American Lion

by Jon Meacham

  46 Britain, fearing that a war London could see no good coming of a Franco-American war. “The British ambassador in France, Lord Granville, and Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston had carefully followed the seriousness of the situation, Great Britain growing steadily more troubled as her valuable continental ally seemed to be slipping into an unnecessary conflict with the United States,” writes John M. Belohlavek. “Such an event would disrupt the French economy and enact untold havoc upon the French merchant marine and navy. While Louis Philippe probably possessed the maritime might to defeat the Americans, a war would drain limited resources and sidetrack him from the more vital arena of the European balance of power with the autocratic eastern monarchies. A Franco-American War would also mean a blockade of United States ports and the disruption of valuable cotton exports to English textile mills” (Belohlavek, “Let the Eagle Soar!” 122–23).

  47 both sides accepted the offer Messages, II, 1432–33.

  48 Jackson suspended his call Ibid., 1433.

  49 Thomas P. Barton, Livingston’s aide in France Parton, Life, III, 574–77.

  50 “Tell me, sir” Ibid., 575.

  51 Jackson jumped up Ibid., 576.

  52 helped soothe “the irritation” Ibid.

  53 The British resolved Belohlavek, “Let the Eagle Soar!” 122–25.

  54 chose to take the conciliatory line of Jackson’s from December as apology enough Ibid., 124–25.

  55 “There is a rank due” Messages, II, 1436.

  Chapter 28: The Wretched Victim of a Dreadful Delusion

  1 a dinner in Washington Parton, Life, III, 580–81.

  2 “The national debt is paid!” Ibid., 581.

  3 Jackson was walking out of the House chamber Ibid., 582.

  4 when the president’s eyes met those Washington Globe, January 31, 1835.

  5 “handsome … well-dressed” young man Ibid.

  6 Armed with two pistols Ibid. For accounts of the assassination attempt and its aftermath, see also Benton, Thirty Years’ View, 521–24; Richard C. Rohrs, “Partisan Politics and the Attempted Assassination of Andrew Jackson,” Journal of the Early Republic 1 (Summer 1981), 149–63; and Remini, Jackson, III, 229.

  7 less than ten feet Ibid. The Globe of January 31 thought the distance had been “within two and a half yards” (Washington Globe, January 31, 1835).

  8 raised the first gun and fired Ibid.

  9 charged his assailant Ibid. According to Isaac Bassett, “The President instantly rushed upon him with uplifted cane …” (Papers of Isaac Bassett, U.S. Senate Commission on Art, Washington).

  10 “The explosion of the cap” Benton, Thirty Years’ View, 521.

  11 Lawrence dropped the gun Papers of Isaac Bassett, U.S. Senate Commission on Art, Washington.

  12 it too failed to fire Parton, Life, III, 582.

  13 had thought the assassin “firm and resolved” Washington Globe, January 31, 1835.

  14 “seemed to shrink” Ibid.

  15 a nearby navy lieutenant Parton, Life, III, 582.

  16 “The President pressed” Washington Globe, January 31, 1835.

  17 put into a carriage Parton, Life, III, 582.

  18 by George Washington and by the weather I am indebted to Donald A. Ritchie, associate historian of the U.S. Senate, for the Washington tomb theory, which he laid out for me during a tour of the Capitol in which we recreated, as best we could, the path Jackson would have taken from the services for Davis in the old chamber through the Rotunda to the East Portico. Lawrence himself attributed the weapons’ failure to the damp weather (Rohrs, “Partisan Politics and the Attempted Assassination of Andrew Jackson,” 162–63).

  19 “The pistols were examined” Benton, Thirty Years’ View, 521.

  20 125,000 to one FPB, 99. In the emotion of the moment, the Globe attributed the failures to fire to divine intervention. “How the caps could have exploded without firing the powder is miraculous,” the paper wrote in the edition reporting the attack. “Providence has ever guarded the life of the man who has been destined to preserve and raise his country’s glory, and maintain the cause of the People. In the multitude of instances in which he has hazarded his person for his country, it was never in more imminent danger than on yesterday …” (Washington Globe, January 31, 1835). One suspects the moisture had more to do with it than the miraculous.

  21 Van Buren found him EDT, II, 78.

  22 claiming to be the king of England Rohrs, “Partisan Politics and the Attempted Assassination of Andrew Jackson,” 151.

