When the Senate reconvened the day after the Adams funeral train left for Massachusetts, George sensed a remarkable change of mood. He rose to deliver a spontaneous speech, without a note to bolster him. “I was not always an admirer of John Quincy Adams,” he said. “I felt he sought and even exploited antagonism with the South in the name of his self-righteous New England conscience. But I recognized him as a man who had love of this country implanted in his heart from boyhood—an experience I shared. In the last few days, I have tried to communicate to many of the gentlemen in this chamber the things he hoped to say about the choice we face in accepting or rejecting this treaty with Mexico. He boldly broke with the doctrinaires of his own Whig Party, who are hoping to torpedo this treaty to embarrass the president. He rejected the narrow arguments of the abolitionists, with whom he sometimes seemed to make common cause. Instead, he stood on the lofty heights which age and decades of statesmanship entitled him to hold—and urged us to accept this treaty as honorable to us and ultimately beneficial to Mexico. The fifteen million dollars we are paying them removes the sting of conquest and will enable them to reorganize their government on a sound financial footing. I plead with you, in the name of his years, his association with Washington and Jefferson and Hamilton and Madison, to accept John Quincy Adams’s judgment.”
To George’s amazement, senator after senator rose to support these sentiments. In the three days of mourning, many of them had repented of their hotheaded initial reactions to the treaty. Even Sam Houston, who hated to change his mind about anything, told George during a noon recess that he had decided to take a trip to New Hampshire—withdrawing his formidable presence from the argument and absolving himself from the need to vote either way.
The next day, March 7, 1848, Vice President George Dallas decided it was time to put the treaty to a vote. As the ayes and nays rolled up and down the aisles, George realized no less than a dozen Whigs were voting for the treaty. With them came twenty-six Democrats. Seven Democrats and seven Whigs, all from the South, voted against it. The treaty had won, 38—14, comfortably beyond the needed two-thirds majority.
That night at supper, George Stapleton confronted a sullen wife. They were dining alone. Paul had been sent to visit a friend. The sliding doors of the dining room were shut against the intrusion of everyone except Mercy Flowers, who made a point of knocking before she entered with the next course. They ate in icy silence for a half hour. Finally George spoke. “I didn’t do it. Old John Quincy was responsible. If he hadn’t died, the vote would have gone the other way by about the same numbers. Sladen had the Democrats stampeded, and the Whigs were going to vote against Polk no matter what anyone said.”
“Are you trying to tell me that God is in charge of the foreign policy of the United States?”
“Someone a lot more powerful than you or me seems to have something to do with it now and then.”
“You’re talking absolute nonsense.”
“Maybe.”
“I look forward to hearing what you’ll say when the South announces it’s going to secede. Will you vote for civil war? Will you send your sons to die for your ridiculous opinions?”
“That isn’t going to happen.”
“It will happen. There’s nothing you or I can do about it now.”
For a moment George felt almost awed by Caroline’s passionate certainty. She was like a priestess from some ancient rite, hurling prophecies into history’s blank face. A new kind of desire stirred in George’s blood. He wanted to subdue this woman, this perpetual other who had challenged and subdued him for so long. Had it all been a performance, a willful determination to conceal her original sin? He had just defeated, even routed, the man she might still love. Now George wanted her surrender, her confession of fault, failure, guilt.
In the same moment George knew that he was wishing for the impossible. You must forgive her, Maria Pena de Vega whispered. He could never do that until Caroline Kemble Stapleton asked his forgiveness—and that would never happen.
Caroline’s voice, as hard and cold as a gun barrel, broke into this twisting rush of wish and hope and regret. “One thing I will never forgive you for is your betrayal of the president. You don’t seem to have the slightest idea of how ending the war this way destroys him.”
“Caroline, you’re wrong. I predict James K. Polk will ride high in the history books. Historians aren’t interested in a president’s personal agonies. They only measure what he’s done, and he’s done a great deal. I predict the treaty will be popular with the country, once people calm down and this frenzy about annexing Mexico disappears.”
“Frenzy? Is that how you characterize an idea that I presented to you as one of my deepest, most serious convictions?”
“It became a frenzy with a lot of people.”
She glared at him, daring him to say what he really thought. Although he avoided her eyes, he accepted her challenge. “It was a bad idea, Caroline. A very bad idea.”
“You disgust me. You repel me. I think our sleeping arrangements had better become permanent. I don’t want you in the same room with me when I’m in a state of undress. The thought of yielding to you on some unwanted impulse horrifies me.”
You must forgive her, Maria pleaded. Alas, forgiveness had become a disembodied ghost, receding down a labyrinthine passageway that George could never negotiate. Yet there was the memory of Hugh Stapleton’s serenity. Was there no hope of achieving it?
“If you could at least tell me you’re sorry,” George said.
“Could you tell me that?”
“Yes. I could tell you that now.”
“I can’t. I doubt if I can ever say it. I may feel it—but I’ll never say it.”
“So be it,” George said.
A knock on the door. Paul stood there, uncertain, earnest, with Jonathan’s serious mien and Charlie’s good looks. “You’re home early,” George said.
