The events of Jackson's life, even in their chronological order, dispose
themselves into a number of combinations, which a skilful pen, guided by
the hand of a poet, might easily work up into a series of impressive and
contrasted pictures. We have not the ability, had we the space here, to
undertake this labor, but we see no reason why we should not present
some outlines of it, for the benefit of future more competent artists.
In such a series, we should first see the flaxen-haired, blue-eyed son
of Irish emigrants, driven from their home by a sense of British
oppression, opening his young eyes in South Carolina, amid the stormy
scenes of our Revolution. Around him, his friends and neighbors are
training for the battle, and preparing to defend their homes from an
invading foe; his eldest brother Hugh, is brought back dead from the
fatigues of active service; the old Waxhaw meeting-house, a temporary
hospital, through which he wanders, is crowded with the wounded and
dying, whose condition moves him to tears, and fills him with melancholy
impressions of the horrors of war, coupled with a deepening sense of
English cruelty and oppression, of which he had before heard in the
tales of his mother and her kindred about the old country from which
they had fled; while, finally, he himself, but little more than thirteen
years of age, in company with a brother Robert, takes up arms, is made a
prisoner, suffers severely from wounds and the smallpox of the jail,
loses first his brother by that disease, and then his mother by a fever
caught on board a prison-ship, whither she had gone to nurse some
captive friends, and is thus left alone in the world, the only one of
all his family spared by the enemy.
We should next see the friendless, portionless orphan wending his
solitary way through the immense forests of the Far West, (now the State
of Tennessee), where the settlements were hundreds of miles from each
other, while every tree and rock sheltered an enemy in the shape of some
grisly animal, or the person of a more savage Indian. But he succeeds in
crossing the mountains, he reaches the infant villages on the Cumberland
River, he studies and practises the rude law of those distant regions,
takes part in all the wild vicissitudes of frontier life, repels the red
man, fights duels with the white, encounters in deadly feuds the
turbulent spirits of a half-barbarous society, administers justice in
almost extemporized courts, helps to frame a regular State constitution,
marries a wife as chivalric, noble, and fearless as himself, and at
last, when society is reduced to some order, is chosen a representative
of the backwoods in the Congress at Washington.
Arrived at the seat of government, a tall, thin, uncouth figure, with no
words to express himself in, and apparently without ambition,--he yet
shows himself, with all his wild western coarseness, a man of insight
and decision. He made no speeches, he drew up no reports, he created no
sensation in the committee-room, or the lobbies,--he was not at all
known, as a leader or a prominent individual, but he was one of the
twelve democrats of the House, who dared to oppose returning an answer
to Washington's last address, when the fame and the personal influence
of that exalted man were almost omnipotent. He doubtless estimated the
services and the character of Washington as highly as any member, but
the measures of the administration his judgment did not approve, and he
voted as he thought--a silent uncultivated representative,--odd in his
dress and look, but with grit in him, not appalled even by the
stupendous greatness of Washington! On the other hand, he saw in
Jefferson a man for the times; became his friend, voted for him, and
helped his State to vote for him as the second President.
In the next phases of his life we discover Jackson, as the dignified and
impartial judge, asserting the law in the face of a powerful combination
of interested opponents; as the retired and prosperous planter,
gathering together a large estate, which he surrounds with the comforts
and luxuries of a refined existence, but sells at once when a friend's
misfortunes involves him in debt, and retires to a primitive log cabin
to commence his fortunes once more; as an Indian fighter achieving amid
hardships of all kinds--the want of funds, the inclemency of the season,
the ravages of disease, the unskilfulness of superiors, the
insubordination of troops--a series of brilliant victories that made his
name a terror to the Creeks and all their confederates. His campaign in
the Floridas broke the power of the Indians, secretly in league with the
British, forced them into a treaty, and wrested Pensacola from the
possession of the Spanish governor, who had basely violated his
neutrality, and who, when he wished to negotiate, was answered by
Jackson, "My diplomacy is in the mouths of my cannon."
But a different foe and a wider theatre awaited the display of his
military genius at New Orleans. Worn down with sickness and exhaustion,
with raw and undisciplined troops--many of them the mere rabble of the
wharves, and some of them buccaneers from neighboring islands--scantily
supplied with arms and ammunition, in the midst of a mixed population of
different tongues, where attachment to his cause was doubtful,
continually agitated by gloomy forebodings of the result, though
outwardly serene, he was surrounded by the flower of the British army,
led by its most brave and accomplished generals. The attack commenced:
from his breastwork of cotton bales his unerring rifles poured a
continuous flame of fire. The enemy quailed: its leaders were killed or
wounded; and the greatest victory of the war crowned the exertions of
Jackson as the greatest military genius of his time. A universal glow of
joy and gratitude spread from the liberated city over the whole land;
_Te deums_ were sung in the churches; children robed in white strewed
his way with flowers; the nation jubilantly uttered its admiration and
gratitude. It was thus the desolated orphan of the Carolinas avenged the
wrongs of his family, and asserted the rights of his country, to the
lasting dishonor of Great Britain.
