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Title: The Memories of Fifty Years
       Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest


Author: William H. Sparks

Release Date: May 20, 2005  [eBook #15872]

Language: English

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THE MEMORIES OF FIFTY YEARS:

Containing

Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished
Americans, and Anecdotes of
Remarkable Men;

Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring
during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly
Spent in the Southwest


by

W. H. SPARKS

Philadelphia:
Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger.
Macon Ga.: J. W. Burke & Co.
Stereotyped by J. Fagan & Son.
Printed by Moore Bros.

1870







TO

MY BROTHER AND NEPHEW,
THE HONORABLE OVID GARTEN SPARKS,
AND
COLONEL THOMAS HARDEMAN,
OF MACON, GEORGIA.

This Volume is Dedicated

BY THEIR AGED AND AFFECTIONATE RELATIVE, TRUSTING
THEY WILL ESTEEM IT, WHEN HE SHALL HAVE
PASSED TO ETERNITY, AS SOME EVIDENCE
OF THE AFFECTION
BORNE THEM BY

THE AUTHOR.




PREFACE.


In the same week, and within three days of the same date, I received
from three Judges of the Supreme Court, of three States, the request
that I would record my remembrances of the men and things I had known
for fifty years. The gentlemen making this request were Joseph Henry
Lumpkin, of Georgia; William L. Sharkey, of Mississippi, and James G.
Taliaferro, of Louisiana.

From Judge Sharkey the request was verbal; from the other two it came
in long and, to me, cherished letters. All three have been my intimate
friends--Lumpkin from boyhood; the others for nearly fifty years.
Judge Lumpkin has finished his work in time, and gone to his reward.
Judges Sharkey and Taliaferro yet live, both now over seventy years of
age. The former has retired from the busy cares of office, honored,
trusted, and beloved; the latter still occupies a seat upon the Bench
of the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

These men have all sustained unreproached reputations, and retained
through their long lives the full confidence of the people of their
respective States. I did not feel at liberty to resist their appeal: I
had resided in all three of the States; had known long and intimately
their people; had been extensively acquainted with very many of the
most prominent men of the nation--and in the following pages is my
compliance.

I have trusted only to my memory, and to a journal kept for many
years, when a younger man than I am to-day--hastening to the
completion of my seventieth year. Doubtless, I have made many mistakes
of minor importance; but few, I trust, as to matters of fact. Of one
thing I am sure: nothing has been wilfully written which can wound the
feelings of any.

Many things herein contained may not be of general interest; but none
which will not find interested readers; for while some of the
individuals mentioned may not be known to common fame, the incidents
in connection with them deserve to be remembered by thousands who knew
them.

These Memories are put down without system, or order, as they have
presented themselves, and have been related in a manner which I have
attempted to make entertaining and instructive, without being prolix
or tedious. They will be chiefly interesting to the people of the
South; though much may, and, I hope, will be read by those of the
North. Some of my happiest days have been passed in the North: at
Cambridge some of my sons have been educated, and some of my dearest
friends have been Northern men. Despite the strife which has gone far
toward making us in heart a divided people, I have a grateful memory
of many whose homes and graves were and are in New England.

Would that this strife had never been! But it has come, and I cannot
forego a parent's natural feelings when mourning the loss of sons
slain in the conflict, or the bitterness arising therefrom toward
those who slew them. Yet, as I forgive, I hope to be forgiven.

There are but few now left who began the journey of life with me.
Those of this number who still sojourn in our native land will find
much in these pages familiar to their remembrance, and some things,
the reading of which may revive incidents and persons long forgotten.
In the West, in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas, there are
many--the descendants of those who participated in events transpiring
fifty years ago--who have listened at the parental hearth to their
recital. To these I send this volume greeting; and if they find
something herein to amuse and call up remembrances of the past, I
shall feel gratified.

To the many friends I have in the Southwest, and especially in
Louisiana and Mississippi, where I have sojourned well-nigh fifty
years, and many of whom have so often urged upon me the writing of
these Memories, I commit the book, and ask of them, and of all into
whose hands it may fall, a lenient criticism, a kindly recollection,
and a generous thought of our past intercourse. It is an inexorable
fate that separates us, and I feel it is forever. This sad thought is
alleviated, however, by the consciousness that the few remaining sands
of life are falling at the home of my birth; and that when the end
comes, as very soon it must, I shall be placed to sleep amid my
kindred in the land of my nativity.

THE AUTHOR.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.
REVOLUTIONARY TRADITIONS.

Middle Georgia--Colonel David Love--His Widow--Governor Dunmore--
Colonel Tarleton--Bill Cunningham--Colonel Fannin--My Grandmother's
Bible--Solomon's Maxim Applied--Robertus Love--The Indian Warrior--
Dragon Canoe--A Buxom Lass--General Gates--Marion--Mason L. Weems
--Washington--"Billy Crafford"

CHAPTER II.
PIONEER LIFE.

Settlement of Middle Georgia--Prowling Indians--Scouts and their
Dogs--Classes of Settlers--Prominence of Virginians--Causes of
Distinction--Clearing--Log-Rolling--Frolics--Teachers Cummings and
Duffy--The Schoolmaster's Nose--Flogging--Emigration to Alabama

CHAPTER III.
THE GEORGIA COMPANY.

Yazoo Purchase--Governor Matthews--James Jackson--Burning of the Yazoo
Act--Development of Free Government--Constitutional Convention--Slavery:
Its Introduction and Effects

CHAPTER IV.
POLITICAL DISPUTATIONS.

Baldwin--A Yankee's Political Stability--The Yazoo Question--Party
Feuds and Fights--Deaf and Dumb Ministers--Clay--Jackson--Buchanan--
Calhoun--Cotton and Free Trade--The Clay and Randolph Duel

CHAPTER V.
GEORGIA'S NOBLE SONS.

A Minister of a Day--Purity of Administration--Then and Now--Widow
Timberlake--Van Buren's Letter--Armbrister and Arbuthnot--Old
Hickory Settles a Difficulty--A Cause of the Late War--Honored Dead

CHAPTER VI.
POPULAR CHARACTERISTICS.

A Frugal People--Laws and Religion--Father Pierce--Thomas W. Cobb--
Requisites of a Political Candidate--A Farmer-Lawyer--Southern
Humorists

CHAPTER VII.
WITS AND FIRE-EATERS.

Judge Dooly--Lawyers and Blacksmiths--John Forsyth--How Juries were
Drawn--Gum-Tree _vs._ Wooden-Leg--Preacher-Politicians--Colonel
Gumming--George McDuffie

CHAPTER VIII.
FIFTY YEARS AGO.

Governor Matthews--Indians--Topography of Middle Georgia--A New
Country and its Settlers--Beaux and Belles--Early Training--Jesuit
Teachers--A Mother's Influence--The Jews--Homely Sports--The Cotton
Gin--Camp-Meetings

CHAPTER IX.
PEDAGOGUES AND DEMAGOGUES.

Education--Colleges--School-Days--William and Mary--A Substitute--
Boarding Around--Rough Diamonds--Caste--George M. Troup--A Scotch
Indian--Alexander McGilvery--The McIntosh Family--Button Gwinnett
--General Taylor--Matthew Talbot--Jesse Mercer--An Exciting Election

CHAPTER X.
INDIAN TREATIES AND DIFFICULTIES.

The Creeks--John Quincy Adams--Hopothlayohola--Indian Oratory--Sulphur
Springs--Treaties Made and Broken--An Independent Governor--Colonels
John S. McIntosh, David Emanuel Twiggs, and Duncan Clinch--General
Gaines--Christianizing the Indians--Cotton Mather--Expedient and
Principle--The Puritanical Snake

CHAPTER XI.
POLITICAL CHANGES.

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--Cock-Pitting--Military Blunders on Both Sides--Abner
Green's Daughter--Andrew Jackson--Gwinn--Poindexter--Ad Interim--
Generals by Nature as Civil Rulers

CHAPTER XII.
GOSSIP.

Unrequited Love--Popping the Question--Practical Joking--Satan Let
Loose--Rhea, but not Rhea--Teachings of Nature--H.S. Smith

CHAPTER XIII.
INFLUENCE OF CHILDHOOD.

First Impressions--Fortune--Mirabeau B. Lamar--Dr. Alonzo Church--Julius
Cæsar--L.Q.C. Lamar--Texan Independence--Colquitt--Lumpkin--What a Great
Man Can Do in One Day--Charles J. Jenkins

CHAPTER XIV.
A REVOLUTIONARY VETERAN.

Tapping Reeve--James Gould--Colonel Benjamin Talmadge--The Execution
of Major André--Character of Washington--A Breach of Discipline--
Burr and Hamilton--Margaret Moncrief--Cowles Meade

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

CHAPTER XVI.
PARTY PRINCIPLES.

Origin of Parties--Federal and Republican Peculiarities--Jefferson's
Principles and Religion--Democracy--Virginia and Massachusetts
Parties--War with France--Sedition Law--Lyman Beecher--The Almighty
Dollar--"Hail Columbia" and "Yankee Doodle"

CHAPTER XVII.
CONGRESS IN ITS BRIGHTEST DAYS.

Missouri Compromise--John Randolph's Juba--Mr. Macon--Holmes and
Crawford--Mr. Clay's Influence--James Barbour--Philip P. Barbour--
Mr. Pinkney--Mr. Beecher, of Ohio--"Cuckoo, Cuckoo!"--National Roads
--William Lowndes--William Roscoe--Duke of Argyle--Louis McLean--
Whig and Democratic Parties

CHAPTER XVIII.
FRENCH AND SPANISH TERRITORY.

Settlers on the Tombigbee and Mississippi Rivers--La Salle--Natchez
--Family Apportionment--The Hill Country--Hospitality--Benefit of
African Slavery--Capacity of the Negro--His Future

CHAPTER XIX.
THE NATCHEZ TRADITIONS.

Natchez--Mizezibbee; or, The Parent of Many Waters--Indian Mounds--
The Child of the Sun--Treatment of the Females--Poetic Marriages--
Unchaste Maids and Pure Wives--Walking Archives--The Profane Fire--
Alahoplechia--Oyelape--The Chief with a Beard

CHAPTER XX.
EXPLORATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

Chicago--Crying Indians--Chickasaws--De Soto--Feast of the Great
Sun--Cane-Knives--Love-stricken Indian Maiden--Rape of the Natchez
--Man's Will--Subjugation of the Waters--The Black Man's Mission--Its
Decade

CHAPTER XXI.
TWO STRANGE BEINGS.

Romance of Western Life--Met by Chance--Parting on the Levee--Meeting
at the Sick-Bed--Convalescent--Love-Making--"Home, Sweet Home"--
Theological Discussion--Uncle Tony--Wild, yet Gentle--An Odd
Family--The Adventurer Speculates

CHAPTER XXII.
THE ROMANCE CONTINUED.

Father Confessor--Open Confession--The Unread Will--Old Tony's
Narrative--Squirrel Shooting--The Farewell Unsaid--Brothers-in-Law--
Farewell Indeed

CHAPTER XXIII.
WHEN SUCCESSFUL, RIGHT; WHEN NOT, WRONG.

Territorial
Mississippi--Wilkinson--Adams--Jefferson--Warren--Claiborne--Union of
the Factions--Colonel Wood--Chew--David Hunt--Joseph Dunbar--Society of
Western Mississippi--Pop Visits of a Week to Tea--The Horse "Tom" and
his Rider--Our Grandfathers' Days--An Emigrant's Outfit--My
Share--George Poindexter--A Sudden Opening of a Court of Justice--The
Caldwell and Gwinn Duel--Jackson's Opposition to the Governor of
Mississippi

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE SILVER-TONGUED ORATOR.

John A. Quitman--Robert J. Walker--Robert H. Adams--From a Cooper-Shop
to the United States Senate--Bank Monopoly--Natchez Fencibles--Scott
in Mexico--Thomas Hall--Sargent S. Prentiss--Vicksburg--Single-speech
Hamilton--God-inspired Oratory--Drunk by Absorption--Killing
a Tailor--Defence of Wilkinson

CHAPTER XXV.
A FINANCIAL CRASH.

A Wonderful Memory--A Nation Without Debt--Crushing the National
Bank--Rise of State Banks--Inflated Currency--Grand Flare-up--Take
Care of Yourself--Commencing Anew--Failing to Reach an Obtuse
Heart--King Alcohol does his Work--Prentiss and Foote--Love Me,
Love my Dog--A Noble Spirit Overcome--Charity Covereth a Multitude
of Sins

CHAPTER XXVI.
ACADIAN FRENCH SETTLERS.

Sugar _vs._ Cotton--Acadia--A Specimen of Mississippi French Life--
Bayou La Fourche--The Great Flood--Theological Arbitration--A
Rustic Ball--Old-Fashioned Weddings--Creoles and Quadroons--The
Planter--Negro Servants--Gauls and Anglo-Normans--Antagonism of Races

CHAPTER XXVII.
ABOLITION OF LICENSED GAMBLING.

Baton Rouge--Florida Parishes--Dissatisfaction--Where there's a Will,
there's a Way--Storming a Fort on Horseback--Annexation at the Point
of the Poker--Raphignac and Larry Moore--Fighting the "Tiger"--Carrying
a Practical Joke too Far--A Silver Tea-Set

CHAPTER XXVIII.
THREE GREAT JUDGES.

A Speech in Two Languages--Long Sessions--Matthews, Martin, and Porter
--A Singular Will--A Scion of '98--Five Hundred Dollars for a Little
Fun with the Dogs--Cancelling a Note

CHAPTER XXIX.
AMERICANIZING LOUISIANA.

Powers of Louisiana Courts--Governor William C.C. Claiborne--Cruel
O'Reilly--Lefrenier and Noyan Executed--A Dutch Justice--Edward
Livingston--A Caricature of General Jackson--Stephen Mazereau--A
Speech in Three Languages--John R. Grymes--Settling a Ca. Sa.--Batture
Property--A Hundred Thousand Dollar Fee

CHAPTER XXX.
DIVISION OF NEW ORLEANS INTO MUNICIPALITIES.

American Hotel--Introduction of Steamboats--Faubourg St. Mary--Canal
Street--St. Charles Hotel--Samuel J. Peters--James H. Caldwell--Fathers
of the Municipality--Bernard Marigny--An Ass--A.B. Roman

CHAPTER XXXI.
BLOWING UP THE LIONESS.

Doctor Clapp--Views and Opinions--Universal Destiny--Alexander Barrow
--E.D. White--Cross-Breed, Irish Renegade, and Acadian--A Heroic
Woman--The Ginseng Trade--I-I-I'll D-d-die F-f-first

CHAPTER XXXII.
GRADUAL EXTINCTION OF THE RED MAN.

Line Creek Fifty Years Ago--Hopothlayohola--McIntosh--Undying Hatred--A
Big Pow-wow--Massacre of the McIntoshes--Nehemathla--Onchees--The Last
of the Race--A Brave Warrior--A White Man's Friendship--The
Death-Song--Tuskega; or, Jim's Boy

CHAPTER XXXIII.
FUN, FACT, AND FANCY.

Eugenius Nesbitt--Washington Poe--Yelverton P. King--Preparing to
Receive the Court--Walton Tavern, in Lexington--Billy Springer, of
Sparta--Freeman Walker--An Augusta Lawyer--A Georgia Major--Major
Walker's Bed--Uncle Ned--Discharging a Hog on His Own Recognizance
--Morning Admonition and Evening Counsel--A Mother's Request--
Invocation--Conclusion




THE MEMORIES OF FIFTY YEARS.




CHAPTER I.

REVOLUTIONARY TRADITIONS.

MIDDLE GEORGIA--COLONEL DAVID LOVE--HIS WIDOW--GOVERNOR DUNMORE--
COLONEL TARLETON--BILL CUNNINGHAM--COLONEL FANNIN--MY GRANDMOTHER'S
BIBLE--SOLOMON'S MAXIM APPLIED--ROBERTUS LOVE--THE INDIAN WARRIOR--
DRAGON CANOE--A BUXOM LASS--GENERAL GATES--MARION--MASON L. WEEMS--
WASHINGTON--"BILLY CRAFFORD."


My earliest memories are connected with the first settlement of Middle
Georgia, where I was born. My grandparents on the mother's side, were
natives of North Carolina; and, I believe, of Anson county. My
grandfather, Colonel David Love, was an active partisan officer in the
service of the Continental Congress. He died before I was born; but my
grandmother lived until I was seventeen years of age. As her oldest
grandchild, I spent much of my time, in early boyhood, at her home
near the head of Shoulderbone Creek in the county of Green. She was a
little, fussy, Irish woman, a Presbyterian in religion, and a very
strict observer of all the duties imposed upon her sect, especially in
keeping holy the Sabbath day. All her children were grown up, married,
and, in the language of the time, "gone away." She was in truth a lone
woman, busying herself in household and farming affairs. With a few
negroes, and a miserably poor piece of land, she struggled in her
widowhood with fortune, and contrived, with North Carolina frugality
and industry, not only to make a decent living, but to lay up
something for a rainy day, as she phrases it. In her visits to her
fields and garden, I ran by her side and listened to stories of Tory
atrocities and Whig suffering in North Carolina during the Revolution.
The infamous Governor Dunmore, the cruel Colonel Tarleton, and the
murderous and thieving Bill Cunningham and Colonel Fannin, both
Tories, and the latter natives to the soil, were presented graphically
to me in their most hateful forms. In truth, before I had attained my
seventh year, I was familiar with the history of the partisan warfare
waged between Whig and Tory in North and South Carolina, from 1776 to
1782, from this good but garrulous old lady. I am not so certain she
was good: she had a temper of her own, and a will and a way of her
own; and was good-natured only when permitted this way without
opposition, or cross. Perhaps I retain a more vivid memory of these
peculiar traits than of any others characterizing her. She permitted
no contradiction, and exacted implicit obedience, and this was well
understood by everything about her. She was strict and exacting, and
had learned from Solomon that to "spare the rod was to spoil the
child." She read the Bible only; and it was the only book in the
house. This Bible is still in existence; it was brought by my
grandfather from Europe, and is now covered with the skin of a fish
which he harpooned on his return voyage, appropriating the skin to
this purpose in 1750. She had use for no other book, not even for an
almanac, for at any moment she could tell the day of the month, the
phase of the moon and the day General Washington captured Cornwallis;
as also the day on which Washington died. Her reverence for the memory
of my grandfather was idolatry. His cane hung with his hat just where
he had habitually placed them during his latter days. His saddle and
great sea-chest were preserved with equal care, and remained
undisturbed from 1798 to 1817, precisely as he left them. I ventured
to remove the cane upon one occasion; and, with a little negro or two,
was merrily riding it around in the great lumber-room of the house,
where scarcely any one ever went, when she came in and caught me. The
pear-tree sprouts were immediately put into requisition, and the whole
party most mercilessly thrashed. From that day forward the old
buckhorn-headed cane was an awful reminder of my sufferings. She was
careful not to injure the clothing of her victims, and made her
appeals to the unshielded cuticle, and with a heavy hand for a small
woman.

It was an ill-fashioned but powerfully-built house, and remains a
monument to this day of sound timber and faithful work, braving time
and the storm for eighty-two years. It was the first framed house
built in the county, and I am sure, upon the poorest spot of land
within fifty miles of where it stands. Here was born my uncle,
Robertus Love, who was the first white child born in the State west of
the Ogeechee River.

Colonel Love, my grandfather, was eccentric in many of his opinions,
and was a Puritan in religious faith. Oliver Cromwell was his model of
a statesman, and Praise-God Barebones his type of a Christian. While
he was a boy his father married a second time, and, as is very
frequently the case, there was no harmony between the step-mother and
step-son. Their jarrings soon ripened into open war. To avoid
expulsion from the paternal roof he "bundled and went." Nor did he
rest until, in the heart of the Cherokee nation of Indians, he found a
home with Dragon Canoe, then the principal warrior of the nation, who
resided in a valley amid the mountains, and which is now Habersham
County. With this chief, who at the time was young, he remained some
four years, pursuing the chase for pleasure and profit. Thus
accumulating a large quantity of peltries, he carried them on
pack-horses to Charleston, and thence went with them to Europe. After
disposing of his furs, which proved profitable, he wandered on foot
about Europe for some eighteen months, and then, returning to London,
he embarked for America.

During all this time he had not heard from his family. Arriving at
Charleston he made his way back to the neighborhood of his birth. He
was ferried across the Pedee river by a buxom lass, who captured his
heart. Finding his father dead, he gathered up the little patrimony
left him in his father's will, should he ever return to claim it: he
then returned to the neighborhood of his sweetheart of the ferry; and,
being a fine-looking man of six feet three inches, with great blue
eyes, round and liquid; and, Othello-like, telling well the story of
his adventures, he very soon beguiled the maiden's heart, and they
were made one. About this time came off the battles of Concord and
Lexington, inaugurating the Revolution. It was not, however, until
after the declaration of independence, that he threw aside the plough
and shouldered the musket for American independence.

That portion of North Carolina in which he resided had been mainly
peopled by emigrants from Scotland. The war progressing into the
South, found nearly all of these faithful in their allegiance to
Britain. The population of English descent, in the main, espoused the
cause of the colonies. With his neighbors Love was a favorite; he was
very fleet in a foot-race, had remarkable strength; but, above all,
was sagacious and strong of will. Such qualities, always appreciated
by a rude people, at that particular juncture brought their possessor
prominently forward, and he was chosen captain of a company composed
almost to a man of his personal friends and acquaintances. Uniting
himself with the regiment of Colonel Lynch, just then organized, and
which was ordered to join the North Carolina line, they marched at
once to join General Gates, then commanding in the South. Under the
command of this unfortunate general he remained until after the battle
of Camden. Here Gates experienced a most disastrous defeat, and the
whole country was surrendered to the British forces.

South Carolina and North Carolina, especially their southern portions,
were entirely overrun by the enemy, who armed the Tories and turned
them loose to ravage the country. Gates's army was disorganized, and
most of those who composed it from the Carolinas returned to their
homes. Between these and the Scotch Tories, as the Loyalists were
termed, there was a continual partisan strife, each party resorting to
the most cruel murders, burning and destroying the homes and the
property of each other. Partisan bands were organized by each, and
under desperate leaders did desperate deeds. It was then and there
that Marion and Fanning became conspicuous, and were respectively the
terror of Whigs and Tories.

There were numerous others of like character, though less efficient
and less conspicuous. The exploits of such bands are deemed beneath
the dignity of history, and now only live in the memories of those who
received them traditionally from the actors, their associates or
descendants. Those acts constitute mainly the tragic horrors of war,
and evidence the merciless inhumanity of enraged men, unrestrained by
civil or moral law. Injuries he deems wanton prompt the passions of
his nature to revenge, and he hastens to retaliate upon his enemy,
with increased horrors, their savage brutalities.

As the leader of a small band of neighbors who had united for
protection and revenge, Colonel Love became conspicuous for his
courage and cruelty. It was impossible for these, his associates, as
for their Tory neighbors and enemies, to remain at their homes, or
even to visit them, except at night, and then most stealthily. The
country abounds with swamps more or less dense and irreclaimable,
which must always remain a hiding-place for the unfortunate or
desperate. In these the little bands by day were concealed, issuing
forth at night to seek for food or spoils. Their families were often
made the victims of revenge; and instances were numerous where feeble
women and little children were slain in cold blood by neighbors long
and familiarly known to each other, in retaliation of like atrocities
perpetrated by their husbands, sons, or brothers.

It was a favorite pastime with my grandmother, when the morning's work
was done, to uncover her flax-wheel, seat herself, and call me to sit
by her, and, after my childish manner, read to her from the "Life of
General Francis Marion," by Mason L. Weems, the graphic account of the
general's exploits, by the venerable parson. There was not a story in
the book that she did not know, almost as a party concerned, and she
would ply her work of flax-spinning while she gave me close and
intense attention. At times, when the historian was at fault in his
facts--and, to say the truth, that was more frequently the case than
comports with veracious history--she would cease the impelling motion
of her foot upon the pedal of her little wheel, drop her thread, and,
gently arresting the fly of her spool, she would lift her iron-framed
spectacles, and with great gravity say: "Read that again. Ah! it is
not as it happened, your grandfather was in that fight, and I will
tell you how it was." This was so frequently the case, that now, when
more than sixty years have flown, I am at a loss to know, if the
knowledge of most of these facts which tenaciously clings to my
memory, was originally derived from Weems's book, or my grandmother's
narrations. In these forays and conflicts, whenever my grandfather was
a party, her information was derived from him and his associates, and
of course was deemed by her authentic; and whenever these differed
from the historian's narrative, his, of consequence, was untrue.
Finally, Weems, upon one of his book-selling excursions, which simply
meant disposing of his own writings, came through her neighborhood,
and with the gravity of age, left verbally his own biography with Mrs.
McJoy, a neighbor; this made him, as he phrased it, General
Washington's preacher. He was never after assailed as a lying author:
but whenever his narrative was opposed to her memory, she had the
excuse for him, that his informant had deceived him.

To have seen General Washington, even without having held the holy
office of his preacher, sanctified in her estimation any and every
one. She had seen him, and it was the especial glory of her life. Yes,
she had seen him, and remembered minutely his eyes, his hair, his
mouth and his hands--and even his black horse, with a star in his
face, and his one white foot and long, sweeping tail. So often did I
listen to the story, that in after boyhood I came to believe I had
seen him also, though his death occurred twenty days before I was
born. My dear, good mother has often told me that but for an attack of
ague, which kept the venerable lady from our home for a month or more,
I should have been honored with bearing the old hero's name through
life. So intent was she in this particular, that she never liked my
being named after Billy Crafford (for so she pronounced his name) for
whom the partiality of my father caused him to name me. Few remain to
remember the horrors of this partisan warfare. The very traditions are
being obliterated by those of the recent civil war, so rife with
scenes and deeds sufficiently horrible for the appetite of the curious
in crime and cruelty.




CHAPTER II.

PIONEER LIFE.

SETTLEMENT OF MIDDLE GEORGIA--PROWLING INDIANS--SCOUTS AND THEIR
DOGS--CLASSES OF SETTLERS--PROMINENCE OF VIRGINIANS--CAUSES OF
DISTINCTION--CLEARING--LOG-ROLLING--FROLICS--TEACHERS CUMMINGS AND
DUFFY--THE SCHOOLMASTER'S NOSE--FLOGGING--EMIGRATION TO ALABAMA.


The early settlement of Middle Georgia was principally by emigrants
from Virginia and North Carolina. These were a rough, poor, but honest
people, with little or no fortunes, and who were quite as limited in
education as in fortune. Their necessities made them industrious and
frugal. Lands were procured at the expense of surveying; the soil was
virgin and productive; rude cabins, built of poles, constituted not
only their dwellings but every necessary outbuilding. Those who first
ventured beyond the Ogeechee generally selected some spot where a good
spring of water was found, not overlooked by an elevation so close as
to afford an opportunity to the Indians, then very troublesome, to
fire into the little stockade forts erected around these springs for
their security against the secret attacks of the prowling and
merciless Creeks and Cherokees.

Usually several families united in building and living in these forts.
As soon as this protection was completed, the work of clearing away
the surrounding forest was commenced, that the land should afford a
field for cultivation. While thus employed, sentinels were stationed
at such points in the neighborhood as afforded the best opportunity
for descrying the approach of Indians, and the watch was most careful.
When those employed in hunting (for every community had its hunters)
discovered, or thought they had discovered signs of the presence of
the savages, scouts were immediately sent out to discover if they were
lurking anywhere in the neighborhood. This was the most arduous and
perilous duty of the pioneers, and not unfrequently the scout, or spy
as he was usually termed, went to return no more. When seed-time came,
corn, a small patch of cotton and another of flax were planted, and
cultivation continued under the same surveillance.

The dog, always the companion of man, was carefully trained to search
for the prowling Indians; and by daylight every morning the clearing,
as the open lands were universally termed; was passed around by a
cautious scout, always preceded by his dogs, who seemed as conscious
of their duty and as faithful in its discharge as was their master. If
he reported no Indians, the work of cultivation commenced, and the
sentinels repaired to their posts. These were usually changed whenever
the slightest sign of Indians anywhere in the country could be found,
lest their posts might have been found and marked, and ambushed at
night. Yet, despite this prudent caution, many a sentinel perished at
his post. The unerring arrow gave no alarm, and the sentinel slain,
opened an approach for the savages; and not unfrequently parties at
labor were thus surprised and shot in full view of those in the fort.

Occasionally an emigrant brought with him a slave or two: these were
rich, and invariably were the leading men in the communities. Those
from Virginia were more frequently possessed of this species of
property than those from the Carolinas, and, coming from an older
country, had generally enjoyed better opportunities and were more
cultivated. A common necessity harmonized all, and the state of
society was a pure democracy. These communities were usually from
twenty to fifty miles apart, and about them a nucleus was formed,
inviting those who sought the new country for a home to locate in the
immediate vicinity. Security and the enjoyment of social intercourse
were more frequently the incentives for these selections than the
fertility of the soil or other advantages. One peculiarity was
observable, which their descendants, in their emigration to the West,
continue to this day to practise: they usually came due west from
their former homes, and were sure to select, as nearly as possible, a
new one in the same parallel, and with surroundings as nearly like
those they had left as possible. With the North Carolinian, good
spring-water, and pine-knots for his fire, were the _sine qua
non_. These secured, he went to work with the assiduity and
perseverance of a beaver to build his house and open his fields. The
Virginians, less particular, but more ambitious, sought the best lands
for grain and tobacco; consequently they were more diffused, and their
improvements, from their superior wealth, were more imposing.

Wealth in all communities is comparative, and he who has only a few
thousand dollars, where no one else has so much, is the rich man, and
ever assumes the rich man's prerogatives and bearing. All experience
has proved that as a man estimates himself, so in time will the
community esteem him; and he who assumes to lead or dictate will soon
be permitted to do so, and will become the first in prominence and
influence in his neighborhood, county, or State. Greatness commences
humbly and progresses by assumption. The humble ruler of a
neighborhood, like a pebble thrown into a pond, will continue to
increase the circle of his influence until it reaches the limits of
his county. The fathers speak of him, the children hear of him, his
name is a household word; if he but assumes enough, in time he becomes
the great man of the county; and if with impudence he unites a modicum
of talent, well larded with a cunning deceit, it will not be long
before he is Governor or member of Congress. It is not surprising,
then, that in nearly every one of these communities the great man was
a Virginian. It has been assumed by the Virginians that they have
descended from a superior race, and this may be true as regards many
families whose ancestors were of Norman descent; but it is not true of
the mass of her population; and for one descendant from the nobility
and gentry of the mother country, there are thousands of pure
Anglo-Saxon blood. It was certainly true, from the character and
abilities of her public men, in her colonial condition and in the
earlier days of the republic, she had a right to assume a superiority;
but this, I fancy, was more the result of her peculiar institutions
than of any superiority of race or greater purity of blood. I am far,
however, from underrating the influence of blood. That there are
species of the same race superior in mental as well as in physical
formation is certainly true. The peculiar organization of the brain,
its fineness of texture in some, distinguish them as mentally superior
to others, as the greater development of bone and muscle marks the
superiority of physical power. Very frequently this difference is seen
in brothers, and sometimes in families of the same parents--the males
in some usurping all the mental acumen, and in others the females. Why
this is so, I cannot stop to speculate.

Virginia, in her many divisions of territory, was granted to the
younger sons of the nobility and gentry of England. They came with the
peculiar habits of their class, and located upon these grants,
bringing with them as colonists their dependants in England, and
retaining here all the peculiarities of caste. The former were the
governing class at home, and asserted the privilege here; the latter
were content that it should be so. In the formation of the first
constitution for Virginia, the great feature of a landed aristocracy
was fully recognized in the organic law. The suffragist was the landed
proprietor, and in every county where his possessions were this right
attached. They recognized landed property as the basis of government,
and demanded the right for it of choosing the lawmakers and the
executors of the law. All power, and very nearly all of the wealth of
the State, was in the hands of the landlords, and these selected from
their own class or caste the men who were to conduct the government.
To this class, too, were confined most of the education and learning
in the new State; and in choosing for the Legislature or for Congress,
State pride and the love of power prompted the selection of their
brightest and best men.

Oratory was esteemed the first attribute of superior minds, and was
assiduously cultivated. There were few newspapers, and the press had
not attained the controlling power over the public mind as now.
Political information was disseminated chiefly by public speaking, and
every one aspiring to lead in the land was expected to be a fine
speaker. This method, and the manner of voting, forced an open avowal
of political opinion. Each candidate, upon the day of election, took
his seat upon the bench of the judge in the county court-house, and
the suffragist appeared at the bar, demanding to exercise his
privilege in the choice of his representative. This was done by
declaring the names of those he voted for. These peculiar institutions
cultivated open and manly bearing, pride, and independence. There was
little opportunity for the arts of the demagogue; and the elevation of
sentiment in the suffragist made him despise the man, however superior
his talents, who would attempt them. The voter's pride was to sustain
the power of his State in the national councils, to have a great man
for his Governor; they were the representatives of his class, and he
felt his own importance in the greatness of his representative. It is
not to be wondered at, under these circumstances, that Virginia held
for many years the control of the Government, furnishing Presidents of
transcendent abilities to the nation, and filling her councils with
men whose talents and eloquence and proud and independent bearing won
for them, not only the respect of the nation's representatives, but
the power to control the nation's destinies, and to be looked upon as
belonging to a superior race.

There were wanting, however, two great elements in the nation's
institutions, to sustain in its pride and efficiency this peculiar
advantage, to wit, the entailment of estates, and the right of
primogeniture. Those landed estates soon began to be subdivided, and
in proportion as they dwindled into insignificance, so began to perish
the prestige of their proprietors. The institution of African slavery
served for a long time to aid in continuing the aristocratic features
of Virginia society, though it conferred no legal privileges. As
these, and the lands, found their way into many hands, the democratic
element began to aspire and to be felt. The struggle was long and
severe, but finally, in 1829 or 1830, the democratic element
triumphed, and a new constitution was formed, extending universal
suffrage to white men. This degraded the constituent and
representative alike, and all of Virginia's power was soon lost in the
councils of the nation. But the pride of her people did not perish
with her aristocracy; this continued, and permeated her entire people.
They preserved it at home, and carried it wherever they went. Those
whose consideration at home was at zero, became of the first families
abroad, until Virginia pride became a by-word of scorn in the western
and more southern States. Yet despite all this, there is greatness in
the Virginians: there is superiority in her people,--a loftiness of
soul, a generosity of hospitality, a dignified patience under
suffering, which command the respect and admiration of every
appreciative mind.

Very soon after the Revolution, the tide of emigration began to flow
toward Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia. Those from Virginia who
sought new homes went principally to Kentucky, as much because it was
a part of the Old Dominion, as on account of climate and soil. Those
from North Carolina and South Carolina preferred Tennessee, and what
was then known as Upper Georgia, but now as Middle Georgia; yet there
was a sprinkling here and there throughout Georgia from Virginia. Many
of these became leading men in the State, and their descendants still
boast of their origin, and in plenary pride point to such men as
William H. Crawford and Peter Early as shining evidences of the
superiority of Virginia's blood.

Most of these emigrants, however, were poor; but where all were poor,
this was no degradation. The concomitants of poverty in densely
populated communities--where great wealth confers social distinction
and frowns from its association the poor, making poverty humility,
however elevated its virtues--were unknown in these new countries. The
nobler virtues, combined with energy and intellect, alone conferred
distinction; and I doubt if the world, ever furnished a more honest,
virtuous, energetic, or democratic association of men and women than
was, at the period of which I write, to be found constituting the
population of these new States. From whatever cause arising, there
certainly was, in the days of my early memory, more scrupulous truth,
open frankness, and pure, blunt honesty pervading the whole land than
seem to characterize its present population. It was said by Nathaniel
Macon, of North Carolina, that bad roads and fist-fights made the best
militia on earth; and these may have been, in some degree, the means
of moulding into fearless honesty the character of these people. They
encountered all the hardships of opening and subduing the country,
creating highways, bridges, churches, and towns with their public
buildings. These they met cheerfully, and working with a will,
triumphed. After months of labor, a few acres were cleared and the
trees cut into convenient lengths for handling, and then the neighbors
were invited to assist in what was called a log-rolling. This aid was
cheerfully given, and an offer to pay for it would have been an
insult. It was returned in kind, however, when a neighbor's
necessities required. These log-rollings were generally accompanied
with a quilting, which brought together the youth of the neighborhood;
and the winding up of the day's work was a frolic, as the dance and
other amusements of the time were termed. Upon occasions like this,
feats of strength and activity universally constituted a part of the
programme. The youth who could pull down his man at the end of the
hand-stick, throw him in a wrestle, or outstrip him in a footrace, was
honored as the best man in the settlement, and was always greeted with
a cheer from the older men, a slap on the shoulder by the old ladies,
and the shy but approving smiles of the girls,--had his choice of
partners in the dance, and in triumph rode home on horseback with his
belle, the horse's consciousness of bearing away the championship
manifesting itself in an erect head and stately step.

The apparel of male and female was of home-spun, woven by the mothers
and sisters, and was fashioned, I was about to say, by the same fair
hands; but these were almost universally embrowned with exposure and
hardened by toil. Education was exceedingly limited: the settlements
were sparse, and school-houses were at long intervals, and in these
the mere rudiments of an English education were taught--spelling,
reading, and writing, with the four elementary rules of arithmetic;
and it was a great advance to grapple with the grammar of the
language. As population and prosperity increased, their almost
illiterate teachers gave place to a better class; and many of my
Georgia readers will remember as among these the old Irish preachers,
Cummings, and that remarkable brute, Daniel Duffee. He was an Irishman
of the Pat Freney stripe, and I fancy there are many, with gray heads
and wrinkled fronts, who can look upon the cicatrices resulting from
his merciless blows, and remember that Milesian malignity of face,
with its toad-like nose, with the same vividness with which it
presents itself to me to-day. Yes, I remember it, and have cause. When
scarcely ten years of age, in his little log school-house, the
aforesaid resemblance forced itself upon me with such _vim_ that
involuntarily I laughed. For this outbreak against the tyrant's rules
I was called to his frowning presence.

"What are you laughing at, you whelp?" was the rude inquiry.

Tremblingly I replied: "You will whip me if I tell you."

"And you little devil, I will whip you if you don't," was his
rejoinder, as he reached for his well-trimmed hickory, one of many
conspicuously displayed upon his table. With truthful sincerity I
answered:

"Father Duffy, I was laughing to think how much your nose is like a
frog."

It was just after play-time, and I was compelled to stand by him and
at intervals of ten minutes receive a dozen lashes, laid on with
brawny Irish strength, until discharged with the school at night.
To-day I bear the marks of that whipping upon my shoulders and in my
heart. But Duffy was not alone in the strictness and severity of his
rules and his punishments. Children were taught to believe that there
could be no discipline in a school of boys and girls without the
savage brutality of the lash, and the teacher who met his pupils with
a caressing smile was considered unworthy his vocation. Learning must
be thrashed into the tender mind; nothing was such a stimulus to the
young memory as the lash and the vulgar, abusive reproof of the gentle
and meritorious teacher.

There was great eccentricity of character in all the conduct and
language of Duffy. He had his own method of prayer, and his own
peculiar style of preaching, frequently calling out the names of
persons in his audience whom it was his privilege to consider the
chiefest of sinners, and to implore mercy for them in language
offensive almost to decency. Sometimes, in the presence of persons
inimical to each other, he would ask the Lord to convert the sinners
and make the fools friends, first telling the Lord who they were by
name, to the no small amusement of his most Christian audience; many
of whom would in deep devotion respond with a sonorous "Amen."

From such a population sprang the present inhabitants of Georgia; and
by such men were they taught, in their budding boyhood, the rudiments
of an English education;--such, I mean, of the inhabitants who still
live and remember Duffy, Cummings, and McLean. They are few, but the
children of the departed remember traditionally these and their like,
in the schoolmasters of Georgia from 1790 to 1815.

At the close of the war of 1812-15, a new impetus was given to
everything throughout the South, and especially to education. The
ambition for wealth seized upon her people, the high price of cotton
favored its accumulation, and with it came new and more extravagant
wants, new and more luxurious habits. The plain homespun jean coat
gave way to the broad-cloth one; and the neat, Turkey-red striped
Sunday frock of the belle yielded to the gaudy red calico one, and
there was a sniff of aristocratic contempt in the upturned nose
towards those who, from choice or necessity, continued in the old
habits.

Material wealth augmented rapidly, and with it came all of its
assumptions. The rich lands of Alabama were open to settlement. The
formidable Indian had been humbled, and many of the wealthiest
cultivators of the soil were commencing to emigrate to a newer and
more fertile country, where smiling Fortune beckoned them.

The first to lead off in this exodus was the Bibb family, long
distinguished for wealth and influence in the State. The Watkinses,
the Sheroos, and Dearings followed: some to north, some to south
Alabama. W.W. Bibb was appointed, by Mr. Madison, Territorial Governor
of Alabama, and was followed to the new El Dorado by his brothers,
Thomas, John Dandridge, and Benajah, all men of substance and
character.

For a time this rage for a new country seemed to threaten Georgia and
South Carolina with the loss of their best population. This probably
would have been the result of the new acquisition, but, in its midst,
the territory between the Ocmulgee and Chattahoochee was ceded by the
Indians, and afforded a new field for settlement, which effectually
arrested this emigration at its flood. The new territory added to the
dominion of Georgia was acquired mainly through the energy and
pertinacity of George M. Troup, at the time Governor of Georgia.

I have much to record of my memories concerning this new acquisition,
but must reserve them for a new chapter.




CHAPTER III.

THE GEORGIA COMPANY.

YAZOO PURCHASE--GOVERNOR MATHEWS--JAMES JACKSON--BURNING OF THE YAZOO
ACT--DEVELOPMENT OF FREE GOVERNMENT--CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION--SLAVERY:
ITS INTRODUCTION AND EFFECTS.


The grant by the British Government of the territory of Georgia to
General Oglethorpe and company, comprised what now constitutes the
entire States of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, except that
portion of Alabama and Mississippi lying below the thirty-first degree
of north latitude, which portions of those States were originally part
of West Florida.

The French settlements extended up the Mississippi, embracing both
sides of that river above the mouth of Red River, which discharges
into the former in the thirty-first degree of north latitude. The
river from the mouth of the Bayou Manshac, which left the river
fourteen miles below Baton Rouge, on the east side, up to the
thirty-first degree of north latitude, was the boundary line between
West Florida and Louisiana. Above this point the French claimed
jurisdiction on both sides; but Georgia disputed this jurisdiction
over the east bank, and claimed to own from the thirty-first to the
thirty-sixth degree of latitude. There were many settlements made by
Americans upon this territory at a very early day,--one at Natchez,
one at Fort Adams, and several on the Tombigbee, the St. Stephens, at
McIntosh's Bluff, and on Bassett's Creek. These settlements formed the
nucleus of an American population in the States of Mississippi and
Alabama. The lands bordering upon these rivers and their tributaries
were known to be exceedingly fertile, and proffered inducements to
settlers unequalled in all the South. Speculation was very soon
directed to these regions. A company was formed of citizens of Georgia
and Virginia for the purchase of an immense tract of territory,
including most of what is now Mississippi and Alabama. This company
was known as the Georgia Company, and the territory as the Yazoo
Purchase. It was a joint-stock company, and managed by trustees or
directors. The object was speculation. It was intended to purchase
from Georgia this domain, then to survey it and subdivide it into
tracts to suit purchasers. Parties were delegated to make this
purchase: this could only be done by the Legislature and by special
act passed for that purpose. The proposition was made, and met with
formidable opposition. The scheme was a gigantic one and promised
great results, and the parties concerned were bold and unscrupulous.
They very soon ascertained that means other than honorable to either
party must be resorted to to secure success. The members to be
operated upon were selected, and the company's agents began the work.
Enough was made, by donations of stock and the direct payment of money
by those interested in the scheme, to effect the passage of the Act
and secure the contract of purchase and sale. The opposition denied
the power of the Legislature to sell; asserting that the territory was
sacred to the people of the State, and that those, in selecting their
representatives, had never contemplated delegating any such powers as
would enable them to dispose by sale of any part of the public domain;
that it was the province of the Legislature, under the Constitution,
to pass laws for the general good alone, and not to barter or sell any
portion of the territory of the State to be separated from the domain
and authority of the State. They insisted that the matter should be
referred to the people, who at the next election of members to the
Legislature should declare their will and intention as to this sale.

On the other side they were met with the argument, that the
Legislature was sovereign and the supreme power of the State, and
might rightfully do anything, not forbidden in the Constitution,
pertaining to sovereignty, which they in their wisdom might deem
essential to the general welfare; that the territory included in the
grant to Oglethorpe and company was entirely too extended, and that by
a sale a new State or States would be formed, which would increase the
political power of the South--especially in the United States Senate,
where she greatly needed representation to counterbalance the
influence of the small States of the North in that body. These
arguments were specious, but it was well understood they were only
meant to justify a vote for the measure which corruption had secured.

