Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer

Transcriber's note:

The digraphs "ae" and "oe" are spelled out for clarity.

The chapter summaries in the Table of Contents are repeated in the book at the start of each chapter. At the end of each chapter is a facsimile autograph and a brief biography of the signer. The running page titles are omitted.

Vol. I, Chap. XLIII: "President's Message or" changed to "President's
Message on"

Vol. II, Chap. IX: "Lamar" changed to "Lamon"

A tabulation of the 1884 Presidential vote totals has been added.

The typographical fist is represented by the right guillamet (»).

LoC catalog number: E179.P8

[Frontispiece: perley.jpg]
Engr. by H. B. Hall's Sons, New York

[Signed] Faithfully yours,
Ben: Perley Poore

PERLEY'S REMINISCENCES OF SIXTY YEARS IN THE NATIONAL METROPOLIS

Illustrating the Wit, Humor, Genius, Eccentricities, Jealousies, Ambitions and Intrigues of the Brilliant Statesmen, Ladies, Officers, Diplomats, Lobbyists and other noted Celebrities of the World that gather at the Centre of the Nation; describing imposing Inauguration Ceremonies, Gala Day Festivities, Army Reviews, &c., &c., &c.

BY BEN: PERLEY POORE.

The Veteran Journalist, Clerk of the Senate Printing Records, Editor of the Congressional Directory, and Author of Various Works.

Illustrated.

VOL. I.
HUBBARD BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, PHILADELPHIA.
Boston, Cincinnati, Kansas City; W. A. Houghton, New York; A. W.
Stolp, Chicago; A. W. Mills, Tecumseh, Mich.; E. Holdoway & Co.,
St. Louis; L. S. Varney & Co., Minneapolis; A. L. Bancroft & Co.,
San Francisco.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by

BEN: PERLEY POORE, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

NOTICE TO BOOKSELLERS. This book is sold exclusively by subscription, all agents being strictly enjoined by contract from selling in any other way. Any evasion of this plan of sale will be a trespass upon the copyright rights of the author. HUBBARD BROS.

PREFACE.

The public favor with which the journalistic writings of the subscriber have been received prompted the publication of these volumes. Their object is to give personal details concerning prominent men and women in social and political life at the National Metropolis since he has known it. He has especially endeavored to portray those who "in Congress assembled" have enacted the laws, and those who have interpreted and enforced the provisions under which the United States has advanced, during the past sixty years, from comparative infancy into the vigor of mature manhood, and has successfully defended its own life against a vigorous attempt at its destruction.

In chronicling what has transpired within his personal recollection at the National Metropolis, he has gathered what "waifs" he has found floating on the sea of chat, in the whirlpools of gossip, or in the quiet havens of conversation. Some of these may be personal —piquantly personal, perhaps—but the mighty public has had an appetite for gossipings about prominent men and measures ever since the time when the old Athenians crowded to hear the plays of Aristophanes.

The subscriber is aware that some who write of prominent persons and political events indulge too much in sycophantic flattery, while others have their brains addled by brooding on some fancied wrong, or their minds have lost their even poise by dwelling on insane reforms or visionary projects. All this may have its use, but the subscriber has preferred to look at things in a more cheerful way, to pluck roses rather than nettles, and neither to throw filth nor to blow trumpets.

While the Republic has preserved with commendable pride the histories of her statesmen and her martial defenders, it is well that the memories of those of the gentler sex, who have from time to time taken prominent part in shaping the destinies of the nation, should also be remembered. This work will give, it is hoped, an idea of stirring events in both political and social life, of the great men and the fascinating women who have figured in Washington during the past six decades. Those who were too well acquainted with these personal details to think of recording them are fast passing away, and some account of them cannot but interest younger generations, while it will not fail to profit the older politicians, publicists, and journalists.

The great difficulty in the compilation of the "Reminiscences" has been the selection from the masses of material accumulated in diaries, autograph letters, and scrap-books containing published literary matter. To have given a connected political and social history of what has transpired at the National Metropolis during the past sixty years would have required a dozen volumes, so the most conspicuous features only have been here and there selected.

Confident of the exact truthfulness of the sketches here given, this work is presented, without apologies, to a generous public as the result of very extensive observation.

BEN: PERLEY POORE.
INDIAN HILL FARM,
Near Newburyport, Mass.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS BECOMES PRESIDENT. The Tenth Presidential Election—A Political Bargain—Election of President—A Scene in the House—Inauguration of J. Q. Adams—The Adams Administration—The Mistress of the White House—The President's Private Secretary—Social Life at the White House—President Adams' Daily Life—Henry Clay as Secretary of State—The Rival Candidates —The Death of Two Ex-Presidents.

CHAPTER II. TRAVELING IN "YE OLDEN TIME." Travel by Stage and Steamboat—Boston to Providence—The Old Town of Providence—The Long Island Sound Steamers—New York City—New York to Philadelphia—Philadelphia to Washington—Washington Hotel Life—Expenses of Living—The Metropolis of the Union—The National Capital—Works of Art—The Rotunda—Free-Masonry—The Morgan Excitement—Theatrical—Division of the Friends' Society.

CHAPTER III. JOURNALISM IN 1828. Old Georgetown—The Union Tavern—A Natal African Salute—President George Washington—Major L'Enfant—Newspaper Organs—The National Intelligencer—The National Journal—Matthew L. Davis—James Gordon Bennett—Mordecai M. Noah—Other Washington Correspondents—A Notable Briton—Gambling-Houses—Senatorial Card Playing—Social Games of Whist.

CHAPTER IV. PROMINENT SENATORS OF 1827. The Nineteenth Congress—Vice-President John C. Calhoun—Martin Van Buren—Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina—Thomas Hart Benton —Randolph, of Roanoke—Duel between Clay and Randolph—An Offended Virginian—A Future President—Prominent Senators—Senatorial Control of Society—The Dancing Assemblies—Fashionable Attire— Belles of the Period—The Code of Honor.

CHAPTER V. PROMINENT REPRESENTATIVES OF 1827. The Representatives' Hall—Admission of Ladies—Webster, of Massachusetts—Edward Everett—McDuffie, of South Carolina—Rhode Island's Bald Eagle—A Bargain Exposed—Retrenchment and Reform— Prominent Representatives—The Supreme Court—Chief Justice Marshall —Mr. Justice Washington—The Christmas Holidays.

CHAPTER VI. THE POLITICAL MACHINE. The Tenth Presidential Campaign—Election of General Jackson—Death of Mrs. Andrew Jackson—The Inauguration of "Old Hickory"—Reception at the White House—An Editorial Phalanx—The Civil Service— Disciplining a Postmaster General—A Fortunate Mail Contractor— The Sunday Mail Crusade.

CHAPTER VII. THE KITCHEN CABINET. Jackson's First Annual Message—The Kitchen Cabinet—Blair, of the Globe—Washington Newspapers and News—The First Lady-Bird of the Press—Nathaniel P. Willis—Peter Force—Social Enjoyments—Mrs. Trollope on Washington Society—Attempt to Oust a Veteran from Office—Payment of the Claims on France.

CHAPTER VIII. BATTLE OF THE GIANTS. The Great Senatorial Debate—Attack on New England—Webster's Reply to Hayne—Nullification Nipped in the Bud—Society in Jackson's Day—Mrs. General Eaton—A Chivalrous President—Theatricals—The Great Tragedian—Minor Amusements—Executive Charity—Swartwouting —The Star Spangled Banner.

CHAPTER IX. STAMPING OUT OF NULLIFICATION. Rejection of Martin Van Buren—The War against the United States Bank—Nick Biddle, of the Bank—Re-election of General Jackson— Financial Debate in the Senate—Calhoun, of South Carolina—Secession Stamped Out—Union Proclamation—The Expunging Resolution—A Senatorial Scene—An Appeal from the Chair.

CHAPTER X. PROMINENT MEN OF JACKSON'S TIME. Harry of the West—Tilt between Clay and Benton—Rebuke of a Revolutionary Hero—Apt Oratorical Illustration—Daniel Webster's Wit—An Excited Visitor—The House of Representatives—General Houston Reprimanded—Eli Moore, of New York—Churchill C. Cambreleng —Crockett, of Tennessee—Embryo Presidents—Other Distinguished Representatives—A Jackson Democrat.

CHAPTER XI. SOCIETY IN JACKSON'S TIME. The Van Ness Mansion—A Benefactress—A Popular Citizen—A Much- Talked-of Lawsuit—A Runaway Nun—General Jackson's Diplomacy— Washington Society—Anecdotes told by Mr. Clay—Maelzel's Automata —Condemned Literature.

CHAPTER XII. JACKSON AND HIS ASSOCIATES. Democratic Rejoicing—Attempt at Assassination—The Political Guillotine—The Vicar of Bray—Daniel Webster's Memory—Bayard, of Delaware—The Claytons—Pearce, of Maryland—The Classical and the Vernacular—Boulanger's—Location of the New Treasury Building— Hackett, the Comedian—A Jealous Artist—Sumner's First Visit to Washington—The Supreme Court and its Justices.

CHAPTER XIII. JACKSON'S LAST YEAR IN THE WHITE HOUSE. Van Buren as Vice-President—Henry Clay as Champion of the Bank— Washington's Ceremonial Birthday—Removal of His Remains—The Decapitation of General Jackson—The President at the Race-Track— An Old-Time Cock Fight—Wedding at Arlington—The Public Gardener —Miss Fanny Kemble—Cheese Reception at the White House.

CHAPTER XIV. VAN BUREN'S STORMY ADMINISTRATION. Inauguration of Van Buren—His First Reception—Departure of Jackson for the Hermitage—Van Buren's Embarrassments—The Great Financial Debate—Antagonism of Clay and Calhoun—An All Night Session— Morning Excuses—The Graves and Cilley Duel—A Congressional Comedian.

CHAPTER XV. COMMENCEMENT OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT. The Slavery Agitation—Early Secession Movements—Webster on Emancipation—His Idea of the Far West—Franklin Pierce's Position —The Foremost of Orators—Joseph Holt—King, of Alabama—The Buckshot War—Star Routes—Van Buren's Titles.

CHAPTER XVI. POLITICAL INTRIGUES AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS. Presidential Hospitalities—Social Entertainments—A Gifted Adventuress—Espy, the Weather King—A Foreign Indorsement—Van Buren's Re-election—The Ogle Speech—Van Buren's New Year's Reception.

CHAPTER XVII. LOG-CABINS AND HARD CIDER. The Harrison Campaign—Political Songs—Whig Conventions—Great Paraders—Corwin's Reply to Crary—Crary's Complete Discomfiture— The Campaign Paper—Horace Greeley—Henry Clay on the Stump—Amos Kendall—The Fall Elections—Pipe Laying—The Whigs Triumphant.

CHAPTER XVIII. ENTER WHIGS—EXIT DEMOCRATS. The Fourteenth Presidential Election—Enter Harrison—Exit Van Buren—The Harrison Cabinet—Attack upon Mr. Webster—"The Salt Boiler of the Kanawha"—The other Cabinet Officers—Harrison's Inaugural Message—The Inauguration—The Procession—Scenes at the Capitol—The Inaugural Address—President Harrison's First Reception —Inauguration Balls.

CHAPTER XIX. HARRISON'S ONE MONTH OF POWER. Civil Service Reform—Differences of Opinion—Difficulty between Clay and King—Washington Correspondents—Verbatim Reports of Debates—A Popular British Minister—Other Foreign Diplomats— Quarrelsome Carolinians—Daniel Webster's Housekeeping—Illness of President Harrison—Death—Funeral—The Last Honors.

CHAPTER XX. THE KING IS DEAD—LONG LIVE THE KING. "Le Roi Est Mort; Vive le Roi"—Extra Session of Congress—Trouble in the Whig Camp—Edward Everett before the Senate—Thurlow Weed— Dissensions among the Whigs—Cabinet Troubles—Congressional Criticisms—Cushing and Adams, of Massachusetts—Wise, of Virginia —Bagby, of Alabama.

CHAPTER XXI. DIPLOMATIC AND SOCIAL LIFE OF WEBSTER. The Ashburton Treaty—Diplomatic Negotiations—Speech by Daniel Webster—Webster's Social Life—Mr. Clay's Nightcaps—Administration Organs—Justice to John Tyler.

CHAPTER XXII. THE CAPITOL AND THE DRAWING ROOMS. A Stormy Session—John Quincy Adams at Bay—The Code of Honor—The Supreme Court—Visit of Charles Dickens—The Secretary of State's Party—A Reception at the White House—The President's Ball for Children—Diplomatic Hospitality—Ole Bull—A Troublesome Congressman.

CHAPTER XXIII. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS. The Accidental President—Virginia Hospitality—Second-Hand Style —The Pathfinder's Marriage—Baron de Bodisco, of Russia—Mr. Fox, of Great Britain—The Author of "Sweet Home"—The Daguerreotype— The Electric Telegraph—The New York Tribune—Resignation of Mr. Webster—Reconstruction of the Cabinet—Fatal Accident on the Princeton—Marriage of President Tyler.

CHAPTER XXIV. HOW TEXAS BECAME A STATE. John C. Calhoun, Secretary of State—How Tyler was Managed—Admission of Texas—Douglas, of Illinois—An Able House of Representatives— An Exciting Campaign—President Tyler's Programme—Nomination of Henry Clay—The Democratic Ticket—Surprise of George M. Dallas— The Liberty Party—Exit John Tyler.

CHAPTER XXV. PRESIDENT POLK'S ADMINISTRATION. Inauguration of Polk—His Personal Appearance—Inauguration Balls —Mrs. Polk—Secretary Buchanan—Governor Marcy, of New York— Completion of the Cabinet—The Oregon Difficulty—The Mexican War —A Change of Organist.

CHAPTER XXVI. DEATH OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Washington Society—An Old Whig Supper—Death of John Quincy Adams —Abraham Lincoln in the House—Jefferson Davis as a Representative —The Democratic Nomination—Lewis Cass, of Michigan—The Whig Convention—Daniel Webster and Henry Clay—Nomination of General Taylor—Letter of Acceptance—The Free-Soil Movement—Inception of the Great Conspiracy.

CHAPTER XXVII. MAKING THE MOST OF POWER. President Taylor and His Secretary—Selection of the Taylor Cabinet —The Taylor Family—Jefferson Davis—Inauguration Ceremonies— Office Seekers—Patronage and Spoils—The Galphin, Gardiner, and other Claims—The Taylor Administration—The White House.

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE GREAT COMPROMISE DEBATE. Stormy Scenes at the Capitol—Crimination and Recrimination—Taylor's Only Message—Return of Mr. Clay to the Senate—The Great Compromise Debate—Webster's Seventh of March Speech—The Last Days of Calhoun —Jefferson Davis' Leadership—John P. Hale, of New Hampshire.

CHAPTER XXIX. PROMINENT STATESMEN AND DIPLOMATS. Sam Houston, of Texas—Seward, of New York—Buchanan, of Pennsylvania —Agricultural Donations—Diplomatic Representatives—Social Enjoyments—Winthrop's Farewell Supper—Fatal Illness of General Taylor—Death of the President.

CHAPTER XXX. FILLMORE AT THE WHITE HOUSE. President Fillmore—Funeral of General Taylor—Webster again Secretary of State—The Compromise Measures—Mrs. Millard Fillmore —A Proud Father—The Capitol Extension—The Library of Congress— Washington Society—Public Amusements.

CHAPTER XXXI. ARRAIGNMENT OF DANIEL WEBSTER. Accusation Against Mr. Webster—The "Expounder of the Constitution" Sore at Heart—Belligerent Mississippians—Painting and Sculpture at the Capitol—Overland Explorations—A Washington Mob—A Washington Correspondent.

CHAPTER XXXII. FOREIGN INFLUENCE AND KNOW-NOTHINGISM. "Filibustering"—The Hulsemann Letter—Kossuth, of Hungary—The Know-Nothings—Boss Tweed, of New York—Butler, of South Carolina —Other Prominent Senators—Exit Clay—Enter Sumner—The Officers of the House.

CHAPTER XXXIII. PLOTTING FOR THE PRESIDENCY. President-Making—Political Intrigues—The Democratic Convention— Nomination of General Pierce—The Whig Candidates—Rivalry Between Webster and Fillmore—The Last Whig National Convention—Death of Henry Clay—General Scott as a Candidate—General Frank Pierce, of New Hampshire—Death of Daniel Webster—General Pierce Elected President.

CHAPTER XXXIV. PIERCE BECOMES PRESIDENT. Inauguration of President Pierce—Vice-President King—The Cabinet —Popularity of the New President—Pryor, of Virginia—Rare Old Wines—Peale's Portraits of Washington—Brady's Portraits—Visit of Thackeray—A Copyright Victim—Jullien's Concerts.

CHAPTER XXXV. CHIVALRY, AT HOME AND ABROAD. Executive Appointments—The Ostend Manifesto—Mr. Buchanan at London —The Kansas-Nebraska Debate—Spicy Words Between Breckinridge and Cutting—Diplomatic Card-Playing—Assistant-Secretary Thomas—The Amoskeag Veterans.

CHAPTER XXXVI. CRYSTALLIZATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. Formation of the Republican Party—The Election of Speaker—Mr. Banks Triumphant—Division of the Spoils—A Protracted Session— Assault on Horace Greeley—Territorial Delegates—The Senate—The Virginia Senators—"Hale," of New Hampshire.

CHAPTER XXXVII. POLITICAL STORM AND SOCIAL SUNRISE. Sumner, of Massachusetts—The Assault on Sumner—Troublous Times— Congressional Courtesies—Senatorial Wit—Convention of Old Soldiers —Social Routine at the White House—Society Gatherings.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. GROWTH OF THE METROPOLIS. The Crampton Difficulty—Unsuccessful French Mediation—The Diplomatic Corps—Information for Publication—Mr. Buchanan in England— Washington Hotels—The New Hall of the House.

CHAPTER XXXIX. THE NORTHERN CHAMPIONS. Fessenden, of Maine—The Sterling Claim—Social Festivities—Marriage of Judge Douglas—Congressional Scenes—Secretary of War Davis— Art and Literature—George W. Childs—J. R. Bartlett.

CHAPTER XL. EXCITING PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST. Democratic Candidates for the Presidency—James Buchanan—Stephen A. Douglas—Delegates to the Cincinnati Convention—The Struggle— The Disorganized Democracy United—Opposition Nominations—The Republican Convention—Election of Mr. Buchanan—Counting the Votes.

CHAPTER XLI. MISS LANE IN THE WHITE HOUSE. President-elect Buchanan—Miss Harriet Lane—The New Cabinet and the Message—The Newspaper Organs—Inauguration of President Buchanan —The Inauguration Ball—The Dred Scott Decision—The Minority Decision.

CHAPTER XLII. DIPLOMACY, SOCIETY, AND CIVIL SERVICE. Foreign Relations—Lord Napier, the British Minister—Sir William Gore Ouseley—Society in Washington—A Fashionable Pretender—Civil Service—Office Seeking—Choate's Handwriting—The Governors of Kansas.

CHAPTER XLIII. PRELUDE TO THE REBELLION. Organization of the Senate—John Slidell, of Louisiana—Senator Douglas Opposes the Administration—Ben Wade's Bon Mot—Meeting of the House—Election of Speaker—Investigation of the Wolcott Attempts at Bribery—Debates on the Admission of Kansas—Nocturnal Row in the House—The North Victorious.

