Class \Z\}l 
 Book A. 
 
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 COPntlGHT DEPOSm 
 
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 OUR PRESIDENTS 
 
 LIVES OF THE TWENTY-THREE PRESIDENTS 
 OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
 BV ,» 
 
 VIRGINIA f: TOWNSEND 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH STEEL PORTRAIT OF EACH BY SOME OF THE 
 MOST EMINENT AMERICAN ENGRAVERS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY 
 
 1889 
 
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 Copyright. 1888, by 
 VIRGINIA F. TOWNSEND 
 
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 v^iT^^'X, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 On the last day of April, 1889, our country will have had a 
 century of Presidents. Yet it is improbable that the majority 
 of Americans will, on that day, be aware that it is one of the 
 great dates of history. For it will then be a hundred years 
 since George Washington took the oath of office as first Presi- 
 dent of the United States. 
 
 The great historic scene, with all its circumstances and sur- 
 roundings, is familiar to us. We still see the tall, stately 
 figure, the grave, striking face, as Washington, " in his dress 
 of American manufacture," stood before the awed, breathless 
 crowds of that old New York, the chief actor in a drama 
 such as the world had never before witnessed. 
 
 It is evident that our first President must have taken his 
 oath of office with feelings which could never be wholly re- 
 flected by any of those who came after him. 
 
 Yet I think, if he could at that hour have looked down 
 the long line of his twenty-one successors, it would have glad- 
 dened his soul to know how many of these would make it their 
 supreme aim to serve their country — so far as lay in them — 
 with his own wise, far-seeing statesmanship, and his own simple, 
 patriotic devotion. 
 
 The man or woman to whose lot it shall fall to write the 
 biographies of the Presidents of a second century, will, it is 
 hoped, find as much worthy of honor and praise, as the author 
 of these brief sketches has found. It must also be true in that 
 far-off day, as in the present one, that " those who think best 
 of men judge them most truly." 
 
 V. F. T. 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 George Washington t)lA^.v.V.VlC'^;L i -^ 
 
 John Adams 24 
 
 Thomas Jefferson 59 
 
 James Madison 103 
 
 James Monroe. 123 
 
 John Quincy Adams , 142 ^ 
 
 Andrew Jackson .\ ..' 171 
 
 Martin Van Buren 224, 
 
 William Henry Harrison 232 ^ 
 
 John Tyler 241 
 
 James Knox Polk 248 
 
 Zachary Taylor ..■..{.'. J 254 
 
 Millard Fillmore 263 
 
 Franklin Pierce 269 
 
 James Buchanan 275 
 
 Abraham Lincoln 281 
 
 Andrew Johnson 307 
 
 Ulysses S. Grant 317 
 
 Rutherford Birciiard Hayes 337 
 
 James Abram Garfield 344 . 
 
 Chester Alan Arthur 361 
 
 Grover Cleveland 367 
 
 Benjamin Harrison 37i'^ 
 
OUR PRESIDENTS. 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 It is not impossible that some persons who have heard 
 George Washington speak may be aUve at this day. 
 
 As his death, however, took place a fortnight before the 
 close of the last century, it is doubtful whether any memory now 
 retains an echo of the voice which must have been heard, if at 
 all, in the far, dim morning of childhood. 
 
 But while it is true that George Washington died less than 
 ninety years ago, we know almost as little of his childhood as 
 we do of Shakspere's. 
 
 The few anecdotes which have floated down to us are of 
 doubtful authenticity. This fact appears the more singular 
 because he Uved in a region where family traditions and records 
 are cherished with utmost pride and care. 
 
 One cannot help wishing that some neighbor might have 
 had a prescience of the future greatness of that young boy 
 who was playing in the Westmoreland meadows. If his stately 
 mother, Mary Ball Washington, had only kept a journal of 
 those early years of her first-born child ! Or if, long after, it 
 had occurred to the wife to take down from her husband's lips 
 some of the stories she, at least, must have heard ! For in that 
 happy, closing year of his life, when his soul was at peace, and 
 no sound of war was in the air, and the two sat around the fire- 
 side at Mount Vernon, the heart of the man must have been 
 
Our Presidents. 
 
 sometimes stirred with memories of his youth. Story and anec- 
 dote of one sort and another would be sure to follow. All these 
 would have been precious to later generations. But, at that 
 time, the pen work of American women was, with rare excep- 
 tions, limited to occasional family and friendly letters. 
 
 Every child knows the date of the birthday which gives him 
 his first holiday after New Year's. On the winter morning of 
 February 22, 1732, George Washington first saw the light in 
 the low, steep-roofed home which stood a story and a half high 
 on Bridge's Creek, and which was flanked at either end by 
 immense chimneys. 
 
 A little later his baby eyes were probably dazzled by the 
 flames in which that old roof-tree went down. His earliest 
 memories and associations must have centered about the home 
 on the Rappahannock, to which his family soon removed. 
 
 George Washington had been born into a good place. He 
 came of a stanch, vigorous, energetic English breed. The 
 atmosphere in which his childhood opened was a simple and 
 wholesome one. 
 
 All the influences about his early years must have been of a 
 pure, sound, elevating character. A home where the conscience 
 was so early appealed to, and the best instincts developed, 
 would not, as in so many instances, leave much for later years 
 to painfully and laboriously unlearn. 
 
 His early boyhood must have been a healthy, happy one, 
 crowded with hearty, robust activities and sports in the outdoor 
 world that lay so fair and vast about him ; the dark, solemn 
 wildernesses stretching away to unknown horizons, while the 
 great snow-daisied meadow which formed the scene of his 
 childish sports sloped down to the swift- glancing, brown-gleam- 
 ing Rappahannock. 
 
 When the boy reached his eleventh year death crossed the 
 threshold. At that time his father died. Through all his 
 
George JVasbington. 
 
 busy, crowded life George Washington's memory must often 
 have reverted to the day when his mother sat a widow among 
 her group of young children, and looked on him, her first-born, 
 through her tear-dimmed eyes. He must have felt then— the 
 boy always grave and thoughtful beyond his years— a sudden 
 access of responsibility. His father's mantle had, in some way, 
 fallen on his young shoulders. 
 
 After this time the current of George Washington's life, 
 which thus far has flowed hidden and silent among his early 
 years, leaps out, a sparkling joyous current, into the sunshine. 
 
 George had two half-brothers — the father having been twice 
 married. Laurence, the elder, wedded the young daughter of 
 the Fairfaxes. This brought the boy of eleven into family 
 relations with all that was most refined and elegant in the old 
 colonial society of Virginia. 
 
 The eldest of Augustine Washington's sons inherited the 
 fine qualities of his race ; he had the cultivated tastes and habits 
 acquired at Oxford, where, after the fashion of the time, he 
 had been sent as the eldest son to complete his education. He 
 was fourteen years the senior of George, who adored his splen- 
 did elder brother, accomplished by study, travel, and foreign 
 society. Laurence appears to have been worthy of this admira- 
 tion, and the young brother sought to form his own life and 
 character after the example constantly before him. 
 
 Laurence inherited from his father, who left large landed 
 estates, a noble domain on the banks of the Potomac. It was 
 called Hunting Creek ; but Laurence, in honor of the admiral 
 under whom he had served in the West Indies, named his estate 
 Mount Vernon, little dreaming of the world-wide celebrity it 
 was fated to attain. 
 
 At Belvoir, only a few miles distant, the Fairfaxes had their 
 home, which, in its luxurious appointments, as well as in its 
 domestic and social habits, must have greatly resembled an 
 
Our Presidents. 
 
 English country-seat of that day. The house was filled with 
 gay young Fairfaxes, and George, closely connected with their 
 elder sister, made frequent visits to Belvoir as well as to Mount 
 Vernon. He lived awhile, too, with Augustine, the younger 
 of the half-brothers, and attended Mr. Williams' school. This 
 was, no doubt, an improvement on the one to which he had 
 been first sent, kept by the sexton, where he had learned to 
 read and write, and had studied the rudiments of arithmetic. 
 
 George Washington was intended by his family for a Vir- 
 ginia planter ; his education was conducted with sole reference 
 to this fact. It was of the most practical kind. Nobody 
 appears to have thought of sending the eldest son of the second 
 wife of Augustine Washington to Oxford, to follow in the steps 
 of his half-brother. George learned early to draw up all varie- 
 ties of business documents. In this work he showed remark- 
 able skill and thoroughness. His exercise-books, written in a 
 large, bold hand, still remain, and are models of their kind. 
 What is more remarkable, and more precious still, as furnishing 
 a keynote to his character and temperament, are the hundred 
 and ten rules on morals and manners which the exercise-book 
 contains. 
 
 Some of these rules are of the most minute and painstaking 
 kind. They show a deep conscientiousness, and a patience, 
 thoroughness, and scrupulous regard for details, most unusual 
 in a boy of the writer's age. His rigid training was no doubt 
 partly responsible for this. 
 
 For there was a good deal of the stuff of a Roman matron 
 in that Virginia widow who was bringing up her young family on 
 the banks of the Rappahannock. The domestic manners were 
 formal and ceremonious, and would appear to our free-and-easy 
 life burdensome and absurd; but beneath all the formality, 
 beautiful and sterling virtues flourished vigorously. 
 
 Augustine Washington, the father of George, had given 
 
George WasUngton. 
 
 the highest proof of his confidence in his wife's character and 
 abilities, by appointing her guardian of their children. 
 
 George Washington was, in his early teens, a large-limbed, 
 powerful young fellow, with a grave, thoughtful face, with blue 
 eyes and brown hair. He was singularly cpiet, shy, and keenly 
 observant. He had no brilliant conversational gifts, though he 
 had a quiet sense of humor. The thing about him most likely 
 to strike an observer was his immense enjoyment of all out-door 
 sports and games. He was a splendid athlete. In all exercises 
 which required long-breathing power, steady nerves, and well- 
 trained muscles, George Washington won the prize among his 
 young companions. Here he showed to much better advantage 
 than he did in the gay drawing-room at Belvoir, where his native 
 shyness often made the tall, grave, handsome youth silent and 
 awkward. 
 
 Those who knew him best were quite aware that under the 
 silence and shyness were a strong will and a swift temper ; and 
 whatever confidence they may have had in his word, they were 
 not likely to regard him as a youthful saint. 
 
 The air about him at that time must have been heated with 
 war-tales. Indeed, his childhood had been filled with stories 
 of Indian ravages on the border, told probably in the long 
 winter evenings when the household sat about the fire, and the 
 flames roared in the big chimney. 
 
 Among the daisies of the old Westmoreland meadow he had, 
 a mere child, formed his companies and drilled --his small 
 playfellows. Anybody who had watched their maneuvers 
 must have felt there was the making of a soldier in that young 
 boy. 
 
 But Mrs. Washington cherished other than military ambi- 
 tions for her son. The dearest wish of her heart was that he 
 should follow in the steps of his father, become the head of 
 the household, and a Virginia planter. 
 
Our Presidents. 
 
 This desire once briefly and reluctantly yielded to her son's 
 wishes, backed, no doubt, by Laurence's influence. The latter 
 inherited the martial spirit of his race. English naval officers, 
 with whom he had served in the West Indies, were frequent 
 guests at Mount Vernon. Here the talk could not fail to run 
 much upon military affairs. George, thrown at his impressible 
 age into this society, must have been greatly stirred by it. 
 His soul took fire. At fourteen — it must always be borne in 
 mind that he looked and seemed older than his birthdays — a 
 passion to enter the navy took possession of him. This was a 
 cruel frustration of all the mother's hopes. Everybody knows 
 the story of the consent won from her unwilling lips, and how, 
 at the last moment, when the midshipman's warrant had been 
 procured, and the trunk was on board the ship-of-war, her heart 
 failed her. She withdrew her consent. It must have been a 
 cruel blow to a boy of fourteen, his soul on fire with dreams of 
 future honor and glory to be won in his new career. But he 
 does not appear to have rebelled ; he was made of the same 
 stuff as his mother ; he returned to school ; he studied survey- 
 ing ; he took great delight in it, and soon became an admirable 
 scholar in this department. 
 
 When George Washington was sixteen a new figure comes 
 into the foreground of his life, the figure of one destined to 
 have a commanding influence on all the years of that opening 
 manhood. This was Lord Thomas Fairfax. He was a man of 
 singular character and history. He came to America to visit 
 his cousins at Belvoir, and to look over the immense landed 
 estates which he had inherited from his mother, and which 
 were under the care of his cousin, William Fairfax, Laurence 
 Washington's father-in-law. 
 
 The advent of the shrewd, eccentric old nobleman at Bel- 
 voir, with his knowledge of courts, of the army, of the world, 
 must have created a profound sensation. It could not have 
 
George Washington. 
 
 been long before he and George Washington met. Lord Fair- 
 fax soon discovered that the tall, shy youth of sixteen had some 
 traits in common with his own. Each had the same delight in 
 the wide, free life of the fields and woods ; each had a passion, 
 too, for hunting the game to cover. 
 
 These common sympathies brought the polished English 
 nobleman and the shy Westmoreland youth much together. 
 Out of this friendship grew an event of vast consequence to 
 young Washington's future. 
 
 Immense tracts of Lord Fairfax's estate lay in the Shenan- 
 doah Valley, beyond the great walls of the Blue Ridge. No- 
 body knew their extent ; very few cared about it. Pioneers 
 from the northern colonies, especially from Pennsylvania, 
 attracted by the beauty and fertility of the land, established 
 themselves wherever they chose, in utter disregard of the own- 
 er's title. 
 
 Lord Fairfax at length resolved to have his estates surveyed. 
 He actually proposed that the boy of sixteen, with whom he 
 had hunted in the Virginia woods, should undertake this im- 
 mense task. 
 
 In March, 1748, the little party set out on its perilous jour- 
 ney into the primeval wildernesses. Washington was accom- 
 panied by young Fairfax, the brother of Laurence's wife and 
 six years George's senior. It is said that the young explorers 
 were much attached to each other. 
 
 If the trip was full of perils and hardships, it had also im- 
 mense fascinations for youth and health and courage. Washing- 
 ton now had his first taste of that frontier life of which he was 
 to have so varied an experience. He learned what keen 
 pleasure it was *' to sleep on the hard ground, lying well 
 wrapped before a blazing fire, with no roof but the skies. " 
 
 The small party which accompanied Washington did good 
 work at the surveying, in which he appears to have taken the 
 
8 Our Presidents. 
 
 lead. His diligent study served him well now Some days, 
 we read, he earned twenty dollars — immense wages at that 
 time for a youth of sixteen. 
 
 But there was much rough experience to. encounter. The 
 wild March storms often burst furiously upon the little 
 party. They were forced to swim their horses over rivers 
 swollen by freshets. At other times they hunted the game with 
 which the woods abounded, and, in one place, where the com- 
 pany had halted, the Indians came in suddenly from the war- 
 path. But they must have been friendly, for they treated the 
 pale-faces to a war-dance. A youth of sixteen would not be 
 likely to forget the weird, savage horror of that scene in the 
 primeval wilderness. 
 
 When he returned to Lord Fairfax, George Washington's 
 school-days were over. He had performed his task so well 
 that he soon afterward received a commission from the gov- 
 ernor as public surveyor. 
 
 The three following years were spent in congenial work. 
 This life of field and wilderness educated George Washington 
 for his future career as no books, no teachers could have done. 
 It laid the foundations of his splendid health ; it steadied his 
 nerves, until no roar of wild beast, no war-whoop of savages, 
 could shake their trained calmness ; it fitted him for all the 
 hardships and exigencies of the soldier's life ; it inured him 
 alike to summer's heat and winter's cold, while it made him 
 keen to detect any danger, and swift and brave to meet it. 
 
 But those three years were not all spent in the wilderness. 
 They were brightened by frequent visits to his mother, to 
 Mount Vernon, to Belvoir. The young surveyor also visited 
 Lord Fairfax in the cabin he had built in the Shenandoah Val- 
 ley, and pored over the volumes which the nobleman had 
 brought from England. 
 
 While Washington was busy with his government surveys. 
 
George Washington. 
 
 the events which were to form so thrilling a chapter in Ameri- 
 can history were coming to the front. 
 
 Two nations had long been bent on obtaining supremacy in 
 America. The English had planted their colonies along the 
 Atlantic coast and "guarded the front door of the American 
 continent." The French had held steadily to their plans of 
 building forts in the interior. They meant the chain should 
 be secure — not a link missing from Canada to Louisiana. 
 
 Of course each nation had followed the bent of its own 
 genius in laying the foundations for its supremacy in America. 
 The English planted their farms and built their towns ; the 
 French raised forts and established trading-posts. Every year 
 the English pushed deeper into the lonely forests and stretched 
 their clearings farther to the west. One almost seems to catch 
 from that far-away time the ringing of the axe in the \vilderness, 
 the hum of busy industry, and the old songs with which the 
 brave pioneers set to their work, resolved, with Anglo-Saxon 
 grit, that the fair land beyond the Alleghanies should be theirs 
 and their children's forever. 
 
 But another race, with all its old Gallic courage and shrewd- 
 ness, was there too. It had pre-empted the land, and it had 
 come to stay. It perceived with alarm and wrath that each 
 year the English clearings drew nearer to the French posts, 
 over which the Bourbon lilies waved in the great interior, west 
 of the Appalachian Range. 
 
 Then there were the Indians — a foe that English and 
 French must alike count with. The savages regarded both the 
 white races with jealousy and rage that often flamed up in terri- 
 ble vengeance. 
 
 The pale-faces were to the tribes the foreign and hated 
 foe who had seized their ancient hunting grounds. But the 
 Indians sided sometimes with the French, sometimes with the 
 English, as interest or caprice dictated ; while frequent and 
 
lO Our Presidents. 
 
 bloody wars between the tribes weakened their numbers and 
 wasted their strength. 
 
 Meanwhile, the great aim of each race was to secure pos- 
 session of the Ohio Valley. Each, as we have seen, set about 
 achieving its purpose by characteristic methods. The French 
 steadily added to the number of their forts in the interior ; the 
 English organized the Ohio Company. Laurence Washington 
 was the head of this company. Events were marching rapidly. 
 It was evident that the immense area of the Ohio Valley was 
 to be the scene of a fierce struggle for dominion. 
 
 All this sounds strange and remote as the AVars of the Roses. 
 Yet these things happened, we have to tell ourselves, only in 
 the last century, and when that was just crossing its meridian. 
 
 The colonies now took the alarm. There was talk of war on 
 every side. Military drills suddenly became the fashion in the 
 quiet old Virginia towns. It was significant that at this time 
 George Washington began to study military treatises and take 
 lessons in sword exercise. 
 
 But all this was brought to a sudden close by the alarming 
 condition of Laurence Washington's health, impaired by his 
 life in the West Indies. He was forced at this juncture to 
 leave his young wife and daughter and go to Barbadoes for the 
 winter. His brother accompanied him. 
 
 This was the only time in which George Washington ever 
 set foot on any soil but his native one. During this absence 
 he had two experiences, Avidely unlike. He took the small-pox, 
 and always retained slight marks of it ; he visited the theater 
 for the first time. 
 
 But the invalid's health did not permanently rally ; he 
 barely reached Mount Vernon to die there in July, 1752. 
 
 George Washington's heart and hands must have been full 
 at this time. The youth of twenty was appointed one of the 
 executors of Laurence's estate, and in case the young daughter 
 
Georjie WashiujitoH. 1 1 
 
 died Mount Vernon was to revert to the brother, between 
 whom and her father had existed so close an affection. Wash- 
 ington now went to live at Mount Vernon. It was to be home 
 to him for the rest of his life. 
 
 The story of the years that followed is crowded with pict- 
 uresque events, and is full of breathless interest. It fires one's 
 heart to read of that time. But to dwell on it would be to 
 expand this sketch to a volume. To this period belongs that 
 expedition to the French out-posts which runs like a romance. 
 Washington accomplished the journey amid every conceivable 
 peril over ice-bound rivers, through frozen wildernesses. At 
 last the young American confronted the wily, polished French 
 officers in their own quarters, and amid their Indian allies. 
 He found himself forced to match his coolness, his inborn can- 
 dor, his untried sagacity, with veterans trained in camps, and 
 with treacherous savages. It was a wonder that he ever lived 
 to relate his return from the lonely out-post. " The terrible 
 hardships broke down even the strong pack-horses. Wash- 
 ington and Christopher Gist, the seasoned frontiersman who 
 accompanied him, were forced to alight, leave the rest of the 
 party to come on by slower stages, while the pair struck into 
 the snow-bound wilderness on foot. At one point in this jour- 
 ney the Indian guide, believing the white men in his power, 
 attempted to shoot them." Washington escaped all these dan- 
 gers to barely save himself from drowning when he slipped 
 from the raft of logs into the icy current of the Alleghany. It 
 seemed at that critical moment that the life which was yet to 
 prove so infinitely precious to his country was hardly worth a 
 pin's fee. 
 
 But he gained the settlements at last, much exhausted 
 though not permanently injured by that terrible journey. A 
 little later he reached the capital and laid the results of his 
 mission before the governor of the colony. He had executed his 
 
12 Our Presidents. 
 
 delicate and trying task Avith astonishing tact and sagacity. From 
 that moment he was, we read, " the rising hope of Virginia." 
 
 A lowering May morning of 1754 forms an important date 
 in American history and in the life of George Washington. 
 At that time the first gun was fired in the long contest between 
 the English and French for possession of the Ohio Valley. 
 Washington was in that battle. Young Jumonville, the French 
 commander, was killed. The Americans won the victory, and 
 sent twenty-one prisoners to the colony. 
 
 "I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me, there is 
 something charming in the sound," Washington is reported to 
 have written to his brother. The words do not sound like him, 
 but he was only twenty-two, and in the flush of his first victory. 
 
 He must have smiled grimly to himself when, on the follow- 
 ing 4th of July, he led his defeated and draggled little army 
 from Great Meadows. During these months he had seen 
 another side of war than the swift whistling of bullets. His 
 fiery temper had been tried by all sorts of vexations and dis- 
 appointments. These were largely the result of the incompe- 
 tency, jealousy, and obstinacy of the colonial government. He 
 was at last reduced to extremities ; his supplies had failed ; his 
 troops were starving. 
 
 The draggled little army marched bravely away — drums 
 beating and colors flying — from an enemy whose numbers 
 made it impossible to prolong the contest. George Washing- 
 ton's heart must have been very heavy on that 4th of July. 
 How little he could dream that date would yet be illuminated 
 with undying glory for himself and his country ! 
 
 Twenty-two years from that time he was to draw his sword 
 under the old Cambridge elm in another and longer contest. 
 
 The history of the long struggle for possession of the Ohio 
 Valley, and the part Washington played in it, cannot be dwelt 
 upon here. 
 
George IVasbwgton. 13 
 
 There came an hour which must have seemed, in the 
 completeness of his triumph, to reward him for all his wrongs 
 and toils and sufferings. That hour fell on November 25, 
 1758, when the young Virginia colonel marched with the 
 advanced guard into Fort Duquesne, and planted the English 
 colors where the French had waved so long. The enemy, 
 reduced to extremities, had blown up the magazines, set fire to 
 the fort, and departed the night before. 
 
 The long struggle between the two peoples for the land 
 whose eastern wall was the Alleghanies, had ended in victory 
 for the race which had begun its career in America by tilling 
 farms and planting towns on the Atlantic seaboard. 
 
 A few months later George Washington was settled at 
 Mount Vernon. He had inherited this noble domain at the 
 death of Laurence's daughter. It was to be the dearest spot 
 on earth to him for the rest of his life. 
 
 Everybody knows how unexpectedly he met the beautiful 
 Martha Custis — how her charms fascinated him on the first 
 interview, and what an impression the young officer's handsome 
 presence and stately bearing made on her — how his wooing 
 prospered, and how their wedding took place in the January 
 which followed the close of the campaign. 
 
 The next sixteen years of George Washington's life were 
 spent at Mount Vernon. Their story reads like some charming 
 idyl, so filled does it seem, at this distance of time, with all 
 congenial activities, with home quiet and affection, with perfect 
 health, with generous hospitalities, and with pure and ennobling 
 social enjoyments. The picture of this period is set in the frame- 
 work of the noble estate which had fallen to the proprietor. It 
 seemed a fit environment for him, with those beautiful groves, 
 those vast woodlands, those far-stretching fields, ripening 
 through the long Virginia summers into splendid harvests. 
 
 Of course there must have been a reverse side to the shield. 
 
14 Our Presidents. 
 
 Those sixteen years could not have been the scene of flawless 
 happiness which they appear as they smile on us across more 
 than a century. Yet George Washington was probably at this 
 time one of the happiest, as he was one of the busiest of men. 
 The superintendence of that immense estate involved burdens 
 which would have weighed down a less stalwart nature, but 
 they sat lightly on that vigorous, energetic manhood. 
 
 Washington's promptness, order, and business thoroughness 
 were now brought into full play, and enabled him to get 
 through with a vast amount of work which would have sorely 
 perplexed a less methodical temperament. Such a man would 
 be certain to rise early and make the most of the morning 
 hours. He rode over the grounds while the grass Avas still 
 drowned in dews, giving the most careful attention to every 
 department of his farm, as he loved to call the great domain. 
 Nothing escaped his keen eyes ; no detail was too small for his 
 attention. He was a kind and just, but no doubt he often 
 seemed an exacting master. 
 
 The old passion for the chase always revived with the hunt- 
 ing season. Then the busy, dignified master of Mount Vernon 
 put aside all business to go out with the hounds. He and his 
 neighbors had merry mornings in the woods. On these hunts 
 he must have felt himself very much the boy he had beer 
 when he and Lord Fairfax chased the game to cover. 
 
 The bright sixteen years went their smooth, swift course, 
 and then the clouds gathered slowly but surely. The life so 
 full, happy, prosperous, was to be followed by another, bur- 
 dened with such cares and trials as, in many respects, never fell 
 to the lot of mortal. 
 
 It is impossible to enter here into a history of the causes 
 which at last wrought their legitimate result in the American 
 Revolution. We know how one oppressive measure after 
 another, whose purpose could only be to suppress the liberties 
 
George Washington. i 5 
 
 and ruin the manufactures of America, at last goaded the col- 
 onies to rebellion. 
 
 In the quiet home by the Potomac a man whose name was 
 not familiar to English ears watched with saddened but reso- 
 lute heart the gathering of the storm. 
 
 Washington's love of country was the deepest feeling of that 
 strong, reserved nature. When the test came, every other 
 affection, every other interest had to yield to this supreme one. 
 
 Yet the prospect of rebellion when he first forced himself to 
 look it in the face must have been terrible to him. He 
 had nothing to gain, he had much to lose, even in the case 
 of a successful issue, to a strife begun under such immense 
 disadvantages for the colonies. 
 
 All the military ambitions of his youth had long been laid 
 to rest. His temperament, education, surroundings, made him 
 conservative. His early associations, the long military service 
 of his youth, had strengthened his attachment to the mother 
 country, and his pride in the ties that bound the colonies to 
 their old home. 
 
 Washington's hope that England would be wise and relent 
 in time yielded very slowly. He saw one high-handed measure 
 follow another, whose purpose could only be to crush the liber- 
 ties and ruin tlie prosperity of his country. The air around 
 him shook with the dangerous wrath of freemen. 
 
 During all this trying time Washington maintained his 
 calmness of speech and bearing. Yet under these the fire 
 burned bright and steady. He was not silent when the lime 
 came to speak, nor idle when it came to work. In every 
 assembly where Virginia freemen met to protest against the 
 tyranny of England, or to assert the rights and liberties of 
 British colonies, one man was, if possible, in their midst ; one 
 man's strong, brief sentences had the ring of unfaltering patriot- 
 ism, of undying courage. 
 
1 6 Our Presidents. 
 
 Perhaps George Washington was never himself conscious of 
 the precise hour when he made up his mind where the war — if 
 it came to one — between England and America would find 
 him. Yet, what tremendous issues for his country, for the 
 world, were to hang on the decision of that unknown hour ! 
 
 Another hour, which in reality was George Washington's 
 summons to the field, and which every schoolboy knows, struck 
 in the pleasant April morning, when " the shot was fired that 
 was heard around the world." 
 
 On the twentieth of the following June the continental 
 congress at Philadelphia appointed George Washington com- 
 mander-in-chief of the American army. The next day he set 
 out for the camp. 
 
 On July 3, 1775, he took command of the forces assembled 
 at Cambridge. The General was now in the prime of manhood, 
 forty-three years of age. His tall, stately figure, his noble face, 
 his dignified presence — all the ideal of a soldier— made a pro- 
 found impression on the people who had crowded into Cam- 
 bridge to see the new commander. 
 
 Under the old elm, among whose green leaves the winds still 
 play softly as they did on that historic summer morning, Wash- 
 ington wheeled his horse and drew the sword, which he then 
 ardently hoped to lay down in the next autumn, but which he 
 was destined to bear for the next eight years. 
 
 This is not the place to relate the long drama of the Amer- 
 ican Revolution. When its unspeakable toils and sacrifices, its 
 defeats and sufferings, were crowned at last with the splendid 
 victory, and the final surrender before the allied armies at 
 Yorktown, George Washington stood before the world, the 
 Deliverer of his country, the foremost man in American history. 
 
 The close of the war of the Revolution is followed by one 
 scene after another of thrilling interest, in which Washington 
 is the central figure. Not the least of these scenes is that 
 
George Washington. 17 
 
 solemn, pathetic one, where he met his officers for the last time, 
 and parted with them in New York. 
 
 Nineteen days after that event Washington, with a simple, 
 characteristic speech, resigned his commission before a large 
 audience assembled at Annapolis, and craved leave of Congress 
 to retire from the service of his country. 
 
 On the following night — it was Christmas eve — he was at 
 Mount Vernon. With what unspeakable feelings he must once 
 more have kept the ancient holiday under his own roof-tree ! 
 
 He returned to the old life and habits with the old zest. 
 His highest ambition, to repeat his own grandly simple words, 
 was "to be a farmer and live an honest man." 
 
 But his country could not leave him to the privacy of his 
 home, to dear domestic ties, to the old enjoyments and activities 
 of his domestic life. 
 
 The Confederacy, from which so much had been hoped for 
 America and for humanity, proved, in its practical workings, a 
 failure. 
 
 After three years at Mount Vernon, years whose domestic 
 happiness had been shadowed by anxieties for his country, the 
 Convention assembled at Philadelphia framed the Constitution, 
 and George Washington was, in the following spring, unani- 
 mously elected first President of the United States. 
 
 The great soldier might well be appalled by the new duties 
 and responsibilities which confronted him on every side. These 
 were of a nature which demanded the highest qualities of 
 statesmanship. There were no precedents, no traditions to 
 guide him. The young nation had been impoverished by the 
 long war of the Revolution. Its domestic affairs were in 
 utmost confusion. Its foreign relations were ill-defined, unsatis- 
 factory, and might, at any moment, become so dangerous as to 
 threaten its existence. 
 
 A.\\ eyes were fasti.Mied on the brave figure which stood at 
 
• 
 
 1 8 Our Presidenis. 
 
 the helm of the ship of state, as she moved out on unknown, 
 perilous seas. 
 
 The fortunes of the nation seemed to hang on the skill, 
 energy, and wisdom of one man. 
 
 The history of his administration is a record of the sound 
 judgment, courage, and devotion with which he guided the ship 
 of state for the next eight years over the stormy waters. 
 Washington had proved himself a great soldier ; he showed now 
 the instinct of the wise, conscientious, far-sighted statesman. 
 
 It is only fair to say something here of the part Mrs. Wash- 
 ington played at this time. The wife of the President of the 
 United States must always be an object of interest to her 
 countrywomen. She is, for the time, the representative of 
 American womanhood to her nation — to the world. That her 
 character and bearing should lend grace and dignity to her 
 high position, must be desired by every woman who cares for 
 the honor of her country. Martha Washington came, like her 
 husband, to bear a new name, to fill a new place. The social 
 duties which it involved proved at once a burdensome tax on 
 the President's precious time. His wife exerted herself to 
 relieve him. She was accustomed to the accomplished circles 
 of the old commonwealth. As lady of the nation she pre- 
 sided with an ease and dignity which had become her second 
 nature. 
 
 But it was not as the gracious, affable wife of our first 
 President that Martha Washington shows her finest quality. 
 Many women of her day could, no doubt, have played her role 
 there with equal satisfaction. But not all women would have 
 left the elegant seclusion of Mount Vernon to share the hard- 
 ships and privations of the army's winter-quarters. Martha 
 Washington was not daunted even by the miseries and sufferings 
 of Valley Forge. 
 
 She seems to have been remarkably well adapted to a man 
 
George IVasbington. 19 
 
 of her liusband's character and habits. She was not a woman, 
 however, of marked mental gifts. She did not possess the 
 strong intellectual tastes, the delight in books, the sensitive 
 imagination, of which the woman, who a little later took her 
 place, had given such proofs in her private correspondence. 
 
 But Martha Washington showed, through all adverse fates, 
 the heart and temper of a true woman, and proved herself 
 worthy of the immortal name she bears. 
 
 On March 4, 1797, George Washington, to his unspeakable 
 relief and happiness, closed his administration. It is touching 
 to see how tired he had grown, how he looked forward to his 
 release from the weight of public affairs, as the prisoner looks 
 forward to the first hour of his freedom. 
 
 He returned as soon as possible to Mount Vernon. His 
 prolonged absence only served to enhance his love for this 
 place. It had been the gift of the beloved dead. Its name 
 was associated with those gallant services in the West Indies 
 which had cost the young owner his life. It had been the 
 home of Washington's youth, of his manhood, the scene of all 
 the happiest events and memories of his life. Whenever he 
 alluded to the estate, to its delightful air, its noble river, its 
 beautiful groves, its vast woodlands, the haunts of deer and 
 foxes and all wild game, its fields ripening into their splendid 
 harvests, the usual reserve of his speech waxes into enthusiasm. 
 That fair, ample domain was an earthly paradise in the eyes of 
 George Washington. 
 
 He resumed the old life with the old energy and activity. 
 Again a tall, stately figure rode about the grounds in the early 
 mornings. Washington superintended his workmen, planned 
 his improvements, attended to all the details of his affairs, pre- 
 cisely as in his youth. Yet his hair was getting white ; he was 
 growing, as he said of himself long before to his soldiers, " an 
 old man." 
 
20 Our Presidents. 
 
 His time was much consumed by the guests who crowded 
 to that quiet home. His hospitalities taxed the resources which 
 had suffered heavily during his long public service. He soon 
 discovered that every distinguished foreigner who set foot on 
 the western shores was eager to meet America's most illustrious 
 citizen. 
 
 But he carried his cares and his years bravely, and his 
 splendid health and tireless activity were the source of constant 
 satisfaction to his friends. 
 
 He had no children of his own, but his family relations 
 and those of his wife brought a good deal of gay young life to 
 Mount Vernon at this time. 
 
 Washington was fond of reading, but his opportunities for 
 study had always been of the most meager kind. Under any 
 circumstances he would not, probably, have made a scholar in 
 the technical sense of the v/ord. The bent of his genius was 
 eminently practical. He had a passion for horses, for trees, for 
 the wide, green, pleasant earth, for the fields and the forests. 
 
 The peace of Mount Vernon was rudely broken once more. 
 The war clouds again loomed threatening above the horizon. 
 They showed themselves this time in a quarter where they 
 would have been last looked for. The French Directory, angry 
 and resentful at what it regarded its grievances, and accustomed 
 to deal with nations in the most high-handed fashion, passed 
 measures which struck a deadly blow at American commerce. 
 
 This was received with a storm of indignation which swept 
 through the country. War with our ancient ally seemed for 
 awhile inevitable. There was only one man whom the nation 
 would place at the head of that army. The commission which 
 appointed Washington commander-in-chief was promptly car- 
 ried to Mount Vernon. 
 
 It was a most unwelcome honor. But the gray-haired sol- 
 dier could not bring himself to refuse the last of his life to 
 
George Washington. 21 
 
 the country to whom he had given the strength of his youth, 
 the prime of his manhood. He soon found himself compelled 
 to leave Mount Vernon again. He took up the old wearisome 
 burden of military cares. He organized the new army, ap- 
 pointed its officers, and attended to infinite details which must 
 have told heavily on his waning vigor. 
 
 The arrogant Directory was not prepared for the storm 
 which it had aroused in America. When France •vyas satis- 
 fied that her ancient ally really meant, if things came to the 
 worst, to go to war with her, she retreated from her first posi- 
 tion. 
 
 America gladly responded to the new advances, and the 
 difficulties between the two nations were happily adjusted. 
 
 Washington returned once more to Mount Vernon. He 
 was never to leave it again. 
 
 Days followed full of restful quiet and content. In the 
 early mornings a stately figure, which had long moved at the 
 head of armies, might have been seen riding about Mount Ver- 
 non, the thin gray hair shining about the calm, fine face. 
 
 George Washington's life and that of the century in which 
 he had done his work, were drawing to a close. He was near- 
 ing his sixty-eighth birthday. 
 
 The Washington breed was not a long-lived one, but it 
 seemed as though the greatest of the stock might enjoy a hale 
 old age. As that last autumn of the century passed into winter, 
 Washington appeared to those about him in perfect health and 
 vigor. He was leading a busy but tranquil life ; he was still 
 alert with interest on all that concerned his country ; he was, 
 with all his old energy, projecting improvements and supervis- 
 ing affairs at Mount Vernon. 
 
 One morning he took a ride around his grounds in the rough 
 December weather. When he returned to the house, snow- 
 flakes glistened in his white hair. He had spent too much of 
 
22 Our Presidents. 
 
 his youth in wilderness and camp to have any fear about the 
 weather, and went to dinner in his damp garments. 
 
 But the next morning he complained of a sore throat, while 
 the snow, continuing to fall, prevented his taking his usual 
 ride. In the afternoon, however, when the weather cleared, he 
 went out, and marked some trees which he wished cut down. 
 So the earliest account of his activity begins with a tree and 
 ends with one ! When he returned to the house that afternoon 
 he had taken his last walk around Mount Vernon. 
 
 But that night the trouble in his throat increased, and by the 
 next morning it was evident to the household that he was seri- 
 ously ill. Doctors were summoned, who endeavored to relieve 
 the sufferer after the bungling methods of their time. But all 
 their efforts were in vain. 
 
 From the beginning the illness was a "swift descent to 
 death. " Washington seems soon to have given up all hope of 
 his recovery, though his iron constitution did not yield Avithout 
 agonizing struggles. 
 
 The old courage and calmness ring through George Wash- 
 ington's last utterances, though these were few, for his disease 
 — acute laryngitis — made speech extremely painful to him. 
 
 The death he had faced so often on the battle-field had 
 stolen upon him unawares in the peace and security of home ; 
 but it found him ready. To use his own words, " he was not 
 afraid to go." 
 
 The illness lasted forty-eight hours. At last the agonized 
 breathing grew easier. "Washington withdrev/ his hand from his 
 secretary's, and felt his own pulse." This act showed the clear- 
 ness of his mind, as well as the habit of the soldier. Then a 
 change crept over his features. 
 
 The next morning, when the late winter sun came over the 
 horizon, George Washington was lying dead in the simple 
 chamber at Mount Vernon. 
 
George Washington. 23 
 
 The life that had begun a few miles away, in the low-roofed 
 home on Bridge's Creek, one winter's morning when the century 
 was still in its youth, ended when that century had only a fort- 
 night's more lease of life. 
 
 The date of George Washington's death reads : 
 December 17, 1799. 
 
JOHN ADAMS. 
 
 Somewhere among the closing days of the summer of 1774, 
 in the old colonial town of Philadelphia, a man still young, for 
 he had not yet reached his thirty-ninth birthday, was eagerly 
 reading a letter which contained these words : 
 
 " I have taken a very great fondness for reading Rollin's Ancient 
 History since you left me. I am determined to go through with it, if pos- 
 sible, in these my days of solitude. I find great pleasure and entertain- 
 ment from it, and I have persuaded Johnny to read me a page or two every 
 day, and hope he will, from his desire to oblige me, entertain a fondness 
 for it." 
 
 This simple, graphic picture of home life has a certain 
 tender interest to those who read the lines more than a himdred 
 years after they were written. 
 
 One, with a little imagination, sees the quiet, old-fashioned 
 country home amid the days of that waning summer — the last 
 peaceful one which King George's American colonies were 
 ever to know — and the young mother listening as her boy of 
 seven reads in his thin, childish voice from the ponderous old 
 history which held such a post of honor in the scant libraries of 
 a century ago. One can almost hear too, through the childish 
 treble of the reader, the sounds of the summer outside — the 
 stirring of leaves, the humming of bees, the song of birds. The 
 whole scene will come up vividly when one happens suddenly 
 nowadays on the bulky tomes of the ancient history. 
 
 At that time Boston, ten miles distant, lay prostrate under 
 the iron heel of the blockade. The Port Bill had been car- 
 ried out with merciless rigor. The British army was on the 
 
John Adams. 25 
 
 common ; the British fleet was in the harbor. The fight at 
 Concord took place just eight months after the date of the 
 letter with its characteristic little scene. For it was immensely 
 characteristic of both the writer and her son. In those hard 
 days, in all the harder ones of the years that followed, the 
 wives and mothers of the Revolution did their part with noble 
 constancy and self-sacrifice ; yet it may be doubted whether, in 
 all the American colonies, there was another wife who fortified 
 her heart and solaced her loneliness, by turning resolutely to 
 the pages of the prolix old history ; whether there was another 
 boy of seven on all the American seaboard in that famous year 
 of 1774, who found more pleasure in a page of " Rollin " than 
 he did in his games and his playground. 
 
 John Adams, who was reading his wife's letter in the clos- 
 ing days of the summer, and to whose heart that little scene 
 must have gone, amid all the perplexities and responsibilities 
 which surrounded him at the time, was one of the five Massa- 
 chusetts delegates to the first continental congress which met 
 in Philadelphia. "He was born October 19, 1735 (O. S.), in 
 Braintree on the S. shore of Boston harbor." His father was 
 one of the small farmers of those days who managed to wrest a 
 living out of the rugged New England soil, and who was fore- 
 handed enough to send his eldest son to Harvard, where he 
 graduated in 1755. 
 
 The young man of twenty, who must, long before this 
 period, have given many proofs to his friends and companions 
 of a very marked type of character, immediately took charge of 
 a grammar-scliool at Worcester. His ardent, intense nature 
 found school-teaching a slow business at best. In some of his 
 moods he was heartily sick of it ; he felt the stir of larger 
 ambitions ; he thirsted for a wider sphere of action. 
 
 The long war with France for the possession of the country 
 beyond the Alleghany Range was, at this period, a matter of 
 
• 
 26 Our Presidents. 
 
 supreme interest with the colonies, and it aroused all the 
 patriotic instincts of the grammar-school teacher. He had 
 now, too, serious debates with himself as to his choice of a 
 profession. At one time he inclined toward the ministry. But 
 the ecclesiastical councils and the rigid Calvinism of the day 
 repelled him, and he finally decided in favor of the law. But 
 he was not satisfied ; he had longings for a soldier's life. This 
 was quite natural to one of his age and temperament. He was 
 eager to command " a company of foot, a troop of horse." 
 But the outlook on this side was hopeless to " one who lacked 
 interest and patronage." It was probably John Adams' good 
 fortune that he was not, at this time, drawn into a military 
 career. The laurels fate held in store for him were to be won 
 on other and more congenial battle-fields. He was restless, 
 moody, dejected at times ; but at last he made up his mind to 
 study for the law, and set about it with characteristic pluck 
 and energy. 
 
 November 6, 1758, was a memorable date in young Adams' 
 life, for at that time he "was recommended to the court for 
 the oath, and shook hands with the bar." 
 
 He at once began the practice of law in Suffolk County. 
 At the time when he had decided on studying for his profes- 
 sion, he had written some noble words which should have a 
 place, even in this slight sketch of his life. 
 
 " But I set out with firm resolutions, I think, never to com- 
 mit any meanness or injustice in the practice of the law." 
 
 This resolve was, no doubt, occasioned by the opposition 
 young Adams had encountered in the choice of his profession. 
 In the New England of that day there existed an inveterate 
 prejudice against the law. 
 
 John Adams settled himself to his life-work, as he then 
 regarded it. He soon found clients, and in the years that 
 followed they steadily increased. He brought the intellectual 
 
John Adams. 27 
 
 and moral qualities to his profession, which always, in the long 
 run, insure success. But the fees were small, and his material 
 fortunes did not make rapid progress. 
 
 He was just twenty-nine years old ; he had been for nearly six 
 years practicing law in Suffolk County, when he did that which 
 was to prove the wisest, most fortunate act of his life. On 
 October 25, 1764, lie wedded Abigail Smith, the young daugh- 
 ter of a Weymoutli clergyman. She was a mere girl at that 
 time, as she had not yet reached her twentieth birthday. She 
 had been brought up in a home atmosphere of tenderness and 
 refinement, and amid earnest religious influences. The woman 
 she was, the wife she proved, will be apparent enough in these 
 pages, as it is impossible to write the briefest biography of 
 John Adams without having much to say of his wife. 
 
 The year that followed the marriage saw the passage of the 
 Stamp Act. We know what kind of reception it met with in 
 America. The young lawyer was, from the beginning, one of 
 its most outspoken and insistent opponents. He was a New 
 Englander, and he cast in his lot promptly and absolutely with 
 the patriots. No fears could shake, no temptations swerve 
 him. From this time to the end of his life he was devoted 
 heart and soul to the service of his country. Men might talk of 
 his faults and foibles, but nobody ever detected a flaw in his 
 patriotism. 
 
 The storm which had been roused in the colonies quieted 
 with the repeal of the Stamp Act. But that fatal measure had 
 a lasting influence on the old traditional sentiment of loyalty to 
 Great Britain. The current of popular feeling never quite set 
 again in the old channels. A watchful, suspicious temper had 
 been aroused, which the home government and those who rep- 
 resented it in America took little pains to allay. 
 
 During the half dozen years which preceded the Revolution 
 John Adams probably led as happy a life as any man in New 
 
28 Oitr Presidents. 
 
 England. His success in his profession proved his wisdom in 
 choosing it. He was a man of ardent family feelings, and his 
 domestic relations were of a peculiarly delightful character. 
 As the years went on, children — three boys and a girl — came to 
 gladden his home. He removed from Braintree to Boston, and 
 back again as his health or circumstances made the change 
 desirable. But there was one shadow on all these bright pros- 
 pects. John Adams was too sincere a patriot to feel at ease 
 about his country. He seems through all these busy, prosper- 
 ous years to have had some prescience of the dark days ahead. 
 It must have been a bitter sight to him when he saw the two 
 regiments of redcoats which England sent to awe the turbu- 
 lent little province march proudly through Boston town, " the 
 drums beating, the fifes playing, with charged muskets and fixed 
 bayonets." 
 
 About this time efforts were made to detach him from the 
 patriotic side. The lucrative post which the government 
 offered him " in the Court of Admiralty " was a flattering testi- 
 mony to his character and influence. But John Adams was 
 not deceived. This offer from the government, with all that 
 it promised, was in the nature of a bribe, and was promptly 
 declined. 
 
 In the midst of his professional cares he found time to con- 
 tribute various political articles to the papers. Some of these 
 were of such marked force and ability that they were afterward 
 republished in London. 
 
 During this period Mr. Adams was much in the thick of 
 public affairs. This involved great personal sacrifices. He 
 did not choose his side without fully counting the cost. If he 
 grew moody and despondent at times, if his heart and his hope 
 failed him occasionally, his central purpose never did. 
 
 During these years he was chosen representative at the 
 General Court, and his defense of Captain Preston and the 
 
John Adams. 29 
 
 soldiers after the Boston massacre was one of the bravest deeds 
 of his life. 
 
 The destruction of the tea-chests, the Boston Port Bill, 
 brought the crisis. On June 17, 1774, the Provincial Assembly- 
 voted behind its closed doors to send five Massachusetts dele- 
 gates to the continental Congress to be held in Philadelphia. 
 Probably nobody was surprised that one of the delegates was 
 John Adams. 
 
 A little while before setting out he was at Falmouth on 
 professional business, and he wrote Mrs. Adams in his trench- 
 ant style : 
 
 "Vapors avauiit ! I will do my duty and leave the event. If I have 
 the approbation of my own mind, whether applauded or censured, blessed or 
 cursed by the world, I shall not be unhappy. " 
 
 A little later he made the long journey on which such great 
 issues were to depend. It was in the midst of the summer 
 heats that John Adams, " who had never been out of New Eng- 
 land before," turned his back on his quiet Braintree home, on 
 his wife and his young children, and rode away to do his part 
 in that famous old colonial Congress. He was to meet there 
 George Washington and Patrick Henry. He wrote of the 
 journey to his wife : 
 
 " I never enjoyed better health in any of my journeys, but this has been 
 the most irksome, the most gloomy and melancholy I ever made. I cannot, 
 with all my philosophy and Christian resignation, keep up my spirits. The 
 dismal prospect before me, my family and my country, is too much for my 
 fortitude." 
 
 But tliese words broke only from one of those impatient, 
 despondent moods to which the writer, like most ardent, impetu- 
 ous natures, was liable. It Avas in a wholly different temper 
 that he wrote, confident and joyous to his wife, not long after 
 his arrival on the scene of action : 
 
 '■ The spirit of firmness, the prudence of our I'rovince arc vastly ap- 
 
30 Our Presidents. 
 
 plauded, and we are universally acknowledged the saviors and defenders of 
 American liberty." 
 
 And the letter closes with one of those rapid, tender tran- 
 sitions which are so characteristic of the writer : 
 
 " My babes are never out of my mind, nor absent from my heart." 
 
 And the high-hearted wife was writing on the same date in 
 the quiet Braintree home : 
 
 '* Five weeks have passed, and not one line have I received. I would 
 rather give a dollar for a letter by the post, though the consequence should 
 be that I ate but one meal a day these three weeks to come." 
 
 These lines give one a new notion of the distance between 
 Boston and Philadelphia a hundred years ago. 
 
 If the history of that first Continental Congress had been 
 amply reported, there would be no space to linger upon it here. 
 When it broke up late in the autumn, it appeared to Mr. Adams, 
 as no doubt it did to most of his constituents, that very little 
 had been done. "Commercial non-intercourse" seemed a piti- 
 ful outcome for all those long secret deliberations of a body 
 which represented the wisest heads, the most patriotic hearts, 
 in America. Had the colonies sent at this momentous period 
 their wisest statesmen to Congress? Had the whole country 
 waited eager and breathless for months for so meager a result ? 
 
 All over the land men must have been asking this question, 
 resentful and disappointed in the lessening days of the autumn 
 of 1774. 
 
 But they made a mistake. The Congress had done its work. 
 It was everything to the colonies at this juncture that their best 
 material had been brought together; that their real statesmen 
 and leaders had met, and parted, and understood each other. 
 
 On John Adams's return to his home he found plenty to do. 
 Braintree at once sent him a delegate to the Provincial Assem- 
 bly. His immense activity and patriotic fervor found a fresh 
 
John Adams. 31 
 
 field for work in the famous newspaper controversy, in which 
 he maintained the people's side with masterly reasoning. So 
 the winter passed into spring, and then the strife took another 
 form than tliat of newspaper articles. Mr. Adams could lay 
 down his pen. The day of Lexington and Concord had 
 come ! 
 
 He was appointed a delegate to the second Continental Con- 
 gress, and arrived there on May 10. He had been seriously ill, 
 and was only partially recovered. When he left home Mrs. 
 Adams writes of that second separation, fraught in many respects 
 with more perils and fears than the first : 
 
 '" I felt very anxious about you, though I endeavored to be very insen- 
 sible and heroic, yet my heart felt like a heart of lead." 
 
 A few hours earlier he had written to her: 
 
 " In case of real danger, of which you cannot fail to have previous 
 intimations, fly to the woods with our children." 
 
 This was not advice suggested by over-cautious affection. 
 Only a few days before the Yankee farmers in their homesjiun 
 had confronted the redcoats for the first time. The air was still 
 full of the excitement of the fight. It had taken place only a 
 few miles from the farmhouse where Mr. Adams had been 
 compelled to leave his wife and her young children. A little 
 way off rode his Majesty's ships of war. It was by no means 
 impossible that the English sailors would swoop down on the 
 unguarded coast and spread wide havoc among the quiet coun- 
 try homes to revenge on the rebels the 19th of April. 
 
 Mrs. Adams proved equal to the high demands made upon 
 her courage and fortitude at this trying period. A few lines 
 from a letter written in May, 1775, to her husband, give a vivid 
 picture of the confusion and discomfort mto which the little 
 household was thrown at this time. 
 
 "Soldiers coming in for a lodging, for breakfast, for supjier, for drinks. 
 
32 Our Presidents. 
 
 etc. Sometimes refugees from Boston, tired and fatigued, seek an asylum 
 for a day, a night, a week. You can hardly imagine how we live; yet 
 ' To the houseless child of v/ant 
 Our doors are open still ; 
 And though our portions are but scant. 
 We give them with good will.' 
 " Hitherto I have been able to maintain a calmness and presence of 
 mind. I hope I shall, let the exigency of the time be what it will." 
 
 These were words to inspire a man with hope and courage, 
 if his own failed him. At the time they were written, the 
 American army, fifteen thousand strong, were besieging Gage 
 and his forces shut up and sorely distressed in Boston. 
 
 A few days later Mrs. Adams watched on one of the Brain- 
 tree hills, with her eldest bo)^ — the John Quincy with whom 
 she had been reading Rollin's History — the burning of Charles- 
 town; the distant Battle of Bunker Hill. 
 
 Through all the danger and anguish of that time her heroic 
 soul did not succumb. 
 
 " I would not have you distressed about me," she writes to her husband 
 early in July, when the smoke of the battle, the fury of the cannonade, 
 must have seemed still to linger in the air. " Danger, they say, makes 
 people valiant. Hitherto I have been distressed, but not dismayed. I 
 have felt for my country and her sons. I have bled with them and for 
 them." 
 
 At this time there was fear lest her letters should fall into the 
 enemies' hands. Mr. Adams urged his wife to write him over 
 an assumed name. She chose that of Portia. No one v/ho 
 reads her letters will be surprised at this. 
 
 Meanwhile John Adams, keenly anxious for his family, full 
 of wrath and grief over the sufferings of that " beloved town," 
 as he called Boston, was doing his work with passionate energy 
 and zeal. It exasperated his fiery temper almost beyond endur- 
 ance, that others could not keep pace with his strong virile step. 
 It was not in his fiery, dauntless nature to adopt half measures. 
 
John Adams. 33 
 
 to cling to futile hopes that Great Britain might yet relent and 
 come to terms with her colonies. He believed the day for 
 arguments and appeals was past. He saw clearer than many of 
 his colleagues that America's only salvation was in independ- 
 ence, and that she would have to fight for this. 
 
 It Avas not strange that the prospect of a war, waged by the 
 scant colonies at such tremendous odds, with the great con- 
 quering military and naval power of the world, should have 
 struck terror to the soul of many a true patriot. But John 
 Adams's dauntless, impetuous nature felt an impatient scorn 
 for those who paused to count the costs where all that was 
 dear to freemen was at stake. He was inflamed with rage 
 when a motion for a second memorial to George HI. was car- 
 ried in Congress. He felt that the day for appeals had passed; 
 the time for action had come. 
 
 But to his infinite satisfaction the Congress at last took a 
 step from which there was no retreat, and advised Massa- 
 chusetts Bay, which in its prevailing confusion and disorder 
 had applied for counsel, to " establish a government of its 
 own." 
 
 Mr. Adams's sagacious mind perceived clearly all that was 
 involved in this advice to organize a rebel government. But 
 important as this measure was, there was still another and 
 higher stake to be won. 
 
 The Massachusetts delegate, with clear, patriotic forecast, 
 perceived that all local struggles, like those of Concord and 
 Lexington, would in the end be futile, unless Congress assumed 
 responsibility for the army which was now besieging Boston. 
 The war for American liberties must be a war in which every 
 colony must take her part and fight for her life, or it was fore- 
 doomed to failure. The struggle v/ith England would be 
 unequal enough when America presented a united from to 
 the foe. 
 
 3 
 
34 Our Presidents. 
 
 But the obstacles in the way of inducing Congress, by one 
 bold stroke, to transform the " Army of Massachusetts " into 
 the " Army of America " would have appeared insurmountable to 
 a less fertile, energetic mind, or a less dauntless will than that 
 of John Adams. 
 
 George Washington had appeared at this second Congress, 
 wearing his officer's uniform. The stately, handsome Virgin- 
 ian, in the prime of his years, must have made a strong 
 impression on the keen-sighted New Englander. The two 
 had served together, as we have seen, in the first Congress, 
 and by this time must each have formed very decided opinions 
 of the other's mental and moral quality. John Adams made 
 up his mind that the Virginian, George Washington, was the 
 one man to command that brave, stanch, but undisciplined 
 and ill-appointed army of yeomanry that had gathered after 
 the Concord fight around Boston. 
 
 Mr. Adams was perfectly aware of the force of the opposi- 
 tion, the strong prejudices, the personal ambitions, that he 
 would have to encounter if he attempted to carry his point. 
 But these were not all. New England was immensely proud 
 of her army of ill-clad, high-spirited patriots. Would she 
 consent to see an alien and a stranger, little known at that 
 time, placed at their head ? Would the proud, independent 
 yeomanry be ready to serve under the calm, dignified, order- 
 loving Westmoreland planter ? These questions might well 
 have made the most resolute man pause. But John Adams 
 had a splendid audacity, which in an emergency carried him 
 over difficulties that appeared insurmountable to common eyes. 
 His clear, practical vision saw, too, where the only chances of 
 success lay. Argument and persuasion would avail nothing here. 
 If the thing were done it must be done promptly, boldly. All 
 the schoolboys know the story of that opening morning session, 
 when John Adams rose and proposed before the astonished 
 
John Adams. 35 
 
 mernbcis that Congress should adopt the army before Boston, 
 and appoint Colonel Washington its commander. 
 
 A breathless silence must have followed the motion. No 
 wonder that Washington himself, alwaj^s modest, was startled 
 out of his habitual self-control, and the proposed commander- 
 in-chief, covered Avith confusion, "darted into the library." 
 But the work had been done in that critical moment. Where 
 the leader had planted himself, the others slowly gathered and 
 fell into line. A few days later George Washington was unani- 
 mously chosen Commander-in-chief of the American army. 
 The irrevocable step was taken now. There could be no 
 retreats, no more looking back — no more appeals to George III. 
 
 On the very day when his wife and his boy were listening 
 to the distant battle of Bunker Hill, John Adams was writing 
 triumphantly to his wife : 
 
 " I can now inform you that the Congress have made choice of the 
 modest and virtuous, the amiable, generous and brave George Washington, 
 Esquire, to be General of the American arm)', and that he is to repair, as 
 soon as possible, to the camp before Boston. This appointment will have 
 a great effect in cementing and securing the union of these colonies. The 
 continent is really in earnest in defending the country." 
 
 Then in a little graver mood he goes on : 
 
 " I begin to hope we shall not sit all summer. I hope the people of our 
 province will treat the General with all that confidence and affection, that 
 politeness and respect which is due to one of the most important characters in 
 the world. The liberties of America depend upon him in a great degree." 
 
 And at the close of this important historical letter the 
 impetuous heart must have its way, and the writer breaks out : 
 " My dear children, come here and kiss me." 
 
 A recess of Congress, later that summer, permitted Mr. 
 Adams to spend August with his family. The day must have 
 been exciting under that ancient Braintree roof, with the 
 luisband and father living over in the talk all the terrible hours 
 
3^ Our Presidents. 
 
 through which the little household had passed in the early 
 summer. 
 
 But George Washington was now in the camp of the Amer- 
 ican army, and his reception at Cambridge had more than 
 fulfilled John Adams's wishes. 
 
 Melancholy tidings followed immediately on the delegate's 
 return to Congress. Amid his public cares he was harassed by 
 constant anxiety for his family. Most of its members were 
 prostrated by a severe epidemic which afflicted the neighbor- 
 hood during the autumn following that dark summer of 1778. 
 
 Mrs. Adams and three of her children were ill. She under- 
 went the heavy grief in these dark days of losing her mother. 
 Mr. Adams's brother also died of the epidemic. 
 
 Letters, too, came with tantalizing slowness. They were 
 transmitted by friends as opportunity offered, and it was highly 
 important that they should be intrusted to safe hands. 
 
 A paragraph or two from one of his letters to his wife 
 throws a vivid light on the writer's condition at this time : 
 
 " You may easily imagine the state of mind in which I am at present. 
 Uncertain and apprehensive at first, I suddenly thought of setting off im- 
 mediately for Braintree, and have not yet determined otherwise. Yet the 
 state of public affairs is so critical, that I am half afraid to leave my sta- 
 tion, although my presence here is of no great consequence. 
 
 " I feel, I tremble for you. Poor Tommy I I hope by this time, how- 
 ever, he has recovered his plump cheeks and his fine bloom. 
 
 " At this distance I can do no good to you and yours. I pray God to 
 support you. I am so far from thinking you melancholy that I am charmed 
 with that admirable fortitude, that divine spirit of resignation which appears 
 in your letters. I cannot express the satisfaction it gives me, nor how much 
 it contributes to support me." 
 
 And the wife, in tlie shortening October days, when the epi- 
 demic was allayed, though worn with her recent illness and 
 heavy bereavement, could still count her " many blessings 
 left " when she wrote : 
 
John Adams. 2>7 
 
 " I might have been stripped of my children, as many others have been. 
 I might — oh, forbid it, Heaven ! — I might have been left a solitary widow." 
 
 In December of that year John Adams again made one of 
 his brief visits home. He returned to Congress in company 
 with Elbridge Gerry. On that long journey, in the bitter 
 weather, the two New England delegates acquired a strong lik- 
 ing for each other. This bore fruit long afterward when botli 
 had gained high distinction in the world. 
 
 The change from the passionately patriotic atmosphere of 
 Massachusetts to the colder one of Philadelphia, was always 
 certain, at first, to dispirit John Adams. But a little later his 
 mood had changed so far, that he was writing to his wife about 
 '' marching in the rank and file if possibly a contingency should 
 happen to make doing it proper. I will not fail to march if it 
 should," he adds, in his positive way. 
 
 A little later, he had startling news from home. His wife's 
 letter of March ?., 1776, was interrupted "by the roar of cannon, 
 which shook the house." Washington's strategy was justified 
 at last. The long inactivity in which the American lines 
 had lain before Boston, was broken one Saturday evening by 
 " a cannonade and bombardment, which, with intervals, was 
 continued through the night." This was a feint to deceive the 
 enemy ; but on Tuesday morning the American troops held pos- 
 session of Dorchester Hill. A little later the British evacuated 
 Boston town, and the sufferings of the blockaded little sea- 
 port, which thus far had borne the brunt of the war, were 
 ended. 
 
 Mrs. Adams's letters, written almost in the heart of the 
 scene, have the life and charm of one who is on the spot. The 
 reader is made to feel, in many a hasty, vivid line, the excite- 
 ment and peril of that historic March. Mrs. Adams's courage 
 and fortitude sustained her husband in his absence and anxiety. 
 
 But in a little while the letters break out exultant over the 
 
38 Our Presidents. 
 
 departure of the enemy ; a fact whicli, to the writer herself, 
 though before her eyes, seemed too wonderful to be true. 
 
 Before that month was over John Adams could write to his 
 wife : 
 
 " I give you joy of Boston — once more the habitation of Americans." 
 
 Two days later his wife's letter contains a paragraph too 
 interesting to be omitted : 
 
 " The town in general is left in a better state than we expected, more 
 owing to a precipitate flight than any regard for the inhabitants, though 
 some people discovered a sense of honor and justice, and have left the rent 
 of the houses in which they were, and the furniture unhurt, or, if damaged, 
 sufificient to make it good." 
 
 One cannot read these lines without feeling that they re- 
 flect honor on human nature. Those Tories, or British officers, 
 who occupied the deserted houses of Boston during the long 
 blockade, could hardly have been expected to regard them- 
 selves as the tenants of their enemies. 
 
 In the same letter Mrs. Adams continues, in words which 
 show how great must have been the relief and rejoicing of 
 Massachusetts : 
 
 "I feel very differently at the appi'oach of spring from what I did a 
 month ago. We knew not then whether we could plant or sow with safety ; 
 whether, where we had tilled we could reap the fruits of our own industry ; 
 whether we could rest in our own cottages, or whether we should be driven 
 from the sea-coast to seek shelter in the wilderness ; but now we feel a tem- 
 porary peace, and the poor inhabitants are returning to their homes." 
 
 The reader must have turned, too, with a sigh of infinite 
 relief from these letters to the great work which was absorbing 
 his heart and brain at this period. 
 
 It was nothing less than the Declaration of Independence. 
 All that spring and early summer of 1776, the Massachusetts del- 
 egate had been moving heaven and earth to bring Congress to 
 
John Adams. 39 
 
 the point. He called the measure, in his own strong, incisive 
 words, "the end of his creation." 
 
 But all the energies of that keen, disciplined mind, that 
 ardent purpose, that indomitable will, had been severely taxed 
 before the Declaration was carried which was to prove of such 
 infinite importance to America, to the world. 
 
 Here again, as so often before, and afterward, the eager, 
 impetuous nature, always sure of what it wanted, always see- 
 ing the one straight path to it, had to outstrip the slow, the tim- 
 orous, the vacillating. 
 
 The history of that time and of Mr. Adams's herculean 
 labors, cannot be written here. It was Thomas Jefferson who 
 was the author of the Declaration of Independence ; it was 
 John Adams who, in the debate before Congress as to its adop- 
 tion, carried that body with him. He did this by a speech of 
 thrilling earnestness, of splendid eloquence. In that great hour, 
 as his audience afterward affirmed, " the man seemed lifted out 
 of himself. " He appeared to have no idea of the grandeur of 
 his effort. He was only conscious of the issues which hung 
 upon the moment. When he ceased, " his praise was in every- 
 body's mouth." 
 
 July 3, he wrote two letters to his v/ife. In one of them 
 he said : 
 
 "Yesterday the greatest question was decided which ever was debated 
 in America; and a greater, perhaps, never was nor will be decided among 
 men." 
 
 In the other he wrote : 
 
 " You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am 
 well aware of the blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this 
 Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the 
 gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the 
 end is worth all tlio means." 
 
 Precisely seventeen months from tJK' day on which John 
 
40 Our Presidents. 
 
 Adams wrote these two letters to his wife, he was appointed 
 commissioner to the court of France. 
 
 At the time when this new field of activity so imexpectedly 
 opened to him he had been forced by the condition of his 
 health, much broken by long and engrossing services, to resign 
 his position in Congress and return home, where he had barely 
 resumed his professional labors. These intervening months 
 had been immensely important to America. Yet they had 
 formed a period of such varied disasters to her armies that the 
 hearts of the stanchest patriots had sunk with the defeat on 
 Long Island, the evacuation of New York, the retreat through 
 the Jerseys, and the abandonment of Philadelphia. Mr. Adams, 
 like every American, had, in those days, moods of despondency, 
 and he expressed these in his trenchant style. But his patriot- 
 ism was never long in recovering its old, resolute, hopeful 
 temper. 
 
 After the Declaration of Independence he had continued 
 to devote himself unsparingly to the service of Congress. He 
 had done his part in forming the " League which held the 
 Thirteen States " together, and, although it was a slight, imper- 
 fect bond, it still served its purpose, and was as strong a union 
 as popular sentiment then permitted. 
 
 He had been placed at the head of the War Department. 
 The position had involved enormous labors and responsibilities. 
 In the work of army organization he had, of course, to encoun- 
 ter a world of military pride, red tape, and jealousy. The 
 earnestness, sincerity, and devotion of the civilian exercised a 
 controlling influence over all who had relations with him while 
 he was in this office. 
 
 The foreign appointment must have taken him by surprise. 
 It opened to the Nev/ Englander, who had laid down the 
 armor of public service, a new and untried field for his 
 energies. 
 
John Adams. 4^ 
 
 If the French appointment was an lionor, it was also a most 
 perilous one. This was proved by the suggestion that accom- 
 panied it, "that he should have his dispatch bags sufficiently 
 weighted to sink them instantly in case of capture." 
 
 The chances of his seizure were by no means small. In 
 that case, his position would be extremely unpleasant. In the 
 year 1777 John Adams was, in the eyes of the English Govern- 
 ment, a ringleader of rebels. No doubt his capture, and his 
 imprisonment in the Tower, would have thrilled the court of 
 George III. with joy, only second to that which would have 
 been felt at the seizure of George Washington. 
 
 But long, harsh imprisonment might not be the worst fate 
 with which the American would have to count. In those stern 
 times, the doom of the traitor, on English statute-books, was 
 one that must shake the steadiest nerves to contemplate. It 
 was by no means certain that John Adams, once in the grasp 
 of English law, would not be held amenable to its extreme 
 penalty. 
 
 Then if, by good fortune, he escaped the British ships, there 
 was the long, stormy passage across the Atlantic, no light expe- 
 rience for a man in his uncertain health ; and there was, too, 
 first and last, the thought of the long, cruel separation from his 
 family. 
 
 John Adams took one day to look all these things in the face. 
 Then he made up his mind to go. 
 
 He sailed in the waning winter, in the frigate Boston. His 
 son, John Quincy Adams, the boy who, in the Bunker Hill 
 days, had read Rollin's History to his mother, accompanied 
 liim. 
 
 The two had been out less than a week when an English 
 ship-of-war gave chase to the frigate. " Adams urged the crew 
 to fight desperately." It was better to die on board the Boston, 
 better to sink in the sea, than be taken prisoner. 
 
42 Ottr Presidents. 
 
 Fortunately the frigate escaped. "On March 31, 1778, she 
 was riding safely at anchor in the harbor at Bordeaux. " 
 
 Mr. Adams's first foreign mission occupied nearly a year and 
 a half, yet it did not afford any large field of activity to his 
 abounding energies. The famous alliance with France had 
 already been consummated. 
 
 Dr. Franklin was then having his career of unparalleled 
 popularity in France. The shrewd, simple American had cap- 
 tivated the polished, critical Parisians. He, of course, threw 
 the other commissioners much into the background. Mr. 
 Adams was not a man to enjoy remaining there, and he recom- 
 mended that the commission should be intrusted to one person, 
 though this would exclude himself. It was a foregone conclu- 
 sion that Dr. Franklin would receive the appointment. Mr. 
 Adams's advice was followed, and he was left with nothing to 
 do but enjoy the brilliant Paris world around him. Idleness 
 was most distasteful to him. 
 
 " I cannot eat pensions and sinecures ; they would stick in 
 my throat," he characteristically wrote to his wife. 
 
 He returned in the same ship with the first minister France 
 ever sent to America. John Quincy Adams, who accompanied 
 his father, had been making the most of his time, seeing with 
 his grave young eyes the wonderful French world about him, 
 and drawing his own conclusions. On the long voyage the boy 
 of eleven gave the French minister and his secretary lessons in 
 English, and proved an inexorable teacher. 
 
 On reaching home Mr. Adams was soon in the thick of 
 affairs. He had a leading part in framing the new constitution 
 for Massachusetts. The work was hardly done before he was 
 summoned to a wider arena. 
 
 In 1779 he sailed again in the French frigate which had 
 brought him home. This time he was appointed " Minister to 
 treat with Great Britain for peace and commerce." 
 
John Adams. 43 
 
 The vessel, Le Sensible, in which Louis XVI. had invited 
 Mr. Adams to sail with the French Minister to America, proved 
 imseaworthy on her homeward passage. She barely reached 
 Ferrol, to be laid up for repairs. Mr. Adams Avould not wait. 
 He resolved to continue the journey by land. This time the 
 two oldest sons accompanied their father. They went through 
 Spain. The condition of the roads, the lack of accommoda- 
 tions, made their journey one of almost incredible hardship. 
 
 When Mr. Adams left his native shores on this second mis- 
 sion, he little dreamed how long his absence was to be, or what 
 an important role he was to play in the politics of several Euro- 
 pean governments. 
 
 This period forms, in many respects, the most picturesque 
 and dramatic portion of John Adams's life. It is especially 
 tempting to the biographer. To do it any sort of justice would 
 require a volume. 
 
 Arrived at last in France, Mr. Adams's first experiences were 
 not encouraging. He was at once brought into critical relations 
 with the Compte de Vergennes, who was at the head of the 
 foreign affairs of France. 
 
 The keen, polished, autocratic, and dangerous French diplo- 
 mat — who cared only for the affairs of France, who hated only 
 England — and the outspoken, independent, resolute American 
 did not get on well together. 
 
 The story cannot be dwelt on here. Mr. Adams made 
 serious mistakes at first. His lack of tact, his insistence, his 
 blunt directness, all astonished and offended the cool, brilliant, 
 crafty nobkman, trained in the wiles and subterfuges of the 
 diplomatic school of his day. 
 
 But though the two matched their strength on many an im- 
 portant field which required the exercise of the highest, most 
 far-sighted statesmanship, the American did not in the end come 
 worsted from the encounter. 
 
# 
 44 Our Presidents. 
 
 Indeed, Mr. Adams, though conspicuously lacking in the 
 traditions and qualities of a finished diplomat, proved himself 
 "precisely the man for the place and the duty." 
 
 It was unfortunate that, at this period, a strong ill feeling 
 developed itself between himself and Dr. Franklin. No doubt 
 the differences in their mental and moral constitutions had 
 much to do with their deep alienation. 
 
 Between Vergennes and Dr. Franklin Mr. Adams's position 
 could not have been a very comfortable one, and he always 
 lacked the tact to conciliate an enemy. 
 
 Perhaps his position at the French Court had much to do 
 with his journey to Holland in July, 1780, though he was revolv- 
 ing in his mind the chances of negotiating a Dutch loan for his 
 impoverished country. 
 
 Mr. Adams now had the field to himself, and he worked 
 with untiring energy. The Dutch at that time knew little about 
 America. He made it his aim to enlighten them, both in his 
 conversation and in a series of letters which he published. 
 
 But the sky was suddenly overcast. Great Britain declared 
 war against Holland. Laurens, a negotiator sent by Congress 
 to the Dutch, had been captured, and with him some letters 
 which the English Government chose to regard as a breach of 
 Holland's engagements. In this state of affairs Mr. Adams was 
 summoned to France by Vergennes. The Compte, alarmed at 
 the exhausted condition of the French treasury, was now desir- 
 ous of concluding a peace. He did not intend that American 
 interests should stand in the way. 
 
 Before Mr. Adams left he had been appointed minister to 
 Holland in place of Laurens, who was now immured in the 
 Tower of London. 
 
 But when Mr. Adams arrived in France, the prospects for 
 peace were not flattering. England, arrogant and exasper- 
 ated, could not bring herself to the point of negotiating on 
 
John Adams. 45 
 
 equal terms with her former colonies. Mr. Adams was ex- 
 tremely suspicious of Vergennes, and having little to do in 
 France soon returned to Holland, where he inspired much 
 friendly feeling toward America "among the merchants and 
 the popular party." 
 
 The existence of this feeling Avas due largely to Mr. Adams's 
 own exertions; but anger with Great Britain, as well as the cap- 
 ture of Lord Cornwallis and his army, had much to do with 
 Dutch sentiment toward America. 
 
 Mr. Adams now showed another instance of that splendid 
 audacity which had served him so well when he proposed George 
 Washington as Commander-in-chief of the American armies. 
 He presented a formal demand to the States-General that he 
 should be recognized as the minister of an independent nation. 
 
 It is impossible at the present day to form any conception 
 of the boldness of this demand. It was made in defiance of all 
 the traditions and habits of diplomacy. Behind the man who 
 stood before the States-General with this high claim for recogni- 
 tion was a company of small impoverished provinces, loosely 
 bound together, the whole country still in arms for that inde- 
 pendence their representative boldly asserted they had won. 
 
 It is not difficult to see that Mr. Adams's attitude might 
 easily have become one of supreme ridiculousness. But his 
 sublime audacity carried the day. There were delays, of course. 
 In such an unprecedented affair delegates must revert to constit- 
 uents for instructions. But on April 19, 1782, tlie high stake 
 was won. At that date the recognition of Mr. Adams took 
 place, and he was installed American minister at the Hague. 
 
 One's imagination at this distance of time can only repro- 
 duce in the dimmest form the grand scene which crowned this 
 alliance. The French minister, the Duke de la Vanguyon, who, 
 influenced by Vergennes, had all along covertly opposed the 
 recognition, now i)rofessed immense satisfaction with it. He 
 
4^ Our Presidents. 
 
 gave the new minister a splendid banquet. In the presence of 
 the grand European diplomats he introduced the American as 
 a member of their distinguished body. No wonder Mr. Adams 
 was elated at his immense triumph. At that very hour England 
 was insisting that no free and independent United States of 
 America existed. Those who assumed the title were a companj^ 
 of colonies in rebellion against their lawful Sovereign. But of 
 this time Mr. Adams is best entitled to speak : 
 
 " One thing, thank God ! is certain. I have planted the 
 American standard at the Hague. There let it wave and fly 
 in triumph over Sir Joseph Yorke and British pride. I shall 
 look down upon the flagstaff with pleasure from the other 
 world." 
 
 Before the end of the year the new minister succeeded in 
 obtaining a loan of two million dollars from the shrewd Dutch 
 bankers. This loan proved of incalculable service to his dis- 
 tressed country. 
 
 When the year 1782 opened there were plentiful signs that 
 the ministry of Lord North was approaching its end. A little 
 later it fell. 
 
 This narrative now approaches a point in Mr. Adams's life 
 which brings the reader to the most momentous event in Ameri- 
 can history. It is the signing of the Treaty of Peace between 
 the United States and England. 
 
 Familiar as the ground is it tempts one to linger on it. 
 The long negotiation had episodes of intense dramatic interest. 
 The two ancient nations and the young one engaged in nego- 
 tiating the treaty had affairs at stake that often clashed. The 
 commissioners could not look to Vergennes for support. He 
 was at heart concerned only for the welfare of France. 
 
