A Jackson Man: Amos Kendall and the Rise of American Democracy

15 Van Buren

15 van buren On his way to the Capitol on inauguration day, Kendall could see that the “soft-spring snow” was melting away in the warm sun. It would be a splendid day for Martin Van Buren to take office. At noon Kendall and the other cabinet officers marched onto the east portico of the Capitol to watch the new president take his oath. In his inaugural Van Buren promised to follow the republican principles of his predecessors and gave no indication that he would make any changes. After the ceremony the cabinet members retired to the President’s House, where they received guests and dined for the last time with Old Hickory. Three days later he left for home.1 Down Pennsylvania Avenue at Masonic Hall the Washington Democrats were holding their own dinner. Had Kendall been there, he would have been pleased, perhaps surprised, by the attention he was receiving. The dinner began with an ode entitled “Farewell to the Chief,” which he had written especially for the occasion. The ode, said the toastmaster, “disclose[d]” in Kendall “a heart worthy of its pre-eminently talented head.” More significant were two other toasts praising him for his “uncompromising” opposition to “monopolies ” and his “devotion to the cause of democracy.” These rank-and-file local Democrats knew Kendall well and recognized his role in shaping these basic party beliefs. Before the dinner was over there had been six toasts in his honor, more than for anyone else except Jackson and Van Buren.2 Two days later Van Buren held his first cabinet meeting. The only new member was Jackson’s old friend and loyal Unionist planter Joel R. Poinsett of South Carolina, who was replacing Lewis Cass as secretary of war. Van Buren told Jackson that his cabinet “worked together harmoniously,” but he must not have been thinking of Kendall. All winter long there had been per1 . Globe, 6, 8 Mar. 1837. 2. Ibid., 16 Mar. 1837. Van Buren 215 sistent rumors that Secretary of State John Forsyth was threatening to resign if Kendall was retained. The most damaging issue, the national currency, was dividing the cabinet and the party into hard-money advocates such as Kendall and Francis P. Blair; moderates, including Van Buren and treasury secretary Levi Woodbury; and the soft-money Conservative Democrats, led by Senator William C. Rives of Virginia. The National Intelligencer tried to paint Kendall as the “most influential” member of the cabinet, but whether he would have as much influence with Van Buren as he had had with Jackson was far from certain.3 Van Buren’s hopes for continuity were dashed in mid-March by the Panic of 1837, in which many banks failed or suspended specie payments. Already under pressure to change Jackson’s hard-money policies, he promptly called a cabinet meeting for March 22 to discuss the specie circular. Everyone but Kendall favored rescinding it, but Van Buren decided to wait and keep the decision in his own hands. Advice from the outside was mixed: merchants, who wanted more money in circulation, asked for repeal, while hard-money Democrats, particularly Jackson, advised him to remain firm. Van Buren was also listening to another hard-money man, treasury clerk William M. Gouge, who had devised an independent treasury plan, in which the government would keep its money in subtreasuries instead of banks. On May 3 an angry delegation of New York merchants urged the president to call a special session of Congress, and a week later a run on the New York banks forced all but three to suspend payments. Meeting daily with his cabinet, Van Buren finally called a special session to convene in September.4 Kendall responded to the crisis by using the Post Office to show that the subtreasury system would work and that the government could get along without banks. He stopped depositing funds in banks that had suspended the use of specie, and he extended the policy of having postmasters turn their revenues directly over to contractors. Postmasters were to pay or receive nothing but specie or notes payable in specie. The regulations won the backing of Jackson 3. Van Buren to Jackson, 24 Apr. 1837, Van Buren Papers; Globe, 23 Mar. 1837; George R. Pavel to Polk, 23 Dec. 1836, Polk, Correspondence, 3:800–801; Intelligencer, 19 July 1837, in Daniels, “Amos Kendall,” 249–50. 4. Globe, 20 Mar. 1837; Mahlon Dickerson, “Diary” (typescripts), 22 Mar.–30 May 1837, Mahlon and Philemon Dickerson...