The Constitution and the Union:
Andrew Jackson Donelson and the Politics of Compromise
Mark Cheathem (Mississippi State University)
Robert
Beeler Satterfield, Andrew Jackson Donelson's only biographer to date,
depicted him as a moderate nationalist Jacksonian.1
Satterfield's assessment, while compelling, deserves reconsideration in
light of the elapsed time and the voluminous primary and secondary material
that have emerged since his study first appeared. This paper contends that
Donelson, through his support of the Constitution and the preservation
of the Union, deserves recognition as a leading figure in the various compromise
movements that arose during the antebellum period.
Andrew
Jackson Donelson spent much of his early life learning from his uncle and
benefactor, Andrew Jackson. After graduating from West Point and serving
as Jackson's aide-de-camp in Florida, Donelson returned to Nashville and
entered the law profession. He assisted his uncle in his 1824 and 1828
presidential campaigns. When Jackson became president in 1829, he asked
his nephew to serve as his private secretary, which he did with distinction.
The only blemish on Donelson's service was his support of the anti-Eaton
forces that gained Jackson’s wrath during the Petticoat Affair. In spite
of the tension between uncle and nephew during this unfortunate episode,
Donelson continued in his role as private secretary and advisor until the
end of Jackson’s second administration.
The
Eaton affair, however, does give a good example of Donelson's preference
for compromise. Jackson attempted to force Donelson and his wife (also
Jackson's niece), Emily Tennessee Donelson, to accept John and Margaret
Eaton in social settings. Emily adamantly refused to follow her uncle's
wishes. Andrew Donelson tried to be less confrontational, but he also declined
to acquiesce in his uncle's demand. He was willing to associate with the
Eatons at official events, but not at private functions. Several attempts
to solve the impasse led nowhere, and the Donelsons eventually found themselves
exiled to Tennessee. However, because Donelson kept the lines of communication
open, they later returned.2
While
the Petticoat affair is a good example of Donelson's persistent desire
to solve problems, his actions hardly changed political history. Donelson,
in fact, adhered to the Jacksonian party line throughout the 1830s and
1840s. Following his return to Tennessee in 1837, Donelson played a large
role in the strengthening of the Democratic party within his own home state
and at the national level. His ties to Jackson and Sam Houston, as well
as his own political talents, allowed him to secure appointment as chargé
d’affaires to the Republic of Texas in 1844. Donelson’s important role
in bringing about the annexation of Texas, as well as his support for the
nomination of James K. Polk in the 1844 Democratic convention, led Polk
to appoint him minister to the lesser German states and Prussia from 1846-1849.
Upon
his return to Tennessee in early 1850, Donelson became involved in the
sectional conflict that had developed during his years in Europe. As Congress
debated over how best to admit California and New Mexico as states, politicians
in several southern states sought to deal with the volatile issue on a
sectional level. The Nashville Convention was the result. Donelson found
himself drawn into the fray almost immediately. In April 1850, he served
as the presiding officer over the Davidson County meeting that elected
delegates to the convention. Attendees selected Donelson as one of those
delegates, in part because Donelson argued, would it not be better policy
for us to join our influence with the sound portion of the convention,
and thus nip in the bud the attempt to dissolve the Union?3
At
the first meeting of the Nashville Convention, Donelson further demonstrated
this strong belief in the preservation and continuation of the Union. Along
with other members of the Tennessee delegation, which included former Tennessee
governor Aaron V. Brown and staunch Democratic senator A.O.P. Nicholson,
Donelson favored the compromise measures that Congress was even then debating.
He held this position in spite of the many anti-compromise resolutions
that other southern delegates introduced in Nashville. Largely through
the work of the Tennessee representatives, attendees at the Nashville Convention
agreed to adjourn until Congress decided the issue.4
The
legislation known as the Compromise of 1850, which Congressional members
intended as a resolution to the crisis, induced southerners to reconvene
in Nashville in November 1850. The composition of the convention delegates
in this second meeting differed greatly from that of the first. Many conservatives,
satisfied with the compromise reached by Congress, stayed away. This change
in attendance assisted the radical members in voicing their displeasure
with the apparent disregard for southern rights in the congressional debates.
