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

by Benjamin Perley Poore

Some of his descriptions were life-like, especially that of Mr. Calhoun, "tall, careworn, with fevered brow, haggard cheek, and eye intensely gazing, looking as if he were dissecting the last and newest abstraction which sprung from some metaphysician's brain, and muttering to himself, in half uttered words, 'This is indeed a crisis!'" The best word-portrait, however, was that of Senator Buchanan, whose manner and voice were humorously imitated while he was described as presenting his Democratic associates to the President. Mr. Buchanan pleasantly retorted, describing in turn a caucus of disappointed Whig Congressmen, who discussed whether it would be best to make open war upon "Captain Tyler," or to resort to strategem, and, in the elegant language of Mr. Botts, "head him, or die."

The mission to Great Britain had been tendered by President Harrison to John Sargent, a distinguished Philadelphia lawyer, who had been the candidate for Vice-President on the unsuccessful Whig ticket headed by Henry Clay in 1836. Mr. Sargent having declined, President Harrison appointed Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, who accepted and his name came before the Senate for confirmation. Mr. Everett was among the most conservative of New England politicians, but he had once, in reply to inquiries from Abolitionists, expressed the opinion that Congress had power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. When the nomination came before the Senate, it was opposed by Mr. Buchanan and Mr. King, of Alabama, and advocated by Mr. Choate and Henry Clay. Mr. King, who would have received the appointment had Mr. Everett's rejection created a vacancy, concluded a bitter speech by saying that if Mr. Everett, holding views in opposition to the South, was confirmed, the Union would be dissolved! Mr. Clay sprang to his feet, and pointing his long arm and index finger at Mr. King, said: "And I tell you, Mr. President, that if a gentleman so pre-eminently qualified for the position of Minister should be rejected by the Senate, and for the reason given by the Senator from Alabama, this Union is dissolved already."

The nomination of Mr. Everett was confirmed by a vote of twenty- three to nineteen. Every Democrat who voted, and two Southern Whigs, voted against him, and several Northern Democrats dodged, among them Pierce, of New Hampshire, Williams, of Maine, and Wright, of New York. The Southern Whigs who stood their ground for Mr. Everett were Clay, Morehead, Berrien, Clayton, Mangum, Merrick, Graham, and Rives.

A second fiscal agent bill was prepared in accordance with the President's expressed views, and he said to Mr. A. H. H. Stuart, then a Representative from Virginia, holding him by the hand: "Stuart, if you can be instrumental in getting this bill through Congress, I shall esteem you as the best friend I have on earth." An attempt was made in the Senate to amend it, which Mr. Choate, who was regarded as the mouth-piece of Daniel Webster, opposed. Mr. Clay endeavored to make him admit that some member of the Administration had inspired him to assert that if the bill was amended it would be vetoed, but Mr. Choate had examined too many witnesses to be forced into any admission that he did not choose to make. Persisting in his demand, Mr. Clay's manner and language became offensive. "Sir," said Mr. Choate, "I insist on my right to explain what I did say in my own words."

"But I want a direct answer," exclaimed Mr. Clay. "Mr. President," said Mr. Choate, "the gentleman will have to take my answer as I choose to give it to him." Here the two Senators were called to order, and both of them were requested to take their seats. The next day Mr. Clay made an explanation, which was satisfactory to Mr. Choate.

This second bank or fiscal agent bill was passed by Congress without the change of a word or a letter, yet the President vetoed it. When the veto message was received in the Senate there were some hisses in the gallery, which brought Mr. Benton to his feet. Expressing his indignation, he asked that the "ruffians" be taken into custody, and one of those who had hissed was arrested, but, on penitently expressing his regret, he was discharged. Tyler's Cabinet first learned that he intended to veto this bank bill through the columns of a New York paper, and such was their indignation that all, with the exception of Mr. Webster, resigned. Mr. Ewing, who had been appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Harrison, and who had been continued in office by Mr. Tyler, published his letter of resignation, which gave all the facts in the case. The Whig Senators and Representatives immediately met in caucus and adopted an address to the people. It was written by Mr. John P. Kennedy, of Maryland, and it set forth in temperate language the differences between them and the President, his equivocations and tergiversations, and in conclusion they repudiated the Administration.

Caleb Cushing, of Newburyport, Massachusetts, then serving his fourth term in the House, espoused the cause of President Tyler, and boldly opposed the intolerant action of his Whig associates. Years afterward Franklin Pierce told his most intimate friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, that Caleb Cushing had such mental variety and activity that he could not, if left to himself, keep hold of one view of things, but needed the influence of a more stable judgment to keep him from divergency. His fickleness was intellectual, not moral. Mr. Cushing was at that time forty-one years of age, of medium height, with intellectual features, quick-glancing dark eyes, and an unmusical voice. He spoke with ease and fluency, but his speeches read better than they sounded. His knowledge was vast and various, and his style, tempered by foreign travel, was classical. He had mastered history, politics, law, jurisprudence, moral science, and almost every other branch of knowledge, which enabled him to display an erudition as marvelous in amount as it was varied in kind.

The Southern Representatives, who had regarded Mr. Cushing with some apprehension as a possible leader of the coming struggle for the abolition of slavery, were well pleased when they saw him breaking away from his Northern friends. When an attempt was made to depose John Quincy Adams from the Chairmanship of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, because he had stood up manfully for the right of petition, the irate ex-President asserted in the House that the position had been offered to Mr. Cushing, who was also a member. This Mr. Cushing denied, but Mr. Adams, his bald head turning scarlet, exclaimed: "I had the information from the gentleman himself."

In this debate, Mr. Adams went to some length into the history of his past life, his intercourse and friendship with Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe, during their successive Presidential terms. He spoke of their confidence in himself, as manifested by the various important offices conferred upon him, alluding to important historical facts in this connection. He knew that they all abhorred slavery, and he could prove it, if it were desired, from the testimony of Jefferson, Madison, and Washington themselves. There was not an Abolitionist of the wildest character, the ex- President affirmed, but might find in the writings of Jefferson, at the time of the Declaration of Independence, and during his whole life, down to its very last year, a justification for everything their party says on the subject of slavery, and a description of the horrors of slavery greater then they had power to express.

Henry A. Wise had been Mr. Clay's instrument in securing the nomination of Mr. Tyler as Vice-President, and was the most influential adviser at the White House. He was then in the prime of his early manhood, tall, spare, and upright, with large, lustreless, gray-blue eyes, high cheek bones, a large mouth, a complexion saffron-hued, from his inordinate use of tobacco, and coarse, long hair, brushed back from his low forehead. He was brilliant in conversation, and when he addressed an audience he was the incarnation of effective eloquence. No one has ever poured forth in the Capitol of the United States such torrents of words, such erratic flights of fancy, such blasting insinuations, such solemn prayers, such blasphemous imprecations. Like Jeremiah of old, he felt the dark shadow of coming events; and he regarded the Yankees as the inevitable foes of the old Commonwealth of Virginia. He had hoped that the caucus of Whig Representatives, at the commencement of the session, would have nominated him for Speaker. But John White, of Kentucky, had received the nomination, Mr. Clay having urged his friends to vote for him, and Mr. Wise, goaded on by disappointed ambition, sought revenge by endeavoring to destroy the Whig party. He hoped to build on its ruins a new political organization composed of Whigs and of such Democrats as might be induced to enlist under the Tyler banner by a lavish distribution of the "loaves and fishes." President Tyler's vanity made it easy to secure him as a figure-head, and it was an easy task to array him in direct opposition to the Clay Whigs, when John M. Botts wrote an insulting letter, in which he recommended his political associates to "head Captain Tyler, or die."