POLITICAL CHANGES.
ASPIRANTS FOR CONGRESS--A NEW ORGANIZATION--TWO PARTIES--A PROTECTIVE
TARIFF---UNITED STATES BANK--THE AMERICAN SYSTEM--INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS
--A GALAXY OF STARS--A SPARTAN MOTHER'S ADVICE--NEGRO-DEALER--QUARTER
RACES--COCK-PITTING--MILITARY BLUNDERS ON BOTH SIDES--ABNER GREEN'S
DAUGHTER--ANDREW JACKSON--GWINN--POINDEXTER--AD INTERIM--GENERALS AS
CIVIL RULERS.
The remarkable excitement of the political contest between Troup and
Clarke had the effect of stimulating the ambition of the young men of
education throughout the State for political distinction. For some time
anterior to this period, all seemed content to permit those who had
been the active politicians in the Republican struggle with the Federal
party to fill all the offices of distinction in the State without
opposition. It would have been considered presumptuous in the extreme
for any young man, whatever his abilities, to have offered himself as a
candidate for Congress in opposition to Mr. Forsyth, R.H. Wild, Thomas
W. Cobb, Edward F. Tatnal, and men of like age and political faith. The
members of Congress were elected by general ticket; and the selection
of candidates was not by a convention of the people or party. The names
of candidates were generally recommended by influential parties, and
their consent to become candidates obtained through solicitations
addressed to them, and then published to the people. The State was so
unanimous in political sentiment, that for many years no opposition to
the Republican party was thought of.
But now parties were organizing upon principles, or rather policies,
entirely new; there was a fusion of the old elements of party, and
Federalists and Republicans were side by side in this new organization.
Men who had been under the ban, for opinion's sake, were coming into
public view and public favor, and disclosing great abilities. At the
head of these was John McPherson Berrien, who, to the end of his life,
was so distinguished in the councils of the nation. At the same time,
in every part of the State, young men were rising up as men of promise
for talent and usefulness. These men arrayed themselves with either of
the two parties, as inclination or interest prompted. Active and
assiduous, they were soon prominent before the people, and a new era
was commencing. With the election of John Quincy Adams, the State was
in a blaze and politics a furor. Opposition immediately commenced to
the leading measures of the Administration, and the Legislature of 1825
was filled with young men of talent, who were enthusiastic and fierce
in their sentiments and feelings. They had been divided as partisans of
Troup and Clarke, and met as antagonists in the Legislature; but really
without any defined policy in opposition to that of the administration
of the General Government of the nation. A suspicion filled every one
that this policy was disastrous to Southern interests, and sectional in
its character, although designated as national.
Few men of the South had given much attention to the effect a tariff
for revenue had upon the commercial and manufacturing interests of the
North. The war with England had created a debt, and this tariff had
been imposed solely for the purpose of securing, not only a sufficient
revenue for the current necessities of the Government, but a surplus,
which should in a short time liquidate the public debt. It was
sufficient to afford protection to the manufacturing interests of the
North, to increase this into a formidable revenue, and to enlist a
national party in its support. It was now, when the public debt was
liquidated, that another reason was necessary for continuing a policy
which had grown up from the necessities of the nation--consequently it
was assumed to be a national policy to promote national independence,
and protection was claimed for national industry against European
competition. This policy in the Government would encourage
extravagance, waste, and corruption--such a bane to republics--because
it would create an immense surplus in the national treasury, unless
some scheme for its expenditure could be devised which should seem to
promote the national interest. To this end, the party of the
Administration claimed a constitutional power in Congress to carry on a
system of internal improvements; and heavy appropriations were made for
this purpose, not only absorbing the surplus revenue, but creating a
necessity for more--and this necessity was an excuse for increasing the
tariff.
The Bank of the United States was the depository of the moneys of the
nation and her disbursing agent. The constitutionality of this
institution had been a mooted question from the day it was first
proposed by Robert Morris. Mr. Madison, who was a Republican, had at
one time vetoed it; at another, approved it. Mr. Crawford, a most
inveterate States-rights man and strict constructionist of the
Constitution, had uniformly supported it. Mr. Clay had both supported
and opposed it. The question was finally adjudicated by the Supreme
Court, and, so far as that decision could make it, was decided to be
constitutional. This, however, did not satisfy the Republican or
States-rights party; a large majority of whom always insisted upon its
unconstitutionality. At the time of its creation, a necessity existed
for some such institution, to aid the Government in its financial
operations, and at the time of the renewal of its charter the
Government had just emerged from a war; every State was creating banks,
and the country was flooded with an irredeemable and worthless
currency, disturbing commerce, unsettling values, and embarrassing the
Government. A power was wanted somewhere to control these State banks,
and to give a redeemable and uniform currency to the country.