CHAPTER XLIV. POLITICIANS, AUTHORS, AND HUMORISTS. Wade, of Ohio—Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi—Johnson, of Arkansas —Anthony, of Rhode Island—Trollope, of England—One of Mike Walsh's Jokes—Albert Pike's Wake—The Sons of Malta.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS [omitted]

LIST OF AUTOGRAPHS

ANDREW JACKSON JOHN QUINCY ADAMS WILLIAM HARRIS CRAWFORD EDWARD EVERETT HENRY CLAY JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN SILAS WRIGHT, JR. DANIEL WEBSTER THOMAS HART BENTON RICHARD MENTOR JOHNSON ALEXANDER HAMILTON STEPHENS ANDREW STEVENSON WILLIAM RUFUS KING MARTIN VAN BUREN TRISTRAM BURGESS WILLIAM LEARNED MARCY THOMAS CORWIN WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON THOMAS EWING FRANKLIN PIERCE RUFUS CHOATE FELIX GRUNDY CALEB CUSHING STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLAS JAMES KNOX POLK HENRY STUART FOOTE ZACHARY TAYLOR ROBERT CHARLES WINTHROP WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD MILLARD FILLMORE ROBERT JAMES WALKER JEFFERSON DAVIS JOHN JORDAN CRITTENDEN THADDEUS STEVENS JOHN TYLER LEWIS CASS GEORGE WASHINGTON ABBOTT LAWRENCE NATHANIEL PRENTISS BANKS WINFIELD SCOTT JOHN BUCHANAN FLOYD PETER FORCE HOWELL COBB GEORGE BANCROFT

PERLEY'S REMINISCENCES.

VOL. I.

CHAPTER I. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS BECOMES PRESIDENT.

John Quincy Adams was elected President of the United States by the House of Representatives on February 9th, 1825. At the tenth popular election for President, during the previous autumn, there had been four candidates: Andrew Jackson, then a Senator from Tennessee, who received ninety-nine electoral votes; John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, then Secretary of State under President Monroe, who received eighty-four electoral votes; William H. Crawford, of Georgia, then Secretary of the Treasury, who received forty-one electoral votes, and Henry Clay, of Kentucky, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, who received thirty-seven electoral votes—in all two hundred and sixty-one electoral votes. As neither candidate had received the requisite majority of one hundred and thirty-one electoral votes, the election of a President devolved upon the House of Representatives, in which body each State would have one vote. As the Constitution required that the choice of the House be confined to the three highest candidates on the list of those voted for by the electors, and as Mr. Clay was not one of the three, he was excluded. Exercising, as he did, great control over his supporters, it was within his power to transfer their strength to either Adams or Jackson, thus deciding the election. The Legislature of his State, Kentucky, had to a certain degree instructed him, by passing a joint resolution declaring its preference for Jackson over Adams, and Jackson always believed that had he accepted overtures made to him, for the promise of the Department of State to Mr. Clay, that would have insured his election.

Mr. Clay decided, however, to request his friends to support Mr. Adams. To one of them he wrote: "Mr. Adams, you well know, I should never have selected if at liberty to draw from the whole mass of our citizens for a President. But there is no danger of his election now or in time to come. Not so of his competitor, of whom I cannot believe that killing two thousand five hundred Englishmen at New Orleans qualifies for the various, difficult, and complicated duties of the Chief Magistracy." Many believed, however, that a bargain was made between Adams and Clay by which the latter received, as a consideration for transferring to the former the votes of Kentucky, Ohio, and Missouri, the position of Secretary of State. The charge was distinctly made by Mr. George Kremer, a Representative from Pennsylvania, and as positively denied by Mr. Clay. General Jackson wrote to Major Lewis: "So, you see, the Judas of the West has closed the contract and will receive the thirty pieces of silver. His end will be the same. Was there ever witnessed such a barefaced corruption in any country before?"

When the Senate and the House of Representatives met in joint convention to count the electoral votes it was found (as every one present had known for months) that no one had received the requisite majority. This was formally announced by Vice-President Daniel D. Tompkins, who also declared that John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, had been elected Vice-President. The Senate, headed by the Vice- President and its Secretary, Charles Cutts, then retired, and the House proceeded to ballot for President.

The election was by States. Each State delegation appointed one of their number to act as chairman, collect their votes, and report the result. Whoever in each delegation received the most votes was reported as the choice of that delegation to the tellers—one from each State—who sat in parties of twelve at two tables. Daniel Webster, the teller of Massachusetts, was appointed by the tellers at one of the tables to announce the result of the ballot, and John Randolph, the teller of Virginia, was appointed to the same service at the other table. The votes of most of the States were matters of confident calculation, but those of others were in some degree doubtful, and there was intense interest manifested as their votes were counted. At last, when the twenty-four States had voted, Mr. Webster announced, in his deep voice, that thirteen States had voted for John Quincy Adams, seven States had voted for Andrew Jackson, and four States had voted for William H. Crawford. Mr. Speaker Clay then announced, in sonorous tones: "John Quincy Adams, having received a majority of the votes cast, is duly elected President of the United States for four years, from the 4th of March next ensuing."

A shout arose from the occupants of the galleries, which Mr. McDuffie promptly asked might be cleared. The vote was carried, and a young man, who was Deputy Sergeant-at-Arms, mounting to the broad stone cornice, which ran around the hall outside of the floor of the galleries, but on a level with them, exclaimed, as he walked along: "The Speaker orders the galleries to be cleared; all must retire. Clear the galleries!" The command was obeyed, to the astonishment of some of the foreign ministers present, who had been accustomed to see armed guards at such assemblages, and often to witness their unsuccessful attempts to move the populace. The House soon afterward adjourned.

That evening President Monroe gave a public reception at the White House, which had just been rebuilt after having been burned by the British army—in 1814. The two candidates, Mr. Adams, the elect, and General Jackson, the defeated, accidentally met in the East Room. General Jackson, who was escorting a lady, promptly extended his hand, saying pleasantly: "How do you do, Mr. Adams? I give you my left hand, for the right, as you see, is devoted to the fair. I hope you are very well, sir." All this was gallantly and heartily said and done. Mr. Adams took the General's hand, and said, with chilling coldness: "Very well, sir; I hope General Jackson is well!" The military hero was genial and gracious, while the unamiable diplomat was as cold as an iceberg.

The inauguration of Mr. Adams, on the 4th of March, 1825, was the most imposing demonstration ever witnessed at Washington up to that time. President Monroe called for his successor and they rode together to the Capitol, escorted by the District uniformed militia and by a cavalcade of citizens marshaled by Daniel Carroll, of Duddington, General John Mason, General Walter Smith, and General Walter Jones, four prominent residents. On reaching the Capitol the President-elect was received with military honors by a battalion of the Marine Corps. He was then escorted by a committee of Senators to the Senate Chamber, where the oath of office was administered to the Vice-President-elect, John C. Calhoun. The dignitaries present then moved in procession to the hall of the House of Representatives, on the floor of which were the Senators and Representatives, the Supreme Court, the diplomatic corps, officers of the army and navy, and many prominent officials, while the galleries were filled with handsomely dressed ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Adams read his inaugural address from the Speaker's desk, after which the oath of office was administered to him by Chief Justice Marshall. Salutes were fired from the Navy Yard and the Arsenal, and the new President was escorted to his house, on F Street, where he that evening received his friends, for whom generous supplies of punch and wines were hospitably provided.

President Adams, although at heart instigated by a Puritan intolerance of those who had failed to conform with himself, was a true patriot, and as a public man was moved by the highest moral motives. He was a great statesman in so far as the comprehension of the principles of government and a mastery of a wide field of information were concerned, but he could not practically apply his knowledge. Instead of harmonizing the personal feuds between the friends of those who had been candidates with him, he antagonized each one with his Administration at the earliest possible moment, and before the expiration of his first year in the White House he had wrecked the Republican party left by Monroe, as completely as his father had wrecked the Federal party established by Washington.

The President, when in London, had married Miss Louisa Catherine Johnson. Her father was an American by birth, but just before the Revolution he went to England, where he resided until after the independence of the Colonies had been recognized. Mrs. Adams was well educated, highly accomplished, and well qualified to preside over the domestic affairs at the White House. She had four children —three sons and one daughter—of whom one only, Mr. Charles Francis Adams, survived her. It is related, as evidence of her good sense, that on one occasion Mrs. Mason, of Analostan Island, called, accompanied by two or three other ladies belonging to the first families of Virginia, to enlist Mrs. Adams in behalf of her son-in- law, Lieutenant Cooper (afterward Adjutant-General of the United States Army, and subsequently of the Confederate forces), who wanted to be detailed as an aide-de-camp on the staff of General Macomb. Mrs. Adams heard their request and then replied: "Truly, ladies, though Madames Maintenon and Pompadour are said to have controlled the military appointments of their times, I do not think such matters appertain to women; but if they did and I had any influence with Mr. Adams, it should be given to Mrs. Scott, with whom I became acquainted while traveling last summer." &&& Mr. Adams' private secretary was his son, John Adams, who soon made himself very obnoxious to the friends of General Jackson. One evening Mr. Russell Jarvis, who then edited the Washington Telegraph, a newspaper which advocated Jackson's election, attended a "drawing room" at the White House, escorting his wife and a party of visiting relatives from Boston. Mr. Jarvis introduced them courteously, and they then passed on into the East Room. Soon afterward they found themselves standing opposite to Mr. John Adams, who was conversing with the Rev. Mr. Stetson. "Who is that lady?" asked Mr. Stetson. "That," replied Mr. John Adams, in a tone so loud that the party heard it, "is the wife of one Russell Jarvis, and if he knew how contemptibly he is viewed in this house they would not be here." The Bostonians at once paid their respects to Mrs. Adams and withdrew, Mr. Jarvis having first ascertained from Mr. Stetson that it was Mr. John Adams who had insulted them. A few days afterward Mr. Jarvis sent a note to Mr. John Adams, demanding an explanation, by a friend of his, Mr. McLean. Mr. Adams told Mr. McLean that he had no apology to make to Mr. Jarvis, and that he wished no correspondence with him.

A week later Mr. John Adams went to the Capitol to deliver messages from the President to each house of Congress. Having delivered that addressed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, he was going through the rotunda toward the Senate Chamber, when he was overtaken by Mr. Jarvis, who pulled his nose and slapped his face. A scuffle ensued, but they were quickly parted by Mr. Dorsey, a Representative from Maryland. President Adams notified Congress in a special message of the occurrence, and the House appointed a select committee of investigation. Witnesses were examined and elaborate reports were drawn up, but neither the majority nor the minority recommended that any punishment be inflicted upon Mr. Jarvis.

Mr. John Adams was married, while his father occupied the White House, to his mother's niece, Miss Mary Hellen, of Washington. The ceremony was performed by Rev. Dr. Hawley, of St. John's Church, and General Ramsey, who was one of the groomsmen, is authority for the statement that the President, usually so grave and unsocial, unbent for the nonce, and danced at the wedding ball in a Virginia reel with great spirit.

The foreign diplomats were recognized as leaders in Washington society, and one of the Secretaries of Legation created a sensation by appearing on Pennsylvania Avenue mounted on a velocipede imported from London. Pennsylvania Avenue was then bordered with scraggy poplar trees, which had been planted under the direction of President Jefferson.

Mr. Adams found the furniture of the White House in a dilapidated condition. Thirty thousand dollars had been appropriated by Congress for the purchase of new furniture during the Administration of Mr. Monroe; but his friend, Colonel Lane, Commissioner of Public Buildings, to whom he had intrusted it, became insolvent, and died largely in debt to the Government, having used the money for the payment of his debts, instead of procuring furniture. When a appropriation of fourteen thousand dollars was made, to be expended under the direction of Mr. Adams, for furniture, he took charge of it himself. This was severely criticised by the Democratic press, as was the purchase of a billiard table for the White House, about which so much was said that Mr. John Adams finally paid the bill from his own pocket.

Mrs. Adams won popularity at Washington by the graceful manner in which she presided over the hospitalities of the White House. The stiff formalities of the "drawing-rooms" of Mrs. Washington and Mrs. John Adams, and the free-and-easy "receptions" of Mr. Jefferson's daughters, had been combined by Mrs. Madison into what she christened "levees", at which all ceremonious etiquette was banished. Mrs. Monroe, who had mingled in the fashionable circles of London and Paris, as well as of her native city of New York, had continued these evening "levees," and Mrs. Adams, in turn, not only kept up the custom, but improved the quality of the refreshments, which were handed around on waiters by servants.

Mr. Adams used to rise between four and six o'clock, according to the season, and either take a ride on horseback or walk to the Potomac River, where he bathed, remaining in the water for an hour or more in the summer. Returning to the White House, he read two chapters of the Bible and then glanced over the morning papers until nine, when he breakfasted. From ten until four he remained in the Executive Office, presiding over Cabinet meetings, receiving visitors, or considering questions of state. Then, after a long walk, or a short ride on horseback, he would sit down to dine at half-past five, and after dinner resume his public duties.

On one occasion Mr. Adams imperiled his life by attempting to cross the Potomac in a small boat, accompanied by his son John and by his steward, Michael Antoine Ginsta, who had entered his service at Amsterdam in 1814. Intending to swim back, they had taken off nearly all of their clothes, which were in the boat. When about half-way across, a gust of wind came sweeping down the Potomac, the boat filled with water, and they were forced to abandon it and swim for their lives to the Virginia Shore. By taking what garments each one had on, Antoine managed to clothe himself decently, and started across the bridge to Washington. During his absence, Mr. Adams and his son swam in the river, or walked to and fro on the shore. At last, after they had been about three hours undressed, Antoine made his appearance with a carriage and clothing, so they were able to return to Washington. Mr. Adams purchased that day a watch, which he gave Antoine to replace one which he had lost in the boat and alluded to the adventure in his journal that night as "a humiliating lesson and a solemn warning not to trifle with danger." A few weeks later a Revolutionary veteran named Shoemaker, went in to bathe at Mr. Adams' favorite spot, the Sycamores, was seized with cramp, and was drowned. The body was not recovered until the next morning while Mr. Adams was in the water; but the incident did not deter him from taking his solitary morning baths, which he regarded as indispensable to health. Mr. Adams took great interest in arboriculture, and was a constant reader of Evelyn. He had planted in the grounds of the White House the acorns of the cork-oak, black walnuts, peach, plum, and cherry stones, apple and pear seeds, and he watched their germination and growth with great interest. A botanic garden was established under his patronage, and naval officers were instructed to bring home for distribution the seeds of such grains and vegetables as it might seem desirable to naturalize. The seeds thus collected were carefully distributed through members of Congress, and several important varieties of vegetables were thus introduced. Down to the present day the yearly distribution of seeds to rural communities is an important item of Congressional duty.

Henry Clay was the premier and the most important member of Mr. Adams' cabinet. He evidently regarded the Department of State as a stepping-stone to the Executive Mansion, and hoped that he would be in time promoted, as Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams. The foreign policy of the Administration, which encouraged the appointment of a Minister to represent the United States in the Congress of American Republics at Panama, although in accordance with the "Monroe Doctrine," was denounced as Federalism. Mr. Clay, who had never been a Federalist, did not wish to be regarded as a restorer of the old Federal party, and he accordingly began to create the Whig party, of which he naturally became the leader.

Mr. Clay made a good Secretary of State, but his place was in Congress, for he was formed by nature for a popular orator. He was tall and thin, with a rather small head, and gray eyes, which peered forth less luminously than would have been expected in one possessing such eminent control of language. His nose was straight, his upper lip long, and his under jaw light. His mouth, of generous width, straight when he was silent, and curving upward at the corners as he spoke or smiled, was singularly graceful, indicating more than any other feature the elastic play of his mind. When he enchained large audiences, his features were lighted up by a winning smile, the gestures of his long arms were graceful, and the gentle accents of his mellow voice were persuasive and winning. Yet there has never been a more imperious despot in political affairs than Mr. Clay. He regarded himself as the head-centre of his party— L'état, c'est moi—and he wanted everything utilized for his advancement.

General Jackson was meanwhile being brought before the public, under the direction of Aaron Burr, Martin Van Buren, and Edward Livingston, as a "man of the people." They had persuaded him to resign his seat in the Senate of the United States, where he might have made political mistakes, and retire to his farm in Tennessee, while they flooded the country with accounts of his military exploits and his social good qualities. Daniel Webster told Samuel Breck, as the latter records in his diary, that he knew more than fifty members of Congress who had expended and pledged all they were worth in setting up presses and employing other means to forward Jackson's election.

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two of the three survivors of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, passed hence on the Fourth of July, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of their signing the Magna Charta of our Republic. Their names had been inseparably connected in the minds and upon the lips of the people, as their labors were united in bringing about the events of the Revolution and its final triumph. Mr. Jefferson was the writer, Mr. Adams the orator, of the Congress of '76. The one penned the Declaration of Independence, the other was pronounced "the pillar of its support and its ablest advocate and defender." Mr. Jefferson called Mr. Adams "the Colossus of the Congress," the most earnest, laborious member of the body, and its animating spirit. For the loss of these men, though they fell as a ripe shock of corn falleth—both having arrived at an advanced age—Mr. Adams over ninety—the whole nation clothed itself in mourning.

CHAPTER II. TRAVELING IN "YE OLDEN TIME."

The old stage route between Boston and New York, before John Quincy Adams was President, passed through Worcester, Springfield, Hartford, and Norwalk. Passengers paid ten dollars for a seat and were fifty- six hours or more on the road. This gave way about 1825 to the steamboat line via Providence, which for five dollars carried passengers from Boston to New York in twenty-four hours.

Stage books for the Providence line were kept in Boston at offices in different parts of the city, where those wishing to go the next day registered their names. These names were collected and brought to the central stage office in the Marlboro Hotel at ten o'clock each night, where they were arranged into stage-loads, each made up from those residing in the same part of the city. At four o'clock in the morning a man started from the stage office in a chaise to go about and wake up the passengers, that the stage need not be kept waiting. The large brass door knockers were vigorously plied, and sometimes quite a commotion was caused by "waking up the wrong passenger."

In due time the stage made its appearance, with its four spirited horses, and the baggage was put on. Trunks, which were diminutive in size compared with those now used, were put on the rack behind, securely strapped; valises and packages were consigned to the depths of a receptacle beneath the driver's seat, and bandboxes were put on the top. The back seat was generally given to ladies and elderly gentlemen, while young men usually sought a seat on top of the stage, by the side of the driver. When the passengers had been "picked up," the stages returned to the stage office, where they way-bills were perfected and handed to the drivers. As the Old South clock was striking five, whips were cracked, and the coaches started at the rate of ten miles an hour, stopping for breakfast at Timothy Gay's tavern in Dedham, where many of the passengers visited the bar to imbibe Holland gin and sugar-house molasses—a popular morning beverage.

Breakfast over, away the stages went over the good turnpike road at a rapid pace. Those who were fellow passengers, even if strangers to one another, gradually entered into conversation, and generally some one of them was able to impart information concerning the route. Occasionally the stage would rattle into a village, the driver giving warning blasts upon his long tin horn that he claimed the right of way, and then dash up to a wayside inn, before which would be in waiting a fresh team of horses to take the place of those which had drawn the coach from the previous stopping-place. Time was always afforded those passengers who desired to partake of libations at the tavern bar, and old travelers used to see that their luggage was safe.

Providence was in due time reached, and the procession of stages whirled along the narrow street beneath the bluff, swaying heavily with the irregularities of the road. The steamboats lay at India Point, just below the town, where immense quantities of wood were piled up, for each boat consumed between thirty and forty cords on a trip through Long Island Sound.

The stages used to reach India Point about half-past eleven o'clock, and the boat would start for New York precisely at twelve. There were no state-rooms, the passengers occupying berths, and at the dinner and supper the captain of the boat occupied the head of the table, having seated near him any distinguished passengers. Occasionally there was an opposition line with sharp rivalries, and at one time a then rising New Yorker, Cornelius Vanderbilt, carried passengers from New York to Boston for one dollar.

On arriving at New York, the passengers had to look out for their luggage, and either engage hacks or hand-cartmen, who for twenty- five cents would carry a trunk to any part of the city. The city then, be it remembered, did not reach up Manhattan Island above the vicinity of Broome or Spring Streets, although there were beyond that the villages of Greenwich, Bloomingdale, Yorkville, and Harlem. The City Hotel, on Broadway, just above Trinity Churchyard, Bunker's Hotel, lower down, and the Washington Hotel, which occupied the site of the Stewart building above the Park, were the principal public houses. The Boston stages stopped at Hall's North American Hotel, at the corner of Bayard Street and the Bowery, and there were many boarding-houses where transient guests were accommodated.

