The party battles of the Jackson period

by Claude G. Bowers

But even with a Kemble playing, the haughty little country capital refused to abandon its parties, and we have the record of a New Yorker finding “Fanny Kemble in the Washington Theater like a canary bird in a mouse trap,” leaving the theater in the midst of a performance to attend “a delightful party at Mrs. Tayloe’s,” where he “met many distinguished people and all the Washington belles.”[67] In those days the theater-goer purchased his tickets between ten and one o’clock, and the doors were thrown open at six, with the curtain rising promptly at seven. For the usual performances the boxes were seventy-five cents, the pit twenty-five. When the rain converted the streets into ribbons of sticky black mud, or the bitter cold made an invitation to the people from the “magnificent distances” unprofitable, the papers would announce a postponement, with an explanation.[68] The pleasure-seekers were not restricted, however, to the players of the Washington Theater, and occasionally a show would appear advertising “the Great Anaconda of Java,” and the “Boa Constrictor of Ceylon,” both “so docile that the most timid lady or child may view them with safety and pleasure.”[69] Such were the amusements offered for the entertainment of Jackson, Webster, Marshall, Calhoun, and Clay.

But for the men there were other forms of amusement, popular in their day. The racing on the National Course near the city made it difficult to maintain a quorum in Congress, and the statesmen mounted their horses to ride to the track to cheer their favorites and to bet their money. Even the President entered his horses and lost heavily on his wagers. There Jackson and a goodly portion of the Cabinet, and a formidable sprinkling of the leaders of the Opposition from Clay to Letcher, might be seen backing their judgment as to horseflesh with their purses. And when it was not horse-racing, it was cockfighting, with the President entering his own birds from the Hermitage, and riding with his friends to Bladensburg to witness the humiliation of his entries. It was a day of gambling, when statesmen, whose names children are now taught to reverence, played for heavy stakes for days and nights at a time, with Clay and Poindexter losing fortunes, and an occasional victim of the lure blowing out his brains. While most of the celebrities played in private houses, they could, if they preferred, find the notorious gambling-houses along the Avenue. Along with racing, cockfighting, and gambling went heavy drinking. “Since I have been here,” wrote Horace Binney, after two years in Congress, “one man, an habitual drunkard, blew out his brains; two have died notorious drunkards, and one of them shamefully immoral. The honors are given to all, with equal eulogy and ceremonial.”[70] The statesman of the Thirties who did not drink heavily was a rarity. Just as whiskey, brandy, gin, and wine were served in great decanters on the tables at hotels, “at the boarding-houses every guest had his bottle or interest in a bottle.”[71] On the way to the Capitol, the statesman could quench his thirst at numerous bars—and often did. And in the basement of the Capitol building whiskey could be had. Never in American history have so many promising careers been wrecked by drunkenness as during the third decade. Frequently national celebrities would appear upon the floor of the House or Senate in a state of intoxication, and on at least one occasion the greater part of the house was hilariously drunk.[72] Thus, despite the miry streets, the drabness and rusticity, the Washington of the Jacksonian period was easily the gayest, the most brilliant and dissipated community in the country. A penetrating observer found, in its recklessness and extravagance, a striking similarity to the spirit of the eighteenth century in England, as portrayed in Thackeray’s “Humorists,” with “laxity of morals and the coolest disregard possible.”[73] Its superior social charm was due to the fact that it was “the only place in the Union where people consider it necessary to be agreeable—where pleasing, as in the Old World, becomes a sort of business, and the enjoyments of social intercourse enter into the habitual calculations of every one.”[74] A goodly portion of the women of good society, and other sojourners, were apt to contemplate a Washington season as “a sort of annual lark,” which offered the most promising solution of the problem of a weary winter in the country. Willis explained the attractions of the country capital on the ground that “the great deficiency in all our cities, the company of highly cultivated and superior men, is here supplied.”[75] Even the supercilious and scolding Captain Marryat of England found it “an agreeable city, full of pleasant, clever people, who come here to amuse and be amused,” and he observed “much more usage du monde and Continental ease than in any other parts of the States.”[76]

