The Memories of Fifty Years Part 13

"Jefferson was an unscrupulous man--a man of wonderful intellect and vast attainments, but entirely unprincipled. This editor and clerk of Jefferson's, sent daily to the President two copies of his paper, filled with the vilest abuse of him personally, and of his Administration. Much of this was, doubtless, written by Jefferson himself. This supposition is the more to be relied on from the fact that Washington remonstrated with Jefferson upon the matter, and requested the removal of the offending clerk, which was refused by Jefferson. His declining to remove Jefferson himself, is conclusive of the considerate forbearance of this truly great man. These were reasons operating upon the minds and feelings of those men who had not only sustained Washington through the Revolution, but had stood to the support of his Administration, and who concurred with him in political opinion and principle.

"Mr. Adams had made this party unpopular by the course pursued by him in conducting the Government. The Alien Law, and the Sedition Law, which obtained his signature, (though I know he was opposed personally to both,) and the prosecutions which arose, especially under the latter, were very offensive, and entirely at variance with the spirit of our people, and indeed of the age, and had so damaged the Federal party, as to render it odious to a large majority of the people.

"The more considerate of the party believed in the election of Burr--the Southern and Northern Democracy would become divided.

Jefferson was known to be specially the favorite of this party, South, and would naturally oppose, himself, and lead his party in opposition to the Administration of Burr, and the Federal party, uniting in his support, with the Republicans, North, would ultimately succeed in recovering the control of the Government. During the ballotings this was fully discussed in the secret meetings of the Federalists. The balloting continued from the 11th to the 17th of February, and only eight States could be carried for Mr. Jefferson, six for Burr, and two were divided. It was supposed Hamilton's influence would be given to Burr, and he was sent for, but to the astonishment of his political friends, it was thrown in opposition to Burr. This influenced those controlling the vote of the divided States. Burr had entered heartily into the scheme of defeating Jefferson. Had Hamilton co-operated with his party, there is now no telling what might have been the future political destiny of the country. Burr was sworn in as Vice-President, and there is no doubt but that the will of the people was substantially carried out.

"The restlessness of Burr was manifested; he seemed to retire from the active partic.i.p.ation in politics which had previously been his habit--still, however, adhering to the Republican party, and opposing strenuously every view or opinion advanced by Hamilton. Burr did not take his seat as presiding officer of the Senate, and in February, after the election of Jefferson, Hillhouse was chosen to fill his place _pro tem._ After the inauguration of Jefferson, Abraham Baldwin was elected to preside as President _pro tem._ of the Senate. It had not then become the habit of the Vice-President to preside over the Senate; nor was it the custom for the Vice-President to remain at the seat of Government during the sessions of Congress. Burr, disgusted with the Republican party, ceased to act with it, and went to New York. Here he resumed the practice of law. He was never considered a deeply read lawyer, nor was he comparable with his rival, Hamilton, in debate, or as an advocate at the Bar. He was adroit and quick, and was rather a quibbler than a great lawyer.

"You ask me if I thought, or think, he ever deserted the Republican party in heart? I answer, no; for I do not think he ever had any well-defined political or moral principle, and was influenced always by what he deemed would subserve his own ambitious views; and you ask me, if I ever thought him a great man? Men greatly differ, as you will find as you grow older, and become better acquainted with mankind, as to what const.i.tutes a great man. I think Colonel Burr's talents were eminently military, and he might, in command, have shown himself a great general. His mind was sufficiently strong to make him respectable in any profession he might have chosen; but his proclivity, mentally, was for arms--he loved to direct and control. In very early life he showed much skill and tact as an officer in the Canadian campaign; but he wanted those moral traits which give dignity and decision to character, and confidence to the public mind. His vacillation of opinion, as well as of conduct, was convincing proof that he acted without principle, and was influenced by his own selfish views. Man, to be great, must act always from principle. Principle, like truth, is a straight edge, will admit of no obliquity, is always the same, and under all circ.u.mstances: conduct squared by principle, and sustained by truth, inspires respect and confidence, and these attributes, though they may and do belong to very ordinary minds, are nevertheless great essentials to the most powerful in making greatness. Great grasp of intellect, fixity of purpose, strong will, high aims, and incorruptible moral purity, make a great man. They are rare combinations, but they are sometimes found in one man--they certainly were not in Colonel Burr. A great general, a great statesman, a, great poet, a great astronomer, may be without morals; and he is consequently not a great man. My young friend, a great man is the rarest creation of Almighty G.o.d. Time has produced few. Washington, perhaps, approaches the standard nearest, of modern men; but he was selfish to some extent.

