#-which includes clay and webster and calhoun of course

[fictionadventurer]

With all this history reading, I have to be very careful not to let it spill over into interactions with ordinary people.

I had a slow moment at work the other day, during which I started thinking about various prominent 19th-century politicians who never became president (as you do). Then I went out by a coworker and I was so close to blurting out (to someone with whom I have never had the slightest personal conversation), "What do you think would have happened if by some miracle Stephen Douglas won the 1860 election?"

Thankfully, I caught myself just in time. But this just proves what a vital role you guys play in giving me an outlet for this stuff in a way that lets me preserve my veneer of sanity.

[theworstfoundingfathers]

Who is the worst founding father- bonus third place round! James Monroe vs Henry Clay

Bonus round to determine third place!

James Monroe (April 28, 1758 – July 4, 1831) was an American statesman, lawyer, and diplomat who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. He is perhaps best known for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas while effectively asserting U.S. dominance, empire, and hegemony in the hemisphere. He also served as governor of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate, U.S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh Secretary of State, and the eighth Secretary of War.

As president, Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and banned slavery from territories north of the 36°30′ parallel. 

Monroe sold his small Virginia plantation in 1783 to enter law and politics. He owned multiple properties over the course of his lifetime, but his plantations were never profitable. Although he owned much more land and many more slaves, and speculated in property, he was rarely on site to oversee the operations. Overseers treated the slaves harshly to force production, but the plantations barely broke even. Monroe incurred debts by his lavish and expensive lifestyle and often sold property (including slaves) to pay them off. 

Two years into his presidency, Monroe faced an economic crisis known as the Panic of 1819, the first major depression to hit the country since the ratification of the Constitution. The severity of the economic downturn in the U.S. was compounded by excessive speculation in public lands, fueled by the unrestrained issue of paper money from banks and business concerns.

Before the onset of the Panic of 1819, business leaders had called on Congress to increase tariff rates to address the negative balance of trade and help struggling industries. Monroe declined to call a special session of Congress to address the economy. When Congress finally reconvened in December 1819, Monroe requested an increase in the tariff but declined to recommend specific rates. Congress would not raise tariff rates until the passage of the Tariff of 1824. The panic resulted in high unemployment and an increase in bankruptcies and foreclosures, and provoked popular resentment against banking and business enterprises.

The collapse of the Federalists left Monroe with no organized opposition at the end of his first term, and he ran for reelection unopposed. A single elector from New Hampshire, William Plumer, cast a vote for John Quincy Adams, preventing a unanimous vote in the Electoral College. He did so because he thought Monroe was incompetent. 

---

Henry Clay Sr. (April 12, 1777 – June 29, 1852) was an American attorney and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was the seventh House speaker as well as the ninth secretary of state. He unsuccessfully ran for president in the 1824, 1832, and 1844 elections. He helped found both the National Republican Party and the Whig Party. For his role in defusing sectional crises, he earned the appellation of the “Great Compromiser” and was part of the “Great Triumvirate” of Congressmen, alongside fellow Whig Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun.

[Clay and his family] initially lived in Lexington, but in 1804 they began building a plantation outside of Lexington known as Ashland. The Ashland estate eventually encompassed over 500 acres (200 ha), with numerous outbuildings such as a smokehouse, a greenhouse, and several barns. Enslaved there were 122 during Clay’s lifetime with about 50 needed for farming and the household. 

In early 1819, a dispute erupted over the proposed statehood of Missouri after New York Congressman James Tallmadge introduced a legislative amendment that would provide for the gradual emancipation of Missouri’s slaves. Though Clay had previously called for gradual emancipation in Kentucky, he sided with the Southerners in voting down Tallmadge’s amendment. Clay instead supported Senator Jesse B. Thomas’s compromise proposal in which Missouri would be admitted as a slave state, Maine would be admitted as a free state, and slavery would be forbidden in the territories north of 36° 30’ parallel. Clay helped assemble a coalition that passed the Missouri Compromise, as Thomas’s proposal became known. Further controversy ensued when Missouri’s constitution banned free blacks from entering the state, but Clay was able to engineer another compromise that allowed Missouri to join as a state in August 1821.

[gravitascivics]

AND TYLER NOT

This posting continues the timeline that the last posting began.  Starting with the year 1824, this timeline continues here with the span of years, 1837-1840.  Until this point, the Whig Party has, despite challenges, been able to nationally organize a loose party structure.  Internally, though, it had deep divisions between its northern and southern contingencies with opposite views as to the advisability of re-chartering a national bank and tariffs.

After setting up a divisive strategy in the 1836 election, Whigs failed to deprive Jackson’s hand-picked successor and Democratic nominee, Martin Van Buren, from winning the White House.  They faced on election day a healthy economy and a popular Jackson leaving the presidency.

The American public was not apt to shift to a new party even if the Whigs were able to gain control of the Senate in 1833.  In 1836, they lost to Van Buren who garnered 51 percent of the popular vote but 57.8 percent of the Electoral College vote (170 out of 294).  The unavoidable message was that the Whigs needed to find a way to unite if they wanted to capture the presidency – the ultimate prize.

