“THE OTHER END OF THE AVENUE”
Although Pennsylvania Avenue is several miles long, the mile that lies
between the hill on which Congress sits and the slope where the
President lives is called in local parlance “the Avenue.” Outside of
their formal speeches and documentary literature, members of Congress
are wont to refer to the White House and its surroundings as “the other
end of the Avenue.” This familiar phrase is, like the popular
designation of Congress as “the gentlemen on the hill,” a survival from
the period when only one hill in town was officially occupied, and the
strip of highway connecting it with the group of buildings used by the
executive branch of the Government was about the only thoroughfare
making any serious pretensions to street improvement. It was along this
line that President Jefferson planted the first shade trees; and
L’Enfant’s plan made the south side of it the northern boundary of the
Mall.
The title which for almost a hundred years the American people have
given to the headquarters of their chief public servant is a fine
example of historic accident. The White House was not originally
intended to be a white house. It was built of a buff sandstone which
proved to be so affected by exposure to the weather that as an
afterthought it was covered with a thick coat of white paint. From its
nearness to several red brick buildings, many persons fell into the way
of distinguishing it by its color, and after its repainting to conceal
the stains of the fire of 1814 this practice became general. Presidents
have referred to it in their messages variously as the President’s
House, the Executive Mansion, and the White House. Among the people it
was also sometimes known, in the early days, as the Palace. The
Roosevelt administration made the White House both the official and the
social designation, and fastened the label so tight that there is little
reason to expect a change by any successor.
The White House was born under the eye of Martha Washington, was nursed
into healthy babyhood by Abigail Adams, received its baptism of fire
under Dolly Madison, was popularly christened under Eliza Kortright
Monroe, and passed through numberless vicissitudes under a line of
foster-mothers stretching from that time to the end of the century,
every one carrying it a little further away from its original plan;
then Edith Kermit Roosevelt administered a restorative elixir which
started it upon a second youth. The evolution of the Capitol, described
in an earlier chapter, finds a parallel in the architectural genesis of
this building. Its drawings were made and its construction superintended
by James Hoban, an Irishman; but a distinguished critic has described it
as “designed on classic lines, modified by an English hand, at a time
when French art furnished the world’s models in interior detail.” That
accounts, of course, for its monumental and palatial features.
But we must bear in mind that its sponsors intended it not only as an
official residence for the executive head of the Government, but as a
home for the foremost American citizen and his family, and that, in the
esthetics of domestic architecture, local influences were most potent.
All the Presidents except one, for the first thirty-six years of the
republic’s existence, were Virginia gentlemen; so, although broadly
following in treatment the Viceregal Lodge in Dublin, the President’s
House took on much of the character of the “great house” on a Virginia
plantation. This will explain why, in their work of restoration, when
the architects were confronted by some gap in their plans which could
not be filled by reference to the early records of the house itself,
they drew upon the material common to the Virginia mansions of the same
period.
By no means the least notable of their revivals was the recognition of
the proper front of the building. For a half-century, and perhaps
longer, its back door had been used as its main entrance, and most
visitors had borne away the impression that that was the face its
designer had intended it to present to the world. Nearly all the
authoritative pictures helped to confirm this notion, by displaying the
north side as confidently as the photographers in Venice take San Marco
from the Piazza. The confusion of front and rear came about with other
changes wrought by the increase of facilities for land transportation.
The rural and suburban architecture of a century ago took great note of
watercourses; for in those days wheeled vehicles were rarer than now and
vastly less comfortable, the saddle was unsociable, and most travel was
by river and canal. Hence the finest houses were built, when
practicable, where they would not only command a pleasing view, but
present their most picturesque aspect to the passing boats. Doubtless
the site of the White House was chosen with reference to the bend which
the Potomac made opposite the center of the building, thus opening a
view down to Alexandria and beyond. The river was broader then, and
probably washed the outer edge of what was intended to be preserved
forever as the President’s Park.
With the growing preference for land approaches, a good many Southern
houses of the colonial type altered their habits, the White House among
them; the side which faced the street offered the easier entrance, and
thus the back door gradually usurped the dignities of the front, and
accordingly the grounds on that side were laid out with lawns, trees,
and shrubbery. Its outlook, also, is upon Lafayette Park, which, if
sundry plans are carried through, will one day be faced on three sides
with stately buildings, housing those executive Departments with which
the President has to keep in closest touch.