 Mr. Adams, coming from Holland, appeared in Paris at a 
 critical moment. His unflinching courage braced his colleagues, 
 Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jay. He came upon a scene of endless 
 
John Adams. 47 
 
 debates, arguments, bickerings. The English Cabinet yielded 
 slowly to American demands. The negotiations reached a point 
 many times when it looked as though they must be broken off. 
 But Mr. Adams's moral courage never flinched. Mr. Jay, with 
 all his resolution, could not have held his ground without the 
 aid of his bold, determined colleague. The Boundaries, the 
 Fisheries, the Navigation of the Mississip])i — all vital ques- 
 tions — were settled at last. The Americans had, with good 
 reason, lost confidence in Vergennes. They carried on their 
 most important negotiations without consulting him. When 
 the amazed count learned this, it was too late for him to inter- 
 fere, but he loudly complained that the Americans had not 
 kept faith with him. 
 
 The only charge, however, which could be brought against 
 them was "a disregard of diplomatic formalities." They kept 
 their word with their ancient ally ; they made no separate peace. 
 On the day that England signed her treaty with the United 
 States, she signed her treaty also with France. The date was 
 September 3, 1783. 
 
 Long before this Mr. Adams had grown weary and dis- 
 gusted. Despite the honorable role he had played in affairs 
 his heart had never been in Europe. It was far away under 
 the quiet roof at Braintree, with the brave, tender wife who 
 counted the days of his absence until they grew into years. 
 
 He sent in his resignation as soon as he felt the Treaty of 
 Peace assured, and declared in his positive fashion that if the ac- 
 ceptance did not duly arrive " he would come back without it." 
 But, despite his utmost efforts, he could not leave the field of 
 his present activity. Not long after the signing of the Treaty 
 of Peace he, with Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jay, was commissioned 
 to negotiate a treaty of commerce with Great Britain. This 
 was a matter he had much at heart. He felt that if the two 
 nations could agree to forget the nasi, and enter into a gener(_)us 
 
4^ Our Presidents. 
 
 commercial alliance, it would be immensely for the advantage 
 of both. An opportunity seemed suddenly afforded him to pro- 
 mote a large and generous policy. He would not desert his post. 
 
 But he now wrote his wife to join him with his daughter. 
 
 The long strain told on him at last. During this memor- 
 able autumn he was prostrated by a " fever of great severity." 
 When he partially recovered he visited London. Only a little 
 while before his head would have been in extreme jeopardy 
 had he ventured it there. He must have thought of this often 
 as he walked about the busy, crowded streets of the ancient city. 
 
 During this time he witnessed one event which must always 
 have overshadowed in his memory all that he then saw in 
 London. 
 
 Mr. Adams was in Parliament on that day when George 
 in. announced that " he had made a Treaty of Peace with the 
 colonies no longer, but now the Independent States of North 
 America." Here, again, it is not easy to conceive the emotions 
 with which one stranger in that large, breathless audience lis- 
 tened to the royal speech. 
 
 A little later Mr. Adams, still an invalid, was forced to 
 undertake a long winter journey to Holland. His object was 
 to negotiate a fresh loan with the Dutch bankers, already ap- 
 palled by the draughts which the States had made on them. 
 He actually succeeded in obtaining fresh funds from these 
 shrewd money-lenders. The Fates seem to have ordained 
 that Mr. Adams should succeed in all that he attempted in 
 Holland. 
 
 Meanwhile a fresh commission arrived from Congress and 
 included Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jefferson. The three men were 
 empowered to negotiate commercial treaties with European 
 powers. The new government was taking its place " in the 
 stately march of the nations. " 
 
 The summer of 1784 brought Mr. Adams a great happiness- 
 
John Adams. 49 
 
 His wife and daugliter joined him. The entire family were 
 now abroad. They set up housekeeping in Auteuil, near Paris. 
 He now enjoyed a season of (juiet, domestic life, amid public 
 labors that were not burdensome. But Congress had not ex- 
 hausted the honors it had of late years heaped on him. The 
 last was the crowning one. February 24, 1785, he was ap- 
 pointed minister to Great Britain. Even the cool Compte de 
 V^ergennes was impressed by all the circumstances of this new 
 embassy, and said to Mr. Adams, " It is a mark." 
 
 Mr. Adams must have been more or less than human had 
 he not felt keenly the distinction conferred upon him. 
 
 But the position of the first minister which America sent to 
 England was necessarily a delicate and trying one. 
 
 Mr. Adams's first presentation was private. The interview 
 between the monarch of the House of Brunswick and the 
 Braintree lawyer was, in some of its aspects, one of the most 
 momentous scenes which ever occurred in the lives of the two 
 men. 
 
 George III. was gracious on this occasion. What he felt 
 beneath the trained royal demeanor did not appear. But he 
 v/as a man of small intellect and imagination. Everybody 
 knows what he said of Shakspere to Frances Burney. 
 
 The new minister was equal to the occasion. He after- 
 ward avowed that he felt some agitation. A little while before 
 the monarch and the minister had been saying terrible things of 
 each other. But even in the presence of royalty the Amer- 
 ican's proud independence did not fail him. When the king 
 intimated his knowledge of Mr. Adams's distrust of the French 
 Ministry, the old dauntless temper rung out in his reply : " I 
 must avow to your Majesty that I have no attachment but to 
 my own country." 
 
 Royal ears do not often hear speeches of that temper. 
 This one appeared to please the king. 
 4 
 
50 Our Presidents. 
 
 But tliough things went smoothly at that first presentation, 
 Mr. Adams's position at the English Court was not an agree- 
 able one. He was in a critical and hostile atmosphere, and his 
 salary was totally insufficient to the demands of the place. 
 
 The queen, too, narrow and prejudiced, treated his wife 
 with conspicuous coldness. The daughter of the Weymouth 
 pastor felt keenly the burden imposed upon her of being the 
 first representative of American womanhood at the British 
 Court. 
 
 She was equal to her part ; but the treatment she received 
 from royalty, as well as from the court, who followed its 
 example, could not fail to wound a proud and sensitive spirit. 
 The first minister which America had sent to England had 
 cherished high hopes of establishing cordial relations between 
 the two countries. He was doomed to disappointment. 
 England did not forgive America for her victory in the field ; 
 and jealous of commercial rivalry, she was bent on crippling 
 the foreign trade of the United States. Their "League" was 
 at this time so loose and feeble a bond that the British Gov- 
 ernment did not hesitate to treat them with haughty insolence. 
 
 When Mr. Adams was convinced that he could not serve 
 his country by remaining in England, he sent in his resignation. 
 
 He sailed for home April 20, 1788. He never again set 
 foot on a foreign shore. 
 
 John Adams returned to America one of its greatest men. 
 He was now to enter an untried political field. The Constitu- 
 tion, created amid vast labors and compromises, was at this 
 juncture to undergo its first trial. 
 
 Washington was elected first President. It was thought 
 fitting that New England should be represented by the Vice- 
 Presidency. Mr. Adams's eminent services and high character 
 entitled him to the election. 
 
 The long, bitter feud between himself and Alexander 
 
John Adams. 5 ^ 
 
 Hamilton appears to have had its beginnings in events con- 
 nected with the election. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton, usually generous and magnanimous, 
 entertained one of those inveterate prejudices against Mr, 
 Adams, which men of strong, autocratic nature often exhibit 
 toward those whom they cannot influence. Pliancy was not in 
 the Adams fiber. The Vice-President was as thorough and 
 outspoken in his enmities as he was in everything else. 
 
 So, from the necessities of their mental and moral constitu- 
 tion, the two passionate and obstinate leaders were brought 
 into sharp antagonism. They were both members of that great 
 Federal party which had organized the new government and 
 started it on its career. Hamilton had fairly won his place as 
 the leader of this party by his splendid abilities and his devoted 
 patriotism. His services during those exciting months after 
 the Constitution, framed at Philadelphia, had been brought 
 before a perplexed, disheartened and suspicious people, cannot 
 be overrated. A little later, his daring and successful measures 
 to infuse strength and energy into the paralyzed finances of the 
 nation entitle him to his place in American history. To his 
 matchless endowments, he added rare and lovable qualities of 
 character which pre-eminently fitted him to be a leader of men. 
 Mr. Adams was a redoubtable foe. It was the fate of these 
 two that their political relations should bring into strong relief 
 the defects and weaknesses in the characters of each. 
 
 Mr. Adams's first term as Vice-President proved a compar- 
 atively smooth one. In all the constructive measures before 
 Congress he gave Hamilton valuable assistance by voting with 
 the Federalists. 
 
 Mr. Adams was re-elected. The second term of his office 
 was the period of the French Revolution. That mighty 
 upheaval shook the United States. The passionate feehng of 
 the time carried everything before it. Even Washington's 
 
52 Our Presidents. 
 
 great name and vast services could not save him from the 
 fiercest attacks of calumny. The Vice-President seems to have 
 mostly escaped at this time. 
 
 When Washington retired, John Adams took his place. 
 The summit of his ambitions was reached. But Hamilton had 
 covertly used his great influence to prevent a unanimous elec- 
 tion. It was carried by a narrow majority. Mr. Adams felt 
 this strongly. When he learned the facts he v/as naturally 
 filled with resentment. The acrimony between these two 
 distinguished men became at last "the most bitter feud in 
 American history." 
 
 It was certainly unfortunate for Mr. Adams that he had 
 during his Presidency so powerful, and, in this instance, so 
 vindictive a foe. 
 
 The relations between the United States and France became 
 now greatly strained. The Directory, inflated with its success, 
 and carrying everything before it, actually refused to receive 
 the new minister the United States had sent to France. 
 
 This intolerable insult was followed by a shameful decree 
 against American commerce. It had its origin in the angry 
 disappointment with which the Directory learned of Mr. Adams's 
 election. They had confidently hoped to see their favorite, 
 Jefferson, President of the United States. 
 
 Greatly as Mr. Adams resented these indignities, he kept 
 his fiery temper under admirable control. He desired, if pos- 
 sible, to avoid a collision with France. But the party which 
 had elected him was strongly Anglican in its sympathies, and 
 this made the President's position a delicate and perplexing one. 
 
 A second mission was, however, sent to France. This time 
 the envoys were received. The French treasury was impover- 
 ished. Secret attempts were soon set in train to frighten or 
 cajole the Americans into purchasing a peace by the payment 
 of large sums. They indignantly rejected these base proposals. 
 
John Adams. 53 
 
 The consequence was a fresh decree against American com- 
 merce. 
 
 When these facts became known in America, a wave of 
 popular indignation swept over the land. There was a uni- 
 versal cry for war. The President suddenly rose into great 
 popularity. He acted with characteristic promptness and 
 energy. The heart of the nation was with him. Washington 
 was persuaded to leave his retirement at his beloved Mount 
 Vernon, and organize the new army, of which he was to bo 
 Commander-in-chief. 
 
 The trouble about the appointment and precedence of the 
 major generals belongs to this time. " Hamilton was resolved 
 to stand next to Washington." But the President was strongly 
 opposed to the arrangement, and this added fresh rancor to 
 the old bitterness. Hamilton's large following supported their 
 brilliant chief. Washington, with whom his former aide and 
 Secretary of State was a great favorite, threw his influence into 
 the same scale. That decided the matter. Mr. Adams had to 
 yield. But it was impossible for him to do it with a good 
 grace. 
 
 The bold attitude of the United States took France by sur- 
 prise. Absorbed in European politics and ambitions, she had 
 no wish to expend her resources in a remote war on American 
 battle-fields. 
 
 Talleyrand, greatly chagrined that his attempts to corrupt 
 the envoys had become known in America, sought with infinite 
 tact and audacity to smooth over matters. The French Gov- 
 ernment made conciliatory advances toward the United States. 
 Mr. Adams, who always knew his own mind, resolved to meet 
 these in the same spirit. American Presidents hesitate, as a 
 rule, to act on their sole responsibility in dealing with such 
 affairs. Mr. Adams had no scruples. He determined to send 
 another embassy to France- 
 
54 Our Presidents. 
 
 This measure was like a sudden thunderbolt to the Federal- 
 ists. Hamilton and many of his followers desired a lasting 
 rupture with France. 
 
 From this time Mr. Adams and a large, influential section 
 of his party were irreconcilably opposed to each other. The 
 majority of his cabinet, even, sided openly or secretly with 
 Hamilton. 
 
 The mission to France proved a success. Napoleon Bo- 
 naparte had now become First Consul of France, and was 
 the real government. He had no designs on America, 
 and all differences were soon adjusted with the young ruler, 
 who had suddenly come to the foreground in French poli- 
 tics. 
 
 But though events justified Mr. Adams's policy, the Federal- 
 ist leaders were implacable. Their passions blinded them to 
 their own interests. The President's eyes were at last opened 
 to the hostility of certain members of his cabinet, and he sum- 
 marily dismissed them. 
 
 His temper was greatly exasperated at this time, and his 
 weaknesses and faults came to the surface. It was impossible 
 for that impetuous, outspoken nature to disguise its feelings. 
 No doubt Mr. Adams was unreasonable and obstinate, dogmatic 
 and pugnacious, and often showed an unpardonable lack of tact 
 and consideration for others. 
 
 The mission to France, wise, statesmanlike, and patriotic a 
 measure as posterity now admits it to have been, probably cost 
 Mr. Adams his second term of office. 
 
 The election found the Federal leaders full of bitterness and 
 rancor, which divided and weakened their energies, while the 
 forces of the new Republican party, under the masterly guid- 
 ance of Jefferson, were united and alert. 
 
 But it was probably Hamilton's pamphlet which dealt Mr. 
 Adams's public life its death-blow. This pamphlet was designed 
 
John Adams. 55 
 
 for circulation only among the Federalist leaders, but it fell 
 into the hands of Aaron Burr, and was at once given to the 
 world. 
 
 While this paper arraigned the administration, and tried to 
 prove its lack of wisdom, it yet closed with perfunctorily 
 recommending Mr. Adams's re-election to the Presidency. 
 
 All Hamilton's dispassionate friends had entreated him not 
 to publish this document, but the cool, shrewd leader was invet- 
 erately obstinate at this time. 
 
 Jefferson's party could not have desired a better campaign 
 document. Even Hamilton must have perceived his mistake 
 when it was too late. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson was elected third President of the United 
 States, and Aaron Burr Vice-President. 
 
 The nineteenth century was just two months and four days 
 old when John Adams, a cruelly mortified, disappointed, and, 
 as he believed, shamefully wronged man, left Washington for 
 the last time in the early March morning. 
 
 He would not remain to welcome his successor. It seemed 
 a pity. In the time of the country's long agony he and Thomas 
 Jefferson had worked together in perfect harmony and with 
 devoted patriotism. Next to Washington, the young nation 
 owed most to these two men. Yet when one takes into account 
 John Adams's temperament and feelings, his behavior on that 
 memorable morning is not surprising. 
 
 Nobody can question that it would have been more dignified 
 to remain and beam blandly on Jefferson's inauguration. Bui 
 the ex-President had no notion of presenting himself a mark 
 for the gaze of his triumphant foes. His behavior was, of 
 course, an appalling violation of the etiquette of the occasion ; 
 but the sturdy old patriot, who never had the fear of man 
 before his eyes, acted out his honest feeling when he turned his 
 back on Washington and started for Braintree. 
 
56 Our Presidents. 
 
 The long, honorable, and brilliant public life of John Adams 
 came to a close on that March morning. He was sixty-five 
 years old ; he was to live beyond the first quarter of the cent- 
 ury that had just opened. 
 
 The simple home life which, at the height of his dazzling ca- 
 reer in Europe, he had constantly longed for, now awaited him ; 
 but he did not return to it with the applause and gratitude of 
 the nation. The Federalist party, dismayed and enraged at the 
 triumph of their opponents, laid their defeat at the ex-President's 
 door. They insisted that the French mission was the real 
 cause of their overthrow. Mr. Adams found himself for a while 
 the most unpopular man in America. 
 
 This v/as a cruel return for a life of the noblest, most unself- 
 ish patriotism. He had, at least, the happy consciousness that 
 he had served the country, which he felt had cast him off, with 
 a perfect love. 
 
 The active mind, withdrawn from public interests, did not 
 devour itself. Mr, Adams was still eager and alert, as in his 
 youth, over the great events of the world. He had his old de- 
 light in books and writing ; he dwelt, with graphic, picturesque 
 talk, on the scenes in which he had borne so conspicuous a part. 
 It must have been a rare pleasure for those who lived in the 
 first quarter of the century to listen, " in that quiet home near 
 the roadside in Quincy," to the old statesman and patriot when 
 his memory called up the great historic events and personages 
 that were a part of his past. 
 
 His pecuniary circumstances enabled him to live in the 
 simple independence which had been the aspiration of his 
 youth. His domestic affections were strong, and he found in 
 his family and in the companionship and sympathy of his wife, 
 a solace for all public ingratitude. 
 
 With all her respect and affection for her husband, Mrs. 
 Adams was too keen-sighted a woman not to have been aware 
 
John Adams. 57 
 
 of the foibles and faults which marred his intrinsically noble 
 character. 
 
 It is much to his credit that he retained all his life, with 
 such a Avoman, the romantic tenderness which he had inspired 
 in her youth. She was not alone his devoted wife, she was 
 his intellectual companion, his trusted counselor and friend. 
 
 Mr. Adams's picture, in his old age, is that of a still hand- 
 some man, with clear, strong lines, wide forehead and brows. 
 The expression is eager, resolute, dominant. The large intel- 
 lect, the keen insight, the dogged, masterful will, the impetuous 
 temper, are all there. 
 
 " His figure was large and round, scarcely exceeding middle 
 height, but of a stout, well-knit frame, as he grew old inclining 
 more and more to corpulence." 
 
 He had a natural dignity and simplicity of presence and 
 bearing which accompanied him through all the requirements 
 and circumstances of his varied career. If he carried his plain, 
 good manners, his air of quiet, impressive self-respect, into the 
 audience-chamber of kings, it was because he could not do 
 otherwise — because they were a part of himself. 
 
 As years passed, Mr. Adams's violent feeling toward his 
 political enemies gradually softened. He was incapable of small 
 malevolence ; he never sought, by working in the dark, to in- 
 jure his worst foe. It is said that the only man whom he never 
 forgave was Alexander Hamilton. 
 
 His weaknesses, his faults of vanity, obstinacy, bluntness, 
 self-conceit, were precisely the kind to show conspicuous 
 against his real greatness. They were not pleas.int while he 
 lived. They made him many enemies. They cannot be 
 pleasant for any biographer to dwell on. 
 
 But he was, from first to last, unconscious as a child of these 
 defects. Indeed, they were of a nature which he would not be 
 likely to perceive. He was, therefore, with all his generosity, 
 
58 Our Presidents. 
 
 unjust to his opponents ; he never could see the other side of 
 the shield. He was, in his own opinion, immutably right. 
 
 Such a temperament has usually moods of imprudence and 
 rash confidence. Mr. Adams was no exception to the rule. 
 He talked and wrote much ; he revealed his opinions of 
 persons and events where it would have been wise to keep 
 silent. This rash habit of speaking and writing could not fail 
 to bring him into serious trouble, though it must be admitted 
 he always, when the pinch came, stood courageously by his 
 words. 
 
 Both Mr. and Mrs. Adams had great satisfaction and pride 
 in the career of their son, John Quincy Adams. The mother 
 lived to see her eldest boy Secretary of State during Monroe's 
 Administration. 
 
 In time the great breach between Adams and Jefferson was 
 healed. It took years for the former to forget and forgive. 
 The reconciliation was largely due to Mrs. Adams's influence 
 and efforts. Thomas Jefferson was the last man in the world 
 to hold a grudge against his old friend because of the part he 
 had played, or failed to play, at the inaugural ceremonies. 
 The ex-Presidents had many sympathies and a world of expe- 
 riences and reminiscences in common. They maintained a 
 frequent correspondence for the rest of their lives. 
 
 Mrs. Adams died in 181 8, at Quincy, where she had 
 remained since the close of her husband's public life. 
 
 Mr. Adams survived his Avife almost eight years. He 
 received some agreeable public attentions. He was appointed 
 a Presidential elector and voted for James Monroe. 
 
 He also lived to see his son President of the United States. 
 
 His mind was clear and active to within a few hours of his 
 death. That occurred at sunset : 
 
 July 4, 1826. 
 
ia 
 
 ^ 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 During the first quarter of this century an old man, whose 
 voice people made long pilgrimages to hear, used often to relate 
 an incident which had occurred in his early boyhood. It had 
 made so powerful an impression, that he dwelt on it with enthu- 
 siasm seventy years afterward. 
 
 The story was that of a young boy, in an Indian camp 
 pitched among the wild, densely wooded scenery at the foot of 
 the mountains in central Virginia. The whole scene was full 
 of solemn, picturesque features, well calculated to impress the 
 imagination of a sensitive boy. A full moon rode in the sky, 
 and the distant mountain peaks, and the dark, vast wilderness, 
 and all the pleasant river-valley, lay in that still, tender light. 
 All around the camp-fires sat groups of swarthy, motionless 
 figures. The red flames flared on the dusky, savage faces, and 
 around the brown, bared shoulders, and they looked like groups 
 sculptured in bronze. 
 
 In the silence and the moonlight, Ontassete, the famous 
 Cherokee chief, was speaking to his people for the last time. 
 The next day he was to sail for England, to plead their cause 
 with that great court of which his fathers had never heard, but 
 which now ruled the land where they had roamed in happy 
 freedom. 
 
 The chief must have spoken with passionate eloquence. The 
 powerful voice rang through the still night. The clear articu- 
 lation, the impressive gestures, all aided the effect of his words. 
 The boy listened spell-bound, though he did not understand a 
 syllable of all that solemn, impassioned speech. His heart, as 
 
6o Our Presidents. 
 
 well as his imagination, must have been touched at that early 
 time. " Through all his life he shov/ed a liking for Indians." 
 
 His likings and bis opinions were long after to leave their 
 mark in the history of nations. For the boy who heard the 
 speech of the Cherokee chief in the moonlight, and who was to 
 talk about it seventy years afterward, was Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 He was born April 13, 1743, in the Shadwell homestead. 
 This was named from his mother, *' who first saw the light 
 in a London parish of that name." The homestead stood 
 on a farm of nineteen hundred acres, in Albemarle County, 
 Virginia. 
 
 The boy's father was Peter Jefferson, and his mother was 
 Jane Randolph. She had passed her youth on one of the to- 
 bacco plantations of the James River, where Peter Jefferson 
 saw her first, when she was only seventeen. He wooed and 
 won and married her, and carried her away from the old stately 
 home mansion, to his great, partially cleared farm on the banks 
 of the Rivanna. 
 
 The boy, born in the Shadwell homestead, had a good start. 
 His father was a land surveyor, only a few years before George 
 Washington undertook the same business. The owner of Shad- 
 well farm was a Hercules in strength and stature. He singly 
 performed feats which taxed the powers of three strong men. 
 But he was also a man of much intelligence, shrewd sense, and 
 force of character. County honors naturally gravitated to such 
 a one. In due time, the Shadwell farmer became Justice of the 
 peace, Colonel of Albemarle County, and Representative in the 
 House of Burgesses. 
 
 Jane Randolph, who came from the old Virginia stock, 
 could never have regretted the choice of her youth, although 
 her early married life must have involved many privations and 
 hardships. 
 
 Thomas was the first son, but he liad two elder sisters. 
 
Thomas Jefferson. 6 1 
 
 Other children followed, until a large brood of Jeffersons had 
 gathered in the farm homestead. 
 
 Peter Jefferson had to leave that young family fatherless. 
 The stalwart man died suddenly, August 17, 1757. His death 
 occurred in that dark time for Virginia, two years after Brad- 
 dock's defeat. Thomas was fourteen. There was nobody to 
 control or advise him. The mother, with her young family 
 about her, herself not yet forty years of age, appears to have 
 placed unlimited confidence in her boy. From that time he 
 became his own master. 
 
 It had been the father's dying injunction that his son should 
 be well educated. Thomas made up his mind to study with 
 the Rev. James Maury, whose school was then regarded as the 
 best in Virginia. 
 
 The parsonage was only fourteen miles from the farm. 
 Thomas entered the school, where he remained two years. By 
 this time he was ready for the college of William and Mary. 
 
 This was situated five days' ride from young Jefferson's 
 home, in Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia. He set out for 
 it, a lad hardly seventeen years old, in the early spring of 1760. 
 " He had never at that time seen a town, or even a village of 
 twenty houses." 
 
 The little town of a thousand inhabitants, with its principal 
 street unpaved, " three-quarters of a mile long, the Capitol at 
 one end, the college at the other, and the public buildings in 
 the middle," no doubt made the old capital seem an elegant 
 metropolis to the rustic youth from the banks of the James. 
 
 He was no Adonis — this lad, straight and tall and slender, 
 as he rode up the broad old street of the capital. His sandy 
 hair framed a freckled face. His cheek bones, as well as his 
 chin, were prominent. He had large hands and feet. But he 
 had bright hazel -gray eyes, and his smile showed perfect teeth. 
 His movements and bearing had the ease and elasticity of a 
 
62 Our Presidents. 
 
 youth spent much in free, healthy, out-door life, and his coun- 
 tenance had an expression which at times must have made it 
 very attractive. 
 
 The young student had brought with him " the strength of 
 the hills." He had a passion for out-door sports. Whenever a 
 holiday released him from the Latin and Greek which he had 
 studied at Mr. Maury's, he had devoted himself to hunting on 
 a mountain in the neighborhood. He was extremely fond of 
 chasing the game to cover, and was " sound of wind and swift 
 of foot," as became the hardy old Jefferson breed. 
 
 Thomas had a singularly loyal and affectionate nature. It 
 would not permit him to forget, amid fresh scenes and in- 
 terests, the home where the widowed mother sat, sat with her 
 young daughters and one little son. That household on the 
 Rivanna, with its young life and its unutterable loss and grief, 
 reminds one of another household on the banks of the Rap- 
 pahannock. 
 
 But whatever memories and longings tugged at his heart- 
 strings, Thomas Jefferson set himself bravely to work in the old 
 college of William and Mary. He had an insatiable thirst for 
 knowledge. He studied much of the time fifteen hours a day. 
 Even that terrible strain did not break down the hardy consti- 
 tution of the youth from the hills. At twilight he indulged in 
 a little respite. " He rushed off to a great stone which formed 
 a landmark a mile out of town, and this and the race back 
 again " appear to have been his only regular exercise. 
 
 Dr. Small, Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy, was a 
 conspicuous figure in Jefferson's college life. The Scotchman 
 and the student became companions and friends. The elder 
 had a genius for teaching, and inspired the younger's soul with 
 great enthusiasm for study. But the college life was not wholly 
 one of books. With his ardent, generous nature, Thomas Jef- 
 ferson was sure to be a favorite with his classmates. Even at 
 
Tbonuis Jefferson. 63 
 
 this age he won tlie attention of men of the world, men of high 
 character and great abihties. George Wyeth, the lawyer, and 
 Francis Fauquier, the lieutenant-governor of the province, 
 admitted the young student to their intimate companionship. 
 Fauquier, gay, accomplished and agreeable, was just the sort of 
 man to fascinate a college youth. The friendship, however, 
 was not without its danger, as this elegant man had a deep 
 passion for gaming. Jefferson, however, escaped unharmed 
 from the powerful example. He was much at the palace, as 
 the official residence was called in the stately old colonial 
 phrase. The Scotch tutor and the distinguished lawyer were 
 constant guests with himself. There was immense mental stim- 
 ulus for young Jefferson in this rare companionship. In that 
 social atmosphere his shy and simple manners must have acquired 
 self command and polish. His eager, sensitive nature fell 
 under noble and elevating influences at this period. All his 
 after life he spoke with solemn fervor of the immense debt 
 which he owed to three men, his beloved tutor. Dr. Small, George 
 Wyeth, and Peyton Randolph. They were the models which 
 he chose for his youth. All the attractions of his host could 
 not blind him to the vice of gambling. Indeed, his horror of 
 it became so strong that " when he had a roof of his own he 
 would never allow a card under it." 
 
 Yet, with all his omnivorous study and the society of his 
 seniors, the boy from the Shadwell farm was by no means a 
 prig. He had his share in the pleasures and amusements of the 
 ancient capital. He had a passion for music, and his violin 
 was a source of never-ending delight to him. He danced min- 
 uets late into the night in the Apollo, that " great room of the 
 old Raleigh tavern," which was soon afterward to be put to a 
 very different service. 
 
 Jefferson lost his heart within those old historic walls. The 
 first romance of his life came to him before he was nineteen 
 
64 Our Presidents. 
 
 years old. The charms of Belinda, or Rebecca Burwell proved 
 powerful enough to win the thoughts of the devoted student 
 from his books. 
 
 The lovely face, the graceful form, which had moved by his 
 side in the dance, haunted him by night and day. It was not a 
 mere flitting fancy either. It survived the tests of time and 
 absence. After two years he returned to Shadv/ell, with his 
 law-books and his violin, but the sweet face hovered around 
 him and made sore havoc with the studies and ambitions of the 
 youth of twenty. 
 
 After wearing out the winter at Shadwell he returned to 
 Williamsburg, sought Belinda, and put his fate to the touch. 
 The young belle did not smile on her boy-suitor. She, of 
 course, had no idea of what a heart and hand she was putting 
 aside at that time. She was married soon afterward, and Jef- 
 ferson's young romance was shattered. He believed his heart 
 would never rally from that blow. 
 
 In April, 1764, he reached his majority. He celebrated 
 that event after the old English fashion, by ordering an avenue 
 of locusts and sycamores to be planted near his house, though 
 he was himself absent at Williamsburg. 
 
 Young Jefferson took up the burdens and responsibilities of 
 life bravely. The keen disappointment which his affections 
 had undergone did not relax his energies or his varied interests 
 in life. At tliis period he devoted himself to the improvement 
 and cultivation of his farm. His agricultural tastes were as 
 decided as those of that other great Virginian, Avho had now 
 settled himself down a few miles away, happy and satisfied, to 
 what he regarded as the work of his life — the charge of Mount 
 Vernon. 
 
 The young owner of Shadwell must have seemed to his 
 neighbors to have in him the making of a splendid farmer. 
 There was much more in Thomas Jefferson which neither he nor 
 
Thomas Jefferson. 65 
 
 his friends suspected at this time. But he was certainly an 
 agricultural genius. He began now that habit of experiments 
 with soils and plants which he kept up throughout his long 
 life. He had a variety of garden books, in wliich he made end- 
 less entries. No changes of the weather, no aspects of sky or 
 earth within his horizon, escaped him. The amount of work, 
 planning and study, which he managed to put into every day 
 was simply enormous. 
 
 In the summer of 1765, Martha Jefferson, a beautiful girl 
 of nineteen, was married to Dabney Carr, the most intimate and 
 beloved of Jefferson's college class mates. Young Carr had 
 one of those rare natures, whose charm and lovable quality 
 lend a fresh grace to life. Like Jefferson, he was a law student. 
 Even before they became brothers-in-law the two were con- 
 stantly together. They had a favorite resort two miles from 
 the homestead, on a lonely mountain, five hundred and eighty 
 feet in height. This afterward became the historic Monticello. 
 It was richly wooded to the summit. Far up the mountain- 
 side grew a vast oak, under whose shade the young men made 
 a rustic seat, and here they sat amid the wide green freedom 
 and stillness, and studied their text-books, and had long intervals 
 of talk. 
 
 And what rare, delightful talk it must have been ! It seemed 
 a pity there was nobody to hear it but the singing-birds and 
 the squirrels darting among tlie mossy brovvn boles. No doubt 
 the talk was illuminated with the glow and enthusiasm of youth. 
 J>ut it must have had also the large reach, the profound earnest- 
 ness, the intellectual force, of the two minds with which it orig- 
 inated. 
 
 It was these liours which were afterward to make that spot 
 so famous in history. The two entered into a covenant that he 
 who died first should be buried under the mighty oak. Jeffer- 
 son kei)t his word. Long afterward, the place formed the burial- 
 5 
 
66 Our Presidents. 
 
 plot of his family, and at last, full of years and honors, he was 
 laid by the side of his friend, beneath the very sods where they 
 had sat and studied, and where they had held the long, wise, 
 aspiring talk of their youth. It was the memory, too, of those 
 days which made Jefferson choose that mountain-top for his 
 home. 
 
 The honey-moon was hardly over when the shadow of death 
 fell on the homestead. Jane Jefferson's death, which took 
 place in the autumn following her sister's marriage, was a great 
 blow to her brother. She was about twenty-nine, and had 
 shared his intellectual tastes. 
 
 There was something almost portentous in Thomas Jeffer- 
 son's industry. He rose at five in the morning. Happily, he 
 did not allow himself scant sleep, for, with the sensible habit of 
 the time, he went to bed at nine. He studied law each day ; 
 he overlooked the details of his large estate ; he had a smart 
 gallop on horseback, and a tramp usually to the summit of 
 ]\[onticello ; he was an inveterate reader, and kept up his Greek, 
 Latin and French. Certainly when he lay down at night, he 
 could not have been haunted by any remorse for misspent time. 
 
 At Williamsburg, where he was not forced to combine the 
 law-student with the farmer, he devoted himself more strenu- 
 ously to his books. The vigorous frame he had inherited from 
 his father, as well as his variety of interests and activities, alone 
 saved him from breaking down. Probably not one youth in a 
 thousand could have kept up with his stride. 
 
 But there seems to have been no sign of flagging about 
 Thomas Jefferson, when, in 1767, near his twenty-fourth birth- 
 day, he was admitted to the bar. 
 
 Jefferson had his young dreams, like George Washington, 
 of going abroad. But the Stamp- Act kept the newly fledged 
 lawyer at home, as matrimony and Mount Vernon had done in 
 George Washington's case. 
 
Thomas Jefferson. 6^ 
 
 Before he became engrossed in public events, however, Jef- 
 ferson had entered into successful practice. His thorough 
 preparation, as well as the times, were in his favor. There was 
 much financial embarrassment among the old extravagant Vir- 
 ginia planters at that period. Jefferson's clients grew so rapidly 
 in numbers that in seven years he had doubled his estate. 
 
 In May, 1765, when Jefferson was a law student, Patrick 
 Henry, the old friend of his college days, was in Williamsburg. 
 He was then a new member of the House of Burgesses, and 
 Jefferson's guest. The latter stood in the lobby on that day 
 vv'hen hi.s friend made his immortal speech against Great Brit- 
 ain's attempt to tax her Colonies. He saw the tall, thin, negli- 
 gently attired figure rise in its place ; he saw " the first shy, 
 awkward movements, and heard the slow, faltering accents." 
 But in a few moments a mighty change came over the new mem- 
 ber. The passion of the orator had possessed him. He stood 
 erect and masterful before the assemblage ; his face glowed. 
 There was a thrilling music in his voice, a marvelous grace in 
 his gestures. Every school-boy knows the history of the speech 
 to which the youth in the lobby was listening spell-bound, like 
 his elders. Fifty-nine years later Jefferson spoke of that scene 
 with enthusiasm. It formed one of the great hours in American 
 history. When Jefferson turned from the lobby that day, a 
 new world of ideas and passions must have been kindled in his 
 soul. 
 
 After that day he talked no more of making the tour of 
 Europe. 
 
 Indeed, it was not until the year before he was admitted to 
 the bar that he ever went beyond his native province. At that 
 time he visited Annapolis, Philadelphia, " where he underwent 
 inoculation for small-pox," and even got as far as New York. 
 Here, in the little pleasant Dutch town of twenty thousand in- 
 habitants, he chanced to find as a fellow lodger a small-framed, 
 
68 Our Presideiifs. 
 
 keen, intelligent stranger from Marblehead. His name v/as 
 Elbridge Gerry. 
 
 The Virginian and the New Englander took a strong liking 
 to each other. They little suspected the role each was destined 
 to ijlay in the fortunes of the nation. 
 
 In the winter of 1768-69, when Lord Botetourt, the new 
 governor, came over from England, the old House of Burgesses 
 was dismissed, and in the election which followed Thomas 
 Jefferson was a candidate for Albemarle County. He was 
 elected and entered on a public Hfe which was to continue for 
 forty years. 
 
 The first Virginia legislature in which Thomas Jefferson 
 served forms a memorable chapter in American history. The 
 British Parliament had now entered on that tyrannical course 
 toward the Colonies which ended in the Revolution. Lord 
 Botetourt, amazed and alarmed at the temper and purpose 
 which his freshly elected House of Burgesses manifested toward 
 the Parliamentary measures, dissolved the House. 
 
 A meeting, as all the world knows, was held next day in the 
 Apollo — that old room at the Raleigh tavern where Jefferson 
 and Belinda had danced so many minuets. 
 
 But the members had sterner work to do now than watch the 
 smiles of beauty, or keep step to the joyous music. At that 
 meeting the famous Non-Importation Agreement was drawn 
 up, and eighty-eight members of the House of Burgesses 
 signed it. 
 
 Virginia indorsed the compact of her legislators in the most 
 emphatic manner. " Every man who signed the agreement was 
 re-elected ; every one who refused lost his re-election." 
 
 A little later good tidings came across the sea. The colo- 
 nists had their brief hour of rejoicing. The party in the British 
 Parliament favorable to America was in power. 
 
 Lord Botetourt, a high-spirited and honorable gentleman, 
 
Thomas Jcjferson. 69 
 
 informed the House of Burgesses that ParHament intended to 
 remove the taxes. 
 
 But Lord North became Prime Minister. After that George 
 III. and he had everything their own way. 
 
 Lord Botetourt, indignant and mortified, demanded his re- 
 call. He did not live to receive it. It was believed that he 
 died of grief, because he was unable to keep his word to the 
 Burgesses. 
 
 The year 1769 found Thomas Jefferson an immensely busy 
 man. His practice at the bar had increased to a hundred and 
 ninety-eight cases before the General Court. Bands of work- 
 men were clearing the summit of Monticello for his future 
 home. An orchard was planted on a slope, and the busy law- 
 yer, farmer and member of the House of Burgesses found time 
 between the sessions to supervise the construction of a brick 
 wing, which was intended to form part of a mansion. 
 
 During the winter of the following year, the old Shadwell 
 homestead was burned to the ground. Jefferson and his 
 mother were visiting at a neighbor's. A servant brought the 
 momentous tidings. It was natural that the young master 
 should ask eagerly for the fate of his books. He learned that 
 his violin alone had been saved ! 
 
 Just twenty-three months from that day Thomas Jefferson 
 was married. He, too, like Washington, had chosen a beautiful 
 young widow whose name was Martha She was the daughter 
 of John Wayles, one of Jefferson's associates at the ^Villiamsburg 
 bar. She must have been married in her young girlhood, for 
 she was a widow at twenty-two. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson, the rising lawyer, landed proprietor, and 
 representative of his native province, was a very different person 
 from the bashful college youth who, seven years before, had 
 stammered his suit to Belinda. 
 
 His marriage with Martha Skelton took place on New Year, 
 
70 Our Presidents. 
 
 1772. In a few days, the newly wedded pair started for their 
 home on the mountain top, '' more than a hundred miles away, 
 in a two-horse chaise." 
 
 A heavy snow-fall came on during the journey. The bride 
 reached her home late at night. The scene must have struck 
 a chill to the heart of any but a brave woman. The house 
 stood dark and lonely amid the snows. There was not a fire 
 on the hearth, not a light in the windows, to welcome the new 
 mistress. " The servants, not expecting the pair at that time, 
 were asleep in their cabins." 
 
 But this dismal introduction of the bridal pair to the pretty 
 brick cottage on the summit of Monticello was no augury of 
 the life that was to be lived there. Within those walls the two 
 who came up to them amid the darkness, in the snows, were to 
 enjoy years of rare domestic happiness. 
 
 All accounts represent Mrs. Jefferson as a woman of much 
 grace and charm of manner. Masses of auburn hair framed 
 her fair, expressive face. Her tall, slight figure indicated only 
 too well her fragile constitution. She sang ; she played the 
 harpsichord ; and her musical gifts must have been a great 
 delight to her husband. He had a peculiar tenderness and 
 loyalty of nature, and while the woman he had chosen was 
 the central joy of his hfe, he, in turn, made her supremely 
 happy. 
 
 The home on the mountain summit commanded a magnifi- 
 cent prospect. Its stillness and coolness must have made it a 
 delightful residence during the heats of the Virginia summers. 
 On one side the mountain sloped abruptly to the valleys. On 
 another, a mile and a half away, flowed the Rivanna, among 
 the farms and wheat-fields, and beyond its banks was a heap of 
 " blackened ruins," all that the flames had left of the Shadwell 
 homestead. At one point the Blue Bridge walled the horizon, 
 a hundred miles distant, while two hundred to the eastward was 
 
Thomas Jefferson. Jl 
 
 the Atlantic. The little village of Charlottesville was only 
 " three miles off." 
 
 Monticello was the paradise to Thomas Jefferson that Mount 
 Vernon was to George Washington. Neither would have ex- 
 changed his farm and his homestead for the palace of a king. 
 ******* 
 
 Meanwhile, the events which ushered in the Revolution 
 were marching relentlessly forward. Jefferson, as we have 
 seen, was married in January. In June of that year the King's 
 little armed schooner, the Gaspee, of eight guns, was boarded 
 and burned to the water's edge, while she lay aground off Nar- 
 ragansett Point, seven miles below Providence. The patriotic 
 Rhode Islanders had at last been driven to desperation. They 
 had bearded the British Government after bearing for years its 
 oppressive and intolerable restrictions on their commerce. Its 
 orders had been carried out in the narrowest and hardest tem- 
 per by insolent and overbearing officials. The fire which had 
 long smouldered in the breasts of the hardy, resolute race 
 which had settled along the New England sea-board was sure, 
 sooner or later, to break out and sweep everything before it. 
 
 " The burning of the Gaspee," with all the attendant cir- 
 cumstances, rang through the Colonies. That bold deed could 
 not fail to fire the blood of men in whose veins ran the free old 
 Anglo-Saxon strain. A new feeling of common sympathy and 
 interest was aroused in the Provinces. It was the immediate 
 cause of another famous meeting in the old Raleigh tavern. 
 Thomas Jefferson and Dabney Carr, with several other young 
 members of the House of Burgesses, were assembled here one 
 evening in the early March of 1773. The question which 
 absorbed them was the attitude which Virginia, the eldest and 
 most powerful of the Colonies, should assume toward Rhode 
 Island at this juncture. The young Burgesses felt unbounded 
 admiration at the daring act of the brave little Province. They 
 
72 Our Presidents. 
 
 glowed with sympathy for her wrongs ; they felt these as their 
 own. But the great outcome of the meeting and another held 
 on the day following was the circular letter, written and dis- 
 patched to the various Colonial Assemblies. 
 
 The Committees of Correspondence had been organized. 
 These were followed a little later by the Continental Congress. 
 
 When they emerged from the Raleigh tavern the brothers-in- 
 law little suspected the great historical importance of the work 
 in which they had borne a share. But this was the last impor- 
 tant act of one of the pair. Dabney Carr — that rare and lovable 
 being whose brief record illuminates the page on which it is 
 written — died suddenly of malignant typhoid fever. He had 
 been married eight years. His small home, a few miles from 
 Monticello, held a brood of six children. Jefferson had called 
 his friend " the happiest man in the universe," though five 
 years after his marriage the cottage contained but little prop- 
 erty beside "a table, half a dozen chairs, and two or three 
 servants." 
 
 His beautiful young wife lost her reason for a while at the 
 shock of his sudden death. At this time of anguish Jefferson 
 came, as few brothers ever have done, to the help of the widow 
 and the orphans. He took Martha, the sister, with her young 
 family of children, home to Martha, the wife. He adopted 
 them all — three sons and three daughters. He brought them 
 up as tenderly, as generously, as carefully, as he did his own. 
 
 When, at last, they laid him in his old age and his great- 
 ness, by the side of Dabney Carr, he had kept faith with the 
 friend of his youth. 
 
 Children of his own came to him. The eldest, who bore 
 the beloved name of Martha, survived him, but the others, of 
 whom there were five, seem to have inherited their mother's 
 fragile constitution. Four died in infancy. Mary, the fourth 
 child, reached young womanhood. 
 
Thomas Jefferson. 73 
 
 All the children were girls, except one son, who lived only 
 a few days. 
 
 The year 1774 brings the reader out on the great highway 
 of American history. The story of the drowned tea-chests, of 
 the Boston Port Bill, cannot be gone over here. The Revolu- 
 tion was on its way. People felt its coming in the air before 
 they realized what it meant. While the whole land was shaken 
 with its approach, Thomas Jefferson was in the thick of events. 
 Yet the lawyer from Monticello never in these exciting times 
 lost his coolness or his serenity. 
 
 AVhen the new Governor, Lord Dunmore, dissolved the re- 
 fractory Plouse of Burgesses, there was another meeting at the 
 Raleigh tavern. This time the Committee of Corresiiondence 
 was instructed to propose the organization of a Continental 
 Congress. Its members, composed of deputies from all the 
 Colonies, were to meet annually. 
 
 Before that year had closed the name of Thomas Jefferson 
 was enrolled on the Bill of Attainder which the British Govern- 
 ment was preparing against leading American rebels. 
 
 The year 1774 was a busy one for Jefferson. He was en- 
 larging his house for the occupation of his numerous family ; he 
 was busy with his agricultural and professional duties, and he 
 was also preparing a draft of instructions for the Virginia 
 members of the Congress which was to meet at Philadelphia in 
 September. 
 
 It was characteristic of his calm, peace-loving temperament 
 that, in these stormy times, his cherished idea was an address 
 to the King. In this he felt the whole Congress must unite. 
 The members should utter bravely in the royal ear their wrongs 
 and grievances. Nothing could have been more offensive to 
 the narrow-minded, arbitrary, obstinate King than the home- 
 truths of this plain, forcible, but respectful petition. He did 
 not deign to take the slightest notice of it. 
 
74 Our Presidents. 
 
 It does not fall within the compass of this brief sketch to 
 relate Thomas Jefferson's career in detail during the War of 
 the Revolution, 
 
 The day on which he took his seat in the Continental Con- 
 gress was the day when it first learned the tidings of Bunker 
 Hill. George Washington was already on his way to Cam- 
 bridge to take command of the American army. 
 
 The Colonies had sent the flov/er of their manhood to the 
 Congress assembled in Philadelphia, " in a plain brick building 
 up a narrow alley." These sixty members represented the 
 greatest statesmen, the most gifted orators, the commanding in- 
 tellects of the Provinces. 
 
 Everybody knows that Jefferson's great work in the Conti- 
 nental Congress was the Declaration of Independence. This 
 immortal document was not prepared until the summer of 1776. 
 Even after the day of Concord and Lexington, there were many 
 delegates who still clung fondly to the hope of a reconciliation 
 with England. Perhaps Jefferson had been among the number 
 until he learned in September, 1774, of the fate which the duti- 
 ful petition, much of v/hich was composed by himself, had met 
 at the hands of the King. 
 
 The journey from Monticello to Philadelphia required more 
 than a week's traveling. The road lay largely through the 
 wilderness. Jefferson made his long trips back and forth as 
 public or private duties summoned him. He was at home in 
 March when his mother died. On the following June he was 
 in Philadelphia, preparing the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 It was well that Massachusetts had sent her bold, resolute, 
 patriotic delegate from Braintree to the Continental Congress. 
 There were men among the members who, even after the evac- 
 uation of Boston by the British, flinched at the prospect of 
 irrevocable separation from the mother-country. A Declara- 
 tion of Independence must mean that. It must involve, too. 
 
Thoims Jefferson. 75 
 
 a long and unequal struggle, at best, with the most powerful 
 enemy in the world. It is not strange that brave men's hearts 
 failed them sometimes, when they contrasted the might of 
 England with the weakness of America. 
 
 John Adams took upon himself the great task of carrying 
 the Declaration through Congress. It required his immutable 
 conviction, his absolute devotion to his country, and his su- 
 preme fearlessness, to spring into the breach. At this great 
 crisis the Virginia and the Massachusetts barristers worked in 
 perfect harmony. In a speech of masterly argument, of sol- 
 emn, passionate fervor, that carried him and his hearers out 
 of themselves, John Adams pleaded the cause of the Declara- 
 tion before his colleagues. 
 
 No other man could have done this with such effective- 
 ness. The speech and the hour were perhaps the greatest of 
 the speaker's life. When he ceased, the end vvas achieved. 
 
 On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was 
 signed by all the delegates. Henceforth there could be no 
 drawing back. " The Declaration of Independence is prob- 
 ably," says a high authority, *' the most famous state-paper in 
 the world. It is the charter of human freedom. It was 
 greeted with shouts, bonfires and processions." 
 
 Jefferson was now in the full tide of public life. Honors 
 and responsibihties were rapidly heaped upon him. In the 
 autumn following the Declaration of Independence he was 
 appointed by Congress to represent, with Dr. Franklin and Silas 
 Deane, the United States at Paris. The offer was a dazzling 
 one to a young man of thirty-three. Jefferson felt all its allure- 
 ments. With his alert intelligence, his keen observation, his 
 deHght in congenial companionship, Paris, two decades before 
 the French Revolution, would have been a most fascinating 
 place for him. But Mrs. Jefferson's health made it impossible 
 for her to accompany her husband. He would not leave her 
 
76 Our Presidents. 
 
 behind for all that Europe could offer hun. He declined the 
 mission. 
 
 There was plenty of work for him to do at home. Vast as 
 that work was, large as the place it should hold in the life of 
 Thomas Jefferson, only a few lines can be devoted to it here. 
 
 He was again elected to the Assembly. He was placed on 
 a variety of committees. The law-books of Virginia bristled 
 with all sorts of mediaeval traditions, with iron rigors and cruel 
 punishments. Jefferson was bent, heart and soul, on making a 
 sweeping reform in the ancient, tyrannous legislation. 
 
 This reform embraced the " repeal of the laws of entail ; 
 the abolition of primogeniture ; the bill for establishing religious 
 freedom." 
 
 " These measures proposed nothing less than an overthrow 
 of the very foundations of the old social edifice. The reforms 
 struck at the most cherished convictions in politics and religion. 
 The contest was prolonged for years. Both sides fought with 
 the desperation of men who were struggling for the dearest 
 prizes of human existence. It was the old struggling mortally 
 with the new." 
 
 The party of reform was full of boldness, resolution and 
 passionate enthusiasm. Jefferson's old friend, Patrick Henry, 
 was now Governor of the newly organized State. Of course his 
 sympathies were wholly with the liberal side. But Jefferson 
 was leader in the great work of reform. He had energetic col- 
 leagues, however, in George Wyeth and James Madison — the 
 latter a young man of twenty-five, who, " small of stature, and 
 wasted by too much study," had just entered the Assembly. 
 
 The first blow was struck at the system of entail. That 
 old abuse fell after a struggle of three weeks. It was an easy 
 triumph for Jefferson, compared with the fierce battles that 
 followed. The old oppressive religious statutes yielded slowly, 
 one after another, to his vigorous onslaughts. It took, as has 
 
Thomas Jefferson. 77 
 
 been said, many years to achieve a thorough reform, but he 
 succeeded in carrying a repeal of some of the harshest penalties. 
 It was not until 1786 that Jefferson's " Act for Establishing 
 Religious Freedom " became the law of Virginia. 
 
 The reader must look elsewhere for the details of this great 
 work. Suffice it that Jefferson inspired the legislation of Vir- 
 ginia with the new modern spirit of justice, generosity, human- 
 ity. Many an old abuse, many a cruel enactment, died hard. 
 The instincts, the traditions, the passions of caste, were alive 
 and powerful in the Assembly. Jefferson made many and bitter 
 foes. Every man does whose great aim is to serve his race. 
 
 Jefferson gave the best of two years to revising the laws of 
 Virginia. 
 
 Meanwhile the war of the Revolution went its long way. 
 The young nation passed through all the dark days which fol- 
 lowed the evacuation of Boston. In due time came the sur- 
 render of Burgoyne, and the war was brought under the very 
 eyes of Monticello, when four thousand English and German 
 prisoners of war were marched and quartered close to Charlotte- 
 ville by order of Congress. 
 
 It was in keeping with Jefferson's character to do all in his 
 power to alleviate the tedium and discomfort of the war-prison- 
 ers in the very shadow of his home. He extended many cour- 
 tesies to his foes, and made many friends among them. 
 
 On June i, 1779, Thomas Jefferson became Governor of 
 Virginia. It was a position full of responsibility and difficulty 
 at that time. The flower of Virginia was, of course, in camp 
 with Washington. The weak and scattered militia could do 
 little to protect a State whose unguarded coasts and numerous 
 rivers offered such temptations to sudden incursions of the 
 foe. Three weeks before Jefferson's inauguration a fleet of 
 two thousand troops had landed, plundered, ravaged, burned 
 and murdered, without encountering any obstacle. There was 
 
/S Our Presidents. 
 
 niach apprehension, too, about the Indians. Worst of all, Vir- 
 ginia was impoverished. Her militia lacked everything neces- 
 sary for defense. The former Governor, Patrick Henry, had 
 hurried off all the home-supplies to General Gates, in North 
 Carolina. The latter w^as all that stood between Cornwallis and 
 the firesides of Virginia. 
 
 Nobody has ever claimed that Thomas Jefferson possessed 
 the military genius. He worked, however, with untiring energy 
 and devotion at this period. If he poured all the resources of 
 the State into Gates's hands, he did what seemed to him wisest 
 and best at this critical juncture. 
 
 If, when Virginia's hour of trial came, she would have fared 
 better with a *' war- Governor " at the helm, she had not placed 
 him there. 
 
 When the great fleet of sixty vessels entered Hampton 
 Roads and lay there, waiting to co-operate with Cornwallis in 
 laying waste Virginia, Jefferson's hands were tied. He could 
 not, like Cadmus, raise armies from the soil ; he could not fur- 
 nish supplies when they were not to be found. 
 
 Happily the North Carolina militia held Cornwallis at bay, 
 and, after a month's waiting, the fleet disappeared from Hamp- 
 ton Roads. 
 
 But the British commanders in the South were resolved, if 
 they did not make Virginia soil their battle-field, to ravage and 
 despoil the ancient Province. 
 
 Certainly Jefferson had hard lines from the beginning. If 
 he was not a born soldier he was a man full of energy, resource 
 and determination. He faced the situation with coolness and 
 courage. Yet it was one to appall the stoutest heart. There 
 was no force but a half-armed, scantily-clothed body of militia 
 to resist the march of Cornwallis into Virginia or the hostile 
 fleets upon her coast. It was a time that tried men's souls, and 
 the Governor had to bear the brunt of things. 
 
Tbonias Jefferson. 79 
 
 What Jefferson had to do — what Virginia had to endure — 
 as she lay prostrate, with her coast and her interior open to her 
 ])0werful and wrathful foe during the last years of the Revolu- 
 tionary War, would fill a volume. There was no peace for the 
 inhabitants. One invasion was followed by another. The air 
 was full of alarm and terror. 
 
 Sunday, the last day of the year 1780, was perhaps the dark- 
 est day of all those dark days. On that morning a fleet of 
 twenty-seven sail rode in Chesapeake Bay. Benedict Arnold 
 was in command. Wherever he went, he would be likely to 
 make short, stern work with the country he had betrayed. At 
 that time Jefferson was alone. He hurried his family to a 
 place of safety thirteen miles distant. Then he spurred his 
 horse toward Richmond, the new capital, until the animal broke 
 down. " The Governor of Virginia was compelled to borrow 
 an unbroken colt." When at last he reached Richmond, he 
 found the foe there before him. 
 
 Arnold remained at the capital twenty-three hours. One 
 suspects that, brave as he was, he must, after his treason, always 
 have felt uneasy when he was outside British lines. Jefferson's 
 prompt action had roused the militia on every side, and breath- 
 ing vengeance, they marched on Arnold's track. 
 
 But he got back safely to his fleet and fell down the James, 
 having to content himself with the havoc he had made at the 
 capital. 
 
 Four times in the spring of 1781 the Virginia Legislature 
 fled on the alarm or approach of the British. 
 
 The following month Jefferson's hour of trial came. The 
 redoubtable Tarleton, " with a body of cavalry two hundred 
 and fifty strong," galloped near midnight into Louisa, a town 
 twenty miles from Monticello. Before the next sunrise a rider 
 spurred a horse white with foam up the mountain. He brought 
 tidings of the approach of the foe. 
 
8o Our Presidents. 
 
 The Legislature — what there was of it — was at Charlottes- 
 ville. There was no doubt Tarleton was bent on capturing that 
 and the Governor. 
 
 Jefferson confronted the peril coolly. The family had time 
 to breakfast before they left Monticello to take refuge with a 
 friend. Jefferson secured his most valued papers, mounted his 
 horse, and rode off in the pleasant June morning. 
 
 There was no thunder of hoofs in the still air. He rode 
 to a point where he could look down on Charlottesville. It 
 lay peaceful in the morning sunshine. Jefferson had been 
 hurried away from his precious papers by a militia officer who 
 had rushed in breathless with the tidings that troops were 
 ascending the mountain. 
 
 Jefferson now suspected this was a false alarm, and rashly 
 concluded to return for his papers. As he rode back he dis- 
 covered that his sword was missing. It had fallen from its 
 scabbard. He turned to search for it, and once more glanced 
 off at the little village of Charlottesville. It was swarming with 
 cavalry ! That lost sword had saved him from capture. Five 
 minutes after he left his house Tarleton's men were inside it. 
 
 But before that year had closed the long travail of Virginia 
 was over. A little more than five months after that morning 
 flight from Monticello, Cornwallis had surrendered at York- 
 town. 
 
 Jefferson returned to his beloved Monticello, at the close of 
 the war, believing that his public life was over. About the 
 same time another Virginian was returning to his home at Mount 
 Vernon, cherishing the same happy illusion for himself. Each 
 had, after long stormy years, a season of delightful repose and 
 peace in the midst of his family. 
 
 But the younger of the two men had the briefer hour of 
 gladness. The sixth child was born to the Jefferson household. 
 From that time the fragile mother's health failed steadily. For 
 
Thomas Jefferson. 8i 
 
 months the sinking of that beloved life held her husband in 
 agonizing suspense. 
 
 September 6, 1782, was the darkest morning that ever rose 
 over Monticello. Everybody knew then that its mistress would 
 not see the sunset. 
 
 The husband's grief was as deep as his love had been loyal. 
 When it came to the last parting, the strong mind, the vigorous 
 frame, were utterly prostrated for a while. There were even 
 fears for Jefferson's reason or his life. He had a capacity for 
 tenderness that was like a woman's. 
 
 The dying wife, thinking in her last hour of the daughters 
 she must leave motherless, laid her cold hand in her husband's, 
 and begged him to promise her he would never marry again. 
 
 In that hour of supreme anguish it was easy to give his word. 
 He never broke it. 
 
 Time, of course, dulled the keenness of his grief. Though 
 he must miss all the rest of his days the dearest companionship, 
 a man like this — his brain, his heart, his time — belonged to 
 humanity. When the first sense of loneliness and loss was 
 softened, his country made her voice heard again. Thomas 
 Jefferson was once more elected to Congress. He took his seat 
 November, 1783. 
 
 But a greater honor and a larger sphere of action were 
 awaiting him. In the following May Congress resolved to send 
 another envoy to France. Thomas Jefferson was appointed to 
 the new post. He was to occupy it for two years. His salary 
 was to be nine thousand dollars a year. 
 
 Everything must have inclined him to accept the new ap- 
 pointment. There was, alas ! no wife whose happiness must be 
 consulted now. There was every reason to believe he could 
 serve his country in the new office. All his splendid faculties 
 must have inspired him to throw himself at this time into the 
 thick of affairs. 
 6 
 
82 Our Presidents. 
 
 He left his two daughters in the best care at Monticello ; he 
 could not trust himself to return and take leave of them in the 
 home so full of tender and harrowing associations. He gave 
 his nephews — the sons of Dabney Carr — to the charge of his 
 dear young friend, James Madison ; he sailed from Boston in 
 the Ceres on July 5, 1783 ; he took with him Martha, his eldest 
 daughter. 
 
 The summer passage was smooth and swift. In less than 
 five weeks after Jefferson had looked his last on the crooked 
 streets and gable roofs of Boston he was safely installed at his 
 hotel in Paris. 
 
 The first sight of that splendid city must have made an im- 
 mense impression on one who had never seen anything but the 
 small towns of the new world. 
 
 Jefferson had entered now upon a period which forms, in 
 many respects, the most interesting, varied and remarkable of 
 his life. It is an epoch especially tempting to the biographer. 
 Yet only the briefest space can be spared here to the five years 
 which he passed in France, and which, no doubt, exercised a 
 powerful and permanent influence on his opinions and char- 
 acter. 
 
 He had set foot in France at the most critical period of her 
 history. The most stupendous event of modern times was now 
 about to transpire, and though nobody suspected this — though 
 that splendid court moved gay and careless down the years to 
 the great abyss — there must have been some vague feeling of 
 restlessness and excitement in the atmosphere. 
 
 In 1783 Americans were sure of a cordial reception in 
 France. Had she not a little before sent her armies and navies 
 and emptied her coffers to aid the Colonies in their long 
 struggle against her ancient foe ? The name of America was 
 dear to the French heart at that time. The Declaration of In- 
 dependence had thrilled the people as no human document had 
 
Thomas Jefferson. 83 
 
 ever thrilled them. The French army and navy officers had 
 had many serious thoughts, gained many new ideas, during their 
 service in America. The air was full of hope, dreams, enthusi- 
 asms. The glow of a fairer, nobler day seemed to men's eyes 
 to be already flushing the horizon. 
 
 Jefferson was to succeed Dr. Franklin, and had an oppor- 
 tunity of witnessing the unbounded popularity of the American 
 statesman and philosopher. The presence and character of the 
 simple, white-haired old man had profoundly affected the sen- 
 sitive imagination of the French people. Jefferson replied hap- 
 pily to the Count de Vergennes, " You succeed Dr. Franklin." 
 " I succeed. No one can replace him. " 
 
 But despite all that was novel, interesting and delightful in 
 that new life of Paris, it had its drawbacks. Jefferson could 
 not speak French, and at his age it is not easy to learn a new 
 language. Then his salary was inadequate, as his position of 
 foreign minister involved large expenses. The climate did not 
 suit one accustomed to a clearer, warmer atmosphere. Jeffer- 
 son's heart, in this far-off land, still grieved for its dead. 
 
 But he saw all that was most brilliant, distinguished and 
 charming in French society. The most illustrious people met 
 under the American's roof. Despite his broken French, they 
 liked him immensely. Every American was interesting at that 
 time to Frenchmen, especially one who was cultured, a lover of 
 science and a philosopher. 
 
 But much as Jefferson's tastes were gratified by the grace 
 and elegance of French manners, his clear, penetrating glance 
 was not deceived. That pierced beyond all the glory and 
 beauty of art around him, beyond the splendor and luxury 
 of life, to the heart of things. That saw clearly the unutter- 
 able misery, ignorance and oppression of the people. These 
 aroused in him a feeling of intense pity, indignation, horror. 
 His letters show the strength of his feelings. He believes that 
 
84 Our Presidents. 
 
 of the twenty millions in France, "nineteen millions are more 
 wretched, more accursed in every circumstance of human exist- 
 ence, than the most conspicuously wretched individual of the 
 whole United States." 
 
 Despite his own agreeable surroundings, Jefferson was 
 under no illusions. His residence in France only strengthened, 
 if possible, his loyalty to America. 
 
 He did his best for her interests during these five years. 
 He worked with untiring industry to secure a more generous 
 commercial treaty between the two nations. But old interests, 
 traditions, abuses, all stood in his way. Outside of his official 
 duties he labored unceasingly for his country. He wanted 
 to introduce every valuable product and implement of the Old 
 World to the New. With his passion for agriculture, he was 
 always sending home " seed-grass, plants, roots, acorns" — any- 
 thing novel in the vegetable world which he fancied might 
 flourish in his native soil. 
 
 He was eager also to introduce American productions in 
 Europe ; and was untiring in obtaining specimens of the 
 Fauna and Flora of his ovvni country for propagation in 
 France. 
 
 Jefferson had not been two years abroad when he went 
 over to London to join Mr. Adams, who was having a hard 
 time in " negotiating commercial ti-eaties." 
 
 At this period the social atmosphere of England was any- 
 thing but agreeable to Americans. George III. naturally did 
 not delight in their presence at his court. Jefferson's recep- 
 tion was hardly civil. He did not enjoy England or the En- 
 glish people. In the way of treaties he could accomplish 
 nothing. Prejudice, commercial selfishness, and a bitter 
 grudge against anything American, all combined to create the 
 most rigorous monopolies. It was evident that English states- 
 men and English merchants meant to crush the manufactures 
 
Thomas Jefferson. 85 
 
 and ruin the carrying-trade of the young nation across the 
 sea. 
 
 Now the Colonies had cliosen to set up for themselves, 
 they should have no chance of which England could deprive 
 them. This was the temper which Adams and Jefferson had 
 to encounter at court, in Parliament, and on the English 
 Bourse of that day. 
 
 The two traveled over the island together. They visited its 
 famous historic places. What talk they must have had — the 
 two colleagues of the old Philadelphia Congress days — as they 
 stood on British soil ! 
 
 In about two months Jefferson was back in Paris. Here he 
 was in congenial air. The most famous Frenchmen assembled 
 at the board of the Monticello planter. Here they discussed 
 great political problems, the signs of the times, the promise of 
 the future. 
 
 For there was a new thrill and agitation in the air. People 
 were talking about human rights, about individual freedom, 
 about the dawn of a better and happier era, in a strain that had 
 never been heard before. Long afterward Jefferson, in his 
 quiet home at Monticello, must have recalled that illustrious 
 company which, during these years, passed over his threshold, 
 and remembered with a pang how many of these had perished 
 by the guillotine. 
 
 His official position made the utmost caution necessary in 
 giving expression to his feelings or convictions. But as time 
 went on, his heart and soul must have been fired by the great 
 events transpiring about him. 
 
 All that can be said here is that Jefferson witnessed the 
 opening acts of the drama which was to convulse the world. 
 What a glorious time it must have been to his sanguine temper ! 
 He never got over the hope, joy and intoxication of those days. 
 All the terrible ones that followed never shook his faith in the 
 
86 Our Presidents. 
 
 promise and the purpose with which the French Revolution had 
 opened under his eyes. 
 
 Jefferson was present at the assembly of the notables in 
 1787. He witnessed the destruction of the Bastile in 1789. 
 
 Lafayette, and the leaders in all these great national events, 
 were Jefferson's intimate friends. They came to him constantly 
 for sympathy and counsel. But all his passion for freedom did 
 not confuse his judgment. He felt that the French people 
 were not ripe for the large freedom his own nation had secured. 
 He constantly admonished his friends not to move too fast, to 
 beware of extreme measures, to adapt their policy to the condi- 
 tions and habits of a people unaccustomed to liberty. 
 
 It seemed a cruel fate that Jefferson should feel it necessary 
 to leave France at this juncture. The engagement of his eld- 
 est daughter to her cousin, Thomas Mann Randolph, who had 
 visited his relatives in Paris, was the cause of Jefferson's return 
 to America. This may have saved his neck from the guillo- 
 tine, a fate to which, a little later, many of his guests were 
 doomed. 
 
 Jefferson was the tenderest of fathers to his two motherless 
 girls. The third one, Lucy, had died at two years, soon after 
 her father went abroad. Mary, a fragile but singularly inter- 
 esting and lovable child, had joined her father and sister in 
 Paris. Martha had bloomed by this time into lovely young 
 womanhood. Her father approved of her engagement, but he 
 would not permit her to make the long journey home without 
 him. He obtained leave of absence for six months ; he confi- 
 dently looked forward to his return at the end of that time. 
 
 But when he and his daughters sailed from Cowes, he had 
 set foot for the last time on a foreign shore. 
 
 Almost the first news that greeted Thomas Jefferson on his 
 return home, was that George Washington, then newly elected 
 President, had appointed him Secretary of State. It was a most 
 
Thomas Jefferson. 87 
 
 unwelcome honor. Jefferson at once resolved to decline it, but 
 Washington had set his heart on the matter. He himself was in 
 an untried place ; he wanted the strongest brains, the wisest 
 statesmanship, the noblest talent of the country about him, in 
 the new experiment of a Republican Government. At last, and 
 with much secret reluctance, Jefferson accepted the position. 
 A week after his daughter's marriage, which was celebrated at 
 Monticello in the gay old Virginia fashion, he repaired to Gen- 
 eral Washington, who was at the seat of government in New 
 York. 
 
 It was an immense change from the life in Paris. No doubt 
 Jefferson found his high position anything but agreeable at the 
 beginning. He had come from a social atmosphere full of the 
 passionate hope and joy of the opening French Revolution. It 
 was one which peculiarly suited his temperament, tastes and 
 convictions. He seemed now to have entered another air, 
 where he missed the old sympathetic comradeship. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury. In 
 that post he was to render the nation, at the dawn of its exist- 
 ence, incalculable services. The country, which had barely 
 held together in the loose bond of her Confederacy, was on the 
 eve of bankruptcy. " It was Hamilton's splendid genius which 
 effected a miracle almost as great as that of the harp of Orpheus. 
 He restored the credit and developed the resources of the 
 countiy. He inspired its moneyed men with faith in his large, 
 original, financial measures." He had a brilliant, dominant, cap- 
 tivating personality. His position, and Jefferson's in the cab- 
 inet involved, of course, close political and social relations. 
 
 Every student of American history is familiar with the bitter 
 feud between these great men. It must be read elsewhere. Each 
 aimed to serve his country with disinterested patriotism. But 
 the character and convictions of each were utterly opposed to 
 the other. Alexander Hamilton was by instinct and training 
 
88 Our Presidents. 
 
 an aristocrat. He had a great liking for England ; he sought, 
 so far as possible, to mold the new Government, in its political 
 and social forms, after the ancient model. Thomas Jefferson, 
 despite his Randolph blood and traditions, was a born Demo- 
 crat. He believed in the common people ; he trusted them ; he 
 desired that, so far as possible, all political power should be left 
 in their hands ; he was suspicious of a strong Central Govern- 
 ment. Any measure that bore the slightest tinge of aristocracy 
 or monarchy at once aroused his alarm. 
 
 No doubt Jefferson's passionate Republicanism had been in- 
 tensified by the scenes and the atmosphere he had left behind 
 him. 
 
 With characters and sentiments so radically different, the 
 Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury could not 
 long maintain their first harmonious relations. In a little while 
 the gulf had opened between them. It could not fail to grow 
 Avider and deeper. 
 
 Hamilton's career at this time forms one of the most brilliant 
 chapters in American history. He was master of men and of 
 measures. He largely created and controlled that great Federal 
 party to which the nation owed its existence, and which in- 
 cluded a majority of its men of culture, character and weight. 
 
 Meanwhile the French Revolution went on its terrible way. 
 America had at first hailed her old ally with joy, as one ancient 
 abuse fell after another. But at last tidings came across the sea 
 that appalled the hearers. 
 
 Strange as it may appear now, there were in the United 
 States, less than a hundred years ago, two parties, whose sharp 
 dividing line was formed by their French or English sympathies. 
 It need not be said that Jefferson belonged to one party, Ham- 
 ilton to the other. 
 
 The statesmen kept up a show of civilities long after they 
 felt the strongest mutual antipathy. Each attributed the worst 
 
Thomas Jefferson. 8g 
 
 motives to the other. Jefferson honestly believed that Hamil- 
 ton's " schemes " would work irreparable mischief to the coun- 
 try. He could not do justice to his colleague's splendid finan- 
 cial genius. 
 
 The latter, on his part, had no confidence in the impractica- 
 ble theories of Washington's Secretary of State. 
 
 Jefferson, disgusted and exasperated, and finding his urban- 
 ity and philosophy taxed beyond endurance by the imperious 
 Secretary of the Treasury, resolved to resign his place at the 
 close of Washington's first term. But the President was strongly 
 opposed to his leaving. He therefore consented to remain 
 awhile. Jefferson was no doubt sufficiently unhappy at this 
 period. An atmosphere of controversy was repugnant to him. 
 He saw his great rival, his unscrupulous political enemy, as he 
 regarded Hamilton, carrying, with his masterly tactics, measure 
 after measure which he heartily disapproved : he longed pas- 
 sionately for the old farm life, the freedom and quiet of Mon- 
 ticello. 
 
 Meanwhile the Republic of France sent its first minister to 
 the Republic of the United States. Genet came to America. 
 
 There is only space here for a glance at this important epi- 
 sode. The new envoy, fresh from the fiery atmosphere of French 
 politics, had one supreme object in his mission. He fancied it 
 would be an easy one, though it was no less than to embroil 
 America with England. 
 
 Young, rash, headstrong, he set about his work. He found 
 many sympathizers, and succeeded in arousing the passions and 
 prejudices of the people. The friends of France were his ardent 
 supporters, and Genet gave Washington infinite anxiety and 
 trouble. 
 
 Despite Jefferson's French predilections, he now rallied 
 stanchly to the President's side, and thoroughly sustained his 
 policy. 
 
90 Onr Presidents. 
 
 The storm at last blew over. Genet's proceedings were dis- 
 avowed by his government. 
 
 The President's entreaties no longer availed to keep Jeffer- 
 son in the cabinet. The first Secretary of State resigned his 
 office January i, 1794. 
 
 He resumed the old happy life at Monticello, just as Wash- 
 ington did a little later at Mount Vernon. Both estates had 
 suffered greatly during the long absence of their owners. 
 
 Jefferson's taste for landscape-gardening and architecture 
 had been cultivated by his long residence abroad, and he now 
 set himself about the congenial work of improving and beautify- 
 ing his domain. 
 
 The two years and a half he now spent at Monticello 
 formed a happy, pastoral interlude in the life of Thomas Jeffer- 
 son. It was full of home-peace and content, of agricultural 
 interests and experiments, that absorbed him for many hours of 
 each day, while he also found time for the reading and study 
 which were so keen a delight to him. 
 
 Monticello always had much company. Guests from all 
 lands crossed the threshold of that mountain-home to talk with 
 the illustrious owner, and to gaze upon the panorama which 
 spread its varied loveliness from the portico to the far Atlantic. 
 
 In the heart of this quiet and content, Jefferson congratu- 
 lated himself that he had left the world, with its struggles, its 
 rivalries and its passions, forever behind him. He had been 
 out in the thick of the storms since his young manhood. Their 
 fierceness had wearied him. The philosopher, the statesman, 
 the man of large ideals and hopes, was necessarily fond of quiet 
 and contemplation. The noise and heat of combat, the lists 
 where men fought for the v/orld's great prizes, were not a con- 
 genial arena for the genius of Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 But the nation could not leave him alone to experiment with 
 his crops, and delight his soul with architecture, and read his 
 
Thomas Jefferson. 91 
 
 books, and talk his wonderful talk in the pleasant evenings with 
 his guests at Monticello. She had forced her great Soldier 
 from his beloved retirement at Mount Vernon, and kept him at 
 the helm, where he had stood patient, harassed, and homesick 
 for eight years ; and now she made her call heeded at Monti- 
 cello. In 1796, Thomas Jefferson was elected Vice-President 
 of the United States. 
 
 " It is the only office in the world about which I am unable 
 to decide in my own mind whether I had rather have it or not 
 have it," he wrote to James Madison. Indeed, the political 
 atmosphere was such at this crisis, that there were plenty of 
 reasons why a man of Jefferson's temperament should dread to 
 enter it again. However, he accepted the appointment, and in 
 due time went to the inauguration of John Adams at Philadel- 
 phia. " It a curious and characteristic fact that he carried 
 with him the bones of an enormous mastodon, to display to the 
 amazed eyes of the savans at Philadelphia. He had just been 
 made President of the Philosophical Society." 
 
 The next four years formed a stormy period for the coun- 
 try, for the President and the Vice-President. Here again 
 French affairs were complicated with American politics ; here 
 again Jefferson was brought into deadly antagonism with his 
 powerful and gifted enemy, Hamilton. 
 
 It was impossible that " the man of ideas and the man of 
 action " should do each other justice. It is probable that Ham- 
 ilton's brilliant, dominant personality eclipsed Jefferson's calm, 
 self-controlled one. It was a pity that each could not appreci- 
 ate the greatness and fine qualities of his rival. Their personal 
 antipathy was naturally augmented by their different political 
 opinions and aims. Each followed the bias of his temperament. 
 Jefferson was, as we have seen, ardently attached to France. 
 Even the tragedies of the Revolution had not shaken his faith 
 in the principles which underlay it. He still held the monarchy 
 
92 Our Presidents. 
 
 and the nobles, the long ages of oppression and class-rule, re- 
 sponsible for all the excesses of that great upheaval. 
 
 Hamilton's affiliations, on the contrary, were all with Eng- 
 land. He was a warm admirer of the English Constitution, and 
 desired that the United States should — as we have seen — 
 follow on the ancient lines. He too, like Jefferson, was a 
 born leader of men. Each loved his country ; each earnestly 
 desired to serve her ; each too, blinded no doubt by personal 
 antipathy, believed the other was bent on a policy that would 
 work national harm or ruin. 
 
 John Adams, the President, did his utmost for a time to 
 relax the country's strained relations with France. But fate 
 was against him. The embassy which he sent to the French 
 Government proved worse than a failure. War appeared in- 
 evitable between the two countries, the old allies. Washing- 
 ton even, with all his affection for Lafayette, with all his mem- 
 ories of the time in which France, when his need was sorest, 
 had come to his rescue, believed the danger so menacing, that 
 he prepared, as a soldier must, to meet it. He left Mount Ver- 
 non to organize the new army of which he was to be Comman- 
 der-in-Chief. Happily the temper and situation of France, the 
 wisdom, courage and patriotism of the President, averted the 
 danger. John Adams saved his country a war with France, and 
 this noble deed cost him his second term of Presidency. 
 
 The nineteenth century opened on a stormy scene in Amer- 
 ica. How dead those old issues seem now ! How vital and 
 burning they were at the time ! The bitter quarrel between 
 Adams and Hamilton had demoralized the great Federalist 
 party to which the country owed its existence, its financial 
 strength, its growing honor and power among the nations. 
 
 Over this familiar tract in American history the writer can 
 only glance. This was the era of the birth of the Republican 
 party. It grew rapidly in numbers, strength and influence. 
 
Thomas Jefferson. 93 
 
 The Federalists had been called the " party of the gentle- 
 men," a distinction which, in a political campaign, would 
 not be used to their advantage. The Republicans, on the 
 other hand, proudly called themselves " the party of the 
 people." 
 
