John Tyler Tells A Joke

By way of background, in September 1841 the Whig members of Congress, headed by an irate Henry Clay, read president John Tyler out of the Whig party for twice vetoing bills to establish a third national bank.

In his new book Manifest Destinies: America's Westward Expansion and the Road to the Civil War, Steven E. Woodworth relates that three and a half years later a satisfied Tyler joked about his status as outcast:

While Congress debated and finally approved Texas annexation that winter [1844-1845], Tyler approached the end of his administration with equanimity. He felt vindicated by the widespread public support for annexation . . .. On February 18 [1845] he and Julia [his new wife] held a final presidential ball with three thousand guests in attendance. A marine band was on hand to play cotillions and the more daring waltzes an polkas the Tylers had introduced to Washington society. "Wine and champagne flowed like water," commented a delighted guest. Congratulated on hosting such a gala event, Tyler joked, "Yes, they cannot say now that I am a President without a party."

About the illustration, entitled Going to Texas after the election of 1844:

A comic scene anticipating a Whig victory in the upcoming presidential election. The date is 1845, after an election supposedly decided on the Texas question, the tariff issue, and Democratic identification with Jacksonian policies. The artist ridicules Democrat James K. Polk's advocacy of the annexation of Texas as misguided aggression. In addition, the title's use of the phrase "Going to Texas," contemporary code for embezzling, may be a swipe at the political spoils system associated with the Democrats since the Jackson administration. Incumbent President John Tyler also comes under attack for corruption. The scene is outside the White House. On a "Loco Foco" donkey Polk and running-mate Dallas, heavily armed and equipped with military packs, are about to depart for Texas. Dallas holds a flag with skull-and-crossbones and the motto "Free Trade," a symbol of antiprotectionism. Around the donkey's neck is a feed barrel full of "Poke berries." Before the donkey stands Andrew Jackson, offering his trademark hat and clay pipe, and crooning: I give thee all, I can no more, / Though poor the offering be, / My hat and Pipe are all the store, / That I can bring to thee! / A hat whose worn out nap reveals / A friendly tale full well, / And better far a heart that feels, / More than Hat and Pipe can tell! At this the donkey brays, "Eehaw!" and Polk bids Jackson, "Goodbye General! It is all day with us. I am a gone Sucker!" Dallas exclaims, "D--n Clay!" Behind the donkey stands John Tyler, with lowered head, reflecting, "It is very odd, that after all my treachery, and the unscrupulous efforts of office holders and political dependents, this is my reward! If I had not laid by enough for a rainy day, I should slope for Texas too!" On the ground nearby lies a sign reading: "For Sale A lot of hickory Poles will be sold cheap to close the concern. enquire of Polk & Dallas." From the steps of the White House Henry Clay waves and calls out, "A pleasant journey to you Gentlemen! may your shadows never be less!" Below the title is a narrative, purportedly excerpted from the Tyler administration organ the "Madisonian" of April 1845: All wept particularly when the old chieftain approached and holding his hat and pipe in one hand and the other placed on his heart, with tremulous accent interrupted occasionally with a cough, sang the above lines, an impromptu composed by himself to the well known tune of my heart and Lute, even the sagacious Tyler was subdued and sank into a fit of melancholy abstraction; the Donkey brayed encore.

Marcus Tullius Tyler?

Tall and thin, [president John] Tyler presented a strikingly aristocratic appearance. His most notable feature was a prominent Roman nose. The story was told that during his administration two Americans happened to be present in Naples when an excavation unearthed a bust of Cicero, prompting both to exclaim, "President Tyler!"

Steven E. Woodworth, Manifest Destinies: America's Westward Expansion and the Road to the Civil War.

