The "Corrupt Bargain": The Opening Volley

In Henry Clay: The Essential American, David S. and Jeanne T. Heidler point out that Jacksonian accusation that there was a “corrupt bargain” between Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams arose even before Adams was elected president.

The House vote among the three finalists for the presidency in 1824 (Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams and William H. Crawford) was scheduled to be held on February 9, 1825.

One month earlier, on the evening of January 9, 1825, Clay had met privately with Adams in the latter's study for about three hours. “Most of what was said there would remain forever behind the room's doors, for neither man left a lengthy account of their discussion.”

In the following weeks, Clay began lining up votes for Adams. On January 24, 1825, irate Jacksonians learned that the Kentucky delegation in the House would cast its vote for Adams, defying instructions from the state legislature to vote for Jackson.

The Jacksonian assault began the next day, some two weeks before the House voted. The opening volley took the form of an anonymous letter that appeared in the January 25, 1825 edition of the Philadelphia Columbian Observer. A Pennsylvania Congressman by the name of George Kremer later claimed that he wrote the letter, although there is apparently substantial doubt as to his authorship.

I searched around the internet and found a copy of the letter here. It reads as follows (some paragraph breaks added):

DEAR SIR:

I take up my pen to inform you of one of the most disgraceful transactions that ever covered with infamy the Republican ranks. Would you believe that men professing Democracy could be found base enough to lay the axe at the very root of the tree of Liberty? Yet, strange as it is, it is not less true. To give you a full history of the transaction would far exceed the limits of a letter. I shall, therefore, at once proceed to give you a brief account of such a bargain as can only be equalled by the famous Burr Conspiracy of 1801.

For some time past, the friends of Clay have hinted that they, like the Swiss, would fight for those who would pay best. Overtures were said to have been made by the friends of Adams to the friends of Clay, offering him the appointment of Secretary of State for his aid to elect Adams. And the friends of Clay gave this information to the friends of Jackson, and hinted that if the friends of Jackson would offer the same price, they would close with them. But none of the friends of Jackson would descend to such mean barter and sale. It was not believed by any of the friends of Jackson that this contract would be ratified by the members from the States who had voted for Mr. Clay.

I was of opinion, when I first heard of this transaction, that men, professing any honorable principles, could not, nor would not, be transferred like the planter does his negroes, or the farmer his team and horses. No alarm was excited - we believed the Republic was safe. The nation, having delivered Jackson into the hands of Congress, backed by a large majority of their votes, there was on my mind no doubt that Congress would respond to the will of the nation, by electing the individual they had declared to be their choice.

Contrary to this expectation, it is now ascertained to a certainty that Henry Clay has transferred his interest to John Quincy Adams. As a consideration for this abandonment of duty to his constituents, it is said and believed, should this unholy coalition prevail, Clay is to be appointed Secretary of State. I have no fears on my mind - I am clearly of opinion we shall defeat every combination. The force of public opinion must prevail, or there is an end of liberty.

Extra credit question: why have I headed this post with a picture of Stephen van Rensselaer, the Patroon of Rensselaerswyck?

William Crawford Suffers a Stroke

For those of you who don't know of him, William H. Crawford was a leading political figure during the period following the War of 1812 and in the early 1820s. A transplanted Virginian who became a power in his adopted state of Georgia, Crawford served as Secretary of War under President James Madison from 1815 to 1816 and as Secretary of the Treasury from 1816 through 1825 under President Madison and throughout the term of President James Monroe.

In the jockeying for the presidential election of 1824, Crawford was probably the early front-runner in a crowded field that included Secretary of State John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Secretary of War John Caldwell Calhoun of South Carolina, House Speaker Henry Clay of Kentucky and dark horse war hero and Senator Andrew Jackson of Tennessee. However, the dynamics of the covert race – and Crawford's own fortunes – changed dramatically when in the summer of 1823 Crawford suffered what modern histories inevitably refer to as a “massive stroke.” Remarkably, Crawford survived, although he suffered the crippling impairments typical of severe stroke victims. (His health later improved somewhat, and he lived for over decade, dying in 1834.)

Equally remarkable was the fact that, despite these impairments, Crawford's candidacy survived as well. Such was his political standing that, although he was essentially non-functional, he nonetheless finished third in the Electoral College vote for president in 1824, ahead of Henry Clay and ending Clay's presidential run. (Because no candidate amassed a majority of Electoral College votes, the House of Representatives would choose the winner from among the top three Electoral College vote-getters. As Speaker of the House, Clay would likely have won that contest had he finished third rather than fourth.)

In their new biography of the Great Pacificator, Henry Clay: The Essential American, David S. and Jeanne T. Heidler provide details about the onset of Crawford's stroke that I had not seen before. Medical incompetence, they assert, transformed a serious but non-critical illness into the stroke that ultimately ended Crawford's national career.

In those days, anyone who could do so fled swampy and steamy Washington, D.C. in the summer to avoid the diseases such as malaria and yellow fever that swept the town. Crawford was no exception. In the summer of 1823 he left Washington and traveled to the home of leading Virginia politician James Barbour in Barboursville, Orange County.

Unfortunately, Crawford seems to have left a few days too late. By the time he arrived at Barbour's home in the more healthful Piedmont, he was seriously ill. Whatever the precise disease Crawford was suffering from, the doctor summoned by Barbour proceeded to misdiagnose it as a heart ailment – and to prescribe an extremely dangerous remedy:

Thinking Crawford suffered from a heart malady, the doctor administered digitalis, an extract of the poisonous foxglove plant and toxic if incorrectly dosed. In fact, it was an extremely dangerous drug. The measure separating a fruitless from a fatal dose could be less than a drop. The doctor gave Crawford too much. With his heart beating wildly out of control, Crawford suffered a massive stroke . . ..