Kitabı oku: «Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2)», sayfa 117
CHAPTER CLXV.
RETIRING AND DEATH OF GENERAL JACKSON – ADMINISTRATION OF MARTIN VAN BUREN
The second and last term of General Jackson's presidency expired on the 3d of March, 1837. The next day, at twelve, he appeared with his successor, Mr. Van Buren, on the elevated and spacious eastern portico of the capitol, as one of the citizens who came to witness the inauguration of the new President, and no way distinguished from them, except by his place on the left hand of the President elect. The day was beautiful – clear sky, balmy vernal sun, tranquil atmosphere; – and the assemblage immense. On foot, in the large area in front of the steps, orderly without troops, and closely wedged together, their faces turned to the portico – presenting to the beholders from all the eastern windows the appearance of a field paved with human faces. This vast crowd remained riveted to their places, and profoundly silent, until the ceremony of inauguration was over. It was the stillness and silence of reverence and affection; and there was no room for mistake as to whom this mute and impressive homage was rendered. For once, the rising was eclipsed by the setting sun. Though disrobed of power, and retiring to the shades of private life, it was evident that the great ex-President was the absorbing object of this intense regard. At the moment he began to descend the broad steps of the portico to take his seat in the open carriage which was to bear him away, the deep repressed feeling of the dense mass brook forth, acclamations and cheers bursting from the heart and filling the air – such as power never commanded, nor man in power received. It was the affection, gratitude, and admiration of the living age, saluting for the last time a great man. It was the acclaim of posterity, breaking from the bosoms of contemporaries. It was the anticipation of futurity – unpurchasable homage to the hero-patriot who, all his life, and in all circumstances of his life, in peace and in war, and glorious in each, had been the friend of his country, devoted to her, regardless of self. Uncovered, and bowing, with a look of unaffected humility and thankfulness, he acknowledged in mute signs his deep sensibility to this affecting overflow of popular feeling. I was looking down from a side window, and felt an emotion which had never passed through me before. I had seen the inauguration of many presidents, and their going away, and their days of state, vested with power, and surrounded by the splendors of the first magistracy of a great republic. But they all appeared to be as pageants, empty and soulless, brief to the view, unreal to the touch, and soon to vanish. But here there seemed to be a reality – a real scene – a man and the people – he, laying down power and withdrawing through the portals of everlasting fame; – they, sounding in his ears the everlasting plaudits of unborn generations. Two days after, I saw the patriot ex-President in the car which bore him off to his desired seclusion. I saw him depart with that look of quiet enjoyment which bespoke the inward satisfaction of the soul at exchanging the cares of office for the repose of home. History, poetry, oratory, marble and brass, will hand down the military exploits of Jackson: this work will commemorate the events of his civil administration, not less glorious than his military achievements, great as they were; and this brief notice of his last appearance at the American capital is intended to preserve some faint memory of a scene, the grandeur of which was so impressive to the beholder, and the solace of which must have been so grateful to the heart of the departing patriot.
Eight years afterwards he died at the Hermitage, in the full possession of all his faculties, and strong to the last in the ruling passion of his soul – love of country. Public history will do justice to his public life; but a further notice is wanted of him – a notice of the domestic man – of the man at home, with his wife, his friends, his neighbors, his slaves; and this I feel some qualification for giving, from my long and varied acquaintance with him. First, his intimate and early friend – then a rude rupture – afterwards friendship and intimacy for twenty years, and until his death: in all forty years of personal observation, in the double relation of friend and foe, and in all the walks of life, public and private, civil and military.
The first time that I saw General Jackson was at Nashville, Tennessee, in 1799 – he on the bench, a judge of the then Superior Court, and I a youth of seventeen, back in the crowd. He was then a remarkable man, and had his ascendant over all who approached him, not the effect of his high judicial station, nor of the senatorial rank which he had held and resigned; nor of military exploits, for he had not then been to war; but the effect of personal qualities; cordial and graceful manners, hospitable temper, elevation of mind, undaunted spirit, generosity, and perfect integrity. In charging the jury in the impending case, he committed a slight solecism in language which grated on my ear, and lodged on my memory, without derogating in the least from the respect which he inspired; and without awakening the slightest suspicion that I was ever to be engaged in smoothing his diction. The first time I spoke with him was some years after, at a (then) frontier town in Tennessee, when he was returning from a Southern visit, which brought him through the towns and camps of some of the Indian tribes. In pulling off his overcoat, I perceived on the white lining of the turning down sleeve, a dark speck, which had life and motion. I brushed it off, and put the heel of my shoe upon it – little thinking that I was ever to brush away from him game of a very different kind. He smiled; and we began a conversation, in which he very quickly revealed a leading trait of his character, – that of encouraging young men in their laudable pursuits. Getting my name and parentage, and learning my intended profession, he manifested a regard for me, said he had received hospitality at my father's house in North Carolina, gave me kind invitations to visit him; and expressed a belief that I would do well at the bar – generous words which had the effect of promoting what they undertook to foretell. Soon after, he had further opportunity to show his generous feelings. I was employed in a criminal case of great magnitude, where the oldest and ablest counsel appeared – Haywood, Grundy, Whiteside, – and the trial of which General Jackson attended through concern for the fate of a friend. As junior counsel I had to precede my elders, and did my best; and, it being on the side of his feelings, he found my effort to be better than it was. He complimented me greatly, and from that time our intimacy began.