Though President Washington was never to occupy the White House, or even
to see it after it was nearly enough finished for occupancy, he took the
greatest interest in watching it go up, and, only a few weeks before his
death, went all over it with Mrs. Washington, thoroughly inspecting
every part then accessible. He had borne a share in the Masonic ceremony
of laying its corner-stone, and by his personal influence had induced
the State of Virginia to advance a large sum of money at one
particularly critical stage of the building operations; so the old
mansion may boast of having some honored association with every
President from the foundation of our Government till now.
When John and Abigail Adams moved in, the scantiness of fuel and lights,
and the necessity for devoting the east room to the humblest of domestic
uses and converting an upstairs chamber into a salon, were not the only
shortcomings in their environment. Surface drainage water from a
considerable bit of high ground to the eastward had formed a turbid
little creek which almost surrounded the mansion. There was no water fit
to drink and of sufficient quantity to meet the daily needs of the
President’s family, short of a spring in an open tract which we now know
as Franklin Square, about half a mile away, whence it was brought down
in crude pipes. Beds of growing vegetables filled parts of the garden
area where to-day we find well-kept lawns and ornamental shrubbery. The
only way of reaching the south door from Pennsylvania Avenue was by a
narrow footpath, on which the pedestrian took a variety of chances after
dark. The streets surrounding the President’s grounds were so deep in
slush or mud for a large part of the year that, in order to keep their
clothing fairly presentable, visitors were obliged to come in closed
coaches; and when the Adamses gave their first New Year’s reception,
their guests, though so few that the oval room in the second story
accommodated them, could not obtain in Washington enough suitable
vehicles, and had to draw upon the livery stables in Baltimore.
Adams was a well-bred and well-read man, reared in the best traditions
of New England, including the sanctity of a pledge; and, having promised
his friend and predecessor, Washington, to do what he could toward
building up a capital in fact as well as in name, he pocketed his petty
discomforts and made the best of things. Among his other efforts to
promote the popularity of the new city must be counted several dinners
of exceptional excellence, at which Mrs. Adams presided with
distinguished graciousness in a costume that, though it would strike us
now as rather prim, was in keeping with her age and antecedents. The
President, who was a rotund, florid man of middle height, appeared at
these entertainments in a richly embroidered coat, silk stockings, shoes
with huge silver buckles, and a powdered wig. These were concessions to
the general demand for elegance of attire on the part of the chief
magistrate, following the precedent established by Washington. They did
not at all reflect Mr. Adams’s preferences, for he was one of the
plainest of men in his tastes, and his ordinary course of domestic life
in the President’s House was to the last degree unpretentious; his
luncheon, for example,
[Illustration: _Old Carlyle Mansion, Alexandria_]
consisted usually of oatcake and lemonade, and one of his amusements was
to play horse with a little grandchild, who used to drive him up and
down the somber corridors with a switch.
Albeit Adams and Jefferson became, late in life, the warmest of friends,
no love was lost between them during the period when both were active in
politics. Adams, who would have been gratified to receive, like
Washington, a second term, was not disposed to “enact the captive chief
in the procession of the victor,” so he did not stay to see Jefferson
inaugurated, but at daylight of the fourth of March, 1801, left
Washington for Boston. There was no need for such haste to escape, for
Jefferson, as the high priest of democratic simplicity, had no
procession; though the cheerful little fiction about his riding down
Pennsylvania Avenue alone, and hitching his horse to a sapling in front
of the Capitol while he went in to be sworn, received its death-blow
long ago. The truth is, he had no use for a horse. He was boarding in
New Jersey Avenue, where he had lived for the latter part of his term as
Vice-president. A few minutes before noon on inauguration day he set out
on foot, in company with several Congressmen who were his fellow
boarders, and walked the block or so to the Capitol, where he was
escorted by a committee to the Senate chamber and there took the oath
of office and delivered his address. Then he walked back again to his
boarding-house, and at dinner occupied his customary seat at the foot of
the table. A visitor from Baltimore complimented him on his address and
“wished him joy” as President. “I should advise you,” was his smiling
response, “to follow my example on nuptial occasions, when I always tell
the bridegroom that I will wait till the end of the year before offering
my congratulations.”
