Congressional Giants. J. Michael Martinez

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СКАЧАТЬ the rough balance between so-called free states and slave states. The free state population of 5.152 million already exceeded the slave state population of 4.485 million, but the Constitution’s three-fifth’s clause granted the South seventy-six House seats, as opposed to the fifty-nine seats that it would hold if only the free population was counted. Everyone wondered what would become of the status quo if Missouri favored the South. As part of the territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, Missouri was an important test case to determine whether, and under what conditions, new states would be admitted into the Union.²²

      Congress began debating the Missouri question in February 1819. Clay recognized a golden opportunity to appease a majority of legislators when Maine, which then existed as the northern district of Massachusetts, petitioned for admission as a free state. Lacking the votes to push through a compromise in the House, Clay allowed the Senate to take the lead in offering a measure to establish a demarcation line of 36º 30′. States above the line outlawed slavery, and those below the line allowed the institution to survive.

      The House rejected the Senate compromise, but Clay was not ready to admit defeat. He appointed a committee of House conciliators to sit down with senators and hammer out a suitable solution. On March 2, 1820, the group reported out three separate bills. One bill admitted Maine as a free state, a second allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, and a third established the 36º 30′ line.²³

      One congressman facing the end of his term, James Tallmadge Jr. of New York, offered an amendment to the statehood bill proposing that “the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been fully convicted; and that all children born within the said State, after the admission thereof into the Union, shall be free at the age of twenty-five years.” The measure risked alienating the South, and Clay, himself a slaveholder, understood the stakes. Although he was sympathetic to opponents of slavery, Clay was anxious to find a solution that did not threaten to dissolve the Union.²⁴

      Accordingly, he maneuvered to strike out Tallmadge’s amendment before sending the measure to the Senate for a vote. When Congressman Randolph of Virginia moved to reconsider the bill, Clay ruled him out of order until the rest of that day’s business had been concluded. Afterward, Clay had the bill, sans Tallmadge’s amendment, moved over to the Senate. Later that day, Randolph moved again for reconsideration. This time, Clay ruled him out of order because the bill was already being debated in the Senate. The trick was widely regarded as a smooth, albeit slightly shady, means of getting what Clay wanted by hook or by crook.²⁵

      The Missouri Compromise, as it came to be called, revealed Henry Clay as a master legislator. One prominent historian commented that “Clay entered the Missouri crisis a clever if conventional border state politician. He came out of it a statesman.” From that point on, his reputation was assured. Whatever else happened in his career, Henry Clay would forever after be known as the “Great Pacificator.”²⁶

      He briefly retired from the House after his triumph, but won reelection in 1822. The next year, he entertained the possibility of running for president. The incumbent, James Monroe, was approaching the end of his second term. Although the Constitution did not provide for presidential term limits, every chief executive since George Washington had voluntarily retired at the end of his second term, assuming the electors had not involuntarily retired them earlier, as in the case of John Adams. Now an acknowledged statesman and master of the House, Clay was an obvious choice for president. His likely competitors included three men serving in Monroe’s cabinet: Treasury Secretary William Crawford, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, and Secretary of War John C. Calhoun.

      What no one fully appreciated was the appeal of a new kind of candidate, a frontiersman and hero of the Battle of New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson. Rough-hewn, uneducated, and unrefined, Jackson personified the populist, self-made man that would become irresistible in American politics. When he appeared on the political scene after the Tennessee legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate, he made a virtue of his vices. In earlier times, a man as rough and inexperienced in the ways of polite society and conventional politics would have been placed at a severe disadvantage in the race for elective office. In the case of General Jackson, it was exactly those qualities that appealed to the voters.

      After Crawford suffered a stroke and Calhoun withdrew, the dynamics of the race changed. Despite his poor health, Crawford remained in the contest, as did Clay and Adams. Jackson unexpectedly emerged as a formidable candidate. Crawford and Jackson argued for stronger state governments while Clay and Adams sought a more powerful national government.

      Clay was optimistic about his chances to win the election. He had deduced that in a field of multiple candidates, no one man could capture a majority of the electoral votes, as required by the Constitution. In such a situation, the election would be shifted into the House of Representatives, with the top three vote-getters pitted against each other in a runoff. Because he remained in office as House Speaker, Clay had good reason to believe that he could call in favors to ensure his election as president. His only problem was that he must capture enough electoral votes to ensure that he would be among the top three candidates advancing to the runoff.

      In what could only be interpreted as a humiliating repudiation by voters, Clay fell short. He was mortified to learn that he had placed fourth in the field, denying him a place on the final ballot. Always a man to face political reality, Clay reluctantly accepted his loss, and immediately plotted a path forward. John Quincy Adams entered into talks with Clay, presumably to entice the Kentucky congressman to lend his support.

      Although the two men often had been at odds with each other, they agreed to join forces. Clay threw his support to Adams in the House, and his candidate captured the prize. Afterward, Adams offered Clay a position as secretary of state. The latter knew that accepting the offer would lead to charges of an improper quid pro quo agreement, but Clay wished to move up in the political hierarchy. At the time, the secretary of state position was viewed as a stepping stone to the presidency, and Henry Clay desperately wanted to be president. He accepted the offer. As he had suspected, howls of protest erupted. Critics charged that a corrupt bargain had led to Adams’s victory and Clay’s new position within the administration. No one was more outraged than Andrew Jackson, who believed, with some justification, that he had been robbed of his rightful place in the executive mansion. Jackson and Clay would become bitter rivals for the remainder of their professional lives.²⁷

      Clay remained as secretary of state for the entirety of the Adams administration. He believed in the protective tariff to allow American manufacturers to compete effectively with European suppliers, a view supported by numerous public men of the day. What set Clay apart was his support for independence movements in Latin America and his willingness to negotiate commercial treaties there. He had supported improved relations with Great Britain and France, but his efforts to come to terms on a stable U.S. border with Canada were rebuffed. Clay was not a failure as secretary of state, but he realized that the work was not to his liking, and his talents were perhaps best used elsewhere.²⁸

      As Adams’s presidency progressed, the bitterly resentful Jacksonians bided their time, carefully building up grassroots support for the general to challenge the incumbent in the 1828 election, and thereby avenge the earlier loss. The first party system was breaking down, with Jackson’s supporters identifying themselves as “Democrats” to stress their devotion to the people, while Adams’s followers were called National Republicans, as opposed to the Democratic-Republicans of Jefferson’s day.

      The 1828 campaign was notoriously nasty, with each side hurling all manner of invective in speech and print. The typical charge lodged against Jackson was that he was a demagogue who would seize power, if elected, and wreck the constitutional republic. In some quarters, Adams’s men intimated that Jackson’s wife, Rachel, was guilty of bigamy because she had married the general before a divorce from her first husband was final. Rachel’s sudden death of a heart СКАЧАТЬ