Perley's Reminiscences Part 7

Monsieur Maelzel also exhibited an automaton trumpeter, life size, attired in a full British uniform. It was rolled out before the audience and performed several marches and patriotic airs. A miniature rope-dancer performed some curious feats, and small figures, when their hands were shaken, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the words, "Papa!"

and "Mamma!" in a life-like manner. But the crowning glory of Monsieur Maelzel's exhibition was a panorama, scenic and mechanical, of the "Burning of Moscow." The view of the Russian capital, with its domes and minarets, was a real work of art. Then the great bell of the Kremlin began to toll, and the flames could be seen making their way from building to building. A bridge in the foreground was covered with figures, representing the flying citizens escaping with their household treasures. They were followed by a regiment of French infantry, headed by its band, and marching with the precision of veterans. Meanwhile the flames had begun to ascend the spires and domes, and the deep tolling of the bells was echoed by the inspiring strains of martial music. At last, as the last platoon of Frenchmen crossed the bridge, the Kremlin was blown up with a loud explosion, and the curtain fell.

Mrs. Alexander Hamilton, the widow of the founder of our financial system, pa.s.sed a good portion of the latter part of her life at Washington, and finally died there. She was the first to introduce ice-cream at the national metropolis, and she used to relate with rare humor the delight displayed by President Jackson when he first tasted it. He liked it much, and swore, "By the Eternal!" that he would have ices at the White House. The guests at the next reception were agreeably surprised with this delicacy, especially those from the rural districts, who, after approaching it suspiciously, melting each spoonful with their breath before consuming it, expressed their satisfaction by eating all that could be provided. Mrs.

Hamilton was very much troubled by the pamphlet which her husband had published when Secretary of the Treasury, in which he avowed an intrigue with the wife of one of his clerks, to exculpate himself from a charge that he had permitted this clerk to speculate on the action of the Treasury Department. Mrs. Hamilton for some years paid dealers in second-hand books five dollars a copy for every copy of this pamphlet which they brought her. One year the number presented was unusually large, and she accidentally ascertained that a cunning dealer in old books in New York had had the pamphlet reprinted, and was selling her copies at five dollars each which had cost him but about ten cents each. She possessed a good many souvenirs of her ill.u.s.trious husband, one of which, now in the writer's possession, was the copper camp-kettle which General Hamilton had while serving on the staff of the ill.u.s.trious Washington.

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Alexander Stephens ALEXANDER HAMILTON STEPHENS was born in Wilkes County, Georgia, February 11th, 1812; was a member of the House of Representatives, December 4th, 1843 to March 3d, 1859; was Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy; was again a member of the United States Congress, October 15th, 1877, to January 1st, 1882; was Governor of Georgia, and died at Crawfordsville, Georgia, March 4th, 1883.

CHAPTER XII.

JACKSON AND HIS a.s.sOCIATES.

President Jackson's friends celebrated the 8th of January, 1835, by giving a grand banquet. It was not only the anniversary of the battle of New Orleans, but on that day the last installment of the national debt had been paid. Colonel Benton presided, and when the cloth was removed he delivered an exulting speech. "The national debt," he exclaimed, "is paid! This month of January, 1835, in the fifty-eighth year of the Republic, Andrew Jackson being President, the national debt is paid! and the apparition, so long unseen on earth--a great nation without a national debt!--stands revealed to the astonished vision of a wondering world! Gentlemen," he concluded, "my heart is in this double celebration, and I offer you a sentiment which, coming direct from my own bosom, will find its response in yours: 'PRESIDENT JACKSON: May the evening of his days be as tranquil and as happy for himself as their meridian has been resplendent, glorious, and beneficent for his country.'"

A few weeks later, as President Jackson was leaving the Capitol, where he had been to attend the funeral of Representative Davis, of South Carolina, a man advanced toward him from the crowd, leveled a pistol, and fired it. The percussion-cap exploded without discharging the pistol, and the man, dropping it, raised a second one, which also missed fire. General Jackson's rage was roused by the explosion of the cap, and, lifting his cane, he rushed toward his a.s.sailant, who was knocked down by Lieutenant Gedney, of the Navy, before Jackson could reach him. The man was an English house- painter named Lawrence, who had been for some months out of work, and who, having heard that the opposition of General Jackson to the United States Bank had paralyzed the industries of the country, had conceived the project of a.s.sa.s.sinating him. The President himself was not disposed to believe that the plot originated in the crazy brain of Lawrence, whom he regarded as the tool of political opponents. A protracted examination, however, failed to afford the slightest proof of this theory, although General Jackson never doubted it for a moment. He was fortified in this opinion by the receipt of anonymous letters, threatening a.s.sa.s.sination, all of which he briefly indorsed and sent to Mr. Blair for publication in the _Globe_.

