Caroline tried to keep up with what was happening in the other parts of the government by reading the new administration paper, the Washington Globe, with its bold motto at the top of the front page: “The World Is Governed Too Much.” George grumbled that it was a strange saying for a semiofficial government paper. Editor Frank Blair had a slashing style that made everyone fear him. Quite a few of his slashes recently had been aimed at Vice President Calhoun.
On January 26, 1830, Caroline received a note from Sarah Polk, asking her if she was ready to join her in the Senate gallery tomorrow. Senator Robert Young Hayne was scheduled to give the “interesting” speech that Mrs. Calhoun had urged them to support.
Although her morning sickness left her feeling miserable for most of the day, Caroline resolutely donned a good dress and a cloak lined with white marten fur that George had given her for Christmas and rode to the Capitol with Sarah in a cab. It was 7 A.M. and bitterly cold, with a cruel wind howling from the north. The sky remained a monotonous gray as the coach jolted over the frozen ruts on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Along the. way they passed two lines of slaves being marched in coffles to the auction blocks in front of the White House. They were all dressed in cheap, undyed-wool shirts and pants, without shoes. Not one wore a cloak or a coat. Caroline hardly noticed them. As Sarah Polk had predicted, she had become used to slaves and slavery in Washington, D.C. Many Southern politicians brought their slaves with them to staff their houses. Many of the government bureaucrats were Southerners with similar households.
In the Senate chamber, the gallery was already crowded with dozens of women. Floride Calhoun was in the front row, surrounded by the wives of three cabinet members and several senators. She was wearing an embroidered lingerie gown and a green velvet spencer2—an outfit no one in New York had worn for a decade. On the Senate floor, Caroline noticed Senator Hayne was wearing an equally odd costume—a suit of coarse homespun, not much better in quality than the cloth worn by the slaves she had seen on Pennsylvania Avenue, though his tailoring was better.
“Why is the senator wearing that dreadful suit?” she asked Sarah Polk.
“I think he’s trying to advertise his defiance of Northern textiles,” Sarah said. “Maybe Mrs. Calhoun is doing the same thing for Northern fashions.”
Before a hushed Senate and breathless galleries, Senator Hayne began his speech with a stunning declaration. It was time, he said, to alter the arrangement of power in the Union. Hitherto, the West and New England had voted against the South on the tariff, apparently indifferent to its crushing burden on his section of the country. But in this Congress, the New England states had called for an end to the sale of public lands in the West. New England was showing its contempt for both sections in its determination to pile up wealth. They were determined to keep their workers in thrall to their factories, no matter what it cost those poor toilers in health and happiness.
It was time for the West and the South, two sections that had so much in common—a love of, a dependence on agriculture, a devotion to individual liberty—it was time and past time for them to unite and with their votes in Congress take charge of America’s destiny. Let the West support the South’s contention that a state had the right to nullify by a vote of its legislature any unjust law that Congress passed, and they would have a new Union.
All this was delivered with a passionate flow of language that left everyone in the chamber mesmerized. On the dais, Vice President Calhoun listened in a near rapture of approval. Several times a smile broke across his tight lips. More often, he bent over his rostrum to scrawl notes of advice to the speaker, which were handed to Hayne by scampering pages. By the time Hayne closed with a soaring peroration to “true patriotism,” there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he was speaking for John C. Calhoun.
“Mr. President!”
From the door of the chamber a deep baritone voice rang out. Daniel Webster stood there, in a buff coat with large brass buttons, his dark eyes glowing, his swarthy countenance charged with emotion.
“The chair recognizes the senator from Massachusetts,” Vice President Calhoun said.
“As a New England man, I cannot allow Senator Hayne’s aspersions to go unanswered. Nor do I think any American would want to let them go unanswered. Aside from his slanders of the people whose love of liberty stirred the first resistance to British oppression, there is the great question he has raised in his remarks. Whether a single state can defy laws passed by Congress. In fact, if I did not mishear him, he went further—he said if the defiance he calls nullification fails to gain redress, a state has the right to secede from the Union.”
