The First Tycoon

by T. J. Stiles

  Olds spoke for a bill to lock in the Collins subsidy at its recently elevated level and eliminate Congress's option to cancel it with six months' notice. Congressman William Smith of Virginia stood up to interrupt him. According to the New York Times, Smith “said he listened with inexpressible surprise,” because Olds had denounced the subsidy in 1852. “Mr. Vanderbilt offered to do the service for a very considerably less sum than Mr. Collins, tendering good security but the proposition was rejected and duly disregarded, in order to continue the present monopoly,” Smith thundered. He “declared himself opposed to the whole scheme, viewing it as a source of corruption.” At that, Olds stood up and asked, “If the gentleman were so opposed to extras, how he got the name of ‘Extra Billy?’ [Laughter.]” Smith replied, “By extra and faithful service in the Democratic Party—not by dishonorable means or unworthy tricks. ‘Do you,’ he asked of Mr. Olds, ‘understand that?’ [Sensation.]”21

  The House of Representatives passed the Collins bill. In the Senate, Democrat Robert Hunter of Virginia pointed to bribery as the explanation, noting that just seven months earlier the House had defeated the same measure, as had the Senate. “Now look at both Houses and see the tendency to the other side. What has produced this? Have any new features come up? Shall we say the change is attributable to outside influences? Mr. Vanderbilt proposes to do this service without the extra pay and my constituents shall know that there is one Senator who is unwilling recklessly to squander the money of the people.”

  “I don't know nor care about Mr. Vanderbilt,” said Whig George Badger. “I do know what Mr. Collins has done. He has accomplished a successful rivalry with Great Britain, and I think for the honor of the country he should be permitted to proceed.”

  “Mr. Vanderbilt is well known to us all,” countered Stephen R. Mallory of Florida. “His reputation is second to nobody.” But William H. Seward, the giant of New York's old Whig Party and an emerging Republican leader, came to Collins's defense. “It is said by some senators that this is an extravagant, a luxurious line,” Seward announced. “Sir, this line of steamers is, in my judgment, the proper diplomatic representative of the United States to the Old World.”22

  The debate in the Senate raged on February 27 from one o'clock in the afternoon until nine at night. Finally the chamber passed the Collins subsidy bill. “Congress was not deluded—it was corrupted,” the New York Tribune declared. “Where the money came from, we do not legally know—we can only give a Yankee guess—but that money passed this bill—money not merely expended on borers and wheedlers, and the usual oyster-cellar appliances of lobby legislation—but money counted down into the palms of Members of Congress themselves—this is as clear as the noon-day sun.”23

  At nine thirty a.m. on Saturday, March 3, the Ariel slid down the stocks into the East River. That same morning, President Franklin Pierce vetoed the Collins subsidy bill, denouncing it as a “donation” that would establish a monopoly and eliminate “the benefits of free competition.” The reaction on Capitol Hill was violent. “The veto of the Ocean Steamer Bill produced the greatest excitement in Congress today,” the New York Herald reported. “When it was read cries for impeachment were heard from different parts of the hall. Mr. Campbell of Ohio, with much vehemence, exclaimed, ‘The time for revolution has come!’”24

  “The veto was bought by the opposition,” claimed one New York newspaper. “Vanderbilt is rich and bids high to carry his points, especially his enmities; and President Pierce has sold himself, and his friends, too so often, that his influence has become a marketable commodity. Fifty thousand dollars is supposed to be about the present price of a veto involving a million of dollars.”

  The accusation led Vanderbilt to respond, in one of the most distinct expressions of his philosophy ever to be printed. It may well have been crafted by Horace Clark or one of his attorneys, though Lambert Wardell would later claim that Vanderbilt dictated his correspondence with great skill; certainly the letter he now sent to the New York Tribune crystallized sentiments he had expressed for the last thirty years. He suggested that he might file a lawsuit over the libelous accusation that he had bribed the president, but for the moment, “I desire that the public should know all that I have done and all that I wish to do,” he wrote. “After my return from my last visit to Europe, I became satisfied that the facilities of communication between the two countries were altogether insufficient.” The Cunard Line's interruption had brought matters to a head.

