Claude G. Bowers

“ Giles was a veritable D’Artagnan of debate, a gusty, lusty Gascon transplanted to the tobacco-fields of Virginia, eager always for a fight or a frolic, and lightning-swift with his blade. A blustering fellow, true, quick to assert his rights and repel assault, he carried himself with a swagger that did not endear him to the Federalists, who rather plumed themselves on having a monopoly on that particular vice or virtue. ”

“ Do you make good citizens of men by denying them their rights? Do you command the respect and the patriotism of the toilers of this land by turning them away when they come into this great tribunal and simply ask that the light be turned on, to the end that the people may know as to whether or not God reigns and the Constitution still lives, and whether they and their kind are to be despoiled of their heritage of liberty? ”

“ Had Jackson depended wholly on his Cabinet for the support of his policies, he would have been constantly confused by divided counsels. On scarcely any of the vital issues of his Presidency did he have the hearty coöperation of his constitutional advisers. But never before, nor since, has any President been served by such tireless organizers of the people, such masters of mass psychology, such geniuses in the art of publicity and propaganda. These men, the small but loyal and sleepless group of the Kitchen Cabinet, were the first of America’s great practical politicians. ”

“ The suspicion on the round, smug face of Adams; the domineering arrogance on the cold Puritan countenance of Pickering; the suave and smiling treachery in the eyes of Wolcott; and the effeminate softness and weakness in the physiognomy of McHenry would have delighted a gallery through the generations.
Ali Baba among his Forty Thieves is no more deserving of sympathy than John Adams shut up within the seclusion of his Cabinet room with his official family of secret enemies. No other President has ever been so environed with a secret hostility; none other so shamelessly betrayed by treachery. ”

“ It must be a startling story—a story of greed fattening upon the hunger of children, of the trampling of inalienable rights, of the kicking to death of unborn babes by brutes untouched by the law, of the murder of women, and the shooting of unarmed men in the night—a story of tyranny and brutality as infamous and cruel as was ever born of the dynasty of the Romanoffs. ”

“ In social life he was a favorite. Few men of his period were better fitted for the drawing-room. An entertaining talker, he could converse intelligently upon a multitude of subjects and could pass from a political conference with the Kitchen Cabinet to a social call on Adams, or a chat with Clay, without effort or embarrassment. Fond of feminine society, he could be as charming to a débutante as to a grande dame, and we find him delighting the brilliant Mrs. Livingston with his intellectual charm, while captivating her daughter, Cora, with his juvenile levity. ”

“ They who know him best suspect that he enjoys too well the pleasures of the table, but love him for a kindliness that temper cannot sour, a sincerity and generosity that know no bounds, a gayety that his dignity cannot suppress—a fine sentimental figure with a Revolutionary background. What though he had been a bookseller before he eloped with a lady of quality, he was too keenly appreciative of the advantages of aristocracy to have much patience with the queer notions of Tom Jefferson, whom he liked. He rubbed his shins when Hamilton stumbled over a chair. ”

“ I do sincerely pity people who haven’t a little sheet-iron stove in their den. No matter how your house is heated, there is a primitive joy that exhales from the little sheet-iron stove on a cold morning or a rainy day which even transcends the comfort of a fireplace. Araminta would not be wholly great if she didn’t have one in a room where the rug and couch are shabby—it would spoil everything if they were not shabby—and the chairs have a pleasant sag in them, suggestive of agreeable family loafing. ”

“ We rescue our own names, characters, and honor from all participation in this matter; and whatever the wayward character of the times, the headlong and plunging spirit of party devotion, or the fear or the love of power, may have been able to bring about elsewhere, we desire to thank God that we have not, as yet, overcome the love of liberty, fidelity to true republican principles, and a sacred regard for the Constitution, in that State whose soil was drenched to a mire by the first and best blood of the Revolution. ”

“ Could the Virginians or the Marylanders who had opposed Assumption pay him in votes for a capital at Georgetown, or even Baltimore? Could Robert Morris whip the stubborn Pennsylvanians into line for a capital in Philadelphia or on the Susquehanna? True, Washington favored Georgetown, but that meant nothing to Hamilton if Georgetown could not bring Assumption. It is a myth of history that he was tenderly considerate of the wishes of his chief: the facts to sustain it do not appear. Far more important to him was the fact that Madison and Carroll favored Georgetown. ”

“ This attack came in the course of Lorimer’s speech in his own defense.
This speech was in many respects a remarkable one; not remarkable in that it was convincing, for the speaker made no attempt to discuss the evidence, but in its eloquence and human appeal. It was a masterly appeal to the emotions from a consummate criminal lawyer conscious of a desperate cause and bent on diverting the jury from the irresistible facts to the non-essentials. The manner of the delivery would have rejoiced the heart of a Belasco. It was dramatic, intensely so. ”

