CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT.
GOVERNOR WOLCOTT--TOLERATION--MR. MONROE--PRIVATE LIFE OF WASHINGTON--
THOMAS JEFFERSON--THE OBJECT AND SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT--COURT ETIQUETTE
--NATURE THE TEACHER AND GUIDE IN ALL THINGS.
During the year 1820 I was frequently a visitor at the house of
Governor Oliver Wolcott, who then resided in Litchfield, Connecticut.
Governor Wolcott was a remarkable man in many respects. He was
originally a Federalist in politics, and enjoyed the confidence of that
party to an unlimited extent. His abilities were far above ordinary,
and his family one of great respectability. He was a native of
Connecticut, and after Alexander Hamilton retired from the Treasury
bureau in the Cabinet of Washington, he succeeded to that position. He
filled the office with credit to himself, and to the satisfaction of
his chief. He had, after considerable time spent in public life, left
Connecticut, to reside in New York. Subsequent to the war, and when the
Federal party had abandoned its organization under the Administration
of Mr. Monroe, there grew up in his native State a party called the
Toleration party. In reality it was a party proscriptive of the old
Federal leaders, and it grew out of some legislation in connection with
religious matters, in which, as usual, the Puritan element had
attempted to oppress, by special taxation, for their own benefit, all
others differing from them in religious creed. Governor Wolcott favored
this new organization, and he was invited to return to the State and
give his aid to its success. He did so, and in due time was made
Governor by this party. At the time of which I write, he was as
bitterly and sincerely hated by the old Federal party as ever Jefferson
was, or as Andy Johnson now is by the Radical party, which is largely
constituted of the _débris_ of that old and intolerant organization,
and which is now eliminating every principle of the Constitution to
gratify that thirst for power, and to use it for persecution, that
seems inherent in the nature of the Puritan. By the hour I have
listened to the abuse of him, from the mouths of men whose lives had
been spent in his praise and support, simply because he had interposed
his talents and influence to arrest the oppressor's hand. They said he
had deserted his party, that he would live to share the fate of Burr,
and that he was as great a traitor.
The bitterness and injustice of party is proverbial, and its want of
reason is astonishing. Men who are cool and considerate on all other
subjects, are frequently the most violent and unreasonable as
partisans. It seems akin to religious fanaticism, and proscribes with
the same bigotry all who will not, or conscientiously cannot, act or
think with them. It prescribes opinions, and they must be obeyed by all
who belong to the organization, and without reservation or
qualification. Its exactions are as fierce and indisputable as the laws
and regulations of the Jesuits. These are changed with party
necessities, and not unfrequently are diametrically antagonistic to the
former creed; yet you must follow and sustain them, or else you are a
traitor, and denounced and driven from the party, and often from
intercourse socially with those who have been your neighbors and
friends from boyhood. In this method party compels dishonesty in
politics, and is eminently demoralizing, for it is impossible to
familiarize the conscience with political dishonesty without tainting
the moral man in ordinary matters pertaining to life. Once break down
the barrier which separates the right from the wrong, that success may
come of it, and every principle of restraint to immoral or dishonest
conduct is swept away. For this reason men of stern integrity never
make good politicians. They are very often the reliable Statesmen,
never the reliable politicians.
Governor Wolcott had through his life sustained an unimpeached
reputation. He had filled to the full his political ambition. Again and
again he had been honored by his people who had grown up with him. He
had been honored by the confidence of Washington, and the nation. He
was wealthy, was old, and only aspired to do, and to see done, justice
to the whole people of his native State. In doing this he came in
conflict with the unjust views and iniquitous conduct of an old,
crushed party, and he was denounced as a traitor, and ostracized
because he would be just.
This was the disruption forever of the Federal party in Connecticut;
for though it had ceased to exist as a national organization, it still
was sufficiently intact to control most of the New England States. Mr.
Monroe's Administration had been so popular that in his second election
he received every vote of every State in the Union, save New Hampshire:
one man in her electoral college, who was appointed to vote for him,
refused to do so, and gave as his reason that he was a slave-owner. New
interests had supervened, old issues were dead--they had had their
day--their mission was accomplished; old men were passing away, the
nation was expanding into great proportions, and men of great talents
were growing with and for the occasion; old party animosities were
dimming out, and the era of good feelings seemed to pervade the
national heart. Even John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were amicably
corresponding and growing affectionate at eighty. It was but the lull
which precedes the storm--the sultry quiet which augurs the earthquake.
Upon one occasion I ventured to ask Governor Wolcott to tell me
something of Washington. We were strolling in his garden, where he had
invited me to look at some melons he was attempting to grow under
glass. He stopped, and turning round, looked me full in the face, and
asked me if I had not read the "Life of Washington."