  Now I have made no attack upon the Collins line, though I have never regarded, and do not now regard, any particular line of steamers as one of the institutions of the country… to venture to compete with which is treason. I am not inimical to that line, nor have I entertained aught of ill will toward the gentlemen who founded it.… I congratulate them on the prosperity which has hitherto attended their enterprise, and perhaps ought to applaud them for their ingenuity in its management.… They have succeeded in awakening a species of national fervor in favor of their enterprise till some seem to have considered that the measure of American patriotism is the extent of the public contribution to their treasury.

  The tone of disdain hardly needs comment. But Vanderbilt went further, using impeccable Jacksonian language. “I assumed that the Atlantic Ocean was wide enough for two lines of steamers, and that if I saw fit to venture there, I encroached upon no private domain, and invaded no vested right,” he wrote.

  But it is said that I am always in opposition, and that the same spirit of resistance which has often hitherto governed my action has influenced it now. In answer to this imputation I have only to say, that this is the same spirit which founded this great Republic, and which is now drawing the commerce of the world to our shores. It was the same spirit which unchained the fetters, which legislation similar in principle to that against which I now protest, once fastened upon the Hudson. Repress it if you dare, and before many centuries shall have passed away, your greatness and your glory, and your commerce will have gone still further west.

  My life has been thus far spent among a people who I supposed favored no such principles as these which sanction this kind of legislation, and the share of prosperity which has fallen to my lot is the direct result of unfettered trade and unrestrained competition.25

  What is most remarkable about this letter is its complete consistency with his previous public pronouncements, going back to the early 1830s. For all the apparent contradictions in his behavior, he envisioned his own career—his mission—in terms of a coherent philosophy: Jacksonian laissez-faire. Though the day was approaching when laissez-faire would be the conservative philosophy of a wealthy establishment, at this moment it lay on the populist—even radical—side of the spectrum. Vanderbilt had come of age in a society in which government intervention in the economy was seen as assistance for the elite. Even now, two decades after Jackson's day, the beliefs of that president pulsed through American politics, equating egalitarianism with individual enterprise and competition in a way that would make little sense to Americans of later centuries, after both government and the economy had grown larger and more intricate.

  In Vanderbilt's mind, his commitment to competition kept alive the spark of the Revolution. He, Vanderbilt, represented the “spirit of resistance,” whether to the odious Livingston steamboat monopoly or the obscene subsidy to the already-rich investors in the Collins Line. He, Vanderbilt, had “unchained the fetters” that held men and commerce and American greatness down. What is most notable about this self-image is how much truth it held. Between the stances of hero-worship and cynicism lies an honest assessment of Vanderbilt at half century, one that both recognizes his ambivalence as a historical figure and still gives him due credit. For all his contradictions over the years, he remained the master competitor, the individual who did more to drive down costs and open new lines in steam navigation than any other. More than that, he had helped shape America's striving, competitive, productive society. Waging war with his businesses, he had wrought chan
ge at the point of a sword. He was the selfish revolutionary, the millionaire radical.

  What he did not realize was that the world in which he had made himself—the world that gave rise to these individualistic, laissez-faire values—was beginning to disappear, thanks in part to his own success. He helped create enterprises on a scale never seen before in the United States. Small proprietors could not compete against him. Still more profound, his businesses required large numbers of wage workers. Laboring for someone else had been seen as a temporary condition, until a man set up his own farm or shop; now lifetime employees began to appear on the American scene—still few in number, but significant nonetheless. The emerging importance of big business can be seen in the life of lawyer Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln's clients had always been individuals with small cases; but in the mid-1850s he began to devote most of his time to representing railroad corporations. Thanks to Vanderbilt, one day those corporations would grow far beyond any that employed attorney Lincoln.26