The State banks had proved destructive to the public interest; with no
power to restrain their issues except that imposed by their charters
and the honesty of their officers--a frail security for the public, as
experience had attested. The example of Washington was pleaded by the
advocates of the bank. At the very outset it had been opposed for want
of constitutionality. Washington had doubted it, and submitted the
question to two of his Cabinet--Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Hamilton. They
were divided in opinion--Mr. Jefferson opposing, and Mr. Hamilton
sustaining the constitutionality of the measure. The opinion and
argument of Hamilton prevailed, and the act creating a bank received
the Executive approval.
It answered admirably the object of its creation, and the Republican
party (then in embryo) acquiesced. Indeed, at this time, there could
scarcely be said to be a party separate from the Government. Mr.
Hamilton and Mr. Jefferson were the leaders of the parties which
divided the people upon the adoption of the Constitution, and these
parties, though at this time inchoate, were concreting about these two
wonderful men. Upon the renewal of the charter of the United States
Bank, during the Administration of Mr. Madison, the Republican party
again mooted its constitutionality; but its undisputed usefulness had
won for it immense popularity, and there were many who, though acting
with the Republicans, were willing (as Washington had approved it, and
the Supreme Court had pronounced it constitutional) to view the
question as settled, and vote to renew the charter.
It was subsequent to the veto of Mr. Madison (when he had reconsidered
his action, and recommended the re-chartering of the bank,) that
debates ensued, in which the question was exhausted. In these debates,
Mr. Crawford, Mr. Clay, Felix Grundy, William B. Giles, and Mr. Calhoun
led. They were continued through several sessions, up to 1816, when
they ultimated in the chartering of the last bank of the United States.
This charter expired during the Administration of General Jackson, and
by him the bank was finally crushed.
Three great measures constituted what was then termed the American
System--the United States Bank, a protective tariff, and internal
improvements within the States by the General Government. An opposition
to this party was formed at the very outset of the Adams
Administration. This opposition denied the constitutional power of
Congress to create or sustain either.
The South, at the commencement of this opposition, was almost alone.
The North was a unit in its support of the Administration, because its
policy was vital to her interests. The West, influenced by Mr. Clay,
was greatly in the majority in its support. The Southern opposition
seemed almost hopeless; and to this cause may, in a great degree, be
ascribed the bringing forth to public view the transcendent abilities
of the young men aspiring for fame in Georgia, and in the South
generally. McDuffie, Hamilton, Holmes, and Waddy Thompson, of South
Carolina; Colquitt, Cobb, Toombs, Stephens, Johnson, Nesbit, and John
P. King, of Georgia; Wise, Bocock, Hunter, Summers, Rives, and others
of Virginia; Mangum, Badger, and Graham, of North Carolina; Bell,
Foster, Peyton, Nicholson, and James K. Polk, of Tennessee; King and
Lewis, of Alabama; Porter, Johnston, White, and Barrow, of Louisiana;
Ashley, Johnson, and Sevier, of Arkansas; Chase, Pugh, Pendleton, and
Lytell, of Ohio; and Douglas, Trumbull, and Lincoln, of Illinois, were
all men of sterling talent, and were about equally divided in political
sentiment. Kentucky had Tom and Humphrey Marshall, Crittenden, Menifer,
Letcher, Breckinridge, and Preston.
General Jackson was now the avowed candidate of the States-rights
party, which soon after assumed the name of Democratic, and his
political principles and great personal popularity were not only
dividing the West, but the Middle States, and even those of New
England.
