Perley's Reminiscences Part 9

Mr. Cilley declined to receive the hostile communication from Mr.

Graves, without making any reflection on the personal character of Mr. Webb. Mr. Graves then felt himself bound by the unwritten code of honor to espouse the cause of Mr. Webb, and challenged Mr. Cilley himself. This challenge was accepted, and the preliminaries were arranged between Mr. Henry A. Wise, as the second of Mr. Graves, and Mr. George W. Jones, as the second of Mr. Cilley. Rifles were selected as the weapons, and Mr. Graves found difficulty in obtaining one, but was finally supplied by his friend, Mr. Rives, of the _Globe_. The parties met, the ground was measured, and the combatants were placed; on the fourth fire Mr. Cilley fell, shot through the body, and died almost instantly. Mr. Graves, on seeing his antagonist fall, expressed a desire to render him some a.s.sistance, but was told by Mr. Jones, "My friend is dead, sir!" Mr. Cilley, who left a wife and three young children, was a popular favorite, and his tragic end caused a great excitement all over the country. Mr.

Wise was generally blamed for having instigated the encounter; certainly he did not endeavor to prevent it.

The Capitol had its comedies as well as its tragedies, and the leading comedian was Thomas Corwin, a Representative from Ohio, who was a type of early Western culture and a born humorist. He was a middle-sized, somewhat stout man, with pleasing manners, a fine head, sparkling hazel eyes, and a complexion so dark that on several occasions--as he used to narrate with great glee--he was supposed to be of African descent. "There is no need of my working,"

said he, "for whenever I cannot support myself in Ohio, all I should have to do would be to cross the river, give myself up to a Kentucky negro-trader, be taken South, and sold for a field hand." He always had a story ready to ill.u.s.trate a subject of conversation, and the dry manner in which he enlivened his speeches by pungent witticism, without a smile on his own stolid countenance, was irresistible.

He was once addressing a Whig ma.s.s meeting at Marietta, Ohio, and was taking especial pains not to say anything that could offend the Abolitionists, who were beginning to throw a large vote. A sharp witted opponent, to draw him out asked: "Shouldn't n.i.g.g.e.rs be permitted to sit at the table with white folks, on steamboats and at hotels?" "Fellow-citizens," exclaimed Corwin, his swarthy features beaming with suppressed fun, "I ask you whether it is proper to ask such a question of a gentleman of my color?" The crowd cheered and the questioner was silenced.

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M. Van Buren MARTIN VAN BUREN was born at Kinderhook, New York, December 5th, 1782; was a United States Senator from New York from December 3d, 1821, to December 20th, 1828, when he resigned to accept the office of Governor of New York; this position he resigned on the 12th of March, 1829, having been appointed by President Jackson Secretary of State of the United States; this position he resigned August 1st, 1831, having been appointed by President Jackson Minister to Great Britain, but the Senate rejected his nomination; was elected Vice-President on the Jackson ticket in 1832; was elected President in 1836; was defeated as the Democratic candidate for President in 1840; was the candidate of the Anti-Slavery party for President in 1848, and died at Kinderhook, New York, July 24th, 1862.

CHAPTER XV.

COMMENCEMENT OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT.

It was during the Administration of Mr. Van Buren that the English Abolitionists first began to propagate their doctrines in the Northern States, where the nucleus of an anti-slavery party was soon formed. This alarmed the Southerners, who, under the lead of Mr. Calhoun, threatened disunion if their "peculiar inst.i.tution"

was not let alone. The gifted South Carolinian having in January, 1838, paid a high compliment in debate to John Randolph for his uncompromising hostility to the Missouri Compromise, Mr. Clay said: "I well remember the Compromise Act and the part taken in that discussion by the distinguished member from Virginia, whose name has been mentioned, and whose death I most sincerely lament. At that time we were members of the other House. Upon one occasion, during a night session, another member from Virginia, through fatigue and the offensive exhalations from one of the surrounding lamps, fainted in his seat and was borne to the rear of the Representatives' Hall. Calling some one to the Speaker's chair, I left my place to learn the character and extent of his illness.

Returning to the desk, I was met in one of the aisles by Mr.

Randolph, to whom I had not spoken for several weeks. 'Ah, Mr.

