtless felt should be done. Efforts were made to give him a liberal share of the post-office printing, but Forney and Buchanan were gradually becoming estranged, and finally Forney decided that he could not harmonize with Buchanan and his friends, and that he would renew his journalistic career on independent lines. The result was the establishment of the Philadelphia _Press_.
The slavery issue speedily divided Douglas and Buchanan, and Forney had his opportunity. He had suffered much from the proscriptive hatred of the South, and he became Douglas’s ablest and most enthusiastic supporter in the North, which brought him into direct antagonism with Buchanan. From the time that battle began, Forney and Buchanan were strangers during the remainder of their lives, and no one man did more to educate the North up to the election of Abraham Lincoln than John W. Forney.
We are told that the political methods of the present age are greatly degenerate as compared with the political methods of the old-school leaders, of which Buchanan was about the last representative in the White House. It will surprise many of the present day to be told that Buchanan gave personal attention not only to organize county leaders in his support for the Presidency, but wrote elaborate letters even to township leaders. I have in my possession a number of Mr. Buchanan’s anti-Presidential letters, and I think it due to the truth of history to give one of them as a foot-note to illustrate the politics of half a century ago.[16] Perry County, to which the letter refers, is a small county adjoining Franklin, the birthplace of Buchanan. It had only a single delegate to the Democratic State Convention, and, considering Buchanan’s location, he should have been able to command its support without special effort. The friend to whom he wrote was an Associate Judge of the county and active in politics, and when it is remembered that this letter is only one of very many written to a single small county to gain a single delegate for Buchanan against General Cass, who lived in a distant State, the political methods employed to reach the Presidency in that day will be generally accepted as no improvement on the methods now employed to gain the highest honors of the Republic.
[16] _Private and Confidential._
WHEATLAND, NEAR LANCASTER, 12 DEC., 1851.
MY DEAR SIR: A friend from Cumberland County, who has recently been in Perry, expresses much doubt about your county and says that unless strong efforts shall be made, it will go for Cass. I understand you elect by county meeting; and this mode is not a fair method of ascertaining public opinion throughout a large county. What can be done? My enemies perceiving that my prospects are daily becoming brighter and brighter throughout the Union are now intent upon producing such an appearance of division at home as they imagine may deter other States from voting for my nomination. In this point of view it is important I should carry Perry, if this can be done by fair and honorable means. Cass, their apparent but not their real candidate, can now make no show; but they will go for any candidate against myself. Pennsylvania has now for the first time in her history an opportunity of furnishing the candidate, should she think proper to exert her power with a reasonable degree of unanimity. I intend to write to my friends Black and Steward; but my main reliance is on yourself. General Fetter and Judge Junkin were formerly my warm friends—whether they are so now or not I do not know. Are A. B. Anderson and young McIntire my friends? I think you once told me they were. I am informed that young Miller is my bitter foe.
Could you make a trip over the county and ascertain the state of public opinion? I should esteem it a very great favor if you would; and in that event, I should insist that you shall not spend your own money in supporting me. This would be both unreasonable and unjust. If you could pass a few days in this manner, you would confer a favor upon me which I trust I may some day be able to repay. But you must not go at all unless at my expense. Your services will place me under obligations which I shall never forget without expending your own money for my benefit.
If you should ascertain that the county is against me and cannot be carried, as the Perry _Democrat_ indicates, then it would be useless to make the effort. If it can be carried, then we must go to work and have the proper concert of action to bring my friends to the county meeting.
Will you let me hear from you soon on this subject, and believe me ever to be sincerely and gratefully your friend,
JAMES BUCHANAN.
HON. GEORGE BLATTENBERGER.
P.S.—Jos. Bailey, who is a strange, capricious man, is now against me, though in 1843 he was one of my warmest friends and supporters, as you will perceive by the address which I send you. What have I done since?
Buchanan entered the Presidency earnestly determined to end the slavery agitation, but unfortunately he hoped to end it by the unqualified success of slavery in all of the new Territories and the right of transit through the free States of slaves as servants. The Dred Scott decision was foreshadowed in his inaugural address, and he and the pro-slavery statesmen of that time were confident that the Republican ebullition of 1856 was a mere tidal wave that would speedily perish, and that the South would be so strongly entrenched for the defence of slavery that it could not be successfully assailed. He was elected by the South; he was the strictest of strict constructionists on all Constitutional questions, and he naturally sustained the South in going far beyond what his judgment approved in the efforts to force slavery into Kansas and Nebraska.