One-Night Stands with American History

by Richard Shenkman

  SOURCE: Mason L. Weems, The Life of George Washington (Philadelphia: M. Carey & Son, 1818), pp. 15–16.

  JOHN ADAMS NOT THE VICE PRESIDENT OF A CRICKET CLUB

  The first session of the United States Senate, which met from April 23 to May 14, 1789, consumed virtually all of its time in a drawn-out debate over what to call the president of the United States. John Adams, vice president, feared that unless specific words of dignity and preeminence were used in the title of the president, the nation’s chief executive might be mistaken as the president of a fire company or perhaps a cricket club. Personally, Adams favored referring to the nation’s leader as “His Highness the President of the United States and Protector of the Rights of the Same.” The Senate finally decided on the title “His Highness,” which was the way Parliament addressed the king of England. The House of Representatives, however, adopted the simple practice of calling the chief executive “The President of the United States,” a title that quickly won the support of everyone. Senators themselves wanted to be called “The Honorable,” but the House did not go along with that, either. One title was agreed to by both houses. Vice President Adams, by 1789, was quite overweight. Both senators and representatives agreed—privately—that he should be addressed as “His Rotundity.”

  SOURCE: John C. Miller, The Federalist Era: 1789–1801 (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), p. 9.

  THE AMERICAN FLAG ONCE HAD FIFTEEN STRIPES

  The American flag has not always had thirteen stripes. When Vermont and Kentucky came into the Union in the 1790s, Congress adopted a flag of fifteen stars and fifteen stripes. In 1818, Congress, not wanting to crowd the flag, voted to indicate the admission of new states by the addition of stars only. The Congress also voted to revert to a flag of thirteen stripes.

  The flag of fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, adopted May 1, 1795. (D. Peleg Harrison, The Stars and Stripes and Other American Flags [Boston: Little, Brown, 1906], p. 65.)

  THE ISLAND OF AMERICA

  The Dey of Algiers did not have a good understanding of American geography or democracy. In one treaty he described the United States as an island “belonging to the islands of the ocean.” In a letter to James Madison he insisted on addressing the President as “His Majesty, the Emperor of America, its adjacent and dependent provinces and coasts and wherever his government may extend, our noble friend, the support of the Kings of the nation of Jesus, the most glorious amongst the princes, elected among many lords and nobles, the happy, the great, the amiable, James Madison, Emperor of America.”

  SOURCE: Charles Warren, Odd Byways in American History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1942), p. 4.

  THE PRICE OF PEACE

  For many years Americans took pride in Charles Cotesworth Pinckney’s boast, “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.” Historically, however, there wasn’t a halfpenny’s worth of truth to Pinckney’s statement. In the early years of the Republic the United States paid tribute regularly to other countries to avoid war. In 1786 the United States gave $10,000 to Morocco, in 1795 it began “donating” an annual tribute of $21,600 to Algiers. In 1797 a treaty negotiated with Tripoli included among its promises American gifts of:

  $40,000 in gold and silver coins

  5 rings (3 with diamonds, 1 with a sapphire, 1 with a watch)

  141 ells of fine cloth

  4 caftans of brocade

  $12,000 in Spanish currency

  In 1805 the U.S. government paid Tripoli $60,000 for the return of captured American citizens.

  The record of paying tribute to foreign governments was dismal, but the flip side of the problem was even worse. The same countries that demanded tribute also frequently offered presents of their own. The Constitution specifically prohibits any government official from receiving foreign gifts without the express authorization of Congress. This put American ministers and even the president in an awkward position. They could not refuse the present without insulting the giver, but they could not accept it without first asking the permission of Congress, which had passed a resolution against receiving gifts.

  In 1806, Thomas Jefferson was presented with four Arabian horses by the Bey of Tunis. After much thought, he decided to accept the horses and then sell them, to defray the expense of maintaining the minister from Tunisia in a Washington hotel. The horses, however, turned out to be practically worthless. While the cost of the minister’s stay came to over $15,000, the horses did not fetch more than fifty dollars apiece.