Webster was right. In expanding on his remarks on nullification, Hayne had in fact mentioned secession as a final solution to a quarrel between a state and the Union. He had insisted it was a step that would require the most extreme circumstances to justify it. Still, he should never have said it. Webster, one of the nation’s most brilliant lawyers, seized on this admission and made a stupendous speech, denouncing nullification and secession and extolling the Union as the bastion of American liberty.
“I go for the Constitution as it is, and for the Union as it is,” he thundered. “It is the people’s Constitution, the people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answering to the people. Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!”
Cheers burst from numerous male throats. Around her, Caroline saw tears streaming down many women’s faces. Below, she saw congressmen crowding the doors of the Senate chamber. Among them towered George Stapleton. His face wore an exalted, almost hypnotized expression. There was no doubt whatsoever that Daniel Webster’s words had touched the core of George’s being.
On the dais, John C. Calhoun was a shaken man. His face ashen, he rapped his gavel and called, “Order! Order!” But the galleries, the floor of the Senate itself, ignored him. More cheers cascaded down. Many senators rushed to shake Webster’s hand. Around Robert Young Hayne clustered a far smaller band of glowering Southerners. Floride Calhoun departed with her circle of friends, their faces equally dour.
In this first great battle of America’s thirty years’ war, the South had suffered a shattering defeat. Caroline made no attempt to disguise it in her letter to John Sladen the next day. She told him Hayne, and possibly Calhoun, had grievously miscalculated by even bringing up the word secession.
I believe there is a term in military lore, “the high ground,” which wise soldiers seize and hold in a battle. Senator Hayne let Senator Webster seize the high moral ground in their dispute—and I wonder if he or Vice President Calhoun can ever regain it.
But there may be a method in their seeming madness, according to my friend Sarah Polk. What they hope to do is divide President Jackson from Mr. Van Buren by asserting the doctrine of nullification. They are absolutely confident that the President will support them—and come over to Calhoun’s side.
I have my doubts. Although I sympathize with Mr. Calhoun as a wronged man, I wonder if his temper is too severe, his pride too ascendant. He and his wife seem to think they can make President Jackson become their follower by the sheer force of their political philosophy. I fear President Jackson is not the sort of man who submits to force of any kind.
This assumes, of course, that the President is in full control of his faculties. Only time will tell who is right.
I hope by now you and Clothilde are man and wife and have set up housekeeping. Let us hear from you so we can send you a wedding present.
Affectionately,
Caroline Stapleton
“Mistress, Tabitha’s disappeared. She didn’t come home from the market this mornin’.”
“What?”
“Tabitha’s gone,” Harriet said. Behind the cook towered Hannibal, his wide black face contorted with dread. He was twisting his cap in his big hands until it was a shapeless rag.
Caroline was sealing and stamping her letter to John Sladen when this stunning news was communicated
to her.
“What could have happened to her?” Caroline said. Nancy and Josephine Parks, the sisters she had hired the last fall, hovered in the doorway. They looked frightened.
“I don’t know, mistress,” Harriet said.
“Maybe she took sick and went into some friend’s house to lie down. Women often get spells when they’re pregnant.”
“Mistress, I fears the slavers got her!” Hannibal said.
“How could they? In broad daylight?”
“Mistress, it happen all the time,” Hannibal said. “Ask Nancy and Josephine here. They born in this place.”
Caroline turned to the two young women. They were small, slight, rather timid creatures. They nodded simultaneously. “It happen all right,” Nancy said. “They drag people into houses. Say they’re runaways. Then sell them South. They got federal marshals helpin’ ’em sometimes. Give them a piece of the money they make.”
“I can’t believe it,” Caroline said. “I’ll speak to Mr. Stapleton the moment he comes in.”