After spending several crowded weeks in the social and political heart of the town, Harriet Martineau concluded that, while life there would be “dreary” to women who loved domesticity, “persons who love dissipation, who love to watch the game of politics, and those who make a study of strong minds under strong excitement, like a season in Washington.”[77] Ludicrous as it was in its incongruities, the little city bravely assumed the pose of a real capital, plumed itself on the superiority of its society, and made much of the fashions. At the crowded receptions the wondering visitor might very easily be jostled against Webster or Sam Houston, dandies like Willis or frontiersmen in boots and soiled linen, flirtatious belles and matrons, beauties and beasts. But there were many leaders of fashion who imitated the frivolities of European capitals, ordered their dresses from Paris or London, and regularly summoned coiffeurs to their homes to dress their hair for balls and receptions.[78] When Congress was in session fashionable women from every section flocked to the seat of government bringing their daughters for a Washington season. One of the resident society leaders, commenting on their coming, dolefully complained that they were “coming in such ton and expensive fashions, that the poor citizens cannot pretend to vie with them and absolutely shrink into insignificance.”[79] The shops made much of their Paris finery. Mrs. Coursault announced “to the ladies of the metropolis that she has just returned from Paris with a most splendid assortment of millinery and goods, to be seen at the store of Mrs. Lamplier on the Avenue.”[80] Mr. Palmieri advertised that he had “just received from Paris an elegant assortment of caps and pelerines direct from Mademoiselle Minette’s, the first Milliner of Paris, and a beautiful assortment of satin shoes.”[81] Another announced “French dresses for balls,” and still another, “the arrival from Paris of an elegant assortment of French jewelry.”

The daily life of the fashionable ladies of the time began with breakfast at nine, when they amused themselves by comparing the conflicting descriptions of scenes they had witnessed the day before in the “Intelligencer” and the “Globe.” By eleven they were apt to be on their way to the Capitol to enliven the solemnity of the Senate Chamber or the Supreme Court, unless a neglected call, an appointment with an artist, or an excursion interfered. Dinner was served from four to six, and soon afterwards milady retired to her boudoir to dress for some ball, rout, levee, or masquerade. Long drives through the mud—late hours with the breaking dawn greeting her return—and the weary lady would relax and warm awhile at the drawing-room fire before retiring for the night.[82] Contrary to the popular belief, there was much social brilliance during the Jackson Administrations. Nor is the prevailing impression that all the elegance, cleverness, and charm was confined to the drawing-rooms of the Whig aristocracy borne out by the facts. In truth, among the women of the Jacksonian circle there were two or three who were easily superior to the best the Whigs could offer, in intellect, culture, and beauty. Such was the bigotry of the times that there was a tendency for society to segregate into camps, but it was impossible to draw the party line on a number of the fascinating and brilliant women who presided over the households of Jacksonian Senators and Cabinet Ministers. While the Whigs generally remained severely aloof from the house of the President, they were unable to resist the invitations of the President’s friends.

Among all the women of the period none approached Mrs. Edward Livingston in brilliance, charm, and elegance, nor did any of the ladies of the Whig circle, not even Mrs. Tayloe, who wondered if Miss Martineau’s novels were “pretty,” approach her in the lavishness and taste of her dinners and parties. “Mrs. Livingston takes the lead in the fashionable world,” wrote Mrs. Smith, who found it hard to concede the virtues of the Jacksonians.[83] “I know that Mr. Livingston gives elegant dinners and his wines are the best in the city,” recorded a press correspondent of the time.[84] “We dined by invitation with Mr. Secretary Livingston,” wrote Justice Story, an enemy of the Jacksonians. “The dinner was superb and unequalled by anything I have seen in Washington except at some of the foreign ministers’, and was served exclusively in the French style.”[85] This captivating woman, of French descent, had known a childhood of romance in a marble palace by the sea in St. Domingo, had miraculously escaped the servile insurrection, and reached New Orleans to become the wife of Livingston. Wonderfully vivacious, eloquent in conversation, intelligently interested in politics, steeped in the literature of the ages, witty and spirited, her home in Lafayette Square more nearly resembled a salon than anything the capital has ever known. Even the most bigoted Whigs of the day were glad to lay aside their partisanship at her threshold, and leaders, still flushed with a verbal duel in the Senate, smiled amicably upon each other in her drawing-room. Here one might meet John Marshall, Joseph Story, and Bushrod Washington of the Supreme Court, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Wirt, or Randolph. About her, too, she gathered a coterie of cultured women, and Mrs. John Quincy Adams and Mrs. Andrew Stevenson came and went in the house on the Square with as little ceremony as members of the household. The charm of the house was enhanced by the exquisite Cora, the daughter, who reigned as the belle and toast of the town until her marriage, captivating, among others, the impressionable young Josiah Quincy, who thought her “undoubtedly the greatest belle in the U.S.,” and, if not “transcendently handsome,” possessed of a “fine figure, a pretty face.” Finding it “the height of the ton to be her admirer,” the young Bostonian followed the fashion with all his heart.[86]