I soon after became his aid, he being a Major General in the Tennessee militia – made so by a majority of one vote. How much often depends upon one vote! – New Orleans, the Creek campaign, and all their consequences, date from that one vote! – and after that, I was habitually at his house; and, as an inmate, had opportunities to know his domestic life, and at the period when it was least understood and most misrepresented. He had resigned his place on the bench of the Superior Court, as he had previously resigned his place in the Senate of the United States, and lived on a superb estate of some thousand acres, twelve miles from Nashville, then hardly known by its subsequent famous name of the Hermitage – name chosen for its perfect accord with his feelings; for he had then actually withdrawn from the stage of public life, and from a state of feeling well known to belong to great talent when finding no theatre for its congenial employment. He was a careful farmer, overlooking every thing himself, seeing that the fields and fences were in good order, the stock well attended, and the slaves comfortably provided for. His house was the seat of hospitality, the resort of friends and acquaintances, and of all strangers visiting the State – and the more agreeable to all from the perfect conformity of Mrs. Jackson's character to his own. But he needed some excitement beyond that which a farming life can afford, and found it, for some years, in the animating sports of the turf. He loved fine horses – racers of speed and bottom – owned several, and contested the four mile heats with the best that could be bred, or brought to the State, and for large sums. That is the nearest to gaming that I ever knew him to come. Cards and the cockpit have been imputed to him, but most erroneously. I never saw him engaged in either. Duels were usual in that time, and he had his share of them, with their unpleasant concomitants; but they passed away with all their animosities, and he has often been seen zealously pressing the advancement of those against whom he had but lately been arrayed in deadly hostility.
His temper was placable as well as irascible, and his reconciliations were cordial and sincere. Of that, my own case was a signal instance. After a deadly feud, I became his confidential adviser; was offered the highest marks of his favor, and received from his dying bed a message of friendship, dictated when life was departing, and when he would have to pause for breath. There was a deep-seated vein of piety in him, unaffectedly showing itself in his reverence for divine worship, respect for the ministers of the gospel, their hospitable reception in his house, and constant encouragement of all the pious tendencies of Mrs. Jackson. And when they both afterwards became members of a church, it was the natural and regular result of their early and cherished feelings. He was gentle in his house, and alive to the tenderest emotions; and of this, I can give an instance, greatly in contrast with his supposed character, and worth more than a long discourse in showing what that character really was. I arrived at his house one wet chilly evening, in February, and came upon him in the twilight, sitting alone before the fire, a lamb and a child between his knees. He started a little, called a servant to remove the two innocents to another room, and explained to me how it was. The child had cried because the lamb was out in the cold, and begged him to bring it in – which he had done to please the child, his adopted son, then not two years old. The ferocious man does not do that! and though Jackson had his passions and his violence, they were for men and enemies – those who stood up against him – and not for women and children, or the weak and helpless: for all whom his feelings were those of protection and support. His hospitality was active as well as cordial, embracing the worthy in every walk of life, and seeking out deserving objects to receive it, no matter how obscure. Of this, I learned a characteristic instance in relation to the son of the famous Daniel Boone. The young man had come to Nashville on his father's business, to be detained some weeks, and had his lodgings at a small tavern, towards the lower part of the town. General Jackson heard of it; sought him out; found him; took him home to remain as long as his business detained him in the country, saying, "Your father's dog should not stay in a tavern, where I have a house." This was heart! and I had it from the young man himself, long after, when he was a State Senator of the General Assembly of Missouri, and, as such, nominated me for the United States Senate, at my first election, in 1820: an act of hereditary friendship, as our fathers had been early friends.
Abhorrence of debt, public and private, dislike of banks, and love of hard money – love of justice and love of country, were ruling passions with Jackson; and of these he gave constant evidence in all the situations of his life. Of private debts he contracted none of his own, and made any sacrifices to get out of those incurred for others. Of this he gave a signal instance, not long before the war of 1812 – selling the improved part of his estate, with the best buildings of the country upon it, to pay a debt incurred in a mercantile adventure to assist a young relative; and going into log-houses in the forest to begin a new home and farm. He was living in these rude tenements when he vanquished the British at New Orleans; and, probably, a view of their conqueror's domicile would have astonished the British officers as much as their defeat had done. He was attached to his friends, and to his country, and never believed any report to the discredit of either, until compelled by proof. He would not believe in the first reports of the surrender of General Hull, and became sad and oppressed when forced to believe it. He never gave up a friend in a doubtful case, or from policy, or calculation. He was a firm believer in the goodness of a superintending Providence, and in the eventual right judgment and justice of the people. I have seen him at the most desperate part of his fortunes, and never saw him waver in the belief that all would come right in the end. In the time of Cromwell he would have been a puritan.
