The Memories of Fifty Years Part 9

ASPIRANTS FOR CONGRESS--A NEW ORGANIZATION--TWO PARTIES--A PROTECTIVE TARIFF---UNITED STATES BANK--THE AMERICAN SYSTEM--INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS --A GALAXY OF STARS--A SPARTAN MOTHER'S ADVICE--NEGRO-DEALER--QUARTER RACES--c.o.c.k-PITTING--MILITARY BLUNDERS ON BOTH SIDES--ABNER GREEN'S DAUGHTER--ANDREW JACKSON--GWINN--POINDEXTER--AD INTERIM--GENERALS AS CIVIL RULERS.

The remarkable excitement of the political contest between Troup and Clarke had the effect of stimulating the ambition of the young men of education throughout the State for political distinction. For some time anterior to this period, all seemed content to permit those who had been the active politicians in the Republican struggle with the Federal party to fill all the offices of distinction in the State without opposition. It would have been considered presumptuous in the extreme for any young man, whatever his abilities, to have offered himself as a candidate for Congress in opposition to Mr. Forsyth, R.H. Wild, Thomas W. Cobb, Edward F. Tatnal, and men of like age and political faith. The members of Congress were elected by general ticket; and the selection of candidates was not by a convention of the people or party. The names of candidates were generally recommended by influential parties, and their consent to become candidates obtained through solicitations addressed to them, and then published to the people. The State was so unanimous in political sentiment, that for many years no opposition to the Republican party was thought of.

But now parties were organizing upon principles, or rather policies, entirely new; there was a fusion of the old elements of party, and Federalists and Republicans were side by side in this new organization.

Men who had been under the ban, for opinion's sake, were coming into public view and public favor, and disclosing great abilities. At the head of these was John McPherson Berrien, who, to the end of his life, was so distinguished in the councils of the nation. At the same time, in every part of the State, young men were rising up as men of promise for talent and usefulness. These men arrayed themselves with either of the two parties, as inclination or interest prompted. Active and a.s.siduous, they were soon prominent before the people, and a new era was commencing. With the election of John Quincy Adams, the State was in a blaze and politics a furor. Opposition immediately commenced to the leading measures of the Administration, and the Legislature of 1825 was filled with young men of talent, who were enthusiastic and fierce in their sentiments and feelings. They had been divided as partisans of Troup and Clarke, and met as antagonists in the Legislature; but really without any defined policy in opposition to that of the administration of the General Government of the nation. A suspicion filled every one that this policy was disastrous to Southern interests, and sectional in its character, although designated as national.

Few men of the South had given much attention to the effect a tariff for revenue had upon the commercial and manufacturing interests of the North. The war with England had created a debt, and this tariff had been imposed solely for the purpose of securing, not only a sufficient revenue for the current necessities of the Government, but a surplus, which should in a short time liquidate the public debt. It was sufficient to afford protection to the manufacturing interests of the North, to increase this into a formidable revenue, and to enlist a national party in its support. It was now, when the public debt was liquidated, that another reason was necessary for continuing a policy which had grown up from the necessities of the nation--consequently it was a.s.sumed to be a national policy to promote national independence, and protection was claimed for national industry against European compet.i.tion. This policy in the Government would encourage extravagance, waste, and corruption--such a bane to republics--because it would create an immense surplus in the national treasury, unless some scheme for its expenditure could be devised which should seem to promote the national interest. To this end, the party of the Administration claimed a const.i.tutional power in Congress to carry on a system of internal improvements; and heavy appropriations were made for this purpose, not only absorbing the surplus revenue, but creating a necessity for more--and this necessity was an excuse for increasing the tariff.

