Political Techniques - 1856 or Why the Herald Went for Fremont

• Author: Phillip G. Auchampaugh
• DOI: 10.1177/106591294800100303
• Date: 01 September 1948
• Published date: 01 September 1948
• Subject Matter: Articles

POLITICAL TECHNIQUES - 1856
or
WHY THE HERALD WENT FOR FREMONT*
by
PHILLIP G. AUCHAMPAUGH
University of Nevada
It was Wednesday, April 23, 1856. New York was in a stir. The ur-
bane, handsome and clever Ferdinando Wood was holding a reception for
the returning American minister from His Majesty’s court at Saint James.
This dignified and bland personage was James Buchanan of Pennsylvania,
once a barefoot boy in the hills near Mercersburg, now the most eminent of
Democratic diplomats, and a very good prospect for the Presidency. During
the day of rejoicing Buchanan made a call upon Mrs. Bennett, and the re-
porters carefully made copy. Why should this bachelor stateman select Mrs.
Bennett above all the other ladies of the city on whom to bestow a call the
very first day of his return?
Of course Buchanan knew the Bennetts. Just a few months before he
had talked in Paris with Mr. James Gordon Bennett, Senior, where the
Bennetts had made one of their fairly frequent visits to Europe. The tall,
broad-shouldered, hook-nosed, Scotsman was on a hunt for a scoop of news.
Presidential bees were buzzing in America but the thin-lipped, white-
cravated American minister to London had no news. Years had thinned
out ambition’s blood; he was not a candidate for the presidency at three
score and five!
But much had changed in the intervening months. Urgings of friends
had told Buchanan that he could save an embittered and endangered
Union. In numerous letters claiming for him the mantle and the spirit of
the departed Clay, these friends had awakened both duty and ambition in
Buchanan’s heart. News came of a &dquo;ground swell&dquo; of the good people of
Pennsylvania calling for their favorite son to lead them again to battle under
the banner of Democracy. Before he reached America, the Democratic
State Convention at Harrisburg had pledged him their delegation for the
coming presidential convention. Buchanan was sixty-five and it was now
or never.
He yielded, agreeing once more to sacrifice himself and he
ceased to say he would not run. With such prospects in view Buchanan
needed something more than the hand clasps of friends. He needed many
press agents, and Mrs. James Gordon Bennett was the ambitious and edu-
cated wife of perhaps the most successful Democratic editor in America.
*Funds for the preparation of this manuscript were granted by the Research Committee of the
University of Utah.
243

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244
Nor was any public man in American life of that day more apprecia-
tive of the value of the printed page than James Buchanan. When cam-
paigns came in which he was interested, he took a quill in hand himself.
One may never know how many of the articles and essays in the Pennsyl-
vanian (Philadelphia) were from his hand in the forties and fifties because
they were usually recopied and rephrased by his collaborators John Forney,
or George Plitt and his wife Sophie. Thus his friends at his request covered
up his literary tracks.
The Herald was more than worth having. It was probably the most
valuable paper to any Northern man needing middle state and Southern
votes. Bennett knew the South. He had lived a short time in Charleston
near the outset of his career in journalism, and had visited that section often.
There and in other places he had an excellent corps of correspondents
and he could make the Southerners believe that he knew more about
Northern political trails than Northerners did themselves. But all the luck
- was not on Buchanan’s side. True, he gained the coveted nomination at the
Cincinnati Convention but the Herald came out for Fremont.
Bennett’s course &dquo;astonished&dquo; the Democratic leaders. But then Ben-
nett had supported Taylor in 1848, and later, in 1852, he had left Pierce
in the White House. President Pierce of 1853, however, had become &dquo;poor
Pierce&dquo; to Bennett by 1855. With Pierce’s Secretary of State, Marcy,
Bennett had a feud going back for thirty years. Besides, the man who was
a leading pillar among the Pennsylvania Democracy was John Forney whom
the New York editor had criticized for his conduct in the then very well
remembered Forrest divorce case of 1852. Since Buchanan had not openly
been a candidate for the Presidency, Forney had stayed by Pierce and
Marcy until the eleventh hour. Pierce did not blame him for his loyalty
to Buchanan and kept him in the editorship of the Washington Union.
Now Bennett had no use for this man who aspired to the role of king-
maker for Pennsylvania’s favorite son. How far this influenced Bennett’s
attitudes in the campaign it is not easy to tell. Some say that here was the
reason Bennett bolted Buchanan in 1856. Yet if this was the real cause for
his hostility the editor of the Herald did not admit it to Buchanan.
The lack of support of the Herald worried Buchanan not a little.
Nor were complaints lacking. Philadelphia Democrats were saying that the
Herald had been sold out in full to the Fremont interests. August Belmont,l
still Minister at the Hague where he had given aid in the Cuban policy of
his uncle, John Slidell, complained of the Herald’s lies. Ramsey, who took
an interest in Buchanan’s relations with Bennett tried to console him with
a portrait.2
2
1
H. S. P., July 18, 1856. (The letters H. S. P. denote Historical Society of Pennsylvania.) For a
good sketch of Bennett by Professor Allan Nevins see the Dictionary of American Biography, II
.,
pp. 195-97.
2
A. C. Ramsey to Buchanan, Mexico, in H. S. P., July 2, 1856.

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245
&dquo;Bennett,&dquo; he wrote, &dquo;is the vainest mortal that has lived since the days of
Boswell, and his vanity makes his friendship or his enmity equally injurious. I
do not know which I would prefer-his inordinate praise or his stinging tongue.
He is also anxious through his weakness and his wife to figure as a diplomat,
aspiring to the mission to France nor does he suppose his chance hopeless for
that position. He will return therefore, hopeful...