The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-09-03
Presidential Campaigns
Iv---The Van Bwen-I4arison Race Of 1886
By Fredric J. Haskin.
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paid back. The distribution was to be in four installments. Three were paid. but the panic which followed Van Buren's election prevented the fourth payment. Some States built public buildings with the money. Maine di- vided it among the people. per capita. Other States made 1t the basis of a school fund. as which 1t still exists. As late as 1883 the State of Virginia attempted to collect the fourth install ment. but was unsuccessful. The Treasury of the United States still car ries that s2s.000.000 on its cash books as an unavailable fund. Whatever may come of all these things in after years. to the people in 1888 1t looked good.
 To their eyes Jackson was still a hero and he was a statesman. Jack son said Van Buren was the man to succeed him, and the voters took Jack sons word for It. Jackson had over thrown the old aristocratic clique. He had punished the bank, which the peo- pie called the British Bank, because much of the stock was owned abroad. He had paid off the national debt, and he had remitted a large amount of money, collected as indirect tax, di- rectly to the people. Everybody was prospering and money was easy. Everybody was speculating and get ting rich quick. That was the dun- ger, but they couldn't see 1t ahead of them. So 1t was that when the votes were counted. Van Buren had more than Harrison, White, Webster and Mangum. the South Carolina candidate, all put together.
 To Andrew Jackson 1t vas a great triumph. but there was a thorn in the crown of roses. Tennessee, his own State, had deserted him. The anti Jack son forces were led by Hugh Law son White. once his friend. but turned enemy on the bank question. White had been reelected to the Senate by Tennessee legislature in spite of Jackson. So earnestly did Old Hick- ory go Into the campaign that he had articles printed in Washington papers denouncing White, and then franked them under his own signature to mem bers of the Legislature at Nashville What a scandal if a President should do such a thing in these oays! In this campaign White carried Tennessee over Van Buren by more than ten thousand votes. That was gall and wormwood to Jackson. and he never could become reconciled to it. Eight years later he dictated the nomination. and election of mother President, but again Tennessee was against him.
 NO campaign was ever disgraced by more villihcation than this contest for the succession to Jackson. The Van Buren men accused everybody in op- position, without discrimination, of be- ing bribed by the bank to ba the crea- lures Of the British Rothschilds, who were presented as the real owners of the bank. Nicholas Riddle was attack ed with more venom than ever before. If such thing were possible.
 On the other hand the Whigs of ev- cry shade of belief continued their at tacks on Jackson. and accused him of almost every sort of corruption and wickedness. Van Buren they assailed as the creature and the proxy of Jack son. They declared that Jackson's pre- sumption in dictating his successor would mean the overthrow of Repub- lican institutions in America if suffered to pass unrebuked. They accused Van Buren of being corrupted by Jackson in one breath. and in the next they de- clared that 1t was from Van Euren that Jackson had learned corruption.
 To the charge of connection with the British bank they retorted with hg- ures to prove that the Marquis of Car marthen. an English peer. was getting s70.000 a year in profits from the de- posits of public money in the Bank of Manhattan, which was one of Jackson's pets" A fair sample of the editor tals in the anti-Van Buren papers du- ring the campaign is this: Are bribery and spolis of the Nation to be held up as the only inducements for Amer lean politicians? If so. let the ruflan violators of decency and honor now riot tng over their prey. draw their dag gers and immolate the Republic at once!
 Another feature of all tho anti-JaclS- son press was the never-ending crlti- eiam of the Postofflce Department. The Mobile Advertiser solemnly apologized to it's readers for not giving them the news of the election in Georgia ''as no foot-passengers have arrived from that State and we are compelled to wait for the mail"
 All this time Jackson was stiu the great hero to the majority of the peo- pie, but he was never able to muster an absolute majority fin Congress. and he did not control that body until after he was out of office and Van Buren was in It was his old enemy. Clay who came to his rescue with the compro-