“ When he spoke, his expressive countenance glowed with his genius, his eyes flashed or caressed, his commanding figure seemed to grow, and in his combined dignity and grace he looked the part of the splendid commander of men, and the inspiring crusader of a cause. No man of his time, among all the great orators of that golden age, could so hold an audience literally spell-bound, Prentiss alone approaching him. ”

“ There, too, was Matthew Lyon, of whom we shall hear much, whose fanatical devotion to democracy was a heritage from a father who had paid the penalty of his patriotism on the gallows in Ireland; whose hatred of aristocracy was but a reaction to the memory of his days of poverty. Possessing a genius for business, and succeeding, he was irresistibly drawn to politics, where his Celtic humor, his energy, impetuosity, and sincerity surrounded him with friends. His radicalism became a flaming torch that lighted up the granite hills. ”

“ If there is to be no response, if the responsibility is to rest there, if this is to be a contest between the people and the powers, if it is to be a contest such as has been described, a contest which I pray God may be averted, then the cause to which I belong is so great a cause that I am not fit to be its leader. If my proposition for harmony is to be ignored, and this deplorable battle is to go on, there is only one man fit to lead the hosts of progress, and that is the man who has been at the forefront for sixteen years, the great American tribune, William Jennings Bryan. ”

“ The pretty daughter of a popular tavern-keeper, whose old-fashioned house was a favorite with statesmen and their wives, she had developed into womanhood under the eyes of men famous in the State. Here Jackson lived during his senatorial service, and grew fond of the vivacious child he often held on his knee. With the education a doting father lavished upon her, and with her intimate contact with men of ability and women of refinement, she found herself, on the threshold of life, the intellectual peer of the best of her sex. ”

“ His hair, much redder than that of Hamilton, was combed loosely over the forehead and at the side, and tied behind. His complexion was light, his eyes blue and usually mild in expression, his forehead broad and high. Beneath the eyes, his face was rather broad, the cheek-bones high, the chin noticeably long, and the mouth of generous size. The casual glance discovered more of benevolence than force, more of subtlety than pugnacity. Nor, in that day of lace and frills, was there anything in his garb to proclaim him of the élite. ”

“ It is the measure of a really great man to walk with certainty and yet to walk humbly in his public life, granting to other men the right to think, to speak, to act freely.
This was the grade of man John Worth Kern was. He showed it in his brilliant services at the bar, in his forceful presentation of his party’s principles on the stump and in that kindly, loveable leadership which, when he left the Senate of the United States, made it the supreme desire of political friend and foe alike to do something for him as the shadows of night began to gather around his head. ”

“ Nature spread a white mantle over the crudities of the village as though to dress it becomingly for the great day. The great plain between the foot of the hill and the river was covered with a spotless sheet, and even the shop of the shoemaker and the home of the washwoman took on the appearance of beauty. No one minded the storm, not even Joseph H. Nicholson of Maryland, who, though bedridden with fever, insisted on being carried through the storm to cast his ballot for Jefferson. ”

“ No period in American political history is so susceptible to dramatization. There is grim tragedy in the baffled ambitions of Calhoun and Clay; romance in the rise of Kendall and the fall of Mrs. Eaton; rich comedy, when viewed behind the scenes, in the lugubrious procession of “distress petitioners” trained to tears by the art of Clay and the money of Biddle; and rollicking farce in the early morning flight of a dismissed Cabinet minister, to escape the apprehended chastisement of an erstwhile colleague whose wife’s good name had been assailed. ”

“ Senators, these million men who voted the Socialist ticket last November are the men who ought to be full of that kind of patriotism in time of war that would impel them to go out and walk on the uttermost ridge of battle, to peril their lives in defense of their country and their country’s flag because they love their country, because they venerate the laws of the land. ”

“ Soon the Federalists were reading ‘Porcupine’ as a Bible, and the editors were making journalism a matter of blackguardism, of black eyes and bloody noses. In blood and breeding, Cobbett was inferior to Freneau, Bache, or Duane, but he was a more consummate master of satire than any of them. He could string chaste words into a scorpion lash that Swift would have envied, or stoop to an obscenity and vulgarity that would have delighted Kit Marlowe in his cups. None but a genius could have risen from his original low estate, with so little education. ”

“ III The most militant of the Kitchen Cabinet was Isaac Hill, whose name was anathema to the Federalists of New England. A poor boy educated in a printshop, slight and lame, hurling picturesque phrases and bitter reproaches at the powerful enemy, excoriating it with his satire and sarcasm, and slashing it with the keen blade of his wit, it is not surprising that the impression handed down by the Intellectuals of the Opposition is unfavorable. ”