  Similar problems resulted when other gifts were offered to the United States. These gifts included:

  4 Arabian horses from Turkey (1832)

  1 lion and 2 studs from Morocco (1835)

  2 gold-mounted swords from Siam (1836)

  2 lions and 2 horses from Morocco (1839)

  2 Arabian horses, 1 string of 150 pearls, 2 large-size pearls, 1 carpet, 1 bottle of oil of rose, 4 cashmere shawls, 5 demijohns of rosewater, 1 gold-mounted sword from Oman (1840)

  2 horses from Oman (1844)

  In 1861 the king of Siam offered the United States dozens of elephants, but Lincoln politely refused them.

  SOURCE: Charles Warren, Odd Byways in American History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1942), pp. 3–29.

  GEORGIA SELLS ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI

  Late in 1794 word leaked out that the Spanish government had finally come to terms. At the negotiating table the Spaniards had agreed to surrender all claims to the so-called Yazoo Territory, the disputed western area of Georgia out of which Alabama and Mississippi would later be carved.

  Instantly legislators at Georgia’s state capital at Augusta began celebrating. Now at last the state would be able to sell its western lands and fill its coffers to the brim. Georgia had promised to turn the vast stretch over to the federal government, but now that there was money to be made, the state decided to break its commitment.

  Naturally, not all of the money would go to state coffers. Some would have to go to the legislators themselves to persuade them to sell the lands. But that was to be expected.

  By November the plans were set. Four companies would be granted the western tract for a price of $500,000, or about one and a half cents per acre. The price was not very high, but the legislators were satisfied. Besides, even if the state did not make a fortune, they would. The four companies, owned by some of the nation’s most eminent men, including several congressmen, a state justice, a federal district court judge, and an associate justice of the Supreme Court, had made sure that all legislators who wanted bribes would have them. To Thomas Wylly eight slaves were given; to others patents for Yazoo land. Was Thomas Lanier inclined to refuse a bribe of 50,000 acres? Then give them 75,000 acres. That would ease his conscience.

  When the bill selling the lands to the four companies came to a vote early in 1795, it effortlessly sailed through both houses of the legislature. But Governor George Matthews surprisingly vetoed it. Matthews was not averse to selling the western lands—he was as much in favor of speculation and bribery as anyone else—but he didn’t believe the lands should be sold at that particular time. If the state waited awhile, he thought, it could easily get a higher price.

  But the legislators were not in a waiting mood. They wanted to sell the Yazoo as fast as possible. So after a second round of bribes, they passed another bill. This time the governor signed it.

  When the people of Georgia learned that thirty-five million acres of land had been sold for a pittance and that every legislator but one had accepted a bribe, receiving on average about 50,000 acres of Yazoo land, all hell broke loose. A new legislature was elected, the old law repealed, and at a big bonfire all the documents relating to the fraud were burned. At the state convention of 1798 lawmakers put a clause in the constitution ratifying the legislature’s repeal of the Yazoo law.

  In 1802, Georgia sold the Yazoo Territory to the federal government for $1,250,000. But the Yazoo controversy was hardly finished. Yazoo stockholders were determined to prove tha
t Georgia had no right to rescind the Yazoo law. After many years of legal battles, the Supreme Court agreed with them. Writing the majority opinion for the case Fletcher vs. Peck, Chief Justice Marshall ruled that a grant of land was a binding contract which could not be broken regardless of the circumstances under which it was negotiated. In 1814, four years after the Court’s decision, the Congress finally awarded the claimants $4,282,151.12.

  SOURCE: Nathan Miller, The Founding Finaglers (New York: David McKay, 1976), pp. 116–34.

  ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S AFFAIR

  In the summer of 1797, Alexander Hamilton responded to charges that he had been personally friendly to a notorious speculator while secretary of the treasury by confessing that he had had an affair with the man’s wife. He explained the matter completely in one of the most bizarre statements ever made by an American politician:

  “The charge against me is a connection with one James Reynolds for purposes of improper pecuniary speculation. My real crime is an amorous connection with his wife, for a considerable time with his privy and connivance, if not originally brought on by a combination between the husband and wife with the design to extort money from me.