"Not the private life," was the reply.
"Ah! a very laudable curiosity in one so young. I knew him well, and
can only say his private was very much like his public life. I do not
suppose there ever lived a man more natural in his deportment than
Washington. He did nothing for effect. He was more nearly the same man
on the street that he was in his night-gown and slippers, than any man
I ever knew; I can't say I was intimate with Washington; no man can or
ever could have said that. His dignity was austere and natural. It was
grand, and awed and inspired a respect from every one alike. You
breathed low in his presence--you felt uneasy in your seat, before him.
There was an inspiring something about him, that made you feel it was a
duty to, stand in his presence, uncovered, and respectfully silent. I
have heard this sternness attributed to his habit of command; not
so--it was natural, and he was unconscious of it. Most men, however
stern, will unbend to woman. There is in woman's presence a divinity
which thaws the rigor of the heart and warms the soul, which manifests
itself in the softening of the eye, in the glow upon the cheek, and the
relaxation of manner. It was not so with Washington. In his
reception-rooms he was easily polite and courteously affable; but his
dignity and the inflexibility of his features never relaxed.
"I remember to have heard Mrs. Adams say 'she did not think he was ever
more than polite to Mrs. Washington.' With all this he was very kind,
and if he ever did let himself down it was to children, and these never
seemed to feel his austerity, or to shrink away from it. It is said
that it is the gift of childhood to see the heart in the eye and the
face. It is certain they never approach an ill-natured or bad man, and
never shrink from a kind and good one. In his intercourse with his
Cabinet, he was respectful to difference--consulted each without
reserve or concealment, and always weighed well their opinions, and
never failed to render to them his reasons for differing with them. He
was very concise and exact in stating a case, and never failed to
understand well every question before acting. He had system and order
in everything. In his private affairs, in his household, as well as in
his public conduct, he observed strict rules, and exacted their
obedience from all about him. In nothing was he demonstrative or
impulsive; but always considerate and cool.
"I know nothing of his domestic matters. There were malicious persons
who started many reports of discord between Washington and his lady.
These I believe were all false. Mrs. Washington was a high-bred woman,
a lady in everything; and so far as my observation or acquaintance
extended, was devoted and dutiful. Of one thing I am very sure: she was
a proud woman, and was proud of her husband. She certainly had not the
dignity of her husband; no one, male or female, ever had. She was less
reserved, more accessible, and not indifferent to the attentions and
flatteries of her husband's friends. In fine, she was a woman.
Washington's deportment toward his wife was kind and respectful, but
always dignified and courteous. Toward his servants he was uniformly
kind.
"He was an enemy to slavery, and never hesitated to avow his
sentiments. His black servants were very much attached to him. The
peculiar nature of Washington forbade those heart-friendships demanded
by a narrower and more impulsive nature. He kept all the world too far
from him ever to win that tenderness of affection which sweetens social
life in the blending of hearts and sympathy of souls. But he commanded
that esteem which results from respect and appreciation of the great
and commanding attributes of his nature, which elevated him so far
above the men of his age. He wanted the softness and yielding of the
heart that so wins upon the affections of associates and those who are
in close and constant intercommunication. Are not these incompatible
with the stern and towering traits essential to such a character as was
Washington's? Like a shaft of polished granite towering amid shrubs and
flowers, cold and hard, but grand and beautiful, he stood among the men
and the women who surrounded him when President.
"General Washington was cautious and reserved in his expressions about
men. He rarely praised or censured. At the time I was in the Cabinet,
he had abundant cause for dislike to Mr. Jefferson, who, in his Mazéi
letter, had represented him as laboring to break up the Government,
that upon its ruins a monarchy might arise for his own benefit. He
spoke of this letter more severely than I had ever heard him speak of
anything, and said no man better knew the charge false, than Mr.
Jefferson. Some correspondence, I believe, took place between them on
the subject. I believe they never met after this. Upon one occasion I
heard him say that it was unfortunate that Jefferson had been sent to
France at the time that he was, when morals and government alike were
little less than chaos, for he had been tainted in his ideas of both."
"You knew Mr. Jefferson?" I asked.
"Come into the house, and I will show you something," said the
venerable man, then tottering to the grave. I went, and he showed me
some letters addressed to him by persons in Virginia, presenting, in no
very enviable light, the character of Jefferson. When I had read them,
he remarked: "You must not suppose I am anxious to prejudice your
youthful mind against the great favorite of your people. It is not so.