The heads of the executive departments, believing that "to the victors belong the spoils," did not leave an acknowledged anti- Jackson Democrat in office, either in Washington city or elsewhere, with a very few exceptions. One of these was General Miller, Collector of the Port of Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts. The leading Jackson Democrats in Ma.s.sachusetts pet.i.tioned the President for his removal as incompetent and a political opponent, and they presented the name of a stanch Jackson Democrat for the position. The appointment was made, and the name of the new Collector was sent to the Senate for confirmation. Colonel Benton, who had been made acquainted with the facts, requested that no action be taken until he could converse with the President. Going to the White House the next morning, he said to General Jackson, "Do you know who is the Collector of Customs at Salem, Mr. President, whom you are about to remove?" "No, sir," replied General Jackson; "I can't think of his name, but Nat. Green and Ben. Hallett have told me that he is an incompetent old New England Hartford Convention Federalist."

"Mr. President," said Colonel Benton, "the man you propose to turn out is General Miller, who fought so bravely at the battle of Bridgewater." "What!" exclaimed General Jackson, "not the brave Miller who, when asked if he could take the British battery, exclaimed 'I'll try,'" "It is the same man, Mr. President,"

responded Benton. General Jackson rang his bell, and when a servant appeared, said, "Tell Colonel Donelson I want him, quick!" When the private secretary entered, the President said, "Donelson, I want the name of the fellow I nominated for Collector of Salem withdrawn instantly. Then write a letter to General Miller and tell him that he shall be Collector of Salem as long as Andrew Jackson is President."

Learning that some of the Pension Agents had been withholding portions of the pensions due to Revolutionary veterans, General Jackson had the charges thoroughly investigated, and a list of the pensioners printed, showing what each one was ent.i.tled to receive.

This disclosed the fact that some of the Pension Agents had been continuing to draw the pensions of deceased soldiers for years after their death, besides retaining portions of the pensions of others. Robert Temple, Pension Agent in Vermont, on hearing of the proposed investigation, hastened to Washington, where he endeavored to bribe a clerk to falsify the list made out for the printer. The clerk obtained from him a list of sixty names of deceased soldiers whose pensions he had continued to draw, and gave it to the Secretary of War. Temple, on learning this, committed suicide.

There were a few veteran office-holders at Washington, whose ancestors had been appointed under Federal rule, but who had managed to veer around into Jackson Democracy. Mr. Webster, in speaking one day of a Philadelphia family which had thus kept in place, said that they reminded him of Simeon Alleyn, Vicar of Bray, in Old England, who steered his bark safely through four conflicting successive reigns. A bland gentleman, he was first a Papist, then a Protestant, next a Papist, and lastly a Protestant again. "He must have been at times," said Mr. Webster, "terribly confused between gowns and robes, and," continued the Senator, "I can fancy him listening at his window to the ballad written on him, as trolled forth by some graceless varlets:

"'To teach my flock I never missed; Kings were by G.o.d appointed, And they are d.a.m.ned who dare resist Or touch the Lord's anointed; And this in law I will maintain Until my dying day, sir, That whosoever king shall reign, I'll be the Vicar of Bray, sir.'"

Mr. Webster was not only fond of repeating quotations from the old English poets, but also verses from the old Sternhold and Hopkins hymn-book, which he had studied in the Salisbury meeting-house when a boy, and sometimes when alone he would sing, or rather chant, them in his deep voice, without a particle of melody. His favorite verses were the following translation of the xviiith Psalm:

"The Lord descended from above, And bow'd the heavens high; And underneath His feet He cast The darkness of the sky.

"On cherubs and on cherubims Full royally He rode, And on the wings of all the winds Came flying all abroad."

