Mr. Webster had begun at that time to be disturbed about his money matters, although he should have been in a prosperous pecuniary condition. His professional income could not have been less than twenty thousand dollars a year, and he had just received seventy thousand dollars as his five per cent. fee as counsel for the claimants before the Commissioners on Spanish Claims, but he had begun to purchase land and was almost always harassed for ready money.

Edward Everett, who was a member of the Massachusetts delegation in the House, had won early fame as a popular preacher of the gospel, as a professor at Harvard College, and as the editor of the North American Review. Placed by his marriage above want, he became noted for his profound learning and persuasive eloquence. At times he was almost electrical in his utterances; his reasoning was logical and luminous, and his remarks always gave evidence of careful study. As a politician Mr. Everett was not successful. The personification of self-discipline and dignity, he was too much like an intellectual icicle to find favor with the masses, and he was deficient in courage when any bold step was to be taken.

George McDuffie, who represented the Edgefield District of South Carolina, had been taken from labor in a blacksmith's shop by Mr. Calhoun and became the grateful champion of his patron in the House. He was a spare, grim-looking man, who was an admirer of Milton, and who was never known to jest or to smile. As a debater he had few equals in the House, but he failed when, during the discussion of the Panama Mission question, he opened his batteries upon Mr. Webster. The "expounder of the Constitution" retorted with great force, reminding the gentleman from South Carolina that noisy declamation was not logic, and that he should not apply coarse epithets to the President, who could not reply to them. Mr. Webster then went on to say that he would furnish the gentleman from South Carolina with high authority on the point to which he had objected, and quoted from a speech by Mr. Calhoun which effectively extinguished Mr. McDuffie.

Tristram Burgess, of Rhode Island, who had a snowy head and a Roman nose, was called "the bald eagle of the House." Although under fifty years of age, his white hair and bent form gave him a patriarchal look and added to the effect of his fervid eloquence and his withering sarcasm. A man of iron heart, he was ever anxious to meet his antagonists, haughty in his rude self-confidence, and exhaustive in the use of every expletive of abuse permitted by parliamentary usage. In debate he resembled one of the old soldiers who fought on foot or on horseback, with heavy or light arms, a battle-axe or a spear. The champion of the North, he divided the South and thrashed and slashed as did old Horatius, when with his good sword he stood upon the bridge and with his single arm defended Rome.

George Kremer, of Pennsylvania, was probably the most unpopular man in the House. An anonymous letter had appeared just before the election of President [Adams] by the Representatives denouncing an "unholy coalition" between Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, by which the support of the friends of the latter had been transferred to the former, "as the planter does his negroes, or the farmer his team and horses." Mr. Clay at once published a card, over his signature, in which he called the writer "a base and infamous calumniator, a dastard, and a liar." Mr. Kremer replied, admitting that he had written the letter, but in such a manner that his political friends were ashamed of his cowardice, while the admirers of Mr. Clay were very indignant—the more so as they suspected that Mr. James Buchanan had instigated the letter.

Mr. Henry W. Dwight, of Massachusetts, a good specimen of "a sound mind in a sound body," gave great attention to the appropriation bills, and secured liberal sums for carrying on the various departments of the Government. His most formidable antagonist was a self-styled reformer and physical giant, Mr. Thomas Chilton, of Kentucky, who had been at one period of his life a Baptist preacher. He declared on the floor in debate that he was pledged to his constituents to endeavor to retrench the expenses of the General Government, to diminish the army and navy, to abridge the number of civil and diplomatic officials, and, above all, to cut down the pay of Congressmen. He made speeches in support of all these "reforms," but did not succeed in securing the discharge of a soldier, a sailor, a diplomatist, or a clerk, neither did he reduce the appropriations one single cent. The erratic Mr. David Crockett was then a member of the House, but had not attracted public attention, although the Jackson men were angry because he, one of Old Hickory's officers in the Creek War, was a devoted adherent of Henry Clay for the Presidency. One of his colleagues in the Tennessee delegation was Mr. James K. Polk, a rigid and uncompromising Presbyterian, a political disciple of Macon, and a man of incorruptible honesty.

Prominent among the Representatives from the State of New York were Messrs. Gulian C. Verplanck and Thomas J. Oakley, members of the legal profession, who were statesmen rather than politicians. Mr. George C. Washington, of Maryland, was the great-nephew of "the Father of his country," and had inherited a portion of the library at Mount Vernon, which he subsequently sold to the Boston Athenaeum. Messrs. Elisha Whittlesey and Samuel Vinton, Representatives from Ohio, were afterwards for many years officers of the Federal Government and residents at Washington. Mr. Jonathan Hunt, of Vermont, a lawyer of ability, and one of the companions chosen by Mr. Webster, was the father of that gifted artist, William Morris Hunt, whose recent death was so generally regretted. Mr. Silas Wright, of New York, was then attracting attention in the Democratic party, of which he became a great leader, and which would have elected him President had he not shortened his life by intemperance. He was a solid, square-built man, with an impassive, ruddy face. He claimed to be a good farmer, but no orator, yet he was noted for the compactness of his logic, which was unenlivened by a figure of speech or a flight of fancy.

The Supreme Court then sat in the room in the basement of the Capitol, now occupied as a law library. It has an arched ceiling supported by massive pillars that obstruct the view, and is very badly ventilated. But it is rich in traditions of hair-powder, queues, ruffled shirts, knee-breeches, and buckles. Up to that time no Justice had ever sat upon the bench in trousers, nor had any lawyer ventured to plead in boots or wearing whiskers. Their Honors, the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices, wearing silk judicial robes, were treated with the most profound respect. When Mr. Clay stopped, one day, in an argument, and advancing to the bench, took a pinch of snuff from Judge Washington's box, saying, "I perceive that your Honor sticks to the Scotch," and then proceeded with his case, it excited astonishment and admiration. "Sir," said Mr. Justice Story, in relating the circumstance to a friends, "I do not believe there is a man in the United States who could have done that but Mr. Clay."

Chief Justice John Marshall, who had then presided in the Supreme Court for more than a quarter of a century, was one of the last survivors of those officers of the Revolutionary Army who had entered into civil service. He was a tall, gaunt man, with a small head and bright black eyes. He used to wear an unbrushed long- skirted black coat, a badly fitting waistcoat, and knee-breeches, a voluminous white cambric cravat, generally soiled, and black worsted stockings, with low shoes and silver buckles. When upward of seventy years of age he still relished the pleasures of the quoit club or the whist table, and to the last his right hand never forgot its cunning with the billiard cue.

Nor did the Chief Justice ever lose his relish for a joke, even at his own expense. In the Law Library one day he fell from a step- ladder, bruising himself severely and scattering an armful of books in all directions. An attendant, full of alarm, ran to assist him, but his Honor drily remarked, "That time I was completely floored."

Bushrod Washington, who had been appointed to the Supreme Court by President John Adams, was by inheritance the owner of Mount Vernon, where his remains now lie, near those of his illustrious uncle, George Washington. He was a small, insignificant-looking man, deprived of the sight of one eye by excessive study, negligent of dress, and an immoderate snuff-taker. He was a rigid disciplinarian and a great stickler for etiquette, and on one occasion he sat for sixteen hours without leaving the bench. He was also a man of rare humor.

Christmas was the popular holiday season at Washington sixty years ago, the descendants of the Maryland Catholics joining the descendants of the Virginia Episcopalians in celebrating the advent of their Lord. The colored people enjoyed the festive season, and there was scarcely a house in Washington in which there was not a well- filled punch bowl. In some antique silver bowls was "Daniel Webster punch," made of Medford rum, brandy, champagne, arrack, menschino, strong green tea, lemon juice, and sugar; in other less expensive bowls was found a cheaper concoction. But punch abounded everywhere, and the bibulous found Washington a rosy place, where jocund mirth and joyful recklessness went arm in arm to flout vile melancholy, and kick, with ardent fervor, dull care out of the window. Christmas carols were sung in the streets by the young colored people, and yule logs were burned in the old houses where the fireplaces had not been bricked up.

[Facsimile] With great respect I am yrs. v. truly. [?] H. Clay HENRY CLAY, born in Virginia, April 12th, 1777; United States Senator from Kentucky, 1806-1807, and again 1810-1811; Representative from Kentucky, 1811-1814; negotiator of the treaty of Ghent, 1815; Representative in Congress, 1815-1820, and 1823-1825; Secretary of State under President Adams, 1825-1829; United States Senator from Kentucky, 1831-1842, and 1844, until he died at Washington City, June 29th, 1852.

CHAPTER VI. THE POLITICAL MACHINE.

As the time for another Presidential election approached, the friends of General Jackson commenced active operations in his behalf. The prime mover in the campaign was General John Henry Eaton, then a Senator from Tennessee. He had published in 1818 a brief life of the hero of New Orleans, which he enlarged in 1824 and published with the title, "The Life of Andrew Jackson, Major- General in the Service of the United States, comprising a History of the War in the South from the Commencement of the Creek Campaign to the Termination of Hostilities Before New Orleans." The facts in it were obtained from General Jackson and his wife, but every incident of his life calculated to injure him in the public estimation was carefully suppressed. It was, however, the recognized text- book for Democratic editors and stump speakers, and although entirely unreliable, it has formed the basis for the lives of General Jackson since published.

