On the following day Wirt, having moved to Gadsby’s, was there informed by Adams that he had received the correspondence, but “that Mr. Calhoun had withheld two important papers; one, the letter from General Jackson to Mr. Monroe of Jan. 6, 1818, and the other, Crawford’s last letter to Calhoun, which, he sent me word, he had returned to Crawford.”[280] A few days later a Dr. Hunt called upon Adams, “more full of politics and personalities than of physic,” with the announcement that “Mr. Calhoun’s pamphlet is to be published to-morrow morning.”[281]
To Adams the issue was clear—a battle between Calhoun and Van Buren for the Presidency. The next day this pamphlet, bearing the elaborate title, “Correspondence between General Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun, President and Vice-President of the United States, on the Subject of the Course of the latter in the deliberations of the Cabinet of Mr. Monroe on the Occurrences in the Seminole War,” was published at midnight by Duff Green in the “National Telegraph.” “In my walk about the Capitol Square,” writes Adams, “I met E. Everett, R. G. Amory, E. Wyer, and Matthew L. Davis, all of whom, with the exception of Wyer, spoke of the pamphlet. I received a copy of it under cover from Mr. Calhoun himself.”[282]
Then the war opened in earnest. The “Telegraph” favorably commented upon the pamphlet, and the “Globe” unfavorably. Adams found that “the effect of Mr. Calhoun’s pamphlet is yet scarcely perceptible in Congress, still less upon public opinion,” and that, while the Administration was at war with itself, “the stream of popularity runs almost as strongly in its favor as ever.”[283] Not content with the pamphlet alone, the “National Telegraph” followed it with Crawford’s letter to Calhoun, and another of Forsyth’s, and Adams observed with interest that “in all this correspondence Van Buren is not seen; but James A. Hamilton, intimately connected with him, is a busy intermeddler throughout.”[284] This notation was in line with the gossip of the capital at the time of the controversy.
A little more than a week after the appearance of the pamphlet, Calhoun published his correspondence with Hamilton in the “Telegraph,” and Duff Green, in the same issue, editorially charged Van Buren with responsibility for the rumpus. And this was met on the following day by the latter in a letter to the paper positively denying any interest in the controversy, or any knowledge of Hamilton’s correspondence with Forsyth or Calhoun. Green responded by writing Van Buren down as a liar.[285] Thus the controversy raged, drawing politicians, one after another, into the fight. But in this fearsome medley of charges and counter-charges one fact stood out—that Calhoun had misrepresented his conduct in the Monroe Cabinet to Jackson, and, on being betrayed by Crawford, had incurred the deadly enmity of the President. As far as Jackson was concerned in the public controversy, the matter rested with Calhoun’s initial letter of admission that he had opposed Jackson’s course in the war. He prepared an elaborate statement of the facts for the purposes of history, turned it over to the editor of the “Globe,” who became his literary executor, and he, in turn, permitted Kendall to study it when he was planning a biography of the President.[286] But of all this the public knew nothing.
The inevitable storm had broken. Van Buren, suavely in the background, was clearly the beneficiary, Calhoun just as clearly the victim. After this the great Carolinian lost interest in the Presidency, all concern with party, and henceforth, with occasional attacks on Jackson, concentrated on sectionalism and slavery. His disaffection was to carry with it that of his more ardent supporters, and thus in scarcely more than a year Calhoun, Tyler, Tazewell, and the men who looked to them for guidance, passed from the Administration camp to join the Opposition. And the incident had one immediate effect—inseparable from it—the disruption of the Cabinet with the eradication of the last vestige of Calhoun influence from all the executive branches of the Government.
CHAPTER V
MRS. EATON DEMOLISHES THE CABINET
I
At the time the politicians were discussing the open rupture with Calhoun, two horsemen might have been seen riding slowly through Georgetown, and out on the Tenallytown road, engaged in earnest conversation. It was not a novelty, however, to the people of the ancient river town, for this had long been a favorite route of Jackson and Van Buren on their daily rides. On this occasion Jackson had been discussing the painful lack of harmony in his Cabinet and had expressed the hope that his troubles were about over.
“No, General,” said Van Buren, a little nervously, “there is but one thing that will give you peace.”
“What is that, sir?” snapped the grim one.