From New York, travelers southward went by steamboat to Elizabethport, where they were transferred to stages, and crossed New Jersey to Bordentown on the Delaware River, where a steamer was in waiting to transport them to Philadelphia. This was a long and fatiguing day's journey, and a majority of travelers remained over a day in Philadelphia, where the hotels were excellent and there were many objects of attraction.

Leaving Philadelphia in a steamboat, passengers went down the Delaware to New Castle, whence they crossed in stages to Frenchtown on the Elk River, and there re-embarked on steamers, which took them down and around to Baltimore, another long and fatiguing day's trip. At each change from boat to stage, or from stage to boat, passengers had to see that their luggage was transferred, and it was generally necessary to give a quarter to the porter. Baggage checks and the checking of baggage were then unknown.

Between Baltimore and Washington there were opposition lines of stages and a good turnpike road. There had been, when I first went over the road, some daring robberies by "road agents," and the mail coaches were protected by a guard, who occupied a perch on the roof over the boot and was armed with a blunderbuss. This weapon had a funnel-shaped barrel, a flint lock, took about half a pint of buckshot for a charge, and was capable of destroying a whole band of robbers at once. In due time the flat, wide dome of the Capitol, which resembled an inverted wash-bowl, was visible, and the stage was soon floundering through the broad expanse of mud or of dust known as Pennsylvania Avenue, taking passengers to the doors of the hotels or boarding-houses which they had previously indicated.

When Congress first met at Washington there was but one hotel there and one in Georgetown. Others were, however, soon erected, and fifty-eight years ago there were half a dozen. The favorite establishment was the Indian Queen Hotel, which occupied the site of the present Metropolitan Hotel and was designated by a large swinging sign upon which figured Pocahontas, painted in glaring colors. The landlord, Jesse Brown, who used to come to the curbstone to "welcome the coming guests," was a native of Havre-de-Grace and had served his apprenticeship to tavern-keeping in Hagerstown and in Alexandria. A glance at the travelers as they alighted and were ushered by him into the house would enable him mentally to assign each one to a room, the advantages of which he would describe ere sending its destined occupant there under the pilotage of a colored servant. When the next meal was ready the newly arrived guest was met at the door of the dining-room by Mr. Brown, wearing a large white apron, who escorted him to a seat and then went to the head of the table, where he carved and helped the principal dish. The excellencies of this—fish or flesh or fowl—he would announce as he would invite those seated at the table to send up their plates for what he knew to be their favorite portions; and he would also invite attention to the dishes on other parts of the table, which were carved and helped by the guests who sat nearest them. "I have a delicious quarter of mutton from the Valley of Virginia," Mr. Brown would announce in a stentorian tone, which could be heard above the clatter of crockery and the din of steel knives and forks. "Let me send you a rare slice, Mr. A." "Colonel B., will you not have a bone?" "Mrs. C., send up your plate for a piece of the kidney." "Mrs. D., there is a fat and tender mongrel goose at the other end of the table." "Joe, pass around the sweet potatoes." "Colonel E., will you help to that chicken-pie before you?"

The expense of living at the Indian Queen was not great. The price of board was one dollar and seventy-five cents per day, ten dollars per week, or thirty-five dollars per month. Transient guests were charged fifty cents for breakfast, the same for supper, and seventy- five cents for dinner. Brandy and whisky were placed on the dinner- table in decanters, to be drink by the guests without additional charge therefor. A bottle of real old Madeira imported into Alexandria was supplied for three dollars; sherry, brandy, and gin were one dollar and a half per bottle, and Jamaica rum one dollar. At the bar toddies were made with unadulterated liquor and lump sugar, and the charge was twelve and a half cents a drink.

On the Fourth of July, the 22d of February, and other holidays, landlord Brown would concoct foaming egg-nogg in a mammoth punch- bowl once owned by Washington, and the guests of the house were all invited to partake. The tavern-desk was behind the bar, with rows of large bells hanging by circular springs on the wall, each with a bullet-shaped tongue, which continued to vibrate for some minutes after being pulled, thus showing to which room it belonged. The barkeeper prepared the "drinks" called for, saw that the bells were answered, received and delivered letters and cards, and answered questions by the score. He was supposed to know everybody in Washington, where they resided, and at what hour they could be seen.

The city of Washington had then been called by an observing foreigner "the city of magnificent distances," an appellation which was well merited. There was a group of small, shabby houses around the Navy Yard, another cluster on the river bank just above the Arsenal, which was to have been the business centre of the metropolis, and Pennsylvania Avenue, from the Capitol to Georgetown, with the streets immediately adjacent, was lined with tenements—many of them with shops on the ground floor. The Executive Departments were located in four brick edifices on the corners of the square, in the centre of which was the White House. The imposing building now occupied by the Department of the Interior had not been begun nor had the General Post-Office replaced a large brick structure intended for a hotel, but which the pecuniary necessities of the projector forced him to dispose of in a lottery before it was completed. The fortunate ticket was held by minors, whose guardian could neither sell the building nor finish it, and it remained for many years in a dilapidated condition.

The Capitol was pronounced completed in 1825. The two wings, which were the only portions of the building finished when the British occupied Washington, were burned with their contents, including the Congressional Library and some works of art. When Congress was convened in special session after the invasion, the two Houses assembled in the unfinished hotel previously mentioned, but soon occupied a brick building erected for their temporary use, which was afterward known as the Old Capitol Prison.

The tympanum of the eastern pediment of the Capitol was ornamented by a historical group which Mr. John Quincy Adams designed when Secretary of State. It was executed in marble by Luigi Persico, an Italian sculptor, whose work gave such satisfaction to Mr. Adams that he secured for him an order for the two colossal statues which now flank the central doorway. War is represented by a stalwart gymnast with a profuse development of muscle and a benign expression of countenance, partially encased in ancient Roman armor, while Peace is a matronly dame, somewhat advanced in life and heavy in flesh, who carries an olive branch as if she desired to use it to keep off flies.

The then recently completed rotunda of the Capitol—Mr. Gales took pains to have it called rotundo in the National Intelligencer —was a hall of elegant proportions, ninety-six feet in diameter and ninety-six feet in height to the apex of its semicircular dome. It had been decorated with remarkable historical bas-reliefs by Cappellano, Gevelot, and Causici, three Italian artists—two of them pupils of Canova. They undoubtedly possessed artistic ability and they doubtless desired to produce works of historical value. But they failed ignominiously. Their respective productions were thus interpreted by Grizzly Bear, a Menominee chief. Turning to the eastern doorway, over which there is represented the landing of the Pilgrims, he said: "There Ingen give hungry white man corn." Then turning to the northern doorway, over which is represented William Penn making a treaty with the Indians, he said: "There Ingen give white man land." Then turning to the western doorway, over which is represented Pocahontas saving the life of Captain Smith, he said: "There Ingen save white man's life." And then turning to the Southern doorway, over which is represented Daniel Boone, the pioneer, plunging his hunting-knife into the heart of a red man while his foot rests on the dead body of another, he said: "And there white man kill Ingen. Ugh!"

When Congress was in session, the rotunda presented a busy and motley scene every morning prior to the convening of the two houses. It was a general rendezvous, and the newspaper correspondents were always in attendance to pick up the floating rumors of the day.

The visit of General Lafayette to Washington gave a great impetus to Free-Masonry there. The corner-stone of a new Masonic Temple was laid, and many of the leading citizens had taken the degrees, when the rumored abduction of William Morgan was made the basis of a political and religious anti-Masonic crusade. It was asserted that Morgan, who had written and printed a book which professed to reveal the secrets of Free-Masonry, had been kidnapped, taken to Fort Niagara, and then plunged into the river, "with all his imperfections on his head." Many well-informed persons, however, are of the opinion that Morgan was hired to go to Smyrna, where he lived some years, and then died; but his real or supposed assassination awakened a profound popular indignation. Some good men who belonged to the "mystic tie" felt it their duty to dissolve their connection with it, and the Anti-Masonic party was at once got up by a goodly number of hopeful political aspirants. As General Jackson and Mr. Clay were both "Free and Accepted Masons," Mr. Adams had at first some hopes that he might secure his own re-election as the Anti- Masonic candidate.

A small theatre at Washington was occasionally opened by a company of actors from Philadelphia, who used to journey every winter as far south as Savannah, performing in the intermediate cities as they went and returned. The Jeffersons, the Warrens, and the Burkes belonged to this company, in which their children were trained for histrionic fame, and President Adams first saw the elder Booth when that tragedian accompanied one of these dramatic expeditions as its brightest star. On another occasion he saw Edwin Forrest, then unknown to fame, and enjoyed the finished acting of Cooper, as Charles Surface, in the "School for Scandal." The popular performance at that time was "Tom and Jerry, or Life in London," and the flash sayings of Corinthian Tom and Bob Logic were quoted even in Congressional debates.

The Friends, or Quakers, as "the world's people" call them, had a society at Washington formed principally by the clerks of that persuasion who had come from Philadelphia when the seat of government was removed from there. Their harmony was, however, disturbed in 1827, when a number of the most influential among them left the "Orthodox" or old belief and followed Elias Hicks, of New York, who founded what has since been known as Hicksite Friends. The Friends believed in a free gospel ministry, and did not recognize either water-baptism or the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. At their meetings the elders and preachers occupied a platform at one end of the meeting-houses, the men sitting on unpainted benches on one side and the women on the other. The congregation would sit quietly, often for an hour, until the Spirit moved some preacher, male or female, to speak or to offer prayer. There was no singing, and often long intervals of silence. Marriages were solemnized at the monthly meetings, the ceremony consisting simply of a public acknowledgment by the man and woman, after due inquiry of their right to be united. After they had stood up in meeting and publicly taken one another to be man and wife, a certificate of the ceremony was publicly read by one of the elders, and then signed by the contracting parties and witnesses.

[Facsimile] John Quincy Adams JOHN QUINCY ADAMS—son of John Adams—was born at Braintree, Massachusetts, July 11th, 1767; Minister to the Netherlands and Prussia, 1794-1801; United States Senator, 1803-1808; Professor at Harvard College, 1808-1809; Minister to Russia, 1809-1817; negotiating the treaty of Ghent in 1815; Secretary of State, 1817-1825; President, 1825-1829; Representative in Congress, 1831, until stricken by death in the Capitol, February 23d, 1848.

CHAPTER III. JOURNALISM IN 1828.

Georgetown, now called "West Washington," was originally laid out as a town in 1751, and settled by the Scotch agents of English mercantile houses, whose vessels came annually to its wharves. They brought valuable freights of hardware, dry goods, and wines, and they carried back tobacco, raised in the surrounding country, and furs, brought down the Potomac by Indian traders. There were also lines of brigs and schooners running to New York, Boston, Salem, Newburyport, and the West Indies. Two principal articles of import were sugar and molasses, which were sold at auction on the wharves. Business in these staples has been entirely superseded by the coal and flour trade.

The main street of Georgetown was generally filled every week-day with the lumbering Conestoga six-horse wagons, in which the farmers of Maryland and Central Pennsylvania brought loads of wheat and of corn, taking back dry goods, groceries, salt, and, during the fishing season, fresh shad and herring. Another source of trade was the Potomac River, which was navigable above Georgetown as far as Cumberland in long, flat-bottomed boats, sharp at both ends, called "gondolas." These boats were poled down the Potomac to the Great Falls, twelve miles above Georgetown, where a canal with locks was constructed, running around the falls and back to the river. The same plan of avoiding the rapids was suggested by George Washington, who was once president of the company. The canal was finished in 1793, but it never yielded a sufficient revenue to pay expenses.

The "gondolas" brought down considerable quantities of flour, corn, pork, and iron, much of which was shipped at Georgetown to other ports. During the year 1812 several hundred hogsheads of Louisiana sugar were brought by way of the Mississippi, the Ohio, and the Potomac Rivers to Georgetown. This was a realization of Washington's idea that the city which he founded and which bore his name would become an entrepot for the products of the Mississippi Valley destined for shipment abroad. He displayed his faith in this belief by the purchase of wharf lots, which would not to-day bring what he paid for them.

The Union Tavern at Georgetown was a well-patronized and fashionable inn during the first quarter of the present century. Among the distinguished men who were its guests were Louis Philippe, Count Volney, Baron Humboldt, Fulton (the inventor), Talleyrand, Jerome Bonaparte, Washington Irving, General St. Clair, Lorenzo Dow (the eccentric preacher), Francis S. Key (author of the "Star Spangled Banner"), with John Randolph and scores of other Congressmen, who used to ride to and from the Capitol in a large stagecoach with seats on the top and called the "Royal George."

When my mother was born in Georgetown, in 1799, the neighbors were startled by the repeated firing of a heavily charged musket beneath the window of her mother's room. It was a welcome-into-the-world salute fired by "Old Yarrah," a very aged Mahometan, who had been brought as a slave from Guinea to Georgetown, where my grandfather had shown him some kindness, which he thus acknowledged after the custom of his own people.

General Washington used to pass through Georgetown on his journeys between the North and Mount Vernon, and I have heard my grandfather describe the interest which he took when the "Federal City" was located. On one occasion he rode over to visit David Burns, who owned a farm on which the Executive Mansion and the Departments now stand. Washington agreed with the Commissioners that what is now Lafayette Square should be a reservation, but Burns disliked to donate any more building lots for the public good. Finally Washington lost his temper and left, saying, as he crossed the porch: "Had not the Federal City been laid out here, you would have died a poor tobacco planter." "Aye, mon!" retorted Burns, in broad Scotch, "an' had ye nae married the widow Custis, wi' a' her nagurs, you would hae been a land surveyor to-day, an' a mighty poor ane at that." Ultimately, however, the obstinate old fellow donated the desired square of ground.

When Major L'Enfant came to Georgetown to lay out the Federal District he brought a letter of introduction to my grandfather, who had a great deal of trouble in endeavoring to adjust the difficulties between the fiery French officer and the Commissioners appointed to govern the infant metropolis. The Major, who was very imperious, claimed supreme authority, which the Commissioners would not submit to. On one occasion, a Mr. Carroll had commenced the erection of a large brick house, which Major L'Enfant found encroached on one of the proposed streets. Summoning his chain bearers and axmen, he demolished the trespassing structure and filled up the cellar, against Mr. Carroll's earnest protests.

He was a favorite with Washington, but Jefferson disliked him on account of his connection with the Society of the Cincinnati, and availed himself of his difficulty with the Commissioners to discharge him.

The Major then became an unsuccessful petitioner before Congress for a redress of his real and fancied wrongs, and he was to be seen almost every day slowly pacing the rotunda of the Capitol. He was a tall, thin man, who wore, toward the close of his life, a blue military surtout coat, buttoned quite to the throat, with a tall, black stock, but no visible signs of linen. His hair was plastered with pomatum close to his head, and he wore a napless high beaver bell-crowned hat. Under his arm he generally carried a roll of papers relating to his claim upon the Government, and in his right hand he swung a formidable hickory cane with a large silver head. A strict Roman Catholic, he received a home in the family of Mr. Digges, near Washington, in whose garden his remains were interred when he died.

Newspaper "organs" formed an important feature of the early political machinery at Washington. Railroads, as well as the magnetic telegraph, were then unknown, and it took two days or more for the transmission of intelligence between the Federal Metropolis and New York, while it was a week or two in reaching Portland, St. Louis, New Orleans, or Savannah. This made it advisable for each successive Administration to have a newspaper published at Washington which would reliably inform the subordinate officials what was being done and keep alive a sympathy between them and the President.

The National Intelligencer was never devoted to Mr. Adams, as its proprietor had a kind regard for Mr. Clay, but it was always hostile to the election of General Jackson. Mr. Joseph Giles, its editor, wrote ponderous leaders on the political questions of the day, and occasionally reported, in short-hand, the speeches of Congressional magnates. His partner, Colonel William Winstead Seaton, was by trade a printer, and his generous hand was ever ready to aid those of his fellow-craftsmen who were in destitute circumstances—indeed, the superannuated compositors of the National Intelligencer always received "half pay." Coming here when Washington was only just "staked out," he was honorably identified with the growth of Washington City, and his administration as Mayor is favorably spoken of by the citizens of all classes and parties.

The National Intelligencer had been established as a Catholic organ, with John Agg, an Englishman of great ability, as its editor, and Richard Houghton, afterward the popular editor of the Boston Atlas, as its Congressional reporter. In 1825 the paper was purchased by Peter Force and became the "hand-organ" of all the elements of opposition to General Jackson. Such abusive articles and scurrilous remarks as the dignified National Intelligencer would not publish appeared in the National Journal. Some of these articles reflected upon Mrs. Jackson and gave great offense to her husband, who was persuaded that they were inspired by President Adams.

Matthew L. Davis, who was probably the most influential of Washington correspondents, was a New York printer. He had entered political life in 1790 and joined the Democratic party, which came into power by the election of Jefferson as President and Burr as Vice-President. Davis went to Washington shortly afterward, and was boasting that the elevation of Mr. Jefferson was brought about solely by the management of Tammany Hall. Mr. Jefferson was a philosopher, and soon after caught a very large fly, calling the attention of Mr. Davis to the remarkable fact of the great disproportion in size of one portion of the insect to its body. Mr. Davis took the hint, and left the President, in doubt as to whether Mr. Jefferson intended the comparison to apply to New York or to him (Davis) as an individual.

Mr. Davis was at one time wealthy, having cleared over one hundred thousand dollars in the South American trade; but he became poor, and for many years he was the correspondent at Washington of the Courier and Enquirer, of New York, under the signature of "The Spy in Washington." He was also the correspondent of the London Times, under the signature of "The Genevese Traveler." On one occasion Mr. Davis was presented to the British Minister at Washington (Lord Ashburton) as the author of those letters in the Times. "I am delighted to see you," said the Envoy. "They are extraordinary letters. I have read them with great pleasure. I hope, sir, that you are well paid by the Times. If not, sir, let me know it; I will take care that you are paid handsomely." Mr. Davis begged not to be misunderstood, and said that he was amply paid by the Times. He received two guineas for each letter.

James Gordon Bennett in 1828, when in his thirtieth year, became the Washington correspondent of the New York Enquirer, which was then on the topmost round of the journalistic ladder. It is related of him that during his stay in this position he came across a copy of Walpole's Letters and resolved to try the effect of a few letters written in a similar strain. The truth of this is doubtful. It is more probably that the natural talents of the man were now unfettered, and he wrote without fear of censorship and with all the ease which a sense of freedom inspires. He was naturally witty, sarcastic and sensible. These letters were lively, they abounded in personal allusions, and they described freely, not only Senators, but the wives and daughters of Senators, and they established Mr. Bennett's reputation as a light lance among the hosts of writers.

Major M. M. Noah was for many years a leading New York journalist, who occasionally visited Washington, where he was always welcome. Major Noah was born in Philadelphia, where he was apprenticed, as he grew up, to learn the carver's trade, but he soon abandoned it for political pursuits. Receiving the appointment of Consul to Tunis, he passed several years in Northern Africa, and on his return wrote a very clever book containing his souvenirs of travel. About the year 1825 he conceived the idea of collecting the scattered Jews and of rebuilding Jerusalem. Grand Island, in the Niagara River, above Niagara falls, was designated as the rendezvous, and Major Noah's proclamation, which he sent to all parts of the world, created quite a sensation among the Children of Israel. He subsequently was connected with the evening press of New York and was then appointed to a Government office by President Jackson. He was a man of fine personal appearance and great conversational powers.

Another New York journalist, just coming before the public, was Thurlow Weed, a tall man, with an altogether massive person. His large head was at that time covered with dark hair, and he had prominent features and gray eyes, which were watchful and overhung by shaggy eyebrows. He was a man of great natural strength of character, deep penetration as regards human nature, and a good sense, judgment, and cheerfulness in his own characteristics which conduced to respect and popularity. He was most happy in his intercourse with men, for he had, when a mere youth, a geniality and tact which drew all toward him, and it has been said that he never forgot a face or a fact. There has never been a better example of the good old stock of printer-editors, who seemed to have an intuitive capacity for public affairs, and never to love political success well enough to leave their newspapers in order to pursue the glittering attraction of public life.