1836-1840 (continued)

         Van Buren had barely enough time to learn his way around the White House before his fortunes took a serious turn against him. As is often the case – and little understood at the time – the economy was carrying various price bubbles – that occurs when prices of assets are significantly higher than their financial conditions justify.  Specifically, land and cotton prices were too high, and they collapsed, meaning many lost a great deal of money once those prices fell downward.  Conditions were further contractionary when British lending firms became restrictive in their policies.[1]

         Upon reflection, many blame President Jackson’s anti national bank policy and the resulting inability to regulate governmental spending as a factor greasing the way toward panic among investors.  This all led to bank runs that hit their peak on May 10, 1837, when New York City banks announced they were depleted of gold and silver.  That meant specie (coin money) could not back paper money (commercial paper).  Despite a brief recovery in 1838, the ensuing depression persisted, from start to finish, for seven years.

         So severe was the downturn, that half the banks in the country had to close.  Real prosperity didn’t reestablish itself until the California Gold Rush (1850) provided enough gold to allow enough specie to flow.  During the depression, land prices plummeted, industrial workers lost their jobs, and as already pointed out, mass bank failures took place. Such an economic debacle did not reoccur in the US until the Great Depression of the 1930s.  

Van Buren reacted by starting an Independent Treasury system that did little to meet the crisis.  Led by William Cabell Rives, a good number of Democrats sought a more aggressive federal government response and found themselves attracted to the Whig Party. As indicated in previous posting, Calhoun, a Democrat, was a lukewarm member of the party and the Whigs were able to unite behind William Henry Harrison (Tippecanoe), the war hero, in 1839. But this was not an automatic choice.

As late as 1838, Henry Clay was the frontrunner among the nationally known Whigs. He led the criticism of Van Buren’s policy regarding the depression.  But as mentioned above, the economy took a brief upturn in ’38 and Harrison gained support around the country including the South.  

It took five ballots for Harrison to win the nomination at the Whig convention. To gin up support in the South, the convention also nominated the states’ rightist, John Tyler, for vice president.  That ticket – “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too” – won 53 percent of the popular vote and a healthy majority (234 out of 294) of the Electorate College vote.

1841-1844

         Even though Henry Clay’s ambition to become president was frustrated, he saw a Whig presidency, as Harrison was to be inaugurated, to be an ideal development.  He in the Senate could push for a national bank, institute a program by which to distribute federal land sales moneys to the states, legislate a federal bankruptcy law, and increase tariff rates.[2]  But all this planning came to naught when, as already pointed out in this blog, Harrison fell ill and died one month into his term.

           This, of course, elevated the Southerner, John Tyler, and he will be against a national bank and raising tariff rates.  This was most noted when Tyler vetoed a national bank bill in August 1841, relying on the argument that the bill was unconstitutional.  Congress passed a second bill tailored to meet Tyler’s objection over the first bill, but he also vetoed it.  

This was too much for the Whig leaders and they expelled Tyler from the party and even considered impeaching him.  This last proposal was abandoned from fear it would harm the party.[3]  Tyler’s whole Cabinet resigned and that included Daniel Webster.  This in its way forced Tyler to look for Democrats to fill the vacancies in his Cabinet and in other key positions.  

And with that political stew and the ongoing poor economic conditions, it could not be a surprise that the Whigs were anxious to look elsewhere for a presidential candidate.  This time, Clay was well situated to take up the mantle to challenge Tyler.  In addition, Tyler was not shy in adding to his anti-Whig biases and policies.  

The resignations from the Cabinet took place in May 1843.  This move occurred just after the Webster-Ashburton Treaty was ironed out and settled border disputes with Britain.  Tyler, with that treaty, decided he would push for the annexation of Texas.  This was seen as adding a slave state to the Union.  Such a move discomforted leaders of both parties since it would bring the slave issue to the fore.  

This was the next step in the confusing history of how Texas landed up being an American state that even involved, at this point, the British.  For purposes here it need be only cited that Tyler issued this annexation proposal that further antagonized his former Whig colleagues.[4]  And with that, enough was enough, and the Whigs nominated Clay for the presidency in 1844.  The next posting will start with the that campaign.

[1] Jane Knodell, “Rethinking the Jacksonian Economy:  The Impact of the 1832 Bank Veto on Commercial Banking,” The Journal of Economic History, 66, 3 (September 2006), 541-574 AND Richard H. Timberlake, Jr., “Panic of 1837,” in Business Cycles and Depressions:  An Encyclopedia, David, eds. Gasner and Thomas F. Cooley (New York, NY:  Garland Publishing, 1997), 514-516, accessed July 26, 2021, https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/143687 .  

[2] Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1999).

[3] Norma Lois Peterson, The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler (Lawrence, KS:  University Press of Kansas, 1989).

[4] It should be noted, Texas claimed its independence from Mexico in 1836, but Mexico did not recognize that status.  Instead, Mexico identified Texas as a state in rebellion.  That did not inhibit the Tyler Administration, through its Secretary of State, John C. Calhoun, to work out an annexation agreement with Texas in 1844. The Mexican-American War did not begin until 1846, but Texas became a state in 1845.  As stated in this posting, this development is complicated.