Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-10-09
PRESIDENTIAL
CAMPAIGNS
By FREDERIC J. HASKIN
VIII. THE PIERCE-SCOTT
RACE OF 1852
WASHINGTON, D. c., Sept. 25.
NAj The campaign of 1852
w marked the end of the Wing
party as a factor in rational

principle to nominate a war hero
for president. Winfield Scott was
the hero of the War of 1912 and OF
the war with Mexico. He had been
defeated in the convention by q mar
row margin by William Henry Har-
rison when 1t was necessary to
choose a hero candidate to oppose
Van Buren, in 1910. That was Tippe-
canoe against Lundy's Lane, and
Tippecanoe won. AS will be remem-
bered, Scott was defeated in 184C
by a letter written to secure aboli-
ton support in New York. Writing
letters was the one great business
of General Scott's life. He wrote
letters to everybody, about every
thing, and at all times. His letters
ruined him and his party, and when
the votes were counted it was found
that he had been overwhelmingly
defeated by the Democratic "darI
horse" Franklin Pierce. scout car
ried only four states in the Union,
receiving but AZ electoral votes tc
Pierce's 254.
was succeeded in the White Hous'
by Willard Fillmore. AS has been
the case IN every INSTANCE III "tich
a vice president has become chic
magistrate with a single exception
the policy of the administration was
reversed. Taylor had permitted his
policy to be dictated by the conser-
vative Wings. Fillmore was lib
eral. AS a result of the right-about
face attitude taken by Daniel Web
ster who went over to the non-1n-
reference th-slavery side in his
speech of March 7. and of the sue
cession of Fillmore, all parties were
enabled to get together once more
ON a compromise basis.
One More Compromise
It was Henry Clay, the great PACT
fcator, whose compromises had kept
him out of the White House, who
was once more called to the front
in his old age to bring about peace
The compromise of 1850 was arrang-
ed. 1t included several measures
The most important was the admis
sion of California as free state,
as that broke the balance of power
between free and slave states in the
United States senate. 1t was the
one concession to the north, but 1t
was of far greater Importance than
the south realized. To the other side
the concessions were a stringent
fugitive slave law, the maintenance
of slavery in the District of Column
bia, the payment to Texas OF $lo,-
100000 for yielding its claims to
New Mexico, and the organization CT
Utah and New Mexico as territories
without restrictions as to slavery.
By this compromise, Henry Cav
united the warning elements OF the
Democratic party and destroyed for
lied and had captained for so many
years.
President Fillmore was candi-
date for the nomination. Genera;
Scott and Mr.. Webster were the
other aspirants. Mr.. Fillmore had
gress and had approved 1t. He
wished the whole country to ac-
cept it as a final disposition of
the whole slavery question. The
country, for the most part. wished
to accept it as such. The Democra-
had to do SO. To swallow the Fill
more-Clay compromise the northern
Wings were forced but they would
not swallow Fillmore. So they took
Scott, whose sympathies We're be-
| lieved to be with the anti-slavery
wing of the party.
General Scott was nominated on
the fifty-third ballot in the conven-
ton, after heated sessions in which
a delegate would now and then arise
to spring a letter from Scott. When
the nomination was made, Senator
Jones, of Tennessee, the Lean Jim
N.Y. Jones who had twice defeated
James K. Polk for governor, leaped
to the platform with letter from
General Scott. 1t was a letter of
hundred words, but pledg1ng loyal
and exclusive support to the plat.
form. That all too sudden letter
helped to do his business in Novem-
Der.
Another Note-writer
General Scott had in years gone
by affiliated with the Nativist party
writing letters attacking the Cath
ment in politics. These old letters
the DEMOCRATS atsoo used against r.f him
shouted himself black in the face
in his attempts to defend Scott from
Scott's letters, but 1t was of no
avail.
General Scott himself took the
stump in an effort to win over the
great f1atterer, and his references to
the rich Irish brogue" and the
sweet German accent" of some of
his hearers were nothing less than
ludicrous. The Wings soon realized
that Scott would be defeated, but
was all over he. gave out an inter
view in which he declared that he
owed his defeat to the New York
Herald, the Webster detection and
administration.
Daniel Webster consented to be-
come the head of a boiling Union
ticket, but he died a few days be-
died with him. A few. days before
his death Webster sent for his bosom
friend. Peter Harvey, and asked: "Is
Rufus Choate going to vote for
scott?" II don't know was Harvey's
reply. %6ut nth think k; not Then Web
future by voting for Scott, and tell
him, as my dying message to him,
that after the second day of Novem-
Der next the Wing party as ma
tory" The publication of this in
terview in the Democratic papers a
few days before the election did not
aid the Wings dying cause, although
Choate announced his. fealty to
correct. In 1852 the WING party died
and in the same year Henry Clay
and Daniel Webster, its greatest
leaders and it's worst enemies. were
gathered to their fathers. In the
election the Wing ticket carried but
four states-Massachusetts and Yer
mont in New England and Tennes-
see and Kentucky in the south.
The "HTaineacs"
In the Democratic party that year
there was a great fight for the presi-
Dental nomination. Lewis Cass,
James Buchanan, Stephen A. Doug
las, and William L. Marcy were the
principals, but from the first it was
believed that dark horse" would
win. Sam Houston, then a senator
from Texas, who had been governor
| of Tennessee and president of the
republic of Texas, was a formidable
possibility for awhile But Houston
had lately become "Maineac," that
| is to say, he had become teetotaler
and prohibitionist, and was in ia
vor of the extension of the Maine
| liquor law to all the states. Persons
| holding such views in those days
were called "Maineacs"
On the thirty-fifth ballot in the
| Democratic convention the Virginia
delegation pumped a solid vote for
Franklin Pierce, of New HAMPSHIRE