The Act was passed by a bare majority of both branches of the
Legislature, and the sale consummated. Before the passage of this
measure, the will of the people had been sufficiently expressed in the
indignant outburst of public feeling, as to leave no doubt upon the
minds of the corrupt representatives that they had not only forfeited
the public confidence, but had actually imperilled their personal
safety. Upon the return to their homes, after the adjournment, they
were not only met with universal scorn, but with inappeasable rage.
Some of the most guilty were slain; some had their houses burned over
their heads, and others fled the State; one was pursued and killed in
Virginia, and all not only entailed upon themselves infamy, but also
upon their innocent posterity; and to-day, to be known as the
descendant of a Yazoo man is a badge of disgrace. The deed, however,
was done: how to undo it became an agitating question. The Legislature
next ensuing was elected pledged to repeal the odious Act; and upon
its convening, all made haste to manifest an ardent zeal in this work.

At the time of the passage of this Act, the Legislature sat in
Augusta, and the Governor who by the Act was empowered to make the
sale was George Mathews. Mathews was an Irishman by birth, and was
very illiterate, but a man of strong passions and indomitable will.
During the war of the Revolution he had, as a partisan officer, gained
some distinction, and in the upper counties exercised considerable
influence. Many anecdotes are related of his intrepidity and daring,
and quite as many of his extraordinary orthography. At the battle of
Eutaw Springs, in South Carolina, he was severely wounded, at the
moment when the Continental forces were retiring to a better position.
A British soldier, noticing some vestiges of a uniform upon him,
lifted his musket to stab him with the bayonet; his commander caught
the weapon, and angrily demanded, "Would you murder a wounded officer?
Forward, sir!" Mathews, turning upon his back, asked, "To whom do I
owe my life?" "If you consider it an obligation, sir, to me," answered
the lieutenant. Mathews saw the uniform was British, and furiously
replied, "Well, sir, I want you to know that I scorn a life saved by a
d----d Briton." The writer had the anecdote from a distinguished
citizen of Georgia, who was himself lying near by, severely wounded,
and who in one of his sons has given to Georgia a Governor.

General Wade Hampton, George Walker, William Longstreet, Zachariah
Cox, and Matthew McAllister were the parties most active in procuring
the passage of the Yazoo Act. That bribery was extensively practised,
there is no doubt, and the suspicion that it even extended to the
Executive gained credence as a fact, and was the cause of preventing
his name ever being given to a county in the State: and it is a
significant fact of this suspicion, and also of the great unpopularity
of the Act, that to this day every effort to that end has failed. No
act of Governor Mathews ever justified any such suspicion. As Governor
of the State, and believing the sovereign power of the State was in
the Legislature, and consequently the power to dispose of the public
domain, he only approved the Act as the State's Executive, and
fulfilled the duties assigned to him by the law. But suspicion
fastened upon him, and its effects remain to this day.

The pertinacious discussions between the parties purchasing and those
opposed to the State's selling and her authority to sell, created
immense excitement, and pervaded the entire State. The decision of the
Supreme Court of the United States was invoked in the case of Fletcher
_versus_ Peck, which settled the question of the power of the
State to sell the public domain, and the validity of the sale made by
the State to the Georgia Company. In the meantime the Legislature of
Georgia had repealed the law authorizing the Governor to sell. This
decision of the Supreme Court brought about an amicable adjustment of
the difficulties between the Company and the State, with the
Government of the United States as a third party.

The excitement was not so much on account of the sale, though this was
bitter, as of the corruption which procured it. The test of public
confidence and social respect was opposition to the Yazoo fraud. Every
candidate at the ensuing election for members of the Legislature was
compelled to declare his position on the subject of repealing this
Act, and, almost to a man, every one who believed in the power of the
State to sell, and that rights had vested in the purchasers and their
assigns, was defeated.

James Jackson, a young, ardent, and talented man, who had in very
early life, by his abilities and high character, so won the public
confidence that he had been elected Governor of the State, when he was
ineligible because of his youth, was at this time a member of
Congress. He made a tour through the State, preaching a crusade
against the corrupt Legislature, and denouncing those who had produced
and profited by this corruption, inflaming the public mind almost to
frenzy. He resided in Savannah, and was at the head of the Republican
or Jeffersonian party, which was just then being organized in
opposition to the administration of John Adams, the successor of
Washington. His parents had emigrated from England, and fixed their
home in Savannah, where young Jackson was born, and where, from the
noble qualities of his nature, he had become immensely popular.

Talent and virtuous merit at that period was the passport to public
confidence. Had it continued to be, we should never have known the
present deplorable condition of the country, with the Government
sinking into ruin ere it has reached the ten o'clock of national life.

His Shibboleth was, that the disgrace of the State must be wiped out
by the repeal of the Yazoo Act; and _repeal_ rang from every
mouth, from Savannah to the mountains. Jackson resigned his seat in
Congress, and was elected a member of the Legislature. Immediately
upon the assembling of this body, a bill was introduced repealing the
odious Act, and ordering the records containing it to be burned. This
was carried out to the letter. Jackson, heading the Legislature and
the indignant public, proceeded in procession to the public square in
Louisville, Jefferson County, where the law and the fagots were piled;
when, addressing the assembled multitude, he denounced the men who had
voted for the law as bribed villains--those who had bribed them, and
the Governor who had signed it; and declared that fire from heaven
only could sanctify the indignation of God and man in consuming the
condemned record of accursed crime. Then, with a Promethean or convex
glass condensing the sun's rays, he kindled the flame which consumed
the records containing the hated Yazoo Act.

Jackson was a man of ordinary height, slender, very erect in his
carriage, with red hair and intensely blue eyes. His manners were
courteous, affable, and remarkable for a natural dignity which added
greatly to his influence with the people. He was the model from which
was grown that chivalry and nobility of soul and high bearing so
characteristic of the people of Southern Georgia. In truth, the
essence of his character seemed subtilly to pervade the entire circle
in which he moved, inspiring a purity of character, a loftiness of
honor, which rebuked with its presence alone everything that was low,
little, or dishonest. Subsequently he was elected Governor of the
State, bringing all the qualities of his nature into the
administration of the office; he gave it a dignity and respectability
never subsequently degraded, until an unworthy son of South Carolina,
the pus and corruption of unscrupulous party, was foisted into the
position. Strength of will, a ripe judgment, and purity of intention,
were the great characteristics distinguishing him in public life, and
these have endeared his name to the people of Georgia, where now
remain many of his descendants, some of whom have filled high
positions in the State and United States, and not one has ever soiled
the honor or tarnished the name with an act unworthy a gentleman.

The Revolutionary struggle called out all the nobler qualities nature
has bestowed on man, in those who conceived the desire and executed
the determination to be free. The heroic was most prominent: woman
seemed to forget her feebleness and timidity, and boldly to dare, and
with increased fortitude to bear every danger, every misfortune, with
a heroism scarcely compatible with the delicacy of her nature. To
this, or some other inexplicable cause, nature seemed to resort in
preparation for coming events. In every State there came up men, born
during the war or immediately thereafter, of giant minds--men
seemingly destined to form and give direction to a new Government
suited to the genius of the people and to the physical peculiarities
of the country where it was to control the destinies of hundreds of
millions of human beings yet unborn, and where the soil was virgin and
unturned, which nature had prepared for their coming. This required a
new order of men. These millions were to be free in the fullest sense
of the word; they were only to be controlled by laws; and the making
of these laws was to be their own work, and nature was responding to
the exigencies of man.

The early probation of independent government taught the necessity of
national concentration as to the great features of government, at the
same time demonstrating the importance of keeping the minor powers of
government confined to the authority of the States. In the assembling
of a convention for this purpose, which grew out of the free action of
the people of each State, uninfluenced by law or precedent, we see
congregated a body of men combining more talent, more wisdom, and more
individuality of character than perhaps was ever aggregated in any
other public body ever assembled. From this convention of sages
emanated the Constitution of the United States; and most of those
constituting this body reassembled in the first Congress, which sat as
the supreme power in the United States. It was these men and their
coadjutors who inaugurated and gave direction to the new Government.
Under its operations, the human mind and human soul seemed to expand
and to compass a grasp it had scarcely known before. There were
universal content and universal harmony. The laws were everywhere
respected, and everywhere enforced. The freedom of thought, and the
liberty of action unrestrained, stimulated an ambition in every man to
discharge his duties faithfully to the Government, and honestly in all
social relations. There was universal security to person and property,
because every law-breaker was deemed a public enemy, and not only
received the law's condemnation, but the public scorn. Under such a
Government the rapid accumulation of wealth and population was a
natural consequence. The history of the world furnishes no example
comparable with the progress of the United States to national
greatness. The civilized world appeared to feel the influence of her
example and to start anew in the rivalry of greatness. Her soil's
surplus products created the means of a widely extended commerce, and
Americans can proudly refer to the eighty years of her existence as a
period showing greater progress in wealth, refinement, the arts and
sciences, and human liberty, than was ever experienced in any two
centuries of time within the historical period of man's existence. My
theme expands, and I am departing from the purposes of this work; yet
I cannot forbear the expression of opinion as to the causes of this
result. I know I shall incur the deepest censure from the professors
of a mawkish philanthropy, and a hypocritical religion which is
cursing with its cant the very sources of this unparalleled progress,
this unexampled prosperity.

Slavery was introduced into the Colonies by English merchants about
two centuries since: this was to supply a necessity--labor--for the
purpose of developing the resources of this immense and fertile
country. The African was designed by the Creator to subserve this
purpose. His centre of creation was within the tropics, and his
physical organization fitted him, and him alone, for field labor in
the tropical and semi-tropical regions of the earth. He endures the
sun's heat without pain or exhaustion in this labor, and yet he has
not nor can he acquire the capacity to direct profitably this labor.
It was then the design of the Creator that this labor should be
controlled and directed by a superior intelligence. In the absence of
mental capacity, we find him possessed of equal physical powers with
any other race, with an amiability of temper which submits without
resistance to this control. We find him, too, without moral, social,
or political aspirations, contented and happy in the condition of
servility to this superior intelligence, and rising in the scale of
humanity to a condition which under any other circumstances his race
had never attained. I may be answered that this labor can be had from
the black as a freeman as well as in the condition of a slave. To this
I will simply say, experience has proved this to be an error. Such is
the indolence and unambitious character of the negro that he will not
labor, unless compelled by the apprehension of immediate punishment,
to anything approaching his capacity for labor. His wants are few,
they are easily supplied, and when they are, there is no temptation
which will induce him to work. He cares nothing for social position,
and will steal to supply his necessities, and feel no abasement in the
legal punishment which follows his conviction; nor is his social
status among his race damaged thereby. As a slave to the white man, he
becomes and has proved an eminently useful being to his kind--in every
other condition, equally conspicuous as a useless one. The fertility
of the soil and the productions of the tropical regions of the earth
demonstrate to the thinking mind that these were to be cultivated and
made to produce for the uses and prosperity of the human family. The
great staples of human necessity and human luxury are produced here in
the greatest abundance, and the great majority of these nowhere else.
The white man, from his physical organization, cannot perform in these
regions the labor necessary to their production. His centre of
creation is in the temperate zones, and only there can he profitably
labor in the earth's cultivation. But his mental endowments enable him
to appropriate all which nature has supplied for the necessities of
life and the progress of his race. He sees and comprehends in nature
the designs of her Creator: these designs he develops, and the
consequence is a constant and enlightened progress of his race, and
the subjection of the physical world to this end.

He finds the soil, the climate, the production, and the labor united,
and he applies his intelligence to develop the design of this
combination; and the consequence has been the wonderful progress of
the last two centuries. I hold it as a great truth that nature points
to her uses and ends; that to observe these and follow them is to
promote the greatest happiness to the human family; and that wherever
these aims are diverted or misdirected, retrogression and human misery
are the consequence. In all matters, experience is a better test than
speculation; and to surrender a great practical utility to a mere
theory is great folly. But it has been done, and we abide the
consequences.

In all nations, a spurious, pretentious religion has been the
_avant-coureur_ of their destruction. In their inception and early
progress this curse exercises but slight influence, and their growth
is consequently healthy and vigorous. All nations have concealed this
cancerous ulcer, sooner or later to develop for their destruction.
These wear out with those they destroy, and a new or reformed religion
is almost always accompanied with new and vigorous developments in
a new and progressive Government. The shackles which have paralyzed
the mind, forbidding its development, are broken; the unnatural
superstition ceases to circumscribe and influence its operations; and
thus emancipated, it recovers its elasticity and springs forward
toward the perfection of the Creator. Rescued from these baleful
influences, the new organization is vigorous and rapid in its growth,
yielding the beneficent blessings natural to the healthful and
unabused energies of the mind. But with maturity and age the webs of
superstition begin to fasten on the mind; priests become prominent,
and as is their wont, the moment they shackle the mind, they reach out
for power, and the chained disciple of their superstition willingly
yields, under the vain delusion that he shares and participates in
this power as a holy office for the propagation of his creed--and
retrogression commences.

The effects of African slavery in the United States, upon the
condition of both races, was eminently beneficial to both. In no
condition, and under no other circumstances, had the African made such
advances toward civilization: indeed, I doubt if he has not attained
in this particular to the highest point susceptible to his nature. He
has increased more rapidly, and his aspirations have become more
elevated, and his happiness more augmented. With his labor directed by
the intelligence of the white race, the prosperity of the world has
increased in a ratio superior to any antecedent period. The production
of those staples which form the principal bases of commerce has
increased in a quadruple ratio. Cotton alone increased so rapidly as
to render its price so far below every other article which can be
fashioned into cloth, that the clothing and sheeting of the civilized
world was principally fabricated from it. The rapidity of its
increased production was only equalled by the increase of wealth and
comfort throughout the world. It regulates the exchanges almost
universally. It gave, in its growth, transportation, and manufacture,
employment to millions, feeding and clothing half of Europe--increasing
beyond example commercial tonnage, and stimulating the invention of
labor-saving machinery--giving a healthy impulse to labor and enterprise
in every avocation, and intertwining itself with every interest,
throughout the broad expanse of civilization over the earth. To cotton,
more than to any other one thing, is due the railroad, steamboat, and
steamship, the increase of commerce, the rapid accumulation of
fortunes, and consequently the diffusion of intelligence, learning, and
civilization.

Sugar, too, from the same cause, ceased to be a luxury, and became a
necessity in the economy of living: coffee, too, became a stimulating
beverage at every meal, instead of a luxury only to be indulged on
rare occasions. How much the increased production of these three
articles added to the commerce and wealth of the world during the last
two centuries, and especially the last, is beyond computation. How
much of human comfort and human happiness is now dependent upon their
continued production, and in such abundance as to make them accessible
to the means of all, may well employ the earnest attention of those
who feel for the interest and happiness of their kind most. If these
results have followed the institution of African slavery, can it be
inhuman and sinful? Is it not rather an evidence that the Creator so
designed?

But this is not all this institution has effected. Besides its
pecuniary results, it has inspired in the superior race a nobility of
feeling, resulting from a habit of command and a sense of
independence, which is peculiar to privileged orders of men in
civilized society. This feeling is manifested in high bearing and
sensitive honor, a refinement of sentiment and chivalrous emprise
unknown to communities without caste. This is to be seen in the
absence of everything little or mean. A noble hospitality, a scorn of
bargaining, and a lofty yet eminently deferential deportment toward
females: in this mould it has cast Southern society, and these traits
made the Southern gentleman remarkable, wherever his presence was
found.

These were the men who led in the formation of the Government of the
United States, and who gave tone and character to her legislative
assembly, so long as they held control of the Government. A peer among
these was James Jackson, and many of his confederates, of whom I shall
have occasion to speak in the progress of this work.




CHAPTER IV.

POLITICAL DISPUTATIONS.

BALDWIN--A YANKEE'S POLITICAL STABILITY--THE YAZOO QUESTION--PARTY
FEUDS AND FIGHTS--DEAF AND DUMB MINISTERS--CLAY--JACKSON--BUCHANAN--
CALHOUN--COTTON AND FREE-TRADE--THE CLAY AND RANDOLPH DUEL.


Among the early immigrants into Georgia were Abraham Baldwin and
William H. Crawford. Baldwin was from Connecticut, Crawford from
Virginia. Baldwin was a man of liberal education, and was destined for
the ministry; indeed, he had taken orders, and was an officiating
clergyman for some time in his native state. His family was English,
and has given many distinguished men to the nation. After he arrived
in Georgia, where he came to engage in his vocation, he very soon
ascertained his profession was not one which in a new country promised
much profit or distinction; and possessing in an eminent degree that
Yankee "_cuteness_" which is quick to discover what is to the interest
of its possessor, he abandoned the pulpit for the forum, and after a
brief probation in a law office at nights and a school-house by day,
he opened an office, and commenced the practice of law in Augusta. He
had been educated a Federalist in politics, and had not concealed his
sentiments in his new home.

Mr. Jefferson and his political principles were extremely popular in
Georgia, and though there were some distinguished Federalists in
Augusta who were leaders in her society, their number in the State was
too insignificant to hold out any prospect of preferment to a young,
talented, and ambitious aspirant for political distinction. Baldwin
was not slow to discover this, and, with the facile nature of his
race, abandoned his political creed, as he had his professional
pursuits. He saw Crawford was rising into public notice, and he knew
his ability, and with characteristic impudence he thrust himself
forward, and very soon was made a member of Congress. Here he was true
to his last love, and became a leading member of the Republican party.
By his conduct in this matter he made himself odious to his New
England friends, who were unsparing of their abuse because of his
treachery.

For this he cared very little; but bore well in mind that "the blood
of the martyrs was the seed of the church," and that the hate of the
Federalists was the passport to Republican favor. His zeal was that of
the new convert, and it won for him the confidence of his party, and
rapid preferment in the line of distinction. He was a man of decided
abilities, and seemed destined to high distinction; but dying early, a
member of the United States Senate, his hopes and aspirations here
terminated. The State has honored and perpetuated his name by giving
it to the county wherein is situated her seat of government.

Crawford, like Baldwin, taught, and studied law at the same time. He
was usher in a school taught by his life-long friend, Judge Yates.
When admitted to practise law, he located in the little village of
Lexington, in the County of Oglethorpe, and very soon was not only the
leading lawyer, but the leading man of all the up-country of Georgia.

Eminence is always envied: this was conspicuously the fortune of
Crawford. The population of the State was increasing rapidly, and
young aspirants for fame and fortune were crowding to where these were
promised most speedily.

The Yazoo question had created deep animosities. General Elijah
Clarke, and his son John, subsequently governor of the State, were
charged with complicity in this great fraud. The father had
distinguished himself in repelling the Indians in their various forays
upon the frontiers, and was a representative man. With strong will and
distinguished courage, he, without much talent, was conspicuous among
a people who were, like himself, rude, unlettered, but daring, and
abounding in strong common-sense.

There was a young man at the same time, a devoted friend of young
Clarke, and follower of his father: he was an emigrant from one of the
Middle States. Violent in his character, and incautious in the use of
language, he very soon became offensive to his opponents, and sought
every opportunity to increase the bad feeling with which he was
regarded. Siding with the Yazoo Company, he soon made himself odious
to their enemies. The parties of Republicans and Federalists were
bitter toward each other, and feuds were leading to fights, and some
of these of most deadly character. The conflicts with the Indians had
kept alive the warlike spirit which the partisan warfare of the
Revolution had cultivated at the South, and no virtue was so
especially regarded by these people as that of personal courage. The
consequence was that no man, whatever his deportment or
qualifications, could long fill the public eye without distinguishing
himself for the possession of personal bravery.

The Clarkes were the undisputed leaders of public opinion in the
up-country, until Crawford came, and, by his great abilities and
remarkable frankness of manner, won away to his support, and to the
support of his opinions, a large majority of the people. This was not
to be borne; and young Van Allen was willingly thrust forward to test
the courage of Crawford. Duelling was the honorable method of settling
all difficulties between gentlemen, and Crawford was to be forced into
a duel. If he refused to fight, he was ruined. This, however, he did
not do; and Van Allen was slain in the affair.

This but whetted the rage of the Clarkes, and John Clarke was not long
in finding an excuse to call to the field his hated foe. In this duel
Crawford was shot through the left wrist, which partially disabled
that arm for life. But this did not heal the animosity; its rancor
became contagious, and involved the people of the State almost to a
man; nor did it end until both Clarke and Crawford were in the grave.

The history and consequences of this feud, and the two factions which
grew out of it, would be the history of Georgia for more than forty
years. Each had an army of followers; and all the talent of the State
was divided between and leading these factions. There were many young
men of decided talent rising into distinction in the professions, who
were of necessity absorbed by these factions, and whose whole
subsequent career was tainted with the ignoble prejudices arising out
of this association. Among the most prominent and talented of these
was John Forsyth, Peter Early, George M. Troup, the man _sans peur,
sans reproche_, Thomas W. Cobb, Stephen Upson, Duncan G. Campbell, the
brother-in-law of Clarke, and personally and politically his friend,
and who, from the purity of his character and elevated bearing, was
respected, trusted, and beloved by all who knew him; Freeman Walker,
John M. Dooly, Augustus Clayton, Stephen W. Harris, and Eli S.
Sherter, perhaps mentally equal to any son of Georgia.

With the exception of Upson and Troup, these were all natives of the
State. Upson was from Connecticut, and was the son of a button-maker
at Watertown, in that State. He was a thorough Yankee in all the
qualities of perseverance, making and saving money. He was a pure man,
stern and talented; and as a lawyer, was scarcely equalled in the
State. He and Cobb were students, and _protégés_ of Crawford, and both
signalized their whole lives by a devotion, amounting almost to
fanaticism, to Mr. Crawford and his fortunes.

George Michael Troup was born at McIntosh's Bluff, on the Tombigbee
River, in the State of Alabama. His father was an Englishman, who,
during the Revolution, removed to the place since called McIntosh's
Bluff. Mr. Crawford soon became prominent as a politician, and
adopting the party and principles of Jefferson, was transferred in
early life to the councils of the nation. In the United States Senate
he was the compeer of Felix Grundy, John C. Calhoun, Harrison Gray
Otis, Rufus King, Daniel D. Tompkins, William B. Giles, Henry Clay,
and many others of less distinction; and was the especial friend of
those remarkable men, Nathaniel Macon and John Randolph.

At this period, there was an array of talent in Congress never
equalled before or since. The aggressions of English cruisers upon our
commerce, and the impressing of our seamen into the English service,
had aroused the whole nation, and especially the South; and the fiery
talent of this section was called by the people, breathing war, into
the national councils.

Crawford was in the Senate from Georgia, and was a war-man. John
Forsyth, John C. Calhoun, David R. Williams, George M. Troup, John
Randolph, Philip Doddridge, James Barbour, Henry Clay, and William
Lomax from South Carolina, were all comparatively young men.

Lowndes, Calhoun, Clay, and Troup were little more than thirty years
of age, and yet they became prominent leaders of their party,
exercising a controlling influence over the public mind, and shaping
the policy of the Government. Crawford was the Mentor of this ardent
band of lofty spirits--stimulating and checking, as occasion might
require, the energies and actions of his young compeers. So
conspicuous was he for talent, wisdom, and statesmanship, that he was
proposed by the Republican party as a proper person to succeed Mr.
Madison; and nothing prevented his receiving the nomination of that
party but his refusal to oppose Mr. Monroe. His magnanimity was his
misfortune. Had he been nominated, he would have been elected without
opposition. The golden opportunity returned no more. He had succeeded
Chancellor Livingston as minister to France, and of these two, Napoleon
said "the United States had sent him two plenipotentiaries--the first
was deaf, the latter dumb." Livingston was quite deaf, and Crawford
could not speak French. At the court of Versailles, he served
faithfully and efficiently the interests of his country, and returned
with increased popularity. He filled, under Mr. Monroe, the office of
Secretary of War for a short time, and then was transferred to the
Secretaryship of the Treasury.

In the Cabinet of Mr. Monroe there were three aspirants for the
Presidency: Adams, Crawford, and Calhoun. Between Crawford and Calhoun
a feud arose, which was mainly the cause of Mr. Calhoun's name being
withdrawn as a candidate, and the substitution of that of General
Jackson. Crawford was one of the three highest returned to the House,
and from whom a choice was to be made.

Some twelve months anterior to the election he was stricken with
paralysis; and both body and mind so much affected that his friends
felt that it would be improper to elect him. Nevertheless he continued
a candidate until Mr. Adams was chosen.

Mr. Clay had been voted for as a fourth candidate, but not receiving
electoral votes enough, failed to be returned to the House. Being at
the time a member of the House of Representatives, it was supposed he
held the control of the Western vote; and consequently the power to
elect whom he pleased. Mr. Clay was a great admirer of Mr. Crawford,
though their intimacy had been somewhat interrupted by a personal
difficulty between Mr. Randolph and Mr. Clay. Mr. Randolph being an
especial friend and constant visitor at Mr. Crawford's, it would have
been unpleasant to both parties to meet at his house.

Only a few years anterior to Mr. Clay's death, and when he was
visiting New Orleans, the writer had frequent interviews with him, and
learned that he preferred Mr. Crawford to either Adams or Jackson; and
was only prevented voting for him by the prostration and hopeless
condition of his health.

The political friends of Mr. Clay from the West knew of this
preference, and would have acted with him, only upon condition that
Mr. Crawford should make him a member of his Cabinet. This was
communicated to Mr. Clay, who assigned his reasons for declining to
vote for Mr. Crawford, and avowed his intention of giving his vote for
Mr. Adams. Upon this announcement, it was urged upon Mr. Clay that Mr.
Adams was uncommitted upon the policy which he had inaugurated as the
American System; that he stood pledged to the country for its success;
and that, without some pledge from Mr. Adams upon this point, he would
be hazarding too much to give him his support--for this would
certainly make him President. Mr. Clay's reply was:

"I shall, as a matter of necessity, give my vote for Mr. Adams: Mr.
Crawford's health puts him out of the question, and we are compelled
to choose between Adams and Jackson. My opinion with regard to General
Jackson is before the nation, it remains unaltered. I can never give a
vote for any man for so responsible a position whose only claim is
military fame. Jackson's violent temper and unscrupulous character,
independent of his want of experience in statesmanship, would prevent
my voting for him. I shall exact no pledge from Mr. Adams, but shall
vote for him, and hold myself at liberty to support or oppose his
administration, as it shall meet my approval or disapproval."

Mr. Adams was elected; and the friends of Mr. Clay insisted that he
should accept the position of Secretary of State in the new Cabinet,
which was tendered him by Mr. Adams. Mr. Clay thought it indelicate to
do so. Whether true or not, the nation awarded to him the making of
Mr. Adams President.

General Jackson had received a larger vote in the electoral colleges
than Adams, and his friends urged this as a reason that he was more
acceptable to the nation, and the voting for Adams on the part of Clay
and his friends was a palpable disregard of the popular will; and that
Clay had violated all his antecedents, and had thus deserted the
principles of the Republican party.

The friends of Mr. Crawford were silent until the organization of the
new Cabinet. There had been a breach of amicable relations between
Crawford and Jackson for some years, and of consequence between their
party friends; and it was supposed from this cause that Mr. Crawford
would unite in the support of the Administration; and when it was
known that Clay had accepted the premiership, this was deemed certain,
from the friendship long existing between Clay and himself. The
terrible paralysis which had prostrated Mr. Crawford extended to his
mind, and he had ceased to hold the influence with his friends as
controller, and had become the instrument in their hands.

General Jackson received a hint that it would be well to have healed
the breach between himself and Crawford. This it was supposed came
from Forsyth, and it is further believed this was prompted by Van
Buren. It may or may not have been so: Mr. Jackson's acuteness rarely
required hints from any one to stimulate or prompt to action its
suggestions. All Washington City was astounded, one Sunday morning, at
seeing the carriage of Jackson pull up at the residence of Mr.
Crawford; for their quarrel was known to every one, and it was
heralded through the newspapers that a reconciliation had taken place
between these great men. The interview was a protracted one: what
occurred can only be known by subsequent developments in the political
world.

Van Buren had supported Crawford to the last extremity, and was
greatly respected by him. His intense acuteness scented the prey afar
off. Mr. Calhoun had been elected by the electoral colleges
Vice-President, and this position, it was thought, notwithstanding his
devotion to Jackson, would identify him with the Administration. He
was young, talented, extremely popular, ambitious, and aspiring, and
it was the opinion of all that he would urge his claims to the
succession.

The indignation which burst from the Southern and Middle States, and
from many of the Western, at Mr. Clay's course, and the great
unpopularity of the name of Adams, was an assurance that without great
changes in public opinion Mr. Adams' administration would be confined
to one term. Mr. Crawford was out of the question for all time, and it
was apparent the contest was to be between Calhoun, Clay, and Jackson.

They had all belonged to the Jeffersonian school of politics--had
grown upon the nation's confidence rapidly through their support of
and conducting the war to its glorious termination. But this party was
now completely disrupted; and from its elements new parties were to be
formed. It only survived the dissolution of the Federal party a short
time, and, for the want of opposition from without, discord and
dissolution had followed. The political world was completely
chaotic--new interests had arisen. The war had forced New England to
manufacturing; it had established the policy of home production, and
home protection; the agricultural interest of the West was connected
with the manufacturing interest of the North, and was to be her
consumer; but the planting interest of the South was deemed
antagonistic to them. Her great staple, forming almost the sole basis
of the foreign commerce of the country, demanded, if not free trade,
an exceedingly liberal policy toward those abroad who were her
purchasers.

The war had given a new impetus to trade, new channels had been
opened, the manufacture of cotton in England had become a source of
wealth to the nation, and was rapidly increasing. America was her
source of supply, and was the great consumer of her fabrics, and this
fact was stimulating the growth of cotton into an activity which
indicated its becoming the leading interest of the South, if not of
the nation. The course of trade made it the great competitor of home
manufactures: this would seem unnatural, but it was true--the one
demanding protection, the other free trade. The source of supply of
the raw material to both was the same, and America the great consumer
for both. Protection secured the home market to the home manufacturer,
compelling the consumer to pay more, and sell for less, by excluding
the foreign manufacturer from the market, or imposing such burdens, by
way of duties, as to compel him to sell at higher prices than would be
a just profit on his labor and skill under the operation of free
trade, and which should exempt from his competition the home
manufacturer in the American market.

All these facts were within the purview of the sagacious politicians
of the day; and were evidently the elements of new parties. Mr. Clay
had already given shape to his future policy, and had identified the
new Administration with it. It was certain the South with great
unanimity would be in opposition, and the sagacity of Van Buren
discovered the necessity of uniting the friends of Jackson and
Crawford. Should he, after feeling the political pulse of his own
people, conclude to unite with the opposition, such a union would
destroy Mr. Clay in the South, but might greatly strengthen Mr.
Calhoun; his destruction, however, must be left to the future. He was
not long in determining. The reconciliation of Crawford and-Jackson
made the union of their friends no very difficult matter. Mr.
Randolph, Mr. Macon, Mr. Forsyth, and Mr. Cobb had expressed
themselves greatly gratified at this restoration of amity; and at an
informal meeting of their friends, Randolph said, in allusion to this
adjustment:

"I have no longer a fear that the seat first graced by Virginia's
chosen sons will ever be disgraced by a renegade child of hers."

Soon after the inauguration of Mr. Adams, and the adjournment of
Congress, the nation was startled with the charge of corruption in the
election of Mr. Adams. At first this was vague rumor. Mr. Clay was
charged by the press throughout the country with bargaining with the
friends of Adams, to cast his vote, and carry his influence to his
support, upon the condition of his (Clay's) appointment to the
premiership in the Administration, should Adams be elected.

There was no responsible name for this charge; but at the ensuing
session of Congress, a member from Pennsylvania, George Creemer,
uttered from his seat the charge in direct terms. This seemed to give
assurance of the truth of this damaging accusation. There was no
public denial from Mr. Clay. The press in his support had from the
first treated the story as too ridiculous to be noticed other than by
a flat denial; but the circumstances were sufficiently plausible to
predicate such a slander, and the effect upon Mr. Clay was beginning
to be felt seriously by his friends. In the mean time, rumors reached
the popular ear that the proofs of its veracity were in the hands of
General Jackson, whose popularity was running through the country with
the warmth and rapidity of a fire upon the prairies.

There was now a responsible sponsor, and Mr. Clay at once addressed a
note to Creemer, demanding his authority for the charge. This was
answered, and General Jackson's was the name given, as his authority.
Mr. Clay sent his friend, General Leslie Combs, with a note to
Jackson, with a copy of Creemer's communication. Combs was a weak,
vain man, and so full of the importance of his mission that he made no
secret of his object in visiting Jackson at the Hermitage; and it was
soon running through the country in the party press, each retailing
the story as he had heard it, or as his imagination and party bias
desired it. It was soon current that Mr. Clay had challenged General
Jackson, and a duel was soon to occur between these distinguished men.
General Jackson, however, gave as his author, James Buchanan, of
Pennsylvania. In turn, Mr. Buchanan was called upon by Clay, but he
denied ever having made any such communication to General Jackson; at
the same time, making certain statements under the seal of secrecy to
Mr. Letcher, Clay's friend. What these revelations were will never be
known: death has set his seal on all who knew them; and no revelation
disclosed them in time. Long after this interview between Letcher and
Buchanan, the former called on the latter, and asked to be relieved
from this imputation, and for permission to give to the public these
statements; but Mr. Buchanan peremptorily refused. Mr. Letcher
insisted that they were important to the reputation of more than Mr.
Clay: still Buchanan refused; and to this day the question of veracity
remains unsettled between Jackson and Buchanan. The public have,
however, long since declared that General Jackson was too brave a man
to lie.

Toward the close of Mr. Clay's life, one Carter Beverly, of Virginia,
wrote Mr. Clay some account of the part he himself had taken in the
concoction of this slander, craving his forgiveness. This letter was
received by Mr. Clay while a visitor at the home of the writer, and
read to him: it dissipated all doubts upon the mind of Mr. Clay, if
any remained, of the fact of the whole story being the concoction of
Buchanan. Creemer was a colleague of Buchanan, and was a credulous
Pennsylvanian, of Dutch descent; honest enough, but without brains,
and only too willing to be the instrument of his colleague in any
dirty work which would subserve his purposes.

Beverly was one of those silly but presumptuous personages who thrust
themselves upon the society of men occupying high positions, and feel
their importance only in that reflected by this association; and ever
too fond of being made the medium of slanderous reports, reflecting
upon those whose self-respect and superior dignity has frowned them
from their presence. Creemer died without divulging anything; probably
under the influence of Buchanan, and it is not improbable he was in
ignorance of the origin of the slander. Beverly knew of its utter
falsity, and was as guilty as the originator, and his conscience smote
him too sorely to permit him to go to the grave without atonement, and
consequently he made a clean breast of it to Mr. Clay.

Mr. Clay and Mr. Buchanan entered public life about the same time,
when they were both young and full of zeal. They belonged to the same
political party, and became warmly attached. They were, however, men
of very different temperaments. The professions of Mr. Clay were
always sincere, his love of truth was a most prominent feature in his
nature, and his attachments were never dissimulations: to no other
person of his early political friends was he more sincerely attached
than to Buchanan--he was his confidential friend; he was never on any
subject reserved to him; and so deep was this feeling with him that he
had called a son after his friend--the late James Buchanan Clay. When
he learned that all his confidences had been misplaced, and that the
man whom he so loved had sought to rob him of his good name, he was
wounded to the heart. He struggled to believe Buchanan was wronged by
General Jackson; but one fact after another was developed--he could
not doubt--all pointing the same way; and finally came this letter of
Beverly's, when he was old, and when his heart was crushed by the loss
of his son Henry at Buena Vista, of which event he had only heard the
day before: he doubted no more. I shall ever remember the expression
of that noble countenance as, turning to me, he said: "Read that!"
Rising from his seat, he went to the garden, where, under a large
live-oak, I found him an hour after, deeply depressed. It was sorrow,
not anger, that weighed upon him. In reply to a remark from me, he
said:

"How few men have I found true under all trials! Who has a friend on
whom he can rely, and who will not, to gratify his own ambition,
sacrifice him? I was deeply attached to Buchanan; I thought him my
friend, and trusted him as such--through long years our intimacy
continued. You see how unwisely this attachment was indulged; I have
misplaced my confidence; I am willing to disbelieve this statement of
Beverly; he is known to you; I believe he is a miserable creature, but
his testimony is but a link in the chain of evidences I have of
Buchanan's being the author of this infamous story. It was artfully
concocted and maliciously circulated. He was too shrewd to commit
himself, and employed this creature to go to Jackson, who lent a
willing ear to it; and he communicated it to Creemer. Yet it was
settled upon him by Jackson. Beverly told Jackson he was sent by
Buchanan, and now the world has the story denied by Buchanan, and I
have it confessed by Beverly. All the mischief it could do, it has
done; and this death-bed repentance and confession must command my
forgiveness of poor old Beverly.

"I was not unaware of the hazards of accepting office under Mr. Adams,
and yielded my judgment to gratify my friends. I was deeply solicitous
of rendering the country independent: our population was increasing; I
was sure large immigration would add to the natural increase; and I
felt it was the true policy of the Government to commence the
manufacture of all articles necessary to its population, and
especially the articles of prime necessity, iron and clothing. We had
the minerals, the coal, and the cotton; and the sad experience of the
recent war warned us to prepare against the same consequences should
we unfortunately be again in a similar condition. I was satisfied that
this policy would meet powerful opposition by those who supposed their
interests affected by protection; and I knew, to build up the
manufactures at home, they must be protected against foreign
competition--at least for a time. Once capital was abundant and
largely invested in manufacturing, with an abundance of educated
skill, this protection could be withdrawn; as home protection would
not prevent home competition, and high prices would stimulate this
competition to the point of producing more than was necessary for home
consumption; which would force the manufacturer to find a market
abroad for his surplus; this would bring him into competition with the
European manufacturer, and he would be compelled to be content with
the prices he could obtain under this competition; this would
necessarily, by degrees, reduce prices at home, and finally obviate
the necessity of protection. Already this has come to pass. The good
of the country I thought demanded this; and for this I exerted all my
powers and all my influence; never for a moment doubting but that in
time and from results the whole people would approve the policy. Nor
did I ever anticipate any political result to my own interest. I have
never thought of self, in any great measure of policy I may have
advocated. I have looked to final results in benefits to the country
alone, with a hope that my name should not be a disgrace to my
children, who should witness the working and the effect of measures
connected with my public life. With an honest purpose, I feared no
consequences; and desiring, above temporary popularity, the good of
the country, I assumed all the hazards and consequences which my
enemies could torture out of the act of accepting office under Mr.
Adams. I have never regretted it, and have lived to see the slanderers
of my fame rebuked by the whole country.

"This terrible Mexican war now raging, I fear, is to result in
consequences disastrous to our Government. That we shall drive Mexico
to the wall there cannot be a doubt. We will avail ourselves of the
conqueror's right in demanding indemnity for the expenses of the war.
She has nothing to pay with, but territory. We shall dispossess her of
at least a third, perhaps the half of her domain; this will open the
question of slavery again, and how it is to be settled God only knows.
For myself, I see no peaceful solution of the question. The North and
the South are equally fanatical upon the subject, and the difficulties
of adjustment augmenting every day. You will agree with me that the
institution violates the sentiment of the civilized world. It is
unnatural, and must yield to the united hostility of the world. But
what is to be done with the negro? You cannot make a citizen of him,
and clothe him with political power. This would lead rapidly to a war
of races; and of consequence to the extinction of the negro. He will
not labor without compulsion; and very soon the country would be
filled with brigands; the penitentiaries would not hold the convicts;
and the public security would ultimately demand that they should be
sent from the country.

"To remove such a number, even to the West Indies, would involve an
expense beyond the resources of the Government; to force them into
Mexico would make her a more dangerous and disagreeable neighbor than
she is; besides, this would only be postponing the evil, for I
apprehend we shall want to annex all of Mexico before many years. As I
remarked, I can see no peaceful solution of this great social evil;
but fear it is fraught with fatal consequences to our Government."

John Randolph, soon after the election of Mr. Adams, was sent to the
United States Senate by Virginia. His enmity to Mr. Clay had received
a new whetting through the events of the year or two just past; and
the natural acerbity of his nature was soured into bitter malignity.
He believed every word of the story of Creemer, and harped upon it
with the pertinacity of the Venetian upon the daughter of Shylock. He
was scarcely ever upon the floor that some offensive allusion was not
made to this subject. It was immaterial to him what the subject-matter
was under discussion: he found a means to have a throw at the
Administration, and of consequence, at Clay; and bargain and
corruption slid from his tongue with the concentration of venom of the
rattlesnake. The very thought of Clay seemed to inspire his genius for
vituperation; his eye would gleam, his meagre and attenuated form
would writhe and contort as if under the enchantment of a demon; his
long, bony fingers would be extended, as if pointing at an imaginary
Clay, air-drawn as the dagger of Macbeth, as he would writhe the
muscles of his beardless, sallow, and wrinkled face, pouring out the
gall of his soul upon his hated enemy. It was in one of these
hallucinations that he uttered the following morsel of bitterness, in
allusion to the story of bargain and corruption: "This, until now,
unheard-of combination of the black-leg with the Puritan; this union
of Luck George with Blifell," (an allusion from Fielding's novel of
"Tom Jones.") Language could not have been made more offensive. But
the fruitful imagination of Randolph was not exhausted, and he
proceeded with denunciation which spared not the venerable mother of
Mr. Clay, then living--denouncing her for bringing into the world
"this being, so brilliant, yet so corrupt, which, like a rotten
mackerel by moonlight, shined and stunk."

This drew from Mr. Clay a challenge, and a meeting was the
consequence. There was no injury sustained by either party in this
conflict, the full particulars of which may be found in Benton's
"Thirty Years in the Senate;" and I have Mr. Clay's authority for
saying that this account is strictly correct.

In General Jackson's letter to Carter Beverly, he states that Buchanan
came to him and stated that the friends of Mr. Adams had made overtures
to Mr. Clay, to the effect that, if Mr. Clay would with his friends
support Mr. Adams, and he should be elected, then he would appoint
Clay to the position of Secretary of State; and that Buchanan
recommended Jackson to intrigue against this intrigue.

Buchanan denied the statement _in toto_. Beverly wrote a letter, in
1841, admitting the falsehood of a former letter of his; and again,
another to Mr. Clay, in 1844 or 1845, asking Clay's forgiveness for
the part he had acted in the matter.




CHAPTER V.

GEORGIA'S NOBLE SONS.

A MINISTER OF A DAY--PURITY OF ADMINISTRATION--THEN AND NOW--WIDOW
TIMBERLAKE--VAN BUREN'S LETTER--AMBRISTER AND ARBUTHNOT--OLD HICKORY
SETTLES A DIFFICULTY--A CAUSE OF THE LATE WAR--HONORED DEAD.


Immediately upon the inauguration of Mr. Adams, Mr. Crawford left
Washington, and returned home. His residence was near Lexington,
Georgia, upon a small farm. It was an unostentatious home, but
comfortable, and without pretensions superior to those of his more
humble neighbors. Mr. Crawford had held many positions in the service
of the country, and had honestly and ably discharged the duties of
these for the public good. As a senator in Congress, he won the
confidence of the nation by the display of great abilities; and gave
universal satisfaction of the pure patriotism of his heart, in all he
said, or did. He was distinguished, as minister to France, for his
open candor and simplicity of manners--so much so, as to cause
Napoleon to remark of him "that no Government but a republic could
create or foster so much truth and honest simplicity of character as
he found in Mr. Crawford."

For years, he had served the nation as financial minister, and at a
time when the method of keeping, transferring, and disbursing the
moneys of Government afforded infinite opportunities for
peculation--when vast amounts of money arising from the sale of the
public domain in the West and the South was under his control, and
when he had the selection of the depositories of this, and when these
deposits were of great value to the local or State banks, so that they
would have paid handsomely for them; yet this noble being came out of
the furnace without the smell of fire upon his garments.

There was but one man who ever imputed dishonesty to him, or selfish
motives in any act. When the claims of Mr. Adams and Mr. Crawford for
the Presidency were being discussed, and party asperity sought to slay
its victims, Ninian Edwards, a senator of Congress from Illinois,
charged Mr. Crawford with impropriety of conduct in depositing, for
selfish and dishonest purposes, the public moneys arising from the
sale of lands in Illinois, in banks notoriously insolvent. Edwards had
been appointed minister to Mexico, had left the Senate, and had gone
to his home, preparatory to his leaving for Mexico; and from his home
made this attack upon Mr. Crawford. The son-in-law of Edwards, a man
named Cook, was the representative in Congress from Illinois, and, if
I remember correctly, was the only representative who at the time
reiterated these charges from his seat. Mr. Crawford immediately
demanded an investigation of his conduct. This was had, and the result
was a triumphant acquittal from all blame; and so damaging was this
investigation to Edwards that the President recalled the commission of
Edwards as minister to Mexico, and appointed Joel R. Poinsett, of
South Carolina, in his stead. Edwards was at New Orleans when the
letter of recall from the President reached him, that far on his way
to Mexico: he returned in disgrace, and soon faded from public notice
forever. At the time, it was asserted he was the brother-in-law of Mr.
Adams, and knowing that some of the banks in which Crawford had
deposited the public treasure had failed, he imagined complicity of a
dishonest character, on the part of Crawford, with the officers of the
banks, and expected to injure him and subserve the interest of Adams.
In what contrast does this transaction place the purity of the
Government, as then administered, with its conduct of to-day, and how
peerless were those who were trusted then with public confidence and
high places, in comparison with the public men who fill their places
now!