Years pass on, and we see the successful General the President of the
People, engaged once more in a fearful struggle; this time not against a
foreign foe, but with an internal enemy of vast power and tremendous
means of mischief. He is fighting the monster bank--another St. George
gallantly charging another dragon--and, as usual, comes out of the
contest victorious. The innumerable army of money-changers, wielding a
power as formidable, though unseen, as that of an absolute monarch, is
routed amid a horrible clangor of metal and rancorous hisses. The great
true man, sustained by an honest people, was greater than the power of
money. He wrought the salvation of his country from a hideous
corruption--from bankruptcy, disgrace, and long years of political
subjection. His near posterity has recognized the service, and placed
him among the most illustrious of statesmen.
Finally, we see the patriot soldier and civilian, a bowed and
white-haired old man, in his secluded Hermitage, which is situated near
the scenes of his earliest labors and triumphs. The companion of his
love, who had shared in his struggles, but was not permitted to share in
his latest glory, is with him no more; children they had none; and he
moves tranquilly towards his grave alone. No! not alone: for travellers
from all lands visit his retreat, to gaze upon his venerable form; his
countrymen throng his doors, to gather wisdom from his sayings,--his
friends and neighbors almost worship him, and an adopted family bask in
the benignant goodness of his noble heart--his great mind, too, "beaming
in mildest mellow splendor, beaming if also trembling, like a great sun
on the verge of the horizon, near now to its long farewell." Thus, the
orphan, the emigrant, the Indian fighter, the conquering General, the
popular President, the venerated Patriarch, goes to the repose of the
humble Christian.
What were the sources of Jackson's pre-eminent greatness, of his
invariable success, of his resistless personal influence, of his deep
hold upon the minds of his fellows? He was no orator, he was no writer,
he had in fact no faculty of expression, he was unsustained by wealth,
he never courted the multitude, he relied upon no external assistances.
What he did, he achieved for himself, without aid, directly, and by the
mere force of his own nature. Neither education, nor family, nor the
accidents of fortune, nor the friendship of the powerful, helped to
raise him aloft, and push him forward in his career. The secret of his
elevation, then, was this,--that he saw the Right and loved it, and was
never afraid to pursue it, against all the allurements of personal
ambition, and all the hostility of the banded sons of error. There have
been many men of a larger reach and compass of mind, and some of a
keener insight and sagacity, but none, of a more stern, inflexible,
self-sacrificing devotion to what they esteemed to be true. He carried
his life in his hand, ready to be thrown away at the call of honor or
patriotism, and it was this unswerving integrity, which commended him so
strongly to the affections of the masses. Whatever men may be in
themselves, their hearts are always prone to do homage to honesty. They
love those whom they can trust, or only hate them, because their justice
and truth stands in the way of some cherished, selfish object.
Jackson's will was imperious; the report does not follow the flash more
rapidly than his execution of a deed followed the conception of it; or
rather his thought and his act were an instinctive, instantaneous,
inseparable unity. Like a good marksman, as soon as he saw his object he
fired, and generally with effect. This impulsive decision gave rise to
some over-hasty and precipitate movements, but, in the main, was
correct. What politicians, therefore, could only accomplish if at all by
a slow and cunning process of intrigue, what diplomatists reached by
long-winded negotiations, he marched to, without indirection, with his
eye always on the point, and his whole body following the lead of the
eye. We do not mean that he was utterly without subtlety,--for some
subtlety is necessary to the most ordinary prudence, and is particularly
necessary to the forecast of generalship,--but simply that he never
dissimulated, never assumed disguise, never carried water on both
shoulders, as the homely phrase has it, and never went around an
obstacle, when he could level it, or push it out of the way. The foxy or
feline element was small in a nature, into which so much magnanimity,
supposed to be lionlike, entered.
The popular opinion of Jackson was, that he was an exceedingly irascible
person, his mislikers even painting him as liable to fits of roaring and
raving anger, when he flung about him like a maniac; but his intimate
friends, who occupied the same house with him for years, inform us that
they never experienced any of these strong gusts; that, though sensitive
to opposition, impatient of restraint, quick to resent injuries, and
impetuous in his advance towards his ends, he was yet gentle, kindly,
placable, faithful to friends and forgiving to foes, a lover of children
and women, only unrelenting when his quarry happened to be meanness,
fraud or tyranny. His affections were particularly tender and strong; he
could scarcely be made to believe any thing to the disadvantage of those
he had once liked, while his reconciliations with those he had disliked,
once effected, were frank, cordial and sincere. Colonel Benton, who was
once an enemy, but afterwards a friend of many years, gives us this
sketch of some of his leading characteristics:
"He was a careful farmer, overlooking every thing himself, seeing that
the fields and fences were in good order, the stock well attended, and
the slaves comfortably provided for. His house was the seat of
hospitality, the resort of friends and acquaintances, and of all
strangers visiting the State--and the more agreeable to all from the
perfect conformity of Mrs. Jackson's disposition to his own. But he
needed some excitement beyond that which a farming life could afford,
and found it for some years in the animating sports of the turf. He
loved fine horses--racers of speed and bottom--owned several--and
contested the four mile heats with the best that could be bred, or
bought, or brought to the State, and for large sums. That is the nearest
to gaming that I ever knew him to come. Cards and the cock-pit have been
imputed to him, but most erroneously. I never saw him engaged in either.