Speaker,' said he, 'I wish you would leave Congress and go to Kentucky. I will follow you there or anywhere else.' I well understood what he meant, for at that time a proposition had been made to the Southern members, and the matter partly discussed by them, of leaving Congress in the possession of the Northern members and returning home, each to his respective const.i.tuents. I told Mr. Randolph that I could not then speak to him about the matter, and requested him to meet me in the Speaker's room early the next morning. With his usual punctuality he came. We talked over the Compromise Act, he defending his favorite position and I defending mine. We were together an hour, but to no purpose. Through the whole he was unyielding and uncompromising to the last. We parted, shook hands, and promised to be good friends, and I never met him again during the session. Such," continued Mr. Clay, "was the part Mr. Randolph took in that discussion, and such were his uncompromising feelings of hostility to the North and all who did not believe with him. His acts came near shaking this Union to the centre and desolating this fair land. The measures before us now, and the unyielding and uncompromising spirit are like then, and tend to the same sad and dangerous end--dissolution and desolation, disunion and ruin."

On the same day, in 1838, Mr. Webster gave in his opinion that Congress had the power to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. That power, he said, was granted in the most express, explicit, and undoubted terms. It declared that Congress should have "exclusive jurisdiction over all subjects whatsoever in the District of Columbia." Mr. Webster said that he had searched and listened for some argument or some law to controvert this position.

he had read and studied carefully the act of cession of the ten miles square from Maryland and Virginia, and he could find nothing there, and nowhere else, to gainsay the plain and express letter of the Const.i.tution. This inspired the Abolitionists with hope that Mr. Webster would become the leader of the crusade against slavery that they had decided to inaugurate. At that time he unquestionably leaned toward emanc.i.p.ation, not only in the District of Columbia, but everywhere in the United States. This was noticed by the Southern leaders, who began to tempt him--with promises of support for the Presidency--promises which were subsequently broken again and again that a more subservient and available tool might be placed in power.

Before allying himself with the South, Mr. Webster endeavored to identify himself with the West by investing largely in a city laid out on paper in a township in Rock Island County, Illinois. It was at the mouth of Rock River, and it was to have borne the name of Rock Island City. Fletcher Webster went out there and remained for a time, I think, accompanied by his friend, George Curson.

Caleb Cushing was also interested in the embryo city, but somehow it was not a success.

Mr. Webster had, however, a very vague idea of the "Great West" of his day. On one occasion when he was in the Senate a proposition was before it to establish a mail-route from Independence, Mo., to the mouth of the Columbia River, some three thousand miles, across plains and mountains, about the extent of which the public then knew no more than they did of the interior of Tibet. Mr. Webster, after denouncing the measure generally, closed with a few remarks concerning the country at large. "What do we want?" he exclaimed, "with this vast, worthless area? This region of savages and wild beasts, of deserts of shifting sands and whirlwinds of dust, of cactus and prairie dogs? To what use could we ever hope to put these great deserts, of those endless mountain ranges, impenetrable and covered to their very base with eternal snow? What can we ever hope to do with the western coast, a coast of three thousand miles, rock-bound, cheerless, uninviting, and not a harbor on it? What use have we for this country?"

Franklin Pierce, who had served two terms in the House of Representatives, was then elected to the Senate. He proved a valuable recruit for the Southern ranks, as when in the House he had risen one day to a question of privilege, and warmly resented the reading by Mr. Calhoun in the Senate of an article from the Concord _Herald of Freedom_, which declared that the Abolitionists in New Hampshire were as one to thirty. This journal, Mr. Pierce said, "was too insignificant, too odious, in the eyes of his const.i.tuents, to be cited as authority. No age or country had ever been free from fanatics, and with equal justice might the whole people of New York be charged with being followers of Matthias as the people of New Hampshire for favoring the designs of the Knapps and Garrisons and Thompsons."

Sergeant Smith Prentiss, who came to Washington during the Van Buren Administration to claim a seat in Congress as a Representative from Mississippi, was the most eloquent speaker that I have ever heard. The lame and lisping boy from Maine had ripened, under the Southern sun, into a master orator. The original, ever-varying, and beautiful imagery with which he ill.u.s.trated and enforced his arguments impressed Webster, Clay, Everett, and even John Quincy Adams. But his forte lay in arraigning his political opponents, when his oratory was "terrible as an army with banners;" nothing could stand against the energy of his look, gesture, and impa.s.sioned logic, when once he was fairly under way, in denouncing the tricks and selfish cunning of mere party management. The printed reports of his speeches are mere skeletons, which give but a faint idea of them. Even the few rhetorical pa.s.sages that are retained have lost much of their original form and beauty. The professional stenographers confessed themselves utterly baffled in the attempt to report him, and he was quite as unfitted to report himself. Indeed, he complained that he never could reproduce the best thoughts, still less the exact language, of his speeches.

