Issues and Non-Issues in the Presidential Election of 1840

Was Martin Van Buren a Dandy, a Protege of Andrew Jackson While the Nation's Economy Tanked?

Michael Streich April 12, 2012

The Presidential Election of 1840 is often reduced to the campaign slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too.” The newly emerged Whig Party, led by popular figures such as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, fought for the opportunity to send Martin Van Buren back to New York. Unfortunately, a series of events and non-issues conspired to make General William Henry Harrison the Whig frontrunner.

 

Portraying the Democrats as Insensitive Spenders

 

While Whigs portrayed Democrats as “pampered office holders,” they reintroduced their mid-western hero as a hard-drinking Indian fighter of modest means who lived in a log cabin. Building on the Jackson legend precisely to deny his heir apparent Van Buren, the Whigs managed to set aside real campaign issues, focusing instead on the wealthy and aristocratic Van Buren who had the audacity to ask Congress for an appropriation of $3,665 for White House expenditures while millions of Americans were struggling to find work and put food on the table.

 

Martin Van Burn became President in 1837 after serving as Andrew Jackson’s Vice-President. Van Buren inherited the Panic of 1837, the most significant economic downturn in the new nation since the need for a Constitution Convention in 1787, as well as the enmity of John C Calhoun and Henry Clay. Clay, who desperately wanted the 1840 nomination, reminded his listeners of, “…the heart rending wretchedness of thousands of the working class out of employment.”

 

To Southerners, Van Buren was an untrustworthy eastern establishment type whose lifestyle was compared to the monarchs of Europe. If Jackson was seen as “King Andrew” in political cartoons of the day, Van Buren was the crown prince who had turned the White House into a palace featuring sumptuous state dinners the average American could only dream about.

 

Van Buren’s pretentions were dramatically elucidated by Congressman Charles Ogle. Ogle’s congressional speech of April 14, 1840 was titled, “The Regal Splendor of the President’s Palace.” Van Buren, however, was a self-made man whose father had been a farmer and tavern keeper in Kinderhook, New York. His ancestors had arrived from Europe in the early seventeenth century as indentured servants.

 

Ignoring More Important Issues

 

Van Buren made his mark as a skillful orator and a superb organizer. There was a reason he was dubbed the “Little Magician.” His support of Andrew Jackson earned him the Vice Presidency in 1833 and Jackson’s nod in 1836 when Van Buren won the presidential election, facing a number of sectional candidates from the new Whig Party who were attempting to duplicate the 1824 presidential election by throwing the results to the House of Representatives.

 

In 1840, the chief issues were the national economy and Van Buren’s supposed indifference to the plight of unemployed and impoverished Americans. At the same time, the Whig Party championed the frontier-roots of Harrison. Real issues such as growing abolitionist concerns, the annexation of Texas, and tariffs remained in the background. By 1840, more Americans than ever before had the franchise and most of them voted on the basis of rallies, parades, and stories like Congressman Ogle’s displeasure with Van Buren’s request for $3,665 for White House expenses.

 

Van Buren lost the 1840 election but Harrison died thirty days after his inauguration, allowing John Tyler to become the first “accidental” president. Ironically, Tyler disagreed with the Whigs, alienating his only support group. Van Buren did not go quietly, returning in 1844 in a vain attempt to secure the Democratic Party nomination.

 

References:

 

Paul F. Boller, Jr., Presidential Campaigns From George Washington to George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2004)

Webb Garrison, A Treasury of White House Tales (Rutledge Hill Press, 1989)

Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1999)

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years, Volume Four (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)

First published in Suite101

Copyright Michael Streich.Written permission to republish