“Ralph has a lot of homework. So do I.” Paul and several other boys his age were being tutored by a graduate of the Jesuit college, Georgetown.
Paul held out a newspaper. “It looks as if you’re getting more famous by the minute, Father.”
It was a special edition of the Washington Union. The story of the treaty’s ratification dominated the front page. In the center was a box in bolder type.
A new leader of the Democratic Party emerged in the Senate today. Senator George Stapleton of New Jersey was the man responsible for ratifying the treaty with Mexico and ending the war on a note of reasonable honorable triumph. His name must be added to the Democratic Party’s list of presidential candidates, forthwith. The people will insist on it. The leaders of the Democratic Party should insist on it.
George handed the paper to Caroline. “Do you think the president approved that before it went in?” he asked. Thomas Ritchie, the editor of the Union, was often the president’s spokesman, but he did not show everything he printed to the White House first.
“I hope Mr. Polk isn’t such a fool,” Caroline said. “But I’ve reached the point where I’m ready to believe anything is possible.”
She flung the paper on the table, knocking over her water glass, and stalked out of the dining room. Paul was wide-eyed.
“Your mother and I have been having a political disagreement,” George said. “Don’t let it concern you.”
“I thought Mother wanted you to be president. She’s told us all you would be, one day.”
“She seems to have changed her mind. You’ll have to ask her why.”
“I will. I think you should be president, Father. Don’t listen to that fool Jonathan, with his yammering against the war.”
“I’ve had a long talk with Jonathan. I think he understands a little more about the war now.”
Was that true? George wondered, remembering Jonathan’s sullen young face, silently refuting every word he said. A desolating loneliness engulfed George. For some reason, life seemed to be stripping him of every human consolation—Jeremy’s friendship, his
wife’s love, his oldest son’s loyalty. Could he bear it? He could only hope Maria was praying for him.
At the dark, silent White House, Caroline found Sarah Polk in her study and asked her for an explanation of the story in the Washington Union. “We had nothing to do with Ritchie’s nomination of George as our next president. But we have no objections to it,” Sarah said in a strange monotone.
But I do, Caroline Kemble Stapleton thought. You must know I do. “Surely Ritchie knows what’s come out about his private life in Mexico,” Caroline said.
“I suppose so. Ritchie’s a bit of a fool. I warned James against him.”
“But the treaty—by implication you seem to approve its ratification.”
“I prayed over the treaty. I asked God to help me accept it. He answered my prayers. It’s best for the president. I think it may be best for the country too.”
Sarah’s voice was lifeless. She sounded as if she were reciting a rote lesson in geography or history, drilled into her head by some fearsome pedagogue. What had happened? Caroline was bewildered—and appalled.
“How can it be best for the president?” Caroline said. “Didn’t we agree that only a truly magnificent triumph could rescue his administration from … from—”
“We’ve decided to stop worrying about words like failure and success. No one knows what they really mean while they’re in this house. In a year we’ll be out of it. I want to keep James alive. I want to bring him home to Nashville and spend the rest of my life trying to make amends for this nightmare I’ve imposed on him.”
Love, Caroline thought. It was the uncontrollable factor in so many things. Her dearest friend, who had pledged her love to Caroline a thousand times, was confessing there was another love, more needy, more compelling.
“I’ve prayed for you too,” Sarah said. She sat there, still in funereal black, her eyes pleading for forgiveness. On the rose-colored walls of the small study hung a portrait of Dolley Madison in her bejeweled, red-cheeked first-lady prime. She had survived eight years in this house with her serenity intact. What was her secret?
“I’m not withdrawing an iota of my love for you,” Sarah said. “Nor do I doubt for a moment the conclusion we reached—that annexing all Mexico could solve the problem of the South and slavery. Another solution will have to be found.”
“What if there is no other solution? Can you live with that?”
“In this house, you learn to live with many things you thought would destroy you.”
Tears trickled down Sarah’s gaunt cheeks. Caroline remained dry-eyed. She was beyond tears, beyond love. She had retreated to her ice cave above the sunless sea. Was that where she would spend the rest of her life?
Perhaps. Because hurtling through her soul were words that would destroy the only love she had left. “You despise me now, why don’t you admit it?”
“Despise you?” Sarah said. “How can you even imagine such a thing?”
“You know my secret. You know the disgusting truth about me. In your sanctified soul you can’t possibly love a woman who’s guilty of such a sin.”
“Jesus loved Mary Magdalen.”
“Exactly what I mean. You think I’m a whore. You’re prepared to love me in Jesus’ name. I don’t want that kind of love. I want the love we felt when we stood on the West Portico of the Capitol in 1828 and looked down at the White House in the distance. I want that moment or nothing!”
“You have it! I swear to God you have it!”
“No, I don’t. If I had it, that obscenity about George Stapleton being our next president would never have appeared in the Union! You must know that makes me look like a fool. To him, to my sons—to myself!”
Sarah twisted in her chair as if she were strapped into it and desperately trying to escape. Her head drooped. “It was the president’s idea. I tried to stop him, but he said George Stapleton had done more for him and this country than I’ve ever done. He said All Mexico was one more example, the ultimate example, of my arrogance. Then he told me he had sent word to friends in the Senate that he approved the treaty, that he agreed with George. That’s why it passed.”
