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The Political Gateway to the South Presidents in Louisville

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The Political Gateway to the South Presidents in Louisville THE POLITICAL GATEWAY TO THE SOUTH: PRESIDENTS IN LOUISVILLE BY CLYDE F. CREWS* Louisville was founded during the American Revolution. In fact, it was founded because of the Revolution and thus was in existence before there was such an institution as the presidency. Citizens of Louisville have consistently revered and honored that office, even during trying times of civil and political strife. Louisville's history and that of the presidency are, in a modest sense, intertwined. In fact, Louisville has probably hosted more American presidents than any other southern city. Of the thirty-nine presidents, fourteen have paid "state" visits to Louisville while in office; four others visited the city with considerable ceremony as presidents-elect. And at least nine others spent time in Louisville either before or after holding the nation's highest office. To study these presidential visits is to glimpse aspects of American history as they manifested themselves on the regional scene; it is also to come to understand something of the majesty with which the typical Louisvillian has regarded the office of President of the United States. JAMES MONROE, 1817-1825 The first president to visit Louisville was James Monroe, Ameri- ca's fifth chief executive. The date was Wednesday, June 23, 1819. The presidential party was in the area to inspect garrisons and arsenals along the western frontier, and it arrived after an over- land trek from Corydon, then Indiana's capital. The president travelled "through the wilderness on horseback with a merry, yet discreet cavalcade," and was outfitted in "a semi-military uni- form . the undress uniform of Continental officers in the Revolution, consisting of blue military coat, light colored under- clothing, and a cocked hat.''1 With the presidential entourage was General Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans and the man destined to sit one day in the presidential chair himself. As reported by the Louisville Public Advertiser, Monroe, Jackson, and their party were entertained the day following their arrival at a banquet at the Union Hall, at the southeast corner of Fifth and Main. Monroe, acknowledging the warmth of the reception accorded him in the city and at the banquet, spoke to the gathering *F. CL•'DZ CeSWS, Ph.D., teaches htetory and theologY at Bellarmlne College in Loulsville. 1 Henry A. and Kate B. Ford. comp., Histor• o• •he Ohio Fails C•iies (2 vols.; Cleveland. 1882), I. 246. 181 182 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 56 of the immense growth and possibility of the region: "We have seen your population and wealth increase to an extent and with a rapidity of which there is no example . the history of the world affords no parallel to it."• With that burst of euphoria, Mr. Monroe lived up to his reputation as president of the "Era of Good Feelings." The inevitable toasts were drunk at the banquet of June 24th: "To James Monroe, the Chief Magistrate of a Free People. May he long live, to give vigor to our councils and oppose the shield of justice to the envenomed shafts of party." Rounds were also quaffed in honor of General Jackson, the American Navy, the Day Star of Liberty, the American Army, and even of the memory of St. John the Baptist (the banquet was held on St. John's Day) who was said to have suffered "the awful lesson of the danger of rash VOWS."3 On Friday, June 25 the president viewed a proposed route for a canal around the Falls of the Ohio and then was entertained at yet another dinner at the Union Hall. Shortly thereafter, he departed with his party to continue the military inspection tour. ANDREW JACKSON, 1829-1837 Because of Louisville's strategic location on Andrew Jackson's route from Tennessee to Washington, he was frequently in the city. Yet, with the exception of the visit in the Monroe entourage of 1819, probably the most elegant time Old Hickory experienced in Louisville was his visit en route to his first inauguration in 1829. He arrived in the city on Thursday, January 22 and was received and entertained at Mr. Perkin's Union Hall, where apartments had been provided for him. During the stay, a steady stream of visitors presented themselves to the president-elect. "National salutes were fired on his landing, at sunrise on Friday morning and immediately preceding his departure . on the steamboat Pennsylvania.''4 In The Revolutionary Age of Andrew Jackson, Robert Remini traces the shift of political power from the east coast of the United States to the more democratic "new west" as symbolized in the personage of Andrew Jackson of Tennessee.5 Louisville was one of the five original great cities of the new west according to 2 LouisvtSe Public Advertizer. Jsmuary 26, 1819. 