The princ.i.p.al antagonist of Mr. Prentiss, in the courts of Mississippi, was Joseph Holt, a young Kentucky lawyer, who had acquired a national reputation for oratory by a speech which he made in the National Democratic Convention of 1836, when he advocated the nomination of Colonel Richard M. Johnson in a speech of great beauty and power.

His arguments were persuasive, the tones of his voice were melodious, and he insinuated himself and his cause into the hearts of his audience, rather than carried them by storm. Devoted to the South and its peculiar inst.i.tution, he was welcomed in the State of Mississippi, and soon took a prominent position at the bar of its higher courts.

William Rufus King, of Alabama, who was elected President _pro tempore_ of the Senate while Colonel Johnson was Vice-President, was a prim, spare bachelor, known among his friends as "Miss Nancy King." When a young man he had accompanied the Minister to Russia, William Pinkney, to St. Petersburg, as Secretary of the Legation of the United States. Residing there for two years, he acquired the formal manners of the Court of the Emperor Alexander, with a diplomatic craftiness which he always retained. He was a courteous presiding officer, as was thus oddly exemplified while he occupied the chair. The two Senators from the State of Arkansas p.r.o.nounced the name of their State differently. Mr. King punctiliously observed the difference, invariably recognizing one as "the gentleman from Ar-kan-sas," and the other as "the gentleman from Ark-an-sas."

Mr. Van Buren was much exercised by a difficulty in the Pennsylvania Legislature, which the State militia was called out to quell, and which it was thought might result in a demand for the intervention of United States troops. Thaddeus Stevens, then an ardent Whig, was a leader in the attempt to force eleven illegally elected members into the House at the point of the bayonet, the troops having their muskets loaded with buckshot. When the enterprise collapsed, Stevens jumped from a back window of the Capitol and ran off to Gettysburg, where he remained without claiming his seat for about a month, when he came in and offered to take the oath, but the House resolved, with great solemnity, that the seat was vacant, although others who had been out nearly as long were admitted without hesitation.

A prominent young Virginia lawyer, named William Smith, who practiced at Culpepper Court-House, became interested in a mail-route between Washington City and Milledgeville, Georgia, and he grew to be an extensive contractor. Many of his mail-routes were but little more than bridle-paths, over which the mails were carried on horseback.

With an eye to the main chance, and with a laudable desire to extend the mail facilities of Virginia, Mr. Smith managed to secure a large number of "expeditions" through Parson Obadiah Bruin Brown, commonly called "Parson Obadiah Bruin Beeswax Brown," the Superintendent of the contract office of the Post-office Department. In place of the horseback system stage lines would be subst.i.tuted, and this service would be frequently "expedited" without much of a view to "productiveness," from one trip to three or six trips per week.

All of these "expeditions" were noted by stars (* *) at the bottom of Smith's vouchers, which, interpreted, meant "extra allowance."

So frequently did these stars appear in the Virginia contractor's accounts that he soon came to be known in the Post-office Department as "Extra Billy" Smith, and it adhered to him in after life, when he became a member of the House of Representatives and afterward Governor of Virginia. He still lives at Warrenton, a hale and hearty old man.

Mr. Van Buren had an abundance of political nicknames. He was "the sweet little fellow" of Mr. Ritchie of the _Richmond Inquirer_, and "the Northern man with Southern principles" of the _Charleston Courier;_ Mr. Clinton baptized him "the Political Grimalkin;" Mr.

Calhoun, "the Weazel;" while he helped himself to the still less flattering name of "the follower in the footsteps"--that is, the successor of his predecessor, a sort of masculine _Madame Blaize_,

"Who strove the neighborhood to please, With manners wondrous winning, And never followed wicked ways, Except when she was sinning."

who clad all the hungry and naked office-holders "that left a pledge behind" of supporting him; and, like that good dame, led the way to all those who came behind her.

The Southern nullifiers, who had been "squelched" by General Jackson, began to revive under the more genial rule of Mr. Van Buren, and they established an "organ" called the Washington _Chronicle_. It was edited by Richard K. Cralle, who came from Leesburg, Virginia.

