CHAPTER 30. Democrats and Whigs, 1837-1844

DEMOCRATS AND WHIGS, 1837-1844

314. The Panic of 1837.--The Panic was due directly to Jackson's interference with the banks, to his Specie Circular, and to the distribution of the surplus. It happened in this way. When the Specie Circular was issued, people who held paper money at once went to the banks to get gold and silver in exchange for it to pay for the lands bought of the government. The government on its part drew out money from the banks to pay the states their share of the surplus. The banks were obliged to sell their property and to demand payment of money due them. People who owed money to the banks were obliged to sell their property to pay the banks. So every one wanted to sell, and few wanted to buy. Prices of everything went down with a rush. People felt so poor that they would not even buy new clothes. The mills and mines were closed, and the banks suspended payments. Thousands of working men and women were thrown out of work. They could not even buy food for themselves or their families. Terrible bread riots took place. After a time people began to pluck up their courage. But it was a long time before "good times" came again.

315. The Independent Treasury System.--What should be done with the government's money? No one could think of depositing it with the state banks. Clay and his friends thought the best thing to do would be to establish a new United States Bank. But Van Buren was opposed to that. His plan, in short, was to build vaults for storing money in Washington and in the leading cities. The main storehouse or Treasury was to be in Washington, subordinate storehouses or sub-treasuries were to be established in the other cities. To these sub-treasuries the collectors of customs would pay the money collected by them. In this way the government would become independent of the general business affairs of the country. In 1840 Congress passed an act for putting this plan into effect. But before it was in working order, Van Buren was no longer President.

316. Democrats and Whigs.--In the Era of Good Feeling there was but one party--the Republican party. In the confused times of 1824 the several sections of the party took the names of their party leaders: the Adams men, the Jackson men, the Clay men, and so on. Soon the Adams men and the Clay men began to act together and to call themselves National Republicans. This they did because they wished to build up the nation's resources at the expense of the nation. The Jackson men called themselves Democratic Republicans, because they upheld the rights of the people. Before long they dropped the word "Republican" and called themselves simply Democrats. The National Republicans dropped the whole of their name and took that of the great English liberal party--the Whigs. This they did because they favored reform.

317. Election of 1840.--General William Henry Harrison was the son of Benjamin Harrison of Virginia, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. General Harrison had moved to the West and had won distinction at Tippecanoe, and also in the War of 1812 (pp. 202, 209). The Whigs nominated him in 1836, but he was beaten. They now renominated him for President, with John Tyler of Virginia as candidate for Vice-President. Van Buren had made a good President, but his term of office was associated with panic and hard times. He was a rich man and gave great parties. Plainly he was not a "man of the people," as was Harrison. A Democratic orator sneered at Harrison, and said that all he wanted was a log cabin of his own and a jug of cider. The Whigs eagerly seized on this description. They built log cabins at the street corners and dragged through the streets log cabins on great wagons. They held immense open-air meetings at which people sang songs of "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too." Harrison and Tyler received nearly all the electoral votes and were chosen President and Vice-President.

318. Death of Harrison, 1841.--The people's President was inaugurated on March 4, 1841. For the first time since the establishment of the Spoils System a new party came into control of the government. Thousands of office-seekers thronged to Washington. They even slept in out-of-the-way corners of the White House. Day after day, from morning till night, they pressed their claims on Harrison. One morning early, before the office-seekers were astir, he went out for a walk. He caught cold and died suddenly, just one month after his inauguration. John Tyler at once became President.

319. Tyler and the Whigs.--President Tyler was not a Whig like Harrison or Clay, nor was he a Democrat like Jackson. He was a Democrat who did not like Jackson ideas. As President, he proved to be anything but a Whig. He was willing to sign a bill to repeal the Independent Treasury Act, for that was a Democratic measure he had not liked; but he refused to sign a bill to establish a new Bank of the United States. Without either a bank or a treasury, it was well-nigh impossible to carry on the business of the government. But it was carried on in one way or another. Tyler was willing to sign a new tariff act, and one was passed in 1842. This was possible, as the Compromise Tariff (p. 248) came to an end in that year.

320. Treaty with Great Britain, 1842.--Perhaps the most important event of Tyler's administration was the signing of the Treaty of 1842 with Great Britain. Ever since the Treaty of Peace of 1783, there had been a dispute over the northeastern boundary of Maine. If the boundary had been run according to the plain meaning of the Treaty of Peace, the people of Upper Canada would have found it almost impossible to reach New Brunswick or Nova Scotia in winter. At that time of the year the St. Lawrence is frozen over, and the true northern boundary of Maine ran so near to the St. Lawrence that it was difficult to build a road which would be wholly in British territory. So the British had tried in every way to avoid settling the matter. It was now arranged that the United States should have a little piece of Canada north of Vermont and New York and should give up the extreme northeastern corner of Maine. It was also agreed that criminals escaping from one country to the other should be returned. A still further agreement was made for checking the slave trade from the coast of western Africa.

321. The Electric Telegraph.--Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Henry made great discoveries in electricity. But Samuel F. B. Morse was the first to use electricity in a practical way. Morse found out that if a man at one end of a line of wire pressed down a key, electricity could be made at the same moment to press down another key at the other end of the line of wire. Moreover, the key at the farther end of the line could be so arranged as to make an impression on a piece of paper that was slowly drawn under it by clockwork. Now if the man at one end of the line held his key down for only an instant, this impression would look like a dot. If he held it down longer, it would look like a short dash. Morse combined these dots and dashes into an alphabet. For instance, one dash meant the letter "t," and so on. For a time people only laughed at Morse. But at length Congress gave him enough money to build a line from Baltimore to Washington. It was opened in 1844, and proved to be a success from the beginning. Other lines were soon built, and the Morse system, greatly improved, is still in use. The telegraph made it possible to operate long lines of railroad, as all the trains could be managed from one office so that they would not run into one another. It also made it possible to communicate with people afar off and get an answer in an hour or so. For both these reasons the telegraph was very important and with the railroads did much to unite the people of the different portions of the country.

322. The McCormick Reaper.--Every great staple depends for its production on some particular tool. For instance, cotton was of slight importance until the invention of the cotton gin (p. 185) made it possible cheaply to separate the seed from the fiber. The success of wheat growing depended upon the ability quickly to harvest the crop. Wheat must be allowed to stand until it is fully ripened. Then it must be quickly reaped and stored away out of the reach of the rain and wet. For a few weeks in each year there was a great demand for labor on the wheat farms. And there was little labor to be had. Cyrus H. McCormick solved this problem for the wheat growers by inventing a horse reaper. The invention was made in 1831, but it was not until 1845 that the reaper came into general use. By 1855 the use of the horse reaper was adding every year fifty-five million dollars to the wealth of the country. Each year its use moved the fringe of civilization fifty miles farther west. Without harvesting machinery the rapid settlement of the West would have been impossible. And had not the West been rapidly settled by free whites, the whole history of the country between 1845 and 1865 would have been very different from what it has been. The influence of the horse reaper on our political history, therefore, is as important as the influence of the steam locomotive or of the cotton gin.

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