The accommodations in the President’s House were somewhat better by the
time Mr. Jefferson moved in than they were when the Adams family opened
it, yet he seems to have been more or less cramped during most of his
two terms--owing, doubtless, to the continued presence of mechanics and
building materials in the incomplete parts of the house. When the
British Minister called in court costume to present his credentials, he
was received, with his convoy the Secretary of State, in a space so
narrow that he had to back out of one end of it to make room for the
President to enter at the other. One of the legation described Jefferson
as “a tall man, with a very red, freckled face and gray, neglected hair;
his manners were good natured and rather friendly, though he had
somewhat of a cynical expression of countenance. He wore a blue coat, a
thick, gray-colored hairy waistcoat with a red under-waistcoat lapped
over it, green velveteen breeches with pearl buttons, yarn stockings
with slippers down at the heels, his appearance being very much like
that of a tall, raw-boned farmer.” On the other hand, an admiring
contemporary insists that his dress was “plain, unstudied and sometimes
old-fashioned in its form,” but “always of the finest materials,” and
that “in his personal habits he was fastidious and neat.” So there you
are!
A social being Jefferson certainly was. He liked company, and his former
residence in France had cultivated his taste for the good things of the
table, including light wines and olives. He once said that he considered
olives the most precious gift of heaven to man, and he had them on his
table whenever he could get them. He was also fond of figs and
mulberries, and his household records bristle with purchases of crabs,
pineapples, oysters, venison, partridges, and oranges--a pretty fair
list for a man devoted to plain living. One of his hobbies as a host at
very small and confidential dinners was to insure to his guests the
utmost privacy, so he devised a scheme for dispensing as far as
practicable with the presence of servants and avoiding the needless
opening and closing of doors. Beside every chair was placed a small
“dumb-waiter” containing all the desirable accessories, like fresh
plates and knives and forks and finger-bowls; while in a partition wall
was hung a bank of circular shelves, so pivoted as to reverse itself at
the pressure of a spring, the fresh viands entering the dining-room as
the emptied platters swung around into the pantry. The company at table
rarely exceeded four when this machinery was called into play. At big
state dinners the usual array of servants did the waiting.
The first great reception in Jefferson’s administration occurred on the
fourth of July next following his inauguration. For some reason,
possibly because the novelty of his sweeping invitation prevented its
being generally understood by the populace, only about one hundred
persons presented themselves. A luncheon was served, in the midst of
which the Marine Band entered, playing the “President’s March,” or, as
we call it, “Hail Columbia.” The company fell in behind and joined in a
grand promenade, with many evolutions, through the rooms and corridors
of the ground floor, returning at last to the place whence they had
started and resuming their feast of good things.
As he was a widower when he succeeded Adams at the head of the
Government, and it was not feasible, most of the time, for either of his
daughters to preside over his public hospitalities, Jefferson naturally
turned for aid to Mrs. James Madison, wife of his Secretary of State.
He despised empty precedent; and when, at a diplomatic dinner, he led
the way to the dining-room with Mrs. Madison instead of offering his arm
to Mrs. Merry, wife of the British Minister and dean of the corps, he
defied all the old-world canons. Mrs. Merry withdrew in high dudgeon,
and her husband made the incident the subject of a communication to the
Foreign Office in London.
Dolly Madison’s fondness for society counterbalanced the indifference of
her husband--a little, apple-faced man with a large brain and pleasant
manners but no presence, of whom every one spoke by his nickname,
“Jemmy.” She is described as a “fine, portly, buxom dame” with plenty of
brisk small-talk. She knew little of books, but made a point of having
one in her hand when she received guests who were given to literature;
and she would have peeped enough into it to enable her to open
conversation with a reference to something she had found there. One of
the celebrities she entertained was Humboldt, the scientist, concerning
whom she wrote: “We have lately had a great treat in the company of a
charming Prussian baron. All the ladies say they are in love with him.
He is the most polite, modest, well-informed, and interesting traveler
we have ever met, and is much pleased with America.” Another was Tom
Moore, who, though embalming in verse some of the spiteful spirit he
had absorbed from the Merrys, in later years recanted these utterances.
As she was praised everywhere for the beauty of her complexion, it is
disconcerting to learn from a candid biographer that Mrs. Madison was
wont to heighten her color by external applications, and now and then,
through an accident of the toilet, gave to her nose a rosy flush that
was meant for her cheeks. We are told also that she was addicted to the
fashionable snuff habit and kept always at hand a dainty little box made
of platinum and lava, filled with her favorite brand of “Scotch,” which
she would freely use at social gatherings and then pass around the
circle of diplomatists who assiduously danced attendance upon her. This
indulgence accounted for her carrying everywhere two handkerchiefs: one
a bandanna tucked away in her sleeve, whence she could draw it promptly
for what she called “rough work,” and the other a spider-web creation of
lawn and lace, which she styled her “polisher” and wore pinned to her
side.
