After breakfasting in the morning, Jackson would go to his office, on the second floor, and, lighting his pipe, would settle down to the routine work of the day. Bookshelves lined the room. Busts of the President, the work of various sculptors, and a number of portraits, all by Earle, looked upon the original from shelves and tables. There flocked the politicians, Lewis with a report, Blair with a leader, Kendall with a programme. There he planned and fought his battles with the politicians, but when evening came he looked forward to the joys of domesticity, or the diversions of the company of women upon whom he looked “with the most romantic, pure, and poetic devotion.”[946] The accomplished Mrs. Livingston would enliven him with her vivacious conversation on all manner of topics, her daughter Cora would delight him with her animation and wit, and his eyes would fill when Mrs. Philip Hamilton, daughter of McLane, responded to his never-failing invitation to play and sing his favorite song from Burns. Mrs. McLane, an attractive and entertaining chatterbox, with interested motives for attempting to fascinate the old warrior, was always a welcome diversion, and Mrs. Rives, the stately wife of the Virginia Senator; Mrs. Macomb, wife of the General; and Sallie Coles Stevenson, who resembled Mrs. Livingston in intelligence and tact, were frequent guests. These had given to the White House something of the charm of the Hermitage; but at times, in the bitterness of the continual struggle, when the old man grew weary of the bauble of power, and felt his faith in mankind slipping, and homesickness for the Hermitage possessing him, he had often laid aside the cares of state, turned his back upon the scene of his struggle and the house of his triumphs, and walked across the Avenue to the home of the Blairs, where he knew he could find a haven of rest. There he knew he could appear, not as the head of the State, but as Andrew Jackson of the Hermitage. It became his second home. There he could forget his enemies, and, in the homey atmosphere of a house pervaded by the personality of a sincere and unaffected woman, he could revive his fainting spirits.
But he was surfeited with triumphs, and the Hermitage called him home to the tomb of Rachel. The twilight was closing in upon him. He knew it was time to go.
V
The dawn of inauguration day found him so ill and debilitated that he should have remained in bed, but the soldier spirit of the man refused to yield to the promptings of the flesh. He was up early, doing his full part. The day was ideal—as Van Buren had promised Clay. The clear sky, the bright, cheery sunshine, the balmy air could not have been better ordered for the distinguished invalid. A great throng stretched back from the east front of the Capitol to witness the historic scene, and the eastern windows were packed with the more favored spectators. It was plainly to be seen from the attitude of the multitude that the real reverence and enthusiasm was for the leader whose race was run, rather than for his successor. “For once,” observed Benton, “the rising was eclipsed by the setting sun.” The old man, feeble and bowed, sat listening to the inaugural address of the man he had elevated to the highest office in the world. Van Buren concluded. Jackson rose and began slowly to descend the steps of the portico to his carriage which was waiting to convey him back to the White House. At that moment, the pent-up feelings of the crowd burst forth in cheers and acclamations. “It was the acclaim of posterity breaking from the bosom of contemporaries,” wrote Benton. The old man, deeply touched to tenderness and humility, acknowledged his appreciation by mute signs. From one of the upper windows a rough fighting man witnessed the scene with an emotion he had never felt before. From thence, Benton looked down upon the close of a memorable “reign,” of which he was to become the historian as he had been its defender.
That night Jackson slept as usual in the White House as the guest of President Van Buren, who insisted that he remain in his old quarters until in May or June the trip back to the Hermitage could be made in greater comfort, but the journey held no terrors for the homesick statesman. The following afternoon he walked across the Avenue to the home of Frank Blair for a final visit with the family within whose bosom he had passed many joyous hours during the eight years of storm and stress. A little later, Benton called with William Allen, then Senator from Ohio, and for many years the world knew nothing of the nature of that final conference. Benton himself was mysteriously silent, nor did he furnish any enlightenment in his great history of the “Thirty Years.” But long after most of the participants in the politics of that day were mouldering in the grave, Blair and Allen told the story to one of the President’s biographers. Jackson talked, and the others listened. He told them of his two principal regrets—that he had never had an opportunity to shoot Clay or to hang Calhoun. He had no regrets because of his crushing of the Bank, nor because of his encouragement of the spoils system. But he left office feeling that his work would have been more nearly completed if Texas had been annexed and the Oregon boundary dispute had been settled at fifty-four-forty. To his loyal supporters he left one admonition that afternoon:
“Of all things, never once take your eyes off Texas, and never let go of fifty-four-forty.”
The following day witnessed his departure. He took with him the picture of Rachel which had been upon his desk through his eight years of trial, her Bible, to which he had been devoted, her protégé Earle, the artist, who was to remain with him at the Hermitage, and to be buried in its peaceful shade.
Thus ended the reign of Andrew Jackson.
THE END