WASHINGTON TO LINCOLN
Near the left bank of the Potomac river, in the northwestern
part of Westmoreland county, Virginia, there stood, in the year 1732, a
little cabin, where lived a planter by the name of Augustine Washington.
It was a lonely spot, for the nearest neighbor was miles away, but the
little family, consisting of father, mother, and two boys, Lawrence and
Augustine, were kept busy enough wresting a living from the soil. Here,
on the twenty-second day of February, a third son was born, and in due
time christened George.
Just a century had elapsed since John Smith had died in London, but in
that time the colony which he had founded and which had been more than
once so near extinction, had grown to be the greatest in America. Half a
million people were settled along her bays and rivers, engaged, for the
most part, in the culture of tobacco, for which the colony had long been
famous and which was the basis of her wealth. Her boundaries were still
indefinite, for though, by, the king's charter, the colony was supposed
to stretch clear across the continent to the Pacific, the country beyond
the Blue Ridge mountains was still a wilderness where the Indian and the
wild beast held undisputed sway. Even in Virginia proper, there were few
towns and no cities, Williamsburg, the capital, having less than two
hundred houses; but each planter lived on his own estate, very much
after the fashion of the feudal lords of the Middle Ages, generous,
hospitable, and kind-hearted, fond of the creature-comforts, proud of
his women and of his horses, and satisfied with himself.
It was into this world that George Washington was born. While he was
still a baby, his father moved to a place he purchased on the banks of
the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg, and here the boy's childhood
was spent. His father died when he was only eleven years old, but his
mother was a vigorous and capable woman, from whom her son inherited not
a little of his sturdy character. He developed into a tall, strong,
athletic youth, and many stories are told of his prowess. He could jump
twenty feet; on one occasion he threw a stone across the Rappahannock,
and on another, standing beneath the famous Natural Bridge, threw a
stone against its great arch, two hundred feet above his head. He grew
to be over six feet in height and finely proportioned--altogether a
handsome and capable fellow, who soon commanded respect.
At that time, surveying was a very important occupation, since so much
of the colony remained to be laid out, and George began to study to be a
surveyor, an occupation which appealed to him especially because it was
of the open air. He was soon to get a very important commission.
When Augustine Washington died, he bequeathed to his elder son,
Lawrence, an estate on the Potomac called Hunting Creek. Near by lay the
magnificent estate of Belvoir, owned by the wealthy William Fairfax, and
Lawrence Washington had the good fortune to win the heart and hand of
Fairfax's daughter. With the money his bride brought him, he was able to
build for himself a very handsome dwelling on his estate, whose name he
changed to Mount Vernon, in honor of the English admiral with whom he
had seen some service. George, of course, was a frequent visitor at
Belvoir, meeting other members of the Fairfax family, among them Thomas,
sixth Lord Fairfax, who finally engaged him to survey a great estate
which had been granted him by the king on the slope of the Blue Ridge
mountains.
George Washington was only sixteen years of age when he started out on
this errand into what was then the wilderness. It was a tremendous task
which he had undertaken, for the estate comprised nearly a fifth of the
present state, but he did it so well that, on Lord Fairfax's
recommendation, he was at once appointed a public surveyor, and may
fairly be said to have commenced his public career. His brother soon
afterwards secured for him the appointment as adjutant-general for the
district in which he lived, so that it became his duty to attend to the
organization and equipment of the district militia. This was the
beginning of his military service and of his study of military
science. He was at that time eighteen years of age.
That was the end of his boyhood. You will notice that I have said
nothing about his being a marvel of goodness or of wisdom--nothing, for
instance, about a cherry tree. That fable, and a hundred others like it,
were the invention of a man who wrote a life of Washington half a
century after his death, and who managed so to enwrap him with
disguises, that it is only recently we have been able to strip them all
away and see the man as he really was. Washington's boyhood was much
like any other. He was a strong, vigorous, manly fellow; he got into
scrapes, just as any healthy boy does; he grew up straight and handsome,
ready to play his part in the world, and he was called upon to play it
much earlier than most boys are. We shall see what account he gave of
himself.
When George was twenty years old, his brother Lawrence died and made him
his executor. From that time forward, Mount Vernon was his home, and in
the end passed into his possession. But he was not long to enjoy the
pleasant life there, for a year later, he was called upon to perform an
important and hazardous mission.
We have seen how La Salle dreamed of a great French empire, stretching
from the Great Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi. This was already
becoming a reality, for the governor of Canada had sent troops to occupy
the Ohio valley, and to build such forts as might be needed to hold it.
This was bringing the French altogether too close for comfort.
As long as they were content to remain in the Illinois country, nothing
much was thought of it, for that was far away; but here they were now
right at Virginia's back door, and there was no telling when they would
try to force it open and enter. So Governor Dinwiddie, of Virginia,
determined to dispatch a commissioner to the officer-in-command of the
French, to summon him to leave English territory. The commissioner was
also to try to kill two birds with one stone and form an alliance with
the Indians, so that, if it came to fighting, the Indians would be with
the English. No more delicate and dangerous mission could well be
conceived, and after careful consideration, the governor selected George
Washington to undertake it.
On October 30, 1753, Washington left Williamsburg, with a journey of
more than a thousand miles before him. How that journey was
accomplished, what perils he faced, what difficulties he overcame, how,
on more than one occasion his life hung by a thread--all this he has
told, briefly and modestly, in the journal which he kept of the
expedition. Three months from the time he started, he was back again in
Williamsburg, having faced his first great responsibility, and done his
work absolutely well. He had shown a cool courage that nothing could
shake, a fine patience, and a penetration and perception which nothing
could escape. He was the hero of the hour in the little Virginia
capital; the whole colony perceived that here was a man to be depended
upon.
He had found the French very active along the Ohio, preparing
to build forts and hold the country, and laughing at Dinwiddie's summons
to vacate it. This news caused Virginia to put a military force in the
field at once, and dispatch it to the west, with Washington in virtual
command. It was hoped to build a strong fort at the junction of the
Allegheny and Monongahela rivers, which would prevent the French getting
to the Ohio, since all travel in that wilderness must be by water. On
May 28, 1754, while hastening forward to secure this position,
Washington's little force encountered a party of French, and the first
shots were exchanged of the great contest which, twelve years later, was
to result in the expulsion of the French from the continent. It was
Washington who gave the word to fire, little foreseeing what history he
was making.
"I heard the bullets whistle," he wrote home to his mother, "and believe
me, there is something charming in the sound"--a bit of bravado which
shows that Washington had not yet quite outgrown his boyhood. No doubt
the bullets sounded much less charmingly five weeks later when he and
his men, brought to bay in a rude fortification which he named Fort
Necessity, were surrounded by a superior force of French and Indians,
and, after an all-day fight, compelled to surrender. It is worth
remarking that this bitter defeat--the first reverse which Washington
suffered--occurred on the third day of July, 1754. Twenty-one years from
that day, he was to draw his sword at the head of an American army.
Washington made his way back to Virginia with the news of his
failure. The French had occupied the vantage ground he was aiming at and
at once proceeded to erect a fort there, which they named Duquesne. Aid
was asked from England to repel these invaders, and early in 1755, a
great force under Major-General Edward Braddock advanced against the
enemy. Washington served as aide-de-camp to the general, whose ideas of
warfare had been gained on the battlefields of Europe, and who could not
understand that these ideas did not apply to warfare in a wilderness. In
consequence, when only a few miles from the fort, he was attacked by a
force of French and Indians, his army all but annihilated and he himself
wounded so severely that he died a few days later. During that fierce
battle, Washington seemed to bear a charmed life. Four bullets tore
through his coat and two horses were shot under him, but he received not
a scratch, and did effective work in rallying the Virginia militia to
cover the retreat. Three years later, he had the satisfaction of
marching into Fort Duquesne with an English force, which banished the
French for all time from the valley of the Ohio.