  23 believed Lawrence was an agent Ibid., 152–54.

  24 Harriet Martineau visited the White House Parton, Life, III, 584.

  25 the “insane attempt” Ibid.

  26 “He protested” Ibid.

  27 “taciturn and unwilling to talk” Washington Globe, January 31, 1835.

  28 “Whether Lawrence has caught” Ibid.

  29 “Someone told me” Nathaniel Niles to William Cabell Rives, January 30, 1835, William Cabell Rives Papers, LOC.

  30 “Yes, sir” Ibid.

  31 “This man has been hired” Edwin A. Miles, “Andrew Jackson and Senator George Poindexter,” Journal of Southern History 24 (February 1958), 62.

  32 for the president “to name any person” Nathaniel Niles to William Cabell Rives, January 30, 1835, William Cabell Rives Papers, LOC.

  33 Poindexter demanded an investigation Report on Communication of Senator G. Poindexter, S. Doc. 148, 23rd Congress, 2nd session, March 2, 1835, 1–50. The document includes the conclusions of the investigation and a series of transcripts of original documents.

  34 two affidavits alleging that Lawrence had been seen Rohrs, “Partisan Politics and the Attempted Assassination of Andrew Jackson,” 155–57. See also Report on Communication of Senator G. Poindexter, S. Doc. 148, March 2, 1835, 11–12.

  35 a blacksmith who did work for the White House Ibid., 156. The blacksmith was named Mordecai Foy. 300 a man who had loaned money to Poindexter Ibid. His name was David Stewart.

  36 to have some hopes of being given work Ibid., 157.

  37 “has become of late years idle and intemperate” Report on Communication of Senator G. Poindexter, S. Doc. 148, March 2, 1835, 3. Did Jackson play a role in ginning up allegations against Poindexter? Stewart said yes, claiming that “if he had put into his affidavit all, and some say only part of what the General desired him to put in, it would have filled a newspaper” (ibid.). The committee exonerated Jackson of this (Rohrs, “Partisan Politics and the Attempted Assassination of Andrew Jackson,” 158).

  The committee did find that Charles Coltman, a government contractor, had played a role in shaping the affidavits. In the fullest scholarly treatment of the politics of the assassination attempt, Richard Rohrs wrote: “When several of the committee members conferred with the president, Jackson told them that approximately fifty people had seen Lawrence enter Poindexter’s home. Yet the president stressed that he had only accepted those reports of individuals who were willing to file affidavits. He further explained that he had done nothing to secure the two existing ones. In testimony before the entire Senate committee, Foy and Stewart reaffirmed the statements in their earlier depositions. Foy, who occasionally worked as a blacksmith for the White House, testified that although a Mr. Coltman and another man, whose name he did not know, encouraged him to report what he had observed, he received no ‘reward, bribery, or corruption’ as compensation for presenting his affidavit. Stewart admitted that Poindexter owed him money, but denied that was the reason he came forward with the information. Like Foy, Stewart related that Mr. Coltman had urged him to report his observations.

  “As the proceedings continued, it became evident that neither Foy nor Stewart were credible witnesses. Foy, for example, was unable to identify Poindexter’s home. It seemed ironic to the committee that Foy remembered the exact date and time of day of the alleged meetings, but the wrong house. A shopkeeper testified that Stewart had been in his shop, which was more than a mile from th
e senator’s home, at the same time he reportedly saw Lawrence and Poindexter together. Stewart’s inability to describe Lawrence’s stature or the color of his hair further diminished his reliability as a witness.…

  “After challenging the credibility of Stewart and Foy, the committee concentrated on determining if anyone had committed improprieties in obtaining the affidavits. Although several witnesses testified that Stewart told them that Jackson asked him to include more information in his deposition than he knew to be true, the committee apparently considered this to be a lie. Foy, in a supplementary memorandum, admitted that Charles Coltman, a contractor for government buildings, had intimated that blacksmith work on the fence of the new Treasury Department building would be forthcoming if he filed a deposition. In response to this accusation, Coltman denied promising work to Foy or being actively engaged in gathering evidence to implicate Poindexter. He admitted only that he had encouraged both Foy and Stewart to notify the proper authorities, after learning of their observations.… The committee reproached Stewart and Coltman, but absolved the president, apparently rejecting Stewart’s attempt to implicate him. While simply dismissing Foy as a man affected by ‘his habits of inebriation,’ the committee determined that Stewart, motivated by Poindexter’s indebtedness, committed ‘an offense of the deepest dye against the public morals.’ According to the committee, Coltman then arranged for Foy to substantiate Stewart’s lies by promising him work on the Treasury Department building. The committee members expressed hope that those involved would ‘be held up to public odium and scorn’ ” (Rohrs, “Partisan Politics and the Attempted Assassination of Andrew Jackson,” 156–58).

