Perley's reminiscences of sixty years in the national metropolis, v. 1-2

by Benjamin Perley Poore

The prime mover of the Senate of that day was Martin Van Buren, of New York, who was beginning to reap the reward of years of subservient intrigues. Making the friends of Calhoun and of Crawford believe that they had each been badly treated by the alliance between Adams and Clay, he united them in the support of General Jackson, and yet no one suspected him. When Mr. Van Buren had first been elected to Congress, Rufus King, of his State, had said to G. F. Mercer, also a member, "Within two weeks Van Buren will become perfectly acquainted with the views and feelings of every member, yet no man will know his."

This prediction was verified, and Mr. Van Buren soon became the directing spirit among the friends of General Jackson, although no one was ever able to quote his views. Taking Aaron Burr as his political model, but leading an irreproachable private life, he rose by his ability to plan and execute with consummate skill the most difficult political intrigues. He was rather under the medium height, with a high forehead, a quick eye, and pleasing features. He made attitude and deportment a study, and when, on his leaving the Senate, his household furniture was sold at auction it was noticed that the carpet before a large looking-glass in his study was worn and threadbare. It was there that he had rehearsed his speeches.

The "Father of the Senate" was Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, who had served in the ranks during the Revolution, and then in the Senate of North Carolina. He was elected to the Second Congress, taking his seat in October, 1791, and after having been re-elected eleven times, generally without opposition, he was transferred to the Senate in 1815, and re-elected until he declined in 1828, making thirty-seven years of continuous Congressional service. At the very commencement of his Congressional career he energetically opposed the financial schemes of Alexander Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, and throughout his political career he was a "strict, severe, and stringent" Democrat. Personally Mr. Macon was a genial companion. He had none of that moroseness at the fireside which often accompanies political distinction, and it was said that at his home he was the kindest and most beloved of slave- masters.

Colonel Thomas Hart Benton, who had earned the military title in the army during the war with Great Britain, was a large, heavily framed man, with black curly hair and whiskers, prominent features, and a stentorian voice. He wore the high, black-silk neck-stock and the double-breasted frock-coat of his youthful times during his thirty years' career in the Senate, varying with the seasons the materials of which his pantaloons were made, but never the fashion in which they were cut. When in debate, outraging every customary propriety of language, he would rush forward with blunt fury upon every obstacle, like the huge, wild buffaloes then ranging the prairies of his adopted State, whose paths, he used to subsequently assert, would show the way through the passes of the Rocky Mountains. He was not a popular speaker, and when he took the floor occupants of the galleries invariably began to leave, while many Senators devoted themselves to their correspondence. In private life Colonel Benton was gentleness and domestic affection personified, and a desire to have his children profit by the superior advantages for their education in the District of Columbia kept him from his constituents in Missouri, where a new generation of voters grew up who did not know him and who would not follow his political lead, while he was ignorant of their views on the question of slavery.

Senator Randolph, of Virginia, attracted the most attention on the part of strangers. He was at least six feet in height, with long limbs, an ill-proportioned body, and a small, round head. Claiming descent from Pocahontas, he wore his coarse, black hair long, parted in the middle, and combed down on either side of his sallow face. His small, black eyes were expressive in their rapid glances, especially when he was engaged in debate, and his high-toned and thin voice would ring through the Senate Chamber like the shrill scream of an angry vixen. He generally wore a full suit of heavy, drab-colored English broadcloth, the high, rolling collar of his surtout coat almost concealing his head, while the skirts hung in voluminous folds about his knee-breeches and the white leather tops of his boots. He used to enter the Senate Chamber wearing a pair of silver spurs, carrying a heavy riding-whip, and followed by a favorite hound, which crouched beneath his desk. He wrote, and occasionally spoke, in riding-gloves, and it was his favorite gesture to point the long index finger of his right hand at his opponent as he hurled forth tropes and figures of speech at him. Every ten or fifteen minutes, while he occupied the floor, he would exclaim in a low voice, "Tims, more porter!" and the assistant doorkeeper would hand him a foaming tumbler of potent malt liquor, which he would hurriedly drink, and then proceed with his remarks, often thus drinking three or four quarts in an afternoon. He was not choice in his selection of epithets, and as Mr. Calhoun took the ground that he did not have the power to call a Senator to order, the irate Virginian pronounced President Adams "a traitor," Daniel Webster "a vile slanderer," John Holmes "a dangerous fool," and Edward Livingston "the most contemptible and degraded of beings, whom no man ought to touch, unless with a pair of tongs." One day, while he was speaking with great freedom of abuse of Mr. Webster, then a member of the House, a Senator informed him in an undertone that Mrs. Webster was in the gallery. He had not the delicacy to desist, however, until he had fully emptied the vials of his wrath. Then he set upon Mr. Speaker Taylor, and after abusing him soundly he turned sarcastically to the gentleman who had informed him of Mrs. Webster's presence, and asked, "Is Mrs. Taylor present also?"