Duels were usual in that time, and he had his share of them, with their
unpleasant concomitants; but they passed away with all their
animosities, and he has often been seen zealously pressing the
advancement of those, against whom he had but lately been arrayed in
deadly hostility. His temper was placable, as well as irascible, and his
reconciliations were cordial and sincere. Of that, my own case was a
signal instance. There was a deep-seated vein of piety in him,
unaffectedly showing itself in his reverence for divine worship, respect
for the ministers of the Gospel, their hospitable reception in his
house, and constant encouragement of all the pious tendencies of Mrs.
Jackson. And when they both afterwards became members of a church, it was
the natural and regular result of their early and cherished feelings. He
was gentle in his house, and alive to the tenderest emotions; and of
this I can give an instance, greatly in contrast with his supposed
character, and worth more than a long discourse in showing what that
character really was. I arrived at his house one wet, chilly evening in
February, and came upon him in the twilight, sitting alone before the
fire, a lamb and a child between his knees. He started a little, called
a servant to remove the two innocents to another room, and explained to
me how it was. The child had cried because the lamb was out in the cold,
and begged him to bring it in--which he had done to please the child,
his adopted son, then not two years old. The ferocious man does not do
that! and though Jackson had his passions and his violences, they were
for men and enemies--those who stood up against him--and not for women
and children, or the weak and helpless, for all of whom his feelings
were those of protection and support. His hospitality was active as well
as cordial, embracing the worthy in every walk of life, and seeking out
deserving objects to receive it, no matter how obscure. Of this I
learned a characteristic instance, in relation to the son of the famous
Daniel Boone. The young man had come to Nashville on his father's
business, to be detained some weeks, and had his lodgings at a small
tavern, towards the lower part of the town. General Jackson heard of
it--sought him out--found him, took him home to remain as long as his
business detained him in the country, saying, 'Your father's dog should
not stay in a tavern while I have a house.' This was heart! and I had it
from the young man himself, long after, when he was a State Senator of
the General Assembly of Missouri, and as such nominated me for the
United States Senate at my first election in 1820--his name was Benton
Boone, and so named after my father. Abhorrence of debt, public and
private, dislike of banks and love of hard money--love of justice, and
love of country, were ruling passions with Jackson; and of these he gave
constant evidences in all the situations of his life."
The same distinguished authority has drawn a picture of Jackson's
retirement from the Presidency, with which we close our remarks:
"The second and last term of General Jackson's presidency expired on the
3d of March, 1837. The next day at twelve he appeared with his
successor, Mr. Van Buren, on the elevated and spacious eastern portico
of the capitol, as one of the citizens who came to witness the
inauguration of the new President, and no way distinguished from them,
except by his place on the left hand of the President-elect. The day was
beautiful: clear sky, balmy vernal sun, tranquil atmosphere; and the
assemblage immense. On foot, in the large area in front of the steps,
orderly without troops, and closely wedged together, their faces turned
to the portico--presenting to the beholders from all the eastern windows
the appearance of a field paved with human faces--this vast crowd
remained riveted to their places, and profoundly silent, until the
ceremony of inauguration was over. It was the stillness and silence of
reverence and affection, and there was no room for mistake as to whom
this mute and impressive homage was rendered. For once the rising was
eclipsed by the setting sun. Though disrobed of power, and retiring to
the shades of private life, it was evident that the great ex-President
was the absorbing object of this intense regard. At the moment that he
began to descend the broad steps of the portico to take his seat in the
open carriage that was to bear him away, the deep, repressed feeling of
the dense mass broke forth, acclamations and cheers bursting from the
heart and filling the air, such as power never commanded, nor man in
power ever received. It was the affection, gratitude, and admiration of
the living age, saluting for the last time a great man. It was the
acclaim of posterity breaking from the bosoms of contemporaries. It was
the anticipation of futurity--unpurchasable homage to the hero-patriot
who, all his life, and in all the circumstances of his life--in peace
and in war, and glorious in each--had been the friend of his country,
devoted to her, regardless of self. Uncovered and bowing, with a look of
unaffected humility and thankfulness, he acknowledged in mute signs his
deep sensibility to this affecting overflow of popular feeling. I was
looking down from a side window, and felt an emotion which had never
passed through me before. I had seen the inauguration of many
presidents, and their going away, and their days of state, vested with
power, and surrounded by the splendors of the first magistracy of a
great republic; but they all appeared to me as pageants, brief to the
view, unreal to the touch, and soon to vanish. But here there seemed to
be a reality--a real scene--a man and the people: he, laying down power
and withdrawing through the portals of everlasting fame; they, sounding
in his ears the everlasting plaudits of unborn generations. Two days
after I saw the patriot ex-President in the car which bore him off to
his desired seclusion: I saw him depart with that look of quiet
enjoyment which bespoke the inward satisfaction of the soul at
exchanging the cares of office for the repose of home.
=King.=
[Illustration: King fac-simile of letter]
[Illustration: Rufus King's House, Near Jamaica, L.I.]