Louisa

by Louisa Thomas

  The knocks on her door were incessant. Charles, who was home from Harvard for Christmas, was nearly overwhelmed. “Visitors pouring in, in quantities which it is agreeable to Madame to refuse,” he wrote in his diary in December 1823. (She often pretended to be “not at home,” Charles noted—“a custom without which it would be impossible to move.”) It was tiresome, being always watched and judged. Yet it was worrisome when the public gaze wandered. By the beginning of 1824, there were five serious candidates for president—John Quincy, Henry Clay of Kentucky, John Calhoun of South Carolina, William Crawford of Georgia, and Andrew Jackson of Tennessee—and the efforts on behalf of each were freewheeling. Crawford, who had been unabashed about using his patronage powers at the Treasury to sweeten his appeal, was likely to be the choice of the congressional caucus. The rising star was Andrew Jackson. Louisa had met Jackson in 1819, when he was in disgrace. That January, he had galloped to Washington from Tennessee because Congress was threatening to censure him. He had invaded Florida under the pretext of chasing Seminoles, executed two British subjects, massacred Native Americans, driven the Spanish from their land, generally disregarded his orders, and precipitated a crisis with Spain and possibly Spain’s allies, especially Great Britain. These extralegal adventures burnished Old Hickory’s fame in the rest of the country, but they were condemned in Washington. Those who saw him as a threat—to the country and to their own political prospects—tried to punish him. In the House, Clay harangued him for insubordination. In the Cabinet, John Calhoun and William Crawford called for his head. Only John Quincy, who recognized that his own attempts to secure Florida from Spain by treaty had just become much easier, defended him. Louisa was sympathetic to Jackson. “Party intrigue is at this moment playing,” she wrote later, after the Senate delivered a damning report of his conduct. “Old Hickory is the tool on this occasion.” But his opponents had lit a fire they could not put out. Andrew Jackson would not be used. Inside Congress, he was condemned, but outside it, he was lionized. Pro-Jackson forces began to unite. The Hero, as he was called for his triumph at the Battle of New Orleans, attended one of Monroe’s drawing rooms, and the crowd, eager to catch a glimpse, almost crushed him. Louisa had her first sight of the general there and immediately liked him. He was tall and rangy, with a rough-hewn face and a shock of white hair. There was grace in his manners. It gratified her to see his critics catch their breath and widen their eyes at the sight of him. “I heard much astonishment expressed by some persons not friendly to him at his being so polite,” she wrote to old John Adams, “as they expected to have seen him at least half Savage.” Jackson was a force that no one, not least himself, could control. As soon as he returned to Tennessee, he wrote to John Clark of Georgia and asked for “such facts relative to the character of Mr Wm H Crawford” that might involve “his private deportment” and show “depravity of heart”—what might be known in modern political parlance as opposition research. He hated Clay just as much, and Clay despised him with equal fervor. The movement to make Jackson president hadn’t been serious at first. Those who put him forward generally supported Adams or Clay and believed that Jackson’s name could be used for local political purposes. In 1822, the Tennessee legislature nominated him for president. In the summer of 1823, an anonymous pamphlet appeared extolling his virtue, arguing that he was the only man to rid Washington of corruption. That fall, the Tennessee state legislature elected him to the Senate. The other candidates weren’t sure what to make of him. Never before had a serious candidate arrived in Washington so late in the game, with such a scanty record (outside of his military exploits). Never before had a candidate ridden a wave of such popular appeal—never before had the popular vote had such power. He appealed to men who had never had the chance to vote, often men who had been terribly affected by the economic Panic of 1819. Those voters distrusted Washington. They were drawn to the outsider, the war hero Jackson. The established candidates and their supporters eyed Jackson nervously and tried to be opportunistic. “Mr Frye told me that there was a combination among the friends of Mr C[rawfor]d should the Caucus fail to throw all their weight into Genl Jacksons scale to make him P[resident],” Louisa wrote in her diary in December. “Every day brings forth a new rumour not one of which can be believed or relied on.” Jackson had already begun to sense the depth, breadth, and potential of his appeal among American men due to his outstanding military victories. A grassroots campaign, which he subtly encouraged, sprang up around him and quickly spread. Things were changing, though haphazardly and in ways few could immediately see. The size of the franchise was expanding, as states were added to the Union and constitutions were amended to eliminate property requirements for voting. By 1824, electors in eighteen out of twenty-four states would be chosen directly by voters instead of by state legislatures. Likewise, what it meant to be a virtuous office holder was undergoing a transformation. The older values of disinterested service held less appeal for a second generation of Americans. Personalities mattered more. Some men were beginning to see that the road to Washington could start outside