 Thomas Jefferson was its organizer, its leader, its ideal. In 
 1 80 1 it made him third President of the United States. 
 
 His entrance upon office formed an era of great changes in 
 the Administration. The inaugurals of our first two Presidents 
 were full of stately ceremonials and elaborate etiquette, more 
 or less suggestive of the pomps and pageantry of European 
 courts. Everybody knows how Jefferson, true to his Dem- 
 ocratic convictions, abolished all these. The third President 
 of the United States rode into Washington on March 4, 1801, 
 without guard or servant, dismounted, and hitched the horse's 
 bridle to the fence with his own hands. 
 
 Yet in that old morning of the dawning century, America 
 was going wild with joy over the inauguration of this tall, 
 plainly dressed, unattended man. His hair was getting gray, 
 and he was fifty-eight years old, when he went up in that quiet, 
 simple fashion to take the highest place and the heaviest respon- 
 sibility in the Nation. 
 
 From that time, so far as possible, all stately ceremonials and 
 etiquette were swept away as by a magician's wand. There 
 were no more splendid levees, no more stately and burdensome 
 receptions. Everything was plain, quiet, simple, as Jefferson 
 thought alone befitted the home and habits of the President of 
 a Republic. His proudest ambition was to be a " plain Amer- 
 ican citizen." 
 
 It is always difficult, if not impossible, to keep the golden 
 mean. When Jefferson resolved to put his fervid democracy 
 into daily practice, he may sometimes have carried it to un- 
 reasonable lengths, as he did when he received the amazed and 
 
94 Our Presidents. 
 
 indignant British minister " in a shabby coat and with slippers 
 down at the heels." 
 
 But Jefferson felt strongly that an example was needed, and 
 if, on occasion, he went too far, he did not err on the wrong 
 side. 
 
 It should never be forgotten, too, that he resolved never to 
 appoint one of his own relatives to office. With his generous 
 nature and his large family connection, this was a lofty and try- 
 ing position to take ; but he held to it unflinchingly. Here he 
 must speak for himself : " The public will never be made to 
 believe that an appointment of a relative is made on the ground 
 of merit alone, uninfluenced by family views ; nor can they ever 
 see with approbation, offices, the disposal of which they intrust 
 to their Presidents for public purposes, divided out as family 
 property." 
 
 Washington and Adams had held the same views, although 
 the former authoritatively interfered, when the rigid observance 
 of this rule would have deprived the country of the immense 
 services of John Quincy Adams during his father's administra- 
 tion. 
 
 Jefferson's first term of office was happy, peaceful and pros- 
 perous for his country. The purchase of Louisiana was the 
 most remarkable public event of this period. The vast transfer 
 of real estate, which gave to the Am.erican Government control 
 of the mouths of the Mississippi, was achieved by Jefferson with 
 masterly adroitness and statesmanship. The hour was in his 
 favor. The French treasury was impoverished, and Napoleon 
 Bonaparte, first Consul of France, resolved on breaking the 
 Peace of Amiens, was sorely in need of money before he could 
 again let loose the " dogs of war." He virtually admitted that 
 the sale of the vast " Terra Incognita " of the West cost him a 
 pang. But Louisiana lay far out of the track of his conquests, 
 and he believed that England would speedily make a descent on 
 
Thomas Jejjerson. 95 
 
 the Gulf coast if he did not close with the offer of sixty millions 
 for the French territory. James Monroe had appeared on the 
 ground in the nick of time. He had the President's full con- 
 fidence and the great sale was promptly concluded. 
 
 It seems incredible that a purchase of such unspeakable 
 value to the American Republic should have met with outcry 
 and denunciation at home, but it is none the less true that the 
 l)arty opposed to Jefferson fiercely decried the bargain with 
 Napoleon. 
 
 Another of Jefferson's important measures at this period of 
 his Administration was the bold course which he adopted toward 
 the Algerine pirates. " It was the beginning of a series of acts 
 which ended in sweeping the pirates from the Mediterranean." 
 
 The trial of Aaron Burr, the English outrages on American 
 shipping in American waters, the miseries of the embargo, 
 belong to Jefferson's second term. They made the Presidential 
 pillow one of thorns. Mr. Jefferson was a lover of peace ; he 
 did his utmost to maintain it. The whole country, aflame over 
 the long chapter of outrages on its shipping and seamen, thought 
 forbearance had ceased to be a virtue. All Jefferson's old 
 enemies would have enthusiastically supported him had he 
 declared war with England. 
 
 " I have only to open my hand," he wrote, '' and let havoc 
 loose." 
 
 But he did not flinch. The embargo which he preferred to 
 war proved, in its workings, a very inadequate measure. It 
 certainly prostrated the commerce of the country for the time, 
 and it did not accomplish what Jefferson had fondly hoped. 
 
 His first Presidential term had expired in the midst of honor 
 and glory. The closing months of the second were clouded by 
 public anxieties and private embarrassments. Jefferson longed 
 for relief from the cares and responsibilities of the high-post with 
 the passionate longing of Washington a dozen years before. 
 
9^ Our Presidents. 
 
 The man who had been too much absorbed in public affairs 
 to bestow any attention on private ones, and whose Admin- 
 istration was to prove of infinite service to his country, 
 discovered an alarming deficit in his personal accounts when, 
 shortly before his term closed, he found time to examine them. 
 
 His official income had not supported the large hospitali- 
 ties which his position involved. His private resources had 
 therefore been heavily taxed to meet all deficiencies. His to- 
 bacco revenue had been nearly ruined by the embargo. Jef- 
 ferson was horrified on discovering that he "must leave Wash- 
 ington seven or eight thousand dollars in debt," unless that 
 sum, much larger than at the present time, " could be hurriedly 
 raised from his own property." 
 
 This fortunately was accomplished, and Thomas Jefferson 
 was perhaps the happiest man in all America when, March 4, 
 1809, he resigned the Administration to James Madison. 
 
 He returned to Monticello. He lived there for seventeen 
 years. The limits of this sketch exclude much that is interest- 
 ing and delightful in this last period of Jefferson's life. Like 
 Washington, he spent much time riding over his plantations, 
 supervising their management, and making fresh improvements 
 on his estate. He retained his large interest in public affairs. 
 His conversation must have afforded great dehght to the guests 
 who crowded his board and overflowed his house during these 
 years. These guests came in a ceaseless stream. They taxed 
 his time and devoured his substance. But it would have been 
 contrary to all the instincts of his hospitable nature to close his 
 doors against them. 
 
 It is a pleasant story — that last decade of his life. One 
 likes to linger on it. A grand, patriarchal grace gathered 
 about him as he grew old. His sun was setting, but though its 
 light shone now for him in the west, it had still much of the 
 glow and brightness of his youth. 
 
Thomas Jejjerson. 97 
 
 He made a profound impression upon the noblemen and 
 illustrious foreigners who journeyed to Monticello to look upon 
 him and hear his voice. Some of these carried back to Europe 
 the declaration that the " Virginia gentleman was the most im- 
 portant man of his epoch." 
 
 Jefferson was during the last years of his life, as always, an 
 ardent Democrat. His soul swelled with patriotic joy when he 
 contrasted the freedom and prosperity of the New World with 
 the oppression and misery of the Old. 
 
 " When we get piled upon one another as they do in 
 Europe," he said, '* we shall be corrupt as they are in Europe, 
 and go to eating one another as they do there." 
 
 " He had had a various, splendid, but on the whole, happy 
 career." He was now, as throughout his life, the most indus- 
 trious of men. He rose always at dawn. He said in his last 
 illness that the sun had not caught him in bed for sixty years. 
 He was full of ardent interest in all measures which he 
 thought would benefit or elevate mankind. The University of 
 Virginia is not merely a monument to his memory. It is a wit- 
 ness of his enthusiasm and devotion to the cause of education 
 in his native State. 
 
 It was well that Jefferson was fond of children, for the 
 house on the mountain-top swarmed v/ith them. Colonel Ran- 
 dolph and his wife — the Martha Jefferson of earlier days — lived 
 at Monticello. They had eleven children, all of whom were 
 brought up under the paternal roof. Mrs. Randolph was a 
 woman of rare loveliness of character, and had taken her moth- 
 er's place in her father's heart and life. 
 
 The younger sister, Maria, had died at Monticello in 1804. 
 This was a cruel blow to her father, and it fell on him just 
 as he had reached the acme of his greatness. The young 
 wife left one boy to grow up with his cousins under his 
 grandfatlier's roof-tree. So there was a world of joyous young 
 7 
 
9^ Our Presidents. 
 
 life about Thomas Jefferson as his head grew white, and 
 his shoulders bowed with the weight of the years which he 
 carried serene and brave. 
 
 It irked Thomas Jefferson sorely that he was a slave- 
 holder, though he appears to have been the mildest, most 
 indulgent of masters. But he abhorred the system. Nobody 
 ever uttered more solemn protests against slavery than the 
 Virginian, who was born, brought up, and spent his life in its 
 midst. 
 
 In October, 1824, an event occurred which cannot be 
 passed over in this slight sketch of Jefferson's life. This was 
 the meeting between him and Lafayette. They had not seen 
 each other for thirty-six years. Jefferson had passed his eightieth 
 birthday. Lafayette was approaching his seventieth. That 
 meeting forms one of America's great historic pictures. The 
 surroundings were all worthy the two central figures. A caval- 
 cade of county gentlemen had accompanied the carriage in 
 which the great Frenchman wound up to the summit of Monti- 
 cello. Banners waved and trumpets sounded on the air of the 
 soft Virginia October day. The procession formed about the 
 lawn. Every breath was held in suppressed excitement, and 
 every eye was bent upon the portico as the carriage drew to- 
 ward it. What a moment it must have been when a figure, 
 "small and alert," the gray hair crowning the strong, keen feat- 
 ures we all know so well, descended from the carriage! Then 
 the door opened, and Jefferson, with his tall bowed form and 
 his white hair, stood upon the portico. When the music ceased, 
 the crowd uncovered. In all the vast assemblage there was 
 hardly a dry eye. The old men threw themselves into each 
 other's arms. What memories must have crowded on the 
 thoughts of both in that moment! They had parted just on the 
 eve of the French Revolution, when Lafayette's heart was 
 bounding high with hope and joy for France. The dawn of 
 
Thomas Jcjjersoii. 99 
 
 her new day of freedom seemed to him then fair in the skies. 
 Did he remember how, a Httle later, the darkness had gath- 
 ered over all the glow ? Did he remember that bitter day 
 when he spurred his horse over the frontier because they were 
 hunting him down for the guillotine ? Did he remember those 
 long, terrible five years in the dungeon of Olmiitz ? Did he 
 think of the splendor of Bonaparte's day, and of the defeat 
 and darkness in which it went down ? Even at that moment 
 did Lafayette think with a pang, that the Bourbon had come 
 back to what he called " his own," and that France, after her 
 terrible struggle, lay once more in the grasp of the ancient des- 
 potism ? All this and much more must certainly have been in 
 Lafayette's mind as he stood by his old comrade of the Ameri- 
 can Revolution. 
 
 And Jefferson must have thought of all this too, and of that 
 day in Paris, when Lafayette and the French leaders gathered 
 for the last time at his board, and of v/hat his country was then 
 — only a handful of impoverished, loosely-bound States, more 
 or less the scorn and jest of Europe — and of all she had grown 
 to be in those thirty-six years. 
 
 After that visit less than two years more remained of Jeffer- 
 son's life. A longer biography would have much to relate of 
 these years. Despite the dignity, cheerfulness, serenity, that 
 characterized them, they were clouded and harassed by financial 
 difficulties. A letter to his eldest grandson, written February 8, 
 1826, wrung out of the strong heart's long weariness and anxiety, 
 is inexpressibly touching : 
 
 " You kindly encourage me to keep up my spirits ; but oppressed with 
 disease, debility, age, and embarrassed affairs, tliis is difficult. ... I 
 should not care if life were to end with the line I am writing, were it not 
 that in the unhappy state of mind which your father's misfortunes have 
 brought upon him, I may yet be of some avail to the family." 
 
 The oak was bending to the storm at last. He who had 
 
loo Our Presiden/s. 
 
 always dealt in such large generosity with his fellow-men, he 
 who had so strong a hatred of debt, felt its burden on his age. 
 He was forced to sell his precious library. There was danger 
 that he would lose Monticello. When this became widely 
 known, individuals rallied to his aid. New York, Philadelphia, 
 Baltimore, sent him, through private channels, more than fifteen 
 thousand dollars. He who had resolutely refused a loan from 
 his native State, was greatly touched by this gift of individuals. 
 "No cent," he characteristically said, "is wrung from the tax- 
 payer. It is the pure and unsolicited offering of love." 
 
 He read the Bible much in his last days ; he arranged in a 
 blank book all the passages which " came directly from the lips 
 of the Saviour. " Of this he wrote to a friend : " A more beauti- 
 ful or precious morsel of ethics I have never seen ; it is a docu- 
 ment in proof that I am a real Christian ; that is to say, a 
 disciple of the doctrines of Jesus." 
 
 As the summer of 1826 opened it became apparent to all 
 that he was gradually failing. Death came to him in its kindly, 
 painless guise. The mind was clear, the heart sanguine to the 
 last. The old Revolutionary scenes came up vivid and con- 
 stant. He remembered with pleasure that the draperies about 
 his bed had been brought over in the first ship that crossed the 
 ocean after the peace of 1782. 
 
 He made, on his death-bed, a remark full of the noblest 
 magnanimity. " His calumniators, he had never thought, were 
 assailing him, but a being non-existent, of their own imagining, 
 to whom they had given the name of Thomas Jefferson." 
 
 At the last he had but one desire. This was to live until 
 the 4th of July. But his exhaustion Avas so great that those who 
 watched often feared his sleep would be the sleep of death 
 before that day dawned. 
 
 But the strong life did not yield easily, and he still breathed 
 when the day broke. He lingered on, slumbering much, occa- 
 
nomas Jefferson. loi 
 
 sionally speaking a few words, until a little past midday. When 
 the sun of that anniversary which owed its existence to their 
 joint efforts, had set, the great Virginian and the great New 
 Englander had breathed their last. 
 
 More than a quarter of a century before the eldest of our 
 first three Presidents had gone to his long sleep. Thomas Jeffer- 
 son was the youngest of that great trio. Widely diverse as they 
 were in temperament and character, the circumstances and en- 
 vironment of the two afford a good many analogies. 
 
 Each was a Virginia planter, or, as each would have preferred 
 to call himself, a farmer. Each owned a noble estate — one on 
 the Potomac — the other on the Rivanna. The strongest passion 
 of each was liberty ; the dearest pursuit of each was agriculture. 
 Each was singularly happy in his domestic life. The Martha of 
 Mount Vernon, and the Martha of Monticello, each brought her 
 husband a large fortune with her hand. Each of these men 
 died leaving no son to bear, according to the stuff that was in 
 him, the weight of his father's great name. 
 
 Of the first three Presidents Thomas Jefferson had, per- 
 haps, the most lovable personaUty. Washington's stateliness 
 and dignity inspired profound awe and admiration in all those 
 who came into his presence. He stands apart in solitary 
 grandeur. Yet this very fact seems to rob him of some merely 
 human interest. One is inclined to wonder whether he ever, in 
 the course of his sixty-eight years, made a foolish speech, was 
 guilty of a wrong or weak action, and was sorry and ashamed 
 afterward, like ordinary human beings. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson, with all his noble qualities, had faults, 
 prejudices, defects of mind and character. So had that Massa- 
 chusetts barrister who, for four years, took his place, between 
 the two Virginians, at the head of the nation. Outspoken, 
 fiery-tempered, obstinate, he did not always do justice to the 
 great qualities of his mind and heart. 
 
I02 Our Presidents. 
 
 Yet one cannot forget that it was Thomas Jefferson who 
 spoke of John Adams words of higher praise than one man, per- 
 haps, ever bestowed on another : " He is as disinterested as 
 the Being Avho made him." 
 
 No mortal could, of course, merit such a speech. But it 
 should be remembered that the man who uttered it had a clear 
 insight into faults and weaknesses ; and the praise shines out 
 luminous against the background of his keen, severe criticism of 
 his rival. 
 
 But for each of these men — whatever their faults and limita- 
 tions — it may be said that he loved his country with a perfect 
 love. Each would have freely sacrificed his life, his fortune, 
 his happiness — everything that he possessed — for her welfare. 
 Whenever the test came the patriotism of each always rung 
 true. And if George Washington, who never spoke lightly or 
 carelessly, solemnly affirmed that it was his supreme desire to 
 live and die " an honest man and a farmer," so, in different 
 ways, did John Adams ; so did Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 They stand together in the foreground of American history 
 — our first three Presidents — an immortal trio. 
 
l^-^"^"" 
 
 / /;t^u^^^^ ^y6^ Oc^-^^^^-c^ ^"^ 
 
JAMES MADISON. 
 
 When the year 1770 dawned, nobody on this planet sus- 
 pected that it had opened the most important decade in Amer- 
 ican history. In that year there was, in the old Princeton col- 
 lege, a young undergraduate from Virginia, who was, perhaps, 
 the most zealous and tireless student that ever passed inside 
 those venerable walls. What a hopeless bookworm he must 
 have seemed to the young America — robust and hearty, lover 
 of high sports and rough games — of that ancient time ! No 
 doubt his classmates had plenty of fun at his expense. If his 
 time came to laugh later, it was never so hearty and thorough- 
 going as it might have been had his tutors been wiser and had 
 he studied somewhat less. For the Virginia youth of nineteen 
 allowed himself only three hours' sleep out of the twenty-four, the 
 rest he devoted assiduously to study and recitations ! The name 
 of the Princeton undergraduate was James Madison ; he had 
 entered college at eighteen ; he came of the old Virginia planter 
 class, which, a little later, was to give the country so many of 
 its early Presidents and statesmen ; he was born in Montpe- 
 lier, in Orange County, in the beautiful, picturesque country of 
 the Blue Ridge ; he came of a vigorous breed, physically, mor- 
 ally, intellectually ; lie had been nurtured in a refined, gracious, 
 hospitable, domestic life — a life smooth, prosperous, happy ; but 
 less dramatic, less full of varied experience and picturesque 
 events, than one which had its beginnings in more rugged 
 ways. 
 
 There is little for the biographer to relate of James Madi- 
 son's childhood. The drama was there, of course, the lights 
 
I04 Our Presidents. 
 
 and the shadows, as they are on all early lives ; but he had too 
 fortunate a start to furnish much material for history or tra- 
 dition. 
 
 The family-tree struck its roots far back among the earliest 
 years of the Province. The Madisons anchored on the Chesa- 
 peake shores fifteen years after the settlement of Jamestown. 
 They must have become stanch Americans long before their 
 most distinguished representative saw the daylight. 
 
 James was the eldest son of his family, a fact which was of 
 consequence in the eyes of the old Virginia law ; he had four 
 brothers and three sisters ; he was a born student, caring, even 
 in his childhood, little for play and the rough games that 
 delight healthy, robust boys ; he was naturally shy and thought- 
 ful, and had a grave, mature air that must have seemed oddly 
 in contrast with his years. 
 
 In those days, when schools were few and poor at best, he 
 studied mostly under a private tutor in his own home. Even 
 when a boy, he had acquired a good deal of Greek and Latin, of 
 French and Spanish. There were probably few fellows as well 
 equipped for the college curriculum as that youth of eighteen, 
 who went up to Princeton from the foot of the Blue Ridge. 
 
 James Madison graduated in 177 1. He remained awhile, 
 however, to study with the president, Dr. Witherspoon. When 
 the youth of twenty left Princeton, he carried to his home the 
 groundwork of that wise and thorough scholarship which was to 
 prove of such immense service to him in the great role he was 
 to play before the world ; but he carried also a weakened vital- 
 ity ; he had taxed it so heavily that it never afterward recovered 
 itself, and it proved his discomfort and limitation all the rest of 
 his life. 
 
 The wonder was that those twenty-one hours of study had 
 not killed him long before he left Princeton ; but he inherited 
 the longevity of his stock. 
 
James Madison. 1 05 
 
 At home he entered on the study of law, and taught his 
 younger brothers and sisters. The small, pale, serious-faced 
 youth was at this period much interested in theological studies. 
 His fragile health exercised a depressing influence on his 
 thoughts and moods. Before his life had really begun he had a 
 strong feeling that it was approaching its end. 
 
 While James Madison was busying himself with law and theol- 
 ogy, the storm of the Revolution was slowly gathering. All those 
 great questions which preceded the War — questions of essential 
 liberty, of the rights of freemen, and the relations of the colo- 
 nies to the mother-country — must have aroused the eager interest 
 of that luminous young mind and of that patriotic heart. 
 
 James Madison entered on his public career in 1776. The 
 War of the Revolution was then, as everybody knows, a year 
 old. Madison, though young and shy among his distinguished 
 seniors, who were engaged in the work of forming a constitution 
 for the State, made his mark — less in public debates than in 
 private discussions and with his pen. Here his rich stores of 
 learning and his calm and logical mind showed to best advan- 
 tage. The young member slowly but surely acquired power 
 and influence among his peers and with the people. 
 
 The following year he was a candidate for the General 
 Assembly. He lost the election, but it was greatly to his honor. 
 " He refused to treat the voters with whisky." It required 
 much moral courage to do this. Drinking formed a necessary 
 corollary of voting in the political habits of that age. But 
 Madison had clear convictions on most subjects, and a con- 
 science that would not permit him, when the test came, to 
 flinch. 
 
 His position commanded great respect among people of 
 weight in the province, and he was soon appointed a member of 
 the Governor's council. 
 
 During his term of service Patrick Henry and Thomas Jef- 
 
io6 Our Presidents. 
 
 ferson were Governors of Virginia. Both these men had a high 
 regard for young Madison. Jefferson was eight years his senior. 
 At this period that strong attachment was formed between the 
 two which continued for the rest of their h'ves. Indeed, Jeffer- 
 son loved his young friend as few brothers love each other. 
 Montpeher was only twenty-five miles from Monticello. At one 
 time, not long after the death of his wife, Jefferson's lonely 
 heart sought to solace itself with visions of a small, choice 
 group of congenial spirits, who should come to reside in his 
 vicinity. They were to meet frequently, and enjoy the rarest 
 companionship of mind and heart. Madison was to be one of 
 that quartette to which Jefferson limited his circle. The great 
 philosopher and statesman dwells fondly upon this subject when 
 he writes to his friend at Montpelier : 
 
 " Think of it. To render it practicable only requires you to think it so. 
 Life is of no value but as it brings us gratifications. Among the most valu- 
 able of these is rational society. It informs the mind, sweetens the temper, 
 cheers our spirits, and restores health." 
 
 And he goes on to describe a little farm adjoining his own 
 land, of a hundred and fifty acres, and a small old house upon 
 it, " where the young bachelor could make his first attempt at 
 housekeeping." 
 
 The scheme appears as delightful and romantic as it cer- 
 tainly was Utopian. Madison regarded Jefferson's society and 
 friendship as one of the most valued blessings of his life ; but 
 the change from the luxurious Montpelier fireside to the com- 
 fortless little farm-house could not have been an inviting pros- 
 pect to the semi-invalid bachelor. 
 
 In 1780, Madison was elected to the Continental Congress. 
 This was a high honor, and the man who received it was not 
 yet thirty years old. He served through three stormy, event- 
 ful years. During this period, the War of the Revolution was 
 brought to its triumphant close at Yorktown, and the Treaty of 
 
James Madison. 107 
 
 Peace was at last signed between England, France and Amer- 
 ica. Madison was in that old Continental Congress whose 
 powers proved so inadequate to the needs of the Nation. It 
 must have been a trying school for him, but it was an invalu- 
 able one. This was proved a little later when he, more than 
 any other man, prepared the way to the Convention which 
 framed the Constitution at Philadelphia. 
 
 In 1784 Madison left the National Legislature to enter that 
 of his native State. A vast work lay before him. The old 
 statutes were to be revised. A new spirit of progress and hu- 
 manity was to be infused into the legislation. The old laws 
 and usages which embodied much of mediaeval injustice and 
 hardness were to be superseded by new and liberal ones. But 
 Madison had to fight hard with prejudice and conservatism for 
 every inch of the upward way. His great paper, the " Memo- 
 rial and Remonstrance," which opposed taxing the people for 
 the support of religion, finally carried the divorce of Church 
 and State in Virginia. 
 
 Meanwhile the young Nation was going blind, helpless, 
 struggling on its untried path. The inefificient Congress, the 
 vast public debt bequeathed by the Revolution, the general 
 disorder, insecurity and wide-spread impoveri.shment, were fill- 
 ing the country with foreboding and despair. 
 
 Madison's patriotic soul was deeply stirred by the condition 
 of affairs. He saw the dangers into which the Republic was 
 drifting. She would certainly go to pieces unless a stronger 
 bond of union took the place of the slight Confederacy which 
 barely held the States together. 
 
 The people who had gained their freedom after a struggle 
 of seven years with the most powerful monarchy in the world, 
 were jealous for their liberties. Behind any attempts to enlarge 
 the national authority they beheld the dreaded specter of ap- 
 proaching Monarchy. The soldiers of the Revolution, as they 
 
io8 Our Presidents. 
 
 sat around their firesides or assembled in the ancient taverns to 
 talk over their campaigns and discuss their grievances, grimly 
 muttered " that they wanted no new king set up in America. 
 It had taken seven years and Lexington and Concord, Bunker 
 Hill and Yorktown *' to get rid of George Third ! " 
 
 The suggestion of a strong Central Government always 
 aroused the suspicions and hostile fears of the veterans who had 
 fought the battles of the Revolution. A power set above the 
 States, controlling and defying them, at once assumed to their 
 imaginations the hated features of Monarchy. 
 
 The talk ran in the old taverns and around the firesides in 
 this impassioned strain during the gloomy years which fol- 
 lowed the close of the Revolutionary war. Meanwhile the 
 country, which had bought its freedom with so great a price, 
 and whose existence seemed the dawn of a better era for the 
 world, was drawing nearer to that inevitable wreck which its 
 enemies had exultantly predicted. 
 
 But one man — a small-framed, pale, thoughtful-faced Vir- 
 ginian — had the clear, forecasting vision of a statesman. He 
 and a few others like him looked the worst in the face and 
 did not despair. He believed that the remedy for all exist- 
 ing evils lay in an efficient national government. This alone 
 would infuse new life into the paralyzed energies, revive the 
 industries, and develop the resources of the Thirteen States. 
 In a closer alliance lay their salvation. If they separated, 
 formed small confederacies, or entered into foreign alliances, 
 the work of the Revolution had been in vain. In a national 
 government, invested with authority to act and to compel re- 
 spect on its own soil and on that of every nation of the world, 
 lay the sole chance for the future of the United States. 
 
 But it was one thing for James Madison to see this, and 
 quite another to make the mass of his countrymen. 
 
 The greatest obstacle to the formation of a closer union was 
 
James Madison. 109 
 
 in the States themselves. Each of the " Thirteen " had her in- 
 dividual interests, her pet prejudices, her commercial ambitions 
 and jealousies. Each, too, regarded her sisters with more or 
 less distrust. In the face of all this, any attempt to secure a 
 closer union by sacrifices for the general good must have ap- 
 peared almost hopeless. 
 
 But James Madison had a calm, patient, hopeful temper, 
 and underneath this glowed the zeal of the true patriot. He 
 went at his Herculean task with great common sense and the 
 utmost discretion. He had made a long step in advance when 
 he carried a measure through the Virginia General Assembly 
 which " invited the States to meet at Annapolis and discuss 
 measures for the formation of a more efficient Federal Govern- 
 ment." 
 
 This measure, instead of alarming the popular mind, appears 
 to have been regarded with wide-spread indifference. It was 
 certainly the day of small things for James Madison. Only five 
 States thought his invitation of sufficient importance to send 
 delegates to the Annapolis convention. 
 
 But before these delegates separated, another measure, also 
 introduced by Mr. Madison, had urged the States to send their 
 delegates to Philadelphia in May, 1787, to draught a Constitu- 
 tion for the United States. This was throwing down the gaunt- 
 let. It was a frank admission that the old Confederate League 
 was a failure. 
 
 Every school-boy has gone over this historic ground. He 
 knows how the delegates met in Philadelphia, and how George 
 ^Vashington presided, and what hard work and fierce contro- 
 versies filled that old hot summer of 1787. It was well that 
 George Washington, with the halo of the Revolution about him, 
 was at the head of the Convention, for the country was wide- 
 awake now, and regarding the novel work that was being done 
 at Philadelphia with much jealousy and hostility. But when 
 
I lo Our Presidents. 
 
 the Convention broke up in September the work was done ; the 
 Constitution had been formed, and James Madison was hence- 
 forth to be called its father. One war had been fought on the 
 floor of the Convention, but the tug of a harder was yet to 
 come. If the reluctant or hostile States could not be brought 
 to accept the Constitution, all the summer's work would be 
 lost. 
 
 Madison, Hamilton and Jay now did splendid service for 
 their country, in that series of great papers which they con- 
 tributed to the Federalist, and which with calm, unanswerable 
 logic set the real issues at stake before the people. 
 
 A long, bitter contest, which cannot be dwelt on here, fol- 
 lowed between the friends and foes of the Constitution. Many 
 patriots regarded it as subverting the liberties of the people — as 
 the first fatal step toward monarchy. But the States one after 
 another fell into line and ratified. In due time, George Wash- 
 ington was, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitu- 
 tion, nominated first President of the United States. 
 
 The impressive ceremonies of that first inaugural took place 
 in New York, April 30, 1789. The world had never witnessed 
 a scene like that. A new hour had struck for humanity. 
 
 James Madison was elected a member of the first New York 
 Congress. It met in the old City Hall of New York. 
 
 When Jefferson returned from his famous mission to France, 
 and was about, with immense reluctance, to take the post of 
 Secretary of State, Washington earnestly desired that Mr. Mad- 
 ison, for whom he had a strong liking, should accept the vacant 
 mission. But Madison declined this, as he also did the post of 
 Secretary of State. 
 
 Alexander Hamilton's time had come now. In a little while 
 he was carrying everything before him. He was, with his 
 splendid genius for finances, establishing the credit and creating 
 the prosperity of the country. At the same he was organizing 
 
James Madison. 1 1 1 
 
 the great Federal party, which was to control the nation to the 
 close of the century. 
 
 Madison had worked harmoniously with his brilliant col- 
 league during the critical period when the Constitution was 
 formed and sent on its way. But now he drew back, disturbed 
 and alarmed at Hamilton's sweeping measures, and at the 
 large powers with which he was resolved to invest the new 
 Government. 
 
 Madison was a democrat of the Jefferson type, though he 
 was by temperament more conservative than his chief. He was 
 much attached to France, and cherished grateful remembrances 
 of her services to America in the Revolutionary War. 
 
 Hamilton, on the contrary, had strong English preferences 
 and affiliations. He believed in conferring on the national 
 Government as large powens, and on the States as limited, as 
 was consistent with the Constitution. He was the leader and 
 inspirer of the Federal party. Madison came to be regarded 
 as the head of the Republicans. This brought the former col- 
 leagues into political antagonism. An atmosphere of contro- 
 versy was, however, extremely distateful to Madison. " In all 
 discussions he was the most courteous and conciliatory of polit- 
 ical opponents." 
 
 He was thirty-two when a sudden romance illuminated his 
 grave, studious days. Catharine Floyd was only half his age 
 when her pretty young face, and arch, girlish ways, beguiled the 
 student from his books. 
 
 Madison's suit pleased her father, whose name stands among 
 the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The two were 
 engaged. But a girl of sixteen is not apt to know her own 
 mind, and a younger rival appeared on the scene and won the 
 heart that was pledged to the grave statesman. The letter 
 which contained James Madison's dismissal " was sealed with 
 a bit of rye dough." Was that just a girlish freak, or did the 
 
1 1 2 Our Presidents. 
 
 young woman mean her solemn lover to understand " that 
 their cake was dough ? " 
 
 At all events, Madison took his loss much to heart, as was 
 likely to be the case with one of his reserved temperament. 
 He turned to his friend Jefferson for sympathy, sure it would 
 not fail him. 
 
 Did a ghost of " Belinda," one wonders, flit across the phi- 
 losopher's page, when he replied, " Firmness of mind and unin- 
 termitting occupation will not long leave you in pain." 
 
 This might have seemed rather cold comfort to most lovers, 
 but it served with Madison. 
 
 He was forty-three when the love that was to make the 
 content and happiness of his life came to him. He met Mrs. 
 Dorothy Todd one day, when both were out walking in Philadel- 
 phia. The lovely face of the young widow of twenty-two at once 
 attracted the lonely student. He soon sought an introduc- 
 tion. A little later, Mrs. Todd was writing to an old friend : 
 "Thou must come to me. Aaron Burr says that 'the great 
 little Madison ' has asked to be brought to see me this 
 evening." 
 
 It is interesting to know that she wore on that eventful occa- 
 sion " a mulberry-colored satin, with a silk tulle kerchief over her 
 neck, and on her head an exquisite dainty little cap, from which 
 an occasional uncropped curl would escape." 
 
 The heart of the middle-aged bachelor was taken by storm. 
 The course of this second love seems to have run with per- 
 fect smoothness. In a little while rumors of the engagement 
 reached the presidential mansion in Philadelphia, where Wash- 
 ington was wearing out the days amid the burdens and cares of 
 his second term of office. 
 
 Mrs. Washington, curious and sympathetic, desired, with the 
 privilege of an old friend, to learn the truth from Mrs. Todd 
 herself. 
 
James Madison. 1 1 3 
 
 The young widow, embarrassed and faltering, half denied 
 the engagement in words that virtually confirmed it. 
 
 In September, 1794, she left Philadelphia for Harewood, her 
 sister's home in Virginia. Here, a little later, the marriage of 
 James Madison and Dorothy Todd took place. The wedding 
 festivities were very gay, as was the habit of that old time. 
 
 Dolly Madison, as she is known in history, came, like her 
 husband, of sterling old English stock which had taken early 
 root in the colony. She had been brought up in a home of 
 great purity, simplicity and refinement. Her father and mother 
 were members of the Society of Friends, and observed its rules 
 rigorously. Dolly was a charming creature from her birth. 
 The little, sweet-faced Quaker girl was a favorite with every- 
 body. Her young life must have had its trials ; for despite all 
 the severe simplicity of her home, no fashionable belle's com- 
 plexion was ever shielded with more care from every ray of 
 sun.shine. It must have tried even her sweet temper to be com- 
 pelled to wear " a white linen mask, to have her sun bonnet 
 sewed on every morning, and to have the little hands and arms 
 thoroughly covered with long gloves before she started for 
 school." 
 
 But despite all these drawbacks, Dolly Payne had a happy 
 childhood. She was destined always to be very much in love 
 with all that was pleasant and kindly in a world that turned its 
 bright side on her through her long, eventful life. 
 
 We read of her at nineteen as a "tall, slight girl, with a 
 delicately oval face, and well formed, if not perfect features, 
 a complexion dazzlingly fair, contrasted with very black hair, 
 and blue eyes that gazed at you with much sweetness, beneath 
 the modest little Quaker cap." 
 
 John Todd sought to gather this rose of womanhood for 
 himself. He was a handsome and promising young lawyer, 
 and belonged to the Friends' Society. Dolly did not at first 
 8 
 
I T 4 Our Presidents. 
 
 incline to his suit, but her father did, and that settled the 
 matter. 
 
 Dolly married John Todd, and the young pair went to 
 live in Philadelphia. They had two children. At the end of 
 three happy years, the yellow fever swept through the city, and 
 young Todd was one of its victims. Amid generous services 
 for others he caught the contagion. His wife was also very 
 ill with the fever, and their youngest child died. 
 
 She was very young still, when, on the day of days she 
 went to walk, and Madison's eyes first rested on her. It is a 
 curious coincidence that our first three Virginia Presidents each 
 had an early romance which ended in disappointment, and that 
 each afterward married young widows, beautiful, charming, 
 wealthy. What is more than all this, they were women of high 
 character and true hearts. Each made the supreme happiness 
 of her husband's life. Washington — Jefferson — Madison, must 
 each sometimes, amid the content and sweetness of his home- 
 life, have thought of the earlier love, and blessed his stars that 
 the later, better one had come to take its place. 
 
 With the close of Washington's administration in 1797, Mr. 
 Madison retired for a time from public life to the peace and 
 delight of the home at Montpellier, of which his charming 
 young wife was mistress, and where their widowed mothers in 
 time joined them. It was a home where the scholar could 
 indulge his own tastes and live his own life " to the top of 
 his bent." Fortune certainly had dealt kindly by the deli- 
 cate student ; he had inherited large wealth ; he had won the 
 noble fame of the patriot and statesman ; he had gained the 
 heart of one of the sweetest women in the world. Montpellier 
 was just the earthly paradise to James Madison that Mount 
 Vernon was to Washington — that Monticello was to Thomas 
 Jefferson. One of these noble estates lay on the east, the other 
 a little to the west of Madison's home. 
 
Jmnes Madison. 115 
 
 There liad been talk of nominating him to succeed Wash- 
 ington in the Presidency. But Madison positively declined to 
 enter the lists. He craved the peace and freedom of his own 
 hearthstone. 
 
 But it was impossible for one who was so ardent a patriot, 
 and who had so much of the statesman's quality, to lose his 
 interest in public affairs. During the four years of Adams' 
 stormy administration, Madison was keenly alive to all the great 
 questions of the hour — questions very largely of foreign policy. 
 Madison's deep, but calm, equable nature, must have been pro- 
 foundly stirred by the passionate indignation against France 
 which shook the country, and, at one time, brought it to the 
 verge of war with its ancient ally. 
 
 As a Republican — more and more closely identified with 
 that party as time went on — he must have shared Jefferson's 
 sentiments and feelings at this critical period. Madison wrote, 
 during these years, many papers, luminous, logical, and full of 
 masterly reasoning. 
 
 It is not possible to dwell here on the strife and passions 
 which filled America as the new century opened. The year 
 1 80 1 saw the great triumph of the Republican party. Thomas 
 Jefferson was President of the United States ; and very soon 
 afterward James Madison was Secretary of State. 
 
 His office made it, of course, necessary to exchange Mont- 
 pellier for Washington. In the big, dreary, unsightly capitol, 
 which, a few years later, was to excite such intense disgust in 
 John Quincy Adams, Madison found his place, and his wife 
 found hers. His relations with the new President were par- 
 ticularly harmonious and delightful. They shared each other's 
 political views ; they cherished toward each other the warmest 
 friendship. 
 
 As the President had long been a widower, the duties of 
 mistress of the new Wliite House devolved largely upon Mrs. 
 
• 
 1 1 6 Oky Presidents. 
 
 Madison. She filled that position with a charm and ease, 
 and with a gracious dignity which won all hearts. That little 
 Quaker girl must have been born with a social gift which fitted 
 her to shine in courts, and which lent a grace of its own to the 
 life that the President, true to his democratic principles, main- 
 tained with the utmost simplicity. "Mrs. Madison," it is said, 
 "never forgot a name or a face." This was much in a position 
 like hers, but her genuine kindness of heart and her thoughtful- 
 ness for others, were more. Madison, much engrossed by public 
 affairs, left social duties almost entirely to his wife. She had, 
 long ago, relinquished the peculiar costume of her childhood, 
 but the furnishings of her house were still plain and her dress 
 simple. Her social tact and charm had much influence " in 
 allaying the bitterness of party rancor, and softening the feelings 
 of her husband's political opponents." 
 
 Jefferson's first term of presidency was all prosperity, suc- 
 cess, glory. The second term afforded so sharp a contrast that 
 one might have fancied the gods had grown jealous. Foreign 
 complications — the British Orders in Council — the Berlin and 
 Milan Decrees of Napoleon, insulted the Government, crippled 
 the commerce of the young nation, and goaded the people to 
 the verge of war. Then, worse than all, was the atrocious im- 
 pressment of American subjects on board American ships, into 
 the British navy. 
 
 The President and his Secretary of State, were by tempera- 
 ment and conviction strongly averse to war. This is not the 
 place to discuss the wisdom or statesmanship of such measures 
 as the non-intercourse act, the embargo, the building of gun- 
 boats. 
 
 At the close of Jefferson's administration wide financial dis- 
 tress prevailed in the country, and the prosperous commerce 
 of the previous years was almost destroyed. 
 
 All these things tended to embitter the contest for the elec- 
 
James Madison. i i 7 
 
 tion of his successor. " It was like a death -grapple between 
 the two great parties, the Federal and the Republican. " 
 
 The result proved a triumph for the latter. Aaron Burr's 
 " great little Madison," the scholar of Princeton, the polished 
 host of Montpellier, was elected President of the United 
 States. 
 
 Jefferson went back to his farm and his library, happy to 
 surrender the post around which the storms were beating so 
 furiously, but rejoiced that the friend who shared his deepest 
 political convictions would succeed him. 
 
 It was not in the nature of things that the scholarly, peace- 
 loving President who went to the executive chair at that agi- 
 tated time would have a peaceful administration. 
 
 Mistress Dolly Madison, always bent on ameliorating politi- 
 cal animosities, passed from her own simple home to be mistress 
 of the White House drawing-room. It was her lot to be virtu- 
 ally — what no other woman has ever been — lady of the nation 
 for sixteen years. 
 
 England still continued to carry herself with all the old 
 arrogance toward America. No statements of facts, no appeal 
 to instincts of common right and justice, could move the 
 haughty, insolent government. The time came when the out- 
 raged country could endure no more. On June 8, 1812, Presi- 
 dent Madison approved the act of Congress which declared war 
 between the United States and Great Britain. 
 
 The history of that war cannot be told here. It can only 
 be said that the feeble American navy, which had been the 
 scorn and jest of England, won its first laurels in encounters 
 with its powerful foe. 
 
 The American forces met on land with a series of disasters. 
 The one, however, which overshadowed all the rest, was the 
 taking and burning of Wa.shington by a British army of five 
 thousand men, who landed on the Patiixcnt, near the point 
 
1 1 8 Our Presidents. 
 
 where the river enters Chesapeake Bay. The enemy moved 
 rapidly and without encountering vigorous resistance upon the 
 unprotected national capital. " At Bladensburg, by which 
 they marched, there was a brief skirmish between the British 
 and some American regulars and militia." The noise of the 
 cannon was heard at Washington, and struck terror to the hearts 
 of the inhabitants, who fled from their homes. In a little while, 
 the redcoats were moving in solid triumphant columns through 
 the streets of the straggling, silent, undefended city. 
 
 Of course everything lay at their mercy. The President, 
 who was not a soldier, had hurried off " to meet the officers in 
 a council of war. " There was nobody to take command. Mrs. 
 Madison, left at the White House, was in imminent danger of 
 falling into the hands of the enemy. Her husband, too, could 
 not return to her rescue, lest he should be captured. He sent 
 messages, entreating her to fly in time, and " to save the cabi- 
 net papers, public and private." The mistress of the drawing- 
 room proved now what fine stuff lay under all her grace and 
 gentleness. She secured the papers and the plate ; she refused 
 to leave the premises, though the enemy was close at hand, 
 until a large portrait of General Washington " screwed to the 
 wall " should be taken down. 
 
 In the hurry and confusion of the time, it was not possible 
 to do this, so the frame was broken, and the precious canvas 
 carried off. 
 
 During those trying hours, Mrs. Madison Avrote some mes- 
 sages to her sister, which throb Avith the life and agitation of 
 the time : " Here I am still within sound of the cannon ! Mr. 
 Madison comes not. May God protect us ! Two messengers 
 covered with dust come to bid me fly, but here I mean to wait 
 for him." 
 
 At last, however, she was prevailed upon to enter her car- 
 riage and leave the White House, over which a little later the 
 
James Madison. 119 
 
 British soldiers were swarming, and which was burned that 
 night. 
 
 At length, in a little tavern in an apple orchard, Mrs. Madi- 
 son found shelter from the darkness and the furious storm which 
 had begun to rage outside. Here at last her husband joined 
 her ; but at midnight, a breathless, panic-stricken courier ar- 
 rived upon the scene, with tidings that the enemy had dis- 
 covered the President's hiding-place and was on his track. He 
 yielded to the entreaties of his friends and went out in the 
 storm which filled that August night with its fury, yet which 
 was less to be dreaded than the foe close at hand : he found 
 shelter in a miserable hovel in the woods, and listened through 
 the roaring of the winds for the tramp of the British soldiers. 
 James Madison lived to be a very old man, but he could 
 never have forgotten that night in the lonely hovel with the 
 storm lashing the low roof, where he waited, dreading the 
 rush and the shouts that would be louder and fiercer than the 
 tempest. 
 
 Had the soldiers who were ravaging Washington that niglit 
 had the faintest inkling of the truth, they might easily have 
 hunted down and taken captive the noblest quarry of all — the 
 President of the United States ! 
 
 Day came at last, but it was long before Madison learned 
 the welcome news that the British had retreated to their ship- 
 ping. The President was saved, but the White House was a 
 heap of blackened ruins. 
 
 There is no time here to linger on the events which closed 
 the war in 1815. The Treaty of Ghent, the victory at New 
 Orleans, which set the crowning glory on Andrew Jackson's 
 military career, belong to this period. 
 
 A little more than two years later James Madison's second 
 presidential term expired, and he returned to the quiet, beauti- 
 ful home at Montpellier. Here again, in his ** dear librarj' " 
 
• 
 1 20 Our Presidents. 
 
 as he called it, in the cultivation and adornment of his estate, 
 and in the exercise of a large, gracious hospitality, the delicate, 
 small-framed, scholarly ex-President lived a life which, in its 
 large outlines, much resembled that of Mount Vernon and 
 Monticello ; there the years went over him, lightly, gently, 
 happily, as years can go over the head of mortal. 
 
 He had still some last service to render his native state. 
 " In 1829 hs '^^s ^ member of the Virginia convention to 
 reform the old Constitution. When he rose, after a long silence, 
 to utter a few words, the members left their seats and crowded 
 around the venerable figure, dressed in black, the thin gray hair 
 powdered in the fashion of other days, to catch the low whis- 
 pers of that voice." 
 
 Madison had had, of course, to pay the heavy toll on that 
 high road where his life lay. Party strifes ran very fierce in his 
 day, and, as the leader of the Republicans, he was the target 
 for all sorts of envenomed shafts. 
 
 A vein of humor brightened this grave, reserved nature, and 
 made it gay and joyous as a boy's to those who knew it best. 
 
 " Madison had a strong relish for everything facetious and 
 told a story admirably ; his sunshine of temperament never 
 deserted him. In the weary hours of pain, during his old age, 
 his humor flashed up spontaneously as before. When some 
 friends came to visit him, he sank back upon his couch with 
 the smiling words : ' I always talk more easily when I lie ! ' " 
 
 Born and nurtured in the midst of slavery, he was, like 
 Washington and Jefferson, opposed to it. As early as 1758, 
 expressing in a letter to Mr. Randolph his wish not to enter 
 upon the practice of law, he adds : " Another of my wishes is 
 to depend as little as possible upon slave-labor." 
 
 Many of his contemporaries thought Madison lacking in 
 warmth, enthusiasm, nerve. Perhaps this was true. Yet this 
 lack may have been owing largely to that very enthusiasm for 
 
James Madison. i 2 r 
 
 study which crippled his health in his youth and made him a 
 semi-invalid all his days. 
 
 America will always owe a vast debt to James Madison for 
 his services in critical periods of her history. His figure must 
 always stand amid that group of immortal patriots with whom 
 he was so long and closely associated. 
 
 There was no son to bear Madison's name at Montpcllier. 
 In this respect, as in many others, his fate, whether for good or 
 evil, was like Washington's and Jefferson's. His wife, whose 
 beauty and grace had shone so conspicuous in the high place 
 where she stood by his side, now proved pre-eminently the 
 woman of the fireside. She was the devoted companion — the 
 unfailing nurse and solace of his declining years. 
 
 Madison must have lived much among his memories as his 
 hair grew white, his eyes dim, and his step feeble. But in what 
 a spacious gallery those memories moved ! His youth and 
 manhood had been passed among the great actors in America's 
 early history. He must have lived over all the bitter contro- 
 versies amid whicli the Constitution had slowly taken form in 
 the old summer of 1787. He must have caught again the 
 echoes of the French Revolution which shook American air 
 during the closing decade of the last century. The visible signs 
 of that great upheaval were all about him The sitting-room at 
 Montpcllier was furnished from the Tuilleries. James Monroe, 
 when he was in Paris, had gathered some of the furnishings 
 from the despoiled palace and sent them home to his friend. 
 When the white-haired old man sat or moved with faltering 
 steps among these relics, he must have thought of Louis XVI. 
 and of Marie Antoinette and of Lafayette. When he remem- 
 bered all these things, the low-beating heart must have_ quick- 
 ened with the pulses of youth, and James Madison must liave 
 forgotten that he too, as well as the portraits in his spacious 
 gallery of memories, belonged to another generation. 
 
122 Our Presidents. 
 
 He was at last much confined to his room and his bed ; but 
 the life in the delicate frame flickered on for many years and 
 did not go out until James Madison was eighty-five. He tran- 
 quilly closed his eyes for the last time, June 28, 1836. 
 
 " Mistress Dolly Madison " — a fragrance seems to cling 
 about the old-time name — outlived her husband thirteen years. 
 At the time of her death, July 12, 1849, she had reached her 
 eighty-second year. She carried the brightness and sweetness 
 of her youth into old age, and was admired and loved to the 
 last day of her life. 
 
 Pecuniary reverses and anxieties overshadowed her widow- 
 hood ; but these were relieved at last, when Congress purchased 
 her husband's valuable papers. 
 
 One speech that she made a little while before her death is 
 so significant that it must close this brief sketch. One of her 
 nieces had gone to her for sympathy in some slight trouble : 
 " My dear," she said, " do not trouble about it. There is nothing 
 in //lis world worth really caring for. Yes," she repeated, look- 
 ing intently out of a window. " I who have lived so long repeat 
 to you, there is nothing in this world here below worth caring 
 for." 
 
 The world had been very kind to Mistress Dolly Madison, 
 and she did not make this speech in any bitterness of spirit. 
 
Z-^-^z^c 
 
 t^ 
 
JAMES MONROE. 
 
 At the battle of Trenton, fought amid the cold and snows 
 of December 26, 1776, a young Virginia lieutenant carried 
 himself with such gallantry that he won the encomiums of the 
 Commander-in-chief. 
 
 '' Perceiving that the enemy were endeavoring to erect a bat- 
 tery to rake the American lines, he advanced at the head of a 
 small detachment, drove the artillery from the gilns, and took 
 possession of the pieces." 
 
 During the action a ball struck him in the slioulder. He 
 received a captaincy for his bravery. His name was James 
 Monroe. 
 
 The officer who received his wound and won his title at 
 that time was a mere boy — less than eighteen. He was born 
 in that old Westmoreland county, among whose river-meadows 
 George Washington sported away his childhood. The family 
 emigrated to Virginia in 1652, so its roots had struck for more 
 than a century and a quarter in colonial soil, when its young 
 descendant won his spurs that winter day. The race came of 
 old Scotch cavalier stock. The father of James was a planter. 
 His fine, fertile estate lay near the head of " Monroe's Creek, 
 which empties into the Potomac." It was also very near 
 George Washington's birthplace, although he had passed his 
 twenty-sixth birthday a little before James Monroe first saw 
 the light. 
 
 Fortune smiled on the boy's beginnings. The tobacco- 
 plantations yielded large incomes in those days, and the child- 
 hood of James Monroe opened under the happy, ancestral roof, 
 
124 Our Presidents. 
 
 amid ease and comfort. What was better than that, too, he 
 came of a vigorous, sturdy, freedom-loving breed. He breathed 
 from his cradle an atmosphere in which liberty was held to be 
 the noblest and dearest of man's possessions. 
 
 During his boyhood the war-clouds of the Revolution were 
 slowly gathering. Among his earliest memories must have been 
 the talk about the "Stamp Act." The blue-eyed, fair-haired 
 boy must have drunk in the solemn denunciations of his elders 
 whenever they uttered those two hated monosyllables. James 
 Monroe listened ; what is more to the purpose, he felt and 
 remembered. 
 
 They gave tlie planter's son the best advantages which the 
 old commonwealth afforded. He was sent to a "fine classical 
 school, and at sixteen entered William and Mary ("ollege." 
 Here he studied for two years, but it must have been study a 
 good deal broken by the march of events. Lexington, Con- 
 cord, Bunker Hill, must have been names that spoiled many 
 a recitation. For the young undergraduate had inherited 
 with his fire and pluck the liberty-loving instincts of his 
 race. It was quite characteristic that after the Declaration of 
 Independence he should throw up his books, leave college, 
 " hasten to General Washington's headquarters at New York, 
 and enroll himself as a cadet in the army." 
 
 This was done in one of the darkest hours of those dark 
 days. The trained British veterans were carrying everything 
 before them. The Tories were triumphant and defiant. James 
 Monroe took his place bravely in the ranks. He was with the 
 army through all the sad reverses which make the darkest chap- 
 ter in the history of the American Revolution. He shared the 
 retreats from Haarlem Hights and from White Plains, and the 
 miserable marchings through the Jerseys. At last he faced his 
 enemies at Trenton, and in his first battle was wounded and 
 made a captain. 
 
James Monroe. 1 25 
 
 In the later campaigns young Monroe served as aide on the 
 the staff of Lord Sterling, with the rank of Major. He was in 
 the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth. Wash- 
 ington, who had now conceived a high opinion of young 
 Monroe's abilities, sent him to Virginia to raise a new regi- 
 ment, of which he was to be colonel, but Virginia had poured 
 her young men into the northern army until she had feAv left 
 for her own defense. Monroe's temporary promotion served 
 him an ill turn now, as he had " lost his place in the Conti- 
 nental line." 
 
 Disappointed with his failures and with his forced inactiv- 
 ity, Monroe was the victim of some gloomy moods at this 
 period. There is a hint, too, of some private grief in a letter 
 to Lord Sterling, where he calls himself a recluse, and says 
 " he retired from society with almost a resolution never to 
 enter it again." 
 
 Everything seems to have been uncertain and tentative in 
 his life at this time ; he had a notion of going abroad ; Jeffer- 
 son, always eager to serve his friends, gave him a letter to 
 Benjamin Franklin, who was at this time taking the heart of 
 Paris by storm. 
 
 But the young soldier at last wisely resolved to return to 
 his books. He began the study of law with Jefferson, who 
 was Governor of Virginia, who " had a large and admirable 
 library," and who must have been the most delightful and 
 stimulating of teachers. 
 
 Those were hard times for Virginia and her Governor. In 
 the frequent British descents on her soil, the law-studies were 
 much broken into. Monroe was too ardent a patriot not to 
 throw aside his books and hurry to the rescue when the invader 
 was spoiling his native State. But the victory at Yorktown put 
 an end to further British raids on the Atlantic seaboard. 
 
 Colonel James Monroe — he had received his commission, 
 
126 Our Presidents. 
 
 although he never organized his regiment — entered on his long 
 public career at a very early age. He was only twenty-three 
 when he became a member of the Virginia Assembly and also 
 of the Executive Council. The following year he was chosen 
 delegate to the Continental Congress. These were great honors 
 for so young a man. He was fortunate enough to reach An- 
 napolis, where the Congress was then sitting, in time to witness 
 that great historic scene, when George Washington resigned 
 his commission as Commander-in-chief of the Army of the 
 Revolution. 
 
 James Monroe went, heart and soul, into the service of this 
 Congress. He was in its sessions at Annapolis, at Trenton, at 
 New York ; for his term extended through three years. 
 
 During this time he could not fail to be profoundly im- 
 pressed by the inadequacy of the powers with which the old 
 Congress had been invested by the States. He ardently de- 
 sired that its authority should be strengthened and enlarged. 
 The nation, after the close of the Revolution, had gone its 
 blind, stumbling ways. The country was sinking deeper into 
 impoverishment, disaster, and gloom. Business was pros- 
 trated, disorder was rampant, while each of the emancipated 
 States regarded her sisters with more or less suspicion and 
 jealousy. 
 
 The young delegate perceived with dismay the imminent 
 danger of the Union's " crumbling to pieces." In the wide 
 commercial distress, with the vast public debt weighing like an 
 incubus upon the nation, and with all its energies crippled by 
 its lost credit and its exhausted finances, the compact was 
 rapidly growing weaker which had held the States together 
 and carried them triumphantly through the War of the 
 Revolution. 
 
 James Monroe bore an active part in events which led to 
 the convention at Annapolis. But this represented only five 
 
James Monroe. 127 
 
 States, and seemed absurdly unequal to the demands of the 
 times when it broke up. 
 
 But it had recommended another convention to represent 
 all the States and meet in Philadelphia during the summer of 
 1787. 
 
 The convention met. The Constitution of the United 
 States was the result. 
 
 Before this New York and Massachusetts had had serious 
 difficulties about a boundary line. James Monroe was one of 
 the nine judges appointed to settle the dispute. This fact 
 indicates the high opinion his contemporaries had formed of 
 the young congressman's judgment and abilities. 
 
 It was in New York, while he was attending the session of 
 Congress there, that he found his fate. He met Miss Elizabeth 
 Kortright, " daughter of Laurence Kortright, a former captain 
 in the British army. After the close of the war he remained in 
 the city, where he brought up his one son and four daughters." 
 His English prejudices must have undergone vast changes in 
 his new home. That stanchest of Americans, James Monroe, 
 saw and loved the beautiful, accomplished daughter of the 
 English officer. They were married in 1786. Their union of 
 half a century proved one of much happiness and devoted 
 affection. 
 
 Their marriage occurred in a stormy political era. The 
 year following, the Constitution was framed and its accept- 
 ance by the States convulsed the country. Monroe, who 
 had been much under the personal influence of Jefferson, 
 and who entertained very ardent democratic ideas, was alarmed 
 lest the Constitution should confer too large powers upon 
 the central government. His fears led him, with many others, 
 to believe that he detected a strong monarchical bias in the 
 instrument. Madison, Hamilton and Jay were then straining 
 every nerve to secure its adoption. Monroe, as ardent a 
 
128 Our Presidents. 
 
 patriot as any of the trio, held steadily to his convictions. 
 Events were to amply prove his mistake, but history must re- 
 cord that he opposed the ratification of the Constitution by the 
 States. 
 
 Soon after this had taken place, Monroe became a member 
 of the United States Senate, where he remained for more than 
 three years. Alexander Hamilton, Washington's Secretary of 
 the Treasury, was at this time, in many respects, the most 
 important figure in American politics. That fertile, imperious 
 genius was laying the foundations of the new government ; it 
 was organizing the great Federal party ; it was bracing the 
 national credit ; it was infusing new courage and energy into 
 all the business interests of the country ; it was inaugurating a 
 new and large financial policy, with a splendid audacity and 
 ability which dazzled the nation and carried everything along 
 with it. 
 
 James Monroe took alarm at the power and success with 
 which the brilliant and irresponsible Secretary was going on his 
 way. Hamilton's audacious financial schemes bewildered the 
 Virginian, who had no business genius. He doubted, too, the 
 wisdom of Washington's public measures, in which the influence 
 of his former aide was clearly apparent. 
 
 But all these interests were soon largely merged in another 
 for James Monroe. His appointment as Minister-Plenipoten- 
 tiary to France took him and his friends by surprise. He had 
 opposed the President's proclamation of neutrality between 
 England and France ; his sympathies were strongly on the side 
 of our ancient ally. It was for this reason, and in order to 
 restore the old friendly relations with that power, just now a 
 good deal embittered toward America, that Washington sent 
 the new embassy to France. 
 
 Monroe arrived in Paris at a most critical period in its 
 history. The city was still holding its breath with the horror 
 
James Monroe. 129 
 
 of the French Revohition. No foreign minister had been 
 received by the French Republic. Monroe waited more than 
 a week without a sign of recognition from any source. Then 
 he bearded the Hon in his den. He addressed a letter, an- 
 nouncing his embassy, to the President of the National Con- 
 vention. 
 
 This characteristic letter accomplished its purpose. Two 
 o'clock in the afternoon, August '15th, 1795, ^^'^^ one of the 
 most momentous, as well as picturesque, hours in the long, 
 crowded life of James Monroe. At that time he was presented 
 to the National Convention. It was a scene to thrill the 
 calmest nerves, to kindle the most sluggish imagination. All 
 around him were men who had borne a leading part in the 
 terrors of the French Revolution, men who had at last taken 
 their lives in their hands, defied Robespierre to his face, and 
 sent him to the guillotine. 
 
 The echo of the Revolution was still in the air ; its strife 
 and agony must still have shadowed men's faces, as tlic hand- 
 some young envoy from America, with his frank blue eyes, fair 
 hair, and his fine, tall figure, stood, the object of every man's 
 curious gaze, in the National Convention. 
 
 He received the most enthusiastic welcome. The president, 
 Merlin de Douai, gave Monroe the " accolade," and made a 
 speech glowing with praise and affection for America. The 
 flags of the two nations were intertwined to symbolize the close 
 union of the republics. 
 
 The instructions of the new minister had been somewhat 
 vague, and large powers had been left to his own discretion in 
 a situation which afforded no precedents. In the excitement 
 and emotion of so unparalleled an hour, Monroe's ardent, 
 impulsive nature was, no doubt, more or less carried away. 
 His speech in the Convention was calculated to commit his 
 country too far to the side of France. Her great rival across 
 9 
 
130 Our Presidents. 
 
 the Channel was watching, suspicious and angry, the American 
 attitude at this juncture. 
 
 Monroe's speech encountered much hostility at home. The 
 Federal party denounced his talk and his conduct. England 
 was incensed at such cordial relations with her bitterest foe. 
 His first embassy could not have proved a bed of roses to James 
 Monroe. 
 
 His life, at this period, was full of dramatic incidents, of 
 intercourse with historic characters, of participation in historic 
 events. These would form a most curious and thrilling chapter 
 in an ampler biography. 
 
 One event is, however, of such signal interest that it cannot 
 be omitted here. 
 
 The Marquis of Lafayette had, long before Monroe's arrival 
 in France, been captured on the frontier, and was now languish- 
 ing through long hopeless days in the dungeon of Olmiitz. 
 His wife, with her two little children, was confined in the prison 
 of La Force, in daily dread of being ordered to the guillotine. 
 
 A strong attachment had existed between Lafayette and 
 Monroe when both were young officers in the war of the Revo- 
 lution. When the French nobleman was wounded at German- 
 town, Monroe was at his side to afford him every possible aid. 
 
 The condition of the Marchioness could not fail to awaken 
 the warmest sympathies of the American minister. It must 
 have haunted him by night and by day, for it at last forced 
 him to a course which was not only perilous to the imprisoned 
 woman, but might bring himself into serious trouble if he gave 
 offense to the suspicious and irascible government. 
 
 But Monroe, after long debate with himself, resolved to 
 defy everything, and follow the promptings of his heart. He 
 could do nothing without the assistance of his wife. She 
 shared his sympathies, and on this occasion she comes into his- 
 toric foreground in the most memorable scene of her life. 
 
James Monroe. 13^ 
 
 She consented to have an interview with the Marchioness. 
 This must have been a terrible strain on tlie heart and nerves 
 of a sensitive, fragile woman. Indeed, her husband was appre- 
 hensive of the result. But she assured him of her ability to 
 bear herself with calmness through the trying ordeal. 
 
 One afternoon the carriage of the American minister drew 
 up before the entrance of La Force prison. Mrs. Monroe 
 had come with all the pomp and equipage which her hus- 
 band's position allowed. The prison authorities were evidently 
 impressed by her courage and her appearance. '* They con- 
 ducted her to a reception-room instead of taking her to the 
 prison-cell of the Marchioness." 
 
 The minutes must have seemed hours to Mrs. Monroe, 
 while she waited ; but at length the door opened and a wo- 
 man, young, gentle, with a mournful, pallid face, stood there 
 between the guards. 
 
 It was not safe, at that time, in that presence, to exchange 
 many words. Probably neither woman was equal to long 
 talk. The Marchioness had been expecting the summons to 
 her execution. When she saw the lovely, pitying face of the 
 stranger, she could only sob. The interview appears to have 
 been a brief one. But Mrs. Monroe did not lose her self- 
 command. " Before she took leave she promised, in the 
 hearing of the guards, to see the prisoner again on the following 
 day. " 
 
 But her carriage never again drew up before the gloomy 
 prison of La Force. The next day the Marchioness was 
 liberated. It is said " that her execution had been ordered on 
 the afternoon of Mrs. Monroe's visit." 
 
 Monroe's courage and promptness might not have been suc- 
 cessful, had not the Convention desired, at this time, to main- 
 tain cordial relations with the United States. The government 
 could not fail to perceive that it would be placed at a vast dis- 
 
132 Our Presidents. 
 
 advantage if it manifested displeasure at Monroe's grateful 
 remembrance of Lafayette's services in the Revolution. 
 
 The Marchioness left France as soon as possible with her 
 two young daughters. She traveled in disguise to join her 
 husband with heroic devotion in his imprisonment at Olmiitz. 
 
 It is not possible to enter into the details of Monroe's mis- 
 sion in France. It is probable that his ardent, impetuous 
 nature may have led him into some mistakes. He did not per- 
 haps estimate the importance of maintaining harmonious rela- 
 tions with England, while his own government was dealing with 
 all the great problems which it had to face at its birth. It 
 should be remembered in his excuse, too, that it was not an 
 easy matter to keep clear of offense with the stern, aggressive 
 French Republic. Monroe fell more or less out its of favor, 
 while he did not conciliate the authorities at home. 
 
 In 1796 he was recalled, and he returned to America in an 
 aggrieved, resentful mood. He was received with great honor 
 at a banquet by the Republican leaders in Philadelphia ; but 
 Washington evidently felt some displeasure when he wrote from 
 Mount Vernon that " Colonel Monroe had passed through 
 Alexandria, without honoring him with a call." 
 
 Monroe published a book in which he explained and de- 
 fended his course in the foreign embassy with spirit and ability. 
 The book at least created a profound sensation among the 
 political leaders of that day. 
 
 Soon after his return Monroe was elected Governor of 
 Virginia. He held that office for three years — the term allowed 
 by the Constitution. 
 
 During the first years of this century, and while Thomas Jef- 
 ferson was President of the United States, the sun of Napoleon 
 Bonaparte was climbing to its splendid zenith. His name prob- 
 ably was on the lips of all civilized people oftener than that of 
 any other man in the world. His career was watched in the 
 
James Monroe. 133 
 
 United States with very different feelings. One party regarded 
 it with unbounded admiration and enthusiasm ; another feared 
 and dreaded that triumphant, remorseless genius. The posses- 
 sion of Louisiana by the French, might, at any moment, jeopard- 
 ize the cordial relations of the new governments. Jefferson 
 had early perceived this. With all his partiality for France, he 
 was too sincere a patriot to be blinded where the interests of 
 his ovvn country were at stake. He had long been resolved 
 that if statesmanship and diplomacy could effect it, the United 
 States should become the owner of the vast territory of Louisi- 
 ana, which included the outlets of the Mississippi. 
 
 The necessities of Bonaparte were Jefferson's opportunity. 
 The French Consul was straitened for money, as he was about 
 to enter on that long and bitter struggle which succeeded the 
 brief {)eace of Amiens. 
 
 Whatever dreams may sometimes have visited that teeming 
 brain — that insatiate ambition — of establishing a vast trans- 
 Atlantic empire, Napoleon's present designs lay far out of the 
 line of American conquests. 
 
 Spain had, a little while before, ceded Louisiana to France. 
 Jefferson resolved to send Monroe to the legation at Paris to 
 promote the great purpose he had so deeply at heart. 
 
 Monroe departed perfectly informed of the wishes of his 
 Chief, and with large liberty of action in a case where there 
 were no precedents to guide him. He arrived in the nick of 
 time. The situation can be summed up in a few words: 
 Bonaparte, as we have seen, wanted money. America wanted 
 Louisiana. The Consul could not fail to perceive that Avhen 
 hostilities were resumed, British fleets and armies would be 
 sent to capture the defenseless Mississippi Delta. Better sell 
 Louisiana for means to fight England, than see her fall, a little 
 later, into the hands of the enemy, and not be able to strike a 
 blow in her defense. 
 
134 Our Presidents. 
 
 Reasoning after this fashion, Napoleon resolved to sell 
 Louisiana, but he declared to his most trusted councilors that it 
 cost him a struggle to part with the territory. There was, of 
 course, some haggling about the price. But when both parties 
 to the transaction were thoroughly in earnest, especially when 
 one of the powers concerned was Napoleon Bonaparte, the 
 bargain was sure to be promptly consummated. The great sale 
 was effected in less than a month's time. Louisiana cost the 
 United States fifteen millions of dollars, when that sum meant 
 vastly more than it does at this time. The French treasury 
 was replenished, and Europe shook again with the tread of 
 armies. 
 
 " It has been said that this was probably the largest transfer 
 of real estate which was ever made since Adam was presented 
 with the fee simple of Paradise." 
 
 Monroe's part in this great land sale, though it cannot be 
 related here, was a very important one. His influence had 
 much to do with bringing the matter to a successful issue. " He 
 always regarded this as the most important of his public ser- 
 vices." 
 
 Of course no one of the principals engaged in the famous 
 sale anticipated its historic importance. Jefferson, writing 
 about the coveted territory, a little while before, had described 
 it as "a barren sand." Probably most Frenchmen regarded it 
 in that light. 
 
 Monroe took leave of Bonaparte June 24, 1803. He was 
 about to depart for England, to which he had been ordered by 
 his government. 
 
 The two men form so striking a group at the moment of 
 their interview, that it is worth while to pause before it. Napo- 
 leon was, at this time, no doubt, fully bent on attaining the 
 French crown and throne. He probably regarded the simple 
 American envoy as at an infinite remove from his greatness ; yet 
 
James Monroe. 
 
 fourteen years later, he was eating out his heart at St. Helena, 
 and the American was President of the United States. 
 
 Arrived in England, Monroe found hard lines. The power- 
 ful, arrogant government paid little heed to the remonstrances 
 of the American minister. It was useless to urge his country's 
 grievances, to talk of the rights of neutrals, the outrages on 
 American commerce, the impressment of American seamen. 
 
 Monroe's foreign mission had been a triple one. Besides 
 France and England, it included Spain. Events connected 
 with the sale of Louisiana now forced him to repair to the 
 Peninsula. On his way he passed through Paris, and was 
 present at the crowning of Napoleon, a scene fruitful of sug- 
 gestions when looked at with American eyes. 
 
 Arrived in Spain, Monroe vainly attempted to reach any 
 agreement with regard to the eastern boundaries of Louisiana. 
 These had not been clearly defined at the time of the sale. The 
 slow, stately, half moribund court remembered its ancient glory 
 in its present decay, and took alarm lest the young, energetic 
 nation in the West should get some advantage in the Floridas. 
 
 Baffled in the Spanish mission, Monroe returned to England. 
 Here he set to work with his usual vigor, aided by William 
 Pinckney, who had joined him in the legation, to obtain a treaty 
 which should in some faint way recognize the rights of Ameri- 
 can shipping and American merchants. But he had a haughty, 
 obstinate and half-hostile government to deal with. It was 
 only after long negotiations and immense concessions that he 
 succeeded in obtaining a treaty. But it did not touch the vital 
 point of the impressment of American seamen. It afforded 
 no redress for the capture of American vessels and goods by 
 English cruisers. The treaty was so unsatisfactory that Jeffer- 
 son himself, with all his aversion to war, refused to ratify it. 
 
 Monroe's surprise and mortification when he learned this 
 were extreme. His mission, which had proved such a brilliant 
 
136 Our Presidents. 
 
 success in France, was a humiliating failure in England. Yet 
 the wearied, disappointed statesman had done his best to 
 serve his country. It was not his fault, certainly, that England 
 refused to give up the right of search, that Spain kept an iron 
 grip on the Floridas. 
 
 At last Monroe returned to America. The chagrins and 
 disappointments he had encountered in his foreign mission had 
 not seriously shaken the faith which the Republican party re- 
 posed in him. It was now talking of nominating him for the 
 next Presidency, but the choice, for various reasons, fell on 
 Madison. 
 
 While he was in England, Monroe had become disgusted 
 with public life ; he desired to leave it and return to his estate 
 and the practice of his profession. His salary did not meet the 
 expenses, necessarily large, of his position. He had been com- 
 pelled to make heavy demands on his private fortunes ; he 
 became alarmed at the state of his finances, and felt that he 
 now owed all his services to his family. 
 
 But the time was still far distant when James Monroe should 
 lay aside his armor. He was again elected Governor of Vir- 
 ginia in 181 1, but was called from that post by the President, 
 who appointed him Secretary of State. In the following year 
 war was declared between England and America. 
 
 Vast cares and responsibilities now fell upon Monroe. He 
 proved equal to all the demands made upon his energy and 
 ability through those trying years in the nation's life. The 
 President, who confided in him absolutely, at last induced his 
 old friend to add to his other duties the enormous burdens 
 of Secretary of War. During the confusion and disorder of 
 that miserable time when Washington was entered and burned, 
 Monroe showed that his old dash and bravery were not extincc. 
 He was the master-spirit of the hour. He made every effort 
 for the defense of the capital ; he did not hesitate to threaten 
 
James Monroe. 137 
 
 with the bayonet those demoralized citizens who talked of capit- 
 ulating to the enemy. 
 
 Placed at the head of the War Department, he infused 
 new spirit and vigor into military affairs. " The treasury was 
 exhausted ; the government's credit was gone," when James 
 Monroe pledged his private fortune to supply the country's 
 pressing needs. 
 
 No reverses daunted that indomitable energy, that devoted 
 patriotism. Monroe was bent on securing the victory of his 
 country. He proposed to increase the army to a hundred 
 thousand men. This unpopular measure would, if carried out, 
 be certain to defeat his election for the next Presidency. 
 James Monroe was certain of this, but he did not flinch. 
 
 When England sent her great fleet and ten thousand vete- 
 rans, the flower of her victorious armies, to New Orleans, to 
 secure the mouths of the Mississippi, James Monroe dispatched 
 orders to the governors of the South-West. The strong, trench- 
 ant sentences have the ring of that courage with which, years 
 ago, the college youth had led his small column at Trenton 
 against the advancing red-coats. " Hasten your militia to New 
 Orleans. Do not wait for this government to arm them ; put 
 all the arms you can into their hands ; let every man bring ' 
 his rifle with him ; we shall see you paid." 
 
 A little later the battle of New Orleans was won, and soon 
 afterward America learned that the Treaty of Ghent had been 
 signed. 
 
 There was no need of the hundred thousand men. 
 
 In 181 7 James Monroe became President of the United 
 States. The new administration, called " the era of good 
 feeling," from its lack of all disturl)ing issues, proved in many 
 respects the most peaceful which the country had known in its 
 twenty-eight years of presidents. 
 
 Soon after his inauguration Mr. Monroe set out on an exten- 
 
13^ Our Presidents. 
 
 sive career through the country to inspect the various miUtary 
 posts. The journey must have been much Uke a triumphal prog- 
 ress of kings, although the object of all the enthusiasm, the pro- 
 cessions, the welcomes and banquets, wore " a blue homespun 
 overcoat, light-colored underclothes, and a military cocked hat, 
 the undress uniform of the officers of the Revolutionary War." 
 
 The sight of the " old cocked hat " roused immense enthu- 
 siasm in all the Revolutionary veterans vv^ho beheld it. The 
 President visited the Eastern cities. Boston gave him a grand 
 reception. A cavalcade met him on the Neck ; Dorchester 
 Heights, the Common, the forts in the harbor, fired salutes. 
 Monroe must have enjoyed all these demonstrations in his 
 simple, quiet way, though he loved his country more than any 
 honors she could bestov/ on him. 
 
 The long Presidential tour included the North-West as far 
 as Detroit, and occupied four months. The wearied and much 
 feted President reached Washington about the first of October. 
 
 James Monroe's administration was far less eventful and 
 dramatic than his foreign missions. 
 
 At the close of four years he was re-elected to the Presi- 
 dency. His popularity is best attested by the fact that only a 
 single vote was cast against him. 
 
 The affairs which during the double term principally en- 
 gaged the attention of the President and his cabinet were 
 the " defense of the Atlantic seaboard, the promotion of in- 
 ternal improvements, the Seminole War, the acquisition of 
 Florida, the Missouri Compromise, and resistance to foreign 
 interference with American affairs." 
 
 All these subjects are familiar ground to the students of 
 American history. James Monroe earned his most enduring 
 laurels in the declaration which was of such immense importance 
 to Europe and America, and which will always live in history as 
 the Monroe Doctrine. 
 
jatnes Monroe. 139 
 
 An event occurred near the close of the President's second 
 term which kindled a wild enthusiasm throughout the country. 
 Lafayette once more set his foot on American soil. After many 
 changes, and in another generation, the two comrades-in-arms 
 of the Revolution met again. Both were old men now. Laf- 
 ayette's young friendship for Monroe had been greatly strength- 
 ened by the service the American had rendered him when he 
 was a prisoner at Olmiitz. He wrote to his friend with con- 
 fiding familiarity, and with a glow of warmest affection. It 
 must have been a source of deep gratification to Lafayette that 
 the host who now received him as '' the nation's guest," was 
 one who had not only done him an unspeakable favor, but was 
 that young officer who had stood by his side with sympathy and 
 aid, nearly half a century before, when he was wounded at the 
 Battle of Germantown. 
 
 James Monroe had nearly reached his sixty-seventh birth- 
 day when he left the Presidency to his successor, John Quincy 
 Adams, and returned to his home at Oak Hill in Loudon county, 
 Virginia. It was a fine estate, though it does not seem to have 
 had the varied charm of situation which made such paradises of 
 Mount Vernon, Monticello, and Montpellier. Monroe had 
 planned his house, .which was a "handsome substantial brick 
 building with a wide southern portico, with massive Doric col- 
 ums, sorrounded by a grove of magnificent oaks covering sev- 
 eral acres. " 
 
 Like the Virginia Presidents, before him, he had no son; 
 both his daughters were married. 
 