John Tyler, Babe Magnet

Have you noticed that virtually all 19th Century women look like dessicated prunes or bags of dough? While preparing my last post, I happened to take a look at the portraits of President John Tyler's two wives. I think he had an eye for the babes. Wife no. 1 looks a little severe, but it's probably just the formal pose, and there is a hint of a sultry pout. Wife no. 2 has sort of a weird thing going on with her neck, but I'm guessing that's some Mannerist-type affectation of the artist. Anyway, she was thirty years younger than President Tyler was (24 vs. 54 when they were married), so he was doing OK.

Thomas Hart Benton

The most raving political maniac I ever knew.

John Tyler on Thomas Hart Benton.

About the illustration:

Another mock shinplaster (see also nos. 1837-9 and -10 above). Again the artist attributes the shortage of hard money to the successive monetary programs of presidents Jackson and Van Buren, particularly to the former's pursuit of a limited-currency policy and his dismantling of the Bank of the United States. In the drawing Jackson rides a pig headlong toward a precipice, followed by congressional ally Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton, on an ass. Both pursue the "Gold Humbug" butterfly, symbolizing their efforts to restrict the ratio of paper money in circulation to gold and silver supplies. Van Buren, riding a fox, cunningly deviates from this disastrous course and follows a downward path leading toward the Bank. Jackson (reaching for the butterfly): "By the Eternal!! I'll have it, Benton!" Benton (whipping his mount with a quill pen): "Go it thou Roman!! a greater man ne'er lived in the tide of times.!!" His quill is labeled "Expunger," an allusion to Benton's extended campaign to "expunge" or remove the 1834 Senate censure of Jackson from the Congressional Record. Van Buren (losing his crown): "Although I follow in the footsteps of Jackson it is &2expedient, &1at &2this time &1to & 2 deviate & 1a little!!" Below the precipice Nicho;as Biddle, Bank of the United States president, sights Van Buren from atop his bank. The note is endorsed by the publisher, who promises "to pay Thomas H. Benton, or bearer, Fifty Cents, in Counterfeit Caricatures at my store . . . " It is dated May 10, 1837, the date of the New York banks' emergency suspension of specie payments.

John Calhoun's Pakenham Letter: Why?

I ended the last post with Merrill D. Peterson’s question:

Politicians then and historians since have debated [John C.] Calhoun’s motives for writing the Pakenham Letter. The [John Tyler] administration line on annexation was that it was strictly a question of national interest unconnected with slavery. Calhoun’s letter, which went to the Senate along with the treaty and became public knowledge on April 27 [,1844], placed annexation on pro-slavery grounds. Could he have been oblivious to the effect of this?

Years ago, Calhoun biographer John C. Wiltse contended that Calhoun did not anticipate that the letter would become public. Subsequent historians, however, have uniformly rejected this view. Charles Sellers, for example, responded, “Wiltse contends that Calhoun did not anticipate that his Pakenham letter would be published, but Bemis asks logically, ‘If so, why did he write it?’”

The chronology also renders Wiltse’s suggestion ludicrous. The Pakenham Letter is dated Thursday April 18. On Monday April 22, the treaty and the letter went to the Senate. Transcription of copies would probably have begun almost immediately after the letter was sent. Did Calhoun send the letter and then a few hours later smack his head in the realization that he now needed to provide it to the Senate? Ridiculous.

It is virtually impossible then, to reach any conclusion other than that Calhoun knew, when he wrote the letter, that he would be sending it to the Senate. He must also have known that it would create a firestorm. Why would he do such a thing?

William W. Freehling, for one, finds no mystery. Calhoun, he maintains, was simply being Calhoun. For some time, his primary goal had been to raise southern white consciousness and encourage the formation of a sectional southern party. This was a perfect opportunity to galvanize the south. The north, confronted by a unified south, would then have to cave:

No pre-Civil War mystery is less mysterious. Calhoun here pursued the policy he had deployed since nullification times. First he would find the issue to teach Southerners that outsiders hid antislavery intent behind camouflaged methods of proceeding. His issue would arouse southern apologists from their preference to diffuse blacks away. An awakened Slavepower would then compel Northerners into a pure states’ rights party, which would settle the precipitating issue the South’s way.

