'Short,' asked a gentleman, of one of these humble listeners, 'how did you like the President's speech?'
'I always likes the President's speeches, Sir, but I don't think this one of his happiest efforts. I prefers him, Sir, before a jury. He can beat any man in Virginia, before a jury,' was the reply.
The President's love for Virginia is truly worthy of a mother, whose 'jewels are her children.' He delights in telling anecdotes of his early days, in Virginia; and he always has the most cordial greeting for his old Virginia friends, however humble they may be, when they call to see him. How is such and such a one? he will inquire, from the humblest laborer on a farm, up to the highest dignitary of the State.
President Tyler is a man of very unsuspicious nature, and there is no morbidity of feeling in him. He is always cheerful and natural. In the midst of great difficulties of state, when the Cabinet have held protracted meetings, and when, doubtless, there were differences of opinion among them; when the Secretary of State, with his beetling brows and cavernous eyes, passed by alone, absorbed in his own thoughts; when Mr. Spencer's quick step lost some of its elasticity, and the frank and firm Kentuckian, at the head of the Post Office Department, wore an anxious look; and the Attorney-General forgot, for a moment, his courteous salutation to a friendly passer-by; when that true statesman of the old Virginia school, Judge Upshur, seemed involved in what those who have not the mind to comprehend him, call 'abstractions;' and when Mr. Forward looked as if the cares of the Church, as well as those of the Treasury were resting on his shoulders; the President would pass from their midst to his family circle, assembled for dinner, greet most cordially, and apparently without a care, whatever person might chance to be their guest, and mix in the cheerful chat around him, as if he had no thought but the wish to promote it.
The President is a statesman with no secret opinions. He speaks out plainly whatever he thinks; and he listens respectfully, nay, kindly, to the adverse opinions of others, without the least spirit of dictation.
He is not the least of a formalist. If he has a guest, whom he asks to take a glass of wine with him, he will himself search for the keys of the side-board, if the servant happens to be absent, produce the decanters and glasses himself, and tell some pleasant story the while. When he talks of men, he speaks of their worth, and seldom of their wealth. With his purse he is too open, and too often he bestows more than his means warrant, upon some needy applicant, for whom he can find no office, or whom he may think unfitted for one.
For the President his family have the most unbounded love. The only restraint they know, is what they think he would not approve; and their familiar talk among themselves is never checked, in the least, by his entrance; it is, on the contrary, promoted.
These little personal traits of President Tyler and his family, which might be easily extended into a volume, are offered to the readers of the Knickerbocker as being not without interest, since they illustrate the private character of the Chief Magistrate of our great Republic, and with the assurance that they are strictly true.
F.