The Tennessee delegation, virtually the same as the one that had attended
the June session and including Donelson, introduced resolutions that stated
[while] the compromise measures fell short of justice for the South, yet
to give proof of loyalty to the union[,] Tennessee would accept them. Donelson
helped draft these resolutions, but he did so reluctantly. He believed
that the Tennessee resolutions, which stipulated that the acceptance of
the compromise was based upon the North's adherence to its principles,
were too strong in tone. Others agreed with him. In the end, the convention
did not adopt the Tennessee resolutions. When Donelson and other Tennesseans
tried to take the floor and speak for compromise, however, the chair overruled
their requests and adjourned the convention. Still, Donelson's compromise
stand was clear.5
In
early 1851, Thomas Ritchie, editor of the Washington Union, contacted
Donelson concerning the editorship of the Democratic paper. After a period
of uncertainty, Donelson accepted the position and moved to the capital
in April 1851. His salutatory address laid out his goals for the newspaper
and summed up the stance that Donelson would take for the rest of his life.
Of the democratic party the Union shall be the organ in that sense
alone which aims at the accomplishment of truly national measures by constitutional
and just means, Donelson wrote. He promised to cordially sustain the recent
compromise measures enacted by the constitutional authorities of the land
and to support the fugitive slave law because it was the expression of
a constitutional injunction. Finally, he insisted that [t]he Constitution
as administered and expounded by Washington, and the authority of those
great minds which afterwards effected the civil revolution of 1800, shall
be my guide. Donelson claimed that only the Constitution allowed him to
[insist] on the love of the Union, and the avoidance of whatever can tend
to the alienation of one portion of the people from another and to [guard]
against the dangers of consolidation. These values, the new editor believed,
were sufficient to resolve any dilemma that the nation or a region faced.6
Donelson
came under immediate criticism. Robert Toombs, a former Whig turned southern
supporter, wrote a friend that he had warned Donelson against making any
issue on anybody of his party until the time comes. Former Jackson cabinet
member James Buchanan advised the Tennessean to adopt the Virginia resolutions
on the subject of slavery and to consider the question settled by the Compromise
rather than extol that system of measures. Robert M.T. Hunter opined, May
the Lord deliver our party from the hands of the quacks of Tennessee and
Michigan, a direct reference to Donelson and Lewis Cass. Future Confederate
vice-president Alexander H. Stephens remarked that the Union editor was
neither for North or South, but out and out for Democracy and nothing
else.7
Donelson
saw his duty as being one of leading both sides, North and South, toward
continued compromise, just as they had always done since the framing of
the Constitution. The three-Fifths Compromise, the Missouri Compromises,
the Compromise of 1833, the Compromise of 1850all of these measures had
kept the nation together during sectional strife. When radical threats
such as secession threatened the spirit of compromise, then the country
needed a non-compromising leader with the fortitude to withstand such intimidation
and hold the agreements together. Approximately thirty years earlier, Donelson
held the same views during the nullification crisis. After helping Jackson
compose the Nullification Proclamation, Donelson had then written a friend
that if South Carolina decided to secede or assert the right to nullify,
there will undoubtedly be civil war. Jackson stood his ground in support
for the Constitution and the Union, and Donelson was right there with him.
He took the same stand in the early 1850s.8
Donelson's
stint as Union editor ended in June 1852, the result of pressure
from radical congressional Democrats who opposed his temporizing philosophy.
He hoped that Democratic president Franklin Pierce would continue to lead
the country away from divisiveness and back to compromise, but Pierce was
a disappointment. The result was Donelson's abandonment of the Democratic
party to join the American, or Know-Nothing, Party in December 1854. He
had several reasons for supporting the new party and its political doctrine.