President Adams enjoined neutrality upon his friends but some of them, acting with Democrats who were opposed to the election of General Jackson, had published and circulated, as an offset to General Eaton's book, a thick pamphlet entitled, "Reminiscences; or, an Extract from the Catalogue of General Jackson's Youthful Indiscretions, between the Age of Twenty-three and Sixty," which contained an account of Jackson's fights, brawls, affrays, and duels, numbered from one to fourteen. Broadsides, bordered with wood-cuts of coffins, and known as "coffin hand-bills," narrated the summary and unjust execution as deserters of a number of militiamen in the Florida campaign whose legal term of service had expired. Another handbill gave the account of General Jackson's marriage to Mrs. Robards before she had been legally divorced from her husband.

General Jackson's friends also had printed and circulated large editions of campaign songs, the favorite being "The Hunters of Kentucky," which commenced:

"You've heard, I s'pose of New Orleans, 'Tis famed for youth and beauty, There're girls of every hue, it seems, From snowy white to sooty, Now Packenham had made his brags, If he that day was lucky, He'd have those girls and cotton-bags In spite of old Kentucky. But Jackson, he was wide awake, And was not scared at trifles, For well he knew Kentucky's boys, With their death-dealing rifles. He led them down to cypress swamp, The ground was low and mucky, There stood John Bull in martial pomp, And here stood old Kentucky.

"Oh! Kentucky, the hunters of Kentucky!"

After a political campaign of unprecedented bitterness, General Jackson was elected, receiving one hundred and seventy-eight electoral votes against eighty-three cast for John Quincy Adams, and so a new chapter was commenced in the social as well as the political chronicles of the National Capital. Those who had known the Presidential successors of Washington as educated and cultivated gentlemen, well versed in the courtesies of private life and of ceremonious statesmanship, saw them succeeded by a military chieftain, whose life had been "a battle and a march," thickly studded with personal difficulties and duels; who had given repeated evidences of his disregard of the laws when they stood in the way of his imperious will; and who, when a United States Senator, had displayed no ability as a legislator. His election was notoriously the work of Martin Van Buren, inspired by Aaron Burr, and with his inauguration was initiated a sordidly selfish political system entirely at variance with the broad views of Washington and of Hamilton.

It was assumed that every citizen had his price; that neither virtue nor genius was proof against clever although selfish corruption; that political honestly was a farce; and that the only way of governing those knaves who elbowed their way up through the masses was to rule them by cunning more acute than their own and knavery more subtle and calculating than theirs.

Before leaving his rural home in Tennessee, General Jackson had been afflicted by the sudden death of his wife. "Aunt Rachel," as Mrs. Jackson was called by her husband's personal friends, had accompanied him to Washington when he was there as a Senator from Tennessee. She was a short, stout, unattractive, and uneducated woman, though greatly endeared to General Jackson. While he had been in the army she had carefully managed his plantation, his slaves, and his money matters, and her devotion to him knew no bounds. Her happiness was centered in his, and it was her chief desire to smoke her corn-cob pipe in peace at his side. When told that he had been elected President of the United States, she replied, "Well, for Mr. Jackson's sake I am glad of it, but for myself I am not." A few weeks later she was arrayed for the grave in a white satin costume which she had provided herself with to wear at the White House. After her funeral her sorrow-stricken husband came to Washington with a stern determination to punish those who had maligned her during the preceding campaign. Having been told that President Adams had sanctioned the publication of the slanders, he did not call at the White House, in accordance with the usage, but paid daily visits to old friends in the War Department. Mr. Adams, stung by this neglect, determined not to play the part of the conquered leader of the inauguration, and quietly removed to the house of Commodore Porter, in the suburbs, on the morning of the 3d of March.

The weather on the 4th of March, 1829, was serene and mild, and at an early hour Pennsylvania Avenue, then unpaved, with a double row of poplar trees along its centre, was filled with crowds of people, many of whom had journeyed immense distances on foot. The officials at Washington, who were friends of Mr. Adams, had agreed not to participate in the inaugural ceremonies, and the only uniformed company of light infantry, commanded by Colonel Seaton, of the National Intelligencer, had declined to offer its services as an escort. A number of old Revolutionary officers, however, had hastily organized themselves, and waited on General Jackson to solicit the honor of forming his escort to the Capitol, an offer which was cordially accepted. The General rode in an open carriage which had been placed at his disposal, and was surrounded by these gallant veterans. The assembled thousands cheered lustily as their favorite passed along, every face radiant with defiant joy, and every voice shouting "Hurrah for Jackson!"

After the installation of John C. Calhoun as Vice-President in the Senate Chamber, the assembled dignitaries moved in procession through the rotunda to the east front of the Capitol. As the tall figure of the President-elect came out upon the portico and ascended the platform, uplifted hats and handkerchiefs waved a welcome, and shouts of "Hurrah for Jackson!" rent the air. Looking around for a moment into ten thousand upturned and exultant human faces, the President-elect removed his hat, took the manuscript of his address from his pocket, and read it with great dignity. When he had finished, Chief Justice Marshall administered the oath, and as the President, bending over the sacred Book, touched it with his lips, there arose such a shout as was never before heard in Washington, followed by the thunder of cannons, from two light batteries near by, echoed by the cannon at the Navy Yard and at the Arsenal. The crowd surged toward the platform, and had it not been that a ship's cable had been stretched across the portico steps would have captured their beloved leader. As it was, he shook hands with hundreds, and it was with some difficulty that he could be escorted back to his carriage and along Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. Meanwhile Mr. Adams, who had refused to participate in the pageant, was taking his usual constitutional horseback exercise when the thunders of the cannon reached his ears and notified him that he was again a private citizen.

The broad sidewalks of Pennsylvania Avenue were again packed as the procession returned from the Capitol. "I never saw such a crowd," wrote Daniel Webster to a friend. "Persons have come five hundred miles to see General Jackson, and they really seem to think that the country is rescued from some dreadful danger." Hunters of Kentucky and Indian fighters of Tennessee, with sturdy frontiersmen from the Northwest, were mingled in the throng with the more cultured dwellers on the Atlantic slope.

On their arrival at the White House, the motley crowd clamored for refreshments and soon drained the barrels of punch, which had been prepared, in drinking to the health of the new Chief Magistrate. A great deal of china and glassware was broken, and the East Room was filled with a noisy mob. At one time General Jackson, who had retreated until he stood with his back against the wall, was protected by a number of his friends, who formed a living barrier about him. Such a scene had never before been witnessed at the White House, and the aristocratic old Federalists saw, to their disgust, men whose boots were covered with the red mud of the unpaved streets standing on the damask satin-covered chairs to get a sight at the President of their choice.

Late in the afternoon President Jackson sat down to dinner with Vice-President Calhoun and a party of his personal friends, the central dish on the table being a sirloin from a prize ox, sent to him by John Merkle, a butcher of Franklin Market, New York. Before retiring that night, the President wrote to the donor: "Permit me, sir, to assure you of the gratification which I felt in being enabled to place on my table so fine a specimen of your market, and to offer you my sincere thanks for so acceptable a token of your regard for my character." This was the commencement of a series of presents which poured in on General Jackson during the eight years of his administration.

The Democratic journalists of the country were also well represented at the inauguration, attracted by this semi-official declaration in the Telegraph: "We know not what line of policy General Jackson will adopt. We take it for granted, however, that he will reward his friends and punish his enemies."

The leader of this editorial phalanx was Amos Kendall, a native of Dunstable, Massachusetts, who had by pluck and industry acquired an education and migrated westward in search of fame and fortune. Accident made him an inmate of Henry Clay's house and the tutor of his children; but many months had not elapsed before the two became political foes, and Kendall, who had become the conductor of a Democratic newspaper, triumphed, bringing to Washington the official vote of Kentucky for Andrew Jackson. He found at the National metropolis other Democratic editors, who, like himself, had labored to bring about the political revolution, and they used to meet daily in the house of a preacher-politician, Rev. Obadiah B. Brown, who had strongly advocated Jackson's election. Mr. Brown, who was a stout, robust man, with a great fund of anecdotes, was a clerk in the Post Office department during the week, while on Sundays he performed his ministerial duties in the Baptist Church.

Organizing under the lead of Amos Kendall, whose lieutenants were the brilliant but vindictive Isaac Hill, of New Hampshire; the scholarly Nathaniel Greene, of Massachusetts; the conservative Gideon Welles, of Connecticut; the jovial Major Mordecai M. Noah, of New York, and the energetic Dabney S. Carr, of Maryland, the allied editors claimed their rewards. They were not to be appeased by sops of Government advertising, or by the appointment of publisher of the laws of the United States in the respective States, but they demanded some of the most lucrative public offices in their share of the spoils. No sooner did General Jackson reach Washington then they made a systematic attack upon him, introducing and praising one another, and reciprocally magnifying their faithful services during the canvass so successfully ended. The result was that soon after the inauguration nearly fifty of those editors who had advocated his election were appointed to official Federal positions as rewards for political services rendered.

Up to that time the national elections in the United States had not been mere contests for the possession of Federal offices—there was victory and there was defeat; but the quadrennial encounters affected only the heads of departments, and the results were matters of comparative indifference to the subordinate official drudges whose families depended on their pay for meat and bread. A few of these department clerks were Revolutionary worthies; others had followed the Federal Government from New York or Philadelphia; all had expected to hold their positions for life. Some of these desk- slaves had originally been Federalists, others Democrats; and while there was always an Alexander Hamilton in every family of the one set, there was as invariably a Thomas Jefferson in every family of the other set. But no subordinate clerk had ever been troubled on account of his political faith by a change of the Administration, and the sons generally succeeded their fathers when they died or resigned. Ordinarily, these clerks were good penmen and skillful accountants, toiling industriously eight hours every week day without dreaming of demanding a month's vacation in the summer, or insisting upon their right to go to their homes to vote in the fall. National politics was to them a matter of profound indifference until, after the inauguration of General Jackson, hundreds of them found themselves decapitated by the Democratic guillotine, without qualifications for any other employment had the limited trade of Washington afforded any. Many of them were left in a pitiable condition, but when the Telegraph was asked what these men could do to ward off starvation, the insolent reply was, "Root, hog, or die!" Some of the new political brooms swept clean, and made a great show of reform, notably Amos Kendall, who was appointed Fourth Auditor of the Treasury, and who soon after exulted over the discovery of a defalcation of a few hundred dollars in the accounts of his predecessor, Dr. Tobias Watkins.