 Mrs. Monroe was a handsome woman when she was no 
 longer a young one. She had seen much of the gay and brill- 
 iant side of the world, at a time when her beauty and charm 
 made a deep impression in the grand salons and drawing-rooms 
 of Europe. She had been brought into familiar acquaintance 
 with great historic characters in her own country and in foreign 
 
140 Our Presidents. 
 
 lands. " Her eldest daughter was educated in Paris at the cel- 
 ebrated boarding-school of Madame Campan, and among 
 her intimate school friends was the beautiful Hortense de Beau- 
 harnais, step-daughter of Bonaparte, and mother of the Emperor 
 Louis Napoleon." 
 
 James Monroe lived seven years after his retirement to Oak 
 Hill. His life here was simple, kindly, sincere, as it had always 
 been. But these years were not merely the restful ones of ad- 
 vancing age to that ardent, energetic nature. He was Regent 
 of the University of Virginia ; he was a local magistrate, and 
 also a member of the Virginia Convention ; he had a large cor- 
 respondence at home and abroad and retained an active inter- 
 est in public affairs. 
 
 The last years of this noble life were darkened by sorrows 
 and pecuniary reverses. The death of Mrs. Monroe, in 1830, 
 was an overwhelming blow to her husband. 
 
 At this time his fortunes had greatly dwindled. He had 
 neglected them while he was engaged in public life, and the 
 positions which he had occupied had involved expenses which 
 his salary did not defray, and which compelled him to draw 
 heavily on his private resources. 
 
 The thoughts of parting with Oak Hill was distressing to him, 
 but he had to face it. " No private subscription came to honor 
 or relieve him." 
 
 When Lafayette learned the condition of his old friend's 
 affairs he came promptly to his aid, and in the most delicate 
 and generous manner conceivable jDlaced part of his Florida 
 lands at Monroe's disposal. 
 
 But the offer was not accepted. The old man, whose health 
 was much broken, could no longer endure the loneliness of 
 Oak Hill. He went to New York to live with one of his 
 daughters. He died there July 4th, 183 1, just five years from 
 the day that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had expired. 
 
James Monroe. 14^ 
 
 James Monroe had no brilliant social or oratorical gifts. 
 No doubt he is thrown somewhat into the shade by the group 
 of great men who surrounded him. But they appreciated him. 
 Washington and Jefferson, John Quincy Adams and Madison, 
 all bore the strongest testimony to his high character and gifts. 
 1 lis biography forms a long record of devoted services to his coun- 
 try. It was the opinion of Madison, between whom and himself, 
 there existed a life-long intimacy, that America had never fully 
 understood or appreciated its fifth President, James Monroe. 
 
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 
 
 It was June 17, 1775, throughout the British Colonies of 
 North America. In Massachusetts it was the day of Bunker 
 Hill. 
 
 On that day a boy, with his mother, still a young woman, 
 had climbed one of the hills in the parish of North Braintree, 
 and the two stood with faces turned eager and intent in the di- 
 rection of Boston, ten miles away. 
 
 This was by no means an unusual spectacle. On that 
 summer morning the heights in the vicinity of the small, block- 
 aded, seaport town, were occupied by anxious, breathless crowds, 
 all gazing toward the dense clouds of smoke which hid the war- 
 ships in the harbor. 
 
 Those crowds heard with blanched cheeks the heavy inces- 
 sant cannonading of the British fleet. They heard the Ameri- 
 can volleysans wer bravely back ; they saw red flames dart 
 and leap through the dense smoke. A little later, Charlestown, 
 " with its five hundred houses and its one church steeple, that 
 had shone a pyramid of fire," was a heap of blackened ruins. 
 
 To the gazers on the heights the scene before them was liter- 
 ally one of life and death interest. Husbands and sons, fathers 
 and brothers, were in the thick of the fight. On the issue 
 of the battle hung the fate of the Colonies, the future of America. 
 When that June night fell upon smouldering Charlestown, the 
 Battle of Bunker Hill had been fought, and Massachusetts had 
 seen the darkest, most glorious day in her history. 
 
 The scene which he had witnessed made an indelible im- 
 pression on the boy who climbed the Braintree hill with his 
 
J, 0} , cAAcuyy^ 
 
John Quincy Adams. I43 
 
 mother. He had one of those grave, strenuous natures on which 
 events produce lasting effects. The incidents of the day had 
 no doubt an influence over all his future life. 
 
 John Quincy Adams was, at that time, close to his eighth 
 birthday, for he was born July ii, 1767. He was the eldest 
 son of John and Abigail Adams, of Braintree. We know what 
 these names were afterward to stand for. At the time of the 
 boy's birth, his father, a lawyer, not thirty-two years old, and 
 after a struggling youth, gradually rising in his profession, 
 already bore the character of a stanch patriot. " He had op- 
 posed the Stamp Act with great energy and ability." 
 
 The boy bore the name of his maternal great-grandfather, 
 John Quincy, who Avas dying at the time the child was baptized. 
 " It was filial tenderness that gave the name," he wrote long 
 afterward. And then he adds, in his characteristic way, " There 
 have been through life perpetual admonitions to do nothing 
 unworthy of it." 
 
 The early years of his life were passed between Boston and 
 Braintree, as the family changed their home from one place to 
 the other. He had been well started. With such a father and 
 such a mother, the influences, intellectual and moral, about his 
 earhest years, were certain to be of a fine, bracing and elevating 
 kind. It did not follow as a necessary corollary that these 
 would produce a high type of character, original quality having 
 most to do with that matter. But it was his great good fortune 
 to have such favorable beginnings. 
 
 A personality so marked must have shown its characteristics 
 early. Those young shoulders carried an old head through all 
 their childhood. John Quincy Adams was a grave, thoughtful 
 boy, caring less for plays and games than he did for the talk of 
 his elders. Ingrained truthfulness and honesty, as well as fear- 
 lessness and obstinacy, were salient qualities with him, almost 
 from infancy. 
 
144 Our Presidents. 
 
 The talk to which the Braintree boy had been listening all 
 his early years must have strongly stimulated his mental facul- 
 ties. At the time when he watched the Battle of Bunker Hill, 
 he no doubt had very decided opinions on all the great questions 
 at issue between England and her revolted colonies. But the 
 time for discussion and argument had gone by. Two months 
 before the British fleet cannonaded Charlestown Neck, the long 
 drama of the Revolution had opened with the fight at Lexing- 
 ton and Concord. 
 
 The mother and the son must often have thought of the 
 husband and father on that terrible day of Bunker Hill. He 
 was absent, in what his wife, with a touch of pathos, calls in her 
 letters, " that remote country. " She meant Philadelphia, 
 where John Adams, delegate to the second Continental Con- 
 gress, was straining every nerve to get George Washington ap- 
 pointed Commander-in-chief of the American Army. 
 
 The most momentous event in John Quincy Adams's boy- 
 hood occurred more than two years after the Battle of Bunker 
 Hill, when his father, at the close of 1777, was appointed envoy 
 to France, and decided that his eldest son, then in his eleventh 
 year, should accompany him to Europe. 
 
 They had a long, stormy passage from Boston to Bordeaux, 
 and the keen, observant boy was placed at a school in Paris, 
 where he rapidly acquired the French language. 
 
 A year and a half later the two returned home, and during 
 the long voyage young John gave English lessons to the am- 
 bassador and his secretary, whom the French Government 
 were sending to America. 
 
 The pleased father wrote that the Frenchmen were in rap- 
 tures with his son, and the report of the lessons is infinitely 
 characteristic of the boy. He was the most exacting of teach- 
 ers. He amazed the ambassador by his knowledge. The 
 amused chevalier declared that he was master of EngHsh like a 
 
John Qiiiiicy Adams. 145 
 
 professor. The secretary said to the father, " Your son teaches 
 us more than you. He shows us no mercy and makes us no 
 compHments. We must have Mr. John." 
 
 The letters of the boy at this period show a remarkable 
 maturity of thoughts and purpose. With their stilted, formal 
 style they have little of boyhood's dash and freedom, but this 
 may be partly owing to the habit of the time. Their chief in- 
 terest is in their display of the mental and moral traits of the 
 young writer. 
 
 The return home was destined to be a brief one. In about 
 three months the two sailed again in the same vessel, the father 
 having received a second diplomatic appointment to Europe. 
 
 The next years afforded the boy rare opportunities for 
 seeing the world and for meeting illustrious persons. He 
 accompanied his father to Holland ; he had brief periods of 
 going to school at Paris, at Amsterdam, at Leyden. The 
 chances for study, though he probably made the most of them, 
 were short, for the boy's good fortune seemed to reach its ze- 
 nith, when, just before he attained his fourteenth birthday, he 
 found himself engaged in a diplomatic career. Francis Dana, 
 envoy to Russia from the United States, actually appointed the 
 youth his private secretary. The journey to that cold, semi- 
 barbarous country must, more than a century ago, have been 
 full of novel experience and adventure to the New England 
 lad. The mission was not particularly fruitful of results ; but 
 after diligently discharging all his duties for fourteen months, 
 young Adams left St. Petersburg and returned alone, making 
 his long journey through Sweden and Denmark, seeing much 
 with those keen young eyes, before he resumed his studies at 
 the Hague. 
 
 He soon after rejoined his father in Paris, where the latter 
 was engaged with Franklin and Jefferson in negotiating a final 
 treaty of peace between Great Britain and her quondam Col- 
 
146 Our Presidents. 
 
 onies. Here the boy became at once an additional secretary, 
 and had his share in drawing up that famous instrument which 
 settled forever the question of the indejoendence of the United 
 States. 
 
 This reads already like the history of a long, varied and 
 eventful life. It appears incredible that the whole is a rapid 
 and very incomplete sketch of a boy who had recently passed 
 his sixteenth birthday. 
 
 Mrs. Adams, with her two younger children, joined her hus- 
 band, and the long painful, separation, borne on all sides with 
 admirable fortitude, ended in a happy, peaceful year at Paris. 
 
 In 1785, a packet from America brought tidings of the 
 appointment of John Adams as minister to St. James's. This 
 made a great turning point in the career of his eldest 
 son, who had now lived seven years in Europe. Foreign travel, 
 society and life had great charms for him. His father's new 
 position would insure his son an introduction to England's 
 greatest statesmen, to her most distinguished men of letters, 
 to all that was elegant and splendid in the court life of George 
 HI. A dazzling vista must have opened before the eyes of the 
 youth. It should be remembered that he was only seventeen 
 at the date of his father's appointment. The parents knew 
 their son. They left the momentous decision of his future with 
 himself. He must have undergone a sharp struggle before he 
 decided to return home and enter Harvard College as an under- 
 graduate. To realize the moral pluck which such a resolution 
 required, we must try to reproduce to ourselves, if in ever so 
 shadowy a form, something of the Harvard of that day, with 
 its narrow life, its rigid rules, its meagre society. 
 
 Young Adams had to face the immense contrasts between 
 the brilliant life that awaited him in England, and the life that 
 lay for him in America. But all the dazzling attractions of the 
 former could not blind him to the side on which was the per- 
 
John Qiiincy Adams. 147 
 
 manent advantage. That lay in the harder choice. It is 
 doubtful whether Harvard College ever held v/ithin its walls 
 a student who had turned his back on so much as John Quincy 
 Adams did when he made up his mind to enter them. But 
 before he left Paris, he wrote in his grave, sensible way, so un- 
 like seventeen : 
 
 " I am determined that so long as I shall be able to get my own living, 
 m an honorable manner, I will depend upon no one. My father has been 
 so much taken up all his life-time with the interests of the jniblic, that his 
 own fortune has suffered by it, so that his children will have to provide for 
 themselves, which I shall never be able to do if I loiter away my precious 
 time in Europe, and shun going home until I am forced to it. With an ordi- 
 nary share of common sense, which I hope I enjoy, at least in America I can 
 live independent and free; and rather than live otherwise, I would wish to die 
 before the time when I shall be left at my own indiscretion." 
 
 He returned home, studied assiduously for a short time, en- 
 tered the junior class at Harvard College, and graduated with 
 honor in 1787. He afterward studied law in Newburyport, and 
 was admitted to the bar just after he had passed his twenty- 
 third birthday. Almost as a matter of course, he established 
 himself in Boston. Clients appeared rather slowly for the first 
 year, but during the three following ones their numbers grew 
 steadily. 
 
 But the rising young lawyer's time and thoughts were not 
 wholly engrossed by his profession. An intense, patriotic inter- 
 est in public affairs was his birthright. He published over dif- 
 ferent signatures various papers, which attracted much attention 
 at home and abroad for the ability with which they treated 
 critical public questions, especially the new relations of America 
 with Europe. 
 
 The writer of such papers could not long remain undiscov- 
 ered behind the slight mask of his signature. It is believed 
 that they were the immediate cause of his nomination by Presi- 
 dent Washington as minister to the Hague. He received his 
 
148 Our Presidents. 
 
 commission on his twenty-seventh birthday. The embassy 
 offered him must have been a welcome change from the drudg- 
 ery of the Boston law office. Some passages from young 
 Adams's diary show plainly that he had been much chafed 
 by the narrow horizon of his life. He felt, the stir of large and 
 noble ambitions. He could not be content in that " state of 
 useless and disgraceful insignificancy " in which he found him- 
 self. " At the age of twenty-five, many of the characters who 
 were born for the benefit of their fellow-creatures have ren- 
 dered themselves conspicuous among their contemporaries. I 
 still find myself as obscure, as unknown to the world, as the 
 most indolent or the most stupid of human beings." 
 
 In these words we have the key to John Quincy Adams's 
 character. He wrote them, moved by no merely personal and 
 ignoble ambitions. He had many faults, angularities, limita- 
 tions. Unhappily these were much on the surface, and often 
 embittered his relations with others, and made his path, suffi- 
 ciently thorny at best, unnecessarily hard and rugged. But 
 nobody, familiar with his history, can doubt that his supreme 
 aim from first to last was " to live for the benefit of his fellow- 
 men." 
 
 "A perilous voyage, a leaky ship, a blundering captain, 
 brought him to the Hague October 31, 1794." 
 
 The young diplomat had entered upon a scene which might 
 well have confounded the wisest, most experienced statesman. 
 The French Revolution was still in its death throes. All 
 Europe was arming for the great struggle with France. Adams 
 had scarcely presented his credentials, when the Stadtholder 
 had to flee before the French conquerors. The ministers of 
 foreign courts, for the most part, followed him. The American 
 remained. But he was now forced to use all his adroitness, his 
 cool judgment, his sound common sense, in order to escape 
 compromising relations with the powerful French and Dutch 
 
John Qjiiucy Adams. I49 
 
 party. They made flattering overtures to the young diplomat, 
 whose secret sympathies must have been largely on their side. 
 But he preserved his balance through all those exciting times. 
 The government, however, to which he had been accredited 
 had disappeared, and there was really nothing for him to do, a 
 condition utterly distasteful to his habits and temperament. 
 He was debating whether to return home, when advices from 
 the President decided him to remain. Washington, who always 
 weighed his words, ventured on a prophecy, " that Adams would 
 soon be found at the head of the diplomatic corps, be the gov- 
 ernment administered by whomsoever the people may choose." 
 
 He remained at the Hague, narrowly observing the march 
 of events, and characteristically making the most of his time, 
 *• studying, reading, learning foreign languages, the usages of 
 diplomacy, the habits of distinguished society." 
 
 It is impossible in this sketch to dwell on the episode of 
 young Adams's visit to England. He found himself in an awk- 
 ward position. He was not minister to the court which, for 
 its own purposes, attempted to treat him as one. He had, at 
 best, only some " rather vague instructions to discuss certain 
 arrangements between the two governments." His shrewdness 
 and good sense again carried him successfully through all dififi- 
 culties, though it was not easy to avoid giving offense when 
 declining the diplomatic and social honors which were forced 
 upon him. 
 
 But this visit to London was memorable to John Quinry 
 Adams for an event that colored his whole after-life and was 
 the source of its deepest, most permanent happiness. He 
 became at this time engaged to Miss Louise Catherine John- 
 son, daughter of Joshua Johnson, American consul at London. 
 
 After a brief absence, he returned to England, where his 
 marriage took place July 26, 1797. Miss Johnson was a young 
 lady whose character and varied social accomplishments fitted 
 
150 Our Presidents. 
 
 her to adorn the high positions to which her husband's long 
 pubHc life called her. The happy domestic relations of Mr. 
 Adams, which continued for half a century, proved the great 
 solace and satisfaction of a career that was otherwise stormy 
 with great moral struggles and conflicts. 
 
 He was appointed minister to Portugal at the close of 
 Washington's administration. Before he had set out for the 
 post it was changed to that of Berlin. At this juncture a deli- 
 cate question presented itself. John Adams had succeeded 
 Washington in the Presidency. The sensitive honor of both 
 father and son took alarm, lest the continuance of the latter in 
 public office should nov/ be open to the charge of nepotism. 
 On the other hand, it seemed cruel that the son's career should 
 be cut short in the midst of its promise by his father's success. 
 The young man did not hesitate. He was ready to resign his 
 office at once, and in a manly and spirited letter to his mother 
 declared that he " could neither solicit nor expect anything 
 from his father." 
 
 Washington now came to the aid of the perplexed President. 
 He insisted that the son " ought not to be denied that promo- 
 tion in the diplomatic service to which his abilities entitled 
 him." 
 
 Accepting this view of the matter, Mr. Adams was appointed 
 to Berlin, but he had some difficulty in gaining admission to the 
 city. " The lieutenant on guard at the gates had never heard 
 of the United States of America, and one of his private soldiers 
 had to explain to him what they were ! " 
 
 Mr. Adams's mission to Berlin promised to be hardly more 
 fruitful than that at the Hague. The new nation across the 
 seas was of little consequence in the eyes of the ancient gov- 
 ernments, absorbed in French politics, with which their own 
 existence seemed so closely bound up. It goes without saying 
 that Mr. Adams did all that he could to serve his country, and 
 
John Qiiincy Adams. 1 5 ^ 
 
 succeeded at last in securing a treaty of amity and commerce 
 between Prussia and the United States. His work was done 
 now, and he appHed for his recall home. While awaiting the 
 answer — long delayed in those days — he visited some countries 
 of Europe which he had not yet seen. It was a principle with 
 him, as well as a pleasure, to improve his time and opportunities 
 to the utmost. 
 
 Then the recall came, one of the last acts of his father's 
 administration. 
 
 The change from the European courts to the Boston law 
 office could not have been agreeable. But lie met all its diffi- 
 culties with his native philosophy and his indomitable will. 
 
 He came, too, upon a scene especially calculated to try his 
 temper and harass his feelings. In the quiet paternal home to 
 which the elder Adams had now returned, the younger must 
 have heard the long story of what his father regarded as the 
 shameful machinations and infinite wrongs of his enemies. 
 
 This is not the place to enter into that story. It belongs to 
 the history of the fierce struggle between the Federalists and 
 the Republicans, with which the nineteenth century opened in 
 America. 
 
 The elder Adams, goaded and incensed beyond endurance 
 at the defection in his own party, which he believed, and no 
 doubt with justice, had been at the bottom of his own defeat, 
 must have gone over his wrongs and trials to his son in his 
 strong, terse, passionate fashion. 
 
 Nobody, probably, could listen to the sturdy, true hearted 
 old patriot without being moved by all he had passed through, 
 and the listener was this time one whose traditions and filial 
 sympathies, would all incline him strongly to his father's viev/ 
 of the case. 
 
 But John Quincy Adams was singularly capable of reflecting 
 that there was a reverse side to the shield, though it might have 
 
152 Our Presidents, 
 
 been cruel to suggest this to the old statesman, stung and 
 humiliated by all the circumstances of his recent defeat. 
 
 The younger Adams, fortunately absent, had not been 
 embroiled in the party strifes which had shaken the country. 
 That he was the son of his father was probably the worst 
 charge — no small one in their eyes — which the Federalists 
 could bring against him. 
 
 On April 5, 1802, the Boston Federalists elected him to the 
 State Senate. He promptly accepted the office, though it must 
 have seemed to his contemporaries a vast descent for a man 
 who had represented his country eight years at the courts of 
 Europe. But they probably thought more of the contrast than 
 he did himself. One of John Quincy Adams's finest qualities 
 was his readiness to serve the people in any office which they 
 bestowed upon him. 
 
 He did not remain long in the State Senate, yet the time 
 was not too brief for him to display his independence of 
 thought and action, and greatly irritate some of his sup- 
 porters. However, he could not have alienated the majority 
 of his party, for the next year they sent him a Senator to 
 Washington. 
 
 In October he set out for the national capital — the rude 
 little village which must have shocked the representatives of 
 foreign courts, accustomed to the splendors of European cities. 
 Mr. Adams may not have cared what they thought about it, 
 but he was concerned to find that Washington ''held no church 
 of any denomination. " 
 
 He probably was not prepared, even by the parental talk, 
 for the intense hostility which he at once encountered. In its 
 atmosphere he must have gained a more vivid comprehension 
 of all that his father had undergone. The triumphant Re- 
 publicans, the disappointed and exasperated Federalists, who 
 chose to hold the elder Adams responsible for the defeat of the 
 
John Qiiimy Adams. 153 
 
 party, alike vented their malice on the son. He was met on all 
 sides with coldness, if not with insults. " Any motion that he 
 made was sure to be lost. Any measure that he supported was 
 certain to meet with virulent opposition." 
 
 A man with a less tough-fibered character, less sustained by 
 a firm sense of rectitude, might have been overborne by this 
 powerful hostility. Mr. Adams felt it acutely, but it was not 
 in that resolute, dauntless nature to succumb. Time worked 
 in his favor. At the end of four years the rancor of both par- 
 ties had largely worn itself out. The Massachusetts Senator 
 at last took the role among his colleagues in the Senate to 
 which his abilities entitled him. 
 
 A Federalist of that period would doubtless have justified 
 his opposition to Mr. Adams by the simple declaration that 
 " his party could not trust him." 
 
 There was much apparent truth in this allegation. With his 
 strong personality, his independence of thought, speech and 
 action, it was impossible for John Quincy Adams ever to work 
 on mere party lines. He was always sternly conscious that he 
 owed his highest allegiance to his sense of duty. When, with 
 such a man, it came to a question of right, party affiliations 
 and interests were like flax in the flame. 
 
 Burning questions now came to the foreground in American 
 affairs. The century has grown old. The issues, of such over- 
 shadowing importance at its dawn, have so long been relegated 
 to the past, that it is difficult to realize how they once divided 
 the two great parties in the nation and aroused tlie fiercest pas- 
 sions of each. 
 
 These issues can barely be glanced at here. There was the 
 purchase of Louisiana, which necessarily involved its future 
 admission to the sisterhood of states. Nobody now questions 
 the wisdom and far-seeing statesmanship of Jefferson in promptly 
 closing the bargain with the French Government. 'J'luit most 
 
# 
 
 154 Oar Presidents. 
 
 extensive sale of real estate which ever occurred on the planet, 
 encountered at the time the bitter, determined hostiHty of the 
 Federalists. John Quincy Adams, wiser than his constituents, 
 approved of the sale, won from Napoleon's necessities, and 
 brought down on his head the vials of Federalist wrath. 
 
 One cannot have the faintest idea of the temper of that old 
 time, without bearing constantly in mind the fact that in all 
 questions of foreign policy, the Federalists ranged themselves 
 stanchly on the side of England, while the Republicans were 
 passionately devoted to France. 
 
 The echoes of the French Revolution had not died out of 
 American air. All the prejudices and passions which it had 
 inflamed, still colored the sympathies and shaped the opinions 
 of parties. Mr. Adams had none of the strong English bias of 
 his colleagues in the Senate. His long residence in Europe 
 had afforded him opportunities for forming opinions and reach- 
 ing conclusions which no other of his countrymen had enjoyed. 
 A mere stripling, he had borne a share in negotiating the treaty 
 of peace between the two countries. But it does not appear 
 that he was, even then, blinded to the sentiment and policy of 
 England toward her former Colonies. Fie believed the British 
 government inveterately hostile to American interests. On this 
 matter he and his party in the Senate v/ere as wide apart as the 
 poles. But that fact did not influence him. If ever a man had 
 the courage of his convictions it was John Quincy Adams. No 
 party traditions, no personal interests, no regard for constitu- 
 ents, could sway him an inch. It is not surprising that when 
 the crisis came and Adams actually supported the President's 
 non-importation act, that the amazed, disgusted Federalists of 
 Massachusetts cried out that their Senator had betrayed them. 
 
 A month after this the British government issued that famous 
 proclamation v/hich declared the European coast blockaded 
 from Brest to the mouth of the Elbe. This was a tremendous 
 
John Quincy Adams. 155 
 
 blow aimed directly at American commerce. " At that time 
 the word neutrals included little but Americans." Napoleon 
 retaliated by his " Berlin Decree," which declared the British 
 Islands blockaded. ** No vessel/' ran the edict of the mighty 
 autocrat, " which had been in any English port could thereafter 
 enter any port in his dominions." So America was placed 
 between two fires. Early in the following year England for- 
 bade all commerce of neutrals between the ports of her enemies. 
 The " British Orders in Council " followed one after another. 
 Their history must be read elsewhere. Suffice it, they were 
 aimed at the carrying trade of the United States. Napoleon 
 was again prompt with retaliation. His next measure, called 
 the " Milan Decree," virtually made him master of the shipping 
 of America. The combatants were giants in those days. But 
 if the shipmasters obeyed these orders, no resource remained 
 but to burn every vessel in American harbors to the water's 
 edge. 
 
 No wrong, however, was so keenly felt by the young nation 
 as the practice of British imi)ressment. All other acts paled 
 before this monstrous one. It seems incredible now that Amer- 
 icans could, within this century, have submitted to so great an 
 outrage ; one, too, that struck at the very life of so many fire- 
 sides, and was the source of such constant and wide-spread 
 misery. It is to John Quincy Adams's eternal honor that, at 
 this juncture, regardless of party allegiance and interests, he 
 took a bold and independent stand. It seemed to his brave, 
 resolute spirit that the Federalists were under a spell of alarm 
 and dread when it came to taking any measures against Eng- 
 lish wrongs, even against this crowning one of impressment of 
 American citizens. His soul recoiled at the idea of submission. 
 He beheld his party embarras.sed and timorous, where he felt 
 the only hope of redress was in a vigorous resentment of Eng- 
 land's conduct. He did not, even in his most passionate 
 
15^ Our Presidents. 
 
 moments, desire that the country should rush, ill prepared, into 
 a war with her powerful enemy ; but he was ready for any 
 measure, short of the last appeal, which should manifest Amer- 
 ica's indignation. 
 
 These feelings explain Mr. Adams's position. In the year 
 following the non-importation act, the administration brought 
 forward a bill for establishing an embargo. This measure by 
 no means met with Mr. Adams's full approval. It was not what 
 he desired, but it was, at least, better than nothing. He voted 
 for the embargo. 
 
 Then the Federalists turned on him. Their wrath was ter- 
 rible. It is but fair to say that, blinded by passion, they 
 believed that he had basely deserted their ranks. It was not 
 wholly their fault that they could not reach his outlook, see things 
 from his wider point of vision. But chagrined and enraged, 
 they could think of no language inflamed and rancorous enough 
 to describe the conduct of their senator. 
 
 But the Federalists did not end with words. They made 
 haste to shake off the " traitor " and " renegade," as they 
 delighted to call him. They nominated his successor in the 
 Senate under circumstances devised especially to insult him. 
 " Mr. Adams was not the man to stay where he was not wanted. 
 He sent in his resignation." 
 
 This was in 1808. On the 4th of March of the following 
 year James Madison became President of the United States. 
 Two days later he notified Mr. Adams of his intention to aj)point 
 him Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia. It was a new mission, 
 but the Czar, friendly to America, had often expressed a desire 
 that an envoy should be accredited to his court. 
 
 Mr. Adams's foes had their chance now. They voted against 
 the mission. But Madison had set his heart on it. In June he 
 again named Mr. Adams for the post, stating to the Senate that 
 he had now additional reasons for sending an embassy to 
 
John Qitimy Adams. I57 
 
 Russia. His wishes prevailed. This time tlie nomination was 
 confirmed. 
 
 "On August 5, 1809," ^'^ ^^'■- Adams's diary records, "he 
 left his house at the corner of Boylston and Nassau streets for 
 his long journey from Boston to St. Petersburg. His wife, his 
 youngest son and his secretary accompanied him. 
 
 " They left Charlestown wharf precisely as the Boston and 
 Charlestown bells were ringing one o'clock."' 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Adams must have had very heavy hearts at 
 that time. They were leaving two young boys behind them 
 at Braintree. During the long sea voyage, which was attended 
 with more or less discomfort and peril, Mr. Adams wrote to his 
 young sons, and his words are so wise and true that they ought 
 to have a place in the briefest sketch of his life. 
 
 " You must have some one great purpose of existence. 
 
 *' Finally, let the uniform principle of your life, the frontlet 
 between your eyes, be how to make your talents and your 
 knowledge most beneficial to your country, and most useful to 
 mankind." 
 
 Mr. Adams arrived on the scene of his new mission late in 
 October. His reception by the Emperor Alexander was most 
 gracious and cordial. In the splendid Russian court things 
 went more smoothly for John Quincy Adams than they had 
 ever done in the plain senate chamber at Washington. The 
 new minister did not find very much to do ; but there was a 
 great deal to see and to learn. 
 
 There was a gorgeous ceremonious life at that old court of 
 the Romanoffs. Mr. Adams mingled with it, thoughtful, self- 
 contained, observant. All the pomp and power never for a 
 moment dazzled him. .Simple and dignified, he must have been 
 an admirable representative of his country at European courts. 
 
 Those four years and a half which Mr. Adams spent in 
 Europe were breathless years for the world. The very air was 
 
15^ Our Presidents. 
 
 full of the clash of armies. The name most frequently on all 
 men's lips must have been that of Napoleon Bonaparte. In the 
 Russian court they could hardly, one imagines, have talked 
 about anybody else. When Mr. Adams went to Europe the 
 great Corsican held its destinies in his hands. Before the 
 American left, the wonderful drama of the invasion of Russia, 
 the burning of Moscow, the retreat of the French armies, had 
 all been gone through with. 
 
 And that simple, "untitled man," as his mother liked to call 
 his father, from the new nation across the seas, was in the 
 midst of the court to witness all its long trepidation and 
 anguish at the coming of the conqueror, its wild joy and ex- 
 ultation over his retreat. Before this had happened a conver- 
 sation had occurred between Mr. Adams and the Russian 
 Chancellor, Count Romanzoff, which throws a strong light upon 
 the character and career of Napoleon Bonaparte. Mr. Adams 
 relates the conversation in his diary. At the time it occurred, 
 Napoleon was at the zenith of his power and glory. The 
 Chancellor and the minister were sitting together on a sofa, 
 and over them hung a portrait of the French Emperor, — at 
 that time the most powerful man in the world, — " in all his im- 
 perial accouterments. " 
 
 Looking at this portrait, Mr. Adams remarked to the Chan- 
 cellor, " It was much to be wished that it were possible the wt'/l 
 of peace and tranquillity could be inspired into his heart. The 
 world might then enjoy a little peace." 
 
 " Count Romanzoff shook his head and said : ' No ; it is im- 
 possible. Tranquillity is not in his nature.' I can tell you in 
 confidence that he once told me so himself. I was speaking to 
 him about Spain and Portugal, and he said to me : 'I must 
 always be going. After the peace of Tilsit where could I go 
 but to Spain ? I went to Spain because I could not go any- 
 where else.' " 
 
John Qiiincy Adams. 159 
 
 " 'And this,' said the Count, 'was all that he had to say in 
 justification of his going into Spain and Portugal. And now 
 he may intend to turn against us from the very same want of 
 any other place where to go.' " 
 
 In a short time after this curious conversation occurred, 
 Napoleon had "turned against Russia," and the grand French 
 army lay buried under northern snows, while he reached the 
 end of his " going " at St. Helena. 
 
 The "last war" between England and America had mean- 
 while gone on its checkered way. The Americans had met 
 with serious disasters on land, but had won some signal naval 
 victories over their powerful foe. Both peoples were tired and 
 disgusted with the war. 
 
 On August 7, 1814, eight commissioners met in Ghent to. 
 negotiate a treaty of peace between the two countries. Five 
 of the party were Americans. One of these was John Quincy 
 Adams. 
 
 It is impossible to give more than a hasty glance at this 
 most interesting episode in American history. Some months 
 were consumed, for the most part, in angry bickerings. There 
 was a great deal of ill feeling, of arrogant bearing, and enor- 
 mous demand on the English side, met, on the American, by 
 rritating retort and obstinate temper. 
 
 But the altercations between the two parties were mildness 
 itself when compared with the Americans' dissensions among 
 themselves. Here they could give a loose rein to their feel- 
 ings, and their endless disputes over minor matters would have 
 been amusing had not such great issues been at stake. 
 
 On these, happily, the five commissioners were, in the main, 
 agreed ; and they were thus enabled to present a tolerably 
 united front to their opponents. 
 
 To each party the other probably seemed intolerably grasp- 
 ing and aggravating. Mr. Adams, with all his high spirit and 
 
i6o Our Presidents. 
 
 resolution, almost despaired at times of coming to any tolerable 
 agreement. He who never said what he did not mean, avowed 
 " that he would cheerfully give his life for a peace whose basis 
 should be the state of affairs before the war." 
 
 But at the last moment things brightened. Matters began 
 to look threatening between England, Russia and Prussia. In 
 this critical condition of things, Lord Castlereagli did not want 
 a war with America on his hands. The English commissioners 
 receded from the ground they had so stubbornly held. They 
 were officially advised to come to terms. The result was, 
 after the long verbal battle, the Treaty of Ghent. 
 
 America was jubilant over its provisions. What England 
 thought of them was perhaps expressed by the declaration of 
 the Marquis of Wellesley in the House of Lords. He declared 
 that, " in his opinion, the American commissioners had shown 
 a most astonishing superiority over the British during the whole 
 of the correspondence." 
 
 Mr. Adams certainly had a wonderful good fortune in wit- 
 nessing great historic events. After the Treaty of Ghent he 
 v.'ent to Paris. He was present at the return of Napoleon from 
 Elba. He beheld a great part of the scenes of the " hundred 
 days." 
 
 At this period he was joined by Mrs. Adams and her young 
 son. She had shown remarkable courage and self-command in 
 making the long journey from St. Petersburg to Paris. She 
 had encountered various perils, as her route lay through coun- 
 tries full of political tumult and preparing for fresh battles. 
 Her womanly heroism during this trying journey was the more 
 remarkable as her health was always delicate. 
 
 When Mr. Adams returned to London on May 26th, a com- 
 mission was awaiting him. He was appointed Envoy Extraor- 
 dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to England. Washington's 
 prophesy regarding young Adams was now fulfilled. He 
 
John Qiiincy A Jams. i6l 
 
 had reached "the highest rank in the American diplomatic 
 service." 
 
 He remained in England more than two years. He does 
 not seem, any more than his father before him, greatly to have 
 enjoyed his elevation. There was comparatively little to 
 occupy him. The Court of St. James was, throughout the 
 Georgian era, a rather chilling atmosphere for an American 
 minister. This one's meagre salary, too, was the source of 
 constant discomfort and annoyance. 
 
 When, on June 15, 1817, John Quincy Adams sailed from 
 Covves, he had closed his long and honorable diplomatic 
 career. He was still in the prime of life, close to his half 
 century. But when, that summer day, the English shores 
 faded from his sight, he had looked on them for the last time. 
 Henceforward his life-work was to be in his native land. He 
 returned now to a new post. He had been appointed Secretary 
 of State in the cabinet of James Monroe. 
 
 The patriotic soul of John Quincy Adams was profoundly 
 stirred by the aspect of the national capital. It must have 
 been an ugly, dreary, most uncomfortable residence for the first 
 three decades of its existence. What appearance it presented 
 to the new Secretary of State, after his long familiarity with the 
 splendid capitals of Europe, can best be told in his own words : 
 " It is impossible," he writes, " for me to describe to you my 
 feelings on entering this miserable desert, this scene of desola- 
 tion and horror. My anticipations were almost infinitely short 
 of the reality." 
 
 But the Secretary of State settled down to his work with 
 his inveterate doggedness. So far as domestic affairs were 
 concerned, Monroe's administration rolled its smooth course 
 almost to the end, when it was shaken by personal rival- 
 ries. The party animosities which had marked the opening; 
 years of the century disappeared after the Treaty of Ghent. 
 11 
 
1 62 Our Presidents. 
 
 Neither Federalists nor Republicans had now any great domes- 
 tic grievances or any widely divergent policies. With our 
 foreign relations it was different. There was the great problem 
 of South American independence and our own attitude toward 
 the revolted Colonies in the face of exasperated Spain and dis- 
 affected Europe; there were the burning questions of Florida, 
 of the Louisiana boundary, and of General Jackson's unparal- 
 leled proceedings on Spanish territory, all handling in their 
 settlement the most adroit handling, the most consummate 
 statesmanship. These momentous affairs fell within Mr. 
 Adams's department. 
 
 That was the day, too, of the Holy Alliance. There were 
 strong grounds for fear lest the members of that formidable 
 power should take it upon themselves to suppress the nascent 
 South American Republics. The monarchical and religious 
 prejudices of the Alliance would inevitably cause it to side 
 strongly with Spain against her former Colonies. 
 
 All the great European powers were, at this juncture, under- 
 going the conservative reaction which had followed the French 
 Revolution. Great historical events, among them the rising of 
 Greece, appealed strongly to the sympathies of America, and 
 were liable to produce demonstrations which might, in the sensi- 
 tive condition of the times, embroil us with foreign powers, 
 Mr. Adams had to guard rigidly against this possibility. He 
 took the ground and strenuously maintained it, that " America 
 should keep wholly out of European politics." Not even when 
 it came to entering into a league with England for the suppres- 
 sion of the slave-trade, would he yield an inch. 
 
 Then Mr. Adams had also to encounter the rivalries, the 
 jealousies, the enmities, of members of the cabinet or of congress. 
 This is not, of course, the place to enter into the history of the 
 intrigues of that time. They involved the intensest personal 
 rivalries and ambitions. 
 
John Qiiincy Adams. 163 
 
 Several of the most prominent and popular American states- 
 men were eager to succeed Monroe in the Presidency. It had 
 hitherto been the practice to award the high prize to the Secre- 
 tary of State. 
 
 This fact, no doubt, explains much of the bitter opposition 
 which John Quincy Adams encountered during the Monroe 
 administration. He bore it with invincible courage, but his 
 feelings were deeply pained and outraged. While his conduct 
 may have won the respect of his political rivals, it was not likely 
 to conciliate them. But Mr. Adams was seldom careful to 
 placate people. He had too inflexible a nature, too belligerent 
 a temper to court popularity. 
 
 He asserted that he should do " absolutely nothing " to 
 secure the Presidency. There was something morally sublime 
 in this position. He held to it through tremendous tempta- 
 tions, for he was not, like Washington, indifferent to the office. 
 
 But despite intrigues and machinations, despite the wide 
 popularity and miHtary fame of his strongest rival, the proud, 
 frigid, and rather repellent New Englander was elected Presi- 
 dent of the United States. 
 
 At his inauguration, March 4, 1825, he wore a black suit, 
 wholly of American manufacture. Washington had set that 
 example. 
 
 When the ceremony was over, his rival. General Jackson, 
 hastened to cordially greet the new President. One regrets to 
 add that this forms the last courtesy on record between the 
 two. 
 
 John Quincy Adams's administration opened with the close 
 of the first quarter of our century. The Republic, which had at 
 its birth so many new problems to face, and which had been so 
 vast an experiment on the part of the statesmen who organized 
 the government, had by this time won her place and her name 
 among the family of nations. 
 
164 Our Preside/its. 
 
 America was at peace with all the world. With her growing 
 strength and prosperity, she began to have a larger prescience 
 of the future that awaited her. Amid leisure and freedom she 
 could turn her attention to the development of her great inter- 
 nal resources. It was thirty-six years since the ship of state 
 first moved out on the untried seas. The waters, so stormy 
 then, Avere peaceful now,, and the pilot who stood at the helm 
 and looked out on the course with calm, watchful eyes, was 
 brave, experienced and tireless. 
 
 But though the promise was outv.-ardly so fair, the elements 
 of discord were secretly at Avork, almost from the moment of 
 Mr. Adams's installation. No stone was left unturned by his 
 political opponents to secure the next presidential election for 
 that impetuous western soldier who had such a hold of the 
 popular imagination. General Jackson's friends were shrewd, 
 keen, alert. They were versed in political strategy. They knew 
 how to handle the masses, to bend events to the accomplish- 
 ment of their plans. The man at the head of the nation, living 
 his simple, laborious life, rising before daj^break, " often kindling 
 his fire with his own hands," his greatest indulgence those long 
 swims in the Potomac which would have left many a stalwart 
 youth far behind, devoting the long hours of the day and much 
 of the night to strenuous labors, his thoughts intent on plans for 
 internal improvements, his mind occupied with the large prob- 
 lems of the statesman and patriot, had little time or taste for 
 entering into the lists v/ith his political opponents. 
 
 They had the field during these years to themselves. The 
 President certainly played into their hands. His enemies were 
 not magnanimous. Men seldom are in the heat of political 
 combat. The contest was largely a personal one. With the 
 kind of forces arrayed against him, Mr. Adams was placed at 
 singular disadvantage. But he would not conciliate a friend or 
 placate a foe to win a second term of presidency. This unbend- 
 
John Qiiiiuy Adams. 165 
 
 ing attitude did not liave its source in indifference, for he would 
 have found great satisfaction in the popular approval which 
 expressed itself in a re-election. 
 
 But he refused to emplo)'^ the least of the patronage at his 
 disposal to win a single vote. Such a resolve, such an attitude, 
 were worthy of the highest honor. 
 
 It seems a pity that a man so good and great should have 
 been so little understood, a double pity that much which was 
 frigid, brusque, forbidding, in his attitude, speech and manner, 
 should have explained, if it did not justify, the dislike which he 
 inspired. 
 
 Mr. Adams did not have a magnetic personality. He was 
 singularly lacking in those qualities which win a loyal and 
 devoted following. He often repelled those with whom he was 
 brought into social relations. They said he carried with him " the 
 chilling atmosphere of an iceberg. " When he did a kindly thing, 
 it was not oftenest with the grace that lent an added charm 
 to the deed. He certainly never adopted the king's maxim, 
 that "each man should retire happy from his presence." No 
 doubt many left the President soured, disappointed, repelled. 
 
 Yet, despite these blemishes, he must have been, with his 
 rare intellectual gifts, and his rich stores of information, a de- 
 lightful companion. It was a great pleasure to hear him con- 
 verse. Men of his own tastes, especially those who composed 
 his cabinet, greatly enjoyed his society, and honored the integ- 
 rity and purity of his character, 
 
 Mrs. Adams was a lady of imposing presence and agreeable 
 social manners. She presided with grace and dignity at the 
 White House, and her influence must have ameliorated the im- 
 pression made by her husband's coldness and reserve. 
 
 The passion and virulence of the campaign of 1828, repeated 
 in some of its aspects that of 1801. It closed with the election 
 of Andrew Jackson to the presidency. 
 
1 66 Our Presidents. 
 
 The younger Adams bore his disappointment — it must have 
 been a severe one — with more philosophy than the elder had 
 done. He acted his part with dignity in his successor's inaug- 
 ural, and returned to the ancestral home at Quincy. With his 
 passion for work, his dread of long leisures and the slow rust- 
 ing of mental faculties, he set about preparing a memoir of his 
 father, and also projected a history of the United States. The 
 man of sixty-two had at that time little prescience that the most 
 glorious part of his life was yet to come. 
 
 In 1830, when Plymouth district first proposed sending Mr. 
 Adams to Congress, it was feared lest an ex-President would 
 regard the office as too great a contrast with his former one. 
 This doubt was expressed to Mr. Adams. The high character 
 and true patriotism of the man showed themselves in his 
 reply : " No person could be degraded by serving the people in 
 Congress. Nor, in my opinion, would an ex-President of the 
 United States be degraded by serving as a selectman of his 
 town, if thereto elected." 
 
 The people of New England, or a large section of them, 
 always understood John Quincy Adams's real quality. The 
 Plymouth district sent him by a large vote to Congress, and 
 from that time until his death, he represented that region. 
 
 Here again, there is only opportunity for a glance at a career 
 and a figure whose moral grandeur has hardly been surpassed 
 by any in American history. 
 
 Yet it is not a picturesque figure ; it is that of a " short, 
 bald, elderly man, with strong, rugged features, and eyes more 
 or less inflamed." He had none of the graces of oratory, and 
 his high shrill voice had no rich, deep tones to allure the ear 
 and find their way to the heart. But with all these defects the 
 member from Massachusetts was sure to have a large, interested 
 audience when he spoke. 
 
 He took his seat in Congress in December, 1831. He had 
 
John Qiiimy Adams, 167 
 
 been elected by the " National Republican," soon to be known 
 as the " Whig Party." 
 
 He at once characteristically declared that " he would be 
 bound by no partisan connection, but would in every case act 
 independently. " 
 
 His position in the Twenty-second Congress was unprece- 
 dented. E\ ery member must have regarded the ex-President 
 with peculiar interest ; but he himself records that " he experi- 
 enced no annoyance on account of his descent in official life." 
 
 In a little while the nullification storm swept through Con- 
 gress. Mr. Adams took a most intrepid attitude at this crisis, 
 and maintained it through all the excitement. When the atmos- 
 phere cleared at last, it found him much disgusted with the con- 
 cessions which the government had made in the interests of peace. 
 
 Years before, Mr. Adams had proved himself one of Jack- 
 son's stanchest defenders. But the strongest antipathy, both 
 political and personal, now existed between the statesman and 
 the soldier. 
 
 But it was in his position regarding slavery that Mr. Adams 
 was to prove himself a very gladiator. This tremendous ques- 
 tion, coming to the front when the annexation of Texas began 
 to be talked of, aroused all the moral and intellectual forces of 
 the New Englander. 
 
 He brought to support his arguments, his vast stores of 
 knowledge, his ])itiless invective, his scathing satire, and more 
 than all these, his indomitable physical and moral courage. 
 
 To this portion of his career, so full of thrilling interest to 
 the biographer, a volume could do scant justice, while a few 
 lines must include all that can be said here. 
 
 The leader of that forlorn hope fronted everywhere immense 
 odds arrayed against him. They were in the halls of Congress ; 
 in the Boston that he loved; in the country that, giving 
 him herhighest honors, had never been fond of him. 
 
1 68 Our Presidents. 
 
 How gloriously he bore himself through those dozen years, 
 espousing the cause of the wronged and helpless in the face of 
 the proud and powerful ; what fiery opposition, what un- 
 bounded rage, he encountered, in that long, memorable crusade ; 
 what a great figure he makes standing in calm, solitary 
 grandeur, while the storms beat about him, must be left for an 
 ampler record than this. 
 
 It seemed as though he bore a charmed life. The burdens 
 he carried, the labors he went through, might well have ex- 
 hausted the strong brain and the steady pulses of youth : yet, 
 year after year, the old man, "with his shrill voice and his 
 shaking hand," was always at his post, always ready for the fray, 
 never coming out of it vanquished ! 
 
 The spectacle of these tireless labors, of this great ability, 
 of this flawless courage and spotless integrity, could not fail 
 to win the respect of his most exasperated enemies ; and that 
 he did exasperate them, often with deliberate intent, and almost 
 beyond the power of endurance, cannot be denied. 
 
 Yet this atmosphere of conflict stimulated all his mental and 
 moral energies as no softer one could have done. John Quincy 
 Adams was of the old Puritan strain. He had its moral hero- 
 ism, its devout temper, its invincible courage. One cannot read 
 of him without thinking of Oliver Cromwell and the breed of 
 heroes about him. 
 
 Their inmost spirit breathes in the words which Mr. Adams 
 wrote when surrounded by all the pomp and glory of the Rus- 
 sian court. '' It is in the midst of splendors and magnificence 
 that the heart needs most to be reminded of its vanities, and 
 that the aid of heaven is most earnestly to be invoked." 
 
 It was his habit too, amid all his varied, absorbing duties, to 
 read five chapters a day in the Bible. 
 
 Mr. Adams had, too, the deep, concentrated domestic af- 
 fections which were a part of the Puritan temperament. He 
 
John Qjtiiiiy Adams. 169 
 
 was a devoted husband and father, though he inclined, at le:ist 
 in theory, to that old ideal of parental authority which belonged 
 to a sterner generation. But he admits that Mrs. Adams did 
 not share his views in this respect. 
 
 Beneath all the coldness and reserve of the Puritan tempera- 
 ment lay deep springs of freshness and poetry in this man's nature. 
 They sometimes broke through all reserves, as they did on that 
 memorable occasion when Mr. Adams visited the Hague, in 
 June, 1 8 14, on his way to join the mission at Ghent. 
 
 He had been at the Hague in his early youth, and on his 
 return to the familiar scenes, the old vivid memories surprised 
 him into words full of the strongest emotion : 
 
 "It was a confusion of recollections so various, so tender, so 
 melancholy, so delicious, so painful ; a mixture so heterogeneous, 
 and yet altogether so sweet, that if I had been alone I am sure 
 I should have melted into tears." 
 
 Mr. Adams's health broke very slowly. He had begun a 
 diary, a mere boy in 1779. He made entries more or less fre- 
 quent until 1 795. At this time he set vigorously about the record 
 and wrote regularly during the rest of his life. 
 
 The diary, which forms a vivid portraiture of the man and 
 his times, contains a significant entry as early as March 25, 
 1844. " Physical disability must soon put a stop to this diary. " 
 
 He had then been at work on it half a century. He goes on 
 to speak of his " rising at four, of his smarting eyes and shak- 
 ing hands." 
 
 One crowning triumph still remained for him. " The in- 
 famous gag-rule which he had long fought in Congress was 
 suppressed." In recording this fact Mr. Adams breaks out into 
 a strain which reminds one of the solemn joy of the Psalmist: 
 
 " Blessed, forever blessed, be the name of God." 
 
 There were no signs of mental failure in the old man when 
 the paralysis struc khim in Boston, November 19, 1846. But the 
 
170 Our Presidents. 
 
 warrior would not lay off his armor. Three months later he 
 went to Washington, amid whose summer-heats he had spent 
 part of his waning strength. It is pleasant to write that when 
 he appeared on the scene of his many battles, all the members 
 rose together. Various kindly courtesies, which marked the 
 feeling of the House, were shown him. Afterward he was 
 punctually at his post, though he spoke only once. 
 
 The last words in his diary were written to his son, Charles 
 Adams, January i, 1848, and they have in them the ring of all 
 the writer's battling, triumphant years : 
 
 " A stout heart, a clear conscience, and never despair." 
 
 Mr. Adams was in his seat in Congress February 21, 1848. 
 " He rose on the floor, with a paper in his hand, to address the 
 Speaker, when he suddenly fell forward insensible. Paralysis 
 had seized him again. He was conveyed to the hall of the 
 rotunda, and then to the Speaker's room." 
 
 When he regained consciousness he said calmly, " This is 
 the end of earth." Then he added, " I am content." 
 
 His invalid wife and his family were summoned to his side. 
 But the long day's work was done. The time had come for rest. 
 On the evening of February 23d he died quietly. 
 
 They buried him under the portal of the church at Quincy, 
 beside his grand old father and his noble mother. 
 
cr^^^ / 
 
 -^ r /YJ-t^-r 
 
ANDREW JACKSON. 
 
 In October, 1788, there came a day which was full of ex- 
 citement and joy in the wild, beautiful valley of the Cumberland. 
 In Nashville, the small western settlement, at the back door of 
 civilization, the air was full of hospitality, of welcoming sounds 
 and happy greetings. For that day — just a hundred years ago, 
 you must remember — there rode out from the long, rough wil- 
 derness-trail a procession of emigrants, " nearly a liundred in 
 number." No wonder the little hamlet, with its cabins and 
 block-houses, went wild for joy over this reinforcement to its 
 scanty population. Nashville was only nine years old at that 
 time. The American pioneers had passed over the mighty walls 
 of the Cumberland mountains, and settled down on the site 
 which the French trappers and traders had deserted a little 
 while before. But the white man held that far frontier at his 
 peril. The wilderness all about him swarmed with savages — 
 the strongest and bravest of the half-conquered tribes. The 
 strife was deadly between the two races. Of course, the white 
 one was sure, in the long run, to win. But for years the settlers 
 made their clearings and reaped their harvest, with their tireless, 
 remorseless foe always on the alert. The terrible war-whoop 
 haunted their dreams. The days were tense with unceasing 
 watch and ward. Even the light, swift tread of wild creatures 
 in the woods thrilled the trained nerves of the settlers with 
 sudden fear. 
 
 All this happened in that old Nashville of a hundred years 
 ago, and yet, who knows ! It is just possible that somewhere 
 on the planet, a pair of eyes still peer out dimly on the day-light, 
 
1/2 Our Presidents. 
 
 which opened for the first time on that far away morning when 
 the tired cavalcade rode into Nashville ! 
 
 It had come with its guides, its women and its children, 
 from Jonesboro', a hundred and eighty-three miles to the east. 
 It was a wonder that one had lived to tell the tale. The dark, 
 lonely mountain-passes were haunted by hostile savages. The 
 utmost vigilance and courage had alone succeeded in bringing 
 the train over the long, perilous ways. 
 
 It brought stirring news to Nashville. The States, one after 
 another, had accepted the new Constitution, and the govern- 
 ment would now be organized, George Washington was certain 
 to be America's first President. One almost seems to hear, 
 across a century, the echo of the joyful shouts with which the 
 little pioneer settlement heard these tidings. 
 
 In the emigrant train rode a professional party which must 
 have attracted attention at once. It was composed of a clerk, 
 a judge, and several young lawyers. One of these was the 
 newly appointed solicitor, or public prosecutor, for the district. 
 He is the subject of this brief biography. 
 
 Andrew Jackson was twenty-two years old on that October 
 morning, when he rode into Nashville. He was born in Union 
 County, close to the boundary lines between the Provinces of 
 North and South Carolina, on March 15, 1767. All sad for- 
 tunes darkened about his birth. Before that happened, his 
 father had sickened and died suddenly. The family were still 
 strangers in the New World. They had been here only about 
 two years. They were of Scotch lineage from North Ireland. 
 No doubt poverty drove the little household across the seas 
 from Carrickfergus to Charleston. These people were sturdy 
 and honest. Radical whigs, stanch Presbyterians, they came 
 with relatives and neighbors to seek a larger foothold, to find a 
 fairer chance on the new continent — the father, Andrew Jack- 
 son, and his wife, Elizabeth, and their two little boys. They 
 
Andrew Jackson. 1 7' 
 
 did not lose any time at C'harleston. With true Scotch grit 
 they faced their fate at once, and set out for the Waxhavv settle- 
 ment, a hundred and sixty miles to the north-west, where they 
 would find many faces of their kindred and countrymen. Here, 
 on " Twelve Mile Creek," a branch of the Catawba, in the 
 midst of the pine wilderness, a clearing was made, a log-house 
 built. But in the spring of 1767, the rude home was deserted, 
 and the family never returned to it. Mrs. Jackson was a widow 
 and the boys were fatherless. 
 
 It was hard lines for that brave mother. She must have 
 greeted the birth of her last boy with fresh tears of her 
 widowhood. He was born under the roof of her sister's hus- 
 band, but Andrew was only three weeks old when his mother 
 carried him to the home of Mr. Crawford, another brother-in- 
 law, with whom she had come to America. He was a man of 
 some property. The widow was sure to be of service in his 
 large family, with his feeble wife. And these were the begin- 
 nings of Andrew Jackson. 
 
 After all, they were not the worst ones. A tender, devoted 
 mother watched over his childhood. No doubt he gave her 
 plenty of trouble and anxiety — rash, wild, headstrong, as he 
 must have been — generous, affectionate, lovable, too. For there 
 was to be in him all his life, two different natures, each so posi- 
 tive, powerful, insistent, that it seemed the whole of him when 
 it got the mastery. This made Andrew Jackson an insoluble 
 problem to many of his contemporaries. It has made him ever 
 since a puzzle to the world. He could not have failed to show 
 something of this double character even during the first decade 
 of his life. 
 
 In that old time, in that thinly-settled region, he had small 
 opportunities for study. Perhaps these were, however, about 
 equal to George Washington's. Andrew went to an " old field 
 school-house," and learned " to read, to write, to cast accounts." 
 
174 Our Presidents. 
 
 It is extremely doubtful whether any books or any tutors 
 could have made a scholar of him. His genius was one of 
 action. 
 
 At last the War of the Revolution broke into the Waxhaws. 
 Hugh Jackson, the eldest of the two brothers, and a mere strip- 
 ling, joined the militia, did his part in the Battle of Stono, and 
 died of exhaustion afterward. So the war came to Andrew's 
 heart before it was at his door. 
 
 On May 29, 1780, the terrible Tarleton, with his three hun- 
 dred horsemen, burst upon the militia in the Waxhaw settle- 
 ment. The details of the battle are too sickening to dwell on. 
 The militia, frightfully mangled, were carried to the old " log 
 meeting-house," where the women and boys, Mrs. Jackson and 
 her sons among the foremost, came to tend them. Here the 
 boy of thirteen had war in its most appalling form brought under 
 his keen, all-observant eyes. He never forgot those days ; 
 indeed, he had one of those tenacious natures which never forgot 
 anything that touched his heart or roused his passions. 
 
 And now havoc overran that fair world of tlie Carolinas. 
 Nowhere else did the Revolution take on so fierce, so brutal, so 
 fiendish a form. Men seemed to lose their manhood amid the 
 fierce passions and cruel deeds of the long strife on the wild 
 southern border. And a tall, yellow-complexioned, lank-vis- 
 aged boy, with fiery blue eyes, was in the midst of the dreadful 
 scenes. The iron entered his soul, and at last he took his part 
 in the work. On August 16, 1780, the defeat of General Gates 
 struck dismay and terror to the heart of the South. In the 
 early autumn all the inhabitants of the Waxhaws who were not 
 in the field, were again in panic-stricken flight, for news had 
 come of Cornwallis' advance with those British troops at whose 
 name every man, woman and child in the Carolinas had learned 
 to shudder. 
 
 Mrs. Jackson and her sons had to make their wild flight 
 
Andrew Jackson. i 75 
 
 with tlie others. Amid scenes like these Andrew Jackson's boy- 
 hood was nurtured. He was now at that formative period of 
 his life when impressions are most vivid and lasting. No doubt 
 the experiences of this time gave a permanent trend to his 
 character. One cannot wonder that his young, passionate soul 
 was fired with a deadly hatred of British soldiers. 
 
 A little incident perfectly illustrates the boy's temper at this 
 time. He had managed to " fasten the blade of a scythe to a 
 pole," and then he attacked the weeds about the house, and, as 
 he mowed them down with vindictive fury, he was overheard 
 crying out passionately : " Oh, if I were a man, how I would 
 sweep down the British with my grass-blade." 
 
 Before the war was over, his chance came. Neither Andrew 
 nor his brother enlisted in any corps, but " they joined some of 
 the small parties in the neighborhood, who rode about the coun- 
 try breathing vengeance on the foe." The young Jacksons had 
 all sorts of adventures, hardships and hair-breadth escapes. At 
 last a day came whicli must have made all their previous suffer- 
 ings seem light. After a night of peril and exposure in a thicket 
 where they had hidden, hunger drove the brothers in the morn- 
 ing to the nearest house. This belonged to their cousin, lieu- 
 tenant Crawford. They found his wife here with her young 
 children. The boys had crept cautiously inside. Nobody 
 dreamed of danger. But their hiding-place had been discovered. 
 In a little while a party of dragoons burst into the house. It 
 is difficult to realize the scene which followed. Yet it was not 
 an unusual one in that year of grace in the Carolinas. The 
 house was ravaged. The dragoons " dashed crockery, glass 
 and furniture to pieces, emptied beds, tore clothing to rags," 
 before the eyes of the scared, helpless mother and her children. 
 vShe looked on with her infant in her arms. The young Jack- 
 sons looked on, too, powerless to aid. But the younger was 
 laying up the memory of that hour in his soul, and years later, 
 
• 
 176 Our Presidents. 
 
 on another field, and in another war, he was to exact the bitter 
 price. 
 
 The brothers were at last mounted on horses and rode away 
 in the train of their captors. Each had been cruelly wounded 
 by the leader of the dragoons. It may not have been wise to 
 refuse, as they did, when he ordered them to clean his mud- 
 splashed boots, but they were prisoners of war, and the rude 
 command aroused all the resentment of their young, fiery, 
 Celtic blood. Andrew's head and hand were deeply gashed 
 by the sword of the infuriated officer. Then Robert's turn 
 had come. The blow on his head prostrated and disabled 
 him. 
 
 In this condition the two were mounted on stolen horses 
 and carried to Camden, forty miles away. Not a particle of 
 food, not a drop of water, relieved the sufferings of that long 
 ride. It appears incredible that their captors, who were men 
 and not fiends, would not allow the parched boys to scoop up 
 a little water when they forded the streams. 
 
 In the inclosure at Camden, greater misery, if possible, befell. 
 They had no beds ; their only food was a scanty supply of 
 bread ; their wounds went undressed. The small-pox made 
 its appearance among the two hundred and fifty prisoners of 
 war. The cup of Andrew's misery was full, when he was sepa- 
 rated from his brother, robbed of his jacket and his shoes. 
 
 At last a gleam of humanity steals across the black picture. 
 An officer of the guard, probably touched by Andrew's youth 
 and misery, condescended to talk with him. Then the boy, 
 with that passionate speech and manner, which was to exert 
 such an immense power over the hearts of men, poured out the 
 story of his wrongs and those of his fellow sufferers. The 
 officer was amazed and touched. He started an investigation 
 into the fare of the prisoners. The villainy of the contractors 
 v/as unearthed. These, and not the military authorities, were 
 
Andrew Jackson. i J 7 
 
 starving the prisoners. After the boy's talk the rations were 
 improved. " The prisoners had meat and better bread." 
 
 At last there was joy in the prison-pen, for General Greene 
 had come to their rescue. He drew up his brave little army, 
 twelve hundred strong, on an eminence, within a mile of Cam- 
 den, and waited for his cannon, which he had outstripped in his 
 rapid march. 
 
 For six days he waited on Hobkirk's Hill. For six days the 
 prisoners waited, too, full of intense, suppressed excitement. 
 Their fate hung upon the little army at Hobkirk's Hill. 
 
 At last the day of battle came. One only of the imprisoned 
 Americans witnessed it. This was Andrew Jackson. He had 
 secured an old razor blade, " with which he hacked out a knot 
 from the fence that had been recently erected on the summit of 
 the wall which surrounded the inclosure." 
 
 With his eyes at the knot-hole, the boy watched the scene. 
 The American army, confident of its strength, and not dreaming 
 of a surprise from the inferior British force, lay encamped on 
 Hobkirk's Hill. Lord Rawdon had planned his attack skillfully. 
 The boy, peering through the knot-hole, descried the danger. 
 He could not send across the intervening mile a warning shout 
 that the Redcoats were close at hand. He saw the first rush 
 upon the unguarded troops. Even then, unprepared as they 
 were, the horsemen made a gallant rally. They dashed into 
 the midst of their foes and almost carried the day. The 
 breathless crowd behind the boy at the knot-hole, listened to 
 his report of the battle. Their own fate hung upon it. Sud- 
 denly the joyous words of victory faltered and fell, as the 
 American fire slackened and receded. A little later " Greene 
 was in full retreat." 
 
 From that hour despair settled heavily upon the prisoners. 
 The young Jacksons sickened with the small-pox. Robert's 
 wound, never dre.ised, had not healed. But in that darkest 
 12 
 
178 Our Presidents. 
 
 hour help suddenly appeared. Mrs. Jackson had come from 
 her home at Waxhaw to the prison at Camden. The mother 
 must have pleaded passionately for her boys' release to the 
 Whig captain, who held numbers of British prisoners. Negotia- 
 tions were opened. At last an exchange was effected. It was 
 greatly to the advantage of the enemy. The British gave up 
 seven Americans for thirteen of their own soldiers. 
 
 The mother could hardly recognize her sons. Wasted with 
 hunger, wounds and disease, they came out of the Camden 
 prison-pen. Robert could not stand. There was nothing to be 
 done now but make the long, weary journey back to Waxhaw. 
 " Mrs. Jackson rode one horse, and Robert, too ill to keep his 
 seat, was held upon the other." Andrew, " bareheaded, bare- 
 footed, with no jacket," dragged himself over the wilderness 
 road. The party had almost reached Waxhaw when a cold rain 
 burst upon them. " The boys had reached that critical period 
 in small-pox when a chill usually proves fatal." In two days 
 Robert was dead, and Andrew was raving in delirium. The boy 
 fought his way slowly out of that long illness. When he was 
 convalescent a new purpose took possession of Mrs. Jackson's 
 heart. She had listened to the stories — Waxhaw was full of 
 them in the summer of 1781 — of the horrors in the Charleston 
 prison-ships. Other mothers, this one reflected, had sons there. 
 She with two other women made the heroic resolution to set out 
 together for the prison-ships and relieve, so far as was possible, 
 the sufferings inside them. 
 
 The three women started. They probably went on horse- 
 back ; they reached Charleston ; they gained admission to the 
 ships ; they brought stores from home, and tender messages and 
 woman's precious solace and courage to the languishing inmates. 
 But that splendid service cost Mrs. Jackson her life. She was 
 seized with the ship-fever. " She died at the house of a rela- 
 tive, ten miles from Charleston." Did she think in her last 
 
Andrew Jackson. 1 79 
 
 hours of that young boy she must leave fatherless, motherless, 
 homeless ? Were her dying moments gladdened with some pre- 
 science of the man he was to be ? 
 
 Andrew Jackson had not reached his fifteenth birthday when 
 he found himself alone in the world. The loss of his mother 
 must have been a terrible blow to him. During all his afterlife 
 he spoke of her with the utmost reverence and affection. He 
 missed that strong, tender influence about his young years. 
 Had it lasted longer it might have softened all his manhood. 
 
 The dearest wish of Mrs. Jackson's heart appears to have 
 been, that her youngest boy should become a Presbyterian 
 minister. Whether this wish was based on anything she saw or 
 fancied in his character, can never be known now. 
 
 But fate had another destiny in store for Andrew Jackson. 
 He must have had a hard time scrambling up into youth, left 
 as he was in extreme poverty. His health, too, had been 
 greatly shaken by his illness and his hardships. His relatives 
 do not appear to have been very helpful at this time. Whether 
 this was partly his fault, or whether the orphan boy was in their 
 eyes simply a "poor relation," is uncertain. Andrew was head- 
 strong and hot-tempered. He went some rather wild courses 
 which would have made his mother's heart ache. " He had gay 
 companions with whom he raced, gambled, and occasionally 
 drank." He was not above the influences of his time and envi- 
 ronment. Perhaps his poverty was, after all, his best friend, for 
 it did not admit of long or frequent dissipations. 
 
 No consuming desire for study at this time braced the will 
 and spurred the ambition of the boy from the Waxhaws. Yet 
 in the grip of that hard poverty he was probably conscious of 
 some vague, indefinable power and purpose. These may have 
 been at the bottom of some of his wild courses and had some- 
 thing to do with his young obstinacy and irascibility. 
 
 Andrew tried the saddler's trade ; he worked at it for six 
 
I So Our Presidents. 
 
 months, a low, malarious fever meanwhile hanging about him. 
 He visited Charleston after the British evacuated the city. 
 Here his young blood took fire. " He squandered his slender 
 means, got into debt, gambled, lost, and at the darkest moment 
 won a high wager, left the table, and from that moment never 
 played again." 
 
 There you have the stuff that was in him ! It came to his 
 rescue, as Andrew Jackson rode away from Charleston after 
 settling his debts. Perhaps some echo of his mother's voice 
 was in the air as he passed over the long still wilderness road. 
 Certainly he made up his mind that the last year had been 
 wasted, and that he must turn over a new leaf. 
 
 It was not a light resolve. Andrew Jackson never did any- 
 thing with half a will. His efforts at study, for he made some 
 at this time, were successful enough to encourage him to attempt 
 school-teaching. But he had not found his place. 
 
 After these trials and failures, he made up his mind to study 
 law. This was about two years after the memorable ride from 
 Charleston. He gathered his small means together, turned his 
 back on the Waxhaws, rode to Salisbury seventy miles away, 
 and entered a law office. This was just before he reached his 
 eighteenth birthday. 
 
 Young Jackson studied law here for the next two years. 
 But he was never a model student. The wild, rough games of 
 the age and the frontier, the horse-racing and the cock-fighting, 
 still attracted him. Probably his young associates were not 
 long in discovering how fierce his temper was, and how easily it 
 was roused. But they must have been conscious of a strong, 
 subtle attraction in this tall, thin-faced, reddish-haired young 
 man, with the fierce blaze in his deep blue eyes whenever he 
 was excited. They must have learned, too, that his word could be 
 trusted, that there was nothing mean, cowardly, false, about him. 
 
 About two years after he came to Salisbury, Andrew Jack- 
 
Andrew Jackson. l8l 
 
 son was licensed to practice. There was no chance for the 
 young lawyer in the old settlements. He sought a new field on 
 the frontier. He obtained the appointment of solicitor for a 
 vast district that lay far beyond the western wilderness. This 
 frontier, then Washington County, is now the State of Ten- 
 nessee. 
 
 This is the way it came about that Andrew Jackson rode 
 that October day of 1788, into Nashville. 
 
 He had found his place at last. On this new, vast, unex- 
 plored field his life really began. His immense energies, his 
 tenacious will, his strong character, Avere sure to make their 
 mark on the new life of the frontier. 
 
 And what a varied, picturesque and exciting life it was ! Its 
 story for the next few years would fill a volume, and it must be 
 dismissed here with a few lines. 
 
 Andrew Jackson became now, and continued for the rest of 
 his life, "the busiest of men." During the next seven years he 
 was in constant peril, as he rode from court to court through a 
 wilderness infested with hostile tribes. He never knew where 
 the ambushed savage lurked on his path ; he must always have 
 been listening for the sharp crack of the rifle. Yet his nerves 
 were a stranger to fear. 
 
 It was well that he had such an immense love for horses, he 
 was obliged to pass so much time on their backs. It was well 
 that his eyes were keen, his ears alert, in the wilderness, he had 
 to ride during so many days, to camp so many nights, in their 
 vast solitudes. 
 
 In a little while people began to find out that the new solici- 
 tor was no ordinary character. Everybody must have had de- 
 cided opinions about him. The shrewd, rough backwoodsmen 
 could not have been long in perceiving that young Jackson was 
 not to be trifled with. Resolute, tenacious, utterly fearless, 
 friend and foe alike knew where to find him. 
 
i82 Our Presidents. 
 
 Jackson's character, and all his early experience, as calcu- 
 lated to make him at home in the social atmosphere and amid 
 the rude life of the frontier. With his inveterate prejudices 
 and his fiery temper, he was extremely liable to get into dififi- 
 culties. In that day, in that place, there was but one way of 
 settling quarrels among men, and that was the old mediaeval 
 fashion of shooting one's antagonist, or being shot one's 
 self. 
 
 Perhaps Andrew Jackson did not enjoy a duel. Perhaps, 
 in his calmer moments, he would have admitted that it was a 
 barbarous custom for men to settle their quarrels by killing each 
 other ; but all the same, he was ready and eager to fight to the 
 death on what he regarded as sufficient provocation. His chal- 
 lenges and duels, if they form a dramatic, form, also, a dark 
 chapter in his history, and cannot be related here. Yet it is 
 only fair to add that he no doubt was thoroughly convinced 
 his antagonist was always in the wrong, that his victim always 
 deserved his fate. 
 
 Three years after young Jackson's arrival at Nashville, he 
 was married to Mrs. Rachel Robards. She was the daughter 
 of Colonel Donelson, the Virginia pioneer who, nine years before, 
 had brought his family, including his pretty daughter, from the 
 Virginia homestead to what was then the old French trading 
 outpost on the Cumberland. That long journey, made by boat- 
 ing on inland rivers, had been full of thrilling adventures, and 
 hair-breadth escapes, and had occupied more time than it now 
 takes to go around the world. Colonel Donelson, the most im- 
 portant man in the settlement, had been found in the woods 
 one day murdered by some cowardly assassin. His widow, left 
 in very comfortable circumstances, was living in the best house 
 which Nashville afforded, when the new solicitor appeared on 
 the scene. He must liave regarded it as a stroke of rare good 
 fortune when Mrs. Donelson consented to receive him as a 
 
Andrew Jackson. 183 
 
 boarder. Here he found a home. He probably had not known 
 one since his mother's death. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Robards were living with Mrs. Donclson. 
 Jackson could not fail to be attracted, as every one was, by the 
 S])rightly talk and pleasant ways of the young wife. Many as 
 were his faults, he always carried himself toward women with aa 
 ideal reverence and delicacy. He seemed — this man born and 
 bred on the rude Carolina frontier — to hold for all womankind, 
 something of that sacred feeling with which he cherished the 
 memory of his dead mother. By this time the *' black-eyed, 
 black-haired Rachel," who could dance and ride with much grace, 
 and had all the accomplishments which the frontier afforded, 
 had discovered that she made the saddest mistake of her life 
 when she gave her hand to the jealous and morose Kentuckian. 
 
 Jackson must have been a witness of the treatment which 
 Mrs. Robards underwent beneath her mother's roof. All his 
 chivalric feeling for woman was aroused in the young wife's 
 behalf, and the husband's strong jealousy soon flamed out. It 
 is not pleasant to dwell on this painful affair. The angry 
 husband left his wife for a time, and when his passionate tem- 
 per had a chance to cool, and he was about to return, she, the 
 gentlest and kindliest of women, resolved to brave all the dangers 
 of a journey through the wilderness to Natchez, rather than 
 live with him again. 
 
 The enraged husband now applied to the Virginia legisla- 
 ture for a divorce, and though his relatives warmly espoused 
 the cause of his wife, did his best to blacken her good name. 
 
 Jackson had returned to Nashville after seeing the little 
 party through the dangerous wilderness, and when he learned 
 that the divorce was granted, at once hastened to Natchez and 
 offered his hand to Mrs. Robards, and they were married. 
 
 The union, preceded by these painful circumstances, 
 proved a singularly happy one. Jackson's domestic qualities 
 
184 Our Presidents. 
 
 were a part of his attractive side. The iron-souled man who 
 could be so hard and remorseless, was always gentle and tender 
 in his home. So far as she herself was concerned, his wife 
 never heard an unkind word from his lips. 
 
 It must have been an unspeakable satisfaction to Andrew 
 Jackson, after his lonely, poverty-stricken youth, and his hand- 
 to-hand battle with fortune, to have a home of his own, and the 
 most devoted of wives to preside over it. 
 
 Across this happiness, however, swept, after two years, a 
 shadow. The Jacksons learned that they had wedded under 
 a mistake ! The Virginia court had not consummated the 
 divorce. It had been at last obtained in the Kentucky courts. 
 
 The news must have been a thunderbolt, especially to Mrs. 
 Jackson. Everything possible was done to mend matters. The 
 pair were promptly re-married. 
 
 This unfortunate affair, though it never clouded the do- 
 mestic atmosphere, was the source of much later unhappiness. 
 There was no subject on which, for the sake of the woman who 
 bore his name, Andrew Jackson was so sensitive. It was the 
 immediate cause of the most deadly animosities of his life. It 
 gave his prejudices a wrong trend. And when these were 
 appealed to, in cases which he fancied bore an analogy to his 
 own, he showed himself blind, obstinate and implacable. 
 
 Mrs. Jackson had to suffer very keenly when her husband 
 had become a great man, and his political opponents made the 
 most and worst of the circumstances of his marriage. 
 
 In June, 1796, Tennessee, after serious opposition, was ad- 
 mitted to the Union, and Andrew Jackson was elected to rep- 
 resent her in Congress. He was tv/enty-nine years of age at 
 that time. He mounted his best horse and set out upon a 
 journey of eight hundred miles to Philadelphia, the first Rep- 
 resentative of Tennessee in the Congress of the United States. 
 
 This was his " first visit to any center of civilization." The 
 
Andrew Jackson. 185 
 
 Representative of the now State was described by one who saw 
 iiiin at that time as " a tall, lank, uncouth looking personage, 
 wich long locks of liair hanging over his face, and a queue down 
 his back tied in an eel-skin." 
 
 But, however he may have been dressed, the new member 
 was not abashed by the presence of his accomplished colleagues. 
 He voted against the address which Congress had prepared for 
 General Washington at the close of his presidential career. The 
 young lawyer from the wilds of Tennessee would not be de- 
 terred from expressing his convictions by any great name, by 
 any splendid services. 
 
 He made a few speeches in Congress, in which he brought 
 forward certain claims of his State " growing out of Indian 
 wars " on her territory. He made the long journey home to 
 find his ])opularity enhanced, and in the following autumn Ten- 
 nessee sent him to the Senate. Pie had no opportunity to make 
 a record there. But he satisfied his constituents, who, when he 
 again returned to them, elected him " Judge of the Supreme 
 Court, with a salary of six hundred dollars a year." The Gov- 
 ernor had little more. 
 
 He was not yet thirty-two years old — Member of Congress, 
 Senator, Judge of the Supreme Court ! Certainly honors had 
 been heaped upon his young manhood. 
 
 Andrew Jackson's life, during the closing years of the eigh- 
 teenth century and the opening of the nineteenth, abounds with 
 many striking incidents whicli would have their place in a large 
 biography. The fierce feud with Governor Sevier, the terrible 
 duel v/ith Charles Dickinson, in which the latter lost his life, 
 belong to this period. 
 
 At this distance of time, in another age, and with another 
 code of morals and manners, it is difficult to conceive of the 
 flaming passions, and the stern, prompt retaliations of the old 
 South-Western border. 
 
1 86 Our Presidents. 
 
 Even in those stormy times, and among those fiery spirits, 
 Andrew Jackson was conspicuous for his fierce temper. But 
 he had then and always some rare personal power to draw out 
 and retain the affections of men. 
 
 At that time, in that place, probably nobody was surprised 
 when he resolved to combine his judgeship with store-keeping. 
 He bought goods in the Philadelphia market and transported 
 them by boats and wagons down the rivers and through the 
 wilderness. 
 