First, Donelson believed that this new American party held the best chance
for union. The party's doctrine and platform matched his own call for compromise,
union, and the Constitution. Other motivations, such as nativistic sentiment
and anti-Catholic prejudice, played a secondary role in Donelson's support
of the Know-Nothing cause, his desire for union being Donelson's primary
loyalty and his main incentive to join the party.9
The
American party's commitment to the Union was in stark contrast, at least
in Donelson's opinion, to that of the Democratic leadership, particularly
Pierce. In an 1853 letter to his second wife, Elizabeth, Donelson wrote,
[m]y speeches expose me to much abuse and calumny. I shall persevere in
the cause of truth, and omit nothing in my power to prostrate the party
which is upholding Pierce and his Cabinet. By 1855, Donelson made public
his lack of faith in the president and his handling of the sectional agitation.
In a speech sent to the Louisville, Kentucky, branch of the American party,
Donelson accused Pierce of [offering?] the Union doctrine of Jackson but
his [leading?] acts [show?] him as the instrument of the abolitionist and
the nullifier. He also blamed Pierce for not following Jackson's example
when it came to dealing with nullifiers.10
Pierce
was not the only object of Donelson's disaffection. So were Jefferson Davis,
Pierce's secretary of war, the southern fire-eaters, William Seward, and
northern agitators. It is thus that extremes, traveling always in vicious
circles, meet and act as auxiliaries in the great work of disunion, Donelson
told a Nashville gathering in July 1855. It is thus that Mr. Pierce has
organized his cabinet uniting to him . . . an Abolitionist [Seward] to
act for him at the North, and Mr. Davis, the nullifier, to act for him
at the South. Donelson traveled across Tennessee and eventually parts of
other southern states, always sounding his themes of the corruptness of
Democratic leadership, the treasonous acts of nullifiers and abolitionists,
and the necessity of a party that placed the Constitution and union above
all else.11
In
February 1856, members of the American party met in Philadelphia to select
their national candidates. Former president Millard Fillmore received the
presidential nomination. The delegates then chose Donelson as their vice-presidential
candidate. In words reminiscent of his uncle's statement before the 1824
election, Donelson said that he had not sought the nomination, and he would
not decline it. When asked which political party Andrew Jackson would have
chosen were he alive, Donelson assured the convention that his uncle, as
well as John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, and Daniel Webster, would all have
chosen the American party. This speech, political propaganda in its highest
form, satisfied the delegates. Meanwhile, Donelson claimed that the Democratic
party had deserted him and, by determining to divide the nation over the
issue of slavery, had forced him to look for party affiliation elsewhere.
He had no regrets about abandoning his Democratic ties.12
It
appeared, at first, that the Fillmore-Donelson ticket, with its emphasis
on compromise and moderation, would appeal to many American voters. The
division of the American party over the slavery issue, which occurred before
the nominating convention and resulted in the defection of most northern
supporters, however, cost Fillmore and Donelson many votes in the 1856
election. To Donelson's credit, he worked fervently to achieve victory
in the fall election. He was much more active than Fillmore, who, ironically,
was in Europe visiting the Pope when the nativist, anti-Catholic American
party nominated him. From the February convention until Fillmore's return
to the United States in June, Donelson bore the burden of campaigning for
the party and defending the ticket and platform, particularly his own character,
from the Republican and Democratic parties' attacks.13
The
Democrats were particularly scathing, claiming that Donelson had deserted
the party and that his only political attribute was his former association
with his uncle. One Democratic-controlled newspaper in Tennessee said that
the Know-Nothing's vice-presidential candidate was afflicted with the chronic
idea that the nation can never pay off her obligations to himself for the
accidental relations to his illustrious patron [Jackson]. William G. Brownlow,
a prominent East Tennessee newspaper editor and politician, wrote Donelson
in April 1856 that the Democrats [I]n this end of the state, as yet, .
. . have had but little to say against Fillmore, but they are very abusive
of you.14
Donelson
returned the favor. He criticized the Democrats in general and their presidential
candidate, James Buchanan, in particular. While campaigning, Donelson wrote
Fillmore that my idea throughout the canvass has been that it was our first
policy to kill off Buchanan. His numerous speeches demonstrated that approach.
