A History of the American People

convinced that the .... great state of New York, whose champions, Hamilton, Burr, De Witt
Clinton, and Co., had all failed to get to the White House, was due for its turn at last.
But as president Van Buren never had a chance. The financial panic, which deepened into a
real depression, ruined all. The money in circulation (banknotes mainly) contracted from $150
million in 1837 to barely over a third by the end of the decade. An enormous number of people,
big and small, went insolvent, so many that Congress, in order not to clog the jails with them,
passed a special bankruptcy law under which 39,000 people were able to cancel debts of $441
million. The government itself lost $9 million which, on Kendall's advice, it had deposited in
Jackson's pet banks,' which now went bust. Worse, the depression lingered for five years. As land sales slumped, the federal government went into sharp deficit, and the national debt began to accumulate again-something it has done ever since. Most of Van Buren's energies went on an attempt to set up what he called an Independent Treasury-the nearest he could get to a central bank without actually repudiating Jackson's policy. He finally got it through Congress just as he had to run before the voters again, and the Depression made it certain he would lose. If there were any justice in politics, Clay should have been the beneficiary, since he had opposed the Jacksonians for two decades and his warnings against the Dictator's absurd financial policies had been fully vindicated by events. But at the Harrisburg convention of the Whig Party- more a coalition of personal and local power-groups than a real party based on shared convictions-he was outmaneuvered and hornswoggled in the 'smoke-filled rooms,' the first time that phenomenon made its appearance in American history. Clay's supporters arrived with a plurality of delegates but on the final vote he was beaten by Harrison 148-90, his manager telling him:You have been deceived betrayed & beaten [by] a deliberate conspiracy against you.' The
election itself was unique in American history, conducted in a carnival atmosphere in which
programs and policies were scarcely discussed at all, and all was slogans, gimmickry and
razzmatazz. Considering the country was supposed to be, indeed to some extent was, in deep
depression, the frivolity was remarkable. But then the mid-19th century was an astonishing age
of optimism and America was a resilient nation. Harrison campaigned as a rugged frontiersman,
with his running mate John Tyler (1790-1862), a dyed-in-the-wool Virginian and states' rights
man who had been alienated by Jackson's high-handed ways, being presented as an experienced
and wily professional politician. So the Whig slogan was 'Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.' The
Democrats retaliated by ignoring Tyler and branding General Harrison, who liked his noggin-or
rather his joram-as The Log Cabin and Hard Cyder' candidate. The Whigs turned this to advantage by holdingLog Cabin Rallies' at which hard cider was copiously served. They also
created an electorally effective image of the dapper Van Buren as an effete New York dandy,
drinking wine `from his coolers of silver.' The actual popular vote was fairly close-1,275,000 to
Harrison against 1,128,000 for Van Buren-but the college vote was a landslide, 234 to 6o. The
Whigs thus demonstrated, as the Democrats had already discovered, that picking a general paid
electoral dividends.
Harrison was sixty-eight and said he would serve only one term. Clay turned down his
invitation to become secretary of state again, saying he would rather remain in the Senate and
expecting to succeed Harrison as president in 1844. So the golden-tongued, distinctly fishy
Webster got the job instead. However, Harrison, having formed his Cabinet and celebrated his
entry into the White House, was attacked by pneumonia and expired after only a month in office.
That put Tyler in the White House and disrupted all Clay's long-term plans. However, he thought
that, with Harrison dead, he could now control the Whig Party and dictate to Tyler what he ought
to do-in particular to proceed immediately to the creation of a Third Bank of the United States.