“I’ll tell you what I begin to think,” George said, his good nature deserting him as he undressed for bed. “This whole thing is a concerted plan by both Calhouns to humiliate and subjugate Andrew Jackson. It’s been a grab for power on their part every bit as calculating as Martin Van Buren’s. From what I’ve seen in the White House and South Carolina, it’s going to explode in their faces.”
George extinguished the oil lamp and they lay there in the darkness, two antagonistic political partners. Once more Caroline was assailed by her sense of George’s physical bulk. It seemed to be a correlative of his disagreement. Whereas Sarah Polk’s control of James Polk seemed not only plausible but possible—because of his modest size.
Say you’re sorry. Tell him he may be right? The wisdom of ending this quarrel was all too apparent. She had entertained the same thoughts about the Calhouns as possibly devious plotters. But Caroline sensed if she turned and accepted George’s good-night kiss, it would lead to another kiss and another kiss and the surge of desire, the submission and surrender that his lovemaking imposed on her. It would be an implied abandonment of her precarious claim to the leadership of their joint political venture. No, Caroline vowed. She would make him submit, no matter what it cost them in the dubious annals of marital happiness.
The quarrel continued while the principals in the drama went their separate ways, Mr. Van Buren to London to take up his duties at the Court of St. James, the Calhouns, the Polks, and John Sladen to their respective states until the next session of Congress began. The Stapletons went directly to Kemble Manor; Caroline was even more determined to avoid any contact with Jeremy and Sally Biddle.
As far as married love was concerned, a kind of truce was established. George was permitted to resume his husband’s privileges, but on Caroline’s terms, without any of the willed, willful surrender that had made the act so meaningful to them both. In her heart, her spirit, Caroline had withdrawn from George. She chose to live in those poetic caves of ice until George acknowledged his faults with a humble, even a humiliating, surrender.
From Louisiana and elsewhere came a stream of letters from John Sladen. He was traveling through the South and West, piecing together a coalition that would enable John C. Calhoun to play his final card against Martin Van Buren. When he revealed the nature of this card to Caroline, she was left breathless at its daring. It would, or could, be a blow that sent both Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson reeling. She did not so much as mention it to George. She was sure he would not approve of it. Moreover, he was a corollary to the plot: As a Senator, George could be a major player in this drama, Sladen wrote.
The term of New Jersey’s senior senator, Henry Freylingheusen, would expire in 1832. Caroline pressed George to press Jeremy Biddle to press Uncle Malcolm to persuade Freylingheusen to retire and propose George as his replacement to the complaisant New Jersey legislatures. Most of the legislators currently were Democrats, which made the proposition easier. No matter what their party affiliation, few lawmakers were inclined to differ with the powers that controlled the Camden & Amboy Railroad and the other components of the Stapletons’ business empire.
Jeremy agreed with his best friend that four years in the House of Representatives was enough to qualify as a democratic obeisance to the common man. The Senate was where he belonged. He could speak for New Jersey with a far more effective voice when his vote was one of 48 senators rather than 260 congressmen. Malcolm Stapleton was invited for a weekend at Kemble Manor, where he beamed at his pseudo-namesake, Malcolm Charles, now five months old. Servants and George were instructed to call the baby Malky for forty-eight hours. Caroline could not have been more charming to her heretofore despised uncle-in-law.
All this subterfuge turned out to be superfluous. Malcolm, his fear of Andrew Jackson subsiding, had no objection to George becoming a Democratic senator. He thought the National Republicans, united behind candidate Henry Clay, had a good chance of defeating Old Hickory in the upcoming election. The Eaton scandal, the cabinet reshufflings, the feud with Calhoun, left Jackson’s administration looking chaotic and mismanaged. That made it all the more important to secure George a political seat that would leave him invulnerable for the next six years. As usual among the Stapletons, blood was thicker than politics, money, and almost everything else.
