CHAPTER VII. THE KITCHEN CABINET.
When the Twenty-first Congress assembled, on the 7th of December, 1829, General Jackson sent in his first annual message, which naturally attracted some attention. Meeting his old and intimate friend, General Armstrong, the next day, the President said, "Well, Bob, what do the people say of my message?" "They say," replied General Armstrong, "that it is first-rate, but nobody believes that you wrote it." "Well," good-naturedly replied Old Hickory, "don't I deserve just as much credit for picking out the man who could write it?" Although the words of this and of the subsequent messages were not General Jackson's, the ideas were, and he always insisted on having them clearly expressed. It was in his first message, by the way, that he invited the attention of Congress to the fact that the charter of the United States bank would expire in 1836, and asserted that it had "failed in the great end of establishing a uniform and sound currency." This was the beginning of that fierce political contest which resulted in the triumph of General Jackson and the overthrow of the United States Bank.
General Jackson rarely left the White House, where he passed the greater portion of his time in his office in the second story, smoking a corn-cob pipe with a long reed stem. He was at the commencement of his Presidential term sixty-two years of age, tall, spare, with a high forehead, from which his gray hair was brushed back, a decisive nose, searching, keen eyes, and, when good-natured, an almost childlike expression about his mouth. A self-reliant, prejudiced, and often very irascible old man, it was a very difficult task to manage him. Some of his Cabinet advisers made it a point to be always with him, to prevent others from ingratiating themselves into his good will, and they were thus chronicled in a ballad of the time:
"King Andrew had five trusty 'squires,
Whom he held his bid to do;
He also had three pilot-fish,
To give the sharks their cue.
There was Mat and Lou and Jack and Lev,
And Roger, of Taney hue,
And Blair, the book,
And Kendall, chief cook,
And Isaac, surnamed the true."
Mat. Van Buren was Secretary of State, Lou. McLane Secretary of the Treasury, John Branch was Secretary of the Navy, Lev. Woodbury was his successor, and Roger B. Taney was Attorney-General. Blair, Kendall, and Isaac Hill were also known as "the kitchen cabinet."
The confidential advisers of General Jackson lost no time in establishing a daily newspaper which would speak his sentiments and sound a key-note for the guidance of his followers. The Washington Globe was accordingly started on an immense paying basis, as it had the name of every Federal office-holder whose salary exceeded one thousand dollars on its subscription list. The paper was sent them, and in due time the bill for a year. If a remittance was made, well and good; if payment was refused, the delinquent was told informally that he could pay his subscription to the Globe, or be replaced by some one else who would pay it. It was owned and edited by Blair & Rives, Rives attending to the business department of the establishment. Mr. Blair had been the partner of Amos Kendall in the publication of the Frankfort Argus, and they had both deserted Henry Clay when they enlisted in the movement which gave the electoral vote of Kentucky to General Jackson, and joined in the cry of "bargain and corruption" raised against their former friend. It is related that the first interview between Clay and Blair after this desertion was a very awkward one for the latter, who felt that he had behaved shabbily. Clay had ridden over on horseback from Lexington to Frankfort, in the winter season, on legal business, and on alighting from his horse at the tavern door he found himself confronting Blair, who was just leaving the house. "How do you do, Mr. Blair?" inquired the great commoner, in his silvery tones and blandest manner, at the same time extending his hand. Blair mechanically took the tendered hand, but was evidently nonplussed, and at length said, with an evident effort, "Pretty well, I thank you, sir. How did you find the roads from Lexington to here?" "The roads are very bad, Mr. Blair," graciously replied Clay, "very bad; and I wish, sir, that you would mend your ways."
Mr. Blair made it a rule to defend in the columns of the Globe the acts of Jackson's Administration, right or wrong, and he waged merciless warfare against those who opposed them. When Colonel William R. King, of Alabama, once begged him to soften an attack upon an erring Democrat, Mr. Blair replied, "No! let it tear his heart out." With all his political insolence, however, he possessed remarkable kindness, and a more indulgent father was never known in Washington.
The Washington papers, up to this time, contained very little of what has since been known as local news. A parade, an inauguration, or the funeral of a distinguished person would receive brief mention, but the pleasant gossip of the day was entirely ignored. It was then necessary for the correspondent of a paper in a northern city to mail his letter at the post-office before twelve o'clock at night to insure its departure by the early morning's mail northward. Letters written to New York did not, consequently, appear until the second day after they were written, while those sent to Boston rarely appeared before the fourth day. The people then were better posted as to what transpired at the Nation's Capital than they are now, when dispatches can be sent in a few moments at any time of day or night.