He was a well-educated gentleman, ultra in his opinions on free trade and Southern rights; but those who were enthusiastic in their praises of his editorials did not subscribe to the _Chronicle_, or if they did, never condescended to pay their subscriptions. So the paper ruined its printers and then gave up the ghost, Mr.

Calhoun securing a department clerkship for Mr. Cralle.

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Tristram Burgess TRISTRAM BURGESS was born at Rochester, Ma.s.sachusetts, February 26th, 1770; was a Representative in Congress from Rhode Island from December 1st, 1825, until March 3d, 1835; was defeated as the Whig candidate for Congress, and afterward as the Whig candidate for Governor, and died at Providence, Rhode Island, October 13th, 1853.

CHAPTER XVI.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LIFE AT WASHINGTON.

President Van Buren's wife (by birth Miss Hannah Hoes, of Columbia County, New York) had been dead nineteen years when he took possession of the White House, accompanied by his four sons, and presided over the official receptions and dinner parties with his well-known tact and politeness. In the November following his inauguration, his eldest son and private secretary, Colonel Abraham Van Buren (who was a graduate of the Military Academy at West Point, and who had served on the staff of General Worth), was married to Miss Angelica Singleton, a wealthy South Carolina lady, who had been educated at Philadelphia, and who had pa.s.sed the preceding winter at Washington in the family of her relative, Senator Preston. On the New Year's day succeeding the wedding Mrs. Van Buren, a.s.sisted by the wives of the Cabinet officers, received with her father-in-law, the President. Her rare accomplishments, superior education, beauty of face and figure, grace of manner, and vivacity in conversation insured social success. The White House was refurnished in the most expensive manner, and a code of etiquette was established which rivaled that of a German princ.i.p.ality.

The President endeavored to restore the good feeling between the Administration and Washington "society," which had been ruptured during the political rule of General Jackson. He gave numerous entertainments at the White House, and used to attend those given by his Cabinet, which was regarded as an innovation, as his predecessors had never accepted social invitations. Ex-President Adams, the widow of President Madison, and the widow of Alexander Hamilton each formed the centre of a pleasant coterie, and the President was open in the expression of his desire that the members of his Cabinet and their princ.i.p.al subordinates should each give a series of dinner-parties and evening receptions during the successive sessions of Congress.

The dinner-parties were very much alike, and those who were in succession guests at different houses often saw the same table ornaments, and were served by the same waiters, while the fare was prepared by the same cook. The guests used to a.s.semble in the parlor, which was almost invariably connected with the dining-room by large folding doors. When the dinner was ready the doors were thrown open, and the table was revealed, laden with china and cut- gla.s.s ware. A watery compound called vegetable soup was invariably served, followed by boiled fish, overdone roast beef or mutton, roast fowl or game in season, and a great variety of puddings, pies, cakes, and ice-creams. The fish, meat, and fowl were carved and helped by the host, while the lady of the house distributed the vegetables, the pickles, and the dessert. Champagne, without ice, was sparingly supplied in long, slender gla.s.ses, but there was no lack of sound claret, and with the dessert several bottles of old Madeira were generally produced by the host, who succinctly gave the age and history of each. The best Madeira was that labeled "The Supreme Court" as their Honors, the Justices, used to make a direct importation every year, and sip it as they consulted over the cases before them every day after dinner, when the cloth had been removed. Some rare specimens of this wine can still be found in Washington wine-cellars.

At the evening parties the carpet was lifted from the room set apart for dancing, and to protect the dancers from slipping the floor was chalked, usually in colors. The music was almost invariably a first and second violin, with flute and harp accompaniments.

Light refreshments, such as water-ices, lemonade, negus, and small cakes were handed about on waiters between every two or three dances. The crowning glory of the entertainment, however, was the supper, prepared under the supervision of the hostess, aided by some of her intimate friends, who also loaned their china and silverware. The table was covered with _a la mode_ beef, cold roast turkey, duck, and chicken, fried and stewed oysters, blanc- mange, jellies, whips, floating islands, candied oranges, and numerous varieties of tarts and cakes. Very often the older men would linger after the ladies had departed, and even rea.s.semble with those, and discuss the wines _ad libitum_, if not _ad nauseam_, while the young men, after having escorted the ladies to their respective homes, would meet again at some oyster-house or go out on a lark, in imitation of the young English bloods in the favorite play of Tom and Jerry. Singing, or rather shouting, they would break windows, wrench off knockers, call up doctors, and transpose sign-boards; nor was there a night watchman to interfere with their roistering.