Jeremy was the only sufferer from this intrigue. Sally insisted on blaming him for its success, and a frost that sometimes approached the Ice Age descended on their bedroom. Matters in that arena had never entirely recovered from the foolish confession Jeremy had made after the birth of Jonathan Hugh Stapleton.
Shortly after George’s elevation to the Senate was assured, the nation’s newspapers reverberated with the story of a slave rebellion in Virginia. A self-appointed black preacher named Nat Turner had organized an African army that killed fifty-seven white men, women, and children before being dispersed by hastily summoned local militia companies.
John Sladen’s previous letter had left him in Virginia, en route to South Carolina to see Vice President Calhoun. Caroline spent several restless nights wondering if he had been caught in Nat Turner’s violent path. A letter from Charleston relieved her of this fear. But it added new urgency to what they now called “the plan.”
I missed Nat Turner and his warriors by only twenty-four hours. If I had started a day earlier, I might have been one of his disemboweled, decapitated victims. I rode along his path of would-be conquest as the dead were being mourned and heard firsthand descriptions of his butcheries from the anguished survivors. If I ever. had any lingering fondness for abolitionists, this has ended it forever. The event has thrown South Carolina into a special frenzy. The governor has issued a proclamation, declaring a state of emergency because of the supposed influence of abolitionists on the slaves of this state. They are accused of smuggling in revolution along with religion. The Vice President thinks the governor is a bit hysterical. But it would be foolish to underestimate the influence of this event on the minds and hearts of everyone here. Too many have found another even more visceral reason to use the Vice President’s program of peaceful nullification as a step to secession. It makes all the more vital the success of our plan. Only the reassurance of seeing John C. Calhoun in the White House can preserve the Union here.
Back in Washington for the next session of Congress, George took his seat in the Senate. The Polks and other friends applauded his ascent. No one was more enthusiastic than John Sladen. He and his father-in-law, Senator Legrand, gave a private dinner for George and Caroline at the Indian Queen Hotel. Prominent among the smiling guests were Samuel Swartout, Collector of the Port of New York, and Vice President and Mrs. Calhoun. All this acclamation did not please George nearly as much as a scrawled note from the White House that read: My dear young senator: New Jersey has chosen wisely and well. Come see me one of these days. Andrew Jackson.
Sarah Polk congratulated Caroline privately, after persuading her to confess that the move was mostly her doing. “My only regret is the loss of a valuable ally in James’s hopes to become the Speaker of the House,” Sarah said.
Caroline assured her that George’s position would make his leadership of New Jersey’s House delegation all the more complete. They would back James Polk to a man. For a moment Caroline was tempted to tell Sarah the real reason for her sudden decision to make George a senator at this early date. But she feared Sarah would disapprove of John Sladen’s plan to drive a stake through Martin Van Buren’s heart.
John had returned to Washington without Clothilde. She was pregnant again. Their first child had only lived a month. He soon learned to visit Caroline when George was in the Senate. Together they plotted to draw Senator Stapleton into the plan. Once more, Caroline felt the thrill of power that had seduced her into George Stapleton’s arms. Now it was being created by John Sladen, no longer the pitiful outcast from New York’s lower depths.
She confessed her quarrel with George, and they decided it would be best to let John propose the idea to
him. Caroline would provide reinforcements, when and if they were necessary. A few days later, George told Caroline he would not be home for supper. “Johnny Sladen has something very important to discuss with me. What could that be?”
“I have no idea. All he ever talks about to me are his worries over Clothilde’s health.”
Caroline spent the evening teaching little Jonathan his numbers. At two and a half, the boy seemed to have an uncommon interest in learning. He often sat with a book in his hand, pretending to read it. George called him “the scholar.”
At about nine o’clock, George appeared in the nursery doorway. “Poppa!” Jonathan cried, running to him. George patted him on the head. “John Sladen—or better, Calhoun—wants the Senate to refuse to confirm Van Buren’s nomination as ambassador to London. They want me to vote with them.”