  Despite the veto, Congress enacted the Collins subsidy through an amendment to a naval appropriations bill. The day after Vanderbilt's letter ran in the Tribune, the New York Times offered a closing commentary on his defeat. The Times supported Collins, and condemned the lack of “morality” in Vanderbilt's purported attempt to force him to buy the Ariel. “‘Commodore’ Vanderbilt has returned from Washington in rather unfortunate spirits,” it declared. “Possessing a large capital, upon which he is willing to draw freely to accomplish his ends, and endowed with a more than ordinary share of energy and perseverence, he is accustomed to succeed. Under these circumstances he submits to defeat with a very bad grace.” The paper saw one likely result: “Judging from his past history, we shall expect soon to see the ‘Commodore’ setting up an ‘opposition’ Congress, at half price.”27

  As the Times foresaw, Vanderbilt would not give up. At the beginning of April, he announced the imminent start of his new Atlantic line, featuring the Ariel and his repurchased North Star, managed by another capable son-in-law, Canadian-born Daniel Torrance. Subsidy or no subsidy, he would fight Collins to the death.28

  DURING THE BATTLE IN CONGRESS, Vanderbilt attended to another matter pertaining to Washington, one that involved his own family. George, his youngest son, wanted to attend the United States Military Academy. Though evidence about the boy is mostly apocryphal, by all accounts he was an outstanding athlete, a favorite of his father. On February 7, 1855, Congressman James Maurice of New York wrote to Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to name George a cadet at West Point, after a spot opened up due to a serious injury to a previous appointment. Five days later, President Pierce authorized the selection; a week after that, the Commodore sent Davis his formal permission for George's entry in the academy. On July 1, the boy began his training.29

  George's appointment could only have been a matter of pride to the father who, of course, had named two of his sons after famous generals. Corneil, too, seems to have taken a step to untangle his unhappy life, by becoming a notary public in March. To all appearances, he began to work productively during this period, first in the law firm of Charles Rapallo and Horace Clark, then as a clerk in the leather store of Willliam T. Miller & Co.30 For once the source of strife in the Vanderbilt family came from a different source—Daniel Allen, now returned from Europe.

  About the time of the launch of the Ariel and the veto of the Collins subsidy, Allen filed a lawsuit against the Accessory Transit Company claiming that its purchase of his father-in-law's steamships violated its corporate charter. “The street was full of rumors today about the proceedings instituted against the Nicaragua Transit Company,” the financial column of the New York Herald reported. “Personal spite and prejudice has undoubtedly something to do with it.” It was widely believed that the lawsuit was an attempt by short-sellers to drive down the stock price.31 Indeed, twenty-two years later Allen admitted, “I was representative of parties who had an interest.”

  The problem was, that interest ran counter to those of his father-in-law. Vanderbilt had earned a large profit from the steamship sale. The lawsuit infuriated him, as Allen later acknowledged. “Our friendly relations were interrupted during that period,” he would observe, rather drily. Vanderbilt delivered a damning affidavit to counter Allen's claims, and told Horace Clark to defend Charles Morgan and the company32

  Just as Vanderbilt believed friends could not be trusted, he was showing once again that enemies could be partners. Indeed, he seemed to view his prior battle with Morgan strictly as a matter of business. In January, they both had served on a committee appointed by the Chamber of Commerce to honor Commodore Matthew Perry's recent trade treaty with Japan. In May, both would publicly oppose the conversion of Castle Garden into an immigrant depot. (Fear of epidemics motivated resistance to the plan.) Business made strange bedfellows; before the end of the year, Vanderbilt would be driven into the arms of still another despised rival.33

  AS SPRING TURNED TO SUMMER IN 1855, opponents preoccupied Cornelius Vanderbilt, as they so often did. There was Edward K. Collins, of course; but the Commodore also confronted his old rival George Law in an unlikely ring. Law had become a hero to many by defying the Spanish rulers of Cuba, who had tried to bar his steamships from docking in Havana because of an employee who had written tracts in favor of Cuban freedom. In 1854, a rumor had circulated that Law planned to use his private yacht, the Grapeshot, to smuggle to the island 200,000 surplus muskets that he had purchased from the federal government. Thanks to widespread American enthusiasm for seizing Cuba from Spain, this made Law a champion of expansionist nationalism.34