“Oh, please, missus. You got to act fast. Can’t you send me to him? No matter where he is, I’ll run all the way,” Hannibal said. “By nighttime, she’ll be gone from this place. Put on a boat and gone.”
“He’s at the Capitol.”
Hannibal raced out the door. Caroline repeated her disbelief that someone would kidnap a human being in broad daylight. Harriet grimly informed her that pregnant black women were considered prime targets for this sort of crime. “They gettin’ two for the price of one. Makes a woman more valuable,” Harriet said.
A half hour later, a gasping Hannibal returned in a near frenzy. “They say Mr. George can’t be bothered. They meetin’ with all the Democratic chiefs in a cork-us. Won’t be free until dark.”
Cork-us? Caroline realized Hannibal meant caucus. The Democratic Party regularly met in these semiprivate sessions to thrash out policy. “Get the carriage,” she said.
Flinging on a dress, Caroline rode to the Capitol. Along Pennsylvania Avenue, they passed another long coffle of blacks being marched to the slave market in Lafayette Square opposite the White House. Caroline remembered Tabitha’s frequent comments that slave trading should be banned from Washington.
At the Capitol Caroline found a page who extracted George from the Democratic caucus. Like Caroline, his first reaction was disbelief at the news she brought. But the frantic expression on Hannibal’s face swiftly convinced him the crisis was real. He rushed back to the caucus and returned with James Polk, whose face acquired a gloomy cast as he heard the story.
“The obvious man to see is the chief of the federal marshals. But I fear you’ll get the runaround.”
“Why?”
“His brother is one of the principal traders. You should seek help from the highest possible power.”
“The president?” George said.
“As a newcomer to Washington he’ll also get the runaround. I recommend the vice president. He’s been here for twenty years. He knows everybody.”
They rushed to the Senate chamber. The vice president was on the dais, listening to a senator from Ohio arguing that the federal government should pay for roads and canals to improve the national economy. A page brought him a note from George explaining their problem. Calhoun immediately joined them in the corridor and led them to an office behind the dais.
“Let me first ask this fellow some questions,” he said, turning to Hannibal. “Have you beaten your wife? Struck her when you were drunk?”
“No, sir. I’se a Baptist. Liquor don’t touch my lips.”
“Have you been seeing another woman? Has your wife been seeing another man?”
“No, sir! We be Christians, sir. We obey the Lord’s commandments,” Hannibal said, growing more and more agitated.
“Have you had any dealings with abolitionists?”
Hannibal was thunderstruck. He looked guiltily at George. “He’s got a pastor in New Jersey of that persuasion,” George said. “But I don’t believe he’s had anything to do with them here in Washington.”
“These questions seem insensitive but they’re necessary,” Calhoun said. “These people’s habits often lead them astray. Investigations have inclined us to conclude most of the so-called free-Negro kidnappings in Washington are really domestic disputes, solved by running away. One or two have been staged by abolitionists to slander slave owners.”
“Mr. Vice President. Please save my wife,” Hannibal cried. “I ain’t never spoke a cross word to Tabitha. We ain’t done nothin’ in the abolition line. Tabitha’s gonna be on a boat to South Carolina or Georgia this night!”
“I’ll speak to the chief of the federal marshals immediately,” Calhoun said. “He’ll do everything in his power to find her, Hannibal. Can you describe her?”
“She’s not very black. More tannish. About as tall as Mistress Stapleton here. Got a mark on her leg where some hot water burned her when she first worked in a kitchen years ago.”
Hannibal could not control himself, thinking of Tabitha in that long-ago pain. He started to weep.
“Which leg?” Calhoun said, taking notes.
“The left.”
“All right. The marshals will do their best. I’ll see to it. Let me advise you on how to conduct yourself. Go home and be quiet. Don’t gather some friends and start a riot. That will only make it impossible to find Tabitha.”
Again; Calhoun explained to the Stapletons. “We’ve had to call out the militia several times in these cases. Two years ago the blacks burned down a suspected hiding place.”