Georgia has given to the nation two Secretaries of the
Treasury--William H. Crawford and Howell Cobb; they were citizens of
adjoining counties. Cobb was born within a few miles of Crawford's
grave. They were both administering the office at a time in the
history of the nation when she was surrounded with perils. The one,
when she was just coming out of a war with the most powerful nation on
earth; the other, when she was just going into a war, civil and
gigantic. Both were afforded every opportunity for dishonest
peculation, and both came out, despite the allurements of temptation,
with clean hands and untainted reputation. They were reared and lived
in the atmosphere of honesty; they sought the inspiration from the
hills and vales, blue skies, and clear pure waters of Middle Georgia.
The surroundings of nature were pure; the honest farmers and
mechanics, her professional men and merchants, were and are pure. It
was the home of Upson, Gilmer, Thomas W. Cobb, Peter Early, Eli S.
Sherter, Stephen Willis Harris, William Causby Dawson, Joseph Henry
Lumpkin; and now is the home of A.H. Stephens, Ben. Hill, Robert
Toombs, Bishop Pierce, and his great and glorious father, and in their
integrity and lofty manhood they imitate the mighty dead who sleep
around them.

Glorious old State! though long trodden with the tyrant's foot, there
is a resurrectionary spirit moving thy people, which will lift thee
again to the high pinnacle from which thou wast thrust, purified and
reinvigorated for a career of brighter glory than thou hast yet
known--when the men who plague you now shall be driven from your
State, and the sons of your soil, in the vigor of their souls,
undefiled and untrammelled, shall wield your destinies.

Like a Roman of latter days, Mr. Crawford retired from the service of
his country poorer than when he entered it. There was sweet seclusion
in his retreat, and honest hearts in his humble neighbors to receive
him with "Come home, thou good and faithful servant; we receive thee,
as we gave thee, in thy greatness and thy goodness, undefiled." He had
only partially recovered from his, paralysis, though his general
health was much improved; rest and retirement, and release from public
duties and cares, served to reinvigorate him greatly. His estate was
small, his family large, and his friends, to aid him, secured his
election to the bench of the Superior Court, the duties of which he
continued to discharge until his death. He survived to see General
Jackson elected President, to whom he gave a cordial support. Mr.
Calhoun had been nominated and elected Vice-President with General
Jackson, both with overwhelming majorities. Crawford had carried all
his strength to the support of the ticket, and the friends of Crawford
and Calhoun were found acting in concert, notwithstanding the
hostility yet unappeased between their chiefs. It was the union of
necessity, not of sympathy or affection. At this juncture, there was
perhaps as cordial a hatred between the people of South Carolina and
those of Georgia, as ever existed between the Greek and the Turk.

Mr. Calhoun, it seemed now to be settled, was to be the successor of
General Jackson. The new parties were organized, and that headed by
General Jackson assumed the name of Democrat, and now held undisputed
control of more than two-thirds of the States. Mr. Calhoun had broken
away from the usage of former Vice-Presidents, which was to retire,
and permit a president of the Senate _pro tem._ to be chosen to
preside over the deliberations of that body. He determined to fulfil
the duties assigned by the Constitution, and in person to preside. His
transcendent abilities and great strength of character by this course
was constantly kept before the nation. His manners and presence gave
increased dignity and importance to the office, daily increasing his
popularity with the Senate and the nation. His position was an
enviable one, and was such as seemed to promise the power to grasp, at
the proper time, the goal of his ambition, the Presidency of the
republic.

From the commencement of General Jackson's Administration there was a
powerful opposition organized. It consisted of the very best talent in
the Senate and House. The Cabinet was a weak one. Mr. Van Buren was
premier, or Secretary of State, with John H. Eaton, a very ordinary
man, Secretary of War; Branch, Secretary of the Navy, and Ingham,
Secretary of the Treasury; with John M. Berrien, Attorney-General.
Eaton was from Tennessee, and was an especial favorite of General
Jackson. He had been in the Senate from Tennessee, and had formed at
Washington the acquaintance of a celebrated widow of a purser in the
navy, Mrs. Timberlake. This woman had by no means an enviable
reputation, and had been supposed the mistress of Eaton, prior to
their marriage. She had found her way to the heart of Jackson, who
assumed to be her especial champion. The ladies of the Cabinet
ministers refused to recognize her or to interchange social civilities
with her. This enraged the President, and it was made a _sine qua
non_, receive Mrs. Eaton, or quit the Cabinet. Van Buren was a
widower, and did not come under the order. He saw the storm coming,
and, to avoid consequences of any sort, after consultation with
Jackson, resigned. His letter of resignation is a literary as well as
a political curiosity. General Jackson, it is said, handed it to
Forsyth, with the remark "that he could not make head or tail of it;
and, by the eternal, Mr. Forsyth, I do not believe Van Buren can
himself." This was the forerunner of a general dismissal of the entire
Cabinet, save Eaton, who resigned. This rupture startled the whole
nation, but nothing Jackson could do, seemed capable of affecting his
growing popularity. A new Cabinet was organized, and soon after Mr.
Van Buren was sent minister to England, and Eaton minister to Spain.

The opposition were in a majority in the Senate, led on by Clay and
Webster. These were confronted by Forsyth, Benton, and Wright: the
wrestle was that of giants. The world, perhaps, never furnished a more
adroit debater than John Forsyth. He was the Ajax Telemon of his
party, and was rapidly rivalling the first in the estimation of that
party. He hated Calhoun, and at times was at no pains to conceal it in
debate. In the warmth of debate, upon one occasion, he alluded in
severe terms, to the manner in which Mr. Crawford had been treated,
during his incumbency as Secretary of the Treasury, by a certain party
press in the interest of Mr. Calhoun. This touched the Vice-President
on the raw: thus stung, he turned and demanded if the senator alluded
to him. Forsyth's manner was truly grand, as it was intensely fierce:
turning from the Senate to the Vice-President, he demanded with the
imperiousness of an emperor: "By what right does the Chair ask that
question of me?" and paused as if for a reply, with his intensely
gleaming eye steadily fixed upon that of Calhoun. The power was with
the speaker, and the Chair was awed into silence. Slowly turning to
the Senate, every member of which manifested deep feeling, he
continued, as his person seemed to swell into gigantic proportions,
and his eye to sweep the entire chamber, "Let the galled jade wince,
our withers are unwrung," and went on with the debate.

The cause of the animosity of Jackson, toward Crawford was a report
which had reached Jackson, that Crawford, as a member of Mr. Monroe's
Cabinet, had insisted in Cabinet meeting upon the arrest of Jackson
for a violation of national law, in entering without orders, as the
commanding general of the army of the United States, the territory of
a friendly power, and seizing its principal city by military force.
General Jackson had entered Florida, then a dependency of Spain, with
which power we were in amity, and seized Pensacola.

A band of desperate men had made a lodgment in Florida, headed by two
Scotchmen, Ambrister and Arbuthnot. These men had acquired great
influence with the Indians, and were stimulating them to constant
depredations upon the frontier people of Georgia. When pursued, they
sought safety in the territorial limits of Florida. Remonstrances with
the Government of Spain had produced no effect. It could not, or would
not expel them, or attempt any control of the Indians; and it became
necessary to put a stop to their aggressions. Jackson commanded, and
was the very man for such a work. He placed before the President the
difficulties, but said he could and would break up this nest of
freebooters, if he had authority from the President to enter the
territory, and, if necessary, take possession of it. It would be an
act of war to authorize this course, he knew; but he was prepared for
the responsibility (he generally was.) "I do not ask for formal
orders: simply say to me, 'Do it.' Tell Johnny Ray to say so to me,
and it shall be done." Johnny Ray was a member of Congress at that
time from East Tennessee, and devoted to Jackson. This was done, and
the work was accomplished. The two leaders were captured and summarily
executed, claiming to be British subjects.

Mr. Monroe in some things was a weak man; he was surrounded by a
Cabinet greatly superior to himself; he had not counselled with them,
and he feared the responsibility he had assumed would not be
sanctioned or approved by his constitutional advisers, and he timidly
shrank from communicating these secret instructions to them. The
matter was brought before the Cabinet, by a remonstrance from the
Spanish Government, in the person of her representative at Washington.
In the discussion which arose, a motion was submitted to arrest and
court-martial Jackson. Calhoun was indignant that as Secretary of War
he had not been consulted. General Jackson was sent for, and very soon
the matter was quieted, and Spain satisfied.

It was in this discussion, or Cabinet meeting, that Mr. Crawford was
represented to General Jackson as moving his arrest. Mr. Adams
defended Jackson most strenuously, and it is not improbable that the
President may have informed him, _sub rosa_, of what had been
communicated to Jackson. The intimacy between Mr. Monroe and Mr. Adams
was close, and it was thought he preferred him, and gave him more
unreservedly his confidence than any of his ministers.

I believe it was in the early part of the year 1829, or 1830, (I have,
where I write, no means of reference, and will not pretend to great
accuracy in dates,) when Mr. Crawford received a visit from Mr. Van
Buren, and his friend, Mr. Cambreling, at his home in Oglethorpe. What
transpired during that visit, I do not pretend to know; but soon
after, Mr. Forsyth received a letter from Mr. James Hamilton, of New
York, making certain inquiries with regard to this move in Mr.
Monroe's Cabinet. Mr. Forsyth appealed to Mr. Crawford, who responded,
and in detail revealed the proceedings in council upon this matter,
charging, without equivocation, Mr. Calhoun as being the secretary who
had moved the arrest and trial of Jackson. At the time of this
development, General Jackson was absent from Washington, on a visit to
his home in Tennessee, and Mr. Calhoun was in South Carolina. A
correspondence ensued between the President and Vice-President of the
most acrimonious character. Mr. Calhoun denied _in toto_ the charge.
Mr. Crawford appealed to the members of the Cabinet, Adams and
Crowninshield, who sustained the truth of Mr. Crawford's statements,
and Mr. Calhoun clearly implicated himself, by accusing Crawford of a
breach of honor in disclosing cabinet secrets. It is not my purpose to
enter into the minutiae of this affair, further than to show the part
taken in it by Mr. Crawford. Mr. Van Buren did not appear in this
imbroglio; he doubtless had his agency, as his interest, in bringing
this matter to General Jackson's knowledge. Mr. Calhoun was identified
with the popularity of Jackson and his party, and was now, by common
consent of that party, the prominent man for the presidential
succession. Mr. Van Buren had been the Secretary of State of General
Jackson, had studied him well, and knew him well. He knew also the
temper of the Democratic party: through his agency the political
morality of New York politicians had permeated the Democracy from one
end of the country to the other: the doctrine subsequently enunciated
by Mr. Marcy, that "to the victors belonged the spoils," was in full
operation throughout the nation as the Democratic practice. This was
the cement which closely held the politician to party fealty. Jackson
rewarded his friends, and punished his enemies; Jackson was an
omnipotent power; Jackson was the Democratic party. To secure his
friendship was necessary to success; to incur his enmity, certain
destruction. Van Buren was as artful as ambitious: he had
indoctrinated Jackson with his own policy, by inducing him to believe
it was his own; and the frankness of Jackson's nature prevented his
believing anything was not what it professed to be. It was the
ambition of Van Buren to be President, and his sagacity taught him the
surest means to effect this end was to secure effectually and beyond
peradventure the friendship and support of Jackson. Mr. Calhoun was
between him and the aim of his ambition: to thrust him from Jackson's
confidence was to effect all he desired. This was done; the breach was
irreparable. Van Buren was sent, in the interim of the session of
Congress, minister plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James.

Mr. Clay had come back into the Senate, and was heading and leading an
opposition, then in the majority in the Senate; and the nomination of
Van Buren was rejected. Jackson, assured that Calhoun had deceived
him, was bitter in his denunciations of him, and Calhoun was
sympathizing with this opposition. Jackson denounced Calhoun as his
informant of Crawford being the Cabinet minister who had in Cabinet
council moved his arrest. Calhoun gave the lie direct to the
assertion; and that Jackson was capable of lying, referred as evidence
to his statements relative to the charge of bargain and intrigue
against Mr. Clay. But enough had been done to crush out the popularity
and the hopes of Calhoun, beyond the limits of South Carolina. There
never has been so sudden and so terrible a fall from such a height of
any man in this nation--not excepting that of Aaron Burr. John C.
Calhoun, in talent, learning, and statesmanship, was greatly superior
to Jackson, and unsurpassed by any man of the age. But the breath of
Jackson was the blight which withered his laurels, and crushed his
prospects, and destroyed his usefulness forever, in a night.

What consequences have grown out of this quarrel, I leave for the pen
of the historian. Yet I cannot forbear the speculation that the late
and most disastrous war was one, and of consequence the ruin and
desolation of the South, and the threatened destruction of the
Government at this time. The agitation which led to these terrible
consequences, commenced with Mr. Calhoun immediately subsequent to
these events. Does any man suppose, if Mr. Calhoun had succeeded to
the Presidency, that he would have commenced or continued this
agitation? For one, I do not. The measure of his ambition would have
been full: his fame would have been a chapter in the history of his
country--his talents employed in the administration of the Government,
the honor and boast of her people, and her preservation and prosperity
the enduring monument of his fame and glory. But, wronged as he
believed, disappointed as he knew, he put forth all his strength, and,
Samson-like, pulled down the pillars of her support; and, disunited,
crushed, and miserable, she is a melancholy spectacle to the patriot,
and in her desolation a monument of disappointed ambition.

That Mr. Calhoun anticipated any such results, I do not believe. To
suppose he desired them, and to the end of his life labored to produce
them, would be to suppose him little less than a fiend. Blinded by his
prejudices and the hatred natural toward those who had accomplished
his political ruin, he could not calmly and dispassionately weigh the
influence of his acts upon the future of his country.

Mr. Crawford was now rapidly declining, his nervous system was
completely undermined, and he felt the approach of death calmly and
without fear. Still, he continued to give his attention to business,
and was sufficiently strong to go abroad to calls of duty. In one of
these journeys he stopped to spend the night in the house of a friend,
and was found dead in his bed in the morning, after a quiet and social
evening with his friend and family.

William Holt Crawford was a native of Virginia: his family were
Scotch, and came early to the United States, and have been remarkable
for their talents and energy. Since the Revolution, there has scarcely
been a time that some one of the family has not been prominently
before the public as a representative man. Mr. Crawford was an eminent
type of his race, sternly honest, of ardent temperament, full of
dignity, generous, frank, and brave. Plain and simple in his habits,
disdaining everything like ostentation, or foolish display--strictly
moral, firm in his friendship, and unrelenting in his hatred, his
sagacity and sincerity forbade the forming of the one or the other
without abundant cause. He was never known to desert a friend or
shrink from a foe. In form and person he was very imposing; six feet
two inches in height; his head was large, forehead high and broad; his
eyes were blue and brilliant, and, when excited, very piercing. His
complexion was fair, and, in early life, ruddy; he was, when young,
exceedingly temperate in his habits, but as he advanced in years he
indulged too freely in the luxuries of the table, and his physicians
attributed mainly to this cause his attack of paralysis, which
ultimately destroyed him. His mind had been very much excited during
the Presidential canvass; the attacks of his enemies were fierce and
merciless, and very irritating to him; and this doubtless had much to
do with it. He lies buried in the garden of his home, without a stone
to mark the spot. It is a reproach to the people of Georgia that her
most eminent son should be neglected to sleep in an undistinguished
grave. But this neglect does not extend alone to Mr. Crawford. I
believe, of all her distinguished men, James A. Meriwether is the only
one whose grave has been honored with a monumental stone by the State.
Crawford, Cobb, Dooly, Jackson, Troup, Forsyth, Campbell, Lumpkin,
Dawson, Walker, Colquitt, Berrien, Daugherty, and many others who have
done the State some service and much honor, are distinguished in their
graves only by the green sod which covers them.




CHAPTER VI.

POPULAR CHARACTERISTICS.

A FRUGAL PEOPLE--LAWS AND RELIGION--FATHER PIERCE--THOMAS W. COBB--
REQUISITES OF A POLITICAL CANDIDATE--A FARMER-LAWYER--SOUTHERN
HUMORISTS.


The plain republican habits which characterized the people of Upper
Georgia, in her early settlement and growth, together with the fact of
the very moderate means of her people, exercised a powerful influence
in the formation of the character of her people. She had no large
commercial city, and her commerce was confined to the simple disposal
of the surplus products of her soil and the supply of the few wants of
the people. It was a cardinal virtue to provide every thing possible
of the absolute necessaries of life at home. The provision crop was of
first necessity, and secured the first attention of the farmer; the
market crop was ever secondary, and was only looked to, to supply
those necessaries which could not be grown upon the plantation. These
were salt, iron, and steel, first; and then, if there remained
unexhausted some of the proceeds of the crop, a small (always a small)
supply of sugar and coffee; and for rare occasions, a little tea.

The population, with the exception of mechanics, and these were a very
small proportion, and the few professional men and country merchants,
was entirely agricultural. This rural pursuit confined at home and
closely to business every one; and popular meetings were confined to
religious gatherings on Sunday in each neighborhood, and the meeting
of a few who could spare the time at court, in the village
county-seat, twice a year. There were no places of public resort for
dissipation or amusement; a stern morality was demanded by public
opinion of the older members of society. Example and the switch
enforced it with the children. Perhaps in no country or community was
the maxim of good old Solomon more universally practised upon, "Spare
the rod and spoil the child," than in Middle Georgia, fifty years ago.
Filial obedience and deference to age was the first lesson. "Honor thy
father and mother, that thy days may be long in the land," was
familiar to the ears of every child before they could lisp their a, b,
c; and upon the first demonstration of a refractory disobedience, a
severe punishment taught them that the law was absolute and
inexorable. To lie, or touch what was not his own, was beyond the pale
of pardon, or mercy, and a solitary aberration was a stain for life.

The mothers, clad in homespun, were chaste in thought and action;
unlettered and ignorant, but pure as ether. Their literature confined
to the Bible, its maxims directed their conduct, and were the daily
lesson of their children. The hard-shell Baptist was the dominant
religion; with here and there a Presbyterian community, generally
characterized by superior education and intelligence, with a preacher
of so much learning as to be an oracle throughout the land.

The Methodists were just then beginning to grow into importance, and
their circuit-riders, now fashionably known as itinerants, were
passing and preaching, and establishing societies to mark their
success, through all the rude settlements of the State. These were the
pioneers of that truly democratic sect, as of the stern morality and
upright bearing which had so powerful an influence over the then
rising population.

It is more than sixty years since I first listened to a Methodist
sermon. It was preached by a young, spare man, with sallow complexion,
and black eyes and hair. I remember the gleam of his eye, and the
deep, startling tones of his voice--his earnest and fervent manner;
and only yesterday, in the Baronne Street (New Orleans) Methodist
Church, I listened to an old man, upward of eighty years of age,
preaching the ordination sermon of four new bishops of the Methodist
Church. It was he to whom I had first listened: the eye was still
brilliant, the face still sallow, but wrinkled now, and the voice and
manner still fervent and earnest; and the great mind, though not the
same, still powerful. It was that venerable, good man, Lovie Pierce,
the father of the great and eloquent bishop. What has he not seen?
what changes, what trials, what triumphs! Generations before his eyes
have passed into eternity; the little handful of Methodist communicants
grown into a mighty and intelligent body; thousands of ministers are
heralding her tenets all over the Protestant world--mighty in learning,
mighty in eloquence--yet none surpass the eloquence, the power, and the
purity of Lovie Pierce.

When I first heard him, Bishop Asbury, William Russell, and he were
nursing the seed sown by John Wesley and George Whitefield, a little
while before, upon the soil of Georgia. All but Pierce have long been
gathered to their fathers, and have rest from their labors. He still
remains, bearing his cross in triumph, and still preaching the
Redeemer to the grandchildren of those who first welcomed him and
united with him in the good work of his mission. How much his labors
have done to form and give tone to the character of the people of the
State of Georgia, none may say; but under his eye and aid has arisen a
system of female education, which has and is working wonders throughout
the State. He has seen the ignorant and untaught mothers rear up
virtuous, educated, and accomplished daughters; and, in turn, these
rearing daughters and sons, an ornament and an honor to parents and
country. Above all, he has seen and sees a standard of intelligence,
high-breeding, and piety pervading the entire State. The log-cabin
gives way to the comfortable mansion, the broad fields usurping the
forest's claim, and the beautiful church-building pointing its taper
spire up to heaven, where stood the rude log-house, and where first he
preached. He has lived on and watched this growing moral and physical
beauty, whose germs he planted, and whose fruits he is now enjoying in
the eighty-fourth year of his age, still zealous, still ardent and
eloquent, and a power in the land. Should these lines ever meet his
eye, he will know that the child whose head he stroked as he sat upon
his knee--the youth whom he warned and counselled, loves him yet, now
that he is wrinkled, old, and gray.

From parents such as I have described, and under the teaching of such
men, grew up the remarkable men who have shed such lustre upon the
State of Georgia.

The great distinguishing feature of these men was that of the masses
of her people--stern honesty. Many families have been and continue to
be remarkable for their superior talents and high character;
preserving in a high degree the prestige of names made famous by
illustrious ancestry. The Crawfords, the Cobbs, and the Lamars are
perhaps the most remarkable.

Thomas W. Cobb, so long distinguished in the councils of the nation,
and as an able and honest jurist in Georgia, was the son of John Cobb,
and grandson of Thomas Cobb, of the County of Columbia, in the State
of Georgia. His grandfather emigrated from Virginia at an early day,
when Georgia was comparatively a wilderness, and selecting this point,
located with a large family, which through his remarkable energy he
reared and respectably educated. This was an achievement, as the
facilities for education were so few and difficult as to make it next
to impossible to educate even tolerably the youth of that day. This
remarkable man lived to see his grandson, Thomas W. Cobb, among the
most distinguished men of the State. He died at the great age of one
hundred and fifteen years, at the home of his selection, in Columbia
County, the patriarch pioneer of the country, surrounded by every
comfort, and a family honoring his name and perpetuating his virtues;
and after he had seen the rude forest give way to the cultivated
field, and the almost as rude population to the cultivated and
intellectual people distinguishing that county.

Thomas W. Cobb, in his education, suffered the penalties imposed in
this particular by a new country; his opportunities, however, were
improved to their greatest possible extent, and he continued to
improve in learning to the day of his death. In boyhood he ploughed by
day, and studied his spelling-book and arithmetic by night--lighting
his vision to the pursuit of knowledge by a pine-knot fire. This
ambition of learning, with close application, soon distinguished him
above the youth of the neighborhood, and lifted his aspirations to an
equal distinction among the first men of the land. He made known his
wishes to his father, and was laughed at; but he was his grandfather's
namesake and pet, and he encouraged his ambition. The consequence was
that young Cobb was sent to the office of William H. Crawford at
Lexington, to read law. He applied himself diligently, and won the
respect and confidence of Mr. Crawford, which he retained to the
day of his death. When admitted to the bar, he located with his
fellow-student in Lexington; thus taking the place of Mr. Crawford,
who was now in political life. He rose rapidly in his profession, and
while yet a young man was sent to Congress as one of the
representatives of the State.

At this time the representation in Congress was chosen by general
ticket. The consequence was the selection of men of superior talent
and character: none could aspire to the high position whose names had
not become familiar for services to the State, or for the display of
talent and character at the bar, or other conspicuous positions, their
virtues and attainments distinguishing them above their fellow-men of
the country. Throughout the State, to such men there was great
deference, and the instances were rare where it was not deserved. The
discipline and trickery of party was unknown, nor was it possible that
these could exist among a people who, universally, honestly desired
and labored to be represented by their best men. To attain to the high
position of senator or representative in Congress was so distinguishing
a mark of merit, that it operated powerfully upon the ambitious young
men of the State, all of whom struggled to attain it by laboring to
deserve it.

The standard of talent established by Crawford, Jackson, and Baldwin
was so high, that to have public opinion institute a comparison
between these and an aspirant was a sure passport to public favor; and
this comparison was in no instance so likely to be made as between him
and the pupils of his teaching. This fact in relation to Jackson and
Crawford is remembered well by the writer.

In the low country of Georgia, the fiat of James Jackson fixed the
political fate of every young aspirant. In the up-country, Crawford
was as potent. In Crawford's office the student was required to apply
himself diligently, and give promise of abilities, or he could not
remain. The writer remembers to have heard the question asked of Mr.
Crawford, in his later days, why a family in his own county,
distinguished for wealth, had uniformly opposed him politically. In
the frankness of his nature he said: "Aleck came, when a young man, to
read law in my office, and though he was diligent enough, he was
without the brain necessary to acquire a proper knowledge of the law.
I liked his father, and in reply to an inquiry of his relative, as to
Aleck's capacity, I told him 'his son would doubtless succeed as a
farmer, for he was industrious; but he had not sense enough to make a
lawyer.' He thanked me; and Aleck left the office, and, profiting by
my advice, went to the plough, and has made a fortune, and a very
respectable position for himself; but from that day forward, not a
member of the family has ever been my friend. I think I did my duty,
and have got along without their friendship."

Jackson had his _protégés_, and they were always marked for talent. In
early life he discerned the germ of great abilities in two youths of
Savannah--George M. Troup and Thomas U.D. Charlton. Through his
influence, these young men, almost as soon as eligible, were sent to
the Legislature of the State, and both immediately took high
positions. Talent was not the only requisite to win and retain the
favor of Jackson: the man must be honest, and that honesty of such a
character as placed him above suspicion.

Under the operation of the Confiscation Act, many who had favored the
mother country in the Revolutionary struggle had fled with their
property to Florida. Conspicuous among these was one Campbell Wiley, a
man of fortune. This man applied to the Legislature to be specially
exempted from the penalties of this act, and to be permitted to return
to the State. A heated debate ensued, when the bill was being
considered, in which Charlton was silent, and in which Troup made a
violent speech in opposition to its passage, ending with the sentence,
"If ever I find it in my heart to forgive an old Tory his sins, I
trust my God will never forgive me mine." This speech gave him an
immediate popularity over the entire State. Charlton in secret favored
the bill; but knowing its unpopularity with his constituents, he
contrived to be called to the chair, and was forced to vote on a
material motion which was favorable to the bill. The wealth of Wiley,
and Charlton's equivocation, attached suspicion to his motives, and
brought down upon him the wrath of Jackson, blighting all his future
aspirations. As a member of the bar he attained eminence, and all his
future life was such as to leave no doubt of his purity, and the cruel
wrong those suspicions, sustained by the frown of Jackson, had done
him.

Thomas W. Cobb was eminently social in his nature, and frank to a
fault; his opinions were never concealed of men or measures; and these
were, though apparently hasty, the honest convictions of his judgment,
notwithstanding their apparent impulsive and hasty character. Like his
tutor, Mr. Crawford, he cared little for ceremony or show; and in
every thing he was the kernel without the shell: his character was
marked before his company in five minutes' conversation, whether he
had ever met or heard of them before; and in all things else he was
equally without deceit. This openness to some seemed rude; and his
enemies were of this class. He expressed as freely his opinion to the
person as to the public; but this was always accompanied with a manner
which disrobed it of offence. But human nature will not in every
individual excuse the words because of the manner; and sometimes this
peculiarity made him sharp enemies. It will be supposed such traits
would have rendered him unpopular. At this day, when social
intercourse is less familiar, they certainly would have done so; but
they seemed a means of great popularity to Cobb, especially with those
who were most intimate with him, as all who met him were, after an
hour's acquaintance. His public life was as his private, open and
sincere; he never had a sinister motive, and this relieved him from
duplicity of conduct. His talents were of a high order: in debate, he
was argumentative and explicit; never pretending to any of the arts of
the orator; but logically pursued his subject to a conclusion; never
verbose, but always perspicuous. As a lawyer, he was well read; and
the analytical character of his mind appeared to have been formed upon
the model of Judge Blackstone. Before the juries of the country he was
all-powerful. These, in the main, were composed of men of very limited
information--and especially of legal lore. But they were generally men
of strong practical sense, with an honest purpose of doing justice
between man and man. Cobb with these was always sincere; never
attempting a deception, never seeking to sway their judgments and
secure a verdict by appealing to their passions or their prejudices,
or by deceiving them as to what the law was. Toward a witness or a
party of whose honesty he entertained doubts, he was sarcastically
severe; nor was he choice in the use of terms. As a statesman, he was
wise and able--and in politics, as in everything else, honest and
patriotic. In early life he was sent to the House of Representatives,
in the Congress of the United States, and soon distinguished himself
as a devoted Republican in politics, and a warm supporter of the
Administration of Mr. Monroe. Here he was reunited socially with Mr.
Crawford and family, and so close was this intimacy that he was on all
political measures supposed to speak the sentiments of Mr. Crawford.
Associated with Forsyth, Tatnal, Gilmer, and Cuthbert, all men of
superior abilities, all belonging to the same political party, and all
warm supporters, of Mr. Crawford, he led this galaxy of talent--a
constellation in the political firmament unsurpassed by the
representation of any other State. Nor must I forget, in this
connection, Joel Crawford and William Terrell, men of sterling worth
and a high order of talent. Mr. Cobb was a man of active business
habits, and was very independent in his circumstances: methodical and
correct, he never left for to-morrow the work of to-day.

He was transferred from the House to the Senate, and left it with a
reputation for integrity and talent--the one as brilliant as the other
unstained--which falls to the lot of few who are so long in public
life as he was. Unlike most politicians whose career has been through
exciting political struggles, the blight of slander was never breathed
upon his name, and it descended to his children, as he received it
from his ancestry, without spot or blemish.

Toward the close of his life, he was elected by the Legislature of the
State to the Bench of the Superior Court, then the highest judicial
tribunal of the State. This was the last public station he filled.
Here he sustained his high character as a lawyer and honest man;
carrying to the tomb the same characteristics of simplicity and
sincerity, of affability and social familiarity, which had ever
distinguished him in every position, public or private. He assumed
none of that mock dignity or ascetic reserve in his intercourse with
the Bar and the people, so characteristic of little minds in elevated
positions: conscious of rectitude in all things, he never feared this
familiarity would give cause for the charge of improper bias in his
decisions from the bench or his influence with the jury.

Mr. Cobb died at the age of fifty, in the prime of his manhood and
usefulness. In person, he was a model for a sculptor--six feet in
height, straight, and admirably proportioned. His head and face were
Grecian; his forehead ample; his nose beautifully chiselled; gray
eyes, with sparkling, playful expression, round, and very beautiful;
his head round, large, and admirably set on; the expression of his
features, variant as April weather, but always intellectual, they
invited approach, and the fascination of his conversation chained to
his presence all who approached him. In fine, he was a type in manner
and character of the people among whom he was born and reared; and I
scarcely know if this is the greater compliment to him or them.

With few exceptions, this peculiar population of Middle Georgia has
furnished all of her distinguished sons, and to the traits which make
them remarkable is she to-day mainly indebted for her exalted
prominence among her sister States of the South. The peculiar training
of her sons, the practical education and social equality which
pervades, and ever has, her society, acquaints every one with the
wants of every other; at the same time it affords the facility for
union in any public enterprise which promises the public good. All
alike are infused with the same State pride, and the equality of
fortunes prevents the obtrusion of arrogant wealth, demanding control,
from purely selfish motives, in any public measure.

This community of interests superinduces unity of feeling, and unity
of action; and the same homogeneous education secures a healthy public
opinion, which, at last, is the great controlling law of human action.
Thus the soil is one, the cultivation is one, the growth is one, and
the fruit is the same. Nowhere in the South have these been so
prominent as in Middle Georgia, and no other portion of the South is
so distinguished for progress, talent, and high moral cultivation.
There is, perhaps, wanting that polish of manners, that ease and grace
of movement, and that quiet delicacy of suppressed emotion, so
peculiar to her citizens of the seaboard, which the world calls
refinement; which seems taught to conceal the natural under the
artistic, and which so frequently refines away the nobler and more
generous emotions of the heart. I doubt, however, if the habit of open
and unrestrained expression of the feelings of our nature is not a
more enduring basis of strong character and vigorous thought and
action, than the cold polish of refined society. Whatever is most
natural is most enduring. The person unrestrained by dress grows into
noble and beautiful proportions; the muscles uncramped, develop not
only into beauty, but strength and healthfulness. So with the mind
untrammelled by forms and ceremonies; and so with the soul unfettered
by the superstition of vague and ridiculous dogmas. The freedom of
action and familiarity of language, where there are few social
restraints to prevent universal intercourse, familiarizes every class
of the community with the peculiarities of each, and forms an outlet
for the wit and humor of the whole. This was the stimulant to mirth
and hilarity, for which no people are so much distinguished as the
Georgians of the middle country. At the especial period of which I now
write, her humorists were innumerable. Dooly, Clayton, Prince,
Longstreet, Bacon (the Ned Brace of Longstreet's Georgia Scenes), and
many others of lesser note, will long be remembered in the traditions
of the people. These were all men of, eminence, and in their time
filled the first offices of the State. The quiet, quaint humor of
Prince is to be seen in his Militia Muster, in the Georgia Scenes; and
there too the inimitable burlesque of Bacon, in Ned Brace.




CHAPTER VII.

WITS AND FIRE-EATERS.

JUDGE DOOLY--LAWYERS AND BLACKSMITHS--JOHN FORSYTH--HOW JURIES WERE
DRAWN--GUM-TREE _vs._ WOODEN-LEG--PREACHER-POLITICIANS--COLONEL
CUMMING--GEORGE McDUFFIE.


John M. Dooly was a native of Lincoln County, Georgia, where he
continued to reside until his death, and where he now lies in an
undistinguished grave. He was the son of a distinguished Revolutionary
soldier, whose name, in consideration of his services in that struggle,
has been given to a county in the State. In early life he united
himself to the Federal party, and from honest convictions continued a
Federalist in principle through life. But for his political principles,
his name in the nation to-day would have been a household word,
familiar as the proudest upon her scroll of fame. In very early life he
gave evidence of extraordinary powers of mind. With a limited
education, he commenced the study of the law when quite young. But
despite this serious defect, which was coupled with poverty and many
other disadvantages incident to a new country impoverished by war, and
wanting in almost everything to aid the enterprise of talent in a
learned profession, soon after his admission to the Bar he attracted
the attention of the community, and especially the older members of the
Bar, as a man of extraordinary capacity, and already trained in the
law. So tenacious was his memory of all that he read or heard, that he
not only retained the law, but the author and page where it was to be
found. His mind was eminently logical and delighted in analytical
investigation. In truth, the law suited the idiosyncrasy of his mind,
and it was most fortunate for his future life, that he adopted it as a
lifetime pursuit. Nature, it seems, gives to every mind a peculiar
proclivity, as to every individual a peculiar mind: to pursue this
proclivity is a pleasure; it makes work a delight, and this secures
success. Hence it is fortunate to learn this peculiarity, and to
cultivate it from the beginning. When the mind is strong and vigorous,
this peculiar proclivity is generally well-marked to the inquiring
observer in very early life.

It is related of Benjamin West, the great painter, that at five years
of age he was continually soiling the floor of his good and sensible
mother with charcoal sketches of the faces of the different members of
the family; and of Napoleon, that in early childhood his favorite
amusement was to build forts and array his playmates into column, and
charge these, and assault and enter them. Stevenson, the great
engineer, spent all his idle time, when a boy, in attempts at
constructing machinery and bridges.

In these great minds this natural trait was so strongly marked, and so
controlling in its influence, as to defy and overleap every obstacle,
and develop its wonderful energy and capacity in the most stupendous
manner. In such as these, this manifestation is early and palpable. Yet
the same peculiarity exists wherever there is mind sufficient to
connect cause and effect; but it is proportionate with the strength of
the mind, and in ordinary or feeble minds it is less conspicuous, and
requires close observation to discern it in early life.

The folly and ambition of parents and adverse circumstances too often
disappoint the intentions of nature, and compel their offspring, or the
victims of circumstance, to follow a pursuit for which they have a
natural aversion, and absolutely no capacity: hence we see thousands
struggling painfully through life in a hated avocation, and witness
many a miserable lawyer whom nature designed to be a happy blacksmith.
His toil of life is always up hill, without the possibility of ever
attaining the summit. Sometimes the rebellion of nature is successful,
and the misdirected will shake off the erroneously imposed vocation,
and dash away in the pursuit for which the mind is capacitated; and
immediate success attests the good sense and propriety of the act.

Fortunately, John M. Dooly, selected, under the guidance of natural
inclination, the profession of law. His eminence was early in life, and
the public eye was directed to him as one worthy any public trust. He
was frequently chosen a member of the Legislature from his native
county, and was distinguished for extraordinary ability in the capacity
of a legislator. His conspicuous position and commanding talents
pointed him out as one to take a foremost rank with the first of the
nation; and his friends urged his name as a fit representative in
Congress for the State. At this time the acrimony of party was intense;
the Republican, or Jeffersonian party, was largely in the ascendant in
the State, and would accept no compromise. It was willing to receive
new converts and prefer them according to merit, but would accord no
favor to an unrepentant enemy. At this time there were many young,
talented men rising to distinction in the State, who were Federalists.
With some of them ambition was superior to principle; they recanted
their principles, and, in the ranks of their former opponents, reaped a
harvest of political distinction. Prominent among these was John
Forsyth. He had delivered a Fourth of July oration at Augusta,
distinguished for great ability and high Federal doctrines. Abraham
Baldwin, who, with the astuteness of the Yankee--which he was--had
renounced Federalism, and was now a prominent leader of the Republican
party, spoke of this effort of Forsyth as transcendently great, and
always, when doing so, would add: "What a pity such abilities should be
lost to the country through the influence of mistaken political
principle!" Whether this had any effect upon the views of Forsyth or
not, certain it is that very soon after he repudiated Federalism, and
published a formal renunciation of the party and its principles. From
that time forward his march was onward, and now his name and fame are
embalmed as national wealth.

Dooly was less facile: his convictions were honest and strong, and he
clung to them. He won the confidence not only of his party, but of the
people, for high integrity; but this was all. Out of his county he was
intrusted with no political position, and those who most prized his
talents and integrity could never be persuaded to aid in giving these
to the country. He was more than once beaten for the Senate of the
United States; and once by Forsyth, who was not announced as a
candidate, and who was at the time minister plenipotentiary of the
nation at the Spanish Court. His great legal abilities were, however,
complimented by the Republican Legislature, by placing him upon the
bench of the highest judicial tribunal of the State, where his
usefulness was transcendent, and where most of his life was spent.

As a wit, Dooly never had an equal in the State, and there might now be
written a volume of his social and judicial wit. Its compass was
illimitable--from the most refined and delicately pungent to the
coarsest and most vulgarly broad; but always pointed and telling.
Nature had given him a peculiarity of look and voice which gave edge to
his wit and point to his humor.

The judicial system of Georgia at this time was peculiar. The State was
subdivided into districts, or circuits, as they were denominated; and
one judge appointed to preside over each. These were elected by the
Legislature, on joint ballot, for a term of three years; and until
faction claimed the spoils of victory, the judge who had proven himself
capable and honest was rarely removed, so long as he chose to remain.
Dooly was one of these. Party never touched him, and both factions
concurred in retaining him, because it was the universal wish of the
people of his circuit. The law of the country was the common law of
England and the statutes of the State. In the expounding of these, the
judges frequently differed, and the consequence was that each circuit
had, in many particulars, its own peculiar law, antagonistic to that
which was received as law in the adjoining circuit. The uniformity of
law, so essential to the quiet and harmony of a people, and so
necessary in defining the title and securing the tenure of property, by
this system was so greatly disturbed, that it led to the informal
assembling of the judges at irregular periods, and upon their own
responsibility, to reconcile these discrepancies. This in some degree
obviated the necessity of a supreme court for the correction of errors;
but was very unsatisfactory to the Bar, who were almost universal in
their desire for the establishment of a tribunal for this purpose. But
there was another feature peculiar to the judicial system of the State,
to which her people were greatly attached: that of special juries. They
feared the creation of a supreme court would abolish this, and for many
years resisted it. This system of special juries, in the organization
of her judiciary, was intended to obviate the necessity of a court of
chancery. The conception was a new one, and in Georgia, with her
peculiar population, its effects were admirable. It was an honest,
common-sense adjudication of equity cases, and rendered cheap and
speedy justice to litigants. It was unknown in the judiciary system of
any other State, and I will be excused by the reader, who may not be a
Georgian, for a brief description of it here.

By direction of the law of 1798, the justices of the Inferior Court
took the tax list, which contained the name of every white man of
twenty-one years and upwards in the county, and, from this list,
selected a certain number of names, and placed them in a box marked
"The grand-jury box." The remaining names were placed in another box
marked "The petit-jury box." Those selected as grand jurors were chosen
because of their superior intelligence, wealth, and purity of
character. These selections were made at certain stated periods; and
the jurors thus chosen from the mass never served on the petit jury,
nor were they liable even as talesmen to serve on that jury. The same
act made it the duty of the presiding judge of each circuit to draw, at
the termination of each term of his court, and in open court, a certain
number of names from each box, which were entered as drawn upon the
minutes of the court, to serve as grand and petit jurors at the ensuing
term of the court. The special juries, for the trial of cases in
equity, and appeals from the verdicts of petit juries, were formed from
the grand juries, and after the manner following: A list was furnished
by the clerk of the court to the appellant and respondent. From this
list each had the right to strike a name alternately--the appellant
having the first stroke--until there remained twelve names only. These
constituted a special Jury, and the oath prescribed by law far these
jurors was as follows; "You shall well and truly try the issue between
the parties, and a true verdict give, according to law and equity, and
the opinion you entertain of the testimony." Under the pleadings, the
entire history of the case went before this jury, and their verdict was
final. It was this method of trial which prevented so long that great
desideratum in all judicial systems--a court for the correction of
errors and final adjudication of cases.

Dishonest litigants feared this special jury. Their characters, as that
of their witnesses, passed in review before this jury, whose oaths
allowed a latitude, enabling them frequently to render a verdict,
ostensibly at variance with the testimony, but almost always in aid of
the ends of equitable justice.

The system was eminently promotive of honesty and good morals, as well
as the ends of justice; for men's rights before it were not
unfrequently determined by the reputation they bore in the community in
which they lived. This fact stimulated uprightness of conduct, and
often deterred the wrong-doer. It has passed away; but I doubt if what
has replaced it has benefited the interests or morals of the people of
the State.

Like Mr. Crawford, Judge Dooly relied more upon the practical good
sense of the people as jurors, for justice between man and man, than
upon the technicalities of the law; and especially upon that of special
juries. Dooly had great contempt for petit juries, and evinced it upon
one occasion by declaring in open court that he thought, if there was
anything not known to the prescience of the Almighty, it was what the
verdict of a petit jury would be, when they left the box for the
jury-room. Dooly was an opponent of Crawford through life--a friend and
intimate of John Clark, Crawford's greatest enemy. But his character
was devoid of that bitterness and persistent hatred characteristic of
these two. Crawford and Judge Tate were intimate friends, and between
these and Clark there was continual strife. Tate and Clark were
brothers-in-law; but this only served to whet and give edge to their
animosity. Dooly, in some manner, became entangled with Tate in this
feud; and an amusing story is told of the final settlement of the
difficulty between these men.

Tate, it seems, challenged Dooly to mortal combat. Mr. Crawford was
Tate's friend. Dooly, contrary to all expectation, accepted, and named
General Clark as his friend, and appointed a day of meeting. Tate had
lost a leg, and, as was usual in that day, had substituted a wooden,
one. On the appointed day, Tate, with his friend, repaired to the place
of meeting, where Dooly had preceded them, and was alone, sitting upon
a stump. Crawford approached him, and asked for his friend, General
Clark.

"He is in the woods, sir."

"And will soon be present, I presume?" asked Crawford.

"Yes; as soon as he can find a gum."

"May I inquire, Colonel Dooly, what use you have for a gum in the
matter we have met to settle?"

"I want it to put my leg in, sir. Do you suppose I can afford to risk
my leg of flesh and bone against Tate's wooden one? If I hit his leg,
why, he will have another to-morrow, and be pegging about as well as
usual. If he hits mine, I may lose my life by it; but almost certainly
my leg, and be compelled, like Tate, to stump it the balance of my
life. I cannot risk this; and must have a gum to put my leg in: then I
am as much wood as he is, and on equal terms with him."

"I understand you, Colonel Dooly; you do not intend to fight."

"Well, really, Mr. Crawford, I thought everybody knew that."

"Very well, sir," said Crawford; "but remember, colonel, your name, in
no enviable light, shall fill a column of a newspaper."

