14) Franklin Pierce - Poor Pierce

With nearly two feet of snow covering the ground out my window, it seemed like an appropriate time to sit down and write about our only president from the Granite State.

Roy Nichol’s biography of Franklin Pierce was one of the more enjoyable during this project so far. I’ve said before that the presidents leading up to Lincoln were the ones I dreaded. I thought I may get bored of the project and give up. However, this well written and researched book is a fascinating way to both learn about an obscure president and provide context to some events leading to the Civil War whose names you remember from history class.

While not a prerequisite for the presidency, Pierce was also born in a log cabin. He grew up in New Hampshire as one of Benjamin and Anna Pierce’s eight children. Benjamin was a veteran of the Revolutionary War where he fought at Bunker Hill. He also served as Governor of New Hampshire. Legend has it that while Franklin was a schoolboy in New Hampshire a speaker came and told his class that if the children aim high in their studies the future President may be sitting in that very room.

Benjamin sent his son north to Bowdoin College in Maine where Franklin did not sufficiently focus on his studies. When his junior year began class rankings were released and Franklin learned he was last in the class. With prodding from classmates Franklin dedicated himself to his studies, rising to fifth in the class by graduation. Franklin made a lifelong friend while at Bowdoin who went on to gain more lasting fame. The author Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter, was a lifelong defender of Pierce even dedicating one of his final works, Our Old Home, to Pierce against the advice of his publisher.

After college Pierce moved to Hillsborough, New Hampshire and began learning law. He involved himself in local politics and was elected to the state legislature, eventually being voted speaker. His constituents then elevated him to the United States Congress where he served in the House during Jackson’s administration. He was a “devout hero-worshiper” of Old Hickory and did a great deal of fighting Jackson’s Bank Wars in the House. In the House Pierce would help to draw up the “gag-rule” which John Quincy Adams famously fought against. Pierce’s work on the gag-rule, which effectively barred debate of slavery in the House, and his disdain for abolitionism, which he saw as a grave threat to the Union, were early signs of Pierce’s states’ rights leanings which tarnished his image in posterity.

Like true Jacksonians, New Hampshire Democrats believed in office rotation and their senators typically served only one term. Pierce’s turn came in 1837. In an otherwise unremarkable Senate career, Pierce had to confront slavery again when he voted against a proposal to table a bill to abolish slavery in Washington DC. This vote came despite his dislike of abolitionists as his association with the gag-rule was giving material to abolitionist at home who claimed that Pierce was suppressing their First Amendment right to petition.

While a member of the House, Pierce married Jane Appleton. This was an odd choice as Jane was “shy, retiring, frail… with strict ideas of propriety.” She was also extremely devout. If you took the opposite of each of the preceding attributes you would have a fair description of Franklin. Jane did not like Hillsborough, so the family relocated to Concord. Their first child died in infancy and their second died as a toddler, their third, Benjamin, became an obsession for Jane and Franklin. Jane did not like Washington and was often ill, she spent much of his Senate term back in Concord. When his term ended, Pierce returned and established his law practice. This was a rare happy period for the Pierces. From 1842 through the first half of 1847 Pierce was the most prolific trial lawyer in Concord. Pierce, who battled alcoholism, was not drinking during this period. Jane also seems to have been happy and relatively healthy during these years. Pierce remained active in politics and became a local “party boss”. The surprise election of James Polk in 1844 was a fortuitous turn for Franklin who benefited from patronage as Polk named him district attorney for New Hampshire.

The Battle of Chapultepec, not as magestic when you're laid up with
Montezuma's revenge.

Then came war with Mexico. Growing up with a military hero father, Pierce longed for battle glory and volunteered immediately. He was promoted to Brigadier General, this was likely political given his limited military background, and given a command. Pierce labored to pull together recruits given the unpopularity of the war in New England, but by May 1847 he was ready to set sail. Pierce did not find glory in Mexico. He would find himself in three battles. At the Battle of Contreras, he was injured. The story that stuck with him from the war was when his horse threw him at Contreras a regular yelled to Pierce’s friend, Major Truman Ransom, “take command of the brigade, General Pierce is a damned coward.” This story was repeated by political enemies throughout his career. Again he was injured at the Battle of Churubusco and then finally at Chapultepec, where Ransom lost his life, Pierce was laid up with diarrhea and unable to participate. He held out hope that he would fight at the ultimate battle in Mexico City, however he arrived just in time to see the Mexicans surrender.

