CHAPTER XXIV—THE DOWNFALL OF KING CAUCUS
Marionette madison is withdrawn from the White House boards at the close of his second term. Jefferson, working the machinery from Monticello, replaces him with Marionette Monroe. It is now Aaron begins his war on the system of Congressional nomination—a system which has obtained since the days of Washington. He writes to Alston:
“Our Virginia junta, beginning with Washington, owning Adams, and controlled by Jefferson, having had possession of the Government for twenty-four years, consider the nation their property, and by bawling, ‘Support the administration!’ have so far succeeded in duping the public. The moment is auspicious for a movement which in the end must break down this degrading system. The best citizens all over the country are impatient of the Virginia rule, and the wrongs wrought under it. Its administrations have been weak; offices have been bestowed merely to preserve power, and without a smallest regard for fitness. If, then, there be in the country a man of firmness and decision and standing, it is your duty to hold him up to public view. There is such a man—Andrew Jackson. He is the hero of the late war, and in the first flush of a boundless popularity. Give him a respectable nomination, by a respectable convention drawn from the party at large, and in the teeth of the caucus system—so beloved of scheming Virginians—his final victory is assured. If it does not come to-day, it will come to-morrow; for ‘caucus,’ which is wrong, must go down; and ‘convention,’ which is right, must prevail. Have your legislature pass resolutions condemning the caucus system; in that way you can educate the sentiment of South Carolina, and the country, too. Later, we will take up the business of the convention, and Jackson’s open nomination.”
Aaron writes in similar strain to Major Lewis, Jackson’s neighbor and man of politics in Tennessee. He winds up his letter with this:
“Jackson ought to be admonished to be passive; for the moment he is announced as a candidate, he will be assailed by the Virginia junta with menaces, and those failing, with insidious promises of boons and favors.”
On the back of this anti-caucus, pro-convention letter-writing, that his candidate Jackson may have a proper début, Aaron pulls a Swartwout string, pushes a Van Ness button. At once the obedient Bucktails proffer a dinner in Jackson’s honor. The hero accepts, and comes to town. The town is rent with joy; Bucktail enthusiasm, even in the cider days and nights of Martling, never mounted more wildly high.
Aaron, from his back parlor in the old Jay house, directs the excitement. It is there Jackson finds him.
“I shall not be at the dinner, general,” says Aaron; “but with Van Buren and Davis and Van Ness and Ogden and Rutgers and Swart-wout and the rest, you will find friends and good company about you.”
“But you?”
“There will be less said by the Clintons and the Livingstons of traitors and murderers if I remain away. I owe it to my past to subdue lies and slanders to a smallest limit. No; I must work my works behind bars and bolts, and in darkened rooms. It is as well—better! After a man sees sixty, the fewer dinners he eats, the better for him. I intend to live to see you President; not on your account, but mine, and for the grief it will bring my enemies. And yet it may take years. Wherefore, I must save myself from wine and late hours—I must keep myself with care.”
Aaron and the general talk for an hour.
“And if I should become President some day,” says Jackson, as they separate, “you may see that Southwestern enterprise of ours revived.”
“It will be too late for me,” responds Aaron. “I am old, and shall be older. All my hopes, and the reasons of them are dead—are in the grave. Still”—and here the black eyes sparkle in the old way—“I shall be glad to have younger men take up the work. It should serve somewhat to wipe ‘treason’ from my fame.”
“Treason!” snorts the fiery Jackson. “Sir, no one, not fool or liar, ever spoke of treason and Colonel Burr in one breath!”
There is a mighty dinner outpouring of Buck-tails, and Jackson—the “hero,” the “conqueror,” the “nation’s hope and pride,” according to orators then and there present and eloquent—is toasted to the skies. At the close of the festival a Clintonite, one Colden, thinks to test the Jackson feeling for Aaron. He will offer the name of Aaron’s arch enemy.
The wily Colden gets upon his feet. Lifting high his glass he loudly gives:
“De Witt Clinton!”