“ If the time comes—we all pray it may be averted—when the integrity of this nation is assailed, either from within or from without—if the time comes when the American Republic is brought face to face with the marching armies of the nations beyond the sea, we will need those million of men, for they are men that toil with their hands. They have strong arms. They are the same type of men as that splendid Army of the Republic fifty years ago who won for themselves imperishable renown by their sacrifices in behalf of the Union and the flag. ”

“ No more charming or clever diplomat than this bosom friend of Hamilton has served America abroad. Born to the purple, he was an aristocrat by nature, with a blatantly cynical and contemptuous conception of the masses of mankind. His was the shimmer due to generations of polishing. As a young man in the society of New York and Philadelphia, he was enormously popular because he was handsome, dashing, witty, eloquent, a bit risqué and in consequence of his fashionable and gilded background. In the Constitutional Convention no one spoke with greater fluency or frequency—or with less effect. ”

“ It aroused, as never before, that class consciousness, to which politicians have ever since appealed; it gave dignity to demagogy, and made it pay. It marked the beginning of the active participation of powerful corporations, as such, in the politics of the country, witnessed the adoption of the methods of intimidation and coercion, of systematic propaganda, of the subsidization of disreputable newspapers. From that day on, the powerful corporation has been anathema to the masses, monopoly has been a red rag, and the contest between capital and labor has been a reality. ”

“ It is an undisputed fact that in this city, where more than 10,000 labor union men are engaged in daily toil—earning a livelihood and piling up wealth for their employers—all loyal and law-abiding citizens, a great corporation, through its authorized agents, drives out its employees, faithful and honest, for the avowed reason that with true American spirit they declined to surrender their sovereignty and at the bidding of the master give up cherished principles and attachments. ”

“ Nowhere were the Democrats so intense as in Philadelphia, where, on election day, the warring partisans exchanged shots, the headquarters of the Whigs was sacked and burned by a mob which drove back the firemen that attempted to quench the flames. A number of houses were completely reduced to ashes. Such was the panic of Nicholas Biddle that the day before the election he sent his wife and children into the country, filled his house with armed men, and prepared for a siege. The Bank building bristled with the bayonets and muskets of guards. ”

“ Fascinated by the beauty of Marie Antoinette, Edmund Burke of England had written his bitter attack, not only on the excesses of the French Revolution, but upon its democratic principles as well. It was the fashion in those days to conceal a hate of democracy under the cloak of a simulated horror over the crimes of the Terrorists. Thomas Paine had replied to Burke with his brilliant and eloquent defense of democracy, ‘The Rights of Man.’ In American circles where democracy was anathema, and even republicanism was discussed with cynicism, the Burke pamphlet was received with enthusiasm. ”

“ As a senator of the United States Mr. Kern at once took high rank in Washington and advanced in position and influence with a swiftness that was amazing. His election to the leadership of the controlling party after he had been a senator only a fraction of his first term was wholly without precedent. Hard, intelligent work, combined with personal popularity, won for him a prestige never before accorded to a first termer. He saw through the thin veneer of Washington society and formed an intense dislike for its sham. ”

“ Now and then he laid his books aside to flirt with Theodosia Burr, to dance with the pretty belles, to play for stakes with women at the gambling-table inseparable from the more fashionable houses—but only as a diversion.
Scarcely had he begun the practice of his profession when he took a commanding position. Hard work, a noble ambition, and native talent made him a success. But he could not have been a Livingston and indifferent to politics. Very early his capacity and popularity swept him into the fight. Strangely enough, he immediately became the idol of the masses. ”

“ The triumph of the Jacksonians over the Clays, the Websters, and the Calhouns was due, in large measure, to their development of the first great practical politicians—that much-depreciated company sneeringly referred to as the Kitchen Cabinet, to whom all politicians since have paid the tribute of imitation.
With the appearance of Democracy in action came some evils that have persisted through the succeeding years—the penalties of the rule of the people. Demagogy then reared its head and licked its tongue. Class consciousness and hatreds were awakened. ”

“ Profound as a thinker, exhaustive as a student, moving in eloquence, powerful with the pen, logical in his reasoning, constructive in his methods, tenacious in the advancement of his plans, possessed of the courage of his convictions, personally honest in public and private action, he possessed qualities of leadership that drew high-minded men about, and to, him. But he unhappily had the weakness of his strength that was to operate disastrously upon his political fortunes. It is impossible to understand his ultimate failure as a leader without a reference to his temperamental deficiencies. ”