Back in New Hampshire Pierce resumed law and politics, the election of Zachary Taylor was a disappointment, however New Hampshire voted Democrat in no small part thanks to Pierce’s efforts. By the time the election of 1852 rolled around there was some talk that Pierce was a potential candidate, he demurred publicly. While he was by no means a major player on the national stage, the Democratic Party was fraying over slavery and Pierce’s Northern routes and Southern sympathies made him an attractive compromise candidate. Pierce was nominated on the 35^th ballot of the Democratic convention. Pierce defeated fellow Mexican War general Winfield Scott and won the presidency.

Shortly after his election, tragedy struck when a train that Pierce, Jane, and Benjamin were on derailed. Everyone on the train walked away except for Benjamin, who was decapitated in front of his parents. The Pierces went into a state of deep morning, a state that Jane would never exit. Soon thereafter Jane learned that Pierce had sought the presidency more than he let on to her. This was something difficult to forgive given how opposed she was to returning to Washington.  It is likely that Pierce entered the White House to assume his duties in a state of depression.

Shortly into his presidency, Pierce traveled to New York for the World’s Fair. He wanted to preach states’ rights and the importance of securing the Union. Pierce was sick much of the trip and a letter from a congressman to James Buchanan reveals how Pierce was coping:

“I deeply, deeply, deplore his habits. He drinks deep. My hearts bleeds for him for he is a gallant and generous spirit. The place overshadows him. He is crushed by its great duties and he seeks refuge in…”

The most memorable chapter of American history from the Pierce presidency was the signing of the Kansas/Nebraska Act which created the two states. The act called for popular sovereignty in the two states. Opponents of the act called this a repudiation of the Missouri Compromise, supporters said the Compromise of 1850 already nullified the Missouri Compromise. Proponents of slavery and abolitionists alike began piling into Kansas in hopes of swinging the vote. The ensuing clashes, dubbed Bleeding Kansas by John Fremont’s failed Republican bid for president in 1856, stained Pierce’s legacy and hurled the country closer to Civil War.

Pierce was not nominated by the Democrats in 1856. He had become so unpopular throughout the North that during the mid-term elections the Democrats lost every free state except California and New Hampshire – this after carrying every Northern state but Vermont during his election.

Pierce loathed the Civil War. He had focused his presidency on trying to keep the Union together and he believed the war to be senseless. He blamed abolitionists for the death and destruction. However, when Confederate plans to attack Washington were revealed, Pierce spoke on the need to defend the country “at all hazards” and he never justified the secession of the South. This did little to change public perception of Pierce. He inability to hide his disdain for Lincoln didn’t help public perception. He called Lincoln a tool of the abolitionists: “to the extent of his limited ability and narrow intelligence their willing instrument for all the woe which had thus far been brought upon the country…”

In late-1863 Jane died, the next spring Hawthorne died, in the summer political enemies circulated an old letter Pierce had written to his then Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, purporting to show that Pierce supported secession. The next spring came Lincoln’s assassination and Pierce’s depression and alcoholism began to take hold. His liver held out for four more years while he remained somewhat involved in political issues of the day and became involved in the church.

Pierce's life was tragic and his presidency was unsuccessful. However, it is important to understand his times as the prelude to the Civil War and it is important for one studying the presidents to understand the man, as it is a painful lesson in the burden of the office.

13) Millard Fillmore - The Compromiser

Millard Fillmore marks the halfway point of the stretch of this project I was least excited about. I had pegged the four presidents leading up to Lincoln, of which I knew little about, as a dull period leading up to the Civil War. Taylor served as a nice surprise, filling in gaps about the goings on during the Mexican American War. Fillmore’s story has some color on the development of the Whig Party but, like Martin Van Buren’s story, it is largely focused on nineteenth century New York state politics which can get dry.

A statue of Fillmore that stands outside
Buffalo's imposing City Hall.