“What a brilliant idea,” Caroline said. “It will totally humiliate the schemer. Make him a national laughingstock. He’ll never be able to run for political office again.”
“Maybe,” George said, lifting Jonathan high over his head. He set the boy down and stared stonily at Caroline. “But it’s also a terrific affront to the president.”
“So? No one made him appoint Mr. Van Buren ambassador. He consulted no one. He’s treated him as a favorite too long. Maybe it’s time he was told what people think of their … almost unnatural relationship.”
George strolled over to Malcolm Charles Stapleton’s crib and picked him up for a ride over his head. Charlie gurgled with glee. “I told Sladen I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do that to Andrew Jackson.”
“George! This is more of that style of thinking, of philosophizing, that I’ve found so offensive. You make a decision like that without even consulting me. Without giving me a chance to consider it. Even on this short notice, I think you’re throwing away a chance to side with the man who’ll decide the future of this country for the next two decades—John C. Calhoun. Don’t you see that this will make him a bigger man than any other politician in sight, including Andrew Jackson?”
“Maybe, but I don’t see how all the discussion in the world can alter what I promised Andrew Jackson when I shook his hand at the Hermitage. I joined the Democratic Party under his leadership. Even if I don’t agree with his leadership at all points, I can’t see how I can repudiate him before the whole country.”
“Well, I can. I can not only see you doing it, I can’t see you not doing it—if you want my … my companionship.”
Little Jonathan was looking more and more bewildered. Charlie, ordinarily the most cheerful of babies, was starting to whimper. The nursery was charged with nerve-jangling negative vibrations.
“Let’s go downstairs,” George said. “No point in upsetting these children.”
Even before they reached the front parlor, Caroline realized she had gone much too far toward revealing herself as John Sladen’s secret confederate. “Husband,” she said, kissing George on the cheek, “forgive me. I shouldn’t be so short-tempered. This idea is so extraordinary, so daring, it struck me—it still strikes me—as exactly the sort of thing that I’ve always imagined you doing. Rather like your toast at the Jefferson dinner—demonstrating your independence, your leadership qualities.”
“I seem to be more led than leading. Johnny Sladen is rounding me up like he’s cajoled a dozen other senators.”
“Most of them are probably Southerners and Westerners. Wouldn’t it be a coup to be known as John Calhoun’s spokesman in the Middle States? To have all Van Buren’s former toadies from New York coming to you to see how they can ingratiate themselves with the Democratic Party’s new leader?”
“It might be flattering, if it ever happened. But my conscience would still bother me. That old man in the White House has never done anything to me that warrants such a flagrant desertion.”
“There you go again with your military metaphors!” Caroline had never dreamt George would be so stubborn. She had virtually guaranteed John Sladen that his vote was as good as counted. They went to bed antagonists and remained in opposition for the next week, while the Calhoun forces put pressure on waverers to gather enough votes to execute their coup.
One morning, John Sladen appeared in Caroline’s parlor looking weary. “We’re one vote short of a deadlock,” he said. “Is George still in the ranks behind General Jackson?”
“I’ll try again tonight,” Caroline said. “But it begins to look hopeless.”
“I knew he was a bit dim, but this transcends stupidity. It’s idiocy. Van Buren will never display the slightest gratitude toward him. It’s foreign to his nature.”
“I know that, but now that he’s a senator, he feels rather invulnerable to Mr. Van Buren and everyone else, except General Jackson.”
“Have you told him what’s really at stake? The future of the Union?”
“I’m afraid he thinks that issue is safe in the hands of General Jackson.”
“It’s the arrogance of the aristocrat combined with the stupidity of the democrat.”
“That’s enough, John!”
Suddenly they were facing each other, not as clandestine political partners, but as former lovers. “I’m attempting to continue loving my husband, in spite of these differences. Don’t make it more difficult for me.”
“I’m sorry.”