You seem solicitous to learn something of the men who have had so much
agency in the establishment of the Government and the formation of the
opinions of the people, that I am willing you should see upon what my
opinions have, in a great degree, been formed. Mr. Jefferson is still
living, and still writing. His pen seems to have lost none of its
vigor, nor his heart any of its venom. You will hear him greatly
praised, and greatly abused. I knew him at one time, but never
intimately, and may be said only to know him as a public man; what of
his private character I know, comes from the statements of others, and
general report. You have just seen some of these statements. I knew the
writers of these letters well, and know their statements to be entitled
to credit, and I believe them. They assure me that Mr. Jefferson is
without moral principle. His public conduct must convince every one of
his want of political principle. His whole life has been a bundle of
contradictions. He has had neither chart nor compass by which to
regulate his course, but has universally adopted the expedient.
"That he has a great and most vigorous intellect is beyond all
question; but most of its emanations have been the _ad captandum_ to
seize the current, and sail with it. He saw the democratic proclivity
of the people, he concentrated it by the use of his pen, and he has
aided its expansion, until it threatens ruin to the Government. He
knows it, and he still perseveres. Under the plea of inviting
population, he advocated the extension of the franchise to aliens, and
was really the parent from whose brain was born the naturalization
laws, making citizens of every nationality, and giving them all the
powers of the Government, extending suffrage to every pauper in the
land, increasing to the utmost the material for the demagogue, and thus
depriving the intelligence of the country of the power to control it.
The specious argument that if a man is compelled to serve in the
militia and defend the country, he should be entitled to vote, was his.
Its sophistry is as palpable to Jefferson as to every thinking mind.
Government is the most abstruse of the sciences, and should, for the
security of all, be controlled by the intelligence of the country.
During the world's existence, all the intelligence it has ever
afforded, has not been competent to the formation of a government
approximating perfection.
"The object of government is the protection of life, liberty, and
property. The tenure of property is established and sustained by law;
it is the basis of government; it is the support of government; in
proportion to its extent and security, it is the strength and power of
government, and those who possess it should have the control of
government. In a republic, there can be no better standard of
intelligence than the possession of property, and to give the greatest
security to the government, none should, in a republic, be intrusted
with the ballot, but the native, and the property-holder, or the native
property-holder. The complications of our system are scarcely
understood by our own people, and to suppose that ignorant men (for
such constitute the bulk of our emigrant population) shall become so
intimate with it, and so much attached to it, as to constitute them, in
a few years, persons to be intrusted with its control, is supposing
human intelligence to be of much higher grasp than I have ever found
it. Most of these emigrants come here with preconceived prejudices
toward the institutions of their native lands. This is natural. Most of
them speak a foreign language. This has to be overcome, before they can
even commence to learn the nature and operation of our system, which is
so radically dissimilar to any and all others. These men, as the
ignorant of our own people, naturally lean on some one who shall direct
them, and they will blindly do his bidding. This is an invitation to
the demagogue; these are his materials, and he will aggregate and
control them. Such men are always poor, and envy makes them the enemies
of the rich. This creates an antagonism, which we see existing in every
country.
"The poor are dependent for employment upon the rich; the rich are
dependent upon the poor for labor. This mutual dependence, it would be
supposed, would tend to create mutual regard; but experience teaches
the reverse. The poor have nothing to sell but their labor, and there
are none to buy but the rich. Each, naturally, struggles to make the
best bargain possible, and take advantage of every circumstance to
effect this. Very few are satisfied with fair equivalents, and one or
the other always feels aggrieved. Here is the difficulty. Well, endow
the laborer with the ballot, and he usurps the government; for to vote
is to govern. What is to be the consequence? We now have, with all the
means of expansion and facilities a new country of boundless extent
gives to the poor for finding and making homes, many more without
property than with it. This disproportion will go on to increase until
it assimilates to every old country, with a few rich and many poor.
These many will control; they will send of their own men to legislate;
they will favor their friends; they will levy the taxes, which the
property-holders of the country must pay; they will make the laws
appropriating these taxes; all will be for the benefit of their
constituency, and the property, the government, and the people are all
at their mercy. Jefferson sees this, and is taking advantage of it, and
has indoctrinated the whole unthinking portion of our people with these
destructive notions. It made him President. His example has proven
contagious, and I see no end to its results short of the destruction of
the Government, and that speedily. Mr. Jefferson's fame will be
co-existent with the Government. When that shall perish, his great
errors will be apparent. The impartial historian, inquiring into the
cause of this destruction, with half an eye will see it, and then his
true character will be sketched, and this great, unprincipled demagogue
will go naked down to posterity. He has always been unprincipled,
immoral, and dissolute. These, accompanying his great intellect, have
made it a curse, rather than a blessing, to his kind.