During the entire administration of Adams, there was a majority in
Congress supporting his policy. It was then and there that the great
battle for supremacy was fought. Berrien and Forsyth, from Georgia, in
the Senate; McDuffie and Preston, from South Carolina; Cass, from
Michigan, and Van Buren and Silas Wright, from New York--all giants in
intellect. But there were Webster and John Davis, from Massachusetts,
George Evans, from Maine, and others of minor powers, but yet great
men. Between these great minds the conflict was stupendous. Every means
were put into requisition to sustain the Administration and its policy,
but all were unavailing--General Jackson was elected by an overwhelming
majority. Mr. Clay was immediately returned by Kentucky to the Senate,
and organized an opposition upon the policy of the late Administration,
led on by himself and Webster. The memory of those days, and the men
who made them memorable, flits vividly before me; but I am not writing
a history, and can attempt no order, but shall write on as these
memories of men and events shall seem to me most interesting in their
character to the general reader.
General Jackson was one of those rare creations of nature which appear
at long intervals, to astonish and delight mankind. It seems to be
settled in the public mind that he was born in South Carolina; but
there is no certainty of the fact. His early life was very obscure, and
he himself was uncertain of his birth-place, though he believed it was
South Carolina. He remembered the removal of his family from South
Carolina, and many of the incidents of the war of the Revolution
transpiring there; but more especially those occurring in North
Carolina, to which the family removed. Judge Alexander Porter, of
Louisiana, was an Irishman, and from the neighborhood where were born
and reared the parents of Jackson. His own father was brutally executed
at Vinegar Hill, by sentence of a drum-head court martial, in 1798, and
his family proscribed by the British Government. With his uncle, the
Rowans, the Jacksons, and some others, he emigrated to America, and
settled at Nashville, Tennessee. The Jacksons were of the same family,
and distantly connected with General Jackson. Great intimacy existed
between this family and General Jackson for many years.
Judge Porter, of whom I shall hereafter have something to say, visited
Europe a short time before his death, and made diligent search into the
history of the Jackson family, without ascertaining anything
positively: he learned enough to satisfy his own mind that Andrew
Jackson was born in Ireland, and brought to the United States by his
parents when only two years old. This was also the opinion of Thomas
Crutcher, who came with General Jackson to Nashville, and it was also
the opinion of Dr. Boyd McNary and his elder brother, Judge McNary, who
believed he was four years older than he supposed himself to be.
The McNarys came with him from North Carolina. On the trip a difficulty
occurred between Boyd McNary and Jackson, which never was
reconciled--both dying in extreme old age. Boyd McNary stopped at
Lexington and read medicine, forming there the acquaintance of Mr. Clay
and Felix Grundy. The intimacy which sprang up between Clay and McNary
was as ardent and imperishable as the hatred between himself and
Jackson, enduring until death. Jackson was enterprising and eminently
self-reliant; in all matters pertaining to himself, he was his own
counsellor; he advised with no man; cool and quick in thought, he
seemed to leap to conclusions, and never went back from them. An
anecdote relative to his parting from his mother in his outset in life,
illustrates this as prominent in the attributes of his nature at that
time. The writer heard him narrate this after his return from
Washington, when his last term in the Presidential office had expired.
When about to emigrate to Tennessee, the family were residing in the
neighborhood of Greensboro, North Carolina.
"I had," said he, "contemplated this step for some months, and had made
my arrangements to do so, and at length had obtained my mother's
consent to it. All my worldly goods were a few dollars in my purse,
some clothes in my saddle-bags, a pretty good horse, saddle, and
bridle. The country to which I was going was comparatively a
wilderness, and the trip a long one, beset by many difficulties,
especially from the Indians. I felt, and so did my mother, that we were
parting forever. I knew she would not recall her promise; there was too
much spunk in her for that, and this caused me to linger a day or two
longer than I had intended.
"But the time came for the painful parting. My mother was a little,
dumpy, red-headed Irish woman. 'Well, mother, I am ready to leave, and
I must say farewell.' She took my hand, and pressing it, said,
'Farewell,' and her emotion choked her.
"Kissing at meetings and partings in that day was not so common as now.
I turned from her and walked rapidly to my horse.
"As I was mounting him, she came out of the cabin wiping her eyes with
her apron, and came to the getting-over place at the fence. 'Andy,'
said she, (she always called me Andy,) 'you are going to a new country,
and among a rough people; you will have to depend on yourself and cut
your own way through the world. I have nothing to give you but a
mother's advice. Never tell a lie, nor take what is not your own, nor
sue anybody for slander or assault and battery. _Always settle them
cases yourself!_' I promised, and I have tried to keep that promise. I
rode off some two hundred yards, to a turn in the path, and looked
back--she was still standing at the fence and wiping her eyes. I never
saw her after that." Those who knew him best will testify to his
fidelity to this last promise made his mother.
