Sarah Herr

This campaign ad is an attack ad against DeWitt Clinton. The 1812 presidential election set DeWitt against political tycoon, republican darling, and incumbent, James Madison. The election of 1812, like many of America’s early elections, presented a number of “firsts”. It was the first election held during wartime; it set the precedent of presidents retiring after two terms; and perhaps most importantly, one of the earliest North-South political divides.

DeWitt Clinton entered the 1812 presidential race with little republican experience. Other than being his uncle’s secretary, Clinton had spent one year as a United States Senator, and then served as the appointed mayor of New York City from 1803 to 1807. Clinton’s entry into the race represented a division in the Republican Party: he was running against fellow-Republican, and incumbent, James Madison. Historian Richard Buel, Jr. writes that Clinton’s “candidacy fed on hostility to Virginia’s leadership more than to Republicanism itself,” allowing him to easily “ally with northern Federalists” in order to “pursue his presidential ambitions” (149). Madison defeated Clinton by 128 electoral votes to 89, proving the country’s support of him and of the war. The election of 1812 foreshadowed the North-South, New York-Virginia divide that would play an increasing role in American politics.

 

Content:

The goal of this ad is to make Clinton look bad in comparison to Madison. I wanted to set the tone of “America on the brink,” so I opened the ad with “the crisis is fast approaching,” taken from a letter written by Thomas Pickering, which appeared in the Carolina Federal Republican on May 23, 1812. The ad moves to John Trumbull’s Death of General Mercer, which was painted circa 1795. More lines from Pickering’s letter accompany the painting, coupling his apocalyptic pronouncement with a vibrant image of war with the British. The ad then moves to an excerpt from The Public Advertiser on October 31, 1812. This excerpt is a reprint of an address from the Committee of Correspondence of the “Association of Democratic Young Men” to the “their fellow citizens.” I highlighted the committee’s praise of Madison, before moving onto a portrait of Madison. The portrait then has two phrases taken from the excerpt that turned up in a lot of the documents and that I felt really conveyed how Americans felt about Madison.

At this point, Madison’s portrait is replaced by an engraving of Clinton, and the music changes. Up until Clinton’s portrait, “The Battle of Saratoga,” a Revolutionary War song commemorating Burgoyne’s victory over Gates at Saratoga, had been playing. The song appeared shortly after the battle in 1777 and would have been familiar. The song is both upbeat and warlike and I hoped it would convey America’s faith in Madison as well as their fear of the upcoming war. “The Battle of Saratoga” is replaced by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, and in particular, but the second movement, also known as the Funeral March. This symphony was composed in 1804 and first performed in 1805. The song was likely known by Americans who traveled abroad, but I do not know how common it was domestically. I hoped the song would convey a sense of impending doom and darkness, therefore making the contrast with Madison all the more striking.

Clinton’s portrait is overlaid with quotes taken from The Monitor, which further weight the scales in Madison’s favor. This is followed by another excerpt. The tricky thing here is that this was actually quoted in another newspaper. The screenshot it overlaid with the criticisms of Clinton. That he is “unknown,” and that he is prone to scandal and intrigue. The ad concludes with a shot of The Columbian. The highlighted portions claim that Clinton’s “health and success” as a candidate “has never been drunk” not even in New York. In contrast, it claims that Madison’s health is drunk all over the “Union,” even on our “day of National Independence.”

 

1)      John Trumbull. Death of General Mercer. Found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trumbull_1.jpg

2)      Carolina Federal Republican, published as FEDERAL REPUBLICAN.; Date: 05-23-1812; Volume: IV; Issue: 178; Page: [1]; Location: New Bern, North Carolina. Found at: http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive/?p_product=EANX&p_theme=ahnp&p_nbid=Y59L54XQMTMzMTE3MzkxOS4yNjQxNzE6MToxMzoxMzcuMTY1LjI3LjUw&p_action=doc&s_lastnonissuequeryname=42&d_viewref=search&p_queryname=42&p_docnum=1&p_docref=v2:106AD82061FECA10@EANX-10766287716F2E90@2383022-107662878A55F730@0-107662884A225470@War+with+Great+Britain

3)      “The Battle of Saratoga.” Found at: http://www.contemplator.com/america/saratoga.html

4)      Beethoven’s Funeral March. Found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmm2k4fRUO4

5)      Engraving of DeWitt Clinton. This website says that this image is from 1847, but I found the same engraving with a couple of different dates. This one just had the best resolution. http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/100/182/clinton_3.htm

6)      Peale, Charles Willson. Portrait of James Madison. Found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:James_Madison,_by_Charles_Willson_Peale,_1783.png

7)      The Monitor. “Mr. Cheetham, American Citizen.” 11 June 1808. Found at: http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive/?p_product=EANX&p_theme=ahnp&p_nbid=X5CS57XTMTMzMTE3MzkxOS4yNjQxNzE6MToxMzoxMzcuMTY1LjI3LjUw&p_action=doc&s_lastnonissuequeryname=86&d_viewref=search&p_queryname=86&p_docnum=1&p_docref=v2:109E2FFFDDA4FD40@EANX-10AD02ED350EAFF8@2381580-10AD02ED5AD97960@1-10AD02EE317F9D98@[Mr.+Cheetham%3B+American+Citizen%3B+New+York%3B+Clintons%3B+De+Witt%3B+New+York]

8)      The Columbian, 27 August 1812. Found at: http://infoweb.newsbank.com/iw-search/we/HistArchive/?p_product=EANX&p_theme=ahnp&p_nbid=X5CS57XTMTMzMTE3MzkxOS4yNjQxNzE6MToxMzoxMzcuMTY1LjI3LjUw&p_action=doc&s_lastnonissuequeryname=88&d_viewref=search&p_queryname=88&p_docnum=1&p_docref=v2:10C7780F73CA31A8@EANX-10CA776712DC23E8@2383118-10CA7767545B1EE0@1-10CA7768C476CAB0@[Dewitt+Clinton%3B+Government%3B+Ambition%3B+Malignant%3B+Public+Advertiser]

9)      Cornog, Evan. The Birth of Empire: DeWitt Clinton and the American Experience. 1769-1828. (Oxford: New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

10)   Buel, Richard Jr. American on the Brink: How the Political Struggle Over the War of 1812 Almost Destroyed the Young Republic