Among the other newspaper men in Washington were William Hayden, Congressional reporter for the National Intelligencer, who afterward succeeded Mr. Houghton as editor of the Boston Atlas; Lund Washington, equally famed as a performer on the violin and writer of short-hand; Samuel L. Knapp, a graduate of Dartmouth College, who abandoned the law for journalism and corresponded with the Boston Gazette, and James Brooks, a graduate of Waterville, afterward the founder of the New York Express and a Representative in Congress, who was the correspondent of the Portland Advertiser and other papers.

Prominent as an adopted citizen of Washington and as a personal friend of President Adams was Dr. William F. Thornton, Superintendent of the Patent Office, who had by personal appeals to his conquering countrymen, in 1814, saved the models of patents from the general conflagration of the public buildings. He was also a devoted lover of horse-racing, and on one occasion, when he expected that a horse of his would win the cup, Mr. Adams walked out to the race-course to enjoy the Doctor's triumph, but witnessed his defeat. After the death of Dr. Thornton and of his accomplished wife, it became known that she was the daughter of the unfortunate Dr. Dodd, of London, who was executed for forgery in 1777. Her mother emigrated to Philadelphia soon afterward, under the name of Brodeau, and brought her infant daughter with her. In Philadelphia she opened a boarding-school, which was liberally patronized, as she had brought excellent letters of recommendation and displayed great ability as a teacher. The daughter grew up to be a lady remarkable for her beauty and accomplishments and married Dr. Thornton, who brought her to Washington in 1800.

Congress had placed on the statute-book stringent penal laws against gambling, but they were a dead letter, unless some poor dupe made a complaint of foul play, or some fleeced blackleg sought vengeance through the aid of the Grand Jury; then the matter was usually compounded by the repayment of the money. The northern sidewalks of Pennsylvania Avenue between the Indian Queen Hotel and the Capitol gate, was lined with faro banks, where good suppers were served and well-supplied sideboards were free to all comers. It was a tradition that in one of these rooms Senator Montford Stokes, of North Carolina, sat down one Thursday afternoon to play a game of brag with Mountjoy Bailey, then the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate. That body had adjourned over, as was then its custom, from Thursday until Monday, so the players were at liberty to keep on with their game, only stopping occasionally for refreshments. The game was continued Friday night and Saturday, through Saturday night and all day Sunday and Sunday night, the players resting for a snatch of sleep as nature became exhausted. Monday morning the game was in full blast, but at ten o'clock Bailey moved an adjournment, alleging that his official duties required his presence in the Senate Chamber. Stokes remonstrated, but the Sergeant-at-Arms persisted, and rose from the table, the Senator grumbling and declaring that he had supposed that Stokes would have thus prematurely broken up the game he would not have sat down to play with him.

Whist was regularly played at many of the "Congressional messes," and at private parties a room was always devoted to whist-playing. Once when the wife of Henry Clay was chaperoning a young lady from Boston, at a party given by one of his associates in the Cabinet, they passed through the card-room, where Mr. Clay and other gentlemen were playing whist. The young lady, in her Puritan simplicity, inquired: "Is card-playing a common practice here?" "Yes," replied Mrs. Clay, "the gentlemen always play when they get together." "Don't it distress you," said the Boston maiden, "to have Mr. Clay gamble?" "Oh! dear, no!" composedly replied the statesman's wife, "he 'most always wins."

There were only a few billiard-rooms, mostly patronized by the members of the foreign legations or visiting young men from the Northern cities. Ten-pin alleys were abundant, and some of the muscular Congressmen from the frontier would make a succession of "ten strikes" with great ease, using the heaviest balls. Some of the English residents organized a cricket club, and used to play on a level spot in "the slashes," near where the British Legation was afterward built, but the game was not popular, and no American offered to join the club.

[Facsimile]
Your obedt servt.
William H. Crawford
William Harris Crawford was born in Virginia, February 24th, 1772;
was United States Senator 1807-1813; Minister to France, 1813-1815;
Secretary of War, 1815-1816; Secretary of the Treasury, 1816-1825;
Judge of the Northern Circuit Court of Georgia, 1827, until he died
at Elberton, Georgia, September 15th, 1834.

CHAPTER IV. PROMINENT SENATORS OF 1827.

The old Senate Chamber, now used by the Supreme Court, was admirably adapted for the deliberations of the forty-eight gentlemen who composed the upper house of the Nineteenth Congress. Modeled after the theatres of ancient Greece, it possessed excellent acoustic properties, and there was ample accommodation in the galleries for the few strangers who then visited Washington. The Senate used to meet at noon and generally conclude its day's work by three o'clock, while adjournments over from Thursday until the following Monday were frequent.

John C. Calhoun was Vice-President of the United States, and consequently President of the Senate—a position which was to him very irksome, as he was forced to sit and dumbly listen to debates in which he was eager to participate. He had been talked of by some of the best men in the country as a candidate during the then recent Presidential election, but the North had not given him any substantial support. Regarding each Senator as an Ambassador from a sovereign State, he did not believe that as Vice-President he possessed the power to call them to order for words spoken in debate. Senator John Randolph abused this license, and one day commenced one of his tirades by saying: "Mr. Speaker! I mean Mr. President of the Senate and would-be President of the United States, which God in His infinite mercy avert," and then went on in his usual strain of calumny and abuse.

Mr. Calhoun was tall, well-formed, without an ounce of superfluous flesh, with a serious expression of countenance rarely brightened by a smile, and with his black hair thrown back from his forehead, he looked like an arch-conspirator waiting for the time to come when he could strike the first blow. In his dress Mr. Calhoun affected a Spartan simplicity, yet he used to have four horses harnessed to his carriage, and his entertainments at his residence on Georgetown Heights were very elegant. His private life was irreproachable, although when Secretary of War under Mr. Monroe, he had suffered obloquy because of a profitable contract, which had been dishonestly awarded during his absence by his chief clerk to that official's brother-in-law.

The prime mover of the Senate of that day was Martin Van Buren, of New York, who was beginning to reap the reward of years of subservient intrigues. Making the friends of Calhoun and of Crawford believe that they had each been badly treated by the alliance between Adams and Clay, he united them in the support of General Jackson, and yet no one suspected him. When Mr. Van Buren had first been elected to Congress, Rufus King, of his State, had said to G. F. Mercer, also a member, "Within two weeks Van Buren will become perfectly acquainted with the views and feelings of every member, yet no man will know his."

This prediction was verified, and Mr. Van Buren soon became the directing spirit among the friends of General Jackson, although no one was ever able to quote his views. Taking Aaron Burr as his political model, but leading an irreproachable private life, he rose by his ability to plan and execute with consummate skill the most difficult political intrigues. He was rather under the medium height, with a high forehead, a quick eye, and pleasing features. He made attitude and deportment a study, and when, on his leaving the Senate, his household furniture was sold at auction it was noticed that the carpet before a large looking-glass in his study was worn and threadbare. It was there that he had rehearsed his speeches.

The "Father of the Senate" was Nathaniel Macon, of North Carolina, who had served in the ranks during the Revolution, and then in the Senate of North Carolina. He was elected to the Second Congress, taking his seat in October, 1791, and after having been re-elected eleven times, generally without opposition, he was transferred to the Senate in 1815, and re-elected until he declined in 1828, making thirty-seven years of continuous Congressional service. At the very commencement of his Congressional career he energetically opposed the financial schemes of Alexander Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury, and throughout his political career he was a "strict, severe, and stringent" Democrat. Personally Mr. Macon was a genial companion. He had none of that moroseness at the fireside which often accompanies political distinction, and it was said that at his home he was the kindest and most beloved of slave- masters.

Colonel Thomas Hart Benton, who had earned the military title in the army during the war with Great Britain, was a large, heavily framed man, with black curly hair and whiskers, prominent features, and a stentorian voice. He wore the high, black-silk neck-stock and the double-breasted frock-coat of his youthful times during his thirty years' career in the Senate, varying with the seasons the materials of which his pantaloons were made, but never the fashion in which they were cut. When in debate, outraging every customary propriety of language, he would rush forward with blunt fury upon every obstacle, like the huge, wild buffaloes then ranging the prairies of his adopted State, whose paths, he used to subsequently assert, would show the way through the passes of the Rocky Mountains. He was not a popular speaker, and when he took the floor occupants of the galleries invariably began to leave, while many Senators devoted themselves to their correspondence. In private life Colonel Benton was gentleness and domestic affection personified, and a desire to have his children profit by the superior advantages for their education in the District of Columbia kept him from his constituents in Missouri, where a new generation of voters grew up who did not know him and who would not follow his political lead, while he was ignorant of their views on the question of slavery.

Senator Randolph, of Virginia, attracted the most attention on the part of strangers. He was at least six feet in height, with long limbs, an ill-proportioned body, and a small, round head. Claiming descent from Pocahontas, he wore his coarse, black hair long, parted in the middle, and combed down on either side of his sallow face. His small, black eyes were expressive in their rapid glances, especially when he was engaged in debate, and his high-toned and thin voice would ring through the Senate Chamber like the shrill scream of an angry vixen. He generally wore a full suit of heavy, drab-colored English broadcloth, the high, rolling collar of his surtout coat almost concealing his head, while the skirts hung in voluminous folds about his knee-breeches and the white leather tops of his boots. He used to enter the Senate Chamber wearing a pair of silver spurs, carrying a heavy riding-whip, and followed by a favorite hound, which crouched beneath his desk. He wrote, and occasionally spoke, in riding-gloves, and it was his favorite gesture to point the long index finger of his right hand at his opponent as he hurled forth tropes and figures of speech at him. Every ten or fifteen minutes, while he occupied the floor, he would exclaim in a low voice, "Tims, more porter!" and the assistant doorkeeper would hand him a foaming tumbler of potent malt liquor, which he would hurriedly drink, and then proceed with his remarks, often thus drinking three or four quarts in an afternoon. He was not choice in his selection of epithets, and as Mr. Calhoun took the ground that he did not have the power to call a Senator to order, the irate Virginian pronounced President Adams "a traitor," Daniel Webster "a vile slanderer," John Holmes "a dangerous fool," and Edward Livingston "the most contemptible and degraded of beings, whom no man ought to touch, unless with a pair of tongs." One day, while he was speaking with great freedom of abuse of Mr. Webster, then a member of the House, a Senator informed him in an undertone that Mrs. Webster was in the gallery. He had not the delicacy to desist, however, until he had fully emptied the vials of his wrath. Then he set upon Mr. Speaker Taylor, and after abusing him soundly he turned sarcastically to the gentleman who had informed him of Mrs. Webster's presence, and asked, "Is Mrs. Taylor present also?"

Henry Clay was frequently the object of Mr. Randolph's denunciations, which he bore patiently until the "Lord of Roanoke" spoke, one day, of the reported alliance between the President and the Secretary of State as the "coalition of Bilfil and Black George—the combination, unheard of till then, of the Puritan and the blackleg." Mr. Clay at once wrote to know whether he had intended to call him a political gambler, or to attach the infamy of such epithets to his private life. Mr. Randolph declined to give any explanation, and a duel was fought without bloodshed.

Mr. Randolph, on another occasion, deliberately insulted Mr. James Lloyd, one of "the solid men of Boston," then a Senator from Massachusetts, who had, in accordance with the custom, introduced upon the floor of the Senate one of his constituents, Major Benjamin Russell, the editor of the Columbian Sentinel. The sight of a Federal editor aroused Mr. Randolph's anger, and he at once insolently demanded that the floor of the Senate be cleared, forcing Major Russell to retire. Mr. Lloyd took the first opportunity to express his opinion of this gratuitous insult, and declared, in very forcible language, that, as he had introduced Major Russell on the floor, he was responsible therefor. Mr. Randolph indulged in a little gasconade, in which he announced that his carriage was waiting at the door to convey him to Baltimore, and at the conclusion of his remarks he left the Senate Chamber and the city. Mr. Calhoun, who had not attempted to check Mr. Randolph, lamented from the chair that anything should have happened to mar the harmony of the Senate, and again declared that he had not power to call a Senator to order, nor would he for ten thousand worlds look like a usurper.

Senator Tazewell, Mr. Randolph's colleague, was a first-class Virginia abstractionist and an avowed hater of New England. Dining one day at the White House, he provoked the President by offensively asserting that he had "never known a Unitarian who did not believe in the sea-serpent." Soon afterward Mr. Tazewell spoke of the different kinds of wines, and declared that Tokay and Rhenish wine were alike in taste. "Sir," said Mr. Adams, "I do not believe that you ever drank a drop of Tokay in your life." For this remark the President subsequently sent an apology to Mr. Tazewell, but the Virginia Senator never forgot or forgave the remark.

William Henry Harrison, a tall, spare, gray-haired gentleman, who had gone from his Virginia home into the Western wilderness as aid- de-camp to General Anthony Wayne, had been elected a Senator from the State of Ohio, but probably never dreamed that in years to come he would be elected President by an immense majority, with John Tyler on the ticket as Vice-President. Colonel Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, had, however, begun to electioneer for the Democratic nomination for the Vice-Presidency, basing his claim upon his having shot Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames, and he was finally successful. He was of medium size, with large features, and light auburn hair, and his private life was attacked without mercy by his political opponents.

John Henry Eaton, of Tennessee, was General Jackson's henchman, who had come to the Senate that he might better electioneer for his old friend and commander. William Hendricks, a Senator from Indiana, was the uncle of Thomas A. Hendricks, of a subsequent political generation. The New Hampshire Senators were Levi Woodbury and John Bell, men of decided ability and moral worth. Georgia supplied a polished and effective orator in J. McPherson Berrien. Vermont was represented by portly and good-looking Dudley Chase, who was the uncle of Chief Justice Chase, and by Horatio Seymour, of Middlebury. Maine's stalwart, blue-eyed Senator, Albion Keith Parris, was said to have filled more public offices than any other man of his age, and his colleague, John Holmes, although rude in speech and at times vulgar, was the humorous champion of the North. Ever on the watch for some unguarded expression by a Southern Senator, no sooner would one be uttered than he would pounce upon it and place the speaker in a most uncomfortable position. John Tyler one day thought that he could annoy Mr. Holmes, and asked him what had become of that political firm once mentioned in debate by John Randolph as "James Madison, Felix Grundy, John Holmes, and the Devil." Mr. Holmes rose at once. "I will tell the gentleman," said he, "what has become of the firm. The first member is dead, the second has gone into retirement, the third now addresses you, and the last has gone over to the Nullifiers, and is now electioneering among the gentleman's constituents. So the partnership is legally dissolved."

The Senators were rather exclusive, those from the South assuming the control of "good society," which was then very limited in its extent and simple in its habits. Few Senators and Representatives brought their wives to cheer their Congressional labors, and a parlor of ordinary size would contain all of those who were accustomed to attend social gatherings. The diplomats, with the officers of the army and navy stationed at headquarters, were accompanied by their wives, and there were generally a few visitors of social distinction.

The Washington assemblies were very ceremonious and exclusive. Admission was obtained only by cards of invitation, issued after long consultations among the Committeemen, and, once inside the exclusive ring, the beaux and belles bowed beneath the disciplinary rule of a master of ceremonies. No gentleman, whatever may have been his rank or calling, was permitted on the floor unless in full evening dress, with the adornment of pumps, silk stockings, and flowing cravat, unless he belonged to the army or the navy, in which case complete regimentals covered a multitude of sins. The ball, commencing with the stroke of eight precisely, opened with a rollicking country dance, and the lady selected for the honor of opening the festivities was subsequently toasted as the reigning divinity of fashion for the hour. The "minuet de la cour" and stately "quadrille," varied by the "basket dance," and, on exceptional occasions, the exhilarating "cheat," formed the staple for saltatorial performance, until the hour of eleven brought the concluding country dance, when a final squad of roysterers bobbed "up the middle and down again" to the airs of "Sir Roger de Coverly" or "Money Musk."

The music was furnished by colored performers on the violin, except on great occasions, when some of the Marine Band played an accompaniment on flutes and clarinets. The refreshments were iced lemonade, ice-cream, port wine negus, and small cakes, served in a room adjoining the dancing-hall, or brought in by the colored domestics, or by the cavalier in his own proper person, who ofttimes appeared upon the dancing-floor, elbowing his way to the lady of his adoration, in the one hand bearing well-filled glasses, and in the other sustaining a plate heaped up with cake.

The costume of the ladies was classic in its scantiness, especially at balls and parties. The fashionable ball dress was of white India crape, and five breadths, each a quarter of a yard wide, were all that was asked for to make a skirt, which only came down to the ankles, and was elaborately trimmed with a dozen or more rows of narrow flounces. Silk or cotton stockings were adorned with embroidered "clocks," and thin slippers were ornamented with silk rosettes and tiny buckles.

Those gentlemen who dressed fashionably wore "Bolivar" frock-coats of some gay-colored cloth, blue or green or claret, with large lapels and gilded buttons. Their linen was ruffled; their "Cossack" trousers were voluminous in size, and were tucked into high "Hessian" boots with gold tassels. They wore two and sometimes three waistcoats, each of different colors, and from their watch-pockets dangled a ribbon, with a bunch of large seals. When in full dress, gentlemen wore dress-coats with enormous collars and short waists, well-stuffed white cambric cravats, small-clothes, or tight-fitting pantaloons, silk stockings, and pumps.

Duels were very common, and a case of dueling pistols was a part of the outfit of the Southern and Western Congressmen, who used to spend more or less time in practicing. Imported pistols were highly prized, but the best weapons were made by a noted Philadelphia gunsmith named Derringer, who gave his name to a short pistol of his invention to be carried in the trouser's pocket for use in street fights. Some of the dueling pistols were inlaid with gold, and they all had flint-locks, as percussion caps had not been invented, nor hair triggers.

[Facsimile] Edward Everett. EDWARD EVERETT. Born in Massachusetts April 11th, 1794; was a Unitarian clergyman, and a professor at Harvard College, until elected a Representative from Massachusetts, 1825-1835; Governor of Massachusetts, 1836-1840; Minister to Great Britain, 1841-1843; President of Harvard College, 1846-1849; Secretary of State under President Fillmore, 1852-1853; United States Senator from Massachusetts, 1853-1854; died at Boston, January 15th, 1865.

CHAPTER V. PROMINENT REPRESENTATIVES OF 1827.

The Hall of the House of Representatives (now used as a National Gallery of Statuary) was a reproduction of the ancient theatre, magnificent in its effect, but so deficient in acoustic properties that it was unfit for legislative occupation. It was there that Henry Clay, then Speaker of the House, had welcomed General Lafayette as "the Nation's Guest." The contrast between the tall and graceful Kentuckian, with his sunny smile and his silver-toned voice, and the good old Marquis, with his auburn wig awry, must have been great. His reply appeared to come from a grateful heart, but it was asserted that the Speaker had written both his own words of welcome and also Lafayette's acknowledgment of them, and it became a subject of newspaper controversy, which was ended by the publication of a card signed "H. Clay," in which he positively denied the authorship, although he admitted that he had suggested the most effective sentences.

Ladies had been excluded from the galleries of the House originally, in accordance with British precedent. But one night at a party a lady expressed her regret to Hon. Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts, that she could not hear the arguments, especially his speeches. Mr. Ames gallantly replied that he knew of no reason why ladies should not hear the debates. "Then," said Mrs. Langdon, "if you will let me know when next you intend to speak, I will make up a party of ladies and we will go and hear you." The notice was given, the ladies went, and since then Congressional orators have always had fair hearers—with others perhaps not very fair.