Caroline turned her back on John to stare at a painting of Kemble Manor. The red bricks glowed in August sunshine. Wild white roses ascended the north wall. George had commissioned the painting at the end of their idyllic summer, two years ago.
When Caroline turned again, the parlor was empty. As empty as her heart, she thought. She flung herself on the couch and wept bitterly for an hour.
That night at dinner, she again asked George to change his mind. “I saw Floride Calhoun today,” she lied. “She told me what people in South Carolina are saying since Nat Turner’s revolt. More and more of them have begun to think secession, closing their borders, is their only salvation. Only one man can reason with them—John C. Calhoun. Don’t you think that’s another reason to give him your support?”
“I do support him, I will support him, in any and every reasonable gesture we can make to South Carolina,” George said. “I’m in favor of lowering the tariff, of banning abolitionist literature from the mails if they insist on preaching violence. But I don’t feel my support should include humiliating Andrew Jackson.”
Caroline’s forehead began to throb. A steel ratchet seemed to be plunging back and forth in her head, cutting through flesh and bone with exquisite savagery. “Cowardly. There is no other word for it. Cowardly.”
“Caroline, I must ask you, as your husband, to retract that word.”
“I won’t. I can’t.”
She flung her napkin on the table and fled upstairs. She lay on their bed, the ratchet sawing through her skull, the pain becoming more and more intense. Somehow she welcomed it. In a bizarre way; it was a satisfactory exchange for the right to call her husband a coward. She lay there, almost encouraging the pain, as George ascended the stairs and took a suit from his closet without saying a word to her. Ten minutes later he descended the stairs and went out. He did not return home until after midnight. He ascended the stairs and slept in a guest bedroom down the hall. All that time the ratchet grooved pain into Caroline’s being. She was encountering her first migraine headache.
For the next five days, she and George did not speak. Caroline spent most of the time in her bedroom in silent agony. Sarah Polk visited her and recommended a gray-haired physician named Boileau, who had treated Thomas Jefferson for the complaint. He gave Caroline chloral hydrate for the pain but told her a doctor could otherwise do little except recommend the avoidance of worry and irritation. “When I told that to Mr. Jefferson, he was president. It amused him greatly,” the old man said.
By now it was the third week in January, 1832. On the night of the twenty-fifth, the Senate sat late, debating the possibility of lowering the tariff to satisfy the demands of the South. T
hen the galleries were cleared and the solons went into executive session to consider Martin Van Buren’s nomination to the Court of St. James. The followers of Henry Clay, already an announced candidate for president, denounced the Little Magician as a tool of British interests. Several Southern senators attacked him as a backstabber and marplotter, a source of party discord, making explicit the accusations Calhoun had implied in his pamphlet. George Stapleton remained silent. Finally, Senator Hayne of South Carolina made a motion to reject the nomination.
At this point, Senator Daniel Webster left the chamber. John Sladen had negotiated this arrangement. The Massachusetts orator did not want to admit publicly that he was collaborating with his foes from South Carolina. He and Henry Clay’s main interest was not the destruction of Van Buren but the humiliation of President Andrew Jackson.
Without Webster, the vote to reject ended in a tie. From the start, this had been the goal of the planners. Vice President John C. Calhoun, a delighted smile on his face, cast the deciding vote—annihilating Martin Van Buren as ambassador to Great Britain. Calhoun was so pleased, he descended from the dais to shake hands with the senators who had joined him. “It will kill him dead, sir, kill him dead,” he said. “He will never even kick, sir. No, he will never even kick.”
Beside George sat Thomas Hart Benton, the flamboyant senator from Missouri. A slab of a man, at least as big as George, they had struck up a preliminary friendship based on Benton’s remark that they “outweigh all the rest of these pantywaists put together.” Benton and George had voted for Van Buren. Now the big Missourian scowled at the chortling Calhoun and turned to a diminutive senator from Alabama named Gabriel Moore. With a wink to George, Benton said, “You fellows have broken a minister—and elected a vice president.”
The Wages of Fame Page 25