I consider him worse than Pierce, Donelson wrote his son, Jackson, that
fall, because he has more talents and less principle. All the enemies of
Genl. Jackson have rallied upon him. The South's policy to elect Buchanan
was fallacious, and means nothing but a combination of a few [discontents?]
to keep up the slavery agitation in order that they may ride into power
and distribute the spoils. He assured himself and others around him that
the voters would choose men of compromise, integrity, and union, such as
Fillmore, and would defeat corrupt, greedy men, like Buchanan, and extreme
radical abolitionists, such as Fremont.15
Donelson's
confidence proved unfounded. The American party ran well in Delaware, Kentucky,
Missouri, and Tennessee, but won only the electoral votes of Maryland.
The reason for the Know-Nothing loss was simplevoters did not believe that
this party of moderation had a realistic chance of winning the presidential
election. With Republican candidate John C. Fremont running a strong campaign
in the northern states, the chance existed that the Republicans might win
the election outright or throw it to the House of Representatives, where
there was also the possibility that Fremont might win. With such high stakes,
Americans took the safe course and maintained the status quo in the executive
branch. They ultimately kept the incumbent party in office by electing
Buchanan. They then hoped for the best.16
Contrary
to erroneous historical accounts, Donelson did not retire from politics
following this defeat. 17
He returned to his home state and worked to restore life to the Know-Nothing
party in Tennessee. He proved unsuccessful, the Know Nothings losing handily
in the 1857 state elections. Donelson spent the next year dealing with
plantation problems in West Tennessee and Mississippi. In 1859, however,
he returned to the political arena by supporting the Opposition party,
a fusion group of Whigs and Know Nothings. Donelson found that the Opposition's
platform coincided with his own views. The party platform, introduced at
its March 1859 state convention, upheld the Union as the surest guaranty
of the rights and interests of all sections of the country and resolved
that agitation over the slavery issue led to no practical good to any portion
of the country, and should, therefore, cease. While its gubernatorial candidate,
John
Netherland, failed to defeat incumbent governor Isham G. Harris in the
fall election, the party laid the foundation for making a national statement
in the following year's presidential campaign.18
The
increasing sectional division that followed John Brown's 1859 raid at Harper's
Ferry created an opportunity for southern Unionists to make one final attempt
to bring about reconciliation. The Tennessee Opposition state meeting selected
Donelson as one of its delegates to the national nominating convention,
held in Baltimore in May 1860. He served as chair of the permanent organization
committee and the Tennessee delegation. The national convention adopted
the moniker Constitutional Union party and named John Bell as its presidential
candidate. The party refused to espouse a platform, calling instead for
simple adherence to the broad foundation of the Constitution, and the Union
of the States, and the enforcement of the laws.19
Donelson
soon discovered, to his disappointment, that the Constitutional Union party,
like previous efforts to maintain sectional unity, was destined to fail
in the heat of controversy. Despite Donelson's best efforts, Bell gained
only the electoral votes of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. Lincoln
won the election, and southern states began leaving the Union once his
election was assured. Donelson then worked to keep his home state in the
Union. He and other cautious Tennesseans successfully staved off a secessionist
referendum, but when Lincoln called out 75,000 loyal militia soldiers following
the Fort Sumter incident in April 1861, Tennessee voters successfully adopted
secession and left the Union.20
Donelson
continued his calls for moderation even during the Civil War. In August
1861, Confederate troops arrested him for expressing his opinions to friends
in Memphis. He was taken to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where Confederate General
Earl Van Dorn released him. When Federal troops captured Memphis in June
1862, Donelson found himself once again arrested. Although the Federal
general William Tecumseh Sherman quickly released him, this arrest seemingly
tempered outspokenness. Donelson made only one more recorded attempt to
restore sanity when he wrote a Confederate senator in fall 1863 concerning
the war. He called for the Confederacy to give up its cause and resort
to change through the ballot box, not through war. Why condone and encourage
bloodshed, Donelson observed, when the Confederate cause was ultimately
hopeless? His advice went unheeded. Donelson died in June 1871 trying to
reconcile himself to the new political and social climate of Reconstruction.21
From
the brief discussion above, it is clear that Donelson was an important
voice for moderation in the antebellum period. How, then, did his stand
reflect his Jacksonian background? Did Donelson simply share part of his
name with his uncle, or was there more to him? I contend that Donelson
shared Jackson's concern for the Union and the Constitution, but he held
independent views as well. Whatever one might think of Jackson the man
or Jackson the president, he defended the Constitution and strove to keep
the nation united. While any attempt to speculate about what actions Old
Hickory would have taken in the 1850s and during the Civil War is ultimately
conjecture, it is possible to imagine that Jackson would have done just
what Donelson didemphasize nationalism over sectionalism and support of
the Union and Constitution over personal and political ambitions. Whatever
positions the Jacksonian movement assumed following its initial formation,
two of its core beliefs, at least according to Jackson, were preservation
of the Union and support for the Constitution. Donelson embraced those
fundamental convictions wholeheartedly. He offered to compromise on many
things, but he consistently adhered to what he perceived were the most
important issues. His activities, like those of so many others, unfortunately,
ultimately failed to prevent war. But it was not for lack of effort on
his part, and for this he deserves historical recognition.22
Footnotes:1.