Prof. Freehling also questions whether Calhoun’s tactic put the administration and the treaty in any worse a position than they would have been otherwise. First, northern Whigs would almost certainly vote against the treaty no matter what the accompanying documents showed concerning the administration’s intent, and at least some northern Democrats would be forced to follow suit. Second, even without the Pakenham Letter the records to be delivered to the Senate would be littered with numerous letters and memoranda showing that many members of the administration had sought annexation to protect slavery and advance the interests of the south.

In fact, Prof. Freehling asserts that the strategy that Calhoun adopted (as Freehling understands it) was the only potentially winning strategy. “Calhoun’s scenario of rallying enough slaveholders to push enough Northern Democrats to stop evading the issue was exactly the way the election of 1844 and its annexation aftermath transpired.”

Merrill D. Peterson appears to make a similar point. Rallying the south was both desirable in itself and probably the only potentially winning strategy. “By linking Texas annexation to the defense of slavery, he divided political parties at the Mason and Dixon Line, terrifying [Henry] Clay and the Whigs and undercutting [Martin] Van Buren in the South.”

In her review of the literature, Norma Lois Peterson cites two other historians who likewise believe that Calhoun’s letter reflected a calculated political gamble. At best, he might convince southern Whigs to support the treaty without losing northern Democrats. If the worst happened, and northern Democrats voted against, at least he would have alerted southerners to the danger they faced:

George Poage thinks Calhoun wanted his letter to initiate a general debate with the British government over slavery, hoping this would alarm southern Whigs and bring them into a section bloc under his leadership. Their votes were necessary to ratification, but as yet, they remained loyal to Whig policy and seemed oblivious to the growing danger to their “way of life.”

To William R. Brock, “all evidence suggests that Calhoun knew what he was doing and calculated the odds.” Early in March, weeks before Calhoun had discovered Aberdeen’s letter, he lamented the disunity in the South . . .. Calhoun was convinced that southern Whigs would vote against the treaty unless they could be alerted to the impending destruction of their slave property . . .. The protection of slavery had to be made the central issue of annexation. This would be a test, not only for southern Whigs, but also for northern Democrats.

Merrill Peterson’s reference to Van Buren points up another potential and not inconsistent motive that has been highlighted by Charles Sellers in James K. Polk: Continentalist, 1843-1846. As of April 1844, it was generally assumed that Van Buren would be nominated as the Democratic candidate for president. As I noted in the last post, Van Buren had avoided the annexation issue like the plague during 1837-1841. In fact, he continued to oppose immediate annexation and would shortly issue a public letter to that effect.

As of mid-April, however, Van Buren had not yet announced his position. On Monday, April 15, 1844, the principal Democratic newspaper, Francis Preston Blair’s Washington Globe, endorsed annexation. Tyler and Calhoun, Sellers argues, incorrectly assumed that this meant that Van Buren was about to come out in favor of annexation and steal the issue that Tyler still hoped would somehow earn him a second term. (In fact, Blair produced the editorial at Andrew Jackson’s urging and over Van Buren’s objection.) By casting annexation as a pro-slavery initiative, they would force Van Buren to back off:

On Monday, April 15, [1844,] the Globe’s endorsement of annexation appeared according to promise, but the treaty did not. Learning in advance that the Globe would endorse the treaty, Tyler and Calhoun had jumped to the conclusion that Van Buren was about to rob them of the political fruits of their toils by coming out for annexation. “If the Globe, or any other organ of Mr. Van Buren, shall attempt to appropriate the measure in a manner to operate on the Baltimore Convention, or at the polls,” warned the Tyler organ in reply to Blair’s editorial, “we shall denounce such a proceeding.” Holding back the treaty from the Senate, Calhoun set to work to accomplish something Blair had warned Van Buren about a month before: introducing “stipulations on the negro question calculated to make it [annexation] odious in the north & peculiarly a southern question.”