"After Colonel Burr's return to New York, he was nominated by the Federal party for Governor of the State; this was the first open announcement of his having deserted the Republican party. Hamilton threw all his influence against him, and he was defeated. This defeat sublimated his hatred for Hamilton. He made an excuse of certain words Hamilton had used in relation to him for challenging him. They met, and Hamilton fell. The death of Hamilton overthrew the little remaining popularity left to Burr. The nation, the world, turned upon him, and he became desperate.

"Burr's term as Vice-President terminated on the fourth of March, 1805.

The odium which attached to his name found universal utterance after the duel. It was not simply the killing of Hamilton; this merely gave occasion for the outburst of public indignation. His private character had always been bad. As a member of the Legislature, he had so conducted himself as to excite general suspicion of his integrity. His desertion of the party elevating him to the Vice-Presidency, and lending himself to the opposition party to defeat the clearly expressed views of his own party, all combined to make him extremely odious to the populace.

"In the canva.s.s for the Presidency, he had been mainly instrumental in carrying the State of New York for the Republican party. In this he had triumphed over Hamilton; but in the more recent contest for Governor of the State, he found that the Republican party adhered to principle, and refused to be controlled by him, repudiating his every advance; and learned, also, that the Federal party would not unite in accepting him.

Defeated on every side, in all his views, and mainly through the instrumentality of Hamilton, he determined, after killing his rival, if possible, to destroy the Government.

"There was nothing unfair, or out of the ordinary method of conducting such affairs, in this duel. Hamilton's eldest son, but a little while before, had been slain, in a duel, on the very spot where his father fell, and the event created little or no excitement; and when Burr saw himself met with universal scorn, he knew it was the eruption of an acc.u.mulated hatred toward himself, and that all his ambition for future preferment and power was at an end. Immediately he left for the West, and commenced an abortive effort to break up the Union.

"The Allegheny Mountains opposed, at that time, an obstacle to free communication with the East. The States west were politically weak, and, supposing their interests were neglected by Congress, were restless and dissatisfied. This was especially true of Western Pennsylvania. There were very many young and ambitious men in all the Western States and Territories. Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio were rapidly populating from the Eastern and Middle States. Their commercial communication with the East was attended with so many difficulties as to force it almost entirely to New Orleans.

"Geographically, it seemed that the valley of the Mississippi was, by nature, formed for one nation. The soil and climate promised to enterprise and industry untold wealth. The territorial dimensions were fabulous. The restless and oppressed mult.i.tudes of overstocked Europe had already commenced an emigration to the United States, which promised to increase to such an amount as would soon fill up, to a great extent, this expanded and promising region. The Mississippi furnished an outlet to the ocean, and a navigation, uninterrupted throughout the year, for thousands of miles, and New Orleans, a market for every surplus product. Burr saw all this, and determined to effect its separation from the Union, and there to establish a new empire, which should, ere long, control the destinies of the continent. It was the conception of genius and daring, but required an administrative ability which he had not, to consummate this conception. He miscalculated his material. The people of the West were vastly more intelligent than he had supposed them. They were not so simple as to receive his views, and blindly adopt and act upon them. They canva.s.sed them, and concluded for themselves. At Pittsburgh he found a number of adventurous young men (who had nothing to lose, and who were ripe for any enterprise which promised fame or fortune,) to unite with him.