Besides the British Minister with his standing grievance, which he
advertised by never bringing Mrs. Merry to the President’s House after
the fateful dinner, we read of two other foreign envoys who used to
appear there spouseless. One was Sidi Mellanelli, who, Dr. Samuel
Mitchill tells us, “came from Tunis to settle some differences between
that regency and our Government. He is to all appearance upward of fifty
years old; wears his beard and shaves his head after the manner of his
country, and wears a turban instead of a hat. His dress consists simply
of a short jacket, large, loose drawers, stockings, and slippers. When
he goes abroad he throws a large hooded cloak over these garments; it is
of a peculiar cut and is called a bernous. The colors of his drawers and
bernous are commonly red. He seldom walks, but almost always appears on
horseback. He is a rigid Mohammedan; he fasts, prays, and observes the
precepts of the Koran. He talks much with the ladies, says he often
thinks about his consort in Africa, and wonders how Congressmen can live
a whole session without their wives.”
The other unaccompanied diplomat was the French Minister, General
Turreau, a man of humble birth who had risen to some eminence during the
recent revolution in his country. Having once been imprisoned, he
improved the opportunity to make love to his jailer’s daughter and marry
her; but he appears to have tired of his bargain, and it was no secret
that they led a most inharmonious life. According to Sir Augustus
Foster, he was in the habit of horsewhipping her to the accompaniment
of a violoncello played by his secretary to drown her cries, and the
scandalized neighbors had finally to interfere. Doctor Mitchill’s
version of the affair is that the Minister tried to send his wife back
to France, and that, when she refused to leave and raised an outcry, a
mob gathered at their house and enabled her to escape and go to live in
peaceful poverty in Georgetown. The Doctor has little to say of
Turreau’s ability, but dwells impressively on “the uncommon size and
extent of his whiskers, which cover the greater part of his cheeks,” and
on the profusion of lace with which his full-dress coat was decorated.
Jerome Bonaparte, a younger brother of the first Napoleon, passed a good
deal of time in Washington during the Jefferson administration and was
one of the lions at the parties in the President’s House. Meeting Miss
Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore, he succumbed to her attractions and
lost no time in suing for her hand. Her father was a bank president and
one of the richest men in the United States, and the family, whose
social position was unexceptionable, were far from having their heads
turned by the proposed match, possibly feeling some misgivings as to
future complications; but the young people would listen to no argument
and were married. Mr. Jefferson wrote at once to the American Minister
at Paris, telling him to lay all the facts before the First Consul and
to make it plain that in the United States any marriage was lawful which
had been voluntarily entered into by two single parties of full age.
Nevertheless, the great Napoleon did not hesitate to treat the marriage
as void, and Jerome lacked manliness to defy his brother and fight the
matter out; but Mrs. Bonaparte, having spunk enough for two, stood up
firmly for her rights as a wife to the end of her days, and commanded
recognition for them everywhere outside of the imperial court.
A friend of Jefferson’s who came to Washington during his
administration, and whose advent created not a little stir, was a man
about seventy years of age, described as having “a red and rugged face
which looks as if he had been much hackneyed in the service of the
world,” eyes “black and lively,” a nose “somewhat aquiline and pointing
downward” which “corresponds in color with the fiery appearance of his
cheeks,” and a marked fondness for talk and anecdote. This was none
other than Tom Paine, patriot, poet, political pamphleteer, and infidel.
He was favorably remembered all over the United States for his writings
in behalf of human rights, and for the leaflets and songs which had
cheered the hearts of the Continental soldiers at the most discouraging
pass in our War for Independence. After the Revolution, he had gone
abroad as an apostle of popular liberty, and, though outlawed in
England, had been permitted to cross to France to take his seat as a
deputy in the proletariat National Assembly. There, among other acts
which won him commendation, he raised his voice and cast his vote
against the resolution which sent Louis XVI to the guillotine.