Like Andrew Jackson and Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore was born in a log cabin. Fillmore grew up on an unproductive farm in New York’s Finger Lakes region, his family then moved west to the Buffalo region in Fillmore’s late teens. It was there, in East Aurora, NY, that Fillmore made his mark as a lawyer. He went on to form a law practice with Nathan Hall and Solomon Haven. These men were instrumental in Buffalo’s development, particularly in education. Hall, who would serve as Fillmore’s Postmaster General, helped institute Buffalo’s fist free public school system and Fillmore was instrumental in the founding of the University of Buffalo. Hall would begin his own law office when Fillmore’s duties no longer allowed him to focus on the practice. The new firm went on to train future president Grover Cleveland. That two U.S. presidents came from essentially the same law practice in western New York is an interesting bit of presidential trivia.

Fillmore came of age at a time when Thurlow Weed was building the Whig Party’s base in New York. Fillmore rose through its ranks serving three terms in the House of Representatives and then running unsuccessfully for governor. Weed and Fillmore often battled due to what the author portrayed as Weed’s repeated backing of the other major New York Whig of the time, William Seward, often at Fillmore’s expense. After losing the bid for Governor, Fillmore was elected as the state’s Comptroller.

It is ironic that Fillmore ended up on the Whig ticket with Zachary Taylor in the election of 1848. Taylor was a slaveholding Southerner so to deliver the North in this tenuous period of American history the Whigs needed an anti-slavery Northerner. Fillmore fit the bill. The irony is that Taylor’s anti-slavery views and opposition to slavery in the newly acquired southwestern territories would soon be apparent. Further, when Taylor died and Fillmore assumed the reigns of the presidency he backed Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas’s efforts to broker a compromise between North and South. The compromise was viewed by many as strengthening the protection of slavery. What became known as the Compromise of 1850 was structured as a series of bills whereby:

• Texas surrendered its claim on New Mexico.
• California was admitted as a non-slave state.
• Utah and New Mexico were allowed to choose whether or not they wanted slavery to be  permitted (it was known both were unlikely to permit the practice).
• The slave trade, but not slavery itself, was outlawed in Washington DC.
• The Fugitive Slave Act was strengthened.

Given the political climate in which everyone was focused on the newly acquired Western territories, the likely abolition of slavery in these lands gave Southerners a sour feeling about the Compromise. Northerners were not happy with the strengthening of the Fugitive Slave Act which required law enforcement, even in jurisdictions where slavery was outlawed, to assist in the capture and return of runaway slaves. This had not been the practice in many Northern municipalities where a blind eye was turned to the efforts of abolitionists to aid escaped slaves. Northern abolitionists flouted the new law. A particular incident in Boston where the arrival of escaped slaves William and Ellen Crofts was loudly celebrated forced Fillmore to take a stand. Fillmore announced that he was prepared to use Federal troops to intervene and the Crofts were quickly and quietly moved to London.

It is important to keep in mind that Fillmore’s actions, both supporting the Compromise and his willingness to use force to protect it, were taken at a time when segments of the South were preparing for disunion. While history may remember Fillmore as a feckless doughface, he was attempting to save the Union. Fillmore’s anti-slavery credentials had been sufficient enough to get him on the ticket with Taylor as a sop to the abolitionist wing of the Whig party so branding him a lackey to slaveholders is lazy analysis.

Fillmore’s domestic failings are surely his presidential legacy. However, he did have a notable achievement in foreign policy when he sent Commodore Matthew Perry to Japan. Japan had been a closed society up to this point and America wanted to trade with them, particularly for their large supply of coal which could fuel new coal-powered ocean liners. Perry was successful in opening Japanese ports giving Fillmore a key diplomatic victory.

Fillmore may not have intended to run for a full term. Friends who had tried to convince him to run later said that he did not want to. The endorsement of party leader Henry Clay, on his death bed, finally convinced him to run. Fillmore did not receive the nomination, on the 53^rd ballot General Winfield Scott was nominated and he would go on to lose to another Mexican American War General, Franklin Pierce. But that is a story for the next post.

The Whig Party began to fracture following the defeat of General Scott. Perhaps the correct way to phrase it is that existing fractures could no longer be ignored after Scott’s defeat. The Whig party split largely over the issue of slavery into the Know-Nothings and the modern-day Republican Party. The Know-Nothings were a short-lived anti-Catholic / anti-immigrant party of which, unfortunately, Millard Fillmore joined and represented in the Presidential election of 1856. The Republican party would find presidential success in 1860 when Lincoln’s election raised the drumbeat of secession to fruition.