"Mr. Crawford, I assure you," replied Colonel Dooly, "I would rather
fill every newspaper in Georgia than one coffin."

It is scarcely necessary to say, that Tate and Crawford left the field
discomfited, and here the matter ended.

Dooly never pretended to belligerency. When Judge Gresham threatened to
chastise him, he coolly replied he could do it; but that it would be no
credit to him, for anybody could do it. And when he introduced his
friend to another as the inferior judge of the Inferior Court of the
inferior County of Lincoln, and was knocked down for the insult, he
intreated the bystanders not to suffer him to be injured. When released
from the grasp of his antagonist, he rubbed his head, and facetiously
said: "This is the forty-second fight I have had, and if I ever got the
best of one, I do not now recollect it."

Judge Dooly was much beloved by the younger members of the Bar, to whom
he was ever kind and indulgent, associating with them upon his circuit,
and joining in all their amusements. His wit spared no one, and yet no
one was offended at it. His humor was the life of the company wherever
he was, and he was never so burdened with official dignity as to
restrain it on the bench. Unbiassed by party considerations or personal
prejudices, and only influenced by a sense of duty and wish to do
right, it was impossible he could be otherwise than popular. This
popularity, however, was personal, not political, and could never
secure to him any political distinction. He was ambitious of a seat in
the United States Senate, a distinction to which he more than once
aspired; but here the grinning ghost of Federalism always met him,
frightening from his support even the nearest of his social friends.
Mr. Crawford's wishes controlled the State, through the instrumentality
of those he had distinguished with his countenance. None doubted the
patriotism or capacity of Dooly for the position; but he was a
Federalist, and the friend of many of the prime movers of the Yazoo
fraud; and these were unpardonable sins with Crawford and his friends.
No one ever charged upon Dooly the sin of a participation in this
speculation, or the frauds through which it became a fixed fact, as a
law of the State, by legislative act. But it was, for a very long time,
fatal to the political aspirations of every one known to be personally
friendly to any man in any way concerned in the matter. They were
pariahs in the land, without friends or caste.

Of all the men prominent in his day, George M. Troup was the most
uncompromising in his hostility to those engaged in this speculation.
It certainly was the work of a few persons only, and did not embrace
one out of fifty of the Georgia Company. All, or nearly all of these,
honestly embarked in the speculation, not doubting but that the State
had the power to sell, and knowing her pecuniary condition required
that she should have money. Had they known that it required bribery to
pass the measure, they would have scorned to become parties to such
corruption; nevertheless they were inculpated, and had to share the
infamy of the guilty few who thus accomplished the purchase, as they
shared the profits arising therefrom. But it did not stop with the
participants. Their personal friends suffered, and no one individual so
fatally as Dooly. He asserted the power of the Legislature to sell--he
was sustained by the decision of the Supreme Court--he was not a
stockholder--he afforded no aid with his personal influence; yet the
public clamor made him a Yazoo-man, and Troup was foremost in his
denunciation of him. On this account it was that, upon a memorable
occasion, Dooly declared that Troup's mouth was formed by nature to
pronounce the word Yazoo. It had been proposed to Dooly, at the time
Forsyth abandoned the Federal party, to follow his example; but he
refused to part with his first love, and clung to her, and shaded,
without a murmur, her fortunes and her fate, which condemned him to a
comparative obscurity for all the future.

It was long years after, and when Mr. Forsyth was in the zenith of his
popularity, that the friends of Dooly proposed his name for the Senate
of the United States. His was the only name announced as a candidate to
the Legislature, but, on counting the ballots, it was found Forsyth had
been elected. Dooly was present, and remarked to a friend that he was
the only man he ever knew to be beaten who ran without opposition. He
saw the aspiring companions of his youth favorites of the people, and
thrust forward into public places, winning fame, and rising from one
position to another of higher distinction. He witnessed the advance of
men whom he had known as children in his manhood, preferred over him;
and, in the consciousness of his own superiority to most or all of
these, rather despised than regretted the prejudices of the
public--influenced by men designing and selfish--which consigned him to
obscurity because of an honest difference of opinion upon a point of
policy which ninety out of every hundred knew nothing about. While the
companions of his early youth were filling missions abroad, executive
offices at home, and Cabinet appointments, he was wearing out his life
in a position where, whatever his abilities, there was little fame to
be won. Still he would make no compromise of principle. In faith he was
sincere, and too honest to pretend a faith he had not, though honors
and proud distinction waited to reward the deceit. As true to his
friends as his principles, he would not desert either, and surrender
his virtue to the seductions of office and honors. Toward the close of
his life, his friends got into office and power. His friend, John
Clarke, was elected Governor, upon the demise of Governor Rabun; but
his day had passed, and other and younger men thrust him aside. Parties
were growing more and more corrupt, and to subserve the uses of
corruption, more tractable and pliant tools were required than could be
made of Dooly.

The election of Clarke was a triumph over the friends of Crawford, who
was then a member of Mr. Monroe's Cabinet, and had long been absent
from the State. It revived anew the flame of discord, which had
smouldered under the ashes of time. The embers lived, and the division
into parties of the people of the United States, consequent upon the
disruption of the Federal and Republican parties, and the candidacy of
Mr. Crawford for the Presidency, caused a division of the old
Republican party in Georgia. Clarke immediately headed the opposition
to Crawford, and his election was hailed as an evidence of Mr.
Crawford's unpopularity at home. This election startled the old friends
of this distinguished son of Georgia, and revived the old feeling.
Clarke was a man of strong will, without much mind, brave, and
vindictive, and nursed the most intense hatred of Crawford constantly
in his heart. The long absence of Crawford from the State, and the
secluded retirement of Clarke, had caused to cool in the public mind
much of the former bitterness of the two factions in the State, but now
it was rekindled. There were very many young men, who had been too
young to take any part in these factions, but who were now the active
and ambitious element in the State. Many persons, too, had immigrated
into the new-settled parts of the State, who were strangers to the
feuds which had once divided her people, and which now began to do so
anew. Each party sought to win and secure this element. Every newspaper
in the State, every judge upon the bench, every member of Congress was
in the interest of Crawford; and yet there was a majority of the people
of the State attached to the Clarke faction. He and his friends had
long been proscribed, and they pleaded persecution. The natural
sympathies of the heart were touched by these appeals, and it was
feared the State would be lost to Crawford in the coming Presidential
election. Every effort was now to be made to defeat this faction
against him, headed by Clarke. The election of Governor at this time
was by the Legislature; and it was not anticipated that there would be
any difficulty in the re-election of Rabun, and, consequently, there
had been no agitation of the question before the people at the recent
election of members of the Legislature. Scarcely a tithe of the people
had even heard of the candidacy of Clarke when his election was
announced; and, at the time, so little interest was felt on the
subject, that very few objected to his election. Clarke was a man of
violent passions, and had been, to some extent, irregular and
dissipated in his habits. When excited by any means, he was fierce; but
when with drink, he was boisterous, abusive, and destructive. Many
stories were related of terrible acts of his commission--riding into
houses, smashing furniture, glass, and crockery--of persecutions of his
family and weak persons he disliked. This had aroused in the pious and
orderly members of society strong opposition to him, and at this time
all his sins and irregularities were widely and loudly heralded to the
public. The preachers, with few exceptions, denounced him, and those
who did not were very soon with him denounced. Very soon after his
inauguration, the celebrated Jesse Mercer--the great gun of the Baptist
denomination in Georgia--was invited to preach the funeral sermon of
Governor Rabun. Mercer was an especial friend of Mr. Crawford, and a
more especial enemy of Clarke. In many respects he was a remarkable
man--a zealous and intolerant sectarian, and quite as uncompromising
and bitter in his political feelings. His zeal knew no bounds in
propagating his religious faith, and it was quite as ardent in
persecuting his political opponents. It was doubtful which he most
hated--the Devil or John Clarke. Rabun had been his neighbor, his
friend, and, above all, a member and elder in his church. It was quite
fitting under the circumstances that he should be selected to officiate
in the funeral services in honor of the late Governor. From respect,
Clarke and the Legislature were present. The moment Mercer's eye, from
the pulpit, descried Clarke, he threw open his Bible violently, and for
many minutes was busy searching from page to page some desired text. At
last he smiled. And such a smile! It was malignant as that of a
catamount. Turning down the leaf--as was the custom of his church--he
rose and gave out to be sung, line by line, his hymn. This concluded,
he made a short and hurried prayer--contrary to his custom--and, rising
from his prayerful position, opened his Bible, and fixing his eye upon
Clarke, he directed his audience to his text, and read:

"When the wicked rule, the land mourns."

The expression of his countenance, the twinkling of his eye, all
pointed so clearly to Clarke as to direct the attention of every one
present to the Governor. This was followed by a sermon half made up of
the irregularities of Clarke's life. This was the tocsin to the church,
and it came down in force with the opposition to the Governor elect. It
was, too, the slogan of the Crawford party to rally for a new conflict.

Mr. Crawford's conduct as a representative of the State in Congress,
and the representative of her people in his foreign mission, had been
eminently satisfactory; and his present elevated position as Secretary
of the Treasury of the United States was exceedingly gratifying to
their pride. When it was determined by his friends to present his name
to the nation as a candidate for the Presidency, it was supposed his
support would be unanimous in Georgia. Time had given opportunity for
the prejudices and hatreds of youth to wear out with the passions of
youth. Those, however, who knew John Clarke, were not deceived when he
successfully rallied a party in opposition. So little interest had been
felt in the personal difficulty formerly existing between Clarke and
Crawford, that even those who remembered it attached to it no
importance, and they did not suppose Clarke's election was to be the
commencement of an organized opposition to Crawford's election, and of
the bitterness which was to follow.

There was scarcely the show of opposition to the election of Clarke.
Those who remembered the old feud, and how completely it had pressed
down all the ambitious hopes and aspirations of Clarke, were willing to
forget the past, and, though warm friends of Mr. Crawford, to vote for
Clarke, and honor him with the first office in the State. Some felt his
treatment had been too harsh, and that for his father's Yazoo
antecedents he had been made to pay quite too severe a penalty, and
were desirous to manifest their feelings in their votes. Besides, his
family connections were most respectable. Griffin Campbell and Dr. Bird
were his brothers-in-law, and were men of high character and great
influence. The friends of these gentlemen united in his support. And
there was still another, whose influence, to the writer's knowledge,
carried four young, talented members of the House to the support of her
father--Ann Clarke, the only daughter of John Clarke, who had no
superior among her sex in talent, beauty, and accomplishments, in the
State. During the incumbency of her father she did the honors of the
executive mansion with a dignity, grace, and affability which won all
hearts, and added greatly to the popularity of the Governor. She
married Colonel John W. Campbell, and all her after-life has justified
the promise of her girlhood. Left a widow with many children, she has
reared and educated them to be an honor to their mother, and, as she
was, an ornament to society. She is now an aged woman, and resides in
Texas, honored and beloved by all who know her.

The election of Clarke was illy received by the old and tried friends
of Crawford throughout the State. They knew him. His stern, inflexible
character and indomitable will were sure to rally about him a party;
and his personal bravery and devotion to his friends would greatly aid
in keeping and inspiring these. His position now was one of strength,
with the capacity to increase it, and the material was abundant; yet
there were formidable difficulties in his way. All, or very nearly all
of the leading families of the State--the Lamars, Cobbs, McIntoshes,
Waynes, Telfairs, Cummings, Tatnals, Dawsons, Abercrombies, Holts,
Blackshears, and many others--were Republicans, and active in the
support of Crawford for the Presidency. These apparently insurmountable
difficulties were to be overcome in the organization of new parties.
The complete breaking up of the Republican party of the nation was
favorable; and there was another element which the sagacity of Campbell
soon discovered and laid hold upon. There were many ambitious and
disappointed men and families in the State beside Clarke and his
family.

The overwhelming popularity of Crawford as the head of the Republican
party in the State had enabled his friends to monopolize all the
offices, and give direction to every political movement and fix the
destiny of every political aspirant. Under this _régime_ many had been
summarily set aside, and were soured. The talents of Troup, Forsyth,
Cobb, Berrien, Tatnal, and some others, pointed them out as men to be
honored, because they honored the State. They seemed to hold a
possessory right to the distinguished positions, and to dictate who
should be elected to the minor ones. Young ambition submitted, but, was
restless and impatient to break away from this dominion. Party
stringency had enforced it, but this was loosened, and all that was now
wanting was a head to rally them into a new and formidable party. Every
old Federalist in the State who had clung to his principles attached
himself to Clarke. There were many strong families, wielding a potent
influence in their neighborhoods, attached to Federal principles. The
Watkins, Hills, Walkers, Glasscocks, and Adamses all soon sided with
the new party. A press in its support was greatly needed, and was soon
established, and given in charge of Cosein E. Bartlett, than whom no
man was better calculated for such a service as was demanded of him.

There were not at this time a dozen newspapers in the State. With all
of them had Bartlett to do battle for the cause in which he had
enlisted, and right valiantly did he do it. He was a fluent and most
caustic writer, and was always ready, not only to write, but to fight
for his party, and would with his blood sustain anything he might say
or write. Like most party editors, he only saw the interest of his
party in what he would write, and would write anything he supposed
would further the ends of his party. Almost immediately after the
election of Clarke, the opposition presented the name of George M.
Troup, who had been voted for as an opposing candidate at the time of
Clarke's election. It was but a little while before the State trembled
with the agitation which seemed to disturb every breast. None could be
neutral. All were compelled to take sides or be crushed between the
contending parties or factions; for this division of the people was
only factious. There was no great principle upon which they divided; it
was men only. Clarke and his friends favored the pretensions of Mr.
Calhoun to the Presidency solely because he was the enemy of Crawford,
and they were subsequently transferred to the support of Jackson as
readily as cattle in the market.

For two years was this agitation increasing in intensity, and so bitter
had it made animosities arising out of it, that reason seemed to reel,
and justice to forget her duty. Men were chosen indiscriminately to
office because of party proclivities. Intelligence and moral worth were
entirely disregarded--families divided--husbands and wives
quarrelled--father and sons were estranged, and brothers were at deadly
strife. There was no argument in the matter; for there was nothing upon
which to predicate an argument. To introduce the subject was to promote
a quarrel. Churches were distracted and at discord, and the pulpit, for
the first time in Georgia, desecrated by political philippics. Pierce
then, as now, was the leading minister of the Methodist Church in the
State, and abstained in the pulpit, but made no secret of his
preferences upon the street. Duffie travelled everywhere. He had by
unkindness driven from him his wife with her infant child, and, in her
helpless and desperate condition, she had taken refuge with the Shaking
Quakers in the West, and remained with them until her death. His son
came to him after maturity, and was established by him on a plantation
with a number of slaves; but, having inherited all the brutal ferocity
of his father, it was not long before he murdered one or two of them.
Incarcerated in the county jail, his father invoked party aid to
release him, openly declaring it was due to him for party services in
opposing that son of the Devil--John Clarke. Whether his party or his
money did the work I know not; but the miserable wretch escaped from
jail, and was never brought to trial.

Peter Gautier was another prominent preacher-politician, and exercised
his talents in the service of Clarke. He was by birth an American, but
his parents were French. He was a bad man, but of eminent abilities,
and exercised great influence in the western portion of the State.
After Pierce, he was the superior of all of his denomination as a
pulpit orator; and in will and energy unequalled by any other. Bold,
unscrupulous, and passionate, he, regardless of his profession, mingled
freely, at county musters and political barbecues, with the lowest and
vilest of the community, using every art his genius suggested to
inflame the mad passions of men already excited to frenzy. In after
life the viciousness and unscrupulousness of his nature overmastered
his hypocrisy and burst out in acts of dishonesty and profanity, which
disgraced and drove him from the State. He sought security from public
scorn in the wilds of Florida; but all restraint had given way, and
very soon the innate perfidy of his nature manifested itself in all his
conduct, and he was obliged to retire from Florida. At that time Texas
was the outlet for all such characters, and thither went Gautier, where
he died.

Every means which talent and ingenuity could devise was put into
requisition by both parties to secure their ascendency. The men of
abilities greatly preponderated in the Troup faction; and the pens of
Cobb, Gumming, Wild, Grantland, Gilmer, and Foster were active in
promoting the election of Troup, and thereby regaining the lost power
of the old Crawford or Republican party. Many young men of talent had
espoused the Clarke faction, and, under the guidance of Dooly,
Campbell, and Clarke, were doing yeomen's work for the cause. Among
these was Charles J. McDonald, whose fine character and family
influence rendered him conspicuously popular. This popularity he
retained to the end of his life. It elevated him to the Gubernatorial
chair, after serving in the United States Congress and for years upon
the bench of the Superior Court. His talents were not of the first
order, but his honesty, sincerity, and goodness made him beloved.

Bartlett was struggling with all his energies to write up the
administration and to defend the Governor against the fierce and
reiterated attacks of the opposition. About this period there appeared
some articles in a paper in Augusta, Georgia, reflecting upon Mr.
Crawford, in reply to several papers signed "C.," which were written by
Richard H. Wild, then a member of Congress from Georgia. These articles
were attributed to Colonel William Gumming, of Augusta, and "C.," in
reply, attacked him severely. He was not a man to be badgered by an
anonymous writer in a newspaper. He demanded immediately of the editor
the name of his correspondent, and that of George McDuffie, of South
Carolina, was given. A challenge ensued--a meeting followed, in which
McDuffie was seriously wounded, and which ultimately caused his death.
This affair increased the hatred between the Georgians and Carolinians,
as it did not cease with a single meeting. Gumming renewed his
challenge in consequence of a statement made by McDuffie in a paper to
the public, narrating offensively--as Cumming felt--the particulars of
the affair. A second meeting was the consequence, at which a difficulty
arose between the seconds, and it was adjourned to another day and
another place. At this third meeting, in an exchange of shots,
McDuffie's arm was broken, and this terminated the difficulty; but it
did not appease the animosity of the friends of the parties.

These combatants were both men of remarkable abilities. Colonel William
Cumming was a native of Augusta, Georgia. Born to the inheritance of
fortune, he received a liberal education and selected the law as a
profession. He read with the celebrated Judges Reeve and Gould, at
Litchfield, Connecticut. At the period of his study this was the only
law-school in the United States. Many anecdotes of his peculiarities
during his residence at the school were related by his preceptors to
the young gentlemen from Georgia who followed him in the office in
after years. A moot court was a part of the system of instruction, in
which questions of law, propounded by one of the professors, were
argued by students appointed for the purpose. On one occasion, Cumming
was replying to the argument of a competitor, and was so caustic as to
be offensive. This was resented by insulting words. Turning to the
gentleman, and without speaking, Cumming knocked him down. Immediately,
and without the slightest appearance of excitement, addressing the
presiding professor, he remarked: "Having thus summarily disposed of
the gentleman, I will proceed to treat his argument in like manner."

Upon his return to Georgia, the war with England having broken out, he
procured the commission of a captain and entered the army. He was
transferred to the northern frontier--then the seat of active
operations--and soon distinguished himself amid that immortal band, all
of whom now sleep with their fathers--Miller, Brook, Jessup, McCrea,
Appling, Gaines, and Twiggs. Cumming, Appling, and Twiggs were
Georgians. At the battle of Lundy's Lane he was severely wounded and
borne from the field. He was placed in an adjoining room to General
Preston, who was also suffering from a wound. Cumming was a favorite of
Preston's, and both were full of prejudice toward the men of the North.
Late at night, Preston was aroused by a boisterous laugh in Cumming's
apartment. Such a laugh was so unusual with him that the general
supposed he had become delirious from pain. He was unable to go to him,
but called and inquired the cause of his mirth.

"I can't sleep," was the reply, "and I was thinking over the incidents
of the day, and just remembered that there had not in the conflict been
an officer wounded whose home was north of Mason and Dixon's line.
Those fellows know well how to take care of their bacon."

He was soon promoted to a colonelcy, and was fast rising to the next
grade when the war terminated. In the reduction of the army he was
retained--a compliment to his merits as a man and an officer. He was
satisfied with this, and, in declining to remain in the army, wrote to
the Secretary of War:

"There are many whose services have been greater, and whose merits are
superior to mine, who have no other means of a livelihood. I am
independent, and desire some other may be retained in my stead."

He was unambitious of political distinction, though intensely
solicitous to promote that of his friends. His high qualities of soul
and mind endeared him to the people of the State, who desired and
sought every occasion which they deemed worthy of him, to tender him
the first positions within their gift; but upon every one of these he
remained firm to his purpose, refusing always the proffered preferment.
Upon one occasion, when written to by a majority of the members of the
Legislature, entreating him to permit them to send him to the Senate of
the United States, he declined, adding: "I am a plain, military man.
Should my country, in that capacity, require my services, I shall be
ready to render them; but in no other." He continued to reside in
Augusta in extreme seclusion. Upon the breaking out of the war with
Mexico he was tendered, by Mr. Polk, the command of the army, but
declined on account of his age and declining health, deeming himself
physically incapable of encountering the fatigue the position would
involve.

The habits of Colonel Cumming were peculiar. His intercourse with his
fellow men was confined to a very few tried friends. He never married,
and was rarely known to hold any familiar intercourse with females. So
secluded did he live, that for many years he was a stranger to almost
every one in his native city. He was strictly truthful, punctual to his
engagements in business matters, and honest in all things. In person,
he was very commanding. In his walk the whole man was seen--erect,
dignified, and impetuous. Energy and command flashed from his great,
gray eyes. His large head and square chin, with lips compressed,
indicated the talent and firmness which were the great characteristics
of his nature. Impatient of folly, he cultivated no intercourse with
silly persons, nor brooked for a moment the forward impertinence of
little pretenders. To those whose qualities of mind and whose habits
were congenial to his own, and whom he permitted familiarly to approach
him, he was exceedingly affable, and with such he frequently jested,
and hilariously enjoyed the piquant story in mirthful humor; but this
was for the few. He was a proud man, and was at no pains to conceal his
contempt for pert folly or intrusive ignorance, wherever and in
whomsoever he met it.

In early life he was the close intimate of Richard Henry Wild, and was
a great admirer of his genius, and especially his great and interesting
conversational powers. Unexceptionable in his morals, he was severe
upon those whose lives were deformed by the petty vices which society
condemns yet practises in so many instances and universally tolerates.

It is greatly to be regretted that the talents and learning of such a
man should not be given to mankind. Every one capable of appreciating
these great attributes in man, and who knew Colonel Cumming, will, with
the writer, regret that he persistently refused every persuasion of his
friends to allow them to place him in such a position before the
country as would bring his great qualities prominently forward in the
service, and for the benefit of his fellow-men. His proud nature
scorned the petty arts of the politician; and he doubtless felt place
could only be had or retained by the use of these arts; he was of too
high principle to descend to them, and held in great contempt those
whose confidence and favor could only be had by chicanery. He was not a
people's man, and had in his nature very little in common with the
masses; and, like Coriolanus, scorned and shunned the great unwashed.
He lived out his threescore years and ten, hiding the jewel God had
given him, and appropriating it only to the use of his own happiness in
the solitude he loved.

George McDuffie was a very different man. Born of humble parentage in
one of the eastern counties of Georgia, he enjoyed but few advantages.
His early education was limited: a fortuitous circumstance brought him
to the knowledge of Mr. Calhoun, who saw at once in the boy the promise
of the man. Proposing to educate him and fit him for a destiny which he
believed an eminent one, he invited him to his home, and furnished him
with the means of accomplishing this end. His ambition had often
whispered to his young mind a proud future, and he commenced the
acquisition of the education which was, as he felt, essential as a
means of its attainment. In this he made rapid progress, and at the age
of twenty-five graduated at the university of South Carolina. It was
not long after graduating before he was admitted to the Bar, and
commenced the practice of law in company with Eldridge Simpkins, at
Edgefield Court House, who was, if I mistake not, at the time, a member
of Congress.

The rise of McDuffie at the Bar was rapid; he had not practised three
years before his position was by the side of the first minds of the
State, and his name in the mouth of every one--the coming man of the
South. It was probably owing to the defence made by him of William
Taylor for the killing of Dr. Cheesboro, that he became famous as it
were in a day. This case excited the people of the whole State of South
Carolina. The parties were, so far as position was concerned, the first
in the State. William Taylor was the brother of John Taylor, who at the
time of the killing was Governor of the State. John Taylor, his
grandfather, was a distinguished officer in the army of the Revolution:
the family was wealthy, and extensively connected with the first
families of the State. Cheesboro was a young physician of great promise
and extensive practice. Jealousy was the cause of the killing, and was
evidently groundless. The deed was done in the house of Taylor, in the
city of Columbia, and was premeditated murder. Mrs. Taylor was a lovely
woman and highly connected. In her manners she was affable and cordial;
she was a great favorite in society, and her universal popularity
attracted to her the host of friends who so much admired her. Dr.
Cheesboro was one of these, and the green-eyed monster made him, in the
convictions of Taylor, the especial favorite of his wife. McDuffie was
employed in his defence, and he made a most triumphant success against
evidence, law, and justice. His speech to the jury was most effective.
The trial had called to Columbia many persons connected with the
family; and all were interested to save from an ignominious death their
relative. This, it was thought, could only be done by the sacrifice of
the wife's reputation. This would not only ruin forever this estimable
lady, but reflect a stain upon her extensive and respectable
connections. She was appealed to, to save her husband's life with the
sacrifice of her fame. In the consciousness of innocence, she refused
with Spartan firmness to slander her reputation by staining her
conscience with a lie. Her friends stood by her; and when hope had
withered into despair, and the possibility gone forever of saving him
by this means, the eloquence of McDuffie and the influence of family
were invoked, and successfully.

In the examination of the witnesses he showed great tact, and
successfully kept from the jury facts which would have left them no
excuse for a verdict of acquittal. But it was in his address that his
great powers made themselves manifest. The opening was impassioned and
powerful. Scarcely had he spoken ten minutes before the Bench, the Bar,
the jury, and the audience were in tears, and, during the entire
speech, so entirely did he control the feelings of every one who heard
him, that the sobs from every part of the courtroom were audible above
the sounds of his voice. When he had concluded, the jury went weeping
from the box to the room of their deliberations, and soon returned a
verdict of acquittal.

This effort established the fame of McDuffie as an orator and man of
great mental powers. Fortunately at that time it was the pride of South
Carolina to call to her service the best talent in all the public
offices, State and national, and with one acclaim the people demanded
his services in Congress. Mr. Simpkins, the incumbent from the
Edgefield district, declined a re-election, that his legal partner, Mr.
McDuffie, might succeed him, and he was chosen by acclamation. He came
in at a time when talent abounded in Congress, and when the country was
deeply agitated with the approaching election for President. Almost
immediately upon his entering Congress an altercation occurred upon the
floor of the House between him and Mr. Randolph, which resulted in the
discomfiture of Mr. Randolph, causing him to leave the House in a rage,
with the determination to challenge McDuffie. This, however, when he
cooled, he declined to do. This rencontre of wit and bitter words gave
rise to an amusing incident during its progress.

Jack Baker, the wag and wit of Virginia, was an auditor in the gallery
of the House. Randolph, as usual, was the assailant, and was very
severe. McDuffie replied, and was equally caustic, and this to the
astonishment of every one; for all supposed the young member was
annihilated--as so many before had been by Randolph--and would not
reply. His antagonist was completely taken aback, and evidently felt,
with Sir Andrew Ague-cheek: "Had I known he was so cunning of fence, I
had seen him damned ere I had fought him." But he was in for it, and
must reply. His rejoinder was angry, and wanting in his usual biting
sarcasm. McDuffie rose to reply, and, pausing, seemed to hesitate, when
Baker from the gallery audibly exclaimed: "Lay on, McDuff, and damned
be he who first cries hold, enough!" The silence which pervaded the
chamber was broken by a general laugh, greatly disconcerting Randolph,
but seeming to inspire McDuffie, who went on in a strain of
vituperation witheringly pungent, in the midst of which Mr. Randolph
left his seat and the House. Here was a triumph few had enjoyed. Not
even Bayard, in his famous attack upon Randolph, when the latter first
came into Congress, had won so much. Every one seemed delighted. The
newspapers heralded it to the country, and McDuffie had a national
reputation. Everything seemed propitious for his fame, and every friend
of Mr. Calhoun felt that he had a champion in his _protégé_, who, in
good service, would return him fourfold for his noble generosity to the
boy.

The contest with Cumming whetted more sharply the edge of the animosity
between Georgia and South Carolina. The two were considered the
champions of their respective States, as also the chosen knights of
their respective friends--Crawford and Calhoun. The States and the
friends of the parties in this quarrel very soon arrayed themselves in
antagonism, which was made personal on many occasions, and between many
parties. The young were especially prominent in their demonstrations of
hostile feeling, not excepting the belles of the respective States.
Between them, I believe, it never went beyond words; but they were
frequent in conflict, and sometimes very bitter and very witty ones
escaped from lovely lips, attesting that the face of beauty was
underlaid with passion's deformity. With the young gallants it went to
blows, and, on a few occasions, to more deadly strife; and always
marred the harmony of the association where there were young
representatives of both States. On one occasion of social meeting at a
public dinner-party in Georgia, a young South Carolinian gave as a
sentiment: "George McDuffie--the pride of South Carolina." This was
immediately responded to by Mirabeau B. Lamar, the late President of
Texas, who was then young, and a great pet of his friends, with
another: "Colonel William Cumming--

  "The man who England's arms defied,
    A bar to base designers;
  Who checked alike old Britain's pride
    And noisy South Carolina's."

The wit of the impromptu was so fine and the company so appreciative,
that, as if by common consent, all enjoyed it, and good feeling was not
disturbed.

McDuffie was not above the middle size. His features were large and
striking, especially his eyes, forehead, and nose. The latter was
prominent and aquiline. His eyes were very brilliant, blue, and deeply
set under a massive brow--his mouth large, with finely chiselled lips,
which, in meeting, always wore the appearance of being compressed. In
manners he was retiring without being awkward. His temperament was
nervous and ardent, and his feelings strong. His manner when speaking
was nervous and impassioned, and at times fiercely vehement, and again
persuasive and tenderly pathetic, and in every mood he was deeply
eloquent.

In the after period of life these antagonists were, through the
instrumentality of a noble-hearted Hibernian, reconciled, and sincerely
so--both regretting the past, and willing to bury its memory in social
intimacy. McDuffie married Miss Singleton, of South Carolina, one of
the loveliest and most accomplished ladies of the State.

Owing to the wound received in the duel with Cumming, his nervous
system suffered, and finally his brain. The ball remained imbedded in
the spine, and pressed upon the spinal chord. An attempt to remove it,
the surgeons determined, would be more hazardous to life than to permit
it to remain. There was no remedy. From its effects his mind began to
decay, and finally perished, leaving him, long before his death, a
melancholy imbecile. In all the relations of life this great man was
faithful to his duties--a devoted husband, a sincere friend, a kind
neighbor, and a considerate and indulgent master to his slaves. He was
one of those rare creations for which there is no accounting. None of
his family evinced more than very ordinary minds; nor can there be
traced in his ancestry one after whom his nature and abilities were
marked. His morals were as pure and elevated as his intellect was grand
and comprehensive, and his soul was as lofty and chivalrous as the
Chevalier Bayard's. His fame is too broad to be claimed alone by South
Carolina. Georgia is proud of giving him birth, and the nation
cherishes his glory.




CHAPTER VIII.

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

GOVERNOR MATHEWS--INDIANS--TOPOGRAPHY OF MIDDLE GEORGIA--A NEW COUNTRY
AND ITS SETTLERS--BEAUX AND BELLES--EARLY TRAINING--JESUIT TEACHERS--A
MOTHER'S INFLUENCE--THE JEWS--HOMELY SPORTS--THE COTTON GIN--
CAMP-MEETINGS.


Immediately subsequent to the Revolution, all the country northwest of
the Ogeechee River, in the middle portion of the State of Georgia, was
divided into two counties, Franklin and Wilkes. It was a wilderness,
and contiguous to both the Creek and Cherokee Indian nations. No
country in the world was more beautiful in its topography, and few more
fertile in soil. Governor Mathews had purchased a home in this region;
and being at this time the principal man in the up-country, attracted
to his neighborhood the emigrants who began to come into the country.

Mathew's Revolutionary services in the command of a regiment in the
Virginia line were eminent; and his character for intrepidity naturally
made him a leader among such men as were likely to seek and make homes
in a new country.

Surrounded not only with all the difficulties presented to him by the
unsubdued wilderness, but the perils of savage warfare, he
unflinchingly went forward in his enterprise, daring and conquering
every obstacle nature and the savages interposed. He was an uneducated
man; but of strong mind, ardent temperament, and most determined will.
Many anecdotes are related of his intrepidity, self-respect, and
unbending will. He was a native of Augusta County, Virginia, and
emigrated to Georgia about the same time that Elijah Clarke came from
North Carolina and settled in that portion of the new territory now
known as Clarke County.

These two remarkable men formed a nucleus for those of their respective
States who came at subsequent periods to make a home in Georgia. They
were models to the youth of their respective neighborhoods, and gave
tone to the character of the population for many years after they were
in their graves. About the same time, the Earlys came from Virginia,
and the Abercrombies from North Carolina, and located respectively in
the new counties of Greene and Hancock. They were all men of strong
character, and all exercised great influence with those who accompanied
or came to them at a subsequent period.

Among the very first to locate in Greene County was Colonel David Love,
from North Carolina, and soon after came the Nesbits, Jacksons, and
Hortons; all of whom settled upon the head-waters of the Ogeechee and
upon Shoulderbone Creek.

The country was very attractive, the soil very generous, the water
good, and the health remarkable. The general topography of Middle
Georgia (as that portion of Georgia is now termed) is unsurpassed by
any other portion of the State for beauty--hill and dale, the one not
rising many feet above the other, generally with beautiful slopes, and
scarcely at any place with so much abruptness as to forbid cultivation.
Upon these lovely acclivities were built the cabins of the emigrants,
at the base of which, and near the house, was always to be found a
fountain of pure, sweet water, gushing and purling away over sand and
pebbles, meandering through a valley which it fertilized, and which
abounds in shrubs flowering in beauty, and sheltered by forests of oak,
hickory, pine, and gum.

Those who first came were frequently compelled to unite in a settlement
at some selected point, and, for defence against the inroads of the
savages, were obliged to build stockade forts, with blockhouses.

Nature seems to have prepared, during the Revolution, men for subduing
the wilderness and its savage inhabitants. They cheerfully encountered
all the difficulties and hazards thus presented, and constantly pursued
their object to its consummation. They came from every section of the
older communities, and all seemed animated with the same spirit. They
were orderly, but rude; and though beyond the pale of the law, they
were a law unto themselves; and these laws were strictly enforced by a
public opinion which gave them being and efficiency. With remarkably
simple habits and very limited opportunities, their wants were few; and
these were supplied by their own industry and frugality upon the farm.
Their currency was silver coin, Spanish milled, and extremely limited
in quantity. The little trade carried on was principally by barter, and
social intercourse was confined almost exclusively to the Sabbath. The
roads were rough and uneven, consisting almost entirely of a way
sufficiently wide for an ox-cart to pass, cut through the forest, where
the stumps and stones remained; and in soft or muddy places, the bodies
of small trees or split rails were placed side by side, so as to form a
sort of bridge or causeway, so rough as to test and not unfrequently to
destroy the wheels of the rude vehicles of the country. These obtained
and to this day receive the sobriquet of Georgia railroads or corduroy
turnpikes.

Very few of these immigrants were independent of labor; and most of
them devoted six days of the week to the cultivation of a small farm
and its improvement. Children learned early to assist in this labor,
and those who were sent to school, almost universally employed the
Saturday of each week in farm-work.

Man's social nature induces aggregation into communities, which
stimulates an ambition to excel in every undertaking. From this
emulation grows excellence and progress in every laudable enterprise.
These small communities, as they grew from accessions coming into the
country, began to build rude places for public worship, which were
primitive log-cabins, and served as well the purposes of a
school-house. Here the adult population assembled on the Sabbath, and
the children during the week. This intercourse, together with the
dependence of every one at times for neighborly assistance, was greatly
promotive of harmony and mutual confidence. Close and familiar
acquaintance revealed to all the peculiar character of every one--the
virtuous and the vicious, the energetic or the indolent, the noble and
the ignoble--and all very soon came to be appreciated according to
their merit.

Rude sports constituted the amusements of the young--wrestling,
leaping, and hunting; and he who was most expert at these was the
neighborhood's pride: he rode from church with the prettiest girl, and
was sure to be welcomed by her parents when he came; and to be selected
by such an one was to become the neighborhood's belle. At log-rollings,
quiltings, and Saturday-night frolics, he was the first and the most
admired.

The girls, too, were not without distinction--she who could spin the
greatest number of cuts of cotton, or weave the greatest number of
yards of cloth, was most distinguished, and most admired; but
especially was she distinguished who could spin and weave the neatest
fabric for her own wear, of white cloth with a turkey-red stripe--cut,
and make it fit the labor-rounded person and limbs--or make, for
father's or brother's wear, the finest or prettiest piece of jean--cook
the nicest dinners for her beau, or dance the longest without fatigue.

The sexes universally associated at the same school, (a system
unfortunately grown out of use,) and grew up together with a perfect
knowledge of the disposition, temperament, and general character of
each other. And, as assuredly as the boy is father to the man, the girl
is mother to the woman; and these peculiarities were attractive or
repulsive as they differed in individuals, and were always an influence
in the selection of husbands and wives. The prejudices of childhood
endure through life, particularly those toward persons. They are
universally predicated upon some trait of manner or character, and
these, as in the boy perceived, are ever prominent in the man. So, too,
with the girl, and they only grow with the woman. This is a paramount
reason why parties about contracting marriage-alliances should be well
aware of whom they are about to select. The consequence of this
intercommunication of the sexes from childhood, in the primitive days
of Georgia's first settlement, was seen in the harmony of families. In
the age which followed, a separation or divorce was as rare as an
earthquake; and when occurring, agitated the whole community. For then
a marriage was deemed a life-union, for good or for evil, and was not
lightly or inconsiderately entered into.

The separation of the sexes in early youth, and especially at school,
destroys or prevents in an eminent degree the restraining influences
upon the actions of each other, and that tender desire for the society
of each other, which grows from childhood's associations. Brought
together at school in early life, when the mind and soul are receiving
the impressions which endure through life, they naturally form
intimacies, and almost always special partialities and preferences.
Each has his or her favorite, these partialities are usually
reciprocal, and their consequence is a desire on the part of each to
see the other excel. To accomplish this, children, as well as grown
people, will make a greater effort than they will simply to succeed or
to gratify a personal ambition to that effect. Thus they sympathize
with and stimulate each other. Every Georgia boy of fifty years ago,
with gray-head and tottering step now, remembers his sweetheart, for
whom he carried his hat full of peaches to school, and for whom he made
the grape-vine swing, and how at noon he swung her there.

  'T is bonny May; and I to-day
    Am wrinkled seventy-four,
  Still I enjoy, as when a boy,
    Much that has gone before.

  Is it the leaves and trees, or sheaves
    Of yellow, ripened grain,
  Which wake to me, in memory,
    My boyhood's days again?

  These seem to say 't is bonny May,
    As when they sweetly grew,
  And gave their yield, in wood and field,
    To me, when life was new.

  But nought beside--ah, woe betide!--
    Which grew with me is here--
  The home, the hall, the mill, the all
    Which young life holds so dear.

  The school-house, spring, and little thing,
    With eyes so bright and blue,
  Who'd steal away with me and play
    When school's dull hours were through,

  Are memories now; and yet, oh! how
    It seems but yesterday
  Since I was there, with that sweet dear,
    In the wild wood at play.

  The hill was steep where we would leap;
    The grape-vine swing hung high,
  And I would throw the swing up so
    That, startled, she would cry.

  But though she cried, she still relied
    (And seemed to have no fear)
  On me to hold the swing, and told
    Me "not to frighten her."

  But I was wild, and she no child,
    And not afraid, I deemed;
  So tossed as high the swing as I
    Could--when she fell and screamed.

  She was not harmed; but I, alarmed,
    Ran quickly to assist,
  And lifted her, all pale with fear,
    Within my arms, and kissed

  Her pallid cheek, ere she could speak:
    But I had seen, you know,
  (Ah! what of this? that sight and kiss
    Was fifty years ago,)

  That little boot and pretty foot,
    So neatly formed and small--
  The swelling calf, and stifled laugh--
    How I remember all!

  That lovely one has long since gone,
    Is dust, and only dust, now;
  Yet I recall that swing and fall,
    As though it had been just now.

Take these lines, reader, if you please, as an evidence of how the
memories growing out of the associations of boyhood's school-days
endure through life. This association of the sexes operates as a
restraint upon both, salutary to good conduct and good morals. Such
restraints are far more effective than the staid lessons of some old,
wrinkled duenna of a school-mistress, whose failure to find a
sweetheart in girlhood, or a husband in youthful womanhood, has soured
her toward every man, and filled her with hatred for the happiness she
witnesses in wedded life, and which is ever present all around her. Her
warnings are in violation of nature. She has forgotten she was ever
young or inspired with the feelings and hopes of youth. Men are
monsters, and marriage a hell upon earth. Girls will not believe this,
and will get married. How much better, then, that they should
cultivate, in association, the generous and natural feelings of the
heart, and during the period allotted by nature for the growth of the
feelings natural to the human bosom, as well as to the growth of the
person and mind, than to be told what they should be by one
disappointed of all the fruits of them, and hating the world because
she is! It is the mother who should form the sentiments and direct the
conduct of daughters, and in their teachings should never forget that
nature is teaching also. Let their lessons always teach the proper
indulgences of nature, as well as the proper and prudent restraints to
the natural feelings of the human heart, and so deport themselves
toward their daughters from infancy as to win their confidence and
affection. The daughters, when properly trained, will always come with
their little complaints in childhood, and seek consolation, leaning
upon the parent's knee, and, with solicitude, look up into the parental
face for sympathy and advice. Home-teaching and home-training makes the
proper woman. When this is properly attended to, there needs no
boarding-school or female-college finish, which too frequently uproots
every virtuous principle implanted by the careful and affectionate
teaching of pious, gentle, and intelligent mothers. But few mothers,
who are themselves properly trained, forget nature in the training and
education of their daughters; and a truly natural woman is a blessing
to society and a crown of glory to her husband. I mean by a natural
training a knowledge of herself, as well as a knowledge of the offices
of life and the domestic duties of home. Every woman in her girlhood
should learn from her mother the mission and destinies of woman, as
well as what is due to society, to their families, to themselves, and
to God. The woman who enters life with a knowledge of what life is, and
what is due to her and from her in all the relations of life, has a
thousand chances for happiness through life unknown to the belle of the
boarding-school, who, away from home influences, is artificially
educated to be in all things prominent before the world, and entirely
useless in the discharge of domestic duties. She may figure as the
lady-president or vice-president of charitable associations, or the
lady-president of some prominent or useless society; but never as a
dutiful, devoted wife, or affectionate, instructive mother to her
children. Her household is managed by servants, and about her home
nothing evinces the neat, provident, and attentive housewife.

The whole system of education, as practised by the Protestants of the
United States, is wrong; religious prejudice prevents their learning
from the Catholics, and particularly from the Jesuit Catholics, who are
far in advance of their Protestant brethren. They learn from the child
as they teach the child. In the first place, none are permitted to
teach who are not by nature, as well as by education, qualified to
teach; nature must give the gentleness, the kindness, and the patience,
with the capacity to impart instruction. They learn, first, the child's
nature, the peculiarities of temper, and fashion these to obedience and
affection; they first teach the heart to love--not fear; they warn
against the evils of life--teach the good, and the child's duties to
its parents, to its brothers and sisters, to its teachers, to its
playmates, and to its God. When the heart is mellowed and yields
obedience in the faithful discharge of these duties, and the brain
sufficiently matured to comprehend the necessity of them, then
attention is directed to the mind; its capacities are learned and
known, and it is treated as this knowledge teaches is proper: it is, as
the farmer knows, the soil of his cultivation, and is prepared by
careful tillage before the seed is sown. The vision of the child's mind
is by degrees expanded; the horizon of its knowledge is enlarged, and
still the heart's culture goes on in kindness and affection. The pupil
has learned to love the teacher, and receives with alacrity his
teaching; he goes to him, without fear, for information on every point
of duty in morals, as on every difficult point of literary learning. He
knows he will be received kindly, and dealt with gently. Should he err,
he is never rebuked in public, nor harshly in private; the teacher is
aggrieved, and in private he kindly complains to the offender, whose
love for his preceptor makes him to feel, and repent, and to err no
more. All this is only known to the two; his school-fellows never know,
and have no opportunity for triumph or raillery. Thus taught from the
cradle, principles become habits; and on these, at maturity, he is
launched upon the world, with every safeguard for his future life. So
with the girl. With the experience of forty-five years, the writer has
never known a vicious, bad woman, wife, or mother trained in a Jesuit
convent, or reared by an educated Catholic mother.