31 bid. 4 Loulsv/l•e Public Advertise', January •t, 1829. 5 Robert Remit, The Revo|ufionary Age o] Andrew Jackson (New York, 1976). 1982] Presidents in Louisville 183 Richard Wade. (The others were Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Lexing- ton, and St. Louis.) 8 It should not be surprising, then, that all three presidents elected in the 1840's made it their business to visit Louisville with some ceremony on their way to their inaugurations in Washington. The receptions for Harrison and Taylor may be described as elegant; that for Polk, in just about every way, must be called stormy. WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, 1841 Having spent precisely one month as president, Harrison, "Old Tippecanoe," became the first chief executive to die in office. According to his biographer Freeman Cleaves, Harrison had been in Louisville many times before, in 1811, 1812, and in 1833, usually on military business.7 When he came to the city shortly after his election in 1840, Shadrach Penn's Public Advertiser was none too pleased: "The President elect arrived in this city by the mail boat on Monday night which was announced by the Federalists in their usual, noisy manner by discharge of a hundred guns.''8 George Prentice's Journal was, of course, much more sympathetic to the Whig cause represented by Harrison. "The nation is redeemed ; our shackles are broken and the despot has been crushed beneath the stamp of Liberty.''9 It was the Journal that reported "the whole city assumed the brightness of day" in the great illumination cele- brating Harrison's presence the night of Tuesday, November 17, 1840. At the Galt House, then at the northeast corner of Second and Main, 10,000 people are reported to have listened to the cannon thundering from the roof. The assembled throng roared its greet- ing to "old Tip" as the Journal called him. "All was joy and en- thusiasm -- deep and gushing enthusiasm.''10 Within six months, the subject of such enthusiasm, Old Tippecanoe who had been so comfortably lodged at the Galt House, was dead. JAMES POLK, 1845-1849 Like his political patron Andrew Jackson before him, James Polk made his way through Louisville on the way to Washington for his inauguration, but the reception was markedly different 6 Richard Wade, The UTban Frontier (Chicago, 1989). 7]•eem•x Cleaves, Old Tippecanoe: Wtllta•rt Henry Harrison and His Time (Hew York, 1939), pp. 85, 118, 297. 8 Loui•ille Public AdverttseT, November 18, 1848. 9 Louisville Journal, November 16, 1840. 10 Lou/•vtlle Journal, November 19, 1840. 184 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 56 from the one accorded 01d Hickory. Polk had just defeated the Whig candidate in a narrow election, and that candidate happened to be none other than Kentucky's own Henry Clay. Polk's visit to Louisville was appreciated neither by the Whigs nor by all the members of a splintered Democratic party, split into regular and "Locofoco" wings. The President-elect and Mrs. Polk arrived at the Louisville wharf on the steamboat China on Tuesday, February 4, 1845 dur- ing a snowstorm. The weather and an earlier-than-expected arrival kept the welcoming crowds down. The Polks were lodged at the Louisville Hotel where they received visitors, and on Wednesday, February 5th they were driven in a barouche with some ceremony back to the wharf to continue their journey aboard the Pike. A crowd of at least five hundred and a military honor guard saw them off at the wharf.11 But the biting commentary of Prentice's Whig Journal makes much more fascinating reading than the simple statement of the details of the visit. The Journal announced on February 5 : Mr. Polk's arrival was attended with disastrous omens. When he was about landing below the city on Monday night, a violent gale drove the steamboat against the shore or another boat and several men's hats (some say men themselves) were knocked overboard. Yesterday morn- ing he entered the city in the midst of a raging storm that kept nine- tenths of his friends shut up at home. Before he had been here three hours, there had been two alarms of fire . No doubt such dire omens will multiply as he approaches Washington City . Hadn't you better turn back, Mr. Polk?12 The president-elect's reception, the paper continued "was not more cold by Dame Nature than by the people." At the hotel, "the vulgar.., indulged themselves by gazing at him.., the crowd... would have been equally attracted by a double-trunked elephant (or) a five-legged calf . ." The rest of the reportage was a similar tissue of jabs at the electoral victor. Mr. James Guthrie, who rode with Polk in his barouche, is said to have whistled on the drive through the city streets. At the Louisville Hotel, many well-wishers are said to have "crooked their knees" before Polk.
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