12) Zachary Taylor - Old Rough and Ready

Zachary Taylor was the first president for which I chose one of The American Presidents Series books. These biographies are meant to give the reader an overview of the major events in each presidents’ life and presidency in a quick, readable volume. John Eisenhower’s “Zachary Taylor” achieved this goal, however 140 pages was not enough to get a good sense of Taylor and his times. For that reason, this is likely the last of these books I’ll read during this project.

Born in Virginia, not far from Montpelier, Zachary Taylor was a distant cousin of James Madison. Taylor’s family moved west to Kentucky when he was young, so like Polk and Jackson before him, Taylor was raised on the frontier. At 23 years old in 1808, he joined the Army. The timing was fortuitous as the young country was about to go back to war with England in the War of 1812 and many proxy battles would occur on the frontier. Taylor’s gained notoriety in the Indiana Territory as he heroically defended Fort Harrison against natives led by William Henry Harrison’s oft antagonist, Tecumseh. Taylor’s performance ultimately led to his promotion to Major, however when the War ended and the size of the Army was reduced Taylor was demoted back to Captain. With his pride wounded he retired from the Army until his rank of Major was returned to him the next year.

Taylor's image seems to fit the nickname
"Old Rough and Ready"

Military life kept Taylor away from his family often and he was determined that his daughter never marry a military man for that reason. As fate would have it his daughter, Sarah, would fall in love with and marry an Army man and Taylor did not approve. Sarah married the future president of the breakaway Confederate States, Jefferson Davis. Tragically, both contracted malaria shortly after their marriage. Jefferson got better, but Sarah went quick. Taylor and Davis would find themselves on the same steamship about 12 years later in Louisiana as Davis was on his way to marry his second wife, Varina Howell. The animosity Taylor had felt toward Davis was gone and while they didn’t agree politically Taylor treated him like a son for the rest of his life.

By the time of the Mexican American War, Taylor was a General and deployed by President James Polk into contested territory in West Texas. When Taylor’s troops were engaged he wrote to his Commander in Chief that hostilities had begun, kicking off the war. Taylor would go on to win victories against the Mexicans, most notably at Palo Alto and Buena Vista.

During his military career Taylor had never made public his political leanings however his success during the war with Mexico had turned him into an American hero. The Whigs needed a viable candidate to challenge the Democrats and Kentucky senator John Crittenden acted as kingmaker pushing for Taylor on the 1848 ticket. The Whigs needed Taylor to declare his politics though. Knowing this, Crittenden deployed three of his aides to Taylor’s Mississippi home who cajoled him into writing a letter to his friend Captain J.S. Allison. The publishing of supposed private letters was a standard form of press release in 18^th and 19^th century American politics. The Allison letter served to establish Taylor’s Whig credentials and Taylor and Millard Fillmore were elected to the Whig ticket at the party’s convention in Philadelphia. As was customary of the time, the potential nominees did not attend the convention. Taylor was home in Mississippi and alerted by mail of his selection. However, more than a month past with no response and party officials began to get anxious. It turned out that the letter had been sitting at the Baton Rouge post office. In 1848 postage stamps were yet to be invented and Taylor had informed the postmaster that he would no longer accept incoming mail on which postage was due, so the postmaster had thrown the letter from Philadelphia into a dead letter file.

Taylor’s presidency was dominated by the issue of slavery. Despite a rush gold-seekers to the California Territory, Congress could not vote on statehood due to the implications of congressional imbalance between slave and non-slave states. The organization of the Oregon Territory was engulfed in the slave issue as well. Meanwhile, Texas had designs on the newly acquired New Mexico Territory and even threatened secession over the issue prompting one of my favorite presidential quotes to date: “If it becomes necessary I’ll take command of the Army myself and if you are taken in rebellion against the Union I will hang you with less reluctance than I hanged deserters and spies in Mexico.” Taylor’s desire was not to be questioned, despite Polk’s misgivings as discussed in the prior post.