Robert Beeler Satterfield, Andrew Jackson Donelson: A Moderate Nationalist
Jacksonian (Ph.D. diss., The Johns Hopkins University, 1961). Satterfield
is the only historian to examine extensively Donelson's life and career.
Harriet Chappell Owsley briefly surveyed Donelson's career in her 1982
article, Andrew Jackson and His Ward, Andrew Jackson Donelson, Tennessee
Historical Quarterly (Summer 1982): 124-39. William Joseph Pike looked
at Donelson's public life in The Public Life of Andrew Jackson Donelson,
(M.A. thesis, Southwest Texas State University, 1988), while Mark R. Cheathem
scrutinized his years in the White House in Andrew Jackson Donelson and
His Importance during Andrew Jackson's Administrations, 1829-1837, (M.A.
thesis, Middle Tennessee State University, 1998).2.
The best treatment of the Eaton affair is John F. Marszalek's The Petticoat
Affair: Manners, Mutiny, and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House (New
York: The Free Press, 1997). His assertion that Donelson was an insecure
individual (139), however, does not fit well with the evidence. Donelson
consistently held that, as the head of his household, he had the right,
even the responsibility, to pursue the best course for his family. Donelson,
in fact, stubbornly held to his view as a matter of honor (140), as Marszalek
correctly notes.3. Thelma Jennings, The Nashville
Convention: Southern Movement for Unity, 1848-1850 (Memphis, Tenn.:
Memphis State University Press, 1980), 94-5; St. George Sioussat, Tennessee,
the Compromise of 1850, and the Nashville Convention, Mississippi Valley
Historical Review 2 (December 1915): 323; and Nashville Daily Union,
7 May 1850.4. Jennings, The Nashville Convention,
chapter 7 passim.5. Ibid., 195; Sioussat, Tennessee,
the Compromise of 1850, and the Nashville Convention, 344-5; and Satterfield,
A Moderate Nationalist Jacksonian, 424-5.6.
Charles H. Ambler, Thomas Ritchie: A Study in Virginia Politics
(Richmond: Bell Book & Stationery, 1913), 286; and The American
Banner (Nashville), 19 April 1856.7.Robert Toombs
to Howell Cobb, 2 January 1851, in Ulrich B. Phillips, ed., Correspondence
of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Howell Cobb, in Annual
Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1911, 2
vols. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1913), 218-20; James Buchanan to Donelson,
20 March 1851, in Andrew Jackson Donelson Papers, Manuscript Division,
Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee (hereinafter
cited as AJD Papers); Robert M.T. Hunter to George N. Sanders, 9 May 1851,
in Charles H. Ambler, ed. Correspondence of Robert M.T. Hunter, 1826-1876,
in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year
1916, 2 vols., (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1918), 126-8; and Alexander
H. Stephens to Howell Cobb, 26 November 1851, in Phillips, ed., Correspondence
of Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb, 265-7.8.