The House was really occupied, during the administration of John Quincy Adams, in the selection of his successor. At first the political outlook was rather muddled, although keen eyes averred that they could perceive, moving restlessly to and fro, the indefinite forms of those shadows which coming events project. Different seers interpreted the phantasmal appearances in different fashions, and either endeavored to form novel combinations, or joined in raking common sewers for filth wherewith to bespatter those who were the rivals of their favorite candidates. It was then that Congressional investigating committees became a part of the political machinery of the day. The accounts of President Adams when, in former years, he was serving the country in Europe as a diplomatist; the summary execution of deserters by order of General Jackson, when he commanded the army in Florida; the bills for refurnishing the White House; the affidavits concerning the alleged bargain between the President and his Secretary of State, and the marriage of General Jackson to Mrs. Robards before she had been divorced from Mr. Robards, were, with many other scandals, paraded before the public.

Daniel Webster had been recognized in advance as the leader of the House by his appointment as chairman of the committee to inform Mr. Adams that he had been elected President. This Mr. Webster did verbally, but Mr. Adams had prepared a written reply, which had been copied by a clerk and bore his autograph signature.

Mr. Webster was at that period of his life the embodiment of health and good spirits. His stalwart frame, his massive head, crowned with a wealth of black hair, his heavy eye-brows, overhanging his great, expressive, and cavernous eyes, all distinguished him as one of the powers of the realm of the intellect—one of the few to whom Divinity has accorded a royal share of the Promethian fire of genius. His department was ceremonious, and he made a decided impression on strangers. When Jenny Lind first saw him, she was much impressed by his majestic appearance, and afterward exclaimed, "I have seen a man!"

His swarthy complexion gained him the epithet of "Black Dan." He was very proud of his complexion, which he inherited from his grandmother, Susannah Bachelder (from whom the poet Whittier also claimed descent), and he used to quote the compliment paid by General Stark, the hero of Bennington, to his father, Colonel Ebenezer Webster: "He has the black Bachelder complexion, which burnt gunpowder will not change." Although majestic in appearance, Mr. Webster was not really a very large man; in height he was only about five feet ten inches. His head looked very large, but he wore a seven and five-eighth hat, as did Mr. Clay, whose head appeared much smaller. His shoulders were very broad and his chest was very full, but his hips and lower limbs were small.

Mr. Webster had his first great sorrow then. His eldest, and at that time his only, daughter died at Washington, and the next year her mother followed her to the grave. This estimable lady, whose maiden name was Grace Fletcher, was one year older than Mr. Webster, and was the daughter of a New Hampshire clergyman. While on her way to Washington with her husband, the December after he had been re-elected United States Senator by a nearly two-thirds vote in each branch of the "General Court" of Massachusetts, she was taken fatally ill at the house of Mr. Webster's friend, Dr. Perkins, where they were guests.

Mr. Webster had begun at that time to be disturbed about his money matters, although he should have been in a prosperous pecuniary condition. His professional income could not have been less than twenty thousand dollars a year, and he had just received seventy thousand dollars as his five per cent. fee as counsel for the claimants before the Commissioners on Spanish Claims, but he had begun to purchase land and was almost always harassed for ready money.

Edward Everett, who was a member of the Massachusetts delegation in the House, had won early fame as a popular preacher of the gospel, as a professor at Harvard College, and as the editor of the North American Review. Placed by his marriage above want, he became noted for his profound learning and persuasive eloquence. At times he was almost electrical in his utterances; his reasoning was logical and luminous, and his remarks always gave evidence of careful study. As a politician Mr. Everett was not successful. The personification of self-discipline and dignity, he was too much like an intellectual icicle to find favor with the masses, and he was deficient in courage when any bold step was to be taken.

George McDuffie, who represented the Edgefield District of South Carolina, had been taken from labor in a blacksmith's shop by Mr. Calhoun and became the grateful champion of his patron in the House. He was a spare, grim-looking man, who was an admirer of Milton, and who was never known to jest or to smile. As a debater he had few equals in the House, but he failed when, during the discussion of the Panama Mission question, he opened his batteries upon Mr. Webster. The "expounder of the Constitution" retorted with great force, reminding the gentleman from South Carolina that noisy declamation was not logic, and that he should not apply coarse epithets to the President, who could not reply to them. Mr. Webster then went on to say that he would furnish the gentleman from South Carolina with high authority on the point to which he had objected, and quoted from a speech by Mr. Calhoun which effectively extinguished Mr. McDuffie.

Tristram Burgess, of Rhode Island, who had a snowy head and a Roman nose, was called "the bald eagle of the House." Although under fifty years of age, his white hair and bent form gave him a patriarchal look and added to the effect of his fervid eloquence and his withering sarcasm. A man of iron heart, he was ever anxious to meet his antagonists, haughty in his rude self-confidence, and exhaustive in the use of every expletive of abuse permitted by parliamentary usage. In debate he resembled one of the old soldiers who fought on foot or on horseback, with heavy or light arms, a battle-axe or a spear. The champion of the North, he divided the South and thrashed and slashed as did old Horatius, when with his good sword he stood upon the bridge and with his single arm defended Rome.

George Kremer, of Pennsylvania, was probably the most unpopular man in the House. An anonymous letter had appeared just before the election of President [Adams] by the Representatives denouncing an "unholy coalition" between Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, by which the support of the friends of the latter had been transferred to the former, "as the planter does his negroes, or the farmer his team and horses." Mr. Clay at once published a card, over his signature, in which he called the writer "a base and infamous calumniator, a dastard, and a liar." Mr. Kremer replied, admitting that he had written the letter, but in such a manner that his political friends were ashamed of his cowardice, while the admirers of Mr. Clay were very indignant—the more so as they suspected that Mr. James Buchanan had instigated the letter.

Mr. Henry W. Dwight, of Massachusetts, a good specimen of "a sound mind in a sound body," gave great attention to the appropriation bills, and secured liberal sums for carrying on the various departments of the Government. His most formidable antagonist was a self-styled reformer and physical giant, Mr. Thomas Chilton, of Kentucky, who had been at one period of his life a Baptist preacher. He declared on the floor in debate that he was pledged to his constituents to endeavor to retrench the expenses of the General Government, to diminish the army and navy, to abridge the number of civil and diplomatic officials, and, above all, to cut down the pay of Congressmen. He made speeches in support of all these "reforms," but did not succeed in securing the discharge of a soldier, a sailor, a diplomatist, or a clerk, neither did he reduce the appropriations one single cent. The erratic Mr. David Crockett was then a member of the House, but had not attracted public attention, although the Jackson men were angry because he, one of Old Hickory's officers in the Creek War, was a devoted adherent of Henry Clay for the Presidency. One of his colleagues in the Tennessee delegation was Mr. James K. Polk, a rigid and uncompromising Presbyterian, a political disciple of Macon, and a man of incorruptible honesty.

Prominent among the Representatives from the State of New York were Messrs. Gulian C. Verplanck and Thomas J. Oakley, members of the legal profession, who were statesmen rather than politicians. Mr. George C. Washington, of Maryland, was the great-nephew of "the Father of his country," and had inherited a portion of the library at Mount Vernon, which he subsequently sold to the Boston Athenaeum. Messrs. Elisha Whittlesey and Samuel Vinton, Representatives from Ohio, were afterwards for many years officers of the Federal Government and residents at Washington. Mr. Jonathan Hunt, of Vermont, a lawyer of ability, and one of the companions chosen by Mr. Webster, was the father of that gifted artist, William Morris Hunt, whose recent death was so generally regretted. Mr. Silas Wright, of New York, was then attracting attention in the Democratic party, of which he became a great leader, and which would have elected him President had he not shortened his life by intemperance. He was a solid, square-built man, with an impassive, ruddy face. He claimed to be a good farmer, but no orator, yet he was noted for the compactness of his logic, which was unenlivened by a figure of speech or a flight of fancy.

The Supreme Court then sat in the room in the basement of the Capitol, now occupied as a law library. It has an arched ceiling supported by massive pillars that obstruct the view, and is very badly ventilated. But it is rich in traditions of hair-powder, queues, ruffled shirts, knee-breeches, and buckles. Up to that time no Justice had ever sat upon the bench in trousers, nor had any lawyer ventured to plead in boots or wearing whiskers. Their Honors, the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices, wearing silk judicial robes, were treated with the most profound respect. When Mr. Clay stopped, one day, in an argument, and advancing to the bench, took a pinch of snuff from Judge Washington's box, saying, "I perceive that your Honor sticks to the Scotch," and then proceeded with his case, it excited astonishment and admiration. "Sir," said Mr. Justice Story, in relating the circumstance to a friends, "I do not believe there is a man in the United States who could have done that but Mr. Clay."

Chief Justice John Marshall, who had then presided in the Supreme Court for more than a quarter of a century, was one of the last survivors of those officers of the Revolutionary Army who had entered into civil service. He was a tall, gaunt man, with a small head and bright black eyes. He used to wear an unbrushed long- skirted black coat, a badly fitting waistcoat, and knee-breeches, a voluminous white cambric cravat, generally soiled, and black worsted stockings, with low shoes and silver buckles. When upward of seventy years of age he still relished the pleasures of the quoit club or the whist table, and to the last his right hand never forgot its cunning with the billiard cue.

Nor did the Chief Justice ever lose his relish for a joke, even at his own expense. In the Law Library one day he fell from a step- ladder, bruising himself severely and scattering an armful of books in all directions. An attendant, full of alarm, ran to assist him, but his Honor drily remarked, "That time I was completely floored."

Bushrod Washington, who had been appointed to the Supreme Court by President John Adams, was by inheritance the owner of Mount Vernon, where his remains now lie, near those of his illustrious uncle, George Washington. He was a small, insignificant-looking man, deprived of the sight of one eye by excessive study, negligent of dress, and an immoderate snuff-taker. He was a rigid disciplinarian and a great stickler for etiquette, and on one occasion he sat for sixteen hours without leaving the bench. He was also a man of rare humor.

Christmas was the popular holiday season at Washington sixty years ago, the descendants of the Maryland Catholics joining the descendants of the Virginia Episcopalians in celebrating the advent of their Lord. The colored people enjoyed the festive season, and there was scarcely a house in Washington in which there was not a well- filled punch bowl. In some antique silver bowls was "Daniel Webster punch," made of Medford rum, brandy, champagne, arrack, menschino, strong green tea, lemon juice, and sugar; in other less expensive bowls was found a cheaper concoction. But punch abounded everywhere, and the bibulous found Washington a rosy place, where jocund mirth and joyful recklessness went arm in arm to flout vile melancholy, and kick, with ardent fervor, dull care out of the window. Christmas carols were sung in the streets by the young colored people, and yule logs were burned in the old houses where the fireplaces had not been bricked up.

[Facsimile]
With great respect
I am yrs. v. truly. [?]
H. Clay
HENRY CLAY, born in Virginia, April 12th, 1777; United States
Senator from Kentucky, 1806-1807, and again 1810-1811; Representative
from Kentucky, 1811-1814; negotiator of the treaty of Ghent, 1815;
Representative in Congress, 1815-1820, and 1823-1825; Secretary of
State under President Adams, 1825-1829; United States Senator from
Kentucky, 1831-1842, and 1844, until he died at Washington City,
June 29th, 1852.

CHAPTER VI. THE POLITICAL MACHINE.

As the time for another Presidential election approached, the friends of General Jackson commenced active operations in his behalf. The prime mover in the campaign was General John Henry Eaton, then a Senator from Tennessee. He had published in 1818 a brief life of the hero of New Orleans, which he enlarged in 1824 and published with the title, "The Life of Andrew Jackson, Major- General in the Service of the United States, comprising a History of the War in the South from the Commencement of the Creek Campaign to the Termination of Hostilities Before New Orleans." The facts in it were obtained from General Jackson and his wife, but every incident of his life calculated to injure him in the public estimation was carefully suppressed. It was, however, the recognized text- book for Democratic editors and stump speakers, and although entirely unreliable, it has formed the basis for the lives of General Jackson since published.

President Adams enjoined neutrality upon his friends but some of them, acting with Democrats who were opposed to the election of General Jackson, had published and circulated, as an offset to General Eaton's book, a thick pamphlet entitled, "Reminiscences; or, an Extract from the Catalogue of General Jackson's Youthful Indiscretions, between the Age of Twenty-three and Sixty," which contained an account of Jackson's fights, brawls, affrays, and duels, numbered from one to fourteen. Broadsides, bordered with wood-cuts of coffins, and known as "coffin hand-bills," narrated the summary and unjust execution as deserters of a number of militiamen in the Florida campaign whose legal term of service had expired. Another handbill gave the account of General Jackson's marriage to Mrs. Robards before she had been legally divorced from her husband.

General Jackson's friends also had printed and circulated large editions of campaign songs, the favorite being "The Hunters of Kentucky," which commenced:

"You've heard, I s'pose of New Orleans,
'Tis famed for youth and beauty,
There're girls of every hue, it seems,
From snowy white to sooty,
Now Packenham had made his brags,
If he that day was lucky,
He'd have those girls and cotton-bags
In spite of old Kentucky.
But Jackson, he was wide awake,
And was not scared at trifles,
For well he knew Kentucky's boys,
With their death-dealing rifles.
He led them down to cypress swamp,
The ground was low and mucky,
There stood John Bull in martial pomp,
And here stood old Kentucky.

"Oh! Kentucky, the hunters of Kentucky!"

After a political campaign of unprecedented bitterness, General Jackson was elected, receiving one hundred and seventy-eight electoral votes against eighty-three cast for John Quincy Adams, and so a new chapter was commenced in the social as well as the political chronicles of the National Capital. Those who had known the Presidential successors of Washington as educated and cultivated gentlemen, well versed in the courtesies of private life and of ceremonious statesmanship, saw them succeeded by a military chieftain, whose life had been "a battle and a march," thickly studded with personal difficulties and duels; who had given repeated evidences of his disregard of the laws when they stood in the way of his imperious will; and who, when a United States Senator, had displayed no ability as a legislator. His election was notoriously the work of Martin Van Buren, inspired by Aaron Burr, and with his inauguration was initiated a sordidly selfish political system entirely at variance with the broad views of Washington and of Hamilton.

It was assumed that every citizen had his price; that neither virtue nor genius was proof against clever although selfish corruption; that political honestly was a farce; and that the only way of governing those knaves who elbowed their way up through the masses was to rule them by cunning more acute than their own and knavery more subtle and calculating than theirs.

Before leaving his rural home in Tennessee, General Jackson had been afflicted by the sudden death of his wife. "Aunt Rachel," as Mrs. Jackson was called by her husband's personal friends, had accompanied him to Washington when he was there as a Senator from Tennessee. She was a short, stout, unattractive, and uneducated woman, though greatly endeared to General Jackson. While he had been in the army she had carefully managed his plantation, his slaves, and his money matters, and her devotion to him knew no bounds. Her happiness was centered in his, and it was her chief desire to smoke her corn-cob pipe in peace at his side. When told that he had been elected President of the United States, she replied, "Well, for Mr. Jackson's sake I am glad of it, but for myself I am not." A few weeks later she was arrayed for the grave in a white satin costume which she had provided herself with to wear at the White House. After her funeral her sorrow-stricken husband came to Washington with a stern determination to punish those who had maligned her during the preceding campaign. Having been told that President Adams had sanctioned the publication of the slanders, he did not call at the White House, in accordance with the usage, but paid daily visits to old friends in the War Department. Mr. Adams, stung by this neglect, determined not to play the part of the conquered leader of the inauguration, and quietly removed to the house of Commodore Porter, in the suburbs, on the morning of the 3d of March.

The weather on the 4th of March, 1829, was serene and mild, and at an early hour Pennsylvania Avenue, then unpaved, with a double row of poplar trees along its centre, was filled with crowds of people, many of whom had journeyed immense distances on foot. The officials at Washington, who were friends of Mr. Adams, had agreed not to participate in the inaugural ceremonies, and the only uniformed company of light infantry, commanded by Colonel Seaton, of the National Intelligencer, had declined to offer its services as an escort. A number of old Revolutionary officers, however, had hastily organized themselves, and waited on General Jackson to solicit the honor of forming his escort to the Capitol, an offer which was cordially accepted. The General rode in an open carriage which had been placed at his disposal, and was surrounded by these gallant veterans. The assembled thousands cheered lustily as their favorite passed along, every face radiant with defiant joy, and every voice shouting "Hurrah for Jackson!"

After the installation of John C. Calhoun as Vice-President in the Senate Chamber, the assembled dignitaries moved in procession through the rotunda to the east front of the Capitol. As the tall figure of the President-elect came out upon the portico and ascended the platform, uplifted hats and handkerchiefs waved a welcome, and shouts of "Hurrah for Jackson!" rent the air. Looking around for a moment into ten thousand upturned and exultant human faces, the President-elect removed his hat, took the manuscript of his address from his pocket, and read it with great dignity. When he had finished, Chief Justice Marshall administered the oath, and as the President, bending over the sacred Book, touched it with his lips, there arose such a shout as was never before heard in Washington, followed by the thunder of cannons, from two light batteries near by, echoed by the cannon at the Navy Yard and at the Arsenal. The crowd surged toward the platform, and had it not been that a ship's cable had been stretched across the portico steps would have captured their beloved leader. As it was, he shook hands with hundreds, and it was with some difficulty that he could be escorted back to his carriage and along Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. Meanwhile Mr. Adams, who had refused to participate in the pageant, was taking his usual constitutional horseback exercise when the thunders of the cannon reached his ears and notified him that he was again a private citizen.

The broad sidewalks of Pennsylvania Avenue were again packed as the procession returned from the Capitol. "I never saw such a crowd," wrote Daniel Webster to a friend. "Persons have come five hundred miles to see General Jackson, and they really seem to think that the country is rescued from some dreadful danger." Hunters of Kentucky and Indian fighters of Tennessee, with sturdy frontiersmen from the Northwest, were mingled in the throng with the more cultured dwellers on the Atlantic slope.

On their arrival at the White House, the motley crowd clamored for refreshments and soon drained the barrels of punch, which had been prepared, in drinking to the health of the new Chief Magistrate. A great deal of china and glassware was broken, and the East Room was filled with a noisy mob. At one time General Jackson, who had retreated until he stood with his back against the wall, was protected by a number of his friends, who formed a living barrier about him. Such a scene had never before been witnessed at the White House, and the aristocratic old Federalists saw, to their disgust, men whose boots were covered with the red mud of the unpaved streets standing on the damask satin-covered chairs to get a sight at the President of their choice.

Late in the afternoon President Jackson sat down to dinner with Vice-President Calhoun and a party of his personal friends, the central dish on the table being a sirloin from a prize ox, sent to him by John Merkle, a butcher of Franklin Market, New York. Before retiring that night, the President wrote to the donor: "Permit me, sir, to assure you of the gratification which I felt in being enabled to place on my table so fine a specimen of your market, and to offer you my sincere thanks for so acceptable a token of your regard for my character." This was the commencement of a series of presents which poured in on General Jackson during the eight years of his administration.

The Democratic journalists of the country were also well represented at the inauguration, attracted by this semi-official declaration in the Telegraph: "We know not what line of policy General Jackson will adopt. We take it for granted, however, that he will reward his friends and punish his enemies."

The leader of this editorial phalanx was Amos Kendall, a native of Dunstable, Massachusetts, who had by pluck and industry acquired an education and migrated westward in search of fame and fortune. Accident made him an inmate of Henry Clay's house and the tutor of his children; but many months had not elapsed before the two became political foes, and Kendall, who had become the conductor of a Democratic newspaper, triumphed, bringing to Washington the official vote of Kentucky for Andrew Jackson. He found at the National metropolis other Democratic editors, who, like himself, had labored to bring about the political revolution, and they used to meet daily in the house of a preacher-politician, Rev. Obadiah B. Brown, who had strongly advocated Jackson's election. Mr. Brown, who was a stout, robust man, with a great fund of anecdotes, was a clerk in the Post Office department during the week, while on Sundays he performed his ministerial duties in the Baptist Church.