Following July 4^th festivities in 1850, Taylor became ill. He would expire on July 9^th, less than a year and a half after taking office. It was likely cholera that killed him, the same ailment that killed his predecessor James Polk, however rumors persisted that he was poisoned by pro-slavery Southerners. This has never been substantiated despite testing. It seems odd that conspiracy theorists would hold that a slaveholder was killed by those with pro-slavery sympathies. Perhaps, Thomas Hart Benton’s effusive eulogy can shed some light. Benton was a congressional institution during the mid-1800s and a Democrat, who owed Taylor no favors in Eisenhower’s words. Benton said of Taylor:

“His death was a public calamity. No man could have been more devoted to the Union or more opposed to the slavery agitation, and his position as a Southern man and a slave-holder, his military reputation and his election by a majority of the people of the States would have given him a power in the settlement of these questions which no President without these qualifications would have possessed.”

Counterfactuals sometimes feel like a cheap attempt to rewrite history and it feels unfair to Lincoln and the other politicians and soldiers who gave their lives to preserve the Union to bestow on Taylor any credit toward that achievement. However, Benton’s words are about a man who does not get any credit. Taylor remains a president little remembered by history, in part due to Union soldiers destroying his son’s house during the Civil War and with it all of his personal papers. Benton’s words give us insight into the convictions of a president who, unlike his successor Millard Fillmore, believed that the Union must be preserved without slavery not preserved by allowing slavery to fester, ignored, in the South. Three presidents and ten-and-a-half years are all that would separate Taylor’s death and the first shots of the Civil War in South Carolina, whether the survival and reelection of Taylor could have altered that remains an unknowable what-if.

11) James Polk - Young Hickory

The eleventh president was another that I did not know what to expect from. The subtitle of Walter Borneman’s book, “The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America,” set lofty expectations.

Polk was born in current-day North Carolina and moved to Tennessee as a child. His childhood wasn’t easy. Life on the American frontier was difficult enough, but various illnesses made it even more challenging. By the age of 17, Polk’s parents resolved to send him to Philadelphia to seek the care of Dr. Philip Syng Physick, “the father of American surgery.” Polk could go no farther than Danville, Kentucky.  A Kentucky surgeon removed urinary stones in what must have been an excruciating and terrifying experience. Fortunately, Polk’s health was finally improved, but the primitive surgery is likely the reason he never had children.

Polk hitched his political wagon to the giant of Tennessee Democratic politics, Andrew Jackson, as a young man. Polk served seven terms in the US House of Representatives, making it to the Speakership, before running for governor of Tennessee. While Polk won his first campaign for governor, he lost the next two elections to James “Lean Jimmy” Chamberlain Jones. Lean Jimmy was a Whig showman of little substance and Polk’s losses to him were huge political disappointments and may have ended a less ambitious politician’s career.

The revival of Polk’s career came in the form of a political misstep from Jackson’s protégé, and a master politician in his own right, Martin Van Buren. Polk’s aim was to run as Van Buren’s vice president. However, Van Buren’s equivocation over Texas annexation was a betrayal that Jackson couldn’t forgive; Jackson threw his considerable weight behind Polk for President in 1844. To ensure support from all factions of the splintered Democratic Party, Polk promised to serve only one term. Polk got the Democratic nomination and thanks to an antislavery third party candidate splitting the vote in New York, he squeaked out a win in the general election over perpetual Whig candidate Henry Clay.

Polk would indeed transform the presidency, as the title suggested. He fundamentally strengthening the office into the strong executive we know today. Polk showed evidence of his iron will early when he laid down the ground rules for his cabinet members. Cabinet members would have to a) sign a pledge to support the Democratic platform, b) resign if they decided to run for president, and c) not vacation outside of Washington. Polk would be the first president to reaffirm the Monroe Doctrine by declaring “people of this continent’s right alone” to control the Oregon territory which was jointly held with England.

Where Polk truly transformed the presidency was over the United States’ claim to the Southwest. Polk wanted to force Mexico to accept the United States’ right to Texas and gain control over New Mexico and California. Mexico’s refusal to negotiate was making it seem that they would be convinced only by force. Polk prepared to demand that Congress declare war, ostensibly over Mexico’s refusal to deal with an American envoy. What Polk didn’t know was that Zachary Taylor’s troops had already been engaged by Mexican soldiers in contested West-Texas territory. Polk received a gift prior to approaching Congress. A memo from General Zachary Taylor reached Washington stating that “hostilities may now be considered as commenced.” With that information, Polk went to Congress and told them the war had already begun, they had better accept it. Between the House and the Senate, the total debate time was less than a day and a half. From that point forward the Executive has assumed war making powers from congress, fundamentally strengthening the office of the president.

