tion.

one of the most vigorous ever known in the history of the United States. Party organs had before existed, but they had been of the moderate order which have some regard for truth and a measure of judicial fairness. Lewis brought into being, all over the country, a journalism now familiar enough, which subordinated everything to the single idea of electing Jackson. There was for that purpose but one side to any question, and no distinction between truth and falsehood. Calhoun was an enemy of Adams, and his place as president of the Senate was unhesitatingly used to injure the President. Every committee was framed with a view of making it a clog upon the executive; its appointments were confirmed tardily, if at all, and the efforts of Calhoun in the chair and Randolph upon the floor, were single in their object, the placing of a second candidacy of Adams out of the quesAdams, on his part, was one of the purest and best presidents that was ever elected. He was almost morbidly sensitive about the admission of personal considerations to influence his action. He would not appoint a man to office because he was his friend or remove him because he was his enemy. He placed the dagger in the hand of his foe, bared his breast, and said: "Strike; I am a just man, and an innocent." He did not lack for blows. Sumner, in an admirable summary of the charges against Adams, so well epitomizes the matter, illustrating the trivial and inconsistent nature of the war made upon him, that quotation is profitable : Against Adams were brought the charges that he gave to Webster and the federalists, in 1824, a corrupt promise; that he was a monarchist and aristocrat; that he refused to pay a subscription to turnpike stock on a legal quibble; that his wife was an Englishwoman; that he wrote a scurrilous poem against Jefferson, in 1802; that he surrendered a young American serving woman to the emperor of Russia; that he was rich; that he was in debt; that he had long engrossed public office; that he had received immense amounts of public money, namely the aggregate of all the salaries, outfits, and allowances he had ever received; that his accounts with the treasury were not in order; that he had charged for constructive journeys; that he had put a billiard table in the white house at the public expense; that he patronized duelists (Clay); that he had had a quarrel with his father, who had disinherited him; that he had sent out men in the pay of the government to electioneer for him; that he had corrupted the civil service; that he had used the federal patronage to influence elections." Jackson did not escape assault. His marriage; his military record; his many duels; his Florida administration -of all these the most was made to his injury.

The elections of the country were held in the various states from October 31st to November 19th. Jackson received 648,283 popular votes; Adams 508,064, and a large majority in the electoral college. Richard Bush was elected Vice president, and the two were duly installed. The result was considered a great triumph for the reformers, though no one

seemed to have any very definite idea of where existed the abuses that called for correction. John Quincy Adams went out under a cloud of odium almost as dense as that which had enveloped his father, and made way for novus homo, -the little educated, headstrong, opinionated Andrew Jackson.

IT

CHAPTER IV.

THE FIRST JACKSON ADMINISTRATION.

T would be interesting and profitable to preface an account of Jackson's administration, with a general and comprehensive account of the political conditions which existed at the time, and of the state of public opinion upon the principal questions of the day, as well as the social, financial, and industrial aspects of American life. Some slight knowledge of these matters is, in fact, essential to a just appreciation of Jackson's attitude and policy, but the glance here given must be very cursory.

Jackson's accession to the presidency may be said to mark an epoch in American politics. He came as the first fruit of a new philosophy, the foundation of the machine methods and personal expedients of to-day. The six men who preceded him in the presidential chair, differing widely in policy and political ethics; varying much in ability, were, nevertheless, alike in being cultivated, refined, and representative of the best American social and intellectual life. No one of them came to the presidential chair, with garments soiled by any unseemly personal struggle for place, or with the odor of a doubtful method about him. Every one had lived a regular and unquestionably exemplary life. There was about them all, even about Jefferson, with all his democracy, a certain dignity and propriety approaching stateliThis line was at last broken, and the man of the people was come. Every means the direct personal propaganda; the assault upon the enemy; the secret "setting of stakes," and creating of false public opinion,—all this had been exhausted to make this parvenu a President. His receptions were attended by a rabble, which he met as if he were one of them, yet this was largely affectation, for no man could be more the gentleman than Jackson, when he chose to be such. There was before him a very stormy, difficult, and trying administration. The financial affairs of the country were upset, and first, as it was the most prolific of all the sources of evil, stood the banking system, then in force. The other important questions of the

ness.

time arose from the commercial relations of the United States with the British colonies; claims against France for injuries to American commerce; the federal judiciary; Indian relations; the land system; internal improvements; tariff; nullification; the banking system.*

Aside from these matters of public and general import, Jackson's first administration was particularly interesting in its personal and internal-perhaps it may be permissable to say,-its domestic relations. While Jackson was supposed to be a President of the Jeffersonian succession, his was, both in its social and political phases, a very different administration from that of the great republican.