The daughters of the pioneers of Georgia's early settlements received a
home education; at least, in the duties of domestic life. In the
discharge of these duties, they gained robust constitutions and
vigorous health; they increased the butcher's bill at the expense of
the doctor's; and such women were the mothers of the men who have made
a history for their country, for themselves and their mothers. I may be
prolix and prosaic, but I love to remember the mothers of fifty years
ago--she who gave birth to Lucius Q.C. and Mirabeau B. Lamar, to
William C. Dawson, Bishop George Pierce, Alexander Stuart, Joseph
Lumpkin, and glorious Bob Toombs. I knew them all, and, with
affectionate delight, remember their virtues, and recall the social
hours we have enjoyed together, when they were matrons, and I the
companion of their sons. And now, when all are gone, and time is
crowding me to the grave, the nobleness of their characters, the
simplicity of their bearing in the discharge of their household duties,
and the ingenuousness of their manners in social intercourse, is a
cherished, venerated memory. None of these women were ever in a
boarding-school, never received a lesson in the art of entering a
drawing-room or captivating a beau. They were sensible, modest, and
moral women, and their virtues live after them in the exalted character
of their illustrious sons. Their literary education in early life was,
of necessity, neglected, because of the want of opportunities; but in
the virtues and duties of life, they were thoroughly educated; and none
of these, or any of their like, was ever Mrs. President or Secretary of
any pretentious or useless society or association.

The little education or literature they acquired was in the old log
school-house, where boys and girls commingled as pupils under the
teaching of some honest pedagogue, who aspired to teach only reading,
writing, and arithmetic, in a simple way. It must not be supposed, from
the foregoing remarks, that I object to female education; on the
contrary, I would have every woman an educated woman. But I would have
this education an useful and proper education; one not wholly
ornamental and of no practical use, but one obtained at home, and under
the parental care and influence--such an one as made Mrs. Ripley, of
Concord, Massachusetts, the wonder and admiration of every sensible
man. She who studied La Place's _Mécanique Céleste_ when she was making
biscuit for her breakfast, and who solved a problem in the higher
mathematics when darning her stockings; an education where the useful
may be taught and learned to grace the ornamental--where the harp and
piano shall share with the needle and the cooking-stove, and the
pirouettes of the dancing-master shall be only a step from the laundry
and the kitchen.

The duties of wives and mothers are to home, husband, and children; and
this includes all of woman's duty to the country, and in the
intelligent and faithful discharge of which the great ends of life are
subserved. Good neighborhood, good government, and happy communities
secure the implanting and cultivation of good principles, and the
proper teaching of proper duties. The wise direction of literary
education to sons and to daughters, all comes within the range of home,
and home duties especially incumbent upon mothers. The domestic duties
and domestic labors should be a prime consideration in the education of
daughters. The association of the mother and child from birth, until
every principle which is to guide and govern it through life is
implanted, makes it the duty of the mother to know the right, and to
teach it, too. Example and precept should combine; and this necessity
compels a constant watch, not only over the child's, but over the
mother's language and conduct. All these duties imply a close devotion
to home: for here is the germ which is to grow into good or into evil,
as it is nursed and cultivated, or wickedly neglected. Begin at the
beginning, if you would accomplish well your work; and to do this,
application and assiduity are indispensable; and these are duties only
to be discharged at home. They admit of a relaxation of time sufficient
for every social duty exacted by society, if that society is such as it
should be; and if not, it should neither occupy time not attention.

In this is comprised all woman's duties, and they are paramount; for
upon their successful application depend the well-being of society and
the proper and healthful administration of wise and salutary laws. The
world is indebted to woman for all that is good and great. Let every
woman emulate Cornelia, the Roman mother, and, when a giddy, foolish
neighbor runs to her to exhibit newly purchased jewels, be found, like
the Roman matron, at her tambour-work; and like her, too, when her boys
from school shall run to embrace her, say to the thoughtless one,
"These are my jewels!" and Rome will not alone boast of her Gracchi and
their incomparable mother.

The duties of home cultivate reflection and stimulate to virtue. For
this reason, women are more pious than men; and for this reason, too,
they are more eminent in purity. Contact with the domestic circle does
not contaminate or corrupt, as the baser contact with the world is sure
to do.

The home circle is select and chaste--the promiscuous intermingling
with the world meretricious and contaminating. The mother not trained
to the appreciation and discharge of the domestic duties, was never the
mother of a great representative mind; because she is incapable of
imparting those stern principles of exalted morality and fixity of
purpose essential in forming the character of such men. The mother of
Cincinnatus was a farmer's wife; of Leonidas, a shepherdess; and the
mothers of Washington, Webster, Clay, Calhoun, William H, Crawford, and
Andrew Jackson were all the wives of farmers--rural and simple in their
pursuits, distinguished for energy and purity; constant in their
principles, and devoted to husband, home, and children. They never
dreamed it was woman's vocation or duty to go out into the world and
mingle in its strifes and contentions--but at home, to view them,
reflect upon their consequences to society, and upon the future of
their sons and daughters, and warn them what to emulate and what to
shun. They, as did their husbands, felt the necessity of preserving
that delicacy of thought and action which is woman's ornament, and
which is more efficient in rebuking licentiousness and profligacy in
the young and the old than all the teaching of the schools without such
example. Such were the mothers of the great and the good of our land,
and such the mothers of those men now prominent and distinguished in
the advocacy and support of the great principles of natural rights and
humanity.

It is a mooted question whether the purposes of human life demand a
high, classical education among the masses; or whether the general
happiness is promoted by such education. In the study of the human mind
in connection with human wants, we are continually met with
difficulties arising from the want of education; and quite as
frequently with those resulting from education. So much so, that we
hear from every wise man the declaration that as many minds are ruined
by over-education as from the want of education.

Man's curse is to labor. This labor must of necessity be divided to
subserve the wants of society--and common sense would teach that each
should be educated as best to enable him to perform that labor which
may fall to his lot in life. But who shall determine this lot? Every
day's experience teaches the observant and thinking man that no one
individual is uselessly born. To deny this proposition would be to call
in question the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. Every one possesses
proclivities for some one avocation, and should be educated for its
pursuit. This is manifested in very early life; in some much more
palpably than in others. This is always the case when the aptitude is
decisive. In such cases this idiosyncrasy will triumph over every
adverse circumstance, educational or otherwise; but in the less
palpable, it will not; and the design of nature may, and indeed
constantly is, disappointed, and improper education and improper
pursuits given. In these pursuits or callings, the person thus
improperly placed there never succeeds as he would had his bent or
mental inclination been observed, and his education directed to it, and
he given to its pursuit. Such persons labor through life painfully;
they have no taste or inclination for the profession, business, or
trade in which they are engaged; its pursuit is an irksome, thankless
labor; while he who has fallen into nature's design, and is working
where his inclinations lead, labors happily, because he labors
naturally. These inclinations the parent or guardian should observe;
and when manifested, should direct the education for the calling nature
has designed. Idiosyncrasies are transmissible or inherited. In old and
populous communities, where every pursuit or profession is full, the
father generally teaches his own to his son or sons. Where this has
extended through three or four generations, the proclivity is generally
strongly marked, and in very early childhood made manifest. Thus, in
the third or fourth generation, where all have been blacksmiths, the
child will be born with the muscles of the right arm more developed
than those of the left, and the first plaything he demands is a hammer.
So, where a family have been traders, will the offspring naturally
discover an aptness for bargaining and commerce. This is illustrated in
the instincts of the Jews, a people of extraordinary brain and
wonderful tenacity of purpose. Five thousand years since, a small
fragment of the Semitic race, residing in Mesopotamia between the
waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris, consisting of two families,
came into the land of Canaan, in Asia Minor; from them have descended
the people known as Jews. The country over which they spread, and which
is known as Judea, is not more than four hundred miles long by two
hundred and fifty in breadth, situated between two populous and
powerful empires, the Assyrian and Egyptian, who, waging war too
frequently, made the land of Judea their battle-field, and its people
the objects of persecution and oppression. The earnings of their labor
were deemed legitimate prey by both, and taken wherever found: they
were led into captivity by the Assyrians and by the Egyptians,
enslaved, and denied the legal right to possess the soil--which, to the
everlasting disgrace of Christian Europe, was a restriction upon this
wonderful people until within the present century. A blind bigotry
would have blotted them from the face of the earth, but for that
energy, talent, and enterprise possessed by them in a superior degree
to any people upon the globe. Inspired by a sublime belief that they
were the chosen people of God, no tyranny nor oppression could subdue
their energies. They prayed and labored, went forward with untiring
determination, upheld by their faith, and always, under the direst
distress, found comfort from this belief and the fruits of incessant
labor. The soil of their loved Canaan was barren, and yielded
grudgingly to the most persistent labor. This drove them to trade, and
an extended intercourse with the world. Without a national government
of sufficient power to protect them when robbed by the people or the
governments surrounding their own, they were compelled, for
self-protection, to resort to every means of concealing the earnings of
their enterprise and superior knowledge and skill from Christian and
pagan alike. They gave value to the diamond, that in a small stone,
easy of concealment, immense wealth might be hidden. They invented the
bill of exchange, by which they could at pleasure transfer from one
country to another their wealth, and avoid the danger of spoliation
from the hand of power and intolerance. Without political or civil
rights in any but their own country, they were compelled to the
especial pursuit of commerce for centuries, and we now see that
seven-tenths of all Jews born, as naturally turn to trade and commerce
as the infant to the breast. It has become an instinct.

To these persecutions the world is probably indebted for the
developments of commerce--the bringing into communication the nations
of the earth for the exchange of commodities necessary to the use and
comfort of each other, not of the growth or production of each,
enlarging the knowledge of all thus communicating, and teaching that
civilization which is the enlightenment and the blessing of
man--ameliorating the savage natures of all, and teaching that all are
of God, and equally the creatures of His love and protection; and
leading also to that development of mind in the Israelite which makes
him conspicuous to-day above any other race in the great attributes of
mind--directing the policy of European governments--first at the Bar,
first in science, first in commerce, first in wealth--preserving the
great traits of nationality without a nation, and giving tone, talent,
wealth, and power to all.

A few men only are born to think. Their minds expand with education,
and their usefulness is commensurate with it. This few early evince a
proclivity so strong for certain avocations as to enable those who have
the direction of their future to educate them for this pursuit. This
proclivity frequently is so overpowering as to prompt the possessor,
when the early education has been neglected, to educate himself for
this especial idiosyncrasy. This was the case with Newton--with
Stevenson, the inventor of the locomotive-engine, who, at twenty years
of age, was ignorant even of his letters. Arkwright was a barber, and
almost entirely illiterate when he invented the spinning-jenny. Train,
the inventor of the railroad, was, at the time of its invention, a
coal-heaver, and entirely illiterate.

These cases are rare, however. The great mass of mankind are born to
manual labor, and only with capacities suited for it. To attempt to
cultivate such minds for eminent purposes would be folly. Even
supposing they could be educated--which is scarcely supposable, for it
would seem a contravention of Heaven's fiat--they could no more apply
this learning, which would simply be by rote, than they could go to the
moon. Such men are not unfrequently met with, and are designated, by
common consent, learned fools. Nature points out the education they
should receive. In like manner with those of higher and nobler
attributes, educate them for their pursuits in life. It requires not
the same education to hold a plough, or drive an ox, that it does to
direct the course of a ship through a trackless sea, or to calculate an
eclipse; and what is essential to the one is useless to the other.--But
I am wandering away from the purpose of this work. Turning back upon
the memories of fifty years ago, and calling up the lives and the
histories of men, and women too, I have known, I was led into these
reflections, and ere I was aware they had stolen from my pen.

The rude condition of a country is always imparted to the character of
its people, and out of this peculiarity spring the rough sports and
love of coarse jokes and coarse humor. No people ever more fully
verified this truth than the Georgians, and to-day, even among her best
educated, the love of fun is a prevailing trait. Her traditions are
full of the practical jokes and the practical jokers of fifty years
ago. The names of Dooly, Clayton, Prince, Bacon, and Longstreet will be
remembered in the traditions of fun as long as the descendants of their
compatriots continue to inhabit the land. The cock-fight, the
quarter-race, and the gander-pulling are traditions now, and so is the
fun they gave rise to; and I had almost said, so is the honesty of
those who were participants in these rude sports. Were they not more
innocent outlets to the excessive energies of a mercurial and
fun-loving people than the faro-table and shooting-gallery of to-day?
Every people must have their amusements and sports, and these,
unrestrained, will partake of the character of the people and the state
of society. Sometimes the narrow prejudices of bigoted folly will
inveigh against these, and insist upon their restraint by law; and
these laws, in many of the States, remain upon the statute-book a
rebuking evidence of the shameless folly of fanatical ignorance. Of
these, the most conspicuous are the blue-laws of Connecticut, and the
more absurd and criminal laws of Massachusetts against amusements not
only necessary, but healthful and innocent. Even in the present
advanced state of knowledge and civilization, do we occasionally hear
ranted from the pulpit denunciations of dancing, as a sinful and
God-offending amusement. Such men should not be permitted to teach or
preach--it is to attenuate folly and fanaticism, to circumscribe the
happiness of youth, and belie the Bible.

The emigrants to Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia were all persons of
like character, combining a mixture of English, Irish, and Scotch
blood. They were enterprising, daring, and remarkable for great good
sense. Rude from the want of education and association with a more
polished people, they were nevertheless high-principled and full of
that chivalrous spirit which prompts a natural courtesy, courts danger,
and scorns the little and mean--open-handed in their generosity, and
eminently candid and honest in all their intercourse and dealings with
their fellow-men. These elements, collected from various sections,
combined to form new communities in the wild and untamed regions. In
their conflicts with the savages were shown a daring fearlessness and a
high order of military talent in very many of the prominent leaders of
the different settlements. They had no chronicler to note and record
their exploits, and they exist now only in the traditions of the
country.

The names of Shelby and Kenton, of Kentucky; of Davidson and Jackson,
of Tennessee; of Clarke, Mathews, and Adams, of Georgia; Dale, of
Alabama, and Claiborne, of Mississippi, live in the memory of the
people of their States, together with those of Tipton, Sevier, Logan,
and Boone, and will be in the future history of these States, with
their deeds recorded as those whose enterprise, energy, and
fearlessness won from the wilderness and the savage their fertile and
delightful lands, to be a home and a country for their posterity.

The children of such spirits intermarrying, could but produce men of
talent and enterprise, and women of beauty, intelligence, and virtue.
In the veins of these ran only streams of blue blood--such as filled
the veins of the leaders of the Crusades--such as warmed the hearts of
the O'Neals and O'Connors, of Wallace and Bruce, and animated the
bosoms of the old feudal barons of England, who extorted the great
charter of human liberty from King John. There was no mixture of the
pale Saxon to taint or dilute the noble current of the Anglo-Norman
blood which flowed through and fired the hearts of these descendants of
the nobility and gentry of Britain. They were the cavaliers in chivalry
and daring, and despised, as their descendants despised, the Roundheads
and their descendants, with their cold, dissembling natures,
hypocritical in religion as faithless in friendship, without one
generous emotion or ennobling sentiment.

It is not remarkable that conflict should ensue between races so
dissimilar in a struggle to control the Government: true to the
instincts of race, each contended for that which best suited their
genius and wants; and not at all remarkable that all the generous
gallantry in such a conflict should be found with the Celt, and all the
cruel rapacity and meanness with the Saxon. Their triumph, through the
force of numbers, was incomplete, until their enemies were tortured by
every cruelty of oppression, and the fabric of the Government dashed to
atoms. This triumph can only be temporary. The innate love of free
institutions, universal in the heart of the Celtic Southerner, will
_yet_ unite all the races to retrieve the lost. This done, victory is
certain.

The descendants of these pioneers have gone out to people the extended
domain reaching around the Gulf, and are growing into strength, without
abatement of the spirit of their ancestors. Very soon time and their
energies will repair the disasters of the recent conflict; and
reinvigorated, the shackles of the Puritan shall restrain no longer,
when a fierce democracy shall restore the Constitution, and with it the
liberty bequeathed by their ancestors.

With this race, fanaticism in religion has never known a place.
Rational and natural, they have ever worshipped with the heart and the
attributes of their faith. Truth, sincerity, love, and mercy have ever
marked their characters. Too honest to be superstitious, and too
sincere to be hypocrites, the concentrated love of freedom unites the
race, and the hatred of tyranny will stimulate the blood which shall
retrieve it from the dominion of the baser blood now triumphant and
rioting in the ruin they have wrought.

In the beginning of the settlements, and as soon as fears of the
inroads from the savages had subsided, attention was given to the
selection of separate and extended homes over the country, to the
opening of farms, and their cultivation. The first consideration was
food and raiment. All of this was to be the production of the farm and
home industry: grain enough was to be grown to serve the wants of the
family for bread, and to feed the stock; for this was to furnish the
meat, milk, and butter. Cotton enough to serve the wants of families,
together with the wool from the flock, and some flax, were of prime
consideration. All of this was prepared and manufactured into fabrics
for clothing and bedding at home. The seed from the cotton was picked
by hand; for, as yet, Whitney had not given them the cotton-gin. This
work was imposed most generally upon the children of families, white
and black, as a task at night, and which had to be completed before
going to bed; an ounce was the usual task, which was weighed and spread
before the fire; for it was most easily separated from the seed when
warm and dry. Usually some petty rewards stimulated the work. In every
family it was observed and commented upon, that these rewards excited
the diligence of the white children, but were without a corresponding
effect upon the black; and any one who has ever controlled the negro
knows that his labor is only in proportion to the coercion used to
enforce it. His capacity, physically, is equal to the white; but this
cannot be bought, or he persuaded to exert it of himself, and is given
only through punishment, or the fear of it. The removal of restraint is
to him a license to laziness; and the hope of reward, or the cravings
of nature, will only induce him to labor sufficiently to supply these
for immediate and limited relief.

Stock of every kind except horses was left to find a support in the
forest, and at that time, when their range was unlimited, they found it
in abundance. Increasing wants stimulated the cultivation of a market
crop to supply them, and indigo and tobacco were first resorted to.
Tobacco was the principal staple, and the method of its transportation
was extraordinary. As at the present day in Kentucky, it was pressed
into very large hogsheads. Upon these were pinned large wooden felloes,
forming the circle of a wheel around the hogshead at either end, and in
the centre of each head a large pin was inserted. Upon these pins were
attached shafts or thills, as to a cart, and to these teams, and thus
the hogshead was rolled along rough roads and through streams for
sometimes ninety miles to Augusta, for a market. When sold, the shafts
were reserved, and upon these was then erected a sort of box, into
which the few articles purchased were placed, and dragged home. These
articles almost universally consisted of some iron and steel, and a
little coffee and sugar, and sometimes a quarter of a pound of
tea--universally termed store-tea, to distinguish it from that made
from the root of the sassafras and the leaf of the cassia or
tepaun-bush.

Cotton was, to some little extent, cultivated near the seaboard in
Georgia and South Carolina, and cleaned of the seeds by a machine
similar to that used at the present day for preparing the sea-island
cotton for market. This was a tedious and troublesome method, and was
incapable of doing the work to any very great extent. Indigo, of a
superior quality to the American, was being produced in British India
and Central America, and the competition was reducing the price to the
cost of production. The same difficulty attended the growing of
tobacco. Virginia and Maryland, with their abundance of labor, were
competing, and cheapening the article to a price which made its
production unprofitable. At this juncture, Whitney invented the
cotton-gin, and the growth of cotton as a marketable crop commenced
upon a more extended scale. In a few years it became general--each
farmer growing more or less, according to his means. Some one man, most
able to do so, erected a gin-house, first in a county, then in each
neighborhood. These either purchased in the seed the cotton of their
neighbors, or ginned it and packed it for a certain amount of toll
taken from the cotton. This packing was done in round bales, and by a
single man, with a heavy iron bar, and was a most laborious and tedious
method; and the packages were in the most inconvenient form for
handling and transportation.

Up to this time the slave-trade had been looked upon most unfavorably
by the people of the South. Among the first sermons I remember to have
heard, was one depicting the horrors of this trade. I was by my
grandmother's side at Bethany, in Greene county, and, though a child, I
remember, as if of yesterday, the description of the manner of
capturing the African in his native wilds--how the mother and father
were murdered, and the boys and the girls borne away, and how England
was abused for the cruel inhumanity of the act. Although unused to the
melting mood, the old lady wiped from her eyes a tear, whether in
sorrow or sympathy for outraged humanity, or in compliment to the
pathos and power of her favorite preacher, I was too young to know or
have an opinion. I remember well, however, that she cried, for she
pinched me most unmercifully for laughing at her, and at home spanked
me for crying. Dear old grandmother! but yesterday I was at your grave,
where you have slept fifty-two years, and if I laughed above thy mould
at the memory of the many bouts we had more than sixty years ago, and,
from the blue bending above, thy spirit looked down in wrath upon the
unnatural outrage, be appeased ere I come; for I should fear to meet
thee, even in heaven, if out of humor! The roses bloomed above
you--sweet emblems of thy purity and rest--and there, close by you,
were the pear-trees, planted by your hands, around the roots of which
you gathered the rods of my reformation; for I was a truant child. You
meant it all for my good, no doubt; but to me it was passing through
purgatory then, to merit a future good in time. Ah! how well I remember
it--all of it. _Requiescat in pace_. I had almost irreverently said,
"Rest, cat, in peace."

It was at this period that the competition for accumulating money may
be said to have commenced in Middle Georgia. Labor became in great
demand, and the people began to look leniently upon the slave-trade.
The marching of Africans, directly imported, through the country for
sale, is a memory of sixty-five years ago. The demand had greatly
increased, and, with this, the price. The trade was to cease in 1808,
and the number brought over was daily augmenting, to hasten to make
from the traffic as much money as possible before this time should
arrive. The demand, however, was greater than could be supplied. From
house to house they were carried for sale. They were always young men
and women, or girls and boys, and their clothing was of the simplest
kind. That of the men and boys consisted of drawers, only reaching
midway the thigh, from the waist. The upper portions of the person and
the lower extremities were entirely nude. The females wore a chemise
reaching a few inches below the knee, leaving bare the limbs. This was
adopted for the purpose of exposing the person, as much as decency
would permit, for examination, so as to enable the purchaser to
determine their individual capacity for labor. This examination was
close and universal, beginning with an inspection of the teeth, which
in these young savages were always perfect, save in those where they
had been filed to a point in front. This was not uncommon with the
males. It was then extended to the limbs, and ultimately to the entire
person. They were devoid of shame, and yielded to this inspection
without the slightest manifestation of offended modesty. At first they
were indifferent to cooked food, and would chase and catch and eat the
grasshoppers and lizards with the avidity of wild turkeys, and seemed,
as those fowls, to relish these as their natural food.

From such is descended the race which our Christian white brothers of
the North have, in their devotion to their duty to God and their hatred
to us, made masters of our destiny. Our faith in the justice and
goodness of the same Divine Being bids us believe this unnatural and
destructive domination will not be permitted to endure for any lengthy
period. Could the curtain which veiled out the future sixty years ago,
have been lifted, and the vision of those then subduing the land been
permitted to pierce and know the present of their posterity, they would
then have achieved a separation from our puritanical oppressors, and
built for themselves and their own race, even if in blood, a separate
government, and have made it as nature intended it should be to this
favored land--a wise and powerful one.

Sooner or later these intentions of Divine wisdom are consummated. The
fallible nature of man, through ignorance or the foolish indulgence of
bad passions in the many, enable the few to delude and control the
many, and to postpone for a time the inevitable; but as assuredly as
time endures, nature's laws work out natural ends. Generations may pass
away, perhaps perish from violence, and others succeed with equally
unnatural institutions, making miserable the race, until it, like the
precedent, passes from the earth. Yet these great laws work on, and in
the end triumph in perfecting the Divine will.

To the wise and observant this design of the Creator is ever
apparent; to the foolish and wicked, never.

John Wesley had visited Savannah, and travelled through the different
settlements then in embryo, teaching the tenets and introducing the
simple worship of the church of his founding, after a method
established by himself, and which gave name and form to the sect, now,
and almost from its incipiency known as Methodist. This organization
and the tenets of its faith were admirably suited to a rude people, and
none perhaps could have been more efficient in forming and improving
such morals. Unpretending, simple in form, devoid of show or ceremony,
it appealed directly to the purer emotions of our nature, and through
the natural devotion of the heart lifted the mind to the contemplation
and inspired the soul with the love of God. Its doctrines, based upon
the purest morality, easily comprehensible, and promising salvation to
all who would believe, inspiring an enthusiasm for a pure life, were
natural, and naturally soon became wide-spread, and as the writer
believes, has done more in breaking away the shackles of ignorance and
debasing superstition from the mind, than any other system of worship
or doctrine of faith taught by man; and to this, in a great degree, is
due the freedom of thought, independence of feeling and action,
chivalrous bearing, and high honor of the Southern people. Inculcating
as it does the simple teachings of the gospel of Christ,--to live
virtuously--do no wrong--love thy neighbor as thyself, and unto all do
as you would be done by,--a teaching easy of comprehension, and which,
when sternly enforced by a pure and elevated public sentiment, becomes
the rule of conduct, and society is blessed with harmony and right.
This moral power is omnipotent for good, concentrating communities into
one without divisions or dissensions, to be wielded for good at once
and at all times. Nothing evil can result from such concentration of
opinions being directed by the vicious and wicked, so long as the moral
of this faith shall control the mind and heart.

Camp-meetings, an institution of this church, and which were first
commenced in Georgia, are a tradition there now. Here and there through
the country yet remains, in ruinous decay, the old stand or
extemporized pulpit from which the impassioned preacher addressed the
assembled multitude of anxious listeners; and around the square now
overgrown with brush-wood and forest-trees, prostrate and rotten, the
remains of the cabin tents may be seen, where once the hospitality of
the owners and worshippers was dispensed with a heartiness and
sincerity peculiar to the simple habits, and honest, kindly emotions of
a rude and primitive people.

How well do I remember the first of these meetings I ever witnessed! I
was a small lad, and rode behind my father on horseback to the ground.
It was sixty-five years ago. The concourse was large, consisting of the
people of all the country around--men, women, and children, white and
black. Around a square enclosing some six acres of ground, the tents
were arranged--arbors of green boughs cut from the adjoining forest
formed a shelter from the sun's rays. In front of all of these, shading
the entrance to the tent, under this friendly sheltering from the heat
of the sun, assembled the owners and the guests of each, in social and
unceremonious intercourse. This was strictly the habit of the young
people; and here, in evening's twilight, has been plighted many a vow
which has been redeemed by happy unions for life's journey, and to be
consummated when the cold weather came. In the rear of the tents were
temporary kitchens, presided over in most instances by some old,
trusted aunty of ebon hue, whose pride it was to prepare the meals for
her tent, and to hear her cooking praised by the preachers and the less
distinguished guests of master and mistress. The sermons were preached
in the morning, at noon, and at twilight, when all the multitude were
summoned to the grand central stand in the square of the encampment by
sounding a tin trumpet or ox-horn. My childish imagination was fired at
the sight of this assemblage. My wonder was, whence come all these
people? as converging from the radius around came the crowding
multitude, without order and without confusion--the farmer and his
brusque wife side by side, leading their flock and friends: he with an
ample chair of home manufacture slung by his side for the wife's
comfort as she devoutly listened to the pious brother's comforting
sermon--the guests and the young of the family following in respectful
silence, and at a respectful distance, all tending to the great arbor
of bushes covering the place of worship. Over all the space of the
encampment the under-brush had been carefully removed; but the great
forest-trees (for these encampments were always in a forest) were left
to shade as well as they might the pulpit-stand and grounds. All around
was dense forest, wild and beautiful as nature made it.

How well the scene and the worship accorded! There was congruity in
all--the woods, the tents, the people, and the worship. The impressions
made that day upon my young mind were renewed at many a camp-meeting in
after years; and so indelibly impressed as only to pass away with
existence.

The preacher rose upon his elevated platform, and, advancing to the
front, where a simple plank extending from tree to tree, before him,
formed a substitute for a table or desk, where rested the hymn-book and
Bible, commenced the service by reading a hymn, and then, line by line,
repeating it, to be sung by all his congregation.

Whoever has listened, in such a place, amidst a great multitude, to the
singing of that beautiful hymn commencing, "Come, thou fount of every
blessing," by a thousand voices, all in accord, and not felt the spirit
of devotion burning in his heart, could scarcely be moved should an
angel host rend the blue above him, and, floating through the ether,
praise God in song. In that early day of Methodism, very few of those
licensed to preach were educated men. They read the Bible, and
expounded its great moral truths as they understood them. Few of these
even knew that it had been in part originally written in the Hebrew
tongue, and the other portion in that of the Greeks; but he knew it
contained the promise of salvation, and felt that it was his mission to
preach and teach this way to his people, relying solely for his power
to impress these wonderful truths upon the heart by the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit. For this reason the sermons of the sect were never
studied or written, and their excellence was their fervor and
impassioned appeals to the heart and the wild imaginations of the
enthusiastic and unlearned of the land. Genius, undisciplined and
untutored by education, is fetterless, and its spontaneous suggestions
are naturally and powerfully effective, when burning from lips
proclaiming the heart's enthusiasm. Thus extemporizing orations almost
daily, stimulated the mind to active thought, and very many of these
illiterate young Methodist preachers became in time splendid orators.

It was the celebrated Charles James Fox who said to a young man just
entering Parliament, if he desired to become a great orator, and had
the genius and feeling from nature, all he had to do was to speak often
and learn to think on his feet. It is to this practice the lawyer and
the preacher owe the oratory which distinguish these above every other
class of men. And yet, how few of them ever attain to the eminence of
finished orators. Eloquence and oratory are by no means identical: one
is the attribute of the heart, the other of the head; and eloquence,
however unadorned, is always effective, because it is born of the
feelings; and there is ever a sympathy between the hearts of men, and
the words, however rude and original, which bubble up from the heart
freighted with its feelings, rush with electrical force and velocity to
the heart, and stir to the extent of its capacities. Oratory, however
finished, is from the brain, and is an art; it may convince the mind
and captivate the imagination, but never touches the heart or stirs the
soul. To awaken feelings in others, we must feel ourselves. Eloquence
is the volume of flame, oratory the shaft of polished ice; the one
fires to madness, the other delights and instructs.

Religion is the pathos of the heart, and must be awakened from the
heart's emotions. The imagination is the great attribute of the mind,
gathering and creating thought and inspiring feeling. Hence, the
peculiar system of the Methodists in their worship is the most
efficient in proselyting, and especially with a rude, imaginative
people.

The camp-meeting was an admirable device for this purpose, and its
abandonment by the sect is as foolish as would be that of a knight who
would throw away his sword as he was rushing to battle. Fashion is
omnipotent in religion, as in other things, and with the more general
diffusion of education, camp-meetings have come to be considered as
vulgar and unfashionable. To be vulgar, is to be common; to be common,
is to be natural. The masses, and especially in democratic communities,
must always be vulgar or common--must always be, in the main,
illiterate and rude; and it is for the conversion and salvation of
these multitudes the preacher should struggle, and in his efforts his
most efficient means should be used.

The camp-meeting, at night, when all the fire-stands are ablaze, and
the multitude are assembled and singing, is beyond description
picturesque: when, too, some eloquent and enthusiastic preacher is
stimulating to intense excitement the multitude around him with the
fervor of his words, and the wild, passionate manifestations of his
manner, to see the crowd swaying to and fro, to hear the groans and
sobs of the half-frenzied multitude, and, not unfrequently, the
maddened shriek of hysterical fear, all coming up from the
half-illuminated spot, is thrillingly exciting. And when the sermon is
finished, to hear all this heated mass break forth into song, the wild
melody of which floats, in the stillness of night, upon the breeze to
the listening ear a mile away, in cadences mournfully sweet, make the
camp-meeting among the most exciting of human exhibitions. In such a
school were trained those great masters of pulpit oratory, Pierce,
Wynans, Capers, and Bascomb. Whitfield was the great exemplar of these;
but none, perhaps, so imitated his style and manner as John Newland
Maffit and the wonderful Summerfield.

Like all that is great and enduring, the Methodist Church had its
beginning among the humble and lowly. Rocked in the cradle of penury
and ignorance, it was firmly fixed in the foundations of society,
whence it rose from its own purity of doctrine and simplicity of
worship to command the respect, love, and adoption of the highest in
the land, and to wield an influence paramount in the destinies of the
people and the Government. Its ministers are now the educated and
eloquent of the Church militant. Its institutions of learning are the
first and most numerous all over the South, and it has done for female
education in the South more than every other sect of Christians,
excepting, perhaps, the Roman Catholic. In the cause of education its
zeal is enlisted, and its organization is such as to bring a wonderful
power to operate upon the community in every section of the South and
West. That this will accomplish much, we have only to look to the
antecedents of the Church to determine. Like the coral insect, they
never cease to labor: each comes with his mite and deposits it; and,
from the humblest beginning, this assiduity and contribution builds up
great islands in the sea of ignorance--rich in soil, salubrious in
climate, and, finally, triumphant in the conceptions of the chief
architect--completing for good the work so humbly begun.




CHAPTER IX.

PEDAGOGUES AND DEMAGOGUES.

EDUCATION--COLLEGES--SCHOOL-DAYS--WILLIAM AND MARY--A SUBSTITUTE--
BOARDING AROUND--ROUGH DIAMONDS--CASTE--GEORGE M. TROUP--A SCOTCH
INDIAN--ALEXANDER McGILVERY--THE McINTOSH FAMILY--BUTTON GWINNETT--
GENERAL TAYLOR--MATTHEW TALBOT--JESSE MERCER--AN EXCITING ELECTION.


The subject of education engaged the attention of the people of Georgia
at a very early day subsequent to the Revolution. Public schools were
not then thought of; probably because such a scheme would have been
impracticable. The population was sparse, and widely separated in all
the rural districts of the country; and to have supplied all with the
means of education, would have necessitated an expense beyond the power
of the State. A system was adopted, of establishing and endowing
academies in the different counties, at the county-seat, where young
men who intended to complete a collegiate education might be taught,
and the establishment and endowment of a college, where this education
might be finished, leaving the rudimental education of the children of
the State to be provided for by their parents, as best they could.
Primary schools were gotten up in the different neighborhoods by the
concentrated action of its members, and a teacher employed, and paid by
each parent at so much per capita for his children. In these schools
almost every Georgian--yes, almost every Southerner--commenced his
education. It was at these schools were mingled the sexes in pursuit of
their A, B, C, and the incidents occurring here became the cherished
memories of after life. Many a man of eminence has gone out from these
schools with a better education with which to begin life and a conflict
with the world, than is obtained now at some of the institutions called
colleges.

Young men without means, who had acquired sufficient of the rudiments
of an English education, but who desired to pursue their studies and
complete an education to subserve the purposes of the pursuit in life
selected by them, frequently were the teachers in the primary schools.
From this class arose most of those men so distinguished in her earlier
history. Some were natives, and some were immigrants from other States,
who sought a new field for their efforts, and where to make their
future homes. Such were William H. Crawford, Abram Baldwin, and many
others, whose names are now borne by the finest counties in the
State--a monument to their virtues, talents, and public services,
erected by a grateful people.

These primitive schools made the children of every neighborhood
familiar to each other, and encouraged a homogeneous feeling in the
rising population of the State. This sameness of education and of
sentiment created a public opinion more efficacious in directing and
controlling public morals than any statutory law, or its most efficient
administration. It promoted an _esprit du corps_ throughout the
country, and formed the basis of that chivalrous emprise so peculiarly
Southern.

The recollections of these school-days are full of little incidents
confirmatory of these views. I will relate one out of a thousand I
might enumerate. A very pretty little girl of eight years, full of life
and spirit, had incurred, by some act of childish mischief, the penalty
of the switch--the only and universal means of correction in the
country schools. She was the favorite of a lad of twelve, who sat
looking on, and listening to the questions propounded to his
sweetheart, and learning the decision of the teacher, which was
announced thus: "Well, Mary, I must punish you."

All eyes were directed to William. Deliberately he laid down his books,
and, stepping quickly up to the teacher, said, respectfully: "Don't
strike her. Whip me. I'll take it for her," as he arrested with his
hand the uplifted switch. Every eye in that little log school-house
brightened with approbation, and, in a moment after, filled with tears,
as the teacher laid down his rod and said: "William, you are a noble
boy, and, for your sake, I will excuse Mary." Ten years after, Mary was
the wife--the dutiful, loving, happy wife of William; and William,
twenty years after, was a member of the Legislature, and then a
representative in Congress, (when it was an honor to a gentleman to be
such,) and afterwards was for years a Senator in the same body--one of
Georgia's noblest, proudest, and best men.

Can any one enumerate an instance where evil grew out of the early
association of the sexes at school? In the neighborhoods least
populous, and where there were but few children, the pedagogue usually
divided the year into as many parts as he had pupils, and boarded
around with each family the number of days allotted to each child. If
he was a man of family, the united strength of the neighborhood
assembled upon a certain day, and built for him a residence contiguous
to the school-house, which was erected in like manner.

These buildings were primitive indeed--consisting of poles cut from the
forest, and, with no additional preparation, notched up into a square
pen, and floored and covered with boards split from a forest-tree near
at hand. It rarely required more than two days to complete the
cabin--the second being appropriated to the chimney, and the chinking
and daubing; that is, filling the interstices with billets of wood, and
make these air-tight with clay thrown violently in, and smoothed over
with the hand. Such buildings constituted nine-tenths of the homes of
the entire country sixty years ago; and in such substitutes for houses
were born the men who have moved the Senate with their eloquence, and
added dignity and power to the bench of the Supreme Court of the
nation, startled the world with their achievements upon the
battle-field, and more than one of them has filled the Presidential
chair.

Men born and reared under such circumstances, receive impressions which
they carry through life, and their characters always discover the
peculiarities incident to such birth and rearing--rough and vigorous,
bold and daring, and nobly independent, without polish or deceit,
always sincere, and always honest.

However much the intellect may be cultivated in youth--however much it
may be distinguished for great thoughts and wonderful attainments,
still the peculiarities born of the forest cling about it in all its
roughness--a fit setting to the unpolished diamond of the soul.

The rural pursuits of the country, and the necessities of the isolated
condition of a pioneer population, which necessities are mainly
supplied by ingenuity and perseverance on the part of each, creates an
independence and self-reliance which enter largely into the formation
of the general character. The institution of African slavery existing
in the South, which came with the very first, pioneer, and which was
continually on the increase, added to this independence the habit of
command; and this, too, became a part of Southern character. The
absolute control of the slave, placed by habit and law in the will of
the master, made it necessary to enact laws for the protection of the
slave against the tyrannical cruelties found in some natures; but the
public sentiment was in this, as in all other things, more potent than
law. Their servile dependence forbade resistance to any cruelty which
might be imposed; but it excited the general sympathy, and inspired,
almost universally, a lenient humanity toward them.

They were mostly born members of the household, grew up with the
children of each family, were companions and playmates, and naturally
an attachment was formed, which is always stronger in the protecting
than the protected party. It was a rare instance to find a master whose
guardian protection did not extend with the same intensity and effect
over his slave as over his child: this, not from any motive of
pecuniary interest, but because he was estopped by law from
self-defence; and, too, because of the attachment and the moral
obligation on the master to protect his dependants. Besides, the
community exacted it as a paramount duty. It is human to be attached to
whatever it protects and controls; out of this feeling grows the spirit
of true chivalry and of lofty intent--that magnanimity, manliness, and
ennobling pride which has so long characterized the gentlemen of the
Southern States.

Caste, in society, may degrade, but, at the same time, it elevates.
Where this caste was distinguished by master and slave, the distinction
was most marked, because there was no intermediate gradation. It was
the highest and the lowest. It was between the highest and purest of
the races of the human family, and the lowest and most degraded; and
this relation was free from the debasing influences of caste in the
same race. An improper appreciation of this fact has gone far to create
with those unacquainted with negro character the prejudices against the
institution of African slavery, and which have culminated in its
abolition in the Southern States.

The negro is incapacitated by nature from acquiring the high
intelligence of the Caucasian. His sensibilities are extremely dull,
his perceptive faculties dim, and the entire organization of his brain
forbids and rejects the cultivation necessary to the elimination of
mind. With a feeble moral organization, and entirely devoid of the
higher attributes of mind and soul so prominent in the instincts of the
Caucasian, his position was never, as a slave, oppressive to his mind
or his sense of wrong. He felt, and to himself acknowledged his
inferiority, and submitted with alacrity to the control of his
superior. Under this control, his moral and intellectual cultivation
elevated him: not simply to a higher position socially, but to a higher
standard in the scale of being, and this was manifested to himself at
the same time it demonstrated to him the natural truth of his
inferiority. This gratified him, promoted his happiness, and he was
contented. The same effect of the relation of master and servant can
never follow when the race is the same, or even when the race is but
one or two degrees inferior to the dominant one.

The influence of this relation upon the white race is marked in the
peculiarities of character which distinguish the people of the South.
The habit of command, where implicit obedience is to follow, ennobles.
The comparison is inevitable between the commander and him who obeys,
and, in his estimation, unconsciously elevates and degrades. This
between the white man and negro, is only felt by the white. The negro
never dreams that he is degraded by this servility, and consequently he
does not feel its oppression. He is incapable of aspiring, and
manifests his pride and satisfaction by imitating his master as much as
is possible to his nature. The white man is conscious of the effect
upon the negro, and has no fear that he is inflicting a misery to be
nursed in secret and sorrow, and to fill the negro's heart with hate.
This, however, is universally the effect of the domination of one man
over another of the same race. The relation was for life, and the
master was responsible for the moral and physical well-being of his
slave. His entire dependence makes him an object of interest and care,
and the very fact of this responsibility cultivates kindness and
tenderness toward him. But this is not all; it carries with it a
consciousness of superiority, and inspires a superior bearing. These
influences are more potent in the formation of female than male
character. The mistress is relieved absolutely from all menial duties,
and is served by those who are servants for life, and compulsorily so.
She is only under the obligations of humanity in her conduct toward
them. They must do her bidding. She is not afraid to offend by giving
an order, nor is she apprehensive of being deserted to discharge her
household labor herself by offending them. It is their duty to
please--it is their interest--and this is the paramount desire. The
intercourse is gentle, respectful, and kind; still, there is no
infringement of the barrier between the mistress and the servant. This
habit is the source of frankness and sincerity, and this release from
the severity of domestic labor the fruitful source of female delicacy
and refinement, so transcendently the attributes of character in the
ladies of the South. It gives ease and time for improvement; for social
and intellectual intercourse; creates habits of refinement, and a
delicacy seen and heard in all that is done or said in refined female
society in the South. Something, too, I suppose, is due to blood. There
are many grades in the Caucasian race. The Anglo-Norman or Anglo-Celtic
is certainly at the head. They rule wherever left to the conflict of
mind and energy of soul. Sometimes they are conquered for a time, but
never completely so. The great constituents of their natures continue
to resist, and struggle up, and when the opportunity comes, they strike
for control and supremacy--

  "And freedom's battle, once begun,
  The cause bequeathed from sire to son,
  Though baffled oft, is ever won."

The Southern woman's soul is chivalry. From the highest to the
humblest, the same lofty purpose, pride, and energy animate them. They
have contrasted the free and noble with the mean and servile. Its magic
has entered their natures and quickened their souls. In all there is a
lofty scorn for the little and mean. The same withering contempt for
the cringing and cowardly is met in every one of them. Their impulses
are generous, and their aspirations noble, with hearts as soft and
tender as love, pity, and compassion can form. Yet in them there is,
too, the fire of chivalry, the scorn of contempt, and the daring of her
who followed her immortal brother, the great Palafox, at the defence of
Saragossa, her native city, and, standing upon the dead bodies of her
countrymen, snatched the burning match from the hand of death, and
fired the cannon at the advancing foe, and planted Spain's standard, in
defiance of the veterans of Soult--a rallying point for her
countrymen--and saved Saragossa. They were born to command, and can
never be slaves, or the mothers of slaves.

The same influences powerfully operate in producing that bearing of
chivalrous distinction, which is seen everywhere in the deportment of
the Southern gentlemen toward ladies. They are ever polite, respectful,
and deferential. This, however, is only one of many elements in the
peculiar character of Southern people. Their piety is Christian in its
character. The precepts of the Bible are fashioned into example in the
conduct of the older members of society, and especially in the female
portion. This is, perhaps, the predominant element. The Bible is the
guide, not the fashion, in religious duty. Its doctrines are taught in
purity, and in their simplicity enter into the soul, as the great
constituent of character.

The chivalrous bearing of man toward woman inspires her with elevated
and noble sentiments--a pride and dignity conservative of purity in all
her relations--and, reflecting these back upon society, producing most
salutary influences. It is woman's pride to lean on man--to share his
love and respect--to be elevated by his virtues, and appreciated by the
world because of his honors--to be a part of his fame. The mother, the
wife, the sister, the relative should share with the husband, the son,
the brother, the kinsman, in the world's honors, in the sufferings,
sorrows, and miseries incidental to all. They are part and parcel of
man, and partake of his nature and his position, as of his fortune.
When man shall cease to view woman, and so deport himself toward her as
a purer, more refined, and more elevated being than himself, that
moment she will sink to his level, and then her prestige for good is
gone forever. That delicacy, refinement, and chasteness, so restraining
and so purifying to man in her association, is the soul of
civilization--the salt of the earth. In its absence, no people are ever
great; for, as it is the spirit of man's honor, so is it a nation's
glory. It must be cherished, for it inspires man's honor by man's
chivalry. Thus she becomes a people's strength; for their crown of
glory is her chastity and angelic purity.