  In March 1855, a movement began to build within the Know-Nothing Party to nominate Law for president. These anti-Irish, anti-immigrant ex-Whigs hailed him as “Live Oak George,” in tribute to his steamships; “Live Oak Clubs” sprang up in New York and Pennsylvania. The New York Herald wrote, “He advocates the intermingling of all our adopted citizens in the homogenous mass of the American people, not as Irish Americans, German Americans, or American Catholics, but simply as Americans.” The Herald stressed his “opposition to all sectional agitators, North and South.”35

  Law's candidacy reflected the chaos enveloping American politics. The destruction of the Whig Party, coupled with the growing crisis between North and South, left political activists scrambling to find new men and erect new parties. And the excitement around Law reflected his very public role as a creator of the U.S. Mail Steamship Company and stockholder in the Panama Railroad; in them he had owned and managed a vital piece of the nation's transportation infrastructure. It should not be surprising, then, that the next man spoken of as a suitable president should be another steamship tycoon. On March 30, ten members of the New Jersey legislature signed a letter to Cornelius Vanderbilt. “Recognized at home and abroad as an American citizen who, by ability and integrity, energy and enterprise, has practically illustrated the genius and character of our republican institutions,” they wrote, “we desire to connect your name with the high office of President of the United States.”

  On April 12, Vanderbilt responded with a curiously ambivalent letter. “The earlier period of my life was devoted to unremitting toil, while my later years are severely burdened by the multiplied cares which my varied pursuits have engendered,” he wrote. “I have never found the time to indulge one single dream of ambition; and I have already attained to that period of life when more simple realities take the place of the hopes and the anticipations of youth.” Along with this apparent refusal to stand as a candidate, he announced some positions on public affairs. He declined to partake of the anti-immigrant fervor, for example, speaking in defense of “the large class of industrial emigration now flowing in upon our shores.” And he recommended his personal approach to enterprise for the nation as a whole. “I am well satisfied that all the results that have attended the labors of my life are attributable to the simple rule which I early adopted, to mind my own business.… Nor can I suggest one more appropriate for the regulation and c
onduct of the foreign policy of the American people.”36

  The attempt to draft Vanderbilt, and his response, say a great deal about the man and his relationship to his times, albeit indirectly. The appeal to him was nonpartisan, which reflected the collapse of the old party system, of course, but also Vanderbilt's own lack of party affiliation. As noted earlier, the only evidence of serious political activity on his part is an apocryphal account of his parading for Henry Clay in 1844; before and after, he expressed no interest in public affairs unless they intersected with his own. Lambert Wardell later summarized, “He paid no attention to politics and was not a party man.”37 His lack of partisanship showed in the positions that he did take. Like a Whig, he looked askance at U.S. intervention abroad, and embraced corporations and the entire invisible architecture of modern commerce; like a Democrat, he championed immigration and free competition.

  All of this was a bit remarkable in 1855. Politics saturated American life even more thoroughly than twenty years earlier, when Alexis de Tocqueville toured the republic and commented on the partisan passions of the people. To disengage from politics was, in some ways, to disengage from the substance of social intercourse.38 So, too, was Vanderbilt's lack of ambition rather noteworthy. In New York, the tradition of political leadership by the mercantile elite lingered from the eighteenth century. True, it had become attenuated in recent decades, as professional politicians came to dominate the ballot, but men such as Hamilton Fish and various Livingstons still walked the halls of power; banker August Belmont occupied the center of the national Democratic Party organization; and wealthy merchants organized mass meetings and citizens' committees that declaimed on every aspect of public affairs. Vanderbilt, on the other hand, represented a new species of wealthy Americans. After his precedent, it would not seem strange that Andrew Carnegie or John D. Rockefeller should shun public office, choosing to quietly exert their influence behind closed doors.