Postmaster-General McLean, of Ohio, who had been avowedly a Jackson man while he was a member of Mr. Adams' Administration, rebelled against the removal of several of his most efficient subordinates, because of their political action during the preceding Presidential campaign. At last he flatly told General Jackson that if he must remove those postmasters who had taken an active part in politics, he should impartially turn out those who had worked to secure the election of General Jackson, as well as those who had labored to re-elect Mr. Adams. To his General Jackson at first made no reply, but rose from his seat, puffing away at his pipe; and after walking up and down the floor two or three times, he stopped in front of his rebellious Postmaster-General, and said, "Mr. McLean, will you accept a seat upon the bench of the Supreme Court?" The judicial position thus tendered was accepted with thanks, and the Post-Office Department was placed under the direction of Major Barry, who was invited to take a seat in the Cabinet (never occupied by his predecessors), and who not only made the desired removals and appointments, but soon plunged the finances of the Department into a chaotic state of disorder.

Prominent among those "Jackson men" who received lucrative mail contracts from Postmaster-General Barry, was "Land Admiral" Reeside, an appellation he owed to the executive ability which he had displayed in organizing mail routes between distant cities. He was a very tall man, well formed, with florid complexion, red hair, and side whiskers. Very obligingly, he once had a horse belonging to a Senator taken from Pittsburg to Washington tied behind a stage, because the owner had affixed his "frank" to the animal's halter. He was the first mail contractor who ran his stages between Philadelphia and the West, by night as well as by day, and Mr. Joseph R. Chandler, of the United States Gazette, said that "the Admiral could leave Philadelphia on a six-horse coach with a hot johnny-cake in his pocket and reach Pittsburg before it could grow cold." He used to ridicule the locomotives when they were first introduced, and offer to bet a thousand dollars that no man could build a machine that would drag a stage from Washington to Baltimore quicker than his favorite team of iron-grays.

Mail robberies were not uncommon in those days, although the crime was punishable with imprisonment or death. One day one of Reeside's coaches was stopped near Philadelphia by three armed men, who ordered the nine passengers to alight and stand in a line. One of the robbers then mounted guard, while the other two made the terrified passengers deliver up their money and watches, and then rifled the mail bags. They were soon afterward arrested, tried, convicted, and one was sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary, while the other two were condemned to be hung. Fortunately for one of the culprits, named Wilson, he had some years previously, at a horse-race near Nashville, Tennessee, privately advised General Jackson to withdraw his bets on a horse which he was backing, as the jockey had been ordered to lose the race. The General was very thankful for this information, which enabled him to escape a heavy loss, and he promised his informant that he would befriend him whenever an opportunity should offer. When reminded of this promise, after Wilson had been sentenced to be hanged, Jackson promptly commuted the sentence to ten years imprisonment in the penitentiary.

When Admiral Reeside was carrying the mails between New York and Washington, there arose a formidable organization in opposition to the Sunday mail service. The members of several religious denominations were prominent in their demonstrations, and in Philadelphia, chains, secured by padlocks, were stretched across the streets on Sundays to prevent the passage of the mail-coaches. The subject was taken up by politicians, and finally came before the House of Representatives, where it was referred to the Committee on Post-Roads, of which Richard M. Johnson, of Kentucky, was then the chairman. The Rev. Obadiah B. Brown, who had meanwhile been promoted in the Post-office Department, wrote a report on the subject for Colonel Johnson, which gave "the killer of Tecumseh" an extended reputation, and was the first step toward his election as Vice-President, a few years later.

[Facsimile] J. C. Calhoun JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN was born in South Carolina, March 18th, 1782: was a Representative in Congress, 1811-1817; Secretary of War, 1817- 1825; Vice-President, 1825-1832; United States Senator, 1833-1843; Secretary of State, 1844-1845; United States Senator from 1845 until his death at Washington City, March 31st, 1850.

CHAPTER VII. THE KITCHEN CABINET.

When the Twenty-first Congress assembled, on the 7th of December, 1829, General Jackson sent in his first annual message, which naturally attracted some attention. Meeting his old and intimate friend, General Armstrong, the next day, the President said, "Well, Bob, what do the people say of my message?" "They say," replied General Armstrong, "that it is first-rate, but nobody believes that you wrote it." "Well," good-naturedly replied Old Hickory, "don't I deserve just as much credit for picking out the man who could write it?" Although the words of this and of the subsequent messages were not General Jackson's, the ideas were, and he always insisted on having them clearly expressed. It was in his first message, by the way, that he invited the attention of Congress to the fact that the charter of the United States bank would expire in 1836, and asserted that it had "failed in the great end of establishing a uniform and sound currency." This was the beginning of that fierce political contest which resulted in the triumph of General Jackson and the overthrow of the United States Bank.

General Jackson rarely left the White House, where he passed the greater portion of his time in his office in the second story, smoking a corn-cob pipe with a long reed stem. He was at the commencement of his Presidential term sixty-two years of age, tall, spare, with a high forehead, from which his gray hair was brushed back, a decisive nose, searching, keen eyes, and, when good-natured, an almost childlike expression about his mouth. A self-reliant, prejudiced, and often very irascible old man, it was a very difficult task to manage him. Some of his Cabinet advisers made it a point to be always with him, to prevent others from ingratiating themselves into his good will, and they were thus chronicled in a ballad of the time:

"King Andrew had five trusty 'squires, Whom he held his bid to do; He also had three pilot-fish, To give the sharks their cue. There was Mat and Lou and Jack and Lev, And Roger, of Taney hue, And Blair, the book, And Kendall, chief cook, And Isaac, surnamed the true."

Mat. Van Buren was Secretary of State, Lou. McLane Secretary of the Treasury, John Branch was Secretary of the Navy, Lev. Woodbury was his successor, and Roger B. Taney was Attorney-General. Blair, Kendall, and Isaac Hill were also known as "the kitchen cabinet."

The confidential advisers of General Jackson lost no time in establishing a daily newspaper which would speak his sentiments and sound a key-note for the guidance of his followers. The Washington Globe was accordingly started on an immense paying basis, as it had the name of every Federal office-holder whose salary exceeded one thousand dollars on its subscription list. The paper was sent them, and in due time the bill for a year. If a remittance was made, well and good; if payment was refused, the delinquent was told informally that he could pay his subscription to the Globe, or be replaced by some one else who would pay it. It was owned and edited by Blair & Rives, Rives attending to the business department of the establishment. Mr. Blair had been the partner of Amos Kendall in the publication of the Frankfort Argus, and they had both deserted Henry Clay when they enlisted in the movement which gave the electoral vote of Kentucky to General Jackson, and joined in the cry of "bargain and corruption" raised against their former friend. It is related that the first interview between Clay and Blair after this desertion was a very awkward one for the latter, who felt that he had behaved shabbily. Clay had ridden over on horseback from Lexington to Frankfort, in the winter season, on legal business, and on alighting from his horse at the tavern door he found himself confronting Blair, who was just leaving the house. "How do you do, Mr. Blair?" inquired the great commoner, in his silvery tones and blandest manner, at the same time extending his hand. Blair mechanically took the tendered hand, but was evidently nonplussed, and at length said, with an evident effort, "Pretty well, I thank you, sir. How did you find the roads from Lexington to here?" "The roads are very bad, Mr. Blair," graciously replied Clay, "very bad; and I wish, sir, that you would mend your ways."

Mr. Blair made it a rule to defend in the columns of the Globe the acts of Jackson's Administration, right or wrong, and he waged merciless warfare against those who opposed them. When Colonel William R. King, of Alabama, once begged him to soften an attack upon an erring Democrat, Mr. Blair replied, "No! let it tear his heart out." With all his political insolence, however, he possessed remarkable kindness, and a more indulgent father was never known in Washington.

The Washington papers, up to this time, contained very little of what has since been known as local news. A parade, an inauguration, or the funeral of a distinguished person would receive brief mention, but the pleasant gossip of the day was entirely ignored. It was then necessary for the correspondent of a paper in a northern city to mail his letter at the post-office before twelve o'clock at night to insure its departure by the early morning's mail northward. Letters written to New York did not, consequently, appear until the second day after they were written, while those sent to Boston rarely appeared before the fourth day. The people then were better posted as to what transpired at the Nation's Capital than they are now, when dispatches can be sent in a few moments at any time of day or night.

Mrs. Anne Royall began an enterprise in personal literature. She managed to secure an old Ramage printing-press and a font of battered long-primer type, with which, aided by runaway apprentices and tramping journeymen printers, she published, on Capitol Hill, for several years, a small weekly sheet called the Huntress. Every person of any distinction who visited Washington received a call from Mrs. Royall, and if they subscribed for the Huntress they were described in the next number in a complimentary manner, but if they declined she abused them without mercy. When young she was a short, plump, and not bad-looking woman, but as she advanced in years her flesh disappeared, and her nose seemed to increase in size; but her piercing black eyes lost none of their fire, while her tongue wagged more abusively when her temper was roused. John Quincy Adams described her as going about "like a virago-errant in enchanted armor, redeeming herself from the cramps of indigence by the notoriety of her eccentricities and the forced currency they gave to her publications."

