What if Governor De Witt Clinton of New York had not suddenly and unexpectedly died of a heart attack at the age of 58 in early 1828? We'll make our POD that Clinton has a stronger heart and lives to the age of, say, 70.
At the time of his death, Clinton, a friend of Andrew Jackson (whom he had supported for the presidency in 1824 while Clinton's great New York rival, Martin Van Buren, had supported William Crawford) was frequently being mentioned in the North as a possible vice-presidential candidate for Jackson, while southern Jacksonians wanted to keep vice president John Calhoun in office. Many northerners were unhappy about the idea of a ticket of two slaveholders--something which indeed no major nationwide party was to attempt after 1828. (Calhoun had enjoyed some popularity in Pennsylvania, but that was largely because of his former nationalist views, which were a thing of the past by 1828.) One theoretical possibility would be to run a Jackson-Clinton ticket in the North and a Jackson-Calhoun ticket in the South--but that was open to the obvious objection that in a three way race with Clinton, Calhoun, and JQ Adams' vice presidential candidate, Richard Rush, no candidate might get a majority of electoral votes--thus sending the vice presidential race into the Senate and making another "corrupt bargain" possible! Another possibility would be to determine the vice presidential nomination by a national convention. The convention system was already familiar to the state parties, and a national one would seem logical, though in OTL such national conventions would not be held until 1831. National convention or not, Jackson's own wishes would probably be decisive.
One argument for a Jackson-Clinton ticket was that if a Jackson-Calhoun ticket won, there would be a struggle between Clinton and Van Buren for supremacy in New York. Making Clinton vice president would remove him from Albany, and leave Van Buren in charge of patronage there. (Van Buren himself did not buy this argument, fearing that a Vice President Clinton would dictate federal patronage in New York from Washington. This is one reason why he insisted on keeping Calhoun as vice-president, even though he knew a Jackson-Clinton ticket would have an easier time carrying New York.) The nomination of Clinton would have a serious disadvantage, however: "Ever since the debate over slavery in Missouri, southerners had believed, incorrectly, that Clinton stood at the head of the antislavery movement in the North. On balance, his nomination might trigger more hostility than Calhoun's." Donald B. Cole, *Vindicating Andrew Jackson: The 1828 Election and the Rise of the Two-Party System (University Press of Kansas 2009), p. 160. (Presumably the reason for this misconception by the Southerners is that James Tallmadge, who had introduced the bill in the US House of Representatives to require Missouri to commit itself to eventual emancipation as a condition of admission to the Union, was a Clintonian. Actually, Tallmadge seems to have been acting on his own behalf and out of his own anti-slavery convictions. OTOH, though Clinton had nothing to do with creating the Missouri Crisis, he may indeed have attempted to use it opportunistically--like the war issue in 1812--as a means of winning the White House. William Duane, of the Philadelphia *Aurora* tried to start a movement to get northerners to vote for Clinton rather than Monroe in 1820, but nothing came of it. In any event, the Van Burenites charged Clinton with conspiring with Federalists to win the presidency on an antislavery appeal, and obviously many Southerners believed them.)
Clinton's death in OTL worried Van Buren, because he knew that many New York Clintonians who were backing Jackson only because Clinton supported him would now feel free to vote for Adams. Winning New York for Jackson would be a real struggle now. (Indeed, in the end New York--which voted for electors by district, with two electors chosen at large--turned out to be one of the most closely contested states, with Jackson getting 51.5 percent of the vote, and 20 electors to Adams' 16. http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1828.txt) OTOH, Van Buren could now be sure that if Jackson won, Van Buren would be in charge of federal patronage in New York.
Two questions:
(1) If there is a victorious Jackson-Clinton ticket, does Clinton eventually become President after all, as Jackson's chosen successor in 1836? There is the problem of age (Clinton will be 67 in 1836) and the fact that if Southerners were suspicious even of Van Buren, they will be even more so of Clinton. Still, if Jackson wants him, he will presumably get the nomination. (Of course whether Jackson will want him may depend in part on whether Catharine Jones, whom Clinton married in 1819, is willing to socialize with Margaret "Peggy" Eaton. Knowing Clinton's ambitious nature, I can imagine him saying to Catharine: "I don't care if you think she's a whore, my political future is at stake!")