Organizing under the lead of Amos Kendall, whose lieutenants were the brilliant but vindictive Isaac Hill, of New Hampshire; the scholarly Nathaniel Greene, of Massachusetts; the conservative Gideon Welles, of Connecticut; the jovial Major Mordecai M. Noah, of New York, and the energetic Dabney S. Carr, of Maryland, the allied editors claimed their rewards. They were not to be appeased by sops of Government advertising, or by the appointment of publisher of the laws of the United States in the respective States, but they demanded some of the most lucrative public offices in their share of the spoils. No sooner did General Jackson reach Washington then they made a systematic attack upon him, introducing and praising one another, and reciprocally magnifying their faithful services during the canvass so successfully ended. The result was that soon after the inauguration nearly fifty of those editors who had advocated his election were appointed to official Federal positions as rewards for political services rendered.

Up to that time the national elections in the United States had not been mere contests for the possession of Federal offices—there was victory and there was defeat; but the quadrennial encounters affected only the heads of departments, and the results were matters of comparative indifference to the subordinate official drudges whose families depended on their pay for meat and bread. A few of these department clerks were Revolutionary worthies; others had followed the Federal Government from New York or Philadelphia; all had expected to hold their positions for life. Some of these desk- slaves had originally been Federalists, others Democrats; and while there was always an Alexander Hamilton in every family of the one set, there was as invariably a Thomas Jefferson in every family of the other set. But no subordinate clerk had ever been troubled on account of his political faith by a change of the Administration, and the sons generally succeeded their fathers when they died or resigned. Ordinarily, these clerks were good penmen and skillful accountants, toiling industriously eight hours every week day without dreaming of demanding a month's vacation in the summer, or insisting upon their right to go to their homes to vote in the fall. National politics was to them a matter of profound indifference until, after the inauguration of General Jackson, hundreds of them found themselves decapitated by the Democratic guillotine, without qualifications for any other employment had the limited trade of Washington afforded any. Many of them were left in a pitiable condition, but when the Telegraph was asked what these men could do to ward off starvation, the insolent reply was, "Root, hog, or die!" Some of the new political brooms swept clean, and made a great show of reform, notably Amos Kendall, who was appointed Fourth Auditor of the Treasury, and who soon after exulted over the discovery of a defalcation of a few hundred dollars in the accounts of his predecessor, Dr. Tobias Watkins.

Postmaster-General McLean, of Ohio, who had been avowedly a Jackson man while he was a member of Mr. Adams' Administration, rebelled against the removal of several of his most efficient subordinates, because of their political action during the preceding Presidential campaign. At last he flatly told General Jackson that if he must remove those postmasters who had taken an active part in politics, he should impartially turn out those who had worked to secure the election of General Jackson, as well as those who had labored to re-elect Mr. Adams. To his General Jackson at first made no reply, but rose from his seat, puffing away at his pipe; and after walking up and down the floor two or three times, he stopped in front of his rebellious Postmaster-General, and said, "Mr. McLean, will you accept a seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court?" The judicial position thus tendered was accepted with thanks, and the Post-Office Department was placed under the direction of Major Barry, who was invited to take a seat in the Cabinet (never occupied by his predecessors), and who not only made the desired removals and appointments, but soon plunged the finances of the Department into a chaotic state of disorder.

Prominent among those "Jackson men" who received lucrative mail contracts from Postmaster-General Barry, was "Land Admiral" Reeside, an appellation he owed to the executive ability which he had displayed in organizing mail routes between distant cities. He was a very tall man, well formed, with florid complexion, red hair, and side whiskers. Very obligingly, he once had a horse belonging to a Senator taken from Pittsburg to Washington tied behind a stage, because the owner had affixed his "frank" to the animal's halter. He was the first mail contractor who ran his stages between Philadelphia and the West, by night as well as by day, and Mr. Joseph R. Chandler, of the United States Gazette, said that "the Admiral could leave Philadelphia on a six-horse coach with a hot johnny-cake in his pocket and reach Pittsburg before it could grow cold." He used to ridicule the locomotives when they were first introduced, and offer to bet a thousand dollars that no man could build a machine that would drag a stage from Washington to Baltimore quicker than his favorite team of iron-grays.

Mail robberies were not uncommon in those days, although the crime was punishable with imprisonment or death. One day one of Reeside's coaches was stopped near Philadelphia by three armed men, who ordered the nine passengers to alight and stand in a line. One of the robbers then mounted guard, while the other two made the terrified passengers deliver up their money and watches, and then rifled the mail bags. They were soon afterward arrested, tried, convicted, and one was sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary, while the other two were condemned to be hung. Fortunately for one of the culprits, named Wilson, he had some years previously, at a horse-race near Nashville, Tennessee, privately advised General Jackson to withdraw his bets on a horse which he was backing, as the jockey had been ordered to lose the race. The General was very thankful for this information, which enabled him to escape a heavy loss, and he promised his informant that he would befriend him whenever an opportunity should offer. When reminded of this promise, after Wilson had been sentenced to be hanged, Jackson promptly commuted the sentence to ten years imprisonment in the penitentiary.

When Admiral Reeside was carrying the mails between New York and Washington, there arose a formidable organization in opposition to the Sunday mail service. The members of several religious denominations were prominent in their demonstrations, and in Philadelphia, chains, secured by padlocks, were stretched across the streets on Sundays to prevent the passage of the mail-coaches. The subject was taken up by politicians, and finally came before the House of Representatives, where it was referred to the Committee on Post-Roads, of which Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was then the chairman. The Rev. Obadiah B. Brown, who had meanwhile been promoted in the Post-office Department, wrote a report on the subject for Colonel Johnson, which gave "the killer of Tecumseh" an extended reputation, and was the first step toward his election as Vice-President, a few years later.

[Facsimile] J. C. Calhoun JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN was born in South Carolina, March 18th, 1782: was a Representative in Congress, 1811-1817; Secretary of War, 1817- 1825; Vice-President, 1825-1832; United States Senator, 1833-1843; Secretary of State, 1844-1845; United States Senator from 1845 until his death at Washington City, March 31st, 1850.

CHAPTER VII. THE KITCHEN CABINET.

When the Twenty-first Congress assembled, on the 7th of December, 1829, General Jackson sent in his first annual message, which naturally attracted some attention. Meeting his old and intimate friend, General Armstrong, the next day, the President said, "Well, Bob, what do the people say of my message?" "They say," replied General Armstrong, "that it is first-rate, but nobody believes that you wrote it." "Well," good-naturedly replied Old Hickory, "don't I deserve just as much credit for picking out the man who could write it?" Although the words of this and of the subsequent messages were not General Jackson's, the ideas were, and he always insisted on having them clearly expressed. It was in his first message, by the way, that he invited the attention of Congress to the fact that the charter of the United States bank would expire in 1836, and asserted that it had "failed in the great end of establishing a uniform and sound currency." This was the beginning of that fierce political contest which resulted in the triumph of General Jackson and the overthrow of the United States Bank.

General Jackson rarely left the White House, where he passed the greater portion of his time in his office in the second story, smoking a corn-cob pipe with a long reed stem. He was at the commencement of his Presidential term sixty-two years of age, tall, spare, with a high forehead, from which his gray hair was brushed back, a decisive nose, searching, keen eyes, and, when good-natured, an almost childlike expression about his mouth. A self-reliant, prejudiced, and often very irascible old man, it was a very difficult task to manage him. Some of his Cabinet advisers made it a point to be always with him, to prevent others from ingratiating themselves into his good will, and they were thus chronicled in a ballad of the time:

"King Andrew had five trusty 'squires,
Whom he held his bid to do;
He also had three pilot-fish,
To give the sharks their cue.
There was Mat and Lou and Jack and Lev,
And Roger, of Taney hue,
And Blair, the book,
And Kendall, chief cook,
And Isaac, surnamed the true."

Mat. Van Buren was Secretary of State, Lou. McLane Secretary of the Treasury, John Branch was Secretary of the Navy, Lev. Woodbury was his successor, and Roger B. Taney was Attorney-General. Blair, Kendall, and Isaac Hill were also known as "the kitchen cabinet."

The confidential advisers of General Jackson lost no time in establishing a daily newspaper which would speak his sentiments and sound a key-note for the guidance of his followers. The Washington Globe was accordingly started on an immense paying basis, as it had the name of every Federal office-holder whose salary exceeded one thousand dollars on its subscription list. The paper was sent them, and in due time the bill for a year. If a remittance was made, well and good; if payment was refused, the delinquent was told informally that he could pay his subscription to the Globe, or be replaced by some one else who would pay it. It was owned and edited by Blair & Rives, Rives attending to the business department of the establishment. Mr. Blair had been the partner of Amos Kendall in the publication of the Frankfort Argus, and they had both deserted Henry Clay when they enlisted in the movement which gave the electoral vote of Kentucky to General Jackson, and joined in the cry of "bargain and corruption" raised against their former friend. It is related that the first interview between Clay and Blair after this desertion was a very awkward one for the latter, who felt that he had behaved shabbily. Clay had ridden over on horseback from Lexington to Frankfort, in the winter season, on legal business, and on alighting from his horse at the tavern door he found himself confronting Blair, who was just leaving the house. "How do you do, Mr. Blair?" inquired the great commoner, in his silvery tones and blandest manner, at the same time extending his hand. Blair mechanically took the tendered hand, but was evidently nonplussed, and at length said, with an evident effort, "Pretty well, I thank you, sir. How did you find the roads from Lexington to here?" "The roads are very bad, Mr. Blair," graciously replied Clay, "very bad; and I wish, sir, that you would mend your ways."

Mr. Blair made it a rule to defend in the columns of the Globe the acts of Jackson's Administration, right or wrong, and he waged merciless warfare against those who opposed them. When Colonel William R. King, of Alabama, once begged him to soften an attack upon an erring Democrat, Mr. Blair replied, "No! let it tear his heart out." With all his political insolence, however, he possessed remarkable kindness, and a more indulgent father was never known in Washington.

The Washington papers, up to this time, contained very little of what has since been known as local news. A parade, an inauguration, or the funeral of a distinguished person would receive brief mention, but the pleasant gossip of the day was entirely ignored. It was then necessary for the correspondent of a paper in a northern city to mail his letter at the post-office before twelve o'clock at night to insure its departure by the early morning's mail northward. Letters written to New York did not, consequently, appear until the second day after they were written, while those sent to Boston rarely appeared before the fourth day. The people then were better posted as to what transpired at the Nation's Capital than they are now, when dispatches can be sent in a few moments at any time of day or night.

Mrs. Anne Royall began an enterprise in personal literature. She managed to secure an old Ramage printing-press and a font of battered long-primer type, with which, aided by runaway apprentices and tramping journeymen printers, she published, on Capitol Hill, for several years, a small weekly sheet called the Huntress. Every person of any distinction who visited Washington received a call from Mrs. Royall, and if they subscribed for the Huntress they were described in the next number in a complimentary manner, but if they declined she abused them without mercy. When young she was a short, plump, and not bad-looking woman, but as she advanced in years her flesh disappeared, and her nose seemed to increase in size; but her piercing black eyes lost none of their fire, while her tongue wagged more abusively when her temper was roused. John Quincy Adams described her as going about "like a virago-errant in enchanted armor, redeeming herself from the cramps of indigence by the notoriety of her eccentricities and the forced currency they gave to her publications."

Mrs. Royall's tongue at last became so unendurable that she was formally indicted by the Grand Jury as a common scold, and was tried in the Circuit Court before Judge Cranch. His Honor charged the jury at length, reviewing the testimony and showing that, if found guilty, she must be ducked, in accordance with the English law in force in the District of Columbia. The jury found her guilty, but her counsel begged his Honor, the Judge, to weigh the matter and not be the first to introduce a ducking-stool. The plea prevailed and she was let off with a fine.

The first "Society Letters," as they were called, written from Washington, were by Nathaniel P. Willis, to the New York Mirror. Willis was at that time a foppish, slender young man, with a profusion of curly, light hair, and was always dressed in the height of fashion. He had, while traveling in Europe, mingled with the aristocratic classes, and he affected to look down upon the masses; but with all his snobbishness he had a wonderful faculty for endowing trifling occurrences with interest, and his letters have never been surpassed. He possessed a sunny nature, full of poetry, enthusiasm, and cheerfulness, and was always willing to say a pleasant word for those who treated him kindly, and never sought to retaliate on his enemies.

Willis first introduced steel pens at Washington, having brought over from England some of those made by Joseph Gillott, at Birmingham. Before this goose-quill pens had been exclusively used, and there was in each House of Congress and in each Department a penmaker, who knew what degree of flexibility and breadth of point each writer desired. Every gentleman had to carry a penknife, and to have in his desk a hone to sharpen it on, giving the finishing touches on one of his boots. Another new invention of that epoch was the lucifer match-box, which superseded the large tin tinder-box with its flint and steel. The matches were in the upper portion of a pasteboard case about an inch in diameter and six inches in length and in a compartment beneath them was a bottle containing a chemical preparation, into which the brimstone-coated end of the match was dipped and thus ignited.

The Mayor of Washington, during a portion of the Jackson Administration, was Peter Force, a noble specimen of those who, before the existence of trades unions, used to serve an apprenticeship to the "art preservative of arts," and graduate from the printing office qualified to fill any political position. Fond of American history, Mr. Force, while printing the Biennial Register, better known as the Blue Book from the color of its binding, began to collect manuscripts, books, and pamphlets, many of which had been thrown away in the executive departments as rubbish, and were purchased by him from the dealers in waste paper. In 1833 he originated the idea of compiling and publishing a documentary history of the country, under the title of the American Archives, and issued a number of large folio volumes, the profits going to the politicians who secured the necessary appropriations from Congress. He was emphatically a gentleman—tall, stalwart, with bushy black hair, and large, expressive eyes, which would beam with joy whenever a friend brought him a rare autograph or pamphlet.

Assemblies were held once a week between Christmas Day and Ash Wednesday, to which all of the respectable ladies of the city who danced were invited. It was also customary for those of the Cabinet officers and other high officials who kept house to give at least one evening party during each session of Congress, invitations for which were issued. The guests at these parties used to assemble at about eight o'clock, and after taking off their wraps in an upper room they descended to the parlor, where the host and hostess received them. The older men then went to the punch-bowl to criticise the "brew" which it contained, while the young people found their way to the dining-room, almost invariably devoted to dancing. The music was a piano and two violins, and one of the musicians called the figures for the cotillions and contra-dances. Those who did not dance elbowed their way through the crowd, conversing with acquaintances, the men frequently taking another glass of punch. At ten the guests were invited to the supper-table, which was often on the wide back porch which every Washington house had in those days. The table was always loaded with evidences of the culinary skill of the lady of the house. There was a roast ham at one end, a saddle of venison or mutton at the other end, and some roasted poultry or wild ducks midway; a great variety of home-baked cake was a source of pride, and there was never any lack of punch, with decanters of Madeira. The diplomats gave champagne, but it was seldom seen except at the legations. At eleven there was a general exodus, and after the usual scramble for hats, cloaks, and over-shoes the guests entered their carriages. Sometimes a few intimate friends of the hostess lingered to enjoy a contra- dance or to take a parting drink of punch, but by midnight the last guest departed, and the servants began to blow out the candles with which the house had been illuminated.

In Jackson's first Administration the country was shocked by the appearance of a book entitled, The Domestic Manners of Americans, by Mrs. Frances Trollope. She was a bright little Englishwoman, who had come to this country and established a bazaar at Cincinnati, which proved a failure. So she sought revenge and wealth by a caricature sketch of our pioneer life, founded on fact, but very unpalatable. Expectoration was her pet abomination, and she was inclined to think that this "most vile and universal habit of chewing tobacco" was the cause of a remarkable peculiarity in the male physiognomy of Americans, the almost uniform thinness and compression of their lips. So often did Mrs. Trollope recur to this habit that she managed to give one the impression that this country was in those days a sort of huge spittoon.

Mrs. Trollope first called attention to the fact that American women did not consult the season in either the colors or style of their costumes, never wore boots, and walked in the middle of winter with their pretty little feet pinched into miniature slippers incapable of excluding as much moisture as might bedew a primrose.

Removals from office that places might be provided for Jackson men were the order of the day, but President Jackson was not disposed to displace any veteran soldier. Among other victims designated for removal by the politicians was General Solomon Van Rensselaer, whose gallant services against Great Britain in the War of 1812 had been rewarded by an election to the House of Representatives, followed by his appointment as Postmaster of Albany. He was a decided Federalist and the petition for his removal was headed by Martin Van Buren and Silas Wright.

Visiting Washington, General Van Rensselaer received a cordial greeting from General Jackson at a public reception, and then, taking a seat in a corner, he waited until the room was cleared, when he again approached the President, saying: "General Jackson, I have come here to talk to you about my office. The politicians want to take it from me, and they know I have nothing else to live on." The President made no reply, till the aged Postmaster began to take off his coat in the most excited manner, when Old Hickory broke out with the inquiry: "What in Heaven's name are you going to do? Why do you take off your coat here?" "Well, sir, I am going to show you my wounds, which I received in fighting for my country against the English!" "Put it on at once, sir!" was the reply; "I am surprised that a man of your age should make such an exhibition of himself," and the eyes of the iron President were suffused with tears, as, without another word, he bade his ancient foe good evening.

The next day Messrs. Van Buren and Wright called at the White House and were shown up into the President's room, where they found him smoking a clay pipe. Mr. Wright soon commenced to solicit the removal of General Van Rensselaer, asserting that he had been known as a very active advocate of John Quincy Adams; that he had literally forfeited his place by his earnest opposition to the Jackson men, and that if he were not removed the new Administration would be seriously injured. He had hardly finished the last sentence, when Jackson sprang to his feet, flung his pipe into the fire, and exclaimed with great vehemence, "I take the consequences, sir; I take the consequences. By the Eternal! I will not remove the old man—I cannot remove him. Why, Mr. Wright, do you not know that he carries more than a pound of British lead in his body?" That settled the question, and General Van Rensselaer remained undisturbed as Postmaster at Albany through the Jackson Administration, although Martin Van Buren, when he came into power, promptly "bounced" him.

General Jackson's defiant disposition was manifested when, in a message to Congress, he recommended that a law be passed authorizing reprisals upon French property in case provision should not be made for the payment of the long-standing claims against France at the approaching session of the French Chambers. Some of his Cabinet, having deemed this language too strong, had prevailed upon the President's private secretary, Major Donelson, to modify it, and to make it less irritating and menacing. No sooner was it discovered by General Jackson than he flew into a great excitement, and when Mr. Rives entered his private office to obtain it for printing, he found the old General busily engaged in re-writing it according to the original copy. "I know them French," said he. "They won't pay unless they're made to."

The French people were indignant when this message reached Paris, and when the Chamber of Deputies finally provided for the payment of the claims, a proviso was inserted ordering the money to be withheld until the President of the United States had apologized for the language used. This General Jackson flatly refused to do, and the "Ancient Allies" of the Revolution were on the verge of hostilities, when both nations agreed to submit their differences to Great Britain. The affair was speedily arranged, and France paid five millions of dollars for French spoilations into the Treasury of the United States, where it has since remained.

[Facsimile] Silas Wright Jr. SILAS WRIGHT, JR., was born at Amherst, Massachusetts, May 24th, 1795; was a Representative from New York in Congress, 1827-1829; Comptroller of New York, 1829-1833; United States Senator, 1833- 1844; Governor of New York, 1844-1846; retired to his farm at Canton, New York, and died there, August 27th, 1847.

CHAPTER VIII. BATTLE OF THE GIANTS.

An unimportant resolution concerning the public lands, introduced into the Senate early in 1830 by Senator Foote, of Connecticut (the father of Admiral Foote), led to a general debate, which has been since known as "the battle of the giants." The discussion embraced all the partisan issues of the time, especially those of a sectional nature, including the alleged rights of a State to set the Federal Government at defiance. The State Rights men in South Carolina, instigated by Mr. Calhoun, had been active during the preceding summer in collecting material for this discussion, and they had taken especial pains to request a search for evidence that Mr. Webster had shown a willingness to have New England secede from the Union during the second war with Great Britain. The vicinity of Portsmouth, where he had resided when he entered public life, was, to use his own words, "searched as with a candle. New Hampshire was explored from the mouth of the Merrimack to the White Hills."