Mrs. Royall's tongue at last became so unendurable that she was formally indicted by the Grand Jury as a common scold, and was tried in the Circuit Court before Judge Cranch. His Honor charged the jury at length, reviewing the testimony and showing that, if found guilty, she must be ducked, in accordance with the English law in force in the District of Columbia. The jury found her guilty, but her counsel begged his Honor, the Judge, to weigh the matter and not be the first to introduce a ducking-stool. The plea prevailed and she was let off with a fine.

The first "Society Letters," as they were called, written from Washington, were by Nathaniel P. Willis, to the New York Mirror. Willis was at that time a foppish, slender young man, with a profusion of curly, light hair, and was always dressed in the height of fashion. He had, while traveling in Europe, mingled with the aristocratic classes, and he affected to look down upon the masses; but with all his snobbishness he had a wonderful faculty for endowing trifling occurrences with interest, and his letters have never been surpassed. He possessed a sunny nature, full of poetry, enthusiasm, and cheerfulness, and was always willing to say a pleasant word for those who treated him kindly, and never sought to retaliate on his enemies.

Willis first introduced steel pens at Washington, having brought over from England some of those made by Joseph Gillott, at Birmingham. Before this goose-quill pens had been exclusively used, and there was in each House of Congress and in each Department a penmaker, who knew what degree of flexibility and breadth of point each writer desired. Every gentleman had to carry a penknife, and to have in his desk a hone to sharpen it on, giving the finishing touches on one of his boots. Another new invention of that epoch was the lucifer match-box, which superseded the large tin tinder-box with its flint and steel. The matches were in the upper portion of a pasteboard case about an inch in diameter and six inches in length and in a compartment beneath them was a bottle containing a chemical preparation, into which the brimstone-coated end of the match was dipped and thus ignited.

The Mayor of Washington, during a portion of the Jackson Administration, was Peter Force, a noble specimen of those who, before the existence of trades unions, used to serve an apprenticeship to the "art preservative of arts," and graduate from the printing office qualified to fill any political position. Fond of American history, Mr. Force, while printing the Biennial Register, better known as the Blue Book from the color of its binding, began to collect manuscripts, books, and pamphlets, many of which had been thrown away in the executive departments as rubbish, and were purchased by him from the dealers in waste paper. In 1833 he originated the idea of compiling and publishing a documentary history of the country, under the title of the American Archives, and issued a number of large folio volumes, the profits going to the politicians who secured the necessary appropriations from Congress. He was emphatically a gentleman—tall, stalwart, with bushy black hair, and large, expressive eyes, which would beam with joy whenever a friend brought him a rare autograph or pamphlet.

Assemblies were held once a week between Christmas Day and Ash Wednesday, to which all of the respectable ladies of the city who danced were invited. It was also customary for those of the Cabinet officers and other high officials who kept house to give at least one evening party during each session of Congress, invitations for which were issued. The guests at these parties used to assemble at about eight o'clock, and after taking off their wraps in an upper room they descended to the parlor, where the host and hostess received them. The older men then went to the punch-bowl to criticise the "brew" which it contained, while the young people found their way to the dining-room, almost invariably devoted to dancing. The music was a piano and two violins, and one of the musicians called the figures for the cotillions and contra-dances. Those who did not dance elbowed their way through the crowd, conversing with acquaintances, the men frequently taking another glass of punch. At ten the guests were invited to the supper-table, which was often on the wide back porch which every Washington house had in those days. The table was always loaded with evidences of the culinary skill of the lady of the house. There was a roast ham at one end, a saddle of venison or mutton at the other end, and some roasted poultry or wild ducks midway; a great variety of home-baked cake was a source of pride, and there was never any lack of punch, with decanters of Madeira. The diplomats gave champagne, but it was seldom seen except at the legations. At eleven there was a general exodus, and after the usual scramble for hats, cloaks, and over-shoes the guests entered their carriages. Sometimes a few intimate friends of the hostess lingered to enjoy a contra- dance or to take a parting drink of punch, but by midnight the last guest departed, and the servants began to blow out the candles with which the house had been illuminated.

In Jackson's first Administration the country was shocked by the appearance of a book entitled, The Domestic Manners of Americans, by Mrs. Frances Trollope. She was a bright little Englishwoman, who had come to this country and established a bazaar at Cincinnati, which proved a failure. So she sought revenge and wealth by a caricature sketch of our pioneer life, founded on fact, but very unpalatable. Expectoration was her pet abomination, and she was inclined to think that this "most vile and universal habit of chewing tobacco" was the cause of a remarkable peculiarity in the male physiognomy of Americans, the almost uniform thinness and compression of their lips. So often did Mrs. Trollope recur to this habit that she managed to give one the impression that this country was in those days a sort of huge spittoon.

Mrs. Trollope first called attention to the fact that American women did not consult the season in either the colors or style of their costumes, never wore boots, and walked in the middle of winter with their pretty little feet pinched into miniature slippers incapable of excluding as much moisture as might bedew a primrose.

Removals from office that places might be provided for Jackson men were the order of the day, but President Jackson was not disposed to displace any veteran soldier. Among other victims designated for removal by the politicians was General Solomon Van Rensselaer, whose gallant services against Great Britain in the War of 1812 had been rewarded by an election to the House of Representatives, followed by his appointment as Postmaster of Albany. He was a decided Federalist and the petition for his removal was headed by Martin Van Buren and Silas Wright.

Visiting Washington, General Van Rensselaer received a cordial greeting from General Jackson at a public reception, and then, taking a seat in a corner, he waited until the room was cleared, when he again approached the President, saying: "General Jackson, I have come here to talk to you about my office. The politicians want to take it from me, and they know I have nothing else to live on." The President made no reply, till the aged Postmaster began to take off his coat in the most excited manner, when Old Hickory broke out with the inquiry: "What in Heaven's name are you going to do? Why do you take off your coat here?" "Well, sir, I am going to show you my wounds, which I received in fighting for my country against the English!" "Put it on at once, sir!" was the reply; "I am surprised that a man of your age should make such an exhibition of himself," and the eyes of the iron President were suffused with tears, as, without another word, he bade his ancient foe good evening.

The next day Messrs. Van Buren and Wright called at the White House and were shown up into the President's room, where they found him smoking a clay pipe. Mr. Wright soon commenced to solicit the removal of General Van Rensselaer, asserting that he had been known as a very active advocate of John Quincy Adams; that he had literally forfeited his place by his earnest opposition to the Jackson men, and that if he were not removed the new Administration would be seriously injured. He had hardly finished the last sentence, when Jackson sprang to his feet, flung his pipe into the fire, and exclaimed with great vehemence, "I take the consequences, sir; I take the consequences. By the Eternal! I will not remove the old man—I cannot remove him. Why, Mr. Wright, do you not know that he carries more than a pound of British lead in his body?" That settled the question, and General Van Rensselaer remained undisturbed as Postmaster at Albany through the Jackson Administration, although Martin Van Buren, when he came into power, promptly "bounced" him.

General Jackson's defiant disposition was manifested when, in a message to Congress, he recommended that a law be passed authorizing reprisals upon French property in case provision should not be made for the payment of the long-standing claims against France at the approaching session of the French Chambers. Some of his Cabinet, having deemed this language too strong, had prevailed upon the President's private secretary, Major Donelson, to modify it, and to make it less irritating and menacing. No sooner was it discovered by General Jackson than he flew into a great excitement, and when Mr. Rives entered his private office to obtain it for printing, he found the old General busily engaged in re-writing it according to the original copy. "I know them French," said he. "They won't pay unless they're made to."

The French people were indignant when this message reached Paris, and when the Chamber of Deputies finally provided for the payment of the claims, a proviso was inserted ordering the money to be withheld until the President of the United States had apologized for the language used. This General Jackson flatly refused to do, and the "Ancient Allies" of the Revolution were on the verge of hostilities, when both nations agreed to submit their differences to Great Britain. The affair was speedily arranged, and France paid five millions of dollars for French spoilations into the Treasury of the United States, where it has since remained.

[Facsimile] Silas Wright Jr. SILAS WRIGHT, JR., was born at Amherst, Massachusetts, May 24th, 1795; was a Representative from New York in Congress, 1827-1829; Comptroller of New York, 1829-1833; United States Senator, 1833- 1844; Governor of New York, 1844-1846; retired to his farm at Canton, New York, and died there, August 27th, 1847.

CHAPTER VIII. BATTLE OF THE GIANTS.

An unimportant resolution concerning the public lands, introduced into the Senate early in 1830 by Senator Foote, of Connecticut (the father of Admiral Foote), led to a general debate, which has been since known as "the battle of the giants." The discussion embraced all the partisan issues of the time, especially those of a sectional nature, including the alleged rights of a State to set the Federal Government at defiance. The State Rights men in South Carolina, instigated by Mr. Calhoun, had been active during the preceding summer in collecting material for this discussion, and they had taken especial pains to request a search for evidence that Mr. Webster had shown a willingness to have New England secede from the Union during the second war with Great Britain. The vicinity of Portsmouth, where he had resided when he entered public life, was, to use his own words, "searched as with a candle. New Hampshire was explored from the mouth of the Merrimack to the White Hills."