Appreciating his services to this country and also strongly sympathizing
with the French type of democracy, Jefferson had invited Paine to come
back to his native land in a United States war-ship; and the Federalist
newspapers seized their chance to make partisan capital by parading
Paine’s religious heterodoxy and charging Jefferson with having brought
him home to undermine the morals of our people. Jefferson had
considerable difficulty in counteracting the effects of the accusation,
for his own opinions had been for a good while under fire, and it was
not a day of nice distinctions. Probably in this more tolerant age a man
like Paine would be given due credit for his practical benevolence even
when mixed with a hatred of ecclesiasticism, and Jefferson would find
himself not out of place in the Unitarian fold.
When Jefferson was not occupied with affairs of state or entertaining
visitors, he was fond of sitting in what he called his “cabinet”--a room
which he had fitted up to suit his own fancy. The rest of the house was
rather unhomelike. The east room was still unfinished, and through the
others were strewn articles of furniture which, though good in their
way, were not especially suggestive of comfort; many of them were relics
of the Washington régime, brought from Philadelphia. But in the cabinet
stood a long table with drawers on each side, filled with things dear to
their owner’s heart. One contained books with inscriptions from their
authors; another, letters and manuscripts; a third, a set of carpenter’s
tools for his amusement on rainy days; a fourth, some small gardening
implements, and so on. Around the walls were maps, charts, and shelves
laden with standard literature. Flowers and potted plants were
everywhere, and in the midst of a bower of these hung the cage of his
pet mockingbird; but the door of the cage was rarely shut when the
President was in the room, for he loved to have the bird fly about
freely, perch on his shoulder, and take its food from his lips.
As may be guessed, the sponsor for this greenery was fond of all growing
things. Jefferson was often seen walking about the embryo city, watching
the workmen digging or building, but manifesting a special interest in
tree-planting and ornamental gardening. He tried to induce Congress to
vote enough money to beautify the grounds around the President’s House,
but in vain; the most he could do was to enclose the yard with a common
stone wall and seed it down to grass. Among the plans he prepared but
was obliged to abandon was the adornment of these grounds exclusively
with trees, shrubs, and flowers indigenous to American soil. He must be
credited with the first attempt ever made in Washington to establish a
zoölogical park; Lewis and Clarke, the explorers, brought him from the
West a few grizzly bears, for which he built a pen in the yard. He also
made the first move to furnish Pennsylvania Avenue with shade trees. His
preference was for willow-oaks; but he started four rows of Lombardy
poplars to take advantage of their rapid growth till the slower oaks
matured. One of his hobbies was to improve the market gardening of the
neighborhood by distributing new varieties of vegetable seeds obtained
through the American consuls in foreign countries, and instructing his
steward always to buy the best home-grown table delicacies at the
highest retail prices.
At Madison’s inauguration in 1809, Jefferson not only did not imitate
the ungraciousness of Adams eight years before, but went to the opposite
extreme, declining
[Illustration: _Washington’s Pew in Christ Church, Alexandria_]
Madison’s invitation to drive to the Capitol in the Presidential coach
lest he might divide the honors which he felt belonged exclusively to
the President-elect. Madison had what was then deemed a wonderful
procession of military and civic organizations, and turned the occasion
into the first “made-in-America” gala day, wearing himself a complete
suit of clothing made by an American tailor, of cloth woven on American
looms from the wool of American sheep. Jefferson, clad in one like it,
modestly waited till the procession had passed and then rode to the
Capitol alone, not even a servant following to care for his horse. On
entering the Hall of Representatives, he declined the chair reserved for
him near Madison’s but joined the ordinary spectators, saying: “To-day I
return to the people, and my proper seat is among them.” At the close of
the ceremony, he mounted his horse again and rode up the Avenue
unattended, till George Custis, also mounted, joined him, and they went
together to the Madisons’ house.
Here a crowd of friends had gathered to welcome in the new
administration. Mr. Madison’s emotions had been a good deal stirred by
what had passed at the Capitol, but his manner was affable. His wife was
all herself as usual. She was attired in a plain cambric dress with a
very long train, and a bonnet of purple velvet and white satin, adorned
with white plumes. Jefferson seems to have been, for such time as he
stayed, quite as much the lion of the occasion as his successor.
Presently he slipped quietly away and went over to the President’s
House, where the empty halls echoed to his footsteps; for he had given
all the servants a holiday so that they could see the show. But he did
not remain long alone; the news spread among his old friends that he had
gone back to bid his home of eight years farewell, and they followed him
after a little. In the evening he went to the inaugural ball--the first
ever held, and the only ball of any sort he had attended since his
return from France.