The Bank of the United States was the depository of the moneys of the nation and her disbursing agent. The const.i.tutionality of this inst.i.tution had been a mooted question from the day it was first proposed by Robert Morris. Mr. Madison, who was a Republican, had at one time vetoed it; at another, approved it. Mr. Crawford, a most inveterate States-rights man and strict constructionist of the Const.i.tution, had uniformly supported it. Mr. Clay had both supported and opposed it. The question was finally adjudicated by the Supreme Court, and, so far as that decision could make it, was decided to be const.i.tutional. This, however, did not satisfy the Republican or States-rights party; a large majority of whom always insisted upon its unconst.i.tutionality. At the time of its creation, a necessity existed for some such inst.i.tution, to aid the Government in its financial operations, and at the time of the renewal of its charter the Government had just emerged from a war; every State was creating banks, and the country was flooded with an irredeemable and worthless currency, disturbing commerce, unsettling values, and embarra.s.sing the Government. A power was wanted somewhere to control these State banks, and to give a redeemable and uniform currency to the country.

The State banks had proved destructive to the public interest; with no power to restrain their issues except that imposed by their charters and the honesty of their officers--a frail security for the public, as experience had attested. The example of Washington was pleaded by the advocates of the bank. At the very outset it had been opposed for want of const.i.tutionality. Washington had doubted it, and submitted the question to two of his Cabinet--Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Hamilton. They were divided in opinion--Mr. Jefferson opposing, and Mr. Hamilton sustaining the const.i.tutionality of the measure. The opinion and argument of Hamilton prevailed, and the act creating a bank received the Executive approval.

It answered admirably the object of its creation, and the Republican party (then in embryo) acquiesced. Indeed, at this time, there could scarcely be said to be a party separate from the Government. Mr.

Hamilton and Mr. Jefferson were the leaders of the parties which divided the people upon the adoption of the Const.i.tution, and these parties, though at this time inchoate, were concreting about these two wonderful men. Upon the renewal of the charter of the United States Bank, during the Administration of Mr. Madison, the Republican party again mooted its const.i.tutionality; but its undisputed usefulness had won for it immense popularity, and there were many who, though acting with the Republicans, were willing (as Washington had approved it, and the Supreme Court had p.r.o.nounced it const.i.tutional) to view the question as settled, and vote to renew the charter.

It was subsequent to the veto of Mr. Madison (when he had reconsidered his action, and recommended the re-chartering of the bank,) that debates ensued, in which the question was exhausted. In these debates, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Clay, Felix Grundy, William B. Giles, and Mr. Calhoun led. They were continued through several sessions, up to 1816, when they ultimated in the chartering of the last bank of the United States.

This charter expired during the Administration of General Jackson, and by him the bank was finally crushed.

Three great measures const.i.tuted what was then termed the American System--the United States Bank, a protective tariff, and internal improvements within the States by the General Government. An opposition to this party was formed at the very outset of the Adams Administration. This opposition denied the const.i.tutional power of Congress to create or sustain either.

The South, at the commencement of this opposition, was almost alone.

The North was a unit in its support of the Administration, because its policy was vital to her interests. The West, influenced by Mr. Clay, was greatly in the majority in its support. The Southern opposition seemed almost hopeless; and to this cause may, in a great degree, be ascribed the bringing forth to public view the transcendent abilities of the young men aspiring for fame in Georgia, and in the South generally. McDuffie, Hamilton, Holmes, and Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina; Colquitt, Cobb, Toombs, Stephens, Johnson, Nesbit, and John P. King, of Georgia; Wise, Boc.o.c.k, Hunter, Summers, Rives, and others of Virginia; Mangum, Badger, and Graham, of North Carolina; Bell, Foster, Peyton, Nicholson, and James K. Polk, of Tennessee; King and Lewis, of Alabama; Porter, Johnston, White, and Barrow, of Louisiana; Ashley, Johnson, and Sevier, of Arkansas; Chase, Pugh, Pendleton, and Lytell, of Ohio; and Douglas, Trumbull, and Lincoln, of Illinois, were all men of sterling talent, and were about equally divided in political sentiment. Kentucky had Tom and Humphrey Marshall, Crittenden, Menifer, Letcher, Breckinridge, and Preston.

General Jackson was now the avowed candidate of the States-rights party, which soon after a.s.sumed the name of Democratic, and his political principles and great personal popularity were not only dividing the West, but the Middle States, and even those of New England.