Polk’s four years in office were dominated by western expansion and the Mexican American War. By the time he left office, the United States had added modern day Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Montana. There is no question that Polk transformed the nation. Acquiring the land was one thing, but adding new states was another. Mid-nineteenth century American politics was completely dominated by slavery and the addition of new “free states” was unacceptable to Southern politicians who were increasingly feeling marginalized and unwilling to upset the balance between free and slave states in congress. The “peculiar institution” dominated national issues, it was becoming evident to prescient politicians that secession was a matter of time.

Polk upheld his pledge not to run for a second term. Lewis Cass ran on the Democratic ticket and in an ironic twist, a third party candidate split the New York vote again, but this time gave the election to the Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor. Despite the fact that Taylor had served as a general under Polk, he did not think highly of him. Polk wrote that Taylor seemed, “a well-meaning old man… uneducated, exceedingly ignorant of public affairs, and of very ordinary capacity.” Polk turned the reigns over to Taylor fearing that Taylor would unwind the land gains Polk’s administration had achieved. The fear proved unfounded, however Polk would not live to be proved wrong. Just 103 days after leaving office, Polk died of cholera. A long tour of the South on his way home to likely did not help.

The America and the office of the presidency that Polk left behind were much different than what he had inherited from John Tyler. Politically, however, slavery remained a ticking time-bomb that would explode in a mere twelve years.

10) John Tyler – The Accidental President

John Tyler’s presidency was a unique one that challenged the young democracy and the resiliency of its Constitution. Tyler assumed the presidency in 1841 following the death of William Henry Harrison, 126 years before the adoption of the 25^th Amendment to the Constitution, which would spell out the order of succession to the Presidency. Upon Tyler’s ascendency to the executive there were some, most notably Henry Clay, who asserted that Tyler was acting president only, devoid of authority to serve out Harrison’s term. Tyler rejected this idea and was ultimately granted legitimacy by Congress. The Tyler Precedent would define presidential succession until the Cold War.

In a time of bitter partisanship and splintering political parties, Tyler’s politics didn’t fit neatly in either of the major political parties of the day. The early part of his political career as a member of the House of Representatives, Virginia House of Delegates, Governor of Virginia, and the US Senate Tyler was a Democrat. Despite his party affiliation, Tyler often found himself at odds with the preeminent Democrat of the day, Andrew Jackson. Like Jackson, Tyler did not support the Bank of the US, however he didn’t agree with Jackson’s decision to strip the bank of its deposits. He also agreed with Jackson that South Carolina should not nullify Federal Law, however Tyler was a strict believer in state’s rights and the force with which Jackson came down on South Carolina didn’t sit well with Tyler. Tyler would fall

in with the nascent Whig party, found his way onto the Whig ticket in the 1840 Presidential election as William Henry Harrison’s running mate, and was President of the United States upon Harrison’s death shortly thereafter.

The Tyler / Whig love affair was short lived. Before his first year in office ended Tyler had vetoed two banking bills favored by Henry Clay and the congressional Whigs. All but one of his cabinet members resigned and Clay dubbed him “The President without a party.” Whig newspapers heaped vitriol on Tyler for the duration of his presidency.

The legacy of Tyler’s presidency is the annexation of Texas. Tyler worked hard to shepherd annexation legislation through congress and coordinate with the Texan government. This work was disrupted by the USS Princeton disaster wherein the newly built ship’s main gun backfired during a celebratory cruise down the Potomac. Thomas Gilmer and Abel Upshur, Tyler’s secretaries of the Navy and State, respectively died along with four others in the disaster. Both Gilmer and Upshur had been key players in annexation effort. Despite their differences, Tyler appointed John Calhoun to fill the position at State, and Calhoun helped devise a joint resolution of congress to back annexation just before Tyler left office.