From all accounts it was not a highly enjoyable affair. The room was so
crowded that it was difficult to elbow one’s way across it; nobody could
see what was going on without standing on a chair; the air became
stifling, and when an attempt was made to freshen it by letting down the
upper sashes of the windows, they would not move, so nothing was left
but to smash the glass. Mrs. Madison was almost crushed to death;
Madison was so tired that he confessed to a friend that he wished he
were abed; and as soon as supper was over, the Presidential party
withdrew. The younger set stayed and danced till midnight, when, at the
stroke, the music ceased and the attendants began to put out the lights.
The social success achieved by Dolly Madison as official hostess through
so large a part of Jefferson’s administration did not wane when, with
the rise of her husband to the head of the Government, she came into her
own by right instead of by courtesy. Her first term as mistress of the
President’s House was a continuous blaze of gayety, in which we catch
fleeting glimpses of her in a variety of toilets, the most truly typical
being a buff velvet gown with pearl ornaments and a Paris turban topped
with a bird-of-paradise plume. Then came the second war with Great
Britain and the wrecking of the city.
When the British approached Bladensburg, and the improvised home-guard
of Washington went out to engage them in battle, Mr. Madison permitted
his military advisers to persuade him that, after seeing the stiffness
of the American resistance, the British would withdraw. His wife caught
the infection of confidence, and together they planned to celebrate the
victory by a dinner to the officers on the evening after the battle. The
table was spread by three in the afternoon, when Mrs. Madison, who had
been listening with composure to the distant boom of cannon, was
dismayed to see a lot of demoralized American soldiers running in from
the north by twos and threes. Her sudden fears were confirmed when one
of her colored servants galloped up to the door, shouting: “Clear out!
Clear out! General Armstrong has ordered a retreat!” Then a few friends
came over to insist on her seeking safety in flight. They helped her to
fill a wagon with such valuables as were not too heavy; but she provoked
their indignation by waiting till the oil portrait of General Washington
attributed to Stuart, which hangs in the White House to-day, could be
cut out of its frame and “placed in the hands of two gentlemen from New
York for safe keeping.”
We have already seen how the Capitol and other public buildings were
burned. A particularly vicious scheme was worked out to assure the
destruction of the President’s House, because of Mr. Madison’s personal
share in the dispute which led to the war. Indeed, it was the hope of
the invaders to find him and his wife at home and take them captive, so
as to humiliate the American Government and people and thus impress a
lesson for the future. By way of a reconnoiter, Admiral Cockburn went to
the mansion and looked through it, taking with him as a hostage a young
gentleman of the city, named Weightman. In the dining-room they found
everything prepared for the dinner of triumph, and Cockburn ordered his
companion to sit down with him and “drink Jemmy’s health.” Then he bade
Weightman help himself to a mantel ornament as a souvenir of the day. “I
must take something, too,” he added, and with great hilarity tucked
under his arm an old hat of the President’s and a cushion from Mrs.
Madison’s chair.
When all was ready, a detachment of fifty sailors and marines were
marched in silence up Pennsylvania Avenue, every man carrying a long
pole with a ball of combustible material attached to the top of it.
Arrived at the mansion, the balls were lighted, and the poles rested
each against a window. At a command from their officer, the pole-bearers
struck their windows simultaneously a hard blow, smashing the glass and
hurling the fire-balls into the rooms with a single motion; and the
little group of lookers-on beheld an outburst of flame from every part
of the building at once.
At the Octagon House, where they passed some months after their return
to Washington, the Madisons were surrounded by the same friends who had
enjoyed the hospitalities of the President’s House before the fire. It
was not, however, till they removed to the dwelling at the corner of
Pennsylvania Avenue and Nineteenth Street that Mrs. Madison was able to
entertain on the scale she desired. The house was one of the most
commodious in town, and for any fine function the whole of it was thrown
open. This was done on the occasion of the levee of February, 1816,
which was universally pronounced the most splendid witnessed in the
United States up to that time. The illumination extended from garret to
cellar, much of it coming from pine torches held aloft by slaves
specially drilled to maintain statuesque attitudes against the walls and
at the heads of staircases. Mrs. Madison’s toilet of rose-tinted satin
was set off with a girdle, necklace, and bracelets of gold, and a
gold-embroidered crown. It may have been this last adornment which
suggested to Sir George Bagot, the new British Minister, his comment
that “Mrs. Madison looks every inch a queen.” The compliment promptly
spread over Washington, where for some time thereafter the President’s
wife was constantly referred to as “the Queen.”
