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(Simply testing the waters at this point to see if this has any appeal. Feel free to provide your comments and criticism.)
From Democratic Whig: Proceedings of the Whig National Convention
December 7th, 1839
"...That two hundred and thirty one ballots had been cast for Vice President of the United States and that the whole number of ballots were given for
WILLIE PERSON MANGUM, of North Carolina
as the candidate for the Vice Presidency..."
From the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress: MANGUM, Willie Person
"Mangum's magnetic personality, charm, and political acumen quickly catapulted the North Carolina Senator into the limelight at the second Whig National Convention, held in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania December of 1839. With the nomination of William Henry Harrison as the party's Presidential candidate, delegates resolved to find an affable Southerner who could balance the ticket (Harrison, though a Virginian by birth, viewed by many as a Northerner for his many years spent in Ohio). At the suggestion of close friend and colleague, Henry Clay of Kentucky, Mangum would be chosen over John Tyler of Virginia to be Harrison's running mate."
US Presidential Election Results - 1840
HARRISON, WILLIAM HENRY (WHIG) 234 Electoral Votes, 1,275,390 Popular Vote (52% of the Electorate)
VAN BUREN, MARTIN (DEMOCRAT) 60 Electoral Votes, 1,128,854 Popular Vote (46.8% of the Electorate)
From Young Tippecanoe: A Brief History of William Henry Harrison
"...Harrison would serve the shortest term of any American President -- a mere thirty two days. His insistence on wearing no coat on the particularly dreary day of his inauguration as a symbol of his fortitude had instead robbed him of his remaining years as he fell bedridden to a particularly severe case of pnuemonia. On April 4th, 1841, the President succumbed to complications resulting from the bizarre treatments given to him by his doctors (of which included opium and castor oil, among other things). His last words were to his personal physician, though presumed to be for Vice President Mangum: "Sir, I wish you to understand the true principles of the government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." Mangum was at his home in North Carolina when President Harrison died and at once Harrison's cabinet summoned for him by messenger to return to Washington.
While Mangum proceeded north with all due haste, Harrison's death prompted a considerable disarray in Congress regarding who would be his successor. According to the Constitution, '...the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President.' This prompted the question as to whether the office itself devolved onto the Vice President or only the powers and duties associated with it. Democrats in Congress preferred the latter interpretation of the clause and argued that Mangum should assume a caretaker role as Acting President until a special election could be held. However, fears within Harrison's cabinet, as well as the Whig Party, that the title of Acting President could very well jeopardize Mangum's ability to administer the country prompted a concerted effort to crush such opposition. Secretary of State Daniel Webster, after conferring at length with Chief Justice Robert Taney (who would fail to take a substantive opinion on the matter), would dismiss any further doubts as to the act's constitutional implications.
Mangum, having arrived in Washington the day before Harrison's death, wrote to party associates his willingness to go forward with the transfer of power as an extension of his desires to fulfill the principles set forth by a new Whig government. On April 16th, Chief Justice Taney would administer the Oath of Office to the Vice President in a private ceremony..."
From The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party
The incorporation of a new National Bank and the implementation of a national system of internal improvements would overshadow Mangum's early Presidency. From his seat in the Senate, Henry Clay would move to command not only the Whig majority in Congress, but the reigns of the nation as well, something the politically astute Mangum would come to resent. Both men saw the president's policy role as essentially limited to vetoing legislation that he believed to be either unconstitutional or not in the nation's best interests. Clay made a sharper distinction, however, advocating an assertive Congress and a chief executive stripped of the powers acquired during Jackson's years in office.
Such differences would at first do little to alter the relationship between the President and Clay. When Clay urged Mangum to push for a new Bank of the United States during the May 1841 special session, the President committed himself eagerly to supporting the task. "If any war," he said, "has existed between the government and the currency, it shall cease," going on to sanction any constitutional measure implemented by Congress having as its object the restoration of a sound currency. The call for a special session was hence unimpeded and the Fiscal Corporation Bill of 1841, passed by both Houses by the end of August, chartered the Third Bank of the United States. To placate Democrats which had vigorously protested the charter, Mangum nominated Jeffersonian and former Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin to be its first President over the contempable Nicholas Biddle.
Domestic politics would thus remain firmly within the realm of the Congressional Sphere (and under Clay's personal sphere as a captive Democratic minority could do little to oppose his ambitions). The institution of the Tariff of 1842 would be followed by a steady stream of road and canal projects, despite the President's personal aversion to such 'intrusions' of the Federal government. However, the President would show his restraint. "Better this party of disparate tastes find common ground to build on than be cast asunder by petty grievances."
Tempers would briefly flare with Clay's interloping in Mangum's cabinet preferences and presidential appointments, mostly left unfilled in the waning days of the Harrison Administration. In a particularly hostile rebuttal to another of the Senator's insistent 'requests,' Mangum responded, "Mr. Clay, I believe you have forgotten that it is I who currently hold the reigns of the Presidency." Though Mangum would pledge to uphold Harrison's promise to end the excesses of the Jacksonian spoils-system which had so inundated Washington politics, the practice would continue unabated.