About the illustration:

A pro-Democrat cartoon forecasting the collapse of Whig opposition to the annexation of Texas. James K. Polk, the expansionist candidate, stands at right near a bridge spanning "Salt River." He holds an American flag and hails Texans Stephen Austin (left) and Samuel Houston aboard a wheeled steamboat-like vessel "Texas." Austin, waving the flag of the Lone Star Republic, cries, "All hail to James K. Polk, the frined [sic] of our Country!" The Texas boat has an eagle figurehead and a star on its prow. Below the bridge pandemonium reigns among the foes of annexation. Holding onto a rope attached to "Texas" above, they are dragged into Salt River. Led by Whig presidential nominee Henry Clay, they are (left to right) Theodore Frelinghuysen, Daniel Webster, Henry A. Wise, and an unidentified figure whose legs are tangled in the rope. Clay: "Curse the day that ever I got hold of this rope! this is a bad place to let go of it--But I must!" Frelinghuysen: "Oh evil day, that ever I got into the footsteps of my predecessor." Webster: "If we let go, we are ruined, and if we hold on--Oh! crackee!" Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, straddling a barrel labeled "Abolition" in the river, shouts at Clay, "Avaunt! unholy man! I will not keep company with a blackleg!" referring to the candidate's reputation as a gambler.

John Calhoun's Pakenham Letter: The Background

Scholars have long puzzled over why John Caldwell Calhoun chose to write the Pakenham Letter. But first, some background.

In September 1841, members of the Whig caucus read “His Accidency” John Tyler out of the Whig party. Although now a man without a party, Tyler continued to harbor dreams of a second term. Perhaps he could persuade the Democrats to nominate him in 1844, or maybe he could form a third party or run as an independent backed by a coalition of southern Democrats disenchanted with the probable Democratic candidate, Martin Van Buren and conservative, state-right Whigs.

As part of this pipe dream, Tyler conceived the idea of boldly pushing for the annexation of the Republic of Texas. Both Democrats and Whigs had studiously avoided the issue for years because they recognized how hot a potato it would likely become. In particular, the annexation of Texas, in which slavery was legal, threatened to ignite disputes over the peculiar institution and sectional tensions. In addition, Mexico had never conceded the independence of what it viewed as a rebellious province. Annexation thus presented the likelihood of war. Andrew Jackson had therefore contented himself with recognition of Texas rather than annexation before he left office in March 1847, and his Democratic successor Martin Van Buren (in office March 1837- March 1841) had avoided the issue like the plague.

In May 1843, Daniel Webster, the last member of the original cabinet that Tyler inherited from William Henry Harrison, resigned his position as Secretary of State after completing negotiation of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. Tyler responded by nominating as Webster’s successor his Secretary of the Navy and old friend and confidante, Abel P. Upshur. Upshur, who hailed from the eastern shore of Virginia, was, like Tyler, a conservative, state-rights Whig. He also was an enthusiastic advocate of annexation. Upshur assumed office in July 1843 and promptly entered into secret negotiations designed to result in the annexation of Texas via a treaty to be presented to the Senate.

Fast-forwarding eight months or so, Upshur’s negotiations and the proposed treaty were virtually complete by late February 1844. At that point, as I mentioned in the last post, chance intervened. On February 28, 1844, Upshur was killed by an explosion on board the USS Princeton. Tyler, who could turn to neither mainstream Democrats nor Whigs for a replacement, reached out (reluctantly or otherwise – it is not clear) to the quintessential anti-party man, none other than John Caldwell Calhoun of South Carolina, who assumed his duties at State a month later on April 1, 1844.

Meanwhile, however, news of the secret negotiations had leaked. Based on an inadvertent hint from Upshur before his death, Daniel Webster had figured out in February that a treaty was imminent, and he relayed the information to Whig allies. In March, Robert C. Winthrop introduced a resolution in the House demanding information. It quickly became apparent that the issue threatened to become a sectional one, with northern Whigs in particular denouncing the rumored treaty as a conspiracy of the slave interests.