Mrs. Anne Royall began an enterprise in personal literature. She managed to secure an old Ramage printing-press and a font of battered long-primer type, with which, aided by runaway apprentices and tramping journeymen printers, she published, on Capitol Hill, for several years, a small weekly sheet called the Huntress. Every person of any distinction who visited Washington received a call from Mrs. Royall, and if they subscribed for the Huntress they were described in the next number in a complimentary manner, but if they declined she abused them without mercy. When young she was a short, plump, and not bad-looking woman, but as she advanced in years her flesh disappeared, and her nose seemed to increase in size; but her piercing black eyes lost none of their fire, while her tongue wagged more abusively when her temper was roused. John Quincy Adams described her as going about "like a virago-errant in enchanted armor, redeeming herself from the cramps of indigence by the notoriety of her eccentricities and the forced currency they gave to her publications."
Mrs. Royall's tongue at last became so unendurable that she was formally indicted by the Grand Jury as a common scold, and was tried in the Circuit Court before Judge Cranch. His Honor charged the jury at length, reviewing the testimony and showing that, if found guilty, she must be ducked, in accordance with the English law in force in the District of Columbia. The jury found her guilty, but her counsel begged his Honor, the Judge, to weigh the matter and not be the first to introduce a ducking-stool. The plea prevailed and she was let off with a fine.
The first "Society Letters," as they were called, written from Washington, were by Nathaniel P. Willis, to the New York Mirror. Willis was at that time a foppish, slender young man, with a profusion of curly, light hair, and was always dressed in the height of fashion. He had, while traveling in Europe, mingled with the aristocratic classes, and he affected to look down upon the masses; but with all his snobbishness he had a wonderful faculty for endowing trifling occurrences with interest, and his letters have never been surpassed. He possessed a sunny nature, full of poetry, enthusiasm, and cheerfulness, and was always willing to say a pleasant word for those who treated him kindly, and never sought to retaliate on his enemies.
Willis first introduced steel pens at Washington, having brought over from England some of those made by Joseph Gillott, at Birmingham. Before this goose-quill pens had been exclusively used, and there was in each House of Congress and in each Department a penmaker, who knew what degree of flexibility and breadth of point each writer desired. Every gentleman had to carry a penknife, and to have in his desk a hone to sharpen it on, giving the finishing touches on one of his boots. Another new invention of that epoch was the lucifer match-box, which superseded the large tin tinder-box with its flint and steel. The matches were in the upper portion of a pasteboard case about an inch in diameter and six inches in length and in a compartment beneath them was a bottle containing a chemical preparation, into which the brimstone-coated end of the match was dipped and thus ignited.
The Mayor of Washington, during a portion of the Jackson Administration, was Peter Force, a noble specimen of those who, before the existence of trades unions, used to serve an apprenticeship to the "art preservative of arts," and graduate from the printing office qualified to fill any political position. Fond of American history, Mr. Force, while printing the Biennial Register, better known as the Blue Book from the color of its binding, began to collect manuscripts, books, and pamphlets, many of which had been thrown away in the executive departments as rubbish, and were purchased by him from the dealers in waste paper. In 1833 he originated the idea of compiling and publishing a documentary history of the country, under the title of the American Archives, and issued a number of large folio volumes, the profits going to the politicians who secured the necessary appropriations from Congress. He was emphatically a gentleman—tall, stalwart, with bushy black hair, and large, expressive eyes, which would beam with joy whenever a friend brought him a rare autograph or pamphlet.
Assemblies were held once a week between Christmas Day and Ash Wednesday, to which all of the respectable ladies of the city who danced were invited. It was also customary for those of the Cabinet officers and other high officials who kept house to give at least one evening party during each session of Congress, invitations for which were issued. The guests at these parties used to assemble at about eight o'clock, and after taking off their wraps in an upper room they descended to the parlor, where the host and hostess received them. The older men then went to the punch-bowl to criticise the "brew" which it contained, while the young people found their way to the dining-room, almost invariably devoted to dancing. The music was a piano and two violins, and one of the musicians called the figures for the cotillions and contra-dances. Those who did not dance elbowed their way through the crowd, conversing with acquaintances, the men frequently taking another glass of punch. At ten the guests were invited to the supper-table, which was often on the wide back porch which every Washington house had in those days. The table was always loaded with evidences of the culinary skill of the lady of the house. There was a roast ham at one end, a saddle of venison or mutton at the other end, and some roasted poultry or wild ducks midway; a great variety of home-baked cake was a source of pride, and there was never any lack of punch, with decanters of Madeira. The diplomats gave champagne, but it was seldom seen except at the legations. At eleven there was a general exodus, and after the usual scramble for hats, cloaks, and over-shoes the guests entered their carriages. Sometimes a few intimate friends of the hostess lingered to enjoy a contra- dance or to take a parting drink of punch, but by midnight the last guest departed, and the servants began to blow out the candles with which the house had been illuminated.