Tyler once again identified as a Democrat after his break with the Whigs. He agreed, for the sake of the party, not to seek reelection and back James Polk. Polk angered Tyler by never living up to the unspoken agreement to repay some Tyler men through patronage.

Tyler is not highly regarded by historians. To his supporters he was unwavering supporter of state’s rights, however in the mid-19^th century supporting state’s rights was a euphemism for supporting slavery and when the Civil War came around Tyler ended up on the wrong side of history.

Photo of Tyler and Monroe's gravesite,
courtesy of http://www.presidentsgraves.com

In retirement, Tyler initially opposed war. He presided over the “Peace Convention” which proposed to President James Buchanan that slavery be prohibited in the North, that slavery be continued in the South, that questions involving slavery in the South be resolved by Federal courts according to common law, and that any new states decide on slavery themselves. Tyler changed his tack after the Senate overwhelmingly rejected these proposals. He now believed that if the South presented a united front, by seceding from the union, war would be avoided. He was wrong. Tyler lived long enough to see shots ring out at Fort Sumter, his home state of Virginia secede, and the Confederates triumph at Bull Run. Tyler likely died believing that the South could defeat the Union troops. Interestingly, Tyler is the only US president who was not buried under the American flag. In an attempt to galvanize Southerners, Jefferson Davis ordered a grand burial for Tyler, under the Confederate flag, next to James Monroe’s grave.

9) William Henry Harrison - Old Tippecanoe

William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, was in office for 31 days. Harrison was the first Whig to serve as president of the United States. The Whigs were a motley crew consisting of anti-Masons, national Republicans, and anti-Jackson Democrats. While there wasn’t a common platform to hold the Whigs together, they employed rhetoric and the press deftly. The election of 1840, in which Harrison defeated the incumbent Van Buren, was one of little substance. Oliver Perry Chitwood, John Tyler’s biographer, pointed out that the Whig press successfully framed Harrison as a rugged frontiersman while painting Van Buren as an aristocrat. In reality Van Buren was largely a self-made man, as you may recall from the prior post, and Harrison was a scion of Virginia gentry. Harrison’s campaign slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too” was one of the most successful and enduring in American history.

There are contradictory accounts about Harrison’s death. The author, Robert Owens, tells the story you often hear; Harrison delivered a long inaugural speech in bad weather, contracted pneumonia, and died shortly thereafter. Chitwood tells a different story, which I’m more inclined to believe given the timeline. Chitwood says that Harrison’s inauguration took place on “beautiful day.” It wasn’t until March 24^th, 20 days after the inauguration, that Harrison contracted pneumonia. This makes the story that Harrison contracted his illness during the inauguration difficult to reconcile.

Owens’ book, Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer, was the first I read during this project that wasn’t a biography. I didn’t realize it when I picked the book up, but it’s really an account of Harrison’s time as governor of the Indiana Territory and his role in 19^th Century American Indian policy. The book spends very little time discussing his childhood and even less discussing his post-Indiana work.  While this was a bit of a divergence from the “presidential biography” tact, the book was still interesting and I certainly learned about a little known president.

Harrison’s father, Benjamin, was governor of Virginia, he was a leader in the House of Burgesses, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. When Harrison applied to join the Army, Washington himself approved the application likely due to his friendship with Benjamin.

Harrison’s most famous military conquest was his role in the Battle of Tippecanoe. Owens tells a story not as glorious as one might expect. Harrison’s Indian adversaries attacked at night in an attempt to kill Harrison. Harrison likely escaped because his customary gray horse ran off earlier that day and he was riding another. Harrison’s men held off the Indians, but suffered dozens of deaths and injuries. Initial criticisms of Harrison’s ill preparation were quickly suppressed as Andrew Jackson defended his actions. 

Like Jackson, Harrison became involved in Aaron Burr’s failed attempt to split the union. Burr conspired with General James Wilkinson whom Harrison had served under at the beginning of his Army career. Wilkinson requested that Harrison send Burr to Congress as Indiana’s representative, a request that he didn’t oblige.