A decided sensation was created at Washington during the Van Buren Administration by the appearance there of a handsome and well- educated Italian lady, who called herself America Vespucci and claimed descent from the navigator who gave his name to this continent. Ex-President Adams and Daniel Webster became her especial friends, and she was soon a welcome guest in the best society. In a few weeks after her arrival she presented a pet.i.tion to Congress asking, first, to be admitted to the rights of citizenship; and, secondly, to be given "a corner of land" out of the public domain of the country which bore the name of her ancestor. An adverse report, which was soon made, is one of the curiosities of Congressional literature. It eulogized the pet.i.tioner as "a young, dignified, and graceful lady, with a mind of the highest intellectual culture, and a heart beating with all our own enthusiasm in the cause of America and human liberty." The reasons why the prayer of the pet.i.tioner could not be granted were given, but she was commended to the generosity of the American people. "The name of America-- our country's name--should be honored, respected, and cherished in the person of the interesting exile from whose ancestor we derive the great and glorious t.i.tle."

A subscription was immediately opened by Mr. Haight, the Sergeant- at-Arms of the Senate, and Judges, Congressmen, and citizens vied with one another in their contributions. Just then it was whispered that Madame Vespucci had borne an unenviable reputation at Florence and at Paris, and had been induced by a pecuniary consideration to break off an intimacy with the Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe's oldest son, and come to Washington. Soon afterward the Duke's younger brother, the Prince de Joinville, came to this country, and refused to recognize her, which virtually excluded her from reputable society. For some years subsequently she resided in luxurious seclusion with a wealthy citizen of New York, in the interior of that State, and after his death she returned to Paris.

During the Van Buren Administration James P. Espy came to Washington to initiate what has grown into the Weather Signal Service. He was a Pennsylvanian by birth, and so poor in early life that when seventeen years of age he had not been able to learn to read. He subsequently mastered the English language and the cla.s.sics, and long before he knew why began to study the mystery of the moving clouds and to form his storm theories. At last he asked of Congress an appropriation of five thousand dollars a year for five years, but he was met with jibes and ridicule. Senator Preston, of South Carolina, said Espy was a madman, too dangerous to be at large, and the Senator would vote a special appropriation for a prison in which to confine him. Espy was in the Senate gallery at the time.

Wounded to the quick, he left the Capital and went to New York, where he delivered a course of lectures with great success. They were repeated in Boston, and he made money enough to enable him to visit Europe.

Not long after reaching Liverpool, January 6th, 1839, a great storm occurred. He went to Lloyd's, consulted the newspapers as they arrived, noted the direction of the wind as given at different places, and from these data constructed the first great storm map ever prepared, with the hour points marked. Every line and curve and point exemplified his theory. He was at no loss now for audiences. He appeared before the British a.s.sociation of Scientists at London, at which Sir John Herschel was present, an interested auditor. He crossed the channel to Paris, and the Academy of Sciences appointed a committee, composed of the ill.u.s.trious Arago, "to report upon his observations and theory." The effect of this report, when it reached Washington, was not much different from that which followed, afterward, the announcement of Morse's first transmitted message over the wire from Washington to Baltimore.

Aided by General Jackson and the "machinery" of the Democratic party, engineered by Amos Kendall, Mr. Van Buren secured for himself the re-nomination for the Presidency. But he had great obstacles to contend with. The financial condition of the country, deranged by the absence of the controlling power of the United States Bank, grew worse and worse. There was a total stagnation of business throughout the Union, and from every section came tidings of embarra.s.sment, bankruptcy, and ruin. There were no available funds for the purchase of Western produce and its transportation to the Atlantic markets, so it remained in the hands of the farmers, who could not dispose of it except at great sacrifice. In Ohio, for example, pork was sold at three dollars a hundred pounds, and wheat at fifty cents per bushel, while the price of agricultural labor was but thirty-seven and a-half cents a day.

