numbers and intelligence, should have fallen into error as to such questions, or as to the just limit of legislative power, at a period when the burdens of the debtor class were ruinous, furnishes no just ground to charge its members with lack of political integrity, or with being intentionally unfaithful to the cause of constitutional government. Referring to the "old and new court" controversy, Mr. Hardin, on a memorable occasion long afterward, said: "I was in the battle from the commencement to the end. I devoted my time in the cause of the old judges. I spent my money and shed my blood at the capitol door in its defense."

IT

CHAPTER XIII.

JACKSONIAN LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.

T may well be believed that for a score of years immediately after 1824 the career of every prominent politician in the United States was materially affected by the advent into political life of a single individual—and it is positively asserted to be so as to those of Kentucky. Ordinarily, nothing is more idle than to speculate as to the course of events, had certain prime causes not transpired. But in the year 1824 nothing seemed more a matter of course than that John Quincy Adams should succeed himself, or whether he did or not, that Henry Clay would succeed him. The history of the twenty-five years preceding assuredly warranted the assumption. Jefferson had been secretary of State under John Adams, and had succeeded him in the presidency. Madison had been secretary under Jefferson and succeeded him. Monroe, who had been secretary under Madison, succeeded him to the presidency.* John Quincy Adams had been secretary under Monroe and he, likewise, succeeded his chief. Mr. Parton calls it the period of the "secretary dynasty." secretary dynasty." Clay being secretary under Adams, why should he not also attain the presidency?

Clay had represented his country with great honor at the peace of Ghent. His career in Congress had been brilliant-eclipsing all rivals. He had been the friend and supporter of the preceding administrations and enjoyed their favor. He had frequently been chosen to the speakership of the House of Representatives, and acquitted himself always with credit. His talents and patriotism were conceded on all hands. The causes that helped Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams to the presidency seemed to have lost none of their force in his favor, but, on the contrary, pointed to him as the heir apparent. Yet, with the precedents of a quarter of a century and all these auspicious omens, the advent of a single man reversed all precedents and turned the tide of events. That man, it is needless to say, was Andrew Jackson. Why this was so is one of the curious phenomena of political history.

* Mr. Hardin, in February, 1816, in a speech in Congress, referred to Mr. Monroe as the "heir apparent"

ΙΟ

What position, it may be asked, did General Jackson occupy at that period in the esteem of the American public? It is remarked at the outset that the estimate of him at that day was wonderfully revolutionized by subsequent events, and the recollection of these latter must be laid aside in order to see him as he appeared when his shadow first fell across the luminous pathway of Henry Clay. West of the Alleghenies the population was sparse and the country new. The ability of Clay and other Kentuckians was regarded as somewhat phenomenal by the Virginians, and altogether so by the inhabitants of the Eastern States. The wise men came from the East, and that circumstance or some other equally occult has always created an impression to the eastward that he on whom the sun first rises has peculiar gifts not vouchsafed to those on whom his beams fall later. Jackson lived in a semi-civilized region called by Peter Parley the "far west, where it was supposed to be difficult to calculate latitude or longitude. When later intercommunication had somewhat overcome the idea of remoteness, another descriptive term succeeded—“the backwoods."

Jackson derived no advantage in the older States from his Tennessean residence. In 1805 Aaron Burr described him as "once a lawyer, after a judge, now a planter, a man of intelligence, and one of those prompt. frank, ardent souls whom I love to meet." After this Jackson had achieved his military renown. His service and success at New Orleans eclipsed all else that he had accomplished. His duels and the lamentable affair of the executions of Arbuthnot and Ambrister diminished his glory, yet by no means obscured it. He was conceded by all to be brave, and the victory over Packenham was an exceedingly gratifying event to the American people. Yet Jackson did not reach the standard then applied to presidential aspirants. Thomas Jefferson had filled the measure of his countrymen's concep

tion of a statesman.

He was scholarly, wise, dignified, and experienced in State craft. As a ruler he had compared favorably with the head of any nation in modern or ancient times. Such a contrast was unfortunate for Jackson. Yet there were those in that day as at all times who were not content with the existing order of things. The great army of the opposition was already in the field whose mission was not so much to elevate some one, as to pull some other down.