Nor had Mr. Webster been idle. He was not an extemporaneous speaker, and he passed the summer in carefully studying, in his intervals of professional duties, the great constitutional question which he afterward so brilliantly discussed. A story is told at Providence about a distinguished lawyer of that place—Mr. John Whipple—who was at Washington when Webster replied to Hayne, but who did not hear the speech, as he was engaged in a case before the Supreme Court when it was delivered. When a report of what Mr. Webster had said appeared in print, Mr. Whipple read it, and was haunted by the idea that he had heard or read it before. Meeting Mr. Webster soon afterward, he mentioned this idea to him and inquired whether it could possibly have any foundation in fact. "Certainly it has," replied Mr. Webster. "Don't you remember our conversations during the long walks we took together last summer at Newport, while in attendance on Story's court?" It flashed across Mr. Whipple's mind that Mr. Webster had then rehearsed the legal argument of his speech and had invited criticism.

As the debate on the Foote resolution progressed, it revealed an evident intention to attack New England, and especially Massachusetts. This brought Mr. Webster into the arena, and he concluded a brief speech by declaring that, as a true representative of the State which had sent him into the Senate, it was his duty and a duty which he should fulfill, to place her history and her conduct, her honor and her character, in their just and proper light. A few days later, Mr. Webster heard his State and himself mercilessly attacked by General Hayne, of South Carolina, no mean antagonist. The son of a Revolutionary hero who had fallen a victim to British cruelty, highly educated, with a slender, graceful form, fascinating deportment, and a well-trained, mellifluous voice, the haughty South Carolinian entered the lists of the political tournament like Saladin to oppose the Yankee Coeur de Lion.

When Mr. Webster went to the Senate Chamber to reply to General Hayne, on Tuesday, January 20th, 1830, he felt himself master of the situation. Always careful about his personal appearance when he was to address an audience, he wore on that day the Whig uniform, which had been copied by the Revolutionary heroes—a blue dress- coat with bright buttons, a buff waistcoat, and a high, white cravat. Neither was he insensible to the benefits to be derived from publicity, and he had sent a request to Mr. Gales to report what he was to say himself, rather than to send one of his stenographers. The most graphic account of the scene in the Senate Chamber during the delivery of the speech was subsequently written virtually from Mr. Webster's dictation. Perhaps, like Mr. Healy's picture of the scene, it is rather high-colored.

Sheridan, after his forty days' preparation, did not commence his scathing impeachment of Warren Hastings with more confidence that was displayed by Mr. Webster when he stood up, in the pride of his manhood, and began to address the interested mass of talent, intelligence, and beauty around him. A man of commanding presence, with a well-knit, sturdy frame, swarthy features, a broad, thoughtful forehead, courageous eyes gleaming from beneath shaggy eyebrows, a quadrangular breadth of jawbone, and a mouth which bespoke strong will, he stood like a sturdy Roundhead sentinel on guard before the gates of the Constitution. Holding in profound contempt what he termed spread-eagle oratory, his only gesticulations were up-and- down motions of his arm, as if he were beating out with sledge- hammers his forcible ideas. His peroration was sublime, and every loyal American heart has since echoed the last words, "Liberty and union—now and forever—one and inseparable!"

Mr. Webster's speech, carefully revised by himself, was not published until the 23d of February, and large editions of it were circulated throughout the Northern States. The debate was continued, and it was the 21st of May before Colonel Benton, who had been the first defamer of New England, brought it to a close. The Northern men claimed for Mr. Webster the superiority, but General Jackson praised the speech of Mr. Hayne, and deemed his picture worthy to occupy a place in the White House, thus giving expression to the general sentiment among the Southerners. This alarmed Mr. Van Buren, who was quietly yet shrewdly at work to defeat the further advancement of Mr. Calhoun, and he lost no time in demonstrating to the imperious old soldier who occupied the Presidential chair that the South Carolina doctrine of nullification could but prove destructive to the Union.

Mr. Calhoun was not aware of this intrigue, and, in order to strengthen his State Rights policy, he organized a public dinner on the anniversary of Jefferson's birthday, April 13th, 1830. When the toasts which were to be proposed were made public in advance, according to the custom, it was discovered that several of them were strongly anti-tariff and State Rights in sentiment—so much so that a number of Pennsylvania tariff Democrats declined to attend, and got up a dinner of their own. General Jackson attended the dinner, but he went late and retired early, leaving a volunteer toast, which he had carefully prepared at the White House, and which fell like a damper upon those at the dinner, while it electrified the North, "The Federal Union—it must and shall be maintained!" This toast, which could not be misunderstood, showed that General Jackson would not permit himself to be placed in the attitude of a patron of doctrines which could lead only to a dissolution of the Federal Government. But the Committee on Arrangements toned it down, so that it appeared in the official report of the dinner, "Our Federal Union—it must be preserved!"

This was a severe blow to Mr. Calhoun, who had labored earnestly to break down Mr. Adams' Administration, without respect to its measures, that a Democratic party might be built up which would first elect General Jackson, and then recognize Calhoun as legitimate successor to the Presidential chair. His discomfiture was soon completed by the publication of a letter from Mr. Crawford, which informed the President that Calhoun, when in the Cabinet of Monroe, proposed that "General Jackson should be punished in some form" for his high-handed military rule in Florida. Van Buren secretly fanned the flames of General Jackson's indignation, and adroitly availed himself of a "tempest in a tea-pot" to complete the downfall of his rival.

The woman used as a tool by Mr. Van Buren for the overthrow of Mr. Calhoun's political hopes was a picturesque and prominent figure in Washington society then and during the next fifty years. The National Metropolis in those days resembled, as has been well said, in recklessness and extravagance, the spirit of the English seventeenth century, so graphically portrayed in Thackeray's Humorist, rather than the dignified caste of the nineteenth cycle of Christianity. Laxity of morals and the coolest disregard possible characterized that period of our existence.

Mrs. General Eaton ruled Andrew Jackson as completely as he ruled the Democratic party. She was the daughter of William O'Neill, a rollicking Irishman, who was in his day the landlord of what was then the leading public house in Washington City. Among other Congressmen who were guests here was Andrew Jackson, then a Senator from Tennessee. It was here he became interested in the landlord's brilliant daughter Margaret, called by her friends "Peg" O'Neill. Before she was sixteen years of age she married a handsome naval officer, John Bowie Timberlake. He died—some say that he committed suicide—at Port Mahon, in 1828, leaving his accounts as purser in a very mixed condition. After the death of Timberlake, Commodore Patterson ordered Lieutenant Randolph to take the purser's books and perform the duties of purser. On the return home of the Constitution it was discovered that Timberlake or Randolph was a defaulter to the Government to a very large amount. A court of inquiry was held on Randolph and he was acquitted, but Amos Kendall, the Fourth Auditor of the Treasury Department, charged the defalcation to Randolph. President Jackson, notwithstanding the decision of the court, dismissed Lieutenant Randolph from the Navy, and refused to give him a hearing.

The Lieutenant, infuriated by his disgrace and pecuniary ruin, in a state of excitement pulled the President's nose in the cabin of a steamboat at the Alexandria wharf. He was immediately seized and thrust on shore, the President declaring that he was able to punish him. He charged that Jackson dismissed him and sustained Kendall's decision in order to save General Eaton, who was Timberlake's bondsman, from having to make good the defalcation.

General Eaton, who had boarded with his friend, General Jackson, at O'Neill's tavern, soon afterward married the Widow Timberlake, who was then one of those examples of that Irish beauty, which, marked by good blood, so suggests both the Greek and the Spaniard, and yet at times presents a combination which transcends both. Her form, of medium height, straight and delicate, was of perfect proportions. Her skin was of that delicate white, tinged with red, which one often sees among even the poorer inhabitants of the Green Isle. Her dark hair, very abundant, clustered in curls about her broad, expressive forehead. Her perfect nose, of almost Grecian proportions, and finely curved mouth, with a firm, round chin, completed a profile of faultless outlines. She was in Washington City what Aspasia was in Athens—the cynosure by whose reflected radiance

"Beauty lent her smile to wit, And learning by her star was lit."

General Jackson had come to Washington with a sad heart, breathing vengeance against those who had defamed his wife during the Presidential canvass, thereby, as he thought, hastening her death. This made him the sworn and unyielding foe of all slanderers of women, and when some of the female tabbies of the Capital began to drag the name of his old friend "Peg," then the wife of General Eaton, through the mire, he was naturally indignant, and showed his respect for her by having her a frequent guest at the White House. Enchanting, ambitious, and unscrupulous, she soon held the old hero completely under her influence, and carried her griefs to him. Mr. Van Buren adroitly seconded her, and the gallant old soldier swore "by the Eternal" that the scandalmongers who had embittered the last years of his beloved wife, Rachel, should not triumph over his "little friend Peg."

This was Van Buren's opportunity. He was a widower, keeping house at Washington, and as Secretary of State he was able to form an alliance with the bachelor Ministers of Great Britain and Russia, each of whom had spacious residences. A series of dinners, balls, and suppers was inaugurated at these three houses, and at each successive entertainment Mrs. Eaton was the honored guest, who led the contra-dance, and occupied the seat at table on the right of the host. Some respectable ladies were so shocked by her audacity that they would leave a room when she entered it. She was openly denounced by clergymen, and she found herself in positions which would have covered almost any other woman in Washington with shame. Mrs. Eaton, who apparently did not possess a scruple as to the propriety of her course, evidently enjoyed the situation, and used to visit General Jackson every day with a fresh story of the insults paid her. Yet she gave no evidences of diplomacy nor of political sagacity, but was a mere beautiful, passionate, impulsive puppet, held up by General Jackson, while Mr. Van Buren adroitly pulled the strings that directed her movements.