Without admitting the existence of the negotiations, the administration backed efforts by friends who endorsed annexation as a commercial and strategic boon to nation as a whole. on a non-sectional basis. Tyler reportedly believed that any mention of the slavery issue or attempt to push annexation as a protection for the south would be fatal to ratification. Indeed, it appears that, for this reason, Tyler pushed to have the treaty signed and submitted for ratification before Calhoun became Secretary.

Such was not to be, because the Texas envoy did not arrive in Washington to sign the treaty until the last day of March, just as Calhoun assumed his new post. After final details were worked out, the treaty was signed Friday April 12, 1844.

The treaty was not, however, submitted to the Senate until Monday April 22. There were certainly understandable and legitimate reasons for the delay. Calhoun used the intervening ten days to approach the Mexican minister in an unsuccessful attempt to reduce the likelihood of war after the treaty was formally announced. On a more practical level, in a world without word processors, faxes and email, documents had to be transcribed and cover letters had to be composed and approved.

But the delay was also occasioned in part by Calhoun’s apparently inexplicable decision to write a letter concerning Texas to the British minister to the United States, Richard Pakenham. Here we must take a step back.

Five months earlier, George Hamilton-Gordon, Lord Aberdeen, the British Foreign Secretary, had sent a dispatch dated December 26, 1843 to the British ministry in the United States, the contents of which were intended to be conveyed to the American Secretary of State. When the newly-appointed Pakenham arrived in Washington in February 1844, he discovered that Aberdeen’s message had not been communicated to Upshur. Pakenham remedied the omission by reading the message to Upshur and then sending him a copy. Upshur did not respond before he was killed on February 28, and acting secretary of state John Nelson apparently did not regard a response as necessary during his brief tenure (from the end of February to the end of March).

In fact, the Aberdeen message (the full text of which may be found in the Congressional Globe) was quite benign and conciliatory. In brief, Aberdeen confirmed (as the British Government had previously expressed) that the government preferred that slavery be abolished in Texas. However, he made clear that Britain had no designs on Texas and would take no actions to achieve that result. Norma Lois Peterson describes the dispatch in somewhat greater detail:

Aberdeen’s tone was courteous, not hostile. He admitted that his government had pressed Mexico to acknowledge the independence of Texas, but it had done so with “no occult design, either with reference to the slavery which now exists, and which we desire to see abolished in Texas.” It was well known to the United States and to every other nation, Aberdeen explained, that Great Britain desired and was “constantly exerting herself to procure the general abolition of slavery throughout the world.” But in attempting this, Britain would do nothing in a secret or underhanded manner. “We should rejoice if the recognition of that country [Texas] by the Mexican Government should be accompanied by an engagement on the part of Texas to abolish slavery eventually and under proper conditions”; but Britain did not intend to exercise improper authority on either Mexico or Texas. “We shall counsel, but we shall not seek to compel, or unduly control, either party. So far as Great Britain is concerned, provided all other States act with equal forbearance,” Mexico and Texas were at liberty “to make their own unfettered arrangements,” in regard to slavery or any other matter.

President Tyler reportedly took the message for what it was – an attempt to be conciliatory notwithstanding a difference in principle. As Calhoun told Pakenham, the president expressed his appreciation for the British government’s disavowal of any intention to disturb the internal tranquility of slaveholding states, although he regretted that Great Britain had officially transmitted its policy of abolition.