During the entire administration of Adams, there was a majority in Congress supporting his policy. It was then and there that the great battle for supremacy was fought. Berrien and Forsyth, from Georgia, in the Senate; McDuffie and Preston, from South Carolina; Ca.s.s, from Michigan, and Van Buren and Silas Wright, from New York--all giants in intellect. But there were Webster and John Davis, from Ma.s.sachusetts, George Evans, from Maine, and others of minor powers, but yet great men. Between these great minds the conflict was stupendous. Every means were put into requisition to sustain the Administration and its policy, but all were unavailing--General Jackson was elected by an overwhelming majority. Mr. Clay was immediately returned by Kentucky to the Senate, and organized an opposition upon the policy of the late Administration, led on by himself and Webster. The memory of those days, and the men who made them memorable, flits vividly before me; but I am not writing a history, and can attempt no order, but shall write on as these memories of men and events shall seem to me most interesting in their character to the general reader.

General Jackson was one of those rare creations of nature which appear at long intervals, to astonish and delight mankind. It seems to be settled in the public mind that he was born in South Carolina; but there is no certainty of the fact. His early life was very obscure, and he himself was uncertain of his birth-place, though he believed it was South Carolina. He remembered the removal of his family from South Carolina, and many of the incidents of the war of the Revolution transpiring there; but more especially those occurring in North Carolina, to which the family removed. Judge Alexander Porter, of Louisiana, was an Irishman, and from the neighborhood where were born and reared the parents of Jackson. His own father was brutally executed at Vinegar Hill, by sentence of a drum-head court martial, in 1798, and his family proscribed by the British Government. With his uncle, the Rowans, the Jacksons, and some others, he emigrated to America, and settled at Nashville, Tennessee. The Jacksons were of the same family, and distantly connected with General Jackson. Great intimacy existed between this family and General Jackson for many years.

Judge Porter, of whom I shall hereafter have something to say, visited Europe a short time before his death, and made diligent search into the history of the Jackson family, without ascertaining anything positively: he learned enough to satisfy his own mind that Andrew Jackson was born in Ireland, and brought to the United States by his parents when only two years old. This was also the opinion of Thomas Crutcher, who came with General Jackson to Nashville, and it was also the opinion of Dr. Boyd McNary and his elder brother, Judge McNary, who believed he was four years older than he supposed himself to be.

The McNarys came with him from North Carolina. On the trip a difficulty occurred between Boyd McNary and Jackson, which never was reconciled--both dying in extreme old age. Boyd McNary stopped at Lexington and read medicine, forming there the acquaintance of Mr. Clay and Felix Grundy. The intimacy which sprang up between Clay and McNary was as ardent and imperishable as the hatred between himself and Jackson, enduring until death. Jackson was enterprising and eminently self-reliant; in all matters pertaining to himself, he was his own counsellor; he advised with no man; cool and quick in thought, he seemed to leap to conclusions, and never went back from them. An anecdote relative to his parting from his mother in his outset in life, ill.u.s.trates this as prominent in the attributes of his nature at that time. The writer heard him narrate this after his return from Washington, when his last term in the Presidential office had expired.

When about to emigrate to Tennessee, the family were residing in the neighborhood of Greensboro, North Carolina.

"I had," said he, "contemplated this step for some months, and had made my arrangements to do so, and at length had obtained my mother's consent to it. All my worldly goods were a few dollars in my purse, some clothes in my saddle-bags, a pretty good horse, saddle, and bridle. The country to which I was going was comparatively a wilderness, and the trip a long one, beset by many difficulties, especially from the Indians. I felt, and so did my mother, that we were parting forever. I knew she would not recall her promise; there was too much s.p.u.n.k in her for that, and this caused me to linger a day or two longer than I had intended.

"But the time came for the painful parting. My mother was a little, dumpy, red-headed Irish woman. 'Well, mother, I am ready to leave, and I must say farewell.' She took my hand, and pressing it, said, 'Farewell,' and her emotion choked her.

"Kissing at meetings and partings in that day was not so common as now.

I turned from her and walked rapidly to my horse.

