FURTHER DISCOURSE RELATING TO THE HON. MIDDLETON
FLAM--CORRECTION IN THE ORTHOGRAPHY OF HIS FAMILY SEAT--HIS
RESPECT FOR THE PEOPLE--VERY ORIGINAL VIEWS ENTERTAINED
BY HIM ON THIS SUBJECT--HIS LIBERALITY IN MONEY
MATTERS--AVERSION TO THE LAW REGARDING INTEREST--DEMOCRATIC
VIEW OF THAT QUESTION--HIS ENCOURAGEMENT OF INDUSTRY AND
THE WORKING PEOPLE--INGENIOUS AND PROFOUND ILLUSTRATION OF
THE GREAT DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE.
Holding, as I do, our Democratic leader, the Hon. Middleton Flam, in
the most deservedly profound respect, and knowing him to be, if I may be
allowed the expression, a bright exemplar of Democracy, and containing
in himself, metaphorically speaking, the epitome of all sound opinions,
I am fully authorized by the common usage regarding public characters to
bring him and his affairs conspicuously into the view of the world, not
for censure, neither for praise, although no man is better entitled to
the latter, but for instruction. Such is the destiny of distinguished
men, that their lives are common property for the teaching of their
generation. Duly acknowledging the weight of this maxim, I shall venture
in the present chapter to give my reader a still closer insight into the
private concerns of our representative; for which task I feel myself
somewhat specially qualified, through the bountiful hospitality of that
excellent gentleman, who has not only welcomed me to his board often on
week days, and always on Sundays, but who has even flattered me, more
than once, by the remark that he would not take umbrage at such
impartial development of his life and opinions as he knew I, better than
any other of his friends, (truly herein his kindness has overrated my
worthiness,) had it in my power to make.
The old family seat of the Flams is about two miles from Quodlibet. It
is upon the Bickerbray road; and, taking in all the grounds belonging to
the domicile, the tract is somewhere about eight hundred acres; by far
the greater portion of which is a flat range of woodland and field,
watered by Grasshopper Run, which falls into the Rumblebottom. The tract
used to be called, in Judge Flam's time, "The Poplar Flats," and the
house, at that day, went by the name of "Quality Hall:" but ever since
Mr. Middleton has had it, which, as may be gathered from what I have
imparted in the last chapter, has been from the time that the old Black
Cockades began to think of turning Democrats; ever since that day the
spelling has been gradually changing, and the house now goes by the
settled name of "Equality Hall," and the tract is always written by our
people "The Popular Flats." Mr. Middleton greatly approves of this
change, for two reasons which he has had occasion to take into his
serious reflections--First; "Because," he says, "in the Quodlibetarian
Democratic system, as now understood, words are things." "Not only
things, sir," said he, in a discourse one day, at his own table, "but
important and valuable things. I have observed," he continued, "in our
country, especially among the unflinching, uncompromising Democrats,
that a name is always half the battle. For instance, sir, we wish to
destroy the bank; we have only to call it a Monster: we desire to put
down an opposition ticket, and keep the offices among ourselves; all
that we have to do is to set up a cry of Aristocracy. If we want to stop
a canal, we clamor against Consolidation: if we wish it to go on, it is
only to change the word--Develop the Resources. When it was thought
worth our while to frighten Calhoun with the notion that we were going
to hang him, we hurraed for the Proclamation; and after that, when we
wanted to gain over his best friends to our side--State-Rights was the
word. Depend upon it, gentlemen, with the true Quodlibetarian Democracy,
names are things: that is the grand secret of the 'New-Light system.'"
Mr. Flam's second reason for approving the change in the spelling of
Poplar Flats and Quality Hall, did not depend upon such a philosophical
subtlety as the first; it was simply because he had very nigh lost his
first election to Congress from inattention to this material point of
orthography. Quality Hall, some of the Democrats of our region were
unreasonable and headstrong enough to say, was not so Democratic a name
as their candidate ought to have for his place of residence; and if it
had not been that our representative discovered this in time to convince
them that it was an old-fashioned way of spelling Equality Hall, I
believe, in my conscience, he would have made out very badly: but
luckily for this district, and I may say, for the nation, this error in
spelling was corrected in time to set all straight; and Mr. Flam, from
that day, not only put the E before the Q, but, in token of that
incident, and by way of a remembrancer, always spoke of Equality Hall as
built upon Popular Flats, which sounded very well in the ears of the New
Lights, and no doubt went a great way to keep him in Congress ever
after. Therefore I repeat, after my patron and friend, words _are_
things;--and, democratically speaking, in the sense of a New Light, I
might even say _better_ than things.