"He found Henry Clay in Kentucky, and Andrew Jackson in Tennessee, young, enterprising, and full of spirit and talent. He supposed them to be the men he sought, and approached both, cautiously revealing his views; but, to his astonishment, the grievances of the West had not so warped their patriotism as to dispose them to engage in any schemes which threatened the dismemberment of the Union. Clay listened and temporized, but never, for a moment, yielded a.s.sent. Jackson, more ardent, and a military man by nature, was carried away with the idea for a time. He was well acquainted with the people of the West, and especially with the population on the Lower Mississippi, and was the man who recommended Burr to make first a descent upon Mexico, as I have been confidentially informed, and sincerely believe. I have also been informed that he dissuaded Burr from any attempt to excite a war of the West with the East; but first to make Mexico secure, which they and Wilkinson believed would be an easy matter. It was when Burr, having abandoned his first enterprise, descended the Mississippi, that he was arrested. This arrest was made by the acting Governor of Mississippi, and at some point in that Territory, where Jackson had a store or trading establishment. He was, with three of his aides, on his way to meet Wilkinson, for the purpose of arranging matters. He escaped, and finding things prepared for his interception, he made his way across the country; but was finally arrested, on the Tombigbee, by an officer of the United States army. When on his trial at Richmond, Jackson went there, and was found on the street haranguing the people in Burr's favor, and denouncing the prosecution and the President. Subsequently, however, he denounced Burr, and pretended that he had deceived him.

Humphrey Marshall, Pope, Grundy, and Whitesides united with Clay in condemning the entire scheme. There was a crazy Irishman, an adventurer, named Blannerha.s.set, residing on the Ohio, who at once entered into his views, embarked all his fortune in the enterprise, and, with Burr, was ruined. He was tried for treason, and acquitted.

Soon after, he left the country, and remained away for many years, returning to find himself a stranger, and almost forgotten."

Some months subsequent to this conversation, Colonel Burr came up from New York to visit his brother-in-law, Judge Reeve, and an opportunity was thus afforded me to see and converse with him; but no allusion was made to the past of his own life, save an account of some suffering he underwent in the Canadian campaign, with General Montgomery. He had contracted, he said, a rheumatism in his ankle, during the winter he was in Canada, and that he had occasional attacks now, never having entirely recovered. He was not disposed to talk, and still he seemed pleased at the attentions received from the young gentlemen who visited him occasionally during his short stay. I do not remember ever having seen him on the street, or in the company of any one, except some of the young men who were reading with Judge Reeve. Some years after this, I met Colonel Burr in the city of New York, and spent an evening with him. At this time he alluded to his trip down the Mississippi, and made inquiry after several persons whom he had known. There were then living three men who, as his aides, had accompanied him upon his expedition. I knew the fact, and expected he would allude to them, but he did not. He seemed to desire to know more of those who had been active in procuring his arrest.

It was Cowles Mead (who was acting Governor of the Territory of Mississippi at the time) who arrested Burr at Bruensburgh, a small hamlet on the banks of the Mississippi, immediately below the mouth of the Bayou Pierre. "Mead," he said, "was a great admirer of Jefferson, because, I suppose, when he had been unseated by the contestant of his election, (a Mr. Spaulding,) Jefferson, to appease his wounded feelings, had appointed him secretary to the Mississippi Territory. He was a vain man of very small mind, and full of the importance of his official station." I remarked that he was a brother-in-law of mine. "I was not aware of that, but I am sure you are too well acquainted with the truth of the statement to be offended at my stating it." I remarked: "Colonel, I am thoroughly acquainted with General Mead, and equally as well acquainted with all the circ.u.mstances connected with your acquaintance with him. The adventure of Bruensburgh has been, through life, a favorite theme with the General, and I doubt if there is living a man who ever knew the General a month, who has not heard the story repeated a dozen times." He dryly remarked: "I should have supposed the episode to that affair would have restrained him from its narration;" and the conversation ceased.

I shall have much more to say of these two in a future chapter. At this time Colonel Burr was old and slightly bent, very unlike what he was when I first met him; still his eyes and nose, brow and mouth, wore the same expression they did fifteen years before. About the mouth and eye there was a sinister expression, and he had a habit of looking furtively out of the corner of his eye at you, when you did not suppose he was giving any attention to you.

CHAPTER XV.

CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT.

GOVERNOR WOLCOTT--TOLERATION--MR. MONROE--PRIVATE LIFE OF WASHINGTON-- THOMAS JEFFERSON--THE OBJECT AND SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT--COURT ETIQUETTE --NATURE THE TEACHER AND GUIDE IN ALL THINGS.