President Thomas Jefferson wrote to Harrison in 1803, which was early in Harrison’s tenure as governor, instructing him to acquire as much Indian land in the Mississippi Valley and to keep this plan secret. Jefferson wanted to secure the Ohio and Mississippi rivers in the event that France (i.e. Napoléon) were to militarize their newly acquired Louisiana Territory. A common refrain in American history education is the story of unfair treaties that the American settlers coerced Indians in to in order to give legal cover to the subjugation of Indian land. Harrison’s time as Governor of Indiana is a case study in this practice. The common tactics seemed to be: (i) When possible negotiate with a tribe on friendly terms with the Americans, these tribes often had tenuous claims on the land that Americans were negotiating over. (ii) Institute an annuity system whereby the tribes were paid over time. This secured the dependence of that tribe on the American government and served as leverage over the tribe’s leadership. (iii) Try to structure payment for land to include farm equipment and/or livestock to help in the “civilizing” of the tribes.  The idea of protecting the Western border from France was to become a moot point soon as the Louisiana Purchase was completed by Jefferson’s administration later in 1803.

While Harrison's time in the highest office was brief, the role he played in the West is an important chapter in American history. Harrison was a slaveholder and a proponent of slavery and worked to institutionalize it in the Indiana Territory, a battle he lost as the country slowly marched toward a Civil War whose first shots would ring out 20 years, almost to the day, after Harrison's death.

8) Martin Van Buren - The Little Magician

Only 43 men have held the title of President of the United Sates at the time of this writing, so naturally there are firsts in every presidency. Martin Van Buren, I would argue, was the first pure politician to rise to the presidency. Before assuming the presidency Van Buren served in the Senate, as Governor of New York, Secretary of State, minister to the United Kingdom, and Vice President. It isn’t the long list of offices that makes Van Buren the first ‘pure politician’; Jefferson, Monroe, and Quincy Adams had similar resumes; it was Van Buren’s work forming modern Democratic Party that gives him that title.

Born about 100 miles north of New York City in the Hudson River town of Kinderhook, Van Buren grew up in an isolated, Dutch village. Much of Washington Irving’s writings are set in Van Buren’s New York. Like his future mentor, Andrew Jackson, Van Buren’s life was marred by tragedy. Van Buren’s mother, father, and wife all died over a three-year span leaving him with four sons, aged two to eleven, to raise on his own.

Van Buren helped to build the Albany Regency, one of the first political machines in the young republic. At a time when communication over long distances was difficult the Regency crafted a system to maintain party discipline wherein the governor and senators sent policy to the caucus in the state legislature that informed the partisan press. Circuit judges also played a roll in spreading the party line as they rode the circuit around New York. The Regency began to give Americans a more positive image of political parties, which were beginning to be seen as a force for good that facilitated political engagement and curbed corruption.

As a luminary of the Regency, Van Buren worked to intertwine the powerful northern and southern states of New York and Virginia. This required a flexibility that would stay with him throughout his political life. Van Buren’s flexibility is most notable in his support for slavery at a time when New York’s abolitionist movement was swelling. Van Buren was of a class of politicians who believed that maintaining the union justified the status quo on slavery, a position he later abandoned when it suited him.

Van Buren’s presidency was unspectacular. He spent the majority of his single term attempting to deal with the Panic of 1837, a consequence of both European financial pressures and Andrew Jackson’s heavy-handed economic intervention. Van Buren’s main objective was to secure an independent treasury bill, reversing the policy of depositing federal funds into state banks. Van Buren’s quest for an independent treasury served to split the Democratic Party that he had worked so hard to build. When the bill passed, three years into Van Buren’s term, it had little practical effect as it merely legislated a practice that had been in effect for a year.

In his reelection campaign William Henry Harrison handily defeated Van Buren. That Harrison excited the electorate with his log cabin imagery and Tippecanoe slogans was evidenced by an increase in the popular vote from 1836 to 1840 from 1.5 million to 2.4 million. Van Buren would again seek the Democratic nomination in 1844 but lost to James Polk. In 1848, he ran as a member of the Free Soil Party which opposed slavery, he failed to carry a single state.

The career politician was often regarded as a shrewd manipulator, nicknamed The Little Magician, Van Buren flip-flopped on a number of issues including the Erie Canal (originally opposed), Jackson’s bank modifications, and slavery. It was Van Buren’s work to form the Democratic Party, and modern party structure in general, which is Van Buren’s lasting legacy.