"The world has produced few great statesmen--Washington and Hamilton
were the only ones of any pretensions this country has produced. It was
a great misfortune that Hamilton did not succeed Washington. Mr. Adams,
now lingering to his end at Braintree, was a patriot, but greatly
wanting in the attributes of greatness. He was suspicious,
ill-tempered, and full of unmanly prejudices--was incapable of
comprehending the great necessities of his country, as well as the
means to direct and control these necessities. He had animosities to
nurse, and enemies to punish--was more concerned about a proper respect
for himself and the office he filled, than the interest and the destiny
of his country. He quarrelled with Washington, was jealous of him, who
never had a thought but for his country. Adams was all selfishness,
little selfishness, and earned and got the contempt of the whole
nation. Jefferson was turning all this to his own advantage; and the
errors and follies of Adams were made the strength and wisdom of
Jefferson. He had but one rival before the nation, Burr--he whom you
saw yesterday, the crushed victim of the cunning and intrigue of his
friend Jefferson.
"Washington had died--despondent of the future of his country. The
prestige of his name and presence was gone. He had committed a great
error in bringing Jefferson into his Cabinet and before the nation with
his approbation. He knew every Cabinet secret, and took advantage of
every one, and had placed himself prominently before the people, and
with Burr was elected. The defect in the law as existing at the time,
enabled Burr, when returned with an equal number of electoral votes, to
contend with Jefferson for the Presidency. It was in the power of
Hamilton, at this time, to elect. The States were divided, six for
Burr, eight for Jefferson, and two divided. There was one State voting
for Jefferson, which by the change of one vote would have been given to
Burr: the divided States were under his control. He was, during the
ballotings, sent for, with a view to the election of Burr; but he
preferred Jefferson--thought him less dangerous than Burr, and procured
his election. It was a terrible alternative, to have to choose between
two such men. The consequences to Burr and the country have been
terrible--the destruction of both.
"I suppose much I have said cuts across your prejudice, coming from the
South. I have sought to speak sincerely to you, because you are young,
impressible, and anxious for knowledge; and it is better to know an
unwelcome truth, than to find out by-and-by you have all your life been
believing an untruth. Nothing is more sickening to the candid and
sincere heart, than to learn its cherished opinions and dearest hopes
have been nothing but fallacies; and when you are old as I am, you will
have been more fortunate than I have been, if you do not find much that
you have loved most, and most trusted, a deceit--a miserable lie. Come
and see me at your leisure: I shall always be glad to see you, and
equally as glad to answer any of your questions, if these answers will
give you information."
Governor Oliver Wolcott was short in stature and inclined to
corpulency; his head was large and round, with an ample forehead; his
eyes were gray and very pleasant in their expression; his mouth was
voluptuous, and upon his lips there usually lurked a smile, humorous in
its threatening, provoking a pleasing dimple upon his cheek. In
society, in his extreme old age, for I only knew him then, he was less
gay than the general expression of his features would have indicated.
He was a man of strong will and most decided character. His
individuality was marked and striking, and his tenacity of purpose made
his character one of remarkable consistency.
Governor Wolcott was one of the old-school Federalists, a thorough
believer in Federal principles. He believed in the capacity of the
people for self-government, if the franchise of suffrage was confined
to the intelligence and freeholds of the country, but reprobated the
idea of universal suffrage as destructive of all that was good in
republican institutions. Succeeding Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of
the Treasury, he found all matters of finance connected with the
Government in so healthy a condition and arranged upon such a basis as
only required that he should be careful to keep them there. During the
four last years of the Administration of Washington, this prevented any
display on his part of any striking financial ability. The
administration of his office was entirely satisfactory to the country,
though it seemed he was only there to superintend the workings of the
genius of Hamilton. Once in my hearing he remarked, he had only to work
up to the scribings of Hamilton to make everything joint up and fit
well.
He held Washington in higher esteem even than Colonel Talmadge; and
differed from him in many particulars relative to his character. It was
my good fortune to sit and listen, more than once, to discussions
between these venerable men. It was always amicable and eminently
instructive. Wolcott was an admirer of Mrs. Washington, Talmadge was
not. Talmadge was a military man, and saw a healthy discipline only in
obedience to superiors, and exacted in his own family what he deemed
was proper in that of every man. Accustomed himself to a strict
obedience to the commands of his superiors, and deeming Washington
almost incapable of error, he thought hardly even of Mrs. Washington
when she manifested a disposition the slightest to independence of her
husband. Wolcott did not see her in the camp, but only as the wife of
the President of the United States--mistress of the Presidential
mansion, and affably dispensing the duties of hostess there--receiving,
entertaining, and socially intermingling in the society admitted to the
Presidential circle.
