Chapter II.
Studying Law!
To that stage had Andrew Jackson came, in 1785, steered by the unseen forces which govern the world. It is doubtful whether he himself could have explained how he happened to drift into that profession rather than some other.
In the finding of one’s life-work there is much more of feeling around in the dark than is generally supposed. Cervantes did not begin to write Don Quixote until he had tried success by many routes, and had landed on the wrong side of a prison door. Bacon’s best work was done after his disgrace as an officer of state and after Queen Elizabeth had expressed the weighty opinion that he didn’t know much law.
Oliver Goldsmith, the neglected physician, wrote “The Deserted Village” and “The Vicar of Wakefield” after he had waited in vain for patients bringing fees.
Had Napoleon been a success as an author, he might never have meddled with politics.
Had General Lew Wallace been a success as a soldier, he might never have written “Ben Hur.”
Had U. S. Grant been a money-maker at the outbreak of the Civil War, he might never have commanded on the winning side at Appomattox.
Had Sam Houston been able to wear with credit the harness of social and political existence in Tennessee, he might never have thrown himself amid the wilder men of the Southwest and won fame as a builder of empire!
Patrick Henry’s failure in other fields shunted him into the legal profession; and Jefferson’s partial failure as a lawyer became a stepping-stone into the higher calling of practical statesmanship.
Happy is the man who can find out, early in life, the work which he is best fitted to do. Among the most pitiable of the wretched is he who grows old at a task which, too late, he learns was not set for him.
The gray-haired school-teacher or commonplace preacher, who realizes that he should have been a merchant, lawyer, doctor or civil engineer, is pathetic. To know what to try to do is the great problem, and it may be that even the men who succeed in their chosen calling could have rendered mankind better service in some other field.
Henry Brougham’s shrewd old mother bewailed his quitting the House of Commons to don the robes of Lord Chancellor: Dr. Samuel Johnson lamented the fate which never gave him a chance to try his hand in Parliament: Edmund Burke writhed under Goldsmith’s famous lashing of him “who to party gave up what was meant for mankind.”
What is it that draws the most ambitious men of modern times into “the study of law”?
The reward, of course. All things considered, no other profession offers so great a return upon the investment of time, talent and industry.
While the nations are standing in arms, clothed in steel from head to foot, the purpose is not so much to fight as to discourage attack from without and insurrection from within. The standing army gives the education whose watchword is “Obey!” It cultivates the class-pride and prejudice upon which caste rule is built. It interests millions of citizens in the maintenance of “Law and Order”—the law which imposes the yoke of the ruling caste and the order which restrains its victims from revolt.
The military profession, therefore, is one which irresistibly attracts very many aspirants to influence, to position, to power; but even the military profession does not win over so many ambitious young men as does “the study of the law.”
In the building up of our civilization we have complicated matters to such an extent that the lawyer is indispensable, almost omnipotent.
Does the layman know anything about his own rights as a citizen? Very little. Upon the simplest things only is he informed. At every turn he finds himself under the necessity of getting help from the lawyer. Great is the corporation—the bank, the railroad, the trust—but the corporation dares not move a step without a lawyer in the pilot-house.
From the Justice’s Court in the rural district and the Mayor’s Court in the village, all the way up to Presidential policies and Governmental problems, the lawyer is the doctor who must be called in to look at the tongue of the difficulty, and to write out a prescription.
In the business world the lawyer levies his tribute upon the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the hayseed farmer and the silk-hat financier.
Our Wall Street Money-Kings would no more think of organizing a rascally scheme of High Finance without the help of lawyers than the buccaneers of old would have thought of flying the pirate flag without guns on board.
In the political world the lawyer is omnipresent, indispensable.
Who organizes the Machine and steers the Boss on his cruise, keeping him off the reefs and bars of the Criminal Code?
The lawyer.
Who maps out the campaign, devises a fraud upon the people which the statute cannot quite reach, and then, after the election has been stolen from the people, shows the Boss how to keep the stolen goods in defiance of right and in spite of the legal proceedings?
The lawyer.
Who is it that the beneficiaries of class-legislation naturally select to advance their claims, voice their demands, guard their interests in the legislatures of states, in the Congress of the United States, in the Cabinet of the President?
The lawyer.
Under our system, so complex has it become, the man who wants to do right doesn’t know how. Except in the simplest transactions, a lawyer must show him how. If, on the contrary, a bad man wants to do wrong, but wants to escape punishment, he needs, and can generally get, a lawyer to show him the way.
The innocent man, accused of crime, needs a lawyer; is not safe without one, and may be convicted, even then, if he happens to employ a sorry one, who can be outwitted by the prosecution.
The guilty man, accused of crime, needs a lawyer; is not safe without one; and if he employs a good one, while the prosecution is managed by a sorry one, the jury may be forced to turn him loose, although they feel that he is “as guilty as a dog.”