The strong common sense and unbending will of Jackson soon made him
conspicuous in his new home, and very soon he was in active practice as
a lawyer. His prominence was such, that during the last year of the
last term of General Washington's Administration, a vacancy occurring
in the United States Senate from Tennessee, General Jackson was
appointed to fill it. He was occupying this seat when General
Washington retired from the Presidency, and, with William B. Giles, of
Virginia, voted against a resolution of thanks tendered by Congress to
Washington, for his services to the country. For this vote he gave no
reason at the time; and if he ever did, it has escaped my knowledge.
The career of General Jackson, as a public man, is so well known, that
it is not my purpose to review it in this place; but many incidents of
his private history have come to my knowledge from an association with
those who were intimate with him, from his first arrival in Tennessee.
These, or so many of them as I deem of interest enough to the public, I
propose to relate.
Jackson was a restless and enterprising man, embarking in many schemes
for the accumulation of fortune, not usually resorted to by
professional men, or men engaged in public matters. In business he was
cautious. He was a remarkable judge of human character, and rarely gave
his confidence to untried men. Notwithstanding the impetuosity of his
nature, upon occasion he could be as cool and as calculating as a
Yankee. The result was, that though he had many partners in the various
pursuits he at different times resorted to, he rarely had any pecuniary
difficulty with any of them. He was in the habit of trading with the
low country, that is, with the inhabitants of Mississippi and
Louisiana.
Many will remember the charge brought against him pending his candidacy
for the Presidency, of having been, in early life, a negro-trader, or
dealer in slaves. This charge was strictly true, though abundantly
disproved by the oaths of some, and even by the certificate of his
principal partner. Jackson had a small store, or trading establishment,
at Bruinsburgh, near the mouth of the Bayou Pierre, in Claiborne
County, Mississippi. It was at this point he received the negroes,
purchased by his partner at Nashville, and sold them to the planters of
the neighborhood. Sometimes, when the price was better, or the sales
were quicker, he carried them to Louisiana. This, however, he soon
declined; because, under the laws of Louisiana, he was obliged to
guarantee the health and character of the slave he sold.
On one occasion he sold an unsound negro to a planter in the parish of
West Feliciana, and, upon his guarantee, was sued and held to bail to
answer. In this case he was compelled to refund the purchase-money,
with damages. He went back upon his partner, and compelled him to share
the loss. This caused a breach between them, which was never healed.
This is the only instance which ever came to my knowledge of strife
with a partner. He was close to his interest, and spared no means to
protect it.
It was during the period of his commercial enterprise in Mississippi
that he formed the acquaintance of the Green family. This family was
among the very first Americans who settled in the State. Thomas M.
Green and Abner Green were young men at the time, though both were men
of family. To both of them Jackson, at different times, sold negroes,
and the writer now has bills of sale for negroes sold to Abner Green,
in the handwriting of Jackson, bearing his signature, written, as it
always was, in large and bold characters, extending quite half across
the sheet. At this store, which stood immediately upon the bank of the
Mississippi, there was a race-track, for quarter-races, (a sport
Jackson was then very fond of,) and many an anecdote was rife, forty
years ago, in the neighborhood, of the skill of the old hero in pitting
a cock or turning a quarter-horse.
This spot has become classic ground. It was here Aaron Burr was first
arrested by Cowles Mead, then acting as Governor of the Territory of
Mississippi, and from whom he made his escape, and it was at this point
that Grant crossed his army when advancing against Vicksburg. It is a
beautiful plateau of land, of some two thousand acres, immediately
below the mouth of the Bayou Pierre, and bordered by very high and
abrupt cliffs, which belong to the same range of hills that approach
the river's margin at Vicksburg, Grand Gulf, Rodney, Natchez, and Bayou
Sara. At this point they attain the height of three hundred feet, and
are almost perpendicular. The summit is attained by a circuitous road
cut through the cliffs, and this is the summit level of the surrounding
country.