Late in the Jackson Administration, Richard H. Bayard came to Washington as a Senator from Delaware, to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Arnold Naudain. He was the son of James Asheton Bayard, originally a stanch Federalist, who had followed his father- in-law, Richard Ba.s.sett, as a Senator from Delaware, and whose vote had made Thomas Jefferson President of the United States instead of Aaron Burr. He had afterward been one of the Commission which negotiated the treaty of Ghent, and he educated his sons to succeed him in the Senate, and in turn to qualify a grandson to represent his State in the upper branch of the National Council. No one family has furnished so many United States Senators, and they have all been inspired by the knightly courtesy of the Bayard of the olden time, who was "without fear and without reproach."

The Democratic Bayards were antagonized in Jackson's time by the Whig Claytons, the other Delaware chair in the United States Senate having been occupied since 1829 by John Middleton Clayton. He was an accomplished lawyer, and one of the leaders of the Whig party.

Under his direction Delaware was a Whig State, and had it been a larger one, Mr. Clayton would doubtless have been nominated to the Vice-Presidency, if not to the Presidency. He was zealously devoted to his party, and when, later in life, a delegation waited on him to question some of his acts as not in accordance with Whig principles, he rose, and drawing himself up to his full height, exclaimed: "What! unwhig me? Me, who was a Whig when you gentlemen were riding cornstalk horses in your fathers' barnyards?" The delegation asked his pardon for having doubted his party loyalty, and at once withdrew.

James Alfred Pearce, of Maryland, entered the House of Representatives during the Jackson Administration, and was successively re-elected (with the exception of a single term) until he was transferred to the Senate in 1843, and served in that body until his death in 1862. He was another "wheel horse" of the Whig party, although he shrank from political controversy. His home friends, who were very proud of his reputation, brought him forward at one time as a candidate for the Presidency. But he refused to permit his name to be used, on the ground that the burdens of the White House were too costly a price to pay for its honors.

Mr. Pearce was a devoted friend of the Congressional Library, and during his long service on the Committee having it in charge he selected the books purchased. In doing this he excluded all works calculated in his opinion to engender sectional differences, and when the _Atlantic Monthly_ was established he refused to order it for the Library. He was the founder of the Botanic Garden, and the Coast Survey was another object of his especial attention and favor.

Mr. Pearce's care in the choice of books was my no means a notion of his own. From the founding of the Library it was the policy of many of its warmest friends to exclude every publication which would engender and foster sectional differences. They went on the principle of concealing difficulties, rather than of facing them squarely. Very different is the broader policy now maintained in this great library, on whose shelves every copyrighted book of the United States now finds a place.

Mr. Pearce was a type of the gentleman of the old school. Tall, with a commanding figure, expressive features, blue eyes, and light hair, he was a brilliant conversationalist and a welcome guest at dinner.

Senator William C. Preston, of South Carolina, was not only one of the foremost orators in the Senate, but a delightful conversationalist, with an inexhaustible fund of reminiscence and anecdote. One of his colleagues in the House of Representatives, Mr. Warren R. Davis, of the Pendleton district, was equally famed as a story-teller, and when they met at a social board they monopolized the conversation, to the delight of the other guests, who listened with attention and with admiration.

One evening--as the story is told--at a dinner-party, over the Madeira and walnuts, which formed the invariable last course in those days, Mr. Preston launched forth in a eulogium on the extraordinary power of condensation, in both thought and expression, which characterized the ancient Greek and Latin languages, beyond anything of the kind in modern tongues. On it he literally "discoursed eloquent music," adorning it with frequent and apt ill.u.s.tration, and among other examples citing the celebrated admonition of the Spartan mother to her warrior son on the eve of battle--"With your shield or upon it!" The whole party were delighted with the rich tones and the cla.s.sic teachings of the gifted colloquist, except his equally gifted compet.i.tor for conversational laurels, who, notwithstanding his enforced admiration, sat uneasily under the prolonged disquisition, anxiously waiting for an opportunity to take his place in the picture. At length a t.i.tillation seizing the olfactory nerve of Mr. Preston, he paused to take a pinch of snuff, and Mr. Davis immediately filled up the _vacuum_, taking up the line of speech in this wise:

"I have listened," said he, "with equal edification and pleasure to the cla.s.sic discourse of our friend, sparkling with gems alike of intellect and fancy, but I differ from him _toto caelo_. He may say what he will as to the supreme vigor and condensation of thought and speech characteristic of cla.s.sic Greece and Rome; but, for my part, I think there is nothing equal to our own _vernacular_ in these particulars, and I am fortunately able, although from a humble source, to give you a striking and conclusive example and ill.u.s.tration of the fact.

