Andrew Jackson Donelson by Richard Douglas Spence

Author:Richard Douglas Spence [Spence, Richard Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, 19th Century, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science, Government
ISBN: 9780826521651
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Published: 2017-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

12

An Obstacle to Harmony

December 1851–May 1855

The First Session of the Thirty-Second Congress convened on December 1, 1851. Reflecting the collapse of the Whig party in the recent elections, Democrats enjoyed an overwhelming majority in both houses. This boded well for the editor of the Washington Union in the selection of public printer. Andrew Donelson was nevertheless not above a little politicking to eliminate competition. He wrote Howell Cobb, asking him to prevail upon Georgia congressmen not to commit themselves to John W. Forney, editor of the Philadelphia Pennsylvanian, whom he accused of being secretly against the Union position in the South. This accusation was not only uncharacteristic of Donelson, it was untrue, for Forney was a strong friend of the Compromise. His letter can scarcely be excused except by the narrow political necessity that success is its own justification.1

Solon Borland (Democrat, Arkansas), Hannibal Hamlin (Democrat, Maine), and Truman Smith (Whig, Connecticut) were appointed the Senate members of the Joint Committee on Printing. Borland was elected chairman. The membership of the committee might have been more advantageous to Donelson, as Hamlin was a Free-Soiler and Borland was a States’ Rightist. Borland immediately demonstrated his potential to be difficult. When Donelson’s friend Jesse D. Bright introduced a resolution to print the Census of 1850, Borland objected on the questionable grounds that the census did not count as public printing. If Donelson had expected a quick, easy path to the public printing, then Borland’s action did not indicate a good start.2

Paradoxically, with Congress in session, Donelson’s workload decreased. Like most newspapers of the era, the Washington Union printed congressional debates verbatim, which effortlessly filled columns of each issue. With the state elections finished and the sectional troubles ostensibly quieted, his editorials soon degenerated into trading insults with the Southern Press, the States’ Rights organ in Washington. The Southern Press was edited by Ellwood Fisher, who had once been sufficiently close to Donelson to be one of the few to hear his version of how James K. Polk was nominated at Baltimore in 1844. The Southern Press, denounced by Donelson as an “organ of treason and disunion,” came to embody all that the States’ Rights Democrats held against him. “It was not our expectation to meet the views of all portions of the democratic party,” he complained, in the standard editorial plural, “. . . yet we find ourselves constantly assailed” for “discountenancing the extreme proceedings of the ultraists in both sections of the Union.” 3

The annual Jackson Day dinner had grown into a big affair, where Democrats gathered in apparent harmony, and the one on January 8, 1852, was even grander than usual. The guest of honor was the celebrity of the hour, the Hungarian patriot Louis Kossuth. Reflecting his new status in the party, Donelson sat on the dais beside Lewis Cass, Stephen A. Douglas, Jesse D. Bright, Francis P. Blair, Sam Houston, and Thomas Ritchie. For one brief night, Democrats set aside their differences and celebrated their common bonds.4

This happy state of affairs ended overnight.

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