Intimately identified with Mrs. Livingston was Mrs. Stevenson, to whom the years had been kind since the days when, as Sally Coles, she was a protégée of Dolly Madison.[87] At this time she was the wife of the Jacksonian Speaker of the House, soon to become the hostess of the American Legation in London, and to witness, in that rôle, the coronation of Victoria. Strikingly handsome, tall and commanding, she resembled her friend in an ineffable graciousness of manner and an extraordinary conversational ability. Among the most famous hostesses of the Jacksonian circle were Mrs. Louis McLane, “a gay, frank, communicative woman” whose “self-complacence is united with so much good humor in others that it is not offensive,” who gave popular weekly dinners and parties;[88] Mrs. Levi Woodbury, beautiful of form and feature, who resembled Dolly Madison in her suavity, ease of manner, and infinite tact, and presided over her many dinners and dances with dignity and grace, and made a practice of featuring the most dashing belles of Baltimore, Alexandria, and Georgetown;[89] and Mrs. John Forsyth, more conventional and retiring than the others, but yielding to none in culture and elegance, and having a certain advantage in her “group of graces.”[90] Among the hostesses of the Opposition, Mrs. Benjamin Ogle Tayloe, a woman of grace and beauty, but lacking in the intellectual sparkle of Mrs. Livingston, maintained the most elegant establishment.

But these were only the most brilliant leaders, for the Jacksonian period was one of hectic social activity, with foreign ministers and Cabinet members entertaining constantly and lavishly, and the official underlings desperately bent on a ruinous and riotous imitation. It was a day of much pretense and pose, of ceremonious intercourse, and it was not easy to determine from the swallow-tails and the buff waistcoats whether the wearer were a Senator or a clerk.[91] It was a conversational period, and seldom has the American capital contained at one time so many excellent talkers. Nor was the talk mere chat and gossip. Even the women, especially from the South, were clever conversationalists, able keenly to discuss the politics of the day and the measures of the hour.[92] Even the busiest and greatest party leaders had the time and inclination for calls on bright women when they could enjoy the Johnsonian luxury of having their talk out. We have a picture of Clay “sitting upright on the sofa, with a snuff box ever in his hand,” discoursing “for many hours in his even, soft, deliberative tone”; of Webster, “leaning back at his ease, telling stories, cracking jokes, shaking the sofa with burst after burst of laughter, or smoothly discoursing to the perfect felicity of the logical part of one’s constitution”; of Calhoun, the “cast iron man,” who “looked as if he had never been born,” no longer capable of mental relaxation, meeting men and haranguing them by the fireside as in the Senate; of Justice Story, talking gushingly for hours, “his face all the while, notwithstanding his gray hair, showing all the nobility and ingenuousness of a child’s.”[93] The talk about the firesides and at the receptions, that were given over entirely to conversation, was by no means confined to art, eloquence, and poetry, for the Mother Grundys of gossip were numerous among the women seeking to amuse and be amused. There were personalities as well as personages in the years that Jackson directed a triumphant party and Clay led a brilliant and militant opposition.[94] The little town of twenty thousand was not so large that the ladies could not know, from observation or deduction, when Adams dined with Calhoun, when Webster called on Mrs. Livingston, and what Mrs. Tayloe served her guests at her last reception.

“Did you have candied oranges at Mrs. Woodbury’s?” asked a lady who had dined with Mrs. Cass, of a friend who had dined with the wife of the Secretary of the Navy.

“No.”

“Then they had candied oranges at the Attorney-General’s,” was the deduction.