  38 dismissed the allegations Ibid., 7. Their conclusion: “That not a shade of suspicion rests upon the character of the Hon. George Poindexter” in the matter of the assassination attempt.

  39 Questioned afterward by two physicians Benton, Thirty Years’ View, 521–23. Politics seemed less of a factor than madness. Asked by the examining doctors who would make a good president, Lawrence answered “Mr. Clay, Mr. Webster, [and] Mr. Calhoun,” but also said that “Col. Benton, Mr. Van Buren, or Judge White” would also do well.

  40 “Hallucination of mind was evident” Ibid., 524.

  41 settled for blaming anti-Jackson Senate speeches Washington Globe, February 4, 1835.

  42 “sullen and deep-brooding fanatic” Ibid.

  43 “violent in his expressions” Ibid.

  44 “Is it … a strained inference” Ibid.

  Chapter 29: How Would You Like to Be a Slave?

  1 in the market for new slaves Andrew Donelson to Stockley Donelson, July 4, 1835, Donelson Family Private Collection, Cleveland Hall, Nashville.

  2 “waiting for an inspection” Ibid.

  3 “One of the boys I took” Ibid.

  4 his new wife’s “trunk and guitar” Andrew Jackson, Jr., to Samuel Hays, May 8, 1832, The Hermitage.

  5 “Late on yesterday evening your kind favor” Ibid. Andrew junior added: “If you do propose to take her I can immediately send her to you—she can be taught perhaps. You can take her for what she cost me [to bring] her on here, which is not much—her cost was $250, the expense in bringing her about 50, or 55—I shall however in a day or two either send you her or Charlotte, perhaps tomorrow—nothing will give me more pleasure than to accommodate you in every respect.”

  6 “Andrew has not yet bought me a girl” Emily Donelson to Mary Donelson, May 10, 1829, Mrs. John Lawrence Merritt Collection.

  7 “Advertisement for Runaway Slave” Burstein, The Passions of Andrew Jackson, 24; Papers, II, 40–41.

  8 owned about one hundred fifty slaves Frederick M. Binder, The Color Problem in Early National America As Viewed By John Adams, Jefferson and Jackson (Paris, 1968), 124–25.

  9 the nation’s thinking on slavery Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy, 330–47. See also Feller, Jacksonian Promise, 60–65; Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 423–29; Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York, 1998), 97–239; James Brewer Stewart, Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery (New York, 1976), 35–74; William J. Cooper, Jr., The South and the Politics of Slavery, 1828–1856 (Baton Rouge, La., 1978), 58–66.

  10 he was not interested in reform “Jackson’s position on the question, and the position of the other leaders of the Democratic Party, was quite clear and unambiguous,” wrote Remini. “He held that the Constitution expressly recognized slavery in the South and made provisions about representation in Congress to accommodate that fact of life.… ‘There is no debatable ground left upon the subject,’ editorialized the Globe” (Remini, Legacy of Andrew Jackson, 88).

  11 a revealing exchange with Roeliff Brinkerhoff Roeliff Brinkerhoff, Recollections of a Lifetime (Cincinnati, 1900), 61.

  12 the battle was joined again in South Carolina Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, 340–60.

  13 its headquarters on Nassau Street William Lee Miller, Arguing About Slavery: The Great Battle in the United States Congress (New York, 1996), 97.

  14 arrived aboard the steamboat Columbia Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, 340.

  15 fell to Alfred Huger Ibid.

  16 wanted guidance from above Ibid.

  17 Local newspapers Ibid., 340–41.

  18 A mob came to the post office Ibid.

  19 along with effigies Ibid.

  20 exchanging notes with Kendall Correspondence, V, 359–61.

  21 as a “wicked plan” Ibid., 361.

  22 John W. Jones Miller, Arguing About Slavery, 93.

  23 Northern opinion was hardly enthusiastic Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, 343.

  24 “unconstitutional and wicked” Messages, II, 1394.