The Domestic scene crowded out by the machinations of Congressional Whigs, Foreign policy is where Mangum would shine. The mediation of disputes between Webster and M. de Bocanegra, the Mexican Secretary of State would guarantee American neutrality in its disputes with Texas and peace on the continent. The Webster-Ashburton treaty prevented a costly war with Great Britain, and the Treaty of Wanghia obtained economically promising most favored-nation status for the United States in China.
From The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar
"Little is to be apprehended from further intrigues between ourselves [Texas] and the U.S.. Her institutions & the habits of her people, as expressed by the misgivings of her President as to our condition, are utterly opposed to war ... A thing worth to be remembered by Texians - we must not be careless of our political Institutions in the hope they are soon to be useless. It is clear that Washington has turned its back on our friendship in its aversion to offensive war. We must clear our own path into the wilderness..."
From The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party
The Election of 1844 would inevitably see Mangum pitted against old friend Henry Clay in a battle of personalities for the Whig nomination. Though Clay remained the indisputable patriarch of the party, his heavy handed governance of the Senate had made him many enemies on both sides of the aisle. Clay, after all, seemingly governed the Senate in style he had grown to perfer during his time as Speaker of the House. To a Senate which prided itself in the fluidity of debate, Clay's attempts to impose constraints were naturally met with hostility. Of his conduct, President pro tempore Samuel Southard would remark, "He carries himself as a King among his courtiers, a crown of hubris affixed tightly to his brow."
In predictable fashion, Democrats would attempt to paint Mangum as a traitor to South, Thomas Benton and James Buchanan both assailing the President for neglecting and sacrificing American, and particularly Southern, interests from the cloistered halls of the Senate. "Have we not elected ourselves a Brutus," Benton would chide. "A man who has planted his dagger deep into the heart of the South." Popular opinion, though, remained very much behind the President for restoring faith in the nation's economic condition. Speculation had resumed at a steady pace with the return of credit, while unemployment fell precipitously. Despite furious Democratic appeals of cronyism and corruption, the nation's faith had been restored.
A fitful movement had thus emerged against Clay by the time of the convention. Without any bravado, Mangum quietly imparted his influence, coaxing gently a campaign of pamhleteering critical of Clay's brazen conduct and questionable performance in past elections, while ever convinced that Clay's domineering feelings of entitlement would be his undoing. "It is hardly my intention to see Clay dealt a mortal blow," Mangum would later write to Whig colleague and Tennessee Senator Alexander Anderson. "However, I fear his pride will do far more than any concievable effort on my part to ensure whatever wounds are made will be deep."
Surely enough, Clay would be shut out on the convention floor by the disapproval of a particularly emboldened Southern constituency which had grown tremendously on the coattails of the administration's success. Clay had no choice to admit defeat and ingloriously removed himself from the running by the third ballot once it became clear he had little chance of securing the ballots needed to force steal the President's victory ... As a reward for his commendable achievements in the State Department and out of a desire to secure a New England electorate otherwise wary of its Southern cousins, Mangum would express his support for Webster's nomination to the Vice Presidency.
From The Transformation of Political Culture: The Mangum Presidency
The Election of 1844 revealed a political culture in transition. The Age of Jackson had effectively ended the old order of ceremony championed by America's Founding Fathers and the manners and breeding which had accompanied its graces, while the new system of democracy had yet to emerge in its own right. Old customs had been abandoned, while new conventions had yet to be fully realized. The result was an increasingly abrasive political environment, increasing violence and roughness in debate, and a good deal of coarse dissipation in private. Between the two parties stood very different intentions for the future course of politics. The Democrats had fully embraced Jacksonian democracy, which had rejected training and education as necessary to statesmanship, and had loudly proclaimed the benefits of spoils to the victors. The Whigs, characterized particularly by Webster's verbose orations, would seek to re-cultivate the airs of privilege and sophistication which had once permeated the halls of government, a particular importance bestowed upon the principles of national unity amid the agitations of abolitionists and nullifiers.
Aided by a particularly strong showing in the Upper South, principle would triumph over populism and President Mangum would have his second term. Solid majorities in Virginia, Maryland, and North Carlonia would be particularly painful for Democrats to swallow, these states once core constiuencies. Yet, allegations of elitism waged by Democratic papers would have considerable effect out west, which overwhealmingly cast its vote in favor of Polk in its distrust of Mangum and the eastern 'aristocracy' which had grown around the Whig Party.
Nevertheless, it was a remarkable success for an Administration which had come into the Executive office on such feeble grounds.
US Presidential Election Results - 1844
MANGUM, WILLIE PERSON (WHIG) 148 Electoral Votes, 1,339,494 Popular Vote (49.5% of the Electorate)
POLK, JAMES KNOX (DEMOCRAT) 117 Electoral Votes, 1,300,004 Popular Vote (48.1% of the Electorate)