Equality Hall is a building which looks larger than it is, from the
circumstance that it was originally a one-storied, irregular cottage of
brick, but in the Judge's time a second story was put to it; and, almost
immediately after Mr. Middleton came to be the owner, he enlarged the
eastern gable by widening it to nearly forty feet, and building it up
considerably above the roof, and then adding to it a grand Grecian
Temple porch with niches for statues, and with fluted Doric columns of
wood, which thus constituted what Mr. Middleton calls his facade and
principal front to the building. The effect of this piece of
magnificence was to screen the old-cottage from view, and to impress the
beholder with the idea of a grand building peeping out upon the
Bickerbray road between the foliage of two weeping willows, which the
old Judge put there before Mr. Jefferson's election.
I have heard some fastidious, not to say malevolent critics, find
fault with this new addition to the building, upon the score that it had
too much pretense about it; and that one was always disappointed upon
finding all this grandeur of outside to be but a mere piece of
theatrical show, without having anything to correspond to it within. Mr.
Flam has heard the same objection, but he has always treated it with the
contempt it deserved. "It _was_ intended for show," he observed one day
addressing the people from the hustings, when he had occasion to notice
a remark of one of these caviling gentlemen, who had said something
about having walked behind the portico to find the house--and I
shall never forget how his eye kindled and his form dilated as he
spoke--"Show, sir! Of course, it was put there for show. What else could
it be put for? What is any portico put up for? It faces toward the road,
sir--it was designed to face toward the road. When I built that portico,
I wished the people, sir, to see it; the best I have shall always be
shown to the people. I trust, sir, that my respect for the people shall
never so far abate, as to induce me to neglect _them_. My house, sir,
intrinsically is that of an humble citizen; there are a dozen equal to
it in this county; but that part of it which is intended to gratify the
people is unsurpassed here or anywhere else. I have laid out, sir, a
small fortune on that portico to gratify the people: all that I have
comes from them--all that I ever expect to be, I hope to derive from
them: who has so good a right as they to require me to put my best foot
foremost, when they are the spectators? On the same principle, sir, when
I appear in public, I dress in the most expensive attire, I drive the
best horses, and procure the finest coach. My turnout is altogether
elaborate, studiously particular--simply because I hold the people in
too much esteem, to shab them off with anything of a secondary quality,
while Providence has blessed me with the means of providing them the
best. That, sir, is what I call a keystone principle in the arch of
Democratic government: that is the sentiment, and that alone, which is
to give perpetuity to this----"
"Fair fabric of freedom," said Theodore Fog, who was among the auditory,
and perceived that Mr. Flam hesitated for a word to convey his idea.
"Thank you, my friend," courteously replied Mr. Flam, "I am indebted to
you for the word--fair fabric of freedom."
Coming back from this digression, which I have the rather indulged
because of the eloquence, as well as the just Democratic sentiment it
breathes, I proceed with my sketch of the homestead of our distinguished
leader of the politics of Quodlibet.
If I were asked what constituted the most striking feature in the
arrangements of this very admirable establishment, I should say it was
the judicious admixture of a laudable economy, with the greatest
possible effect in the way of outward exhibition. For instance, the
grounds were embellished with sundry structures, apparently at great
cost, and producing a most satisfactory impression on the eye, but
which, when examined, would be found to be, for the most part, painted
imitations of a very cheap kind. Thus there was to be seen from the
portico, peering above a thicket on the Grasshopper Run, an old castle
with ivy-crowned battlements, greatly enriching the view; at the end of
the long walk in the garden, a magnificent obelisk rose forty feet above
a bed of asparagus; the entrance to the stable-yard was through the
Gothic archway of an old chapel, exceeding pleasant to behold; and the
ice pond was guarded by a palisade composed of muskets, lances, swords,
shields, and cannon, flanked at each end by a pile of drums and colors.
All these several embellishments a nice observation would determine to
be executed in oil painting, upon wooden screens sawed into the
requisite figures. But even this expense would, perhaps, have been
avoided, had it not been that Quipes, our artist, owed Mr. Flam
twenty-five dollars on account of a debt which Mr. Flam had to pay for
him, to get him out of jail, for the sake of his vote, when we first
elected our public-spirited representative to Congress. Owing to this
circumstance, connected with the fact that Sam Hardesty, the joiner,
became insolvent on his contract for building the big portico, whereby
Mr. Flam was obliged to advance money to him in order to get it
finished, our member conceived that it would be a good plan to work
these debts out of his two friends, by setting them about the
decorations I have described. Besides, he reasoned with himself that it
was always well to give employment to the working people about him, with
a view to encourage industry and afford a practical illustration of the
benignant influence of the great Democratic principle upon society--a
consideration which Mr. Flam on no occasion ever permitted himself to
lose sight of. By this judicious management he accomplished a fourfold
purpose: namely, the beautifying of Popular Flats; the execution of
these rich specimens of art, at less than half their value; the
employment of two very meritorious fragments of the people; and, above
all, a most satisfactory development of the excellence and usefulness of
the great New-Light Democratic principle.
