Livingston the Nationalist.
Cass, the Empire-Builder.
Taney, the Crusader.
Out of the career of any one of these might be woven a romance. All were of heroic mould, veritable Plutarchian figures. And we shall see that the time had arrived when Jackson would need the wisest and most courageous of counselors—for Henry Clay was returning in shining armor to lead the bitterest of partisan battles against the Administration.
CHAPTER VI
KITCHEN CABINET PORTRAITS
I
From the beginning the virile, militant, driving factors behind Jackson’s policies were found outside his official family. The “Kitchen Cabinet,” so called in derision, was more influential in the moulding of events than the old-fashioned, conventional statesmen who advised their chief in the seclusion of the Cabinet room. Had Jackson depended wholly on his Cabinet for the support of his policies, he would have been constantly confused by divided counsels. On scarcely any of the vital issues of his Presidency did he have the hearty coöperation of his constitutional advisers. But never before, nor since, has any President been served by such tireless organizers of the people, such masters of mass psychology, such geniuses in the art of publicity and propaganda. These men, the small but loyal and sleepless group of the Kitchen Cabinet, were the first of America’s great practical politicians.
Of this group the master mind was Amos Kendall, born in a New England farmhouse in the latter days of the eighteenth century. In youth, he preferred study to play, and because of a premature solemnity he was familiarly known as “The Deacon.” His timidity was as painful as that which tortured Charlotte Brontë. The stupid act of a teacher in ridiculing his reading of an oration came near putting a period to his education, and at Dartmouth he was almost moved to tears by professorial praise of one of his essays. His college days were so serious and laborious that his health suffered, and his constitution was impaired. He played no pranks and had no dissipations. Taking his politics seriously, the overwhelming preponderance of Federalists did not restrain him from