Mr. Calhoun, whose wife was foremost among those ladies who positively refused to associate with Mrs. Eaton, said to a friend of General Jackson's, who endeavored to effect a reconciliation, that "the quarrels of women, like those of the Medes and Persians, admitted of neither inquiry nor explanation." He knew well, however, that it was no women's quarrel, but a political game of chess played by men who were using women as their pawns, and he lost the game. Van Buren and Eaton next tendered their resignations as Cabinet officers, which General Jackson refused to accept; whereupon the Cabinet officers whose wives declined to call on Mrs. Eaton resigned, and their resignations were promptly accepted. The whole city was in a turmoil. Angry men walked about with bludgeons, seeking "satisfaction;" duels were talked of; old friendships were severed; and every fresh indignity offered his "little friend Peg" endeared her the more to General Jackson, who was duly grateful to Van Buren for having espoused her cause. "It is odd enough," wrote Daniel Webster to a personal friend, "that the consequences of this dispute in the social and fashionable world are producing great political effects, and may very probably determine who shall be successor to the present Chief Magistrate."

Junius Brutus Booth was the delight of the Washington playgoers in the Jackson Administration. His wonderful impersonations of Richard III., Iago, King Lear, Othello, Shylock, and Sir Giles Overreach were as grand as his private life was intemperate and eccentric. He was a short, dumpy man, with features resembling those of the Roman Emperors, before his nose was broken in a quarrel, and his deportment on the stage was imperially grand. He had a farm in Maryland, and at one time he undertook to supply a Washington hotel with eggs, milk, and chickens, but he soon gave it up. His instant and tremendous concentration of passion in his delineations overwhelmed his audience and wrought it into such enthusiasm that it partook of the fever of inspiration surging through his own veins. He was not lacking in the power to comprehend and portray with marvelous and exquisite delicacy the subtle shades of character that Shakespeare loved to paint, and his impersonations were a delight to the refined scholar as well as the uncultivated backwoodsmen who crowded to his performances.

The Washington Theatre was not well patronized, but the strolling proprietors of minor amusements reaped rich harvests of small silver coins. The circus paid its annual visit, to the joy of the rural Congressmen and the negroes, who congregated around its sawdust ring, applauding each successive act of horsemanship and laughing at the repetition of the clown's old jokes; a daring rope-dancer, named Herr Cline, performed his wonderful feats on the tight rope and on the slack wire; Finn gave annual exhibitions of fancy glass- blowing; and every one went to see "the living skeleton," a tall, emaciated young fellow named Calvin Edson, compared with whom Shakespeare's starved apothecary was fleshy.

General Jackson turned a deaf ear to the numerous applications made to him for charity. At one time when he was President a large number of Irish immigrants were at work on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in Georgetown, and, the weather being very hot, many of them were prostrated by sunstroke and bilious diseases. They were without medical aid, the necessities of life, or any shelter except the shanties in which they were crowded. Their deplorable condition led to the formation of a society of Irish-Americans, with the venerable Mr. McLeod, a noted instructor, as president. A committee from this Society waited on the President for aid, and Mr. McLeod made known the object of their visit. General Jackson interrupted him by saying that he "entirely disapproved of the Society; that the fact of its existence would induce these fellows to come one hundred miles to get the benefit of it; that if the treasury of the United States were at his disposal it could not meet the demands that were daily made upon him, and he would not be driven from the White House by a beggar-man, like old Jim Monroe."

Colonel Samuel Swartwout, of Hoboken, was an old personal friend of General Jackson, and when "the Hickory Broom" began to sweep out the old office-holders, in obedience to the maxim, "To the victors belong the spoils," the Colonel was an applicant for the then lucrative position of Collector of the Port of New York. Van Buren was against him, and used many arguments with Jackson to prevent the appointment; but after a patient hearing, Old Hickory closed the case by bringing his fist down upon the table and exclaiming, "By the Eternal! Sam, Swartwout shall be Collector of the Port of New York!" He was appointed and became the prey of political swindlers, spending the public moneys right regally until his accounts were overhauled, and he "Swartwouted" (to use a word coined at the time) to avoid a criminal prosecution. He remained abroad for many years, and I think died in Europe.

Francis S. Key was United States Attorney for the district of Washington during the Jackson Administration. He was a small, active man, having an earnest and even anxious expression of countenance, as if care sat heavily upon him. In composing the heroic song of the "Star-Spangled Banner," after he had witnessed the unsuccessful night attack of the British on Fort McHenry, he, in a measure, associated himself with the glory of his country. He was a man of very ardent religious character, and some of the most poetic and popular of the hymns used in religious worship were from his pen.

[Facsimile] Danl Webster DANIEL WEBSTER was born at Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18th, 1782; was a Representative from New Hampshire in Congress, 1813- 1817, and removing to Boston, a Representative from Massachusetts, 1823-1827; United States Senator, 1827-1841; Secretary of State under Presidents Harrison and Tyler, 1841-1843; United States Senator, 1845-1850; Secretary of State under President Fillmore from 1850 until his death at Marshfield, Massachusetts, October 14th, 1852.

CHAPTER IX. THE STAMPING OUT OF NULLIFICATION.

The rejection by the Senate of the nomination of Martin Van Buren as Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain, was an act of retributive justice, carried out on the very spot where, five years before, he had formed the combination which overthrew the Administration of John Quincy Adams. John C. Calhoun, who was the organizer of the rejection of Mr. Van Buren, thought that he had obtained pledges of a sufficient number of votes; but just before the ayes and noes were called Mr. Webster left the Senate Chamber, and going down into the Supreme Court room remained there until the vote had been taken. Mr. Calhoun consequently found himself one vote short, and had to give the casting vote, as President of the Senate, which rejected the nomination of his rival, who was already in England, where he had been received with marked attention.

Returning to the United States, Mr. Van Buren was warmly welcomed at the White House as a victim of Mr. Calhoun's opposition to the President, and he was soon recognized by the Democratic party as their heir-apparent to the Presidency. His appearance at that time was impressive. He was short, solidly built, with a bald head, and with bushy side-whiskers, which framed his florid features. He added the grace and polish of aristocratic English society to his natural courtesy, and it was his evident aim never to provoke a controversy, while he used every exertion to win new friends and retain old ones. After he had been elected Vice-President, he sat day after day in the chair of the Senate, apparently indifferent alike to the keen thrusts of Calhoun, the savage blows of Webster, and the gibes of Clay. He well knew that General Jackson would regard every assault on him as aimed at the Administration, and that his chances for the succession would thereby be strengthened. Charges of political chicanery were brought against him in shapes more varied than that of Proteus and thick as the leaves that strew the vale of Valombrosa; but he invariably extricated himself by artifice and choice management, earning the sobriquet of "the Little Magician." He could not be provoked into a loss of temper, and he would not say a word while in the chair except as connected with his duties as presiding officer, when he spoke in gentle but persuasive tones, singularly effective from the clearness of his enunciation and his well-chosen emphasis.

Mr. Van Buren, who was then a widower, kept house on Pennsylvania Avenue, about half way between the White House and Georgetown, where he not only gave dinner parties to his political friends, but entertained their wives and daughters at evening whist parties. Gentlemen and ladies were alike used for the advancement of his schemes for the succession and for retaining his position in the estimation of General Jackson. On one occasions he said to Mrs. Eaton that he had been reading much and thinking deeply on the characters of great men, and had come to the conclusion that General Jackson was the greatest man that had ever lived—the only man among them all who was without a fault. "But," he added, "don't tell General Jackson what I have said. I would not have him know it for all the world." Of course, it was not long before Mrs. Eaton repeated the conversation to General Jackson. "Ah, madam!" said Old Hickory, the tears starting in his eyes, "that man loves me; he tries to conceal it, but there is always some way fixed by which I can tell my friends from my enemies."

Mr. Van Buren was noted for his willingness to sign applications for office, and he used to tell a good story illustrating his readiness to oblige those who solicited his aid. When Governor of the State of New York, a lawyer called upon him to get a convict pardoned from the penitentiary, and stated the case, which was a clear one. "Have you the papers?" he asked. "If so, I will sign them." "Here they are," said the lawyer, producing a bulky document, and the Governor indorsed them: "Let pardon be granted. M. Van Buren." He then left for the office of the Secretary of State, but soon returned. "Governor," said he, "I made a mistake, and you indorsed the wrong paper." He had presented for the official indorsement the marriage settlement of an Albany belle about to marry a spendthrift.

To ingratiate himself further with General Jackson, and to strengthen the Democratic party, whose votes he relied upon to elevate him to the Presidency, Mr. Van Buren organized the war against the United States Bank. General Jackson was opposed to this institution before he became President, and it was not a difficult task to impress upon his mind that the Bank was an unconstitutional monopoly, which defied the legislative acts of sovereign States, which was suborning the leading newspapers and public men of the country, and which was using every means that wealth, political chicanery, and legal cunning could devise to perpetuate its existence. All this the honest old soldier in time believed, and it was then not difficult to impress him with a desire to combat this "monster," as he called the bank, and to act as the champion of the people in killing the dragon which was endeavoring to consume their fortunes. When a committee of wealthy business men from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia waited on him with a remonstrance against his financial policy, he gave them such a reception that they felt very uncomfortable and were glad to get away.