During the year 1820 I was frequently a visitor at the house of Governor Oliver Wolcott, who then resided in Litchfield, Connecticut.

Governor Wolcott was a remarkable man in many respects. He was originally a Federalist in politics, and enjoyed the confidence of that party to an unlimited extent. His abilities were far above ordinary, and his family one of great respectability. He was a native of Connecticut, and after Alexander Hamilton retired from the Treasury bureau in the Cabinet of Washington, he succeeded to that position. He filled the office with credit to himself, and to the satisfaction of his chief. He had, after considerable time spent in public life, left Connecticut, to reside in New York. Subsequent to the war, and when the Federal party had abandoned its organization under the Administration of Mr. Monroe, there grew up in his native State a party called the Toleration party. In reality it was a party proscriptive of the old Federal leaders, and it grew out of some legislation in connection with religious matters, in which, as usual, the Puritan element had attempted to oppress, by special taxation, for their own benefit, all others differing from them in religious creed. Governor Wolcott favored this new organization, and he was invited to return to the State and give his aid to its success. He did so, and in due time was made Governor by this party. At the time of which I write, he was as bitterly and sincerely hated by the old Federal party as ever Jefferson was, or as Andy Johnson now is by the Radical party, which is largely const.i.tuted of the _debris_ of that old and intolerant organization, and which is now eliminating every principle of the Const.i.tution to gratify that thirst for power, and to use it for persecution, that seems inherent in the nature of the Puritan. By the hour I have listened to the abuse of him, from the mouths of men whose lives had been spent in his praise and support, simply because he had interposed his talents and influence to arrest the oppressor's hand. They said he had deserted his party, that he would live to share the fate of Burr, and that he was as great a traitor.

The bitterness and injustice of party is proverbial, and its want of reason is astonishing. Men who are cool and considerate on all other subjects, are frequently the most violent and unreasonable as partisans. It seems akin to religious fanaticism, and proscribes with the same bigotry all who will not, or conscientiously cannot, act or think with them. It prescribes opinions, and they must be obeyed by all who belong to the organization, and without reservation or qualification. Its exactions are as fierce and indisputable as the laws and regulations of the Jesuits. These are changed with party necessities, and not unfrequently are diametrically antagonistic to the former creed; yet you must follow and sustain them, or else you are a traitor, and denounced and driven from the party, and often from intercourse socially with those who have been your neighbors and friends from boyhood. In this method party compels dishonesty in politics, and is eminently demoralizing, for it is impossible to familiarize the conscience with political dishonesty without tainting the moral man in ordinary matters pertaining to life. Once break down the barrier which separates the right from the wrong, that success may come of it, and every principle of restraint to immoral or dishonest conduct is swept away. For this reason men of stern integrity never make good politicians. They are very often the reliable Statesmen, never the reliable politicians.

Governor Wolcott had through his life sustained an unimpeached reputation. He had filled to the full his political ambition. Again and again he had been honored by his people who had grown up with him. He had been honored by the confidence of Washington, and the nation. He was wealthy, was old, and only aspired to do, and to see done, justice to the whole people of his native State. In doing this he came in conflict with the unjust views and iniquitous conduct of an old, crushed party, and he was denounced as a traitor, and ostracized because he would be just.

This was the disruption forever of the Federal party in Connecticut; for though it had ceased to exist as a national organization, it still was sufficiently intact to control most of the New England States. Mr.

Monroe's Administration had been so popular that in his second election he received every vote of every State in the Union, save New Hampshire: one man in her electoral college, who was appointed to vote for him, refused to do so, and gave as his reason that he was a slave-owner. New interests had supervened, old issues were dead--they had had their day--their mission was accomplished; old men were pa.s.sing away, the nation was expanding into great proportions, and men of great talents were growing with and for the occasion; old party animosities were dimming out, and the era of good feelings seemed to pervade the national heart. Even John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were amicably corresponding and growing affectionate at eighty. It was but the lull which precedes the storm--the sultry quiet which augurs the earthquake.

Upon one occasion I ventured to ask Governor Wolcott to tell me something of Washington. We were strolling in his garden, where he had invited me to look at some melons he was attempting to grow under gla.s.s. He stopped, and turning round, looked me full in the face, and asked me if I had not read the "Life of Washington."