the capital, in the woods of New York or the hills of Tennessee. For John Quincy, Jackson posed a particular problem—but also a possibility. John Quincy was the ultimate insider, the son of a president. He had nothing of Jackson’s charisma or popular appeal. But Jackson was indebted to John Quincy for his repeated and robust defense during the Seminole Wars. In fact, the two men admired each other. They shared a desire to discredit the legitimacy of February’s congressional caucus, which—largely due to the inexhaustible maneuvering of the New Yorker Martin Van Buren—was almost certain to select William Crawford. Months earlier, Crawford had fallen seriously ill, possibly suffering a stroke, and remained possibly incapacitated—which his supporters, who had much to gain by his election, did well to hide. Demonstrating the combined appeal of Jackson and Adams would lend credence to the notion that the choice of the caucus was the choice of cronies, not the people. John Quincy wrote in his diary, quite conveniently, that Jackson would make a very good choice for the vice presidency. It was “the place suited to him and him suited to the place.” But Jackson would need to be convinced of that. On December 20, 1823, John Quincy suggested to his wife that they have a ball on January 8—the anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans. It would be in honor of Andrew Jackson. They would make a bid for his allegiance, and in doing so make his day their own. • • • LADIES CLIMBED on top of chairs and tables to see Louisa and General Jackson as she led him through the room, having taken his arm. “Such a crowd you never witnessed,” marveled Senator Elijah Mills, who rode with Jackson to the party. It took strenuous effort to achieve this little moment of grace. Louisa had turned the house, Charles complained, “topsy turvy” with preparations. She installed twelve pillars to keep the upper floor from falling in (“then what would become of all the Capulets aye and the Montagues too,” Louisa sardonically joked), then disguised the supports with garlands and greenery. Doors were taken down and a pantry was removed. The family had to dine in her dressing room. Louisa threaded wreaths with roses and hung garlands from chandeliers. She hired the Marine Corps band. Five hundred invitations were handed out, then five hundred more. All the residents of F Street at the time—Johnson Hellen, John (the second), Mary Hellen, Thomas Adams’s daughter Abby, and Charles—were recruited to deliver invitations, weave wreaths, purchase flowers, move furniture. Only the family dog, Booth, was spared. One suspects, though no Adams ever bothered to mention it, that the sizable staff of servants worked late night after night as the party approached. Louisa became so consumed by preparations that she nearly fainted, as she was prone to do.

  Now, she did not need to turn her head to see that the party exceeded her hopes. “It really was a very brilliant party,” a guest wrote to Dolley Madison afterward. The women were in their finest gowns, the men in dress attire: silk stockings, blue coats, white waistcoats, neckties, high chokers, and pumps. All the men, that is, except John Quincy, for
whom careless dress had become a point of principle and pride. He had even been evicted from his study. Louisa had hoped to remove his bookcases for the party, but they were too heavy, and so she hid his precious books behind a mass of plants. For days the newspapers had carried reports of the coming ball—“a great deal of nonsense” she called it in her diary with a touch of pride—and that morning the National Republican had even printed a poem for the occasion. Every stanza ended, “All are gone to Mrs. Adams’!” See the tide of fashion flowing,

  ’Tis the noon of beauty’s reign, Webster, Hamiltons are going, Eastern Floyd and Southern Hayne; Western Thomas, gayly smiling, Borland, nature’s protege, Young De Wolfe, all hearts beguiling, Morgan, Benton, Brown and Lee; Belles and matrons, maids and madams, All are gone to Mrs. Adams’! It was half past one in the morning by the time the last guests left. At the end of the night, “the tables exhibited a picture of devastation,” groaned Charles. He had danced until he could barely stand. “I dragged myself to bed, complaining even of the trouble of undressing myself.” “It is the universal opinion that nothing has ever equalled this party here, either in brilliancy of preparation or elegance of the company,” gushed Senator Mills to his wife. The party would become legendary; nearly half a century later, it was still talked about. That night, even John Quincy was more or less pleased. “It all went off in good order,” he recorded in his diary, “and without accident.” In her own diary, Louisa could not hide her true pleasure. She could claim to be triumphant. Still, she had experienced enough to give even her happiness an ambivalent edge. There had been one mishap that night. Someone had jostled one of the suspended lamps, spilling oil down her back. “It was said that I was . . . anointed with the sacred oil,” she wrote in her diary. “The only certain thing I knew was that my gown was spoilt.” 6

  OFTEN, there were other things on her mind than presidential politics, and those subjects sometimes seemed more pressing. She worried about her sons, whom she had been forced to leave again when they returned to Washington. Frequent letters and visits made the separation less severe, but the boys missed their parents, and she missed them. “Children must not be wholly forgotten in the midst of public duties,” old John Adams warned John Quincy.