 For a while things went prosperously, but in 1797 the Bank 
 of England stopped payment. The effect of this reached even 
 to the store of the judge-merchant in the Cumberland Valley. 
 Jackson's property consisted largely in real estate, but he had 
 indorsed heavily for one of his acquaintances who failed at this 
 time. Jackson had to meet the notes, and this involved the sale 
 of his plantation at Hunter's Hill, thirteen miles below Nash- 
 ville. His honor was without a flaw. " He resigned his judge- 
 ship, paid off his debts, and removed to a place two miles dis- 
 tant which was called the Hermitage." It was to become a 
 historic name, although at the time he went there to live, there 
 was only a log-house upon the land. 
 
 But the business anxieties and troubles of this time made an 
 indelible impression upon Andrew Jackson. He conceived a 
 violent prejudice against "banks, banking and paper money." 
 He had faith only in " cash dealings and hard money," and cir- 
 cumstances were fated to make Andrew Jackson's opinion of 
 immense consequence for good or evil to millions of his fellow 
 creatures. 
 
 He now set up business " in a block-house at Clover Bot- 
 tom, seven miles above Nashville." Here the former Congress- 
 man and Judge displayed much business shrewdness and energy. 
 He won a reputation not only throughout Tennessee but in far 
 eastern cities for his ability and probity. 
 
Andrew Jackson. 187 
 
 For several years of the closing and opening centuries, 
 Andrew Jackson led his busy, restless, intense life, between 
 Clover Bottom and the Hermitage. Mrs. Jackson was the capa- 
 ble, hospitable mistress of the latter. The little, low-roofed 
 house overflowed with good cheer, and was always crowded 
 with guests. One fancies the owner sitting in the chimney- 
 corner, a tall, pale, thin man, kindly and patient with all 
 humble, helpless things, with weak women and little children, 
 yet with relentless will and volcanic passions pent up in him. 
 One wonders if Mrs. Jackson, that kindly-souled, soft-hearted 
 woman, ever stood in fear of him, or if the children of the large 
 Donelson connection did, as they sported and romped about 
 him. 
 
 Here Aaron Burr came two or three times to be a guest 
 at the Hermitage, and take all hearts captive with the indescrib- 
 able charm of his presence and manner. History has had a 
 good deal to say about those visits. 
 
 On June 12, 181 2, war was declared between the United 
 States and England. The news reached Nashville, and Jack- 
 son, who in 1 80 1 had been appointed Major-general of the Ten- 
 nessee militia, promptly offered his services and those of twenty- 
 five hundred volunteers of his division to the Government. His 
 hour had struck now. 
 
 The offer was accepted, though Madison's administration 
 had an account against him in the Aaron Burr business. 
 
 Jackson showed his mettle at once. It was severely tried at 
 the beginning of the campaign. The General and his small 
 army burned to atone by Southern conquests for the disasters 
 which the Americans had encountered at the North. But he 
 was hampered and defeated on all sides by the authorities at 
 Washington. 
 
 His forces marched, full of ardor, to Natchez. Here he 
 was thunderstruck at receiving an order to disband his troops. 
 
Our Presidents. 
 
 The lion was roused now ; he had ample provocation. Jack- 
 son resolved on the spot that no human power should force him 
 to disband the brave troops v/ho had marched with him through 
 the wilderness. 
 
 The men " were without pay, without means of transport, 
 without provision for the sick." 
 
 The General took upon himself all the responsibilities of the 
 march home. The experiences of that time had fruitful results. 
 Jackson learned to take matters into his own hands and to act, 
 when the pinch came, utterly regardless of orders from his 
 superiors. 
 
 During the return the soldiers also learned to know their 
 General. Many of them had been reluctant to enter the service 
 under him. He had the reputation in Nashville of a fierce, 
 hard, passionate man. The high-spirited volunteers dreaded 
 the outbreaks of that terrible temper. They discovered now 
 how generous, how thoughtful, how patient, their commander 
 could be. He understood by instinct how to manage those 
 fiery spirits, to rouse their enthusiasm, to win their love. 
 
 During this march Jackson earned the name of " Old 
 Hickory." Every soldier's instinct seized this homely appella- 
 tion, which was one of those nicknames that go straight as an 
 arrow to the mark. It clung to Andrew Jackson for the rest of 
 his life. It was worth more to him than any victorious laurels. 
 
 Jackson's conduct was highly applauded at Nashville, and 
 the Government was at last forced to approve it. 
 
 The affair with the Benton s followed soon after. At the 
 beginning Jackson showed remarkable forbearance ; but under 
 continued provocation, his temper burst all bounds, and the old 
 friendship went down in the feud. Those who desire can read 
 elsewhere the details of the miserable duel, and apportion the 
 blame of the different actors. 
 
 It was Jessie Benton's pi.stol which shattered the General's 
 
Andreiv Jackson. 189 
 
 arm. The surgeons, all but one, decided that it must be 
 amputated. 
 
 " I'll keep my arm," said the sufferer, in his grim, resolute 
 fashion, as he lay utterly prostrated with his lacerated shoulder 
 and his loss of blood. He kept his ann and the ball remained 
 in it twenty years. 
 
 The tidings of the massacre at Fort Minis spread through 
 the Northern country at the very moment when America was 
 holding its breath over the news from Europe and the dark 
 close of Napoleon's day. 
 
 White men, women and children had been tortured, 
 butchered, scalped, on the last day but one of that old summer 
 of 1813. The fort, "a strong stockade of two enclosures, at 
 the junction of the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers," had been 
 surprised by the Creeks. A terrible struggle ensued ; but when 
 that August day's work was done, " four hundred corpses lay 
 in the wooden fort." 
 
 Andrew Jackson, lying on his sick bed at Nashville, learned 
 the horrible story. The pain with which he rose, the weakness 
 and agony amid which he set out for the field, form a part of 
 the history of that invincible will. 
 
 All this suffering, too, he must have bitterly remembered, 
 was the price of his own folly. 
 
 For a while all went well with the troops, as they marched 
 through the pleasant autumn weather. But after a time the 
 General's stout heart began to quail. " He did not fear the 
 Creeks, but he feared starvation." There were all sorts of 
 delays in forwarding provisions through the wild, half explored 
 country. Jackson suffered agonies of anxiety. But he would 
 not return. He faced the terrible specter of famine as he kept 
 on with his scant supplies, until his troops reached the banks of 
 the Coosa. Here a battle betv/een the v/hites and the Creeks 
 was fought. Two hundred Indians were killed. The women 
 
19^ Our Presidents. 
 
 and children were brought to the General's camp. Among 
 these prisoners of war was an infant found in the arms of its 
 dead mother. The squaws refused to suckle the child. Jack- 
 son gazed on it. The stern, tender heart was touched. He 
 must have remembered his own lonely, orphaned boyhood. 
 There was a little brown sugar among the scant stores of the 
 General's tent : he mixed this with water, fed the child and 
 saved his life. It was afterwards taken to the Hermitage and 
 the " squaw's baby " was brought up like a son under the roof 
 of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson. 
 
 And the man who did this for the wild Indian child, could 
 be as hard and pitiless as fate ! He was that when he replied 
 at Fort Strother, the fortified camp on the Coosa, to all appeals 
 to spare poor young Wood's life : " I am sorry for his parents, 
 but the boy is a mutineer and must die." 
 
 The details of this sad tragedy cannot be fully related. 
 When it happened, John Wood v.^as not yet eighteen ; he had 
 been only a month in service ; he knew nothing of military life. 
 One cold, rainy, winter morning he was on guard. " Wet, 
 chilled, hungry, he obtained permission to go to his tent for a 
 blanket." While he was hastily devouring his breakfast, he was 
 shamefully insulted by one of the officers. Seventeen is not a 
 wise age. John's hot temper leaped out in speech and act. 
 
 The General came, in one of his bhnd rages, upon the 
 scene. The boy, at his orders, was put in irons. A little later 
 poor John Wood, " who knew nothing of military life, who had 
 been but a month in service," was tried for mutiny. " Sitting 
 upon a log in the forest, he was condemned to die." 
 
 The General was inexorable. The boy was executed in 
 presence of the whole army. 
 
 This injustice forms one of the darkest pages in Andrew 
 Jackson's history. 
 
 No doubt he said to himself that a stern example was 
 
Andrew Jackson. 1 91 
 
 needed. His soul had been vexed, liis patience exhausted by 
 frequent mutiny among the troops. It was not surprising. 
 The unused soldiers were homesick and starving in the wild 
 Indian country. At one time their rations consisted "of a few 
 crackers taken from the sick stores." Tlirough some mistake 
 not one was left for the General and his staff. They were 
 forced to repair to the slaughter-house to appease their hunger 
 with the refuse. Jackson turned the affair into a joke. Such 
 a man has in him the stuff of a born commander. 
 
 But despite all his popularity and the force of his example, 
 hunger and homesickness proved mightier. The men at last 
 came to a fixed resolve to defy their General, turn their backs 
 on him and start for home. Their misery made them desperate ; 
 their term of service had nearly expired. But the fate of the 
 southern country hung in the balance. 
 
 General Jackson tried arguments, entreaties, promises. 
 Stirring scenes took place between the irate commander and his 
 mutinous troops. At one critical moment, when a brigade was 
 on the point of departing, the exasperated General, resolved to 
 conquer or die in the attempt, caught up a musket and rode 
 before the columns. The tall, erect figure, the white, deter- 
 mined face, the blazing eyes, the wounded arm in a sling, 
 formed a picture which those who saw it could never forget. 
 The brigade stood still in mute, sullen rebellion. The General 
 swore he would shoot down the first man who dared to move. 
 Every soldier knew he would keep his word. 
 
 The mutiny was quelled ; but the fire only smoldered. 
 
 Despite his severity, Jackson's pity for his men was con- 
 stantly coming to the surface in some characteristic speech or 
 deed. 
 
 On one occasion a starving soldier approached the General, 
 begging for food. 
 
 " I will divide with you my own," he replied, and drawing a 
 
19^ Our Presidents. 
 
 few acorns from his pocket, he presented them to the man, 
 sayhig, " That is all I have." 
 
 The fight at Fort Strother ended in a swift victory for the 
 whites. Afterward the troops marched fifty miles to the 
 " Horseshoe Bend " of the Tallapoosa. Here the Creek war- 
 riors, assembled in force, believed their position impregnable. 
 This battle was the most important one of the Indian cam- 
 paign. It raged from ten in the morning until dark, and when 
 it closed " the Indians had been conquered in North America." 
 The long feud between the white and red man virtually came 
 to an end when Andrew Jackson led his victorious troops from 
 Fort Tohopeka. 
 
 A little later the victor returned home. Nashville received 
 him with triumph. The whole South was Avild with joy over 
 its deliverance from the savages. It was full of gratitude 
 toward Jackson. All his severities were forgotten. 
 
 During the summer of 1814 vague rumors of British troops 
 in Florida, the Spanish province, and of a contemplated 
 British descent on New Orleans, began to fill the air. They 
 reached the ears of the victor, who was resting and recruiting 
 his shattered health at the Hermitage. Alarm and dread took 
 the place of the recent joy and security, and from all the South- 
 West men's thoughts and hopes turned to the General who had 
 just won such laurels in the Indian campaign. 
 
 In May, 1814, Jackson's great services were rewarded "by 
 his promotion to the rank of Major-General in the United 
 States army, with a salary of over six thousand dollars. For 
 those times he was a rich man." 
 
 The fate of the Spanish territory was really sealed v/hen 
 Andrew Jackson, whose deeds always followed fast upon his 
 words, made up his mind that " Florida must be ours." 
 
 He did not, of course, venture to avow this opinion openly. 
 We were at peace, at least nominally, with Spain. Even 
 
Andrew Jackson. 193 
 
 Jackson did not dare at first to assume the responsibility of 
 marching a hostile army upon her territories. " But the resi- 
 due of the Creek tribe had taken refuge within her borders, and 
 a British force had landed on lier coasts." Tliere could be no 
 doubt that the latter intended an attack on the weak defenses 
 in the Southern States. Of course the savages would join the 
 enemy. Jackson's patriotic soul burned at the thought. He 
 longed to make a descent with his militia upon Pensacola, and 
 sweep the British shipping from her noble bay. But bold as he 
 was, he would not proceed to these extreme measures without 
 orders from the government. 
 
 Meanwhile, as he fumed and waited reluctantly, the British 
 gave him his chance. The defense of Mobile forms another 
 stirring chapter in the history of this time. It can only claim 
 a sentence or two here. The great drama of the autumn that 
 was to be so famous in American annals, opens with the rapid 
 march of two thousand Tennessee troops to Mobile. The 
 enemy had decided to strike their first blow at that point. 
 Jackson threw a small garrison into Fort Bowyer's walls which 
 were falling to ruins. A British fleet from Pensacola appeared 
 off the shore. Sailors and Indians were landed a few miles 
 from the fort. The Tennessee troops had not made their 
 forced marches of four hundred miles through the wilderness 
 an hour too soon. 
 
 Hot work soon ensued between the fleet and the gallant 
 little garrison. The fleet poured its broadsides into the old, 
 tumble-down fore. The latter answered by its steady cannonade. 
 The issue for a long time seemed doubtful. But at last, the 
 Hermes, one of the four ships of war, " her cable cut, raked 
 from bow to stern by the hail of shot," ran aground. This was 
 the last of the Hermes. The captain removed his crew and 
 set fire to the vessel. 
 
 The dark night, the sea, the fleet, and the coast line were 
 13 
 
• 
 194 Our Presidents. 
 
 splendidly illuminated by the burning ship. The rest of the 
 vessels weighed anchor and disappeared. The land force 
 of marines and Indians vanished in the night silently as 
 specters. 
 
 In the morning the little garrison poured out from the 
 miserable defenses. Their losses amounted to only four dead 
 and four wounded. At Mobile, General Jackson had a day 
 of agonizing suspense. The first tidings announced the 
 defeat of the garrison. He was mustering his troops to repair 
 to the scene of action and retrieve the day, when a courier 
 dashed in with the glorious news. 
 
 So on Mobile Point the campaign had opened for Andrew 
 Jackson with victory. 
 
 On November 3, 1814, General Jackson set out for the old 
 Spanish town of Pensacola, with its fine harbor, on the Gulf of 
 Mexico. He had three thousand troops. They carried no 
 baggage. Three days later they halted within a mile and a half 
 of the town. Jackson had acted without orders from his govern- 
 ment. But he evidently did not entertain a doubt that it would 
 sustain him. 
 
 In his first message to the Governor, he disavowed any hostile 
 intent on Spanish subjects or Spanish property. His aim, he 
 declared, was directed solely against the enemies of the United 
 States. These, the British and their Indian allies, were shel- 
 tered in the forts. He therefore demanded their surrender, 
 " but he also pledged his honor to restore the forts as soon as 
 the danger Avas over." 
 
 This unparalleled challenge to a foreign power with which 
 the United States was at peace, received at first no reply. Mau- 
 requez, the Spanish governor, was simply thunderstruck by its 
 audacity. His sympathies, no doubt, were with the British and 
 the savages. But the enemy, strong in numbers, and flushed 
 with recent victory, was at his gates. He consulted with his 
 
Andrew Jackson. 195 
 
 officers. At last he brought himself to the point of replying, 
 " Governor Maurequez could not accede to General Jackson's 
 request." 
 
 The night was far advanced when the messenger returned 
 with this answer. 
 
 " Turn out the troops." That was all General Jackson's 
 comment. 
 
 Wild consternation filled the old Spanish town of Pensacola 
 on the morning of November 7, 1814. The American forces 
 had stonned the place ; they had entered the town ; they had 
 already carried two batteries, when the distracted Governor, 
 throwing to the winds all his stately old Spanish dignity, rushed 
 into the streets bearing a white flag. 
 
 A little later the Governor and the General stood face to 
 face. The town was at the mercy of the latter, and the Span- 
 iard had to agree to the terms of the imperious American. He 
 engaged that tlie forts should be surrendered. 
 
 All this time seven British men-of-war lay in the bay. But 
 the Americans had entered the town by a route least exposed 
 to a cannonade. 
 
 Though the town was Jackson's by the end of that brief 
 autumn day, there was naturally some delay in surrendering the 
 forts. 
 
 During the night a frightful explosion aroused the inhabit- 
 ants of Pensacola. When the morning broke Fort Barrancas 
 was a heap of ruins, and the British fleet had disappeared from 
 the harbor. 
 
 Andrew Jackson had won his second victory ! 
 
 There was no time to waste at Pensacola. The army re- 
 turned to Mobile without the loss of a single man. But Jack- 
 son was bitterly disappointed at the escape of the fleet, which 
 he feared might sail for Mobile. It never seems to have 
 entered his mind that his unwarrantable proceedings on foreign 
 
196 Our Presidents. 
 
 territory could possibly be disavowed by his government or be 
 questioned by a single American. 
 
 Andrew Jackson reached New Orleans early in December, 
 1814. He had waited ten days in Mobile for the English fleet. 
 Once assured that the town was safe, he had turned all his 
 thoughts and energies to the defense of the great southern me- 
 tropolis. He had been more than a week on the journey, riding 
 seventeen miles a day over the wretched roads. Gaunt, yellow, 
 shaken by long illness, as he rode with his staff, it must have 
 seemed almost as though a dying man had come at last to the 
 rescue of the city. 
 
 The great work of Jackson's life now lay before him. The 
 defense of New Orleans forms another tempting chapter to his 
 biographer, but a volume can alone do it justice. When Andrew 
 Jackson entered the city in that autumn of 1814, he was a com- 
 paratively unknown man. Before the winter had closed he was 
 the hero of the nation ; he had proved himself one of the world's 
 great military geniuses. 
 
 He found New Orleans indolent, supine, with little idea of 
 the danger that was menacing her, and incapable of any effort 
 to oppose it. Bitter local animosities divided her leaders. " Her 
 inhabitants, composed of various peoples, had small confidence 
 in each other." 
 
 With Jackson's appearance on the scene all was changed. 
 The born leader had found his hour, had come to his place. 
 Worn with his long travel and his chronic illness, he went 
 straight at the work before him ; he infused his own energy, 
 promptness, decision, into the helpless, bev/ildered city. There 
 v/ere no more halting counsels, no more dallying, half-hearted 
 measures. The master was at hand to organize, discipline, in- 
 spire. It was all done like magic. Hope, courage, patriot- 
 ism, succeeded the old indecision, perplexity and helpless 
 panic. 
 
Andrew Jackson. I97 
 
 Andrew Jackson believed — he somehow made tlie city of 
 New Orleans believe — that, despite its immense disadvantages, 
 its scant preparation, its small forces, it would sweep back the 
 British fleet when the hour of trial came into the Gulf of 
 Mexico. 
 
 Meanwhile the great fleet was coming, with its " fifty ships, 
 its thousand guns, and nearly twenty thousand men." 
 
 Its officers were the flower of the British army. Victory 
 was with them a foregone conclusion. They came fresh from 
 the great battle fields of Europe, from the long wars of the 
 Peninsula, from the glory of Waterloo ! That vast armament 
 felt so certain of victory ! Its officers, its rank and file, and its 
 sailors, regarded the foe with a supreme contempt. No doubt 
 they felt it would be a mere play at war to end the contest be- 
 tween Great Britain and America by taking that low-lying, marsh- 
 girdled, half-defenseless city of New Orleans. 
 
 And all that great armament had to reckon witli was one 
 man worn with pain almost to a skeleton, with stern, fierce eyes 
 blazing out of his haggard, sallow face ! The mere facts read 
 like the wildest romance. 
 
 From the Island of Jamaica, over the tropical seas, through 
 the soft autumn weather, the great fleet came ! 
 
 At Lake Borgne a struggle took place with the few American 
 gun-boats which gallantly disputed the passage of the enemy. 
 The engagement ended in an easy triumph for the British. A 
 little later, the army had landed safely on American soil, and 
 had taken up its march toward the city before New Orleans 
 dreamed of its approach. 
 
 A little after noonday, December 23, 1814, General Jackson, 
 at headquarters, learned the tremendous news. The enemy 
 had come to a brief halt on a plantation nine miles below the 
 city. The son of the owner had been captured. He managed 
 to escape, mounted his horse, and spurred for New Orleans. 
 
iqS Our Presidents. 
 
 The General listened calmly to the news. When he had learned 
 the truth he turned quietly to his staff and said : 
 
 " GerMemen, the British are beloxv. We must fight them 
 to- flight." 
 
 And he did ! 
 
 At four o'clock in the afternoon, just as the short Avinter day 
 was growing into twilight, General Jackson watched from the 
 gates of Fort St. George, the sloop-of-war Carolina weigh 
 anchor and drop down the river. Then he took the road where 
 the troops had passed to meet the enemy. He left the silent, 
 lonely city behind him, with the scared women, the old people, 
 and the helpless children. 
 
 There was a dim moon that night. The American army 
 went silently to meet its foe. It had one immense advantage ; 
 it knew the "lay of the ground." 
 
 The British watch-fires at last came in sight. They illumi- 
 nated the landscape, so that the Americans could keep their 
 own way and see the enemy perfectly. The Carolina, " anchored 
 close in shore opposite the British camp, was to give the signal 
 of attack. At half-past seven the first gun was fired." 
 
 Then the ship's broadsides poured over the low, wet Delta 
 where the British were encamped. 
 
 The confused, desultory fighting between the two armies on 
 that winter night, lasted for about an hour and a half. All the 
 time the Carolina poured broadsides into the darkness, not 
 knowing whether her fire even reached the enemy. 
 
 The Southern night was chill and dark, and the Americans 
 thought it prudent to retire from action and await the morning. 
 But when the dawn broke and the fog slowly lifted, New 
 Orleans, listening breathless for every sound of the distant bat- 
 tle, knew she was saved for that tim.e. The Carolina had done 
 deadly work in the British ranks. The advance had been 
 checked. 
 
Andrew Jackson. 1 99 
 
 By daylight, General Jackson, with his iron energy, set his 
 army at tlie work of heaping up his famous intrenchments. along 
 the old Rodriguez Canal in the soft, wet soil of tlie Mississippi 
 Delta. "The works were a mile long by sunset." Everybody 
 had a share in the work. Hard hands and soft vied with each 
 other in " digging the mud and planting the stakes." General 
 Jackson seemed to be omnipresent. For three days and three 
 nights the frail, gaunt body which held that imperious soul took 
 no rest. The scant food he allowed himself was eaten mostly 
 on horseback. 
 
 On that December 24, 1814, while the Louisianians were 
 building their intrenchments, and a little way off the great Brit- 
 ish army, encamped on the low Delta, was watching the move- 
 ments of the busy, swarming enemy, the Treaty was signed at 
 Ghent at twelve o'clock which made peace between England 
 and the United States. 
 
 But it would be weeks before the tidings could cross the 
 stormy winter seas, and meanwhile brave men in both armies 
 must keep at their work of spoiling and killing each other on 
 the banks of the Mississippi ! 
 
 On Christmas morning there was wild rejoicing in the Brit- 
 ish camp. The great army, so used to victory, had been sur- 
 prised and perplexed by the movements of the enemy. Its high 
 confidence in easy victory had been a good deal shaken by the 
 check it had received in its first engagement with the Americans. 
 
 But on C-hristmas morning, General Packenham had appeared 
 to take command of the army. This was the secret of tlie 
 rejoicings. He was the brother-in-law of the Duke of Welling- 
 ton. This name, which was a synonym for glory and victory, 
 and which thrilled every British soldier's heart, invested the 
 brother-in-law with a borrowed halo. Yet General Packenham 
 had had a brilliant military career. He had proved himself a 
 brave officer and was distinguished for his humanity. 
 
200 Our Presidents. 
 
 This brother-in-law of the great Duke, whose arrival inspired 
 such fresh hope In the British army, looked over the situation 
 and came to his first resolve. This was to blow up the schooner 
 Carolina, which had made such havoc in the ranks during the 
 late advance. 
 
 The work was done on the morning of December 27th. 
 The little sloop was soon struck by the terrible cannonade 
 that opened on her. She took fire ; her crew were compelled 
 to abandon her. There was a fearful explosion, a mighty cheer 
 from the British ranks, a shiver of terror at the heart of New 
 Orleans, and the Carolina had disappeared. But she was 
 henceforth to have her place in every history of the battle of 
 New Orleans. 
 
 The next day General Packenham "ordered a grand recon- 
 noissance." The advance was made this time in the superb 
 manner in v/hich British veterans always moved to battle. Such 
 a sight had never been witnessed on Louisiana soil. The 
 American army, composed of untrained militia, gazed on the 
 magnificent spectacle, half spell-bound with admiring wonder. 
 The morning, after days of chill and gloom, was lovely with 
 the loveliness of the Southern winter. The burnished arms, 
 the red and gray, the green and tartan uniforms, glittered in the 
 sunlight. 
 
 But a man with gaunt, stern face and eyes that blazed like 
 fire, was waiting for this splendid foe. Another engagement 
 followed, short and sharp. The Americans had the advantage 
 of position. They were perfect marksmen. Under their firing 
 " the British ranks at last broke in panic, retreated, hid them- 
 selves. Their loss was nearly two-thirds more than that of the 
 Americans." 
 
 Another advance took place on New Year's Day, 181 5, and 
 took the Americans by surprise. The lifting of a heavy fog 
 showed tlic enemy only three hundred yards distant. The 
 
Andrew Jackson. 201 
 
 firing, which at once began, made " confusion, disorder, broken 
 ranks among the Americans." 
 
 General Jackson first learned the condition of affairs by the 
 crashing of balls around his headquarters. The British had 
 discovered these and were cannonading them. In a moment 
 the General was on the ground, animating the soldiers by his 
 words and presence and seeing and directing everything. 
 
 " Let her off ! " 
 
 With this order of Jackson's, spoken quietly, the firing from 
 the American battery began. The engagement continued furi- 
 ously for an hour and a half. When it ceased about noon and 
 the smoke lifted, it showed the British batteries, which had 
 seemed so formidable, and were in reality so slight, utterly 
 demolished. The veterans had been scattered by the terrible 
 firing. Every mound, every knoll, every slight hollow on the 
 plain where the columns had stood in battle array, now shel- 
 tered brave but demoralized men. The shouts from the Ameri- 
 can lines shook the welkin. 
 
 But these several actions between the two armies were only 
 the opening skirmishes of that great engagement which was to 
 close the battle of New Orleans. 
 
 General Packenham at last made up his mind to carry the 
 American lines by storm. It must have seemed to his army of 
 brave veterans that the stars fought against them. But they 
 labored under the disadvantage of being on strange ground. 
 The American methods of warfare were not in accordance with 
 the military tactics of European battle-fields. The English 
 soldiers had been devoured by impatience and chagrin at these 
 weeks of long inaction, varied by miserable defeats. Their 
 wrath was greater, because they held their enemy in contempt. 
 It must have been a galling reflection to the veterans of the 
 Peninsula and of Waterloo, that the untrained militia of the 
 American Border held them at bay. The English army had 
 
202 Our Presidents. 
 
 confidently expected to keep Christmas in New Orleans, and it 
 was still encamped on the black soil of the Delta. 
 
 General Packenham's plan was a simple one. It was to 
 divide his army, recently reinforced by two regiments from 
 England, " to send part across the Mississippi, to seize the 
 enemy's guns and turn them on themselves. At the same time, 
 he intended to make a general assault along the whole line of 
 intrenchments." 
 
 It was a little after one o'clock on the morning of January 
 8th, 1815, when General Jackson called to his aids, who v/ere 
 sleeping on the floor at headquarters : " Gentlemen, we have 
 slept enough. Rise ! The enemy will be upon us in a few 
 minutes." 
 
 About thirty hours before, he had caught his first inkling 
 of the British General's new plan. He was soon satisfied that 
 the next engagement between the two armies would take place 
 simultaneously on both sides of the Mississippi. 
 
 So, on that day of days in Andrew Jackson's life, he roused 
 his staff at one o'clock. By four every man in the American 
 lines was at his post. The daylight slowly penetrated the thick, 
 gray fogs. After watching intently for about two hours, the 
 Americans caught a faint red glow through the mist. It was 
 the advancing Redcoats. They came forward in solid columns, 
 in superb array. Even at this remote time one cannot think of 
 ail those brave men in the midst of whom marched the regiment 
 of " praying Highlanders " — men with the very temper of Oliver 
 Cromwell's soldiers when they charged at Marston Moor — one 
 cannot think of them, moving steadily up to the swift, certain 
 death, without a pang. 
 
 The Americans awaited, silent and grim, that splendid 
 advance. Those untrained frontier militia were the best marks- 
 men in the world. When the signal came, the rifles poured out 
 their sudden fire. Like sheets of deadly lightning it plowed 
 
Andrew Jackson. 203 
 
 and leveled the British columns. The swift, steady slaughter 
 shook even the trained nerves of the veterans. When the ranks 
 were once broken, it was impossible to re-form and advance 
 under " that hail of musket-balls, powder and grape-shot." Now 
 the fog had cleared, the vast scarlet masses afforded a jjcrfect 
 target to the Americans. The British, in their amazement and 
 confusion, behaved as if they were under a fate, like the actors 
 in some ancient drama. They stood helpless, while the sheets 
 of fire mowed them down. 
 
 Throughout the battle the ofificers did their best to rally the 
 troops and lead them into fresh action. But nothing human 
 could stand that fire. In a little while the carnage among the 
 officers was frightful. General Packenham was killed. Other 
 generals were borne wounded or dying from the field. 
 
 The end came swiftly. Before eight o'clock on that January 
 morning, headlong flight and total rout took place on the east 
 bank of the Mississippi. It seems incredible, though it is none 
 the less true, that the battle was fought in twenty-five minutes ! 
 Not that the firing ceased at the end of that time, for it was 
 continued behind the low, scant American intrenchments for 
 the next two hours. But the marksmen could only pour their 
 fire into the thick smoke which hung over the battle-field. The 
 extremities of the long lines had alone been engaged. " One 
 half of the army had never fired a shot." 
 
 When the smoke lifted at last, and disclosed the battle-field, 
 there was no enemy in sight. The dead, the dying, the wounded, 
 lay full in view. One is glad to learn that the Americans forgot 
 all the joy of triumph in the pity and horror of the spectacle. 
 
 Seven hundred killed, fourteen hundred wounded, five hun- 
 dred prisoners, were the result of that twenty-five minutes' 
 work. The American loss was eight killed and thirteen wounded. 
 
 The British had made their attack, as General Jackson had 
 foreseen, on both sides of the river. They won the day on the 
 
204 Our Presidents. 
 
 western bank. The road to New Orleans was open before them. 
 But the adverse fate of the eighth of January pursued the 
 victors. At the critical moment the artillery was wanting. 
 
 What was more, General Lambert, on whom, with the death 
 of his superiors, the command had devolved, was not equal to 
 the occasion. The loss of so many of his brother officers, with 
 all the terrible events of the morning, had unnerved him. He 
 had not the spirit to pursue his advantages, or even hold them. 
 A little after midday the sound of a bugle outside the American 
 intrenchments "brought the whole army to the edge of the 
 parapet." 
 
 General Lambert had sent a white flag to the Commander- 
 in-chief. He agreed to abandon his strong positions on the 
 opposite side of the river, and, after soine delays, an armistice 
 was concluded. 
 
 The " last war" between England and America was ended, 
 and General Jackson was its hero ! 
 
 The question strikes one curiously here, as to what Andrew 
 Jackson's place would have been in American history, had the 
 battle of New Orleans never been fought. It won him the 
 brightest laurels of his life. Yet those brave British soldiers, 
 those five hundred and forty-four noble Highlanders, aiid all 
 the new English widows and orphans had to pay the bitter 
 price of ignorance regarding the Treaty of Ghent. 
 
 Of course New Orleans went wild with joy over her deliver- 
 ance. She greeted the returning victor with ovations ; she 
 chaunted Te Deums over him ; she crowned him with laurels ; 
 She celebrated him with grand processions and gay illumina- 
 tions. For a time the air was loud with laudation and grati- 
 tude. But as time passed on, low murmurs of discontent and 
 anger began to be heard. The army had returned to the city 
 two days after the victory, and the General continued to hold 
 New Orleans in the iron grip of martial law. The citizens 
 
Andrew Jackson. 205 
 
 were lield rigorously to military service. All exactions were 
 submitted to without complaint, until tidings of the conclusion 
 of peace filled the city with joyful excitement. The inhabitants 
 now looked forward confidently to release from their ungrateful 
 toils, but they had yet to count with their stern Commander. 
 He would not relax an inch of his rigors until the tidings of 
 peace were officially confirmed. Martial law was still maintained, 
 and the citizens were held pitilessly to hard labor in the lines. 
 The free American city had a taste of absolute rule. The dis- 
 content grew wide and deep. Only fear of Jackson prevented 
 open rebellion. Anybody who dared toquestion that imperious 
 will did it at his cost. Even the Judge of the United States 
 was promptly arrested and imprisoned, because he had pre- 
 sumed to "grant a petition for a writ of habeas corpus." Other 
 offenders met Avith scant mercy. No editor was permitted to 
 criticise the General's high-handed measures. 
 
 At last the tidings of peace were confirmed. The Southern 
 city breathed free again, and in her joy of victory, and her 
 newly regained liberty, forgave," for the most part, her stern 
 deliverer. 
 
 The Judge's chance came now. He returned to the city 
 and fined Jackson a thousand dollars. The latter insisted on 
 paying it, although some of his friends were eager to do this for 
 him. 
 
 While General Jackson was at New Orleans a scene occurred 
 at Mobile, which brings out strongly the pitiless side of this 
 dual nature. 
 
 On February 21, TS15, six Tennessee soldiers were shot at 
 Mobile in the presence of the whole army. " The court mar- 
 tial found them guilty of mutiny and the General approved the 
 sentence." The case was a peculiarly sad one. " The men 
 probably had no idea of doing wrong." They were convinced 
 that their term of service had expired at the end of three 
 
2o6 Our Presidents. 
 
 months, though they had enUsted for tv/ice that term. But 
 the State appears to have had at that time no claim to the longer 
 service. General Jackson's order "was an act of altogether 
 needless severity." The time for stern examples and martial 
 law had gone by ; but the General was inexorable and the men 
 had to meet their hard fate. 
 
 " It required all the glory of the victory at New Orleans to 
 obliterate the memory of the execution at Mobile." 
 
 In April, General Jackson returned to Nashville. The in- 
 habitants gave their great citizen a reception which must have 
 gratified him. He had won his laurels in two campaigns. 
 Men said of him that he had conquered the red man and the 
 British army. Honors and glories were heaped upon him. His 
 name was spoken Avith enthusiasm in every part of the Union. 
 It was often coupled with Washington's. 
 
 The summerof 1815 was spent in recruitinghis almostwrecked 
 health at the beloved Hermitage, and in the autumn General 
 Jackson was sufficiently recovered to undertake a visit to Wash- 
 ington. His journey was like a triumphal progress. When he 
 reached the capital, the hero of the battle of New Orleans was 
 greeted with every possible distinction. He was the lion of fes- 
 tivities, the cynosure of drawing rooms. He carried himself 
 through this trying ordeal with much dignity, and with that in- 
 born grace which left nothing to criticise ; but he was no doubt 
 surprised and pleased, while his ambitions were stimulated by 
 all this wide popularity. 
 
 Three years and three days after the battle of New Orleans, 
 General Jackson was at the Hermitage when he received orders 
 from the Government to put on his harness once more, and repair 
 to the field. The old trouble with the Indians had broken out 
 again. The Creeks had made a virtue of necessity and sub- 
 mitted to the white man ; but they hankered after the old hunt- 
 ing grounds. In Florida the Seminoles, more or less encouraged 
 
Andrew Jackson. 207 
 
 by the Spaniards, had never consented to the surrender of their 
 lands. 
 
 The long chapter of the "Seminole War " and all that came 
 of it, can barely be touched on in this brief space. In the 
 absence of the Governor, Jackson assumed every responsibility. 
 His summons to the new campaign was like a bugle call to the 
 yeomen of East Tennessee. 
 
 General Jackson left Nashville resolved, if necessary, to bring 
 Florida to a stern reckoning. He had along score of grievances 
 laid up against the Spanish province. Under her flag, the hostile 
 savages had found shelter. Beneath its protection, the English 
 had formed their plans and sallied forth to make their attacks 
 on the United States. In Jackson's eyes the neutral territory 
 was simply the shelter of a dangerous enemy. 
 
 With these convictions, and with the temper they inspired, 
 Andrew Jackson went to tlie Seminole war. The Indians in 
 their long struggle with the white race had suffered cruel wrongs 
 and oppressions. They retaliated with the vindictiveness of 
 the savage. White men, women and children, who fell into 
 their hands, underwent horrible tortures. Andrew Jackson 
 firmly believed that these atrocities would never have been com- 
 mitted had the Spaniards and the English not been at hand to 
 sow disaffection for their own purposes among the tribes. 
 
 On January 22, 181 8, General Jackson left Nashville " at the 
 head of his mounted riflemen and marched four hundred and 
 fifty miles through the wilderness." This required forty-six 
 days. The provisions, as usual, failed to arrive. It was simply 
 a question of starvation or moving forward. It need not be 
 said which horn of the dilemma General Jackson chose. At 
 Fort Gadsden, where his hungry, impatient troops waited, the 
 General learned that the flotilla of provisions which was ex- 
 pected from New Orleans had been delayed by the Crovernorof 
 Pensacola. Then Andrew Jackson made up his mind to march 
 
2o8 Our Presidents. 
 
 into the neutral territory of his Catholic Majesty, the King of 
 Spain, and seize Fort St. Mark's. That delayed flotilla, in his 
 mind, furnished ample provocation. 
 
 The General, however, first dispatched a polite but suf- 
 ficiently peremptory message to the Spanish Governor, who now 
 allowed the ships to pass, and Fort Gadsden was provisioned. 
 The General must have smiled grimly to himself. He had dis- 
 covered the right way of dealing with these Spanish authorities. 
 
 Jackson had a large force, including two thousand friendly 
 Creeks, with him. The day after the provision fleet appeared 
 the army was en route for St. Mark's. 
 
 General Jackson had now crossed the Rubicon, After he 
 had taken this tremendous step, there could, of course, be no 
 half measures. Arrived at St. Mark's, he lost no time in inform- 
 ing the Spanish Governor that he had come to take possession 
 of the fortress and garrison it with American troops while the 
 war lasted ! He condescended to justify the measure on the 
 ground of self-defense. He affirmed that the savages were in 
 St. Mark's and obtaining ammunition there. His action, he 
 added, could not but be satisfactory to the King of Spain ! 
 
 It took some time for the bewildered Governor to compre- 
 hend these demands and charges. He refused the first ; he 
 denied the second, with all the old Spanish punctilio and 
 courtesy. 
 
 General Jackson wasted no words in parleying. He replied 
 to the Governor's letter by taking possession of the fort. " The 
 Spanish flag was lowered. The stars and stripes floated from 
 the flag-staff. The American troops took up their quarters in 
 the fortress." 
 
 General Jackson condescended to tell the amazed and help- 
 less Governor " that his personal rights and private property 
 should be respected ; that he should be made comfortable as 
 possible while compelled to remain at St. Mark's, and that as 
 
Andrew Jackson. 209 
 
 soon as transports could be furnished, they should convey the 
 Governor, his family, and command to Pensacola ! " 
 
 The victorious General was in no mood for mercy now. 
 Two powerful Indian chiefs were taken prisoners at St. Mark's. 
 They were hanged by his orders the day after he occupied the 
 fort. The terrible atrocities which they had committed on white 
 men and women were thus sternly avenged. 
 
 Another prisoner, of a different stamp, was taken. Alexan- 
 der Arbuthnot was an old man, a Scotch trader, " an inmate of 
 the Governor's family." When Jackson entered the fort, Arbuth- 
 not's horse was at the gate. Its owner was on the point of leaving. 
 But anybody within the fort was certain to incur the new com- 
 mander's hostile suspicions. Arbuthnot's explanations did not 
 satisfy Jackson. He was ordered into close confinement. In 
 two days Jackson pushed on through the Florida swamps to 
 the headquarters of the Seminole chief, in Suwannee town. Ar- 
 rived there, he found the Indians and negroes had made their 
 escape into Florida fastnesses where no white men could reach 
 them. The prisoner Arbuthnot had written to his son, who 
 was with the Seminoles, and forewarned of the danger they had 
 disappeared. 
 
 The Seminole war was over for the time. The General 
 returned to St. Mark's, which he had left strongly garrisoned, in 
 no gentle mood. He was naturally much exasperated at the 
 escape of the enemy, for which Arbuthnot was responsible. 
 With the army came another important prisoner of war, " Rob- 
 ert C. Ambrister, a nephew of the English Governor of the 
 Island of New Providence, an ex-lieutenant of British marines." 
 
 The young officer had, with his attendant — a white man, and 
 two black servants — stumbled one night into the American 
 camp, upon the banks of the Suwannee. He was on his way to 
 the Indians ; his headquarters were Arbuthnot's vessel, a hun- 
 dred miles distant. 
 14 
 
2 1 o Our Presidents. 
 
 Jackson learned these facts from Ambrister's attendant and 
 instantly gave orders that the vessel should be seized. 
 
 The two British subjects were now put on trial at St. 
 Mark's. " They were variously charged with inciting the Creeks 
 to war, aiding and comforting the enemy, and supplying 
 them with the means of war." Both were pronounced guilty. 
 Arbuthnot was sentenced to be hanged ; Ambrister to be shot. 
 
 The General approved the sentence. Both men were 
 executed. 
 
 Andrew Jackson's conduct during the Seminole war has 
 been the subject of a vast amount of controversy. It has been 
 regarded by one side as little less than monstrous, while the other 
 has insisted that the circumstances fully justified his course. 
 
 But the verdict of history will not be likely to change. 
 The death of these men will always remain a dark page amid 
 many brilliant ones in Andrew Jackson's life. 
 
 At Fort Gadsden, about to disband his militia, General 
 Jackson, within a day's march of Pensacola, received from the 
 Governor of West Florida, " a protest against his presence, and 
 a threat of expulsion if he did not at once march out." 
 
 Certainly the Governor of his Catholic Majesty was only 
 doing his duty toward the foreign invaders. 
 
 Jackson's reply was to order the troops to march at once for 
 Pensacola. He entered the city. The Governor fled to Fort 
 Barrancas and fortified himself there. Jackson approached and 
 demanded the surrender of the fort. It was refused, and the 
 batteries opened upon the invaders. But Spanish valor soon 
 faltered before the American fire. Jackson was ready to enter 
 the Barrancas when the white flag appeared and the Governor 
 surrendered. 
 
 Andrew Jackson's military career closed with this event. 
 
 Five days later he set out for Tennessee. Celebrations and 
 banquets greeted his return home. The State sustained its 
 
Andrew Jackson. 2 1 1 
 
 great soldier. At a public dinner his course in Florida was 
 entirely approved. 
 
 Europe was shocked at Jackson's behavior. It seemed a 
 violation of all laws, divine and human. The old Spanish 
 pride and honor were outraged by the American invasion of 
 her territory and the indignities heaped on her Governor. 
 England was aroused by the execution of British subjects. 
 The popular feeling was so strong that Lord Castlereagh doubt- 
 less told the truth when he said, " he had only to lift his hand 
 and there would have been war." 
 
 But at this critical time, Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy 
 Adams sustained General Jackson with all their powerful influ- 
 ence. In December, 1818, when Congress was forced to take 
 up the matter of his crossing the boundaries, the irate soldier 
 exclaimed : " There's a combination in Congress to ruin me ! " 
 He was, no doubt, fully possessed by this conviction, when he 
 made the long journey to Washington in January, 1819. His 
 military course was now the subject of protracted discussion 
 and criticism in Congress. His patriotism and ability received 
 the warmest eulogiums, but it seemed impossible, in the face of 
 the evidence, to defend his course in the Florida matter. The 
 slightest adverse criticism aroused the General's unbounded 
 wrath. He believed that he had acted wisely in Florida. He 
 felt that his sole object had been the interests of his country, 
 and any one who questioned this was certain to make a life- 
 long enemy of Andrew Jackson. 
 
 After all the discussion and excitement in Congress, no 
 final action was taken against him. He became more popular 
 than ever. He made brief visits to Philadelphia, and to New 
 York, which he saw for the first time. He had one long ova- 
 tion. Toasts, speeches, banquets awaited him. At New York 
 he was presented with the freedom of the city in a gold box, 
 and the military and the theaters celebrated his arrival. 
 
2 1 2 Ovr Presidents. 
 
 When he returned home in March, Tennessee crowned all 
 the honors and distinctions he had received, by meeting her 
 illustrious citizen with an escort on the frontier, and a trium- 
 phal procession accompanied him to Nashville. 
 
 In 182 1 Florida was ceded by Spain to the United States, 
 and General Jackson was appointed Governor. In the new 
 post he did not show to advantage. He was invested with 
 great powers and he used them to the fullest extent. His 
 treatment of ex-Governor Callava, the accomplished and stately 
 Spaniard, whom he sent to pass the night in a calaboose, was 
 an act which only the most absolute of rulers would have 
 attempted. 
 
 General Jackson now grew wearied and disgusted with his 
 office. In three months he resigned it and returned, a tired, 
 weather-beaten man, to the Hermitage, in November, 1821. 
 
 The old log hut was now replaced by a handsome brick 
 house with pillars and broad piazzas, and handsome stables in 
 the rear. It stood in the midst of the fertile acres of his large 
 estate. Here he intended to lay by his armor, and enjoy for 
 the rest of his life the cultivation of his land and the peace of 
 his home. 
 
 The most that Congress did now was to annul some of the 
 least defensible of his late measures in Florida. The people 
 were bent on supporting their soldier. The nation was keep- 
 ing its greatest role for Andrew Jackson. 
 
 In 1824 the hero of New Orleans, or "Old Hickory," as 
 his soldiers called him about their camp fires, was proposed by 
 the Tennessee Legislature for the presidency. Many people, 
 no doubt, smiled derisively when they heard that name associ- 
 ated with such an office. Despite his great military successes, 
 Andrew Jackson was still widely regarded by those who had 
 not been brought into personal relations with him " as a rough, 
 uncouth soldier, with a genius for fighting." 
 
Andrew Jackson. 2 t 3 
 
 The four Virginians and the one New Englander who had 
 occupied the nation's highest office, had been men of social 
 distinction. They were accustomed to an atmosphere of cul- 
 ture and refinement. If such a word is admissible in a repub- 
 lic, they were aristocrats. It was instinctively felt by a large 
 portion of the people that a President of the United States 
 should fitly represent the social and intellectual life of the 
 nation. The Tennessee candidate, it was said, had little 
 respect for letters. " The Vicar of Wakefield was the only 
 entire book he had ever been known to read in the course of 
 his life." 
 
 Should the stately Washington, the sagacious Adams, the 
 philosophic Jefferson, the scholarly Madison, the accomplished 
 Monroe, be succeeded by the fierce, unlettered Tennessean, 
 who made his own will the law of his life, who had stormed 
 into foreign territory, who had, on slight provocation, executed 
 American citizens and bearded kings by hanging and imprison- 
 ing their subjects ? 
 
 This was the way in which a part of the people were talking 
 about Andrew Jackson in that far-away summer of 1824. Even 
 Jefferson, with all his Democratic sympathies, was dismayed at 
 the prospect of this man's becoming President of the United 
 States. 
 
 '* He is the most unfit man I know of for such a place," he 
 said, at Monticello, to Daniel Webster. " His passions are 
 terrible," and he went on to relate how Jackson in his youth 
 could never speak in tlic Senate, though he often attempted it, 
 " owing to the rage which was sure to master him." 
 
 But in the winter of 1823-24 Andrew Jackson was, though 
 very reluctantly on his part, once more in Washington, a mem- 
 ber of the Senate. He had accepted the election in order to 
 I)lease his friends, and was at the capital an object of supreme 
 social and political interest. 
 
14 Our Presidents. 
 
 Before the year had closed people had ceased to smile when 
 Andrew Jackson's name was associated with the presidency. 
 The result of the election proved that he had barely failed of 
 carrying it. His friends claimed that it rightfully belonged to 
 him. And his friends were the great masses of the people. His 
 popularity in every part of the Union was immense and un- 
 paralleled. His very name stirred hearts with a passion of love 
 and devotion a good deal like that with which Napoleon Bona- 
 parte's had once stirred the hearts of his soldiers. 
 
 John Quincy Adams was President of the United States. 
 While he had been Secretary of War he had proved himself 
 the stanch and powerful friend of Andrew Jackson. He had 
 defended his measures in the Floridas, and vindicated his 
 course — no easy thing to do — with outraged Spain. 
 
 But the great soldier and the great statesman met as friends 
 for the last time when, after the ceremonies of the inauguration, 
 Jackson, with great dignity and grace, congratulated his suc- 
 cessful rival. 
 
 In a short time the two had become bitter and life-long 
 enemies. 
 
 Tennessee was defeated but not discouraged. The popular 
 imagination was dazzled, the popular heart was stirred. The 
 masses resolved that their idol should be President. No stone 
 was left unturned to achieve his election. Through all the 
 administration of John Quincy Adams, the opposite party, 
 united, harmonious, tireless, was working for his rival. 
 
 The campaign opened with great excitement and bitterness. 
 Jackson had many enemies. His life afforded salient points for 
 severe and rancorous criticism, and his political opponents made 
 the most of these. 
 
 But the result proved a great triumph for him, and the fiery, 
 indomitable soldier took the place of the calm, frigid, but high- 
 souled and scholarly statesman. 
 
Andrew Jackson. 2 1 5 
 
 In this culminating hour of victory and glory a blow fell 
 upon Andrew Jackson from which he never recovered. It was 
 the death of his wife. 
 
 Mrs. Jackson was not a woman of intellectual gifts or cul- 
 ture. She could not be the latter with a girlhood passed on the 
 wild Indian frontier. But she had a woman's kindly heart. 
 The fireside of the Hermitage was the center of her warm, tire- 
 less hospitality. If she enjoyed sitting here with her husband 
 after dinner, while they '' smoked their reed-stemmed pipes 
 together," that was probably the fashion of the time and jjlace. 
 Through all her life she retained the ardent devotion of her 
 illustrious husband. Her compassion toward all helpless, suf- 
 fering things was as abounding as his own. 
 
 Mrs. Jackson did not share her husband's ambitions. When 
 the first tidings of his election to the presidency reached her, 
 she said quietly : " Well, for Mr. Jackson's sake, I am glad ; 
 for my own part, I never wished it." 
 
 No doubt she spoke from her heart. During the late years 
 she had become a deeply religious woman. 
 
 Mrs. Jackson had suffered keenly from the stories which, 
 during the campaign, had not spared her. All the unhappy 
 circumstances which preceded her marriage had been revived 
 and distorted by her husband's political enemies. 
 
 The slanders could not fail to deeply wound a sensitive 
 woman. It was believed that they hastened the death of Mrs. 
 Jackson. It followed a few days' severe illness. The last 
 scenes were very touching. The General was completely pros- 
 trated by grief. He was never the same man afterward. 
 
 But the strong soul rallied after a while, although it was a 
 lonely, broken-hearted man who, when the time came, went to 
 his place at Washington. The will which had proved its un- 
 flinching obstinacy in the camp was now to show itself as immov- 
 able in the cabinet. 
 
2i6 Our Presidents, 
 
 As this is not a political biography, it cannot enter into the 
 liistory of the Jackson administration. Whatever virtues it pos- 
 sessed, whatever mistakes it committed, there is no doubt that 
 the new President went to his post with an earnest desire to 
 serve his country, and that her welfare was always the supreme 
 desire of his heart. 
 
 General Jackson carried to the White House the temper 
 and habits of the soldier. It was inevitable that new principles 
 and new methods should distinguish his administration. 
 
 The inaugural ceremonies were hardly over when there was 
 wide-spread alarm among the government officials. These had, 
 for the most part, retained their places through all the changes 
 of administration. *' There had always been a strong, instinctive 
 feeling against removing any man in the public service solely 
 for his political preferences." 
 
 Many of the officials at Washington had held their positions 
 for years. " To dismiss them was to take away the sole means 
 of existence for them and their families." But the new admin- 
 istration proceeded remorselessly. The blows fell swift and 
 constant. That year of 1829 was a year of cruel anxiety and 
 suffering at the capital. The removals were conducted in a 
 prompt, pitiless fashion, which strongly savored of military tri- 
 bunals. 
 
 " To the victor belong the spoils " was an epigram which 
 had the ring of the camp, but it thoroughly expressed the spirit 
 which governed the wide dismissal of those who were not parti- 
 sans of the President. It is not easy to conceive of the imme- 
 diate suffering which was caused by the creation of the " spoils 
 system." Had the evil ended there it would have been a com- 
 paratively slight one. 
 
 It was Andrew Jackson's misfortune that he was by nature 
 incapable of seeing both sides of the shield. His natural gifts, 
 too, great as these were, could not make up for his lack of men- 
 
Andrew Jackson. 2 i 7 
 
 tal training. This necessarily would be more conspicuous in 
 the statesman than in the soldier. He was inclined to see in 
 mankind but two classes : one was composed of his friends, the 
 other of his enemies. In the latter he included all political 
 opponents. These he regarded as personal enemies. They 
 formed, in his eyes, a hostile army arrayed against him, and 
 rec[uired to be dealt with in much the same fashion. 
 
 The gaunt, haggard, broken-hearted man who went from his 
 wife's death-bed to Washington, had been embittered by cruel 
 wrongs. During the late political campaigns no falsehood 
 regarding him had been too foul to be circulated, no deed too 
 monstrous to be laid at his door. Political animosity had even 
 assailed the memory of his noble, long-dead mother. His wife's 
 last days, as we have seen, had been embittered, and her death 
 probably hastened by the slanders which had been poured 
 broadcast over the country, regarding her early life. 
 
 It was, therefore, in no magnanimous spirit toward his de- 
 feated enemies that the man whose temperament always inclined 
 him to see everything in its personal bearings, went from the 
 Hermitage to the White House. 
 
 A storm soon opened. It seems incredible that the social 
 standing of the wife of one of the members of the new cabinet 
 should have been the occasion of more excitement, " should 
 have caused more angry discussion than some state measure of 
 vast consequence." This was owing largely to the determined 
 manner in which the President, whose chivalric sentiments and 
 sympathies had been aroused, espoused the side of the lady and 
 made her recognition a matter of political consequence. 
 
 The Bank of the United States, the issues with Clay and 
 Calhoun, the dissolution of the cabinet, the remo\al of the 
 Southern Indians to lands w^est of the Mississippi, all belong 
 to the history of Andrew Jackson's first term of office. Dead 
 issues, as they have long become, they were vital enough once 
 
2i8 Our Presidents. 
 
 to shake the country. Each of these subjects, passed over here 
 with the mere mention, would require many pages to do it 
 justice. 
 
 During these four years it was amply proved to the country, 
 to the world, what kind of a man stood at the head of American 
 affairs. 
 
 The political olympiad wore away, and the time came for 
 another election. Jackson had entered into office with the ex- 
 pectation of leaving it in four years. But the country would not 
 permit this. The next canvass was as bitter as Jackson's fiery 
 partisans and bitter foes could make it. But the overwhelming 
 majority with which he was returned to the White House, must 
 have astonished both parties. It proved how strongly he was 
 intrenched in the hearts of the masses. 
 
 Nullification, the removal of the deposits, the claims for 
 the French spoliations, made the second term of Jackson's 
 administration as agitated as the first. He showed himself in 
 these varied crises, a true patriot. At times, too, he displayed 
 the unerring instinct of born, if not trained, statesmanship. His 
 measures, during the nullification epoch, earned the enthusias- 
 tic praise and gratitude of his most strenuous enemies. 
 
 The Jackson administration closed after eight years with 
 honor and glory. It is true that the President had not left the 
 White House before the business prostration began which was 
 to make the year 1837 so black a one in American history. It 
 does not fall within the compass of this sketch to consider the 
 causes of that great financial revulsion, or to question how far 
 the measures of the administration may have been responsible 
 for the distress which overwhelmed the country. Jackson 
 certainly was never troubled by a doubt whether he had not 
 always acted with the greatest possible wisdom. 
 
 He was an old man of seventy: the frail body which had 
 held that invincible spirit so long, was vv'orn with years and 
 
Andrew Jackson. 2 1 9 
 
 pain when lie returned at last to the Hermitage. Despite his 
 broken health, several happy years still lay before him. It is a 
 pleasant picture to which we turn after the stormy life. If the 
 light shines in the west, it is a fairer light than ever shone in 
 the east of Andrew Jackson's life. 
 
 Those whom he loved best were all about him. Of course 
 he missed the presence of her who had so long been the life and 
 joy of the Hermitage. But the adopted son, Mrs. Jackson's 
 idolized nephew, with his gentle wife and their children, formed 
 a large, happy household. Here Andrew Jackson's best, ten- 
 derest qualities were sure to come to the surface ; here the stern 
 old man, whose lips could speak the death sentence without 
 a quiver, was the kindliest, most compassionate of all about 
 him. 
 
 The children of the Hermitage sported in unconscious fear- 
 lessness about him ; they huddled at his side ; they crowded 
 and teased him in perfect security. No outbreak of that terrible 
 temper seems ever to have startled them. 
 
 The slaves, too, worshiped and imposed upon him. He 
 was the most indulgent of masters ; but he seems never to have 
 had a scruple regarding the institution of slavery. Here, as in 
 so many other respects, he differed widely from all the Presi- 
 dents who had preceded him. 
 
 The fires still burned, however, under the calm and kindli- 
 ness. When some old political issue, or the name of some 
 powerful opponent, became the subject of conversation, the 
 eyes would blaze fiercely in the thin, haggard face, and the sen- 
 tences would ring out in their old, terse, incisive way. 
 
 Like Washington and Jefferson, Andrew Jackson left the 
 White House to become a planter for the rest of his days. The 
 Hermitage was a splendid and productive estate. It was culti- 
 vated by a hundred and fifty slaves. 
 
 So the peaceful years went over Andrew Jackson's white 
 
2 20 Our Presidents, 
 
 head. Guests crowded to the Hermitage to gaze on the old 
 man who had played so large a role in his country's history. 
 
 With all his simplicity of tastes and habits he had a gra- 
 ciousness of presence and manner, which impressed all who 
 saw him. Where did that boy from the Waxhaw wilds acquire 
 the dignified bearing with men, the grace and deference v/ith 
 women, which would have made him at home in courts ? 
 
 This was a question often discussed by Andrew Jackson's 
 contemporaries. Some of the sesettled it by affirming that he 
 had formed his manners after those of the elegant Aaron Burr, 
 of whom he had, at one time and another, seen a good deal. 
 But gracious and courteous manners are not acquired by a little 
 chance association. That air of simple, quiet distinction; that 
 suave, dignified bearing, must have been innate with Andrew 
 Jackson. Perhaps they were an inheritance from some of his 
 old Celtic ancestry. Yet he remained to the last a singularly 
 unlettered man. It has been said that " his ignorance was as a 
 wall round about him, high and impenetrable ; he did not even 
 believe the world was round ! " Harvard University, however, 
 "conferred upon him her honorary distinction of LL.D." 
 
 The greatest of all questions came to his conscience with 
 renewed force in the last years of his life : " How shall a man 
 be at peace with his Maker ? " 
 
 Andrew Jackson answered it at last, by joining the little 
 church at the Hermitage, in which his wife had worshiped, 
 and which he had built for her sake. The beloved young wife 
 of his adopted son stood at his side and united with the church 
 at the same time. No one of the crowds who witnessed the 
 scene could ever forget it. 
 
 After a struggle Jackson had declared that he forgave all 
 his enemies. But it is only fair to him to say that his last 
 days appear to have been haunted by no remorses. He never 
 expressed a regret for deeds which, during his life and after his 
 
Andrew Jackson. 221 
 
 death, have always formed the heaviest count against him. No 
 ghost of young Wood, no shades of the Tennessee volunteers, 
 no specter of innocent old Arbuthnot or proud Ambrister, 
 appear ever to have visited Andrew Jackson's conscience. In 
 his life — when he faced death — he seems never to have had a 
 doubt that he had not acted righteously when he sent these men 
 to their deaths. 
 
 The end came slowly but surely. One question which, a 
 few weeks before his death, he asked his friend and clergyman, 
 Dr. Edgar, must find a place here. 
 
 " Doctor," asked the feeble old man, " what will posterity 
 blame me for most ? " 
 
 The (juestion was hardly like that fiery, independent spirit. 
 It had always gone its own way, not halting to ask how men 
 would regard that. 
 
 The Doctor had his chance now. He had always con- 
 demned the system of official removals and appointments which 
 Jackson had introduced during his presidency. He replied 
 that he believed posterity would blame him most for proscribing 
 people for opinion's sake, and clinched his remark by citing 
 instances of numerous Kentuckians who had been removed 
 from office solely because their political convictions differed 
 from those of the administration. 
 
 The General's reply must have astounded the clergyman. 
 He affirmed that " during all his presidency he had turned but 
 one subordinate out of office by an act of direct personal 
 authority, and he was a postmaster ! 
 
 Perceiving his hearer's amazement, he earnestly repeated 
 this speech. 
 
 Jackson's mind was clear at the time, his memory keen ; he 
 must have said what he thoroughly believed. 
 
 The end came at last on June 8th, 1845. Thirty years and 
 six months before that morning, the battle of New Orleans had 
 
2 22 Our Presidents. 
 
 been won. Andrew Jackson was seventy-eight years old now. 
 He faced the last presence with the courage of the soldier and 
 the faith of the Christian. 
 
 He bore his last sufferings with heroic patience. The death- 
 bed scenes were full of the tenderest pathos. The large house- 
 hold, white and black, gathered about the dying man, to look 
 upon his face, to hear his voice, for the last time. That June 
 morning must have seemed, with its light and bloom, to mock 
 the grief inside the Hermitage. 
 
 The General took thought for every one. But it is charac- 
 teristic that almost his last words were addressed to his servants. 
 He caught through the open window the sound of their sobbing 
 on the piazza. 
 
 " What is the matter with my dear children ? " he asked. 
 " Have I alarmed you ? Oh, do not cry ! Be good children 
 and we will all meet in heaven." 
 
 After this there seems to have been no more pain or struggle. 
 He breathed softly for a while. The long June day was near 
 its setting when his head fell forward. Andrew Jackson had 
 ceased to breathe. 
 
 They buried him, as he had desired, by the side of the wife 
 to whose memory he had been so true. There was a singular 
 depth of loyalty in this man's nature. Not long before he died 
 he had said : " Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not find 
 my wife there." 
 
 As men disputed fiercely about him while he lived, so they 
 have continued to dispute over his memory. He was beloved 
 as few men are loved ; he was hated as few men are hated. 
 Indeed, that strong character was made up of irreconcilable 
 contradictions. 
 
 All the time I have been writing about him, it has seemed as 
 though two men were before me, and one was hard and remorse- 
 less as adamant, and the other was gentle, compassionate, 
 
Andrew Jackson. 223 
 
 tender, to all weak, helpless, dependent things that came in his 
 way. 
 
 No doubt America has had Presidents who were greater and 
 better men than Andrew Jackson. But the life that began so 
 hardly in the Waxhaw forests, and closed at last in the Tennes- 
 see Hermitage, Avas full of remarkable episodes, of dramatic 
 interest, of picturesque scenes and heroic deeds, which the 
 world will not " willingly let die." 
 
MARTIN VAN BUREN. 
 
 The air was hardl}- clear from the smoke of the battles of 
 the Revolution, when Martin Van Buren first saw the light, 
 December 5, 1782, in the old town of Kinderhook on the Hud- 
 son, nineteen days before the treaty of peace between England 
 and the United States had been signed at Paris. That famous 
 document must have been making its long way over the winter 
 seas at the time of the boy's birth. 
 
 Martin came of sturdy, old Dutch stock. His father was a 
 farmer and kept a hostelry in the old river town. The elder 
 Van Buren, shrewd and good-natured, seems to have had a 
 knack of making both farm and tavern prosper. Martin's 
 mother is said to have been a woman of good sense and piety, 
 so this eldest son of the Van Buren household was well started 
 for the race of life. 
 
 He was an active, keen, intelligent boy ; he inherited, with 
 the old Dutch fiber, the keenness and steady persistency of the 
 breed ; he must have had a smooth and cheery boyhood ; he 
 went to the best schools the Kinderhook of that day afforded ; 
 but there was another school, one which, in many respects, was 
 to leave more permanent marks, under the old tavern roof. 
 Here, after the ancient custom, neighbors and travelers met 
 and discussed the signs of the times and the politics of the day. 
 It is easy to imagine what names were oftenest on the lips of 
 the habitues of the Kinderhook tavern and what political con- 
 troversies those old walls witnessed. Inside them, the vet- 
 erans of the Revolution must have lived their battles over 
 again. 
 
7^2^y(2c^<^^-^ 
 
Marl in Kan Bur en. 225 
 
 Martin, keen and alert, listened to the talk and made up his 
 mind on all the matters under discussion. He must, following 
 the paternal example, have been a very sturdy Jeffersonian in 
 those days. 
 
 At fourteen, he had imbibed all the schooling which Kinder- 
 hook afforded and set about his law studies. Me did not go to 
 college, and was therefore forced to remain seven years in a law 
 office before he could obtain admission to the bar. Six of these 
 were passed at Kinderhook and the last one in New York, 
 where he studied with William P. Van Ness, the friend of Aaron 
 Burr, and his second in the famous duel with Alexander Ham- 
 ilton. 
 
 The young law student was at this time brought much 
 into the society of the brilliant Burr. That powerful, seduc- 
 tive personality must have had a strong influence upon the 
 mind and character of the younger man. It was believed 
 that Martin Van Buren showed throughout his life the in- 
 fluence of that year of fascinating and dangerous companion- 
 ship. 
 
 In 1803, young Van Buren began the practice of law in his 
 native town. This was a period of great political excitement 
 throughout the country. The Federal party, which had founded 
 the government, and which had so splendid a record during the 
 first years of the nation's history, had, at the opening of the new 
 century, been supplanted by the Democratic party, whose leader 
 and idol was Thomas Jefferson. 
 
 The young party was full of vigor, courage and aggressive 
 force. The popular heart and instincts were on its side. Its 
 sympathies had been wholly with that French Revolution whose 
 echoes still lingered in American air. 
 
 The fair-haired boy had not listened in vain to the talk in 
 the Kinderhook tavern. With his bright, precocious intelli- 
 gence he had seized the meanings of the political issues at 
 15 
 
2 26 Our Presidents. 
 
 stake and formed his opinions, and adhered to them with true 
 Dutch tenacity for the remainder of his life. 
 
 Martin was a born politician, although the environment of 
 his boyhood and youth, no doubt, tended to develop and 
 strengthen his native aptitudes in this direction. 
 
 But he did not, during his young manhood, neglect his pro- 
 fessional interests for politics. He practiced law for six years 
 at Kinderhook with an ability that insured his success in his 
 profession. Then he removed to Hudson. 
 
 Just before he left Kinderhook, Mr. Van Buren married 
 Miss Hannah Hoes. She was a native of the same town, and 
 the two had been playmates and school-fellows. Their married 
 life of twelve years appears to have been one of great harmony, 
 and when it was broken by her death, no other woman ever took 
 her place in her husband's heart and life. 
 
 When he exchanged Kinderhook for Hudson, Mr. Van 
 Buren entered upon a larger professional field. He spent seven 
 years in this shire town of his county. Here he matched his 
 powers with the most brilliant lawyers of the State, and won 
 a wide legal reputation. At thirty he was elected to the 
 State Senate. He had, by this time, become conspicuous in 
 pohtics. He strongly supported Madison's administration, and 
 heartily approved of the "last war" with England. 
 
 By this time Van Buren was in the thick of the political 
 controversies of his day, and was displaying more and more of 
 his remarkable qualities for party management and leadership. 
 In 1816, he was again a member of the State Senate. During 
 this year he removed to Albany, which afforded a wider arena 
 for the exercise of his political talents. 
 
 From this time honors fell thick and fast to Van Buren. 
 
 In 1818, he brought about a fresh organization of the New 
 York Democratic party, of which " he held absolute control for 
 twenty years." He was attorney- general of the State and also 
 
Mart in Van Bur en. 227 
 
 its governor. It has been acutely remarked of Van Iluren that 
 "he stood on the dividing line between the mere politician and 
 the statesman, perfect in the arts of the one, possessing largely 
 the comprehensive power of the other." 
 
 In 182 1 New York sent Mr. Van Biiren to the United States 
 Senate. Three years later he was in the thick of that tumultu- 
 ous canvass which ended with the election of John Quincy 
 Adams to the presidency. Van Buren was, perhaps, his most 
 formidable opponent. The New York Senator found his ele- 
 ment in the heated atmosphere of politics. He was not an 
 idealist ; his genius concerned itself with the actual and pos- 
 sible. It had, many of his contemporaries believed, a keen eye 
 to the main chance. 
 
 Jackson's election, in 1829, was thought to be largely due to 
 Van Buren's signal power of "directing and controlling politi- 
 cal forces." The new President rewarded his services by ap- 
 pointing him Secretary of State. 
 
 In his new office, amid most critical social and political 
 issues, the Secretary carried himself with consummate adroit- 
 ness and tact. The favor of his chief was of supreme impor- 
 tance, and nothing was allowed to stand in the way of that. To 
 this period belongs the bitter personal feud with Calhoun, which 
 had later such important consequences. But whether the issue 
 was some great state measure, or a social affair so trivial that it 
 was intrinsically ridiculous, Van Buren was careful to shape his 
 conduct in a way certain to win the approval of the indomitable, 
 fiery old hero of New Orleans. When the cabinet was broken 
 up Van Buren received from his partial chief the appointment 
 of Minister to England. He arrived in London in the autumn 
 of 1 83 1. Here a mortification befell him which v/ould have 
 crushed a less elastic and self-poised nature. The Senate de- 
 clined to ratify his nomination. 
 
 The English journals circulated the news, but Van Buren, 
 
2 28 Our Presidents. 
 
 with his Dutch pluck and self-poise, would not succumb. The 
 evening on which his defeat was made public, the famous Prince 
 Talleyrand, then French minister, gave a banquet. Mr. Van 
 Buren was in the drawing-room, as gracious, courteous, urbane, 
 as though no thunderbolt had just descended on him. He 
 returned to America to have his chagrin consoled by the 
 increasing favoritism of Jackson, and to receive higher political 
 honors than ever. 
 
 He was elected to the vice-presidency in 1832, and he who 
 made it "the rule of his life never, if possible, to give fresh 
 offense to an enemy, went, with smiles for all and reproofs for 
 none, to take his place at the head of that Senate which had 
 refused to confirm his nomination as ambassador." 
 
 In his new office he presided v/ith such unvarying fairness 
 and courtesy that he won the approval of both parties in the 
 Senate. 
 
 The friendship of Andrew Jackson was to make the culmi- 
 nating good fortune of Martin Van Buren's life. The word of 
 the great Tennesseean was all-powerful with his party. As his 
 own term was closing, he threw the weight of his vast influence 
 into the scale of Van Buren's nomination for the presidency, 
 and he carried his point. 
 
 On March 4, 1837, an immense crowd witnessed the inaugu- 
 ration of Martin Van Buren. It was a striking scene when he 
 rode side by side with Andrew Jackson in a phaeton drawn by 
 four grays to take his oath of office. Both the men were 
 uncovered. The gaunt, iron face of " Old Hickory " must have 
 formed an immense contrast to the shrewd, smiling, handsome 
 countenance of his successor. 
 
 It was the new President's settled purpose to conduct his 
 administration on the lines of his predecessor, but the circum- 
 stances of one term did not repeat themselves in the other. 
 Before the close of 1837, that great financial panic, which has, 
 
Martin f^an Buren. 229 
 
 perhaps, no parallel in American history, shook the country. 
 The wide-spread distress, the crashing of old and honorable 
 business houses, the dismay and disaster of that gloomy year, 
 were largely attributed to Jackson's high-handed measures with 
 the banks. There was war, which shed no luster on American 
 arms, with the Seminoles. To add to these domestic troubles, 
 there were serious disputes with Great Britain about bound- 
 ary lines, and an insurrection in Canada which involved the 
 American Government and threatened another war with Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The President must have found his high position full of 
 trials and anxieties. However he might succeed in ameliorat- 
 ing the foreign difficulties, he could not relieve the financial 
 tension at home. He and his party underwent a great eclipse 
 in popularity. The Van Buren administration, which had 
 opened so auspiciously under the smile of Jackson, drew to its 
 close in the midst of a political canvass which filled the country 
 with passionate strife. It ended with the defeat of the Demo- 
 cratic party that had controlled the government for four years, 
 and in the election of William Henry Harrison to the presi- 
 dency. 
 
 Van Buren bore his defeat in his equable, smiling way. No 
 political reverses could shake the calm nerves he had inherited 
 from his robust Dutch ancestry. He had a fine estate at his 
 native Kinderhook, and he retired to this to enjoy his leisure 
 and wealth, and to dispense his hospitalities in his generous and 
 kindly fashion. 
 
 A month after he left Washington, the nation was plunged in 
 grief by the sudden death of the President. Mr. Van Buren 
 went to New York and bore a conspicuous part in the funeral 
 honors which were paid to General Harrison. 
 
 In 1844, a great effort was made to nominate Mr. Van Buren 
 for a second presidential term. But this time Jackson's influ- 
 
2 7)0 Our Presidents. 
 
 ence and a strong pro-slavery sentiment carried the nomination 
 for James K. Polk of Tennessee. 
 
 In 1848, the Free Soil Democrats nominated the old political 
 chief once more for the presidency. In accepting the nomina- 
 tion he " avowed his full assent to the anti-slavery principles of 
 the party." 
 
 But it \vas not Van Buren's destiny to receive again the 
 nation's highest gift. After this latest defeat he made an ex- 
 tensive tour in Europe. He returned to Lindenwald, his fine 
 estate at Kinderhook, and here, amid the scenes of his boyhood 
 and youth, the ex-President passed peacefully and gracefully 
 into old age. " He had been in active political life from 181 2 
 to 1848. No other man in the country had held so many great 
 places." His cheerful temper and his kindly feeling did not 
 fail him as the years waxed and his old political comrades laid 
 down their armor and went to their rest. 
 
 In his political career all his bonhomie and courtesy had 
 not prevented his having many bitter enemies. He was in 
 character and temperament utterly unlike the seven Presidents 
 who had preceded him. He had more moral pliancy ; he was 
 of a different strain ; he had the shrewdness, the astuteness and 
 the sagacity which go to make up the successful party manager, 
 the born political leader. 
 
 The ex-President must have been very delightful in private 
 life. He had been very handsome in his youth, and the char- 
 acter of the man is written in his shrewd, pleasant, sagacious 
 face. He was proud of his country, and in spite of his old 
 state-rights traditions, at the breaking out of the civil war he 
 declared himself " decidedly and warmly in favor of maintain- 
 ing the Republic." 
 
 Mr. Van Buren's serene old age passed into his eightieth 
 birthday. The United States had hardly become a nation at 
 his birth. He passed from it in the second summer of that 
 
Martin yan Bur en. 231 
 
 great Civil War which was to try so heavily the work which the 
 fathers had done in that other summer of 1787, when Martin 
 Van Buren was playing, a boy of four years, about the old 
 tavern and among the lanes of Kinderhook. He died July 24, 
 1862. 
 
WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON. 
 
 During the autumn of 1840, the whole country was aflame 
 with political excitement. The presidential canvass did not 
 perhaps arouse intenser passions than the memorable one which 
 followed the nomination of John Quincy Adams and Andrew 
 Jackson. But the canvass of 1840 was conducted on entirely 
 new lines. Its enormous mass-meetings, its torch-light proces- 
 sions, its frequent parades and party emblems, all appealed 
 to the popular fancy and stirred the popular heart. Never 
 had such scenes taken place on American soil. The tumult, 
 vehemence, passion, carried everything before them. " Log 
 cabin and hard cider" formed the shibboleth of the young, 
 vigorous, powerful party that was now moving heaven and 
 earth to secure the election, which, for twelve previous years, 
 had been carried with triumphant majorities by its opponents. 
 
 A curious distich had caught the popular ear. It was thun- 
 dered from thousands of throats at great mass-meetings, and 
 sung and shouted by the little boys on the streets. It was an 
 absurd little musical refrain which ran : 
 
 " Tippecanoe, 
 And Tyler too," 
 
 It was doomed by the trend of events to have anything but 
 agreeable associations for the party who had made it their rally- 
 ing cry. 
 
 Meanwhile Martin Van Buren at Kinderhook-on-the-Hudson, 
 and William Henry Harrison at his farm at North Bend on the 
 Ohio — the two candidates for the presidency — awaited the turn 
 of events, each in his characteristic fashion. 
 
/c^ J^ /9^:^t^. 
 
William Henry Harrison. 233 
 
 The latter had been nurtured amid the storms of the Revolu- 
 tion. He saw the light a little more than two years before the 
 fight at Concord, as he was born at Berkeley, Virginia, February 
 
 9, 1773. 
 
 He came of the sterling planter class which furnished so many 
 of our early presidents. His father, a man in moderate cir- 
 cumstances, " was an intimate friend of George Washington's," a 
 member of the Continental Congress, a candidate for the office 
 of speaker, though he yielded the place gracefully to John 
 Hancock, and was three times elected Governor of Virginia — a 
 brave, bluff, generous gentleman, who loved his country and 
 served her with patriotic zeal ; a man with a girth like Falstaff, 
 and who enjoyed his joke better than anything else in the 
 world. This in his day and generation was Benjamin Harrison 
 of Berkeley. 
 
 His son, William Henry, was born a subject of George IH. a 
 little while before the colony had made up its mind to shake off 
 its allegiance to Great Britain. The boy was brought up amid 
 noble examples and associations. He had every advantage 
 which the father's comfortable means and position afforded. 
 He went to the best schools of the time and place, and after- 
 ward entered Hampden Sidney College, from which he gradu- 
 ated with honor. 
 