That victory ended the war for a time, and Washington returned to
Virginia to marry a charming and wealthy widow, Mrs. Martha Custis, and
to take the seat in the House of Burgesses to which he had just been
elected. He served there for fifteen years, living the life of the
typical Virginia planter on his estate of Mount Vernon, which had passed
into his possession through the death of his brother's only
child. He had become one of the most important men of the colony, whose
opinion was respected and whose influence was very great.
During all this period, the feeling against England was growing more and
more bitter. Let us be candid about it. The expulsion of the French from
the continent had freed the colonies from the danger of French
aggression and from the feeling that they needed the aid of the mother
country. That they should have been taxed to help defray the great
expense of this war against the French seems reasonable enough, but
there happened to be in power in England, at the time, a few obstinate
and bull-headed statesmen, serving under an obstinate and ignorant king,
and they handled the question of taxation with so little tact and
delicacy that, among them, they managed to rouse the anger of the
colonies to the boiling point.
For the colonists, let us remember, were of the same obstinate and
bull-headed stock, and it was soon evident that the only way to settle
the difference was to fight it out. But the impartial historian must
write it down that the colonies had much more to thank England for than
to complain about, and that at first, the idea of a war for independence
was not a popular one. As it went on, and the Tories were run out of the
country or won over, as battle and bloodshed aroused men's passions,
then it gradually gained ground; but throughout, the members of the
Continental Congress, led by John and Samuel Adams, were ahead
of public opinion.
As we have said, it soon became apparent that there was going to be a
fight, and independent companies were formed all over Virginia, and
started industriously to drilling. Washington, by this time the most
conspicuous man in the colony, was chosen commander-in-chief; and when,
at the gathering of the second Continental Congress at Philadelphia,
came news of the fight at Lexington and Concord, the army before Boston
was formally adopted by the Congress as an American army, and Washington
was unanimously chosen to command it. I wonder if any one foresaw that
day, even in the dimmest fashion, what immortality of fame was to come
to that tall, quiet, dignified man?
That was on the 15th day of June, 1775, and Washington left immediately
for Boston to take command of the American forces. All along the route,
the people turned out to welcome him and bid him Godspeed. Delegations
escorted him from one town to the next, and at last, on the afternoon of
July 2d, he rode into Cambridge, where, the next day, in the shadow of a
great elm on Cambridge Common, he took command of his army, and began
the six years' struggle which resulted in the establishment of the
independence of the United States of America.
His first task was to drive the British from Boston, and he had
accomplished it by the following March. Then came a long period of
reverses and disappointments, during which his little army,
outnumbered, but not outgeneraled, was driven from Long
Island, from New York, and finally across New Jersey, taking refuge on
the south bank of the Delaware. There he gathered it together, and on
Christmas night, 1776, while the enemy were feasting and celebrating in
their quarters at Trenton, he ferried his army back across the
ice-blocked river, fell upon the British, administered a stinging
defeat, and never paused until he had driven them from New Jersey. That
brilliant campaign effectually stifled the opposition which he had had
to fight in the Congress, and resulted in his being given full power
over the army, and over all parts of the country which the army
occupied.
One more terrible ordeal awaited him--the winter of 1777-1778 spent at
Valley Forge, where the army, without the merest necessities of life,
melted away from desertion and disease, until, at one time, it consisted
of less than two thousand effective men. The next spring saw the
turning-point, for France allied herself with the United States; the
British were forced to evacuate Philadelphia and were driven back across
New Jersey to New York; and, finally, by one of the most brilliant
marches in history, Washington transferred his whole army from the
Hudson to the Potomac, and trapped Cornwallis and his army of seven
thousand men at Yorktown. Cornwallis tried desperately to free himself,
but to no avail, and on October 19, 1781, he surrendered his entire
force.
There is a pretty legend that, as Cornwallis delivered up his sword, a
cheer started through the American lines, but that Washington
stilled it on the instant, remarking, "Let posterity cheer for us."
Whether the legend be true or not, posterity _has_ cheered, for that
brilliant victory really ended the war, although two years passed before
peace was declared and the independence of the United States
acknowledged by the King of England.
Long before this, everybody knew what the end would be, and there was
much discussion as to how the new country should be governed. A great
many people were dissatisfied with the Congress, and it was suggested to
Washington that there would be a more stable government if he would
consent himself to be King or Dictator, or whatever title he might wish,
and that the army, which had won the independence of the country, would
support him. Washington's response was prompt and decisive.
"Let me conjure you," he wrote, "if you have any regard for your
country, concern for yourself, or respect for me, to banish these
thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or any
one else, a sentiment of like nature."
It was perhaps the first time in the history of the world that men had
witnessed the like. Soon afterwards, the army was disbanded, and
Washington, proceeding to Annapolis, where the Congress was in session,
resigned his commission as commander-in-chief. There are some who
consider that the greatest scene in history--the hero sheathing his
sword "after a life of spotless honor, a purity unreproached, a courage
indomitable, and a consummate victory."
A private citizen again, Washington returned quietly to his
estate at Mount Vernon. But he could not remain there--the country
needed him too badly, and his great work was yet to do. For let us
remember that his great work was not the leading of the American army to
victory, not the securing of independence, but the establishment of this
Republic. More than of any other man was this the work of Washington. He
saw the feeble Confederation breaking to pieces, now that the stress of
danger was removed; he beheld the warring interests and petty jealousies
of statesmen who yet remained colonial; but he was determined that out
of these thirteen jarring colonies should come a nation; and when the
convention to form a constitution met at Philadelphia, he presided over
it, and it was his commanding will which brought a constitution out of a
turmoil of selfish interests, through difficulties and past obstacles
which would have discouraged any other man.
And, the Constitution once adopted, all men turned to Washington to
start the new Nation on her great voyage. Remember, there was no
government, only some written pages saying that a government was to be;
it was Washington who converted that idea into a reality, who brought
that government into existence. It was a venture new to history; a
Republic founded upon principles which, however admirable in the
abstract, had been declared impossible to embody in the life of a
nation. And yet, eight years later, when Washington retired from the
presidency, he left behind him an effective government, with an
established revenue, a high credit, a strong judiciary, a vigorous
foreign policy, and an army which had repressed insurrections, and which
already showed the beginnings of a truly national spirit.
At the end of his second term as President, the country demanded that he
accept a third; the country, without Washington at the head of it,
seemed to many people like a ship on a dangerous sea without a pilot.
But he had guided her past the greatest dangers, and he refused a third
term, setting a precedent which no man in the country's history has been
strong enough to disregard. In March, 1797, he was back again at Mount
Vernon, a private citizen.
He looked forward to and hoped for long years of quiet, but it was not
to be. On December 12, 1799, he was caught by a rain and sleet storm,
while riding over his farm, and returned to the house chilled through.
An illness followed, which developed into pneumonia, and three days
later he was dead.
He was buried at Mount Vernon, which has become one of the great shrines
of America, and rightly so. For no man, at once so august and so
lovable, has graced American history. Indeed, he stands among the
greatest men of all history. There are few men with such a record of
achievement, and fewer still who, at the end of a life so crowded and
cast in such troubled places, can show a fame so free from spot, a
character so unselfish and so pure.
We know Washington to-day as well as it is possible to know any man. We
know him far better than the people of his own household knew
him. Behind the silent and reserved man, of courteous and serious
manner, which his world knew, we perceive the great nature, the warm
heart and the mighty will. We have his letters, his journals, his
account-books, and there remains no corner of his life hidden from us.
There is none that needs to be. Think what that means--not a single
corner of his life that needs to be shadowed or passed over in silence!
And the more we study it, the more we are impressed by it, and the
greater grows our love and veneration for the man of whom were uttered
the immortal words, "First in war, first in peace, and first in the
hearts of his countrymen"--words whose truth grows more apparent with
every passing year.
* * * * *
It is one of the maxims of history that great events produce great men,
and the struggle for independence abundantly proved this. Never again in
the country's history did it possess such a group of statesmen as during
its first years, the only other period at all comparable with it being
that which culminated in the Civil War. It was inevitable that these men
should assume the guidance of the newly-launched ship of state, and
Washington had, in every way possible, availed himself of their
assistance. Alexander Hamilton had been his secretary of the treasury,
Thomas Jefferson his secretary of state, and James Monroe his minister
to France. The first man to succeed him in the presidency, however, was
none of these, but John Adams of Massachusetts. His election
was not uncontested, as Washington's had been; in fact, he was elected
by a majority of only three, Jefferson receiving 68 electoral votes to
his 71.