  “This confession is not made without a blush. I cannot be the apologist of any vice because the ardour of passion may have made it mine. I can never cease to condemn myself for the pang, which it may inflict in a bosom [his wife’s] eminently intitled to all my gratitude, fidelity and love. But that bosom will approve, that even at so great an expence, I should effectually wipe away a more serious stain from a name, which it cherishes with no less elevation than tenderness. The public too will I trust excuse the confession. The necessity of it to my defense against a more heinous charge could alone have extorted from me so painful an indecorum.”

  SOURCE: Harold Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), XXI, 243–44.

  JUST CAUSE FOR ARREST

  After Congress adjourned in July 1798, President John Adams traveled home from Philadelphia (then the capital) to Quincy, Massachusetts. When the President and his wife passed through Newark, New Jersey, the town celebrated the occasion as a holiday. The church bells rang, people sang, a sixteen-gun salute announced the President’s arrival, and the Association of Young Men manned and fired an old artillery piece to honor the President’s passing.

  But to Luther Baldwin, an inebriated old Republican, the presidential presence was of no great importance. (Adams was a Federalist.) As Baldwin passed John Burnet’s dram shop, one of the more plain-spoken customers who knew Baldwin and his political persuasion observed, “There goes the President and they are firing at his ass.”

  “I don’t care if they fire through his ass!” Baldwin replied, with the conviction of a true Republican.

  He said too much. Baldwin was immediately arrested under the new Alien and Sedition laws for muttering an un-American statement. Tried before a circuit court presided over by George Washington’s nephew, Bushrod Washington, Baldwin and the other patron of Burnet’s tavern were found guilty of speaking “seditious words tending to defame the President and Government of the United States.” Both were fined, assessed court costs, and committed to a federal jail until their fines and fees had been paid.

  The Federalist-dominated Supreme Court never declared unconstitutional the Sedition Act, which expired after a few years. But in 1964, too late to help Baldwin, unfortunately, the Court declared the law unconstitutional in an informal decision.

  SOURCE: James Morton Smith, Freedom’s Fetters (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1956), p. 270.

  JOHN MARSHALL LIKED TO DRINK

  “Some talk got out about the Justices of the Supreme Court drinking too much. They all lived at the same house in Washington. They did not bring their wives to Washington with them, as the accommodations were frightful. They boarded together at 21/2 Street, called Marshall Place. That house still stands. They lived together like a sort of family and discussed their cases all the time; but they had every Saturday as ‘consultation day’ at the capital.

  “There came to be a little talk about the Justices drinking too much, even then. So Marshall said . . . , ‘Now, gentlemen, I think that with your consent I will make it a rule of this Court that hereafter we will not drink anything on consultation day—that is, except when it rains.’

  “The next consultation day—I think the Court went on the water wagon during the week—when they assembled, Marshall said to [Joseph] Story, ‘Will you please step to a window and look out and examine this case and see if there is any sign of rain.’ Story looked out the window, but there was not a sign of rain. . . . He came back and seriously said to the Chief Justice, who was waiting for the result, ‘Mr. Chief Justice, I have very carefully examined this case, I have to give it as my opinion that there is not the slightest sign of rain.’ Marshall said, ‘Justice Story, I think that is the shallowest and most illogical opinion I have ever heard you deliver; you forget that our jurisdiction is as broad as this Republic, and by the laws of nature, it must be raining some place in our jurisdiction. Waiter, bring on the rum.’”

  SOURCE: Albert Beveridge, “Maryland, Marshall, and the Constitution,” in Proceedings of the Maryland State Bar Association for 1920, p. 174. Reprinted by permission of the Maryland State Bar Association.

  JOHN MARSHALL’S SOPHISTRY

  Thomas Jefferson had this to say about Chief Justice John Marshall: “When conversing with Marshall I never admit anything. So sure as you admit any position to be good, no matter how remote from the conclusion he seeks to establish, you are gone. So great is his sophistry, you must never give him an affirmative answer, or you will be forced to grant his conclusion. Why, if he were to ask me whether it was daylight or not, I’d reply, ‘Sir, I don’t know. I can’t tell.’”