These virtues distinguished the pioneer women of Middle Georgia sixty
years ago. As their husbands were honest and brave, they were chaste
and pious; and from such a parentage sprang the men and women who have
made a history for her pre-eminent among all her sister States. Her
sons have peopled the West, and are distinguished there for their high
honor and splendid abilities; and yet at home she boasts Toombs, Colt,
Stephens, Hill, Johnson, Campbell, and a host of others, who are proud
specimens among the proudest of the land. They have measured their
strength with the proudest minds of all the Union, and won a fame
unequalled, adorning her councils, its Cabinet, its Bench, and were the
first everywhere.

George Michael Troup, one of the most distinguished of Georgia's sons,
was the son of an English gentleman, who emigrated to Georgia anterior
to the Revolution. He married Miss McIntosh, of Georgia, sister of
General John McIntosh, of McIntosh County. He took no part in the
Revolution. England was his mother country; to her he was attached, and
in conscience he could not lift his hand in wrath against her. This
course did not meet the approval of the McIntoshes, and he retired from
the State and country. First, he went to England, but not contented
there, he came to the Spanish town of Pensacola. Here he met the
celebrated Indian chief, Alexander McGilvery, who was hostile to the
Americans, and who invited him to take refuge in his country. McGilvery
was a remarkable man; his father was a Scotchman, his mother a
half-breed; her father was the celebrated French officer who was killed
by his own men in 1732 at Fort Toulouse--his name was Marchand,--and
her mother a full-blooded Creek woman.

McGilvery supposed him an English emissary, and invited him to go into
the Creek nation and reside with his people. From Pensacola he went to
Mobile, and thence to a bluff on the Tombigbee, where he remained
during the war. This bluff he named McIntosh's Bluff, and it bears the
name yet. Here George M. Troup was born. At the close of the war he
returned to Georgia, and fixed his residence among the relatives of his
wife. The McIntosh family were Highland Scotch, and partook of all the
intrepidity of that wonderful people. They immigrated to Georgia with
General Oglethorpe in company with a number of their countrymen, and
for one hundred and thirty years have continued to reside in the county
named for the first of their ancestors who settled and made a home in
the colony of Georgia. It is a family distinguished for chivalry as
well in Europe as in Georgia. At the commencement of the Revolution
they at once sided with the colonists. Lachlin and John McIntosh became
distinguished as leaders in that protracted and doubtful conflict,
meeting in battle their kinsman in high command in the British army. On
one occasion, when John McIntosh had surrendered at the battle of Brier
Creek, a British officer, lost to every sentiment and feeling of honor,
attempted to assassinate him, and was only prevented from doing so by
Sir Æneas McIntosh, the commander of the English army, whose promptness
arrested the blow by interposing his own sword to receive it.

Lachlin McIntosh was the commander of the first regiment raised in
Georgia to aid in the Revolution. In 1777, a difficulty arose between
Button Gwinnett (who, upon the death of Governor Bullock, had succeeded
him as Governor,) and McIntosh. A duel was the consequence, in which
Gwinnett was killed. Tradition says this difficulty grew out of the
suspicions of McIntosh as to the fidelity of Gwinnett to the American
cause. He was an Englishman by birth, and, upon the breaking out of the
war, hesitated for some time as to the course he should pursue. This
was a time when all who hesitated were suspected, and Gwinnett shared
the common fate. Eventually he determined to espouse the revolutionary
party, and was elected to the Convention, and was one of the immortal
band who signed the Declaration of Independence emanating from that
Convention. Until his death he was faithful and active. McIntosh
doubted him, and he was not a man to conceal his opinions. McIntosh was
severely wounded in the conflict.

This family was one of remarkable spirit; and this has descended to the
posterity of the old cavaliers even unto this day. Colonel McIntosh,
who fell at Molino del Rey, in our recent war with Mexico, was one of
this family. He had all the spirit and chivalry of his ancestors. I
remember to have heard Generals Taylor and Twiggs speaking of him
subsequently to his death, and felt proud, as a native of the State of
Georgia, of the distinguished praise bestowed on him by these gallant
veterans. General Taylor was not generally enthusiastic in his
expressions of praise, but he was always sincere and truthful. On this
occasion, however, he spoke warmly and feelingly of the honor, the
gallantry, and intrepidity of his fellow-soldier--his high bearing, his
pride, his proficiency as an officer in the field, and the efficiency
of his regiment, its perfection of drill and discipline, and coolness
in battle--and, with unusual warmth, exclaimed: "If I had had with me
at Buena Vista, McIntosh and Riley, with their veterans, I would have
captured or totally destroyed the Mexican army."

Captain McIntosh, of the navy, was another of this distinguished
family. He had no superior in the navy. So was that ardent and
accomplished officer, Colonel McIntosh, who fell at Oak Hill, in the
late war in Missouri. In truth, there has not been a day in one hundred
and thirty years, when there has not been a distinguished son of this
family to bear and transmit its name and fame to posterity. Through his
mother, to George M. Troup descended all the nobler traits of the
McIntosh family. He was educated, preparatory to entering college, at
Flatbush, Long Island. His teacher's name I have forgotten, but he was
a remarkable man, and devoted himself to the instruction of the youth
intrusted to his care. He seems to have had a peculiar talent for
inspiring a high order of ambition in his pupils, and of training them
to a deportment and devotion to principle which would lead them to
distinguished conduct through life. Governor Troup, in speaking to the
writer of his early life and of his school-days on Long Island, said:
"There were twenty-one of us at this school fitting for college, and,
in after life, nineteen of us met in Congress, the representatives of
fourteen States."

Troup, after leaving this school, went to Princeton, and graduated at
Nassau Hall, in his nineteenth year. Returning to Savannah, he read
law; but possessing ample fortune, he never practised his profession.
His talents were of an order to attract attention. James Jackson, and
most of the leading men of the day, turned to him as a man of great
promise. The Republican party of Savannah nominated him to represent
the county of Chatham, in the Legislature of the State, before he was
twenty-one years of age. Being constitutionally ineligible, he, of
course, declined; but as soon as he became eligible, he was returned,
and, for some years, continued to represent the county. From the
Legislature he was transferred to Congress, where he at once became
distinguished, not only for talent, but a lofty honor and most polished
bearing. While a member of Congress, he married a Virginia lady, who
was the mother of his three children. Soon after the birth of her third
child, there was discovered aberration of mind in Mrs. Troup, which
terminated in complete alienation. This was a fatal blow to the
happiness of her husband. She was tenderly beloved by him; and his
acute sensibility and high nervous temperament became so much affected
as not only to fill him with grief, but to make all his remaining life
one of melancholy and sorrow. He had been elected to the United States
Senate, but, in consequence of this terrible blow, and the constant
care of his afflicted lady, to which he devoted himself, he lost his
health, and resigned. He retired to his home, and to the sad duties of
afflicted love.

About this time the people of Georgia became divided upon the political
issues of the day. William H. Crawford was nominated by his friends for
the Presidency. This aroused his enemies' hatred, who organized an
opposition to him in his own State. This opposition was headed by John
Clarke, his old enemy, and was aided by every old Federalist and
personal enemy in the State. Crawford's friends were too confident in
the popularity which had borne him to so many triumphs, and were slow
to organize. The election of Governor devolved, at that time, upon the
Legislature, and Clarke, upon the death of Governor Rabun, was
announced as the candidate. The event of Rabun's death occurred only a
very short time before the meeting of the Legislature. Matthew Talbot,
the President of the Senate, assumed, under the Constitution, the
duties of Governor, but sent the message already prepared by Rabun to
the Legislature, and immediately an election took place, whereupon
Clarke was elected. Troup had been solicited to oppose him, but was
loath to embark anew in political life. Ultimately he yielded, and was
defeated by thirteen votes. The friends of Crawford were now alarmed,
and the contest was immediately renewed. The canvass was one of the
most rancorous and bitter ever known in the State, but of this I have
spoken in a former chapter. At the ensuing election, Troup was again a
candidate. Again the contest was renewed, and, if possible, with
increased violence and vigor. Clarke, in obedience to usage, had
retired, and his party had put forward Matthew Talbot, of Wilkes
County, as the competitor of Troup. This contest had now continued for
four years, and Troup was elected by two votes.

The memory of this election will never fade from the minds of any who
witnessed it. At the meeting of the Legislature it was doubtful which
party had the majority. Two members chosen as favorable to the election
of Troup, were unable from sickness to reach the seat of Government,
and it was supposed this gave the majority to Talbot. There was no
political principle involved in the contest. Both professedly belonged
to the Republican party. Both seemed anxious to sustain the principles
and the ascendency of that party. There were no spoils. The patronage
of the executive was literally nothing; and yet there was an intensity
of feeling involved for which there was no accounting, unless it was
the anxiety of one party to sustain Mr. Crawford at home for the
Presidency, and on the other hand to gratify the hatred of Clarke, and
sustain Mr. Calhoun.

During the period intervening between the meeting of the Legislature
and the day appointed for the election, every means was resorted to,
practicable in that day. There was no money used directly. There was
not a man in that Legislature who would not have repelled with scorn a
proposition to give his vote for a pecuniary consideration; but all
were open to reason, State pride, and a sincere desire to do what they
deemed best for the honor and interest of the State. The friends of
either candidate would have deserved their favorite instantly upon the
fact being known that they had even winked at so base a means of
success. Every one was tenaciously jealous of his fame, and equally so
of that of the State. The machinery of party was incomplete, and
individual independence universal. There were a few members, whose
characters forbade violence of prejudice, and who were mild,
considerate, and unimpassioned. These men were sought to be operated
upon by convincing them that the great interests of the State would be
advanced by electing their favorite. The public services of Troup, and
his stern, lofty, and eminently pure character, were urged by his
friends as reasons why he should be chosen. The people of the State
were becoming clamorous for the fulfilment of the contract between the
State and General Government for the removal of the Indians from the
territory of the State, and Troup was urged upon the voters as being
favorable in the extreme to this policy, and also as possessing the
talents, will, and determination to effect this end. Finally the day of
election arrived. The representative men of the State were assembled.
It was scarcely possible to find hotel accommodations for the
multitude. The judges of the different judicial districts, the leading
members of the Bar, men of fortune and leisure, the prominent members
of the different sects of the Christian Church, and especially the
ministers of the gospel who were most prominent and influential, were
all there. The celebrated Jesse Mercer was a moving spirit amidst the
excited multitude, and Daniel Duffie, who, as a most intolerant
Methodist, and an especial hater of the Baptist Church and all
Baptists, was there also, willing to lay down all ecclesiastical
prejudice, and go to heaven even with Jesse Mercer, because he was a
Troup man.

The Senate came into the Representative chamber at noon, to effect, on
joint ballot, the election of Governor. The President of the Senate
took his seat with the Speaker of the House, and in obedience to law
assumed the presidency of the assembled body. The members were ordered
to prepare their ballots to vote for the Governor of the State. The
Secretary of the Senate called the roll of the Senate, each man, as his
name was called, moving up to the clerk's desk, and depositing his
ballot. The same routine was then gone through with on the part of the
House, when the hat (for a hat was used) containing the ballots was
handed to the President of the Senate, Thomas Stocks, of Greene County,
who proceeded to count the ballots, and finding only the proper number,
commenced to call the name from each ballot. Pending this calling the
silence was painfully intense. Every place within the spacious hall,
the gallery, the lobby, the committee-rooms, and the embrasures of the
windows were all filled to crushing repletion. And yet not a word or
sound, save the excited breathing of ardent men, disturbed the anxious
silence of the hall. One by one the ballots were called. There were 166
ballots, requiring 84 to elect. When 160 ballots were counted, each
candidate had 80, and at this point the excitement was so painfully
intense that the President suspended the count, and, though it was
chilly November, took from his pocket his handkerchief, and wiped from
his flushed face the streaming perspiration. While this was
progressing, a wag in the gallery sang out, "The darkest time of night
is just before day." This interruption was not noticed by the
President, who called out "Troup!" then "Talbot!" and again there was a
momentary suspension. Then he called again, "Troup--Talbot!" "82--82,"
was whispered audibly through the entire hall. Then the call was
resumed. "Troup!" "A tie," said more than a hundred voices. There
remained but one ballot. The President turned the hat up-side down, and
the ballot fell upon the table. Looking down upon it, he called, at the
top of his voice, "Troup!" The scene that followed was indescribable.
The two parties occupied separate sides of the chamber. Those voting
for Troup rose simultaneously from their seats, and one wild shout
seemed to lift the ceiling overhead. Again, with increased vim, was it
given. The lobby and the galleries joined in the wild shout. Members
and spectators rushed into each others' arms, kissed each other, wept,
shouted, kicked over the desks, tumbled on the floor, and for ten
minutes this maddening excitement suspended the proceedings of the day.
It was useless for the presiding officer to command order, if, indeed,
his feelings were sufficiently under control to do so. When exhaustion
had produced comparative silence, Duffie, with the full brogue of the
County Carlow upon his tongue, ejaculated: "O Lord, we thank Thee! The
State is redeemed from the rule of the Devil and John Clarke." Mercer
waddled from the chamber, waving his hat above his great bald head, and
shouting "Glory, glory!" which he continued until out of sight. General
Blackshear, a most staid and grave old gentleman and a most sterling
man, rose from his seat, where he, through all this excitement, had sat
silent, folded his arms upon his breast, and, looking up, with tears
streaming from his eyes, exclaimed: "Now, Lord, I am ready to die!"
Order was finally restored, and the state of the ballot stated, (Troup,
84; Talbot, 82,) when President Stocks proclaimed George M. Troup duly
elected Governor of the State of Georgia for the next three years.

This was the last election of a Governor by the Legislature. The party
of Clarke demanded that the election should be given to the people.
This was done, and in 1825, Troup was re-elected over Clarke by a
majority of some seven hundred votes. It was during this last contest
that the violence and virulence of party reached its acme, and pervaded
every family, creating animosities which neither time nor reflection
ever healed.




CHAPTER X.

INDIAN TREATIES AND DIFFICULTIES.

THE CREEKS--JOHN QUINCY ADAMS--HOPOTHLAYOHOLA--INDIAN ORATORY--SULPHUR
SPRING--TREATIES MADE AND BROKEN--AN INDEPENDENT GOVERNOR--COLONELS
JOHN S. McINTOSH, DAVID EMANUEL TWIGGS, AND DUNCAN CLINCH--GENERAL
GAINES--CHRISTIANIZING THE INDIANS--COTTON MATHER--EXPEDIENT AND
PRINCIPLE--THE PURITANICAL SNAKE.


During the administration of Troup, a contest arose as to the true
western boundary of the State, and the right of the State to the
territory occupied by a portion of the Creek tribe of Indians. In the
difficulty arising out of the sale by the Legislature of the lands
belonging to the State bordering upon the Mississippi River, a
compromise was effected by Congress with the company purchasing, and
Georgia had sold to the United States her claim to all the lands in the
original grant to General Oglethorpe and others by the English
Government, west of the Chattahoochee River. A part of the
consideration was that the United States should, at a convenient time,
and for the benefit of Georgia, extinguish the title of the Indians,
and remove them from the territory occupied by them, east of the
Chattahoochee River, to a certain point upon that stream; and from this
point, east of a line to run from it, directly to a point called Neckey
Jack, on the Tennessee River. The war of 1812 with Great Britain found
the Creek or Alabama portion of this tribe of Indians allies of
England. They were by that war conquered, and their territory wrested
from them. Those of the tribe under the influence of the celebrated
chief William McIntosh remained friendly to the United States, and were
active in assisting in the conquest of their hostile brethren. The
conquered Indians were removed from their territory and homes, into the
territory east of Line Creek, which was made the western boundary of
the Creek Nation's territory. Many of them came into the territory
claimed by Georgia as her domain.

This war was a war of the Republican party of the United States, and
the State of Georgia being almost unanimously Republican, her people
felt it would be unpatriotic, at this juncture, to demand of the
Government the fulfilment of her obligations in removing the Indians
from her soil. The expenses of the war were onerous, and felt as a
heavy burden by the people, and one which was incurred by Republican
policy. That party felt that it was its duty to liquidate this war debt
as speedily as possible. To this end the sale of those conquered lands
would greatly contribute; relieving, at the same time, the people to
some extent, from the heavy taxation they had borne during the progress
of the war. Consequently, they had not pressed the fulfilment of this
contract upon the Government. But now the war debt had been
liquidated--the United States treasury was overflowing with surplus
treasure--Indian tribes were being removed by the purchase of their
lands in the northwest, and a tide of population pouring in upon these
lands, and threatening a powerful political preponderance in opposition
to Southern policy and Southern interests. Under these circumstances,
and the recommendation of Governor Troup, the Legislature of the State,
by joint resolution and memorial to Congress, demanded the fulfilment
of the contract on the part of the United States, and the immediate
removal of the Indians.

John Quincy Adams was at that time President of the United States, and,
as he had ever been, was keenly alive to Northern interests and to
Federal views. Though professing to be Republican in political faith,
he arrayed all his influence in opposition to the rights of the States.
In this matter he gave the cold shoulder to Georgia. He did not
recommend a repudiation of the contract, but interposed every delay
possible to its consummation. After some time, commissioners were
appointed to negotiate a treaty with the Indians for the purchase of
their claim to the lands within the boundaries established by the sale
to the United States--or so much thereof as was in possession of the
Creek tribe. To this there was very serious opposition, not only from
that portion of the tribe which formerly allied themselves to Great
Britain, but from missionaries found in the Cherokee country, and from
Colonel John Crowell, who was United States agent for the Creek
Indians. These Indians were controlled by their chief, Hopothlayohola,
a man of rare abilities and great daring. He was a powerful speaker,
fluent as a fountain, and extremely vigorous in his expressions: his
imagery was original and beautiful, apposite and illustrative; and his
words and manner passionate to wildness. To all this he added the
ferocity of his savage nature.

Crowell was an especial friend of Governor Clarke, and was influenced
by his party feelings of hatred to Troup--in his opposition to a
treaty, openly declaring that Georgia should never acquire the land
while Troup was Governor. He was an unscrupulous man, of questionable
morals, and vindictive as a snake.

The persevering energy of Troup, however, prevailed. A treaty was
negotiated, and signed by Crowell, as agent, and a number of the chiefs
headed by McIntosh. No sooner was this done, than Crowell, with a
number of chiefs, hurried to Washington to protest against the
ratification and execution of the treaty, charging the United States
commissioners with fraud in the negotiation, under the influence of
Troup, prompted by W. H. Crawford and friends. The fraud charged was in
giving presents to the chiefs, and a couple of reservations of land to
McIntosh--one where he resided, and the other around and including the
famous Sulphur Spring, known as the Indian Spring, in Butts County.

This habit of giving presents to the chiefs when negotiating treaties
has always been the custom of the Government. They expect it; it is a
part of the consideration paid for the treaty of sale, for they are
universally the vendors of territory and the negotiators of treaties
for their tribes. This charge was simply a subterfuge, and one that was
known would be influential with the mawkish philanthropists of the
North, Mr. Adams, and the senators and representatives from New
England. Upon the assumption of fraud, based upon these charges alone,
the treaty was set aside by the action of the President and Cabinet
alone; and by the same authority a new one made, with a change of
boundary, involving a loss of a portion of territory belonging to
Georgia under the stipulations of the contract between the State and
United States. The previous or first treaty had been submitted to the
United States Senate, and duly ratified, thereby becoming a law, under
which Georgia claimed vested rights.

It was under these trying circumstances that the stern and determined
character of Troup displayed itself. Holding firmly to the doctrine of
State rights, he notified the President that he should disregard the
latter treaty, and proceed to take possession of the territory under
the stipulations of the former one. Upon the receipt of this
information, General Gaines was ordered to Georgia to take command of
the troops stationed along the frontier of the State, and any
additional troops which might be ordered to this point, with orders to
protect the Indians, and prohibit taking possession of the territory,
as contemplated by Governor Troup. A correspondence ensued between
General Gaines and Governor Troup of a most angry character. It
terminated with an order to General Gaines to forbear all further
communication with the Government of Georgia. This was notified to the
President, (if my memory is correct, for I write from memory,) in these
terms:

  "JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, President of the United States:

  "SIR: I have ordered General Gaines to forbear all further communication
  with this Government. Should he presume to infringe
  this order, I will send your major-general by brevet home to you in
  irons.      GEORGE M. TROUP, Governor of Georgia."

The surveyors previously appointed by the Legislature were directed to
be on the ground, in defiance of United States authority, on the first
day of September succeeding, and at sunrise to commence the work of
surveying the lands. A collision was anticipated as certain between the
troops of the United States and the authorities of Georgia. But there
was a difficulty in the way not previously contemplated. Colonels John
S. McIntosh, David Emanuel Twiggs, and Duncan Clinch, each commanded
regiments in the South. Twiggs and McIntosh were native Georgians.
Clinch was a North Carolinian, but was a resident of Florida. Zachary
Taylor was the lieutenant-colonel of Clinch's regiment. He was a
Virginian by birth, but resided in Mississippi. All were Southern men
in feeling, as well as by birth, and all Jeffersonian Republicans,
politically. McIntosh and Twiggs were fanatical in their devotion to
the State of their birth. The ancestors of both were among the first
settlers, and both were identified with her history. The three wrote a
joint letter to the President, tendering their commissions, if ordered
to take arms against Georgia. This letter was placed in the hands of
one who was influential with Mr. Adams, to be delivered immediately
after the order should be issued to General Gaines to prevent by force
of arms the survey ordered by Governor Troup. Troup had classified the
militia, and signified his intention to carry out, if necessary, the
first-negotiated treaty, by force of arms, as the law of the land.

It was, unquestionably, the prudence of this friend which prevented a
collision. He communicated with Mr. Adams confidentially, and implored
him not to issue the order. He assured him that a collision was
inevitable if he did, and caused him to pause and consult his advisers,
who declared their conviction that the first treaty was the law of the
land, and that Georgia held vested rights under it. In obedience to
this advice, Mr. Adams made no further effort to prevent the action of
Georgia, and the lands were surveyed and disposed of by the State,
under and according to the terms of the first treaty, and she retains a
large strip of territory that would have been lost to her under the
last treaty. My information of these facts was derived from Twiggs,
Clinch, and Henry Clay. Who the friend was to whom the letter was
intrusted, I never knew. I mentioned to Mr. Clay the facts, and he
stated that they were true, but no knowledge of them ever came to him
until the expiration of Mr. Adams' Administration. General Taylor
stated to me that long after these events had transpired, and after the
resignation of Colonel Clinch, General Twiggs had made the
communication to him. As nearly as I can remember, Twiggs made the
statement to me in the language I have used here. On returning from the
ratification meeting, at Canton, of the nomination of Mr. Clay for the
Presidency, in 1844, before we reached Baltimore, I was in a carriage
with General Clinch and Senator Barrow, of Louisiana, and stated these
facts, and Clinch verified them.

General Gaines was, of all men, the most unfit for a position like that
in which he was placed. He was a good fighter, a chivalrous, brave man;
but he was weak and vain, and without tact or discretion. His
intentions were, at all times, pure, but want of judgment frequently
placed him in unpleasant positions. The condition of the minds of the
people of Georgia, at this time, was such, that very little was
necessary to excite them to acts of open strife, and had Mr. Adams been
less considerate than he was, there is now no telling what would have
been the consequence. He was extremely unpopular at the South, and
this, added to the inflamed condition of public opinion there, would
assuredly have brought on a collision. Had it come, it might have
resulted in a triumph of Southern principles, which, at a later day,
and under less auspicious circumstances, struggled for existence, only
to be crushed perhaps forever.

It was universally the wish of the people of Georgia to have possession
of the land properly belonging to her, and but for their factious
divisions, the hazards of a conflict between the troops of the United
States and those of Georgia would have been more imminent. It was
believed by both these factions, that whoever should, as Governor of
the State, succeed in obtaining these lands, would thereby be rendered
eminently popular, and secure to his faction the ascendency in the
State for all time. The faction supporting Clarke believed he would
certainly triumph in the coming contest before the people, and assumed
to believe that then the matter of acquisition would be easy, as the
Administration of Mr. Adams supposed that faction could, by that means,
be brought into the support of the party now being formed about it.
Clarke and many of his leading friends were coquetting with the
Administration. He was--as was his brother-in-law, Duncan G.
Campbell--a strong friend of Mr. Calhoun, who was then the
Vice-President. National parties were inchoate, and many politicians
were chary of choosing, and seemed to wait for the development of
coming events, ere they gave shape and direction to their future
courses. It was certain that Mr. Clay was identified with the American
System, and that would, in a great degree, be the leading policy of the
Administration. Mr. Calhoun, when Secretary of War, under Mr. Monroe,
had made a strong report in favor of internal improvements by the
General Government, within the limits of the States, and, while a
member of Congress, had made an equally strong one in favor of a
national bank. These were two of the prominent features of the American
system, and it was generally believed that this policy would be too
popular to combat. It had originated during the Administration of
Monroe, and if it had the opposition of any member of his Cabinet, it
was unknown to the country. Mr. Crawford and Mr. Calhoun, as well as
Mr. Adams, were members of that Cabinet, and were all, in some degree,
committed to this policy; for Mr. Crawford, as a Senator from Georgia,
during the Administration of Mr. Madison, had sustained the doctrine of
the constitutionality and the policy of a national bank, in one of the
very ablest speeches ever made upon the subject, saying everything
which could or can be said in favor of such a government financial
agent, and refuting every objection of its opponents. From this speech
is derived every argument and every idea of both the reports of Calhoun
and McDuffie, which were heralded to the nation as greater even than
that of Mr. Dallas, who, with Robert Morris, may be said to be the
fathers of this institution. Mr. Clay had, in one of his ablest
speeches, opposed the bank at a former time, and his change of opinion
was now well known.

It was very well understood that the coming men were Clay, Jackson, and
Calhoun. Clarke and his friends were ardent supporters of Calhoun, and
it was thought they had won the favor of the Administration. Mr. Clay
was strongly opposed to the execution of the old treaty, and had, by
this means, drawn upon himself the opposition of the Crawford, or Troup
party. These facts show the condition of public opinion in the State,
and conclusively establish the fact, that but for this division of the
people, and the check held by this upon the action of the masses and
their leaders, fearful consequences would assuredly have ensued.

The reasons influencing the joint action of Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay in
opposition to the execution of the old treaty were very different. Mr.
Clay was honest and patriotic. He had no ulterior views to subserve.
His policy was national. He desired the prosperity and advancement of
his country to greatness and power among the nations of the earth. His
fame was that of the nation; already it was identified with it. His
ambition was a noble and a grand one. He wished his name identified
with his acts, and these to constitute the fame and glory of the
nation. He ever felt what subsequently he so nobly expressed, "That he
would rather be right than be President." He had no petty
selfishness--no pitiful revenges to exhaust with the hand of power--no
contemptible motives for elevating or advancing the interests of one
section of his country by oppressing another. "All his aims were his
country's," and his whole country's. He desired that every act of that
country should bear the broadest light, and challenge the closest and
most searching scrutiny; that each should be a new and brighter gem in
the diadem of her glory, and that her magnanimity should be most
conspicuous in her transactions with the weakest. This he especially
desired, and labored to effect, in all her transactions with the
Indians. He viewed these as the primitive proprietors of the soil, and
possessors of the entire country. He knew they were fading away before
a civilization they were by nature incapacitated to emulate, and this,
he felt, was in obedience to the inexorable laws of Divine Providence;
and, in the wonderfully capacious compassion of his nature, he desired,
in the accomplishment of this fate, that no act of national injustice
to them should stain the nation's escutcheon, and determined to
signalize this desire in every act of his when giving form and shape to
national policy. He had generously lent a listening ear to the protests
of the chiefs, seconded by that of their agent, and sincerely believed
the treaty had been effected by fraud, and was wrong and oppressive,
and, therefore, he opposed its execution, and was the main instrument
in forming a new one. The draft of this was from his own pen, and he
was solicitous that it should supersede the old one, as an expression
of the Indians' desire.

Mr. Adams was, equally with Mr. Clay, opposed to the treaty as
ratified, though, as was his constitutional duty, he had sent the
instrument for the action of the Senate. In heart he was opposed to any
treaty which would remove the aborigines from this territory at this
time, and, in consequence of the action of Georgia, it was anticipated
that, at no very distant day, the entire Indian population east of the
Mississippi River, in the South, would be removed, unless some policy
of the Government should be adopted which would prevent it; and those
of the North, who felt desirous of crippling the territorial progress
of the South, and, of consequence, her augmentation of population,
supposed the most effectual means of accomplishing this would be to
educate and Christianize the Indian. To do this, they insisted he must
remain upon the territory he now occupied. This would bring him into
immediate contact with the civilized white, where he could be most
readily approached by missionaries and schoolmasters, and be instructed
by the force of example. At the same time, he was to remain under the
sole protection of the United States Government, without any of the
privileges of civil government to be exercised as a citizen of the
United States or the State upon whose soil he was located. This was
ennobled as the sentiment of Christian benevolence, while its real
intention was to withhold the land from the occupancy of the people of
Georgia, and in so much retard the growth and increase of the white
population of the State. To carry out this scheme, missionary
establishments sprang up among the Indians in every part of the South,
but especially within the limits of the State of Georgia, filled with
Northern fanatics, who employed themselves most actively in prejudicing
the minds of the savages against the people who were their neighbors,
and preparing them to refuse to treat for the sale of any of their
territory.

It has ever been the practice of the Puritan to propagate the vilest
heresies, and for the vilest purposes, under the name of philanthropy
and religion. It has burned its enemy at the stake, as, assembled
around, they sang psalms, and sanctified the vilest cruelties with the
name of God's vengeance. It was their great prototype, Cotton Mather,
who blasphemously proclaimed, after the most inhuman massacre of
several hundred Indians, that they, the Puritans of Massachusetts, "had
sent, as a savory scent to the nostrils of God, two hundred or more of
the reeking souls of the godless heathen."

This, ostensibly, was deemed a pious act, and a discharge of a pious
duty, when, in truth, the only motive was to take his home and country,
and appropriate it to their own people. It seems almost impossible to
the race to come squarely up to truth and honesty, in word or act, in
any transaction, as a man or as a people. Sinister and subtle,
expediency, and not principle, seems to be their universal rule of
action. Cold and passionless, incapable of generous emotions, he is
necessarily vindictive and cruel. Patient and persevering, bigoted and
selfish, eschewing as a crime an honorable resentment, he creeps to his
ends like a serpent, with all his cunning and all his venom.

John Quincy Adams, in his nature, was much more like his mother than his
father. His features were those of his mother, and the cold, persevering
hatred of his nature was hers. From his boyhood he was in the habit of
recording, for future use, the most confidential conversations of his
friends, as also all that incautiously fell from an occasional interview
with those less intimate. Had this been done for future reference only
to establish facts in his own mind, there could have been no objection
to the act; but this was not the motive. These memoranda were to rise
up in vengeance when necessary to gratify his spleen or vengeance. He
was naturally suspicious. He gave no man his confidence, and won the
friendship of no one. Malignant and unforgiving, he watched his
opportunity, and never failed to gratify his revengeful nature, whenever
his victim was in his power. The furtive wariness of his small gray
eye, his pinched nose, receding forehead, and thin, compressed lips,
indicated the malignant nature of his soul. Unfaithful to friends, and
only constant in selfishness--unconscious of obligation, and ungrateful
for favors--fanatical only in hatred--pretending to religious morality,
yet pursuing unceasingly, with merciless revenge, those whom he supposed
to be his enemies, he combined all the elements of Puritan bigotry and
Puritan hate in devilish intensity. He deserted the Federal party in
their greatest need, and meanly betrayed them to Mr. Jefferson, whom,
from his boyhood, he had hated and reviled in doggerel rhymes and the
bitterest prose his genius could suggest.

The conduct of Mr. Adams, after he had been President, as the
representative of Massachusetts in Congress, is the best evidence of
the motives which influenced his conduct in the matter of these two
treaties. He never lost an opportunity to assail the interests and the
institutions of the South. He hated her, and to him, more than to any
other, is due the conduct of the Northern people toward the South which
precipitated the late war, and has destroyed the harmony once existing
between the people.

His father had been repudiated by the South for a more trusted son of
her own. This was a treasured hatred; and when he shared his father's
fate, this became the pervading essence of his nature.

He returned to Congress, after his defeat for the Presidency, for no
other purpose than to give shape and direction to a sentiment which he
felt must ultimately result in her ruin, and to accomplish this he was
more than willing to hazard that of the Government. He felt, should
this follow, his own people would be in a condition to dictate and
control a government of their own creation, and which should embody
their peculiar views, rather than the pure and unselfish principles
enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, and preserved in the
Constitution of the United States.

The sagacity of George M. Troup was the first to discover this in his
conduct as President, and to sound the alarm as Governor of Georgia. He
came directly in contact with him, and determined he should be defeated
in one of his means for injury to the South. Troup knew and felt the
right was with him, and maintained it with the honest boldness of a
true man. He triumphed, and the doctrine of State rights was rescued
from a fatally aimed blow, and reaffirmed, gave renewed popularity and
strength to its supporters. The election of General Jackson soon after
followed, and, as the embodiment of the principle, rallied around him
its supporters from every section. With these, and his immense
popularity personally, he scotched, for a time, the Puritan snake; but,
true to its instincts, it struggled to bite, though its head was off.

Mr. Adams saw in Troup a strong and uncompromising foe; he knew, too,
the right was with him, and that if pushed to extremities the result
would be damaging to his fame, as having, in persevering for the wrong,
destroyed the Government, and at a time, too, when every benefit from
such destruction would inure to the South. Under the circumstances his
course was taken: he dared not consult or trust Mr. Clay with the real
motives which influenced him to yield, and made a virtue of patriotism
and magnanimity which cloaked his pusillanimity, and shielded from
public view his envenomed chagrin.

It was doubtless this triumph which secured the second election of
Troup. Personally he was unpopular with the masses. His rearing had
been in polished society, and though he was in principle a democrat, in
his feelings, bearing, and associations he was an aristocrat. He
accorded equality to all under the law and in political privilege, but
he chose to select his associates, and admitted none to the familiarity
of intimacy but men of high breeding and unquestioned honor. In many
things he was peculiar and somewhat eccentric. In dress, especially
so--often appearing in midwinter in light, summer apparel; and again,
in summer, with a winter cloak wrapped carefully about him. When he
appeared first before the assembled Legislature, and many of the first
citizens of the State, to take the oath of office, it was a raw, cold
day in November; his dress was a round jacket of coarse cotton, black
cassimere vest, yellow nankeen pantaloons, silk hose, and
dancing-pumps, with a large-rimmed white hat, well worn. In his
address, which was short and most beautiful, he made his hat
conspicuous by holding it in his right hand, and waving it with every
gesture. In person, he was below the middle size, slender, though
finely formed; his hair was red, and his eyes intensely blue and deeply
set beneath a heavy brow; his nose was prominent and aquiline; his
mouth, the great feature of his face, was Grecian in mould, with
flexible lips, which, while in repose, seemed to pout. His rabid
opposition to those engaged in the Yazoo frauds, and his hatred for
those who defended it, made him extremely obnoxious to them, and
prompted Dooly to say: "Nature had formed his mouth expressly to say,
'Yazoo.'" Its play, when speaking, was tremulous, with a nervous
twitching, which gave an agitated intonation to his words very
effective.

The form of his head, and especially his forehead, indicated an
imaginative mind, while the lines of his face marked deep thought. He
was strictly honest in everything; was opposed to anything which wore
the appearance of courting public favor, or seemed like a desire for
office. His private life was exemplary, kind, and indulgent to his
children and servants, and full of charity; severe upon nothing but the
assumptions of folly, and the wickedness of purpose in the dishonest
heart. In every relation of life he discharged its duties
conscientiously, and was the enemy only of the vicious and wicked. He
continued to reside upon his plantation in Lawrence County with his
slaves, carefully providing for their every want until his death. He
had attained the patriarchal age of threescore years and ten, and sank
to rest in the solitude of his forest-home, peacefully and piously,
leaving no enemies, and all the people of his State to mourn him.




CHAPTER XI.

POLITICAL CHANGES.

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--COCK-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
assiduous, 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 assumed to be a national policy to promote national independence,
and protection was claimed for national industry against European
competition. 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 constitutional 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 constitutionality of this
institution 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
Constitution, 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
constitutional. This, however, did not satisfy the Republican or
States-rights party; a large majority of whom always insisted upon its
unconstitutionality. At the time of its creation, a necessity existed
for some such institution, 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 embarrassing 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 constitutionality. 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 constitutionality 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 Constitution, 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 constitutionality; 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 pronounced it constitutional) 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 constituted 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 constitutional 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, Bocock, 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 assumed 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; Cass, from
Michigan, and Van Buren and Silas Wright, from New York--all giants in
intellect. But there were Webster and John Davis, from Massachusetts,
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,
illustrates 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 spunk 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 apron, 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 assault 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 association 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 accumulation 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
principal 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 cock or turning a quarter-horse.

This spot has become classic 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, impassable 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 pass 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 circumstances 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 instituted 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 association 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, passing 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 passion 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 association 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 participated
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 noblest 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 assumption 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 principal 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
shell 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.
The nomination was renewed, and again rejected. Jackson wrote to Gwinn,
who was already by executive appointment discharging the duties of the
office, to continue to do so. I was present when the letter was
received, and permitted to read it. "Poindexter has deserted me," he
said, "and his opposition to your nomination is to render, as far as he
can, my Administration unpopular with the people of Mississippi; and a
majority of the Senate are more than willing to aid him in this. They
are only destroying themselves, not me, and some of them will soon find
this out. Do you hold on to the office; I will make no more
nominations; but commission you _ad interim_ as soon as Congress
adjourns, which will be in a few weeks at farthest. Very soon my
friends will be in a majority in the Senate--until then, I will keep
you in the office, for I am determined you shall have it, spite of
Poindexter." The result was as he had promised.

This is but one of a thousand instances which might be enumerated to
attest the same fact. Such traits are always appreciated as they
deserve to be; they address themselves to the commonest understanding,
and are esteemed by all mankind. It is a mistake the world makes, that
Jackson's popularity was exclusively military. Those great qualities of
mind and soul which constituted him a great general, were not only
displayed in his military career, but in all his life; and to them he
was indebted for the friends of his whole life; they made him a man of
mark before he was twenty-five years of age. His courage, intrepidity,
frankness, honor, truth, and sincerity were all pre-eminent in his
conduct, and carried captive the admiration of all men. His devotion to
his wife, to his friends, to his duty, was always conspicuous; and
these are admired and honored, even by him who never had in his heart a
feeling in common with one of these. All these traits were so striking
in Jackson's character as to make them conspicuous. They were more
marked in his than in that of any other man of his day, because the
impulses of his temperament were more prompt and potent. They were
natural to him, and always naturally displayed. There was neither
assumption of feeling nor deceit in its manifestation; all he evinced,
bubbled up from his heart, naturally and purely as spring-water, and
went directly to the heart. These great and ennobling traits were not
unfrequently marred by passion, and acts which threw a cloud over their
brilliancy; but this, too, was natural: the same soul which was parent
to this violence and extravagance of passion, was, too, the source of
all his virtues, and all were equally in excess. The consequence of
this violence were sometimes terrible. They were evanescent, and, like
a thunder-storm, seemed only to clear the atmosphere for the display of
beautiful weather.

The triumphs of mind, unaided by education, sometimes are
astonishing,--in the case of General Jackson, perhaps, not more so than
in many others. The great Warwick of England, the putter-up and the
puller-down of kings, did not know his letters; Marshal Soult, the
greatest of Napoleon's marshals, could not write a correct sentence in
French; and Stevenson, the greatest engineer the world ever saw--the
inventor of the locomotive engine--did not know his letters at
twenty-one years of age, and was always illiterate. It is a question
whether such minds would have been greatly aided by education, or
whether they might not have been greatly injured by it--nature seeming
to have formed all minds with particular proclivities. These are more
marked in the stronger intellects. They direct to the pursuit in life
for which nature has designed the individual: should this idiosyncrasy
receive the proper education from infancy, doubtless it would be aided
to the more rapid and more certain accomplishment of the designs of
nature. To discover this in the child, requires that it should be
strongly developed, and a close and intelligent observation on the part
of the parent or guardian who may have the direction of the child's
education. But this, in the system of education almost universally
pursued, is never thought of; and the avocation of the future man is
chosen for him, without any regard to his aptitudes for it, and often
in disregard of those manifested for another. Consequently, nature is
thwarted by ignorance, and the individual drags on unsuccessfully in a
hated pursuit through life. Left alone, these proclivities become a
passion, and where strongly marked, and aided by strength of will, they
work out in wonderful perfection the designs of nature. Julius Cæsar,
Hannibal, Attila, Yengis Khan, Prince Eugène, Marlborough, Napoleon,
and Wellington were all generals by nature--and so were Andrew Jackson
and "Stonewall" Jackson. The peculiarities of talent which make a great
general make a great statesman; and all of those who, after
distinguishing themselves as great generals, were called to the
administration of the civil affairs of their respective Governments,
have equally distinguished themselves as civilians.

The proposing of General Jackson as a candidate for the Presidency was
received, by most of those who were deemed statesmen, as a burlesque;
and many of those most active in his support only desired his election
to further their own views, and not for the country's benefit. It was
supposed he was so entirely unacquainted with state-craft, that he
would be a pliant tool--an automaton, to dance to their wire-pulling.
How little they understood him, and how well he understood them! At
once he let them know he was President, and was determined to take the
responsibility of administering the Government in the true spirit of
its institutions. The alarm, which pervaded all political circles so
soon as this was understood, is remembered well. It was a bomb exploded
under the mess-table, scattering the mess and breaking to fragments all
their cunningly devised machinations for rule and preferment--an open
declaration of war against all cliques and all dictation. His inaugural
was startling, and his first message explicit. His policy was avowed,
and though it gathered about him a storm, he nobly breasted it, and
rode it out triumphantly. His administration closed in a blaze of
glory. He retired the most popular and most powerful man the nation had
ever seen.




CHAPTER XII.

GOSSIP.

UNREQUITED LOVE--POPPING THE QUESTION--PRACTICAL JOKING--SATAN LET
LOOSE--RHEA, BUT NOT RHEA--TEACHINGS OF NATURE--H.S. SMITH.


This must be a gossiping chapter, of many persons and many things,
running through many years.

I love to dwell upon the years of youth. They are the sweetest in life;
and these memories constitute most of the happiness of declining life.
Incidents in our pilgrimage awaken the almost forgotten, and then how
many, many memories flit through the mind, and what a melancholy
pleasure fills the soul! We think, and think on, calling this and that
memory up from the grave of forgetfulness, until all the past seems
present, and we live over the bliss of boyhood with a mimic ecstasy of
young life and its gladdening joys.

Like every young man, I suppose, I loved a fair girl with beautiful
blue eyes, and lips so pouting and plump, so ruddy and liquid, that the
words seemed sweetened as they melted away from them; but my love was
unpropitious, and another was preferred to me. I have ever been curious
to know why. Vanity always in my own soul made me greatly the superior
of the favored one, in all particulars. But she did not think so, and
chose as she liked. I saw her but once a bride. I went away, and found,
as others do, another and dearer love. Sitting on my horse by her side,
as she held in her beautiful palfrey, upon the summit of a cliff, which
rises grandly above, and brows the drab waters of the great
Mississippi, she pointed to the river, which resembled a great, white
serpent, winding among green fields and noble forests, for twenty miles
below. Her eyes were gray, and large, and lovely; her form was
towering, and her mien commanding. She grew with the scene. She was
born only a mile away, in the midst of a wild forest of walnut and
magnolia, amid towering hills, and cherished them and this mighty river
in childhood, until she partook of their grandeur and greatness. I
thought she was like the love of my youth, and I loved her, and told
her of it. The sun was waning--going down to rest, and, like a mighty
monarch, was folding himself away to sleep in gorgeous robes of crimson
and gold. In his shaded light, outstretching for fifty miles beyond the
river, lay, in sombre silence, the mighty swamp, with its wonderful
trees of cypress, clothed in moss of gray, long, and festooning from
their summits to the earth below, and waving, like banners, in the
passing wind. The towering magnolia, in all the pride of foliage and
flower, shaded us. The river, in silent and dignified majesty, moved
onward far below, and evening breezes bathed, with their delicious
touch, our glowing cheeks. The scene was grand, and my feelings were
intense. In the midst of all this beauty and grandeur, she was the
cynosure of eye and heart. I loved her; and yet, my conscience rebuked
me for forgetting my first love, and I asked myself if, in all this
wild delirium of soul, there was not some little ingredient of revenge.
No, it was for herself--all for herself; and, chokingly, I told her of
it, when she drooped her head, and, in silence, gave me her hand. We
went away in silence. There was too much of feeling to admit of speech.
Delicious memory! Of all our ten children, four only remain. The
willow's tears bedew her grave, and her sons fill the soldier's grave,
and, wrapped in the gray, sleep well.