The Democratic politicians and presses heartily seconded their chieftain in this war, promising the people "Benton mint-drops instead of rag-money." Jackson clubs were everywhere organized, having opposite to the tavern or hall used as their headquarters a hickory-tree, trimmed of all its foliage except a tuft at the top. Torch-light processions, then organized for the first time, used to march through the streets of the city or village where they belonged, halting in front of the houses of prominent Jackson men to cheer, while before the residences of leading Whigs they would often tarry long enough to give six or nine groans. Editors of newspapers which supported the Administration were forced to advocate its most ultra measures and to denounce its opponents, or they were arraigned as traitors, and if satisfactory excuses could not be made, they were read out of the party. Among these thus excommunicated was Mr. James Gordon Bennett, who had edited the Philadelphia Pennsylvanian.

Nicholas Biddle, its president, managed the affairs of the Bank of the United States with consummate ability. His trials in the bitter contest waged against him and the institution which he represented were almost as manifold as those that tested the patience of Job; and he bore them with equal meekness so far as temper was concerned, but when duty required he never failed to meet his opponents with decision and effect. The Bank had to discount the worthless notes of a number of Congressmen and editors, whose support, thus purchased, did more harm than good. Mr. Biddle had also incurred the hostility of Isaac Hill and other influential Jackson men because he would not remove the non-partisan presidents and cashiers of the branches of the Bank in their respective localities, and appoint in their places zealous henchmen of the Administration.

General Jackson was triumphantly re-elected in November, 1832, receiving two hundred and nineteen of the two hundred and eighty- eight electoral votes cast, while Martin Van Buren received one hundred and eighty-nine electoral votes for Vice-President. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maryland, and Kentucky cast forty-nine electoral votes for Henry Clay and John Sargent. Vermont gave her seven electoral votes for the anti- Masonic candidates, William Wirt and William Ellmaker, while South Carolina bestowed her eleven electoral votes on John Floyd, of Virginia, and Henry Lee, of Massachusetts, neither of whom were nullifiers. Some of the Jackson newspapers, while rejoicing over his re-election, nominated him for a third term, and William Wirt wrote: "My opinion is that he may be President for life if he chooses."

The ordeal of re-election having been passed, President Jackson and his supporters carried out the programme which had before been decided upon. The removal of the Government deposits from the United States Bank gave rise to stormy debates in Congress, and the questionable exercise of Executive authority met with a fierce, unrelenting opposition from the Whigs.

The debates in the Senate on the Bank and attendant financial questions were very interesting, but the audiences were necessarily small. The circumscribed accommodations of the Senate Chamber were insufficient, and while the ladies generally managed to secure seats, either in the galleries or on the floor, the gentlemen had to content themselves with uncomfortable positions, leaning against pillars or peeping through doorways. Mr. Van Buren, as Vice- President, presided with great dignity, and endeavored to conciliate those Senators who were his rivals for the succession, but he had often to hear his political course mercilessly criticised by them.

John C. Calhoun, who resigned the position of Vice-President that he might be elected a Senator from South Carolina, differed from his great contemporaries in the possession of a private character above reproach. Whether this arose from the preponderance of the intellectual over the animal in his nature, or the subjection of his passions by discipline, was never determined by those who knew the gifted South Carolinian best; but such was the fact. His enemies could find no opprobrious appellation for him but "Catiline," instead of "Caldwell," which was his middle name—no crime but ambition. He disregarded the unwritten laws of the Senate, which required Senators to appear in dress suits of black broadcloth, and asserted his State pride and State independence by wearing, when the weather was warm, a suit of nankeen, made from nankeen cotton grown in South Carolina. Mr. Calhoun had a pale and attenuated look, as if in bad health; his long black hair was combed up from his forehead and fell over the back of his head, and his thin lips increased the effect of the acute look with which he always regarded those around him. His personal intercourse with friends was characterized by great gentleness of manner; he was an affectionate and a devoted husband and father, and Webster truly remarked of him that "he had no recreations, and never seemed to feel the necessity of amusement."

Disappointed in his aspirations for the Presidency of the United States, Mr. Calhoun conceived the idea of dissolving the Union and establishing a Southern Confederacy, of which he would be the Chief Executive. One of his projects, fearing that the success of the main plot would be too long delayed for any benefit to inure to him, was a proposed amendment to the Constitution, to make two Presidents exist at the same time—one from the South and the other from the other sections—and no act in regard to the interests of the South was to be passed without the consent of the President for that section. Of course, his plan was looked upon as puerile, if not mischievous, and failed to attract much attention. His whole soul was then bent on his main scheme, and he enlisted warm, ardent, and talented followers in behalf of it; but little headway was made in it outside of South Carolina.

President Jackson knew well what was going on, and was determined that the law should be put into execution, not against misguided followers, but against Calhoun, the chief conspirator. Calhoun, hearing that Jackson had resolved upon his prosecution and trial, and, if convicted, his execution for treason, sent Letcher, of Kentucky, to confer with him and to learn his real intentions. The President received Letcher with his usual courtesy; but that mild blue eye, which at times would fill with tears like that of a woman, was kindled up that night with unwonted fire. He explained the situation to Letcher, and concluded by telling him that if another step was taken, "by the Eternal!" he would try Calhoun for treason, and, if convicted, he would hang him on a gallows as high as Haman.

Letcher saw that Jackson was terribly in earnest, and hastened to the lodgings of Calhoun, who had retired, but received him sitting up in bed with his cloak around him. Letcher detailed all that had occurred, giving entire the conversation with Jackson, and described the old hero as he took that oath.

There sat Calhoun, drinking in eagerly every word, and, as Letcher proceeded, he turned pale as death, and, great as he was in intellect, trembled like an aspen leaf, not from fear or cowardice, but from the consciousness of guilt. He was the arch traitor, who like Satan in Paradise, "brought death into the world and all our woe." Within one week he came into the Senate and voted—voted for every section of Mr. Clay's bill—and President Jackson was prevailed upon not to prosecute him for his crime.

During the last days of General Jackson at the Hermitage, while slowly sinking under the ravages of consumption, he was one day speaking of his Administration, and with glowing interest he inquired of the physician:

"What act in my Administration, in your opinion, will posterity condemn with the greatest severity?"

The physician replied that he was unable to answer, that it might be the removal of the deposits.

"Oh! no," said the General.

"Then it may be the specie circular?"

"Not at all!"

"What is it, then?"

"I can tell you," said Jackson, rising in his bed, his eyes kindling up—"I can tell you; posterity will condemn me more because I was persuaded not to hang John C. Calhoun as a traitor than for any other act in my life."

Daniel Webster's reply to Hayne was made the key-note of the resistance by the Administration to Jefferson's assertion adopted by Calhoun, "Where powers have been assumed which have not been delegated, nullification is the rightful remedy." President Jackson's proclamation against this doctrine of nullification—the germ of secession—was written by Edward Livingston, his Secretary of State, and it has been said that it followed, throughout, the doctrine maintained by Mr. Webster in his reply to Hayne, in 1830. So remarkable was this adoption of Mr. Webster's argument, that popular opinion at that time regarded it as a manifest, but of course a very excusable, plagiarism. Mr. Webster, when the proclamation was issued, was on his way to Washington, ignorant of what had occurred. At an inn in New Jersey he met a traveler just from Washington. Neither of them was known to the other. Mr. Webster inquired the news. "Sir," said the gentleman, "the President has issued a proclamation against the nullifiers, taken entirely from Mr. Webster's reply to Hayne." In the course of the ensuing session, and not long after Mr. Webster reached the capital it became necessary for the Administration to act. Mr. Webster was in the opposition, and, excepting in regard to the integrity of the Union and the just power of the Government, there was a wide gulf between the Administration and him. He was absent from his seat for several days when the Force bill was about to be introduced as an Administration measure. A portion of General Jackson's original supporters hung back from that issue. At this juncture there was much inquiry among the President's friends in the House as to where Mr. Webster was. At length a member of General Jackson's Cabinet went to Mr. Webster's rooms, told him the nature of the bill about to be introduced, and asked him, as a public duty, to go into the Senate and defend the bill and the President. It is well known to the whole country that Mr. Webster did so; and it is known to me that General Jackson personally thanked him for his powerful aid, that many of the President's best friends afterward sought to make a union between him and Mr. Webster, and that nothing continued to separate them but an irreconcilable difference of opinion about the questions relating to the currency.

While Mr. Calhoun was undoubtedly the leading Democrat in the Senate, after his return to that body, Mr. Benton was the recognized leader of President Jackson's adherents in that body. His fierce opposition to "Biddle and the Bank," with his prediction that the time would come when there would be no paper money, but when every laboring man would have a knit silk purse, through the meshes of which the gold coin within could be seen, obtained for him the sobriquet of "Old Bullion." His greatest triumph was the passage of a resolution by the Senate "expunging" from its journal a resolution censuring General Jackson for the removal of deposits from the Bank of the United States. This expunging resolution was kept before the Senate for nearly three years, and was then passed by only five majority. The closing debate was able and exhaustive, Henry Clay, John J. Crittenden, Thomas Ewing, William C. Rives, William Hendricks, John M. Niles, Richard H. Bayard, and others participating, while Daniel Webster read a protest signed by himself and his sturdy colleague, John Davis. The Democrats had provided a bountiful supply of refreshments in the room of the Committee on Finance, and several Senators showed by their actions that they were not members of the then newly organized Congressional Temperance Society, before which Mr. Webster had delivered a brief address. After the final vote—twenty-four years and nineteen nays—had been taken, Mr. Benton moved that the Secretary carry into effect the order of the Senate. Then the Secretary, Mr. Asbury Dickens, opening the manuscript journal of 1834, drew broad black lines around the obnoxious resolution and wrote across its face: "Expunged by order of the Senate, this 16th day of January, in the year of our Lord 1837."