The campaign was carried on with great bitterness in Congress, where the leading Whigs cordially united in a decisive warfare on the Democrats. General Harrison was eulogized as a second Cincinnatus --plowman, citizen, and general--and the sneering remark that he resided in a log-cabin was adopted as a partisan watch-word. The most notable speech was by Mr. Ogle, of Pennsylvania, who elaborately reviewed the expensive furniture, china, and gla.s.sware which had been imported for the White House by order of President Van Buren.

He dwelt on the gorgeous splendor of the damask window curtains, the dazzling magnificence of the large mirrors, chandeliers, and candelabra; the centre-tables, with their tops of Italian marble; the satin-covered chairs, tabourets, and divans; the imperial carpets and rugs, and, above all, the service of silver, including a set of what he called gold spoons, although they were of silver- gilt. These costly decorations of the White House were described in detail, with many humorous comments, and then contrasted with the log-cabins of the West, where the only ornamentation, generally speaking, was a string of speckled birds'-eggs festooned about a looking-gla.s.s measuring eight by ten inches, and a fringed window curtain of white cotton cloth.

Having described the furniture and the table service of the White House, as purchased by direction of the President, Mr. Ogle proceeded to sketch Van Buren's New Year receptions. "Instead," said he, "of weekly receptions, when all the people were at liberty to partake of the good cheer of the President's house, there had been subst.i.tuted one cold, stiff, formal, and ceremonious a.s.sembly on the first day of every year. At this annual levee, notwithstanding its pomp and pageantry, no expense whatever is incurred by the President personally. No fruits, cake, wine, coffee, hard cider, or other refreshments of any kind are tendered to his guests.

Indeed, it would militate against all the rules of court etiquette, now established at the palace, to permit vulgar eating and drinking on this grand gala day. The Marine Band, however, is always ordered from the Navy Yard and stationed in the s.p.a.cious front hall, from whence they swell the rich saloons of the palace with 'Hail to the Chief!' 'Wha'll be King but Charley?' and other humdrum airs, which ravish with delight the ears of warriors who have never smelt powder. As the people's cash, and not his own, pays for all the services of the Marine Band, its employment at the palace does not conflict with the peculiar views of the President in regard to the obvious difference between public and private economy.

"At these 'annual State levees,' the great doors of the 'East Room,'

'Blue Elliptical Saloon,' 'Green Drawing Room,' and 'Yellow Drawing Room' are thrown open at twelve o'clock 'precisely' to the anxious feet of gayly appareled n.o.blemen, honorable men, gentlemen, and ladies of all the nations and kingdoms of the earth, many of whom appear ambitiously intent upon securing an early recognition from the head of the mansion. The President, at the 'same instant of time,' a.s.sumes his station about four feet within the 'Blue Elliptical Saloon,' and facing the door which looks out upon the s.p.a.cious front hall, but is separated from it, as before remarked, by a screen of Ionic columns. He is supported on the right and left by the Marshal of the District of Columbia and by one of the high officers of the Government. The Marine Band having been a.s.signed their position at the eastern end of the hall, with all their fine instruments in full tune, 'at the same identical moment' strike up one of our most admired 'national airs;' and forthwith a current of life flows in at the wide-spread outer door of the palace, and glides with the smoothness of music through the s.p.a.cious hall by the Ionic screen into the royal presence. Here (to drop for a moment my liquid figure) each and every individual is presented and received with a gentle shake of the hand, and is greeted with that 'smile eternal' which plays over the soft features of Mr. Van Buren, save when he calls to mind how confoundedly 'Old Tip' chased, caught, and licked Proctor and Tec.u.mseh. Immediately after the introduction or recognition the current sets toward the 'East Room'

and thus this stream of living men and women continues to flow and flow and flow, for about the s.p.a.ce of three hours--the 'Democratic President' being the only orb around which all this pomp, pride, and parade revolve. To him all these lesser planets turn, 'as the sunflower turns' to the sun, and feel their colors brightened when a ray of favor or a 'royal smile' falls upon them."

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W. L. Marcy WILLIAM LEARNED MARCY was born at Sturbridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, December 12th, 1786; was United States Senator from New York from December 5th, 1831, to July, 1832, when he resigned; was Governor of the State of New York, 1833-1839; was Secretary of War under President Polk, March 5th, 1845, to March 3d, 1849; was Secretary of State under President Pierce, March 7th, 1853, to March 4th, 1857, and died at b.a.l.l.ston Spa, New York, July 4th, 1857.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE LOG CABIN AND HARD CIDER CAMPAIGN.