This plateau of land, where once stood the little village of
Bruinsburgh, has long been a cotton plantation, and a most valuable one
it was before the late war. A deep, and, to an army, impassable swamp
borders it below, and the same is the case above the Bayou Pierre. To
land an army at such a place, when its only means of marching upon the
country was through this narrow cut, of about one hundred feet in
width, with high, precipitous sides, forming a complete defile for half
a mile, and where five thousand men could have made its defence good
against fifty thousand, is certainly as little evidence of military
genius as was the permission of them to pass through it without an
effort to prevent it.
To a military eye, the blunders of Grant and Pemberton are apparent in
their every movement--and the history of the siege and capture of
Vicksburg, if ever correctly written, will demonstrate to the world
that folly opposed to folly marked its inception, progress, and
finality.
The friends formed in this section of country by Jackson were devoted
to him through life, and when in after life he sent (for it is not true
that he brought) his future wife to Mississippi, it was to the house of
Thomas M. Green, then residing near the mouth of Cowles Creek, and only
a few miles from Bruinsburgh.
Whatever the circumstances of the separation, or the cause for it,
between Mrs. Jackson and her first husband, I am ignorant; I know that
Jackson vas much censured in the neighborhood of his home. At the time
of her coming to Green's, the civil authority was a disputed one; most
of the people acknowledging the Spanish. A suit was instituted for a
divorce, and awarded by a Spanish tribunal. There was probably little
ceremony or strictness of legal proceeding in the matter, as all
government and law was equivocal, and of but little force just at that
time in the country. It was after this that Jackson came and married
her, in the house of Thomas M. Green.
That there was anything disreputable attached to the lady's name is
very improbable; for she was more than fifteen months in the house of
Green, who was a man of wealth, and remarkable for his pride and
fastidiousness in selecting his friends or acquaintances. He was the
first Territorial representative of Mississippi in Congress--was at
the head of society socially, and certainly would never have permitted
a lady of equivocal character to the privileges of a guest in his
house, or to the association of his daughters, then young. During the
time she was awaiting this divorce, she was at times an inmate of the
family of Abner Green, of Second Creek, where she was always gladly
received, and he and his family were even more particular as to the
character and position of those they admitted to their intimacy, if
possible, than Thomas B. Green. This intimacy was increased by the
marriage of two of the Green brothers to nieces of Mrs. Jackson.
In 1835, when Jackson was President, the writer, passing from Louisiana
to New York with his family, spent some days at Washington. His lady
was the youngest daughter of Abner Green; he was in company with a
daughter of Henry Green and her husband; her mother was niece to Mrs.
Jackson. We called to see the President, and when my lady was
introduced to the General, he was informed she was the daughter of his
old friend, Abner Green, of Second Creek. He did not speak, but held
her hand for some moments, gazing intently into her face. His feelings
overcame him, and clasping her to his bosom, he said, "I must kiss you,
my child, for your sainted mother's sake;" then holding her from him,
he looked again, "Oh! how like your mother you are--she was the friend
of my poor Rachel, when she so much needed a friend--I loved her, and I
love her memory;" and then, as if ashamed of his emotion, he continued:
"You see, my child, though I am President through the kindness or folly
of the people, I am but a weak, silly old man."
We spent the evening with him, and when in his private sitting-room his
pipe was lighted and brought to him, he said: "Now, my child, let us
talk about Mississippi and the old people." I have never in all my life
seen more tenderness of manner, or more deep emotion shown, than this
stern old man continually evinced when speaking of his wife and her
friends.
The character of General Jackson is yet greatly misunderstood. This has
been caused by the fact that his words and actions, when in command, or
when enraged, as a man, have been the main data upon which the estimate
of his bearing and character has been predicated. He was irascible and
quick in his temper, and when angered was violent in words and manner.
It was at such moments that the stern inflexibility of his will was
manifest; and his passion towered in proportion to provocation. But in
private life and social intercourse he was bland, gentle, and
conciliating. His manner was most polished and lofty in society, and in
a lady's parlor, in urbanity and polish of manners, he never had a
superior. This high polish was nature's spontaneous gift. He had never
been taught it in courts, or from association with those who had. It
was the emanation of his great soul, which stole out through his every
word and movement in the presence of ladies, and which erupted as a
volcano at insult or indignity from man.
That evening at the White House is marked in my memory with a white
stone. The playful simplicity of his conversation and manner, and the
particularity of his inquiries about matters and things so
insignificant, but which were links in the chain of his memories, I
well remember.
