How the US almost got President Mangum in 1841

We have had a lot about Willie Mangum becoming President if the explosion on the *Princeton* had killed Tyler, but by then much of the damage to the Whig party (through Tyler's vetoes) and to North-South relations (through the introduction of the Texas issue) had already been done. But what if Mangum had instead become president in 1841? At first I took it for granted that he like other southern Clay men had declined the vice-presidency at the 1839 Whig convention out of loyalty to Clay, but it seems that the situation was actually a little bit more complicated:

"Before breaking up, the convention needed to name a vice presidential candidate. Hoping to balance the ticket with a Clay man, the Harrison Whigs turned to the Kentuckian for suggestions. Feeling betrayed by his party and unimpressed with Harrison, Clay refused to help. Left with no alternative, representatives from the two camps met secretly to consider the possibilities. They first approached John Crittenden of Kentucky, but he declined out of loyalty to Clay. Benjamin Watkins Leigh of Virginia turned down the next proffer for the same reason. After taking himself out of the running. Leigh suggested Willie Mangum. He too felt obliged to Clay and instructed his agents in Harrisburg to reject the offer. Later, Mangum said that had he been there in person he might have accepted. His wife's bout with scarlet fever had kept him home. Rather than blame her for this lost opportunity, he joked that it was an outdated wardrobe that prevented him from going to Harrisburg. 'If I had had a new suit,' he quipped after the eventual nominee John Tyler had ascended to the first office, 'Mr. Tyler perhaps had not been President.' http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00003610/00001/302x

Perhaps Mangum's "had I been there in person I might have accepted" should be taken with a grain of salt--it was after all said after he knew he had blown a chance of becoming President. (Or Acting President? Would the Whigs have objected to the Vice-President describing himself as President after Harrison's death if it had been a man they agreed with politically? ) Still...what if he was telling the truth? Presumably patronage is handled in a way very favorable to Clay. (This incidentally differentiates a Mangum presidency not only from Tyler's but also from Harrison's--Mangum was worried before Harrison's death that Harrison was showing too much deference to the Webster wing of the party, whom Mangum called the "old Federal[ist] clique to the North." http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00003610/00001/318x Presumably there is no veto of the Bank or other Whig nationalist legislation. The Whigs probably do much better in the 1842 and 1843 congressional and state elections than in OTL, when the split with Tyler hurt them enormously. He would probably not press for annexation of Texas--in OTL in 1844 he underestimated the potency of the Texas issue in the South. And presumably he is a one-term President, making way for his friend Clay to get the Whig nomination in 1844. Harrison's inaugural address had strongly advocated a one-term presidency [1], so it might be accepted as Whig doctrine.

[1] " I proceed to state in as summary a manner as I can my opinion of the sources of the evils which have been so extensively complained of and the correctives which may be applied. Some of the former are unquestionably to be found in the defects of the Constitution; others, in my judgment, are attributable to a misconstruction of some of its provisions. Of the former is the eligibility of the same individual to a second term of the Presidency. The sagacious mind of Mr. Jefferson early saw and lamented this error, and attempts have been made, hitherto without success, to apply the amendatory power of the States to its correction. As, however, one mode of correction is in the power of every President, and consequently in mine, it would be useless, and perhaps invidious, to enumerate the evils of which, in the opinion of many of our fellow-citizens, this error of the sages who framed the Constitution may have been the source and the bitter fruits which we are still to gather from it if it continues to disfigure our system. It may be observed, however, as a general remark, that republics can commit no greater error than to adopt or continue any feature in their systems of government which may be calculated to create or increase the lover of power in the bosoms of those to whom necessity obliges them to commit the management of their affairs; and surely nothing is more likely to produce such a state of mind than the long continuance of an office of high trust. Nothing can be more corrupting, nothing more destructive of all those noble feelings which belong to the character of a devoted republican patriot. When this corrupting passion once takes possession of the human mind, like the love of gold it becomes insatiable. It is the never-dying worm in his bosom, grows with his growth and strengthens with the declining years of its victim. If this is true, it is the part of wisdom for a republic to limit the service of that officer at least to whom she has intrusted the management of her foreign relations, the execution of her laws, and the command of her armies and navies to a period so short as to prevent his forgetting that he is the accountable agent, not the principal; the servant, not the master. Until an amendment of the Constitution can be effected public opinion may secure the desired object. I give my aid to it by renewing the pledge heretofore given that under no circumstances will I consent to serve a second term.[SIZE=-2]" http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres26.html
[/SIZE]
 
Top