(2) If Clinton stays in Albany--or even if he becomes Jackson's vice president but there is later a falling out between the two men--does Clinton become a Whig in the 1830's? I think it's very likely. Clinton's belief in the use of government to promote infrastructure (the Erie Canal) and his "anti-partyism" and opposition to Van Buren's "Albany Regency" patronage machine politics [1] have a definite proto-Whiggish flavor. (Van Buren and his friends in the Regency were very frank about patronage. As Silas Wright put it, "when our enemies accuse us of feeding our friends instead of them, never let them lie in telling the story." Jonathan H. Earle, *Jacksonian Antislavery: The Politics of Free Soil 1824-185,*, p. 57 http://books.google.com/books?id=P-bexvq4ElcC&pg=PA57 Or as William Marcy more famously put it later, "They see nothing wrong in the rule, that to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.") The Van Burenites were not aginst canals or other improvements per se; "it was government intervention in the form of chartered corporations, they believed, that transformed 'instruments of progress' into agents of oppression." Jonathan H. Earle, ibid, p. 57. This was to become a standard argument of Jacksonians.
According to Craig and Mary L. Hanyan, *De Witt Clinton and the Rise of the People's Men,* p. 278, "One-third of the People's [i.e, Clintonian] assemblymen of 1824 evolved into Whigs and less than one-tenth became Jacksonian Democrats, with one-third dropping out after 1829." https://books.google.com/books?id=Sb1g8tno7OgC&pg=PA278 Might Clinton even become one of the several Whig candidates for president in 1836? (Webster is the candidate in Massachusetts, Harrison in most other northern states and some border states, Hugh White in the South, and Clinton in New York--where he may face off one more time with his old rival Van Buren...)
[1] When the Van Burenites--less shrewd than their leader-- dismissed Clinton from the Canal Board, thinking that this would end his political career, Clinton formed a "People's Party" and reclaimed the governorship in a landslide which swept the Regency out of control of the legislature). According to Sean Wilentz, *The Rise of American Democracy*, p. 249, when Van Buren learned what the Regency had done without consulting him, he exploded with rage, "understanding immediately that the gratuitous disgracing of Clinton would give his enemy,as he put it, 'what he had never before possessed--the sympathies of the people.'" After Clinton's victory, Van Buren told Judge Roger Skinner, the Regency hack allegedly responsible for the dismissal, "I hope, Judge, you are now satisfied that there is such a thing in politics as *killing a man too dead!*" *The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren,* p. 144 http://books.google.com/books?id=kxcOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA144
At the time of his death, Clinton, a friend of Andrew Jackson (whom he had supported for the presidency in 1824 while Clinton's great New York rival, Martin Van Buren, had supported William Crawford) was frequently being mentioned in the North as a possible vice-presidential candidate for Jackson, while southern Jacksonians wanted to keep vice president John Calhoun in office. Many northerners were unhappy about the idea of a ticket of two slaveholders--something which indeed no major nationwide party was to attempt after 1828. (Calhoun had enjoyed some popularity in Pennsylvania, but that was largely because of his former nationalist views, which were a thing of the past by 1828.) One theoretical possibility would be to run a Jackson-Clinton ticket in the North and a Jackson-Calhoun ticket in the South--but that was open to the obvious objection that in a three way race with Clinton, Calhoun, and JQ Adams' vice presidential candidate, Richard Rush, no candidate might get a majority of electoral votes--thus sending the vice presidential race into the Senate and making another "corrupt bargain" possible! Another possibility would be to determine the vice presidential nomination by a national convention. The convention system was already familiar to the state parties, and a national one would seem logical, though in OTL such national conventions would not be held until 1831. National convention or not, Jackson's own wishes would probably be decisive.
One argument for a Jackson-Clinton ticket was that if a Jackson-Calhoun ticket won, there would be a struggle between Clinton and Van Buren for supremacy in New York. Making Clinton vice president would remove him from Albany, and leave Van Buren in charge of patronage there. (Van Buren himself did not buy this argument, fearing that a Vice President Clinton would dictate federal patronage in New York from Washington. This is one reason why he insisted on keeping Calhoun as vice-president, even though he knew a Jackson-Clinton ticket would have an easier time carrying New York.) The nomination of Clinton would have a serious disadvantage, however: "Ever since the debate over slavery in Missouri, southerners had believed, incorrectly, that Clinton stood at the head of the antislavery movement in the North. On balance, his nomination might trigger more hostility than Calhoun's." Donald B. Cole, *Vindicating Andrew Jackson: The 1828 Election and the Rise of the Two-Party System (University Press of Kansas 2009), p. 160. (Presumably the reason for this misconception by the Southerners is that James Tallmadge, who had introduced the bill in the US House of Representatives to require Missouri to commit itself to eventual emancipation as a condition of admission to the Union, was a Clintonian. Actually, Tallmadge seems to have been acting on his own behalf and out of his own anti-slavery convictions. OTOH, though Clinton had nothing to do with creating the Missouri Crisis, he may indeed have attempted to use it opportunistically--like the war issue in 1812--as a means of winning the White House. William Duane, of the Philadelphia *Aurora* tried to start a movement to get northerners to vote for Clinton rather than Monroe in 1820, but nothing came of it. In any event, the Van Burenites charged Clinton with conspiring with Federalists to win the presidency on an antislavery appeal, and obviously many Southerners believed them.)