"As I was returning home from Congress, some years since, I approached a river in North Carolina which had been swollen by a recent freshet, and observed a country girl fording it in a merry mood, and carrying a piggin of b.u.t.ter on her head. As I arrived at the river's edge the rustic Naiad emerged from the watery element. 'My girl,' said I, 'how deep's the water and what's the price of b.u.t.ter?' 'Up to your waist and nine pence,' was the prompt and significant response!

Let my learned friend beat that if he can, in brevity and force of expression, by aught to be found in all his treasury of cla.s.sic lore!"

A roar of laughter followed this humorous explosion, and a unanimous vote in favor of the _vernacular_ awarded the palm to the distinguished and successful wag over his cla.s.sical but crest-fallen compet.i.tor.

The first restaurant established in Washington was by a Frenchman named Boulanger, who was a pupil of the famous Chevet, of the Palais Royal at Paris. His cozy establishment was on G Street, just west of the War Department, where he used to serve good cheer to General Jackson, Van Buren, Clay, Sir Charles Vaughan, and other notables.

His soups were gastronomic triumphs, and he was an adept in serving oysters, terrapin, reed-birds, quails, ortolan, and other delicacies in the first style of culinary perfection. His brandies, of his own importation, were of the choicest "bead and brand," and he obtained from Alexandria some of the choice old Madeira which had been imported before the Revolution in return for cargoes of oak staves. Boulanger did not cherish flattering recollections of General Jackson's taste, but Mr. Van Buren used to compliment his savory repasts and enjoy artistic cheer.

The Treasury Department, which had been destroyed by fire, was rebuilt on a plan approved by President Jackson. The eastern front, of Virginia sandstone, was a colonnade copied from the Temple of Minerva Pallas, at Athens, three hundred and thirty-six feet long, with thirty Ionic columns. The artist was Robert Mills, and he wished to set the building back some fifty feet from the line of the street, to give more effect to the architecture, but General Jackson directed him to bring it forward to the building line of the street, and stuck his cane in the ground to show where this was. Of course, he was obeyed.

John Quincy Adams used to occasionally attend the theatre, and he was especially pleased with Hackett as Falstaff. Hackett looked the fat knight well, and his face interpreted many of his remarks and situations explicitly. He delivered the soliloquy upon honor with fine effect, and the scenes at Gad's Hill with Bardolph and his nose, with Mrs. Quickly, and with the Prince when detected in his exaggeration, were very humorous and well pointed.

When Mr. Hackett took his benefit it was announced that at the particular request of Colonel David Crockett, of Tennessee, the comedian would appear on the boards in his favorite character of "Nimrod Wildfire," in the play called "The Kentuckian; or, a Trip to New York." This brought out a house full to overflowing. At seven o'clock the Colonel was escorted by the manager through the crowd to a front seat reserved for him. As soon as he was recognized by the audience they made the very house shake with hurrahs for Colonel Crockett, "Go ahead!" "I wish I may be shot!" "Music!

let us have Crockett's March!" After some time the curtain rose, and Hackett appeared in hunting costume, bowed to the audience, and then to Colonel Crockett. The compliment was reciprocated by the Colonel, to the no small amus.e.m.e.nt and gratification of the spectators, and the play then went on.

When Hiram Powers came to Washington, on his way to Italy, he was rather mortified by the remark of a jealous Italian artist, who saw in him a rival: "When you have been ten years in Italy, you may, perhaps, be able to chisel a little;" before, however, a fourth of that time had elapsed, Powers had finished, from the rough marble block, the admirable bust of Chief Justice Marshall which now graces the hall of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Among the visitors to Washington early in 1834 was Charles Sumner, then a tall, slim, ungainly young man, twenty-three years of age, who was a student at law in Boston, but not admitted to practice.

He was introduced by his friend, Mr. Justice Story, to Chief Justice Marshall and Justices Thompson, Duval, and McLean, and was invited to dine with them. It is not known whether Justice Story told him --as he told Edmund Quincy--that the Court was so aesthetic that they denied themselves wine, except in wet weather. "But," added the commentator on the Const.i.tution, "what I say about wine, sir, gives you our rule, but it does sometimes happen that the Chief Justice will say to me, when the cloth is removed, 'Brother Story, step to the window and see if it does not look like rain.' If I tell him that the sun is shining, Judge Marshall will reply: 'All the better, for our jurisdiction extends over so large a territory that the doctrine of chances makes it certain that it must be raining somewhere, and it will be safe to take something.'"