  SOURCE: Leonard Baker, John Marshall (New York: Macmillan, 1974), pp. 153–54.

  JEFFERSON’S CONCUBINE

  Not much was ever heard in scholarly circles about Thomas Jefferson’s affair with a slave named Sally Hemings until Fawn Brodie published an account of it in the early 1970s. But the story had been whispered about since Jefferson was president. One of his contemporaries even put the story to verse:

  Of all the damsels on the green

  On mountain, or in valley,

  A lass so luscious ne’er was seen

  As Monticellian Sally.

  Chorus: Yankee Doodle, who’s the noodle?

  What wife was half so handy?

  To breed a flock of slaves for stock

  A black amour’s the dandy . . .

  When press’d by load of state affairs,

  I seek to sport and dally,

  The sweetest solace of my cares

  Is in the lap of Sally.

  Chorus: Yankee Doodle, etc.

  What though she by her glands secretes?

  Must I stand, Shill-I-shall-I?

  Tuck’d up between a pair of sheets

  There’s no perfume like Sally.

  SOURCE: Hope Ridings Miller, Scandals in the Highest Office (New York: Random House, 1973), pp. 72–73. Poem reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.

  JEFFERSON’S DEATH REPORTED

  Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, but in July of 1800 newspapers across the country carried the report that he had died on his estate in Virginia after a brief illness. The report appeared first in Baltimore on June 30 and then made its way up the coast to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. By the end of the first week of July virtually all Americans had been notified that Jefferson was dead.

  Not everyone believed the report. Republicans charged that the news of Jefferson’s death was a Federalist trick. With other Americans, they questioned the credibility of the gentleman who had informed the Baltimore paper of the death. The Federalists, on the other hand, secretly hoped that every word of the story was true. With Jefferson out of the picture they might be able to maintain control of the government.

  For more than a week the quest
ion of Jefferson’s health remained in dispute. Finally, the matter was settled when people learned that it was not Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father and vice president, who had died, but one of his old slaves with the same name. Ironically, when Jefferson did die, twenty-six years later, it was in the first week of July.

  SOURCE: Charles Warren, Odd Byways in American History (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1942), pp. 127–35.

  JEFFERSON AND THE PEOPLE’S WALK

  The story of how Thomas Jefferson walked to his own inauguration in 1801 wearing a gray homespun suit has been told by historians a thousand times. And the story is true. But the very truth of the story has contributed to an untrue impression of the third president. The Virginian’s example of simplicity was completely unintended. Jefferson walked to the inauguration and wore plain clothes only because bad weather had delayed the arrival of a new $6,000 carriage and an expensive velvet suit.

  SOURCE: Edna Colman, Seventy-five Years of White House Gossip (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page, 1925), p. 76.

  THOMAS JEFFERSON’S LIST OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH

  Northerners Southerners

  cold fiery

  sober voluptuary

  laborious indolent

  independent unsteady

  jealous of their own liberties, and just to those of others zealous for their own liberties, but trampling on those of others

  interested generous

  chicaning candid

  superstitious and hypocritical in their religion without attachment or pretensions to any religion but that of the heart

  SOURCE: Mary Cable, American Manners and Morals (New York: American Heritage Publishing Company, 1969), p. 95.

  OTHER DISCOVERIES OF LEWIS AND CLARK

  According to their travel journals, Lewis and Clark found more than merely the land of the Louisiana Purchase on their explorations of 1804–1806. Venereal disease was a major problem throughout the expedition. Because of the different sexual customs practiced by some Indian tribes, the explorers did not remain totally abstinent during their three-year trip. Meriwether Lewis, leader of the expedition, hinted at the situation when he wrote that a Shoshone warrior “will for a trifle barter the companion of his bed for a night or longer if he conceives the reward adequate.” Lewis added, however, that the Shoshones were “not so importunate that we should caress their women as the sioux were.”