Donelson to John Coffee, 18 December 1832, AJD Papers.9.
Satterfield, A Moderate Nationalist Jacksonian, 478-9. Satterfield contends
that Donelson joined the Know Nothings because it gave him a voice with
which to strike out against free-soilers, foreigners, Catholics, and Pierce.
His argument is accurate, but poorly developed.10.
Donelson to Elizabeth Donelson, 23 July 1853, AJD Papers; and Donelson
to American Party of Louisville, Kentucky, 19 November 1855, AJD Papers.11.Donelson
speech to Nashville gathering, 4 July 1855, AJD Papers; and Donelson to
American Party of Louisville, Kentucky, 19 November 1855, AJD Papers.12.
Tyler Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery: The Northern Know Nothings and
the Politics of the 1850s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992),
208-9; and records of the American (Know Nothing) National Council meeting,
18-21 February 1856, in Michael F. Holt, The Antimasonic and Know Nothing
Parties, in Arthur Schlesinger, ed., History of United States Political
Parties, vol. 1 (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1973), 722-32.13.
Holt, The Know Nothing Party, 613-6; Anbinder, Nativism and Slavery,
209-19; Frank H. Severance, ed., Millard Fillmore Papers, 2 vols.
(Buffalo, N.Y.: Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, 1975), 2:3;
and Satterfield, A Moderate Nationalist Jacksonian, 504-15.14.
Nashville Daily Union and American, 6 March 1856; and William G.
Brownlow to Donelson, 24 May 1856, in St. George Sioussat, Selected Letters,
1846-56, from the Donelson Papers, Tennessee Historical Magazine
3 (1917): 286-7.15. Donelson to Millard Fillmore,
2 October 1856, quoted in William E. Gienapp,
The Origins of the Republican
Party, 1852-1856 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 409; and
Donelson to Jackson Donelson, 27 September 1856, in AJD Papers.16.
Harry J. Carman and Reinhard H. Luthin, Some Aspects of the Know-Nothing
Movement Reconsidered, South Atlantic Quarterly 39 (April 1940):
228. Alternate reasons for the Know-Nothing loss appear in Satterfield,
A Moderate Nationalist Jacksonian, 529-30.17.
For examples of how historians have prematurely reported Donelson's political
retirement, see Thomas P. Abernethy, Andrew Jackson Donelson, in Dictionary
of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930), 5:363-4;
and Heather Fearnbach, Andrew Jackson Donelson, in The Tennessee Encyclopedia
of History & Culture, ed. Carroll Van West (Nashville: Rutledge
Press, 1998), 254-5.18. Nashville Opposition,
10 May 1859, quoted in Mary Emily Robertson Campbell, The Attitude of
Tennesseans Toward the Union, 1847-1861 (New York: Vantage Press, 1961),
93. Campbell gives the best account of the Opposition party in Tennessee,
while Jonathan M. Atkins pays too little attention to it in his Parties,
Politics, and Sectional Conflict in Tennessee, 1832-1861 (Knoxville:
The University of Tennessee Press, 1997). See also Paul H. Bergeron, Antebellum
Politics in Tennessee (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky,
1982).19.
Republican Banner and Nashville Whig,
11 and 12 May 1860, quoted in Satterfield, A Moderate Nationalist Jacksonian,
540.20. Satterfield, A Moderate Nationalist
Jacksonian, 540-6; and Atkins, Parties, Politics, and Sectional Conflict,
244-52.21. Satterfield, A Moderate Nationalist
Jacksonian, 546-57. It is unclear whether Donelson was one of the twenty-five
'most prominent [men] of the vicinity' arrested in retaliation for guerrilla
attacks against Federal troops. See John F. Marszalek, Sherman: A Soldier's
Passion for Order (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 194.22.
Bergeron, Antebellum Politics, 156-7. Bergeron found that most members
of the American, Opposition, and Constitutional Union parties were overwhelmingly
Whiggish in origin. This makes Donelson's decision to stand by his convictions
even more striking.