"As I was mounting him, she came out of the cabin wiping her eyes with her ap.r.o.n, and came to the getting-over place at the fence. 'Andy,'

said she, (she always called me Andy,) 'you are going to a new country, and among a rough people; you will have to depend on yourself and cut your own way through the world. I have nothing to give you but a mother's advice. Never tell a lie, nor take what is not your own, nor sue anybody for slander or a.s.sault and battery. _Always settle them cases yourself!_' I promised, and I have tried to keep that promise. I rode off some two hundred yards, to a turn in the path, and looked back--she was still standing at the fence and wiping her eyes. I never saw her after that." Those who knew him best will testify to his fidelity to this last promise made his mother.

The strong common sense and unbending will of Jackson soon made him conspicuous in his new home, and very soon he was in active practice as a lawyer. His prominence was such, that during the last year of the last term of General Washington's Administration, a vacancy occurring in the United States Senate from Tennessee, General Jackson was appointed to fill it. He was occupying this seat when General Washington retired from the Presidency, and, with William B. Giles, of Virginia, voted against a resolution of thanks tendered by Congress to Washington, for his services to the country. For this vote he gave no reason at the time; and if he ever did, it has escaped my knowledge.

The career of General Jackson, as a public man, is so well known, that it is not my purpose to review it in this place; but many incidents of his private history have come to my knowledge from an a.s.sociation with those who were intimate with him, from his first arrival in Tennessee.

These, or so many of them as I deem of interest enough to the public, I propose to relate.

Jackson was a restless and enterprising man, embarking in many schemes for the acc.u.mulation of fortune, not usually resorted to by professional men, or men engaged in public matters. In business he was cautious. He was a remarkable judge of human character, and rarely gave his confidence to untried men. Notwithstanding the impetuosity of his nature, upon occasion he could be as cool and as calculating as a Yankee. The result was, that though he had many partners in the various pursuits he at different times resorted to, he rarely had any pecuniary difficulty with any of them. He was in the habit of trading with the low country, that is, with the inhabitants of Mississippi and Louisiana.

Many will remember the charge brought against him pending his candidacy for the Presidency, of having been, in early life, a negro-trader, or dealer in slaves. This charge was strictly true, though abundantly disproved by the oaths of some, and even by the certificate of his princ.i.p.al partner. Jackson had a small store, or trading establishment, at Bruinsburgh, near the mouth of the Bayou Pierre, in Claiborne County, Mississippi. It was at this point he received the negroes, purchased by his partner at Nashville, and sold them to the planters of the neighborhood. Sometimes, when the price was better, or the sales were quicker, he carried them to Louisiana. This, however, he soon declined; because, under the laws of Louisiana, he was obliged to guarantee the health and character of the slave he sold.

On one occasion he sold an unsound negro to a planter in the parish of West Feliciana, and, upon his guarantee, was sued and held to bail to answer. In this case he was compelled to refund the purchase-money, with damages. He went back upon his partner, and compelled him to share the loss. This caused a breach between them, which was never healed.

This is the only instance which ever came to my knowledge of strife with a partner. He was close to his interest, and spared no means to protect it.

It was during the period of his commercial enterprise in Mississippi that he formed the acquaintance of the Green family. This family was among the very first Americans who settled in the State. Thomas M.

Green and Abner Green were young men at the time, though both were men of family. To both of them Jackson, at different times, sold negroes, and the writer now has bills of sale for negroes sold to Abner Green, in the handwriting of Jackson, bearing his signature, written, as it always was, in large and bold characters, extending quite half across the sheet. At this store, which stood immediately upon the bank of the Mississippi, there was a race-track, for quarter-races, (a sport Jackson was then very fond of,) and many an anecdote was rife, forty years ago, in the neighborhood, of the skill of the old hero in pitting a c.o.c.k or turning a quarter-horse.