"Is old papa Jack and Bellile living?" he asked, after a pause, of my
wife, accompanied with a look of eager anxiety.
These were two old Africans, faithful servants of her father; and then
there was an anecdote of each of them--their remarks or their conduct
upon some hunting or fishing excursion, in which he had participated
forty years before.
I was an interested spectator in the presence of one of nature's
wonderful creations--one who had made, and who was making, history for
his country, and whose name was to descend to future times as one of
her noblest sons and greatest historical characters. I watched every
motion of his lips, every expression of his features, and every gleam
of his great gray eyes, and I could but wonder at the child-like
naturalness of everything about him. Is not this an attribute of
greatness--to be natural? Yes; to be natural in all things belongs to
truth, and a truthful exhibition of nature, without assumption or
deceit, is greatness. Here was one who could, with natural simplicity,
amuse a child; and the same one could command and successfully wield a
great army, and, with equal success, direct the destinies of a great
nation; whose genius was tempered with simplicity and tenderness, and
when towering most in its grandeur, was most truthful to nature.
General Jackson's early opportunities were extremely limited. His
education was so very defective, that his orthography was almost
ludicrous, and his general reading amounted to almost nothing. At no
time was he a respectable county-court lawyer, so far as legal learning
was concerned, and it is wonderful how the natural vigor of his mind
supplied this defect. On the bench, his greatest aim was to get at the
facts in every case, and to decide all points upon the broad principles
of equity; and in all his charges to the jury, his principal aim was to
direct their attention to the simple justice of the case, and a
favorite phrase of his in these charges was: "Do right between the
parties, and you will serve the objects of the law."
He was an enemy to all unnecessary forms in all matters. His manner was
to go directly to the kernel, and he was very indifferent as to how the
shell was cracked, or the husk removed. He never seemed to reason. Upon
the presentation of any subject to his mind, it seemed, with electrical
velocity, to cut through to a conclusion as if by intuition. He was
correct in his conclusions more frequently than any man of his age. His
knowledge of human nature was more consummate than that of any of his
compeers who were remarkable for greatness of mind. In this, as in all
other matters, his opinion was formed with the first glance. His
intimacy with every sort of character, in his extended intercourse with
the world, seemed so to have educated his faculties and whetted his
perception, that he only wanted to look at a man for five minutes to
know his inmost nature. Yet he was sometimes deceived, and,
ascertaining this, nothing enraged him more.
In his friendships he was almost fanatical. The humblest individual,
who was his friend, and who had proven it, could command him in any
manner, and to the full extent of his capacity to serve him.
A remarkable instance of this trait was manifested in his conduct as
President, toward a young friend, Mr. Gwinn, who was reared in the
neighborhood of the Hermitage, and whose father had long been a trusted
friend of Jackson. In 1832, when the lands obtained from the Choctaws
in Mississippi were being brought into market, the office of register
in the land-office in that State was an important one. It was given to
Gwinn by Jackson, who was then President.
When the nomination was sent to the Senate, opposition was made to its
confirmation by George Poindexter, a senator from Mississippi. It had
always been the practice of all preceding Presidents, when suitable
persons could be had, to nominate them from the State in which the
United States office to be filled was located. Poindexter insisted that
this custom, from long usage, had become law; and to send a citizen
from one State into another, there to fill a national office, was an
indignity to her citizens, and a manifestation, to say the least of it,
of distrust and suspicion as to the capacity or honesty of the people
of the State. This opposition was successful, and Gwinn was rejected.
The nomination was renewed, and again rejected. Jackson wrote to Gwinn,
who was already by executive appointment discharging the duties of the
office, to continue to do so. I was present when the letter was
received, and permitted to read it. "Poindexter has deserted me," he
said, "and his opposition to your nomination is to render, as far as he
can, my Administration unpopular with the people of Mississippi; and a
majority of the Senate are more than willing to aid him in this. They
are only destroying themselves, not me, and some of them will soon find
this out. Do you hold on to the office; I will make no more
nominations; but commission you _ad interim_ as soon as Congress
adjourns, which will be in a few weeks at farthest. Very soon my
friends will be in a majority in the Senate--until then, I will keep
you in the office, for I am determined you shall have it, spite of
Poindexter." The result was as he had promised.