Mr. Flam never was what you might call a moneyed man. For although his
farms were very productive, and he had a considerable income from stock
in the United States Bank; and although the expenses of his family were
very far short of what the world might, from the show he made, suppose
them to be; yet he was in the habit of parting with his money as fast as
it came to hand. There were a great number of deserving but needy
persons who were often at the Popular Flats, and who did not hesitate to
borrow all the funds Mr. Flam could spare, (if he had a fault it was the
generosity of his lendings,) and in this way to keep him, as he has
often told me himself, very bare. To make sure against loss he had the
prudence never to lend without bond and mortgage, with a power of
attorney to confess judgment; and as he ever avowed what he called his
most irrevocable opinion, that the interest law was exceedingly
oppressive upon the industry of the country, he invariably made his own
bargain on that point--sagaciously remarking, as I once heard him to
Nicholas Hardup, the cattle dealer, who was under execution upon a
judgment, and came to borrow the amount from Mr. Flam, "Money, sir, is a
commodity like wheat or cattle; its value is regulated by the relations
of supply and demand. Society will never prosper till that principle is
universally recognized. _We_ go for it, Mr. Hardup, as cardinal in the
Democratic creed. Labor, to be free, requires that the money contract
also should be free. Why should the poor man pay six per cent. when
money is worth but five? Why should he be prevented paying seven, eight,
or nine, even, if he finds it his interest to give it--or cannot do
without it? No, sir, Equal Rights, Liberty of Conscience, and
Unrestricted Freedom of Contract--there is the buttress of Democratic
government!"
It often happened, as such things will happen, that Mr. Flam became the
loser by his generosity; and as it was a maxim with him to inculcate the
most rigid punctuality in all engagements, he has never felt himself at
liberty to relax what he regarded this salutary rule; so that, on many
occasions, he has been compelled to submit to the unpleasant and
expensive operation of closing his accounts on the bond and mortgage, by
taking possession of the mortgaged property; and in this way, as he
sometimes feelingly complains to his friends, he has become encumbered
with more land than he knows what to do with. He has, however, gradually
got through a great deal of this trouble by renting out his farms; a
course which he intends to persevere in until his children are able to
take the management of them.
Mr. Handy has several times endeavored to persuade him to make
his improvements rather more permanent, and to take down these
embellishments I have been describing; rather rashly as I thought,
calling them, to Mr. Flam's face, pasteboard scenery, gingerbread
nonsense, and twopenny gimcracks: and he insinuated that if our worthy
representative would lay out some of his "accommodation" in a more solid
manner upon Popular Flats, it would tell hereafter to his advantage. But
Mr. Flam turns a deaf ear to all Nicodemus's preaching. He says that the
accommodation is better laid out in the Chickasaw Reserve, where he
means to realize a large fortune; and as to what Mr. Handy is pleased to
call _gimcracks_ and _gingerbread_, that, in fact, is the only kind of
decoration in which a man, who respects the simplicity and purity of
Democratic government, ought to indulge his taste. "If," said he, "my
old castle, my obelisk, or my Gothic gateway were built of stone instead
of white pine, a fair inference might be made against me of a lurking
wish to restore the exploded aristocratic system of primogeniture and
entails. It would be said I was building for my son and his eldest born.
Thank God, no such treasonable design can be inferred from this
_gimcrack_ and _gingerbread_, as you wittily term it. When I go, sir, my
estate is to be cut up as our Democratic republican laws ordain; and my
gimcrack and gingerbread can be plowed in as easily as the dockweed.
Strange as it may sound to the ears of some, gimcrack and gingerbread
are the elements of our new Democratic theory. Sir, our government
should glory in it:--it does glory in it. There is no reproach in the
fact that we neither build, legislate, think, nor determine for the next
generation. We attend to _ourselves_--that is genuine New-Light
Democracy. We oppose Vested Rights, we oppose Chartered Privileges, we
oppose Pledges to bind future Legislatures, we oppose Tariffs, Internal
Improvements, Colleges, and Universities, on the broad Democratic ground
that we have nothing to do with Posterity. Posterity will be as free as
we are. Let it take care of itself. I glory, sir, in saying New-Light
Democracy riots in gimcrack and gingerbread."
This eloquent outburst of sentiment effectually silenced Mr. Handy,
and brought him thoroughly into Mr. Flam's opinion. I rejoice that my
intimacy with this able statesman should have afforded me this
opportunity to show the brilliancy with which his mind sparkles in the
demonstration of political truth, and the wonderful power with which it
converts apparently trivial thoughts into golden illustrations of the
Democratic theory as lately discovered and practiced.