This spot has become cla.s.sic ground. It was here Aaron Burr was first arrested by Cowles Mead, then acting as Governor of the Territory of Mississippi, and from whom he made his escape, and it was at this point that Grant crossed his army when advancing against Vicksburg. It is a beautiful plateau of land, of some two thousand acres, immediately below the mouth of the Bayou Pierre, and bordered by very high and abrupt cliffs, which belong to the same range of hills that approach the river's margin at Vicksburg, Grand Gulf, Rodney, Natchez, and Bayou Sara. At this point they attain the height of three hundred feet, and are almost perpendicular. The summit is attained by a circuitous road cut through the cliffs, and this is the summit level of the surrounding country.

This plateau of land, where once stood the little village of Bruinsburgh, has long been a cotton plantation, and a most valuable one it was before the late war. A deep, and, to an army, impa.s.sable swamp borders it below, and the same is the case above the Bayou Pierre. To land an army at such a place, when its only means of marching upon the country was through this narrow cut, of about one hundred feet in width, with high, precipitous sides, forming a complete defile for half a mile, and where five thousand men could have made its defence good against fifty thousand, is certainly as little evidence of military genius as was the permission of them to pa.s.s through it without an effort to prevent it.

To a military eye, the blunders of Grant and Pemberton are apparent in their every movement--and the history of the siege and capture of Vicksburg, if ever correctly written, will demonstrate to the world that folly opposed to folly marked its inception, progress, and finality.

The friends formed in this section of country by Jackson were devoted to him through life, and when in after life he sent (for it is not true that he brought) his future wife to Mississippi, it was to the house of Thomas M. Green, then residing near the mouth of Cowles Creek, and only a few miles from Bruinsburgh.

Whatever the circ.u.mstances of the separation, or the cause for it, between Mrs. Jackson and her first husband, I am ignorant; I know that Jackson vas much censured in the neighborhood of his home. At the time of her coming to Green's, the civil authority was a disputed one; most of the people acknowledging the Spanish. A suit was inst.i.tuted for a divorce, and awarded by a Spanish tribunal. There was probably little ceremony or strictness of legal proceeding in the matter, as all government and law was equivocal, and of but little force just at that time in the country. It was after this that Jackson came and married her, in the house of Thomas M. Green.

That there was anything disreputable attached to the lady's name is very improbable; for she was more than fifteen months in the house of Green, who was a man of wealth, and remarkable for his pride and fastidiousness in selecting his friends or acquaintances. He was the first Territorial representative of Mississippi in Congress--was at the head of society socially, and certainly would never have permitted a lady of equivocal character to the privileges of a guest in his house, or to the a.s.sociation of his daughters, then young. During the time she was awaiting this divorce, she was at times an inmate of the family of Abner Green, of Second Creek, where she was always gladly received, and he and his family were even more particular as to the character and position of those they admitted to their intimacy, if possible, than Thomas B. Green. This intimacy was increased by the marriage of two of the Green brothers to nieces of Mrs. Jackson.

In 1835, when Jackson was President, the writer, pa.s.sing from Louisiana to New York with his family, spent some days at Washington. His lady was the youngest daughter of Abner Green; he was in company with a daughter of Henry Green and her husband; her mother was niece to Mrs.

Jackson. We called to see the President, and when my lady was introduced to the General, he was informed she was the daughter of his old friend, Abner Green, of Second Creek. He did not speak, but held her hand for some moments, gazing intently into her face. His feelings overcame him, and clasping her to his bosom, he said, "I must kiss you, my child, for your sainted mother's sake;" then holding her from him, he looked again, "Oh! how like your mother you are--she was the friend of my poor Rachel, when she so much needed a friend--I loved her, and I love her memory;" and then, as if ashamed of his emotion, he continued: "You see, my child, though I am President through the kindness or folly of the people, I am but a weak, silly old man."

We spent the evening with him, and when in his private sitting-room his pipe was lighted and brought to him, he said: "Now, my child, let us talk about Mississippi and the old people." I have never in all my life seen more tenderness of manner, or more deep emotion shown, than this stern old man continually evinced when speaking of his wife and her friends.

The character of General Jackson is yet greatly misunderstood. This has been caused by the fact that his words and actions, when in command, or when enraged, as a man, have been the main data upon which the estimate of his bearing and character has been predicated. He was irascible and quick in his temper, and when angered was violent in words and manner.

