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Sherwood Callaway
HIS 141, Blog Post 8
I found it interesting that the Whigs and Democrats were such political enemies during the buildup to the election of 1844, because the primary views of either party seem to be somewhat compatible. If I’m allowed to oversimplify here: the Whigs are against having a powerful executive figure, and the Democrats are in favor of empowering the common people. I can imagine a platform in which both of these principles are endorsed, and I think the political players of the 1840s could too. I think this apparent similarity made the political environment super convoluted and dynamic.
We’ve got the Whigs all shaken up, because of sectionalism. No one knows what to do with John Tyler suddenly in the White House. Henry Clay is trying to consolidate Whig support behind his typical legislative agenda. Calhoun is beginning to embrace Jacksonian democracy. Tyler considers dissolving his Whig ties completely, in favor of the Democrats. Meanwhile, within the Democratic party, we’ve got sectionalism as well— “radicals, hunkers, and calhounites.” (276). The name of this chapter, “Whig Debacle, Democratic Confusion” is definitely appropriate.
Because of this dynamism and ambiguity, the election of 1844 was more about the subtleties of the political spectrum than the major ideologies—we can’t really make generalizations about this one, like we have in the past.
This emphasis on the subtleties of the political spectrum, I think, is best represented by rampancy of realignment during the buildup to the election. Realigning one’s views to suit the voting public is an element of every election, but Wilentz seems to pay special attention to it with regards to this particular election.
For example, John Tyler was completely alienated from the Whig party, for which had supposed to be VP, and to which former president Harrison had been aligned with. This was in large part because of Henry Clay’s aggressive legislative maneuvers. When Clay attempted to recharter the bank, for example, Jacksonian Tyler shut down the initiative. Afterward, Tyler offered to support “some sort of national fiscal institution so long as it passed constitutional muster”, but ended up vetoing that as well (273). Taylor ultimately began to gravitate to the Democratic party, which seemed to best represent his ideals, over the annexation of Texas.
Another example: John C. Calhoun finally decided to expand beyond his southern, landed, slaveholding constituency. In order to win the presidency, he realized he would have to appeal to “the Jacksonian’s popular base outside of the South” (275). Presumably, this meant the urban working poor. Calhoun appeared a true Jacksonian when he blocked Clay’s “proposed constitutional amendment that would permit Congress to override presidential vetoes”—in doing so, he simultaneously protected the executive power (which Jackson had repeatedly expanded, especially during the Bank war) and “denounced efforts by Congress “to substitute the will of a majority of the people” (257). Suddenly, Calhoun appeared to be more than just the defender of a southern planter aristocracy, but a true democrat as well.
These are just two examples of political shifts during the period prior to 1844. Shifts like these make it hard to generalize the nature of the election.