Let us pause for a moment to see how this contest originated, for it was
the beginning of the party government which has endured to the present
day, and which is considered by many people to be essential to the
administration of the Republic. When Washington was elected there were,
strictly speaking, no parties; but there was a body of men who had
favored the adoption of the Constitution, and another, scarcely less
influential, who had opposed it. The former were called Federals, as
favoring a federation of the several states, and the latter were called
Anti-Federals, as opposing it.
One point of difference always leads to others, wider and wider apart,
as the rain-drop, shattered on the summit of the Great Divide, flows one
half to the Atlantic the other half to the Pacific. So, after the
adoption of the Constitution, there was never any serious question of
abrogating it, but two views arose as to its interpretation. The
Federals, in their endeavor to strengthen the national government,
favored the liberal view, which was that anything the Constitution did
not expressly forbid was permitted; while the Anti-Federals, anxious to
preserve all the power possible to the several states, favored the
strict view, which was that unless the Constitution expressly permitted
a thing, it could not be done. As there were many, many points upon
which the Constitution was silent--its framers being mere human beings
and not all-wise intelligences--it will be seen that these
interpretations were as different as black and white. It was this
divergence, combined with another as to whether, in joining the Union,
the several states had surrendered their sovereignty, which has
persisted as the fundamental difference between the Republican and
Democratic parties to the present day.
Adams was a Federalist, and his choice as the candidate of that party
was due to the fact that Hamilton, its leader, was too unpopular with
the people at large to stand any chance of election, more especially
against such a man as Jefferson, who would be his opponent. With
Hamilton out of the way, the place plainly belonged to Adams by right of
succession, and he was nominated. He was aided by the fact that he had
served as Vice-President during both of Washington's administrations,
and it was felt that he would be much more likely to carry out the
policies of his distinguished predecessor than Jefferson, who had been
opposed to Washington on many public questions. Even at that, as has
been said, he won by a majority of only three votes.
In a general way Adams did continue Washington's policies, even
retaining his cabinet. But, while his attitude on national questions
was, in the main, a wise one, he was so unwise and undignified in minor
things, so consumed by petty jealousies, envies and contentions, that he
made enemies instead of friends, and when, four years later, he was
again the Federal candidate, he was easily beaten by Jefferson, and
retired from the White House a soured and disappointed man,
fleeing from the capital by night in order that he might not have to
witness the inauguration of his successor. To such depths had he been
brought by colossal egotism. In his earlier years, he had done
distinguished service as a member of the Continental Congress, but his
prestige never recovered from the effect of his conduct during his term
as President, and his last years were passed in retirement. By a
singular coincidence, he and Jefferson died upon the same day, July 4,
1826.
Thomas Jefferson, whose influence is perhaps more generally acknowledged
in the life of the Republic of to-day than that of any other man of his
time, and whose name, Washington's apart, is oftenest on men's lips, was
born in Virginia in 1743, graduated from William and Mary College,
studied law, and took a prominent part in the agitation preceding the
Revolution. Early in his life, owing to various influences, he began
forming those ideas of simplicity and equality which had such an
influence over his later life, and over the great party of which he was
the founder. His temperament was what we call "artistic"; that is, he
loved books and music and architecture, and the things which make for
what we call culture. And yet, with all that, he soon grew wise and
skillful in the world's affairs, possessing an industry and insight
which assured his speedy success as a lawyer, despite an impediment of
speech which prevented him from being an effective orator.
He had the good fortune to marry happily, finding a comrade and
helpmate, as well as a wife, in beautiful Martha Skelton, with
whom he rode away to his estate at Monticello when he was twenty-seven.
She saw him write the Declaration of Independence, saw him war-governor
of Virginia, and second only to Washington in the respect and affection
of the people of that great commonwealth; and then she died. The shock
of her death left Jefferson a stricken man; he secluded himself from the
public, and declared that his life was at an end.
Washington, however, eight years later, persuaded him to accept a place
in his cabinet as secretary of state. Within a year he had definitely
taken his place as the head of the Anti-Federalist, or Republican party,
and laid the foundations of what afterwards became known as the
Democratic party. His trust in the people had grown and deepened, his
heart had grown more tender with the coming of affliction, and it was
his theory that in a democracy, the people should control public policy
by imposing their wishes upon their rulers, who were answerable to
them--a theory which is now accepted, in appearance, at least, by all
political parties, but which the Federalist leaders of that time
thoroughly detested. Jefferson seems to have felt, too, that the
tendency of those early years was too greatly toward an aristocracy,
which the landed gentry of Virginia were only too willing to provide,
and when, at last, he was chosen for the presidency, he set the country
such an example of simplicity and moderation that there was never again
any chance of its running into that danger.
Everyone has read the story of how, on the day of his
inauguration, he rode on horseback to the capitol, clad in studiously
plain clothes and without attendants, tied his horse to the fence, and
walked unannounced into the Senate chamber. This careful avoidance of
display marked his whole official career, running sometimes, indeed,
into an ostentation of simplicity whose good taste might be questioned.
But of Jefferson's entire sincerity there can be no doubt. Inconsistent
as he sometimes was--as every man is--his purposes and policies all
tended steadily toward the betterment of humanity; and the great mass of
the people who to this day revere his memory, "pay a just debt of
gratitude to a friend who not only served them, as many have done, but
who honored and respected them, as very few have done."
Perhaps the greatest single act of his administration was the purchase
from France of the vast territory known as Louisiana, which included the
state now bearing that name, and the wide, untrodden, wilderness west of
the Mississippi, paying for it the sum of fifteen million dollars--a
rate of a fraction of a cent an acre. The purchase aroused the bitterest
opposition, but Jefferson seems to have had a clearer vision than most
men of what the future of America was to be. He served for two terms,
refusing a third nomination which he was besought to accept, and
retiring to private life on March 4, 1809, after a nearly continuous
public service of forty-four years. The remainder of his life was spent
quietly at his home at Monticello, where men flocked for a
guidance which never failed them. The cause to which his last years were
devoted was characteristic of the man--the establishment of a common
school system in Virginia, and the founding of the University of
Virginia, which still bears the imprint of his mind.
[Illustration: JEFFERSON]
Jefferson is one of the few men whose portrait, as preserved for us,
shows us the man as we imagine him to be. No one can look at that lofty
and noble countenance, with its calm and wide-set eyes, its firm yet
tender mouth, its expression of complete serenity, without realizing
that here was a man placed above the weakness and pettiness and meanness
of the world, on a pinnacle of his own, strong in spirit, wise in
judgment, and almost prophetic in vision.
The presidency descended, by an overwhelming majority, to one of
Jefferson's stanch friends and supporters, for whom he had paved the
way--James Madison, also a Virginian, who had been his secretary of
state for eight years, and who was himself to serve two terms, during
which the influence of the "Sage of Monticello" was paramount. The great
crisis which Madison had to face was the second war with England, a war
brought on by British aggression on the high seas, and bitterly opposed,
especially in New England. The war, characterized by blunders on land
and brilliant successes on the ocean, really resulted without victory to
either side, and, indeed, was very nearly a defeat for America; but in
the end, it enabled us to regain possession of the posts which
England had persisted in occupying along the western boundary, and
banished forever any fear that she might, at any time in the future,
attempt to reassert her sovereignty over the United States.
Madison was also fortunate in his wife, the beautiful and brilliant
Dolly Payne Todd, who played so prominent a part in the social life of
the time, and who, when the British were marching into Washington to
sack that city, managed to save some of the treasures of the White House
from the invaders. It is difficult for us to realize, at this distant
day, that our beautiful capital was once in the enemy's hands, given
over to the flames; that was one of the great disgraces of the War of
1812; for the only force which rallied to the defense of the city was a
few regiments of untrained militia, which could not stand for a minute
before the British regulars, but ran away at the first fire.
Madison and his wife, however, soon came back to the White House from
which they had been driven, and remained there four years longer, until
the close of his second term, in 1817. For nearly a score of years
thereafter, they lived a happy and tranquil life on their estate,
Montpelier.
It is somewhat difficult to estimate Madison. He stood on a sort of
middle ground between Jefferson and Hamilton. Earlier in his career,
Hamilton influenced him deeply in regard to the adoption of the
Constitution, of which he has been called the father. But, at a later
date, Jefferson's influence became uppermost, and Madison
swung over to the extreme of the state rights view, and drew the
resolutions of the Virginia legislature declaring the Alien and Sedition
laws "utterly null and void and of no effect," so that he has also been
called the "Father of Nullification." However unstable his opinions may
have been, there is no questioning his patriotism or the purity of his
motives.
Again the presidential tradition was to remain unbroken, for Madison's
successor was James Monroe, his secretary of state, a Virginian and a
Democrat. The preponderance of the Democratic party was never more in
evidence, for while he received 183 electoral votes, Rufus King, the
Federalist candidate, received only 34. This, however, was as nothing to
the great personal triumph he achieved four years later, when, as a
candidate for re-election, only one vote was cast against him, and that
by a man who voted as he did because he did not wish to see a second
President chosen with the unanimity which had honored Washington.
Monroe is principally remembered to-day from a "doctrine" enunciated by
him and known by his name, which remains a vital portion of American
policy. It was in 1823 that he declared that the United States would
consider any attempt of a European power to establish itself in this
hemisphere as dangerous to her peace and safety, and as the
manifestation of an unfriendly disposition. The language is cautious and
diplomatic, but what it means in plain English is that the United States
will resist by force any attempt of a European power to
conquer and colonize any portion of the three Americas--in other words,
that this country will safeguard the independence of all her neighbors.
This principle has come to be regarded as a basic one in the foreign
relations of the United States, and while no European power has formally
acknowledged it, more than one have had to bow before it. It is
interesting to know that the enunciation of such a "doctrine" was
recommended by Thomas Jefferson, and that Jefferson was Monroe's
constant adviser throughout his career.
Monroe retired from the presidency in 1825, and the seven remaining
years of his life were passed principally on his estate in Virginia.
Jefferson said of him, "He is a man whose soul might be turned wrong
side outwards, without discovering a blemish to the world,"--an estimate
which was, of course, colored by a warm personal friendship, but which
was echoed by many others of his contemporaries. Certain it is that few
men have ever so won the affection and esteem of the nation, and his
administration was known as the "era of good feeling." He is scarcely
appreciated to-day at his true worth, principally because he does not
measure up in genius to the great men who preceded him.
At striking variance with the practical unanimity of Monroe's election
was that of John Quincy Adams, his successor. Over a quarter of a
century had elapsed since a northern man had been chosen to the
presidency. That man, strangely enough, was the father of the
present candidate, but had retired from office after one acrimonious
term, discredited and disappointed. Since then, the government of the
country had been in the hands of Virginians. Now came John Quincy Adams,
calling himself a Democrat, but really inheriting the principles of his
father, and the contest which ensued for the presidency was
unprecedented in the history of the country.
Adams's principal opponent was Andrew Jackson, a mighty man of whom we
shall soon have occasion to speak, and so close was the contest that the
electoral college was not able to make a choice. So, as provided by the
Constitution, it was carried to the House of Representatives, and there,
through the influence of Henry Clay, who was unfriendly to Jackson,
Adams was chosen by a small majority. An administration which began in
bitterness, continued bitter and turbulent. Men's passions were aroused,
and four years later Adams repeated the fate of his father, in being
overwhelmingly defeated.
But the most remarkable portion of his story is yet to come. Before that
time, it had been the custom, as we have seen, for the ex-President to
spend the remaining years of his life in dignified retirement; but the
year after Adams left the White House, he was elected to the House of
Representatives, and was returned regularly every two years until his
death, which occurred upon its floor. He did much excellent work there,
and was conspicuous in more than one memorable scene, but he is chiefly
remembered for his battle for the right of petition. No more
persistent fight was ever made by a man in a parliamentary body and some
reference must be made to it here.
Soon after he took his seat in Congress, the movement against slavery
was begun, and one fruit of it was the appearance of petitions for the
abolition of slavery in the House of Representatives. A few were
presented by Mr. Adams, and then more and more, as they were sent in to
him, and finally the southern representatives became so aroused, that
they succeeded in passing what was known as the "gag rule," which
prevented the reception of these petitions by the House. Adams protested
against this rule as an invasion of his constitutional rights, and from
that time forward, amid the bitterest opposition, addressed his whole
force toward the vindication of the right of petition. On every petition
day, he would offer, in constantly increasing numbers, petitions which
came to him from all parts of the country for the abolition of slavery.
The southern representatives were driven almost to madness, but Adams
kept doggedly on his way, and every year renewed his motion to strike
out the gag rule. As constant dripping will wear away a stone, so his
persistence wore away opposition, or, rather, the sentiment of the
country was gradually changing, and at last, on December 3, 1844, his
motion prevailed, and the great battle which he had fought practically
alone was won. Four years later he fell, stricken with paralysis, at his
place in the House.
It is worth pausing to remark that, of the six men who, up to
this time, had held the presidency, four were from Virginia and two from
Massachusetts; that, in every instance, the Virginians had been
re-elected and had administered the affairs of the country to the
satisfaction of the people, while both the Massachusetts men had been
retired from office at the end of a single term, and after turbulent and
violent administrations. All of them were what may fairly be called
patricians, men of birth and breeding; they were the possessors of a
certain culture and refinement, were descended from well-known families,
and there seemed every reason to believe that the administration of the
country would be continued in the hands of such men. For what other
class of men was fitted to direct it? Then, suddenly, the people spoke,
and selected for their ruler a man from among themselves, a man whose
college was the backwoods, whose opinions were prejudices rather than
convictions, and yet who was, withal, perhaps the greatest popular idol
this country will ever see; whose very blunders endeared him to the
people, because they knew his heart was right.
* * * * *
On the fifteenth day of March, 1767, in a little log cabin on the upper
Catawba river, almost on the border-line between North and South
Carolina--so near it, in fact, that no one knows certainly in which
state it stood--a boy was born and christened Andrew Jackson. His father
had died a few days before--one of those sturdy Scotch-Irish whom we
have seen emigrating to America in such numbers in search of
a land of freedom. The boy grew up in the rude backwoods settlement,
rough, boisterous, unlettered; at the age of fourteen, riding with
Sumter in the guerrilla warfare waged throughout the state against the
British, and then, captured and wounded on head and hand by a
sabre-stroke whose mark he bore till his dying day, a prisoner in the
filthy Camden prison-pen, sick of the small-pox, and coming out of it,
at last, more dead than alive.
His mother nursed him back to life, and then started for Charleston to
see what could be done for the prisoners rotting in the British
prison-ships in the harbor, only herself to catch the prison-fever, and
to be buried in a grave which her son was never able to discover.
Young Jackson, sobered by this and other experiences, applied himself
with some diligence to his books, taught school for a time, studied law,
and at the age of twenty was admitted to the bar, for which the standard
was by no means high. To the west, the new state of Tennessee was in
process of organization--an unpeopled wilderness for the most part--and
early in the year 1788, Jackson secured the appointment as public
prosecutor in the new state. It is not probable he had much competition,
for the position was one calling for desperate courage, as well as for
endurance to withstand the privations of back-woods life, and the
pecuniary reward was small. In the fall of 1788, he proceeded to
Nashville with a wagon train which came within an ace of being
annihilated by Indians before it reached its destination.
Jackson found his new position exactly suited to his peculiar genius.
His personal recklessness made him the terror of criminals; he possessed
the precise qualifications for success before backwoods juries and for
personal popularity among the rough people who were his clients, with
whom usually might was right. At the end of three or four years, he
practically monopolized the law business of the district; and he soon
became by far the most popular man in it, despite a hot-headed
disposition which made him many enemies, which involved him in
numberless quarrels, and which resulted in his fighting at least one
duel, in which he killed his opponent and was himself dangerously
wounded.
It was inevitable, of course, that he should enter politics, and equally
inevitable that he should be successful there. Eight years after his
arrival from Carolina, at the age of twenty-nine, he was elected to
represent his state in Congress, and covered the eight hundred miles to
Philadelphia on horseback. From the House, he was appointed to serve in
the Senate, resigned from it to accept an election as Judge of the
Supreme Court of Tennessee, was chosen major-general of the Tennessee
militia, and so began that military career which was to have a
remarkable culmination.
On the 25th of June, 1812, apprised of the outbreak of the second war
with England, Jackson offered to the President his own services and
those of the twenty-five hundred militia men of his district.
The offer was at once accepted, and Jackson, getting his troops
together, proceeded down the river to New Orleans. But jealousies at
headquarters intervened, he was informed that New Orleans was in no
present danger, his force was disbanded and left to get back home as
best it could. Jackson, wild with rage, pledged his own resources to
furnish this transportation, but was afterwards reimbursed by the
government.
It was while he was getting his men back home again that Jackson
received the nickname of "Old Hickory," which clung to him all the rest
of his life, and which was really a good description of him. The story
also illustrates how it was that his men came to idolize him, and why it
was that he appealed so strongly to the common people. Jackson had three
good horses, on that weary journey, but instead of riding one of them
himself, he loaned all three to sick men who were unable to walk, and
himself trudged along at the head of his men.
"The general is tough, isn't he?" one of them remarked, glancing at the
tall, sturdy figure.
"Tough!" echoed another. "I should say he is--as tough as hickory!"
Jackson was lying in bed with a bullet in his shoulder, which he had
received in an affray with Jesse Benton, and also, no doubt, nursing his
chagrin over his treatment by the War Department, when news came of a
great Indian uprising in Alabama. The Creeks had gone on the warpath and
had opened proceedings by capturing Fort Mims, at the junction of the
Alabama and Tombigbee rivers, on August 30, 1813, and massacring over
five hundred people who had taken refuge there. Alabama was almost
abandoned by the whites, and Georgia and Tennessee at once rushed to her
relief by voting men and money to put down the Indians.
Jackson forgot wound and chagrin and took the field as soon as he was
able to stir. He at once quarrelled with the other officers; but his men
believed in him, though lack of food and the expiring of the short term
of enlistment created so much insubordination that, on one occasion, he
had to use half his army to prevent the other half from marching home.
His energy was remarkable; he pushed forward into the Creek country, cut
the Indians to pieces at Horseshoe Bend, and drove the survivors into
Florida. At the end of seven months, the war was over, and the Creeks
had been so punished that there was never any further need to fear them.
The campaign had another result--it established Jackson's reputation as
a fighter, and soon afterwards he was appointed a major-general in the
army of the United States, and was given command of the Department of
the South. The pendulum had swung the other way, with a vengeance! But
Jackson rose magnificently to this increased responsibility. He
discovered that the English were in force at Pensacola, which was in
Florida and therefore on Spanish territory; but he did not hesitate. He
marched against the place with an army of three thousand, stormed the
town, captured it, blew up the forts, which the Spaniards hastily
surrendered, and so made it untenable as an English base. Perhaps no
other exploit of his career was so audacious, or so well carried out.
Pensacola subdued, he hastened to New Orleans, which was in the gravest
danger.
The overthrow of Napoleon and his banishment to Elba had given England a
breathing-space, and the veteran troops which had been with Wellington
in Spain were left free for use against the Americans. A great
expedition was at once organized to attack and capture New Orleans, and
at its head was placed General Pakenham, the brilliant commander of the
column which had delivered the fatal blow at Salamanca. A fleet of fifty
vessels, manned by the best sailors of England, was got ready, ten
thousand men put aboard, and in December, a week after Jackson's arrival
at New Orleans, this great fleet anchored off the broad lagoons of the
Mississippi delta. Seventeen thousand men, in all, counting the sailors,
who could, of course, be employed in land operations; and a mighty
equipment of artillery, for which the guns of the fleet could also be
used. The few American gunboats were overpowered, and Pakenham proceeded
leisurely to land his force for the advance against the city, which it
seemed that nothing could save. On December 23d, his advance-guard of
two thousand men was but ten miles below New Orleans.
On the afternoon of that very day, the vanguard of Jackson's
Tennesseans marched into New Orleans, clad in hunting-shirts of
buckskin or homespun, wearing coonskin caps, and carrying on their
shoulders the long rifles they knew how to use so well. They had made
one of the most remarkable marches in history, in their eagerness to
meet the enemy, and Jackson at once hurried them forward for a night
attack. It was delivered with the greatest fury, and the British were so
roughly handled that they were forced to halt until the main body of the
army came up.
When they did advance, they found that Jackson had made good use of the
delay. With the first light of the dawn which followed the battle, he
had commenced throwing up a rude breastwork, one end resting on the
river, the other on a swamp, and by nightfall, it was nearly done. Mud
and logs had been used, and bales of cotton, until it formed a fairly
strong position. The British were hurrying forward reinforcements, and
little did either side suspect that on that very day, at Ghent,
thousands of miles away, a treaty of peace had been signed between the
United States and England, and that the blood they were about to spill
would be spilled uselessly.
In a day or two, the British had got up their artillery, and tried to
batter down the breastworks, but without success; then, Pakenham,
forgetting Bunker Hill, determined to try a frontal assault. He had no
doubt of victory, for he had three times as many men as Jackson; troops,
too, seasoned by victories won over the most renowned marshals of
Napoleon. At Toulouse they had driven Marshal Soult from a position
infinitely stronger than this rude breastworks; time after time
they had charged and carried fortifications, manned by the best
soldiers in Europe. What chance, then, had this little force of
backwoodsmen, commanded by an ignorant and untrained general? So
Pakenham ordered that the assault should take place on the morning of
January 8th.
From the bustle and stir in the British camp, the Americans knew that
something unusual was afoot, and long before dawn, the riflemen were
awake, had their breakfast, and then took their places behind the mud
walls, their rifles ready. At last the sun rose, the fog lifted, and
disclosed the splendid and gleaming lines of the British infantry, ready
for the advance. As soon as the air was clear, Pakenham gave the word,
and the columns moved steadily forward. From the American breastworks
not a rifle cracked. Half the distance was covered, three-fourths; and
then, as one man, those sturdy riflemen rose and fired, line upon line.
Under that terrible fire, the British column broke and paused, then
surged forward again, almost to the foot of the breastworks. But not a
man lived to mount them. No column could stand under such a fire, and
the British broke and ran.
Mad with rage, Pakenham rallied his men and placed himself at their
head. Again came the word to charge, and again that gleaming column
rushed forward, only to be again met by that deadly hail of lead.
Pakenham, mortally wounded, reeled and fell from his saddle, officer
after officer was picked off by those unequalled marksmen, the field was
covered with dead and dying. Even the British saw, at last, the folly of
the movement, and retired sullenly to their lines. For a week they lay
there; then, abandoning their heavy artillery, they marched back to
their ships and sailed for England. The men who had conquered the
conquerors of Europe had themselves met defeat.
The battle had lasted less than half an hour, but the British left
behind them no less than twenty-six hundred men--seven hundred killed,
fourteen hundred wounded, five hundred prisoners. The American loss was
eight killed and thirteen wounded.
News of this brilliant victory brought sudden joy to a depressed people,
for elsewhere on land the war had been waged disgracefully enough, and
Jackson's name was on everyone's lips. His journey to Washington was a
kind of triumphal march, and his popularity grew by leaps and bounds.
People journeyed scores of miles to see him, for there was a strange
fascination about the rugged old fighter which few could resist, and
already his friends were urging him as a candidate for the presidency.
