The party battles of the Jackson period

by Claude G. Bowers

And Hone was not mistaken as to the effect of Jackson’s firmness and the Senate’s action. The money was appropriated by the Chamber with the payment contingent on an apology or explanation from Jackson. In the discussion of the appropriation measure, Jackson was roundly denounced, and ridiculed as one repudiated by his own people. Boasts were made of the ease with which France could crush the United States. “The insult from President Jackson comes from himself alone,” said M. Henri de Chabaulon. “This is more evident from the refusal of the American Congress to concur with him in it.... Suppose the United States had taken part with General Jackson, we should have had to demand satisfaction, not from him, but from the United States; ... and we should have had to ... entrust to our heroes of Navarino and Algiers the task of teaching the Americans that France knows the way to Washington as well as England.” And this insulting speech was received with applause. “When the Americans see this long sword,” exclaimed M. Ranee, “believe me, gentlemen, they would sooner touch your money than dare to touch your sword.”[853] Left to his own resources by the absence of instructions on the proviso of the measure of the Chamber, Livingston informed the Due de Broglie that an attempt to enforce the proviso would be repelled “by the undivided energy of the Nation.”[854] And four days later he left Paris, with Barton, his son-in-law, at the American Legation as Chargé d’Affaires.

From this time on to the crisis, the American Legation in Paris and the French in Washington were under Chargés d’Affaires, and strangely enough the wives of both were prime favorites of Jackson and intimates of the White House circle. The beautiful and exquisite Cora Livingston, daughter of the Minister, was long the reigning belle of the American capital. Josiah Quincy had been infatuated with her, and the story has come down of Van Buren trying to get her under the mistletoe. In the White House she had come and gone with the informality of a member of the household, and many an evening she had spent with Mrs. Donelson in one of the private rooms of the President’s house, with Jackson sitting at one side smoking his pipe. She had married Barton a short time before Livingston’s departure for Paris, and it had pleased the man of iron, with so much of tender sentiment where women were concerned, to appoint the bridegroom Secretary of the Legation that Cora might be in Paris with her mother. Enclosing his commission in a letter to “My Dear Cora,” he had asked her to “present it to him with your own hand.”

Quite as closely connected with the White House circle was Madame Pageot, known to Jackson as little Delia Lewis, daughter of one of the members of the Kitchen Cabinet. He had known her as a child in Tennessee where her father dwelt close to the Hermitage, and she had known and loved the sainted Rachel. When her engagement to Pageot was announced, Jackson had insisted that the marriage should take place in the White House, and when her first child was born and called “Andrew Jackson,” the christening had been in the President’s house. It was on this occasion when the Minister, following the form, asked the infant, “Andrew Jackson, do you renounce the Devil and all his works?” that the President with great fervor responded, “I do most indubitably,” to the delight of all.

Thus there was a touch to the closing days of the crisis that probably has no parallel in the history of diplomacy.

VI

Had the French politicians been able to witness the popular ovation accorded Livingston on his arrival in New York, they might have changed their opinion concerning Jackson’s isolation from the people. An immense crowd greeted him at the wharf, followed him to his lodgings, clamored for a speech, and thronged the City Hall at the public reception. Philip Hone, one of the Whigs who rejoiced in the demand of a foreign nation for an apology from the American President, was gravely concerned because he had returned in “a bad humor,” and might “infuse some of it into the mind of the obstinate and weak old man at the head of the Government, and so prevent an amicable arrangement.”[855] But the Whig diarist’s greatest disgust came with Livingston’s ovation at the dinner of the Corporation on July 4th, when at the conclusion of his brief speech the room rang with cries of “No explanations!” “No apology!”—dividing, as Hone records, “the echoes of the spacious dome with equally inspiring shouts of ‘Hurrah for Jackson!’”[856] At Philadelphia, en route to Washington, Livingston was the guest of honor at an equally enthusiastic dinner, and, thus acclaimed by his countrymen, he reached Washington and went into conference with Jackson, Forsyth, and Van Buren.

Calm and determined, Jackson waited patiently until in September when he proposed to press the issue to a decision. Forsyth sent instructions to Barton. If nothing indicative of a purpose to pay the indemnity had been done, the Chargé was to call upon the Due de Broglie and ask for a definite answer with the view to the regulation of his conduct. If the Minister should fix a day for the payment, Barton was to remain in Paris; otherwise he was to demand his passports because of the non-execution of the treaty. And this step was to be taken in time to permit the result to be communicated to Jackson before he prepared his Message for the opening of Congress. In the latter part of October, Barton had his audience with de Broglie, and handled himself with consummate tact and caution. With studied impudence the French Minister announced that the money would be forthcoming when an explanation or apology had been received, and a few days later, Barton sailed for the United States.

Meanwhile the Congress convened, and Jackson in his Message reported progress, soberly reviewing the course of the negotiations up to the passage of the indemnity bill by the French Chamber with its offensive proviso, and bluntly concluding that the French Government has “received all the explanation which honor and principle permitted.” He informed Congress of his final instructions to Barton and of his purpose to communicate the result when ascertained.

It was while awaiting the report of the American Chargé d’Affaires that M. Pageot received notice of his recall, and by the time he was able to sail the two nations were on the verge of war. Hone, noting the departure of the Poland bearing M. Pageot and “the odds and ends of the French Legation,” could not restrain his mirth over the prospective discomfiture of the French Chargé in bearing back to the French Court a young heir, bearing “the august name of Andrew Jackson.”[857]

When Barton reached New York, he hastened with all speed to Washington, where Livingston awaited him. It was with no little anxiety that Van Buren, Forsyth, and Livingston accompanied him to the White House. The three older men, all devoted to Jackson, and all at some time at the head of his Department of Foreign Affairs, were greatly concerned over the possible effect of the report on the thoroughly aroused President.