David Crockett_ The Lion of the West - Michael Wallis [101]
Yet at the same time, Crockett also symbolized the poor and downtrodden whom he had always stood up for throughout his life. He was not afraid to buck the system or oppose authority, including those at the top of the chain of command. In fact, it was Crockett’s inability to compromise that resulted in such a dismal showing when it came to getting his own pieces of legislation passed in Congress and enacted into law. His Scots-Irish stubbornness, frontier pride, and a tendency to speak directly, even if it came out as an insult, did not serve him well and often resulted in loss of votes and support in congressional committees and on the floor of Congress. Still, numerous hardworking settlers in his home district never lost faith in Crockett, and found their man in Washington endearing.
“Crockett emerged as a symbol of the dawning ‘Age of the Common Man,’” wrote Paul Hutton. “His generation, the first to face the future without the guidance of the Republic’s Founding Fathers, looked to the frontier for the regenerative values once associated with the revolutionary generation. Westerners like Crockett were the flag bearers of a ‘Manifest Destiny’ reaffirming that this new generation was the master of both the environment and its own future. The rise of the West—along with men like Jackson, Clay, Sam Houston, and Crockett—represented the triumph of American democracy and a final rejection of decadent European values of class and aristocracy.”5
Crockett had little notion that he was symbolic of anything when he first took up residence in Washington, although his confidence in himself increased daily as he became more comfortable with his new surroundings. Early in his first term, while still recovering from recurrent malaria, he dashed off a letter to his friend James Blackburn in Tennessee. After giving Blackburn a medical update, Crockett wrote, “I think I am getting along very well with the great men of this nation[,] much better than I expected.”6 It did not take long before Crockett’s opinion changed and much of his optimism disappeared.
“There’s too much talk,” he complained after just a short time in Congress. “Many men seem to be proud they can say so much about nothing. Their tongues keep working, whether they’ve any grist to grind or not. Then there are some in Congress who do nothing to earn their pay but listen day after day. But considering the speeches, I think they earn every penny, amounting to eight whole dollars a day—provided they don’t go to sleep. It’s harder than splitting gum logs in August, though, to stay awake.”7
Crockett found that in the halls of Congress a genial disposition and quick wit could get him only so far. His vast repertoire of frontier yarns served him well when on the campaign stump but did not have the same impact or import in Washington. He never learned how to compromise. His fiercely independent spirit and belief that he was obligated to vote his conscience even if it was contrary to his own party took a heavy toll.
Crockett’s stubbornness even extended to his own political party, much to the annoyance of the Democratic leadership. To win the passage of his land bill, he needed all the help he could muster, especially from the rest of the Tennessee delegation and from the supporters of Andrew Jackson, poised to become the next president of the United States. Even before he publicly broke from the Jackson crowd, Crockett took issue with key Jackson supporters and anyone else unwilling to fully support squatters’ rights in the western lands. This stance put Crockett squarely at odds with the wealthy planters and