“What ails your heart?” he asked.
“Can it be otherwise than sad when I think what a good friend I am about to lose?”
For a moment he held her hand without speaking, his eyes “filled with tears.”
“We must not think of this or talk of such things now,” he said. And with that he relinquished her hand, “drew out his handkerchief, turned away his head and wiped his eyes, then pushed into the crowd and talked and smiled as if his heart were light and easy.”[121]
On February 25th this lady made another poignant note: “Mr. Clay’s furniture is to be sold this week.”
Thus the old régime died hard, and in bitterness.
III
But “The King is dead—long live the King”—was the mood of the strange crowds in the streets of the capital—unusual creatures from the out-of-the-way places to whom the city was not accustomed. Never before had the inaugural ceremonies attracted the people of the farms and the villages, from every nook and corner. Long before the 4th of March the city swarmed with all sorts and conditions, the rustic, the rural politician, the adventurer, along with politicians of influence and repute. They overflowed the city, filled all the hotels and rooming-houses, spread out to Georgetown, descended on Alexandria.[122] Webster, writing to his brother toward the close of February, said: “I have never seen such a crowd before. Persons have come five hundred miles to see General Jackson, and they really seem to think that the country has been rescued from some dreadful danger.”[123] What they really thought was that they had come into their own. They hastened to “their capital,” to witness the inauguration of “their President,” and, in many instances, in the hope of entering into their reward.
Out of the maze of incomprehensible contradictions, we may gather that Jackson disappointed many of the faithful, who had planned a spectacular entrance to the capital, by entering quietly and unannounced in the early morning. Elaborate preparations had been made, a pompous reception committee of the socially elect and politically pure had been organized, headed by John P. Van Ness, the dean of society and husband of the exquisite Marcia Burns, and plans had been perfected for leading a great throng into the country to meet and escort him to the accompaniment of gun fire into the city. Reaching the capital four hours before he was expected,[124] he went directly to Gadsby’s where he took lodging.[125]
But the committee was not to be wholly deprived of its prerogatives. The moment the news reached it and the crowds, the celebration began. “I hear cannon firing, drums beating, and hurrahing. I really cannot write, so adieu for the present,” wrote Mrs. Smith. The mob surged down the Avenue to the hostelry famous for its whiskey, brandy, game, and the imposing ceremony of the host, packed the streets and fought for the privilege of entering and shaking the hand of the man of the hour. From the moment of his arrival until he took the oath of office he was accessible to the most humble and obscure. Importuned and petitioned by ambitious politicians, the old man courteously heard them all, to the last man, and, according to all contemporaries, kept his own counsel as to prospective appointments. Even as late as March 2d, the observant Webster wrote his brother that the President-to-be was close-mouthed, and predicted that there would be few removals.[126] The crafty Isaac Hill, of the “New Hampshire Patriot,” had arrived early upon the scene, and we are indebted to him for a side-light on Jackson’s methods and mood, and the scenes about the hotel. Almost daily this persistent aspirant for place wormed his way into the presence of the source of all patronage. Jackson was cordial, remembered, quoted, laughed about witticisms in Hill’s paper during the campaign, but said “little about the future except in a general way.” There was cruel hilarity in that crowded room at Gadsby’s over the maneuvers of the office-holders to retain their places. A “funny story” was told of Wirt writing to Monroe “soliciting his influence with the General to keep him on the pay roll.”[127] An old translator of twenty years’ experience in the State Department had, in conversation, expressed a curiosity to know where a Democrat could be found to translate diplomatic French, and this was jokingly related to Jackson. “Oh, just tell him,” said the General, “that if necessary I can bring Planche’s whole Creole Battalion up here. Those French fellows, you know, who helped to defend New Orleans against the Red Coats that had just made all the translators here take to the woods for their lives.” This flare of spirit gratified and encouraged the spoilsmen. “Good, wasn’t it?” Hill wrote to his assistant in Concord. “Besides his courage and truth, Old Hickory has a fund of humor in his make-up, but most of his sallies, like the above, are likely to be a little bit cruel.”