This is but one of a thousand instances which might be enumerated to
attest the same fact. Such traits are always appreciated as they
deserve to be; they address themselves to the commonest understanding,
and are esteemed by all mankind. It is a mistake the world makes, that
Jackson's popularity was exclusively military. Those great qualities of
mind and soul which constituted him a great general, were not only
displayed in his military career, but in all his life; and to them he
was indebted for the friends of his whole life; they made him a man of
mark before he was twenty-five years of age. His courage, intrepidity,
frankness, honor, truth, and sincerity were all pre-eminent in his
conduct, and carried captive the admiration of all men. His devotion to
his wife, to his friends, to his duty, was always conspicuous; and
these are admired and honored, even by him who never had in his heart a
feeling in common with one of these. All these traits were so striking
in Jackson's character as to make them conspicuous. They were more
marked in his than in that of any other man of his day, because the
impulses of his temperament were more prompt and potent. They were
natural to him, and always naturally displayed. There was neither
assumption of feeling nor deceit in its manifestation; all he evinced,
bubbled up from his heart, naturally and purely as spring-water, and
went directly to the heart. These great and ennobling traits were not
unfrequently marred by passion, and acts which threw a cloud over their
brilliancy; but this, too, was natural: the same soul which was parent
to this violence and extravagance of passion, was, too, the source of
all his virtues, and all were equally in excess. The consequence of
this violence were sometimes terrible. They were evanescent, and, like
a thunder-storm, seemed only to clear the atmosphere for the display of
beautiful weather.
The triumphs of mind, unaided by education, sometimes are
astonishing,--in the case of General Jackson, perhaps, not more so than
in many others. The great Warwick of England, the putter-up and the
puller-down of kings, did not know his letters; Marshal Soult, the
greatest of Napoleon's marshals, could not write a correct sentence in
French; and Stevenson, the greatest engineer the world ever saw--the
inventor of the locomotive engine--did not know his letters at
twenty-one years of age, and was always illiterate. It is a question
whether such minds would have been greatly aided by education, or
whether they might not have been greatly injured by it--nature seeming
to have formed all minds with particular proclivities. These are more
marked in the stronger intellects. They direct to the pursuit in life
for which nature has designed the individual: should this idiosyncrasy
receive the proper education from infancy, doubtless it would be aided
to the more rapid and more certain accomplishment of the designs of
nature. To discover this in the child, requires that it should be
strongly developed, and a close and intelligent observation on the part
of the parent or guardian who may have the direction of the child's
education. But this, in the system of education almost universally
pursued, is never thought of; and the avocation of the future man is
chosen for him, without any regard to his aptitudes for it, and often
in disregard of those manifested for another. Consequently, nature is
thwarted by ignorance, and the individual drags on unsuccessfully in a
hated pursuit through life. Left alone, these proclivities become a
passion, and where strongly marked, and aided by strength of will, they
work out in wonderful perfection the designs of nature. Julius Cæsar,
Hannibal, Attila, Yengis Khan, Prince Eugène, Marlborough, Napoleon,
and Wellington were all generals by nature--and so were Andrew Jackson
and "Stonewall" Jackson. The peculiarities of talent which make a great
general make a great statesman; and all of those who, after
distinguishing themselves as great generals, were called to the
administration of the civil affairs of their respective Governments,
have equally distinguished themselves as civilians.
The proposing of General Jackson as a candidate for the Presidency was
received, by most of those who were deemed statesmen, as a burlesque;
and many of those most active in his support only desired his election
to further their own views, and not for the country's benefit. It was
supposed he was so entirely unacquainted with state-craft, that he
would be a pliant tool--an automaton, to dance to their wire-pulling.
How little they understood him, and how well he understood them! At
once he let them know he was President, and was determined to take the
responsibility of administering the Government in the true spirit of
its institutions. The alarm, which pervaded all political circles so
soon as this was understood, is remembered well. It was a bomb exploded
under the mess-table, scattering the mess and breaking to fragments all
their cunningly devised machinations for rule and preferment--an open
declaration of war against all cliques and all dictation. His inaugural
was startling, and his first message explicit. His policy was avowed,
and though it gathered about him a storm, he nobly breasted it, and
rode it out triumphantly. His administration closed in a blaze of
glory. He retired the most popular and most powerful man the nation had
ever seen.