"Not the private life," was the reply.

"Ah! a very laudable curiosity in one so young. I knew him well, and can only say his private was very much like his public life. I do not suppose there ever lived a man more natural in his deportment than Washington. He did nothing for effect. He was more nearly the same man on the street that he was in his night-gown and slippers, than any man I ever knew; I can't say I was intimate with Washington; no man can or ever could have said that. His dignity was austere and natural. It was grand, and awed and inspired a respect from every one alike. You breathed low in his presence--you felt uneasy in your seat, before him.

There was an inspiring something about him, that made you feel it was a duty to, stand in his presence, uncovered, and respectfully silent. I have heard this sternness attributed to his habit of command; not so--it was natural, and he was unconscious of it. Most men, however stern, will unbend to woman. There is in woman's presence a divinity which thaws the rigor of the heart and warms the soul, which manifests itself in the softening of the eye, in the glow upon the cheek, and the relaxation of manner. It was not so with Washington. In his reception-rooms he was easily polite and courteously affable; but his dignity and the inflexibility of his features never relaxed.

"I remember to have heard Mrs. Adams say 'she did not think he was ever more than polite to Mrs. Washington.' With all this he was very kind, and if he ever did let himself down it was to children, and these never seemed to feel his austerity, or to shrink away from it. It is said that it is the gift of childhood to see the heart in the eye and the face. It is certain they never approach an ill-natured or bad man, and never shrink from a kind and good one. In his intercourse with his Cabinet, he was respectful to difference--consulted each without reserve or concealment, and always weighed well their opinions, and never failed to render to them his reasons for differing with them. He was very concise and exact in stating a case, and never failed to understand well every question before acting. He had system and order in everything. In his private affairs, in his household, as well as in his public conduct, he observed strict rules, and exacted their obedience from all about him. In nothing was he demonstrative or impulsive; but always considerate and cool.

"I know nothing of his domestic matters. There were malicious persons who started many reports of discord between Washington and his lady.

These I believe were all false. Mrs. Washington was a high-bred woman, a lady in everything; and so far as my observation or acquaintance extended, was devoted and dutiful. Of one thing I am very sure: she was a proud woman, and was proud of her husband. She certainly had not the dignity of her husband; no one, male or female, ever had. She was less reserved, more accessible, and not indifferent to the attentions and flatteries of her husband's friends. In fine, she was a woman.

Washington's deportment toward his wife was kind and respectful, but always dignified and courteous. Toward his servants he was uniformly kind.

"He was an enemy to slavery, and never hesitated to avow his sentiments. His black servants were very much attached to him. The peculiar nature of Washington forbade those heart-friendships demanded by a narrower and more impulsive nature. He kept all the world too far from him ever to win that tenderness of affection which sweetens social life in the blending of hearts and sympathy of souls. But he commanded that esteem which results from respect and appreciation of the great and commanding attributes of his nature, which elevated him so far above the men of his age. He wanted the softness and yielding of the heart that so wins upon the affections of a.s.sociates and those who are in close and constant intercommunication. Are not these incompatible with the stern and towering traits essential to such a character as was Washington's? Like a shaft of polished granite towering amid shrubs and flowers, cold and hard, but grand and beautiful, he stood among the men and the women who surrounded him when President.

"General Washington was cautious and reserved in his expressions about men. He rarely praised or censured. At the time I was in the Cabinet, he had abundant cause for dislike to Mr. Jefferson, who, in his Mazei letter, had represented him as laboring to break up the Government, that upon its ruins a monarchy might arise for his own benefit. He spoke of this letter more severely than I had ever heard him speak of anything, and said no man better knew the charge false, than Mr.

Jefferson. Some correspondence, I believe, took place between them on the subject. I believe they never met after this. Upon one occasion I heard him say that it was unfortunate that Jefferson had been sent to France at the time that he was, when morals and government alike were little less than chaos, for he had been tainted in his ideas of both."

"You knew Mr. Jefferson?" I asked.

"Come into the house, and I will show you something," said the venerable man, then tottering to the grave. I went, and he showed me some letters addressed to him by persons in Virginia, presenting, in no very enviable light, the character of Jefferson. When I had read them, he remarked: "You must not suppose I am anxious to prejudice your youthful mind against the great favorite of your people. It is not so.