The inquiry then was, as it has always been with that political congregation, not who is most competent, or who is really preferred, but rather who is most available. It was the idea of availability that brought Jackson to the front, rather than because he was of presiden

tial stature. He himself said in 1821, alluding to a suggestion of his candidacy, "Do they think that I am such a d-d fool as to think myself fit for the presidency of the United States?" But at the approach of the campaign of 1828 there was opposition to Clay, opposition to New England, opposition to the Virginia junta, and opposition to Calhoun. These odds and ends sought a nucleus and found it in Jackson. He had positive strength in the West. His soldiers were scattered all over it. His military glory was especially brilliant in that quarter, and there his sins of omission and commission were looked upon indulgently.

In the older States his adherents were of the opposition, which was for Jackson or any one else to win. Mr. Clay had resented Jackson's candidacy in 1824 as a personal grievance. He claimed the presidency for the West, and Jackson came in for a full and equal share of all that claim amounted to. Jackson divided the West and seduced Clay's neighbors from their allegiance. The latter regarded it a dangerous precedent to elevate a military chieftain to the presidency merely because he had won a great victory. "I can not believe," said he, "that killing two thousand five hundred Englishmen at New Orleans qualifies for the various difficult and complicated duties of the chief magistracy." But Mr. Clay underestimated the personal ability, the political sagacity and power with the people of General Jackson. He entertained a contempt for him. He sneeringly called him the "hero" on all occasions. Between the two there soon arose irreconcilable and irrepressible conflict. From the very outset this conflict was beyond pacification. One or the other had inevitably to go down. Jackson and Adams were the candidates in 1828, but the defeat was Clay's.

"The election of Adams by the House of Representatives," says Mr. Baldwin, "was turned to account, with all its incidents and surroundings, with admirable effect by General Jackson. No one now believes the story of bargain, intrigue, and management told upon Adams and Clay; but General Jackson believed it, and, what is more, made the country believe it in 1825. Adams was an unpopular man, of an unpopular section of the country. Crawford's friends were as little pleased as Jackson's with the course affairs took. The warfare upon Adams was hailed by them with joy, and they became parties to an opposition, of which, it was easy to see, Jackson was to be the beneficiary.

"Clay's ambition or incaution betrayed him into the serious, and, as it turned out, so far as concerns the presidency, the fatal, error of accepting office-the first office-under the administration which he called into power.

It was, in all politic respects, a most inexcusable blunder. The office added nothing to his fame. It added nothing to his chances for the presidency. He was, on the contrary, to share the odium of an administration at whose head was a very obstinate man of impracticable temper, coming by a sort of bastard process into office, bearing a name which was the synonym of polit ical heterodoxy, and whose administration was fated to run a gauntlet, from the start to the close, through a long lane of clubs, wielded by the Forsythes, McDuffies, Randolphs, and almost the whole talent of the South. It was bad enough to vote for such a man. But Clay might have recovered from that. But to vote for him and then take office under him was suicide. A mere politician would have played the game quite differently. The Crawford vote was the vote to conciliate; and Crawford, in all human probability, would not live to be a candidate at the next election. One vote for him would not have altered the result; while had Adams or Jackson been elected Clay would have retained his chances for the presidency and been uncommitted with the advantage of the strength he had conciliated. But instead of this he placed himself voluntarily in the minority to bear the brunt of the assault of a majority that knew no mercy and would give no quarter. When Adams was elected, opposition to him became the rallying cry of all the aspirants; and those who were rivals before now became confederates. Clay was in all respects too prominent a man, as one of the actors in installing the administration, and as a member of it, to escape assault; and it turned out that without the powers or honors of President he had to endure the assaults and annoyances of presidential opposition.

"Those assaults were not slow in coming. The public mind had lain fallow for some years, and was prepared for a bountiful crop of political agitation. Jackson raised the war cry, and the hills and valleys all over the land echoed back the shout. A lava tide of obloquy poured in a fiery flood over Clay. It seemed to take him by surprise. The idea that his voting for Adams, and then occupying the first office in his gift, seconded by the supports which the hypotheses of 'bargain' found, or were made for it, should originate such a charge, seems never to have entered his imagination; and when it came he had the weakness to attempt to strangle it by personal intimidation or to avenge it by violence.

"The election of Adams, under such circumstances, was the making of Jackson. It filled up his popularity. It completely nationalized it. The State Rights party, to whom the name and lineage of Adams were enough for opposition, turned at once to the man who could best defeat him, and saw at a glance who that man was, and the popular sympathy was quickly aroused in behalf of the honest old soldier circumvented by two cunning politicians." *

In 1832 Clay sought to retrieve the disaster of 1828, but was defeated by Jackson. When the latter finally withdrew from public * Party Leaders, page 300.