At that period there was more of ceremony and display in the higher
circles of official society than at this time. The people had seceded
from a monarchical government, and established a democratic one; but
the prestige of titular and aristocratic society still lingered with
those high in office, of distinguished position, and wealth. Many of
those most prominent about the Government had spent much time in
Europe, and had imported European manners and customs, and desired to
see the court etiquette of the mother country prevail at the court of
the new Government. Time and the institutions of democracy had not
effected that change in the practices of the people, which the
Revolution and the determination to control and direct their own
government had in their sentiments.
Mr. Jefferson affected to despise this formal ceremony, and the
distinctions in society encouraged by monarchical institutions, and
sustained by authority of law--though coming from a State and from the
midst of a people whose leading and wealthiest families had descended
directly from the nobility and gentry of England, and who affected an
aristocracy of social life extremely exclusive in its character, while
professing a democracy in political organization of the broadest and
most comprehensive type. His sagacity taught him that the institutions
of a democratic government would soon produce that social equality
which was their spirit, in the ordinary intercourse of the people--that
he who enjoyed all and every privilege, politically and legally, given
under its Constitution and laws, possessed a power which ultimately
would force his social equality with the most pretentious in the land.
In truth, the government was in his hands, and he would mould it to his
views, and society to his status.
The institutions of government everywhere form the social organization
of society. Men are ambitious of distinction in every government, and
aspire to control in directing the destinies of their country--are
justly proud of the respect and confidence of their fellow-men, and
will court it in the manner most likely to secure it. Now and then,
there are to be found some who are insensible to any fame save that
given by wealth--who will wrap themselves up in a pecuniary importance,
with an ostentatious display of their wealth, and an exclusiveness of
social intercourse, and are contented with this, and the general
contempt. Such men, and such social coteries, are few in this country.
Fortunately, wealth which is only used as a means of ostentatious
display is worthless to communities, and its possessor is contemptible.
"Wealth is power" is an adage, and is true where it is used to promote
the general good. Without it no people can be prosperous or
intelligent, and the prosperity and intelligence of every people is
greatest where there is most wealth, and where it is most generally
diffused. This is best effected by democratic institutions, where every
preferment is open to all, and where the division of estates follows
every death. No large and overshadowing estates, creating a moneyed
aristocracy, can accumulate, to control the legislation and the
people's destinies under such institutions. No privileged class can be
sustained under their operation; for such a class must always be
sustained by wealth hereditary and entailed, protected from the
obligations of debt, and prohibited from division or alienation.
Mr. Jefferson had studied the effects of governments upon their people
most thoroughly, and understood their operation upon the social
relations of society, and the character and minds of the people. He was
wont to say there was no hereditary transmission of mind; that this was
democratic, and a Cæsar, a Solon, or a Demosthenes was as likely to
come from a cottage and penury as from a palace and wealth; that virtue
more frequently wore a smock-frock than a laced coat, and that the
institutions of every government should be so modelled as to afford
opportunity to these to become what nature designed they should
be--models of worth and usefulness to the country. Every one owes to
society obligations, and the means should be afforded to all to make
available these obligations for the public good. Nature never designed
that man should hedge about with law a favored few, until these should
establish a natural claim to such protection, by producing all the
intellect and virtue of the commonwealth. This was common property, and
wherever found, in all the gradations and ranges of society, should,
under the operations of law, be afforded the same opportunities as the
most favored by fortune. "In all things nature should be teacher and
guide."
These doctrines are beautiful in theory, and are well calculated to
fasten upon the minds of the many. They have been, time and again,
incorporated into the constitution of governments, and have uniformly
produced the same disastrous results. They are equally as fallacious as
the declaration "that all men are born free and equal," which, with
those above, has won the public approbation in spite of experience. The
equality of intellect is as certainly untrue as the equality of
stature; the one is not more apparent than the other. Transcendent
intellect is as rare as an eclipse of the sun. It manifests itself in
the control of all others--in forming the opinions and shaping the
destinies of all others. This is a birthright--is never acquired,
admits of great cultivation, receives impressions, generates ideas, and
makes wonderful efforts. Cultivation and education gives it these, but
never its vigor and power. In whatever grade or caste of society this
is born, it soon works its way to the top, disrupts every band which
ties it down, and naturally rises above the lower strata, as the
rarefied atmosphere rises above the denser. This higher order of
intellect will naturally control, and as naturally protect its power.
From such, a better government may always be expected; and without this
control, none can be wholesome or permanent.