Nor had Mr. Webster been idle. He was not an extemporaneous speaker, and he passed the summer in carefully studying, in his intervals of professional duties, the great constitutional question which he afterward so brilliantly discussed. A story is told at Providence about a distinguished lawyer of that place—Mr. John Whipple—who was at Washington when Webster replied to Hayne, but who did not hear the speech, as he was engaged in a case before the Supreme Court when it was delivered. When a report of what Mr. Webster had said appeared in print, Mr. Whipple read it, and was haunted by the idea that he had heard or read it before. Meeting Mr. Webster soon afterward, he mentioned this idea to him and inquired whether it could possibly have any foundation in fact. "Certainly it has," replied Mr. Webster. "Don't you remember our conversations during the long walks we took together last summer at Newport, while in attendance on Story's court?" It flashed across Mr. Whipple's mind that Mr. Webster had then rehearsed the legal argument of his speech and had invited criticism.

As the debate on the Foote resolution progressed, it revealed an evident intention to attack New England, and especially Massachusetts. This brought Mr. Webster into the arena, and he concluded a brief speech by declaring that, as a true representative of the State which had sent him into the Senate, it was his duty and a duty which he should fulfill, to place her history and her conduct, her honor and her character, in their just and proper light. A few days later, Mr. Webster heard his State and himself mercilessly attacked by General Hayne, of South Carolina, no mean antagonist. The son of a Revolutionary hero who had fallen a victim to British cruelty, highly educated, with a slender, graceful form, fascinating deportment, and a well-trained, mellifluous voice, the haughty South Carolinian entered the lists of the political tournament like Saladin to oppose the Yankee Coeur de Lion.

When Mr. Webster went to the Senate Chamber to reply to General Hayne, on Tuesday, January 20th, 1830, he felt himself master of the situation. Always careful about his personal appearance when he was to address an audience, he wore on that day the Whig uniform, which had been copied by the Revolutionary heroes—a blue dress- coat with bright buttons, a buff waistcoat, and a high, white cravat. Neither was he insensible to the benefits to be derived from publicity, and he had sent a request to Mr. Gales to report what he was to say himself, rather than to send one of his stenographers. The most graphic account of the scene in the Senate Chamber during the delivery of the speech was subsequently written virtually from Mr. Webster's dictation. Perhaps, like Mr. Healy's picture of the scene, it is rather high-colored.

Sheridan, after his forty days' preparation, did not commence his scathing impeachment of Warren Hastings with more confidence that was displayed by Mr. Webster when he stood up, in the pride of his manhood, and began to address the interested mass of talent, intelligence, and beauty around him. A man of commanding presence, with a well-knit, sturdy frame, swarthy features, a broad, thoughtful forehead, courageous eyes gleaming from beneath shaggy eyebrows, a quadrangular breadth of jawbone, and a mouth which bespoke strong will, he stood like a sturdy Roundhead sentinel on guard before the gates of the Constitution. Holding in profound contempt what he termed spread-eagle oratory, his only gesticulations were up-and- down motions of his arm, as if he were beating out with sledge- hammers his forcible ideas. His peroration was sublime, and every loyal American heart has since echoed the last words, "Liberty and union—now and forever—one and inseparable!"

Mr. Webster's speech, carefully revised by himself, was not published until the 23d of February, and large editions of it were circulated throughout the Northern States. The debate was continued, and it was the 21st of May before Colonel Benton, who had been the first defamer of New England, brought it to a close. The Northern men claimed for Mr. Webster the superiority, but General Jackson praised the speech of Mr. Hayne, and deemed his picture worthy to occupy a place in the White House, thus giving expression to the general sentiment among the Southerners. This alarmed Mr. Van Buren, who was quietly yet shrewdly at work to defeat the further advancement of Mr. Calhoun, and he lost no time in demonstrating to the imperious old soldier who occupied the Presidential chair that the South Carolina doctrine of nullification could but prove destructive to the Union.

Mr. Calhoun was not aware of this intrigue, and, in order to strengthen his State Rights policy, he organized a public dinner on the anniversary of Jefferson's birthday, April 13th, 1830. When the toasts which were to be proposed were made public in advance, according to the custom, it was discovered that several of them were strongly anti-tariff and State Rights in sentiment—so much so that a number of Pennsylvania tariff Democrats declined to attend, and got up a dinner of their own. General Jackson attended the dinner, but he went late and retired early, leaving a volunteer toast, which he had carefully prepared at the White House, and which fell like a damper upon those at the dinner, while it electrified the North, "The Federal Union—it must and shall be maintained!" This toast, which could not be misunderstood, showed that General Jackson would not permit himself to be placed in the attitude of a patron of doctrines which could lead only to a dissolution of the Federal Government. But the Committee on Arrangements toned it down, so that it appeared in the official report of the dinner, "Our Federal Union—it must be preserved!"

This was a severe blow to Mr. Calhoun, who had labored earnestly to break down Mr. Adams' Administration, without respect to its measures, that a Democratic party might be built up which would first elect General Jackson, and then recognize Calhoun as legitimate successor to the Presidential chair. His discomfiture was soon completed by the publication of a letter from Mr. Crawford, which informed the President that Calhoun, when in the Cabinet of Monroe, proposed that "General Jackson should be punished in some form" for his high-handed military rule in Florida. Van Buren secretly fanned the flames of General Jackson's indignation, and adroitly availed himself of a "tempest in a tea-pot" to complete the downfall of his rival.

The woman used as a tool by Mr. Van Buren for the overthrow of Mr. Calhoun's political hopes was a picturesque and prominent figure in Washington society then and during the next fifty years. The National Metropolis in those days resembled, as has been well said, in recklessness and extravagance, the spirit of the English seventeenth century, so graphically portrayed in Thackeray's Humorist, rather than the dignified caste of the nineteenth cycle of Christianity. Laxity of morals and the coolest disregard possible characterized that period of our existence.

Mrs. General Eaton ruled Andrew Jackson as completely as he ruled the Democratic party. She was the daughter of William O'Neill, a rollicking Irishman, who was in his day the landlord of what was then the leading public house in Washington City. Among other Congressmen who were guests here was Andrew Jackson, then a Senator from Tennessee. It was here he became interested in the landlord's brilliant daughter Margaret, called by her friends "Peg" O'Neill. Before she was sixteen years of age she married a handsome naval officer, John Bowie Timberlake. He died—some say that he committed suicide—at Port Mahon, in 1828, leaving his accounts as purser in a very mixed condition. After the death of Timberlake, Commodore Patterson ordered Lieutenant Randolph to take the purser's books and perform the duties of purser. On the return home of the Constitution it was discovered that Timberlake or Randolph was a defaulter to the Government to a very large amount. A court of inquiry was held on Randolph and he was acquitted, but Amos Kendall, the Fourth Auditor of the Treasury Department, charged the defalcation to Randolph. President Jackson, notwithstanding the decision of the court, dismissed Lieutenant Randolph from the Navy, and refused to give him a hearing.

The Lieutenant, infuriated by his disgrace and pecuniary ruin, in a state of excitement pulled the President's nose in the cabin of a steamboat at the Alexandria wharf. He was immediately seized and thrust on shore, the President declaring that he was able to punish him. He charged that Jackson dismissed him and sustained Kendall's decision in order to save General Eaton, who was Timberlake's bondsman, from having to make good the defalcation.

General Eaton, who had boarded with his friend, General Jackson, at O'Neill's tavern, soon afterward married the Widow Timberlake, who was then one of those examples of that Irish beauty, which, marked by good blood, so suggests both the Greek and the Spaniard, and yet at times presents a combination which transcends both. Her form, of medium height, straight and delicate, was of perfect proportions. Her skin was of that delicate white, tinged with red, which one often sees among even the poorer inhabitants of the Green Isle. Her dark hair, very abundant, clustered in curls about her broad, expressive forehead. Her perfect nose, of almost Grecian proportions, and finely curved mouth, with a firm, round chin, completed a profile of faultless outlines. She was in Washington City what Aspasia was in Athens—the cynosure by whose reflected radiance

"Beauty lent her smile to wit,
And learning by her star was lit."

General Jackson had come to Washington with a sad heart, breathing vengeance against those who had defamed his wife during the Presidential canvass, thereby, as he thought, hastening her death. This made him the sworn and unyielding foe of all slanderers of women, and when some of the female tabbies of the Capital began to drag the name of his old friend "Peg," then the wife of General Eaton, through the mire, he was naturally indignant, and showed his respect for her by having her a frequent guest at the White House. Enchanting, ambitious, and unscrupulous, she soon held the old hero completely under her influence, and carried her griefs to him. Mr. Van Buren adroitly seconded her, and the gallant old soldier swore "by the Eternal" that the scandalmongers who had embittered the last years of his beloved wife, Rachel, should not triumph over his "little friend Peg."

This was Van Buren's opportunity. He was a widower, keeping house at Washington, and as Secretary of State he was able to form an alliance with the bachelor Ministers of Great Britain and Russia, each of whom had spacious residences. A series of dinners, balls, and suppers was inaugurated at these three houses, and at each successive entertainment Mrs. Eaton was the honored guest, who led the contra-dance, and occupied the seat at table on the right of the host. Some respectable ladies were so shocked by her audacity that they would leave a room when she entered it. She was openly denounced by clergymen, and she found herself in positions which would have covered almost any other woman in Washington with shame. Mrs. Eaton, who apparently did not possess a scruple as to the propriety of her course, evidently enjoyed the situation, and used to visit General Jackson every day with a fresh story of the insults paid her. Yet she gave no evidences of diplomacy nor of political sagacity, but was a mere beautiful, passionate, impulsive puppet, held up by General Jackson, while Mr. Van Buren adroitly pulled the strings that directed her movements.

Mr. Calhoun, whose wife was foremost among those ladies who positively refused to associate with Mrs. Eaton, said to a friend of General Jackson's, who endeavored to effect a reconciliation, that "the quarrels of women, like those of the Medes and Persians, admitted of neither inquiry nor explanation." He knew well, however, that it was no women's quarrel, but a political game of chess played by men who were using women as their pawns, and he lost the game. Van Buren and Eaton next tendered their resignations as Cabinet officers, which General Jackson refused to accept; whereupon the Cabinet officers whose wives declined to call on Mrs. Eaton resigned, and their resignations were promptly accepted. The whole city was in a turmoil. Angry men walked about with bludgeons, seeking "satisfaction;" duels were talked of; old friendships were severed; and every fresh indignity offered his "little friend Peg" endeared her the more to General Jackson, who was duly grateful to Van Buren for having espoused her cause. "It is odd enough," wrote Daniel Webster to a personal friend, "that the consequences of this dispute in the social and fashionable world are producing great political effects, and may very probably determine who shall be successor to the present Chief Magistrate."

Junius Brutus Booth was the delight of the Washington playgoers in the Jackson Administration. His wonderful impersonations of Richard III., Iago, King Lear, Othello, Shylock, and Sir Giles Overreach were as grand as his private life was intemperate and eccentric. He was a short, dumpy man, with features resembling those of the Roman Emperors, before his nose was broken in a quarrel, and his deportment on the stage was imperially grand. He had a farm in Maryland, and at one time he undertook to supply a Washington hotel with eggs, milk, and chickens, but he soon gave it up. His instant and tremendous concentration of passion in his delineations overwhelmed his audience and wrought it into such enthusiasm that it partook of the fever of inspiration surging through his own veins. He was not lacking in the power to comprehend and portray with marvelous and exquisite delicacy the subtle shades of character that Shakespeare loved to paint, and his impersonations were a delight to the refined scholar as well as the uncultivated backwoodsmen who crowded to his performances.

The Washington Theatre was not well patronized, but the strolling proprietors of minor amusements reaped rich harvests of small silver coins. The circus paid its annual visit, to the joy of the rural Congressmen and the negroes, who congregated around its sawdust ring, applauding each successive act of horsemanship and laughing at the repetition of the clown's old jokes; a daring rope-dancer, named Herr Cline, performed his wonderful feats on the tight rope and on the slack wire; Finn gave annual exhibitions of fancy glass- blowing; and every one went to see "the living skeleton," a tall, emaciated young fellow named Calvin Edson, compared with whom Shakespeare's starved apothecary was fleshy.

General Jackson turned a deaf ear to the numerous applications made to him for charity. At one time when he was President a large number of Irish immigrants were at work on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in Georgetown, and, the weather being very hot, many of them were prostrated by sunstroke and bilious diseases. They were without medical aid, the necessities of life, or any shelter except the shanties in which they were crowded. Their deplorable condition led to the formation of a society of Irish-Americans, with the venerable Mr. McLeod, a noted instructor, as president. A committee from this Society waited on the President for aid, and Mr. McLeod made known the object of their visit. General Jackson interrupted him by saying that he "entirely disapproved of the Society; that the fact of its existence would induce these fellows to come one hundred miles to get the benefit of it; that if the treasury of the United States were at his disposal it could not meet the demands that were daily made upon him, and he would not be driven from the White House by a beggar-man, like old Jim Monroe."

Colonel Samuel Swartwout, of Hoboken, was an old personal friend of General Jackson, and when "the Hickory Broom" began to sweep out the old office-holders, in obedience to the maxim, "To the victors belong the spoils," the Colonel was an applicant for the then lucrative position of Collector of the Port of New York. Van Buren was against him, and used many arguments with Jackson to prevent the appointment; but after a patient hearing, Old Hickory closed the case by bringing his fist down upon the table and exclaiming, "By the Eternal! Sam, Swartwout shall be Collector of the Port of New York!" He was appointed and became the prey of political swindlers, spending the public moneys right regally until his accounts were overhauled, and he "Swartwouted" (to use a word coined at the time) to avoid a criminal prosecution. He remained abroad for many years, and I think died in Europe.

Francis S. Key was United States Attorney for the district of Washington during the Jackson Administration. He was a small, active man, having an earnest and even anxious expression of countenance, as if care sat heavily upon him. In composing the heroic song of the "Star-Spangled Banner," after he had witnessed the unsuccessful night attack of the British on Fort McHenry, he, in a measure, associated himself with the glory of his country. He was a man of very ardent religious character, and some of the most poetic and popular of the hymns used in religious worship were from his pen.

[Facsimile] Danl Webster DANIEL WEBSTER was born at Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18th, 1782; was a Representative from New Hampshire in Congress, 1813- 1817, and removing to Boston, a Representative from Massachusetts, 1823-1827; United States Senator, 1827-1841; Secretary of State under Presidents Harrison and Tyler, 1841-1843; United States Senator, 1845-1850; Secretary of State under President Fillmore from 1850 until his death at Marshfield, Massachusetts, October 14th, 1852.

CHAPTER IX. THE STAMPING OUT OF NULLIFICATION.

The rejection by the Senate of the nomination of Martin Van Buren as Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain, was an act of retributive justice, carried out on the very spot where, five years before, he had formed the combination which overthrew the Administration of John Quincy Adams. John C. Calhoun, who was the organizer of the rejection of Mr. Van Buren, thought that he had obtained pledges of a sufficient number of votes; but just before the ayes and noes were called Mr. Webster left the Senate Chamber, and going down into the Supreme Court room remained there until the vote had been taken. Mr. Calhoun consequently found himself one vote short, and had to give the casting vote, as President of the Senate, which rejected the nomination of his rival, who was already in England, where he had been received with marked attention.

Returning to the United States, Mr. Van Buren was warmly welcomed at the White House as a victim of Mr. Calhoun's opposition to the President, and he was soon recognized by the Democratic party as their heir-apparent to the Presidency. His appearance at that time was impressive. He was short, solidly built, with a bald head, and with bushy side-whiskers, which framed his florid features. He added the grace and polish of aristocratic English society to his natural courtesy, and it was his evident aim never to provoke a controversy, while he used every exertion to win new friends and retain old ones. After he had been elected Vice-President, he sat day after day in the chair of the Senate, apparently indifferent alike to the keen thrusts of Calhoun, the savage blows of Webster, and the gibes of Clay. He well knew that General Jackson would regard every assault on him as aimed at the Administration, and that his chances for the succession would thereby be strengthened. Charges of political chicanery were brought against him in shapes more varied than that of Proteus and thick as the leaves that strew the vale of Valombrosa; but he invariably extricated himself by artifice and choice management, earning the sobriquet of "the Little Magician." He could not be provoked into a loss of temper, and he would not say a word while in the chair except as connected with his duties as presiding officer, when he spoke in gentle but persuasive tones, singularly effective from the clearness of his enunciation and his well-chosen emphasis.

Mr. Van Buren, who was then a widower, kept house on Pennsylvania Avenue, about half way between the White House and Georgetown, where he not only gave dinner parties to his political friends, but entertained their wives and daughters at evening whist parties. Gentlemen and ladies were alike used for the advancement of his schemes for the succession and for retaining his position in the estimation of General Jackson. On one occasions he said to Mrs. Eaton that he had been reading much and thinking deeply on the characters of great men, and had come to the conclusion that General Jackson was the greatest man that had ever lived—the only man among them all who was without a fault. "But," he added, "don't tell General Jackson what I have said. I would not have him know it for all the world." Of course, it was not long before Mrs. Eaton repeated the conversation to General Jackson. "Ah, madam!" said Old Hickory, the tears starting in his eyes, "that man loves me; he tries to conceal it, but there is always some way fixed by which I can tell my friends from my enemies."

Mr. Van Buren was noted for his willingness to sign applications for office, and he used to tell a good story illustrating his readiness to oblige those who solicited his aid. When Governor of the State of New York, a lawyer called upon him to get a convict pardoned from the penitentiary, and stated the case, which was a clear one. "Have you the papers?" he asked. "If so, I will sign them." "Here they are," said the lawyer, producing a bulky document, and the Governor indorsed them: "Let pardon be granted. M. Van Buren." He then left for the office of the Secretary of State, but soon returned. "Governor," said he, "I made a mistake, and you indorsed the wrong paper." He had presented for the official indorsement the marriage settlement of an Albany belle about to marry a spendthrift.

To ingratiate himself further with General Jackson, and to strengthen the Democratic party, whose votes he relied upon to elevate him to the Presidency, Mr. Van Buren organized the war against the United States Bank. General Jackson was opposed to this institution before he became President, and it was not a difficult task to impress upon his mind that the Bank was an unconstitutional monopoly, which defied the legislative acts of sovereign States, which was suborning the leading newspapers and public men of the country, and which was using every means that wealth, political chicanery, and legal cunning could devise to perpetuate its existence. All this the honest old soldier in time believed, and it was then not difficult to impress him with a desire to combat this "monster," as he called the bank, and to act as the champion of the people in killing the dragon which was endeavoring to consume their fortunes. When a committee of wealthy business men from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia waited on him with a remonstrance against his financial policy, he gave them such a reception that they felt very uncomfortable and were glad to get away.

The Democratic politicians and presses heartily seconded their chieftain in this war, promising the people "Benton mint-drops instead of rag-money." Jackson clubs were everywhere organized, having opposite to the tavern or hall used as their headquarters a hickory-tree, trimmed of all its foliage except a tuft at the top. Torch-light processions, then organized for the first time, used to march through the streets of the city or village where they belonged, halting in front of the houses of prominent Jackson men to cheer, while before the residences of leading Whigs they would often tarry long enough to give six or nine groans. Editors of newspapers which supported the Administration were forced to advocate its most ultra measures and to denounce its opponents, or they were arraigned as traitors, and if satisfactory excuses could not be made, they were read out of the party. Among these thus excommunicated was Mr. James Gordon Bennett, who had edited the Philadelphia Pennsylvanian.