Clinton's death in OTL worried Van Buren, because he knew that many New York Clintonians who were backing Jackson only because Clinton supported him would now feel free to vote for Adams. Winning New York for Jackson would be a real struggle now. (Indeed, in the end New York--which voted for electors by district, with two electors chosen at large--turned out to be one of the most closely contested states, with Jackson getting 51.5 percent of the vote, and 20 electors to Adams' 16. http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/u/usa/pres/1828.txt) OTOH, Van Buren could now be sure that if Jackson won, Van Buren would be in charge of federal patronage in New York.
Two questions:
(1) If there is a victorious Jackson-Clinton ticket, does Clinton eventually become President after all, as Jackson's chosen successor in 1836? There is the problem of age (Clinton will be 67 in 1836) and the fact that if Southerners were suspicious even of Van Buren, they will be even more so of Clinton. Still, if Jackson wants him, he will presumably get the nomination. (Of course whether Jackson will want him may depend in part on whether Catharine Jones, whom Clinton married in 1819, is willing to socialize with Margaret "Peggy" Eaton. Knowing Clinton's ambitious nature, I can imagine him saying to Catharine: "I don't care if you think she's a whore, my political future is at stake!")
(2) If Clinton stays in Albany--or even if he becomes Jackson's vice president but there is later a falling out between the two men--does Clinton become a Whig in the 1830's? I think it's very likely. Clinton's belief in the use of government to promote infrastructure (the Erie Canal) and his "anti-partyism" and opposition to Van Buren's "Albany Regency" patronage machine politics [1] have a definite proto-Whiggish flavor. (Van Buren and his friends in the Regency were very frank about patronage. As Silas Wright put it, "when our enemies accuse us of feeding our friends instead of them, never let them lie in telling the story." Jonathan H. Earle, *Jacksonian Antislavery: The Politics of Free Soil 1824-185,*, p. 57 http://books.google.com/books?id=P-bexvq4ElcC&pg=PA57 Or as William Marcy more famously put it later, "They see nothing wrong in the rule, that to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.") The Van Burenites were not aginst canals or other improvements per se; "it was government intervention in the form of chartered corporations, they believed, that transformed 'instruments of progress' into agents of oppression." Jonathan H. Earle, ibid, p. 57. This was to become a standard argument of Jacksonians.
According to Craig and Mary L. Hanyan, *De Witt Clinton and the Rise of the People's Men,* p. 278, "One-third of the People's [i.e, Clintonian] assemblymen of 1824 evolved into Whigs and less than one-tenth became Jacksonian Democrats, with one-third dropping out after 1829." https://books.google.com/books?id=Sb1g8tno7OgC&pg=PA278 Might Clinton even become one of the several Whig candidates for president in 1836? (Webster is the candidate in Massachusetts, Harrison in most other northern states and some border states, Hugh White in the South, and Clinton in New York--where he may face off one more time with his old rival Van Buren...)
[1] When the Van Burenites--less shrewd than their leader-- dismissed Clinton from the Canal Board, thinking that this would end his political career, Clinton formed a "People's Party" and reclaimed the governorship in a landslide which swept the Regency out of control of the legislature). According to Sean Wilentz, *The Rise of American Democracy*, p. 249, when Van Buren learned what the Regency had done without consulting him, he exploded with rage, "understanding immediately that the gratuitous disgracing of Clinton would give his enemy,as he put it, 'what he had never before possessed--the sympathies of the people.'" After Clinton's victory, Van Buren told Judge Roger Skinner, the Regency hack allegedly responsible for the dismissal, "I hope, Judge, you are now satisfied that there is such a thing in politics as *killing a man too dead!*" *The Autobiography of Martin Van Buren,* p. 144 http://books.google.com/books?id=kxcOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA144