GEORGIA'S NOBLE SONS.
A MINISTER OF A DAY--PURITY OF ADMINISTRATION--THEN AND NOW--WIDOW
TIMBERLAKE--VAN BUREN'S LETTER--AMBRISTER AND ARBUTHNOT--OLD HICKORY
SETTLES A DIFFICULTY--A CAUSE OF THE LATE WAR--HONORED DEAD.
Immediately upon the inauguration of Mr. Adams, Mr. Crawford left
Washington, and returned home. His residence was near Lexington,
Georgia, upon a small farm. It was an unostentatious home, but
comfortable, and without pretensions superior to those of his more
humble neighbors. Mr. Crawford had held many positions in the service
of the country, and had honestly and ably discharged the duties of
these for the public good. As a senator in Congress, he won the
confidence of the nation by the display of great abilities; and gave
universal satisfaction of the pure patriotism of his heart, in all he
said, or did. He was distinguished, as minister to France, for his
open candor and simplicity of manners--so much so, as to cause
Napoleon to remark of him "that no Government but a republic could
create or foster so much truth and honest simplicity of character as
he found in Mr. Crawford."
For years, he had served the nation as financial minister, and at a
time when the method of keeping, transferring, and disbursing the
moneys of Government afforded infinite opportunities for
peculation--when vast amounts of money arising from the sale of the
public domain in the West and the South was under his control, and
when he had the selection of the depositories of this, and when these
deposits were of great value to the local or State banks, so that they
would have paid handsomely for them; yet this noble being came out of
the furnace without the smell of fire upon his garments.
There was but one man who ever imputed dishonesty to him, or selfish
motives in any act. When the claims of Mr. Adams and Mr. Crawford for
the Presidency were being discussed, and party asperity sought to slay
its victims, Ninian Edwards, a senator of Congress from Illinois,
charged Mr. Crawford with impropriety of conduct in depositing, for
selfish and dishonest purposes, the public moneys arising from the
sale of lands in Illinois, in banks notoriously insolvent. Edwards had
been appointed minister to Mexico, had left the Senate, and had gone
to his home, preparatory to his leaving for Mexico; and from his home
made this attack upon Mr. Crawford. The son-in-law of Edwards, a man
named Cook, was the representative in Congress from Illinois, and, if
I remember correctly, was the only representative who at the time
reiterated these charges from his seat. Mr. Crawford immediately
demanded an investigation of his conduct. This was had, and the result
was a triumphant acquittal from all blame; and so damaging was this
investigation to Edwards that the President recalled the commission of
Edwards as minister to Mexico, and appointed Joel R. Poinsett, of
South Carolina, in his stead. Edwards was at New Orleans when the
letter of recall from the President reached him, that far on his way
to Mexico: he returned in disgrace, and soon faded from public notice
forever. At the time, it was asserted he was the brother-in-law of Mr.
Adams, and knowing that some of the banks in which Crawford had
deposited the public treasure had failed, he imagined complicity of a
dishonest character, on the part of Crawford, with the officers of the
banks, and expected to injure him and subserve the interest of Adams.
In what contrast does this transaction place the purity of the
Government, as then administered, with its conduct of to-day, and how
peerless were those who were trusted then with public confidence and
high places, in comparison with the public men who fill their places
now!
Georgia has given to the nation two Secretaries of the
Treasury--William H. Crawford and Howell Cobb; they were citizens of
adjoining counties. Cobb was born within a few miles of Crawford's
grave. They were both administering the office at a time in the
history of the nation when she was surrounded with perils. The one,
when she was just coming out of a war with the most powerful nation on
earth; the other, when she was just going into a war, civil and
gigantic. Both were afforded every opportunity for dishonest
peculation, and both came out, despite the allurements of temptation,
with clean hands and untainted reputation. They were reared and lived
in the atmosphere of honesty; they sought the inspiration from the
hills and vales, blue skies, and clear pure waters of Middle Georgia.
The surroundings of nature were pure; the honest farmers and
mechanics, her professional men and merchants, were and are pure. It
was the home of Upson, Gilmer, Thomas W. Cobb, Peter Early, Eli S.
Sherter, Stephen Willis Harris, William Causby Dawson, Joseph Henry
Lumpkin; and now is the home of A.H. Stephens, Ben. Hill, Robert
Toombs, Bishop Pierce, and his great and glorious father, and in their
integrity and lofty manhood they imitate the mighty dead who sleep
around them.
Glorious old State! though long trodden with the tyrant's foot, there
is a resurrectionary spirit moving thy people, which will lift thee
again to the high pinnacle from which thou wast thrust, purified and
reinvigorated for a career of brighter glory than thou hast yet
known--when the men who plague you now shall be driven from your
State, and the sons of your soil, in the vigor of their souls,
undefiled and untrammelled, shall wield your destinies.
Like a Roman of latter days, Mr. Crawford retired from the service of
his country poorer than when he entered it. There was sweet seclusion
in his retreat, and honest hearts in his humble neighbors to receive
him with "Come home, thou good and faithful servant; we receive thee,
as we gave thee, in thy greatness and thy goodness, undefiled." He had
only partially recovered from his, paralysis, though his general
health was much improved; rest and retirement, and release from public
duties and cares, served to reinvigorate him greatly. His estate was
small, his family large, and his friends, to aid him, secured his
election to the bench of the Superior Court, the duties of which he
continued to discharge until his death. He survived to see General
Jackson elected President, to whom he gave a cordial support. Mr.
Calhoun had been nominated and elected Vice-President with General
Jackson, both with overwhelming majorities. Crawford had carried all
his strength to the support of the ticket, and the friends of Crawford
and Calhoun were found acting in concert, notwithstanding the
hostility yet unappeased between their chiefs. It was the union of
necessity, not of sympathy or affection. At this juncture, there was
perhaps as cordial a hatred between the people of South Carolina and
those of Georgia, as ever existed between the Greek and the Turk.
Mr. Calhoun, it seemed now to be settled, was to be the successor of
General Jackson. The new parties were organized, and that headed by
General Jackson assumed the name of Democrat, and now held undisputed
control of more than two-thirds of the States. Mr. Calhoun had broken
away from the usage of former Vice-Presidents, which was to retire,
and permit a president of the Senate _pro tem._ to be chosen to
preside over the deliberations of that body. He determined to fulfil
the duties assigned by the Constitution, and in person to preside. His
transcendent abilities and great strength of character by this course
was constantly kept before the nation. His manners and presence gave
increased dignity and importance to the office, daily increasing his
popularity with the Senate and the nation. His position was an
enviable one, and was such as seemed to promise the power to grasp, at
the proper time, the goal of his ambition, the Presidency of the
republic.
From the commencement of General Jackson's Administration there was a
powerful opposition organized. It consisted of the very best talent in
the Senate and House. The Cabinet was a weak one. Mr. Van Buren was
premier, or Secretary of State, with John H. Eaton, a very ordinary
man, Secretary of War; Branch, Secretary of the Navy, and Ingham,
Secretary of the Treasury; with John M. Berrien, Attorney-General.
Eaton was from Tennessee, and was an especial favorite of General
Jackson. He had been in the Senate from Tennessee, and had formed at
Washington the acquaintance of a celebrated widow of a purser in the
navy, Mrs. Timberlake. This woman had by no means an enviable
reputation, and had been supposed the mistress of Eaton, prior to
their marriage. She had found her way to the heart of Jackson, who
assumed to be her especial champion. The ladies of the Cabinet
ministers refused to recognize her or to interchange social civilities
with her. This enraged the President, and it was made a _sine qua
non_, receive Mrs. Eaton, or quit the Cabinet. Van Buren was a
widower, and did not come under the order. He saw the storm coming,
and, to avoid consequences of any sort, after consultation with
Jackson, resigned. His letter of resignation is a literary as well as
a political curiosity. General Jackson, it is said, handed it to
Forsyth, with the remark "that he could not make head or tail of it;
and, by the eternal, Mr. Forsyth, I do not believe Van Buren can
himself." This was the forerunner of a general dismissal of the entire
Cabinet, save Eaton, who resigned. This rupture startled the whole
nation, but nothing Jackson could do, seemed capable of affecting his
growing popularity. A new Cabinet was organized, and soon after Mr.
Van Buren was sent minister to England, and Eaton minister to Spain.
The opposition were in a majority in the Senate, led on by Clay and
Webster. These were confronted by Forsyth, Benton, and Wright: the
wrestle was that of giants. The world, perhaps, never furnished a more
adroit debater than John Forsyth. He was the Ajax Telemon of his
party, and was rapidly rivalling the first in the estimation of that
party. He hated Calhoun, and at times was at no pains to conceal it in
debate. In the warmth of debate, upon one occasion, he alluded in
severe terms, to the manner in which Mr. Crawford had been treated,
during his incumbency as Secretary of the Treasury, by a certain party
press in the interest of Mr. Calhoun. This touched the Vice-President
on the raw: thus stung, he turned and demanded if the senator alluded
to him. Forsyth's manner was truly grand, as it was intensely fierce:
turning from the Senate to the Vice-President, he demanded with the
imperiousness of an emperor: "By what right does the Chair ask that
question of me?" and paused as if for a reply, with his intensely
gleaming eye steadily fixed upon that of Calhoun. The power was with
the speaker, and the Chair was awed into silence. Slowly turning to
the Senate, every member of which manifested deep feeling, he
continued, as his person seemed to swell into gigantic proportions,
and his eye to sweep the entire chamber, "Let the galled jade wince,
our withers are unwrung," and went on with the debate.
The cause of the animosity of Jackson, toward Crawford was a report
which had reached Jackson, that Crawford, as a member of Mr. Monroe's
Cabinet, had insisted in Cabinet meeting upon the arrest of Jackson
for a violation of national law, in entering without orders, as the
commanding general of the army of the United States, the territory of
a friendly power, and seizing its principal city by military force.
General Jackson had entered Florida, then a dependency of Spain, with
which power we were in amity, and seized Pensacola.
A band of desperate men had made a lodgment in Florida, headed by two
Scotchmen, Ambrister and Arbuthnot. These men had acquired great
influence with the Indians, and were stimulating them to constant
depredations upon the frontier people of Georgia. When pursued, they
sought safety in the territorial limits of Florida. Remonstrances with
the Government of Spain had produced no effect. It could not, or would
not expel them, or attempt any control of the Indians; and it became
necessary to put a stop to their aggressions. Jackson commanded, and
was the very man for such a work. He placed before the President the
difficulties, but said he could and would break up this nest of
freebooters, if he had authority from the President to enter the
territory, and, if necessary, take possession of it. It would be an
act of war to authorize this course, he knew; but he was prepared for
the responsibility (he generally was.) "I do not ask for formal
orders: simply say to me, 'Do it.' Tell Johnny Ray to say so to me,
and it shall be done." Johnny Ray was a member of Congress at that
time from East Tennessee, and devoted to Jackson. This was done, and
the work was accomplished. The two leaders were captured and summarily
executed, claiming to be British subjects.
Mr. Monroe in some things was a weak man; he was surrounded by a
Cabinet greatly superior to himself; he had not counselled with them,
and he feared the responsibility he had assumed would not be
sanctioned or approved by his constitutional advisers, and he timidly
shrank from communicating these secret instructions to them. The
matter was brought before the Cabinet, by a remonstrance from the
Spanish Government, in the person of her representative at Washington.
In the discussion which arose, a motion was submitted to arrest and
court-martial Jackson. Calhoun was indignant that as Secretary of War
he had not been consulted. General Jackson was sent for, and very soon
the matter was quieted, and Spain satisfied.
It was in this discussion, or Cabinet meeting, that Mr. Crawford was
represented to General Jackson as moving his arrest. Mr. Adams
defended Jackson most strenuously, and it is not improbable that the
President may have informed him, _sub rosa_, of what had been
communicated to Jackson. The intimacy between Mr. Monroe and Mr. Adams
was close, and it was thought he preferred him, and gave him more
unreservedly his confidence than any of his ministers.
I believe it was in the early part of the year 1829, or 1830, (I have,
where I write, no means of reference, and will not pretend to great
accuracy in dates,) when Mr. Crawford received a visit from Mr. Van
Buren, and his friend, Mr. Cambreling, at his home in Oglethorpe. What
transpired during that visit, I do not pretend to know; but soon
after, Mr. Forsyth received a letter from Mr. James Hamilton, of New
York, making certain inquiries with regard to this move in Mr.
Monroe's Cabinet. Mr. Forsyth appealed to Mr. Crawford, who responded,
and in detail revealed the proceedings in council upon this matter,
charging, without equivocation, Mr. Calhoun as being the secretary who
had moved the arrest and trial of Jackson. At the time of this
development, General Jackson was absent from Washington, on a visit to
his home in Tennessee, and Mr. Calhoun was in South Carolina. A
correspondence ensued between the President and Vice-President of the
most acrimonious character. Mr. Calhoun denied _in toto_ the charge.
Mr. Crawford appealed to the members of the Cabinet, Adams and
Crowninshield, who sustained the truth of Mr. Crawford's statements,
and Mr. Calhoun clearly implicated himself, by accusing Crawford of a
breach of honor in disclosing cabinet secrets. It is not my purpose to
enter into the minutiae of this affair, further than to show the part
taken in it by Mr. Crawford. Mr. Van Buren did not appear in this
imbroglio; he doubtless had his agency, as his interest, in bringing
this matter to General Jackson's knowledge. Mr. Calhoun was identified
with the popularity of Jackson and his party, and was now, by common
consent of that party, the prominent man for the presidential
succession. Mr. Van Buren had been the Secretary of State of General
Jackson, had studied him well, and knew him well. He knew also the
temper of the Democratic party: through his agency the political
morality of New York politicians had permeated the Democracy from one
end of the country to the other: the doctrine subsequently enunciated
by Mr. Marcy, that "to the victors belonged the spoils," was in full
operation throughout the nation as the Democratic practice. This was
the cement which closely held the politician to party fealty. Jackson
rewarded his friends, and punished his enemies; Jackson was an
omnipotent power; Jackson was the Democratic party. To secure his
friendship was necessary to success; to incur his enmity, certain
destruction. Van Buren was as artful as ambitious: he had
indoctrinated Jackson with his own policy, by inducing him to believe
it was his own; and the frankness of Jackson's nature prevented his
believing anything was not what it professed to be. It was the
ambition of Van Buren to be President, and his sagacity taught him the
surest means to effect this end was to secure effectually and beyond
peradventure the friendship and support of Jackson. Mr. Calhoun was
between him and the aim of his ambition: to thrust him from Jackson's
confidence was to effect all he desired. This was done; the breach was
irreparable. Van Buren was sent, in the interim of the session of
Congress, minister plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James.
Mr. Clay had come back into the Senate, and was heading and leading an
opposition, then in the majority in the Senate; and the nomination of
Van Buren was rejected. Jackson, assured that Calhoun had deceived
him, was bitter in his denunciations of him, and Calhoun was
sympathizing with this opposition. Jackson denounced Calhoun as his
informant of Crawford being the Cabinet minister who had in Cabinet
council moved his arrest. Calhoun gave the lie direct to the
assertion; and that Jackson was capable of lying, referred as evidence
to his statements relative to the charge of bargain and intrigue
against Mr. Clay. But enough had been done to crush out the popularity
and the hopes of Calhoun, beyond the limits of South Carolina. There
never has been so sudden and so terrible a fall from such a height of
any man in this nation--not excepting that of Aaron Burr. John C.
Calhoun, in talent, learning, and statesmanship, was greatly superior
to Jackson, and unsurpassed by any man of the age. But the breath of
Jackson was the blight which withered his laurels, and crushed his
prospects, and destroyed his usefulness forever, in a night.
What consequences have grown out of this quarrel, I leave for the pen
of the historian. Yet I cannot forbear the speculation that the late
and most disastrous war was one, and of consequence the ruin and
desolation of the South, and the threatened destruction of the
Government at this time. The agitation which led to these terrible
consequences, commenced with Mr. Calhoun immediately subsequent to
these events. Does any man suppose, if Mr. Calhoun had succeeded to
the Presidency, that he would have commenced or continued this
agitation? For one, I do not. The measure of his ambition would have
been full: his fame would have been a chapter in the history of his
country--his talents employed in the administration of the Government,
the honor and boast of her people, and her preservation and prosperity
the enduring monument of his fame and glory. But, wronged as he
believed, disappointed as he knew, he put forth all his strength, and,
Samson-like, pulled down the pillars of her support; and, disunited,
crushed, and miserable, she is a melancholy spectacle to the patriot,
and in her desolation a monument of disappointed ambition.
That Mr. Calhoun anticipated any such results, I do not believe. To
suppose he desired them, and to the end of his life labored to produce
them, would be to suppose him little less than a fiend. Blinded by his
prejudices and the hatred natural toward those who had accomplished
his political ruin, he could not calmly and dispassionately weigh the
influence of his acts upon the future of his country.
Mr. Crawford was now rapidly declining, his nervous system was
completely undermined, and he felt the approach of death calmly and
without fear. Still, he continued to give his attention to business,
and was sufficiently strong to go abroad to calls of duty. In one of
these journeys he stopped to spend the night in the house of a friend,
and was found dead in his bed in the morning, after a quiet and social
evening with his friend and family.
William Holt Crawford was a native of Virginia: his family were
Scotch, and came early to the United States, and have been remarkable
for their talents and energy. Since the Revolution, there has scarcely
been a time that some one of the family has not been prominently
before the public as a representative man. Mr. Crawford was an eminent
type of his race, sternly honest, of ardent temperament, full of
dignity, generous, frank, and brave. Plain and simple in his habits,
disdaining everything like ostentation, or foolish display--strictly
moral, firm in his friendship, and unrelenting in his hatred, his
sagacity and sincerity forbade the forming of the one or the other
without abundant cause. He was never known to desert a friend or
shrink from a foe. In form and person he was very imposing; six feet
two inches in height; his head was large, forehead high and broad; his
eyes were blue and brilliant, and, when excited, very piercing. His
complexion was fair, and, in early life, ruddy; he was, when young,
exceedingly temperate in his habits, but as he advanced in years he
indulged too freely in the luxuries of the table, and his physicians
attributed mainly to this cause his attack of paralysis, which
ultimately destroyed him. His mind had been very much excited during
the Presidential canvass; the attacks of his enemies were fierce and
merciless, and very irritating to him; and this doubtless had much to
do with it. He lies buried in the garden of his home, without a stone
to mark the spot. It is a reproach to the people of Georgia that her
most eminent son should be neglected to sleep in an undistinguished
grave. But this neglect does not extend alone to Mr. Crawford. I
believe, of all her distinguished men, James A. Meriwether is the only
one whose grave has been honored with a monumental stone by the State.
Crawford, Cobb, Dooly, Jackson, Troup, Forsyth, Campbell, Lumpkin,
Dawson, Walker, Colquitt, Berrien, Daugherty, and many others who have
done the State some service and much honor, are distinguished in their
graves only by the green sod which covers them.