  25 asked Congress for a law Ibid., 1394–95.

  26 The states, Calhoun said, “possessed” Miller, Arguing About Slavery, 100.

  27 “virtually … clothe” Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, 347.

  28 “If you refuse” Parton, Life, III, 589.

  29 “This spirit of mob-law” Correspondence, V, 360.

  30 they tacitly allowed Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, 346–48.

  31 The episode affirmed Miller, Arguing About Slavery, 100–5. See also Freehling, Prelude to Civil War, 343–48, and Stewart, Holy Warriors, 70–74.

  32 “So the pamphlet controversy” Ibid., 104.

  33 “On principle, slavery has no advocates” Latner, Presidency of Andrew Jackson, 212. Latner wrote: “However menacing the slavery issue began to appear in the mid-1830s, it had very little effect on the perceptions of men like Jackson, Kendall, and Blair. Reflecting their Jeffersonian heritage, they considered slavery not as a permanent fixture, but as a blight that, somehow, Time and Providence would eradicate” (ibid.).

  34 complained of the expense Andrew Donelson to Stockley Donelson, October 15, 1835, Donelson Family Private Collection, Cleveland Hall, Nashville.

  35 “I had to employ a man” Ibid.

  Chapter 30: The Strife About the Next Presidency

  1 The politics of 1836 Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy, 446–54. See also Holt, Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, 38–59, and Niven, Martin Van Buren, 386–403.

  2 had nominated one of their own Powell Moore, “The Revolt Against Jackson in Tennessee, 1835–1836,” Journal of Southern History 2 (August 1936), 335–59. See also Joshua W. Caldwell, “John Bell of Tennessee: A Chapter of Political History,” American Historical Review 4 (July 1899), 652–64; William G. Shade, “ ‘The Most Delicate and Exciting Topics’: Martin Van Buren, Slavery, and the Election of 1836,” Journal of the Early Republic 18 (Autumn 1998), 459–84; Burton W. Folsom II, “The Politics of Elites: Prominence and Party in Davidson County, Tennessee, 1835–1861,” Journal of Southern History 39 (August 1973), 359–78; Thomas Brown, “From Old Hickory to Sly Fox: The Routinization of Charisma in the Early Democratic Party,” Journal of the Early Republic 11 (Autumn 1991), 339–69.

  3 a former Democrat Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 39
0.

  4 The Whigs in the North Wilentz, Rise of American Democracy, 448–49.

  5 “He is not of the race” Widmer, Martin Van Buren, 88.

  6 was “a crawling reptile” Ibid., 89.

  7 could not help Van Buren too overtly Jackson’s opponents struck at the heart of Jackson’s creed by arguing that the champion of democracy was betraying his own faith in the people by working for the election of a successor—any successor. To the Illinois Whigs, “the convention system … forced upon the American people by the Van Buren party” was “destructive of the freedom of the elective franchise, opposed to republican institutions, and dangerous to the liberties of the people” (Holt, Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party, 31).

  8 “All my friends know” Nashville Republican, July 28, 1835.

  9 “Permit me here to say” Papers, VII, 656.

  10 In the autumn of 1834 Nancy N. Scott, ed., A Memoir of Hugh Lawson White (Philadelphia, 1856), 301–4. See 302–4 for Orville Bradley’s complete letter on the Jackson episode.

  11 “the subject of succession” Ibid., 302.

  12 “General Jackson entered warmly” Ibid., 303.

  13 The solution Ibid., 304.

  14 wrote that “much as the people of Tennessee” Nashville Republican, July 25, 1835.

  15 Blair … backed Richard M. Johnson Niven, Martin Van Buren, 395. See also Remini, Jackson, III, 256.

  16 widely believed that Blair was doing Jackson’s bidding Nashville Republican, July 28, 1835.

  17 a series of attacks on Andrew and on Blair Nashville Republican, July 7, 14, 18, 25, 28, August 8, 18, 20; September 1, 8, 12, 15, 1835.

  18 “For President HUGH WHITE” Nashville Republican, July 7, 1835.

  19 affirmed by a “packed jury” Ibid.

  20 carried “the grossest” Ibid.

  21 “You must keep me advised” Andrew Donelson to Stockley Donelson, July 15, 1835, Donelson Family Private Collection, Cleveland Hall, Nashville.