The character of his mind was that of judgment, with a rapid and almost intuitive perception, followed by an instant and decisive action. It was that which made him a General, and a President for the time in which he served. He had vigorous thoughts, but not the faculty of arranging them in a regular composition, either written or spoken; and in formal papers he usually gave his draft to an aid, a friend, or a secretary, to be written over – often to the loss of vigor. But the thoughts were his own vigorously expressed; and without effort, writing with a rapid pen, and never blotting or altering; but, as Carlyle says of Cromwell, hitting the nail upon the head as he went. I have a great deal of his writing now, some on public affairs and covering several sheets of paper; and no erasures or interlineations anywhere. His conversation was like his writing, a vigorous flowing current, apparently without the trouble of thinking, and always impressive. His conclusions were rapid, and immovable, when he was under strong convictions; though often yielding, on minor points, to his friends. And no man yielded quicker when he was convinced; perfectly illustrating the difference between firmness and obstinacy. Of all the Presidents who have done me the honor to listen to my opinions, there was no one to whom I spoke with more confidence when I felt myself strongly to be in the right.
He had a load to carry all his life; resulting from a temper which refused compromises and bargaining, and went for a clean victory or a clean defeat, in every case. Hence, every step he took was a contest: and, it may be added, every contest was a victory. I have already said that he was elected a Major General in Tennessee – an election on which so much afterwards depended – by one vote. His appointment in the United States regular army was a conquest from the administration, which had twice refused to appoint him a Brigadier, and once disbanded him as a volunteer general, and only yielded to his militia victories. His election as President was a victory over politicians – as was every leading event of his administration.
I have said that his appointment in the regular army was a victory over the administration, and it belongs to the inside view of history, and to the illustration of government mistakes, and the elucidation of individual merit surmounting obstacles, to tell how it was. Twice passed by to give preference to two others in the West (General Harrison and General Winchester), once disbanded, and omitted in all the lists of military nominations, how did he get at last to be appointed Major General? It was thus. Congress had passed an act authorizing the President to accept organized corps of volunteers. I proposed to General Jackson to raise a corps under that act, and hold it ready for service. He did so; and with this corps and some militia, he defeated the Creek Indians, and gained the reputation which forced his appointment in the regular army. I drew up the address which he made to his division at the time, and when I carried it to him in the evening, I found the child and the lamb between his knees. He had not thought of this resource, but caught at it instantly, adopted the address, with two slight alterations, and published it to his division. I raised a regiment myself, and made the speeches at the general musters, which helped to raise two others, assisted by a small band of friends – all feeling confident that if we could conquer the difficulty – master the first step – and get him upon the theatre of action, he would do the rest himself. This is the way he got into the regular army, not only unselected by the wisdom of government, but rejected by it – a stone rejected by the master builders – and worked in by an unseen hand, to become the corner stone of the temple. The aged men of Tennessee will remember all this, and it is time that history should learn it. But to return to the private life and personal characteristics of this extraordinary man.
There was an innate, unvarying, self-acting delicacy in his intercourse with the female sex, including all womankind; and on that point my personal observation (and my opportunities for observation were both large and various), enables me to join in the declaration of the belief expressed by his earliest friend and most intimate associate, the late Judge Overton, of Tennessee. The Roman general won an immortality of honor by one act of continence; what praise is due to Jackson, whose whole life was continent? I repeat: if he had been born in the time of Cromwell, he would have been a puritan. Nothing could exceed his kindness and affection to Mrs. Jackson, always increasing in proportion as his elevation, and culminating fortunes, drew cruel attacks upon her. I knew her well, and that a more exemplary woman in all the relations of life, wife, friend, neighbor, relative, mistress of slaves – never lived, and never presented a more quiet, cheerful and admirable management of her household. She had not education, but she had a heart, and a good one; and that was always leading her to do kind things in the kindest manner. She had the General's own warm heart, frank manners and hospitable temper; and no two persons could have been better suited to each other, lived more happily together, or made a house more attractive to visitors. She had the faculty – a rare one – of retaining names and titles in a throng of visitors, addressing each one appropriately, and dispensing hospitality to all with a cordiality which enhanced its value. No bashful youth, or plain old man, whose modesty sat them down at the lower end of the table, could escape her cordial attention, any more than the titled gentlemen on her right and left. Young persons were her delight, and she always had her house filled with them – clever young women and clever young men – all calling her affectionately, "Aunt Rachel." I was young then, and was one of that number. I owe it to early recollections, and to cherished convictions – in this last notice of the Hermitage – to bear this faithful testimony to the memory of its long mistress – the loved and honored wife of a great man. Her greatest eulogy is in the affection which he bore her living, and in the sorrow with which he mourned her dead. She died at the moment of the General's first election to the Presidency; and every one that had a just petition to present, or charitable request to make, lost in her death, the surest channel to the ear and to the heart of the President. His regard for her survived, and lived in the persons of her nearest relatives. A nephew of hers was his adopted son and heir, taking his own name, and now the respectable master of the Hermitage. Another nephew, Andrew Jackson Donelson, Esq., was his private secretary when President. The Presidential mansion was presided over during his term by her niece, the most amiable Mrs. Donelson; and all his conduct bespoke affectionate and lasting remembrance of one he had held so dear.