There could be no doubt that he was the people's choice, and at last, in
the campaign of 1823, he was formally placed in nomination, his chief
opponent being John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts. The result of that
contest has already been told. Jackson received more electoral votes
than any other candidate, but not enough to elect, and the contest was
decided by the House of Representatives. On that occasion, Henry Clay
came nearer committing political suicide than ever again in his life,
for he threw his influence against Jackson, and lost a portion of
his popularity which he never recovered.
Jackson bided his time, and spent the four years following in careful
preparation for the next contest. So well did he build his fences that,
when the electoral vote was cast, he received the overwhelming majority
of 178 votes to 83 for Adams.
Never before had the city of Washington seen such an inauguration as
took place on the fourth of March following. It seemed as though the
whole population of the country had assembled there to see the old
fighter take the oath of office. Daniel Webster wrote of it, "I never
saw such a crowd here before. Persons came five hundred miles to see
General Jackson and really seem to think that our country is rescued
from some dreadful danger." As, perhaps, it was.
Jackson began his administration with characteristic vigor. It was he
who first put into practice the principle, "To the victors belong the
spoils." There was about him no academic courtesy, and he proceeded at
once to displace many Federal officeholders and to replace them with his
own adherents. The Senate tried for a time to stem the tide, but was
forced to give it up. There was no withstanding that fierce and dominant
personality. Jackson was more nearly a dictator than any President had
ever been before him, or than any will ever be again. His great
popularity seemed rather to increase than to diminish, and in 1832, he
received no less than 219 electoral votes.
[Illustration: JACKSON]
Let us do him justice. Prejudiced and ignorant and
wrong-headed as he was, he was a pure patriot, laboring for his
country's good. Nothing proves this more strongly than his attitude on
the nullification question, in other words, the right of a state to
refuse to obey a law of the United States, and to withdraw from the
Union, should it so desire. This is not the place to go into the
constitutional argument on this question. It is, of course, all but
certain that the original thirteen states had no idea, when they
ratified the Constitution, that they were entering an alliance from
which they would forever be powerless to withdraw; and the right of
withdrawal had been asserted in New England more than once. South
Carolina was the hot-bed of nullification sentiment, arising partly from
the growing anti-slavery feeling at the North, and partly because of the
enactment of a tariff law which was felt to be unjust, and on October
25, 1832, the South Carolina legislature passed an ordinance asserting
that, since the state had entered the Union of its free will, it could
withdraw from it at any time and resume the sovereign and independent
position which it had held at the close of the Revolution, and that it
would do so should there be any attempt to enforce the tariff laws
within the state.
Jackson's attitude on this question was already well known. At a banquet
celebrating Jefferson's birthday, two years before, at which Calhoun and
others had given toasts and made addresses in favor of nullification,
Jackson had startled his audience by rising, glass in hand,
and giving the toast, "Our Federal Union--it must be preserved!" That
toast had fallen like a bombshell among the ranks of the nullifiers, and
had electrified the whole Nation. Since then, he had become a stronger
nationalist than ever; besides, he was always ready for a fight, and
whenever he saw a head had the true Irishman's impulse to hit it. So he
responded to the South Carolina nullification ordinance by sending two
men-of-war to Charleston harbor and collecting a force of United States
troops along the Carolina border. "I consider the power to annul a law
of the United States, assumed by one state, incompatible with the
existence of the Union," he wrote; and when a South Carolina
congressman, about to go home, asked the President if he had any
commands for his friends in that state, Jackson retorted:
"Yes, I have; please give my compliments to my friends in your state,
and say to them that if a single drop of blood shall be shed there in
opposition to the laws of the United States, I will hang the first man I
can lay my hands on, engaged in such treasonable conduct, upon the first
tree I can reach."
Whether or not this message was delivered history does not say, but the
whole Nation arose in wrath behind its President, state after state
denounced nullification and disunion, and the South Carolina ordinance
was finally repealed. So the storm passed for the moment. It left
Jackson more of a popular hero than ever; it was as though he had won
another battle of New Orleans. One cannot but wonder what would have
happened had he been acting as President, instead of Buchanan, in those
trying years after 1856.
He retired from the presidency broken in health and fortune, for however
well he took care of the interests of his friends, he was always
careless about his own. The last eight years of his life were spent at
his Tennessee estate, The Hermitage. The end came in 1845, but his name
has remained as a kind of watchword among the common people--a synonym
for rugged honesty, and bluff sincerity. His career is, all in all, by
far the most remarkable of any man who ever held the high office of
President--with one possible exception, that of Abraham Lincoln.
* * * * *
Jackson was one of the most perfect political manipulators and
machine-builders this country ever saw, and he had so perfected his
machine at the close of his second term that he was able to name as his
successor and the heir of his policies, Martin Van Buren, of New York, a
man who had been one of Jackson's most valued lieutenants from the
first, an astute politician, but not remarkable in any way, nor able to
impress himself upon the country. He announced at his inauguration that
it was his intention, to tread in the footsteps of his "illustrious
predecessor," but none for a moment imagined that he was big enough to
fill Jackson's shoes. Indeed, Jackson, was by far the most important
figure at the inauguration.
Van Buren's term as President witnessed nothing more
momentous than the great panic of 1837, which he faced with a calmness
and clear-sightedness surprising even to his friends, but which
nevertheless assisted a collection of malcontents, under the leadership
of Henry Clay, calling themselves National Republicans or Whigs, to
defeat him for re-election. There was really no valid reason why he
should have been re-elected; he had little claim, upon the country, but
was for the most part, merely a clever politician, the first to attain
the presidency. His life had been marked by an orderly advance from
local to state, and then to national offices--an advance obtained not
because he stood for any great principle, but because he knew how to
make friends and build his political fences.
His nomination and election to the presidency was in no sense an
accident, as was Taylor's, Pierce's, Hayes's and Garfield's, but was
carefully prearranged and thoroughly understood. Yet let us do him the
justice to add that his public services were, in some respects, of a
high order, and that he was not wholly unworthy of the last great honor
paid him. He was a candidate for the nomination in 1844, but was
defeated by James K. Polk; and four years later, secured the nomination,
but was defeated at the polls by Zachary Taylor. That ended his
political career.
In the campaign against him of 1840, the Whigs were fortunate in having
for their candidate William Henry Harrison, a man of immense personal
popularity, resembling Jackson in that his reputation had been made as
an Indian fighter in the West, where he had defeated Tecumseh at the
battle of Tippecanoe, and by a successful campaign in the war of 1812.
Since then, he had been living quietly on his farm in Ohio, with no
expectation of anything but passing his remaining years in quiet, for he
was nearly seventy years of age. But Clay, with a sort of prophetic
insight, picked him out as the Whig leader, and "Tippecanoe and Tyler
Too" became the rallying cry of a remarkable campaign, which swept the
country from end to end and effectually swamped Van Buren. It was too
strenuous for a man as old as Harrison, and he died at the White House
within a month of taking the oath of office.
The "Tyler Too" was John Tyler, who had been elected Vice-President, and
who assumed the office of President upon Harrison's death. His accession
was little less than a bomb-shell to the party which had nominated him
and secured his election. For he was a Virginian, a follower of Calhoun
and an ardent pro-slavery man, while the Whigs were first, last and all
the time anti-slavery. He had been placed on the ticket with Harrison,
who was strongly anti-slavery, in the hope of securing the votes of some
disaffected Democrats, but to see him President was the last thing the
Whigs desired. The result was that he soon became involved in a bitter
quarrel with Clay and the other leaders of the party, which effectually;
killed any chance of renomination he may have had. He became the mark
for perhaps the most unrestrained abuse ever aimed at a
holder of the presidency.
It was largely unmerited, for Tyler was a capable man, had seen service
in Congress and as governor of his state; but he was dry and
uninspiring, and not big enough for the presidency, into which he could
never have come except by accident. His administration was marked by few
important events except the annexation of Texas, which will be dealt
with more particularly when we come to consider the lives of Sam Houston
and the other men who brought the annexation about. He retired to
private life at the close of his term, appearing briefly twenty years
later as a member of a "congress" which endeavored to prevent the war
between the states, and afterwards as a member of the Confederate
Congress, in which he served until his death.