In Jackson's first Administration the country was shocked by the appearance of a book entitled, The Domestic Manners of Americans, by Mrs. Frances Trollope. She was a bright little Englishwoman, who had come to this country and established a bazaar at Cincinnati, which proved a failure. So she sought revenge and wealth by a caricature sketch of our pioneer life, founded on fact, but very unpalatable. Expectoration was her pet abomination, and she was inclined to think that this "most vile and universal habit of chewing tobacco" was the cause of a remarkable peculiarity in the male physiognomy of Americans, the almost uniform thinness and compression of their lips. So often did Mrs. Trollope recur to this habit that she managed to give one the impression that this country was in those days a sort of huge spittoon.
Mrs. Trollope first called attention to the fact that American women did not consult the season in either the colors or style of their costumes, never wore boots, and walked in the middle of winter with their pretty little feet pinched into miniature slippers incapable of excluding as much moisture as might bedew a primrose.
Removals from office that places might be provided for Jackson men were the order of the day, but President Jackson was not disposed to displace any veteran soldier. Among other victims designated for removal by the politicians was General Solomon Van Rensselaer, whose gallant services against Great Britain in the War of 1812 had been rewarded by an election to the House of Representatives, followed by his appointment as Postmaster of Albany. He was a decided Federalist and the petition for his removal was headed by Martin Van Buren and Silas Wright.
Visiting Washington, General Van Rensselaer received a cordial greeting from General Jackson at a public reception, and then, taking a seat in a corner, he waited until the room was cleared, when he again approached the President, saying: "General Jackson, I have come here to talk to you about my office. The politicians want to take it from me, and they know I have nothing else to live on." The President made no reply, till the aged Postmaster began to take off his coat in the most excited manner, when Old Hickory broke out with the inquiry: "What in Heaven's name are you going to do? Why do you take off your coat here?" "Well, sir, I am going to show you my wounds, which I received in fighting for my country against the English!" "Put it on at once, sir!" was the reply; "I am surprised that a man of your age should make such an exhibition of himself," and the eyes of the iron President were suffused with tears, as, without another word, he bade his ancient foe good evening.
The next day Messrs. Van Buren and Wright called at the White House and were shown up into the President's room, where they found him smoking a clay pipe. Mr. Wright soon commenced to solicit the removal of General Van Rensselaer, asserting that he had been known as a very active advocate of John Quincy Adams; that he had literally forfeited his place by his earnest opposition to the Jackson men, and that if he were not removed the new Administration would be seriously injured. He had hardly finished the last sentence, when Jackson sprang to his feet, flung his pipe into the fire, and exclaimed with great vehemence, "I take the consequences, sir; I take the consequences. By the Eternal! I will not remove the old man—I cannot remove him. Why, Mr. Wright, do you not know that he carries more than a pound of British lead in his body?" That settled the question, and General Van Rensselaer remained undisturbed as Postmaster at Albany through the Jackson Administration, although Martin Van Buren, when he came into power, promptly "bounced" him.
General Jackson's defiant disposition was manifested when, in a message to Congress, he recommended that a law be passed authorizing reprisals upon French property in case provision should not be made for the payment of the long-standing claims against France at the approaching session of the French Chambers. Some of his Cabinet, having deemed this language too strong, had prevailed upon the President's private secretary, Major Donelson, to modify it, and to make it less irritating and menacing. No sooner was it discovered by General Jackson than he flew into a great excitement, and when Mr. Rives entered his private office to obtain it for printing, he found the old General busily engaged in re-writing it according to the original copy. "I know them French," said he. "They won't pay unless they're made to."
The French people were indignant when this message reached Paris, and when the Chamber of Deputies finally provided for the payment of the claims, a proviso was inserted ordering the money to be withheld until the President of the United States had apologized for the language used. This General Jackson flatly refused to do, and the "Ancient Allies" of the Revolution were on the verge of hostilities, when both nations agreed to submit their differences to Great Britain. The affair was speedily arranged, and France paid five millions of dollars for French spoilations into the Treasury of the United States, where it has since remained.
[Facsimile] Silas Wright Jr. SILAS WRIGHT, JR., was born at Amherst, Massachusetts, May 24th, 1795; was a Representative from New York in Congress, 1827-1829; Comptroller of New York, 1829-1833; United States Senator, 1833- 1844; Governor of New York, 1844-1846; retired to his farm at Canton, New York, and died there, August 27th, 1847.