Nicholas Biddle, its president, managed the affairs of the Bank of the United States with consummate ability. His trials in the bitter contest waged against him and the institution which he represented were almost as manifold as those that tested the patience of Job; and he bore them with equal meekness so far as temper was concerned, but when duty required he never failed to meet his opponents with decision and effect. The Bank had to discount the worthless notes of a number of Congressmen and editors, whose support, thus purchased, did more harm than good. Mr. Biddle had also incurred the hostility of Isaac Hill and other influential Jackson men because he would not remove the non-partisan presidents and cashiers of the branches of the Bank in their respective localities, and appoint in their places zealous henchmen of the Administration.

General Jackson was triumphantly re-elected in November, 1832, receiving two hundred and nineteen of the two hundred and eighty- eight electoral votes cast, while Martin Van Buren received one hundred and eighty-nine electoral votes for Vice-President. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky cast forty-nine electoral votes for Henry Clay and John Sargent. Vermont gave her seven electoral votes for the anti- Masonic candidates, William Wirt and William Ellmaker, while South Carolina bestowed her eleven electoral votes on John Floyd, of Virginia, and Henry Lee, of Massachusetts, neither of whom were nullifiers. Some of the Jackson newspapers, while rejoicing over his re-election, nominated him for a third term, and William Wirt wrote: "My opinion is that he may be President for life if he chooses."

The ordeal of re-election having been passed, President Jackson and his supporters carried out the programme which had before been decided upon. The removal of the Government deposits from the United States Bank gave rise to stormy debates in Congress, and the questionable exercise of Executive authority met with a fierce, unrelenting opposition from the Whigs.

The debates in the Senate on the Bank and attendant financial questions were very interesting, but the audiences were necessarily small. The circumscribed accommodations of the Senate Chamber were insufficient, and while the ladies generally managed to secure seats, either in the galleries or on the floor, the gentlemen had to content themselves with uncomfortable positions, leaning against pillars or peeping through doorways. Mr. Van Buren, as Vice- President, presided with great dignity, and endeavored to conciliate those Senators who were his rivals for the succession, but he had often to hear his political course mercilessly criticised by them.

John C. Calhoun, who resigned the position of Vice-President that he might be elected a Senator from South Carolina, differed from his great contemporaries in the possession of a private character above reproach. Whether this arose from the preponderance of the intellectual over the animal in his nature, or the subjection of his passions by discipline, was never determined by those who knew the gifted South Carolinian best; but such was the fact. His enemies could find no opprobrious appellation for him but "Catiline," instead of "Caldwell," which was his middle name—no crime but ambition. He disregarded the unwritten laws of the Senate, which required Senators to appear in dress suits of black broadcloth, and asserted his State pride and State independence by wearing, when the weather was warm, a suit of nankeen, made from nankeen cotton grown in South Carolina. Mr. Calhoun had a pale and attenuated look, as if in bad health; his long black hair was combed up from his forehead and fell over the back of his head, and his thin lips increased the effect of the acute look with which he always regarded those around him. His personal intercourse with friends was characterized by great gentleness of manner; he was an affectionate and a devoted husband and father, and Webster truly remarked of him that "he had no recreations, and never seemed to feel the necessity of amusement."

Disappointed in his aspirations for the Presidency of the United States, Mr. Calhoun conceived the idea of dissolving the Union and establishing a Southern Confederacy, of which he would be the Chief Executive. One of his projects, fearing that the success of the main plot would be too long delayed for any benefit to inure to him, was a proposed amendment to the Constitution, to make two Presidents exist at the same time—one from the South and the other from the other sections—and no act in regard to the interests of the South was to be passed without the consent of the President for that section. Of course, his plan was looked upon as puerile, if not mischievous, and failed to attract much attention. His whole soul was then bent on his main scheme, and he enlisted warm, ardent, and talented followers in behalf of it; but little headway was made in it outside of South Carolina.

President Jackson knew well what was going on, and was determined that the law should be put into execution, not against misguided followers, but against Calhoun, the chief conspirator. Calhoun, hearing that Jackson had resolved upon his prosecution and trial, and, if convicted, his execution for treason, sent Letcher, of Kentucky, to confer with him and to learn his real intentions. The President received Letcher with his usual courtesy; but that mild blue eye, which at times would fill with tears like that of a woman, was kindled up that night with unwonted fire. He explained the situation to Letcher, and concluded by telling him that if another step was taken, "by the Eternal!" he would try Calhoun for treason, and, if convicted, he would hang him on a gallows as high as Haman.

Letcher saw that Jackson was terribly in earnest, and hastened to the lodgings of Calhoun, who had retired, but received him sitting up in bed with his cloak around him. Letcher detailed all that had occurred, giving entire the conversation with Jackson, and described the old hero as he took that oath.

There sat Calhoun, drinking in eagerly every word, and, as Letcher proceeded, he turned pale as death, and, great as he was in intellect, trembled like an aspen leaf, not from fear or cowardice, but from the consciousness of guilt. He was the arch traitor, who like Satan in Paradise, "brought death into the world and all our woe." Within one week he came into the Senate and voted—voted for every section of Mr. Clay's bill—and President Jackson was prevailed upon not to prosecute him for his crime.

During the last days of General Jackson at the Hermitage, while slowly sinking under the ravages of consumption, he was one day speaking of his Administration, and with glowing interest he inquired of the physician:

"What act in my Administration, in your opinion, will posterity condemn with the greatest severity?"

The physician replied that he was unable to answer, that it might be the removal of the deposits.

"Oh! no," said the General.

"Then it may be the specie circular?"

"Not at all!"

"What is it, then?"

"I can tell you," said Jackson, rising in his bed, his eyes kindling up—"I can tell you; posterity will condemn me more because I was persuaded not to hang John C. Calhoun as a traitor than for any other act in my life."

Daniel Webster's reply to Hayne was made the key-note of the resistance by the Administration to Jefferson's assertion adopted by Calhoun, "Where powers have been assumed which have not been delegated, nullification is the rightful remedy." President Jackson's proclamation against this doctrine of nullification—the germ of secession—was written by Edward Livingston, his Secretary of State, and it has been said that it followed, throughout, the doctrine maintained by Mr. Webster in his reply to Hayne, in 1830. So remarkable was this adoption of Mr. Webster's argument, that popular opinion at that time regarded it as a manifest, but of course a very excusable, plagiarism. Mr. Webster, when the proclamation was issued, was on his way to Washington, ignorant of what had occurred. At an inn in New Jersey he met a traveler just from Washington. Neither of them was known to the other. Mr. Webster inquired the news. "Sir," said the gentleman, "the President has issued a proclamation against the nullifiers, taken entirely from Mr. Webster's reply to Hayne." In the course of the ensuing session, and not long after Mr. Webster reached the capital it became necessary for the Administration to act. Mr. Webster was in the opposition, and, excepting in regard to the integrity of the Union and the just power of the Government, there was a wide gulf between the Administration and him. He was absent from his seat for several days when the Force bill was about to be introduced as an Administration measure. A portion of General Jackson's original supporters hung back from that issue. At this juncture there was much inquiry among the President's friends in the House as to where Mr. Webster was. At length a member of General Jackson's Cabinet went to Mr. Webster's rooms, told him the nature of the bill about to be introduced, and asked him, as a public duty, to go into the Senate and defend the bill and the President. It is well known to the whole country that Mr. Webster did so; and it is known to me that General Jackson personally thanked him for his powerful aid, that many of the President's best friends afterward sought to make a union between him and Mr. Webster, and that nothing continued to separate them but an irreconcilable difference of opinion about the questions relating to the currency.

While Mr. Calhoun was undoubtedly the leading Democrat in the Senate, after his return to that body, Mr. Benton was the recognized leader of President Jackson's adherents in that body. His fierce opposition to "Biddle and the Bank," with his prediction that the time would come when there would be no paper money, but when every laboring man would have a knit silk purse, through the meshes of which the gold coin within could be seen, obtained for him the sobriquet of "Old Bullion." His greatest triumph was the passage of a resolution by the Senate "expunging" from its journal a resolution censuring General Jackson for the removal of deposits from the Bank of the United States. This expunging resolution was kept before the Senate for nearly three years, and was then passed by only five majority. The closing debate was able and exhaustive, Henry Clay, John J. Crittenden, Thomas Ewing, William C. Rives, William Hendricks, John M. Niles, Richard H. Bayard, and others participating, while Daniel Webster read a protest signed by himself and his sturdy colleague, John Davis. The Democrats had provided a bountiful supply of refreshments in the room of the Committee on Finance, and several Senators showed by their actions that they were not members of the then newly organized Congressional Temperance Society, before which Mr. Webster had delivered a brief address. After the final vote—twenty-four years and nineteen nays—had been taken, Mr. Benton moved that the Secretary carry into effect the order of the Senate. Then the Secretary, Mr. Asbury Dickens, opening the manuscript journal of 1834, drew broad black lines around the obnoxious resolution and wrote across its face: "Expunged by order of the Senate, this 16th day of January, in the year of our Lord 1837."

No sooner had he concluded than hisses were heard, and Mr. King, of Alabama, who occupied the chair, ordered the galleries to be cleared, while Mr. Benton, in a towering rage, denounced the offenders and demanded their arrest. "Here is one," said he, "just above me, that may be easily be identified—the bank ruffian." Mr. King revoked his order to clear the galleries, but directed the arrest of the person pointed out by Mr. Benton, who was soon brought before the bar of the Senate. It was Mr. Lloyd, a practicing lawyer in Cleveland, Ohio, who was not permitted to say a word in his own defense, but was soon discharged, after which the Senate adjourned.

[Facsimile] Thomas H. Benton THOMAS HART BENTON was born near Hillsborough, North Carolina, March 14th, 1782; was United States Senator from Missouri, 1821- 1851; a Representative in Congress from Missouri, 1853-1855; was defeated as a candidate for re-election to Congress in 1854, and as candidate for Governor of Missouri in 1856, and died at Washington City, April 10th, 1858.

CHAPTER X. PROMINENT MEN OF JACKSON'S TIME.

Henry Clay, after his return to the Senate, was the recognized leader of the Whig Senators, for he would recognize no leader. His oratory was persuasive and spirit-stirring. The fire of his bright eyes and the sunny smile which lighted up his countenance added to the attractions of his unequaled voice, which was equally distinct and clear, whether at its highest key or lowest whisper— rich, musical, captivating. His action was the spontaneous offspring of the passing thought. He gesticulated all over. The nodding of his head, hung on a long neck, his arms, hands, fingers, feet, and even his spectacles, his snuff-box, and his pocket-handkerchief, aided him in debate. He stepped forward and backward, and from the right to the left, with effect. Every thought spoke; the whole body had its story to tell, and added to the attractions of his able arguments. But he was not a good listener, and he would often sit, while other Senators were speaking, eating sticks of striped peppermint candy, and occasionally taking a pinch of snuff from a silver box that he carried, or from one that graced the table of the Senate.

Occasionally, Mr. Clay was very imperious and displayed bad temper in debate. Once he endeavored to browbeat Colonel Benton, bringing up "Old Bullion's" personal recontre with General Jackson, and charging the former with having said that, should the latter be elected President, Congress must guard itself with pistols and dirks. This Colonel Benton pronounced "an atrocious calumny." "What," retorted Mr. Clay, "can you look me in the face, sir, and say that you never used that language?" "I look," said Colonel Benton, "and repeat that it is an atrocious calumny, and I will pin it to him who repeats it here." Mr. Clay's face flushed with rage as he replied: "Then I declare before the Senate that you said the very words!" "False! false! false!" shouted Colonel Benton, and the Senators interfered, Mr. Tazewell, who was in the chair, calling the belligerents to order. After some discussion of the questions of order, Colonel Benton said: "I apologize to the Senate for the manner in which I have spoken—but not to the Senator from Kentucky." Mr. Clay promptly added: "To the Senate I also offer an apology—to the Senator from Missouri, none!" Half an hour afterwards they shook hands, as lawyers often do who have just before abused each other in court.

On another occasion, General Smith, of Baltimore, a Revolutionary hero upward of eighty years of age, who had been a member of Congress almost forty years, was one day the object of Henry Clay's wrath. The old General, who had fought gallantly in the Revolutionary struggle and taken up arms again in the War of 1812, was offensively bullied by Mr. Clay, who said: "The honorable gentleman was in favor of manufactures in 1822, but he has turned—I need not use the word—he has thus abandoned manufactures. Thus

"'Old politicians chew on wisdom past
And totter on, in blunders, to the last.'"

The old General sprang to his feet. "The last allusion," said he, "is unworthy of a gentleman. Totter, sir, I totter! Though some twenty years older than the gentleman, I can yet stand firm, and am yet able to correct his errors. I could take a view of the gentleman's course, which would show how consistent he has been." Mr. Clay exclaimed, angrily: "Take it, sir, take it—I dare you!" Cries of "Order." "No, sir," said Mr. Smith, "I will not take it. I will not so far disregard what is due to the dignity of the Senate."

While Mr. Clay was generally imperious in debate, and not overcautious in his choice of phrases and epithets, he was fond of a joke, and often indulged, in an undertone, in humorous comments on the remarks by other Senators. Sometimes he would be very happy in his illustrations, and make the most of some passing incident. One afternoon, when he was replaying to a somewhat heated opponent, a sudden squall came up and rattled the window curtain so as to produce a considerable noise. The orator stopped short in the midst of his remarks and inquired aloud, what was the matter; and then, as if divining the cause of the disturbance, he said: "Storms seem to be coming in upon us from all sides." The observation, though trivial as related, was highly amusing under the circumstances which gave rise to it and from the manner in which it was uttered.

When Henry Clay returned to the Senate, Daniel Webster yielded to him the leadership of the Whigs in that body, but in no way sacrificed his own independence. "The Great Expounder of the Constitution," as he was called, was then in the prime of life, and had not began those indulgences which afterward exercised such injurious effects upon him. He would also occasionally indulge in a grim witticism. On one occasion, when a Senator who was jeering another for some pedantry said, "The honorable gentleman may proceed to quote from Crabbe's Synonyms, from Walker and Webster"—"Not from Walker and Webster," exclaimed the Senator from Massachusetts, "for the authorities may disagree!" At another time, when he was speaking on the New York Fire bill, the Senate clock suddenly began to strike, and after it had struck continuously for about fourteen or fifteen times, Mr. Webster stopped, and said to the presiding officer, "The clock is out of order, sir—I have the floor." The occupant of the chair looking rebukingly at the refractory time- piece, but in defiance of the officers and rules of the House, it struck about forty before the Sergeant-at-Arms could stop it, Mr. Webster standing silent, while every one else was laughing.

On another occasion, while Mr. Webster was addressing the Senate in presenting a memorial, a clerical-looking person in one of the galleries arose and shouted: "My friends, the country is on the brink of destruction! Be sure that you act on correct principles. I warn you to act as your consciences may approve. God is looking down upon you, and if you act on correct principles you will get safely through." He then deliberately stepped back, and retired from the gallery before the officers of the Senate could reach him. Mr. Webster was, of course, surprised at this extraordinary interruption; but when the shrill voice of the enthusiast had ceased, he coolly resumed his remarks, saying, "As the gentleman in the gallery has concluded, I will proceed."

Mr. Cuthbert, of Georgia, was much provoked, one day, by a scathing denunciation of his State by Mr. Clay for the manner in which she had treated the Cherokee Indians. As the eloquent Kentuckian dwelt more in sorrow than in anger upon the wrongs and outrages perpetrated in Georgia upon the unoffending aborigines within her borders, many of his hearers were affected to tears, and he himself was obviously deeply moved. No sooner did Mr. Clay resume his seat than Mr. Cuthbert sprang to his feet, and in an insolent tone alluded to what he called the theatrical manner of the speaker. "What new part will Roscius next enact?" said the Senator from Georgia, coming forward from his desk and standing in the area of the hall. He was a man of about the ordinary height, with a round face pitted with the smallpox, small, dark eyes, and a full forehead. As he spoke he twirled his watch-key incessantly with his right hand, while his left was flung about in the most unmeaning and awkward gestures. He twisted his body right and left, forward and backward, as if he were a Chinese mandarin going through a stated number of evolutions before his emperor; in fact, he had "all the contortions of the sybil, without her inspiration." To this display Mr. Clay seemed entirely oblivious, but after Judge White, of Tennessee, had discussed the pending question, Mr. Clay rose, saying, that he would reply to this gentleman's remarks as "they alone were worthy of notice."

In the House of Representatives, during the Jackson Administration, sectional topics were rife, sectional jealousies were high, and partisan warfare was unrelenting. Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia, who was triumphantly re-elected as Speaker for four successive terms, understood well how to keep down the boiling caldron, and to exercise stern authority, tempered with dignity and courtesy, over heated passions of the fiercest conflicting character. When he was transferred from the Speaker's chair to the Court of St. James, John Bell, of Tennessee, an old supporter of General Jackson, became his successor for the remainder of that session, but at the commencement of the next Congress Mr. Van Buren secured the election of James K. Polk. Mr. Bell, on his next visit to Nashville, threw down the gauntlet, in an able speech, and nominated Judge White. This was the foundation of the White party, which had, as its editorial henchman, the Rev. Mr. Brownlow, known as "the fighting Parson," who soon acquired a national reputation by his defiant personalities in debate and by his trenchant editorial articles in the newspapers of East Tennessee. Mr. Brownlow was at that time a tall, spare man, with long, black hair, black eyes, and a sallow complexion. He was devoted to the Methodist Church and to the White—afterward the Whig—party, and the denominational doctrines of immersion and the political dogmas of emancipation from slavery were objects of his intense hatred.

While Mr. Stevenson was Speaker, General Samuel Houston, who had been residing among the Indians on the Southwestern frontier for several years, came to Washington. Taking offense at some remarks made in debate by Mr. Vance, a representative from Ohio, Houston assaulted and severely pounded him. The House voted that Houston should be brought before the bar and reprimanded by the Speaker, which was done, although Mr. Stevenson's reprimand was really complimentary. That night a friend of General Houston, with a bludgeon and a pistol, attacked Mr. Arnold, of Tennessee, who had been active in securing the reprimand, but the latter soon got the best of the encounter.

The first man elected to Congress as a representative of the rights of the laboring classes was Eli Moore, a New York journeyman printer, who had organized trades unions and successfully engineered several strikes by mechanics against their employers. He was a thin, nervous man, with keen, dark hazel eyes, long black hair brushed back behind his ears, and a strong, clear voice which rang through the hall like the sound of a trumpet. He especially distinguished himself in a reply to General Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina, who had denounced the mechanics of the North as willing tools of the Abolitionists. With impetuous force and in tones tremulous with emotion, he denounced aristocracy and advocated the equality of all men. The House listened with attention, and a Southern politician exclaimed to one of his old colleagues, "Why, this is the high-priest of revolution singing his war song." What added to the effect of this remarkable speech was its dramatic termination. Just as he had entered upon his peroration he grew deathly pale, his eyes closed, his outstretched hands clutched at vacancy, he reeled forward, and fell insensible. His friends rushed to his support, and his wife, who was in the gallery, screamed with terror. His physician positively prohibited his speaking again, and in subsequent years, when the Democratic party was in power, he enjoyed the positions of Indian Agent under Polk, and of Land Agent under Pierce.

Ransom H. Gillet, of the Ogdensburgh district, was one of the old
"Jackson Democratic War-Horses." He was a man of commanding
presence, a ready speaker, and a famous manipulator of opinion at
Conventions.

By birth a North Carolinian, Churchill C. Cambreleng was by adoption a New Yorker, and by strict attention to business he had become one of the merchant princes of the commercial metropolis. Thirty years of age, with a commanding presence, a good voice, a ready command of language, and a practical knowledge of financial matters, he made an excellent Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means and leader of the Jackson men in the House.

He carried business habits into Congress, and passed much of his time at his desk, laboriously answering every letter addressed to him by his constituents or others, or carefully examining papers referred to his Committee. But he was always on the alert, and if in debate any political opponent let slip a word derogatory to the Administration, Mr. Cambreleng was at once on his feet with a pertinent retort or a skillful explanation. He was noted for his liberality, and neither the district charities or his needy constituents ever appealed to him in vain.