Clay secured the Whig nomination for himself, in the campaign of 1844,
and his opponent on the Democratic ticket was James Knox Polk, a native
of North Carolina, but afterwards removing to Tennessee. He had been a
member of Congress for fourteen years, and governor of Tennessee for
three, and was a consistent exponent of Democratic principles. Two great
questions were before the country: the annexation of Texas and the right
to Oregon. Polk was for the immediate annexation of Texas and for the
acquisition of Oregon up to 54° 40" north latitude, regardless of Great
Britain's claims, and "Fifty-four forty or fight!" became one of the
battle-cries of the campaign. Clay, inveterate trimmer and
compromiser that he was, professed to be for the annexation of Texas,
provided it could be accomplished without war with Mexico, which was
arrant nonsense, since Mexico had given notice that she would consider
annexation an act of war. The result of Clay's attitude, and of a
widespread distrust of his policies, was that Polk was elected by a
large majority.
His administration was destined to be a brilliant one, for Texas was at
once annexed, and the brief war with Mexico which followed, one of the
most successful ever waged by any country, carried the southwestern
boundary of the United States to the Rio Grande, and added New Mexico
and California to the national domain, while a treaty with England
secured for the country the present great state of Oregon, although here
Polk receded from his position and accepted a compromise which confined
Oregon below the forty-ninth parallel. But even this was something of a
triumph. With that triumph, the name of Marcus Whitman is most closely
associated, through a brilliant but rather useless feat of his, of which
we shall speak later on. Polk seems to have been an able and
conscientious man, without any pretensions to genius--just a good,
average man, like any one of ten thousand other Americans. He refused a
renomination because of ill-health, and died soon after retiring from
office.
The Democratic party had by this time become hopelessly disrupted over
the slavery question, which had become more and more acute. The great
strength of the state rights party had always been in the
South, and southern statesmen had always opposed any aggression on the
part of the national government. The North, on the other hand, had
always leaned more or less toward a strong centralization of power. So
it followed that while the Democratic party was paramount in the South,
its opponents, by whatever name known, found their main strength in the
North.
Yet, even in the North, there was a strong Democratic element, and, but
for the intrusion of the slavery question, the party would have
controlled the government for many years to come. But the North was
gradually coming to feel that the slavery question was more important
than the more abstract one of national aggression; the more so since, by
insisting upon the enforcement of such measures as the Fugitive Slave
Law, the South was, as it were, keeping open and bleeding a wound which
might to some extent have healed. In 1848 the split came, and the
Democratic party put two candidates in the field, Lewis Cass for the
South, and Martin Van Buren for the North.
The Whig Party, taking advantage of the knowledge gained in previous
campaigns, looked around for a famous general, and managed to agree upon
Zachary Taylor, who had made an exceedingly brilliant record in the war
with Mexico. He was sixty-five years old at the time, a sturdy giant of
a man, reared on the frontier, hardened by years of Indian warfare,
whose nickname of "Old Rough and Ready" was not a bad description. He
caught the popular fancy, for he possessed those qualities
which appeal to the plain people, and this, assisted by the division in
the ranks of his opponents, won him a majority of the electoral votes.
He took the oath of office on March 4, 1849, but, after sixteen months
of troubled administration, died suddenly on July 9, 1850.
Millard Fillmore, who had been elected Vice-President, at once took the
oath of office as chief executive. He was a New York man, a lawyer, had
been a member of Congress, and, as Vice-President, had presided over the
bitter slavery debates in the Senate. His sympathies were supposed to be
anti-slavery, yet he signed the Fugitive Slave Law, when it was placed
before him, much to the chagrin of many people who had voted for him. He
signed his own political death-warrant at the same time, for, at the
Whig National Convention in 1852, he was defeated for the nomination for
President, after a long struggle, by General Winfield Scott, another
veteran of the Mexican war. Four years later, Fillmore, having managed
to regain, the confidence of his party, secured the Whig nomination
unanimously, but was defeated at the polls, and spent the remaining
years of his life quietly at his home in Buffalo.
Against General Scott, the Democrats nominated Franklin Scott Pierce,
the nomination being in the nature of an accident, though Pierce was in
every way a worthy candidate. His family record begins with his father,
Benjamin Pierce, who, as a lad of seventeen, stirred by the tidings of
the fight at Lexington, left his home in Chelmsford, musket
on shoulder, to join the patriot army before Boston. He settled in New
Hampshire after the Revolution, and his son Franklin was born there in
1804. He followed the usual course of lawyer, congressman and senator,
and served throughout the war with Mexico, rising to the rank of
brigadier-general, and securing a reputation second only to that of
Scott and Taylor.
At the Democratic convention of 1852, Pierce was not a candidate for the
nomination, and did not know that any one intended to mention his name,
or even thought of him in that connection. But the convention was unable
to agree on a candidate, and on the fourth day and thirty-third ballot,
some delegate cast his vote for General Franklin Pierce, of New
Hampshire. The name attracted attention, Pierce's career had been
distinguished and above reproach, other delegates voted for him, until,
on the forty-ninth ballot, he was declared the unanimous choice of the
convention. His election was overwhelming, as he carried twenty-seven
states out of thirty-one.
Once in the presidential chair, however, this popularity gradually
slipped away from him. He found himself in an impossible position,
between two fires, for the slavery question was dividing the country
more and more and there seemed no possible way to reconcile the warring
sections. Pierce, perhaps, made the mistake of trying to placate both,
instead of taking his stand firmly with one or the other; and the
consequence was that at the convention of 1856, he received a few votes
from courtesy, but was never seriously in the running, which resulted in
the nomination of James Buchanan. Pierce returned to his home in New
Hampshire, to find his friends and neighbors estranged from him by his
supposed pro-slavery views, which had yet not been radical enough to win
him the friendship of the South; but time changed all that, and his last
years were spent in honored and opulent retirement.
James Buchanan was, like Andrew Jackson, of Scotch-Irish descent, but
there the resemblance between the two ended, for Buchanan had little of
Jackson's tremendous positiveness and strength of character. His
disposition was always to compromise, while Jackson's was to fight. Now
compromise is often a very admirable thing, but where it shows itself to
be impossible and leaves fighting the only resource, the wise man puts
all thought of it behind him and prepares for battle. Which is precisely
what Buchanan did not do. He had been a lawyer and congressman, minister
to Russia, senator, secretary of state and minister to England, and so
had the widest possible political acquaintanceship; he was a man of
somewhat unusual culture; but, alas! he found that something more than
culture was needed to guide him in the troublous times amid which he
fell. I have often thought that Buchanan's greatest handicap was his
wide friendship, which often made it almost impossible to say no,
however much he may have wished to do so. An unknown backwoodsman, like
Andrew Jackson, with no favors to return and no friendships to be
remembered, could have acted far more effectively.
Buchanan's opponent for the presidency was John C. Frémont, and there
was a great stir and bustle among the people who were supposed to
support him, but Buchanan won easily, and at once found himself in the
midst of the most perplexing difficulties. Kansas was in a state of
civil war; two days after his inauguration the Supreme Court handed down
the famous Dred Scott decision, declaring the right of any slave-holder
to take his slaves as property into any territory; while the young
Republican party was siding openly with the abolitionists, and, a very
firebrand in a powder-house, in 1859, John Brown seized Harper's Ferry,
Virginia, and attempted to start a slave insurrection. Now a slave
insurrection was the one thing which the South feared more than any
other--it was the terror which was ever present. And so John Brown's mad
attempt excited a degree of hysteria almost unbelievable.
Small wonder that Buchanan was soon at his wits' ends. His sympathies
were with the slave-holders; he doubted his right to coerce a seceding
state; his friendships were largely with southern statesmen--and yet, to
his credit be it stated, on January 8, 1860, after secession had become
a thing assured, he seems suddenly to have seen his duty clearly, and in
a special message, declared his intention to collect the revenues and
protect public property in all the states, and to use force
if necessary. Taken all in all, his attitude in those trying days was a
creditable one--as creditable as could be expected from any average man.