  The boys were closer to their mother than their father. When Charles came to Washington, he would spend his visits by the side of Louisa, whom he found “inexpressibly delightful.” After entering Harvard at the age of fourteen, he struggled so much at first that his father considered sending him into the navy. Charles saw himself as passionate and romantic, hot-blooded and southern—like his mother, with her Maryland roots, and unlike his Puritan father. She fascinated him; he called her “the only fashionable woman I know.” He liked “billiards, drinking parties, and riding,” and snuck a copy of Molière’s La Comtesse d’Escarbagnas into Latin class when he should have been reciting Tacitus. He felt crushed by his father’s severe expectations, which his mother tried to deflect. “Remember that neither your father or myself expect wonders from a boy of your age and that we shall always be satisfied if you really exert yourself to the utmost of your ability,” Louisa wrote anxiously to her youngest. George and John, of course, had also struggled at Harvard, at least by their father’s high standards. After graduating from Harvard, George came to Washington to study law with John Quincy, but he soon retreated back to Massachusetts. John Quincy told his son John he would not be permitted to come to Washington until he stood in the top ten in his class, and that he would greet him as “an affectionate and grateful child” when he equaled what had been John Quincy’s own standing—which was second in the class. In 1823, just before graduating, John was expelled from Harvard, along with forty-two classmates, for his part in a class rebellion. John Quincy was so upset that he did not write to his son for a month. Louisa tried to close the breach. John’s letter to his father explaining what had happened, she wrote to her son, was “manly and respectful,” and a “very kind” letter was on its way from his father—only business got in the way. If he was given a second chance, though, she warned, “beware of pride and do not mistake it for honor.” “My children seem to have some very intemperate blood in them, and are certainly not very easy to govern,” Louisa wrote. “John is somewhat like his mother a little hot headed and want of timely reflection will I fear often lead him to error.” George was like his mother in other ways. When they rode together through the stony, wild countryside of Massachusetts, he would recite Byron to her, and they sent each other the poems they wrote—but she worried about him most of all. He was nervous, passionate, and sensitive, prone to “strong impulses not properly controlled.” George had become engaged to his cousin Mary Hellen while living in Washington, despite his parents’ misgivings. But when George went to Boston to study law, Mary’s affections turned toward John. Charles, who had also fallen for Mary when they were young, bitterly wrote that John was “the victim of her arts.” The house was roiled by the drama. Louisa worried, too, about her sisters. Eliza died in 1818. Kitty’s husband, William Smith, landed in debtor’s prison. Harriet, who had moved out to Green Bay, Wisconsin, with her husband—after appealing to Louisa to help him get a patronage post—also wrote that she was in dire financial straits. (Adelaide, the youngest, lived in Washington, but the two sisters saw each other more rarely.) Caroline gave birth to twin boys and a daughter within two years, and all three children died; Louisa fed the dying infants barley water herself. She listened to her sisters’ troubles and tried to help them, pushing the president, her husband, the secretary of war, anyone who might have access to patronage jobs. For their part, her sisters—especially Kitty Smith and Caroline Frye—were her closest and most consistent friends. She needed her sisters, because she did not have many other close friends. Young women from Philadelphia or Boston who came to Washington for the balls and young men looked up to her, but these were more acolytes than equals. One in particular, Elizabeth Hopkinson (the daughter of Joseph), reminded her of her lost daughter. Louisa had her sons, her nephews and nieces, her cousins, her brother, a steady stream of visitors; she was always surrounded. But her connection to John Quincy and the perception that she played too visible a part in his