You seem solicitous to learn something of the men who have had so much agency in the establishment of the Government and the formation of the opinions of the people, that I am willing you should see upon what my opinions have, in a great degree, been formed. Mr. Jefferson is still living, and still writing. His pen seems to have lost none of its vigor, nor his heart any of its venom. You will hear him greatly praised, and greatly abused. I knew him at one time, but never intimately, and may be said only to know him as a public man; what of his private character I know, comes from the statements of others, and general report. You have just seen some of these statements. I knew the writers of these letters well, and know their statements to be ent.i.tled to credit, and I believe them. They a.s.sure me that Mr. Jefferson is without moral principle. His public conduct must convince every one of his want of political principle. His whole life has been a bundle of contradictions. He has had neither chart nor compa.s.s by which to regulate his course, but has universally adopted the expedient.

"That he has a great and most vigorous intellect is beyond all question; but most of its emanations have been the _ad captandum_ to seize the current, and sail with it. He saw the democratic proclivity of the people, he concentrated it by the use of his pen, and he has aided its expansion, until it threatens ruin to the Government. He knows it, and he still perseveres. Under the plea of inviting population, he advocated the extension of the franchise to aliens, and was really the parent from whose brain was born the naturalization laws, making citizens of every nationality, and giving them all the powers of the Government, extending suffrage to every pauper in the land, increasing to the utmost the material for the demagogue, and thus depriving the intelligence of the country of the power to control it.

The specious argument that if a man is compelled to serve in the militia and defend the country, he should be ent.i.tled to vote, was his.

Its sophistry is as palpable to Jefferson as to every thinking mind.

Government is the most abstruse of the sciences, and should, for the security of all, be controlled by the intelligence of the country.

During the world's existence, all the intelligence it has ever afforded, has not been competent to the formation of a government approximating perfection.

"The object of government is the protection of life, liberty, and property. The tenure of property is established and sustained by law; it is the basis of government; it is the support of government; in proportion to its extent and security, it is the strength and power of government, and those who possess it should have the control of government. In a republic, there can be no better standard of intelligence than the possession of property, and to give the greatest security to the government, none should, in a republic, be intrusted with the ballot, but the native, and the property-holder, or the native property-holder. The complications of our system are scarcely understood by our own people, and to suppose that ignorant men (for such const.i.tute the bulk of our emigrant population) shall become so intimate with it, and so much attached to it, as to const.i.tute them, in a few years, persons to be intrusted with its control, is supposing human intelligence to be of much higher grasp than I have ever found it. Most of these emigrants come here with preconceived prejudices toward the inst.i.tutions of their native lands. This is natural. Most of them speak a foreign language. This has to be overcome, before they can even commence to learn the nature and operation of our system, which is so radically dissimilar to any and all others. These men, as the ignorant of our own people, naturally lean on some one who shall direct them, and they will blindly do his bidding. This is an invitation to the demagogue; these are his materials, and he will aggregate and control them. Such men are always poor, and envy makes them the enemies of the rich. This creates an antagonism, which we see existing in every country.

"The poor are dependent for employment upon the rich; the rich are dependent upon the poor for labor. This mutual dependence, it would be supposed, would tend to create mutual regard; but experience teaches the reverse. The poor have nothing to sell but their labor, and there are none to buy but the rich. Each, naturally, struggles to make the best bargain possible, and take advantage of every circ.u.mstance to effect this. Very few are satisfied with fair equivalents, and one or the other always feels aggrieved. Here is the difficulty. Well, endow the laborer with the ballot, and he usurps the government; for to vote is to govern. What is to be the consequence? We now have, with all the means of expansion and facilities a new country of boundless extent gives to the poor for finding and making homes, many more without property than with it. This disproportion will go on to increase until it a.s.similates to every old country, with a few rich and many poor.