The move is a surprise. It is like a sword thrust, and Van Buren, Swartwout, Rutgers, and other Bucktail leaders know not how to parry it. Jackson, the guest of honor, is not, however, to be put in the attitude of offering even tacit insult to the absent Aaron. He cannot reply in words, but he manages a retort, obvious and emphatic. As though the word “Clinton” were a signal, he arises from his place and leaves the room. The thing is as unmistakable in its meaning, as it is magnificent in its friendly loyalty to Aaron, and shows that Jackson has not changed since that street-corner Richmond oratory so disturbing to Wirt and Hay. Also, it removes whatever of doubt exists as to what will be Aaron’s place in event of Jackson’s occupation of the White House. The maladroit Colden, intending outrage, brings out compliment; and, as the gaunt Jackson goes stalking from the hall, there descends a storm of Bucktail cheers, and shouts of “Burr! Burr!” with a chorus of hisses for Clinton as the galling background. Throughout the full two terms of Marionette Monroe, Aaron urges his crusade against Jefferson, the Virginia junta, and King Caucus. His war against his old enemies never flags. His demand is for convention nominations; his candidate is Jackson.
In all Aaron asks or works for, the loyal Bucktails are at once his voice and his arm. In requital he shows them how to perpetuate their control of the town. He tells them to break down a property qualification, and extend the voting franchise to every man, whether he be landholder or no.
“Let’s make Jack as good as his master,” says Aaron. “It will please Jack, and hurt his master’s pride—both good things in their way.”
It is a rare strategy, one not only calculated to strengthen Tammany, but drive the knife to the aristocratic hearts of the Clintons, the Livingstons and the Schuylers.
“Better be ruled by a man without an estate, than by an estate without a man!” cries Aaron, and his Bucktails take up the shout.
The proposal becomes a law. With that one stroke of policy, Aaron destroys caste, humbles the pride of his enemies, and gives State and town, bound hand and foot, into the secure fingers of his faithful Bucktails.
Time flows on, and Aaron is triumphant. King Caucus is stricken down; Jefferson, with his Virginians are beaten, and Jackson is named by a convention.
In the four-cornered war that ensues, Jackson runs before the other three, but fails of the constitutional majority in the electoral college. In the House, a deal between Adams and Clay defeats Jackson, and Adams goes to the White House.
Aaron is unmoved.
“I am threescore years and ten,” says he—“the allotted space of man. Now I know that I am to live surely four years more; for I shall yet see Jackson President.”
Adams fears Aaron, as long ago his father feared him. He strives to win his Bucktails from him with a shower of appointments.
“Take them,” says Aaron to his Bucktails. “They are yours, not his—those offices. He but gives you your own.”
Aaron, throughout those four years of Adams, tends the Jackson fires like a devotee. Van Ness is astonished at his enthusiasm.
“I should think you’d rest,” says he.
“Rest? I cannot rest. It is all I live for now.”
“But I don’t understand! You get nothing.”
The black eyes shoot forth the old ophidian sparks. “Sir, I get vengeance—and forget feelings!”
Adams comes to his White House end, and Jackson is elected in his place. Jackson comes to New York, and he and Aaron meet in the latter’s rooms—pleasant rooms, overlooking the Bowling Green. They light their long pipes, and sit opposite one another, smoking like dragons.
Jackson is the one who speaks. Taking the pipe from his lips, he says:
“Colonel Burr, my gratitude is not wholly declamatory.”
“General,” returns Aaron, “the best favor you can show me is show favor to my friends.”
“That I shall do, be sure! Van Ness is to become a judge, Swartwout collector, while Van Buren goes into my Cabinet as Secretary of State. Also I shall say to your enemies—the Clintons and those other proud ones—that he from New York who seeks Andrew Jackson’s appointment, must come with the approval of Colonel Burr.”
Jackson is inaugurated.
“I am through,” says Aaron—“through at four and seventy. Now I shall work a little, play a little, rest a deal; but no more politics—no more politics! My friends are triumphant. As for my foes, I leave them to Providence and Andrew Jackson.”