 Young Harrison had lost his father before he left college, and 
 he went to Philadelphia to study medicine under Dr. Rush, and 
 with Robert Morris for his guardian. Both these men were, 
 like his father, signers of the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 Medicine did not, however, detain young Harrison long. His 
 soul was fired by reports of the terrible Indian ravages on the 
 frontier. At nineteen, in spite of the protests of his friends, he 
 resolved to enter the army, and succeeded in obtaining a com- 
 mission from President Washington, who must have remembered 
 his own youth in the Shenandoah wilderness. 
 
234 Our Presidents. 
 
 With a frame so slight that it gave the impression of almost 
 girlish delicacy, young Harrison set out for the frontier on the 
 edge of winter. General St. Clair had met a little before on 
 the Wabash with the terrible Indian surprise against which 
 Washington had, at their parting, so earnestly warned him. 
 The hardships and perils of the service did not, however, shake 
 the young Virginian's resolution. But he took his life in his 
 hand, and made the journey to Pittsburgh on foot, and then de- 
 scended the Ohio to Fort Washington, a remote outpost in 1793, 
 but occupying almost the spot where the city of Cincinnati now 
 stands. Young Harrison had found his place. 
 
 It is impossible in this brief sketch to dwell upon his military 
 career, striking, varied, and successful as that proved in his long 
 service on the frontier. 
 
 In a short time he was promoted to a lieutenancy, and joined 
 the army under General Wayne, or " Mad Anthony," as his 
 popular title ran. 
 
 On August 20, 1792, as the whole army under General Wayne 
 were marching down the Maumee river, they encountered an 
 Indian ambush. One of the fierce, bloody battles of the fron- 
 tier followed. It ended in victory for the whites. Lieutenant 
 Harrison behaved with signal courage. He was in the hottest 
 of the fight. He won the warmest praise from the General 
 and a captaincy, and was placed in charge of Fort Washing- 
 ton. At this time he was only twenty years old. 
 
 The years that follow form a noble record of gallant 
 services and increasing honors. 
 
 When at last the British surrendered the military posts of 
 the North-west to the United States, Captain Harrison received 
 and occupied them. 
 
 On November 22, 1795, he married Miss Anna Symmes, 
 the daughter of Judge Symmes of North Bend, Ohio, a young 
 lady who is said to have had many charms of person and 
 
William Henry Harrison. 235 
 
 fine qualities of character. The marriage proved one of last- 
 ing affection and happiness. 
 
 In 1797 Captain Harrison was appointed Secretary of the 
 North-west Territory. A little later he was its delegate in 
 Congress. 
 
 In 1800 this vast area was divided into two parts. The 
 western part, which included what now forms the States of 
 Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, was then called " The In- 
 diana Territory." Over this immense tract, as well as over 
 that of Upper Louisiana, President Adams appointed William 
 Henry Harrison Governor. " He was invested with almost 
 dictatorial powers ; he was ruler over almost as extensive a 
 realm as any sovereign upon earth." He still proved himself 
 in the right place. He executed all the varied and trying 
 duties of Governor of that vast frontier with such abihty 
 and rigid integrity that Adams' successors, Jefferson and Mad- 
 ison, re-appointed him. 
 
 In his position and with his great power and influence he 
 had immense " opportunities " to aggrandize himself ; but Gov- 
 ernor Harrison's integrity was of the most flawless kind. In an 
 ampler sketch this robust but delicate honesty could be illus- 
 trated by many facts. 
 
 The Governor lived at Vincennes, on the Wabash. In all 
 that wide frontier, where he held gentle yet firm dominion over 
 the rough, fierce backwoodsmen, there were only two other 
 white settlements. 
 
 The story of the Shawnee warrior, Tecumseh, and of his 
 brother, the prophet, form a thrilling chapter in early Border 
 history. Governor Harrison encountered in this subtle, power- 
 ful, determined pair, his most dangerous foes. Maddened by 
 the steady advance of the settlers, and by the cession of large 
 tracts of Indian hunting-grounds, the two warriors resolved to 
 rouse the tribes to a desperate and sanguinary war upon the 
 
2^6 Our Presidents. 
 
 widely-scattered settlements. The brothers set about their 
 work with all the Indian craft and cunning. They gained abso- 
 lute control of the savages and inspired them with the fiercest 
 enthusiasm, the most deadly vindictiveness. Governor Harri- 
 son had by this time thoroughly learned the Indian character 
 and habits. In various ways he gained more or less knowledge 
 of the designs of the brothers. Tecumseh visited Vincennes 
 with a large party of his braves, in order to have a council with 
 the Governor. He had always professed friendship for the pale 
 faces and a sincere desire for peace ; but during the council 
 he threw off this mask. In fierce rage he told the Governor 
 that he lied. Then a wild tumult ensued. The warriors bran- 
 dished their war-clubs. Nothing but the superhuman courage 
 and the unshaken nerves of the Governor saved his life at this 
 critical moment. 
 
 Meanwhile sickening work was going on among the scant 
 settlements of the frontier. Revenge, patriotism, religious 
 frenzy, were all kindled in the Indian breast. The war-whoop 
 rang suddenly where it had never been heard before. Men, 
 women, children, were butchered and houses burned. The 
 dreadful stories were brought to Vincennes and promptly sent 
 to Washington. At last the Government was forced to heed 
 the cry of anguish which rose from all the Western Border. 
 President Madison issued reluctant orders for the Governor to 
 move against the savages. He marched with about a thousand 
 troops for Tippecanoe, the prophet's town, October 28, 181 1. 
 
 In the valley of the Tippecanoe, just on the edge of a chill 
 November dawn, in the midst of a drizzling rain, the terrible 
 war-whoop broke around the American camp fires. Before 
 one of these, Governor Harrison sat in the midst of his aids. 
 But he was too seasoned a soldier to be taken by surprise, 
 though the fiendish yelling that rang through the woods might 
 have made the strongest nerves shiver. The soldiers behaved 
 
William Henry Harrison, 237 
 
 admirably. Tliey stood immovable until the day dawned and 
 then charged with the bayonet. The savages broke and dis- 
 persed, though their prophet stood upon a mound and chanted 
 a song of victory. But the savages now discovered that he 
 had deluded them and his spell was broken forever. 
 
 Twenty-nine years later that battle of Tippecanoe was to 
 become a great party rallying-cry throughout the land. 
 
 Governor Harrison was forced soon afterward to encounter 
 another foe. The " last war " with England opened, and the 
 British descended from Canada upon the North-west. They 
 brought with them their savage allies, who " roamed burning, 
 plundering, scalping over the frontier." 
 
 Those were dark days for America. General Hull surren- 
 dered his forces at Detroit. President Madison promoted 
 Governor Harrison Commander-in-chief of the North-western 
 armies. " He was ordered to retake Detroit and protect the 
 frontiers." 
 
 These were tasks which might well tax a great military 
 genius. The manner in which they were executed belongs to 
 the history of the last war with England. 
 
 It can only be said here that General Harrison succeeded, 
 after almost incredible exertions, in raising from the scant pop- 
 ulation of the North-west Border an army of rustic volunteers 
 and militia, and marched them against the British veterans. 
 
 Oil September 10, 18 14, Commodore Perry won his famous 
 victory over the British fleet on Lake Erie. After the naval 
 engagement General Harrison crossed the lake and dispatched 
 a brigade to seize Detroit. He encountered the enemy on the 
 banks of the Thames. He triumphed after a short, sharp 
 action. Tecumseh, an ally of the British, met his death among 
 his braves. The frontier was at peace once more. 
 
 Not long afterward, General Harrison resigned his commis- 
 sion. All his noble qualities — his courage, manliness, integrity 
 
2^8 Our Presidents. 
 
 — did not prevent him from making many foes. General Jack- 
 son never forgave him, because, while admitting and applauding 
 his great achievements, Harrison could never fully approve of 
 his high-handed proceedings in the Seminole war. 
 
 In 1816 General Harrison was in Congress. He represented 
 the District of Ohio. Before his election charges of corrupt 
 dealings in connection with the commissariat had been made 
 against him. He barely took his seat before he insisted that 
 these charges should be thoroughly investigated. The result 
 was his triumphant vindication. He was presented with a gold 
 medal from Congress for his services. 
 
 He had no remarkable oratorical gifts. His most effective 
 speeches were those which he made on his beloved North-west. 
 When he spoke of its interests, its increasing prosperity, the 
 infinite promise of its future, the theme fired his soul and inspired 
 his words, and at these times he would make a profound impres- 
 sion on the house. 
 
 In 18 1 9 he went to the Ohio Senate. In 1824 he was one 
 of the presidential electors and voted for Henry Clay. That 
 year he went to the United States Senate. In 1828 General 
 Harrison was appointed by President Adams Minister Plenipo- 
 tentiary to the Republic of Colombia. In a letter to BoHvar, 
 who was his friend, he eloquently entreated him not to accept 
 the dictatorship. 
 
 " To be eminently great it is necessary to be eminently 
 good," wrote this Hero of the North-west battle-fields. 
 
 Andrew Jackson succeeded John Quincy Adams in the pres- 
 idency, and General Harrison was soon recalled from his South 
 American mission. He returned to his farm at North Bend 
 and settled down to agriculture with the satisfaction of George 
 Washington or Thomas Jefferson. His income was very limited, 
 although he might probably have been at that time the richest 
 man in the United States. But his honor was of that sensitive 
 
William Henry Harrison. 239 
 
 quality which would never allov/ him to reap any personal advan- 
 tage from the many opportunities which, during his public life, 
 had come in his way. 
 
 General Harrison was one of the kindliest, most humane of 
 men. His moral instincts were fine and true. He afforded an 
 admirable example of temperance ; he was a foe to dueling. 
 When the Virginian was accused of attachment to slavery, he 
 answered, " I have been the means of liberating many slaves, 
 but never placed one in bondage." 
 
 In 1836 General Harrison's friends nominated him for the 
 presidency. Van Buren, however, won the election. The 
 terrible financial crash of 1837 followed, and in 1840 an unex- 
 ampled canvass shook the country. It was called "the log- 
 cabin and hard cider campaign." The home of General 
 Harrison at North Bend consisted, on its eastern side, of a log- 
 cabin, built by one of the early Ohio settlers, but it had long 
 since been comfortably clapboarded. He lived with much sim- 
 plicity, and hard cider held on his board the place which costly 
 v.'ines did on other tables of that day. Hence the significance 
 of the party watch-words. 
 
 The North Bend farmer, the old Hero of the frontier, the 
 Whig candidate, carried the election. 
 
 The new President, now sixty-eight, was erect and vigorous. 
 He had a long, thin face, with irregular features, and his eyes 
 were pleasant and kindly as a woman's. 
 
 But his hand had barely grasped the helm when it relaxed. 
 He was attacked by pneumonia, and the iron strength which 
 had borne all the hardships of the frontier succumbed in the 
 softer life. There were a few days of violent illness. Then 
 the end came. President Harrison's last words, uttered in de- 
 lirium and amid the shadows of approaching death, soon had 
 an ominous significance. He appeared to imagine he was ad- 
 dressing his successor when he exclaimed : " Sir, I wish you to 
 
240 Our Presidents. 
 
 understand the principles of the government. I wish thern 
 carried out. I ask nothing more. " 
 
 General Harrison's character did honor to human nature. 
 " He was not," it has been said, '* a great man, but he had 
 lived in a great time, and had been a leader in great things." 
 The brave, noble spirit went to its rest April 4, 1841. The 
 nation mourned for its dead President with a grief akin to 
 that with which another generation had mourned for George 
 Washington. 
 
tfiyrL 
 
 u 
 
JOHN TYLER. 
 
 On April 6, 1841, John Tyler became President of the 
 United States. Two days before, William Henry Harrison had 
 died in the executive mansion. The country, settling down 
 into quiet after the most passionate of political canvasses, was 
 suddenly stricken by a thunderbolt. Grief and dismay filled 
 the heart of the nation. It was impossible to forecast the po- 
 litical future, or to estimate the extent of the calamity which 
 had fallen upon the land. 
 
 It was the first time since the existence of the government 
 that a President had died in office and the vice-President had 
 succeeded to his place. It must have seemed to the lately tri- 
 umphant Whigs that everything in their political world was 
 falling to pieces. They could have found little encouragement 
 in recalling the political record of the Vice-President or the 
 circumstances of his election. Everybody knew that he had 
 been nominated to placate the Southern party, disappointed 
 and resentful that its great leader, Henry Clay, had been de- 
 feated. The vice-Presidency had not seemed at the time a 
 costly sop to Cerberus. It included, of course, honor and high 
 place, but there was a popular impression that the nation's 
 second office carried with it little intrinsic authority. So John 
 Tyler of Virginia was sent to the vice-Presidency, and the South 
 was more or less mollified. 
 
 But in that April of 1841, the country, after a half century 
 of growth and prosperity, had a new lesson to learn with Death 
 for the inexorable teacher. It was brought face to face v/ith 
 the fact that the vice-President might suddenly become the 
 most important personage in the nation. 
 t6 
 
242 Ovr Presideufs. 
 
 President Harrison's death must have been a cruel blow, 
 coming so soon upon the hardly-won " log-cabin campaign." 
 The old hero of the North-west Border lay dead in the White 
 House, while the air about him was still tremulous with victory 
 and with the triumphs of the inaugural. And now men were 
 thinking with doubt and foreboding of the Virginian who was 
 on his way from Williamsburg to Washington to take the oath 
 of office which dead lips had lately spoken. 
 
 John Tyler had been born in Charles City, Virginia, March 
 29, 1790. He came of the old planter class, with its wealth 
 and culture and high social distinction. All good fortunes 
 smiled upon his birth and early years. His father had been a 
 stanch patriot of the old Virginia type and was at one time 
 Speaker of the Continental Congress. 
 
 The younger John proved himself a bright boy and devel- 
 oped a remarkable gift for scholarship in the happy old home, 
 under the careful parental training. At twelve he entered Wil- 
 liam and Mary College, at seventeen he graduated with honor. 
 It was a matter of course that he should follow in his father's 
 footsteps and prepare himself for the bar. He studied in the 
 elder's law office and enjoyed rare opportunities to equip him- 
 self for his profession. At nineteen he began to practice and 
 had marked success. 
 
 Young Tyler had been brought up in the Jefferson and 
 Madison political creed. It was a matter of course that he 
 should become prominent in political life. For five successive 
 years the almost unanimous vote of his county sent him to the 
 State Legislature. 
 
 Young Tyler had won a high reputation as a lawyer before 
 
 the last war with England was declared. His inherited patri- 
 
 ^otism now spurred him to take part in the contest. When 
 
 the British ravaged the Chesapeake shores he set vigorous mili- 
 
 tarv movements on foot to resist them. 
 
John Tyler. -43 
 
 At twenty-six he went to Congress, where he showed him- 
 self a thorough-going advocate of the Jeffersonian policy. The 
 young member had a face of marked character. His long, thin 
 features expressed intellectual force as well as resolution. His 
 manners, with their social polish and grace, could not fail to be 
 attractive, and he added to these the charm of his native wit 
 and his kindly heart. 
 
 At twenty-three John Tyler made a marriage, which proved 
 one of great harmony and happiness, with Miss Letitia Chris- 
 tian, a young lady of Cedar Grove, Virginia. The newly- 
 married pair settled at Greenway, on a part of the Tyler estate. 
 Mr. Tyler left Congress to take his seat once more in the 
 Virginia Legislature. In 1825 he was elected Governor of his 
 native State, and young as he was, and powerful as were his 
 competitors, he was re-elected to the office. 
 
 Afterward he went to the Senate. Despite his brilliant 
 career he was not an orator, but he was a powerful and impres- 
 sive debater. He distinguished himself in the Senate by his 
 vigorous hostility to John Quincy Adams's administration. 
 
 But as time went on, the Virginia Senator became more and 
 more opposed to Andrew Jackson's policy. The former, with 
 his State-rights sympathies, viewed with indignation what he 
 regarded as the President's unjustifiable and autocratic meas- 
 ures. Mr. Tyler would not support the war on the United 
 States Bank, which the relentless Jackson had resolved to carry 
 to the bitter end. There were various social and personal mat- 
 ters mixed up with this period of the administration which can- 
 not be gone into here. Mr. Tyler, who was at heart an ardent 
 disciple of Calhoun, now found himself often voting in accord 
 with Henry Clay when the latter opposed the high-handed 
 Executive. But the harmony between the State-rights Vir- 
 ginian and the imperious and devoted Kentucky Unionist, 
 though it v/as to have results of great national importance, did 
 
244 Our Presidents. 
 
 not reach below the surface of things. Mr. Tyler supported 
 the censure of the President's measures in the Senate. Jackson 
 was not the man to forget or forgive this. It must be sufficient 
 to say that Mr. Tyler, on his re-election to the Senate, found it 
 advisable to resign his seat. 
 
 After he had returned to his home he removed to Williams- 
 burg, where his Alma Mater was situated and where his chil- 
 dren could enjoy better opportunities for study. No doubt he 
 reflected with pride upon his brilliant career in law and in poli- 
 tics, and had an agreeable consciousness that his native State 
 had bestowed on him her highest honors. 
 
 Mr. Tyler still cherished and avowed all the principles of 
 the political school in which he had been trained. He never 
 broke from the old moorings of State Rights and Free Trade. 
 But amid the Avrangling and complicated political antagonisms 
 and personal hostilities of the time, he was widely regarded as a 
 Southern Whig, and it was the votes of Northern Whigs which, 
 in the famous " log-cabin canvass," sent John Tyler, the Cal- 
 houn disciple, to the vice-Presidency. 
 
 The dead President lay at the White House when, early in 
 the morning of April 5, 1841, a swift messenger brought the 
 momentous tidings to John Tyler, who was at his quiet home in 
 Williamsburg. 
 
 The next day he was at Washington and took his oath of 
 office. It is a significant fact that there was some demur 
 amongst the Cabinet of illustrious men whom his predecessor 
 had appointed, about his receiving the full title of President. 
 
 Mr. Tyler understood perfectly the grounds of this hesi- 
 tancy. The Cabinet had strong doubts regarding his future 
 political attitude. But the President assumed his new title and 
 duties with his characteristic resolution, and the Constitution 
 sustained him. 
 
 The day of trial had come for John Tyler. The Virginia 
 
John Tyler. 245 
 
 Jefferson Democrat had been placed at a most critical period 
 of America's history at the country's helm. New and over- 
 shadowing issues were now steadily advancing into the political 
 foreground. The annexation of Texas was beginning to arrest 
 public attention ; the air was growing hot with the great Anti- 
 slavery contest ; the exciting question of a National Bank Bill 
 had soon to be met. 
 
 The new President showed plainly by his first measures his 
 desire to promote harmony in his administration. He attempted 
 to retain the Cabinet of his predecessor. 
 
 But the antagonisms between his principles and those of the 
 party to which he owed his election were radical and admitted 
 of no compromise. The separation v/hich speedily occurred 
 took place under circumstances which aroused the implacable 
 hostility of his former supporters. 
 
 Mr. Tyler's position was not an enviable one. An honorable 
 man could not fail to perceive that the Whig party had strong 
 reasons for feeling that he had betrayed them. Yet he could 
 not advocate their measures without doing violence to the 
 deepest convictions of a life-time. 
 
 The test came with the Bank Bill. It was twice prepared, 
 and twice carried through Congress, and twice received the 
 veto of the President. 
 
 The wrath of the Whigs was unbounded. They denounced 
 the President in the fiercest language which disappointment 
 and passion could suggest. The triumphant Democrats ap- 
 plauded him. 
 
 The administration proved a gloomy and unfortunate one. 
 
 Mr. Tyler made, it must be admitted, various efforts to con- 
 cilate those whom ho had so deeply offended ; but he did not 
 succeed. He was a strong advocate of slavery, and here he 
 came into direct contact with the feelings and moral convic- 
 tions of a powerful and steadily increasing party at the North. 
 
246 Our Presidents. 
 
 The President incurred much opprobrium among ofifice- 
 seekers by his refusal to make removals on merely political 
 grounds. Many of the men appointed in previous administra- 
 tions, ** were his personal acquaintances, and had grown gray in 
 the service." The President was a man of kindly heart and he 
 said, justifying himself for not deposing the old public servants : 
 " I cannot bear to have their wives and children come to me 
 with accounts of their suffering when I can help it." 
 
 One wishes that Andrew Jackson could sometimes have 
 been conscious of the same feeling. But "Old Hickory," the 
 most generous of men in many respects, always regarded an 
 opponent as a creature to be summarily dealt with, whether he 
 was John Quincy Adams with his culture and statesmanship, or 
 a Seminole brave with his paint and war-plumes. 
 
 Personal griefs added their gloom to Mr. Tyler's stormy 
 administration. His wife died at the White House Septem- 
 ber 10, 1842. 
 
 Seventeen months later the terrible tragedy happened on 
 board the Princeton, by which the President lost, among other 
 friends, Abel P. Upshur, the young and brilliant Secretary of 
 State who had succeeded Daniel Webster. 
 
 The President must have experienced great relief when his 
 term closed, and he could retire to Virginia and the rest and 
 freedom of his home at Sherwood Forest. He brought a young 
 and accomplished wife to preside there. On June 26, 1844, 
 he had married in New York Miss Julia Gardner, whose father 
 had been killed by the explosion on the Princeton. 
 
 Under his own roof the ex-President could indulge his 
 scholarly tastes and dispense his agreeable hospitalities, while 
 he still took a profound interest in public affairs. 
 
 At last the civil war broke. Mr. Tyler at first threw his 
 influence on the side of the union element in Virginia. He 
 went to Washington and presided at the Peace Congress in 
 
John Tyler. 247 
 
 Willard's Hall, which was held just before the inaugural of 
 Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 But it was too late to arrest the march of events. Mr. 
 Tyler must have returned home a wiser and a sadder man. 
 He had failed in his efforts to preserve the Union, and now he 
 threw in his fortunes with those of his State, and the ex-Presi- 
 dent became a member of the Confederate Congress. It is not 
 pleasant to record this. But John Tyler was an old man now, 
 and the excitements and anxieties of that time must have worn 
 heavily upon him. His health gradually broke and he died 
 January 18, 1862. 
 
JAMES KNOX POLK. 
 
 One can hardly read the name of James K. Polk without 
 thinking of Andrew Jackson. The two came of that robust 
 old Scotch-Irish breed which, during the last century, sent so 
 many of its representatives to clear their farms and build their 
 homes among the vast wildernesses of the Carolinas. They 
 were a sturdy, resolute, freedom-loving race. They made their 
 mark deep and strong on that new world where they settled. 
 
 The younger man's ancestors came first, for the two Polk 
 brothers had settled on the eastern bank of the Catawba in the 
 second quarter of the last century, while the Jacksons made 
 their clearing on the Waxhaw creek, a branch of the Catawba, 
 thirty years later. 
 
 James K. Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North 
 Carolina, November 2, 1795. He was more than twenty-eight 
 years the junior of Andrew Jackson ; but the families of the 
 two must have had strong neighborhood associations. When 
 Cornwallis's troops burst ravaging into the Waxhaw settlement, 
 Mrs. Jackson fled with her fatherless boys to Mecklenburg 
 county, and found shelter for a while with neighbors of the 
 Polks. All this was to be of consequence more than half a 
 century afterward, 
 
 James's father was a farmer, "a simple, unpretending man." 
 The mother, Jane Knox, is said to have been a superior woman. 
 When James was about eleven, the father removed with his 
 young family to the West and settled in a rich valley on Duck 
 River in East Tennessee. The Polks were in a log-cabin in the 
 primeval wilderness, and they had of course to encounter the 
 
// 
 
James Knox Polk. 249 
 
 hard fortunes and fight the brave battle of the pioneers. Be- 
 fore long the new comers were joined by others, kindred and 
 neighbors, from North CaroHna. The farm clearings grew 
 more frequent in the lonely wilderness along the Duck River 
 banks. The elder Polk became a surveyor ana a man of influ- 
 ence in the scant neighborhood. He made long surveying tours, 
 on which he took his eldest son James, a bright, rather frail boy, 
 who must have been excellent company, and who no doubt had 
 fine times, helping to build the camp-fires and cook the game 
 at nights in the Tennessee woods. James went to the common 
 schools of that day and acquired the rudiments of an English 
 education. He was fond of study and early set his heart on 
 having a thorough mental training ; but his father, in doubt 
 whether his son's health would endure the strain of a long course 
 of study, placed him in a store. 
 
 Life behind the counter was thoroughly distasteful to the 
 boy, and after a few weeks the elder Polk relented, and the 
 younger was thereafter permitted to follow his own bent. He 
 found his true place at Murfreesborough Academy, where he 
 studied industriously for the next two years and a half. 
 
 In 18 15 he entered the Sophomore class of the North Caro- 
 lina University at Chapel Hill. Here he was a strenuous student, 
 and graduated the best scholar of his class. He was twenty- 
 three now, and his diligent study had shaken his health. 
 
 As soon as he recovered he went to Nashville, and began to 
 study for the bar. The most famous man in Tennessee at this 
 time was " Old Hickory," the hero of New Orleans. He was 
 in the habit of visiting the law office of Felix Grundy, where 
 young Polk was studying. The Hermitage was only a few miles 
 from Nashville. The law student, like Andrew Jackson, had 
 come from North Carolina and belonged to the same Scotch - 
 Irish race. The younger man was brought thoroughly under 
 the influence of that powerful fascinating personality. It existed 
 
250 Our Presidents. 
 
 until it was broken by death, and profoundly affected the char- 
 acter and public career of James Polk. 
 
 He was duly admitted to the bar, and he returned to Colum- 
 bia, in the " Duck River District," and began the legal practice 
 for which he had so thoroughly equipped himself. Business, 
 fortune, honors, fell to him rapidly. 
 
 James Polk had been brought up in the Jefferson school 
 of politics and he followed the parental teachings. He grew 
 into wide popularity as a political speaker and won the flat- 
 tering title of the " Napoleon of the stump." Yet it is need- 
 less to say that the genial, courteous and cultivated lawyer, bore 
 neither in character nor temperament the slightest resemblance 
 to the frery, imperious Corsican. 
 
 In 1823 Mr. Polk went to the Tennessee Legislature. It 
 was a matter of course that he should enter with all the ardor 
 and energy of young manhood into the canvass of 1824, which 
 inflamed the whole country when Andrew Jackson and John 
 Quincy Adams were candidates for the presidency. 
 
 It is much to Mr. Polk's honor that he secured at this time 
 the passage of a bill to prevent dueling. 
 
 In 1824 I'^e was married to Miss Sarah Childless of Ten- 
 nessee. It was a happy marriage. Mrs. Polk was a lady of 
 fine character and of many personal charms. During her 
 husband's presidency she filled with simple, gracious dignity, 
 the highest position which an American woman can occupy. 
 She still lives, honored and beloved, in her quiet home at 
 Nashville, and amid memories which reach far back to the 
 morning of the century. 
 
 In 1825 Mr. Polk was elected to Congress. He was a mem- 
 ber for fourteen years, a fact which affords a strong proof of 
 his popularity with his constituents. He was an industrious 
 member, "a frequent and popular speaker," although despite 
 the old comparison between him and Bonaparte he had no 
 
James Knox Polk. 251 
 
 striking oratorical gifts, and enjoyed no high distinction among 
 his brilliant colleagues as a parliamentary debater. 
 
 His convictions made him a Democrat of the most thorough- 
 going type. He was, as a necessary consequence, opposed to 
 all the measures of John Quincy Adams's administration. 
 
 When General Jackson succeeded to the presidency Mr. 
 Polk, who had now acquired much influence in Congress, 
 stanchly defended the old soldier, although some of his meas- 
 ures rocked the country like an earthquake. 
 
 During five sessions Mr. Polk was Speaker of the House, 
 where he must have witnessed many a stormy political scene. 
 He was by nature amiable and courteous, but his strong pro- 
 slavery sentiments no doubt lay at the bottom of much of his 
 alarm lest the National Government should acquire too great 
 control over the States. He was always a strenuous upholder 
 of their rights and authority, and was always at watch lest the 
 central power should overstep the lines within which, as he 
 interpreted the Constitution, it was limited. 
 
 Jackson's famous administration closed with Van Buren's 
 accession. Mr. Polk ardently supported the latter in his cam- 
 paign ; but in 1839 he resigned his seat in the House to become 
 the candidate for Governor of Tennessee. He was elected and 
 served for two years. 
 
 Then the Whigs had their day. After the famous canvass 
 of 1840, another Virginian, General William Henry Harrison, 
 took his seat in the executive chair. In the political revulsion 
 of that time Mr. Polk was defeated in the Tennessee canvass 
 for Governor. 
 
 It is amusing to read that " he and his Whig competitor 
 canvassed the State together, actually driving in the same car- 
 riage and sleeping in the same bed." 
 
 Mr. Polk suffered another defeat when he had the same 
 rival in 1843. 
 
252 Our Presidents. 
 
 But his day of triumph was at hand. The great question of 
 the annexation of Texas superseded every other in American 
 politics. The country was aflame with excitement. Every one 
 who desired the extension of pro-slavery territory was eager for 
 the annexation of the immense southern area, which would 
 afford material for several slave states. 
 
 Mr. Polk vigorously supported annexation. This fact, and 
 the influence of Andrew Jackson, whose old age and whose 
 growing physical prostration had not weakened his iron will, 
 and who was still a power in American politics, secured the nom- 
 ination of James K. Polk for the presidency. He was elected, 
 and his inauguration took place March 4, 1845. 
 
 Texas was annexed to the Union, and as a necessary corollary 
 the war with Mexico followed. President Polk sustained it with 
 all the authority and resources of his administration. It was a 
 foregone conclusion that the American army would, in the long 
 run,^be victorious. It was an unequal contest ; but the Mex- 
 icans, when the war was brought to their very hearthstones, 
 fought with the bravery of desperation. American soldiers 
 were certain to behave gallantly, though they did it in a bad 
 cause. Mexico was conquered at last, and the " stars and 
 stripes " waved triumphantly over her capital. 
 
 Mr. Polk felt no doubt that he had achieved a splendid suc- 
 cess when the treaty of peace was at last concluded between 
 the two nations, and the United States, partly by war, partly by 
 purchase, had acquired possession of the vast Southwestern 
 areas of New Mexico and California. 
 
 Mr. Polk retired from office at the close of his first term. 
 His abilities were not of a commanding order. But he had suc- 
 ceeded in the central aim of his administration. He imme- 
 diately made a journey to the far South, and the honors and 
 ovations which continually greeted him must have made all 
 the way like a triumphal progress. He was still in the prime 
 
James Knox Polk. 253 
 
 of his life, only fifty-four. The years must have seemed to 
 stretch long and pleasant before him. His home, a beautiful 
 mansion on Grundy's hill, in the midst of pleasant grounds at 
 Nashville, awaited him. He had large wealth and ample leisure 
 in which to cultivate his scholarly tastes and enjoy the domestic 
 companionship so precious to him. But the end was close at 
 hand. The cholera was in the air that summer. The ex-Presi- 
 dent, who had at times suffered from malaria, felt the touch of 
 a deadlier pestilence as he passed up the river from New Orleans 
 to Nashville. 
 
 Yet the slender, erect figure, with the eager, scholarly face, 
 which had no look of age under " the floating gray hair," was 
 seen for awhile in the library, the lawn, about the grounds. All 
 the old interest and energy were in Mr. Polk's look and manner 
 as that May passed into June. 
 
 Then he succumbed to the subtle disease. It sapped his 
 vitality, and when it was conquered at last it left him with no 
 forces to rally. So he had to go from the beloved wife, from 
 the beautiful home, from the cherished friendships and all the 
 glories and honors of a life that was still in its prime. 
 
 He received baptism and sank peacefully into death, June 
 18, 1849. 
 
ZACHARY TAYLOR. 
 
 There are several brilliant chapters in the story of this 
 man's military career. Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Mon- 
 terey, are names that must be forever associated with his cour- 
 age and valor, but the light of history shines clearest and 
 strongest upon the figure of the old soldier on a single day 
 and scene. The day is that of February 22, 1847. The 
 scene is the battle of Buena Vista. 
 
 Yet it is no grand martial figure which one sees at the head 
 of the scant American forces' on that raw, dismal winter's day. 
 It is a short, rather dumpy figure which stands on a height 
 that commands a view of the plateau near the small ham- 
 let of Buena Vista, where the desperate battle is going on 
 between Santa Anna's army of twenty thousand Mexicans and 
 the American forces of five thousand. In this disparity of num- 
 bers lay, of course, the peril for the Americans. Santa Anna 
 had come upon the little army when it was on the march, about 
 fifty miles south of Monterey. 
 
 General Taylor's kind, honest, blunt-featured face was full 
 of anxiety as he stood on the eminence, and overlooked the 
 scene of that terrible fighting. The members of his staff, 
 seeing the deadly peril to which their Chief was exposed, 
 begged him to retire, but he refused to stir. The brave heart 
 had not quailed when the Mexican host first came in sight, and 
 poured in like the waves of the sea and almost surrounded the 
 American forces. A dauntless soul was in the dumpy body 
 of their commander. The Mexican General, confident and tri- 
 umphant in the midst of his hosts, had, before the action 
 
c>c^^ 
 
 ^-^' 
 
Zachary Taylor. 255 
 
 began, sent a messenger, with a flag of truce and a stern sum- 
 mons to surrender, to the American outposts. 
 
 " General Taylor never surrenders," was all the reply sent 
 back to Santa Anna's summons. The words were spoken by a 
 man who never wasted any, and they had a sublime courage, 
 uttered in the face of the twenty thousand Mexicans who had 
 at that time nearly surrounded the Americans. 
 
 General Taylor was not the man to make hght of the 
 peril or underrate the strength of the foe. He had made the 
 best possible disposition of his small forces. After the mes- 
 senger had disappeared, the General rode along the ranks and 
 said to his troops, " Soldiers, I intend to stand here, not only 
 so long as a man remains, but so long as a. piece of a man is 
 left." 
 
 Soon after that speech the battle of Buena Vista began. 
 
 It lasted for ten hours. It should be remembered that 
 General Taylor's forces, with the exception of about five hun- 
 dred, were volunteers, and that many of them had never before 
 been under fire. During that terrible day it often seemed as 
 though Santa Anna's Mexicans would carry everything before 
 them. They fought under the eyes of their fierce commander 
 with the courage of desperation. They fought, too, for their 
 soil and their firesides. They charged along the American lines 
 with an impetuous fury which it seemed nothing could resist. 
 But they encountered that old Anglo-Saxon valor that had 
 plucked victory at vast odds on so many historic battle-fields. 
 The old pluck held its own now. When the dark closed about 
 the ten hours' fight, seven hundred Americans, and about two 
 thousand Mexicans, lay dead and wounded on the plateau of 
 Buena Vista. 
 
 The night that followed was full of doubt and anxiety for 
 General Taylor and his troops. Neither army had won a 
 decided victory, and there was every prospect that the fight 
 
256 Our Presidents. 
 
 would be renewed in the morning. The tired troops, drenched 
 and shivering, had no camp-fires through that long winter night. 
 But when the morning broke Santa Anna had disappeared with 
 his Mexicans. 
 
 With the battle of Buena Vista, General Taylor's military- 
 career in Mexico virtually closed. Laurels on other fields 
 awaited him now. But he would never have won them had it 
 not been for that winter's day on the plateau of Buena Vista. 
 
 Zachary Taylor was born November 24, 1784, in Orange 
 County, Virginia. His father, Colonel Richard Taylor, had 
 been a stanch patriot and soldier of the Revolution. After the 
 war closed he yielded to the attraction which at that period 
 drew so many Virginians to the Western frontier. Zachary was 
 an infant when his father and mother with their three children 
 left the old home, and set out through the solitary wildernesses 
 to make a new one in Kentucky. 
 
 They were one of the first settlers at a point only a few 
 miles from the present city of Louisville. 
 
 Zachary's boyhood and youth were passed amid all the hard- 
 ships and limitations of the frontier. If his early life was full 
 of picturesque and eventful scenes, they have escaped his 
 biographers. At six he went to school, but any mental train- 
 ing he received must have been of the most meager kind. 
 He grew up, however, sturdy, active, resolute and self-reliant. 
 Nature had her own designs in his make-up, but she had not 
 meant him for a scholar. 
 
 Zachary, bred on the Kentucky frontier, must have had 
 his soul early fired by stories of the savages who were then rav- 
 aging the border settlements with torch and tomahawk. Tales 
 of this kind would be sure to strengthen any drawings he might 
 feel for a soldier's life. His father was a man of honor and 
 influence in the growing Kentucky settlement. When the son 
 was about twenty-four, the elder succeeded in obtaining a 
 
Zachary Taylor. 257 
 
 lieutenancy for him in the United States army. He went to 
 New Orleans to join the troops, and soon afterward married 
 Miss Margaret Smith, a young lady of one of the old Maryland 
 families. 
 
 The " last war " with England brought to the surface the 
 born soldier in Zachary Taylor. General Harrison on his fam- 
 ous march to the Tippecanoe, had built a fort on the Wabash, 
 about fifty miles above his home at Vincennes. Captain Tay- 
 lor — he had been promoted by this time — had been placed in 
 command at Fort Harrison. The rude work consisted merely 
 " of a row of log huts with a strong block house at each 
 end." 
 
 In the early autumn of 181 2, the shrewd, crafty Tecumseh, 
 an ally of the English, led his braves to a night attack on 
 Fort Harrison. The scene had all the unutterable horror of 
 an Indian surprise. The savages with their blood-curdling war- 
 whoops burst from the forest upon the small garrison of fifty 
 men — a large part of them invalids — and surrounded the fort. 
 They fired one of the block houses, and its flames glared over 
 the dancing, howling Indians. In the garrison women listened 
 with sickening hearts to the unearthly sounds. The men, 
 invalids and all, came to the defense with splendid courage, 
 and at six o'clock in the morning the little garrison saw the 
 savages, howling with baffled rage, disappear in the wilder- 
 ness. 
 
 Captain Taylor was made a major-general by brevet for 
 his gallant defense of Fort Harrison. 
 
 The war closed between England and America without 
 affording much active service to young Taylor. He was after- 
 ward ordered to the frontier. *' At Fort Crawford, on the Fox 
 River, which enters into Green Bay," the brave, resolute spirit 
 l)assed years of his young manhood. He was in the depths of 
 the wilderness. On that remote northwest border he had few 
 17 
 
• 
 
 25S Our Presidents. 
 
 opportunities for social enjoyment or mental cultivation. One 
 fancies the years must have seemed long and lonely as they 
 rolled over him. He was fortunate in having a brave and ten- 
 der wife who shared uncomplainingly all the privations and 
 hardships of the Border, who never pined for the softer life of 
 her youth, and whose devotion must have lightened all the sol- 
 dier's cares. 
 
 In 1832 a change came to this solitary life. Colonel Tay- 
 lor — his promotions had not been rapid, but he at last gained 
 this title — had an efficient part in the Black Hawk war. In 
 this famous campaign against the redoubtable Indian chief there 
 served under Taylor a tall, gaunt-framed young Illinois cap- 
 tain, whose name was Abraham Lincoln. Colonel Taylor dis- 
 played the qualities of a born commander in his pursuit of 
 Black Hawk. When he reached Rock River his tired and 
 rebellious troops refused to cross the stream which formed the 
 northv/est boundary of Illinois. They had volunteered, they 
 insisted, only for the defense of their State. 
 
 Colonel Taylor was a man of few words, but he always 
 understood his orders. These had been " to follow up Black 
 Hawk to the last extremity." He listened quietly for a while 
 to the angry remonstrances of his troops, and then coolly 
 informed them of orders he had received the night before from 
 Washington, to take his soldiers and pursue Black Hawk. " I 
 intend to do both," he concluded. " There are the flat boats 
 drawn up on the shore ; here are Uncle Sam's men drawn up 
 behind you on the prairie ! " 
 
 This was a sort of argument there was no resisting. Gen- 
 eral Taylor and his volunteers were soon across the Rock River 
 and making a swift dash for the foe. 
 
 For twenty-four years Zachary Taylor's military service was 
 the defense of the frontier. It must have seemed a thankless 
 task, though it was one of immense cares and responsibilities. It 
 
Zachary Taylor. ^59 
 
 demanded unceasing vigilance, prompt action in emergencies, 
 and boundless courage. 
 
 In 1837 General Taylor was ordered to march against the 
 Seminoles. The causes which produced the war do not form 
 a gratifying chapter in American history. The Seminoles felt 
 that they had been grievously wronged by the pale-faces, and 
 they took the revenge of the weak and the savage. 
 
 Colonel Taylor conducted the campaign with bravery and 
 skill. His troops were worthy of their commander. They held 
 the fierce and desperate savages at bay in interior wilderness, 
 and among the everglades of Florida. But there was a wide 
 feeling throughout the nation that the war was unjust and 
 that its victories could hardly reflect glory upon American 
 
 arms. 
 
 Colonel Taylor won the title of brigadier-general by brevet, 
 served two years in Florida, then, wearied and disgusted, 
 obtained at his own request a change to the Department of the 
 Southwest, which embraced Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama 
 and Georgia. " He estabUshed his headquarters at Louisiana, 
 and bought a plantation at Baton Rouge." To this quiet, 
 pleasant retreat he removed his family. He had a home at 
 last, in the real meaning of that word. He saw his brave wife's 
 eyes grow glad with the light of their youth, as they rested on 
 the fair, Southern landscape, and on the flowers that under her 
 care made a world of briUiant bloom about her. In the South- 
 west Department General Taylor spent the next five years. 
 His post was remote and did not bring him much honor, but 
 he fulfilled all its responsibilities in his old, vigilant way. 
 
 In 1845 Texas was annexed to the Union. The inevitable 
 consequence— trouble with Mexico— followed promptly. 
 
 General Taylor's part in the trouble was the soldier's, not 
 the statesman's. It was his duty, as he interpreted it, simply 
 to obey orders ; so he crossed the Nueces, marched two hun- 
 
26o Our Presidents. 
 
 dred miles over what the Mexicans regarded as their territor)', 
 and established himself upon the eastern bank of the Rio 
 Grande, opposite Matamoras. Every patriotic Mexican who 
 looked across the river and saw the stars and stripes floating 
 over Fort Brown, must have felt, as any American would, if a 
 hostile army were to encamp on the east bank of the Hudson. 
 
 All this, however. General Taylor regarded as a matter 
 wholly out of his province. His sole business was to do his 
 soldier's duty. 
 
 Of course under such provocation war, sooner or later, was 
 inevitable. A Mexican force crossed the Rio Grande. They 
 attacked a squadron of United States dragoons ordered to 
 watch them. The war had opened ! 
 
 General Taylor's day had come at last. If the cause was 
 bad, he and his troops did not fight less bravely for their flag 
 and their country. The victories of Palo Alto, of Resaca de la 
 Palma, the taking of Monterey, brought the name, which had 
 been buried so long on the western frontier, to the knowledge 
 of the nation. It was on everybody's lips. Stories which 
 struck the popular imagination were related of Zachary Tay- 
 lor's heroism, of his homely simplicity of manners and tastes, 
 and of his honest, straightforward, kindly nature. His troops 
 called him " Old Rough and Ready." The homely, humorous 
 phrase caught the popular fancy, as " Old Hickory " had long 
 before. 
 
 The martial temper of the country was aroused by tidings 
 of triumphs v/on for the Stars and Stripes on Mexican ground. 
 The gallant youth of the nation hurried to reinforce the armies 
 which were invading foreign soil. It must be said for the 
 Mexicans, that whatever their faults were, they proved them- 
 selves capable of fighting bravely for their land and their 
 homes ; but in the end superior strength ai:d skill were sure to 
 prevail. 
 
Zachary Taylor. 261 
 
 The battle of Buena Vista closed the military career of 
 General Taylor. After a time he returned home in a blaze of 
 glory. 
 
 At this crisis there was very serious disagreement among 
 the leaders of the Whig party. They could not unite on a 
 nomination for the presidency, though they had a list of brill- 
 iant statesmen from which to select a candidate. 
 
 The idea suddenly struck some of the political leaders to 
 seize this flood-tide of popularity, and nominate the old front- 
 ier soldier. General Taylor, in his boundless astonishment, at 
 first declined, and at last consented to accept, the nomination. 
 The party managers now took possession of him, prepared his 
 few communications to the public — he was not used to the plat- 
 form nor given to the pen — conducted the campaign success- 
 fully, and Zachary Taylor was, in 1848, triumphantly elected 
 President of the United States. 
 
 It was not an easy post for the brave, simple old soldier. 
 Surrounded by all the splendors of the White House and 
 burdened with novel cares and responsibilities, he, no doubt, 
 often longed for the freedom and homeliness of his old camp- 
 life on the frontier. 
 
 But amid the many perplexing and harassing duties which 
 were now forced on him, he showed a surprising grasp of 
 affairs, and much of the statesman's intuition and large, patri- 
 otic temper. 
 
 But he was barely permitted to manifest his new aims — his 
 unsuspected qualities. A sudden cold seized the old veteran, 
 who had borne unharmed all the hardships and exposures of the 
 military life of the frontier. The cold settled into an illness 
 which after five days ended his life. 
 
 His last words were : " I am not afraid to die. I am ready 
 to do my duty." In those simple, characteristic words, Zach- 
 ary Taylor had expressed the real purpose of his life. 
 
262 Our Presidents. 
 
 So the kindly, honest, faithful old soldier left the world, in 
 which he had struggled to do his part simply and manfully. 
 The country he had loved and served bestowed on him at last 
 her highest gift ; but Death, whose claim is always supreme, 
 called Zachary Taylor from his place, when he had occupied it 
 a little more than sixteen months. He died July 9, 1850. 
 
''^Co.^t^lj yCoi^^^^ 
 
MILLARD FILLMORE. 
 
 On July 9, 1850, Millard Fillmore became President of the 
 United States. He went to his post, the successor of Zachary 
 Taylor, the sturdy old soldier-President, who had won his 
 proudest laurels at the battle of Buena Vista. The nation was 
 plunged in grief at his sudden death. The man whose youth 
 and prime had been passed on the solitary western frontier and 
 among the Florida everglades, on ceaseless guard against the 
 savages, had shown a sound judgment and a broad statesman- 
 like comprehension of political issues which had inspired wide 
 confidence in his administration. But now that " Old Rough 
 and Ready's " strong, honest hand had dropped from the helm 
 it had held for sixteen months, there was a general feeling of 
 dismay. 
 
 Millard Fillmore must have been conscious of this, and he 
 could have had little sense of exultation as he took his oath of 
 office and seated himself in the vacant executive chair. He 
 was born at Summer Hill, Cayuga County, New York, when the 
 present century was only seven days old. He came of a brave, 
 stanch ancestry which had planted themselves in the Massa- 
 chusetts Colony. His mother was a native of the same State, 
 and was a woman of character and intelligence. 
 
 The Fillmores emigrated to the western wildernesses of 
 New York State late in the last century. They had the hard 
 lot, the straitened means of the pioneers. Millard's home was 
 of the humblest, and his opportunities were of the scantiest. 
 A boy who came of an old New England race went, as a mat- 
 ter of course, to such common schools as his neighborhood 
 
264 Our Presidents. 
 
 afforded ; but his lack of early advantages can be best illus- 
 trated by the fact that, in his early years, the household library 
 consisted of but two volumes, and one of these was a Bible and 
 the other a hymn-book. 
 
 The farm did not prove a great success, and the elder 
 Fillmore resolved that his son should have a trial, at least, at 
 some other business than that of cultivating the soil. Millard 
 was sent at fourteen a hundred miles from home, to try his 
 hand for a few months at " carding wool and dressing cloth." 
 His employer proved hard and severe, and when the months 
 had expired Millard " shouldered his knapsack," with its bread 
 and dried venison, and set out on foot for home, a hundred 
 miles off, through the primeval wilderness. He must have had 
 high pluck to do that. 
 
 He appears to have worked for the next four years at the 
 clothier's trade. It is significant that " the first book he pur- 
 chased with his own money was a small English dictionary, 
 which he studied while attending the carding machine." But 
 his mind was awake and alert at this formative period. He had 
 access to a small village library, and he made the most of it. 
 He devoured "history and biography." 
 
 As time went on and he grew more eager for knowledge, a 
 purpose also grew in his soul to make something of himself. At 
 nineteen these kindling ambitions urged him to study for the 
 law. He was so thoroughly in earnest in this matter that he 
 gave up a year's wages, besides paying his employer thirty dol- 
 lars, a sum which represented vastly more at that period than 
 it does now. 
 
 Millard set himself resolutely at his legal studies " with a 
 retired country lawyer." He paid for his board by his services 
 in the law office. In the winters he taught school. He had 
 certainly used the village library to good purpose. Young Fill- 
 more was at this time a youth of remarkably attractive personal 
 
Millard Fillmore. 265 
 
 appearance. The grace and polish of manner which were con- 
 spicuous throughout his lite, already distinguished him. 
 
 At twenty-one he went to Buffalo and entered a law office, 
 " where he had the best of advantages." He studied with untir- 
 ing zeal, and supported himself chiefly by teaching school. It 
 was a brave struggle and it was sure to win at the last. 
 
 The long upward climb began when the century and Millard 
 Fillmore were twenty-three. At that time he was admitted to 
 the Court of Common Pleas He began his practice in the 
 pretty little village of Aurora. He won his first case, for which 
 he received four dollars. Probably he felt prouder and hap- 
 pier at that time than he did when he pocketed his largest 
 fee. 
 
 In 1826 young Fillmore married Miss Abigail Powers, the 
 daughter of a clergyman, a young lady of great good sense and 
 fine character. 
 
 In 1S29 he removed to Buffalo, where he now entered upon 
 a prosperous practice. About this time he became a member of 
 the New York Legislature, in which he delivered a speech of 
 much power against imprisonment for debt. 
 
 In 1832 New York State sent Millard Fillmore to Con- 
 gress. He entered now upon a new and tumultuous arena. 
 Andrew Jackson and his party were carrying everything before 
 them. The great battle was fought at this time over the 
 National Bank and the removal of the deposits. . 
 
 The new member from New York was a stanch Whig, but he 
 could render little service to his party at this juncture. 
 
 He returned to his home and his profession, in which he won 
 a steadily increasing success. By this time the quality of the 
 man had made itself felt among his political and professional 
 associates; his high integrity, his legal ability and his spotless 
 character, earned an enviable reputation for the Buffalo lawyer 
 and ex-Congressman. 
 
266 Our Presidents. 
 
 In 1837 he was again re-elected to the House. Equipped 
 for service by his former experience, he soon threw himself 
 into the thick of affairs : he made many effective speeches in 
 the House. The clear, strong quality of his intellect enabled him 
 to hold his ground among his able colleagues. He was at this 
 time " one of the most advanced of anti-slavery Whigs." 
 
 But his Congressional labors taxed him so heavily that he 
 declined a re-election and retired to private life. 
 
 His State, however, would not permit him to remain there. 
 The Whig party nominated him as its strongest candidate for 
 Governor. The issues made the canvass a strongly excited one, 
 and Mr. Fillmore was defeated. But in 1847 he became, by 
 an immense vote, Comptroller of the State. This involved a 
 removal to Albany, where he discharged his new duties with 
 characteristic fidelity. 
 
 But a greater honor was in store for him. Zachary Tay- 
 lor, the hero of Mexican battle-fields, was unexpectedly nomi- 
 nated for the presidency, and Millard Fillmore's name fol- 
 lowed for Vice-President. It was believed that the Northern 
 lawyer might retain many votes which would otherwise be lost 
 to the oid soldier, who was also a Louisiana slaveholder. 
 
 The canvass went its stormy way; and the Whig party had 
 its hour, and the rugged old soldier, and the courteous, polished 
 New York lawyer, went to their posts. Sixteen months later the 
 executive chair was vacant, and Millard Fillmore took the dead 
 President's place. It was a very difficult position to fill at 
 this period. The great question of slavery was now overshad- 
 owing every other in American politics. On that supreme issue 
 the President's attitude soon greatly astonished and angered 
 the party which had elected him. His administration in its 
 large outlines suggested that of another Vice-President, John 
 Tyler. 
 
 Mr. Fillmore's instincts were strongly conservative, and it 
 
Millard Fillmore. 267 
 
 was his great aim to conciliate the agitated and angry South. 
 He had during his vice-presidency supported Mr. Clay's com- 
 promise measures, which included the fugitive slave law, so 
 repugnant to Northern temper and institutions. 
 
 It was believed that Mr. Fillmore's course was more or less 
 swayed by his personal antipathies. But it cannot be questioned 
 that he earnestly desired to serve his country. His admin- 
 istration closed amid much intense disapproval at the North, 
 but the ex-President was, no doubt, partly solaced for this by 
 the enthusiastic reception which he met soon afterward on his 
 tour through the South. 
 
 Two years later Mr. Fillmore visited Europe, where he was 
 the object of many gratifying attentions. These were paid 
 partly to the character of the man, partly to his public position. 
 He returned home to receive a nomination for the presidency 
 by the oddly named " Know Nothing " wing of his party ; but 
 James Buchanan carried the election, and the political career of 
 Millard Fillmore was ended. 
 
 The remainder of his life was passed in elegant retirement 
 amid the books and the social environment congenial to his 
 tastes. 
 
 Mrs. Fillmore, who had so bravely shared the struggles of 
 her husband's early married life, and sympathized with his 
 intellectual aspirations, found the duties of mistress of the 
 White House extremely irksome to her delicate health and quiet 
 habits. It is said that to her studious tastes the fine library 
 at the White House owes its beginnings. She found the great 
 mansion almost empty of books, and to gratify her wishes her 
 husband " asked and secured an appropriation from Congress 
 for the purchase of a library." 
 
 Mrs. Fillmore died in the March which saw the close of 
 her husband's administration. The family returned to Buffalo, 
 and during the following year the ex-President's only daughter, 
 
268 Our Presidents. 
 
 who had inherited the sterling quaUties of her parents, followed 
 her mother. 
 
 Mr. Fillmore afterward married a Miss Mcintosh, a lady of 
 Buffalo. 
 
 His life flowed smoothly and serenely through its later years. 
 The Civil War moved on its deadly way, but Mr. Fillmore had 
 no lot nor part in that great struggle. No words from his lips 
 rung through his State, to fire her heart, and rally her forces, 
 in the hour of her trial. It Avas widely believed that the 
 Northern ex-President's real sympathies, though he did not 
 avow them, were with the South. But neither party looked to 
 him now for influence or leadership. 
 
 In private life he was always an interesting and agreeable 
 figure. To his high qualities of character he added that inborn 
 grace of manner which had distinguished him in his struggling 
 youth, and he had a dignified and handsome presence. 
 
 Mr. Fillmore died amid his friends and at his elegant home 
 in Buffalo, March 8, 1874. 
 
^ 
 
FRANKLIN PIERCE. 
 
 "Sir, you could not congratulate a more astonished man ! " 
 
 Somewhere in June, 1852, a gentleman in Concord, New 
 Hampshire, made this characteristic and graceful rejoinder to a 
 friend who had just congratulated him on his nomination to the 
 presidency of the United States. The speaker's name was 
 Franklin Pierce. 
 
 He was born in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, Nov. 23, 
 1804. His father had served as private and officer in the Rev- 
 olutionary War, and his son was brought up in a home atmos- 
 phere of fervid patriotism and on the political creed of Thomas 
 Jefferson. 
 
 It was a creed of the noblest ideals and of a broad and 
 generous humanity, else it could not have been Thomas Jeffer- 
 son's. It breathed the spirit of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. It was instinct with the large hope and the glowing 
 enthusiasm of the early period of the French Revolution. 
 
 The sturdy old father, with his Revolutionary memories and 
 his Jeffersonian politics, was comfortably settled on the New 
 Hampshire farmstead when Franklin was born. He was the 
 sixth of eight children. The elder Pierce was a man of strong 
 character, of much native ability, and of unsullied honor. He 
 held various important positions in the State ; he was for suc- 
 cessive years a member of its Legislature, he belonged to the 
 Governor's staff and was General of the militia. 
 
 Mrs. Pierce is said to have been an intelligent Christian 
 woman, the fitting head of the large young household. 
 
 So the boy's life struck its roots in the old hill-soil and 
 
270 Our Presidents. 
 
 prospered vigorously. If he knew little of luxury he had less 
 experience of poverty. The New England atmosphere of his 
 day was full of intense political excitement. The boy drank 
 in the parental talk of the times, of the prominent men of the 
 day, of the great political issues at stake, and it was to him like 
 the oracles of the gods. 
 
 Franklin had a fair start. He went to the neighboring 
 academies of Hancock and Francestown. At sixteen he entered 
 Bowdoin. Here he made a striking and agreeable impression 
 on every one who came in contact with him. The Bowdoin un- 
 dergraduate was extremely popular with his classmates. There 
 was something then — there was to be always — singularly lovable 
 about him. He was born to be a favorite. Nature herself had 
 endowed him with an instinctive courtesy, a grace of speech 
 and manner, which attracted people and won affection on all 
 sides. 
 
 Franklin Pierce was, we hear, a good scholar, though hardly 
 a brilliant one. He had inherited strong military tastes, and 
 he became an officer in a college company in which Nathaniel 
 Hawthorne was a private. The attachment of the two, so 
 unlike in temperament and character, was to prove one of the 
 deepest pleasures and satisfactions of their lives. 
 
 Young Pierce graduated in 1824 ^'^d at once began the 
 study of law with Judge Woodbury, one of the most conspicuous 
 lawyers in the State, and who was " just entering on a brilliant 
 political career." 
 
 It was Franklin Pierce's fate to be in the thick of politics 
 from his youth. At the time he was preparing for the New 
 Hampshire bar, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson 
 were the foremost figures in American politics. It is needless 
 to say that the law student espoused the soldier's instead of the 
 statesman's side, in the fierce canvass of 1828 for the presi- 
 dency. 
 
Franklin Pierce. 271 
 
 Franklin Pierce was duly admitted to the bar and began the 
 practice of laAv in his native town. He must have been much 
 mortified when his first case proved a failure ; but his reply to 
 a friend who condoled with him on that occasion has the ring 
 of assured future success : " I will try nine hundred and ninety- 
 nine cases if clients will continue to trust me ; and if I fail, just 
 as I have to-day, I will try the thousandth." 
 
 But the man who said that and meant it, would not fail "a 
 thousand times." 
 
 Hillsborough soon sent young Pierce, as it had sent his 
 father, to the State Legislature, where he served four years ; the 
 last two of which he was Speaker of the House. 
 
 In 1833 Franklin Pierce was elected to Congress. This was 
 a great honor for so young a man. He was a faithful, strenuous 
 worker in the House, though not prominent in debates. He 
 supported all Jackson's measures and won the old hero's per- 
 sonal regard. 
 
 Franklin Pierce entered the Senate, its youngest member, as 
 he was only thirty-three. 
 
 Jackson's pupil, the clever, adroit, political leader, Martin 
 Van Buren, was just entering upon what proved to be his stormy 
 presidency. 
 
 The young senator's graceful, polished and fluent speeches 
 won the interest of the chamber. A never-failing tact, a native 
 courtesy of bearing and speech, and an unruffled temper, made 
 Franklin Pierce popular in the Senate- chamber, as they had in 
 the old college-halls of Bowdoin. He had many friends, even 
 among his political opponents, and while he was the stanch est 
 of Democrats, he had a felicitous way of ameliorating the heat 
 and bitterness of political discussion. 
 
 In 1834 Mr. Pierce married Miss Jane Means Appleton, the 
 daughter of a President of Bowdoin College. She was a young 
 lady of fine mind and character, and an extremely sensitive 
 
272 Our Presidents. 
 
 organization, which was partly the result of delicate health. 
 This marriage proved one of great harmony and happiness. 
 
 In 1838 Mr. Pierce removed to the capital of his native 
 State. Here he devoted himself to his profession and won a 
 briUiant legal reputation. 
 
 When Mr. Polk became President he appointed Mr. Pierce 
 Attorney-General of the United States, but the latter seems not 
 to have had a greed for high offices. He declined the appoint- 
 ment, as he did the nomination for Governor of his native State. 
 
 But his profession had not extinguished his old military pro- 
 clivities, and the war with Mexico opened a new career to the 
 New Hampshire lawyer. He was appointed Brigadier-General, 
 and sailed with the troops from Newport, Rhode Island, on 
 May 27, 1847. 
 
 General Pierce now proved what soldier's stuff he had 
 inherited. He had in Mexico a varied, striking and brilliant 
 career. In camp and on the battle-field, he showed himself the 
 brave soldier, the born commander. He risked his life, he 
 was severely wounded, and he bore his sufferings with the 
 utmost heroism. One cannot help wishing all that gallant 
 behavior had been inspired by a better cause. 
 
 General Pierce returned to his home at Concord with the 
 fresh laurels he had won on Mexican battle-fields. He resumed 
 his legal practice, in which he had shown high ability and had 
 been ranked among the leading lawyers of his State. His 
 native kindliness must have won the friendship even of the wit- 
 nesses who were under his cross-examination. " It was said 
 that he was never known to insult, browbeat, or terrify one." 
 
 But he was still deeply interested in politics. He gave all 
 the weight of his character and all his public influence to the 
 pro-slavery wing of his party. The South learned to know him, 
 to regard him as belonging to itself. " He was the Northern 
 man with Southern principles." "* 
 
Franklin Pierce. 273 
 
 This feeling bore fruit at last. After ten days of balloting, 
 the Democratic convention, at Baltimore, nominated the New- 
 Hampshire lawyer for the presidency. It took the country by 
 surprise, and Mr. Pierce's own words, quoted at the head of 
 this sketch, best express his own astonishment when he learned 
 the truth. 
 
 The canvass went its fierce way, and in due time Franklin 
 Pierce was elected President of the United States. 
 
 The new administration proved a stormy one. This was in 
 the nature of things. The question of slavery was becoming 
 the central one in American politics. The shameful proceedings 
 in Kansas concentrated the interests of the nation on that terri- 
 tory. The invasion of its polls, the election of its Legislature 
 by armed mobs from other States, the appeal of its hunted and 
 helpless inhabitants to Government for succor and protection, 
 fired the heart of the country. But all the President's sympa- 
 thies were with the pro-slavery party. His words, his deeds, 
 proved this only too well during his entire administration ; and 
 when it closed and he resigned the helm to James Buchanan, 
 Franklin Pierce had "thoroughly alienated the North." 
 
 He returned to his childless home at Concord. Two months 
 before his inauguration he had lost the last of his children, " a 
 bright boy of thirteen years," who was returning with his 
 parents from Boston to Concord, when the cars went over an 
 embankment. The boy, who was the object of such pride and 
 love, was instantly killed, and the shadow of this grief lay upon 
 the father's inaugural. 
 
 Mrs. Pierce, to whose stricken heart and feeble health the 
 social demands of the White House had been very burdensome, 
 was taken abroad by her husband after they left Washington. 
 They spent a year and a half in leisurely travel through Europe. 
 After their return home Mrs. Pierce's health did not per- 
 manently rally, and she died in December, 1863. 
 
2 74 Our Presidents. 
 
 The ex-President, left wifeless and childless, was still in the 
 prime of his years. The Civil War was going its way of desola- 
 tion and death by this time. The pupil and friend of Andrew 
 Jackson could hardly wish the Union destroyed, but Franklin 
 Pierce never did anything to alter the opinion of a world which 
 had long regarded him as a " Northern man with a Southern 
 heart." Yet he could not have regarded that title as an envia- 
 ble distinction. Nobody could deny, however, that his was a 
 kindly, generous, magnanimous heart. It was always inspiring 
 pleasant words and helpful deeds. General Pierce had a 
 native, felicitous tact, which made him the most delightful of 
 friends and companions. Those who were utterly opposed to 
 his political course could not resist the charm of that unstud- 
 ied, courteous manner, of that graceful, winning talk. Indeed, 
 they half disarmed his bitterest opponents, his severest censors. 
 
 He lived to see the Civil War close, the Union victorious. 
 The great soldier who had been with him through the Mexican 
 War was President of the United States when Franklin Pierce 
 went to his last rest. He was close to his sixty-fifth birthday. 
 He died at Concord, October 8, 1869. 
 
^^^^^ ^^-^^-^^^^.^^.5^,.^^ 
 
JAMES BUCHANAN. 
 
 James Buchanan first saw the light when the French 
 RevoUition was shaking the civilized world, for he was born 
 April 23, 1791. Stony Batter was the homely name of his 
 birthplace. " It lay in a mountain gorge in the midst of pict- 
 uresque scenery at the foot of the eastern ridge of the Alle- 
 ghanies." The boy's father came of Scotch-Irish breed. He 
 had emigrated to America less than a decade before his son's 
 birth. He cleared his farm and built his cabin on the frontier, 
 and five years after his arrival in the country he married Miss 
 Elizabeth Spear, an estimable young woman in the neighbor- 
 hood. 
 
 James was fortunate enough, in the midst of his rustic sur- 
 roundings, to have an intelligent father and a superior mother. 
 It was fortunate for him, too, that when he reached his eighth 
 year, the family removed to the village of Mercersburg, when 
 James began his studies in English, Latin and Greek. So the 
 boy, born in the shadow of the AUeghanies, was to have a fair 
 chance to prove what stuff was in him. He was a bright 
 scholar, and at fourteen was ready to enter Dickinson College, 
 at Carlisle. Here he devoted himself to study, showed remark- 
 able ability, and " graduated with the highest honors of his 
 
 class." 
 
 At eighteen he began his legal studies at Lancaster, and at 
 twenty-one was admitted to the bar. This was in 181 2. It 
 was a critical year in American history, and the young lawyer 
 was deeply interested in political affairs. One is half surprised, 
 half amused, recalling his later political avowals and affiliations, 
 
276 Our Presidents. 
 
 to learn tliat he was at that time a Federalist. But he heartily 
 supported Madison in the war with England. His blood was 
 so fired by the sack of Washington and the threats of an attack 
 on Baltimore, that he enlisted as a private soldier, resolved to 
 do his share in defending his country from the invaders. 
 
 James Buchanan Avas well equipped for his work when he 
 set himself to the practice of his profession. The Lancaster 
 lawyer soon acquired distinction at the bar. He secured a 
 large and lucrative practice, and in a short time had won for 
 himself an enviable reputation among the eminent lawyers of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 In 1820 Mr. Buchanan was elected to Congress ; he took 
 his seat in the House and retained it for the next ten years. 
 About this time his political sentiments underwent a change. 
 One must be familiar with the history of that period to under- 
 stand the various causes which contributed to bring the Fed- 
 eralist party, despite its splendid services to the country, into 
 disfavor with the nation. James Buchanan became, in a little 
 while, identified with the party of Jefferson 
 
 It was full of fresh hope and courage. It was inspired by 
 strong convictions and definite purposes. In a little while the 
 young member from Pennsylvania had made his mark in Con- 
 gress. Some words which he uttered on the floor are interest- 
 ing when read in the light of future events : 
 
 " If I know myself I am a politician neither of the East 
 nor of the West, of the North nor of the South. I therefore 
 shall avoid any expressions, the direct tendency of which must 
 be to create sectional jealousies and at length disunion, that 
 worst and last of all political calamities." 
 
 In the famous canvass of 1824, when popular passions 
 mounted high, the former Federalist used all his influence 
 to secure Andrew Jackson's election to the presidency. The 
 hero of New Orleans never forgot his friends, and when, four 
 
James Buchanan. 277 
 
 years later, he succeeded John Quincy Adams, James Bu- 
 chanan was appointed Minister to Russia. He made his first 
 entrance into court life in the summer of 1832. American 
 ambassadors have always had a cordial reception at the Russian 
 court. Mr. Buchanan's formed no exception. Indeed, his 
 refined, courteous bearing, his polished speech, and a certain 
 pliancy of temperament, made him particularly adapted to the 
 atmosphere and habits of the presence-chamber of kings. 
 
 He did good service for his country, too ; he finally suc- 
 ceeded in negotiating a treaty of commerce with Russia ; he 
 won the favor of the Emperor Nicholas. That terrible autocrat, 
 who held such an iron rule over his own vast dominions, had his 
 beaming moods, in which no monarch could excel him in saying 
 gracious things. At Mr. Buchanan's audience of leave, he con- 
 descended to desire " that he would tell President Jackson to 
 send him another minister exactly like himself." 
 
 With the fresh laurels he had won in the Russian mission, 
 Mr. Buchanan returned to America to enter the national 
 Senate. Here he unflinchingly supported all Jackson's meas- 
 ures. 
 
 This brief narrative cannot enter into the details of Mr. 
 Buchanan's political career. In the Senate he was conspic uous 
 for his advocacy of state-right theories. His temperament was 
 naturally conservative and inclined him to honor exalted place, 
 power and high social rank. This fact, no doubt, strongly in- 
 fluenced his political sympathies. With all his skill as a lawyer, 
 with all his experience and sagacity as a statesman, he had not a 
 liigh and resolute spirit. Despite all the purity of his private 
 life and his spotless integrity, he was lacking in will and moral 
 energy. When he was brought in contact with powerful and de- 
 termined natures, he did not confront them with a dauntless tem- 
 per. In short, he was not a man for a great national emergency. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan sustained the unfortunate administration of 
 
2 yS Our Presidents. 
 
 John Tyler. When James K. Polk became President he made 
 Buchanan Secretary of State, who threw his whole influence 
 into the scale for the Mexican War. 
 
 In all, those great sectional questions which were now coming 
 to the front in American politics, Mr. Buchanan invariably took 
 the side of the South. He opposed the Wilmot Proviso and 
 he approved of the fugitive slave law. 
 
 On the election of Franklin Pierce Buchanan was appointed 
 Minister to England. At the court of St. James he was a dig- 
 nified and agreeable figure and made many friends. 
 
 But his attitude in the matter of Cuba, and his share in the 
 conferences at Ostend, made an unpleasant impression both in 
 Europe and America, and seriously threatened the relations of 
 the United States with Spain. 
 
 Domestic affairs, however, soon wholly engaged the attention 
 of the country. In 1856 the great political conflict took place 
 which ended at last in the election of James Buchanan to the 
 presidency. The boy who had been born on the Pennsylvania 
 frontier, in the humble home at the foot of the Alleghanies, had 
 received, after a life of various success and honors, the nation's 
 highest gift. 
 
 James Buchanan went to his new post under circumstances 
 that would have tried the finest temper, the sternest stuff. The 
 adroit politician, the polished diplomat, the bland, courteous 
 gentleman, proved himself fatally unequal to the demands of 
 the time and place. For the inevitable Civil War was now 
 drawing near. 
 
 When the storm gathered there was a faint heart and a flac- 
 cid hand, at the helm, and men thought of Andrew Jackson and 
 wished he could stand in Buchanan's place, with his flashing 
 eyes and his white stern face, and the few strong simple words 
 behind which always lay the unfaltering will. 
 
 The Pennsylvania boy and the North Carolina one came of 
 
James Buchanan. 279 
 
 the same sturdy Scotch-Irish breed, but they were of totally 
 different moral strain. 
 
 With all his Southern affiliations and sympathies, Mr. Bu- 
 chanan certainly did not desire the destruction of the Union. 
 Yet none the less, he, its President, looked on, dismayed, help- 
 less, despairing, when the time came to act with promptness and 
 energy. No word of high courage and dauntless resolve fell 
 from his lips to ring through the North and stir its heart Uke the 
 blast of a trumpet. During long months of doubt and waiting, 
 he did not lift his hand to stay secession ; indeed, his utterances 
 for a while fatally encouraged it. The national forts were 
 seized, the Union flag was insulted, the States went their own 
 blind, mad way, unhindered by the man to whom had been 
 intrusted the fortunes of the nation. He helped neither North 
 nor South in the critical hour ; he only lamented and watched 
 and waited supinely. He was not the man for the place. This 
 will always be the severest count which history will make against 
 James Buchanan. 
 
 His presidential career closed at last in calamity and gloom, 
 and he no doubt found it an immense relief to leave the scene 
 of his great triumphs and his greater failures, and return to the 
 beautiful retreat which he had made for his old age at Wheat- 
 land, an estate about a mile from Lancaster. 
 
 The ex-President had agreeable social qualities and deep 
 family affections. He had an early love ; but when the young 
 lady died to whom he had been betrothed, he never, during his 
 long life, sought to fill her place with another. 
 
 Whether this fact was the result of devoted loyalty to a 
 memory, or to an unemotional temperament, is a matter which 
 Mr. Buchanan's most intimate friends could alone answer, and 
 which is not the business of the world. 
 
 His beautiful and accomplished niece, Miss Lane, to whom 
 he was greatly attached, was the graceful mistress of the White 
 
28o Our Presidents. 
 
 House during her uncle's administration. She was the daughter 
 of the President's dead sister. 
 
 Amid wealth, leisure and affection, Mr. Buchanan spent his 
 last years in the home at Wheatland. He lived to witness the 
 close of the Civil War, and no doubt he was glad to know that 
 the Union had been preserved. 
 
 Mr. Buchanan's real abilities must have suffered some eclipse 
 from the brilliant men with whom he was associated during his 
 long public life. He died at Wheatland June i, 1868, 
 
■®^-' 4j MEMam Sojis. re~ 
 
 ^9-t 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 The beginnings of this life — to be lifted up where all the world 
 should gaze at it — were of the lowliest and humblest. It 
 saddens one to go back to that childhood, and read of its 
 bareness, its hardships, its limitations. It appears so darkened, 
 hedged about, closed in by stark, pitiless poverty ! One would 
 imagine that the wolf, with its gaunt, triumphant face, always 
 stood at the door of that Kentucky log cabin where, on Febru- 
 ary 12, 1809, Abraham Lincoln first saw the light. Yet, though 
 the traditions and anecdotes of the childhood and youth have 
 always the same burden, though the framework in which those 
 early years were set appears so bare and scant, I doubt whether 
 Abraham Lincoln was conscious of anything of the sort. In- 
 deed, I suspect that a quiet, humorous smile would have twin- 
 kled on that homely, kindly face, if he had known how people 
 who lived in elegant houses, amid the comfort and luxury of 
 the last quarter of the nineteenth century, would regard his early 
 life. For it was the life of the Western pioneer in the first quar- 
 ter of the century, and, despite all its ruggedness and hardships, 
 it must have had grand compensations. Those men and women 
 of the frontier, who set the outermost stakes of civilization on 
 the border, were surrounded by the mystery and beauty of wide, 
 varied, lavish nature. Each year held for them the wonder- 
 ful march of the seasons. For them the wilderness blossomed 
 as the rose, and they beheld the outgoings of the mornings and 
 evenings rejoice. If their roofs were scant and low, they spent 
 much of their time beneath a roof whose vast arches had been 
 sprung by no human skill, while beneath their feet spread a tapes- 
 
282 Our Presidents. 
 
 try more richly illumined than any which had ever carpeted the 
 presence-chamber of kings. Poverty, at its utmost pinch, could 
 never have meant to the pioneer what it does in our great cities. 
 What could people really know of hunger or cold who had the 
 illimitable forests for their fuel, and the abundant wild game of 
 the woods, the fish of the streams, the berries of the fields, to 
 heap their scant pine-boards ? There were no sharp, humiliat- 
 ing contrasts to set the poverty in strong lights, to bring it 
 home and make its iron enter the soul. If Abraham Lincoln 
 " went barefoot and wore buckskin trousers, and slept in a low, 
 dark loft, on a coarse bag filled with corn husks," so did plenty 
 of his neighbors, and he probably never dreamed he was any 
 the worse for it. It is doubtful whether, during the first twelve 
 years of his life, he ever/<?// that he was poor. Indeed, he never 
 felt it in any way which could touch his sturdy self-respect 
 and independence. Nature has nobler lessons to teach a boy 
 than his poverty. If he will listen to the great Mother, she will 
 always make light of that. 
 
 When Abraham was getting to be a famous man, some of his 
 political opponents charged him with entering Illinois barefoot 
 and driving an ox cart. What if he did ? We may be sure 
 he carried his head as high, he went as brave and independent 
 as though he had worn the finest of broadcloth, or the most shin- 
 ing of patent-leather boots. 
 
 The Kentucky boy came of Virginia stock. The grandfather, 
 whose name he bore, left the beautiful valley of the Shenandoah 
 and pushed out on the western border before the War of the 
 Revolution had closed. Thomas was the youngest of the three 
 boys of the family ; he stands a weak, helpless, bewildered fig- 
 ure between the two Abrahams — the sturdy old pioneer father, 
 and the famous son. Perhaps the stern conditions of border- 
 life, which included battling with Indians and wild beasts, 
 proved too hard for him. At least, he lacked the robust fiber 
 
Abraham Lincoln. 283 
 
 which goes to the making of the born pioneer. He never had 
 a chance to prove whether he was out of place. He was always 
 " generous, good-natured, warm-hearted," because to be this 
 was in the Lincoln blood. There were no schools in the wilder- 
 ness, and he never went to one, never learned even to read or 
 write — a fact more surprising now than it was a hundred years 
 ago. He might have had a better chance, had not his father, 
 while at work in the field, been shot down by a prowling 
 savage. This happened two years after the migration from 
 Virginia. The widow and her boys must have had a fight 
 for existence in the log cabin on the lonely border. Thomas 
 spent his youth as a hired laborer. At twenty-eight he built 
 his own log cabin, and took to wife Nancy Hawks, a daugh- 
 ter of another Virginia emigrant. She was a handsome young 
 woman, we are told, with much native refinement, though her 
 virtues of mind and heart never had any larger sphere for 
 their exercise than a squatter's log cabin on the Western fron- 
 tier. Here a daughter was born to Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, and 
 later a son, whom they called Abraham, after his grandfather. 
 Whatever else was lacking, the boy and girl had the blessing of 
 a pure and Christian atmosphere about their early life. A 
 wide, beautiful out-door world surrounded the lov/ly home- 
 stead. It stood in La Rue County, in the heart of Kentucky. 
 Around it opened the early southwestern springs, and bloomed 
 the long, lovely summers, and smiled, serene and tender, the 
 late Kentucky autumns, and settled down at last the still, short 
 winters. 
 
 Inside the log cabin everything was so scant and bare that 
 it seemed utterly comfortless ; but the boy and girl must have^v 
 had a homely, hearty, rugged childhood, with plenty of fun and 
 rollicking thrown in, between the gentle, tender mother and the 
 shiftless, easy-going father. 
 