This levee was in the nature of a farewell, for on the fourth of the
next month President Madison made way for his successor, James Monroe,
whose inauguration was the first ever held in the open air. The
innovation was due to a quarrel between the two chambers of Congress,
which was then occupying its temporary quarters opposite the east
grounds of the Capitol. Monroe had arranged to take the oath in the
Hall of Representatives; but the Senators found fault with the seats set
apart for them, the Representatives were stubborn, and a deadlock seemed
imminent, when Monroe suggested as a compromise that a platform be
raised in front of the building, and that the ceremony take place there,
where all the people could witness it. Thus began what came to be known
as “the era of good feeling.”
How class consciousness prevailed in those days is amusingly illustrated
by Monroe’s resentment of the foreign conception of Americans. “People
in Europe,” he had once said to the French Minister, while Secretary of
State under Madison, “suppose us to be merchants occupied exclusively
with pepper and ginger. They are much deceived. The immense majority of
our citizens do not belong to this class, and are, as much as your
Europeans, controlled by principles of honor and dignity. I never knew
what trade was; the President was as much a stranger to it as I.”
Perhaps it was because he knew so little about trade that he took pains
to cultivate its acquaintance as soon as he became President. He made a
grand tour of the new West, staying away from Washington more than four
months and visiting especially the commercial centers, where he showed
himself to the people as much as possible. He invited some criticism by
making his tour in the buff-and-blue uniform of the Continental
soldiery of forty years before, cocked hat and all; but his friends
always contended that this appeal to patriotism vastly increased his
popularity and went far to account for his wonderful success in his
campaign for reëlection in 1820, when he captured all the electoral
votes except one.
The period covered by the last few pages brought to Washington two great
men, whose share in shaping the history of the United States was such as
to warrant our pausing to take a closer look at them. These were Henry
Clay and Daniel Webster. Clay was probably the most popular man in our
public life from Washington’s time to Lincoln’s, and his legislative
career was unique both in its beginning and in its ending. He came to
Washington first to fill a vacancy caused by the death of a Kentucky
Senator, and held this position for several months while he was still
too young to be eligible under the Constitution, because nobody was
disposed to inquire into the years of one who possessed so mature a
mind. Both before and after this experience he served in the Kentucky
legislature, where, on account of an insult received in debate, he
challenged its author and “winged” him in a duel. When the Twelfth
Congress was about to meet, with every prospect that John Randolph and
his little coterie were going to make trouble in the House, a demand
arose for a Speaker who would be able to cope with the turbulent
element. Clay had just been elected a Representative, and his prowess as
a duelist drew all eyes in his direction. “Harry Clay can keep Randolph
in order,” declared his Kentucky neighbors, “and he is the only man who
can!” On this ground, then, he was elected Speaker before he had
actually taken his seat in the House. He was the first man ever thus
honored; and he was, I believe, the only one who ever made two formal
farewells to the Senate. The first, preliminary to his resignation in
1842, appears among the classics of American eloquence; but, as he was
sent back in 1849, he had the chance, rarely accorded any one except a
histrionic star, to bow himself off the stage a second time.
During the years of his greatest activity, every announcement that he
was to speak made a gala day at the Capitol. “The gallery was full,”
wrote Margaret Bayard Smith of one such occasion, “to a degree that
endangered it; even the outer entries were thronged. The gentlemen are
grown very gallant and attentive, and, as it was impossible to reach the
ladies through the gallery, a new mode was invented for supplying them
with oranges, etc. They tied them up in handkerchiefs, to each of which
was fixed a note indicating for whom it was designed, and then fastened
to a long pole. This was taken on the floor of the house and handed up
to the ladies who sat in the front of the gallery. These presentations
were frequent and quite amusing, even in the midst of Mr. Clay’s speech.
I and the ladies near me divided what was brought with each other, and
were as social as if acquainted.”