What the time needed was a genius, and fortunately one rose to the
occasion. Buchanan, harried and despondent, must have breathed a deep
sigh of relief when he surrendered the helm to the man who had been
chosen to succeed him--the man, by some extraordinary chance, in all the
land best fitted to steer the ship of state to safety--the man who was
to be the dominant figure of the century in American history.
SUMMARY
WASHINGTON, GEORGE. Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, February 22
(old style, February 11), 1732; sent on a mission to the French beyond
the Alleghenies, 1753-54; appointed lieutenant-colonel, 1754; defeated
by the French at Fort Necessity, July 3, 1754; aide-de-camp to Braddock,
1755; commanded on the frontier, 1755-57; led the advance-guard for the
reduction of Fort Duquesne, 1758; married Martha Custis, January 9,
1759; delegate to Continental Congress, 1774-75; appointed
commander-in-chief of the continental forces, June 15, 1775; assumed
command of the army, July 3, 1775; compelled evacuation of Boston, March
17, 1776; defeated at battle of Long Island, August 27, 1776; defeated
at White Plains, October 28, 1776; surprised the British at Trenton,
December 26, 1776; won the battle of Princeton, January, 1777; defeated
at Brandywine and Germantown in 1777; at Valley Forge, during the winter
of 1777-78; won the battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778; captured
Yorktown and the army of Cornwallis, October 19, 1781; resigned his
commission as commander-in-chief, December 23, 1783; president of the
Constitutional Convention, 1787; unanimously elected President of the
United States, January, 1789; inaugurated at New York, April 30, 1789;
unanimously re-elected, 1793; issued farewell address to the people,
September, 1796; retired to Mount Vernon, March, 1797; died there,
December 14, 1799.
ADAMS, JOHN. Born at Braintree, now Quincy, Massachusetts, October 30,
1735; graduated at Harvard, 1755; studied law, took a leading part in
opposing Stamp Act, was counsel for the British soldiers charged with
murder in connection with the "Boston massacre" in 1770, and became a
leader of the patriot party; member of Revolutionary Congress of
Massachusetts, 1774; delegate to first and second Continental Congress,
1774-75; commissioner to France, 1777; negotiated treaties with the
Netherlands, Great Britain and Prussia, 1782-83; minister to London,
1785-88; Federal Vice-President, 1789-97; President, 1797-1801; defeated
for re-election and retired to Quincy, 1801; died there, July 4, 1886.
JEFFERSON, THOMAS. Born at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Virginia, April
2, 1743; member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1769-75, and
1776-78, and of the Continental Congress, 1775-76; drafted Declaration
of Independence, 1776; governor of Virginia, 1779-81; member of
Congress, 1783-84; minister to France, 1784-89; secretary of state,
1789-93; Vice-President, 1797-1801; President, 1801-09; died at
Monticello, Albemarle County, Virginia, July 4, 1826.
MADISON, JAMES. Born at Port Conway, Virginia, March 16, 1751;
graduated at Princeton, 1771; delegate to Congress, 1780-83, and to the
Constitutional Convention, 1787; member of Congress, 1789-97; secretary
of state, 1801-09; President, 1809-1817; died at Montpelier, Orange
County, Virginia, June 28, 1836.
MONROE, JAMES. Born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, April 28, 1758;
member of Virginia assembly, 1782; member of Congress, 1783-86; United
States senator, 1790-94; minister to France, 1794-96; governor of
Virginia, 1799-1802; minister to Great Britain, 1803-07; secretary of
state, 1811-17; President, 1817-25, an administration, known as "the era
of good feeling"; died at New York City, July 4, 1831.
ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY. Born at Braintree, Massachusetts, July 11, 1767;
graduated at Harvard, 1788; admitted to the bar, 1791; minister to the
Netherlands, 1794-97; and to Prussia, 1797-1801; United States senator,
1803-08; minister to Russia, 1809-14; minister to England, 1815-17;
secretary of state, 1817-25; President, 1825-29; member of Congress,
1831-48; died at Washington, February 23, 1848.
JACKSON, ANDREW. Born at the Waxham settlement, North Carolina (?),
March 15, 1767; member of Congress, 1796-97; United States senator,
1797-98; justice of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, 1798-1804; defeated
the Creeks at Talladega, 1813, and at Horseshoe Bend, 1814; captured
Pensacola from the English, 1814; won the battle of New Orleans, January
8, 1815; commanded against the Seminoles, 1817-18; governor of Florida,
1821; United States senator, 1823-25; defeated for President by J.Q.
Adams, 1824; President, 1829-37; died at the Hermitage, near
Nashville, Tennessee, June 8, 1845.
VAN BUREN, MARTIN. Born at Kinderhook, New York, December 5, 1782;
admitted to the bar, 1803; entered New York State Senate, 1812; United
States senator, 1821-28; governor of New York, 1828-29; secretary of
state, 1829-31; Vice-President, 1833-37; President, 1837-41; defeated
for President, 1840, 1844, 1848; died at Kinderhook, July 24, 1862.
HARRISON, WILLIAM HENRY. Born at Berkeley, Charles City County,
Virginia, February 9, 1773; governor of Indiana Territory, 1801-13; won
victory of Tippecanoe, 1811, and of the Thames, 1813; member of
Congress, 1816-19; United States senator, 1825-28; minister to Colombia,
1828-29; defeated for Presidency, 1836; elected President in the
"log-cabin and hard-cider" campaign, 1840; inaugurated, March 4, 1841;
died at Washington, April 4, 1841.
TYLER, JOHN. Born at Greenway, Charles City County, Virginia, March 29,
1790; admitted to the bar, 1809; member of Virginia legislature,
1811-16; member of Congress, 1816-21; governor of Virginia, 1825-27;
United States senator, 1827-36; elected Vice-President, 1840, and
succeeded to Presidency on the death of General Harrison, April 4, 1841;
president of the peace convention of 1861, favored secession and served
as member of the Confederate provisional Congress; died at Richmond,
Virginia, January 18, 1862.
POLK, JAMES KNOX. Born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, November
2, 1795; admitted to the bar, 1820; member of Congress,
1825-39; speaker of the House of Representatives, 1835-39; governor of
Tennessee, 1839-41; President, 1845-49; died at Nashville, Tennessee,
June 15, 1849.
TAYLOR, ZACHARY. Born in Orange County, Virginia, September 24, 1784;
entered the army as first lieutenant, 1808; served in War of 1812,
attaining rank of major; served in Black Hawk's war, 1832, with rank of
colonel; defeated Seminole Indians, 1837; commander-in-chief of Florida,
1838; took command of the army in Texas, 1845; won battle of Palo Alto,
May 8, 1846, and that of Reseca de la Palma, May 9, 1846; captured
Matamoras, May 18, and Monterey, September 24, 1846; defeated Santa Anna
at Buena Vista, February 22-23, 1847; appointed major-general, June 29,
1846; elected President, 1848; inaugurated, March 4, 1849; died at
Washington, July 9, 1850.
FILLMORE, MILLARD. Born at Summer Hill, Cayuga County, New York, January
7, 1800; admitted to the bar, 1823; member of New York State
legislature, 1829-31; member of Congress, 1833-35, 1837-43; elected
Vice-President, 1848, and succeeded to presidency on the death of
Taylor, July 9, 1850; died at Buffalo, New York, March 8, 1874.
PIERCE, FRANKLIN. Born at Hillsborough, New Hampshire, November 23,
1804; member of Congress, 1833-37; United States senator, 1837-42;
served with distinction in Mexican war; President, 1853-57; died at
Concord, New Hampshire, October 8, 1869.
BUCHANAN, JAMES. Born at Stony Batter, Franklin County, Pennsylvania,
April 22, 1791; member of Congress, 1821-31; minister to
Russia, 1831-33; United States senator, 1833-45; secretary of state,
1845-49; minister to Great Britain, 1853-56; President, 1857-61; died at
Wheatland, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, June 1, 1868.
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