campaign had its costs. The society figure Margaret Bayard Smith, for instance, might have been a friend under different circumstances. Margaret was an intelligent and perceptive writer. She harbored many ambivalent feelings about a woman’s role in society—feelings that may have found an echo in Louisa’s heart. When the two women first met, Margaret liked her. But Margaret was a Crawford supporter, and as the election drew near, the women stayed apart. Even the success of Louisa’s parties may have had a depressing effect. “I do not think she is in such good spirits this winter as usual,” Charles wrote at the end of January 1824, three weeks after the Jackson Ball. “Not so fond of society, she has become less ambitious of keeping the lead, probably because all her rivals have fallen before her.” Louisa sat for two portraits around this time. In each, she seems almost a different woman. Charles Bird King painted her on a large canvas in rich and saturated colors, the figure almost life-size. Her expression is serene and clear, her gaze confident. She has some flesh, as a woman was supposed to, and she is dressed ornately, in a billowing white dress with a fashionably low neck and gossamer sleeves. A turban, like a large bird’s nest, is perched on top of her auburn curls. In one hand she holds a large gold harp, and in the other a songbook, open to a piece by Thomas Moore: “Oh Say Not That Woman’s Heart Can Be Bought”—a purposeful selection. The King portrait is romantic, commanding, and political. Gilbert Stuart painted the other portrait. In it, Louisa is small and thin. Her ornate bonnet, high lace collar, and scarlet shawl almost envelop her; there are deep shadows. The colors of her face are washed out, the lines soft. Her expression is kind but tired and sad. Louisa first saw the finished version at an exhibition at the Boston Athenaeum and thought it an accurate representation. It looked, she wrote, like a woman who
has just felt “the first chill of death.” She was half joking; there’s something gentle, appealing, and intimate about the painting. But it is the portrait of an older woman, and it suggests some secret sorrows. Its tone is essentially private. Both portraits—one political, one domestic; one lively, one exhausted; one powerful, one withdrawn—captured something essential about her. She was both women, however contradictory the images seemed. One visitor to Washington in the winter of 1824 remembered her as “very talkative and lively” and her parties “always pleasant and gay,” but at home she was often unwell, and her family followed her mood. Despite her torrid activity, her health was terrible. “Nothing but opium affords relief at night,” she wrote to her son John during the summer of 1823. Her friends, she acknowledged, assumed that “the great struggle which is now making in the political world is in great part the cause of my indisposition.” She had her doubts. • • • FINALLY, the election took place. When it was over, nothing was decided. Jackson easily won both the popular vote (with 42.5 percent) and a plurality of the electoral votes (99), but he had not won a majority of the electoral votes, as the Constitution required. Adams had won only 31.5 percent of the popular vote but had 84 electoral votes. (Had the Constitution’s three-fifths compromise to count slaves not been in effect, these numbers would have looked different.) Under the Twelfth Amendment of the Constitution, the House of Representatives had the responsibility of picking the president from the top three finishers: Jackson, John Quincy, and William Crawford. Each candidate had a fresh chance, and each state—large or small, populous or uninhabited, Illinois or New York—had only one vote. States were not bound to vote for the candidate who had carried the state in the national election, and although state legislatures could send directions to their representatives on how to vote, those instructions could not be enforced. The scramble to curry favor among representatives was desperate. Boardinghouse messes hummed with activity. Visitors flew from house to house. “There is nothing done here but vissitting and carding each other,” Jackson wrote to his wife back in Tennessee. “You know how much I was disgusted with those scenes when you and I were here, it has increased instead of diminishing.”