Calhoun, however, would not take yes for an answer and decided to escalate matters. In response, he composed and sent to Pakenham an incendiary reply dated April 18, 1844. Remarkably, I have not been able to locate a copy the “Pakenham Letter” online. For those with access to specialized databases or research or law libraries, it may be found at Senate Documents, 28th Cong., 1st Sess. 50-53 and Richard K. Cralle (ed.), The Works of John C. Calhoun, Vol. 5, pp. 333-347. Here is William W. Freehling’s description:

The administration, wrote the Secretary of State, “regards with deep concern the avowal” that England was “constantly exerting herself” to procure world-wide antislavery. The administration was also appalled that England was urging emancipation as “one of the conditions on which Mexico should acknowledge” Texas. “It would be difficult for Texas in her actual condition,” emphasized Calhoun, “to resist” this pressure, even “supposing the influence and exertion of Great Britain” remained within Lord Aberdeen’s “limits.”

An emancipated Texas, continued the Carolinian, would give “Great Britain the most efficient means of effecting in the neighboring States of this Union what she avows to be her desire to do in all countries where slavery exists.” A free labor Texas “would expose the weakest and most vulnerable portions” of slaveholders’ “frontiers” to inroads. But while England’s hope is to end what she calls our evil, warned Calhoun, our mission is to perpetuate what we consider our blessing. Under southern Christian slavery, bragged the American Secretary of State, “the negro race” has attained an unprecedented “elevation in morals, intelligence,” and “civilization.” The United States, concluded Calhoun, “acting in obedience” to racial “obligation,” and “as the most effectual if not the only means of guarding against the threatened danger . . . has concluded an annexation treaty.”

In a subsequent letter, dated April 27, 1844, Calhoun drove home the point that annexation “was made necessary in order to preserve domestic institutions . . . deemed essential to their safety and prosperity.”

“It was,” Merrill D. Peterson has coyly noted, “an unusual diplomatic dispatch.”

Meanwhile, on Monday April 22, 1844, four days after the dispatch of the first letter, the Secretary of State formally transmitted the proposed treaty with Texas to the Senate under seal. Based on precedent, and apparently presuming that the Senate would immediately call for production of supporting materials in any event, Calhoun also sent with the treaty itself copies of related documents and correspondence – including the Pakenham Letter.

Ironically, President Tyler’s letter of transmittal to the Senate emphasized the importance of the treaty to the nation as a whole, not its sectional benefit to the south. The inclusion of the Pakenham Letter, however, insured that there would be a sectional explosion and virtually guaranteed defeat of the treaty, which required ratification by two-thirds of the Senate under Article II, Section 2.

The question, then, is why Calhoun wrote the letter. Merrill D. Peterson summarizes the conundrum:

Politicians then and historians since have debated Calhoun’s motives for writing the Pakenham Letter. The administration line on annexation was that it was strictly a question of national interest unconnected with slavery. Calhoun’s letter, which went to the Senate along with the treaty and became public knowledge on April 27 [,1844], placed annexation on pro-slavery grounds. Could he have been oblivious to the effect of this?

In the next post, I will survey some possible answers.

Two Short Takes on Historical Inevitability

Having posted recently on the inevitability of the Civil War (or lack thereof), I can't miss the opportunity to flag Dimitri's recent post sardonically noting an attempt by the Director of James Buchanan's Wheatland estate to revive Old Buck's reputation by asserting that nobody elected in 1856 could have averted the war. As I have suggested here and here, quite possibly the opposite is true.

All of which brings to mind one of my favorite quotes, by Merrill D. Peterson, concerning the February 28, 1844 explosion on board the USS Princeton, which killed (among others) John Tyler's Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur and resulted in the installation of John Caldwell Calhoun as his successor. The explosion, Peterson observed, was "one of those random events which in its consequences makes a mockery of every attempt to impose some grand law on the history of nations." I suppose the same characterization might apply to the fact that "His Accidency" became president in the first place.

Tyler Two!

Mark Krikorian at The Corner reports the utterly incredible fact that two of President John Tyler's grandsons remain alive today. Tyler was born in 1790 -- that's 219 years ago -- and became president in 1841 -- that's 168 years ago. John Hinderaker at Power Line adds, "That's what you call good genes, I guess. Amazing."