Thus, looked at from the standpoint of mere ambition, sordid selfishness, the “study of law” powerfully attracts young men who want to get on in the world.
But there is another point of view—thank God!
It is not every student of Blackstone or Coke who licks his chops, by anticipation, over the sweets of mental prostitution.
It is not every student of the law who means to become the jackal to the lion, the doer of dirty work for hire, the seller of divinely fashioned genius to the highest bidder—with the morals of a harlot, without that excuse of dire necessity which the harlot can often give.
In most cases the boy who comes to the study of the law is actuated by nobler motives, a higher purpose. A generous ambition to gain knowledge, to fit himself for a leader’s place among men, to arm himself with the weapons which enable him to fight the battles of the weak and to defend the right against the wrong, find place in his mind and heart, just as they do in the beautiful language of the oath which he must take.
Almost in the very words—and quite in the identical spirit—that ancient Chivalry solemnly swore the Knight-Errant to his duty, pledging him to champion the cause of the weak and the oppressed, the oath of office consecrates the young lawyer to his work by the same holy vows. For it must be remembered that no profession has a more glorious tradition and heritage than that of the law.
The Crusaders who have in modern times gone forth to redeem the Holy Sepulchre of Truth from the Infidel have been led, by whom?
The lawyer.
The Knight-Errant who rode forth, panoplied in burnished steel, to break the chains, lift the yoke, batter down the prison door of the captive, the weak, the oppressed, has been, whom?
The lawyer.
Great was Mirabeau, but he dreamt only of changing France into a constitutional monarchy, leaving Divine Right on the throne and hereditary Privilege in force.
It was Danton, the lawyer, who led the Revolution, and sketched the Democratic state, in which all the people should rule for the benefit of all.
It was the lawyer who led in the long, hard fight for Civil liberty in England; the lawyer who slew the monsters of her Criminal Code; the lawyer who armed the private citizen with school-book and ballot.
It was the lawyer who pleaded Ireland’s cause at the bar of Public Opinion, wrung from British intolerance Religious Freedom, compelled the recognition of the Irishman’s rights in Irish land, and so won upon the conscience and the fear of the ruling caste that the triumph of the Cause of Ireland has become a question of time rather than a matter of doubt.
In our own history, whose record is better than that of the lawyer?
Would our forefathers ever have gone to war with Great Britain had they awaited the lead of Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson and George Washington?
Never in the world.
Not until Patrick Henry and Dabney Carr and Thomas Jefferson and James Otis and John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, the hot-headed young lawyers, had fired the woods, and the flames were leaping onward with a rush which none could stop, did those more cautious and conservative citizens, Franklin, Dickinson and Washington, commit themselves to the movement of the Colonies against the Mother Country.
The lawyer lit the signal fires of that Revolution, the lawyer wrote the Declaration of Independence, the lawyer framed the Constitution, the lawyer organized the Government. The lawyer struck down Feudalism in America, wrote the statute for Religious Liberty, swung wide the doors of individual opportunity, and forged, ready for use, every weapon against tyranny which a free people need to protect themselves from oppression.
Even at that early period there was another side to the shield, not so bright as that which I have presented, but, throughout the Revolutionary Era, the patriotic service of the lawyer was so splendidly conspicuous that the reverse side of the shield was as the spot on the sun.
When Andrew Jackson rode into Salisbury, N. C. (1785), and put up at the Rowan House, the old-fashioned tavern, he was eighteen years old, and had already gone to the school of experience, to an extent which few of his future competitors for national honor had equaled.
His boyhood had breathed in the hot atmosphere of war. The sound of musketry, of rifle fire, of cannon play, had been familiar to his ear. The sight of bloodshed, scenes of carnage, the ruthless deeds of Tory hate and Whig revenge had burnt their impressions upon mind and heart. The dangers amid which he had lived, the hardships which he had endured, the lust of victory and the panic of defeat, the sudden flight from the deadly attack, the narrow escape from awful death, the loss of his brothers and mother, the imprisonment and maltreatment of himself, the wild disorders and appalling cruelties of foreign invasion added to Civil strife—all these things were factors in the molding of Andrew Jackson.
When he entered the office of Spruce McCay to read law under that influential attorney, he had already given evidence of the traits of character which afterward made him one of the best loved and best hated men that ever lived.
It had already been shown that he would fight at the drop of a hat; that he was headstrong, impatient of contradiction, and overbearing. Weaker boys who turned to him for protection got it. He would “take up” for the small boy, and, if need were, wage his battle. He was high-tempered, quick as powder, hard to get along with—and the boy who laughed at him because he had what was called “a slobber mouth” had to run or fight.