The orator who could hold his own against such a background of confusion
might well take pride in his powers; but the universal testimony was
that Clay’s wonderfully modulated voice and magnetic charm of
personality triumphed over everything. He was so attractive a man that
even Calhoun, with whom he was at swords-drawn in every forensic battle,
could not forbear wringing his hand with a “God bless you!” at their
final parting in the Senate chamber; and John Randolph, with whom he had
clashed repeatedly and whose coat he had punctured in a duel, insisted
on being carried to the Capitol, while dying, and laid on a couch where
Clay was going to deliver a much-heralded speech. Possibly one of the
secrets of Clay’s success in winning people was illustrated in his
quarrel with Senator King of Alabama, which began on the Senate floor
and led to the passage of a challenge. Friends interfered, and after
some days a peace was
[Illustration: _Mount Vernon_]
patched up, both men publicly withdrawing their offensive remarks, and a
brother Senator making some appropriate gratulatory observations on the
reconciliation. Then Clay gave the final dramatic touch to the scene by
crossing the chamber to where his late adversary sat, saying aloud:
“King, give me a pinch of your snuff!” King, surprised, sprang up and
held out both a snuff-box and an open hand, while Senators and
spectators applauded to the echo.
Clay was a slimly built man who always appeared for action clad in a
solemn suit of black, with a claw-hammer coat, a stiff silk stock, and a
huge white “choker” with pointed ears. His face was spare and his
forehead high, his cheekbones were prominent, the nose between them was
slender and forceful, and the mouth wide, thin-lipped, and straight-cut.
His lank hair, naturally of a tawny hue, became early streaked with gray
and was worn long enough to fringe his coat collar. He was approachable
in manner, had a most genial smile, and was ready with a pleasant
response to every greeting, its effect being intensified by its musical
clarity of enunciation. He was distinctly fond of society and especially
enjoyed a game of cards. Although his wife accompanied him to
Washington, she appeared little with him in public. She was a good woman
with few gifts, but a devoted mother, and her chief joy in life was to
sew for her six children. Wherever he went, Mr. Clay was always
surrounded by a circle of adoring women, who hung upon every word of the
many he uttered as he talked in desultory style with his back against a
sofa-cushion. He followed a free fashion of his time in taking toll from
the lips of all the young and pretty maidens he met. The first time he
saw Dolly Madison, her youthful face and dainty dress misled him into
saluting her in this fashion. On discovering his mistake, “Ah, madam,”
he pleaded gallantly, “had I known you for whom you are, the coin would
have been larger!”
I may add in passing that the American navy owes its monitor type of
fighting-craft largely to Henry Clay. Theodore Timby, who invented the
revolving turret which Ericsson used during the Civil War, came to
Washington bearing a letter of introduction to Clay, who became
interested in the idea and helped him get the patent without which it
might have been lost to the world.
Webster was cast in quite a different mold from Clay. He was godlike
where Clay was human; his eloquence overwhelmed his hearers where Clay’s
fascinated them. He had a big head, a big frame, a big voice, a big
presence. Emerson speaks of his “awful charm.” Some one who heard him
condemn the dishonest gains of a certain financial institution, says
that the word “disgorge,” as he uttered it, “seemed to weigh about
twelve pounds.” Once Mrs. Webster brought their little son to hear his
father deliver an oration. Daniel began a sentence in his thunder-tone:
“Will any man dare say--” and the audience were waiting breathless to
hear what was coming next, when a wee, piping voice responded from the
gallery: “Oh, no, no, Papa!”
His greatest effort in Congress, of course, was his reply to Hayne.
Everybody in Washington was eager to hear it, and galleries and floor,
including the platform on which the Vice-president sat, were crowded to
the last limit. Representative Lewis of Alabama, being unable to gain
access to the hall, climbed around behind the wooden framework which
flanked the platform and bored a hole through it with his pocket-knife
in order to get a view of the great expounder. At a levee that evening
at the White House, Webster was besieged by admirers offering
congratulations. Among the crowd that drew near him at one time happened
to be Hayne himself. “How are you, Colonel Hayne?” was Webster’s
greeting. “None the better for you, sir,” answered Hayne, good humoredly
but with sincere feeling.
We are treated to another picture of him when he arrived late at a
concert given by Jenny Lind. For the benefit of the statesmen who were
present, Miss Lind, for an encore, sang “Hail Columbia.” Webster, who
had been dining, was on his feet in an instant and added his powerful
bass voice to hers in the chorus. Mrs. Webster did all she could to
induce him to sit down, but he repeated his effort at the close of every
verse, and with the last strain made the songstress a profound
obeisance, waving his hat at the same time. Miss Lind curtsyed in
return, Webster repeated his bow, and this little comedy of etiquette
was kept up for some minutes, to the delight of the audience.