His cabinet was a weak one, but quite equal to the demands made upon its wisdom. Van Buren, by virtue of his "services" in New York, was secretary of state; S. D. Ingham, who had been active in Pennsylvania, secretary of the treasury. John H. Eaton, of Kentucky, received the war portfolio; John Branch, of North Carolina, that of the navy; John M. Berrian, of Georgia, was attorney general. William T. Barry, of Kentucky, received the appointment of postmaster general, and was the first incumbent of that office admitted to a seat in the cabinet. It was a ministry carefully selected to pay the debts of the administration, without danger of impertinent interference with those who made the President and were predetermined to manage him, and we cannot but recognize in its framing, the fine Italian hand of William B. Lewis. Out of the public view, living in Washington; holding but insignificant offices, if any, were the men who administered the affairs of the nation, through the person of the President. He was, to be sure, given to rebellion; to the making of erratic ventures at independence; but his policy as it stands before the world, may justly be said to have been that of the famous "Kitchen Cabinet." William B. Lewis, of whom enough has been said, was its prime minister. Amos Kendall, Duff Gunn, and Isaac Hill were his colleagues. Lewis was made second auditor of the treasury. Kendall was born in Massachusetts, went to Washington when a young man; became a member of the family of Henry Clay; removed to Kentucky, where he edited a country paper and managed a country post-office. He fell out with Clay, and hence adhered to Jackson. An influential worker for the Jackson "second choice" movement in Kentucky, he received the office of fourth auditor of the treasury. He was a man of exceeding ability, but of low moral perceptions, and, as a politician, was the incarnation of the worst evils of the American system. Harriet Martineau wrote of him. "I was fortunate enough once to catch a glimpse of the invisible Amos Kendall, one of the most remarkable men in America. He is supposed to be the moving spring of the whole administration,

* The valuable work of Professor Sumner contains this classification, and the author acknowledges a heavy indebtedness to that writer, materials laboriously collected by him being used in many portions of this biography.

-the thinker, planner, and doer; but it is all in the dark. Documents are issued of an excellence which prevents their being attributed to persons who take the responsibility of them; correspondence is kept up all over the country for which no one seems to be answerable; work is done of goblin extent and with goblin speed, which makes men look about them with superstitious wonder; and the invisible Amos Kendall has the credit of it all. He is undoubtedly a great genius. He unites, with his great talent for silence, a splendid audacity."

Miss Martineau while her conclusions as to the extent of Kendall's work are somewhat erroneous, in that she gives him credit not only for his own but for much of Lewis' accomplishment, yet undoubtedly voices accurately and vividly the opinion of her time, as to the mysterious man whose influence was then so potent. As Lewis and Kendall were the minds of this anomalous administration, Duff Green was the arm. To him was committed the editorial charge of the Jackson organ, and it may be said that before his time the purely selfish and partisan journalism so common to-day existed only in the rudest and most primary form. Whom Kendall tried and Lewis condemned to political death, he executed cruelly, ruthlessly. To his mind, as to that of his associates, the world contained but two classes of people, the friends and the enemies of Jackson. The former were to be supported, however wrong; the latter crushed, however right. The only principle he knew was advisability. Last and perhaps least important was Isaac Hill, a new England editor, who had collected the scattered and impotent opposition of New Hampshire, and under the name of democracy had well nigh accomplished the defeat of Adams at his very door. Such was the "Kitchen cabinet;"-an aggregation of silent yet powerful and irresponsible influence, such as the nation had never known before, and such as we should fervently hope may never hereafter find a parallel. Into the councils of this circle, but one member of the ostensible cabinet of the President-Eaton-was admitted, and he rather upon sufferance than by virtue of any recognized right. This diversion of the President's council from recognized channels was not the only complicating element in the administration. Calhoun was again Vice President; his ambition for the higher honor had been balked, not crushed by defeat. He believed that Jackson would not be a candidate for re-election; he saw in Jackson's friendship, which he was destined so soon and so innocently to lose, the best prospect for his own succes. Van Buren, the crafty and ambitious New York politician, the first example of the effect of those pernicious political methods which have produced what in the slang of to-day is called the boss, was secretary of state. He too had swallowed Lewis' skillfully baited hook, and regarded Jackson as a one-term President; he, too, hoked longingly to the succession, and between his interests and those of Calhoun the conflict was irrepressible. As between the two, Jackson's per