Mr. Sumner used to attend the sittings of the Supreme Court, which were commenced at eleven and generally lasted until half-past three.

The Senate and House of Representatives met at noon and continued in session until four and sometimes five o'clock. The Senate generally adjourned over from Thursday until Monday, and the House rarely sat on Sat.u.r.day.

Among those with whom young Sumner became acquainted at Washington was Dr. Francis Lieber, a well-educated German, who had fought at Waterloo. He was for more than twenty years a professor in the University of South Carolina, vouched for as "sound on the slavery question," but he afterward became a bitter opponent of the South and of its "peculiar inst.i.tution." He was a prolific contributor to the press, and he never hesitated about enlisting the services of friends and acquaintances when they could produce materials for his use.

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A. Stevenson ANDREW STEVENSON was born in Culpepper County, Virginia, in 1784; was a Representative from Virginia in Congress, 1823-1834; was Minister to Great Britain, 1836-1841; died in Albemarle County, Virginia, January 25th, 1857.

CHAPTER XIII.

JACKSON'S LAST YEAR IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

Mr. Van Buren, like his predecessor, Mr. Calhoun, suffered mental martyrdom while presiding over the Senate as Vice-President. His manner was bland, as he thumped with his mallet when the galleries were out of order, or declared that "The ayes have it," or, "The memorial is referred." He received his fusillade of snubs and sneers as the ghost of Chreusa received the embraces of AEneas--he heeded them not. He leaned back his head, threw one leg upon the other, and sat as if he were a pleasant sculptured image, destined for that niche of his life.

Henry Clay, then in his prime, was the champion of the United States Bank in the Senate. One day in debate he broke out in the most violent appeal to Martin Van Buren, then presiding in the Senate, to go to the President and represent to him the actual condition of the country. "Tell him," said Clay, "that in a single city more than sixty bankruptcies, involving a loss of upward of fifteen millions of dollars, have occurred. Tell him of the alarming decline in the value of all property. Tell him of the tears of helpless widows, no longer able to earn their bread, and of unclad and unfed orphans who have been driven by his policy out of the busy pursuits in which but yesterday they were gaining an honest livelihood."

The centennial birthday of George Washington was duly honored in the city which he had founded and which bore his name. Divine services were performed at the Capitol, and there was a dinner at Brown's Hotel, at which Daniel Webster prefaced the first toast in honor of the Father of his Country by an eloquent speech of an hour in length. In the evening there were two public b.a.l.l.s--"one for the gentry at Carusi's saloon, and the other for mechanics and tradesmen at the Masonic Temple."

Congress had proposed to pay signal homage to the memory of Washington on the centennial anniversary of his birth by removing his remains to the crypt beneath the dome of the Capitol. Mr. Custis, the grandson of Mrs. Washington, had given his a.s.sent, but John A.

Washington, then the owner of Mount Vernon, declined to permit the removal of the remains.

Congress purchased Rembrandt Peale's portrait of Washington, and the House ordered a full length picture of him from Vanderlyn, a celebrated New York artist. A commission was also given to Horatio Greenough for a colossal statue of Washington in a sitting posture, to be placed on a high pedestal in the centre of the rotunda of the Capitol. The Washington National Monument a.s.sociation, after consultation with men of acknowledged artistic taste, selected from among the numerous designs submitted a simple obelisk, five hundred feet in height, for the erection of which the American people began at once to contribute.

When "the solid men of Boston" ascertained that General Jackson had actually signed the order for the removal of the deposits from the Bank of the United States while enjoying their hospitalities they were very angry. Not long afterward they learned that the United States frigate Const.i.tution, a Boston-built vessel, which was being repaired at the Charlestown Navy Yard, was to be ornamented with a full-length figure of General Jackson as a figure-head.

This was regarded as an insult, and the carver who was at work on the figure was requested to stop working on it. This he declined to do, and had his half-carved block of wood taken to the Navy Yard, where he completed his task under the protection of a guard of marines. When the figure-head was completed it was securely bolted to the cut.w.a.ter of the Const.i.tution, which was then hauled out to her anchorage, and a vessel was stationed on either side of her.