Yesterday I met her who first kindled in my bosom affection for
woman--a widowed woman, withered and old. She smiled: the lingering
trace of what it was, was all that was left. The little, plump hand was
lean and bony, and wrinkles usurped the alabaster brow. Fifty years had
made its mark. But memory was, by time, untouched. We parted. I closed
my eyes, and there she was, in her girlhood's robes and her girlhood's
beauty. The lip, the cheek, the glorious eye, were all in memory
garnered still; and I loved that memory, but not the woman now. Another
was in the niche she first cut in my heart, whose cheek and eye and
pouting lip were young and lovely. Still these memories awoke out of
this meeting, and, for hours, I forgot that I was wrinkled, old, and
gray.

I wonder how many's history I am writing now? The history of the heart,
at last, is all the endearing history of waning life. Recur as we may
to every success, to every sorrow, and they whisper a chapter of the
heart. We struggle to make happy those we love. The gratifications of
wealth, ambition, and feeling, all refer to the heart. There could be
no pleasure from these memories if those we loved had not participated
in them. We build a home for her we love, and those who sprout around
us. We win wealth and a name for these, and but for them, all that is
innate would be only alloy. They must reflect the bliss it brings, or
it has no sweetness. Can there be a soul so sordid as to riot in
pleasure and triumphs all alone--to shun companionship, and hate
participation in the joys that come of successful life?

I am in the midst of the scenes of my childhood, with here and there
one friend left, who shared with me the school-hours, Saturday rambles,
and sports of early boyhood. With these the memories come fresh and
vigorous of the then occurring incidents--the fishings, the
Saturday-night raccoon hunts, the forays upon orchards and
melon-patches, and the rides to and from the old, country church on the
Sabbath; the practical jokes of which I was so fond, and from which
even my own father was not exempt. Kind reader, indulge the garrulity
of age, and allow me to recount one of these. There are a few who will
remember it; for they have laughed at it for fifty years. I never knew
my father to tell a fib but upon one occasion in my life. Under the
circumstances, I am sure the kindly nature will, at least, allow it to
be a white one.

I am near the old mill my father built, and, if I remember all
connected with my boyhood there, I trust there will be few or none to
sneer or blame. The flouring-mill, or mill for grinding grain, and the
saw-mill were united under the same roof; and it was the business of
father to give his attention, as overseer, not only to the mills, but
to his planting interest. He employed a North Carolina Scotchman--that
is, a man descended of Scotch parents, but born in North Carolina--to
superintend his saw-mill, who had all the industry, saving
propensities, and superstitions of his ancestry. He was a firm believer
in spells, second-sights, and ghosts. Taking advantage of these
superstitions, my brother and myself made him the sufferer in many a
practical joke. Upon one occasion, we put into circulation, in the
neighborhood, a story full of wonder. A remarkable spectre had been
seen near the mill on dark nights, and especially on those misty nights
of murky gloom, common in early spring to this latitude. Its form was
unique and exaggerated, with flaming eyes, and mouth of huge
proportions, with long, pointed teeth, white and sharp. For weeks, this
gorgon of my imagination constituted the theme of neighborhood gossip.
Several negroes had seen it, and fled its fierce pursuit, barely
escaping its voracious mouth and attenuated claws, through the
fleetness of fear. The old hardshell Baptist preacher, of the vicinage,
had proclaimed him from the pulpit as Satan unchained, and commencing
his thousand years of wandering up and down the earth.

I had procured from a vine in the plum-orchard a gourd of huge
dimensions, such as in that day were used by frugal housewives for the
keeping of lard for family use. It would hold in its capacious cavity
at least half a bushel. This was cut one-third of its circumference for
a mouth, and this was garnished with teeth from the quills of a
venerable gander, an especial pet of my mother. The eyes were in
proportion, and were covered with patches of red flannel, purloined
from my mother's scrap-basket. A circle, an inch in diameter, made of
charcoal, formed an iris to a pupil, cut round and large, through the
flannel. A candle was lighted, and introduced through a hole at the
bottom of the gourd, and all mounted upon a pole some ten feet long. In
the dark it was hideous, and, on one or two occasions, had served
secretly to frighten some negroes, to give it reputation. It was
designed for Rhea, the Carolinian. On Saturday night it was his uniform
practice to come up to the house, cleanly clad, to spend the evening.
There was a canal which conveyed the water from the head above to the
mill. This ran parallel with the stream, and was crossed, on the public
road, by a bridge, one portion of which was shaded by a large
crab-apple bush. Though fifty years ago, it still remains to mark the
spot. Beyond the creek (which was bridged, for foot-passengers, with
the trunk of a large tree,) was a newly cleared field, in which the
negroes were employed burning brush on the Saturday night chosen for my
sport. Here, under this crab-tree, I awaited the coming of Rhea. It was
misty, and densely dark. Presently the footsteps of my victim were
heard approaching; he was on the bridge. He came on cautiously, to be
secure of a safe footing in the dark. Suddenly I turned the grinning
monster full in his face. A scream and a leap followed. Down the muddy
creek-bank rushed my victim, plunged through the tumbling waters
waist-deep, and, as soon as the opposite shore was reached, a
vociferous call was made for Tom, the negro foreman. Horror of horrors!
it was my father's voice. In an instant my candle was out, and I was
running.

I passed unconcernedly through the house and took a seat in the back
passage, and awaited events. It was not long before the sloppy noise of
shoes full of water, heard in walking, came through the yard, and into
the house. It was my dear old frightened father, all reeking from his
plunge into the creek. "Why, husband," asked mother, "how did you get
so wet?" He slung the damp from his hat as he cleared his throat, and
said: "I slipped off that cursed log, in crossing the creek."
Reflection had told him he had been foolishly frightened, and he was
ashamed to acknowledge it. My conscience smote me, but I laughed, and
trembled--for had he made discovery of the trick, it would have been my
time to suffer.

Memory brings back the features, the kind and gentle look of that dear
and indulgent parent, and the unbidden tear comes. The last time I ever
saw him was at the terminus of the railroad, on the banks of Lake
Pontchartrain; he placed his aged arms about my shoulders, and,
pressing me to his bosom, bid me "Farewell," as, trembling with
emotion, he continued: "we are parting forever, my child." He had met
misfortunes in his latter days, and was poor, but I had filled his
purse with the means which smoothed his way the remnant of his life.
The prediction was but too true; in less than one year after that
parting, he slept in death.

And now, when war and death have swept from me children, fortune, all,
and I am old and needy, it is a consolation known only to my own bosom
that I plucked the thorn from my parent's path.

These are childish memories, and may be too puerile for record; but I
am sure most of my readers will find in them something of their own
childhood's memories. It is my memories of men and things, I am
writing, and I would be faithful to them.

Boyhood's memories crowd the after-life with half the joys its destiny
demands; associations which revive them come as pleasant showers to the
parched herbage when autumn's sun withers its flush, and yellows the
green of spring-time. Oh! the zest of early sports--of boyhood's
mischief; so free from selfishness, so untouched with meanness, so full
of joyous excitement, so loved for itself. Every man has been a boy;
every woman has been a girl; and all alike have felt and enjoyed the
sweets of young life; and when years and cares and tears have stolen
away the green from the soul, and the blossoms of the grave whiten
about the brow, and the unbidden sigh breaks away from the grief of the
heart, and memory startles with what was when we were young, the
contrast would be full of misery did not a lingering of the joys which
filled our frolics and our follies come to dull the edge of sorrow.

When the cravings of the mind, taught by time to be unrealizable, are
driven from hope; when the purity of youthful feelings are soiled by
contact with the world's baseness; when the world's passing interests
harden the sensibilities, and we have almost forgotten that we were
ever young, or had a youthful joy, some little story, some little
incident will startle the memory, and touch and tone the heart to the
music of its spring, and the desert waste which time has made green
again with memories which grew from bliss budding in our youth; and,
though they never come to fruitage, are cherished with a joy.

Oh! the heart, the heart--what are all its joys of youth, and all its
griefs of age? Is it that youth has no apprehensions, and we enjoy its
anticipations and its present without alloy? or does its _all_ belong
to love and joy when life and the world is new? Are these too bright,
too pure for time? and the griefs of later life the Dead Sea apples
which grow from them. And is it so with all? Is there one, whose years
have brought increase of happiness, and who has lived on without a
sorrow?

In God's economy must all experience misery, to dull the love of life,
and kindle hope for a blissful future, to steal from the heart its
cherished _here_, to yield it all in its _hereafter_. Ah! we know what
a world this is, but what a world is to come we know not. Is it not as
reasonable to believe we lived before our birth into this, as to hope
we shall live after death in another world? Is this hope the instinct
of the coming, or does it grow from the baser instinct of love for the
miserable life we have? It is easy to ask, but who shall answer? Is it
the mind which remembers, and is the mind the soul? or is the soul
independent of the mind, surviving the mind's extinction? and do the
memories of time die with time? or,

  Do these pursue beyond the grave?
  Must the surviving spirit have
  Its memories of time and grief?
  Then, surely, death is poor relief.
  Shall it forget the all of time,
  When time's with all her uses gone,
  And be a babe in that new clime?
  Then death is but oblivion.

Youth's happiness is half of hope; all that of age is memory--and yet
these memories more frequently sadden than gladden the heart. Then what
is life to age? Garrulity, and to be in the way. Our household gods
grow weary of our worship, and the empty stool we have filled in gray
and trembling age in the temple we have built, when we are gone is
kicked away, and we are forgotten; our very children regret (though
they sometimes assume a painful apprehension) we do not make haste to
die--if we have that they crave, and inherit when we shall have passed
to eternity. But if the gift of raiment and food is imposed by poverty
on those who gave them birth, they complain, and not unfrequently turn
from their door the aged, palsied parent, to die, or live on strangers'
charity. Sad picture, but very true, very true; poor human nature! And
man, so capable in his nature of this ungodliness, boasts himself made
after God's own image. Vanity of vanities!

Nature's harmony, nature's loveliness, nature's expansive greatness and
grandeur teaches of God, and godliness. The inanimate and unthinking
are consistently harmonious and beautiful; man only mars the harmony,
and makes a hell for man in time. Then, is time his all? or, shall this
accursed rabidness be purged away with death, and he become a tone in
accord with inanimate things? or, shall this but purify as fire the
yielding metal, the inner man, which hope or instinct whispers lives,
and animates its tenement of time, to view, to know, and to enjoy
creation through eternity? Wild thoughts are kindling in my brain, wild
feelings stir my heart.

This is a beautiful Sabbath morning, the blazing sun wades through the
blue ether, and space seems redolent of purity and beauty. The breeze
is as bland as the breath of a babe, coming through my casement with
the light, and bathing my parched cheek; and the sere summer is warming
away the gentle, genial spring. This is her last day; and to how many
countless thousands is it the last day of life? Oh! could I die as
gently, as beautifully as dies this budding season of the year, and
could I know my budding hopes, like these buds of spring, would, in
their summer, grow to fruit as these are growing, how welcome eternity!
But I, as well, have my law, and must wait its fulfilment. It is the
Sabbath wisely ordained to rest, and in its quiet and beauty obviating
care and sorrow. Would it were to the restless mind as to the weary
limbs, and as to these, to this give ease and repose!

I have been dreaming, and my boyhood days revive with busy memories. My
gentle mother, ever tender and kind, seems busy before me; the old
home, the old servants, as they were; the old school-house in the woods
by the branch, and many a merry face laughing and beaming around; and
my own old classmate, my solitary classmate, so loved, ah! so loved
even unto this day. It was only yesterday I saw him, old and care-worn,
yet in all the nobility of his soul, bearing with stern philosophy the
miseries of misfortune inflicted by the red hand of merciless war,
yielding with dignity and graceful resignation to the necessities
imposed by unscrupulous power, conscious of no wrong, and sustained by
that self-respect the result of constant and undeviating rectitude
which has marked his long life. From childhood our hearts have been
intertwined, and death only has the power to tear them apart. We sat
together long hours, and talked of the past--alternately, as their
memories floated up, asking each other, "Where is this one? and this?"
and to each inquiry the sad monosyllable, "Dead!" was the reply, of all
who were with us at school when we were boys. We alone are left!

  In my strife with the world, I can never forget
  The scenes of my childhood, and those who were there
  When I was a child. I remember them yet;
  Their features, their persons, to memory so dear,
  Are present forever, and cling round my heart--
  On the plains of the West, in the forest's deep wild,
  On the blue, briny sea, in commerce's mart,
  'Mid the throngs of gay cities with palaces piled.

  The bottle of milk, and the basket of food,
  Prepared by my mother, at dawning of day,
  For my dinner at school; and path through the wood:
  How well I remember that wood and that way,
  The brook which ran through it, the bridge o'er the brook,
  The dewberry-briers which grew by its side,
  My slate, and my satchel, and blue spelling-book,
  And little white pony father gave me to ride!

  The spring by the hill, where our bottles were placed
  To bathe in its waters, so clear and so cool,
  Till dinner-time came! Oh! then how we raced
  To get them, and dine in the shade by the pool!
  The spring, and the pool, and the shade are still there,
  But the dear old school-house has rotted and gone,
  And all who were happy about it are--where?
  Go--go to the church-yard, and ask the grave-stone!

  A few there are left, old, tottering, and gray,
  Apart and forgotten, as those who are dead;
  Yet sometimes they meet on life's thorny way,
  And talk, and live over the days that have fled.
  Oh! how I remember those faces so bright,
  Which beamed in their boyhood with honesty's ray!
  And oft, when alone, in the stillness of night,
  We're all at the school-house again, and at play!

Of all those who were there with me, the best loved was H.S. Smith, now
of Mobile; and he, with perhaps one or two more, are all that are now
living. Our ages are the same, within a week or two, I am sure; and we
are of the same height and same weight; and our attachment was mutual:
it has never been marred through threescore years and ten, and to-day
we are, as brothers should be, without a secret hidden in the heart,
the one from the other. As a friend, as a husband, as a father, as a
man, I know none to rival H.S. Smith. He never aspired to political
distinction: content to pursue, through life, the honorable and
responsible business of a merchant, he has distinguished himself for
energy, capacity, probity, and success; and in his advanced years
enjoys the confidence and esteem of all honest men. Our years have
been, since 1826, spent apart--communication, however, has never ceased
between us, and the early friendship, so remarked by all who knew us,
continues, and will until one is alone in life.

I know this narrative will not be interesting to those unacquainted
with Smith and myself. To such I say, close the book, nor read on, but
turn to that which may interest more, because more known. I could not
pen the memories of fifty years, and forbear those the sweetest now,
because their fruit to me has ever been the sweetest; and the noble
virtues of the private gentleman cannot be the less appreciated because
they have only adorned a circle where they shone in common with those
around him. These are the men who preserve the public morals, and
purify the atmosphere polluted by the corruptions of men prominent
before the world for distinguished abilities, and equally distinguished
immoralities. From these radiate that open-hearted honesty which
permeates society, and teaches by example, and which so often rebukes
the laxity of those who, from position, should be an example and an
ornament. The purling stream murmuring its lowly song beneath the
shading forest and modest shrubs may attract less attention than the
turbid, roaring river, but is always purer, sweeter, more health-giving
and lovely.

The romance of youth is the sugar of life, and its sweets to memory, as
life recedes, augment as "distance lends enchantment to the view." We
make no account of the evanescent troubles which come to us then but
for a moment, and are immediately chased away with the thickening
delights that gild young life and embalm it for the memories of age.
The gravity of years delights to recount these; and few are indisposed
to listen, for it is a sort of heart-history of every one, and in
hearing or reading, memory awakes, and youth and its joys are back
again, even to tottering, palsied age. Then, gentle reader, do not
sneer at me: these are all I have left; my household gods are torn
away, my boys sleep in bloody graves, my home is desolate, I am alone,
with only one to comfort me--she who shares the smiles and tears which
lighten and soothe the weary days of ebbing life.




CHAPTER XIII.

INFLUENCE OF CHILDHOOD.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS--FORTUNE--MIRABEAU B. LAMAR--DR. ALONZO CHURCH--JULIUS
CÆSAR--L.Q.C. LAMAR--TEXAN INDEPENDENCE--COLQUITT--LUMPKIN--WHAT A
GREAT MAN CAN DO IN ONE DAY--CHARLES J. JENKINS.


The memories of childhood cling, perhaps, more tenaciously than those
of any after period of life. The attachments and antipathies then
formed are more enduring. Our school-companions at our first
school--the children of our immediate neighborhood, who first rolled
with us upon the grass, and dabbled with us in the branch--we never
forget. Time, absence, protracted separation, all fail to obliterate
the features, the dispositions, or anything about them, which so
unconsciously fastens upon the mind, and grows into the tender soul of
childhood. These memories retain and bring back with them the feelings,
the likes and dislikes, which grew with them. These feelings are the
basis of lifetime loves, and eternal antipathies.

The boy is father to the man, as the girl is mother to the woman. Who
that has lived seventy years will not attest this from his own life's
experience? The generous, truthful boy will be the noble, honorable
man; the modest, timid, truthful girl will be the gentle, kind, and
upright woman. Nature plants the germ, and education but cultivates the
tree. It never changes the fruit. The boy who, when dinner-time comes,
happens to have a pie, when his fellows have none, and will open his
basket before his companions, and divide with them, will carry the same
trait to the grave. His hand will open to assist the needy, and he will
seek no reward beyond the consciousness of having done right. And he
who, with the same school-boy's treasure, will steal away, and devour
it behind the school-house, and alone, will, through life, be equally
mean in all his transactions. From motives of interest, he may assume a
generosity of conduct, but the innate selfishness of his heart will, in
the manner of his dispensing favors, betray itself. Education, and the
influences of polished society, may refine the manners, but they never
soften the heart to generous emotions, where nature has refused to sow
its seed. But where her hand has been liberal in this divine
dispensation, no misfortune, no want of education or association, will
prevent their germination and fructification. Such hearts divide their
joys and their sorrows, with the fortunate and afflicted, with the same
emotional sincerity with which they lift their prayers to Heaven.

The school-room is an epitome of the world. There the same passions
influence the conduct of the child, which will prompt it in riper
years, and the natural buddings of the heart spring forth, and grow on
to maturity with the mind and the person. College life is but another
phase of this great truth, when these natural proclivities are more
manifest, because more matured. It is not the greatest mind which marks
the greatest soul, and it is not the most successful who are the
noblest and best. The shrewd, the mean, and the selfish grow rich, and
are prosperous, and are courted and preferred, because there are more
who are mean and venal in the world than there are who are generous and
good. But it is the generous and good who are the great benefactors of
mankind; and yet, if there was no selfishness in human nature, there
would be no means of doing good. Wealth is the result of labor and
economy. These are not incompatible with generosity and ennobling
manliness. The proper discrimination in the application of duties and
donations toward the promotion of useful institutions, and the same
discrimination in the dispensation of private charities, characterize
the wise and good of the world. These attributes of mind and heart are
apparent in the child; and in every heart, whatever its character,
there is a natural respect and love for these, and all who possess
them. Such grow with their growth in the world's estimation, and are
prominent, however secluded in their way of life, or unpretending in
their conduct, with all who know them, or with whom, in the march of
life, they come in contact.

It is to but few that fortune throws her gifts, and these are rarely
the most deserving, or the goddess had not been represented with a
bandage over her eyes. She is blind, and though her worshippers are
many, she kisses but few, and cannot see if they be fair and beautiful
or crooked and ugly. Hence most of those who receive her favors conceal
them in selfishness, and hoard them to be despised; while hundreds,
slighted of her gifts, cultivate the virtues, which adorn and ennoble,
and are useful and beloved.

Will you, who yet live, and were children when I was a child, turn back
with me in memory to those days, and to those who were your
school-fellows and playmates then? Do you remember who were the brave
and generous, kind and truthful among them? and do you recall their
after lives? Answer me; were not these the true men in that day? Do you
remember William C. Dawson, Joseph H. Lumpkin, Lucius Q.C. Lamar, and
his brother Mirabeau B. Lamar, Eugenius Nesbit, Walter T. Colquitt, and
Eli S. Shorter? How varied in temperament, in character, in talent; and
yet how like in the great leading features of the soul! Love for their
country, love for their kind, love for the good was common to them all;
unselfish beyond what was necessary to the wants of their families,
generous in the outpourings of the soul, philanthropic, and full of
charity. They hoarded no wealth, nor sought it as a means of power or
promotion. Intent upon the general good, and content with an approving
conscience and the general approbation, their lives were correct, and
their services useful; and they live in the memory of a grateful people
as public benefactors.

There are others who rise to memory, who were at school with these, who
were men with these, but they shall be nameless, who struggled, and
successfully, to fill their coffers to repletion, and for nothing else;
who have been courted by the mercenary, and flattered by the fawning
sycophant; who, with their hoardings, have passed away, and no grateful
memory remains of their lives; their hoards are dissipated, and they
are only remembered to be despised. And yet others, who swam in the
creek and sported on the play-ground with all of these, whose vicious
propensities were apparent then--whose after lives were as their
boyhood promised, a curse to society in evil deeds and evil
example--have gone, too, unwept, unhonored, and luckily unhung.

Mirabeau B. Lamar was the son of John Lamar, of Putnam County, Georgia,
and received his education principally at Milledgeville and at Putnam.
From his earliest boyhood, he was remarkable for his genius and great
moral purity. His ardent, poetical temperament was accompanied with
exquisite modesty, and a gentle playfulness of disposition; with an
open, unaffected kindness of heart, which as a boy rendered him popular
with his fellows at school, and beloved by his teachers. There was in
him a natural chivalry of character, which characterized him above all
of his early compeers, and made him a model in conduct. Truthful and
manly, retiring and diffident, until occasion called out the latent
spirit of his nature; then the true greatness of his soul would burst
forth in an impetuous eloquence, startlingly fierce and overwhelming.
Nor was this excitement always wasted in words--not a few, when yet a
boy, have regretted the awakening of his wrath. It was upon occasions
like this, that his eye assumed an expression which I have never seen
in the eye of any other human being. His eyes were beautifully blue,
large, and round, and were always changing and varying in their
expression, as the mind would suggest thought after thought; and so
remarkable were these variations, that, watching him in repose, one who
knew him well could almost read the ideas gathering and passing through
his mind. There was a pleasant vein of satire in his nature, sometimes
expressed, but always in words and in a manner which plucked away its
sting:

  An abstract wit of gentle flow,
  Which wounds no friend, and hurts no foe.

He was my school-fellow and companion in childhood, my friend and
associate in early manhood; our intimacy was close and cordial, and in
after life this friendship became intense--and I knew him perhaps
better than any man ever knew him.

All the peculiarities of the boy remained with the man, distinguishing
him in all his associations. The refined purity of his nature made him
naturally to despise and scorn all meanness and vice, and so intensely
as to render an association with any man distinguished by these,
however exalted his intellect, or extensive his attainments,
impossible. Falsehood, or the slightest dishonorable conduct in any
man, put him at once beyond the pale of his favor or respect. In all my
association with him, I never saw an indelicate act in his conduct, or
heard an obscene word in his conversation. In youth, he was fond of the
society of ladies--fond of this society not for a pastime, but because
of his high appreciation of the virtues of those he selected for
society. In his verse, "Memoriam," he has embalmed the memory of those
of our early female friends he most esteemed. He rather courted this
association in the individual than in the collective assembly--for he
was not fond of crowds, either in society, or the ordinary assemblages
of men and women.

The love of fame, more than any other passion, fired his ambition; but
it was not the love of notoriety--the fame he courted was not that
which should only render his name conspicuous among men, that he might
receive the incense of hypocritical flattery, or be pointed at by the
fickle multitude--for such, his contempt was supreme; but it was the
desire of his heart, and the struggle of his life, to be embalmed in
men's memories as the benefactor of his race, to be remembered for his
deeds as the great and the good. This was the spontaneous prompting of
his heart, and for this he labored with the zeal of a martyr.

Much of his early life was devoted exclusively to literature. His
reading, though without order, was select and extensive. He was well
versed in ancient history. The heroic characters of Greece and Rome
were his especial admiration, and that of Brutus above all others. Of
the nations of modern Europe, and their history, he knew everything
history could teach. His imagination was fired with the heroic in the
character of those of modern times, as well as those of antiquity, and
seemed the model from which was formed his own. The inflexible
integrity, the devoted patriotism, the unselfish heroism of these were
constantly his theme when a schoolboy, and the example for his
imitation in manhood.

When a school-boy, and at a public examination and exhibition, (then
common at the academies throughout the State,) our teacher, that
paragon of good men, Dr. Alonzo Church, selected the tragedy of Julius
Cæsar for representation by the larger boys, and, by common consent,
the character of Brutus was assigned to Lamar. Every one felt that the
lofty patriotism and heroic virtues of the old Roman would find a fit
representative in Lamar. I remember, in our rehearsals, how completely
his identity would be lost in that of Brutus. He seemed to enter into
all the feelings and the motives which prompted the great soul of the
Roman to slay his friend for his country's good. Time has left but one
or two who participated in the play. The grave has closed over Lamar,
as over the others. Those who remain will remember the bearing of their
companion, on that occasion, as extraordinary--the struggle between
inclination and duty--the pathos with which he delivered his speech to
the people after the assassination, but especially his bearing and
manner in the reply to Cassius' proposition to swear the
conspirators--the expansion of his person to all its proportions, as if
his soul was about to burst from his body, as he uttered:

  "No, not an oath."

And again, when the burning indignation burst from him at the
supposition of the necessity of an oath to bind honorable men:

  "Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous,
  Old, feeble, carious, and such suffering souls
  That welcome wrongs, unto bad causes. Swear
  Such creatures as men doubt, but do not stain
  The even virtue of our enterprise,
  Nor the unsuppressive mettle of our spirits,
  To think that our cause, or our performance,
  Did need an oath; when every drop of blood
  That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,
  Is guilty of a several bastardy
  If he do break the smallest particle
  Of any promise that hath passed from him."

Though a boy, the effect upon the audience was electrical. The nature
of his boy representative was the same as that which animated Rome's
noblest son. From his soul he felt every word, and they burned from his
lips, with a truth to his soul and sentiments, that went home to every
heart in that assembly of plain farmers, and their wives and daughters.
There were not ten, perhaps, who had ever witnessed a theatrical
entertainment, but their hearts were mortal and honest, and they saw in
the mimic youth the impersonation of the nobility of soul, and mighty
truth, and the spontaneous burst of applause was but the sincerity of
truth. The exclamation of one I shall never forget: "He is cut out for
a great man." There was no stage-trick; he had never seen a theatre.
There was no assumption of fictitious feeling; but nature bubbled up in
his heart, and the words of Shakspeare, put into the mouth of Brutus,
were but the echo of the deep, true feelings of his soul. Through all
his life this great nature adorned his conversation, and exemplified
his conduct.

The soul of Brutus was born in Lamar. All the truth and chivalry
illustrative of the conduct of the one, was palpable in the other. Let
those who saw him, at San Jacinto, at the head of his sixty horsemen,
ride upon the ranks of Santa Anna's hosts, tell of his bearing in that
memorable charge, when he rose in his stirrups, and, waving his sword
over his head, exclaimed: "Remember, men, the Alamo! Remember Goliad,
Fannin, Bowie, and Travis! Charge! and strike in vengeance for the
murdered of our companions." Resistless as the tempest, they followed
his lead, and swept down upon the foe, charging through, and
disordering their ranks, and, following in their flight for miles, made
many a Mexican bite the dust, or yield himself a prisoner to their
intrepidity. To this charge was solely attributable the capture of
Santa Anna, Almonte, and the principal portion of the Mexican army, and
the establishment of Texan independence.

As a poet, he was above mediocrity, and his "Sully Riley," and many of
his fugitive pieces, will long survive, to perpetuate the refined
delicacy of his nature, when, perhaps, his deeds as a soldier and as
President of Texas shall have passed away. In stature he was below the
medium height, but was stout and muscular. His face was oval, and his
eyes blue, and exceedingly soft and tender in their expression, save
when aroused by excitement, when they were blazing and luminous with
the fire of his soul, which enkindled them. He was free from every
vice, temperate in living, and remarkable for his indifference to
money--with a lofty contempt for the friends and respectability which
it alone conferred. If there ever lived four men insensible to fear, or
superior to corruption, they were the four brothers Lamar. They are all
in eternity, and their descendants are few, but they wear unstained the
mantle of their ancestry.

L.Q.C. Lamar, the elder brother of the four, was educated at Franklin
College, and studied law in Milledgeville. Very soon after, he was
admitted to the Bar. He became distinguished for attention to business,
and for talent, as well as legal attainments. Like his brother, M.B.
Lamar, he was remarkable for his acute sense of honor and open
frankness, a peerless independence, and warm and noble sympathies. He
married, while young, the daughter of D. Bird. The mother of his lady
was one of the Williamson sisters, so remarkable for their superiority,
intellectually, and whose descendants have been, and are, so
distinguished for talent.

The character of L.Q.C. Lamar as a man, and as a lawyer, prompted the
Legislature of the State to elevate him to the Bench of the Superior
Court when very young; and at thirty-two years of age, he was known
throughout the State as the great Judge Lamar. This family had
contributed perhaps a greater number of men of distinguished character
than any other family of the State. Zachariah Lamar, the uncle of Judge
Lamar, was a man of high order of mind, distinguished for his love of
truth, stern honesty, and great energy. He was the father of Colonel
John B. Lamar, who fell in the service of the South, in the recent
conflict. He was one of Georgia's noblest sons, and his memory is
cherished by all who knew him. Henry G. Lamar, a former member of
Congress, and Judge of the Superior Court of the State, was a cousin of
both John B. and M.B. Lamar; and the eminent and eloquent Lucius Lamar,
of Mississippi, who was considered, when young, the best orator of the
House of Representatives of the United States Congress, is the son of
Judge L.Q.C. Lamar.

The name of Lamar has long been a synonym for talent and chivalrous
honor in Georgia. They have been distinguished in every pursuit, and no
stain has ever rested upon the name--in whatever avocation employed,
conspicuous for capacity, honesty, and energy. They are of French
extraction, and to their latest posterity they continue to exhibit
those traits peculiar to the French--chivalry, intense sensibility,
love of truth, refinement of manner, lofty bearing, and a devotion to
honor which courts death rather than dishonor.

The name of M.B. Lamar is identified with the history of Texas, as a
leader among that band of remarkable men who achieved her independence
of Mexican rule--Houston, Sidney Johnson, Bowie, Travis, Crockett, and
Fannin. He was twice married; his first wife, Miss Jordan, died young,
leaving him a daughter. This was a bitter blow, and it was long ere he
recovered it. His second wife was the daughter of the distinguished
Methodist preacher John Newland Moffitt, and sister of Captain Moffitt,
late of the service of the Confederacy. He died at Richmond, Fort Bend
County, Texas, beloved and regretted as few have been.

Perhaps among the most remarkable men of the State, contemporaneous
with the Lamars, was Walter T. Colquitt, Joseph H. Lumpkin, Charles J.
Jenkins, William C. Dawson, and Charles J. McDonald: all of these were
natives of the State--Colquitt, Eugenius A. Nesbit, and McDonald, of
Hancock County; Lumpkins, Oglethorpe, Dawson, Green, and Jenkins, of
Richmond; Nesbit, of Greene. At the period of time when these men were
young, education was deemed essential, at least to professional men.
They all enjoyed the benefits of a classical education. Lumpkin and
Colquitt received theirs at Princeton, New Jersey, and I believe were
classmates, at least they were college-mates. Colquitt returned home
before graduating; Lumpkin received the second honor in his class.
Returning to Georgia, Lumpkin read law in the town of Lexington, the
court-house town of his native county; and commenced, as soon as
admitted, its practice in the northern circuit of the State. At the
time he came to the Bar, it was ornamented with such men as Thomas W.
Cobb, Stephen Upson, George R. Gilmer, John A. Herd, and Duncan G.
Campbell. He rose rapidly to eminence in the midst of this galaxy of
talent and learning. The great John M. Dooly was upon the bench of this
circuit, and was the intimate friend of Wilson Lumpkin, an elder
brother of Joseph H. Lumpkin.

Wilson Lumpkin and Joseph H. Lumpkin were politically opposed. The
former was an especial friend of Dooly; the latter, of William H.
Crawford. Mr. Crawford, soon after Lumpkin's admission to the Bar,
returned to his home, near Lexington, and gave his countenance and
support to him, and at the same time his bitterest opposition to the
political aspirations of his brother. The forensic abilities of young
Lumpkin were winning for him in the State a proud eminence. His exalted
moral character, studious habits, and devotion to business attracted
universal observation and general comment. He had been from his birth
the favorite of all his acquaintances, for the high qualities of his
head and heart--the model held up by mothers for the example of their
sons. Scarcely any boy in the county was ever reprimanded for a wild
frolic or piece of amusing mischief, who was not asked, "Why can't you
be like Joe Lumpkin?"

All this favoritism, however flattering, did not spoil him, as is too
frequently the case with precocious youth. His ambition had fixed a
lofty mark, and he availed himself of this universal popularity to
reach it; at the same time, he left no effort neglected to deserve it,
and maintain it, once acquired.

The State was teeming with young men of talent, scarcely a county
without at least one of great promise. Lumpkin saw and knew the rivalry
would be fierce, and success only to be obtained by superior abilities
and eminent attainments. The Legislature was the first step to fame,
and political fame then the most desired and the most sought. Party was
rancorous in its spirit, producing intense excitement, pervading every
bosom, male and female, to the extremes of the State--an excitement
which so stamped itself upon the hearts of the entire people as to
endure, and to mark their character and opinions even until to-day.

Lumpkin was very decided in his opinions, and open in their expression,
yet there was none of that empoisoned bitterness in these expressions
so characteristic of political aspirants in that day. Such was alien to
his kindly nature; and if it had not been, there were other causes to
estop him from any such indulgence. His family was large. There were
eight brothers; only one of these was younger than himself; these were
about equally divided in political sentiment, and they, at least some
of them, less amiable or less considerate than himself. He was the
favorite of all, and was continually in communication with all of them,
and was really the moderator of the family, and the healer of its
feuds. At this time, too, the deep morality of his nature was growing
into piety, and this sentiment was mellowing from his heart even the
little of unkindness that had ever found a place there.

At twenty-five years of age he was sent, by an almost unanimous vote,
to the Legislature from his county. He came with an exaggerated
reputation for talent, especially for oratorical talent, and many of
his friends feared he would not be able to sustain it in that body,
where there were many of age and experience, with characters already
long established for learning and eloquence, and also many young men
from different parts of the State, who, like himself, had already won
fame for high talent. Among these was Robert Augustus Bell, in sight of
whose grave I write these lines. He passed away in early life, but
Georgia never produced a brighter or a nobler spirit. There were also
Charles Dougherty, (who died young, but not without making his mark,)
William Law, Hopkins Holsey, and others, who have honored themselves
and the State by eminent services on the Bench and at the Bar, and in
the councils of their native and other States to which many of them
emigrated.

At the very opening of the session, Lumpkin took position with the
first on the floor of the House of Representatives. His first speech
was one of thrilling eloquence, and, before its conclusion, had emptied
the Senate chamber; many of its oldest and most talented members
crowding about him, and listening with delight.

The memory of that day revives with the freshness of yesterday. Two or
three only remain with me now, to recall the delight with which all
hearts were filled who acted, politically, with Lumpkins, as the
beautiful and cogent sentences thrilled from his lips, with a trembling
fervor, which came from an excitement born of the heart, and which went
to the heart. Bell, Brailsford, Dougherty, Rumbert, and Baxter, who,
with myself, grouped near him, all are in the grave, save only I, and,
standing a few weeks since by the fresh mould that covers Joseph H.
Lumpkin, and yesterday by the grave of Bell, my mind wandered back to
the old State House, and to those who were with me there. Separated for
more than forty years from the home of my birth, being with, and
becoming a part of another people--a noble, generous, and gallant
people--and almost forgetting my mother tongue, these had faded away
almost into forgetfulness; but, tottering with years, and full of
sorrows, I am here amid the scenes made lovely and memorable by their
presence, when we were all young and hopeful. They come back to me, and
now, while I write, it seems their spirits float in the air of my
chamber, and smile at me. Why is my summons delayed so long? All that
made life lovely is gone--youth, fortune, and household gods. My
children are in bloody graves--she who bore them preceded them to
eternity; yet I live on, and sigh, and remember, while imagination
peoples with the past the scenes about me. The faces, the jest, and
merry laugh come again; I see and hear them again. Oblivion veils away
the interval of forty-five years, and all is as it was. Oh, could the
illusion last till death shall make it truth! It is, I feel, but a
foretaste of the reality soon to be, when hearts with hearts shall
group again, and the reunion of sundered ties be eternal.

Lumpkin served a few sessions in the Legislature, and retired from
public life to devote his entire attention to his profession. He had
married, almost as soon as he was admitted to the Bar, one to whom he
had been attached from boyhood, and the cares of a family were
increasing and demanding his attention and efforts. No man ever more
faithfully discharged these duties.

The judiciary of Georgia had consisted of two courts only--the
superior, and inferior or county court--from the organization of the
State. The country had long felt the want of a supreme court, for the
correction of errors, and to render uniform the decisions upon the law
throughout the State, which, under the prevailing system, had become
very diverse, and which was becoming grievously oppressive. Finally it
was determined by the Legislature to establish a supreme court. After
the passage of the law, however, its organization was incomplete for
the want of judges. Party was distracting the councils of the State,
and was carried into everything, and each party desired a controlling
influence in this court, and their united co-operation in selecting
judges could only be effected by the dominant party consenting to
Joseph H. Lumpkin's accepting the chief-justiceship. He consented to do
so, and the organization of the court was completed. This position,
under repeated elections, he continued to hold until the day of his
death, which occurred in the spring of 1867.

No man, perhaps, ever had the confidence of a people in the discharge
of a high judicial duty more than had Joseph H. Lumpkin. His public
duties were discharged with the most scrupulous conscientiousness, as
were all of those pertaining to his private life and relations. He died
in the neighborhood of his birth, and where he had continued to live
through his whole life, passing through time with the companions of his
childhood, and preserving their confidence and affection to the last.
His death was sudden, and deeply mourned throughout the State, which
had delighted so long to honor him. His name is identified with her
history, as one of her brightest and best men.

The talents of Judge Lumpkin were of a high order, and though he
distinguished himself as a jurist, they were certainly more fitted for
the forum than the bench. Those who knew him best, and who were best
fitted to judge, unite in the opinion that his eminence in political
life would have been greater than that which distinguished him as a
judge. He was a natural orator, and his oratory was of the highest
order. His ideas flowed too fast for the pen, and he thought more
vividly when on his feet, and in the midst of a multitude, than when in
the privacy of his chamber. His language was naturally ornate and
eloquent, and the stream of thought which flowed on in declamation,
brightened and grew, in its progress, to a mighty volume. This, with
the fervor of intense feeling which distinguished his efforts, made
them powerfully effective. In toning down these feelings, and
repressing the ornate and beautiful to the cold, concise legal opinion,
his delivery lost not only its beauty, but much of its strength and
power. He might have been less useful, but certainly he would have been
more distinguished, had he pursued the bent of his genius. Abilities
like Lumpkin's must succeed respectably, if directed to any pursuit;
and even should they be prostituted to base and dishonorable purposes,
they will distinguish the possessor above the herd.

His temperament was nervous, his sensibility acute, and his sentiments
exalted. Fluent, with great command of language, he was peculiarly
gifted for display in debate, and it was supposed, when he first came
into the Legislature, that he would soon rise to the first position in
the national councils. But he determined for himself a different field;
and, in view of his eminent services as an able and conscientious
judge, who shall say he did not choose wisely?

In an almost adjoining county to that of the residence of Judge
Lumpkin, was coming forward, in the profession of law, another gifted
son of Georgia--Walter T. Colquitt. He was a compeer, at the Bar, of
Chief-Justice Lumpkin. They were admitted to practice about the same
time. He was a native of the county of Hancock. His mother was the only
sister of the eight brothers Holt, every one of whom was distinguished
for probity and worth. They all lived and died in the State, and every
one of them was a representative man. They have all left descendants
but one, and none yet have stained the name. As their ancestors, they
are energetic, honest, and most worthy citizens.

Colquitt gave evidence, when very young, of his future career. As a
boy, he was wild and full of mirth, but little inclined to study. He
was fond of sport of every kind, and in everything to which his mind
and inclinations turned, he would be first. Compelled, by parental
authority, to apply himself, he at once mastered his task, and was
ready, then, for fun or frolic. Remarkable for physical powers, he
fondly embarked in all athletic sports, and in all excelled. Bold and
fearless, he was the leader in all adventures of mischief, and always
met the consequences in the same spirit. It was remarked of him, when a
boy, by one who knew him well, that in all he did he played "high,
game," never "low, Jack."

In the wildness of his mischief there was always discoverable boldness
and mind. At school and at college, though rarely winning an honor, he
was always admitted by his fellows to possess superior abilities. These
abilities were manifest more in the originality of his ideas, and their
peculiar exemplification in his conduct, than in the sober, every-day
manner of thought and action. His mind was versatile, and seemed
capable of grasping and analyzing any subject. Quick to perceive and
prompt to execute, yielding obedience to no dogma, legal or political,
he followed the convictions of his mind, without regard to precedent or
example. His knowledge of human nature seemed intuitive, and his
capacity of adaptation was without limit. At the period when he
commenced the practice of law, the successful abilities in the
profession were forensic. Every case was tried by a jury, and the law
made juries judges of law and fact. The power to control and direct
these was the prime qualification of a lawyer, and nature had bestowed
this, in an eminent degree, upon Colquitt. There were few more eminent
as advocates, or more successful as practitioners, though his legal
attainments were never of a very high order. He was elevated to the
bench, where he remained but a short time, feeling that this was no
situation for the display of his peculiar powers, nor the proper or
successful course for the gratification of his ambition. He had, at a
previous time, united himself with the Methodist Church, and was
licensed to preach. It was his habit to open his court, each morning,
with prayer, and not unfrequently, during the week of his court, in
each county of his circuit, to preach two or three sermons. He was a
general of the militia, and would come down from the bench to review a
regiment or brigade. It was this discharge of his multifarious duties
which prompted an aged sister of his church, when the great men of the
State were being discussed by the venerable ladies of a certain
neighborhood, to claim the palm for Colquitt.

"Ah! you may talk of your great men, but none on 'em is equal to
brother Colquitt; for he, in our county, tried a man for his life, and
sentenced him to be hung, preached a sermon, mustered all the men in
the county, married two people, and held a prayer-meeting, all in one
day. Now, wa'n't that great?"

Before a jury he was unequalled. His knowledge of men enabled him to
determine the character of every juror, and his versatility to adapt
his argument or address to their feelings and prejudices so effectually
as to secure a verdict in mere compliment to the advocate. He left the
bench to enter the political arena. It was here he found the field
nature designed him for. Before the people, he was omnipotent. At this
period Dawson, Cooper, Colquitt, Cobb, Stephens, and Toombs were before
the people--all men of talent, and all favorites in the State. This was
especially true of Dawson, Cobb, and Stephens, and no men better
deserved the public favor.

Very soon after he went into Congress, he, with Cooper and Black,
abandoned the Whig party. At the approaching election they canvassed
the State, and justified their course before the people. There was no
middle ground on which to stand. To abandon one party, was to go over,
horse, foot, and dragoons, to the other, which was always ready to
welcome new converts of talent and popularity. These three became, in
the canvass, the champions of Democracy, and fiercely waged the war in
antagonism with their former allies. In this contest were made manifest
the great abilities of Colquitt, Toombs, Stephens, Cobb, and Herschel
V. Johnson.

Subsequently, Colquitt was elected to the United States Senate, where
he was distinguished as a debater and leading man of the Democratic
party; but his talents and peculiar manner were better suited for the
debates of the House of Representatives, and the hustings.

Lumpkin was ardent and persuasive. Colquitt was equally ardent, but
more aggressive. Where Lumpkin solicited with a burning pathos,
Colquitt demanded with the bitterest sarcasm. Lumpkin was slow and
considerate; Colquitt was rapid and overwhelming. The one was the sun's
soft, genial warmth; the other, the north wind's withering blast.
Colquitt was remarkable for daring intrepidity; Lumpkin for collected
firmness. Lumpkin persuaded; Colquitt frightened. Both were brave, but
Colquitt was fiercely so. Lumpkin was mild, but determined.
Unaggressive himself, the dignity and gentleness of his character
repelled it in others. The consequence was, that he passed through life
without strife with his fellow-man, while Colquitt was frequently in
personal conflict with those as impetuous as himself. The open
frankness and social nature of Colquitt won him many friends, and of
that description most useful to politicians--friends who were devoted,
who felt for, and preferred him to any other man. His features were
versatile, and variable as an April day, betraying every emotion of his
mind--especially his eyes, which were soft or fierce, as the passion of
the heart sprang to view in them, and spoke his soul's sensations. His
oratory was playful, awakening wild mirth in his auditors, and again it
was impetuous and sarcastic, overwhelming with invective and
denunciation.