 The son sprang up rapidly into slender, overgrown boyhood ; 
 
284 Our Presidents. 
 
 he must have presented a singular appearance, with his odd, 
 grave, strongly-marked features, and his tall, bony Hmbs, when, 
 at seven years old, he went to school for five months ; he must 
 have been a bright scholar, too, for he learned to read and 
 write in that time. 
 
 This was opening a new world to a boy like Abraham Lin- 
 coln. It was to the father's credit that he " deplored his own 
 lack of education, and was anxious his children should not 
 sviffer in that respect as he had done." 
 
 Perhaps the mother's influence had much to do with this 
 feeling. She had enjoyed better advantages than her husband, 
 and managed occasionally to get hold of a book, and read 
 stories to her delighted children. If the life was humble and 
 hard, it was also sound and sweet at the core. 
 
 When Abraham was eight years old, his father made up his 
 mind to try his fortunes in Indiana. A pair of horses carried 
 the few household goods, and the family of four left their log 
 cabin, and the grave of a little boy who had been born after 
 Abraham, and started on foot through the wilderness. It was 
 a seven days' journey. It was not an unpleasant one, especially 
 for the children, in the soft, western autumn weather, with 
 plenty of game in the woods, and boughs to be gathered at 
 nightfall for the long, deHcious sleep under the stars. At last 
 they crossed the Ohio, and, a few miles beyond, reached the 
 site of their new home in southern Indiana. 
 
 Thomas Lincoln made shift to put up a hunter's cabin, or 
 " pole shelter," in which his family shivered through their first 
 Indiana winter. In the spring, with the help of his young son 
 whose strength and size were far in advance of his years, he 
 built a log cabin of the rudest description, and cleared and 
 planted his land. 
 
 The wilderness was a solitary place for the new settlers. It 
 must have been a happy day for " Abe " and his young sister 
 
Abraham Lincoln. 285 
 
 Sally when old friends and neighbors of the Lincolns came to 
 the new clearing and formed a settlement. 
 
 But the life in southern Indiana, whatever were its com- 
 pensations, appears to have been hardly an improvement on 
 the old one left behind in Kentucky. There Avas a side — a 
 very large one — that was full of sordid toil and bitter priva- 
 tions. The face of the tall, gaunt, awkward boy, with all its 
 lights of fun and humor, grew thoughtful and sad in that strait- 
 ened, burdened life. After he had learned to read, he had 
 an intense craving for books, but these were much like angels' 
 visits in the Lincoln log cabin. What efforts that boy made, 
 what miles he walked to get hold of a fresh volume, when 
 he learned some settler owned the priceless treasure ! No- 
 body could have had the heart to refuse his eager entreaties to 
 borrow it. How he devoured the contents ! What a different 
 sort of reading the earnest, painstaking study of the squatter's 
 son was from that of boys who skim the surfaces of their 
 lessons ! But the difference told. Whatever Abraham Lincoln 
 read was stored away in some stronghold of his memory as a 
 miser stores his gold. So, at one time and another, he feasted 
 his soul on '' yEsop's Fables," on " The Pilgrim's Progress," and 
 " The Life of George Washington." A king's son could have 
 no better reading. 
 
 The pioneer life is hardest on its women. Mrs. Lincoln 
 broke down early under it. The woman of gentle, refined 
 instincts seems to have been out of place in the rough border 
 country. She sickened in the mild, malarious climate, and died 
 about two years after the removal to Indiana. 
 
 Abraham was ten years old at that time. All his life he 
 remembered the sad, patient, loving mother, with a great, rever- 
 ent tenderness. 
 
 The home was doubly lonely and comfortless after she left 
 it. The unthrifty father was helpless with his young boy and 
 
:S6 Our Presidents. 
 
 girl on his hands. Things appear to have gone from bad to 
 v.orse for more than a year, and then Thomas Lincoln, awak- 
 ing to a sense of the situation, did one of the wisest deeds of his 
 life. Whatever were the man's failings, he seems to have had 
 a fine instinct where women were concerned. He went back to 
 the old Kentucky home, and when he returned he brought a 
 wife with him. She was a widow — a Mrs. Sally Johnston — an 
 old love who had formerly refused him. She brought with her 
 her own son and two daughters, and a quantity of household 
 effects, which utterly transformed the inside of that unfloored 
 log cabin, the first sight of which filled her thrifty soul with dis- 
 may. What was much more, she brought her sensible, ener- 
 getic, helpful nature, and her warm, generous woman's heart. 
 
 With the appearance of the new mistress on the scene there 
 was an immense change for the better. The husband, whether 
 he would or not, was forced to bestir himself and improve 
 things. " A wood floor, a door that swung on hinges, and glass 
 windows " were now added to the cabin. The wife's energy 
 infused a new spirit into the household. The neglected appear- 
 ance of her step-children had touched her heart. The boy 
 and girl were now cared for and made comfortable in a way 
 that was utterly new to them. Mrs. I^incoln soon made the sur- 
 prising discovery that her young giant of a step-son could read 
 and write. She encouraged his desire for study. When a 
 school opened for a brief time in a log cabin a mile and a half 
 away, Abraham attended with the rest of the young household ; 
 he made the most of his opportunities, but he never had more 
 than a year's schooling. 
 
 The tide of emigration poured steadily and rapidly into 
 Indiana, and " the woods ceased to be a wilderness " around 
 Abraham Lincoln's home. A little way off, as the years went 
 on, and the boy grew more lank, awkward, rugged with each, 
 a store was opened, and a settlement grew about it which was 
 
Abraham Lincoln. 287 
 
 called Gentryville. The name was chosen in honor of the 
 storekeeper, and the sponsors were probably quite innocent of 
 any intentional irony. 
 
 It was a great event in Abraham Lincoln's life when he 
 earned his first dollar for himself. It happened curiously. 
 He had shown his ingenuity and mechanical skill in building a 
 boat stout and strong enough " to carry the farm-produce down 
 the Ohio to a market." 
 
 One morning, while he stood at the landing, " two strangers 
 came down to the shore who wished to be taken out to the 
 steamer in the river. Abraham was always ready to do a serv- 
 ice, and he carried the men and their luggage out in his boat. 
 He seems to have had no thought of reward, but as he was 
 about to return each of the strangers tossed him a half dollar." 
 His feelings at that moment must be related in his own words. 
 
 " I could scarcely believe my eyes. It was a most impor- 
 tant incident in my life. I could scarcely believe that I, a poor 
 boy, had earned a dollar in less than a day. The world seemed 
 wider and fairer before me. I was more confident and hopeful 
 from that time." 
 
 Amid the hard drudgeries on his father's farm, toiling on 
 other men's land, reading, or rather mastering every volume on 
 which he could lay his big, toil-hardened hands, Abraham Lin- 
 coln came up rapidly into his tall, muscular, vigorous youth. 
 His outdoor life, his rugged training, had given him a constitu- 
 tion of oak and iron ; his bodily strength, his physical feats, 
 were the talk and wonder of the western settlement. In all 
 games which required long-breathed power and tough muscle 
 he was sure to come out winner. The bullies and roughs of 
 the rude locality had learned to respect and fear him ; he was 
 eminently social, obliging, fond of games, of the frolic and fun 
 which relieved and brightened the toilsome life of the settlers. 
 Its roughness and coarseness did not jar or repulse one wlio 
 
• 
 288 Our Presidents. 
 
 had been brought up in its midst. No doubt the people 
 amongst whom he dwelt regarded Abraham Lincoln as one of 
 themselves ; and yet they must, I think, have felt, in a blind, 
 instinctive way, a difference. He went, or appeared to, heart 
 and soul, into all their loud gayety and frolics ; his quaint, 
 funny stories convulsed them with rude guffaws ; yet the serious 
 face must have seemed half to rebuke and deny the fun and 
 the rollicking. For the sadness appears to have lain always at 
 the heart of his childhood and youth and manhood. One won- 
 ders whether it was his birthright, or whether it had been 
 superinduced by his circumstances and environment. It is 
 certain that the power of a strong, original personality had 
 begun to tell on his associates. They did not regard young 
 Lincoln as a hero or a saint, but they had absolute confidence 
 in his word, in his honesty. Amid all the temptations of youth 
 and border-life, he remained pure and strictly temperate ; he 
 never, in spite of the examples about him, indulged in profanity. 
 With the increase of the settlement, books grew more abundant. 
 Lincoln continued his habit of strenuous, dogged reading, and 
 never laid down a book for the last time until he had mas- 
 tered it. 
 
 When he was nineteen, a fresh chance came to him. This 
 was to go down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, in a 
 flat-boat " laden with a cargo of produce." The distance was 
 a thousand miles. This must have proved a dazzling offer to 
 the imagination of a youth whose longest trip had been the 
 wilderness-tramp from Kentucky to Indiana. The river-voyage 
 proved a financial success. It was full of novel sights, adven- 
 ture, and interest to Abraham and his young companions. At 
 New Orleans he was brought in contact with the dark side of 
 slavery, with its degradation, its oppression, its barbarity. What 
 he saw then made an ineffaceable impression on the youth of 
 nineteen. 
 
Abraham Lincoln. 289 
 
 Before this time he had lost his sister Sally. She was 
 married, a mere child, at fourteen, and died soon after. 
 
 The father grew restless again. In 1830 he sold out his 
 squatter's claim, and removed two hundred miles to Illinois. 
 The journey was made with ox-teams, in the last weeks of 
 winter, "over swollen streams and miry roads." 
 
 Before he left Indiana young Lincoln had reached his 
 twenty-first birthday. It must have been one of joyful release 
 from a yoke that had long chafed and galled him. The hopes 
 and aspirations of his dawning manhood had been cruelly 
 chilled and oppressed by the grinding toil and the hard circum- 
 stances of his home-life. He was ready and eager for the 
 battle with fate, when he would be no longer fretted and ham- 
 pered on every side. He was now free to come and to go, to 
 keep his own wages, and follow his own bent. 
 
 He helped to build the homestead on the " high bank of the 
 north fork of the Sangamon River." Then he went out into the 
 world. Though he felt no other regret, it must have cost him 
 a pang to part with the stepmother whose care and love he 
 always remembered with affectionate gratitude. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was now alone, homeless, penniless, in 
 that young State of Illinois, which, a little later, was to crown 
 him with honors. 
 
 The first year of freedom brought no better fortunes than 
 the toils of a hired man in the farm-settlements. Then there 
 was another trip to New Orleans, made this time in a flat-boat 
 built largely with his own hands. The second trip proved, 
 like the first, a financial success to his employers. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, " hiring from job to job of uncertain 
 work," was stranded at New Salem about midsummer of the 
 year 1831. This was a small, new settlement, whose log and 
 pine-board houses were clustered on the Sangamon River, about 
 twenty miles from its smart neighbor, Springfield. New Salem's 
 19 
 
290 Our Presidents. 
 
 chief source of prosperity was a mill owned by a Mr. Rutledge, 
 the principal man of the settlement. The population com- 
 prised the lowest, coarsest and roughest elements of the border. 
 The lank, awkward, solemn-faced youth had no employment, 
 and was eagerly looking about for any work which would enable 
 him to solve that first problem of existence — the keeping of 
 soul and body together. 
 
 At the time when Abraham Lincoln entered New Salem, his 
 feet were on the lowest rung of that ladder whose topmost 
 height he was to climb within the next two decades. Think of 
 him in his loneliness, his shabbiness, his friendlessness, and then 
 think of the man he was — a little later — to be ! 
 
 The man was there, too, at that very time, under all the 
 homeliness and awkwardness and hard fortune — the man, hon- 
 est, resolute, pure-minded, courageous — the very stuff out of 
 which Fortune delights to make her heroes. And all the while 
 she was secretly smiling to herself, and holding her highest gifts 
 in store for him. 
 
 It is a curious fact that soon after he appeared at New 
 Salem the rather surprising discovery was made that the new- 
 comer could read and write. This was an accomplishment 
 which gave one a certain distinction amid the rude, drifting 
 population. On election day Lincoln was appointed clerk to 
 record the votes at the polls. His service probably brought 
 him more honor than emolument. 
 
 In that rough, drinking, fighting community, other qualities 
 of the " farm-hand and flat-boatman " told in a little while. He 
 proved honest, energetic, industrious when he had a chance to 
 work. His courage, his "length of limb," his immense muscular 
 strength won profound respect. He showed his prowess before 
 a rough, vociferous mob in a wrestling match with the champion 
 bully of the neighborhood. 
 
 After a time employment came to young Lincoln, which was 
 
Abraham Lincoln. 291 
 
 certainly an improvement on all that had gone before. A Mr. 
 Offert, storekeeper at New Salem, offered the young man, to 
 whom he had taken a liking, the position of clerk and sales- 
 man. A little later the merchant rented the mill, and proved 
 his satisfaction with his clerk's services by making him fore- 
 man. 
 
 All this time the man that was in young Lincoln, the man 
 that, despite his lowly birth, his hard fate, his long, bitter strug- 
 gle, was resolved to rise, to make his place and do his work 
 in the world, was reading, studying the rough human nature 
 about him, and having his long, wise thoughts as he " lay on the 
 counter, waiting for customers, or stretched upon the grass out- 
 side in dull seasons, or sat upon a sack of corn between grists 
 at the mill." 
 
 At night one kindled shaving after another shone upon 
 the page for which the reader could afford no candle. He 
 heard some talk about grammar, and at once applied to the 
 schoolmaster, a Mr. Graham, for enlightenment. Young Lin- 
 coln had a wonderful capacity for asking questions, and man- 
 aged to gain some fresh information from every person with 
 whom he talked. The schoolmaster happily knew of a gram- 
 mar six miles away. Lincoln set off to find the owner, pur- 
 chased the book, and in a short time thoroughly mastered its 
 contents. 
 
 He also joined a debating club, and naturally subscribed for 
 a paper. These were the days, too, when he " read and re-read 
 Shakspere, and almost knew Burns by heart." 
 
 No doubt he was sometimes unhappy in this life-and-death 
 grapple with his fate; he felt the goad of ambition, the restless- 
 ness of aspiring youth; but he had so hard a fight for every inch 
 of the upward way that, had the grit been less firm, the pur- 
 pose less earnest and noble, they might have failed. 
 
 The store and the mill did not prove a success. When the 
 
292 Our Presidents. 
 
 one was closed and the other had returned to its owners young 
 Lincoln found himself adrift at New Salem. By this time he 
 had many friends in the settlements. The rough associations, 
 the rude life, were things that he took as a matter of course. 
 If they left their mark on him all his life, it was in no degrad- 
 ing way ; he learned to know the common people. In compre- 
 hension and sympathy he was a part of them, as he could never 
 have been had his youth lain in less rugged ways. 
 
 In 1832 Black Hawk and his braves came across the Missis- 
 sippi. The frontier was roused. There had not been such talk 
 of war, such enlistments of volunteers, since Andrew Jackson 
 led his Tennesseans against the Seminoles. Lincoln had, the 
 previous year, been chosen captain at a militia muster. 
 
 But this time he was to see something of real war; he joined 
 the volunteers; he was again chosen captain, and marched with 
 the little army of twenty-four hundred troops. Zachary Taylor 
 was its colonel. 
 
 Captain Lincoln had won a short, sharp military experience. 
 It was yet to prove of great value to himself and his country. 
 In the Black Hawk War, the Indians played their old game of 
 an ambuscade with the rash, inexperienced troops, and suc- 
 ceeded as well as their ancestors had on the old field of Brad- 
 dock's Defeat. 
 
 The tall, lank, grave-faced captain carried himself gallantly 
 through all the heats, " the marching and counter-marching, the 
 hardship and sufferings, which he shared with his men." This, 
 of course, " won their hearts." 
 
 With the rout of the savages the war closed, and Lincoln and 
 his company returned to New Salem. In a little while he won 
 fresh laurels in a new field ; he made a speech before the debat- 
 ing club. Its force and homely eloquence took his rough 
 audience by storm, and made a strong impression on Mr. James 
 Rutledge, the president of the club, the owner of the Nev/ 
 
Abraham Lincoln. 293 
 
 Salem mill. A few days afterward he advised Lincoln to become 
 a candidate for election to the State Legislature. 
 
 The former " farm-hand and flat-boatman " must have been 
 greatly taken by surprise. He modestly declined to run, urging 
 his small acquaintance in the large Sangamon County ; but Mr. 
 Rutledge persisted, and the New Salem people sustained the 
 mill-owner. At last the young man yielded. He made stump 
 speeches throughout the count3^ It was the year of Jackson's 
 second election to the Presidency, and the frontier was shaken 
 with the stormy canvass. Lincoln's first political speech is 
 thoroughly characteristic : 
 
 " Gentlemen and Fellow Citizens : I presume you all know 
 who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been 
 solicited by many friends to become a candidate for this State 
 Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old 
 woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank. I am in 
 favor of the internal improvement system, and of a high, pro- 
 tective tariff. These are my sentiments and political princi- 
 ples. If elected, I shall be thankful ; if not, it will be all the 
 same." 
 
 It is not surprising that Lincoln was defeated in the hot 
 canvass. But New Salem stood by him splendidly. She gave 
 hjm two hundred and eighty votes ; all she had but three. 
 
 The defeated candidate tried storekeeping — this time with 
 a partner. The firm did not succeed. Lincoln found himself 
 weighted with a burden of debts, while his partner proved 
 worthless. 
 
 In the darkest hours the young man never lost a jot of heart 
 or hope. At this time he was appointed Postmaster of New 
 Salem, this being the first office he held under government. 
 The position did not involve large duties ; the mail did not 
 arrive every day. The tradition runs that the Post Office v^as 
 Abraham Lincoln's hat ! 
 
2 91. Our Presidents. 
 
 A little later he was surprised by being offered a position as 
 surveyor. He knew nothing of the art, but this was not an 
 indispensable obstacle to one who had his habits of dogged, 
 persistent study. The surveyor who wished to employ him as 
 an assistant brought with him a manual of instruction in the 
 art. 
 
 Young Lincoln took the book, buried himself in the country 
 for six weeks, boarding with the schoolmaster who had first 
 enlightened him regarding grammar. At the end of this time 
 he had mastered the art of surveying. Did it ever occur to 
 him, one wonders, that he was following in the steps of the 
 Virginia planter's son — the first President of the United States ? 
 
 From this time he found steady employment ; and the new 
 surveyor's work on the Sangamon prairies proved as accurate 
 and trustworthy as that of George Washington in the Shenan- 
 doah Valley. 
 
 Judicious friends, at this time, gave him wise and helpful 
 counsels. One — a Mr. Stuart of Springfield — advised young 
 Lincoln to study law. When he had made up his mind to pre- 
 pare for the bar, he set about the work with his habit of iron 
 determination. " He went to Springfield, borrowed a pile of books 
 of Mr. Stuart, returned with them on his back to New Salem, 
 and began his legal studies." He had now decided upon his 
 future life work, and he put all his intellectual energies into 
 his law-reading. His study was the shade of an oak tree, but 
 it turned out a better lawyer than many a luxurious library. 
 
 About this time what was to prove the greatest joy and the 
 deepest grief of Abraham Lincoln's life came to him. He saw 
 what was best and fairest in the world about him, and he 
 loved it with all the strength and loyalty of his deep, silent 
 nature. 
 
 Ann Rutledge was the daughter of young Lincoln's warm, 
 personal friend. She was a girl of rare loveliness of person and 
 
Abraham Lincoln. 295 
 
 character. The country merchant had given his daughter 
 the best advantages which his means and his neighborhood 
 afforded. 
 
 Lincoln was thrown much in the society of the young 
 woman, when, during his second year at New Salem, he went 
 to board awhile at her father's house. She had been betrothed 
 to a young man, who at last confessed that he had wooed her 
 under a false name. His explanations, however, were plausible 
 enough to win her pardon, and he started for the East, promis- 
 ing to return and make her his bride. 
 
 Letters came for awhile, but the lover never appeared, and 
 at last they ceased altogether. Ann Rutledge was only nine- 
 teen, and the faithlessness of the man whose wife she had 
 promised to be was a terrible blow to her young heart. Her 
 charms insured her plenty of admirers eager to take his place, 
 but she found little solace in that reflection. 
 
 Her sensitive conscience made Miss Rutledge feel that she 
 was not free to accept a new love while she was not formally 
 released from the old. But the sterling qualities, the real man- 
 liness, and the intellectual gifts of her father's young friend 
 won her at last. He must have appeared a kind of awkward 
 Hercules to a young girl with his lank height, his homely 
 features, and his lack of all drawing-room ease and grace. Yet 
 there was some power and attraction in his personality which 
 one could not fail to perceive who was brought, as Ann 
 Rutledge was, into daily companionship with young Lincoln. 
 
 He had now a fresh spur to his ambitions ; he was eager to 
 win honors that he might bring them to the beautiful, high- 
 souled maiden, whom he loved with all the strength of his deep, 
 tender nature. 
 
 Again a candidate for the Legislature, he made another 
 stumping-tour through the county. The man had acquired a 
 wider range, power, eloquence. His talk went straight to the 
 
296 Our Presidents. 
 
 reason and the hearts of his audiences. Very few amongst 
 them suspected that a woman was his finest inspiration. At all 
 events he was triumphantly elected to the State Legislature. 
 
 Miss Rutledge's delicate scruples yielded at last, and she was 
 betrothed to Abraham Lincoln. They were to be married, it 
 was understood, after he had completed his legal studies. 
 
 When the Legislature assembled at Vandalia, then the cap- 
 ital of Illinois, Lincoln walked a hundred miles to join his 
 colleagues. During the session he remained, for the most part, 
 silent, listening, observant ; but all his mental powers were 
 deepening and expanding at this period. When the session 
 closed he walked back to New Salem. He had meanwhile 
 gained in valuable knowledge and experience. 
 
 In this year of 1835 Abraham Lincoln had his day of brief, 
 supreme happiness, but the shadows gathered upon it before 
 the summer closed. Ann Rutledge's health began to decline. 
 Whether in any case she was too fragile to bear the wear-and- 
 tear of life, or whether the strain of emotion had been too great 
 for a peculiarly sensitive organization, cannot now be known. 
 She had a last interview with her lover, and he left the house 
 almost frantic with grief. She died in the last week of the 
 summer. 
 
 It seems almost sacrilege to write of the lover's grief. The 
 reason of the strong, self-poised man was almost unhinged for 
 a time. One must bear in mind how lonely his life had been, 
 and that this was its one romance. There is something unutter- 
 ably pathetic in that moan out of his loyal heart : *' I can 
 never be satisfied to have the snows, rains and storms beat upon 
 her grave ! " 
 
 One of his friends succeeded at last in inducing him to 
 leave the village, and remain with him for a time. In the 
 quiet his native forces rallied ; he buried himself once more in 
 his law studies. When he returned to New Salem, the sliock 
 
Abraham Lincoht. 297 
 
 he had undergone was written in the gloomy, haggard face, 
 that from his birth had been a sad one, despite its gleams of 
 fun and humor. Something in his looks touched the rude, 
 kindly hearts about him. 
 
 In 1836 Sangamon County again sent Abraham Lincoln to 
 the Legislature by a larger vote than any candidate received 
 that year. He was, at this time, twenty-seven years old. He 
 again trudged to Vandalia on foot. Here he met, for the first 
 time, Stephen A. Douglas, then only twenty-three. The silent 
 member of the previous session threw himself heart and soul 
 into the business of this one. " He served upon the Committee 
 of Finance : he at once took rank as an able debater and par- 
 liamentarian. " Through his influence, and that of the other 
 Sangamon County representatives, a bill was passed removing 
 the Illinois capital to Springfield. With his six feet and four 
 inches he must have towered above most of his colleagues. 
 Before the close of the session he boldly avowed his anti- 
 slavery convictions. It required splendid moral courage for a 
 young and modest man to do this before an assembly so hos- 
 tile that only one member supported Lincoln. Those trips in 
 the flat-boats to New Orleans were bearing fruit. 
 
 "When the session closed he walked back to New Salem, 
 his only baggage a bundle in his hand." It was fortunate for 
 him that he had his superb strength, his constitution of oak 
 and iron to fall back upon. They must have been an inherit- 
 ance from the old Lincoln breed. 
 
 In 1839, ^^^- Stuart proposed that young Lincoln should 
 enter into a law-partnership with him. It goes without saying 
 that he accepted so flattering an offer. He removed to Spring- 
 field, now the capital, and began the practice of law. 
 
 The story of the childhood and youth of struggle, poverty, 
 hardship is ended at last. I do not believe that boy of the 
 frontier ever wasted much time in envying rich men's sons their 
 
298 Our Presidents. 
 
 smoother lot and their larger opportunities. With his superb 
 health and his indomitable will, he had looked his hard fortune 
 in the face, and made up his mind for the fight and the victory. 
 
 From the time that he removed to Springfield the narrative 
 of Abraham Lincoln's life is one of steadily growing success 
 and prosperity. Everybody is familiar with the story. In a 
 little while he had earned a wide reputation at the bar. His 
 clear, forcible, logical presentation of a case had an immense 
 influence on the minds of the jury ; he employed no sophis- 
 tries ; he indulged in no plausible talk, which perplexed and 
 confused the understandings of plain, honest men ; " he had 
 none of the graces of oratory ; but he had an intuitive insight 
 into the human heart, a clearness of statement which was itself 
 an argument, with uncommon power and felicity of illustration, 
 often, it is true, of a plain and homely kind." 
 
 " He would never advocate a cause which he did not believe 
 to be a just one, and no amount of odium or unpopularity could 
 dissuade him from undertaking a cause where he thought the 
 right was with his client." 
 
 During this time young Lincoln was frequently a guest at 
 the house of his intimate friend, Mr. Ninian Edwards. He 
 met there Miss Mary Todd, a bright, vivacious young lady, the 
 sister-in-law of his host. Like Lincoln, she was from Kentucky, 
 although her home-life and early advantages had been, in many 
 respects, immensely superior to his own. But the young lady 
 soon perceived, beneath all external drawbacks, the high abili- 
 ties and sterling qualities of the young lawyer. 
 
 The romance of Abraham Lincoln's life was in the grave 
 of Ann Rutledge ; but the man's heart was lonely and empty. 
 After a while he and Miss Todd were engaged. It is not 
 necessary to enter into the details of the courtship. They were 
 married, and Abraham Lincoln had won — what he never really 
 had before — a home. This was in 1841. 
 
Abraham Lincoln. 299 
 
 The record of the next twenty years is one of constantly 
 enlarging public life, of increasing responsibilities, of accumulat- 
 ing honors, until these are at last crowned with the nation's 
 highest gift. 
 
 The limits of this biography permit only a glance at the 
 ascending fortunes. In 1847, the Sangamon district — always 
 loyal to Lincoln — sent him to Congress. In all the vital ques- 
 tions which engaged its attention at that critical period the new 
 member took a decided part, and defended his positions with 
 great ability and earnestness. He left no doubt that he would 
 follow his convictions wherever they might lead him. 
 
 They led him into an unflinching opposition to the exten- 
 sion of slavery ; they led him also to delivering that series of 
 immortal campaign speeches, in which he matched his strength 
 against his powerful political rival, Stephen A. Douglas. Lin- 
 coln's speeches at this time made him famous throughout the 
 country. The first one, delivered at Ottawa, was listened to 
 by an audience of twelve thousand people. " Everywhere 
 Mr. Lincoln proved his superiority, both in intellectual power 
 and soundness of moral position." 
 
 But this position was an advanced one for those days, and 
 the people of Illinois, though they were aroused and impressed, 
 " were not quite ready to follow Lincoln." If Douglas had 
 been worsted on the platform, he none the less went to the 
 Senate. 
 
 No doubt Lincoln's disappointment was, for the moment, 
 keen, though he said of his defeat in his quaint, homely fashion, 
 " I felt like the boy who had stubbed his toe — too badly to 
 laugh, and too big to cry. " 
 
 By this time the boy whose beginnings were the Kentucky 
 woods and the Indiana river-bottoms, the log cabin and the 
 " pole-shelter," had won a national reputation, and was recog- 
 nized as one of the leaders of the new Republican party. Invi- 
 
500 Our Presidents. 
 
 tations to speak crowded upon him ; he went to Kansas, and 
 afterward to New York and to New England ; he captivated his 
 audiences, whether they belonged to the Western frontier, or 
 to the most polished and cultivated circles of old Eastern 
 cities. 
 
 At Cooper Institute, where his audience was largely com- 
 posed of the most distinguished citizens of New York, his 
 speech aroused unbounded enthusiasm. His originality, his 
 real greatness, and his odd personality, all served to make him 
 an object of marked interest to the polished Eastern people 
 among whom he was now thrown. This tall, gaunt, sinewy 
 Western lawyer, with his shrewdness, his apt, homely illustra- 
 tions that went straight to the mark, and his eloquence that 
 held his hearers thrilled and spellbound, was something quite 
 out of their line. Some of these were curious to learn, if 
 possible, the secret of his power. To one of his new friends, 
 who inquired about his early education, he replied in his 
 frank, simple way : " Well, as to education, the newspapers 
 are correct, I never went to school more than six months in 
 my life ; I can say this, that among my earliest recollec- 
 tions I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get 
 irritated when people talked to me in a way I could not under- 
 stand. 
 
 " I can remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing 
 the neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and spending 
 no small part of the night walking up and down, and trying to 
 make out what was the exact meaning of some of their, to me, 
 dark sayings. 
 
 " I could not sleep, although I often tried to, when I got on 
 such a hunt after an idea, until I had caught it ; and when I 
 thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it 
 over and over, until I had put it in language plain enough, as 
 I thought, for any boy to understand. That was a kind of 
 
Abraham Lincoln. 3^1 
 
 passion with me, and it has stuck by me, for I am never easy 
 now, when I am handUng a thought, until I have bounded its 
 north and south, east and west." 
 
 The RepubUcan Convention, which met in Chicago in 
 June, i860, was to prove the most momentous one which had 
 assembled on this continent since that old one, which, seventy- 
 three summers before, had framed in Philadelphia the Consti- 
 tution of the United States. The history of the Chicago 
 Convention cannot be dwelt on here. In its crowded, tumul- 
 tuous assemblies one name was long and oftenest on men's 
 lips for the Presidency. It was that of a great statesman and 
 true patriot, William H. Seward. But when the Convention 
 separated, it had, to the amazement of great sections of the 
 country, nominated Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 It was characteristic of the man that when, a little later, the 
 committee, in accordance with the etiquette of the occasion, 
 called at his simple home to inform him of his nomination, he 
 *' pledged their mutual healths in pure Adam's ale from the 
 spring ; " he averred, " that it was the only beverage he had 
 ever used or allowed in his family." 
 
 During the summer and autumn which followed the nation 
 held its breath, awaiting the election on which such vast issues 
 were to hang. In November it was known throughout the 
 length and breadth of the land that Abraham Lincoln would 
 be the next President of the United States. 
 
 The hour had struck ; and the man who had been trained 
 in the hard, rough, hidden ways, had come to his place and 
 his task. 
 
 During the winter which followed he sat under his quiet 
 roof-tree at Springfield, watching the course of events, with his 
 shrewd, intent, far-seeing gaze. And what events they were ! 
 For the South, gone mad now with pride and rage, was resolved 
 that the new President should have no " rights, power, or 
 
?02 Our Presidents. 
 
 authority within her borders." By February i, 1861, seven 
 States had seceded from the Union. 
 
 A great sadness, during these waiting weeks, fell upon the 
 soul of the man who was so soon to take his place at the nation's 
 helm. Lincoln had been reading the signs of the times with a 
 farther piercing vision than any other statesman of that day. 
 He had a prescience of the struggle that was coming, of the 
 dark and bloody years that were at hand. 
 
 As the winter went its way there were other things to him 
 than its storms, and its snows in the air. That was full of 
 mournful voices of dread and terror, of prophecies of anguish 
 and desolation to come. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was barely fifty-three when he left Spring- 
 field, which he was never to see again, for Washington. He 
 was really in his prime, but everybody thought of him as an 
 old man. Those who liked him trusted him, spoke of him 
 affectionately as " Old Abe." I suspect he was called that in 
 his boyhood, in the low home, and among his playmates. With 
 those homely features and that solemn face, he must ahvays 
 have had an odd, unchildlike look. 
 
 Probably Abraham Lincoln was the saddest man — unless 
 possibly it may have been George Washington — who ever went 
 from his home to the Presidential post. 
 
 The history of the Civil War does not belong to this narra- 
 tive. The part which Abraham Lincoln played during those 
 four great historic years has been read of all men. We know 
 with what tireless patience and courage he tried to conciliate 
 his foes and avert the war. But when the storm broke at last, 
 and there was no appeal between the North and the South but 
 the God of Battles, we know, too, how grandly he met the 
 issues and proved himself equal to the time, and how he freed 
 the slave and saved the Union. 
 
 It almost dizzies one now to think what burdens he had to 
 
Abraham Lincoln. 303 
 
 bear, what cares and responsibilities were laid on that strong, 
 patient, saddened man. 
 
 Abraham Lincoln grew larger and wiser with the times, as 
 all great souls do with occasion. There was necessarily much 
 in the circumstances of his new position which afforded no 
 precedents to guide him ; and he was often obliged to fall back 
 upon his own instincts, his rare common sense, his sound judg- 
 ment. Much, of course, had to be tentative and experimental 
 during the first years of his administration. He had to learn 
 men, and the places they were born to fill, and this required 
 time and trial. 
 
 His military training had been limited to a few weeks' serv- 
 ice during his youth in the Black Hawk War. Yet the Consti- 
 tution made him Commander-in-Chief of the great Northern 
 armies, and he was held responsible for their organization, the 
 conduct of their officers, and the success or failure in the field. 
 The wonder is, not that he made some mistakes, but that they 
 were so few. 
 
 Great as were the burdens on this man's thought and brain 
 through all those four years, the burden on his heart was 
 heavier, and that never slipped off — never, indeed, lightened. 
 When the first regiments that the North sent to Washington 
 marched before the President in their glittering bravery and 
 gayly saluted him, the sad eyes grew sadder as they looked on 
 all the pomp and parade. For Abraham Lincoln saw beyond 
 these, the awful shadows of the battle-fields, and the dead and 
 the dying were there ; and he thought of the darkened homes 
 in all the Northern and Southern land, where the women — 
 tender mothers and wives, sisters and daughters — would weep 
 their woman's tears and break their woman's hearts over those 
 who had gone out brave and confident, and who would never 
 come back again. 
 
 " The boys ! " I think that in a very deep, tender sense 
 
304 Our Presidents. 
 
 they were all Abraham Lincoln's " boys " who went to the 
 war ; that he carried them constantly in his heart and thoughts 
 through all those terrible four years. 
 
 Once the shadow that was filling the homes of the land fell 
 upon the White House hearthstone. Under the quiet roof at 
 Springfield one boy after another had come, until there were a 
 trio to bear the father's name and make the tired heart glad with 
 the life and fun of childhood. The second of these — " little 
 Willie, a peculiarly promising child " — sickened and died sud- 
 denly during the first year of his father's administration. 
 
 It was a terrible blow to the burdened man, though the 
 times allowed him no pause for grief ; but his own loss gave him 
 thereafter a deeper, more intimate sympathy with every mourn- 
 ing household in the land. 
 
 He grew greater, not only in knowledge and wisdom, 
 but in simple goodness. He carried his own sorrows — he 
 carried the great Nation which had set him in its highest 
 place, and trusted him with its life, to the help and the pity of 
 God. 
 
 Perhaps no one during these years penetrated to the inner- 
 most of this man's life. But those who knew Abraham Lincoln 
 best, and met him oftenest at this time, saw that a change had 
 come over him. There was a new life in the man. A deeper 
 faith, a surer trust, a larger charity, were evident in all his 
 speech and action, and those who listened and watched wisely, 
 knew that God had not failed him. 
 
 The war went its long way of agony for North and South. 
 In due time came that " Emancipation Proclamation," for 
 which neither ruler nor people at the beginning had been ripe. 
 During his first administration the nation and its President had 
 grown slowly to trust each other ; and when another " politi- 
 cal Olympiad " came around, the people's verdict again made 
 Abraham Lincoln President of the United States. 
 
Abraham Lincoln. 305 
 
 By this time it had become evident to all who had the vision 
 to pierce coming events that the cause of the Southern Con- 
 federacy — maintained at such long cost and with such high 
 courage — was in its death throes. The second inaugural of the 
 President had about it a calm atmosphere of assured coming 
 victory. Sherman was making his historic march to the sea, 
 and Grant was steadily approaching Richmond. 
 
 There came a day in the soft April weather, when the Presi- 
 dent learned that Richmond was evacuated. On that same day 
 he made his entrance into the captured city. But the victor 
 went with no signs of triumph. A tall man, with a sad, kindly, 
 furrowed face, was seen moving on foot through the streets, 
 leading his young son by the hand. Around him joyous crowds 
 of colored people pressed, shouting and sobbing, and hailing 
 him as their Liberator. 
 
 " The President took his hat off reverently and bowed ; 
 but he could not speak, for the tears were pouring down his 
 cheeks." 
 
 It was such a scene as the world had never witnessed before. 
 Never had one of its conquerors made a like triumphal prog- 
 ress. How the light and joy of that scene shine against all 
 the dark background of this man's days ! Did he remember 
 them at that time ? Did he think that all the struggle and 
 hardship had not been too great a price to pay for that hour ? 
 
 Yet when Abraham Lincoln left Richmond that day, his 
 work was virtually done. 
 
 Less than two weeks afterward, April 14, 1865, the end 
 came. It is useless going over here with the story that the 
 world knows by heart. It has gone with him to the theatre 
 where the tired President went that night, partly at his wife's 
 request, partly to give body and soul some relaxation from the 
 long burden and strain they had undergone. The North was 
 in its first flush of joy and victory ; but Abraham Lincoln must 
 20 
 
?o6 Our Presidents. 
 
 have felt that the future still held for him new cares, and vast 
 responsibilities, and untried duties. 
 
 In that peaceful hour Death waited for him. It came 
 stealthily, but it came swift and sure — when there was no dream 
 of danger, when Abraham Lincoln's loyal people were all about 
 him, and when his heart was stilled, Math an unutterable glad- 
 ness and gratitude, because the war was ended. 
 
^^^^1^'- 
 
 ^^^^^^<^:^^2^z^ 
 
ANDREW JOHNSON. 
 
 On the morning of April 15, 1865, Andrew Johnson became 
 President of the United States. The Vice-President of six 
 weeks took his oath of office under circumstances which 
 might well appall the stoutest heart. A man must have been 
 more or less than human whose nature was not stirred to its 
 depths by the conditions and events amid which the new Execu- 
 tive passed to the nation's chief place. 
 
 For that fair April morning was the saddest that ever rose 
 over America. The beloved President had just breathed his 
 last in the little chamber where they had borne him from the 
 theater in that unconsciousness from which he never roused 
 after the assassin's bullet had struck him down. 
 
 The knowledge of the great tragedy came upon the coun- 
 try in its hour of rejoicing. The air of all the North-land was 
 tremulous with the ringing of bells which celebrated the return 
 of peace, when the blackness fell, and the hush which followed 
 was broken only by voices of mourning. 
 
 In that hour all eyes were of course turned to the man upon 
 whose shoulders the mantle of the dead President had fallen. In 
 the shadow of death Andrew Johnson went up to the place of 
 the lost ruler. In doubt, consternation, dismay, all loyal people 
 began to ask themselves of what stuff the man was made, who 
 at this unparalleled hour had been intrusted with the destinies 
 of the nation. 
 
 He had been elected Vice-President with scant knowledge 
 of his real character outside that section of interior country 
 where he had been born and played his part with signal 
 
3o8 Our Presidents. 
 
 honor and success. When the test came that tried men's 
 souls, he had proved faithful to the Union ; he had pleaded 
 its cause with his ringing, fiery speeches, at the risk of his life ; 
 he had been hunted over the land ; his helpless family had 
 been forced to fly from their home. Yet Andrew Johnson's 
 loyalty had proved of the highest strain. The fortune he had 
 accumulated and the friendships of his life had all been sacri- 
 ficed to his love for that old flag beneath which he had been 
 born and reared. This was what men were telling each other, 
 and trying to take comfort in the thought, on that baleful Satur- 
 day morning, April 15, 1865. 
 
 But despite all this record of heroic endurance and loyalty, 
 there lay a doubt and a dread at the heart of things — a feel- 
 ing that this man, Andrew Johnson, who had just become Presi- 
 dent of the United States, was largely an "unknown quantity." 
 
 He owed nothing to fortune, unless her frowns mean, in the 
 long run, the fairest fate ; his beginnings were the straitest 
 and humblest ; he was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, just at 
 the close of the eighth year of the century ; his parents were too 
 poor to give him any advantages of schooling, at a time when 
 these at their best were meager enough. When Andrew was 
 five, his father was drowned, while heroically attempting to save 
 a friend's life. The widow was left with her fatherless boy on 
 her hands, and managed to keep soul and body of both together 
 by her labor. 
 
 At ten, Andrew, unable to read or write, a fact certainly of 
 little credit to the authorities at Raleigh, was apprenticed to a 
 tailor : he worked at the trade until he was sixteen, by which 
 time he had managed to learn his letters. At eighteen he 
 removed with his mother to Greenville, a small town in eastern 
 Tennessee. Here he did, what proved to be the most fortunate 
 thing in a life which held many of fortune's great prizes, he made 
 a wise and happy marriage. With his active, vigorous personal- 
 
Andrew Johnson. 309 
 
 ity, his strong, impulsive nature, there must have been some- 
 thing powerfully magnetic about Andrew Johnson. His wife is 
 said to have been a very attractive girl, and her educational 
 advantages had been superior to his own. With a woman's tact 
 and devotion she set herself to teaching her young husband. 
 She read to him while he worked, and during the evenings he 
 was her intent and eager pupil. Under such an influence he 
 soon acquired the rudiments of an education ; he possessed much 
 native ability and his memory had a lasting grip on anything 
 which he learned. From the time of his marriage Andrew 
 Johnson's progress was steadily upward. 
 
 At twenty the North Carolina boy was an alderman; at twenty- 
 two he was Mayor of Greenville. About this time he was also 
 appointed one of the trustees of Rhea Academy. He must 
 have had unusual mental quality, as well as moral force, to attain 
 these positions at that age. He had also a native oratorical gift, 
 a power of pungent, fiery speech, which soon gathered about him 
 eager and enthusiastic audiences in his neighborhood. 
 
 It was inevitable that a man of this kind should early become 
 interested in politics. Young Johnson was in the State where 
 Andrew Jackson was the central figure, and he followed his chief 
 with all the devotion of his ardent, resolute, combative nature. 
 The elder political leader had taken full possession of the 
 younger's imagination. This fact should never be lost sight of. 
 It was always Johnson's aim to follow in the lines, and to shape 
 his political methods after the example of the hero of the Her- 
 mitage. There were many suggestive analogies between the early 
 lives of the two men. Johnson must have been acutely con- 
 scious of this fact. Both were natives of the same State. Both 
 had become Tennesseans by adoption. It was a rather striking 
 coincidence that the initials of both names were identical. 
 
 It has been said that Andrew Johnson was always gratified 
 by " a comparison between his qualities and those of General 
 
lo Our Presidents. 
 
 Jackson." But sagacious observers, who studied the characters 
 of the two men, did not think the resemblance so intimate and 
 permanent as the younger fancied them. 
 
 Whatever honest ambitions or personal vanities Andrew 
 Johnson might cherish, his career from the time he reached 
 early manhood was certain to encourage these. At twenty- 
 seven he was elected to the Tennessee House of Representa- 
 tives ; afterward he went to the State Senate. 
 
 These, however, were but the lower rungs of that political 
 ladder which he was destined to climb. In 1843 Tennessee 
 sent him a Representative to Congress, and by succeeding elec- 
 tions he held the office for ten years. In 1853 he was Gov- 
 ernor of Tennessee, and re-elected when his first term expired. 
 
 No man could have held these varied and high positions for 
 so many years without possessing marked character and ability. 
 This one had outstripped in the race many of his contempora- 
 ries who had been born in wealth and nurtured in kindly atmos- 
 pheres, and equipped with every social and educational advan- 
 tage. 
 
 Andrew Johnson had the reputation among his neighbors 
 and political colleagues of unflinching courage and unsullied 
 integrity. This was greatly to his credit, but it must also be 
 said that he was opinionated, obstinate and aggressive. What- 
 ever he did he did with his whole heart and soul. When he 
 was kindled into boundless enthusiasm for a cause or a measure, 
 his fervid oratory, his strong, terse, pungent sentences, carried 
 his audiences with him. In his best moments his forceful per- 
 sonality, his powerful declamation, and the courage and fire of 
 the man, made an impression on cool heads and strong intel- 
 lects. Of course, a Democrat of the Jackson type would, on 
 all political issues, take the side of the people, and identify his 
 interests with theirs. 
 
 Johnson was immensely popular ; he said and did striking and 
 
Andrew Johnson. 311 
 
 original things which interested and amused the people. One 
 of the many characteristic anecdotes related of him was, that 
 when Governor of Tennessee, he sent his brother Governor of 
 Kentucky, who had been his early friend and companion, " a 
 very handsome suit of clothes, cut and made with his own 
 hands." 
 
 The Kentucky Governor, who had been a blacksmith in his 
 young days, not to be outdone, " forged a very neat pair of 
 shovel and tongs, which he sent to Governor Johnson, with the 
 wish that they would help to keep alive the flame of their old 
 friendship." 
 
 Tennessee had not yet exhausted her role of honors for 
 Andrew Johnson. In 1857 she sent him to the Senate. Here 
 he worked faithfully on the party lines until the prospect of 
 secession set all the patriotism of his powerful nature aflame. 
 On this issue the great popular leader separated from his party 
 fearlessly, absolutely. No doubt he recalled Jackson's course 
 in the Nullification era, and aimed at following in his predeces- 
 sor's footsteps. It is certain that the Tennessee Senator left no 
 stone unturned to save his State to the Union. 
 
 He made a grand figure as he stood almost alone amongst 
 his political associates, and fought in the Senate against seces- 
 sion with a courage and zeal that would have delighted the 
 soul of Andrew Jackson. Some of Johnson's speeches were 
 like battle-cries, and they goaded his opponents to frenzy. 
 
 But no menaces and no dangers could move him. In that 
 mad time all terrible passions were let loose. Johnson was 
 burned in effigy at Memphis. He returned to Tennessee to 
 find a price set upon his head. His house was sacked ; his wife, 
 an invalid, and his child, were driven into the streets, and 
 forced to wander houseless fugitives through the country. For 
 a long time they remained in ignorance of his fate. 
 
 In February, 1862, the capture of Forts Henry and Donel- 
 
312 Our Presidents. 
 
 son restored a part of Tennessee to the Union. Johnson's turn 
 came now. President Lincoln appointed him Military Governor 
 of the State. He entered upon his office with a zeal which 
 had been inflamed by his persecutions. " He sent the Mayor 
 of Nashville and the City Council to the penitentiary for refus- 
 ing to take the oath of allegiance." He threatened his enemies 
 with prison and hanging. When the rebel armies again entered 
 the State, and the timid began to falter, Governor Johnson's 
 words went like an arrow to its mark : " I am no military man, 
 but any one who talks of surrendering I will shoot." 
 
 The speeches and deeds of the loyal Tennessee Governor 
 were widely related throughout the North and created profound 
 admiration. 
 
 When the National Republican Convention met in Balti- 
 more, June, 1864, and re-nominated Abraham Lincoln for the 
 presidency, Andrew Johnson was nominated for the vice-presi- 
 dency. 
 
 A great mass-meeting assembled at Nashville to ratify his 
 nomination. The Governor addressed it with characteristic 
 boldness. "In trying to save slavery," he said, "you killed it, 
 and lost your own freedom." 
 
 Perhaps the greatest day in Andrew Johnson's life was 
 October 24, 1864, when he made his famous address to a dense 
 mass of colored people in Nashville. The hour, the scene and 
 the circumstances, all combined to kindle his imagination, and 
 to bring out the whole man at his best. The speech filled his 
 vast audience with wild enthusiasm ; but when Johnson reached 
 his grand climax and declared himself the Moses who would 
 lead the people from bondage into liberty and peace, the tumult 
 that followed, the ecstasy of joy that broke out in sobs and 
 shouts, and in a wild uproar of voices, baffled all description. As 
 Andrew Johnson descended that day from the steps of the capi- 
 tol, where, no doubt, every word of his burning speech had 
 
Andrew Johnson. 3 ^ 3 
 
 been uttered in perfect sincerity, he left the proudest scene of 
 his life. 
 
 That speech electrified the North. A little later Andrew- 
 Johnson was elected Vice-President of the United States. Six 
 weeks afterward he succeeded Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 There was alike throughout the North and the South, a 
 belief that the new President would deal in a far sterner temper 
 with the conquered people than his murdered predecessor 
 would have done. Andrew Johnson came from a locality where 
 all the passions of war had run rampant. They had filled all 
 the fair land of East Tennessee with vindictive madness. The 
 new President had been goaded by cruel wrongs to himself and 
 to those dearest to him. It was feared alike by friends and foes 
 that, now he v/as invested with the vast powers of the presi- 
 dency, he would use them in a high-handed and remorseless 
 fashion. All Johnson's speeches at this critical period, as well 
 as his own character, tended to emphasize the general impres- 
 sion that he would adopt a vindictive and resentful policy. He 
 talked of " punishing treason and hanging traitors " in a way 
 that ill accorded with that generous temper in which the North 
 desired to close the long civil contest. 
 
 But in a little while, to the boundless amazement of the 
 country, the new President's views and feelings underwent a total 
 change. The causes which brought this about have perhaps 
 never been fully explained. His own character had much to 
 do with the matter. Then he fell under powerfully persua- 
 sive and subtle Cabinet influences. It is a marvelous fact 
 that in a few weeks the President's attitude toward the leaders 
 of the rebellion and the conquered States, was precisely the 
 opposite of his former one. He no longer denounced and 
 threatened. All his speeches and acts indicated his inflexible 
 purpose to forget the past and to exact no safeguards for the 
 future. 
 
314 Our Presidents. 
 
 It should always be remembered, in explanation of Andrew 
 Johnson's course at this time, that he was by birth, instincts, 
 training, a Southerner, though he had in the Civil War 
 thoroughly identified himself with the North. But with the 
 return of peace the old feelings reasserted themselves. The 
 thought of becoming the friend and benefactor of the South 
 must have gratified his vanity, as well as his more generous 
 feelings. No doubt he had had in early life to endure many 
 slights and indignities in a locality where the spirit of caste was 
 strong and social exclusiveness had very much the force of 
 law. 
 
 Andrew Johnson was not the kind of man to forget words 
 or acts that had stung him ; he could not fail to reflect that 
 the tables were turned now. Those who had formerly felt them- 
 selves greatly his social superiors would be glad to sue humbly 
 for his favor. 
 
 However natural this feeling was, it was not the magnanimous 
 one of the true statesman. It was the President's misfortune 
 that he could not in his high place divest himself of all merely 
 personal considerations. His conceit, too, had been intensified 
 by all the circumstances of his life. His inborn obstinacy, how- 
 ever it might have braced him in his early battle with fortune, 
 could only be harmful where the interests of a great nation 
 were at stake. In a little while Abraham Lincoln's successor 
 had proved he was not the man for the time and the post. 
 
 The Reconstruction policy, the long and bitter quarrel with 
 Congress, cannot be dwelt on here. As the controversy 
 deepened, the President's anger was inflamed, his will was 
 hardened, his tongue was loosened, he forgot the dignities of 
 his position, and in his famous tour to Chicago, he denounced 
 his opponents, inveighed against Congress, and lauded his own 
 policy in a series of singularly unfortunate public speeches. 
 
 These coarse and denunciatory harangues, which had much 
 
Andrew Johnson. 3 ^ 5 
 
 of the rant and bravado of rustic stump oratory, disgusted and 
 embittered the people. The party which had elected Johnson, 
 the soldiers who had saved the Union, felt that he had betrayed 
 them. 
 
 The President, exasperated by opposition, went on his mad, 
 defiant course. He vetoed bill after bill which Congress had 
 passed, until that body, insulted and outraged, resolved on his 
 impeachment. 
 
 The trial of President Johnson took place before the Senate, 
 and was conducted with a " solemnity, dignity and order befit- 
 ting the occasion." The charges, however, on which he was 
 tried did not make the real count against him in the thought of 
 Congress or of the people. He was saved from deposition by 
 a single vote. 
 
 There is no doubt that, to the last, he believed himself in 
 the right. He probably anticipated that in the end the nation 
 would vindicate his course by a re-election, but the nominations 
 of 1868 convinced him of his mistake. 
 
 Andrew Johnson must have retired from the presidency an 
 embittered and disappointed man. In his own eyes he was still 
 a hero ; and in his prolonged battle with Congress, he always 
 regarded himself as playing the part of a pure and enlightened 
 patriotism. 
 
 The President had a kind heart, and many qualities which 
 endeared him to his family and neighbors. He had a shrewd, 
 alert face, with large rugged features and keen eyes. One 
 finds in his whole expression, hints of those qualities which had 
 enabled him to surmount all the obstacles that stood in the path 
 of success, and which would have disheartened a nature of less 
 verve and determination. 
 
 It was his good fortune to have women of fine character 
 always about him. The wife to whom his youth owed so much, 
 was too broken in health to take on herself the duties of 
 
3i6 Our Presidents. 
 
 mistress of the White House, but her daughter, Mrs. Martha Pat- 
 terson, took her mother's place. Its responsibiUties were at this 
 time particularly onerous. Mrs. Patterson entered the White 
 House to find it in a greatly disordered condition, and she 
 devoted all her energy and taste to supervising its restoration. 
 Aided by an appropriation from the government, she succeeded 
 in making a vast improvement in the interior. 
 
 In these arrangements, as well as in her social duties, Mrs. 
 Patterson was assisted by her sister, Mrs. Stover. But the 
 ladies of Mr. Johnson's family probably felt few regrets when 
 the time came to leave the White House and return to th^ir 
 home in Tennessee. 
 
 The President's Southern friends had applauded his course, 
 and it was a necessity of his ardent, active nature that he 
 should resume his public life. After a period of rest he 
 engaged once more with all his old fervor in the political con- 
 flicts of the time. 
 
 Six years after he retired from the presidency Tennessee 
 once more sent Andrew Johnson to the Senate. A fortnight 
 after he took his seat he made a speech which proved that 
 time had not ameliorated the old temper, the old convictions 
 and personal resentments. 
 
 In that session Andrew Johnson did his last public work. 
 When Congress closed he returned to Tennessee, and in the 
 following July, 1875, he died suddenly while visiting his 
 youngest daughter at Carter's Station. 
 
 Those who loved him were all about him at the last, and he 
 no doubt died in the confident belief that he had served his 
 country with as unsullied a patriotism as that of Andrew 
 Jackson. 
 
^^^/. 
 
ULYSSES S. GRANT. 
 
 One evening, in the spring of 1861, there was great excite- 
 ment at Hanover, a small town a few miles to the south of 
 Galena, Illinois. The firing on Fort Sumter, the call for vol- 
 unteers to defend the Union, had thoroughly aroused all the 
 Northern land. A mass-meeting had been appointed at the 
 town-hall, but the crowds that responded had proved too 
 large for the building. At last they repaired to the Presby- 
 terian church, an old brick structure with ample accommoda- 
 tions. On that spring night such meetings were being held 
 over all the loyal country. The people of Hanover, fired by 
 addresses ringing with courage and patriotism, were reluctant 
 to separate. At last a comparative stranger in the crowded 
 assembly was called upon for a speech ; he rose with an 
 embarrassed air ; he was a man of rather heavy build, of aver- 
 age height, with square features and resolute jaw ; he was con- 
 spicuous on this occasion for the old blue army-coat — the only 
 one in the audience — which he wore ; he had been through the 
 Mexican War, and later had been promoted to a captaincy, 
 when with his regiment on the Pacific coast. 
 
 A silence fell upon the large audience, and all eyes were 
 turned to the man standing there in his blue army-coat. At 
 last he said, in a quiet, familiar fashion, and with a good deal 
 of effort : 
 
 " Boys, I can't make a speech. I never made a speech in 
 my life. But when the time comes to go to the front, I am 
 ready to go with you." 
 
 The man who said this in the old brick meeting-house at 
 Hanover was Ulysses S. Grant. 
 
Our Presidents. 
 
 It is worth while looking at him a moment as he stands 
 there, reluctant and shy, with no gifts or graces of oratory, the 
 only distinction he had ever won, that captain's old blue army- 
 coat. 
 
 On the night when he made that brief speech in Hanover, 
 Ulysses Grant was barely thirty-nine years old. There was 
 nothing in his past or his present which made the outlook for 
 his future a promising one. Indeed, most men in his case might 
 have felt that the " run of luck " had been particularly against 
 them. 
 
 There is no story of poverty and bitter hardships to record 
 of his beginnings. They form, in this respect, a sharp contrast 
 to those of Abraham Lincoln. Ulysses Grant was born April 
 29, 1822, at Point Pleasant, in Clermont County, Ohio. He 
 came of old English stock ; his ancestors had emigrated to 
 Massachusetts during the earliest years of the colony. Nearly 
 a century and a half later, one of the race was present at 
 the battle of Bunker Hill ; he afterward emigrated to Ohio. 
 The old soldier was not thrifty, and his son, Jesse, had a 
 hand-to-hand battle with fate in the new country beyond the 
 Alleghanies. In time he had married, acquired a simple, com- 
 fortable home, and his circumstances were probably much better 
 than those of many of his neighbors, when his son, Ulysses, first 
 saw the light on the banks of the Ohio. 
 
 In the autumn of the following year the family removed to 
 Georgetown in the adjoining county. The boy's earliest mem- 
 ories clustered about this place, for the childhood and boyhood 
 of Ulysses S. Grant were passed in this county-seat, on what 
 was then the Western frontier. 
 
 They were pleasant memories, and the man liked to dwell 
 on them when his life had reached the zenith of its success and 
 glory. His childhood opened in a simple, wholesome atmos- 
 phere, where all the influences were kindly, and the home 
 
Ulysses S. Grant. 319 
 
 affections strong. The boy's energies were early stimulated, 
 and his muscles developed by various out-door work, which he 
 probably never regarded as hardship. Ulysses' father com- 
 bined leather manufacturing with farming. At seven or eight 
 the boy drove the wagons loaded with wood from the forest to 
 the house. " At eleven he was strong enough to hold a plow." 
 After that time his history, until he was seventeen, is that of a 
 contented, industrious, good-tempered home boy. It was a 
 life which lacked, of course, some of the advantages and refin- 
 ing influences of an older phase of civilization ; but it was a 
 happy, wholesome life for a boy. When Ulysses Grant looked 
 back upon it no gaunt face of the wolf cast its shadow inside 
 the simple door of his home. The kindly father and mother 
 were there, and the family discipline was so light that it might 
 have proved harmful to a boy of a different temperament and 
 tendencies. The parents " never scolded or punished their 
 children." If Ulysses, when the work was done, went his own 
 way, it was one of simple, rational games and pastimes. He 
 had a passion for horses, and was on the back of one as often 
 and as long as possible ; he went fishing and swimming in the 
 creek in summer, and had jolly times skating and sleigh-riding 
 in the winter ; a rather shy, silent, independent boy, not given 
 to sowing wild oats, but putting his heart into his work or his 
 play, and in either to be depended upon. 
 
 What was of vastly more importance, Ulysses had the best 
 school advantages which the neighborhood afforded. These 
 were slender enough at best. The father, an intelligent man, 
 much given to reading, deplored his own scant schooling 
 ''which had been limited to six months," and was resolved 
 that his young son should have a better chance ; he sent him 
 regularly to school, and this was better than not going at all, 
 even with the very meager teaching he received. What golden 
 opportunities young Grant's would have seemed to Abraham 
 
320 Our Presidents. 
 
 Lincoln, born across the line in Kentucky thirteen years before 
 him ! But the struggles and hardships of the latter's boyhood 
 and youth form a much more picturesque and dramatic history 
 than that of Ulysses Grant's smoother, happier one. 
 
 He was seventeen when that event occurred which was to 
 color and shape all his future life. The father had ambi- 
 tions for his son, and when he learned " there was a vacancy 
 from the district," applied for the appointment of Ulysses to 
 West Point Academy. The appointment came in due time, 
 much to the youth's surprise, not greatly at first to his pleasure ; 
 he dreaded the examinations, and, with his lack of egotism, 
 feared that he should fail in them ; but the father had set his 
 heart on the matter, and his will was law ; so Ulysses went to 
 West Point. A part of the journey was made by the river 
 steamer, a part by the canal boat. The boy saw everything 
 with his quiet, observant eyes, among other things, and for the 
 first time, a railroad. Still, amid all the novel scenes and 
 experiences, the end of the journey was like a grim specter 
 perpetually before him ; and he would have been thankful if 
 some "temporary injury " had disabled him, so that he could 
 have escaped West Point. 
 
 He loitered a little at Philadelphia and New York ; he 
 arrived at West Point in the last of May, 1839. Here, much to 
 his surprise, he passed the examinations without difficulty. 
 
 His life as a cadet does not appear to have been particu- 
 larly agreeable, as his record certainly was not a brilliant one. 
 He had not the instincts and habits of the scholar, except for 
 mathematics ; for these he had a genius. He read much fic- 
 tion at this time, but it was always of the best sort ; he admits, 
 with his usual frankness, that time hung heavily with him ; he 
 would have been glad, at least during the first year, if Con- 
 gress had passed the bill under discussion for abolishing the 
 Military Academy ! 
 
Ulysses S. Grant. 321 
 
 It is evident that the Ohio boy was home-sick and hungered 
 for a sight of the household faces, and for the free, wide, out- 
 door life, the long horse back rides in the woods and along 
 the rough old country roads about Georgetown. 
 
 When General Scott came to review the cadets at West 
 Point, young Grant was quite dazzled by the superb figure, the 
 commanding air, the showy uniform ; he regarded Scott as the 
 man of men, and had a " momentary presentiment " that " he 
 should one day occupy the General's place on a review." Be- 
 yond this he seems to have had no military ambitions and no 
 intention of even remaining in the army. 
 
 At the end of two years he was home again for the summer 
 furlough, but this time he went to Bethel, twelve miles froin 
 Georgetown, where the family were now living. His happiness 
 was greatly enhanced by the possession of a young horse which 
 had been purchased for his use during the furlough. 
 
 On his return to West Point time hung somewhat less 
 heavily. The life there, with its unvarying routine, its rigid 
 discipline, never suited young Grant ; his health broke seri- 
 ously before his graduation ; he had a very stubborn cough, 
 and there Avere fears that he had inherited certain consumptive 
 tendencies of his family. But he rallied with the return home 
 and with the long horseback rides. 
 
 Young Grant graduated about the middle of his class in 
 1843. Despite his first aversion to a military life, he had, be- 
 fore leaving West Point, made up his mind to enter the army. 
 He was "assigned to duty with the Fourth United States In- 
 fantry, at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis. It was the largest 
 military post in the country at that time." 
 
 The young brevet second lieutenant had not been long in 
 
 his new quarters before he visited one of his classmates, whose 
 
 family were living a few miles from the barracks, on an estate 
 
 called White Haven. Several young people, brothers and sis- 
 
 21 
 
# 
 ;22 Our Presidents. 
 
 ters of his classmate, were in the household. Lieutenant 
 Grant found the family at White Haven so hospitable and 
 agreeable that he often rode over to see his young classmate. 
 
 Here he must frequently have heard the name of the eldest 
 sister, Miss Julia Dent, who had been for several years at 
 boarding-school in St. Louis. In the following year she 
 returned home. The shy, silent officer was at once attracted 
 by his classmate's sister. His visits from that time had a new 
 interest. The young people saw a good deal of each other, 
 and a friendship, simple, cordial, natural, like the character of 
 both, grew tip between the young officer and the girl, fresh 
 from boarding-school. They had frequent walks and horse- 
 back drives together. They made social visits to the people in 
 the neighborhood ; and all the while Grant v/as finding a 
 deeper charm in the society of the bright, attractive girl, but 
 neither appears to have had at this time any thoughts of a closer 
 relation than their existing one. 
 
 So little wish or desire had the young lieutenant to remain 
 in the army that, soon after he reached Jefferson Barracks, he 
 applied for the post of Assistant Professor of Mathematics at 
 West Point. The reply was so encouraging that he was satis- 
 fied he should soon have obtained his appointment, had not 
 the Mexican War broken out and changed all his plans. 
 
 At this time the annexation of Texas had become a matter 
 of absorbing interest in the politics of the country. Young 
 Grant had been, from the beginning, utterly opposed to a meas- 
 ure which shocked all his instincts of honor and justice. 
 
 He had obtained leave of absence for a short trip to Ohio, 
 when his regiment was ordered to Louisiana. He was at home 
 when he learned this. He learned something else at the same 
 time. The prospect of a separation from Miss Dent revealed 
 to him the real nature of his feeling for her. 
 
 It was like his sturdy, straightforvv^ard character to resolve 
 
Ulysses S. Grant. 323 
 
 to see her at once, to tell his story and learn his fate. He 
 returned to the barracks, obtained a farther leave of absence, 
 and immediately sought an interview with Miss Dent, swimming 
 his horse with great difficulty over a swollen creek before he 
 could reach her side. 
 
 The shy lieutenant stammered his story in the young girl's 
 ear ; but a true, manly, and loyal heart went v/ith the few awk- 
 ward words. Miss Dent had discerned the man behind all the 
 silence and the shyness. The breaking up of the regiment at 
 the barracks had brought to the joyous, warm-hearted girl some 
 unaccountable sense of loss and loneliness. 
 
 Young Grant's words revealed her heart to herself, and her 
 reply must have made him the happiest of men. 
 
 The youth of both, and the lieutenant's circumstances, did 
 not permit any thoughts of immediate marriage, but the affec- 
 tion of the two was from that moment deep and loyal. It 
 stood the test of long separation and adverse fortunes. That 
 young girl, to whom Ulysses Grant stammered his proposal, 
 was to prove herself in all his marvelously varied career the 
 chief happiness of his life. 
 
 Grant followed his regiment, the Fourth Infantry, to Louisi- 
 ana, and the young people had to content themselves with fre- 
 quent letters. The lieutenant did not carry his heart into the 
 business when he went into camp at Fort Jessup, Louisiana, 
 betwixt the Red River and the Sabine. Whatever ostensible 
 reasons might be assigned for the presence of the United States 
 troops on the scene, he knew perfectly well, as everybody else, 
 did, that they were intended as a menace against Mexico. All 
 his life Ulysses Grant never wavered in the conviction that the 
 first war in which he was engaged was a wrong and a shame — 
 the injustice of a strong nation to a weaker one. In a few 
 simple, straightforward words he characterizes the military 
 occupation and annexation of Texas as " a conspiracy to ac- 
 
i24 Our Presidents. 
 
 quire territory out of which slave States might be formed for 
 the Union." It is, however, only justice to add that, having 
 forced the war upon the feeble, helpless government, and 
 obtained a victory so thorough and complete that the conquered 
 country lay prostrate and helpless at the feet of its powerful 
 foe, the United States did not behave after the usual manner 
 of conquerors. The American nation paused at its moment 
 of triumph, made a treaty of peace, and paid fifteen millions 
 for the wild territories it might easily have overran and seized. 
 
 Young Grant's mihtary career in Mexico can barely be 
 glanced at now : he did his part honestly and bravely wher- 
 ever it fell to him, whether it was in the long monotonous 
 marches through the torrid, arid country, or on the varied bat- 
 tle-fields of Palo Alto, of Resaca de la Palma, of Monterey, or 
 in the siege of Vera Cruz and the capture of the city of Mex- 
 ico ; he served first under General Taylor, and afterward under 
 General Scott. One gets an impression that the young lieuten- 
 ant had to fall back on all his dogged staying power to get 
 through with those four years of service in that country of wide, 
 desolate plains, and picturesque mountain passes. His ambi- 
 tion scertainly were not stimulated by rapid promotion. The 
 earliest which he received was at the city of Mexico, where he 
 was advanced to a first lieutenancy. Later, he was regimental 
 (juarter-master and commissary. 
 
 Little, however, as he imagined it, this Mexican campaign ser- 
 vice was to prove invaluable to himself and to his country. In his 
 subordinate place he was learning much of the business of war, 
 and, in his shrewd, silent way, forming his own tenacious opinions. 
 In that long campaign, and amid the good-comradeship of army 
 life, he was acquiring much knowledge of men, then greatly his 
 superiors, whom he was afterward to meet as foes, on equal 
 ground, and on vastly larger battle-fields. He was faithful and 
 untiring in the discharge of all his duties ; but he exhibited 
 
Ulysses S. Grant. 325 
 
 no brilliant qualities. Nobody certainly credited him with a 
 spark of genius, and he himself would be the last man to do that. 
 
 When the treaty was ratified and the victorious army left 
 Mexico, Grant's regiment was ordered into camp at Mississippi 
 in the heats of the summer of 1848. Here he obtained leave of 
 absence for four months. He soon set out for White Haven. 
 It must have been a happy hour for the long absent lover when 
 he greeted his betrothed once more. He was married to Miss 
 Dent, August 22, 1848. 
 
 In April of the following year he was ordered for garrison 
 duty to Detroit, Michigan. He remained here two years. In 
 185 1 the Fourth Infantry was sent to California. It was a 
 wonder that any of the regiment lived to get there, after the 
 discomforts of the long, perilous trip, and the unutterable hor- 
 rors of the Isthmus, which they reached in midsummer, and 
 where they encountered cholera. Between the dying men and 
 the defaulting contractor. Grant, who was regimental quarter- 
 master, had his hands full ; he worked quiet and resolute through 
 the dreadful time, and early in December reached San Francisco, 
 with all the regiment that had survived the cholera. Here new 
 scenes awaited him : he found himself in the midst of a strange, 
 rough, picturesque life ; in short, he Avas now in the midst of that 
 gold-mining frenzy, which makes the early periods of California 
 history more exciting and dramatic than the wildest dreams of 
 the novelist. Lieutenant Grant had a chance to study the novel 
 world about him in his shrewd, penetrating fashion, before he 
 was ordered to Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River. 
 
 In 1853 he was promoted to a captaincy. His new com- 
 mand was stationed at Humboldt Bay, California, in the Red- 
 wood region ; he remained here, however, only a short period. 
 
 By this time the charm of the Western life had exercised 
 its fascination upon Grant ; he had grown so attached to the 
 country that he was resolved on making it his future home. 
 
326 Our Presidents. 
 
 But his domestic affections were very strong, and he could not 
 be content to remain longer away from his wife and his two 
 young sons. 
 
 The captain's pay was not sufficient to support the little 
 family in California. He finally resigned his post and returned 
 to the East. This was in the summer of 1854. 
 
 Captain Grant was now thirty-two : he had been in the army 
 eleven years ; he certainly had not a brilliant record and his 
 promotion had been slow and slight. 
 
 The autumn of 1854 had no encouraging outlook. A man 
 with Grant's military education and habits would not be likely 
 to find farming a congenial pursuit, but this alone opened to 
 him. Mrs. Grant owned a farm near her old home at White 
 Haven, and here the family resolved to make their future home. 
 But there was no house on the land : the owners had no money 
 to buy stock. Grant faced his fate manfully and set about 
 raising a roof-tree for the wife and the boys ; he worked hard 
 at building the house, and performed the varied drudgery of 
 farm- work, just as he had done when he was a boy. Sometimes 
 " he loaded a wagon with cord-wood and took it for sale to St. 
 Louis." The lines must have appeared to him very hard ones. 
 At last the fever and ague came on and shook even his iron 
 constitution. In a little while the farming proved a failure. 
 The Grant farm v/as sold at auction. 
 
 A trial at real-estate business with a relative in St. Louis 
 followed. This did not prosper. Captain Grant did not have 
 the money-making faculty. 
 
 In May, i860, he removed to Galena and took a clerkship in 
 his father's leather store. His two younger brothers were there. 
 It was the elder Grant's intention to establish his three sons in 
 the business ; but the second one died in the following year of 
 consumption. 
 
 This is a brief outline of the history of the man who stood 
 
Ulysses S. Grant. 3^7 
 
 in his old Mexican army-coat in the brick Presbyterian meeting- 
 house at Hanover, and made his short, characteristic speech 
 to the breathless crowd. Since he left the army, seven years 
 before, his life had been a losing struggle with fate. He had not 
 complained overmuch. Under the silence was a great deal of 
 quiet, patient pluck. The best thing, thus far, that had ever 
 come to him was the chance in the leather store and the pros- 
 pect of the later partnership. 
 
 But the hour for the simple, quiet man to come to his place 
 had struck at last. The North, waiting listless and incredulous 
 while the South gathered its forces and trained its men for the 
 coming struggle, was roused at last. The air was full of prep- 
 aration for battle. The need of soldiers to defend the Union 
 superseded everything else. There was an imperative call for 
 capable and trained officers to command the enthusiastic, undis- 
 ciplined volunteers, who had not the faintest idea what war 
 really meant, and who now felt for the first time the passion of 
 patriotism, the duty of living or dying for one's country. 
 
 Grant kept his word. The leather store at Galena knew 
 him no more ; he declined the captaincy of a company of 
 volunteers, but he served them as drill-master, and when the 
 time came he marched with them to Springfield. On the point 
 of returning home, he was accosted by the Illinois Governor, to 
 whom he had never spoken, and was offered a position in the 
 Adjutant-General's office. This was accepted at once. From 
 this time Grant had his hands full ; he had charge of mustering 
 the ten Illinois regiments into semce. 
 
 A little later he had a new experience ; he beheld for the first 
 time a secession flag waving defiantly in the air. The scene 
 occurred at St. Louis, whither he had gone on his way to Belle- 
 ville, the mustering place of the regiments of Southern Illinois. 
 The sight of that symbol of rebellion kindled all Grant's patri- 
 otic wrath. A little later he saw it come down from the seces- 
 
328 Our Presidents. 
 
 sion headquarters, and the old flag that he loved, in whose 
 service he had spent his young manhood, and whose honor he 
 was so splendidly to vindicate during the next four years, went 
 up in place of the other. 
 
 Did Grant remember, one wonders, how a little while before 
 he had driven his wagon-load of wood through the streets of 
 that very city ? If he did, he was not ashamed of it. Indeed, 
 I think he was always rather proud that he had done his 
 part bravely in the dark hour, in the lowly place. 
 
 About this time he made his application to General Thomas 
 for command of a regiment. He merely stated his past services, 
 and brought no influential names to back his application. In- 
 deed, he owns that he felt some distrust as to his own ability to 
 take charge of a regiment. But he might have spared himself 
 all scruples. No notice was taken of his application. 
 
 This act must have been sufficiently mortifying. Grant, 
 however, was to have his regiment. He had gone to visit his 
 parents, now removed to Covington, Kentucky, and he had 
 twice attempted to have an interview with General McClellan, 
 whose headquarters were then in Cincinnati, but had not suc- 
 ceeded. He aspired at this time to a position on the General's 
 staff. On Grant's return to Springfield he learned that Gov- 
 ernor Yates, impressed by the efficient service he had rendered 
 in mustering in the regiments, had appointed him Colonel of 
 the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers. He joined them at their 
 camp on the State fair grounds near Springfield. Ulysses Grant 
 was now in the war. 
 
 The history of the next four years cannot be told here. 
 The record of Grant's military career has been amply written 
 by his friends and his foes; more than all, it was written by 
 himself, in weariness and suffering, and amid the shadows of 
 approaching death. 
 
 It is a significant fact that when the newly appointed Colo- 
 
Ulysses S. Grant. 329 
 
 nel led his regiment to what he supposed v/as to be their first 
 engagement, " his heart kept getting higher and liigher until he 
 felt as though it were in his throat." He was at this time with 
 his regiment at Salt River in Missouri. A Confederate force 
 was encamped at Florida, a small village, twenty-five miles away. 
 Grant was ordered to move against the enemy. 
 
 It was a dismal march for the new Colonel and his unused 
 troops. As they passed through the thinly settled country, the 
 frightened people fled as they would before hordes of j^ainted 
 savages. 
 
 When at last they ascended the hill below which the enemy 
 was supposed to be encamped, Grant, to use his own words, 
 "would have given anything to be back in Illinois." The 
 regiment reached the summit. There was no waving of flags, 
 no flashing of arms, no sign of a soldier in all that wide summer 
 stillness. The enemy had decamped in haste as soon as they 
 learned Grant was on the march, and were now forty miles away. 
 If he had dreaded to meet them, they were at least equally 
 afraid of him. Grant was on the threshold of his new career. 
 This experience was invaluable to the future General ; he was 
 never thereafter afraid to face the enemy in the field, though he 
 admits that he often felt " anxious " on the eve of battle. 
 
 The new President was, in this terrible summer of 1861, 
 desirous above all things to obtain officers of proved ability. 
 Washburne, the new member from the Galena district, recom- 
 mended Grant. He was accordingly promoted to the rank of 
 Brigadier-general. This was an immense advance from that of 
 drill-master, a few weeks before, of the Galena volunteers. 
 
 Not long afterward he was assigned to the important com- 
 mand of the South-eastern District of Missouri, with its head- 
 quarters at Cairo, Illinois. It was here that Grant first showed 
 his real mettle. 
 
 Kentucky was at this critical moment trembling in the 
 
330 Our Presidents. 
 
 balance, and Paducah on the Mississippi resolved to go the way 
 of the Southern States. 
 
 On the day after Grant reached Cairo, he learned that the 
 enemy were intending to seize and hold Paducah in the great 
 State that, declaring herself neutral, was faltering in her allegi- 
 ance to the Union. 
 
 It was early in the following morning when Grant and his 
 two regiments debarked on the river shore at Paducah. Dur- 
 ing the night the little fleet had made the sail of forty miles, in 
 steamers which lay at the Cairo levee. The Confederate flag 
 was floating in the breeze of that autumn morning. The Con- 
 federate army, four thousand strong, lay scarcely a dozen miles 
 away. 
 
 Grant's arrival was just in the nick of time. The inhab- 
 itants, amazed and alarmed, made no resistance. Grant assured 
 them of his protection. The Confederate forces did not appear. 
 The secession flag was lowered a second time and Paducah 
 was saved to the Union. This was the beginning of that great 
 military career which was to reach its triumphant close one 
 April day, almost four years later, in the parlor of a private 
 dwelling at Appomattox Station. 
 