He had shown that he was fond of outdoor life, outdoor sport games, and recreations. He loved to hunt, was a good shot, an expert horseman and rode admirably, excelled in running and jumping. Some say that even when thrown by a stronger man he “wouldn’t stay throwed”; others relate that John Lewis could out-jump him and throw him down; and that when John Lewis threw him, Andy did “stay throwed.” That he was believed to have a generous nature is proven by the fact that he is said to have been a great friend to this same John Lewis.
The eighteen-year old Jackson had already shown his fondness for gambling at cards, on chicken fights and horse races, on the throw of a dicebox, on almost any sort of game or contest. He was known also as a wild young fellow who would drink too much whisky, indulge in too many coarse practical jokes, and who, when inflamed by anger, could out-curse anybody in all the regions round about.
During his stay of two years in Salisbury Jackson’s character continued to unfold itself along those lines. He was not much of a student; it is not recorded that he did any office work for Spruce McCay; nor does any biographer explain how it was that he paid for his board and lodging.
It seems that he kept his horse, and that he was active in horse-racing, cock-fighting, card-playing circles; but it is not probable that he relied upon his winnings to pay his way.
How, then, did he do it?
Perhaps his work as school-teacher should be assigned to this period of his life, and it is possible that some remnant of his legacy may have tided him over.
Illustrative of the rougher side of his character is the practical joke which he played upon the eminent respectabilities of Salisbury by sending cards of invitation to the Christmas ball to two notorious strumpets of the town. The unclean birds came to the ball, as per Andrew Jackson’s cards, and the uproar in the fowl-house was considerable. But Andy was a great favorite with the ladies—as “wild” young men have ever been—and he succeeded in getting rid of the disturbers and at the same time holding the admiration of the eminently respectable.
Another anecdote of the period represents him engaged with boon companions in a carousal, which lasted throughout the night and wound up with a general smashing of all the furniture in the room.
A flood of light is poured upon his standing with the “unco’ good and rigidly righteous” at this time by the exclamation of the old lady of Salisbury, who, on being told, forty years later, that Andrew Jackson was a candidate for President, cried out:
“What! Jackson up for President? Jackson? Andrew Jackson? The Jackson that used to live in Salisbury? Why, when he was here, he was such a rake that my husband would not bring him into the house! It is true, he might have taken him out to the stable to weigh horses for a race, and might drink a glass of whisky with him there. Well, if Andrew Jackson can be President, anybody can.”
From the office of Judge Spruce McCay Jackson went to that of Colonel John Stokes, where he continued his studies until he thought himself ready for admission to the Bar. In the spring of 1787 he applied for and received his license to practice law.
For a year after his admission to the Bar he appears to have lived at a village in Martinsville, N. C., where two friends of his kept a store. Tradition says that he helped them in running the business, and that he accepted a local position as constable or deputy-sheriff. At any rate, he realized soon that he was gaining no foothold in North Carolina, and he made up his mind to try his fortune in the new country beyond the mountains, where Robertson and Donelson and Sevier were planting the beginning of another state on the Cumberland.
Before we follow Jackson into Tennessee, let us pause “to take his picture.”
He was tall and slender—standing six feet and one inch in height. Carrying himself straight as a ramrod, and stepping with a quick, springing clearlift walk, he made the impression upon the observer that he was as active as a cat—lithe, sinewy, tough, and with not a lazy bone in his body.
He had a shock of red hair, and a pair of fine blue eyes, which rested unwinkingly upon one in conversation, and which blazed when he was aroused. His face was sallow, freckled, long, thin, angular, with a fighting jaw.
His bearing toward men was open, frank, confident, self-assertive.
Toward women he was deferential, most attentive and polite. Surprising as it may seem, there is no room for doubt that Andrew Jackson’s manner toward ladies was from the first, captivating to a marked degree. By the time he reached the age of eighteen he had developed a taste for good dressing. The same trait which led him to want the finest-looking horse, the richest caparison, the best pistols and guns, the best dogs and game chickens, led him to choose for himself a style of wearing apparel, both in the material and the make, which was far above the average of the backwoods.
Some of his lady friends went to the courthouse the day he was examined for admission to the Bar, and one of these has left a description of him as he then appeared.
Those who recall Albert Gallatin’s statement that Jackson, when in Congress, looked and dressed like an uncouth backwoodsman may not be able to reconcile his testimony with that of Mrs. Anne Rutherford, who says:
“He always dressed neat and tidy, and carried himself as if he was a rich man’s son.
“The day he was licensed he had on a new suit, with a broadcloth coat, ruffled shirt, and other garments in the best of fashion.”
There is no disputing about taste; and the reader is left to the conclusion that a style of dressing which appeared to be the best of fashion to a country girl of North Carolina may have seemed “irregular” to such a cosmopolitan gentleman as Gallatin.
The red breeches of Thomas Jefferson had been “the best of fashion” in Paris, but when he wore them in New York, as a member of Washington’s Cabinet, social rumblings were heard and social upheavals feared.
(To be Continued.)