Charles J. Jenkins, a compeer of Lumpkin and Colquitt, was essentially
different from both in many of the features of his character. His mind
was more logical, more analytical, and capable of deeper research. He
had little ambition, and whenever he was before the people, it was when
his friends thrust him there. The instinctive morality of his nature,
like that of Lumpkin, would never permit the compromise of conscience
or dignity of character so often the case with men of ardent natures
and intense ambition. Eminently cool in debate, he never made any
attempt at forensic display, but confined himself exclusively to the
logic of his subject. He clearly saw his way, and carefully went along,
spurning ornament or volubility, and only compelling into service words
which clearly and succinctly conveyed his ideas, and these only
elucidated the subject-matter he was discussing. Strictly honest, and
equally truthful, he never deviated, under any circumstances, from what
he believed his duty. Only for a short time was he in the Legislature,
and then he displayed in most exciting times the great virtues of his
nature.

Upon one occasion, the party with which he acted determined, to defeat
a certain measure, to leave the chamber in a body, and break the
quorum. It was the only means in their power to prevent a measure which
they deemed wrong in principle and injurious to the public interest.
Jenkins thought such extreme measures wrong, and entirely
unjustifiable. Though as much opposed to the views of the majority as
any member of his party, he refused to participate in their action, and
was the only member of the party who persistently remained in his seat.
This conduct was censured by his party friends, and he immediately
resigned his seat and returned to his constituency, who, knowing and
appreciating the great worth of the man, returned him at once to his
seat under a new election. In all the relations of life the same traits
of character have distinguished him. While at the Bar, his rank was the
first; this, combined with his integrity and great firmness, made him
so conspicuous before the people of the State, that he was placed on
the bench of the Supreme Court--a position he distinguished by his
great legal attainments, dignity, and purity.

The political opinions of Judge Jenkins were in many of their features
unpopular. He was always opposed to universal suffrage, and made no
secret of his sentiments. He was opposed to an elective judiciary, and
to mob-rule in every shape. He despised alike the arts and the
humiliation of party politicians, and was never a man to accept for
public trust any man whose only recommendation to public favor was his
availability, because of his popularity with the masses. He was taken
from the supreme bench to fill the gubernatorial chair of the State,
and no man, not even Jackson, Early, or Troup, ever more dignified this
elevated position--none ever had the same trying difficulties to
encounter. Chosen by the people at a period when civil war had
distracted the government and uprooted all the landmarks so long the
guide for those who preceded him--when a manifest determination of the
so-called Congress, representing but two-thirds of the States, was
apparent to usurp all power--when the State governments of ten States,
though that of their people, were threatened with military usurpation,
Jenkins remained firm to his convictions of duty. The credit of the
State had never suffered while under his guardianship; a large amount
was in her treasury; this was an objective point for the usurpers. He
met the military satrap, and was assured of his intentions. Satisfied
of his insincerity and dishonesty, knowing he held the power of the
bayonet, and would be unscrupulous in its use, calm as a Roman senator
he defied the power of this unprincipled minion of a base, corrupt, and
unconstitutional power, and deliberately removed the treasure of the
State, and applied it to the liquidation of her obligations. Hurled
from the office bestowed by his fellow-citizens, so far as he could he
protected their interests, at the hazard of the horrors of Fort Pulaski
and the sweat-box--the favorite instruments of torture of this infamous
defendant of an irresponsible Congress, and now for personal safety,
exiled from home and country, finds protection under a foreign flag.
This one act alone will be sufficient to immortalize the name of
Charles J. Jenkins, and to swell with pride the heart of every true
Georgian who aided to place such a man in such a position, at such a
time. Governor Jenkins still lives, and if the prayers of a virtuous
and oppressed people may avail on high, will be spared to reap in
better days his reward in their gratitude.

An exalted intellect, unaccompanied with exalted virtue, can never
constitute greatness. In whatever position placed, or whatever
inducements persuade, virtue and a conscientious conviction of right
must regulate the mind and conduct of man to make him great. The
tortuous course of politics, made so by unprincipled men, renders the
truly upright man usually a poor politician. He who possesses the
capacity to discern the true interests of a country, and who will
virtuously labor to secure and promote those interests, defying
opposition and fearlessly braving the calumnies of interested, corrupt
men, organized into parties--which so often lose sight of the interests
of their country, in promoting party ends, or from inflamed
passions--is the great man. He whose pedestal is virtue, and whose
action is honest, secures the respect of his own age, and becomes the
luminary of succeeding ages. Stern honesty often imposes unpleasant
duties--strict obedience to its behests, not unfrequently involves
apparent inconsistencies of conduct; but the conscientious man will
disregard these in doing what his judgment determines right--the only
real consistency which sustains a man in his own estimation, and leaves
no bitter reflections for the future. To subserve the cause of right,
is always a duty--not so the cause of party or selfish interest. All
men respect the right, but many have not the virtue to resist wrong.
Ambition prompts for success the expedient: and hence the laxity of
political morals. This is slipping the cable that the ship may swing
from her anchorage and drift with the tide; any minnow may float with
the current, but it requires a strong fish to stem and progress against
the stream. A man, to brave obloquy and public scorn, requires strong
moral courage; but when his judgment convinces him that he is right,
and when he feels that his intentions are pure, conscientious, and
sincere, this may ruffle him for a time, but never permanently disturbs
his peace or injures his reputation. The truly great are only known by
nobly resisting every temptation to wrong, and braving the world's
condemnation in pursuing and sustaining the right. It is the soul to
which greatness belongs, not the mind. This latter is too often, in its
transcendent greatness, coupled with a mean and degraded soul, which
stimulates the mind's power to the corruption of the masses, and the
destruction of public morals, undermining the very basis of society and
government.

The combination of a great mind and a great soul constitutes the truly
great, and the life of such a man creates a public sentiment which,
like an intense essence, permeates all it touches, leaving its
fragrance upon all. Such a man was George M. Troup, such a man is
Charles J. Jenkins; and the incense of his character will be a
fragrance purifying and delighting the land when he shall have passed
away. The exalted abilities of his mind, the great purity of his heart,
the noble elevation of his sentiments, and his exquisite
conscientiousness, will be an honor and an example to be remembered and
emulated by the coming generations of his native land.




CHAPTER XIV.

A REVOLUTIONARY VETERAN.

TAPPING REEVE--JAMES GOULD--COLONEL BENJAMIN TALMADGE--THE EXECUTION OF
MAJOR ANDRE--CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON--A BREACH OF DISCIPLINE--BURR AND
HAMILTON--MARGARET MONCRIEF--COWLES MEADE.


Fifty years ago, the only law-school in the United States was taught by
Tapping Reeve and James Gould, at Litchfield, Connecticut. The young
men of the South, destined for the profession of law, usually commenced
their studies in the office of some eminent practitioner at home, and,
after a year or so spent in reading the elementary authors, they
finished by attending the lectures at this school. A course of lectures
occupied a year. Then they were considered prepared to commence the
practice.

Many of the young men of Georgia, at that day, received their education
at the North. Most of those who selected law as a profession, finished
at the school in Litchfield. Few remain in life at this day who
graduated there. Thomas Flornoy and Nicholas Ware were among the first,
who read law there, who were natives of Georgia. William Cumming
succeeded them. Then followed L.Q.C. Lamar, William C. Dawson, Thaddeus
Goode Holt, and many others of less distinction, all of whom are gone
save Judge Holt, who remains a monument and a memory of the class and
character of the Bar of Georgia fifty years ago, when talent and
unspotted integrity characterized its members universally, and when the
private lives and public conduct of lawyers were a withering rebuke to
the reiterated slanders upon the profession--when Crawford, Berrien,
Harris, Cobb, Longstreet, the brothers Campbell, and a host of others,
shed lustre upon it.

1820 was spent by the writer at the law-school at Litchfield, in
company with William Crawford Banks, Hopkins Holsey, Samuel W. Oliver,
and James Clark, from Georgia. All are in the grave except Clark, who,
like the writer, lives in withered age. His career has been a
successful and honorable one, and I trust a happy one.

During this probation it was my fortune to form many acquaintances
among the young and the old whom I met there, and from them to learn
much, especially from the old. At that time there resided in the
pleasant little village, Governor Oliver Wolcott, Benjamin Talmadge,
and my distinguished preceptors, Tapping Reeve and James Gould.

Colonel Benjamin Talmadge was a distinguished officer in the American
army of the Revolution, and was a favorite aide of Washington. It was
he who was charged with the painful duty of superintending the
execution of Major Andre, who suffered as a spy. He was a tall,
venerable man, and though cumbered with years, when I knew him, was
active and energetic in attending to his business. The first time I
ever met him, he was standing in front of his yard-gate, shaping a
gate-pin with a small hatchet, which he used as a knife, to reduce it
to the desired size and form. One end he held in his left hand; the
other he rested against the trunk of a sycamore-tree, which grew near
by and shaded the sidewalk. I knew his character and his services. As I
approached him, my feelings were sublimated with the presence of a man
who had been the aide to and confidant of George Washington. He was
neatly attired in gray small-clothes. His white hair was carefully
combed over the bald portion of his head, as, hatless, he pursued his
work. His position was fronting me, and I caught his brilliant gray
eyes as he looked up from his work to know who was passing.
Involuntarily I stopped, and, lifting my hat from my head, bowed
respectfully to him, and passed him uncovered, as he returned my
salutation with that ease and dignity characteristic of the gentleman
of the old school. To-day that towering, manly form is present to my
view, as it stood before me then. He inquired of Judge Gould, his
immediate neighbor, who I was, and was pleased to mention my respectful
demeanor toward him. My reply, when told of this, was: "I should have
despised myself, could I have acted otherwise toward one so eminent,
and who was the confidential friend of Washington." This was reported
to the venerable colonel, who showed his appreciation of my conduct by
extending to me many kindnesses during my stay in the village.

By his own hearth-stone I have listened with eager interest to the
narration of Andre's capture and execution. He was opposed, with
Alexander Hamilton, to the hanging of Andre, and always contended that
it was not clearly established that he had come into the American lines
as a spy. Andre, when captured, wore his uniform under an overcoat,
which concealed it, and the papers found on his person only proved that
he sought to deliver them to Arnold. The day before his execution he
solemnly declared his only object was an interview with Arnold, or,
should he fail in this, to contrive to send him the papers which had
been found upon him. When he knew the commander-in-chief had refused
him clemency, through Colonel Talmadge he appealed to Washington to let
him be shot, and die a soldier's death--not to permit him to perish as
a felon upon the gallows. Colonel Talmadge, when he stated this wish to
him, assured him it would be granted. Every effort was made, by his
officers and aides, to induce the granting of the request, but in vain.
"And never in my life," said Colonel Talmadge, "have I had imposed upon
me so painful a duty as communicating this fact to the young and
gallant officer. He saw my embarrassment and feelings, and, rising from
his seat, said: 'Colonel, I thank you for the generous interest you
have taken in my case. It has proved of no avail; yet I am none the
less grateful.' He paused a moment, when he continued: 'It is hard to
die, and to die thus. My time is short, and I must employ it in writing
to my family, and must request that you will see my letters forwarded
to headquarters.' I promised; when he extended his hand, and, grasping
mine, asked: 'Is this our last parting, or shall I see you to-morrow?'
I told him it had been made my duty to superintend his execution. 'We
will part at the grave,' he said, and, covering his face with his
hands, sank, sobbing, into his chair.

"I went away sorrowing, and spent a sleepless night. When the hour had
arrived, I waited on him in his prison, and found him cool and prepared
for the sacrifice. We both felt too much for words, and there was
little said. I remember he asked me to procure his watch, which had
been taken from him, if possible, and send it to headquarters. He
desired his family to have it."

"Did you ever get it?" I asked.

The colonel bit his lip in shame for him who had it, and only answered:
"Never."

"The grave was prepared near the gallows, and the open coffin was by
it. As Andre approached, he saw it, and a shudder ran through his
frame. Turning to me, he said: 'I am to be buried there. One more
request, colonel. Mark it; so that when this cruel conflict shall have
ended, my friends may find it!' He then shook hands with me, and, with
unfaltering steps, went to the scaffold."

I heard this narrative many times, and with its ending the white
kerchief about the old man's neck was loosed, and the moisture from his
eyes told that the feelings as well as the memory of that day still
survived. He would a moment after continue: "Washington was a stern
man--he was a hard man--slow to form opinions or resolutions; but once
formed, there was no power under heaven to move him. He never formed
either until his judgment was convinced of the right. There was less of
impulse in his nature than in that of any man I ever knew. I served by
his side for years, and I never saw the least manifestation of passion
or surprise. He received the information of Arnold's treachery with the
same apparent indifference that he would an orderly's report; and with
the same indifference of manner signed the death-warrant of Andre.

"This indifference was marked with a natural sternness, which forbid
all familiarity to all men. Even Colonel Hamilton, who was naturally
facetious, never ventured, during his long service, the slightest
intimacy. Hamilton, whom he esteemed above all men, and to whom he gave
his entire confidence, always observed in his private intercourse, as
in his public, the strictest etiquette. This cool sternness was natural
to him, and its influence was overwhelming. The humblest and the
highest felt it alike; inspiring a respectful awe, commanding a
dignified demeanor. He was best beloved at a distance, because the
qualities of the man were only present, and these were purer and more
lofty than those given to any other man. There is no character of
ancient or modern times so consistent as that of Washington. He was
always cool, always slow, always sincere. There is no act of his life
evincing the influence of prejudice. He decided all matters upon
evidence, and the unbiased character of his mind enabled him
impartially to weigh this evidence, and the great strength of his
judgment to analyze and apply it. He seemed to understand men
instinctively, and if he was ever deceived in any of those in close
association with him, it was Tom Jefferson. Burr had not been on his
staff ten days before he understood him perfectly, and he very soon got
rid of him. Of all the officers of the Continental army, General Greene
was his favorite; and he was right, for Greene was a great military
man--far superior to Washington himself, and none knew it better than
he. I remember to have heard him say that Greene was the only man in
the army who could retrieve the mistakes of Gates and save the Southern
country. The result verified the statement.

"Washington's lenity never extended to the excusing of any palpable
neglect of duty. The strict regularity of his own private character was
carried into everything connected with his public duties. However much
he esteemed any man, it was for his worth in his especial position, and
not because of any peculiarity of bearing or properties of heart. That
he appreciated the higher qualities of the heart, is certainly
true--but for what they were worth always--and neither quality of head
or heart created a prejudice which would lead him to excuse any neglect
of duty or laxity of morals. He was not without heart, but it was slow
to be moved, and never so moved as to warp or obscure his judgment, or
influence the discharge of his duty.

"Mrs. Washington was less amiable than her husband, and at times would
sadly tax his patience--she never forgot that she was wealthy when she
married him, and would sometimes allude to it in no very pleasant
manner to her husband; who, notwithstanding, bore with her with
remarkable patience. I do not remember ever to have seen General
Washington laugh; sometimes a faint smile would tinge his features; but
very soon they returned to the sedateness and gravity of expression
common to them; and though they rarely brightened with a smile, they
were never deformed with a frown. There was in their expression a
fixity indicative of his character, a purpose settled and unalterable.
Of all the men I have ever known, Washington was the only one who never
descended from the stilts of his dignity, or relaxed the austerity of
his bearing. It has been said that he swore at General Charles Lee at
the battle of Brandywine--I could never have it authenticated. He asked
excitedly of General Lee, by what ill-timed mistake the disaster had
occurred, which was forcing his retreat. Lee was a passionate, bad man,
and disliked to serve under Washington's command. He had served with
distinction in the British army in Europe, and felt, in adopting the
cause of the colonies, he should have been proffered the chief command.
There had been an intrigue at Philadelphia, headed by Dr. Rush, aided
by others, to prejudice Congress against the commander-in-chief, to
have him displaced, that Lee might succeed him. If Washington was aware
of this, it never escaped him to any of his military family; and
certainly never influenced his conduct toward Lee--for he had
confidence in his military abilities, and always gave him the position
where the most honor was to be won. Lee's reply to Washington was
violent, profane, and insolent. He said to General Lafayette that his
reply was: 'No man can boast of possessing more of that damned rascally
virtue than yourself.' He was arrested, court-martialed, and by its
decision, suspended for one year from command. He never returned to the
service, but retired to the interior of Virginia, and lived in great
seclusion until his death.

"Toward the young officers Washington was more indulgent than to the
older and more experienced. He would not see the smaller improprieties
of conduct in these, unless brought officially to his notice. Then they
were uniformly punished. He frequently counselled and advised them, but
was ever severe toward intemperance, with old and young.

"Upon one occasion, a certain Maryland colonel came suddenly and quite
unexpectedly upon the General, who was taking a walk. The colonel
attempted to salute, but in doing so, disclosed his inebriety. 'You are
intoxicated, sir,' said the General, with a humorous twinkle of the
eye. The colonel replied: 'I am glad you informed me, General; I will
go to my quarters before I make an ass of myself;' turned and walked
away. Without the slightest movement of feature the General continued
his walk. Nothing more was heard of it until the battle of Monmouth, in
which the colonel distinguished himself. The day after, in going the
grand-rounds, he approached the colonel, and remarked: 'Your gallantry
of yesterday excuses your late breach of discipline;' and saluting him,
passed on.

"In a conversation over the mess-table, at West Point, some severe
remarks upon the conduct of Washington, in hanging Andre, escaped
Hamilton. He said, warmly, that it was cruelly unjust, and would
assuredly sully the future fame of the General; that he felt aggrieved
that the ardent solicitations of his staff, and most of the
field-officers, in the unfortunate young man's behalf, had been so
little regarded. These remarks reached the ears of the General. We were
not aware of this, until some weeks subsequently he summoned his staff
to his presence, and stated the fact.

"'You will remember, gentlemen, that Captain Asgill, who was a
prisoner, and sentenced, by lot, to die, in retaliation for the
coldblooded murder of Captain Hale, by the orders of a British officer.
You, and many of the officers of the army, interceded to save his life.
His execution was, in consequence, respited. The heart-rending appeal
of his mother and sisters, communicated to me in letters from those
high-bred and accomplished women, determined me to lenity in his case,
and he was pardoned. Immediately upon the heels of this pardon comes an
intrigue to seduce from his duty and allegiance a major-general,
distinguished for services and capacity; and Major Andre is the
instrument to carry out this intrigue--to communicate their plans to
the traitor, and to consummate the arrangement. These plans were to
seize, treacherously, the person of the general commanding the American
forces, and carry him a prisoner to the enemy's headquarters. Lenity to
this man would have been a high crime against Congress, the army, and
the country, which could not have been justified. I regretted the
necessity as much as any of you; but mine was the responsibility, not
yours. Its being a painful duty did not make it less a duty. Not mine
alone, but the safety of the army depended upon the discharge of this
duty--a duty recognized by all nations in civilized warfare. I felt it
such; I discharged it, and am satisfied with it. I hope I am superior
to any apprehension of future censure for a faithful discharge of an
imperative duty.' Waving his hand, he bade us 'Good evening.'

"General Washington, upon all important movements, sought the opinions
of his staff, as well as those of the general officers of his command.
This was not for want of reliance upon his own judgment, but from a
desire to see the matter through every light in which it could be
presented. These opinions were not unfrequently asked in writing. They
were always carefully studied, and due weight given to them, especially
when they differed from his own. His mind was eminently analytical, and
always free from prejudice, and to these facts is to be attributed the
almost universal correctness of his judgment upon all subjects which he
had examined. With regard to men, I never knew him to ask another's
opinion; nor was he ever the man to give utterance to his own, unless
it became necessary as a duty. I knew, from the time I entered his
military family, of his high appreciation of Hamilton's abilities; and
the frequent concurrence of opinion between them sometimes (and
especially with those not entirely acquainted with him) induced a
belief that Hamilton formed his opinions, or, as Arnold once expressed
it, was his thinker. Yet there were many occasions upon which they
differed, and widely differed; and never did Washington surrender his
own opinion and adopt that of Hamilton. I never thought the feelings of
Washington toward him were more than respect for his exalted abilities.
I do not believe a kinder or more social attachment ever was felt by
him, and I am positively sure these were the feelings of Hamilton for
Washington.

"His respect for the abilities of Colonel Burr was quite as exalted as
for those of Hamilton; but he had no confidence in his honesty or
truth, and, consequently, very soon got rid of him. Burr's liaison with
Margaret Moncrief destroyed entirely the little regard left for him in
the mind of Washington. I asked Colonel Talmadge if Burr and Hamilton
ever were friends. They were very close friends apparently; but it was
palpable that each entertained a jealousy of the other, however much
they strove to conceal it. They were both ambitious, and felt the way
to preferment was through the favor of the commander-in-chief. Burr was
the more sensitive and the more impulsive of the two. They knew the
abilities of each other, and they knew these were highly appreciated by
the General; and at the moment when this jealousy was likely to
interfere with this friendship, Burr left the position of aide to the
General. He knew he had forfeited the confidence of Washington, and he
figured in the army very little after this. The rivalry, however, did
not cease here, nor did the secret enmity in their hearts die. The
world is not aware of the true cause of the hatred between them, and it
may never be.

"You are aware," continued the colonel, "that your preceptor, Judge
Reeve, is the brother-in-law of Colonel Burr. If I speak freely of him,
it is because I know him, and because you seem curious to pry into
these secret histories of national men. It is not to be repeated to
offend Judge Reeve, or disturb our relations as friends; for we are
such, and have been for fifty years.

"Colonel Burr has ever been remarkable for abilities from his boyhood.
Reeve and the celebrated Samuel Lathrop Mitchell were his classmates,
and agree that he had no equal in college. They were educated at
Princeton. Burr showed not only talent, but application, and a most
burning ambition. He showed, too, that he was already unscrupulous in
the use of means to accomplish his object. There are stories told of
his college-life very discreditable to his fame. He was as remarkable
in his features as in his mind. His capacious forehead, aquiline nose,
and piercingly brilliant eyes, black as night, with a large, flexible
mouth, Grecian in form, made him extremely handsome as a youth. His
manners were natural and elegant, and his conversational powers
unequalled. They are so to-day. Think of these gifts in a man
uninfluenced by principle, and only obedient to the warmer passions. He
ever shunned collective society, and seemed (for the time, at least)
totally absorbed by one or two only. The eloquence of manner, as the
persuasion of words, was in him transcendent. The whispered sophisms of
his genius burned into the heart, and it was remarked of him, by one
wise and discreet, that he could, in fewer words, win the sympathy and
start to tears a female auditor, than any preacher in the land. From
boyhood he seemed to have the key to every heart he desired to unlock.
Fatal gift! and terribly fatal did it prove to many a victim, and
especially to that gifted but frail girl--Margaret Moncrief.

"Margaret Moncrief was the daughter of an officer of the British army,
and had been left with that old veteran, Putnam, after this officer was
a prisoner of war. Hamilton formed an attachment for her, and Burr,
more from vanity than any other feeling, determined to win her away
from him. She was, for her sex, as remarkable as Burr for his; her
education was very superior, her reading as extensive as most
professional men, and entirely out of the line of ordinary female
reading; she was familiar with the entire range of science--her person
in form was perfect, in features exquisitely beautiful. She, too,
possessed the art to steal away the affections of any one around whom
she threw her spell. Apparently unconscious of her natural gifts, she
displayed them without reserve, and so artlessly, as to lure and
beguile almost to frenzy such temperaments as those of Burr and
Hamilton. Never before had Burr met his equal, and his vanity and
ambition were equally stimulated to triumph in her conquest, and ere he
was aware of it, what had been commenced in levity, had become a
passion which held him in chains. The sequel was the ruin of both. Here
commenced the heart-hatred which terminated in the duel and the death
of Hamilton.

"I know there was a romantic story, that gained credit with many, that
the influence of Miss Moncrief had corrupted Burr, and that she was
acting as a spy, and from Burr obtained all the information she desired
of the movements of the American army. Such was the credit attached to
this story, that General Putnam was questioned rather closely on the
subject of the intercourse between them. It was his opinion that it was
without foundation, and that it was simply a love affair. It was also
stated, and this Hamilton credited, that Burr was preparing to leave
the country with the lady, and there were some circumstances which
seemed to warrant such suspicion. To this day, there are ladies who
were at that time in communication with Miss Moncrief, who mention that
every preparation had been made, that her wardrobe had been removed
from her apartment, and that it was carried to those of Colonel Burr,
and that they had been turned back in the harbor by a sentry-boat, when
striving with a solitary oarsman to reach a British man-of-war, in the
lower harbor of the bay of New York. There was never any proof of this,
however, and I imagine it was only a gossiping story of Madame Rumor.

"Of the sincerity of the attachment on the part of the lady, her
subsequent confessions are the only proof; and at the time of making
these confessions, such was her position that little credit could be
given them. But that Colonel Burr was ever seriously attached to her,
those who knew him best scarcely believed. Men of his character rarely,
if ever, have serious and sincere attachment for any woman. To gratify
his vanity he would court the affections of any woman whose beauty and
accomplishments had attracted him. It was always for base purposes Burr
professed love. Such men too frequently win upon the regards of women,
and occupy high and enviable positions in female society; but their
love is diffusive, and for the individual only for a time. In truth,
they are incapable of a deep and sincere affection. The suspicion of
woman's purity forbids an abiding love; it is a momentary passion, and
not an elevated and enduring sentiment--not the embalming with the
heart's riches a pure and innocent being who yields everything to love.

"Colonel Burr was an indifferent husband toward one of the most
accomplished and lovable women I ever knew, and who was devoted to him,
and whose heart he broke. She was the widow of a British officer named
Provost, I believe, who died in the West Indies; and a more deserving
woman, or one more lovely, never went to the arms of a _roué_, to be
kissed and killed.

"Burr hated Washington, and united himself politically with his
enemies. There was a close political intimacy between him and
Jefferson, but never anything like confidence. In their party they were
rivals; and after the election which made Jefferson President, there
was no semblance of intimacy or friendship between them.

"Burr believed he was really elected President, and that Jefferson had
defrauded him in the count of the ballots. He was disappointed and
dissatisfied with his position and with his party, and immediately
commenced an intrigue to separate the Western States from the Union,
and on the west of the mountains and along the waters of the
Mississippi to establish a separate government, where he hoped to fill
the measure of his ambition, and destroy the power of the Union--thus
at the same time to crush both the Federal and Republican parties, for
now he hated both alike.

"Hamilton had been his early rival; he had, as he believed, destroyed
him with Washington, and that he had been mainly instrumental in
defeating him with Jefferson for the Presidency. There can be no doubt
of the fact, that Jefferson had been voted for by the colleges for
President, and Burr for Vice-President; but they were not so designated
on the ballots. They received an equal number of votes, and had to be
elected, owing to a defect in the law at that time, by the House. The
balloting continued several days. There were sixteen States, and each
received eight. Jefferson was especially obnoxious to the hatred of the
Federal party; Burr, though belonging to the Republican party, less so;
and many of the leading men in Congress of the Federal party determined
to take Burr in preference. The strength of this party was mainly in
the North, and Burr was a Northern man; and they felt more might be
expected of him, from Northern interest, than from Jefferson. But the
main cause of the effort was the animosity to Jefferson. Washington was
viewed as the representative man of the Federal party. Jefferson,
though he had been a Cabinet minister in his Administration, had made
no secret of his opposition to the views of Washington; and had aided a
clerk in his department to establish a newspaper, especially to attack
Washington, and to oppose the Administration, which he did, in the most
bitter and offensive manner.

"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 participation 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 constitutes 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 circumstances: 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
God. 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 canvass 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
accumulated 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 multitudes 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 canvassed
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 assent. 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 Blannerhasset, 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 circumstances 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
constituted of the _débris_ of that old and intolerant organization,
and which is now eliminating every principle of the Constitution 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 passing 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
glass. 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 associates 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 Mazéi
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 entitled
to credit, and I believe them. They assure 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 compass 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 entitled 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 constitute the bulk of our emigrant population) shall become so
intimate with it, and so much attached to it, as to constitute 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 institutions 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 circumstance 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 assimilates 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
constituency, 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 institutions. 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.

He held Washington in higher esteem even than Colonel Talmadge; and
differed from him in many particulars relative to his character. It was
my good fortune to sit and listen, more than once, to discussions
between these venerable men. It was always amicable and eminently
instructive. Wolcott was an admirer of Mrs. Washington, Talmadge was
not. Talmadge was a military man, and saw a healthy discipline only in
obedience to superiors, and exacted in his own family what he deemed
was proper in that of every man. Accustomed himself to a strict
obedience to the commands of his superiors, and deeming Washington
almost incapable of error, he thought hardly even of Mrs. Washington
when she manifested a disposition the slightest to independence of her
husband. Wolcott did not see her in the camp, but only as the wife of
the President of the United States--mistress of the Presidential
mansion, and affably dispensing the duties of hostess there--receiving,
entertaining, and socially intermingling in the society admitted to the
Presidential circle.

At that period there was more of ceremony and display in the higher
circles of official society than at this time. The people had seceded
from a monarchical government, and established a democratic one; but
the prestige of titular and aristocratic society still lingered with
those high in office, of distinguished position, and wealth. Many of
those most prominent about the Government had spent much time in
Europe, and had imported European manners and customs, and desired to
see the court etiquette of the mother country prevail at the court of
the new Government. Time and the institutions of democracy had not
effected that change in the practices of the people, which the
Revolution and the determination to control and direct their own
government had in their sentiments.

Mr. Jefferson affected to despise this formal ceremony, and the
distinctions in society encouraged by monarchical institutions, and
sustained by authority of law--though coming from a State and from the
midst of a people whose leading and wealthiest families had descended
directly from the nobility and gentry of England, and who affected an
aristocracy of social life extremely exclusive in its character, while
professing a democracy in political organization of the broadest and
most comprehensive type. His sagacity taught him that the institutions
of a democratic government would soon produce that social equality
which was their spirit, in the ordinary intercourse of the people--that
he who enjoyed all and every privilege, politically and legally, given
under its Constitution and laws, possessed a power which ultimately
would force his social equality with the most pretentious in the land.
In truth, the government was in his hands, and he would mould it to his
views, and society to his status.

The institutions of government everywhere form the social organization
of society. Men are ambitious of distinction in every government, and
aspire to control in directing the destinies of their country--are
justly proud of the respect and confidence of their fellow-men, and
will court it in the manner most likely to secure it. Now and then,
there are to be found some who are insensible to any fame save that
given by wealth--who will wrap themselves up in a pecuniary importance,
with an ostentatious display of their wealth, and an exclusiveness of
social intercourse, and are contented with this, and the general
contempt. Such men, and such social coteries, are few in this country.
Fortunately, wealth which is only used as a means of ostentatious
display is worthless to communities, and its possessor is contemptible.
"Wealth is power" is an adage, and is true where it is used to promote
the general good. Without it no people can be prosperous or
intelligent, and the prosperity and intelligence of every people is
greatest where there is most wealth, and where it is most generally
diffused. This is best effected by democratic institutions, where every
preferment is open to all, and where the division of estates follows
every death. No large and overshadowing estates, creating a moneyed
aristocracy, can accumulate, to control the legislation and the
people's destinies under such institutions. No privileged class can be
sustained under their operation; for such a class must always be
sustained by wealth hereditary and entailed, protected from the
obligations of debt, and prohibited from division or alienation.

Mr. Jefferson had studied the effects of governments upon their people
most thoroughly, and understood their operation upon the social
relations of society, and the character and minds of the people. He was
wont to say there was no hereditary transmission of mind; that this was
democratic, and a Cæsar, a Solon, or a Demosthenes was as likely to
come from a cottage and penury as from a palace and wealth; that virtue
more frequently wore a smock-frock than a laced coat, and that the
institutions of every government should be so modelled as to afford
opportunity to these to become what nature designed they should
be--models of worth and usefulness to the country. Every one owes to
society obligations, and the means should be afforded to all to make
available these obligations for the public good. Nature never designed
that man should hedge about with law a favored few, until these should
establish a natural claim to such protection, by producing all the
intellect and virtue of the commonwealth. This was common property, and
wherever found, in all the gradations and ranges of society, should,
under the operations of law, be afforded the same opportunities as the
most favored by fortune. "In all things nature should be teacher and
guide."

These doctrines are beautiful in theory, and are well calculated to
fasten upon the minds of the many. They have been, time and again,
incorporated into the constitution of governments, and have uniformly
produced the same disastrous results. They are equally as fallacious as
the declaration "that all men are born free and equal," which, with
those above, has won the public approbation in spite of experience. The
equality of intellect is as certainly untrue as the equality of
stature; the one is not more apparent than the other. Transcendent
intellect is as rare as an eclipse of the sun. It manifests itself in
the control of all others--in forming the opinions and shaping the
destinies of all others. This is a birthright--is never acquired,
admits of great cultivation, receives impressions, generates ideas, and
makes wonderful efforts. Cultivation and education gives it these, but
never its vigor and power. In whatever grade or caste of society this
is born, it soon works its way to the top, disrupts every band which
ties it down, and naturally rises above the lower strata, as the
rarefied atmosphere rises above the denser. This higher order of
intellect will naturally control, and as naturally protect its power.
From such, a better government may always be expected; and without this
control, none can be wholesome or permanent.




CHAPTER XVI.

PARTY PRINCIPLES.

ORIGIN OF PARTIES--FEDERAL AND REPUBLICAN PECULIARITIES--JEFFERSON'S
PRINCIPLES AND RELIGION--DEMOCRACY--VIRGINIA AND MASSACHUSETTS PARTIES
--WAR WITH FRANCE--SEDITION LAW--LYMAN BEECHER--THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR--
"HAIL COLUMBIA" AND "YANKEE DOODLE."


The Federal and Republican parties of the nation had their rise and
formation out of the two principles of government--the one descending,
as by inheritance, from the mother-country, and the other growing out
of the formation of the governments established in the early
organization of the colonies. A republican form of government was
natural to the people. It had become so from habit. They had, in each
colony, enjoyed a representative form; had made their own laws, and,
with the exception of their Governors and judicial officers, had
chosen, by ballot, all their legislative and ministerial officers. Most
of the principles and practices of a democratic form of government,
consequently, were familiar to them. The etiquette of form and ceremony
preserved by the Governors, conformed to English usage. This was only
familiar to those of the masses whose business brought them in contact
with these ministerial officers and their appendages.

These were continued, to some extent, for a time; but Jefferson saw
that they must soon cease, and yield to a sensible, simple intercourse
between the officials of the Government and the people. This was
foreshadowed in the Declaration of Independence, drafted by him.
Immediately upon the success of the Revolution, and the organization of
the General Government, he enunciated the opinions and principles now
known as Jeffersonian or democratic. It has been charged upon him, that
he borrowed his principles from the leaders of the French Revolution,
as he did his religion from Voltaire and Tom Paine.

Jefferson was an original thinker, and thought boldly on all subjects.
He had studied not only the character and history of governments, but
of religions, and from the convictions of his own judgment were formed
his opinions and his principles. His orthodoxy was his doxy, and he
cared very little for the doxy of any other man or set of men. His
genius and exalted talents gave him a light which shines in upon few
brains, and if his religious opinions were fallacious, there are few of
our day who will say that his social and political sentiments were or
are wrong. As to his correctness in the former, it is not, nor will it
ever be, given to man to demonstrate. This is the only subject about
which there is no charity for him who differs from the received dogmas
of the Church, and to-day his name is an abomination only to the
Federalists and the Church.

Jefferson was made Secretary of State by General Washington, and was at
once the head and representative man of the democracy of the country.
There was, however, no organized opposition to the Administration of
Washington. But immediately upon the election of Adams it begun to take
shape and form, under the leadership of Jefferson. The two parties were
first known as the Virginia and Massachusetts parties. Jefferson had
been elected Vice-President with Adams, and before the termination of
the first year of the Administration the opposition was formidable in
Congress. Governor Wolcott was of opinion that Adams destroyed the
Federal party by the unwise policy of his Administration. He said he
was a man of great intellect, but of capricious temper, incapable from
principle or habit of yielding to the popular will. He certainly saw
the palpable tendency of public feeling, and must have known its
strength: instead of attempting to go with it, and shape it to the
exigencies his party required, he vainly attempted to stem the current,
defy it, and control it by law. He disregarded the earnest entreaties
of his best friends, counselling only with the extremists of the
Federal party: the result was the Alien and Sedition Laws. Pickering
warned him, and he quarrelled with him. He would not conciliate, but
punish his political foes. He loved to exercise power; he did it
unscrupulously, and became exceedingly offensive to many of his own
party, and bitterly hated by his political enemies. The Alien and
Sedition Laws emanated from the extremists of the Federal party, and
were in opposition to the views of Adams himself--yet he approved them,
and determined to execute them. He knew these laws were in direct
opposition to the views and feelings of an immense majority of the
people; and with these lights before him, and when he had it in his
power to have conciliated the masses, he defied them.

Mr. Adams was unaccustomed to seek or court public favor; his
associations had never been with the masses, and he understood very
little of their feelings; when these were forced upon him, he received
their manifestations with contempt, and uniformly disregarded their
teachings. All these defects of character were seized upon by the
opposition, to render odious the Federal party.

Mr. Jefferson placed himself in active opposition, and was known at an
early day as the candidate of the opposition to succeed Adams. Our
difficulties with France, and the action of Congress in appointing
Washington commander-in-chief of the American forces, brought
Washington into contact with Adams on several occasions; and especially
when Washington made his acceptance of the office conditional upon the
appointment of Hamilton as second in command, Adams thought he had not
been respectfully treated, either by Congress or Washington; and there
were some pretty sharp letters written by Washington in relation to the
course of Adams.

Jefferson was opposed to the French war. The aid afforded by France in
our Revolution had made grateful the public heart, and the people were
indisposed to rush into a war with her for slight cause. The pen of
Jefferson was never idle: he knew the general feeling, and inflamed it,
and what the consequences to the country might have been, had not the
war come to an abrupt and speedy end, there are no means of knowing.
The trial and conviction of Lyon and Cooper under the Sedition Law,
aroused a burst of indignation from the people. Still it taught no
wisdom to Mr. Adams. He was urged to have their prosecutions abandoned,
but he refused. After conviction, he was seriously pressed to pardon
these men, in obedience to the popular will, but he persistently
refused, and Lyon was continued in prison until liberated by the
success of the Republican party, and the repeal of the offensive and
impolitic laws soon after.

Adams professed great veneration for the character of Washington, and
he was doubtless sincere. Yet he never lost sight of the fact that it
was he who had seconded the motion when made in Congress by Samuel
Adams to appoint Washington commander-in-chief of the armies of the
Revolution, or that it was he who suggested it to Samuel Adams, and
that he sustained the motion in a speech of burning eloquence. He felt
that this conferred an obligation and that Washington was at times
unmindful of this. He was more exacting than generous, and more
suspicious than confiding. In truth, Adams had more mind than soul;
more ambition than patriotism, and more impulse than discretion. Yet
the country owes him much. He was a great support in the cause of the
Revolution, and his folly was to charge too high for his services. The
people honored him--they have honored his family, and will yet make his
son President. He received all they could give, and his littleness
crept out in his desire for more.

General Washington's estimate of men was generally correct. He
understood Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Burr. I do not think he was
personally attached to any one of them; yet he appreciated them as the
public now do. He had need of the talents of Hamilton and Jefferson.
The organization of the Government required the first minds of the
country; and Washington was the man to call them to his side. In
nothing did he show more greatness than in this. He knew Jefferson was
without principle, but he knew that he was eminently talented; he could
forget the one, and call to his aid the other. His confidence in the
integrity of Hamilton was stronger, as well as in his ability. Upon all
matters of deep concern to the country he consulted both, and these
consultations often brought these two men into antagonistical positions
before him, and upon important public matters--one of which was the
constitutionality of a United States Bank. To each of these, when the
charter of the bank was before him, he addressed a note requesting
their opinions upon its constitutionality. Jefferson replied promptly
in a short, written opinion, not well considered or ably argued, as was
his wont; denying the constitutionality of such an institution. This
opinion was handed to Hamilton, who pleaded public duties as the cause
of delay on his part, for not furnishing an opinion. It came at last,
and was able and conclusive, as to its constitutionality. But it was
terrible in its slashing and exposure of the dogmatical sophisms of
Jefferson. From that time forward there were bitter feelings between
these two eminent men.

Intellectually, Hamilton had no equal in his day. It is ridiculous to
compare him with Burr, which is often done by persons who should know
better, because they have all the evidence upon which to predicate a
conclusion. The occasion was open to both, equally, to discover to the
world what abilities they possessed. They equally filled eminent
positions before the nation, and at a time when she demanded the use of
the first abilities in the land. What each performed is before the
world.

Men having talent will always leave behind some evidence of this,
whether they pass through life in a public or private capacity.
Flippant pertness, with some wit, is too often mistaken for talent--and
a still tongue with a sage look, will sometimes pass for wisdom. But
wherever there is talent or wisdom, it makes its mark.

The evidences of Hamilton's abilities are manifested in his works. They
show a versatility of talent unequalled by any modern man. He was
conspicuous for his great genius before he was fifteen years of age; he
was chief-of-staff for General Washington before he was twenty, and
before he was thirty, was admitted to be the first mind of the country.
As a military man, every officer of the army of the Revolution
considered him the very first; as a lawyer, he had no equal of his day;
as a statesman, he ranked above all competition; as a financier, none
were his equal, and an abundance of evidence has been left by him to
sustain this reputation in every particular.

What has Burr left? Nothing. He still lives, and what his posthumous
papers may say for him, I cannot say; but I know him well, and
consequently expect nothing. As a lawyer, he was mediocre; as a
statesman, vacillating and without any fixed principles; as an orator,
(for some had claimed him to be such,) he was turgid and
verbose--sometimes he was sarcastic, but only when the malignity of his
nature found vent in the bitterness of words. His private conduct has,
in every situation, been bad. He was one of the Lee and Gates faction
to displace Washington from the command of the army. He decried the
abilities of Washington. He violated the confidence of General Putnam,
when his aide, in seducing Margaret Moncrief, (whose father had
intrusted her to Putnam's care.) He violated his faith to the
Republican party, in lending himself to the Federal party to defeat the
known and expressed will of the people, and the Republican party, by
contesting the election before Congress of Mr. Jefferson. In the
Legislature of New York, his conduct was such as to draw on him the
suspicion of corruption, and universal condemnation. Contrast his
public services with his public and private vices, and see what he
is--the despised of the whole world, eking out a miserable existence in
hermitical seclusion with a woman of ill-fame.

There resided as minister of the Congregational Church, at that time,
in Litchfield, Lyman Beecher. He was a man of short stature; remarkable
dark complexion, with large and finely formed head; his features were
strong and irregular, with stern, ascetic expression. He was naturally
a man of great mind, and but for the bigoted character of his religion,
narrowing his mind to certain contemptible prejudices and opinions,
might have been a great man. Reared in the practice of Puritan
opinions, and associated from childhood with that strait-laced and
intolerant sect, his energies, (which were indomitable) and mind, more
so perverted as to become mischievous, instead of useful. He was a
propagandist in the broadest sense of the term--would have made an
admirable inquisitor--was without any of the charities of the
Christian; despised as heretical the creed of every sect save his own,
and had all of the intolerant bitterness and degrading superstitions of
the Puritans, and persecutors of Laud, in the Long Parliament. In
truth, he was an immediate descendant of the Puritans of the
seventeenth century, and was distinguished for the persecuting and
intolerant spirit of that people. He seemed ever casting about for
something in the principles or conduct of others to abuse, and
delighted to exhaust his genius in pouring out his venom upon those who
did not square their conduct and opinions by his rule. At this time,
1820, the admission of Missouri into the Union gave rise to the
agitation of the extension of slavery. This was a sweet morsel under
and on his tongue. He at once commenced the indulgence of his
persecuting spirit, in the abuse of slavery, and slave owners. His own
immediate people had committed no sin in the importation of the
African, and the money accumulated in the traffic was not blood-money.
The institution had been wiped out in New England, not by
enfranchisement, but by sale to the people of the South, when no longer
useful or valuable at home; and all the sin of slavery had followed the
slave, to barbarize and degrade the people of the South. The fertility
of his imagination could suggest a thousand evils growing from slavery,
which concentrating in the character of those possessing them, made
them demons upon earth, and fit heritors of hell, deserving the wrath
of God and man.

It was palpable to the scrutinizing observer, that it was not the sin
of slavery which actuated the zeal of Beecher. The South had held
control of the Government almost from its inception. The Northern, or
Federal party, had been repudiated for the talents and energy of the
South. Its principles and their professors were odious--the conduct of
its leading representatives, during the late war, had tainted New
England, and she was offensive to the nostrils of patriotism
everywhere. Her people were restless and dissatisfied under the
disgr