Henry Clay was frequently the object of Mr. Randolph's denunciations, which he bore patiently until the "Lord of Roanoke" spoke, one day, of the reported alliance between the President and the Secretary of State as the "coalition of Bilfil and Black George—the combination, unheard of till then, of the Puritan and the blackleg." Mr. Clay at once wrote to know whether he had intended to call him a political gambler, or to attach the infamy of such epithets to his private life. Mr. Randolph declined to give any explanation, and a duel was fought without bloodshed.

Mr. Randolph, on another occasion, deliberately insulted Mr. James Lloyd, one of "the solid men of Boston," then a Senator from Massachusetts, who had, in accordance with the custom, introduced upon the floor of the Senate one of his constituents, Major Benjamin Russell, the editor of the Columbian Sentinel. The sight of a Federal editor aroused Mr. Randolph's anger, and he at once insolently demanded that the floor of the Senate be cleared, forcing Major Russell to retire. Mr. Lloyd took the first opportunity to express his opinion of this gratuitous insult, and declared, in very forcible language, that, as he had introduced Major Russell on the floor, he was responsible therefor. Mr. Randolph indulged in a little gasconade, in which he announced that his carriage was waiting at the door to convey him to Baltimore, and at the conclusion of his remarks he left the Senate Chamber and the city. Mr. Calhoun, who had not attempted to check Mr. Randolph, lamented from the chair that anything should have happened to mar the harmony of the Senate, and again declared that he had not power to call a Senator to order, nor would he for ten thousand worlds look like a usurper.

Senator Tazewell, Mr. Randolph's colleague, was a first-class Virginia abstractionist and an avowed hater of New England. Dining one day at the White House, he provoked the President by offensively asserting that he had "never known a Unitarian who did not believe in the sea-serpent." Soon afterward Mr. Tazewell spoke of the different kinds of wines, and declared that Tokay and Rhenish wine were alike in taste. "Sir," said Mr. Adams, "I do not believe that you ever drank a drop of Tokay in your life." For this remark the President subsequently sent an apology to Mr. Tazewell, but the Virginia Senator never forgot or forgave the remark.

William Henry Harrison, a tall, spare, gray-haired gentleman, who had gone from his Virginia home into the Western wilderness as aid- de-camp to General Anthony Wayne, had been elected a Senator from the State of Ohio, but probably never dreamed that in years to come he would be elected President by an immense majority, with John Tyler on the ticket as Vice-President. Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, had, however, begun to electioneer for the Democratic nomination for the Vice-Presidency, basing his claim upon his having shot Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames, and he was finally successful. He was of medium size, with large features, and light auburn hair, and his private life was attacked without mercy by his political opponents.

John Henry Eaton, of Tennessee, was General Jackson's henchman, who had come to the Senate that he might better electioneer for his old friend and commander. William Hendricks, a Senator from Indiana, was the uncle of Thomas A. Hendricks, of a subsequent political generation. The New Hampshire Senators were Levi Woodbury and John Bell, men of decided ability and moral worth. Georgia supplied a polished and effective orator in J. McPherson Berrien. Vermont was represented by portly and good-looking Dudley Chase, who was the uncle of Chief Justice Chase, and by Horatio Seymour, of Middlebury. Maine's stalwart, blue-eyed Senator, Albion Keith Parris, was said to have filled more public offices than any other man of his age, and his colleague, John Holmes, although rude in speech and at times vulgar, was the humorous champion of the North. Ever on the watch for some unguarded expression by a Southern Senator, no sooner would one be uttered than he would pounce upon it and place the speaker in a most uncomfortable position. John Tyler one day thought that he could annoy Mr. Holmes, and asked him what had become of that political firm once mentioned in debate by John Randolph as "James Madison, Felix Grundy, John Holmes, and the Devil." Mr. Holmes rose at once. "I will tell the gentleman," said he, "what has become of the firm. The first member is dead, the second has gone into retirement, the third now addresses you, and the last has gone over to the Nullifiers, and is now electioneering among the gentleman's constituents. So the partnership is legally dissolved."