No sooner had he concluded than hisses were heard, and Mr. King, of Alabama, who occupied the chair, ordered the galleries to be cleared, while Mr. Benton, in a towering rage, denounced the offenders and demanded their arrest. "Here is one," said he, "just above me, that may be easily be identified—the bank ruffian." Mr. King revoked his order to clear the galleries, but directed the arrest of the person pointed out by Mr. Benton, who was soon brought before the bar of the Senate. It was Mr. Lloyd, a practicing lawyer in Cleveland, Ohio, who was not permitted to say a word in his own defense, but was soon discharged, after which the Senate adjourned.

[Facsimile] Thomas H. Benton THOMAS HART BENTON was born near Hillsborough, North Carolina, March 14th, 1782; was United States Senator from Missouri, 1821- 1851; a Representative in Congress from Missouri, 1853-1855; was defeated as a candidate for re-election to Congress in 1854, and as candidate for Governor of Missouri in 1856, and died at Washington City, April 10th, 1858.

CHAPTER X. PROMINENT MEN OF JACKSON'S TIME.

Henry Clay, after his return to the Senate, was the recognized leader of the Whig Senators, for he would recognize no leader. His oratory was persuasive and spirit-stirring. The fire of his bright eyes and the sunny smile which lighted up his countenance added to the attractions of his unequaled voice, which was equally distinct and clear, whether at its highest key or lowest whisper— rich, musical, captivating. His action was the spontaneous offspring of the passing thought. He gesticulated all over. The nodding of his head, hung on a long neck, his arms, hands, fingers, feet, and even his spectacles, his snuff-box, and his pocket-handkerchief, aided him in debate. He stepped forward and backward, and from the right to the left, with effect. Every thought spoke; the whole body had its story to tell, and added to the attractions of his able arguments. But he was not a good listener, and he would often sit, while other Senators were speaking, eating sticks of striped peppermint candy, and occasionally taking a pinch of snuff from a silver box that he carried, or from one that graced the table of the Senate.

Occasionally, Mr. Clay was very imperious and displayed bad temper in debate. Once he endeavored to browbeat Colonel Benton, bringing up "Old Bullion's" personal recontre with General Jackson, and charging the former with having said that, should the latter be elected President, Congress must guard itself with pistols and dirks. This Colonel Benton pronounced "an atrocious calumny." "What," retorted Mr. Clay, "can you look me in the face, sir, and say that you never used that language?" "I look," said Colonel Benton, "and repeat that it is an atrocious calumny, and I will pin it to him who repeats it here." Mr. Clay's face flushed with rage as he replied: "Then I declare before the Senate that you said the very words!" "False! false! false!" shouted Colonel Benton, and the Senators interfered, Mr. Tazewell, who was in the chair, calling the belligerents to order. After some discussion of the questions of order, Colonel Benton said: "I apologize to the Senate for the manner in which I have spoken—but not to the Senator from Kentucky." Mr. Clay promptly added: "To the Senate I also offer an apology—to the Senator from Missouri, none!" Half an hour afterwards they shook hands, as lawyers often do who have just before abused each other in court.

On another occasion, General Smith, of Baltimore, a Revolutionary hero upward of eighty years of age, who had been a member of Congress almost forty years, was one day the object of Henry Clay's wrath. The old General, who had fought gallantly in the Revolutionary struggle and taken up arms again in the War of 1812, was offensively bullied by Mr. Clay, who said: "The honorable gentleman was in favor of manufactures in 1822, but he has turned—I need not use the word—he has thus abandoned manufactures. Thus

"'Old politicians chew on wisdom past And totter on, in blunders, to the last.'"

The old General sprang to his feet. "The last allusion," said he, "is unworthy of a gentleman. Totter, sir, I totter! Though some twenty years older than the gentleman, I can yet stand firm, and am yet able to correct his errors. I could take a view of the gentleman's course, which would show how consistent he has been." Mr. Clay exclaimed, angrily: "Take it, sir, take it—I dare you!" Cries of "Order." "No, sir," said Mr. Smith, "I will not take it. I will not so far disregard what is due to the dignity of the Senate."

While Mr. Clay was generally imperious in debate, and not overcautious in his choice of phrases and epithets, he was fond of a joke, and often indulged, in an undertone, in humorous comments on the remarks by other Senators. Sometimes he would be very happy in his illustrations, and make the most of some passing incident. One afternoon, when he was replaying to a somewhat heated opponent, a sudden squall came up and rattled the window curtain so as to produce a considerable noise. The orator stopped short in the midst of his remarks and inquired aloud, what was the matter; and then, as if divining the cause of the disturbance, he said: "Storms seem to be coming in upon us from all sides." The observation, though trivial as related, was highly amusing under the circumstances which gave rise to it and from the manner in which it was uttered.

When Henry Clay returned to the Senate, Daniel Webster yielded to him the leadership of the Whigs in that body, but in no way sacrificed his own independence. "The Great Expounder of the Constitution," as he was called, was then in the prime of life, and had not began those indulgences which afterward exercised such injurious effects upon him. He would also occasionally indulge in a grim witticism. On one occasion, when a Senator who was jeering another for some pedantry said, "The honorable gentleman may proceed to quote from Crabbe's Synonyms, from Walker and Webster"—"Not from Walker and Webster," exclaimed the Senator from Massachusetts, "for the authorities may disagree!" At another time, when he was speaking on the New York Fire bill, the Senate clock suddenly began to strike, and after it had struck continuously for about fourteen or fifteen times, Mr. Webster stopped, and said to the presiding officer, "The clock is out of order, sir—I have the floor." The occupant of the chair looking rebukingly at the refractory time- piece, but in defiance of the officers and rules of the House, it struck about forty before the Sergeant-at-Arms could stop it, Mr. Webster standing silent, while every one else was laughing.

On another occasion, while Mr. Webster was addressing the Senate in presenting a memorial, a clerical-looking person in one of the galleries arose and shouted: "My friends, the country is on the brink of destruction! Be sure that you act on correct principles. I warn you to act as your consciences may approve. God is looking down upon you, and if you act on correct principles you will get safely through." He then deliberately stepped back, and retired from the gallery before the officers of the Senate could reach him. Mr. Webster was, of course, surprised at this extraordinary interruption; but when the shrill voice of the enthusiast had ceased, he coolly resumed his remarks, saying, "As the gentleman in the gallery has concluded, I will proceed."

Mr. Cuthbert, of Georgia, was much provoked, one day, by a scathing denunciation of his State by Mr. Clay for the manner in which she had treated the Cherokee Indians. As the eloquent Kentuckian dwelt more in sorrow than in anger upon the wrongs and outrages perpetrated in Georgia upon the unoffending aborigines within her borders, many of his hearers were affected to tears, and he himself was obviously deeply moved. No sooner did Mr. Clay resume his seat than Mr. Cuthbert sprang to his feet, and in an insolent tone alluded to what he called the theatrical manner of the speaker. "What new part will Roscius next enact?" said the Senator from Georgia, coming forward from his desk and standing in the area of the hall. He was a man of about the ordinary height, with a round face pitted with the smallpox, small, dark eyes, and a full forehead. As he spoke he twirled his watch-key incessantly with his right hand, while his left was flung about in the most unmeaning and awkward gestures. He twisted his body right and left, forward and backward, as if he were a Chinese mandarin going through a stated number of evolutions before his emperor; in fact, he had "all the contortions of the sybil, without her inspiration." To this display Mr. Clay seemed entirely oblivious, but after Judge White, of Tennessee, had discussed the pending question, Mr. Clay rose, saying, that he would reply to this gentleman's remarks as "they alone were worthy of notice."

In the House of Representatives, during the Jackson Administration, sectional topics were rife, sectional jealousies were high, and partisan warfare was unrelenting. Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia, who was triumphantly re-elected as Speaker for four successive terms, understood well how to keep down the boiling caldron, and to exercise stern authority, tempered with dignity and courtesy, over heated passions of the fiercest conflicting character. When he was transferred from the Speaker's chair to the Court of St. James, John Bell, of Tennessee, an old supporter of General Jackson, became his successor for the remainder of that session, but at the commencement of the next Congress Mr. Van Buren secured the election of James K. Polk. Mr. Bell, on his next visit to Nashville, threw down the gauntlet, in an able speech, and nominated Judge White. This was the foundation of the White party, which had, as its editorial henchman, the Rev. Mr. Brownlow, known as "the fighting Parson," who soon acquired a national reputation by his defiant personalities in debate and by his trenchant editorial articles in the newspapers of East Tennessee. Mr. Brownlow was at that time a tall, spare man, with long, black hair, black eyes, and a sallow complexion. He was devoted to the Methodist Church and to the White—afterward the Whig—party, and the denominational doctrines of immersion and the political dogmas of emancipation from slavery were objects of his intense hatred.

While Mr. Stevenson was Speaker, General Samuel Houston, who had been residing among the Indians on the Southwestern frontier for several years, came to Washington. Taking offense at some remarks made in debate by Mr. Vance, a representative from Ohio, Houston assaulted and severely pounded him. The House voted that Houston should be brought before the bar and reprimanded by the Speaker, which was done, although Mr. Stevenson's reprimand was really complimentary. That night a friend of General Houston, with a bludgeon and a pistol, attacked Mr. Arnold, of Tennessee, who had been active in securing the reprimand, but the latter soon got the best of the encounter.