 Between that morning of September 6, 1861, and that other 
 afternoon of April 9, 1865, ^^^ the names of Belmont, of Fort 
 Donelson, of Shiloh, of Vicksburg, of Chattanooga, and later 
 and last, of the Army of the Potomac. Each of these names 
 means the story of a terrible battle — of a victory that was to 
 amaze friends and foes, and a world which watched across the 
 seas, intent, breathless, and largely hostile. In a little while 
 Grant had learned the greatness and gallantry of the foe with 
 whom he was contending. He learned to honor that, as a brave 
 soldier must, even while he regarded the Southern cause, to use 
 his own words, " as one of the worst for which people evei 
 fought, and for which there was the least excuse." 
 
Ulysses S. Grant. 33 ^ 
 
 But he knew better, perhaps, than any other man, that the 
 South was not conquered until she had proved her heroism on 
 every battle-field where he met her, not conquered until she had 
 given the flower of her youth, the strength and glory of her 
 manhood, to the long agony, knew that when the hour of sur- 
 render struck on that April afternoon, it was not until every 
 Southern home was impoverished by the war, and every South- 
 ern hearth-stone darkened by the shadow of death. 
 
 The Brigadier-General of Cairo had meanwhile become the 
 Lieutenant-General in the Army of the United States, and the 
 Proclamation of Emancipation had freed every slave in the 
 Union. 
 
 The series of splendid victories had not, of course, been 
 easily won against so brave and determined a foe. Grant had 
 had the usual fate of great commanders. At the beginning he 
 had encountered distrust, jealousy, opposition. His reply was 
 the all-sufficing one of some fresh victory on the battle-field. 
 
 A woman's opinion is not, of course, entitled to weight in 
 military matters ; but it has always seemed to the writer that 
 the sufficient reply to all adverse criticism of Grant's military 
 genius was the fact that wherever he went during the Civil War 
 with him also went Victory. 
 
 Those who admit this still insist that he had a better chance 
 than any who preceded him in command of the Army of the 
 Potomac, that he had larger liberty of action, and vastly greater 
 resources at his disposal than any other general. 
 
 Without questioning this, it still remains true that the drill- 
 master of the Galena Volunteers, the captain in the Hanover 
 meeting-house, in his blue army-coat, had no prestige and no 
 influential friends to aid him. If ever a man made his own 
 way to the front, it was Ulysses S. Grant. 
 
 The years which followed the close of the war. and the great 
 questions which shook the country, the Reconstruction of the 
 
• 
 ;32 Oitr Presidents. 
 
 South, the relations of the President to Congress, belong to an 
 ampler biography than this. The nation showed its faith in 
 the Soldier with whom it had gone through the war by bestow- 
 ing on him the highest place in its gift, the presidency of the 
 United States. 
 
 He was inaugurated with the most imposing display which 
 the capital had ever witnessed. Naturally simple and unosten- 
 tatious in his tastes, he yet enjoyed his fame and greatness, and 
 all the visible signs of it. Had he owned Mount Vernon it is 
 hardly probable that he would, like Washington, after he had 
 freed his country, have been eager to retire to his farm. 
 
 His first administration went its smooth, prosperous way. 
 When the four years expired. Grant was re-elected with great 
 enthusiasm, and by an immense majority to a second presiden- 
 tial terra. This proved a period of great financial distress to 
 the country. A terrible business panic prostrated the indus- 
 tries of the land, wrecked many fortunes, and filled the nation, 
 which had gone on its prosperous ways, reckless and extrava- 
 gant, with depression and disaster. The administration and 
 the Republican party were held more or less responsible for the 
 financial reverses. Some of the President's most trusted advis- 
 ers lost the confidence of the people. But they did not lose 
 faith in their Soldier amid the general feeling of depression and 
 insecurity with which his last term closed. 
 
 Soon afterward General Grant made the tour of the world. 
 All his life he had been fond of travel, and had felt a strong 
 curiosity to behold foreign lands. In the prime of his years, in 
 perfect health, and with sufficient fortune at command, he 
 resolved to indulge the longing of his youth and go around the 
 planet. 
 
 The little party which accompanied him from Philadelphia, 
 among whom were his wife and the youngest of his three sons, 
 sailed on the steamer Indiana in 1872. "The flags waved their 
 
Ulysses S. Grant. 
 
 farewell from all the shipping in the Delaware," and he heard 
 the thunder of " a parting salute from the guns of United States 
 war vessels." 
 
 From the time that he landed on the English coast it was 
 one long, triumphal progress for Ulysses Grant ; his journey over 
 the island, across the continent, around the world, reads in its 
 simplest recital, almost like some Arabian Night's tale. 
 
 The sovereigns, the kingdoms, the rulers of the world, as he 
 moved from one country to another, exerted themselves to do 
 the soldier honor. He was the chief guest in palaces. Great 
 cities offered him, with stately ceremonials, their freedom. The 
 world, which a little while before had not greatly beUeved in 
 him, was eager now to see the American who had come amongst 
 them with his unparalleled military prestige. 
 
 But it was not only the great, the wise, the powerful, who 
 gathered curious about him. When, at last, after his long Euro- 
 pean tour, he went to Egypt to see the records of her ancient 
 civilization, dusky sheiks and warriors of the desert spurred 
 from afar to look on the great Western commander. 
 
 At length Grant turned away from Europe and set his face 
 toward India. He lingered for a while, intent and curious, in 
 that old cradle of the Aryan race ; then he visited China, and, 
 last of all, Japan. From this place he crossed the Pacific and 
 landed at San Francisco, to be welcomed home with immense 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 All this pomp and glory would have dazzled any but a calm 
 and well-balanced brain. Grant maintained through all the 
 long ordeal his native simplicity, his kindliness, his modesty. 
 He who owed all his glory to the Civil War found no pleasure 
 in military pomp and parade. He declined a review of the 
 French amtiy. The glitter of arms, the bravery of uniforms, 
 the rhythmic march of columns, had no delight for him. " He 
 never wanted to hear another drum beat." 
 
334 Our Presidents. 
 
 Not long after his return he chose the city of New York for 
 his home. She was proud of her illustrious citizen, and the 
 Republic, if she may sometimes have forgotten to reward great 
 historic services, was certainly generous to Grant. 
 
 After that April day when the North went wild with joy 
 because the war was ended, Grant's position with the people 
 much resembled that of the Duke of Wellington with the 
 English nation after the battle of Waterloo. 
 
 Honors and wealth were heaped upon the victorious Gen- 
 eral. One subscription list raised him a quarter of a million 
 dollars. Another provided him with a hundred thousand to 
 purchase a home in New York for the remainder of his life. 
 
 He had a summer cottage at Long Branch. Its simplicity 
 suited his quiet tastes. From its verandas he could watch the 
 shipping of the world come and go, while grateful winds from 
 the sea cooled the hot breath of the Northern summer. 
 
 In this retreat and amid the household ties so dear to him, 
 the domestic qualities of General Grant — his devotion to his 
 family, his kindliness, his thoughtful care for others, his sim- 
 plicity of bearing, and his real sincerity — revealed themselves in 
 their most attractive aspects. Those who saw him in his home- 
 life at Long Branch must have felt that they had seen some- 
 thing of the real General Grant, which the great public could 
 not wholly know. 
 
 In 1880 a determined effort was made by the Republican 
 party to nominate General Grant for a third term to the presi- 
 dency. This measure was opposed to all the traditions and 
 precedents of the Government since the adoption of the Ameri- 
 can Constitution. 
 
 The effort met with prolonged and inflexible opposition ; 
 but so popular was the soldier, so insistent his support, that 
 the contest became an extremely bitter one. It shook the 
 Republican party to its center, but at last the delegates to the 
 
Ulysses S. Grant. 335 
 
 famous convention at Chicago were induced to unite in nomi- 
 nating James A. Garfield for the presidency. 
 
 " Call no man happy until he dies." The famous maxim 
 of the ancients had a modern illustration in the case of Ulysses 
 Grant. Fortune, fame, health, affection — all the best gifts of 
 the gods — he had these in abundance ; he seemed to have 
 reached the apex of human success and prosperity. 
 
 The first trouble came when, one evening, leaving his car- 
 riage and about to enter his home, he slipped on the icy side- 
 walk. The fall shook his iron frame. The accident confined 
 him to his chamber a long time ; he was so crippled that any 
 exertion was extremely painful to him. 
 
 In May, 1884, the great blow fell. One does not like to 
 linger on the time or the story. There was a period when the 
 nation held its breath in dismay, learning that the weight of 
 that great name had been lent to a delusion and a fraud. 
 
 But in a little while the truth came to light. The soldier, 
 the ex-President, came out of the trial, which wrecked the firm 
 in which he had been senior partner, with his honor and hon- 
 esty undimmed ; he had been the victim of too large faith in 
 others, and his present fortunes had been engulfed with the 
 ruined firm. 
 
 The thunderbolt which, out of a clear sky, fell upon Gen- 
 eral Grant that May day, the loss and anguish that followed, 
 make this period the darkest of his life. 
 
 But the end of all earthly griefs was now rapidly approach- 
 ing for him. 
 
 During the summer of 1884, while he was at Long Branch, 
 General Grant began to feel mysterious pains in his throat. 
 He at last reluctantly, and to gratify his alarmed wife, sub- 
 mitted to an examination. The recent suffering was explained 
 by a " cancerous affection of the throat." 
 
 Tlie disease made its approaches slowly but surely. All 
 
33^ Our Presidents. 
 
 the heroism of Grant's nature, all its patience and quiet strength, 
 came to the surface now. The man of the victorious battle- 
 fields turned, as his sun was setting, to his pen. With death 
 staring him in the face, and with a sense of his broken fortunes 
 harassing him by night and by day, he resolved to write the 
 memoirs of his life. 
 
 To undertake such a task, and to carry it to its completion 
 in a couple of large volumes, amid weakness, pain and growing 
 disease, required a patient, sustained heroism, which, in some 
 of its aspects, surpassed the greatest victory Grant had ever 
 won on the battle-field. 
 
 In March, 1885, a bill was passed in Congress once more 
 creating Ulysses S. Grant a General of the Army. This gave him 
 immense gratification. The old forces of his constitution ral- 
 lied for a brief time. The contract for the publication of the 
 memoirs was signed. Those Grant loved so devotedly were 
 now amply provided for. 
 
 Early in June he left the noise and heats of that city where 
 he had received such honor and glory, and endured such agony 
 of soul and body, and went to a quiet cottage at Mount Gre- 
 gor, near Saratoga. 
 
 Here he gradually failed until after midsummer. He 
 waited quietly, patiently, bravely, with the faith and the hope 
 of a Christian for the death that was slowly but surely coming. 
 
 It came for Ulysses Grant July 23, 1885. 
 
Sji^e^o^-Q 
 
RUTHERFORD BIRCHARD HAYES. 
 
 " An officer fit for duty, who at this crisis would abandon 
 his post to electioneer for a seat in Congress, ought to be 
 scalped." 
 
 In August, 1864, a brevet Major General, who had won his 
 title by gallant services in the West Virginia campaign, ex- 
 pressed himself in these words. They have the ring of a noble 
 patriotism. They were the reply of the man who had been for 
 the first time nominated to Congress by a district of his native 
 State. He was in the field, and a friend urged him to return 
 home awhile and canvass for the election. The heart of the 
 patriot, the spirit of the soldier, spoke in this prompt, decided 
 answer. The man who made it was Rutherford B. Hayes. He 
 was born in Delaware, Ohio, Oct. 4, 1822. His father had died 
 in the previous July. They came of New England stock, with 
 its energy and thrift and stanch moral fiber, which, transplanted 
 beyond the Alleghanies, laid the foundations of the future great- 
 ness of the North-West. 
 
 The Hayes family emigrated from Vermont in the early years 
 of the century, and had taken firm root in what was then the 
 far West country before the elder died, or his son first saw the 
 light. 
 
 The childhood and boyhood of Rutherford B. Hayes was a 
 smooth, comfortable, prosperous one. In the quiet home where 
 his life had its beginnings, there was no struggle with poverty 
 for the widowed mother and her fatherless boy. Rutherford 
 went first to the common schools in the neighborhood. Then 
 he was sent to the academy at Newport, Ohio, and later he was 
 
;3o Our Presidents. 
 
 at Middletown, Conn., where he prepared for Kenyon College in 
 his native State. 
 
 Here the undergraduate showed his intellectual quality. 
 He was not only a fine scholar, but he made his mark in the 
 literary societies of his "alma mater." He graduated in 1842 
 and won much praise for his valedictory oration. 
 
 He began his legal studies in Columbus, Ohio. Later he 
 attended the Harvard Law School for two years in order to 
 equip himself thoroughly for the bar. 
 
 Young Hayes entered on the practice of his profession in 
 his native State, at Fremont, called at that time Lower San- 
 dusky, but his health now broke so seriously that he was com- 
 pelled to give up all business and spend a winter at the South, 
 where the milder climate restored him. 
 
 On his return to Ohio he established himself at Cincinnati, 
 where the real abilities of the young lawyer, his high character, 
 and his agreeable social gifts, v/on him many eminent friends. 
 
 In 1852 he married Miss Lucy W. Webb, the daughter of a 
 physician in Chillicothe, Ohio. She was a pupil of the Wesleyan 
 Female College in Cincinnati. She was a young girl of fine 
 character ; she had an ingenuous manner, which was singularly 
 attractive, and a face whose bright charm was the index of a 
 rare and lovely soul. 
 
 A number of happy, prosperous years followed the marriage. 
 Mr. Hayes had a successful law practice and occupied positions 
 of honor and responsibility in the city government. 
 
 The firing on Fort Sumter was the signal for an immense 
 change in his life. His anti-slavery convictions had been early 
 formed and were very decided: he had joined the Republican 
 party on its organization. The strength of his opinions, the 
 resolution and ardor of his character, were certain to bring him 
 into the foreground of affairs at this time. 
 
 A great mass-meeting gathered in Cincinnati. Mr. Hayes was 
 
Rutherford Bir chard Hayes. 339 
 
 in its midst and was appointed chairman to express the popular 
 passion which at that time swept over the North, a great tidal 
 wave, carrying everything before it. It was impossible that so 
 ardent a patriot, so devoted a friend of the Union, as Mr. Hayes> 
 should not come to his place and do his work in the hour when 
 his country called upon her sons to save her. 
 
 In a short time the Cincinnati lawyer was appointed Major of 
 the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. In September, 1861, 
 General Rosecrans, under whom he was serving, appointed him 
 Judge-advocate of the Department of Ohio, and in the month 
 following he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. 
 
 At the famous battle of South Mountain, September 14, 
 1862, the new Colonel carried himself with great gallantry. A 
 musket ball struck him in the left arm, but he refused to leave 
 the field and at last had to be borne from it. His wound 
 forced him to leave the army for awhile, but as soon as he 
 recovered he was once more at the head of his troops. 
 
 The details of the military career of General Hayes do not 
 belong to this brief narrative. It was a career of varied and 
 brilliant services and of hard-fought engagements, during which 
 he always rushed into the thick of danger. Where the blows fell 
 thickest his soldiers were always certain to find their commander. 
 
 His miUtary record forms a part of the glory of the campaign 
 in West Virginia. During the war he was wounded four times ; 
 and the names of Winchester, and Fisher's Hill, and Cedar Creek, 
 where his horse was shot under him, must always be associated 
 with his own. His services now won him a fresh promotion 
 and he became Brigadier- General. 
 
 It was at this time that the nomination to Congress occurred, 
 with the characteristic refusal to obtain leave of absence and 
 work for fresh laurels in the political field. 
 
 During this time Mrs. Hayes proved herself the true wife 
 of a soldier. She visited her husband in camp, where her bright 
 
34^ Our Presidents. 
 
 v/omanly presence and devoted services to the wounded men 
 won their hearts. She mended the rough soldiers' clothes with 
 her delicate hands ; she visited the wounded and nursed them 
 with a tender sympathy that must have touchingly reminded 
 them of the mothers and wives at home. 
 
 Despite his absence from the political arena, General Hayes 
 won the election for Congress. In the following spring the war 
 closed, and he took his seat in the House, December 4, 1865. 
 
 In his new field General Hayes did work which, though it 
 might not be so brilliant as that which he had performed on the 
 battle-field, was still of great service to his country. He did not 
 display dazzling oratorical gifts, but he was a legislator of strong 
 sense and solid judgment : his fearlessness, his high moral sym- 
 pathies, his deep instincts for justice and right, won the respect 
 and confidence of his colleagues. The measures which he pro- 
 moted during that critical period of national legislation were 
 always inspired by the large views and the magnanimous temper 
 of the statesman. 
 
 The Congressional history of Rutherford B. Hayes belongs, 
 like his military one, to a larger narrative. All the honors 
 which came to him were unsought, and must have seemed a 
 good deal like the gifts of the gods, though they were really 
 the result of that wide popular confidence which his character 
 and work abundantly inspired. 
 
 In 1867 Ohio elected her Congressman Governor of the 
 State. It is a sufficient commentary on his services in that 
 responsible post, that he was twice re-elected to it. 
 
 In 1873 Governor Hayes resolved to return to private life 
 and make his home in Fremont, Ohio, where he had settled 
 in early manhood. 
 
 But the dreams of the quiet life and the fireside happiness 
 with his wife and his children were not to be reahzed at that time. 
 
 The National Republican Convention which met at Cincin- 
 
Rutherford Bir chard Hayes. 341 
 
 nati June 14, 1876, had many brilliant and distinguished men 
 among its candidates. At the last, however, Governor Hayes 
 carried the nomination for the presidency. 
 
 The contest which followed was strong and acrimonious 
 to the last degree. Both parties claimed that it had elected 
 its candidate. The country was shaken with the strife. Polit- 
 ical passions flamed on every side. There were threats of civil 
 war. Foreboding and dismay filled the nation. 
 
 The storm, however, quieted at last. Rutherford Hayes 
 took his oath of office and was duly inaugurated President of 
 the United States, and the country settled down tranquil and 
 confident. 
 
 His administration was one which might have been largely 
 anticipated from the character and convictions of the President. 
 He had very decided opinions on civil service reform, and he 
 made strong and courageous efforts to promote it. But so great 
 and far-reaching a reform could not be accomplished in four 
 years. The President encountered on tliis whole question bit- 
 ter and persistent opposition from some of the leaders in his 
 own party, though it is said that during this administration 
 " there was far less meddling with party politics on the part of 
 officers of the government than at any period since Andrew 
 Jackson's time." 
 
 The new and lenient policy which the Executive adopted 
 toward the Reconstructed States, ameliorated much bitter sec- 
 tional feeling and proved in the end the highest wisdom. 
 
 It is certain that the administration, which began under 
 so deep a cloud, closed amid wide tranquillity and prosperity 
 throughout the country. 
 
 It has been affirmed by those who ought to know that " the 
 success of the Republican Party in the election of 1880 was 
 largely owing to the general satisfaction among the people with 
 the Hayes Administration." 
 
342 Oiir Presidents. 
 
 The ex-President returned to the home of his young man- 
 hood in Fremont. He was still in the prime of his years, and he 
 was fully alive to all the great questions and interests of the day. 
 
 Since his retirement President Hayes has been the recipient 
 of many honorary distinctions, and his time is still much 
 absorbed " in various philanthropical and useful enterprises." 
 A greatly needed reform in the present system of prison gov- 
 ernment has of late had a large share of his attention. 
 
 The life of Rutherford B. Hayes does not afford to his biog- 
 rapher those dramatic incidents and contrasts which make the 
 early lives of many of our Presidents so full of vivid interest and 
 adventure. Born in a simple home, with moderate fortunes, 
 reared amid refining and elevating influences, he has never 
 known the struggle and grind of poverty; never had, in the 
 hard upward climb, to break away from the power of early 
 habits and of coarse associations. 
 
 The life of this man moves from his birth amid pleasant and 
 prosperous ways. Not yet an old man, he is still our only living 
 ex-President. The simplicity and dignity of the quiet life at 
 Fremont strongly suggests that of some of his earliest predeces- 
 sors after they had retired from the executive chair. Mr. Hayes 
 is a broad-shouldered, large-built man, with an agreeable pres- 
 ence, and a thoughtful, intelligent face. It is full of spirit and 
 resolution, while the eyes have a singularly intent, piercing 
 glance. 
 
 The ex-President's domestic life has been one of rare happi- 
 ness. Mrs. Hayes has lent the grace of her sweet woman's pres- 
 ence, the strength of her noble woman's instincts, to all the var- 
 ied high positions her husband has filled. When she presided 
 at the White House, she proved that, with all her tenderness of 
 heart, with all the radiating sweetness and kindliness of her 
 nature, she had the courage of her convictions. 
 
 Many a strong man would not have had the moral strength 
 
Rutherford Bir chard Hayes. 343 
 
 of which this " woman of the hearth and home " showed her- 
 self capable, when, making her conscience the supreme arbiter, 
 she excluded wine from the tables of the executive mansion. 
 
 Ohio stands with her noble record among her sister States. 
 The deeds of her sons have added many a splendid chapter to 
 the national history. It is not the least of her honors that when 
 she gave in successive administrations two of her daughters to 
 represent American womanhood at the White House, one of 
 these was Lucy Webb Hayes and the other was Lucretia Ru- 
 dolph Garfield. 
 
^ JAMES ABRAM GARFIELD. 
 
 Among the opening days of September, 1854, a young man, 
 who would see his twenty-third birthday before that autumn 
 closed, had achieved the great ambition of his youth. What- 
 ever high honors, whatever large place, the future might have in 
 store for him, it is doubtful whether any of its days could wear 
 such a glow of hope and aspiration, could so abound with the 
 satisfaction of noble purpose accomplished after long struggle, 
 as those which closed the twenty-second summer of his life. 
 
 For James Abram Garfield was going to college. Infinitely 
 important as this fact was to himself, it was at that time of little 
 consequence to anybody else, with the exception of a small cir- 
 cle of his friends and neighbors, the majority of whom would 
 probably have disapproved of his going at all. 
 
 The story of his youth, rounding now to its twenty-third 
 birthday, is a story of pioneer life in northern Ohio. Its gen- 
 eral features have a certain resemblance to Abraham Lincoln's 
 early life ; but the Ohio boy was born more than twenty years 
 after the Kentucky one, so the beginnings of the younger were 
 not so scant and hard as those of the elder. Still, James Gar- 
 field's youth is the story of a fatherless boy's long, brave battle 
 with hard fortune, under the narrow roof of a widowed mother 
 left desolate by her husband's sudden death, and with almost 
 no means of support for herself and her young children, in a 
 clearing on the edge of the wilderness, in Orange, Cuyahoga 
 County, Ohio. 
 
 The boy came of stanch ancestry on both sides. The Gar- 
 fields were among the earliest Puritan settlers of the Massa- 
 
James Abram Garfield. 345 
 
 chusetts Colony, and one, at least, of the race followed the ex- 
 ample of his ancestors at Naseby and Marston Moor, and went 
 from his home at Lincoln to the fight at Concord. James's 
 mother, Eliza Ballou, came of the old French Huguenot breed, 
 which left France with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
 and whose blood enriched the Protestant communities of two 
 continents. 
 
 In the newly-raised log cabin of the Ohio clearing the child 
 who came of these two sterling races was born November 19, 
 1 83 1. James was the youngest of the children, a brother and 
 two sisters having preceded him. He was about a year and a 
 half old at the time of his father's death. This was brought 
 on by exposure after long fighting a dangerous fire about the 
 clearing. 
 
 The boy was happily too young to comprehend the loss 
 which had come to him just on the threshold of life. It meant 
 struggle, privation, hardship, the wolf close to the door through 
 all his boyhood and youth ; but it did not mean the lack of 
 tender and noble virtues, of robust health, of steady, wholesome 
 industries, of independence and energy that braced the soul 
 with courage and hope. The mother, sitting among her young 
 brood under the log-cabin roof, could afford little time for the 
 luxury of grief. The blow did not crush her as it would a 
 weaker-fibered woman. She resolved to keep her roof and her 
 boys and girls under it ; and somehow, with the help of the 
 elder son and the exercise of unflinching economy, she did it. 
 
 "Go without ! " Tho3e words, which Matthew Arnold tells 
 us should form the controlling maxim of every human life, had 
 to be lived in all their hard, stern meanings inside that low 
 home where the widowed mother and her children kept up 
 their long fight with fortune. 
 
 Of course everything had to be as plain and scant as pos- 
 sible. One naturally shrinks from going into details, as one 
 
34^ Our Presidents. 
 
 would from prying too closely into one's neighbor's affairs. 
 There is no lack of anecdotes to illustrate the domestic life of 
 the humble home. But if James Garfield went barefoot, if he 
 wore coarse clothes, and ate plain food, all these things did not 
 harm him. 
 
 With the noble mother, with the humble fireside, where all 
 sweet and wholesome virtues flourished, no iron of poverty could 
 enter his soul. He had too free, too varied, and too active a 
 childhood to be conscious of any humiliating or depressing in- 
 fluences in its atmosphere. Those Ohio woods and streams and 
 fields were his kindly, intimate teachers. With what vigorous 
 health, with what bounding life, they filled the blue-eyed, fair- 
 haired child who spent so much of his days amongst them ! 
 What pure, noble, life-long lessons they taught him, which he 
 could never have found, even in the books he was afterward to 
 love with a perfect love ! 
 
 James was the youngest, the pet of the household ; he 
 was a bright, sturdy, resolute boy, much bent on having his 
 own way — a fact which gave the doting mother a good deal 
 of anxiety. He appears to have been always larger than his 
 years warranted. There was certainly a touch of precocity 
 in his learning to read by the time he was three. Brave, res- 
 olute, truthful, he must early have exhibited qualities which 
 gave promise of a rare and earnest character. The mother, at 
 her work, — she must have had scant leisure with her young 
 household and her small farm — read poems, and told Bible- 
 stories to her children, all of which James greatly enjoyed. 
 
 He borrowed, like Abraham Lincoln, all the books, far and 
 near, and devoured them. During the winters he attended the 
 district school. When he was about eleven, the Orange boys 
 formed a lyceum, and James eagerly joined the debating clubs, 
 and these, no doubt, roused and stimulated his mind in various 
 directions. 
 
James AbraDi Garfield. 2>47 
 
 All this time he was doing a farm boy's work. He was 
 about fifteen when the great ambition of the Garfield household 
 was gratified, and they exchanged their log cabin for a wood 
 house of four rooms. The orchard of a hundred trees, which 
 the father had planted, stood, by this time, green and ample, 
 about the small home. Under the shade of the apple-trees 
 James had spent many of the happiest hours of his boyhood. 
 He had watched with immense interest the building of the new 
 house, and he now made up his mind to become a carpenter. 
 He followed the business for about two years, with intervals of 
 farm work. 
 
 At this period he had frequent moods of discouragement, 
 such as often come with adolescence. It must have been a 
 peculiarly trying time to him ; he was restless and pursued by 
 vague longings and ambitions ; he did not know himself, nor to 
 what goal his aptitudes pointed. Everything was confused and 
 tentative in his thoughts and his work ; he must have had many 
 gloomy hours. Nobody understood him well enough to advise 
 or help him. His restlessness and his young imagination, which 
 had been fed by tales of the sea, aroused strong desires for a 
 sailor's life. While he was in this mood, he went to work for a 
 while in his uncle's woodland, near Newburg. He saw Lake 
 Erie, and the sight of the blue water suggested a trip on the 
 lake boats as the beginning of a seafaring career. 
 
 When the wood chopping was done he attempted to find a 
 place as " deck-hand or common sailor " on some ship, but his 
 first application was so discouraging that he did not repeat it. 
 A position, humbler if possible than the one he had sought, 
 now opened to him. His uncle owned a canal-boat which car- 
 ried cargoes of coal from the mines to Cleveland. The nephew 
 " engaged to drive the horses which drew the boat along the 
 Ohio canal." 
 
 He had now reached the nadir of his career. The new 
 
34^ Our Presidents. 
 
 work was outdoors, and in this respect suited his restless mind 
 and body ; but the labor brought with it associations which his 
 careful mother would have disapproved. 
 
 He followed the canal work for about six months, and then 
 the fever and ague clutched him. One day, weak and dizzied, 
 he fell into the canal. That fall was a fortunate one for James 
 Garfield, though he barely escaped drowning ; he was now too 
 ill to continue at his post, and Avith much difficulty he managed 
 to reach home. A long and dangerous illness followed, but his 
 fine constitution brought him safely through at last. 
 
 In the long leisures of convalescence new and serious thoughts 
 awoke in his soul. They ripened at last into an invincible reso- 
 lution to make something of himself, to set about getting an 
 education. 
 
 The obstacles in his way would have seemed insurmounta- 
 ble to most boys. But the one who lay with his wide-awake 
 brain under that low roof, and made up his mind what he was 
 going to do, was now to prove what splendid reserves of pluck 
 he had in him. 
 
 In one shape and another, ways opened. A kind clergyman 
 in the neighborhood encouraged James's purpose and gave him 
 valuable advice ; his mother, too, sympathized warmly with his 
 new plans. 
 
 As soon as he recovered he set about his studies ; he had 
 to do this by himself, as the household finances did not admit 
 of his attending school. But he held to his purpose unflinch- 
 ingly. It was certain during this time that, when he was not at 
 work, he was at his studies. 
 
 Such a determination, pursued unflinchingly in the face 
 of all difficulties, is certain, in the long run, to win. The story 
 of the struggle, inspiring as it is, is too long for this sketch. 
 The fight was continuous and hard enough to wear out any but 
 a will of very stern fiber. 
 
James Abrain Garjiehi. 349 
 
 James Garfield had made a long climb upward when, in 
 1849, he entered the academy at Chester ; he remained there, 
 more or less, for two years. 
 
 At eighteen the boy who had worked on the farm and tried 
 carpentering and driving on the tow-path, was teaching school 
 in his native town. 
 
 Later he went to Hiram College, which had been recently 
 founded by the Church of the Disciples. Mrs. Garfield had 
 joined this simple and devout community, and her youngest son, 
 whose religious convictions were always deep and vital, had 
 become a member of the same body. At Hiram College young 
 Garfield passed three years. They must have been happy ones 
 to him, with their congenial associations, their strenuous study, 
 their various toils to meet the expenses of his education, and 
 their economies that were ennobled by a lofty purpose. 
 
 It was in 1854 that the uncle whose wood he had chopped, 
 and whose canal-boat horses he had driven, loaned his promis- 
 ing young nephew five hundred dollars to complete his studies 
 in an Eastern college. 
 
 So James Garfield had reached the acme of his ambition, and 
 this was why the autumn of 1854 had opened so radiantly for 
 him. 
 
 But here he must speak for himself in the words which he 
 wrote at this time to a friend, little dreaming that the world 
 would ever dwell on them with curious interest. 
 
 " I am the son of Disciple parents ; am one myself, and have 
 had but little acquaintance with people of other views ; and 
 having always lived in the West, I think it will make me more 
 liberal, both in my religious and general views and sentiments, 
 to go into a new circle where I shall be under new influence. 
 These considerations led me to conclude to go to some New 
 England college. I, therefore, wrote to the Presidents of Brown 
 University, Yale and Williams, setting forth the amount of 
 
35^ Our Presidents. 
 
 study I had done, and asking how long it would take me to 
 finish their course. 
 
 " These answers are now before me. All tell me I can 
 graduate in two years. They are all brief business notes, but 
 President Hopkins concludes with these words : ' If you come 
 here we shall be glad to do what we can for you.' Other things 
 being so nearly equal, this sentence, which appears to be a 
 friendly grasp of the hand, has settled the question for me. I 
 shall start for Williams next week." 
 
 He entered the junior class ; he was now in the full glow of 
 young manhood's strength and vigor. The large-molded head, 
 the strong, eager face, with the blue eyes and brown hair, sug- 
 gested his Saxon rather than his Huguenot ancestry. With his 
 spirited head on his stalwart shoulders and his tall figure, he 
 must have seemed a kind of young Titan among his slighter 
 fellows. 
 
 The student who had made such struggles and sacrifices to 
 get to college, would not be likely, once there, to waste his 
 opportunities. It is enough to say that young Garfield went at 
 his work with the delight and thoroughness of the born scholar — 
 that his range of reading was as broad as his time and class- 
 work allowed. But he was not solely a student. With his 
 abounding vitality, with his genial, cordial nature, he could not 
 fail to enjoy the social life of the college. He had here, as 
 everywhere, a singular power of attracting friends ; he indulged 
 sparingly in the sports of the college. Those powerful muscles 
 had been trained in a sterner school ; his stringent integrity, 
 his openness and manliness of character, could not fail to make 
 their mark here, as they did in all the circumstances of his 
 varied life. 
 
 Young Garfield seems to have absorbed all the best and 
 finest influences in the intellectual and moral atmosphere about 
 him ; his whole being was roused and stimulated by the thought 
 
James Abram Garfield. 3 5 ^ 
 
 and example of the President of the college whose few words 
 had brought him to Williams, and for whom he always cher- 
 ished a deep admiration and affection. 
 
 Those were precious days of expanding thought and ripen- 
 ing character. The student, however, little dreamed of the grand 
 arena for which they were preparing him. 
 
 At twenty-four James Garfield graduated and returned to 
 Ohio. He was now fairly equipped and eager for the race. 
 In a short time he was offered and accepted a professorship in 
 Hiram College. A year later he was its President. 
 
 In 1858 he married Miss Lucretia Rudolph of Hiram. They 
 had been students in the old days at Chester. The young lady 
 came also of a stanch New England race, and had been brought 
 up in a home where all sterling virtues flourished. James Gar- 
 field's marriage was, in all the best meaning of the words, " a 
 wise one." The young wife brought, with her sweet face and 
 her womanly tenderness, a rare intellectual sympathy and com- 
 panionship to their wedded life ; while her good judgment, her 
 simplicity of taste and character, must have been peculiarly 
 wholesome and restful to a man of her husband's ardent, im- 
 pulsive temperament. 
 
 With his religious training and convictions he had at one 
 time almost determined to study for the ministry, but soon after 
 his marriage he resolved to prepare himself for the law, and 
 with characteristic energy set about his legal studies ; he pursued 
 these under great drawbacks, for the duties of President of 
 Hiram College were varied and exacting. It was fortunate that 
 his early rugged life had given him such robust health, or it 
 would not have borne the double strain of those years. While 
 he was studying law, the instincts of the statesman became 
 interested in the political questions which now began to come 
 to the political foreground. On the subject of slavery James 
 Garfield, like Abraham Lincoln, took liis stand early and kept 
 
352 Our Presidents. 
 
 it unflinchingly. He was, from first to last, its resolute, out- 
 spoken, consistent foe. 
 
 In 1859 he was, to his own great surprise, elected to the State 
 Senate of Ohio. This was no small honor to a young man who 
 had left his "alma mater" only five years before. He now 
 entered upon public life, but he had no controlling ambition to 
 remain in it. He had the instincts and tastes of the born 
 scholar, and he did not even resign his position at Hiram. 
 
 But two years later the hour struck which summoned James 
 Garfield to the new work and the larger place. It was his fate 
 never to return to private life. The President of Hiram College, 
 the recent law student, the young Ohio State Senator, knew 
 nothing of military affairs. But the events of 1861 stirred his 
 whole soul with a passion of patriotism. He felt, as every loyal 
 man in the North did, that he had a country to live or to die 
 for. With his habit of putting his heart and soul into every- 
 thing he did, he now set about assisting the Governor " in 
 organizing the Ohio volunteers and in raising supplies for the 
 army. " 
 
 The whole business was novel and full of harassing per- 
 plexities to all who undertook it. Garfield rendered inestimable 
 service at this trying time. He did everything in the spirit of 
 a true patriot. While many were intent on reward and office, 
 he did not solicit either ; but in a little while both came to him. 
 
 A regiment of enthusiastic volunteers, composed largely of 
 his college pupils, was organized at Hiram. The students were 
 eager that their President should be appointed Colonel of the 
 regiment. He felt himself unequal to the grand responsibilities 
 which the command involved ; but it was at last forced upon 
 him, and Colonel Garfield marched with his regiment, the Forty- 
 second Ohio. 
 
 Colonel Garfield won his first military laurels, as everybody 
 knows, in the Big Sandy campaign. The rebels had swarmed 
 
James Abram Garfield. 353 
 
 into Kentucky, resolved to carry the reluctant border State into 
 secession. Marshall, with his five thousand troops, was in the 
 Big Sandy valley when Garfield went with his raw young 
 soldiers to meet him. 
 
 After much marching and skirmishing the battle took place 
 at Prestonburg. It must have been a trying moment to the 
 new Colonel, who had never himself been in an engagement, 
 when he led his greatly inferior numbers to their first encounter 
 with the enemy. It closed at last in a victory for the Unionists. 
 Marshall's troops, as fresh as Garfield's, " were put to rout, and 
 during the night beat a hasty retreat into Southwestern Vir- 
 ginia." The Big Sandy victory was doubly important because 
 it was won against an enemy so superior in numbers, and at a 
 time when the Union armies had met with serious reverses. 
 
 The figure of the young Colonel, as he tossed his coat into 
 a tree and shouted back to his cavalry, whom he had first 
 ordered to charge, "Give 'em 'Hail Columbia,' boys," forms 
 the most striking and heroic picture of this campaign. 
 
 The remainder of Garfield's brief military career is in keep- 
 ing with its brilliant opening chapter. He was promoted to the 
 rank of Brigadier-general by the President, whose anxious and 
 long vexed soul was rejoiced by tidings of victory from the 
 West. The remainder of the year was full of varied military 
 service for Garfield. But during that time he was in no battles. 
 He was busy at the work of " reconstructing railroad bridges 
 and re-establishing lines of railway communication for the army, 
 beside serving on important court-martials." Later, he was at 
 the outposts with his brigade during the long siege of Corinth ; 
 but the hardships he underwent brought back his old foe, mala- 
 ria, and he was forced to return to his home at Hiram, where he 
 lay prostrated by illness. 
 
 As soon as his recovery permitted he repaired once more 
 to the field. He now joined the army of the Cumberland, as 
 23 
 
354 Ow Presidents. 
 
 General Rosecrans' chief-of-staff . It was at that time a position 
 full of trials and heavy responsibilities. Garfield went through the 
 battle of Chickamauga. It proved a lost one for his cause. Yet 
 out of its very defeat he plucked fresh laurels for his own wear- 
 ing. His perilous ride back to the scene of action after the 
 reverse and flight on that terrible day, lifts him into the light of 
 poetry and heroism. That ride, just at the critical moment, 
 saved General Thomas's army, and as the night darkened over 
 the field the enemy's columns retreated before the Union bat- 
 teries. 
 
 That day's work was General Garfield's last on the field of 
 battle. He earned there the title of Major-general. But his 
 country needed other service from him now. He had been 
 elected to Congress by his native State. 
 
 General Garfield was only thirty-two years old, and had been 
 for two years and four months in the army, when he, in ac- 
 cordance with President Lincoln's strong desire, — he himself 
 appears to have been inclined to remain in the field, — took his 
 seat in the House of Representatives. 
 
 General Garfield had now entered the lists in which he was 
 to do the longest and most important work of his life, for he was 
 in Congress seventeen years. He had proved that he had in him 
 the stuff of a born commander of soldiers ; but whether he 
 would "have achieved a great military fame had he remained 
 longer in the army must now be always an unsolved problem ; 
 his career in the field was cut short suddenly and absolutely, as 
 though an enemy's bullet had closed it. 
 
 It can at least be said for James Garfield, that whenever 
 his powers were put to the test, they made their mark. There 
 is no doubt that he would have won high distinction at the bar 
 had not his public services supervened ; his legal studies, how- 
 ever, proved of immense value to him in his Congressional 
 labors. 
 
James Abram Garfield. 355 
 
 Abraham Lincoln was shrewd at reading the characters and 
 aptitudes of men. His estimate of young Garfield was amply 
 justified by the latter's course in the national legislature. 
 
 The Ohio member rendered his country splendid service 
 during a period that was full of new and untried issues for 
 the government. During more than a decade and a half, he 
 served his country with all the forces of his intellect, and 
 with all the devotion of his heart. As a debater he soon took 
 front rank among his colleagues. As one critical measure after 
 another came up for discussion in those trying years of the 
 nation's history, Garfield treated it in his masterly, exhaustive 
 manner, and with all the force of his strong, aspiring instincts 
 and convictions ; he made many brilliant and effective speeches ; 
 he had a wonderfully happy way of pouring, by a few terse, 
 rapid sentences, or a simple, pointed anecdote, a flood of light 
 upon some confused or doubtful matter. Of course he was often 
 in the thick of political controversy, and had to give and take 
 heavy blows ; but he was a generous antagonist, and he was 
 never the mere politician : he always, in aim at least, was the 
 Christian statesman. 
 
 The range and breadth of his Congressional labors cannot 
 even be recounted here. They deal with an immense variety 
 of interests. Some of these were the most important and far- 
 reaching which could engage the thoughts and appeal to the 
 heart of a statesman ; and some were only of narrow and local 
 importance. 
 
 But in one way or another they illustrate the grasp and 
 versatility of the mind that could deal with such various and 
 widely contrasted matters. 
 
 It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that his public 
 success, great as that unquestionably i)roved, was the result 
 merely of native gifts. He was all his life, what he had been at 
 Chester Academy and Williams College, a constant, untiring 
 
356 Our Presidents. 
 
 scholar : he snatched moments, odds and ends of time, out of 
 his crowded life, for study : he had, it is true, a good deal of 
 Macaulay's knack of getting at the pith of a page, the core of a 
 book, by a rapid glance at its pages. 
 
 The man's nature, like his physique, was molded in large, 
 generous lines. He had a glowing, abounding vitality. His 
 temperament was invincibly hopeful and optimistic ; he had un- 
 bounding faith in men and women; he believed in their noblest 
 possibilities, and appealed directly to those because he had faith 
 in the God who made them. He must have had a singularly 
 lovable personality. It attracted and held throughout his life 
 people of widely opposite characters and tastes. If he some- 
 times made mistakes in judging of others, that only proves 
 he was human. But in the main, his opinions of his fellow- 
 men, his political prescience, and his moral instincts, have been 
 justified by events. 
 
 General Garfield probably thought he had attained the sum- 
 mit of his political ambitions when Ohio elected him to the 
 United States Senate ; but there was a greater honor in reserve 
 for him. In 1880 the Republican convention at Chicago, after 
 its famous week of tumultuous passions and fierce controversies, 
 which held the whole country in suspense, nominated James 
 A. Garfield for the presidency. 
 
 The nomination was entirely unsought by him. He was a 
 delegate to the convention, and had worked heart and soul 
 for the nomination of his friend, John Sherman of Ohio, and 
 he was probably as much astonished at the result as any of his 
 colleagues in the convention. 
 
 The campaign which followed went the way of all campaigns. 
 It was full of tumult and excitement, of noisy stump-speaking 
 and of cruel detraction, but the end came at last, and the long 
 political storm subsided, when James Abram Garfield was, in 
 November, 1880, elected to the presidency. 
 
James Ahram Garfield. 357 
 
 He who had chopped the farm-wood and steered the canal- 
 boat, and who probably would have been less a man had he not 
 done both in his boyhood, went from his quiet home at Men- 
 tor, Ohio, to take his place at the nation's helm. He was in the 
 prime of his years, so young, indeed, that many a man who has 
 won lasting fame, has, at Garfield's age, had all his life-work 
 before him. 
 
 The inauguration took place amid the usual vast crowds, and 
 with much heartfelt enthusiasm, which the character and his- 
 tory of the President inspired. 
 
 The inauguration had, however, some fresh features lent to 
 it by the personality of its central figure. When James Gar- 
 field had taken the oath of office, he turned suddenly and kissed 
 his old mother and the wife of his youth who stood by her side. 
 The most captious spectator felt what was in his heart and 
 thought at that moment, and forgot to criticise. 
 
 But, despite his brave, hopeful temperament, the new Presi- 
 dent did not underrate the difficulties and vast responsibilities 
 before him. He frankly stated that, had he consulted his own 
 likings, he would have better enjoyed being a " free-lance " in 
 Congress. 
 
 The new occupant of the White House usually finds his first 
 weeks there the most wearisome and harassing of his adminis- 
 tration. Crowds of hungry office-seekers consume his time 
 and tax his strength, until he must ask his vexed soul whether 
 this honor and high place are worth their price. 
 
 Garfield's experience, during the spring and early summer, 
 was no exception to the rule. There is something pathetic in 
 the exclamation wrung one day from his disgust and weariness : 
 " I have been dealing all these years with ideas, and here I am 
 dealing only with persons." 
 
 At this time his v/ife had an alarming illness which " almost 
 unnerved " her husband. 
 
158 Our Presidents. 
 
 Mrs. Garfield's character was drawn on a certain reserve, and 
 the position of mistress of the White House, with all the pomp 
 and display it involved, had few attractions for her quiet tastes. 
 Her own fireside, where she could hear her children's happy 
 voices and share her husband's intellectual life, with which she 
 had so fine a sympathy, was to her the dearest spot on earth. 
 But she had accepted the duties and responsibilities of her new 
 position with the rare good judgment which made her husband 
 affirm " that in all his ofticial life he had never suffered from 
 any word or act of his wife's." 
 
 The morning of July 2, 1881, dawned upon a peaceful and 
 prosperous nation. It found the President ready to lay aside 
 his armor and take a short midsummer rest. That Saturday 
 morning must have seemed, in a large sense, the crown and 
 completion of his life. No other morning amid all his days of 
 achievement and success could have held for him all that this 
 one did. With his sensitive imagination he must have felt what 
 the hour symbolized for him, as, standing on the White House 
 piazza, he looked on its wide bloom and dazzling loveliness. 
 He was on the eve of leaving for a few days the scene of his 
 great triumphs and of his harassing labors and anxieties. 
 
 It was said of him afterward, when all memories of this 
 hour were to have an unutterable significance, that he was 
 "joyously, almost boyishly happy." 
 
 The President was on the point of joining his wife, who had 
 been sent to the quiet and cool air of Long Branch. He was 
 to spend the national holiday at Williams College, amid old, 
 delightful memories and associations. He could not have 
 failed to remember, with no ignoble pride, that if he went to 
 his " alma mater " the poorest of her students, he was going 
 back to her now the greatest, the most honored. 
 
 Beyond the visit to Williams spread the prospect of a restful 
 trip with his convalescent wife on the coast, and among the 
 
James Abram Garfield. 359 
 
 mountains of northern New England. All this must have been 
 in the heart and thoughts of the man who drove from the 
 White House to the railroad station in the bright air of that 
 July morning. 
 
 Everybody knows what he was to meet there, and how it 
 came to him ! 
 
 Before noon the nation was stunned with tidings of the 
 tragedy, and its shadow had darkened all the land that was 
 getting ready for its holiday. 
 
 The bullet did its work surely, but not swiftly, as In Abra- 
 ham Lincoln's case. Long months followed of anguish for the 
 sufferer, of hope and fear for the country. The wound, in the 
 end, proved mortal, but its progress was hidden and baffled the 
 skill of the physicians. The summer waned, while the shadow 
 of a great grief deepened upon the land. For it seemed as 
 though man was never so loved as this man, never life so 
 longed for, as that one which slowly, amid fluctuations of 
 strength and weakness, was languishing to the end under the 
 White House roof, amid the summer heats of Washington. 
 
 The President bore his long anguish with chj^racteristic 
 patience and heroism. He had everything that man could 
 have to live for, but the faith of his life did not fail him when 
 all earthly glories and honors grew dim and small. As he lay 
 stricken and helpless, his thoughts must often have gone back 
 to his struggling boyhood, to his studious, aspiring youth, to his 
 manhood, crowned with such glory as he had never dreamed of 
 in his most ambitious hour. No doubt, he often cherished high 
 hope of recovering, and of noble work that lay before him ; but 
 there must have been times when, his prescience made clearer 
 by wasting strength and wearing pain, he turned from the world 
 and all that it held for him, away from the friendships that had 
 been so dear, and the household loves that had made the sweet- 
 ness of his life, and gazed into the stillness and darkness of the 
 
)6o Our Presidents. 
 
 grave. But the light of eternal hope shone there for him, and 
 in the stillness where human voices must die away he heard 
 the Voice of God. 
 
 The message which summoned Mrs. Garfield to Washington 
 on that fateful Saturday, when, recovering from her long illness, 
 she was awaiting her husband at Long Branch, did not reveal 
 the full extent of his danger. 
 
 Through the agonizing weeks in which she watched her hus- 
 band droop slowly to his death, she bore herself with a quiet 
 fortitude worthy of a Roman matron, with the noble faith of a 
 Christian woman. No act, no word wrung from her weakness 
 and grief, ever misbecame that long period of unutterable trial. 
 Coming up herself almost from the Valley of the Shadow of 
 Death, she returned to find, on the White House threshold, 
 that Shadow awaiting her, and to dwell in it through endless days 
 and nights until the summer had waxed and vv^aned. When 
 she crossed the threshold for the last time, she accompanied y 
 the worn, prostrate figure, now all that was left of the spirited 
 head, the noble face, the manly presence, of her husband. 
 
 For in James Garfield's last days his old boyhood's long- 
 ings for the sea had returned. They carried him down to the 
 Long Branch shore. But it was too late for the cool, salt air to 
 work its healing on him ; perhaps it would have been from the 
 moment the bullet went home. 
 
 But the dying man had time to look again upon the wide 
 shore and the blue, tumbling sea, and then all other voices 
 grew silent to James Garfield, except that Voice which called 
 him into the eternal morning, September 19, 1881. 
 
'^"^ ^'if ILl-'JaAU'^ j£*i'iM^'^i"^ -•"' 
 
CHESTER ALAN ARTHUR. 
 
 In September, 1881, amid the mourning of the nation, 
 Chester Alan Arthur became President of the United States. 
 The land was darkened with the shadow of the tragedy which 
 had placed him at the nation's helm, and any joyful inaugural 
 ceremonies would have been singularly out of place. The 
 voices which congratulated him were forced to be brief and 
 hushed as those which speak in the chamber of death. 
 
 • Mr. Arthur took his oath of office under circumstances 
 which could not fail to be trying to a man of sensitive feelings ; 
 he w^s well aware that the nation had accepted him perfunc- 
 torily as its Chief Magistrate, that he was regarded with doubt 
 and coldness by the majority of his own party ; he must have 
 had a keen consciousness that his presence at the White House 
 could not fail to be a bitter reminder of one so greatly loved 
 and mourned, who had left it vacant. 
 
 It should always be borne in mind that our twenty-first 
 President was acutely conscious of the deep cloud under which 
 he entered upon his office. It was inevitable that he should be ' 
 the object of more adverse criticism than usually falls to the 
 lot of an incoming President. 
 
 The precedents in this case were not encouraging. The 
 three vice-Presidents who had succeeded to the executive chair 
 on the death of the people's first choice, had made on the 
 whole a disappointing record in presidential history. This fact 
 was sure to be recalled to the disadvantage of the present one. 
 
 The character, the personal and political aims of the man 
 who had succeeded James Garfield, became suddenly a matter 
 
362 Our Presidents. 
 
 of immense anxiety to the nation. It was evident that the time 
 had now come which was thoroughly to test his quality. 
 
 Chester Alan Arthur became President just before he 
 reached his fifty-first birthday ; he was born in Fairfield, 
 Franklin County, Vermont, October 27, 1830. He was the 
 son of a Baptist clergyman, who, in his early youth, emigrated 
 from Ireland, and who was a man of strong feelings, decided 
 theological convictions, and ardent devotion to his studies ; he 
 had various country pastorates, and with his large family and 
 slender clerical income, must have found it a struggle to make 
 both ends meet. Chester was the eldest son, and rigid econo- 
 mies were, of course, the habit of the household. But the 
 clergyman was bent on giving his son an education which would 
 equip him for the battle of life. Chester's boyhood had the 
 great advantage of his father's library and his father's training. 
 
 He came up a bright, impulsive, active boy, and early 
 showed his strong, domestic attachments and his frolicsome 
 temper. When it came in his way to earn a little money, he 
 did farm work, or any other odd job to which a strong, vigorous 
 boy could set his hand ; he must have inherited the parental 
 aptitudes for study, for at fourteen he entered Union College ; 
 his social disposition and his youth interfered a good deal with 
 his love of study ; he was foremost in sports and adventures, 
 especially if they had a spice of danger ; he enjoyed to the full 
 all the class-games and fun, and liked torch-light processions, 
 and to take his part in parades, all of which only goes to prove 
 that he was a thorough, happy, wide-awake boy. 
 
 He graduated with an average record, and at once set about 
 school-teaching, which he tried for two years in his native state. 
 Then, having saved a few hundred dollars, he went to New 
 York, where he promptly set about preparing himself for admis- 
 sion to the bar. At this time he had large dreams of estab- 
 lishing himself at the West and winning fame and fortune in 
 
Chester Alan Arthur. 363 
 
 his profession ; he at last made a trip there with a young friend 
 and brother-lawyer, Plenry S. Gardner ; but once on the 
 ground, there appeared no prospect of immediate and striking 
 success. The two, probably a little sadder and wiser, but by 
 no means disheartened, returned to New York. They estab- 
 lished a partnership and fortune smiled on them. The young 
 firm entered on an extensive and lucrative practice. For the 
 next ten years young Arthur devoted himself to his profession, 
 and he reaped large rewards of distinction and fortune. The 
 first partnership lasted for four years ; then Arthur practiced 
 alone for five, and afterward formed a brief second partnership. 
 He became early interested in anti-slavery measures ; his gener- 
 ous young soul was fired with indignation at the recital of Wil- 
 liam Lloyd Garrison's persecutions in Boston. Chester Arthur 
 was thrown much among abolitionist influences, and became a 
 stanch defender of the colored people ; his arguments in the 
 famous Lemon slave case won him much honor, and he suc- 
 ceeded in securing the right of the colored race to ride in the 
 New York street cars. 
 
 No doubt his anti-slavery sympathies gave a complexion to 
 his political career. 
 
 Ii''^ ^^55 young Arthur became Judge-advocate of a brigade 
 of New York militia ; he was afterward appointed chief engi- 
 neer on Governor Morgan's staff, and two years later he was 
 Inspector-general of the State. These were high honors for a 
 young man who had not yet reached his thirtieth birthday. 
 
 When the war broke out, and the great problem of supplies 
 for the New York troops had to be solved, Arthur was appointed 
 Brigadier-General ; he served in this department for six months. 
 When Governor Morgan was followed by Governor Seymour, 
 Arthur's management won the highest praise from the officer 
 who took his place. 
 
 In 1871 General Arthur, who had returned to his lucrative 
 
364 Our Presidents. 
 
 law practice, was appointed by President Grant, Collector of 
 the Port of New York — he occupied this high office for four 
 years : he was nominated and re-appointed the same day. The 
 matter was not referred to a committee. This was a marked 
 courtesy. It had hitherto been shown only to Senators. 
 
 President Hayes at last resolved to remove Arthur from his 
 post, but offered him a foreign appointment. The Collector 
 declined to resign. No charge could be brought against him, 
 except " his active participation in politics : " he was known to 
 be in strong sympathy with the Grant or " third term wing of 
 the Republican party." 
 
 But the closest investigations failed to show a flaw in the Col- 
 lector's integrity, and the President asserted his entire belief in 
 General Arthur's official honesty. The latter had expressed the 
 feeling of his life, when, long before, he said one day to a friend: 
 " If I had misappropriated five cents, and on walking down 
 town saw two men talking on the corner together, I should 
 imagine they were talking of my dishonesty, and the thought 
 would drive me mad." 
 
 General Arthur was a delegate at large to the Republican 
 National Convention which met in Chicago in 1880. He 
 ardently supported General Grant's nomination; but when, after 
 the long, fierce controversy, the choice was declared for Gar- 
 field, Arthur was, by acclamation, nominated for the vice-presi- 
 dency. 
 
 It is impossible to enter here on the strife over the New York 
 appointments which followed the election of Garfield and Ar- 
 thur, and which shook the Republican party to its center. 
 
 On July 2, 1 881, the great tragedy occurred which hushed 
 the strife of parties. 
 
 As the prospect of the President's recovery grew fainter, 
 men's thoughts turned to Chester A. Arthur. It was well 
 known to which side his political traditions and friendships had 
 
Chester Alan Arthur. 3^5 
 
 inclined him in the late contests. The nation remembered 
 with dismay its last experience of a Vice-President who had 
 become Chief Magistrate, and was, as we have seen, filled with 
 anxious forebodings. 
 
 But during those trying months while the President lay fluc- 
 tuating between life and death, Chester Arthur carried himself 
 with a dignity and propriety which afforded no grounds for criti- 
 cism. " He refrained from all participation in public affairs 
 and the controversies of the time, only expressing on fitting occa- 
 sions his own sincere share in the common grief and anxiety." 
 
 This is a scant outline of the history of the man who on 
 September 19, 1881, became President of the United States. 
 
 From that time the partisan was lost in the President. 
 His inaugural surprised the people by its temperate, reassur- 
 ing tone, and he soon proved his determination to administer 
 his high office in the interests of no faction. By his course he 
 estranged some of his political friends, but " he had the noble 
 consciousness that he had largely succeeded in healing the dis- 
 sensions of his party." 
 
 Such an administration could not, of course, be a brilliant, 
 aggressive one. But this latter would have been the worst 
 possible for the nation. The country needed a period of calm, 
 of assured quiet, to recover from the long strain and excitement 
 through which it had passed. 
 
 To President Arthur's great honor it must be said that, dur- 
 ing his three and a half years of administration, he gave his 
 country what she most needed. Had he displayed a different 
 temper; had he allowed his personal ambitions, his private par- 
 tialities or resentments to dominate him ; had he been bent on 
 establishing his own policy and pursuing a strong, independent 
 course, he might have plunged the nation, in its sensitive and 
 excited mood, into political discussions and contests out of which 
 vast evil would have flowed. 
 
366 Our Presidents. 
 
 But the crisis brought out the nobler qualities of the man 
 and the patriot : he himself never forgot that he was not the first 
 choice of the nation, though he in the end earned its respect 
 and its admiration. For the first time a Vice-President, called 
 to the higher office, closed his administration amid the favor 
 and confidence of the party which had elected him. 
 
 President Arthur's person was tall and well proportioned ; he 
 had a handsome, intelligent face and a distinguished presence. 
 In character he was affable and genial ; his affections were 
 strong, and he was much beloved by his friends. 
 
 All his official intercourse was marked by unvarying court- 
 esy, and he was the dignified and gracious master of the White 
 House. 
 
 When Chester Arthur was about twenty-two he had mar- 
 ried the daughter of Commodore Herndon, whose bravery was 
 attested by the gold medal which Congress awarded his widow. 
 
 Mrs. Arthur died in 1879, and her husband never married 
 again. 
 
 When President Arthur retired from the Presidency, and 
 returned to New York, he was still in the prime of his life, 
 and there was every reason to suppose that many years lay 
 before him. But in the following year he had a severe attack 
 of illness, and though he rallied for awhile, his recovery proved 
 only transient. 
 
 His death was a surprise to his friends and to the country he 
 had served so well. He died in New York City November 18 
 1886. 
 
^^_^ ^^. 
 
 •«** 
 
GROVER CLEVELAND. 
 
 In the autumn of 1855 ^ young man entered a Buffalo law 
 firm as clerk and copyist. He received tlie very small salary 
 of four dollars a week for his services ; his name was Grover 
 Cleveland. 
 
 The young law student who was now making a brave strug- 
 gle for admission to the bar, had been born in Caldwell, New 
 Jersey, March 18, 1837. His father was a Presbyterian clergy- 
 man whose English ancestry had settled in New England in its 
 early colonial history. The mother was the daughter of a Balti- 
 more merchant who came of Irish stock. Grover was named 
 after the clergyman who had preceded his father at Caldwell. 
 
 When the boy was four the pastorate was changed for 
 another at Fayetteville. Here he went to the academy and 
 laid the foundations for his education. Afterward the family 
 removed to Clinton, Oneida County, New York, where he re- 
 sumed his studies at another academy. 
 
 With his resolute, sturdy, self-helpful nature, the Presby- 
 terian parson's son was certain to set himself early and square 
 at the battle of life, and it was almost a matter of course, 
 that the household means of a country minister would be very 
 limited. Grover, with his sensible, practical temperament, 
 must have looked the facts early and courageously in the face, 
 and resolved on having a hard battle with fate. At seventeen 
 he was in New York City as clerk and assistant teacher in an 
 institution for the blind. His elder brother, like the father, a 
 Presbyterian clergyman, was teaching at the same place, and 
 had, no doubt, secured a position for the younger. 
 
 He did not occupy it long. In 1855 he resolved to go to 
 
368 Our Presidents. 
 
 the West and make his place there ; he went as far as Buffalo 
 where his destiny was to keep him ; he assisted an uncle in 
 some literary work, and then entered a law office and set about 
 studying Blackstone. 
 
 In 1859 Grover Cleveland was admitted to the bar ; he 
 remained for three years with the firm with which he had begun 
 his legal studies. Afterward he became a member of several 
 other law firms in the city. 
 
 The young Buffalo lawyer had the strong fiber, the power of 
 persistent work, the resolute purpose, which is certain to suc- 
 ceed in life. During the years which followed his admission to 
 the bar, Grover Cleveland " had obtained high rank as a lawyer : 
 he was noted for the simplicity and directness of his logic and 
 expression and thorough mastery of his cases." 
 
 By this time the father had died, and the widow and her 
 family were left in those straitened circumstances which are so 
 often the fate of clergymen's families. 
 
 Fortunately for this one there was a brother with a strong 
 brain and a generous hand to come to its aid. 
 
 In the autumn of 1881 Grover Cleveland was nominated for 
 Mayor of Buffalo. He characteristically expressed his opinion 
 at this time '* that the affairs of the city should be conducted 
 as far as possible on the same principles as a good business 
 man manages his private concerns." 
 
 After his election he became known as the " Veto Mayor. " It 
 was certainly to his honor that he " used his prerogative fear- 
 lessly in checking useless and extravagant expenditures." The 
 appropriations for the celebration of the Fourth of July were 
 curtailed that the money might be more wisely expended on 
 Decoration Day. 
 
 In the Democratic convention at Syracuse the Buffalo 
 Mayor was nominated for Governor of New York, and duly 
 elected. 
 
Grover Cleveland. 369 
 
 In this high position he promptly showed his dislike of mere 
 ofificial parade and ceremony. He avowed, in his clear, terse 
 style, his purpose "to serve the people faithfully and well." 
 
 He afforded an unprecedented spectacle in Albany when he 
 went on foot through its streets to the capitol, accompanied 
 only by a friend, to take his oath of office. As far as possible, 
 he dispensed with ofificial forms and ceremonials. " The Gov- 
 ernor of the State lived simply, keeping no carriage, and walk- 
 ing daily from his house to the scene of his duties." 
 
 The "Veto Mayor" proved an "honest Governor." His 
 opponents might disapprove of many of his political measures, 
 but nobody questioned his integrity. 
 
 In 1884 the Democratic National Convention at Chicago 
 nominated Grover Cleveland for twenty-second President of the 
 United States. The canvass which followed was one of great 
 rancor and bitterness. The Republican party, which had car- 
 ried the country through the grief and glory of the most mo- 
 mentous quarter of a century in its history, was shaken by dis- 
 sensions and antipathies, partly political and partly personal. 
 It was also weakened by the separation and opposition of some 
 of its most prominent and trusted leaders. In November 
 Grover Cleveland was elected President of the United States. 
 
 His administration has been marked by those forcible and 
 independent qualities which distinguished him as Mayor of 
 Buffalo and Governor of New York. It is characteristic of 
 such a man that he should exercise his veto power more 
 frequently than most of his predecessors. 
 
 The President is now in the prime of his years. He is a 
 man of large, rather massive build, with a strong, resolute, 
 intelligent face, and with a quiet, simple directness of speech 
 and manner. 
 
 His sister, Miss Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, a lady of liter- 
 ary tastes, whose writings give evidence of mental grasp and 
 
370 Our Presidents. 
 
 earnest thought, became, after her brother's inaugural the mis- 
 tress of the White House. 
 
 On June 2, 1886, the President was married to Miss Frances 
 Folsom. The young lady was the daughter of his intimate 
 friend and former law partner, and must have had throughout 
 her girlhood pleasant and fireside associations with one who, 
 after her father's sudden death, became the intimate, loyal 
 friend of his family. 
 
 The young wife who now presides at the White House is 
 said to have many attractions of person and manner. She has 
 lent the charm of sweet and graceful young womanhood to all 
 the dignities and responsibilities of the high position which she 
 occupies. 
 
 In June, 1888, the Democratic National Convention assem- 
 bled at St. Louis and re-nominated President Cleveland to a 
 second term of office. 
 
 The main issue between the two political parties was the 
 ever-recurring one of the tariff. The quiet and good temper 
 with which the campaign has been conducted forms an agree- 
 able contrast to the excitement and acrimony of the preceding 
 one. 
 
BENJAMIN HARRISON. 
 
 The inauguration of the next President of tlie United States 
 will have one memorable feature. This cannot fail to touch 
 the imagination and stir all the patriotic feeling of tlie man who 
 will form the central figure in that impressive ceremonial. For 
 the oath of office which he takes Avill close a century of Presi- 
 dents. It will mark the striking of that hour which opens a 
 new one. 
 
 Benjamin Harrison was born at North Bend, in the old Har- 
 rison homestead, on August .?o, 1833. North Bend was the 
 estate, or, as his sturdy old grandfather would have called it, 
 the " farm " of the Harrisons, which lay on the Ohio River, not 
 far from Cincinnati. 
 
 Benjamin, as all the world knows, came of a stanch, patriotic 
 breed. The Harrisons belonged to the old Virginia colonists, 
 and a nimbus of the Revolution clung about the name. The boy 
 at North Bend was christened after the great-grandfather who 
 had set his name to the Declaration of Independence, and who 
 served his country loyally in the colonial Congress during the 
 Revolution, and as Governor of the young State of Virginia. 
 
 The grandfather, under whose roof Benjamin first saw the 
 light, became, a few years after the boy's birth, ninth President 
 of the United States, so the Harrisons form the second instance 
 within the century where the great office has been bestowed on 
 members of the same family. 
 
 Benjamin's father, John Scott Harrison, inherited the virtues 
 of the race — its simplicity, its fidelity, its generosity. Love of 
 riches, greed of fame, vaulting ambition, do not seem to have 
 
Our Presidents. 
 
 been in the Harrison blood. The " Father of the Northwest " 
 left the place which had afforded him such temptations of 
 carving a colossal fortune out of the vast territories over which 
 he was virtually dictator, with hands as stainless as Washing- 
 ton's when he resigned his sword at the close of the war of the 
 Revolution. 
 
 The son, John Scott, loved his farm, " lying on the penin- 
 sula between the Ohio and Miami rivers, just five miles below 
 North Bend, and touching at one point the Indiana boundary 
 line," better than he did all the honors and high places of the 
 world. He was twice sent to Congress, but the political arena 
 was not suited to his temperament. He returned to his family 
 and his farm. He belonged there. He will always stand a 
 quiet, unpretentious figure between his famous father and his 
 distinguished son. 
 
 Benjamin was the second boy of the household. His first 
 school-house was a log-cabin, a short distance from his own 
 very simple home. His father, who could leave his boys no 
 fortune, was resolved they should be started with a good edu- 
 cation. When the log-cabin went to pieces with age and the 
 weather, private teachers were secured for the boys at home. 
 Afterward Benjamin went for two years to an academy with 
 the homely name of " Farmers' College," a few miles from Cin- 
 cinnati. 
 
 The boy was singularly fortunate in his home-life. It forms 
 a simple, attractive picture, whenever we get a glimpse of it. 
 The household atmosphere was sweet with all wholesome and 
 sterling virtues. There was a tender mother, with a devout 
 Christian character, at the head of the home, and she must have 
 had a powerful molding influence upon the young lives grow- 
 ing up about her. 
 
 On Sundays, we read, Benjamin went regularly with his 
 family to church at North Bend. His birthplace must have 
 
Benjamin Harrison. 373 
 
 been a second home to him with the kindly, indulgent grand- 
 mother, and the famous grandfather of whom he no doubt still 
 has some childish memories, though he died at the White 
 House before Benjamin had reached his eighth birthday. 
 
 After two years at Farmers' College, the boy entered Miami 
 University. He was, at this time, a slight-framed, rather under- 
 sized youth, a little grave and serious, one imagines, for his 
 years. He showed a decidedly studious bent and made the 
 most of his advantages ; he was fond, too, we learn, of all the 
 rude, outdoor games of the time and the place. 
 
 Young Harrison made a fine record at Miami University and 
 graduated at eighteen, " taking the fourth honors of his class." 
 
 The boy reared on the Ohio farm had now to face life for 
 himself. Things had gone from bad to worse with the estate 
 which his father had inherited, and stripped of everything else, 
 the owner was barely able, through the interposition of rela- 
 tives, to retain possession of his farm. 
 
 A little while before John Scott Harrison's father had been 
 President of the United States ; he had given the strength of his 
 youth, the prime of his manhood, to his country ; he had died 
 in her service ; yet it appears never to have crossed the mind of 
 his son that he had a claim on the country because of that life 
 of unswerving patriotism and devotion. 
 
 Benjamin Harrison certainly never thought of it when he 
 came out of college and faced his fate and made up his mind to 
 prepare for the bar. He entered a law-office in Cincinnati, and 
 set about his studies with that earnestness which was to be the 
 characteristic of his life. 
 
 He was barely twenty, his studies were not yet completed 
 when he took to wife Miss Caroline W. Scott, the daughter of 
 the president of an academy, which '' stood in a town overlooked 
 by Miami University." 
 
 The bright, intelligent, attractive girl had won the heart of 
 
374 Our Presidents. 
 
 the young student. That early marriage must have seemed a 
 very imprudent step to their older and wiser friends. The 
 young husband had no fortune, no assured means of support. 
 But the union was to prove one of life-long sympathy and bless- 
 edness. 
 
 The lines would have appeared very hard ones to aught but 
 youth and love and courage. Young Harrison completed his 
 studies and resolved to enter the Indianapolis bar. It seemed a 
 godsend that he had inherited a few hundred dollars from an 
 aunt, but the sum was too small " to admit of his renting a 
 house, or even an office." He had no influential friends in that 
 young Western city, where the grandson of the President re- 
 solved to make his brave struggle with fortune. 
 
 The story is too long and varied for the limits of this 
 sketch. The slight-framed, small-statured young lawyer, with 
 the blue eyes and blonde complexion of his race, with his 
 simple dress and his modest manner, soon became a member of 
 the Indianapolis bar. But there was an unwavering purpose, a 
 well-balanced brain, a manly integrity, behind the young face 
 and the unassuming carriage. 
 
 The struggle for the first years must have taxed every 
 energy and strained every fiber. Alluding to that hard time 
 long after it was over, Benjamin Harrison has said, " A five 
 dollar bill was an event." 
 
 Times brightened slowly but steadily. After the birth of 
 the first son the young people went to housekeeping. The 
 home — a one-story house, with three rooms — was the humblest 
 imaginable. But beneath that lowly roof-tree dwelt the happi- 
 ness which is often a stranger in palaces. 
 
 In due time a law-partnership opened to young Harrison. 
 His ability and integrity began to make their mark. In i860 
 he was nominated by the Republican Convention for Reporter 
 of the Supreme Court. He stumped the State, and his 
 
'Benjamin Harrison. 375 
 
 speeches— particularly one at Rockville, where he was opposed 
 to Mr. Hendricks— gained him a lasting reputation. Harrison 
 was at this time elected to his first political office. 
 
 From that time, the record of the Indianapolis lawyer is 
 one of constantly ascending fortunes. He was not long in 
 proving that he had chosen the profession for which nature had 
 designed him. His arguments were marked by a clear, concise, 
 vigorous style— a style which could on occasion rise into 
 passionate indignation or into earnest elocpience. 
 
 It was characteristic that he did not lose his temper in the 
 heat and rush of argument, and that he treated the opposing 
 counsel and the witnesses under his quiet, penetrating cross- 
 examinations with unvarying courtesy. 
 
 Benjamin Harrison was not twenty-eight years old when 
 the Rebellion broke out. In that spring of 1861 he had won 
 his place at the bar, and the future must have stretched ample 
 and promising before him. In 1862, when the times were 
 gloomiest, and the Northern cause had reached its nadir, Ben- 
 jamin Harrison made up his mind that his country had a 
 supreme claim on him, and resolved to go to the war. 
 
 With characteristic promptness he set about drilling and 
 recruiting a company. In a little while other companies joined 
 it. Harrison was commissioned Colonel of the 70th Regiment 
 Indiana Volunteers. He marched with his men to Bowlines 
 Green. He remained with his regiment until it was mustered 
 out at the close of the war. 
 
 It is impossible to dwell at this time on the military career 
 of Benjamin Harrison. It will form a chapter full of life, 
 color, action, in an ampler history of the man. He was now to 
 enter a new field, and his whole moral and mental make-up 
 were to be subjected to new and stern tests. It must be suffi- 
 cient to say here that, alike in the camp and on the battle-field 
 he proved the soldier's stuff that was in him. At the battles of 
 
37^ Om Presidents. 
 
 Resaca, of Kenesaw Mountain, of Peach Tree Creek, he ren- 
 dered gallant service, and in long march, and weary bivouac, 
 and desperate fight, showed himself the true soldier, the born 
 commander. 
 
 At Peach Tree Creek the young Colonel of the 70th Indiana 
 Volunteer Infantry makes a striking figure, as he swings into 
 line, with his ringing shout : " Come on, boys ! we've never 
 been licked yet, and we won't begin now. " 
 
 His men called their valiant, small-framed leader, " Little 
 Ben." He v/on their hearts for the thoughtful tenderness that 
 Avas like a woman's. They had seen him after the fierce battle 
 of New Hope Church, in the " little frame house " to which his 
 wounded men had been borne, throw off his coat, roll his 
 sleeves to his elbows, and set himself at work stanching their 
 wounds. The candles poured a dim, wavering light over the 
 scene — over ghastly faces and figures of brave men lying 
 smitten and helpless all around — over their colonel as he 
 moved rapidly among his wounded soldiers, intent only on 
 relieving their sufferings. Hour after hour he worked on, and 
 did not cease until, after midnight, the surgeons appeared. 
 
 One other scene deserves a place even in this slight record. 
 
 During the last winter of the war the 70th Indiana Regi- 
 ment was encamped near Nashville. At one time the cold was 
 terrible. " A storm of snow and sleet came on. The earth 
 turned to a sheet of ice." Soldiers were frozen stark on the 
 picket lines. Others never recovered from the cruel exposure 
 of those nights. During one of these Colonel Harrison left his 
 own warm quarters, and went out into the cold and darkness, 
 carrying a can of hot coffee among the freezing pickets. " He 
 was afraid," he said, "that the men would perish, and he knew 
 the hot coffee would keep them alive." 
 
 If it seems like a homely act, hardly becoming the dignity of 
 history — well, my reader, just put yourself for a moment in the 
 
Benjamin Harrison. "^Il 
 
 place of those freezing men on picket in tliat long-ago winter 
 night at Nashville ! 
 
 When the war closed General Harrison — he had been pro- 
 moted to the rank of Brevet Brigadier-General — returned to 
 Indianapolis. The true soldier always makes a good citizen. 
 He now resumed his law practice. He had, however, won his 
 first political honors before he went to the field, and in 1864 he 
 was re-elected to the office of Reporter of the Supreme Court. 
 
 Three years afterward he declined a third nomination, as his 
 ofiicial duties interfered seriously with his professional work. 
 But his experience during the war had, no doubt, intensified his 
 Republicanism, for he took a prominent part in both the "Grant 
 campaigns," and at that time addressed frequent and large 
 audiences throughout the State. 
 
 In 1876 he absolutely declined the nomination for Governor 
 of Indiana. But the times were critical. The Republicans 
 regarded it vastly important to carry the State for their presi- 
 dential candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes. A great pressure was 
 brought to bear on General Harrison, and he was at last forced 
 to accept the nomination. The Democrats, however, won the 
 election. 
 
 In the famous National Convention of 1880, at Chicago, 
 General Harrison's name was suggested for nomination to the 
 Presidency, but he positively declined to enter the lists and 
 threw all his influence into General Garfield's scale. 
 
 Honors and fame now fell rapidly to General Harrison. He 
 was offered a seat in the Garfield Cabinet, but declined that, 
 because he had, after the presidential election, been unanimously 
 chosen to the United States Senate, where he served his country 
 for the next six years with conspicuous ability. 
 
 In 1884 his claims to the presidential office were again dis- 
 cussed. The National Republican Convention, which met in 
 Chicago, June 19th, 1888, nominated General Harrison for the 
 
378 Our Presidents. 
 
 Presidency. He was, after a campaign conducted on both sides 
 with a quiet and good taste in marked contrast to the stormy 
 ones which had preceded it, elected in the following November. 
 
 The story so scantily related here belongs to an earnest, 
 manly, well-balanced character, to a life ennobled by high 
 and worthy purposes, and loyal in all places and to all duties. 
 
 It will fall to General Harrison's lot, if God wills, to take, 
 on the 4th of next March, that sacred oath of office which his 
 grandfather took, forty-eight years before. 
 
 But Benjamin Harrison appears never to have had the 
 slightest feeling that the world owed him anything because he 
 was the grandson of that grandfather. Indeed his sense of 
 his own debt to his day and generation has perhaps been most 
 fitly expressed by that gallant old "Noblesse oblige." 
 
 Mrs. Harrison is a lady of fine presence and intelligent and 
 attractive countenance. In a little while she will become the 
 representative of American womanhood to the world. But one 
 wonders whether, amid all the pomp and splendor of the White 
 House, her memories will not sometimes go back to dwell fondly 
 on that little " three-roomed, one-storied house " where she 
 lived the romance of her youth ; whether her heart will not 
 sometimes yearn, amid all the grandeur about her, for the old 
 simple quiet and happiness. 
 
 It is the glory of our country that the lowly home was the 
 way, like Abraham Lincoln's cabin, to the White House. 
 
 l.RBMy'27