It was at such moments that the stern inflexibility of his will was manifest; and his pa.s.sion towered in proportion to provocation. But in private life and social intercourse he was bland, gentle, and conciliating. His manner was most polished and lofty in society, and in a lady's parlor, in urbanity and polish of manners, he never had a superior. This high polish was nature's spontaneous gift. He had never been taught it in courts, or from a.s.sociation with those who had. It was the emanation of his great soul, which stole out through his every word and movement in the presence of ladies, and which erupted as a volcano at insult or indignity from man.

That evening at the White House is marked in my memory with a white stone. The playful simplicity of his conversation and manner, and the particularity of his inquiries about matters and things so insignificant, but which were links in the chain of his memories, I well remember.

"Is old papa Jack and Bellile living?" he asked, after a pause, of my wife, accompanied with a look of eager anxiety.

These were two old Africans, faithful servants of her father; and then there was an anecdote of each of them--their remarks or their conduct upon some hunting or fishing excursion, in which he had partic.i.p.ated forty years before.

I was an interested spectator in the presence of one of nature's wonderful creations--one who had made, and who was making, history for his country, and whose name was to descend to future times as one of her n.o.blest sons and greatest historical characters. I watched every motion of his lips, every expression of his features, and every gleam of his great gray eyes, and I could but wonder at the child-like naturalness of everything about him. Is not this an attribute of greatness--to be natural? Yes; to be natural in all things belongs to truth, and a truthful exhibition of nature, without a.s.sumption or deceit, is greatness. Here was one who could, with natural simplicity, amuse a child; and the same one could command and successfully wield a great army, and, with equal success, direct the destinies of a great nation; whose genius was tempered with simplicity and tenderness, and when towering most in its grandeur, was most truthful to nature.

General Jackson's early opportunities were extremely limited. His education was so very defective, that his orthography was almost ludicrous, and his general reading amounted to almost nothing. At no time was he a respectable county-court lawyer, so far as legal learning was concerned, and it is wonderful how the natural vigor of his mind supplied this defect. On the bench, his greatest aim was to get at the facts in every case, and to decide all points upon the broad principles of equity; and in all his charges to the jury, his princ.i.p.al aim was to direct their attention to the simple justice of the case, and a favorite phrase of his in these charges was: "Do right between the parties, and you will serve the objects of the law."

He was an enemy to all unnecessary forms in all matters. His manner was to go directly to the kernel, and he was very indifferent as to how the sh.e.l.l was cracked, or the husk removed. He never seemed to reason. Upon the presentation of any subject to his mind, it seemed, with electrical velocity, to cut through to a conclusion as if by intuition. He was correct in his conclusions more frequently than any man of his age. His knowledge of human nature was more consummate than that of any of his compeers who were remarkable for greatness of mind. In this, as in all other matters, his opinion was formed with the first glance. His intimacy with every sort of character, in his extended intercourse with the world, seemed so to have educated his faculties and whetted his perception, that he only wanted to look at a man for five minutes to know his inmost nature. Yet he was sometimes deceived, and, ascertaining this, nothing enraged him more.

In his friendships he was almost fanatical. The humblest individual, who was his friend, and who had proven it, could command him in any manner, and to the full extent of his capacity to serve him.

A remarkable instance of this trait was manifested in his conduct as President, toward a young friend, Mr. Gwinn, who was reared in the neighborhood of the Hermitage, and whose father had long been a trusted friend of Jackson. In 1832, when the lands obtained from the Choctaws in Mississippi were being brought into market, the office of register in the land-office in that State was an important one. It was given to Gwinn by Jackson, who was then President.

When the nomination was sent to the Senate, opposition was made to its confirmation by George Poindexter, a senator from Mississippi. It had always been the practice of all preceding Presidents, when suitable persons could be had, to nominate them from the State in which the United States office to be filled was located. Poindexter insisted that this custom, from long usage, had become law; and to send a citizen from one State into another, there to fill a national office, was an indignity to her citizens, and a manifestation, to say the least of it, of distrust and suspicion as to the capacity or honesty of the people of the State. This opposition was successful, and Gwinn was rejected.