Suddenly the stage was barren of players. They were alone, both stripped of love, of pride, of hope. For a long time Caroline heard nothing but Sarah Childress Polk’s sobs. Finally Caroline stood up, took her handkerchief out of her purse, and slowly, tenderly wiped away Sarah’s tears. Caroline kissed her damp, trembling mouth and walked out of the White House for the last time.
BOOK SEVEN
ONE
THE DAY AFTER CAROLINE SAID good-bye to Sarah Polk, she informed George that she was moving back to Bowood. If he wished to continue living in Washington, that was his business. She was sick of the place, sick of politics, sick of trying to save a country that was not worth the effort. George stonily informed her that he not only intended to stay in politics, he planned to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for president. He was sure the story in the Washington Union meant he had James Polk’s backing.
“What do you think that’s worth? Jim Thumb Polk couldn’t get elected justice of the peace in any state in the country. How is he going to elect someone like you—with Maria Pena de Vega on his escutcheon?”
“The newspapers said a lot worse about Old Hickory and he got elected,” George said.
It was amazing how the mama’s boy had changed. George confronted her without the slightest waver in his gaze. He no longer respected her opinions. He no longer feared her disapproval and the implied loss of her love. Caroline decided she did not care. The only thing she wanted now was vindication. She wanted revenge for the monstrous thing George had done to her and Sarah. She wanted the South to secede. She wanted it to happen tomorrow.
“You’re probably right about Maria. She’ll even give you a certain aura with some voters,” she said. “But you’ll never become president. You’ll do something stupid, something I’d never let you do. Even if you get to the White House, you’ll find yourself governing only half a country. The South is going to leave this Union sooner or later. Probably sooner.”
“I’m going to run as their candidate. I’ll get Calhoun’s backing. I’ll keep them in the Union.”
Caroline laughed. “Calhoun is yesterday’s hero. He opposed the war. There aren’t ten Southerners outside South Carolina who’ll listen to him.”
He let her go back to New Jersey without another word. She arrived at Bowood after nightfall. She went straight to the library and lit an oil lamp and placed it on a table near Hannah Cosway Stapleton’s picture. She sat there for a long time, daring her to say Oh, my dear girl, I fear for thy salvation. She wanted to tell her she had no interest in salvation. She only cared about vindication. But the voice was silent.
Caroline pulled the wedding ring off her finger. Throw it out the window while those saintly eyes stared into timelessness? Would that make her speak? Eventually, she put the ring back on her finger. Throwing away the ring would be a meaningless gesture. Wearing it until she saw her vindication would be far more satisfying.
She found ink and paper on the desk beneath the Congressman’s portrait at the other end of the library and wrote a letter to Sarah Childress Polk, telling her she had left Washington.
The love and ambitions we shared have been the most important emotions of my life. They were the compass by which I steered for twenty years. The denouement has been a disappointment so profound, I think it is best to put distance between me and the scene of the tragedy. My love for you remains undiminished and I accept your testimony that your own heart remains undefiled by any taint of diminution. But history, another word for the malice and stupidity of our time, has cut out love’s tongue. I fear we have nothing more to say to each other, or the world. I would like to hope I’m wrong. But my mind bars such a possibility. I can only try to accept what has happened and eventually resume a mechanical imitation of life, without its soul. May you and James find a better fate in Nashville.
Sarah Polk did not reply to t
his letter. From New Jersey, Caroline watched the rest of the year 1848 unfold in Washington, D.C., like events on a distant planet seen through a telescope. Her lens was John Sladen, who wrote her a stream of letters, reporting on the bizarre twists and turns of the presidential campaign.
George Stapleton’s pursuit of the Democratic nomination soon faltered. Senator Calhoun expressed personal support, but as Caroline had predicted, his name was worthless outside South Carolina, and even there they were not inclined to listen to his advice very often. Having declared himself a man of peace, it made no sense for him to back an ex-general such as George Stapleton. Calhoun is a dead man politically and he will soon be one in all other respects, John Sladen wrote. It was an epitaph to the hopes he had once flung around this magnetic, tormented man. John’s own hopes for the presidency had long since expired. Too many people were repelled by the gross corruption of his Louisiana political machine.
More important than Calhoun’s collapse, the Whigs nominated General Zachary Taylor. It was, John Sladen said, a turnabout that should have made the whole country into instant cynics. The party that had excoriated the war with Mexico backed the man who had won it—or so he claimed. The nomination was plausible only because deep in their patriotic hearts Americans approved the victorious war and the treaty of peace. At least they loved the five hundred thousand square miles it had added to the national domain. They could simultaneously salve their consciences by voting for Taylor, implicitly repudiating the president who had gotten the country into the war, supposedly for all the vicious motives the Whigs imputed to him—and then, according to these same inflamed critics, mismanaged the business.
The Whigs are betting that the people believe only the heroism of the American soldier and the genius of General Taylor have rescued us from disgrace, John wrote. If this doesn’t stand Jefferson’s dictum “The people shall come right in the end” on its head, what does?
The Wages of Fame Page 59