These many will control; they will send of their own men to legislate; they will favor their friends; they will levy the taxes, which the property-holders of the country must pay; they will make the laws appropriating these taxes; all will be for the benefit of their const.i.tuency, and the property, the government, and the people are all at their mercy. Jefferson sees this, and is taking advantage of it, and has indoctrinated the whole unthinking portion of our people with these destructive notions. It made him President. His example has proven contagious, and I see no end to its results short of the destruction of the Government, and that speedily. Mr. Jefferson's fame will be co-existent with the Government. When that shall perish, his great errors will be apparent. The impartial historian, inquiring into the cause of this destruction, with half an eye will see it, and then his true character will be sketched, and this great, unprincipled demagogue will go naked down to posterity. He has always been unprincipled, immoral, and dissolute. These, accompanying his great intellect, have made it a curse, rather than a blessing, to his kind.

"The world has produced few great statesmen--Washington and Hamilton were the only ones of any pretensions this country has produced. It was a great misfortune that Hamilton did not succeed Washington. Mr. Adams, now lingering to his end at Braintree, was a patriot, but greatly wanting in the attributes of greatness. He was suspicious, ill-tempered, and full of unmanly prejudices--was incapable of comprehending the great necessities of his country, as well as the means to direct and control these necessities. He had animosities to nurse, and enemies to punish--was more concerned about a proper respect for himself and the office he filled, than the interest and the destiny of his country. He quarrelled with Washington, was jealous of him, who never had a thought but for his country. Adams was all selfishness, little selfishness, and earned and got the contempt of the whole nation. Jefferson was turning all this to his own advantage; and the errors and follies of Adams were made the strength and wisdom of Jefferson. He had but one rival before the nation, Burr--he whom you saw yesterday, the crushed victim of the cunning and intrigue of his friend Jefferson.

"Washington had died--despondent of the future of his country. The prestige of his name and presence was gone. He had committed a great error in bringing Jefferson into his Cabinet and before the nation with his approbation. He knew every Cabinet secret, and took advantage of every one, and had placed himself prominently before the people, and with Burr was elected. The defect in the law as existing at the time, enabled Burr, when returned with an equal number of electoral votes, to contend with Jefferson for the Presidency. It was in the power of Hamilton, at this time, to elect. The States were divided, six for Burr, eight for Jefferson, and two divided. There was one State voting for Jefferson, which by the change of one vote would have been given to Burr: the divided States were under his control. He was, during the ballotings, sent for, with a view to the election of Burr; but he preferred Jefferson--thought him less dangerous than Burr, and procured his election. It was a terrible alternative, to have to choose between two such men. The consequences to Burr and the country have been terrible--the destruction of both.

"I suppose much I have said cuts across your prejudice, coming from the South. I have sought to speak sincerely to you, because you are young, impressible, and anxious for knowledge; and it is better to know an unwelcome truth, than to find out by-and-by you have all your life been believing an untruth. Nothing is more sickening to the candid and sincere heart, than to learn its cherished opinions and dearest hopes have been nothing but fallacies; and when you are old as I am, you will have been more fortunate than I have been, if you do not find much that you have loved most, and most trusted, a deceit--a miserable lie. Come and see me at your leisure: I shall always be glad to see you, and equally as glad to answer any of your questions, if these answers will give you information."

Governor Oliver Wolcott was short in stature and inclined to corpulency; his head was large and round, with an ample forehead; his eyes were gray and very pleasant in their expression; his mouth was voluptuous, and upon his lips there usually lurked a smile, humorous in its threatening, provoking a pleasing dimple upon his cheek. In society, in his extreme old age, for I only knew him then, he was less gay than the general expression of his features would have indicated.

He was a man of strong will and most decided character. His individuality was marked and striking, and his tenacity of purpose made his character one of remarkable consistency.

Governor Wolcott was one of the old-school Federalists, a thorough believer in Federal principles. He believed in the capacity of the people for self-government, if the franchise of suffrage was confined to the intelligence and freeholds of the country, but reprobated the idea of universal suffrage as destructive of all that was good in republican inst.i.tutions. Succeeding Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, he found all matters of finance connected with the Government in so healthy a condition and arranged upon such a basis as only required that he should be careful to keep them there. During the four last years of the Administration of Washington, this prevented any display on his part of any striking financial ability. The administration of his office was entirely satisfactory to the country, though it seemed he was only there to superintend the workings of the genius of Hamilton. Once in my hearing he remarked, he had only to work up to the scribings of Hamilton to make everything joint up and fit well.