George and Caroline were bewildered as they followed James Polk into the corridor. Why hadn’t the vice president expressed more sympathy to Hannibal? He displayed virtually no indignation at the commission of such a crime in the capital of the United States. They were discovering that slavery was already a kind of war zone in which John C. Calhoun had been living all his life. Like war, it tended to blunt ordinary emotion in otherwise decent men and women.
“Let’s hope for the best, Hannibal,” George said. “you heard the vice president say they’ll search hard for Tabitha.”
“Mr. George, them federal marshals ain’t worth a damn!” Hannibal said. “Ain’t there anything else we can do?”
“I don’t know. Can you think of anything, Polk?”
James Polk glumly shook his head. It was obvious that he agreed with Hannibal’s estimate of the federal marshals. The two congressmen returned to the Democratic caucus. Caroline rode home with Hannibal. He immediately rushed to the slave auction in Lafayette Square on the chance that Tabitha might appear for sale there. But the Parks sisters told Caroline this was unlikely. Kidnapped free blacks were usually held in houses and smuggled out of the city at night to be sold in the South.
George returned home with grim news. The federal marshals had searched several houses previously used to conceal free blacks and found nothing. In their bedroom, he told Caroline the chief marshal, David Wyden, struck him as a first-class scoundrel. They were interrupted by excited voices downstairs.
It was Hannibal. He gazed up the stairs, his face shiny with sweat and excitement. “Mr. George. I knows I shouldna done it, but I been to the president’s house. He wants to see you. He’s goin’ to help us find Tabitha.”
They rushed to the White House in the carriage, with Hannibal urging the horses to a gallop. Andrew Jackson was in the dining room having supper with the Donelsons and James Hamilton. The president looked gaunt and weary. But there was white fire in his eyes.
“I’ve heard what’s happened to Hannibal’s wife,” he said. “Why didn’t you come to me immediately?”
“Mr. President, you have so many burdens pressing on you,” George said.
“I’ve ordered a naval blockade of the port of Alexandria. No ship containing slaves will sail without a complete inspection of its contents. I’ve ordered Chief Marshal Wyden to place twenty-four-hour guards on the road to Alexandria. I told him unless he finds Tabitha, he’ll be look
ing for another job.”
“Let me tell this to Hannibal,” George said. He went out to the carriage and brought Hannibal into the dining room.
The big black fell on his knees in front of Jackson. “Old master, I knew you was a good man. Now I thinks you is one of God’s saints!”
“I wish that were true,” Jackson said. “But if there’s a God in heaven, we’ll find your wife, Hannibal!”
They went home feeling almost hopeful. But another day passed with no word about Tabitha. Hannibal was in agony, unable to sleep or eat. The next day was Sunday. At about eleven o’clock a heavy hand knocked on their door.
It was Chief Marshal Wyden. He was a round-faced, big-bellied Virginian, with a heavy drawl. “Well, we’ve tracked down your missin’ African,” he said, ignoring Hannibal, who stood behind George and Caroline in the hall.
“Where is she?”
“She’s on the high seas. ’Fore the president started his blockade, a brig named Fortunate Pilgrim left for Charleston with a cargo of blacks. Some people say this wench Tabitha was among’m.”
“My God, what can we do?” George asked.
“Nothin’,” Wyden said. “She’s out of federal jurisdiction now. She’ll be sold in South Carolina. No way to stop it.”
“The hell you say!” George said.
He put on a suit and rushed to the White House, taking a reluctant Wyden with him. Andrew Jackson was just returning from church. When he heard Wyden’s news, Old Hickory decorated the walls of his study with picturesque oaths.
“Can you be ready to leave in an hour aboard the steam frigate Somers?” the president asked George.
“Of course.”
“I’ll have a federal subpoena in your hands, ordering the surrender of Tabitha and the arrest of the traders holding her. The Somers should reach Charleston well ahead of this Pilgrim vessel. You can meet her at the dock.”
The Wages of Fame Page 20